The volcano may be turning dormant.

Well, as of today, it has been a year...  What a grand experiment!

I started this blog on June 21 of 2012 mainly because many many many people complained about my long winded status updates on my personal Facebook page.   Then, one person highly recommended that I start a blog.  By "highly recommended" I mean that she pretty much threatened me with death or worse, to unfriend me on Facebook, if I didn't find another outlet for my thoughts.

She mentioned blogger.com and that was all I needed.

This pretty much became a "Dear Diary" therapeutic type thing for me and it helped me express myself as I wished without having to impose upon those on Facebook whom I consider "friends."  What amazed me and continues to do so is that, people actually read this!  Thank you.

As I recall, I wrote every day in a row for the first 63 or so days.  How I did that, I am not entirely sure but it was a lot of fun simply writing about what was on my mind.  However, I gave myself some rules in that I refused to write about the things that truly anger me, depress me or are controversial in most senses of the word.  I didn't start this blog to change anything or anyone and I haven't done it to convince anyone of any personal issue or to impact any one's life in anyway.

However, by setting those rules for myself, I've kind of limited myself.  By avoiding anger and controversy, sadness and pain, I have the happy to write about, but I just cannot get too personal.  So I opted for the happy inane thoughts and events in my life.  I'm actually surprised to admit that my whole life isn't as inane as I had thought when I first started this.  And in limiting myself, I found myself not having as much to write about as the year has gone on.

I liken my brain to Vesuvius (sans the death toll) in that, I was full of thoughts, I was overwhelmed by the pressure to get these thoughts out, I vented a few here and there and then suddenly I erupted into the Blogosphere upon an unsuspecting Pompeii (that'd be those of you reading).  I imagine some people got stuck staring at this blog from time to time, simply trapped as if they have been turned to stone by the volcanic ash of my Vesuvian-verbiage!  Yup, I made that up!!!!

As of the moment I am composing this, I have published 144 posts in 365 days of which the first 63 or 65 of them happened in the first 63 or 65 days.  I also have 15 currently waiting to be published some of which have been in the "draft" phase since day one.

It dawned on me early on that people all over the world randomly read blogs on a daily basis.  I am amazed that I have readers all over the planet.  In the last year, the TOP TEN nations to read the blog have been:

1. The United States
2. Russia
3. Germany
4. United Kingdom
5. Latvia
6. France
7. Canada 
8. Sweden
9. Turkey
10. India

And those are just the double to quadruple digit nations (and blogger only keeps track of the top ten at any given time).  In the last month Spain and Switzerland have checked in often.  And in the last week Japan, Poland, Uruguay, Pakistan and Indonesia have been following me.

THIS AMAZES ME!!!

I have a few friends who write blogs.  Forgive me for not directing you to their blogs but I'm going link free today.  Some of them use their blog as a place to practice their writing skills.  Some are happy and some are dark.  One friend writes a brilliant review of foods she likes to make and places she likes to eat.  Another has made of a career of traveling to places and blogging about it for the places she visits.  What a great career!  I had no idea that any of this was going on when I started.

The thought of making money on this was very intriguing!  Blogger offers a way to make money but I have to say they seem to be rather vague in their rules as to how one may generate an income and from what I understand, one doesn't make too much form them.  Essentially you apply with them to allow them to place advertisements on your page.  They find an audience to cater to after reviewing your site and BINGO, you make like 1 dollar a month!

I tried.  The first step was to create a Facebook page to compliment and direct people to the blog.  It kind of worked!

I say "kind of" because, well, whenever I post a link to my latest blog addition on the Facebook page, I do see a quick response in readers.  However, by creating the Facebook page no one had a reason to follow the blog when they could just follow the page.  I know that it's kind of the same thing as one relates to the other, but... well I don't know, but something about that just seems wrong.  I don't know why.

Regardless, it works.

Originally I was posting the link to the blog on my personal Facebook page but I think that still managed to drive "friends" nuts.  The new Facebook page for the blog turned out to be a hit and maintained readers.  However, it did not appease the advertising Gods.

Upon reviewing my blog for advertising, I received a message that broke down to saying that I don't really have a particular audience.... 

So much for this as a fall back career!

 Now, I have learned that I truly enjoy the writing and putting my thoughts to page, but, I always have to hold back.  Mainly, I hold back out of respect, or perhaps, fear....  I have family whom I wish to not ostracize, but DAMN they create such fun and awkward situations.... I have friends, whom may not forgive me if I spout out our Vegas-esque escapades... I have people, or at least one person, who read this to find out what awful things I may say that they could use against me in a court of law... and then, I just don't want to turn this into a one sided bitch-session.

Seriously, there are what, like 7 billion people on this planet and at any given moment, my life has got to be at least 50 times better than maybe 6 billion of those people!  Yet, daily, something is going on in my life that just might be "THE WORST THING EVER" as I often hear any dramatic experience described in the elementary school social scene!

I could write a blog solely on all of the negativity that is around but, man, have you looked out there at all the negative blogs?  It ain't me!  I could see where it would feel very good to write a bitchy blog, much like truly cursing someone out (who totally deserved it) or quitting a terrible job feels GREAT, for about fifteen minutes until reality sets in...  But once you tap into that negativity, you just encourage it and strengthen like a muscle until, eventually, it's all you know. 

Seriously, I know at least one furiously self-absorbed negative person who has grown so accustomed to being angry all the time that they've decided everyone around them is always angry all the time too and is therefore defensive towards and angry at EVERYONE!  I pray they're wrong.  Maybe I'm naive....

I'm getting off point....  That's my thing!

So here it is, soon to  be published post #145.   At the time of writing this, I've had 3987 hits on this page and hope to break 4k with today's post.

After today, I'm not sure when I'll post again.  As you can see on this page (to the right) my monthly posts have seriously dwindled since I started.  I think a post a week is healthy, but man, did I set my standards high when I first started.

When I first started, something would happen to me, or I'd notice something from a different perspective, and I'd think to myself "I need to write that out RIGHT NOW" and I totally would.  Now when something pops in my head that I should write out, I find myself thinking "I need to write that out, RIGHT NOW!... orrrrrr, I could go over there and do something else...."  and I'm distracted.

I liken this to waking up in the middle of the night because you have to go to the bathroom, but you are too tired to get up and go and so you convince yourself to just lie there and go back to sleep. It takes time, but you eventually fall back asleep and then have those awkward dreams of wetting the bed and so you finally get up about five minutes before your alarm and make a mad dash to the bathroom only to have your alarm go off while you're in there and then suddenly everyone in the house is awake because you refused to address a necessity that needed to get out in lieu of your own personal desire to sleep you selfish bastard!!!

Wait... what was I saying? 

Oh yeah.... so, I have these thoughts to write down but I try to get to it later and in putting it off, I create more of a frustration when I try to get to it later....

I don't know what I'm trying to say here anymore today.

I think I'll stop here and come back around in July... or maybe August....

I suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to go to the bathroom.  C-ya.

If I yell at my TV it will still NOT turn itself on. And the same goes for squirrels!

One of the kids I spend my days with got really mad the other day.  Really REALLY mad!

She simply started yelling, dropped her paperclips put her hands out in the air in a surrendering gesture and stepped away from the table as if she just shot the guy across from her.  As it turns out, I was the guy across from her, so I'm grateful there was no gun play.  It was not me she was yelling at.

She was yelling at the paperclips.

Yes, the paperclips.

She was trying to manipulate them and do something with them that they apparently did not wish to do.  By her reaction to the lack of accommodation or compromise that the paperclips were willing to give her, she opted to yell at them as if they were a living being choosing to be a pain in her ass.

At this point, the father figure in me opted to make this a lesson.  I seem to remember this happening to the Beave' in one of those episodes where Ward was trying to help him make a puppy out of an erector set... or something like that.

So, I discussed with her:
- the merits of controlling ones (mostly hers) temper
- you cannot scold or correct the behavior of inanimate objects
- paperclips are inanimate objects
- that means they aren't alive
- no, they don't think
- no, there are no Mommy and Daddy paperclips
- no, yelling at them won't change anything
- no, the problem is with what you're trying to do
- no you're not stupid, you just have to practice
- here let me show you
- how did you get me to do this
- just, just don't yell at things....

So, yes, I found myself make a keyring out of a paperclip on which to place all of the other paperclips.  By the time I was almost done, she had moved on.

I'm sure this is a phase we all go through.  Some of us grow out of it.  Some of us (you know who you are) do not.  But like most anything a parent tries to instill in children, you have to say it to them a couple of THOUSAND TIMES before it finally sinks in.

Anyway, this got me to thinking....  I am not a yeller.  I am not an angry person.  Although people who are angry at me because they're really mad at themselves seem to think I am an angry person.  I do get angry.  It takes a lot to get me angry.  You do not want to make me angry.  Seriously, it's counter productive and I'm not good at it.

So, I too once had to learn the life lesson of not yelling at or trying to scold or even correct the behavior of inanimate objects (or angry people).  They just will not respond to anger or loud noises.  And their lack of response tends to make angry people angrier.

Granted, it still happens from time to time.  Surely you can think of an example?  Like when you are trying to load the black ink cartridge into the printer, you know, the one you JUST took out to shake up and now it won't go back in.  So you try it from every angle but it just wont fit.  So you try to cram it in... smash it in... force it in there so hard that you hope to make it an example for the other printer cartridges (magenta, cyan and that yellow one whatever it's called) so they know to never be as difficult.. and eventually you have to buy a new printer because, well, things escalated and it turns out that the printer was in cahoots with the cartridge and now it had to die so that the rest of the printers would learn how we deal with bad printers!!!!

Or like when your weed eater keeps breaking the line too quickly and it gets so frustrating that you have to swing the whole thing over your head and smash it to the ground in front of you into teeny tiny bits just like you're the Hulk acting out the song "I've been working on the railroad!!!"

Just take a deep breath... in and out, in and out... find a happy place....


So, you get the picture.... we just have to grow up and learn to take deep breaths and pray that our children never learn the deep dark secrets of what we did to that printer... and its friends....

I think kids have to act out these issues and learn these lessons early.  It helps them learn to not yell at animate objects either. 

For example, just today, I went home for lunch and discovered that the squirrels ATE ALL OF MY DAMNED MARIGOLDS!!!!  I just filled my planters a week ago.  I thought I'd liven it up a bit and I planted Vincas, Begonias, Petunias and Marigolds in my planters.

If there's anything you should know about me, it's that I am not good with keeping flowers alive.  As seen in this article here:  By the way, the plant in the cup has since died.... 

And so here I am, trying to make my home all homey for my lil' homie (my kid) by planting flowers AND THE DAMN SQUIRRELS ARE EATING THEM!!!

But what can I do, I can't yell at them, I can't punish them and I certainly can't make an example of them.  Seriously, I don't know what fight the car tires in my neighborhood have going on with squirrels, but they make an example of a squirrel a day on average and it's just not getting through to the little rodents.

If I were a squirrel, I'd move out of my neighborhood and leave people's marigolds alone.

Come to think of it, I think they ate my Petunias too.  I'm telling my tires!!!

I got off point again somewhere....

Pantlet- Act 3 Scene 1

To wear pants, or not to wear pants: that is the question: 

Whether 'tis nobler in the summer to suffer
The fabric and rubbing of outrageous pants legs,
Or to take arms (legs) against a sea of denims,

And by opposing end them? To wear pants: to wear shorts;
No more; and by shorts to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural socks
That flesh is leg hairs to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To wear pants, to wear shorts;
To wear shorts: perchance to feel the breeze: ay, there's the rub;
For in that legless clothing of leglessness what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this knees and legs covering coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long pants legs;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of walking around in nothing,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's costumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy pants,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bottom? who would Levis bare,
To grunt and sweat under a weary restraining pant leg,
But that the dread of something after pants,
The uncover'd legs from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bare those legs we have
Than zip up our fly to others that we know not of?
Thus pants (and all constricting clothing) does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native pantless hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er the pale legs,
And enterprises of great fashion sense and practicality
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy short shorts
Be all my shorts and kilts remember'd.


Okay, so, it took some work, and I had to change some of Shakespeare's wording (or at least, the words he

 most likely stole from someone else) but I think I've made my point.

I DON'T LIKE WEARING PANTS!!!

Yesterday has taught me something... I'm not quite sure what it is, but, I think I'm getting older.

I woke up yesterday very tired from the night before.  I've no idea what I did the night before other than have a glass of wine and get to bed before ten.  At 6 am I was beyond sleepy whereas I usually wake up closer to 5 am annoyingly ready to go.

Perhaps I got too much sleep?  I guess it could happen.

I had a banana for breakfast.  I often have bananas for breakfast.  Sure, I could tell you something like "I'm trying to eat healthy" but that's not really the case.  I just really like bananas.

I've had a few people ask me if I'm eating that to lose weight?  I could do to lose some weight but that's not my intention.  Really, I just have a hard time with breakfast and a banana is a good size meal for me.  I have to make myself eat something.

Besides, I don't think eating bananas is good for weight loss.  Have you seen a gorilla?  THEY'RE FREAKIN' MASSIVE!!!!

I eat bananas and that is why I am the size I am... and y'know, come to think of it, my back hair is turning a lovely shade of silvery grey!!!  So, there's that too.  I may be one of those mysterious Silver Back Gorilla Dads.

And see, that's one of the clues to my aging body issues... I'm a Dad.

I love being a Dad.

Before becoming a Dad I had spent nine years getting to work by 4:30 am.  I should make a point to mention here that I did not become a Dad at 9 (although I totally coulda).  No I had spent 33 years simply existing before the gift of fatherhood arrived at my doorstep.  It just happened to be from years 24 to 33 that I spent going in to work by 4:30 am!

Anyway, I never needed coffee during all those years and I almost never had a bite of food before 9 am.  It just wasn't my nature to get up and eat.  And of course, with all of my hyper spastic energies, I never needed coffee.

About two days after becoming a Dad I started drinking coffee.  I LOVE THE STUFF!!!!

I also realized I had to feed my child first thing in the day and last thing at night... and a few times during the day... and a few times during the night...  Suddenly I found myself eating first thing in the day.. and the last thing at night... and  a few times....etc...

I needed the energy in order to try to keep up with the kid.

8 years later I work a regular 9 to 5 and I have coffee for breakfast; most days, with a side of banana.

So, aging has forced me into the go-juice and nanners morning meal.  Good stuff.

Now, back to my story...

Yesterday was my daughters last day of the school year.  It was... A HALF DAY!!!!  For the past several years I have either taken a half day as well or the whole day off.  Yesterday I took a half day.  Good times!

Upon arriving to work that morning, I sat at my desk and did very little as the clock slowly ticked on.... It seems like the day is longest when you know you're going to get out early.  Although it actually feels longest on the last day before a vacation.

Anyway, my half day lingered.  I ate my banana at my desk around 9-ish.

I did not have lunch.

I picked my child up around noon along with two other kiddos.  The four of us were going to have A DAY!!!

But I was still so tired.

They had eaten lunch at school so we opted to go out and get some "FRO-YO!"  Apparently that's how we trendy people (I did not know I was trendy) are supposed to refer to our FROzen YOgurt.  So, we went to one of those do -it-yourself frozen yogurt places where they give you a bowl, let you fill it up with whatever you want (yogurt and toppings) and then they weigh your order and charge by the pound.

Why is America so obese now? 

So, for me, it was FRO YO for lunch!  That seemed healthy enough.

I only had some sort of cake batter "low fat" yogurt with some granola on top... and some crushed oreos... and maybe some white chocolate chips... AND THAT'S ALL!!!!  Sadly, they had no chocolate covered bacon for my YO.

Altogether, three elementary school kids and I ordered $25 worth of weighed food.  It's easy to be a glutton if you say "screw it" to your budget.

After we finished my lunch and their second lunches, we opted to go back to the house and play video games as it was way too hot outside.  So the kids played video games and I went to take a nap.  1 Banana and 9 to 10 pounds of FRO YO (and stuff) apparently does not help much with the low energy.  But then again, Gorillas sleep all day, covered in their banana leaves, and they're the picture of health.

So I tried my best, but somewhere along the way my nap went horribly wrong.  I was aware of this when I awoke to three kids (and a large dog) in bed with me, all watching TV.  I tried my best to ignore them, but eventually the waves of "what the hell did I really have for lunch" nausea got me up!

After a while, it just seemed better to go outside and do something.

On a side note, why didn't I enjoy taking a nap when I was a kid?  What the hell was wrong with me?

We decided to get in the pool.  Me and three kids (all under four feet or close enough) in a pool means only one thing:

I AM THE TARGET!!!
and THEY'RE GOING TO SCREAM!!!
and MY EARS ARE GOING TO HURT FROM ALL THE SCREAMING!!!
and I AM AN ISLAND THEY ARE GOING TO TRY TO CLIMB ON!!!
and WHEN THEY GET ON MY SHOULDERS THEY ARE GOING TO JUMP OFF!!!
and I AM GOING TO HAVE TO TRY TO THROW THEM!!!
and THAT WILL EXHAUST ME!!!
and I AM GOING TO HAVE TO SWIM UNDERWATER TO GET AWAY FROM THEM!!!
and AT LEAST ONE OF THEM WILL HANG ON TO MY SHOULDERS WHILE I DO SO, YOU KNOW, " FOR THE RIDE!!!"

So, okay, it means actually all 9 of those things happen pretty much every five minutes over the course of two hours.  Of course, that's not all that I had to do.  There was more, like the fact that I was the life guard and I was the referee and I had to be the grown up and, oh yeah, I had to remove the SNAKE FROM THE POOL!!!

"I'm just a harmless dolphin ma'am."

It was just a baby rat snake, but, as it turns out, kids (and silver backed gorilla dads) do not care much for snakes slithering past their heads in a pool!  That's what I get for living in the Southeastern USA.

After that, I was spent.  I cooked a dinner of pasta Alfredo with chicken and broccoli (finally a meal) and then watched some TV before going to bed.

Then, this morning it dawned on me that, as it turns out, although gorillas can spend a whole day tossing luggage around their room, much like one might toss three elementary kids around a pool, they pay for it the next day.

This morning, I woke up sore.

I woke up slow.

I woke up tired.

I woke up not wanting to eat.

I knew why!

I had my coffee.

I skipped my banana... I had it for lunch.

Just a little something about nothing.

I once wrote song lyrics about how I had nothing to sing about.  I presented it to my band mates and they didn't like it.

The lyrics evolved.

I re-submitted the little ditty and it was now about how little I had to sing about because I was lost without some girl.  The band mates refused it.

I was confused because how can you go wrong if your following the whole "boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy sees a life long relationship forming between them, girl sees a boy, boy tells her of his undying love for her under a star lit sky, girl sees a silhouette  of some other boy while the first boy is telling her something about nothing really under a star lit sky, boy doesn't understand why girl is walking away, girl just needs space already or at least, just enough space to talk to the other boy, first boy is heart broken, second boy meets girl, girl is just awful..." formula?  "It's a HIT Baby!"  Is all I thought to myself.

The song evolved.

Submitted.

Rejected.

Evolved.

Submitted...

Rejected...

You get the point...

Eventually the lyrics were just what the band felt this song needed.  And so, the song was me singing a true story about how a developer came in and wiped out a local forest where I grew up and built a false lake and planted new trees so they could develop lake front houses in a brand new forest and sell the houses for a quite a large profit.  All of which is still a metaphor in my mind for the whole previously mentioned silhouette chasing skank!

But it worked.  We released the song locally (on cassette because I'm old and that's all we had back then) and it was received pretty well by those who I might be able to call "fans" but who were mostly just charitable friends willing to fork out a few bucks for a cassette.

Fast forward to today, 20 something years later...

I have absolutely nothing to write about today.  I've been so busy that my mind is overly preoccupied with the day to day goings ons that this is all I have for you.  It's good to be busy, but my mind appears to wander less.

When my mind wanders less I believe I am genuinely much happier as I have less time to think about all the things that suck.  However, I have equally less time to expand on all the things that intrigue me.  If I have less time to expand on intriguing things, I find it difficult to reach my inane points.  And of course, if I am unable to reach an inane point, I find it difficult to type out a blog for the sake of my own well being.

So, this article... me typing out what appears to be a lot about not much... this is what I have to offer you today.

I submit it to you.

You may reject it if you like.

I will evolve.

Have a nice day.

I want to compliment you Miss, but perhaps I should just shut up instead.

I once had an "acquaintance," who was really just a former co-worker, whom I never really got along with although he did have some acceptable qualities about him.  For example, he knew he was an ass; I could accept that.

This post isn't about him, but I must start off by using his words.

He paid a woman a compliment one day.  A compliment that I would NEVER pay someone.  A compliment that I would find offensive, but to him it was not.  To him, it seemed acceptable and for her it appeared to make her feel good.

In his deep southern drawl, he simply said:
 "You know, you don't sweat much for a big girl.  You smell clean.  I like that."

As best as I can tell, she liked it and he was sober.  I thought to myself "wow, there's someone for everyone."  Perhaps his wife agreed?  I wondered if he would pay her such a compliment?

A small part of me respected him a little for his courage to pay such a compliment. In all actuality, I respected him for attempting any compliment.

I am afraid to go out and pay a woman a compliment most times.

I fear women.

I feel much anxiety when I take the risk of trying to say something I think is nice!  I've gotten myself in trouble before.

I learned long ago to NOT COMPLIMENT THEIR ANATOMICAL DIFFERENCES FROM MINE!!!  Typically, that would only happen when drinks were involved, and I was particularly crass, stupid, foolish, young and did I say "drinks were involved?"  yes, I did...  When I am involved with drinks I say dumb things.

As I grew older, and the women I knew started having kids of their own, I learned not to compliment them on their baby bumps.  Mainly because sometimes, that's not what that bump is.  As it is, I have a "baby bump" these days.  No one makes the mistake of complimenting me.

I fear the risk of "the trap" question/ compliments... You know something like these:

     - "How does this dress make me look?"
     - "Do you prefer the COLOR OF PARTICULAR OUTFIT HERE or the OTHER COLOR OF OTHER/ MAYBE SIMILAR OUTFIT HERE?" 
      -"Do you think I should cut my hair?"
      -"Do you think I need to lose weight?"

THERE ARE NO RIGHT ANSWERS. EVEN IF YOU TRY TO ANSWER WITH A COMPLIMENT,  YOU ARE BEING SET UP!!!!

These are traps that men have been up against since the beginning of time.  "Og, does this saber tooth skin make my butt look too big?"  Og's safest bet was to simply say "Og be right back" and then either go club himself in the head or just jump into a volcano.

Of course, I can easily  get myself in trouble by paying a compliment and saying "You look radiant today!"  I've learned over time that I need to not use the word "TODAY!"  That one word can get me into so much trouble.

As George Carlin once said, "There are no bad words.  Only bad meanings.."  He said something like that.  He was right!

"TODAY" can have such an awful meaning when you compliment someone on how beautiful they are.  It must've taken me 100 times, or perhaps thousands, of saying  some variation of "you look pretty today" before I realized that each and every time the compliment would be completely avoided and I would get the response of, "Today? Did I not look good yesterday?"

Of course, I would dig myself into a bigger hole by saying something stupid like "Of course, you were beautiful yesterday and every day I've known you. But today you've obviously made an effort and I appreciate it!"  Which would get a response of "Oh, so now I need to make an effort for you to find me beautiful?"  And so on and so on and so on...

Eventually I would leave and look for a volcano...

I have to add right now that this has happened to me several times with a few different women, but has NOT HAPPENED IN YEARS.... I REPEAT NOT IN YEARS!!!! 

Seriously though, I have heard it said that those who spend too much time making themselves beautiful on the outside are not as beautiful on the inside and in some of my experience, I have found that to be true.  But how do you compliment someone on not trying too hard and therefore being a more beautiful/ less self-centered person?

"I love you... You don't care how you look... You don't even try... and that's what makes you beautiful!"  NOPE!!!!


So yes, even after years of experience and learning from my mistakes, I still screw up....

As a Dad, I've come to realize that I had a GREAT childhood and I am reliving some of it through my kid.  I am constantly reminded of things that made me smile, or that I found beautiful growing up.  If I compliment a woman and that compliment reminds me of my childhood, I am being very sincere!

For example, I went out of my way to compliment the wife of a friend of mine on her outfit one night.  She is actually my friend as well, but I must specify the whole "she is a wife and I like her husband" thing because I had NO AGENDA.  I just wanted to be nice.  So, I told her how much I liked her dress and necklace because it reminded me of Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble!

My First Loves!

This is a HUGE compliment from me!  These women were my first indicators that there was much more for me out there besides just Star Wars and Legos.  I loved Wilma and Betty!  They were classy and hot!

So, the friend wife of the friend was in a sort of dress/ wrap thing with a large beautiful necklace on.  I said what came to mind first, which was the Flinstones thing.  She didn't speak to me again that night.  He says she wasn't upset and that he thought the same thing, but that he would've never said that to her.  She speaks to me now, it's been a year... We've never spoken of my compliment again.

I learned nothing....

Recently I ran into a friend of mine and his family, his wife is my friend as well too but again I must specify the whole "NO AGENDA" thing.  They all had different hats on as they were in the sun.  I told the daughter that her hat reminded me of one I had from Disney Land as a kid.  I told the son that I liked the team on his baseball hat.  I told the husband that I liked his Panama Jack hat but that he looked like he was trying to be Panama Jack in his later years "you know, after he gave up and let himself go..."  Because that is the kind of compliment men pay men.

I told the wife that I loved her hat and that it reminds me of the Abominable Snowman in Miami with Bugs Bunny!

Ahhhh... Childhood Memories.

I am still learning.  Apparently, one should never use the words "Abominable Snowman" and "You look like" in the same sentence when complimenting a woman.  Who knew?

I think the safest bet for me, you know, to compliment women I am attracted to, is to tell them how much they remind me of my Mom!  Women like that, right?

The Newest String Instrument

About twenty years ago I graduated from college with a degree in Broadcast Journalism.  It took my five years to get that degree, but that was not a bad thing, I really was on a five year plan.

See, 25 years ago, I went to college to study Music Education.  I had a vocal scholarship (very small) which means that in some aspects, I was a singer.  I had a five year scholarship.

I'm not typing this entry to discuss what led to my change in my degree.  It might be a good story, but that is not my point.  I'll get to my point eventually.  Surely you know this about me by now?  It takes time, but eventually, I get there.

Now, as a Music Education major, the basic expectation is that eventually you will  become a teacher.  I wanted to become a teacher and to this date, I wish I had pursued that option.  But, Music had been a joy and became less fun for me as it became a job... Still not my point.

As a future educator it was expected that we become familiar with all the instrument groups.  Much like there are food groups such as meats, vegetables, grains, candy, beer, pizza, etc....  There are four groups for instrument.

You have percussion instruments, such as drums, triangle's, cymbals, gongs, etc... Essentially, anything you can bang (giggity).  And you have stringed instruments such as the violin, cello, bass, viola.  There is another group called woodwinds which includes the bassoon, the oboe, the clarinet, etc... and brass instruments which include the trumpet, trombone, tuba, etc.... Of course the last two groups are considered "Wind" instruments which constitutes anything you can blow (giggity giggity).

There are always confusing instruments like the Saxophone which is shiny like a brass instrument but is considered a wood wind.  This is because the sax has a "reed" in the mouthpiece which is another part of being a woodwind.  Of course, the flute is a woodwind although it has no reed.  It's like that whole "I before E... unless not" crap in the English language.

Now in becoming a Teacher of Music, we had to learn at least one instrument from each group, as I recall.  I chose the Saxophone as my woodwind.  I had a pretty good embouchure for that one and could make some sounds that didn't sound like I was doing something rude with a cattle prod to some unsuspecting cattle.  Embouchure is how one uses their facial muscles to shape their lips and play a wind instrument.  Woodwind embouchures can be quite rude or sexy depending on how you look at it.  Try to look at it professionally.  Anyway, I think I played a pretty mean "Hot Cross Buns (a.k.a. Three Blind Mice)" by the time I was done.

I also familiarized myself with the French Horn.  I think I gave up on that one pretty quickly.  Mainly, it was because my embouchure was a look of me having just eaten all the lemons.  Also, when I played, it sounded like I was doing something rude with a cattle to prod to an unsuspecting sea lion.  Very sad...

I remember the excitement I felt when I discovered that I would have to take a semester in PERCUSSSION!!!  DRUMS!!!  YESSSS!!!  I AM A ROCK GOD!!!!  It turns out we spent a semester learning rudiments on a snare pad.  This is a rubber pad that sits on a stand in front of you much a like a snare drum but not.  It is simply a practice pad.  We learned drum rolls, ratamacues, flamacues, paradiddles, flamadidles, etc.... look them up yourself.  I passed.

I also took cello.  I LOVED THE CELLO!!!  I was not so good, but after a semester or two of studying, I could play some things and not sound like I was hurting cats and their kittens.  String instruments are much more finicky than one might think.  By the time I took my last exam, I remember having to do three "simple" pieces.  Something by Mozart.  Something by Bach.  And something of my choosing.  I chose Motley Crue's "Doctor Feelgood."  It involved fingering, plucking and bowing.  My professor was NOT impressed.  I was.

Now, of course, my fifth instrument was my voice and then I had to learn a sixth which turned out to be piano.  I am of the belief that scholars are still trying to discover what musical group the piano falls in.  It has strings like a harp, but the keys trigger hammers which strike the strings like a percussion instrument.  It is like fish on Fridays.  Is fish not a meat?  Or better yet, the piano is the tomato of instruments.  Is it a fruit?  Is it a vegetable?  No one may ever know...

I sang in bands throughout high school and college.  In the last band I was in, I was the singer and the bass player.  So, in essence, the cello led me to bass, although the strings are all backwards, quite literally.

I walked away from music a long time ago, but it will always be a part of me.  However, now, I am subjugated to being one of those guys you see at a traffic light, sitting in his truck, jamming away on his air drums or air guitar or air bass or air tuba, all the while singing along with the radio.  Yup, that's me.

Today, I offended myself.  THIS BEING MY POINT!!!

On the radio was Blues Traveler's song "Run Around."  It's a good song.  Very catchy.  The singer is very impressive.  I read somewhere once that the singer, John Popper, had gotten his Doctorate in Harmonica!!!  What I read was wrong.  He did not.  Sorry to excite you there.  He's just very good.

I am not good at the harmonica.  That came to me all too clearly on my way into work this morning.

While Run Around played, I joined in.  I was singing and playing my bass as I swerved through traffic.  I was carrying the band quite well and I helped John hit some high notes.  All the while, I didn't miss a note on the bass... as far as anyone watching would know.

Then came the awesome harmonica solo!  Jethro Tull be shamed with your lazy flute solo's!!!  John Popper is amazing!  I have listened to Run Around since '95 and I am always impressed!

But today in traffic, I was at a loss.  I could not suddenly let go of my wheel and play the air harmonica.  That seems a little unsafe.  Without even thinking about it, I suddenly noticed that I was playing the solo on my air bass.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?  YOU CAN'T AIR BASS A HARMONICA!!!!

I'm so ashamed.

I may try to develop the string harmonica just to save my credibility in the realm of traffic air bands.  And thus, this is where my story ends... for now.

I didn't say it was going to be a good point.  I don't think I've ever said that.

I am working on my humility and giving up my worldly possessions one possession at a time by, regretably, displaying my "inner piece."

I've heard it said that the key (or just a key) to inner peace is to be humbled and give up worldly possessions.  Which is why I always see bald Asians who own nothing but a robe smiling in every picture and, of course, practicing Kung-Fu or some sort of marshal art.

I guess, it is fair for me to say that I have not researched this much, if at all, and perhaps I only learned about finding inner peace through these measures by watching the TV show where a white guy who has not achieved inner peace played an Asian guy who had and went about beating up anybody who challenged the innerness of his peace and the peace of those around him; a.k.a. Kung Fu (the TV show).

But even those guys who never did learn karate and typically owned nothing and lived a life in humility seemed to be happy and on the verge of inner peace.  Yes, I am talking about monks, hippies, a select few homeless people, etc...  The list goes on.

Even John Lennon was wise enough to know that by giving up everything you believed in and everything you owned, you could be so much happier.  Granted, he wrote the song Imagine behind a very expensive piano in his Manhattan apartment, but he was getting there.

As am I!

In the last few years I've lost a lot: people who were once close to me, friends, family, half my stuff, time with my kid, pets, money, socks (just 1 per pair), etc.... yet another list that can simply go on.

At times it has been painful.
Mostly it has been humbling.
But, for the most part, I'm okay with a lot of it.

Over time, every loss and humbling experience combined really did get me thinking about how, as I've gotten older and acquired more stuff and more people have come into my life, I've also acquired more stress.  However, after the initial pain of losing someone, or something, has passed, I've actually come to gain some sense of relief.

I don't mean to sound callous, but that feeling of relief is a similar sensation to "well, one less thing to worry about."   Seriously, it's not that simple, but if I were to put it into words, I would have to type out a lot of them.  I think I'm typing enough words as it is.  You know I can do it!

However, what I know about myself is that, at this point in my life, I am not really willing to give up most of what I have.  Who really is?  It's not that I have anything lavish to maintain, but there is a way I need to live at this point in my life.  So, I have a job, to maintain a house, to provide shelter and supply food and use power and water... and I have stuff in my house for comfort, and for memories, and to fill space... and I have a car... etc... etc... etc... more lists...

Essentially, I GOT BILLS!!!!

So I have to wait for life to choose when I need to be humbled or when I need to give up a worldly possession.

A few Saturdays ago, life opted to kill two birds with one stone!

I was about an hour away from finishing up working a long day of televising football.  Yes, football fans are so desperate for football that sports networks now televise spring scrimmage games where the team plays itself in a game.  I was pulling for the team we were televising on this particular day and fortunately, they won!  I had doubts...

There is a great camaraderie among people on television crews.  We are an effective unit of professionals.  Sure video guys give audio guys grief and graphics guys get irritated and tape guys don't use tape... but we're there as a professional team to complete a job in a professional manner, right up until someone rips the crotch out of their shorts that is.  Then all hell breaks loose!

Well, that would be what happened to me!

Gaffers tape, much like duct tape,  is God's gift to those of us who cannot sew.

As we were striking our gear for the day, I managed to snag some part of my fly on a counter in my lonely audio booth.  When I squatted down to see what had happened, my shorts ripped from  mid fly to about a foot down my right thigh.  Luckily for me I had opted to wear neither my Burger King "HOME OF THE WHOPPER" nor my Optimus Prime underwear.  Unlucky for me, the light blue striped boxer briefs I had on were still remarkably exposed and did nothing to keep out the chill in the air.

At this point, I tried untucking my shirt.  Of course, it did not cover much of the tear and it simply showed off more of what is commonly called my "you look like a school bus in that shirt" shirt.

So, then I tried taping up the hole.  What you see pictured above was my first attempt.  I was unable to photograph the later attempts.  After what I thought was a successful tape up, I was finally confident enough to step out of my room and approach the Operations Manager to see if I could simply leave and avoid the strike.

Of course, before I could get the Ops Manager to be a part of this conversation, I had to walk through a crowd of crew members whom I kept steady eye contact with.  Upon reaching said Ops. Manager, I had to make her first promise to not feel sexually harassed by anything I needed to discuss.  That's right, she was a HER!

I brought her attention to my problem at which point the tape gave way.  She was not harassed in the least and had a great time laughing.  DID I MENTION THAT THERE WAS A CHILL IN THE AIR?!?!?!?!  I do not make a habit of flashing women, but if I did, I would not do it on cold days!

Needless to say, I taped up a lot more, so much in fact that it looked like I had shorts on that were half black and half khaki.  I ended up staying on and finishing the day and was "the hit of the party" in that everyone (but me) had a good laugh.

Yes, it turned out that life had opted to get rid of a worldly possession of mine (my favorite shorts) and humble me at the same time.

I'm sharing this with you today, because, well, it's a good story and, I could use a good refreshing case of humbling today.

Enjoy!

Feng Who? I'll just take it black.

I have lived my life surrounded by people who are indecisive about where to put their furniture.

I am using the word "people" generally, when in all reality, although they are actually people, to be more specific, in my experience they had all been WOMEN!!!  I just didn't want to come out and say "WOMEN" at first because I did not wish to be accused of generalizing a sexual stereotype that I used to quite  firmly believe in.

I have spent my life moving furniture for every woman I know.  And hanging pictures.

HAH.... "Hanging Pictures!"  I remember when that was a code term for a roommate of mine and his girlfriend.  She'd call and say "can you ask so and so (she knew his name, you just don't need to) to come over and help me hang a picture please?"  It wasn't until I stopped by her apartment one afternoon and noticed that she didn't have 90 something pictures in her house when it finally dawned on me!

I was never so lucky.  Whenever I've been asked to come over to "hang a picture," I'd have to hang a picture.  And on a side note to my side note, it's the same for "Wanna come up for coffee?"  Any time I've ever been asked that, I would wind up drinking coffee just before it was time for me to apparently go home and go to bed.  Nothing like a caffeine rush to heighten frustration....

Anyway, I swear I almost died once trying to properly place a sofa.  It was a sleeper sofa to be more specific.  "Move it here.... now try there.... How about over there...."   After about an hour of this and more back pain that I could possibly stand, I got coffee... JUST coffee....

I have lived with this stereotype for women for a very very long time.  THE STEREOTYPE IS WRONG!!!

Forgive me now?

Feng Shui... the first time I heard that term, I thought someone was being insane about some sort of wrinkly Chinese Dog.  I was mistaken.

When I started hearing about the belief that your placement of furniture could be a spiritual experience, I felt that this was some sort of made up medical excuse for some type of neurotic/ OCD behavior. 

I may be correct in my belief, however, as I have looked into it more, even if it is a medical excuse invented to justify OCD, it is a belief that is thousands of years old and was even suppressed in China at one time; which means it's gotta be powerful!

Of course, one of the purposes for designing a building a specific way or putting your furniture in a specific location (aka Feng Shui) is to help increase ones Qi which is pronounced "chee."

Now, the most important thing about "Qi" is that, well, you can score a lot of points using that word in Scrabble or Words With Friends.  It is an accepted word in both games and will help you win and, again in my personal experience, upset a lot of people who have me move their furniture and hang their pictures in exchange for coffee...  Qi is also ones positive energy.

So, following Feng Shui will essentially make you happy!

I was not happy Saturday morning at 5:23 when my dog woke me up.  I was not happy at all.

I woke up, charged with feed-the-dog-and-pet-her rage for a good twenty minutes.  I gave her a belly rubbin' that she will not soon forget.  "That oughta learn her!" I thought to myself.

Afterwards, she took a nap, but I was up.  Then I had an idea.  "I'M GONNA RE-ARRANGE MY BEDROOM!!!!"  And so I did.

In the next three hours I had flipped my king sized bed from one side of the room to the other.
I put my elliptical where my TV and armoire had been and I put the TV and armoire where the elliptical had been.
I moved my dresser where my night stand on my side of the bed had been and put my dogs "bed" where my head of the bed had originally been.
I even added a second nightstand that I had used before somewhere else in the house.
Then I went to the store and got three new lamps for my room.
Then I finished it all off by hanging some pictures in newly created empty wall space!

MY GOD I FELT SO ALIVE!!!!  SO MUCH QI!!!

I know it might be cheesy (spelled "Qisy) to say, but I really felt happy.  I do fight depressing thoughts from time to time and at the time I woke up Saturday, I really had been in a lull for a few days, that was not all dog related.  The simple act of redoing my bedroom was exhilarating!

That was four days ago and I am still thrilled to walk into my bedroom.  It is easier to navigate in the dark and I just like looking at it... when, it's not, in the dark.

Anyway, upon finishing my room, still riding my wave of positive energy, I sat down, all aglow with good vibes, and poured myself a coffee...

Apparently even I need to move the furniture and hang pictures and all I'm willing to reward myself with is a lonely cup of black coffee.... sighhhh....
 

I am surrounded by wonderful people... WHO ARE TRYING TO KILL ME!

I've often heard the phrase "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach!"  and I used to think that it was meant to be something sweet.  But I am starting to believe it is something very dark and suspicious!

Granted, in my youth, I often fell for the "sweet" aspect of this.  I can remember way back in college when I was dating this beautiful woman but I had gotten to that point where I just wasn't into the relationship anymore and I wanted to break up.  This was before cell phones and texting when you were expected to break up with someone to their face, so I'd go to her house to tell her, she just lived  a few blocks from my dorm.

I'd get to her house, ready to end it and she would open her door and it would smell DELICIOUS!!!  She was an incredible cook.  She'd invite me in, I'd sit in defiance, she knew what I was there to do and she'd offer me "just a nibble" and yadda yadda yadda, we were back on for a few more days.  I mean, c'mon, this was college.  Kids can starve to death in school.

Eventually, I got wise and I stooped down so low as to try to break up with her over the phone.  She had one of two evil fixes for that though:  A.) either she would say "why don't you come over so we can talk" and BOOM Lasagna.... or B.) it was the early 90's, again, no cell phones.  She knew where I was when I called her from my dorm a few blocks away.  So, she'd just show up after the call with a pie.

It was awful.  Eventually I had to do that awful thing where I just started ignoring her calls until she figured it out.  She deserved better, but I had no will power to fight off her caloric magic.  Ironically she was as skinny as a rail and hardly ate her own food.

Of course, there was also the high school crush who made lemon meringue for me and continued to send me lemon filled donuts when I moved away... and my Mom who always bought me groceries whenever she'd visit or save leftovers for me .... and pretty much any woman I've ever dated who could cook!

And so there you have it, it was as though every knew that food was the key to my love.

Now, let's fast forward a few decades... In fact, let's move about three decades past college right up to, this week and even this very morning!

I visited my Mom a few days ago.  There is nothing quite like going home to Mom!  I walk into her house and pretty much melt.  I know she can take care of me.  She sent me back home with a bunch of leftovers: a tray of lasagna, a tray of another casserole, some cooked pork tenderloin, a frozen tenderloin, some sausages (again cooked and uncooked) and several different desserts.  She had had some family visiting and needed me to take the leftovers.  I AM 100% A OK WITH THAT!!!  When I got back to my house, another relative of mine had left a batch of cookies she had made for me on my front porch.  YIPPEE!!!!

I love this stuff.  I need this stuff.  I WANT THIS STUFF!!!!  I know I am loved.  I have eaten like a king the past few days!

So, yesterday morning, after working out, I decided to eat healthy.  The one child and I opted for whole grain Cheerios for breakfast.  They were delicious!  It was all I needed.  I packed some leftover lasagna and sausage for my lunch (seriously a small portion) and I headed out the door to work!

Of course, I stopped off for a morning coffee with another relative.  Aaaaand of course, he had made some sausage biscuits.  I debated on eating one, but he served it to me "Eat it!  It's good!"  I ate it.  T'was good.  Upon finishing it, he said "get yourself another!"  I won that fight and did not.

I drank my coffee and headed to the office seriously reconsidering having any lunch.

I got to the office in time for our morning meeting.  "Oh Look... Donuts...."  The department head spearheading the meeting had brought donuts as a part of his gift to us for showing up to the meeting.  I refused, but ended up taking one at the end of the meeting.  I had enough will power to only take one bite and then toss the rest.  I was proud of my strength.

I sat back at my desk, rethinking my eating habits, when in walked another co-worker with steak biscuits from a fast food chain.  This guy is one of the nicest people I've ever met (unless he's grumpy, which happens daily, but it's hardly ever anything personal).  He is always thinking of others and is very generous about sharing food with the rest of us in the office.

DAMN HIM!!!!

I stared at the biscuit for a good 20 minutes.  I tried to ignore it.  I did not want to be rude....

I ate half of it and tossed the rest.  I know, such strength again, right?

With all of that covered now, I have come to realize that, the gift of food is not just a romantic thing.  It can also be a generous thing for people who are starving and for people who are needy.  It can be a gesture of family or friendship.  It is a number of things.

However, unless you're going for the whole "feed the starving" thing, which is quite noble, the food is NEVER healthy food!  I would never offer a friend a cabbage "out of love."

And so, I am very grateful for all of the kind food gestures and I pray that they will continue, right up until my coronary!

That's right.  I believe that we have been instinctively programmed to kill each other with kindness and with the the phrase should be altered to "The way to a man's heart (attack) is through his stomach!!!"

And oh yeah, that lasagna lunch was GREAT!!!!

....And nobody had to die.

Yesterday was a bad day.  It was a very very bad day.

No, nobody died.  So there was a plus.

It was so frustrating and difficult that I was afraid to talk to anyone out of fear of saying those damning words of "It couldn't get any worse" because then it totally would've gotten worse.  So, I talked to no one.

I'm not going to give all of the details that led to the bad day other than to list:
- City Hall
- Software
- Exhaustion
- Plumbing
- Expenses
- Life Choices
- Employment Concerns
- Kim Jong Un
- General Irritability
- Groceries
and so much more...

All of that simply pushed me to a brink.  Granted, nothing in my life suddenly changed yesterday to make anything significantly worse.  It just all seemed to chew me up and spit me back out.

I think my biggest issue yesterday was the lack of acceptance within me.  There was nothing for me to fight against, and nothing I could do to change anything going on.  I simply needed to accept it and find comfort in the fact that I'm no worse off than I was the day before.  And I really wasn't bad off then.

But, surely you know the feeling(s) right?  Where suddenly you feel like screaming at the top of your lungs "I'VE HAD ENOUGH AND I JUST WON'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!"   But there's always that concern that life will just scream right back at you "OH YEAH.... Really?!?!?!"

Well that's where I was.  Granted, the majority of it was most likely in my head or me just beating myself up.

Anyway, my work day ended and I went home.  I got to spend an evening with my little girl.  That, was Heaven!

We had a great night with another family member and ate some lasagna made by a different family member and then played games and chatted.  Simple stuff, but so peaceful.

Then at bedtime, as I was ready to read her a book, she mixed it up a little and decided to read to me.  "Daddy, I think you said you like this one...."

I had one of those moments where you feel that your parenting is paying off and your kid just might not be as messed up as you fear you may be making them.  It was nothing major, and it was probably much more touching to me than in was to her, but I like to think it meant the world to both of us.

She pulled out from behind her back my personal favorite from Dr. Suess's catalog, Fox in Sox!  This is his best work and my favorite part is all about the Tweedle Beetles!  I used to read this to her quite often from perhaps her birth until about 6 and a half, then I had to start reading about princesses and stuff....

But oh how last night was wonderful as she read the chaos from the pages.  On page 27 she needed a break "Daddy, my mouth hurts, can you read some?"  And so I did, but by page 29 she took it back.  When we finally got to the Tweedle Beetles she stopped and looked at me "Daddy, you can read this part.  I know it's your favorite!"

I almost cried, but that would have made it harder to read.  So I totally MANNED UP and read about "tweedle beetles battling in a puddle  with a paddle in a bottle on a poodle!"  Because that is an AWESOME read!!!

Everything else was gone.  I was sharing a moment watching my child read to me something I had read to her dozens (if not more) of times before and she only did it because she knew I liked it!  All seemed right with the world.

When will she be ready to read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy  to me?  Ohhhhhh I can hardly wait!

Anyway, all seemed better in my world this morning.  She woke up, we had breakfast and I took her to school.

AND THEN SOME S.O.B. CUT ME OFF IN TRAFFIC!!!!  I wanted to unleash some Tweedle Beetle Justice on him I tell you what!

C'est la vie'.

Title of Story: "THE END!"

But alas, I am simply not good at that style and apparently would not have been very good in that profession, and there you have it!  But at least I was able to give you a quick history lesson.

And that's it.  I'm sorry it wasn't too exciting, but that's really all I have for you today.




.....   Perhaps I should start from the beginning and explain!

See, when I was a student in the School of Journalism at my University, twenty something years ago, they taught us to write in the style of "The Upside Down Pyramid!"  This is based on getting to the point of your story first and then filling in all of the details afterwards.

If I recall correctly, this style of writing for news came about during the American Civil War when the telegraph was widely used by newspaper reporters.  In case the telegraph lines were cut whilst reporters were transmitting their story to the newspaper (which obviously happened often), they would simply get to the point of the story in the beginning.  Much like building the bottom of the pyramid first, but at the top..... yeah, the visual made more sense in college....

But you get to the point right?  It's like starting with your dessert for dinner, moving onto the main course and then having the sides, the salad and then finishing off with your appetizer.  So, perhaps it could've been called the "Really Big Meal in Reverse" style of reporting.

Anyway, this is still a very commonly used style in reporting but does it have to be?  I dunno.

When you think about it, newspapers and magazines have much more space to fill with a news story than television and radio do.  Broadcast news has a time limit, so they have to keep all their stories short and concise.  Print can take all the time in the world, it's really up to the reader regarding how much time they choose to give to a certain story.

So, print could really go into a much more narrative style of writing if they chose to, but would you read?

"It was a dark and stormy morning when your local senator was spotted through my camera lens that day..."  Would be a rough way for a story to start and then finish two pages later with "And so, apparently taxes will be increased!"

That might just offend the reader.  I might have given up after the first sentence, unless there was some juicy stuff littered throughout the article.

So anyway, I don't write in the "Gravity and Laws of Nature Defying Upside Down Pyramid" style of writing.  I've been reviewing a lot of my past articles lately and it is very clear to me that I don't do it.  Apparently, I just ramble and ramble and ramble on until I get to some sort of point.  I should try something different today.

I slit a sheet. A sheet I slit. Upon the slitted sheet's A WITCH!!!

I tried to fold a fitted sheet last night, "tried" being the key word here.

I cannot fold a fitted sheet.  
It is a humiliating and time consuming experience for me.  
There are so many things that I have the intellectual and physical capacity to do, but fitted sheets may be my greatest nemesis.

It's those damned corners I think.  I can fold a regular sheet like a pro.  I can grab two corners, pinch them together with my right hand, slide my left hand down the edges of the sheet, find the other two corners, pinch them together, and that's all the fight in that sheet.  After that, it's smooth sailing.

Seriously, a normal sheet looks perfect when I'm finished with it.  It is a smooth rectangley thing of beauty!  I can do this with a standard, full, queen and even king, no problem.  Bring on a California King sheet!  I'll fold it like a champ!

I can only assume that somewhere back in "the day" when the bed was invented, someone else had invented the sheets.  The sheets guy was sleeping all snug and warm, but on hard surfaces and the bed guy (obviously named "Matthew Ress") was on a cozy surface that fit his body more comfortably, but he got cold at night, every night, even in the summer.

Since these were the days before the Internet and even phone, these two guys probably wandered the streets of their town until they happened to run into each other.  And much like the peanut butter and chocolate guys who invented the peanut butter cup, the rest, my friends, is history!

However, I'm sure the original sheet guy simply put a sheet on top of the bed and then tucked the loose edges under.  But some yahoo came along and just had to make it better and invented the "fitted sheet."  I'm sure it's production name was "the sheet that stays put and doesn't come untucked from under the bed every night" which was eventually shortened, obviously.

Well, what that jackass never considered was how terribly difficult that sheet is to fold!!!

It is not possible for me to fold a fitted sheet that looks as good as a regular sheet.  I cannot do it. In fact, as gross as the visual may be, whenever I try to fold a fitted sheet, I swear it looks like one of those baby Mammoths you always see being dug up in the news by hungry scientists.

I give you the horrible visual of what is in my hall closet!

In all seriousness,  why can't you ever hear about one of those things being dug up without hearing about  how they taste?

I have tried about every way I know to fold a fitted sheet and have them come out right and I fail each and every time.  I'm to the point now where when I buy one, I feel I should never open it up.  I should just put it on my mantle as if it were prize game that will never look any where near as pristine as it does right now!

I have come to the belief that the only people who can properly fold a fitted sheet are, in fact, witches!  I'm serious.  When you think about it, hotels weren't so popular and/ or common back in the day of all the witch burnings.  What, you think it's a mere coincidence that once burning witches fell out of style hotel franchises started to flourish?

How about this one, "Ramada" (as in the Inn) is Spanish for a shelter made of tree branches.  And what else are tree branches good for?   BURNING WITCHES!!!!

This years Hotel Cleaning Staff Employees of the Months.

But it turns out that it's bad for business when you can't maintain a work force to run said business because you have to burn your staff to the stake every time they perform a job well done!  No pun intended... well, no, actually, now that I re-read that, burning your "staff to the stake" and "well done" has kinda got me chuckling.

Ahem... (very sternly) folding a fitted sheet is no laughing matter... it's a complete pain in the ass!

Should you ever visit my house, the "elephant in the room" is most likely just a fitted sheet I need to put away.

Glad this didn't happen to me! I'd be nuts by now!!!

Purely hypothetical...

Imagine it's a Friday afternoon and you're just sitting at your desk at work trying to crunch some numbers.  It's not the best way to spend a Friday, but, let's face it, working Monday through Friday is one of the best ways to afford spending your weekend!

Suddenly you hear the mystical "Blrlrlrlrling!" That annoying sound that tells you you've just received an e-mail.  You go to open said e-mail and realize that it is in fact a calendar appointment message type thingy typically sent to you by a supervisor to notify you, and automatically update your calendar, about a meeting you are expected to attend.  The C.A.M.T.T. (calendar appointment message type thingy) is for a staff meeting at the corporate office (750+ miles away) on the following Wednesday.

You slyly reply to the sender, who is in fact most likely the head of your department for the company, "Hey, I think this appointment was sent to me accidentally.  Or am I really supposed to be up there by next Wednesday?  LOL!"  About 15 minutes later you hear that same obnoxious e-mail noise that says you just got another email and so you read the email. It simply says "I think so."

WHAAAAAAA?!?!?!?!

Within seconds, the person playing the part of "The Boss (not to be confused with Bruce Springsteen)" in your workplace walks into your office and says "How ya' doing?"  To which you reply, "Do you know if I'm supposed to be at corporate by Wednesday?"  Dumbfounded, the person looks back at you and says "I think I'm supposed to be there in a few weeks.  I didn't know about you.  I'll look into it and let you know more as soon as I do."

Then you finish out your Friday at work and go home to have a weekend not knowing anything about your week to come.

Sunday morning at 8:30 you think to yourself, "hmmmmm... I wonder if...." and then you decide to check your work e-mail from home.  You see it!  An e-mail sent at roughly 5 am, from the person from your office and it basically says "Yup, it looks like we're both headed up and we're going to leave Tuesday AM.  By the way, if we do it, we're driving.  I'll know for sure Monday!"

WHAAAAAAA?!?!?!?!?!

Sooooo, the first thing you do is message your ex-spouse to arrange for your child for the week.  Of course, the ex is most likely not buying the whole "I may or may not be going to such and such a place at such and such a time" as it sounds ridiculous, but it's what you have to do!  So you feel like a lunatic dealing with that.

Other than that, all you can do on Sunday is pack.  At which point you realize you need to do a load of laundry and you need to take a lot of shirts to the cleaners (because, you're lazy and bad at ironing).   So you do that load of laundry and put your shirts for the cleaners in a big pile in your living room.  The Dog is so stoked thinking "NEW BED!!!"

The rest is up to Monday.

So Monday morning, you drop your child off at school and then rush to the cleaners and drop off clothes.  You verify with the cleaner "I need all of this back TONIGHT!!! Can I get them back TONIGHT?!?!?!"  He calmly responds "si."

Okay... Laundry... CHECK!

Then you rush to work and the person you think is your boss greets you at the door.  "We're definitely driving up tomorrow!"

Now comes the storm of things to do!

Schedule some space so you can kennel the Dog- CHECK!
Schedule a haircut for this afternoon- CHECK!
Cancel the people coming to work at your house this week- CHECK
Confirm with the ex- CHECK!
Cancel a personal appointment- CHECK!
Cancel a date- CHECK!
Rescheduled a client- CHECK!
Notify everyone who reads your blog that you're not going to be around for the week- CHECK!
Notify every living family member and anyone you cross paths with that you will be out of town this week- CHECK!
Spend the first three hours of your, workday that aren't dedicated to your checklist, doing actual work- CHECK!
Rush out early to have a rare Monday lunch with your child because you will absolutely not see them again this week after today- CHECK!

ANYTHING ELSE THAT COMES TO MIND!!!! - check

At lunch your child is very sad because you'll be gone all week and they will miss you.  You are touched and equally sad but you explain to your child "I'm sorry honey, it's just what I have to do!" and all you can hear in your head is the song "Cats in The Cradle!"  DAMMIT!!!

Then you rush back to work to tie up any loose ends.

You walk in the door and you hear these words emanate from the mouth of the boss-type person: "Hey, why are you going to corporate again?"

You simply reply, "Well, I got that e-mail from corporate and then talked to you about it and...."  As if you need to review it all with the only person who understands.

To which he basically replies by informing you that his boss thinks it's a great idea for you to come up to corporate but doesn't know why you would.  As he continues to speak at you, and your jaw seems to be falling further and further away from your head, the words coming out of his face linger on and smack you in the face as if he were an Englishman dancing in front of you with a Mackerel in his hands.  Eventually he finishes it all off with "And soooo you're not going..." But he is.

You're not upset to not be going, however, you now have to un-check EVERYTHING you previously checked off!!!!  But alas, some things are not "un-checkable."

UUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHH!!!!!

Glad that didn't happen to me... twenty-four hours ago....

I'll only take just what I need to get there!

This past weekend I had to do some work out of town.  I worked a little over 330 miles from home and ended up driving 472 miles total within a 24 hour period.  Do your own math.

It was great being on the road.
It was just me.
One guy.
On the big highway.
With nothing to guide him but the stars (and a GPS).
And no one could reach me until I got to my destination... unless of course they called me on my cell phone.
But no one called.
No.
Everyone who knew I was on the road opted to text me instead.
Like they want me to die? Granted, everyone who texted me was irritated that I did not respond until I got off the road. Seems ironic.

Anyway... how was I ever able to make a road trip without a cell phone?

In 1995 I drove up the East Coast to visit a friend in D.C. and to look for a job.  This was the longest road trip I had ever made solo up until that point in my life.  It was over an 8 hour drive.  I managed to survive, I saw the friend and I was offered a position which I turned down (in hindsight, turning that offer down was kinda stupid but that is another one of those "different story" situations).

But most importantly (no disrespect to the friend) I was able to make a trip that long without constant contact with the people I know all over the world and without a map telling me where to turn.  Seriously, I didn't even have a map.  I actually called my friend before I left my house and asked for "directions!"  It was something like "So, yeah, after you drive 500 miles on the interstate, get off at this exit.  Take a left on this road and a right on that road and.... so we'll see you whenever you show up!"

WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?  How did we ever survive as a species if that was the only way we could travel?  Surely, the Donner Party had a map?  Granted, we know for a fact that they had a cookbook, but I'm going to assume they had a map?

I don't even want to think about how people traveled before maps were invented...  If I'd been Christopher Columbus, we'd be kind of screwed to this very day.

"CHRISTOPHER? WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL HERE?  YOUR BOATS, THEY ARE OUTSIDE LOADED AND READY TO GO!?!?!?!"
"I'm just waiting for a map.  I'll get right on that pronto... just waitin for that map."

Yeah, crazy right?   I can only assume he had a good CD player on his boats to keep everyone thoroughly entertained?

HAH.. "CD Player"  I have one, but I was recently introduced to the joys of Bluetooth and Pandora radio for my cell phone and car stereo.  Sadly, I was unaware for some time that I could "connect" my phone to my stereo.  Apparently magical spirits make one of those ant bridges from my phone to my stereo and now I can talk to people INSIDE MY STEREO and listen to music FROM MY PHONE!!!  Okay, so I'm kidding... the people aren't in my stereo.  They're invisible (like the magical ant bridge spirits) and on the other side of the stereo... I assume...

 

How my stereo works.

In fact, it wasn't until two days ago that I actually played a CD in my car.  My child wanted to listen to my Missing Persons Greatest Hits CD.  She is fascinated that she can hold the actual case the music comes in.  She's so low-tech!

I've listened to CDs in my truck before, as I've had the thing for many years, but my stereo broke and I got  a new one about a year ago.  I paid extra for the magical spirits.

So, I listen to my music on my stereo from my phone.  And when people call me (which they didn't) I talk to them through my stereo.  Seems legit.

Now on top of that, I can call up a GPS on my phone and it will talk to me through my stereo and tell me when and where I turn.  Of course, I have an iPhone, so the map sucks.  I also have a GPS that I connect to my windshield (I'm so old fashioned I know).  So I connected that GPS and let it battle it out with the phone GPS.  Oh they did NOT agree a lot.  I opted to trust my window mounted GPS when my phone told me "In six miles take exit 194" just as I was passing exit 194.

For added GPS entertainment, I raced my GPS.  I hope I'm not the only one who does that?  You know, you set your GPS to take you where you want to go and it says you will arrive at your final destination by 11:29 and then you spend the next 236 miles trying to beat that time while not speeding (excessively).  I managed to beat mine, this time, and I arrived at my final destination at 11:22.  BOO... YAHHH!!!!

I was very grateful for Pandora occupying my mind.  It is, quite sadly, much better than radio.  I appreciate the FM but fear it may soon be gone.  I can remember being a kid in Chicago riding a few hours down the road with my Dad and we would listen to one channel the whole trip.  That one channel would changes stations six or seven times it seemed like.  You might be listening to 780 (AM was bigger in the 70s) which is a rock and roll station in one town but as soon as you pass into another town, some country station owns that channel and BOOM you're listening to country.  This would go on and on, "town to town, up and down the dial..." and you were never allowed to change the channel, because, DAD SET IT ON THAT CHANNEL!!!!

So I had my Pandora set to one channel and that channel was "80's Alternative."  AWESOME!!!  It's choc-ful-o 80's variety and it never goes staticy and it never changes.  I must admit that I was unaware how popular the "clap track" was in music back in the 80's.  It was seconded only by the "snap track."

There were some very serious Clap and Snap artists in the 80's I should tell you (I refuse to believe it was synthesized; not in the 80s) and some of these artists have better won Grammys!  I think the greatest Snap Clap homage had to be Queens' and David Bowies' "Under Pressure!"  What a Snap Clap Trap work of art!!!

I had a lot of time to think about all of this on the road.

I do have to say, that I think I've lost the pioneering spirit I once had.  The cell phone and GPS have become a security blanket and a blessing, but damn, there's not always a whole lot of fun in that!

One Way Or Another.... music will recycle itself.

There will always be "Boy Bands" as there have been for as long as I can recall.  Of course, now they are somewhat manufactured at some record label chop shop these days, but I don't see them ever going away.

When I was a kid there were two groups that I remember clearly, but they were both made of family and the occasional sister (on the down low).  Yes, one was the Jackson 5 and the other was the Osmonds.  Both eventually fell apart most likely because the youngest son seemed to be the most adored.  It was very sad... for the other brothers.  I always thought a "Wrastlin' Grudge Match" between the Non-Donny Osmonds and the Non-Michael Jacksons would have turned out to be AWESOME.  I'd have paid good money for that!

After a while, I think the labels opted to steer clear of family bands and just put together a bunch of androgynous waif boys with bad attitudes!  And then Donny Walberg sacrificed his career to save his brother Mark.

Anyway, there will always be boy bands.

My child is in love with One Direction.  That is wonderful for her to have such an interest in music.  I think music is a very important aspect of any child's expression and creative being.  You have to start somewhere... why not start with a boy band?

Honestly I must say that that one song of theirs where they say "You don't know you're beautiful... and that's what makes you beautiful" is really true and actually deep.  Seriously, I once told a girlfriend "You are SOOOO beautiful" and her response was "I know... you get used to hearing that." I should have run right then and there.... I did not... aaaaaaand a different story...

Anyway, so these guys probably had no idea what they were singing when they belted out those lines that I am going to assume somebody else wrote for them, but that's not their fault.  It's a touching song.  Besides, my kid loves it and it's not an angry song.  So in my book, it's not bad!

Then yesterday she was walking around the house singing another song by "1D" (I'm so damn hip). 

"One way or another,
I'm gonna find you
I'm gonna gitcha gitcha gitcha..."
And so on....

"Honey, where'd you hear that?  I love that song!"
"Oh it's the new One Direction song."

Then I actually got a little upset and I don't know if I did something wrong or right afterwards, but I like to think I did right.

See, I am, in essence, a boy, and growing up I had boy role models in music (like Kiss, Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, Boy George, Metallica, Rachmaninoff, The Beatles....).  I also managed to perform a lot of music growing up and feel that the emotions I was able to express in song greatly helped me avoid going insane in my teens.

I want my daughter to be able to express herself creatively.  Also, I want her have girl role models.  And I do NOT want them to be MODELS!!!  So, I turned on the TV and went to You Tube to show her something.

It's not One Direction's fault (again) that they are covering a song from my youth.  They've done nothing wrong.  But, I wanted my daughter to see the original artist.  I needed her to know...

"Baby, look at this!"  And on our screen was the Blondie music video for One Way or Another. 

The child froze. 

"Who is that... why is she singing this song?"  There was Deborah Harry singing 1Ds song!

Sure, she's heard women sing and yes some of them are acceptable role models, but if they aren't Lady Gag or Niki Minotaur or that Justine Beaver girl, they're either in their underwear trying to look all super modely or they're Adelle or Taylor Swift breaking up with someone....

I needed my child to see someone just rocking out, from my day.  I needed her to know how much I enjoyed these artists as well and looked up to them (unless we're talking Samantha Fox or Lita Ford; I didn't look up to them as much as I looked AT them).

So we watched several Blondie videos and we saw Fab 5 Freddy.  At some point in our lives we must all see Fab 5 Freddy.  And then we moved on to the Missing Persons.  HOLY COW!

Okay, I loved the Missing Persons even though they were really a product of 80's synth-pop, make up and hairspray, but they had some rocking music!  I thank Joe's Garage for getting them together!

So, then we went on to watch several videos over and over.  My child LOVED seeing these bands made up of men, but fronted by a woman who could rock!!! 

Of course, in all of this, it all really broke down to me sharing a generation gap with my child.  Nothing has really changed in the music industry.  Music will always be one of the most influential forms of expression in my life.  And for most kids, I think it is a very significant outlet when coming of any age and creating a sense of self.  I'm just happy to share it with my child.

Sadly though, I think musicians may be running out of original ideas.  When a boy band has to cover a Deborah Harry song, well, it's just sad.

And on that note, I think I'll go listen to two of my favorite boy bands and two of their greatest original hits.  You know like Twisted Sister's "Leader of the Pack" and Kiss's "And Then She Kissed Me!  Granted, it's a shame some girl bands covered those two songs some twenty years before those guys could release them!

The Phantom Menace!!! Not the Star Wars one, but the "Over 40" one.

Maybe I've written about this before.  I'm almost certain that I've at least hinted to it before.  I really don't remember.

Actually, that's one of the "phantom" issues I'll be referencing in this post; forgetting things.

As a child, I bounced!  I don't mean in the whole "Choc-ful-o-energy" type bounciness that most kids have, but I did have that.  No, I'm referring to things I would do as a kid.  For example, when my friends and I would play this game on my bunk bed where we would take turns laying on my top bunk and rolling off over the side, falling to the ground.  That must've been a good five feet drop to the ground.  Now, we weren't nuts, we'd lay pillows on the ground and aim for them, but, quite often, we'd miss.

We'd bounce.  Then we'd get back up, brush it off and do it again.  This was the same for running around like lunatics and falling on our face.  We'd bounce and tumble, get back up and brush it off and go at it again.  Which was the same for any foolish thing we could think of.

Hell, we'd even practice having bike accidents.  We'd ride our bikes at full speed into a ramp or a wall or even over the "cliff" edge of a dirt mound and we would jump off at the last minute, y'know, so we would be more prepared to handle an accident for real.


So, I did these silly things quite often.  Sometimes they would hurt.  Sometimes they would not.  Regardless of pain or no pain, I would bounce back up and do it again! 

We were kids.
We were daring.
We were pretty convinced we were indestructible.

WE WERE STUPID!

So, I survived and I got smarter.  As a kid, I had no idea that stuff that hurt me could SERIOUSLY HURT ME!  But as a grown up, I came to realize that I needed to avoid doing such stupidity.

As I recall, the last time that I was overly stupid in an effort that led to me hurting myself must've been the first two times I sprained an ankle.  The first time I sprained an ankle was when I was in the lobby of my freshman dorm at college.  I was "a bit" intoxicated when I leaped over a couch.  I landed badly (but probably better than I should have) and managed to sprain my ankle.

The second sprain was stupid on a level of intentionally-crashing-my-bike-stupid!  About 6 or so weeks after my first ankle sprain, I was walking through the lobby of my freshman dorm at college.  I saw the couch.  A friend asked me how I sprained my ankle.  I was somewhat intoxicated (again) so I showed him.  I leaped over the same couch and sprained the other ankle.

CLASSIC ME!!!!

Since then, I have opted to not go out of my way for an injury.  And for a few decades, I was doing well.

Then, I hit 40!

When you hit forty bad things start to happen to you physically.  It's nothing traumatic. 
Just annoying. 
And irritating. 
And frustrating. 
And pathetic.

Yes, you forget things more frequently; like, where are your keys, did you turn the stove off, where are your sunglasses, have you blogged about this before....  simple stuff.  It's nothing drastic.

You may also develop Presbyopia which all you youngsters may recognize as old people holding something as far away from their face as possible in an effort to read it.  Old people may recognize this as when you realize how much you despise the young person who just asked you to read a label knowing damn well that you can't do it because your arm isn't long enough.

But you also get the "Phantom Pains (ergo the title)" that may occur from time to time.  For example, I once hurt my thumb running my fingers through my hair.  I don't know how.

I pulled my back out leaning on a bathroom counter while brushing my teeth and while shaving and once while trying to look at myself in a mirror.... any "leaning over" experience can lead to back strain.

I once sprained an ankle walking about ten feet across a room, on a flat surface, indoors, with absolutely no distractions....

I could go on.  Things just start to hurt and I've heard it gets worse.

At some point, it dawned on me that I may be making up for all of the things I did to myself as a kid from which I "bounced" back.  I am paying for the damage I did back then.  Seriously, I hurt a heel quite badly when I was four or five.  In the last year, right where my scar is on that heel, I have started having a daily shooting pain that feels like someone driving a spike into my heel.  It hurts like hell!!!

Some of my peers do not have the phantom injuries to the level of which I experience them, and some of them have it much worse.  I think I am somewhere in the middle.  So, as we get older, we start to avoid doing anything that may cause us to get hurt.  But you can't just stop doing everything.  You have to walk.  You have to sit.  You have to eat.  All three of those can be deadly activities but you still have to do them

So you take risks.

Well, two weeks ago I took a risk (everything before this line has been the introduction to the point of my story)!  I went for a bike ride.  I love riding bikes and quite often, regardless of the risk, I like to go out for hours long rides.

Anyway, I got home from work two Wednesdays ago and took my dog for a walk.  We walked for about 45 minutes and yes, I survived.  Then I ran into a woman and her family looking for their lost dog.  It was dark and it was cold.   I would hate it if my dog was lost, so, I jumped on my bike and went looking. 

As it was so late in the day and I was tired I was basically looking fate in the face and saying "BRING IT!!!" Just to let you know, I didn't find the dog, but they found it the next day.

I rode around for about 45 minutes and gave up.  I was beat.  I headed home.

I got within a block from home when I got a call on my cell phone.  It was my child and I did NOT want to miss that call!!!  I answered it.  Yes, I know that answering your phone while riding a bike is not wise in a whole "BRING IT FATE" type of way, but it's not hard to do as long as you aren't necessarily trying to stop your bike at the same time.

So, I turned it up a notch with fate and stopped my bike at the same time.

As if I were in some sort of comedy skit, I came to a complete stop, balanced for a second when I realized that with one hand on my bars and the other holding a phone to my ear, I could not get my foot off the pedal.  Before I could start pedaling, I simply fell to my right side and hit the ground.

I'm sure some witness would have thought I was doing this for some sort of Python-esque comedic effect in seeing me come to a complete stop, balance and then, without any fighting, fall helplessly over, all for a good laugh.

Nope, it was not for a laugh.  I landed on my right shoulder.  My helmet hit the ground but it protected my head as it should.  I skinned my right knee up pretty badly and I scraped my right elbow.  I also managed to get my left hand down in time to brace myself.  I had the wind knocked out of me and I could not feel my right arm for the first few moments after the accident.

I FELT LIKE A KID AGAIN!!!!!  Seriously, it was GREAT to not hurt myself doing something boring!  I was doing something fun and something damn near stupid at the same time and I got hurt, just the way nature had intended!  WHOO HOOO!!!!

As it turned out, I managed to sprain my left wrist and THAT is why I have been unable to type out my blog for the past week and a half.

And there you have my actual point!