Time Flies, But Who Cares?

Hard to believe it's been 2 months since my last visit. What's less difficult to believe (for me anyway) is that there really isn't anything I need to cover to bring all my thousands of loyal imaginary readers up to date. I still have the same job that I never told you about in the first place, I still have the same house that I've never discussed, and I'm stilling going to school for a degree I have yet to elaborate on. All in all, life's life-y.

The truth is I'm having problems galore, but no one wants to discuss stuff like that on a blog, right? It's all supposed to be entertaining. Sure, you can add a little drama and intrigue, but don't be a downer. Heck, even the Nie Nie blog has to constantly make references to their hopes and prayers and how much they believe everything will work out, because if people who were suffering like they did ever put how angry and frustrated and distraught and disgusted they were with life in general nobody would ever read it. Gotta end on a high note!

That's not to say that Stephanie or anybody else suffering through tragedy is definitely feeling those feelings, but I know a majority of them are. How do I know this, you may ask? Simple, because if they didn't feel that way, then those people who have such a genuine positive outlook on life wouldn't be the rare gems that they are. I mean, if everybody who survived a crippling car crash (ah, alliteration) had a smile on their face and a song in their heart, we wouldn't be all, "Wow, you're such a strong person." We'd probably be all, "Quit that singin' crap. I'm tryin' to watch Sportscenter."

I dunno. I guess the point is that nothin' that's wrong with me isn't wrong with everybody else on some level. We all got problems. Maybe that's the antithesis of my little imaginary world in the last paragraph. That's why we aren't entertained by other people's problems. We're all trying to watch Sportscenter!

What a Great Idea! #8

Little boys like to destroy. It's in their blood, it's what they do, it's just something that parents have to come to grips with. Sure, girls do it too, but not to the extent of boys. So my Great Idea is to design something made for destruction.

The idea is this: Make a toy (a cityscape, a DVD player, a glass vase, a replica of your high school baseball trophies, etc.) but make it out of a series of interconnecting parts. Then attach those parts with some kind of high-tensile strength cabling. Then attach the cabling to a spring-loaded spool. As the little tykes go on their rampage of destruction, all you have to do is pick up the toy, reel in the pieces until they fit (with a few slight adjustments here and there to ensure proper alignment) and then release the spool, thereby releasing the tension on the line and allowing for more destruction at your convenience. With very little effort a motor could be attached to the spool to provide the ease of push-button cleaning.

Where Ya Headed?

I think just maybe I can be good at my job. It will take a lot of effort (vice the typical little or none), but if I'm willing to go the distance, I really think I can accomplish great things. I won't, because that's just not the kind of person that I am. But it's nice to know that potential is out there. It wouldn't be much fun to have nowhere left to go, no mountain to climb, etc.

I can't imagine being obscenely wealthy. Man that would be the pits. And I'm being serious here. What would I do with my time? I couldn't take a job seriously, because the second an annoying, stressful situation came up, I'd be all like, 'I don't need this crap' and just quit. And there's only so much travelling I can do. I mean, I'd do a lot, like a lot a lot, but eventually that would wear thin. And as much as I'd like to spend my time in a hammock under a tall, shady tree with a cool breeze whispering through the leaves right now, I'm sure once I actually did it for an hour or two I'd be ready for something else.

I guess it would be different if I had some sort of passion. If I had a "thing" that I was really good at. Outside of remembering phone numbers (ala Rainman, only not that well. There's always somebody better) I don't have any amazing talents to expound upon. I guess i could try wood carving, but I can just picture massive amounts of blood from a whittling accident.

It doesn't help that I was never really a goal-oriented kid. I never had one of those "I want to be a _____ when I grow up" type goal. Again, I guess I'm just not that guy. I take that back. I did want to get married, because my parents made it look so great. Also I wanted to be a parent, so I could be the one bossing people around instead of being bossed. Outside of that, I don't think I ever had any real life goals. That's kinda sad. What's the point of life if you aren't heading toward something?




Huh...from another perspective, I've got everything I've ever wanted. When I look at it that way, it's kinda cool.

Kids on the Brain

I've been thinking a lot about what kind of parent I'm going to be, so if my posts lean that direction for a while, I apologize. I think I'm going to be a mean dad. I'm already coming up with ways to torment my children's Saturdays, and the one I have isn't even one year old yet. Cleaning the bathroom, mowing the lawn, doing the laundry. Pretty much everything I had to do as a kid. Of course, I didn't have to do any of that until I was like 8 or 9, but it's good to plan ahead.

I haven't decided if I'm going to pit them against each other, or overly discipline them equally, causing them to band together in their dislike for me. I know as a kid, through no effort of my parents (that I know of) my brothers and I were at each other's throats, constantly competing and bickering. And not in the "we really love each other but we want to have fun rough-housing" sort of way, but more in the "if I only had a place to hide the body" sort of way.

I definitely don't want my kids to be my friends. I think that's the downfall of a lot of parents. A fear of disciplining because their worried it will drive their children away. While I agree that can be true (there were times when I really really really didn't like my parents) I think it's short sighted. I blame TV. Our ADD-addled brains have turned our lives into 30 minute sitcoms, and if the resolution doesn't come quick enough then it's easier not to face the problem at all.

I like to take a longer view. Sure, my kids are gong to hate me. They're going to mumble under their breath against me, go to bed and cry their eyes out, and maybe even come right out and elucidate their disdain for me. But they don't have to like me. They just have to survive intact. If they have a good head on their shoulders, if they can make it out in the real world, that would be good too. If they are some kind of superstar athlete and can fund a world wide vacation for their mom and me, I ain't gonna complain. Nobel/Pulitzer prizes here and there would be a nice bonus.

Here a Blog, There a Blog, Everywhere a Blog Blog

The title doesn't have anything to do with my post, I just had that song running in my head for no apparent reason. Kids grow up so fast, don't they? I think my biggest fear for my child, outside of physical harm, is that they will turn out to be brats. I mean, how do you keep that from happening? It's not like there are parents out there actively nurturing their children toward brattiness, but there sure are a lot of them out there.


And nobody wants to believe their child is as bad as everyone else thinks they are. To the parent, it's just a phase, or it can be explained away due to some event going on in the child's life. "Junior had to go to bed without dessert because he set his sister's hair on fire. He's really a good boy most of the time."


I can remember as a child how frequently my mother was complimented on how well behaved her 3 boys were (4 if you count my dad, and she did). I always thanked lens-crafters and poorly constructed televisions for giving these people such bad eyesight, since I was certain if they could have seen how we really acted in that restaurant they would have been sharing asides about how the standards for child services stepping in had really slipped.


But as I visit such public arenas as an adult, I notice that it's true, we were well behaved. Heck, judging by some of the tantrums I see these days, we were down right angelic. What's really scary is these are the people who actually try and bring their children out in public. How much worse are the terrors left at home?


It all culminates in a fear for my own children. Of course, there's the equally likely chance of a knee-jerk reaction from me to pounce on them for the slightest infraction, terrifying them into a state of order that only lasts until they realize just how powerless I really am.

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."


Where's the balance? How is it so many others seem to have it all worked out, at least when I can see them? That's all I'm asking for. I don't care if they are holy terrors in the confines of my home. Then they're their mother's problem.

What Has It Done For Me Lately?

I used to be the quintessential pack rat. I kept everything, as I discussed once before. Some of it was in collections, some was just stuff I thought my be important later; the occasional memorabilia from a particularly poignant moment in my life. Whatever. There was a bunch of junk.

No more. I have since flushed from my person this overwhelming need to cling to things. I can without hesitation discard any and all birthday, holiday, anniversary or get well soon cards. I just don't see the point of keeping them. On the rare occasion that the sentiment expressed is from someone who has or will soon pass away, I understand holding onto a token from your relationship to refresh those formerly shared feelings. But other than that, what's the point?

If it's a family member you are still close to, you can express those feelings any time you wish. If it represents a romantic relationship that went south, why keep it around to punish yourself? I mean, unless there's some chance of winning her/him back, it's over. There's no upside to rehashing those feelings you're never going to get to share again. And if the flame can be rekindled, get out there and rekindle it! What good does it serve moping around re-reading creased and crumpled love notes when you can be spending time with the source of such emotions?

And that's just an unnecessarily long diatribe on cards. Don't get me started on the chintzy crap people fill their lives with. I'm all about having nice stuff. I get trying to make a place look nice. But why do you have boxes upon boxes of decorative materials if you already own your home and it's already decorated to the nines? No, you don't need a storage unit, you need a swift kick to the head. Okay, that's a little harsh, but come on people! You have no idea how liberating it is to slough off all the layers of superfluousness and bask in the freedom of the unencumbered.

Sure, all that "stuff" means something. Each little thing has it's own special meaning. But I don't feel like it's accumulative. If you have one stuffed animal from them, then the other 32 don't really add anything. Oh, I know, this orange teddy bear is from when you went to the state fair, and this slightly smaller orange teddy bear is from when you went to the traveling carnival that set up in the Costco parking lot.

Let's un-clutter, people. Give it a try. Ask yourself the hard question, "Will having or not having this ever impact my life again?" If the answer is no, it's time to let go.

Little Help?

I can't get these darn Christmas songs out of my head. It makes me feel helpless, out of control, and a little alone. But at least I have cheery music to accompany me on my road to depression and insanity. No, as a matter of fact, it is not beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Thankyouverymuch.

Any sure fire methods for ridding yourself of looping, inane music that you just can't seem to clear from your cerebellum? I prefer answers free of a specific caliber or grain, but at this point I'm open to all suggestions.

One Man's Perspective

Look, there are a lot of guys out there who will tell you what you want to hear. "Yes, that dress does match your eyes and doesn't accentuate the hips you think are mannish at all." "Of course your co-workers are all plotting together behind your back, bent on your ultimate destruction." "No, she isn't a younger, hotter version of you..." et cetera. I'm not one of those guys. Maybe to my detriment, but just don't see the upside.

So what if it makes you feel better for a moment? In the case of the hot girl, odds are you wouldn't believe it anyway, and go on resenting her for doing absolutely nothing wrong. In the other examples, the only thing accepted would be something regurgitated to agree with your point of view, while secretly rejecting or outright ridiculing any attempt on our part to play devil's advocate.

I think my whole point here is we don't want to hear about your menstrual cycle. There, I said it. I'm going out on a limb in defense of manhood everywhere. And I don't care how many men start sawing on my limb in an attempt to distance themselves from me, because deep in their hearts I know they all agree. Just like you don't enjoy hearing about, looking at pictures of, or having anything to do with what any Y-chromosome equipped creature would consider an amazing bowel movement, there are things going on in the land of womanhood that we don't want to be a part of.

Now this may generate some anger from the fairer sex. I need you to know that it's not that we're grossed out. I need you to know it's not just that we're grossed out. Men are fixers. This is common knowledge, I know, but I think what makes us most uncomfortable about the delicacy of the female state is that there really isn't anything we can do about it. Coupled with the fact that any suggestions toward possible amelioration are more often than not ill-timed to coincide with the event in question, we have little incentive to be involved in the process at any aspect.

This is such a tricky subject to broach, because women have little pity for a man's experience in this situation, typically believing (quite vocally) that we need to just suck it up and quit whining. Now I'm all for that. I couldn't agree more. The problem arises when in our best attempts to avoid the subject altogether we are viewed as uncaring or immature, as in unable to handle verbalization about what is going on. This idea is only exacerbated by the standard male response of, "Ew, ew, okay, okay, enough, I get it. No Really, I Get It." This can be followed up by fingers in the ears and a rendition of the ever-popular "La-La-La", first made famous by the Monkees I believe. Maybe it was the Clash.

I accept we have no point of reference. I couldn't agree more that we have no idea what you are going through every month. My point is that the lack of understanding won't ever get any better, despite the best efforts of both sides to make the other understand. So in the future ladies, when you are suffering from your "visit", please just ask for things. A warm blanket, a pillow to curl around, tissues to wipe your noses as you sob uncontrollably at a strangely worded life insurance commercial on TV. We can do that. We can handle that. We're desperate to do whatever we can to make you more comfortable. Just know that references to volume, color, viscosity and I think I just threw up a little.

I Doan Wanna

It's hard to get motivated to do any real work on a Friday. Okay, it's hard to get motivated to do any real work on any day, but especially on a Friday. It's multiplied here by the fact that so many people either take Friday off or work from home, making it a temporary ghost town, with only the occasional disembodied voice floating over the cubicles from some unseen location.

Of course with being stuck in the office, there's little else for me to do than sit at my computer. And since I'm relatively certain that I've seen pretty much everything the internet has to show me (within my own moral limits), surfing the web doesn't hold any real interest for me either.

So what to do? I guess I could go through my phone and delete all those contacts I've been transferring from phone to phone since the mid-nineties (crtjj, who the crap is that?), but what if it turns out they're actually really important and I just can't remember at the moment? Can't take that chance. I better leave that to the missus. She has a better memory for that sort of thing anyway.

I could organize my desk. Lord knows it needs an overhaul. I used to be so neat and tidy. A place for everything, and everything in its place. I blame the military. But now, I'm just kind of willy-nilly with stuff. If it stacks up too high, I just start a different stack. I blame my wife. Just kidding honey, I still love you <3 <3.

Well, that's about all the time I think I can waste here, so I'm off to find someplace I can hide to play games on my phone until 4. Later.

A Peek Into the Soul

Men are sometimes closed books. We’ve been programmed at nearly a genetic level to conceal our emotions, as if showing how we feel will give away some weakness for others to exploit. This occasionally makes it difficult for women, and on occasion other men, to really understand what’s going on in our minds. I say occasionally other men because just like we can’t show our own emotions, we can’t show interest in another man’s emotional state either.

But there’s a loophole. A shortcut if you will. If you truly want to see what matters most to a man, the one place you can look is his cell phone. I know, it may sound silly, but a little known fact about men is that they like the idea of keeping readily available those things that matter most. If you scan through the pictures he has taken with his camera phone, you will discover the things he holds most dear.

Now, some of it may be no surprise. A new father’s phone will be littered with baby pictures. A car enthusiast will have pictures of engines and paint jobs. But the really informative stuff is the stuff with staying power. The photos that were taken at some distant point in the past are the indicators of emotional attachment. A man will typically cycle through his pictures on a fairly regular basis, deleting those that are repetitious or poor quality, as well as those that have lost their value. I recently had a purge of a Christmas photo of an uncle wearing a leopard print Dr. Seuss hat. It was funny at the time, and perhaps could have been used against him later, but I just decided I didn’t really care that much about it anymore.

If a photo is still in there, it means that the owner regularly looks at it and makes a conscious decision to hold onto it. Now unfortunately we can’t definitively determine why he has these photos. But it can be a way to confirm that things you thought he had lost interest in or never had interest in are in fact matters of great importance to him.

Harumph

It's hard to blog when you're in a bad mood. I'd much rather just sit here and sulk about the mean thing I said to my wife. Of course the fact that I instantly regretted it doesn't help. And of course, I should have apologized right then, but that would have ruined a perfectly good storm out. It was good too. I rattled doors and windows and everything.

I know the instant I go and apologize, all will be made right in the world. But still I sit here, typing away. I don't know why I have to be so hard headed sometimes. I really don't know everything, despite whatever claims you may have heard (said by me) to the contrary. The real problem is my wife is just as hard headed as I am, and of course that means that neither of us can admit when we're wrong, and things just blow up from there. I would like to think that I have my moments of humility, however. As a matter of fact, I think I'll go have one right now.

Just a Quickie

I wanted to really push my luck by getting this last one in before it was officially Sunday. Where I am it is still Saturday, even if other parts of these great United States are on the other side of midnight. I have plenty of excuses for posting late, one of which includes a trip to the ER, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Hasta Luego.

Paul Blart, Intern

Yeah, it turned out work isn't picking up quite as much as I thought. I had a little chat with my boss today and he said we can lower the pucker factor to threat level orange. So that's good. I still had to work on a day off though. Can't get that back. Hours of my life, gone forever. And my baby's life. Precious moments of her rocking back and forth, on the verge of crawling. Her precocious stares where she looks like she could easily be 25 years old instead of 25 minutes.

I was going to make a joke about how I don't really care about all of the stuff I'm missing by working and going to school full time, but the more I think about it, the more I think maybe I do care. But we are choiceless. The extra income we get from my VA benefits is a necessary part of our budget, so I have no choice but to go to school. It's kinda like having a second job, only I don't have to work very hard and at the end I'll have a lot more job opportunities. I guess it's like interning with a mall cop. If interning with a mall cop was something you could put on a resume-ay (I do that instead of the accent mark cuz I don't know how to do the accent mark) without people laughing at you.

Easy...Eeeaaasy

I'm taking an online class for the first time this semester. So far (week 1 down, 5 more to go) I've been pretty good about keeping up with it. This is significant for me because I'm not much of a self-motivator, as evidenced by the 75 extra pounds I carry around. The only problem I've noticed is in the discussion topics the instructor posts to create a discourse amongst my peers and I. I've developed a tendency to blog.

Everyone else puts short, rather brief opinions about the subject matter and how it affects them. I do research. I spent half an hour googling the effects of Hugo Chavez's policies on the rate of inflation in Venezuela just so I could make a joke that was accurate.

So far, on the two topics he has posted, I've contributed 5 times. Three of them were essentially one post but it was just so long I had to break it up (and accidentally deleted one section and had to recreate it. I hate trying to do that. It never comes out as good as the first time I write it.), which meant coming up with not one, but 3 clever titles to go with each post.

In Under the Wire

Yeah, I'm typing this in the 3.42 minutes I have to spare between work and school, because work suuuuuuuuuccckked today. By that I mean I actually had to do some. And not just some. It was a lot. Like, there was walking around and stuff. Also, this one kinda fruity guy was acting all weird to me. Maybe he figured out that I'm married and therefore not available. Okay, that was kinda harsh. And ridiculously self-absorbed, but we all knew that part was a joke right?

But yeah. So not one, but 2 of my myriad of dormant work projects all of the sudden sprung to life and needed, nay, demanded my attention. Usually one of them will stir slightly, sending me a document or two that needs to be edited and returned within a week or so. It generally takes me a grand total of 30 minutes to perform such a task, so I don't have a lot of stress and strain in my professional life.

But not today. Oh no, today was different. It was special. Today, one of the project managers that I "work for" decided he wanted this whole slew of documents created from scratch. Correction, he was wondering where a whole slew of documents were, despite never showing the slightest inkling of interest in them up to this point.

And then on top of that I screwed up this other document a couple months ago, but it was okay cuz two other guys screwed up their parts on it as well, so it had to all be redone ASAP but nobody was saying it was all my fault or even all that concerned about it being screwed up. Except maybe the guy who found it, but nobody really listens to him anyway, so it was all good. Aaaaand I'm late for class.

And Then Things Took a Turn For the Worst...

Yeah, so you remember the fun, wonderful, great, and all-around put together advisor I talked about in a previous post? Well, guess who my summer math class teacher is! Go ahead, guess. I'll wait. That's right! Mr. Wonderful himself! I just can't seem to stop using the exclamation points!

I mean, he has a doctorate in something, so he is understandably familiar with the teaching process. And he did teach in what many believe to be the most difficult academic pipeline in the military. But of all the classes in the entire scholastic program here, why did he have to choose mine as the launching point for his return to teaching? Man I'm glad I didn't chew him out there in his office. That would have made for an awkward first day of class.

The Experiment

Okay, so I'm going to try and be a real blogger for a month. I think everybody goes through a phase like this, where the guilt of ignoring your blog eats at you to the point of wanting to regurgitate whatever nonsense flits through your skull for the sole purpose of being heard by somebody, somewhere in the world, even if it's only so you can be heard making the crazy noise by pursing your lips and flicking them with your index finger while humming.

Did you just do it? I did too. I'm the one writing this and even I couldn't resist. So I'm going to try and post every day. For a month. At the heart of this experiment is an attempt to find my voice. I feel like I've been all over the place with this thing since it started, and while that effectively reflects my eclectic nature, I worry that's it's too wandering and random to do anybody any good. So, let's see what happens.

In the Thinking Position

Okay, so I had a strange thought. This might go so far as to be classified as deviant, but this is just how my mind works. The sooner you recognize/accept the abnormality that is me, the better off you’ll be with life in general.

So, to the odd thought. What if you were in a public restroom, doing your, you know, business. Dropping the kids off at the pool, we’ll say. And all of the sudden, a pipe burst from the toilet behind you. Perhaps it had suffered too many errant kicks-attempting to flush without touching anything with your hands. You really can’t touch those handles, people. It may be weird of me to not want to touch the door handles leading out of the restroom, based on my repeated observation of people going straight from stall to exit. But the handle on the toilet is guaranteed contaminated. I mean, they wipe, then they flush. There’s no middle ground there. I have yet to witness a restroom patron finish their business without flushing, go wash their hands, and then return to exorcise the demons.

But I’m getting off topic. So the pipe has burst, and you’re still mid-squat. What do you do? Do you wipe up, all the while getting soaked with toilet water? Do you run out and look for another stall to finish up in? And if so, what if there are no other open stalls? Then you’re just a goober with their pants around your ankles, standing out in front of everybody.

I guess there’s a third option. You could just pull up your pants and soldier on, hoping that there aren’t any visible stains to concern yourself with. Of course, if you’re soaked in toilet water, a little brown downtown will be the least of your worries.

Hooray for an A!

Yes, it's been a while. Yes, I'm yet another blogger, starting yet another post about how long it's been since he posted. I think it's harder for guys to maintain a blog. I don't want to sound sexist or anything, but it just seems like we're more heavily weighed down by the need for content. I'm kidding, of course. I fully expected that to sound sexist.

I'm still kidding. Some of my favorite bloggers are women. Actually, come to think of it, almost all the bloggers in my reader are women. Even the communal blog I post to occasionally is filled with nothing but women. Why is it this blog thing has taken off for the women and not for men?

Don't get me wrong. I know there are male blogs out there. But they all pretty much stink. Except for close friends who's lives I am interested learning more about, we of the less fair species don't seem to have what it takes.

Just so it doesn't seem like I've completely gone off the deep end, the title of this post refers to my achievement of straight A's in my first semester back at college. I don't think I've ever gotten straight A's in my entire life. I remember in Kindergarten getting all S's (it stood for Satisfactory; the only other option was a U) but that was the last time I reached such a grand summit.

Born on Veteran's Day

Why is it when bad stuff happens (money-wise), it all happens at once? I make quite a bit of effort throughout my day to maintain my finances in such a way that we can have most of the things we want in my family. But it seems like just as I get on top of things, and start to get to a point where I can get ahead, something (or somethings) comes along to screw it all up.

This time it was my brilliant college/GI Bill advisor, who recommended a class that I didn't need for my major. For those of you not familiar with the Montgomery GI Bill, you don't get paid if the class doesn't relate to your major in some way. Well, the VA people didn't find out that this class doesn't relate to my major until mid-April. This means that:
a.) It's too late to drop the class without it hurting my GPA.
b.) I've been getting paid for this class for the last 4 months, and will now have to pay back the money (it will come out of my next payment).
c.) I will get paid less for the remainder of the semester than I had anticipated.
d.) This happens just as I'm needing this money to cover the cost of the summer semester.
e.) I've essentially wasted every Friday night of 2009 at school, taking this class, instead of being at home with my family.

Now there are those who may contend with my whiny-ness, stating either that I should have verified that I needed that class before taking it, or I should be happy that I get to go to college for free (in fact I make a little bit of a profit off the whole deal). To those people I would like to blow a juicy raspberry.

First off, you're right, I should have gone behind the advisor and double-checked his work. It was foolish of me to assume he could do his job. In my defense, he lulled me into a false sense of security by taking the time to sit down with me, walk me through the process of enrollment, and answer all my questions to the best of his ability. Little did I know his complete lack of job experience would soon cost me thousands of dollars.

As to the second point, I take offense at the suggestion that the GI Bill is a gift. Yes, I only had to pay $1,200.00 over a period of 12 months (and then another $600.00 kicker) and will, once it is all said and done, reap a benefit from the program of somewhere in the vicinity of $47,628.00, but I really do feel like I've earned that money.

I guess my biggest problem is that fact that he didn't seem all that bothered that he had thrown my life into shambles, completely wrecked my budget (vacation during the Spring/Summer break is looking less and less likely), and made it extremely difficult to pay the mortgage for the next 3 months or so (Which just went up about $200.00 due to some mis-management of my escrow account. Yay for the banking industry. I should have just gone with the ARM, so I could ignore my mortgage payments for a year or 2). When I confronted him on the problem, he gave me a blank stare, followed by, "Well, there's not much I can do for you. Try this lady. Maybe she can help."

It was a wrong number.

I like watching the shadows move during a sunset. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but they start to move really fast as the sun sinks lower and lower on the horizon. Usually, such a past-time would be relegated to the ranks of paint drying or grass growing. But at sunset, that's when things really get interesting. Sometimes if there's a shadow moving across a chalkboard or whiteboard, I like to mark it and then see how long it takes to move a foot.

Sleepy and Dopey

So I think I need to give myself a bed time. Lately I've been getting to bed at around midnight, which kinda sucks since I (try to) get up at 6 every morning. I am definitely one of those people who needs 8-14 hours of sleep a night. The only problem is, how do I enforce it? I could get my wife to do it, but that starts down the long slippery slope from wife/lover/goddess-of-my-life to mother-figure. And that ain't kosher.

The best solution I've arrived at so far is to get rid of the cable TV (gasp). That way I wouldn't flip it on when I got home (at around 9pm), since the only channels we would get would be showing the news at that time (I hate local news). This might solve my problem, but it would mean that the missus wouldn't have anything to watch during her long days at home alone.

I'm stumped. I've got to change something soon, because I won't be able to get away with these naps at work for much longer.

What a Great Idea! #6

Yeah, I'm tapped out. I figured at least one other person would have a good idea to share by the time I made 5 weeks (actually 3 weeks, I made the last two up on the spot), but apparently all the good ideas are already thought up. Oh well. Back to the drawing board for ideas I guess. I'll keep you all posted if I come up with anything else.

I kind of feel like Tom Hanks on Castaway, like this blog is my own Wilson and I know it won't respond to me, but I still keep carrying on conversations with it. Maybe it will keep me from going insane too.

Um...what?

As I mentioned in a previous post, there were a couple phrases, idioms, euphemisms, whatever they're called whose origins were shrouded in mystery. At least, to me. And since the reality found here is of my own creation, they are officially shrouded in mystery.

The first was 'dead ringer'. Now, to give myself a little credit, I am familiar with other such phrases (I'm going with phrases okay? You don't like it, write a letter to somebody.) that institute similar words. For instance. 'Saved by the bell' comes from the practice of attaching a bell to the gravestone with a string trailing down in to the buried casket. The point of which was to prevent anyone from being buried alive.

Another olde tyme phrase with similar word usage is 'Send in the ringer'. Of course as we all know this one is in reference to a competition of some kind in which a participant is entered under false pretenses or presented in such a way to misrepresent their abilities. Neither of which has anything to do with somebody looking exactly like somebody else.

The other one was 'apple of my eye'. I got nothin' on that one. The best I can come up with is the 'apple a day keeps the doctor away', which makes no sense whatsoever. Or maybe people used to somehow mistake small apples for eyeballs? Any ideas? Or do you have any such phrases whose origins are unknown?

What a Great Idea! #5

"Honey, where are the pants I was just wearing yesterday?"

"I put them in the hamper. I thought they were dirty.You left them laying on the floor."

"But I only wore them for a couple of hours yesterday. They're still okay to wear."

Does this sound familiar? Well have no fear folks, because I have the solution. I'm talking about the Almost Dirty™. (Okay, it's not really trademarked, but I thought it would look cooler that way. Of course, I've kind of ruined that with this long parenthetical explanation.) The Almost Dirty is a handy little device to help separate out those clothes that just haven't reached the level of ripe required for cleaning.

It's a fairly simple design, with hooks and baskets that hang discreetly out of the way on the wall, so when you take off those bumming-around-the-house shorts at the end of the day, you'll know right where they'll be the next day. It comes in several different configurations. As a wall unit, a stand alone, and even one that can hang in your closet (though that won't get much use from men).

No longer will men complain about not having that shirt that they just took off. No more will wives complain that they're husbands dirty clothes are all over. With the Almost Dirty, everybody wins!

I don't have a picture or design drawn up, but essentially it's a coat rack with some bars that hang parallel to the wall for pants, and some baskets underneath for the stuff from your pockets, or socks (if you're one of those weirdos who wears a pair of socks more than once), or whatever. The stand alone version is a free-standing coat rack, with an octagonal "halo" that pants can hang from, as well as a basket ring about halfway down.

Other options are a progressive chart, marked with smiley faces, that indicate how long the clothes have been there. If it's 2 days old, hang it on this hook, if it's 5 days old hang it on that one. The faces can progress from happy to vomiting. Kind of like the pain chart at the doctor's office, only with smells.

Oh, the Voices

I have got to stop using the radio to wake me up in the morning. Or at the very least, put a better station on than the one I have now. All day yesterday I was hearing a rock-and-roll version of Taylor Swift's Love Story, and now I can't get Kelly friggin Clarkson out of my head. Of course, now that I'm talking about it, Taylor Swift is back. "This love is difficult, but it's a reee-eal." Sigh. Yeah, cuz she has it sooo hard.

What a Great Idea! #4

While I haven't stated this before, I feel it necessary to say that if any of these posts have already been thought of, feel free to mock and deride me to your heart's content.

This week's idea is motivated by by hatred of all things cat. Namely, their litter boxes. I'm sorry, but what possible reason could I have to debase myself enough to clean up the defecation and urination of a fellow human, let alone a lower life form?

Now before the hate mail starts coming, I know there are plenty of people who make their living doing just that. My point is that my pride, coupled with my disgust of all forms of excrement (mixed with a little germaphobia), makes it impossible for me to ever do such a job.

My invention is a simple one. All it takes is a valve to divert water from the toilet, and a hose that drapes over the bowl of a toilet. You partially fill a completely enclosed dome with washable pellets, and allow the cat to "have at it". Once the aforementioned feline exits the contraption, the entrance closes, and something akin to a wash cycle takes place, in which any matter left by the cat is liquefied and exits with the water, and the pellets stay in place.

Of course it's an imperfect system, since there would have to be a filter of some kind on the exit tubing to keep the pellets in, and that filter would no doubt have to be changed or at least cleaned periodically, but it would significantly reduce the interaction between you and cat poop. Which is my ultimate goal in life.

Ahhh, Bureaucracy

I work in an engineering environment. I am not an engineer, but I am a member of the, I guess you could call it the support staff. We are in the same building as the people who manufacture the things the engineers engineer. Until recently, I was one of the people doing the manufacturing. I guess you could say I switched sides.

When you are in manufacturing, and you come across a problem with a design, or have an idea on how to make a design better, you have to submit it in writing to the engineering staff. Then they review it, and if they agree, they implement the change. Sounds simple enough, right? Okay, sounds simple enough and boring, right?

Wrong. At least, on the simple part. This process can take up to 9 months. For something as simple as changing from Phillip's head screws to Flathead screws. That's because something like 15 different people have to see it before it can get approved. Some of them even get to see it twice. And the best part is, you get almost no feedback when you submit one of these change requests. So you just have to sit back, twiddle your thumbs, and hope for the best.

I used to be one of the submitters. Now I'm one of the 15. It's interesting, how being on the other side can change your perspective sometimes. Seeing what the other half has to go through can make a big difference on your opinion of how things work.

Not that that's the case this time. This time, now having seen both sides of the issue, it turns out my first impressions were right. The 15 are just a bunch of guys who don't really care about the manufacturing people, and unless they get poked (preferably with a sharp stick) they just sit on stuff, sometimes until they die.

Now you may be saying to yourself, "But Nook, aren't you one of the 15 now? Couldn't you be the change you want to see in others?" And you'd be right. I could. But it's a lot easier to just sit on stuff like everybody else. Besides, I don't want to be the one guy who does everything really well.

That has 2 negative impacts. One, everybody will start looking dirty at me and give me the really hard shoulder bump which is just mean and hurts a lot, because I'm showing them up and potentially pointing out the fact that they aren't doing their job. Second, the reward for a doing your work well is typically more work.

See, management types don't like having to ask their employees 5 times a day, "Did you get this done yet? When are you going to get this done? Why didn't you get this done by the time you just told me you would have it done?" So when they find that special guy who can work independent of supervision and really gets things done, they load him up. Also, they try their best to hide him from the world, so no one else finds out about him and tries to promote him.

Of course, I'm saying him in the gender non-specific sense, since everybody knows that those management types would prefer a woman over a man, since they could pay her less.

What a Great Idea! #3

Yeah, I know, I missed Monday. If there's one thing you learn about me through this process, it's that I don't do deadlines. I'll never work for a newspaper, or a restaurant, or an organ delivery service. I'm just not that guy. But anyway, here's the latest.

Okay, this one is short. I think that whenever Corona beer stops using the dumb relaxing-on-a-beach-without-showing-any-faces/one lone palm tree lit up with Christmas lights from 1982 as their advertising campaign, they should buy the rights to the song "My Sharona" and change it to my "My Corona".

Also Not That Bad

I meant to have these out this weekend, but stuff came up, I have a life, maybe you should get one, whatever. Here's the rest of them. Enjoy.

13. I have traveled to 20 countries on 4 different continents over the course of 9 years and I can't find a single picture of me in front of a single significant landmark or monument that would prove that I have visited any of those places. Okay, that was bragging, but I snuck it in there, so it doesn't count.

14. I cannot juggle. I have tried to learn on several different occasions, but for some reason I just can't get the rhythm or the timing down. I don't think it's my coordination, because I'm pretty good at some other stuff like hacky-sack and such, but juggling eludes me.

15. I am the worst chess player I have ever met. I am so bad it's scary. I was about 18 years old, and I taught my 10 year old cousin how to play, and he beat me on the following game(s) . One chess program I played had a myriad of computer opponents, starting with "the king" and "the queen" as the most difficult opponents and continuing on through the whole royal court until you got to the easiest character, the street urchin. The street urchin kicked my butt, every single time.

16. I used to collect everything. Keychains, matchbooks, t-shirts, buttons, dice, shot glasses, sunglasses, hats, bouncy balls, hacky sacks, puzzles. You name it, it seemed like I had a group of them stashed somewhere in my room. Then one day I just didn't see the point anymore. I still have some of the stuff I used to collect somewhere, in case any of you have any of those collections. I'll be happy to send it to you. If I can find it.

17. I think the phrase 'ignorance is bliss' is one of the truest things anyone has ever said. I'm glad I have gained most of the knowledge I have, but there are somethings in this world I wish I never knew about. Like skorts. Who the $%@#* came up with skorts? Seriously people.

18. I sometimes take the digits in a number, like a phone number, and subtract and add to them until they are all even. For instance, if presented with the phone number 932-5718, I would take 2 from the 9 and add it to the 3, then take 2 from the 9 and add it to the 2, which would give me 554-5718. Then I would take 1 from the 7 and add it to the 4, and take 1 from the 7 and add it to the 1. Then I would take 3 from the 8 and add it to the 1. That would give me 555-5555. I don't know why I started doing it, but I can't seem to stop, and I get very excited when I find a number that works out like my example where they are all even.

19. I never liked the taste of coffee. I don't drink it anymore, but when I did I never had any that was any good. I would always put mounds of sugar and creamer in it, or buy from Starbucks as a venti mocha half caf crappacino (or however you spell it) and call that coffee. But just a straight up, black cup of coffee always turned my stomach.

20. Same thing with liquor. Any kind of liquor straight is just awful. If you dress it up with fruit juices or soda it isn't as bad, but I just never liked the taste of any of them. I always feel like the story of the emperor's new clothes when I talk about stuff like this, like there's no way anyone else could actually like these things, but they act like they do just so they fit in. No, I'm not too full of myself. Why do you ask?

21. I hate not knowing where phrases come from, like "Apple of my eye" or "Dead Ringer". Why do we say these things? It really bothers me sometimes. Okay, it bothers me all the time. So sue me.

22. I really really like owning a gun. I don't know why, because I never felt like I was in danger before I got married. But now I am constantly thinking about the evils that lurk right outside my door. Especially while I'm at work and my wife and infant daughter are at home. I know if a bad man wanted to do bad things in my home, a wooden door probably wouldn't stop him. I feel fairly certain 13 rounds of 9 millimeter ammunition center mass would do the trick though.

23. I don't know squat about home maintenance or car maintenance. My wife's uncle, who works in air conditioning, had to tell me to change my air filters more than once a year (I apparently had the kind that needed to be changed monthly). He told me this while he replaced the part of my air conditioner that had been fried. Actually, that was about 3 months ago, and I don't think I've changed my filters since. Hmm.

24. I play games on my phone while I go to the bathroom. I used to think that was gross, handling something you held up to your face while you do...that. But I came up with a system that ensures no cross-contamination. Honestly, I think if I could find a way, I would just spend all my time playing tetris. I mean, it's tetris. Who doesn't like tetris?

25. I never wanted to be a writer when I was a kid. There were dozens of potential jobs out there that I aspired to throughout my childhood (though rarely with any real zeal (hey, that rhymes, cool)), but never anything to do with writing. I hated writing in school. Too many rules, too much research. Then I got to college and it was like a whole new world opened up for me. I started to enjoy it. I still don't want to do it forever, but it is kind of fun sometimes.

So that's a little about me. Some of you may have found it interesting, most of you probably just skimmed. I get it. I can be a bit wordy. It's just what I happen to come up with and then bring forth, similar to how an infant will bring forth their recently ingested milk when they aren't feeling well.

What a Great Idea! #2

So here we are, the second installment of my new weekly post. I know how riveting my diatribe on TV advertising was, so I'll be hard-pressed to top that (my big fat fingers slipped and made me type hard-opressed; just thought that was funny). But I think I've succeeded.

I've been puzzling over this one for years now, ever since my military days. There is a big problem with keeping soldiers cool when they are in certain situations. They have a lot of body armor they have to wear in combat, not to mention the everyday guard positions that all military personnel are forced to participate in at some point or another. This is true for for other professions as well, like policemen and firefighters who wear heavy uniforms. Also, those who participate in most sports, as well as your every day outdoorsman.

My solution to this problem was the water shirt. The water shirt is a article of clothing with semi-rigid tubing sown into it that wraps around the body. That tubing has a regulated flow of water pumped through it to assist in cooling the body, much the same way a heat exchanger works.

My idea is to then connect the tubing to a small fan pack worn on the hip that will have a set of fans similar to those used in laptops. These fans will pass air over the water as makes a couple of loops through the pack, thus chilling the water before it returns to the tubing around the body. There will also be a very small pump attached that will facillitate the water movement.The main flow of water will be under the armpits, where nature agrees we need the most cooling. It will then split off to the front and back and work it's way down to the cooling station on the hip.

One problem of course will be leakage. How do you make it thin enough to exchange heat, while still making it thick enough to avoid being punctured easily? This is accomplished a couple of ways. First, A very thin material will be used on the interior side of the shirt to create the pockets the tubes will rest in. This will reduce the insulation between the tubing and the skin. Second, the tubing itself will actually be tubing inside of tubing, with a thicker tubing being wrapped around the thinner tubing, and gaps cut in the thick tubing on the side closest to the skin to protect it from outside damage while still being able to exchange heat.

Another difficulty lies in powering it. the fans and pump will draw a pretty good amount of electricity, so my first thought was some sort of piezioelectric power supply, that would take advantage of the movement of the wearer to help with power. In reality, however, that would probably only work in a limited number of applications, like the combat soldier or someone in athletics. So a small, rechargeable battery pack would also need to be included, perhaps on the other hip, so the wearer isn't as weighed down on one side.

Now, this has the potential to be unsightly. So it wouldn't be ideal for those in high profile positions, or in a meeting full of suits. But the policeman who's forced to wear a bulletproof vest would find a device like this quite useful. And the average man who wants to go for a run will feel like he's running on a breezy spring day, regardless of the conditions.

Those are a couple of my taglines for this product. Feel free to add your own. Of course, if you have any ideas of your own you feel like sharing, let me know and I'll be happy to put them up here.

It's Not That Bad

Okay, so since I don't want my weekly post to be my only post, I thought I should probably put something else on here. I don't know from where this sense of obligation springs. The beauty of an anonymous blog is the complete freedom to do or say whatever is on my mind, whenever it comes up. I guess there is some small part of me that hopes that a few people will start to read this, then a few more, then they'll all tell their friends and soon I'll have such a huge following that they'll be clamoring on local and national news syndicates to find out who this mystery man really is!

But that's just because, as I've said before, I have a much higher opinion of myself than I actually deserve. No no, don't try to argue. I'm not just fishing for compliments. I think of myself with these exalted terms, focusing only on the positive contributions I make to society, and ignoring all the rest of the idiotic things I do.

So when one of those facets of my life builds up to the point that somebody around me finally just says, "Dude, what's your problem?" Or better still, "What are you talking about? You're such a dork." Then I realize that I am in fact such a dork and that brings me back to earth for a little while.

But I'm sure my 2 readers didn't get on here to hear me complain. (I always like it when I can use homonyms in a sentence, like 'The maid made the bed' or 'The plane landed on the plain' or my favorite, 'I'll walk down the aisle in the church on the isle.') So instead, I thought I'd share some fun facts about myself. Don't worry, this isn't one of those narcissistic lists of my 25 greatest attributes. The fact that there are 25 of them is a complete coincidence.

1. I can touch my nose with my tongue. I'm not talking about the lame joke where you say, "I can stick out my tongue and touch my nose" and then proceed to stick out your tongue and touch your nose with your finger.

2. I can list, from memory, at least 4 combo meals from every single nationwide fast food chain in America. Except White Castle. Cuz I don't smoke drugs. This should probably disturb me more than it does.

3. I still remember the opening paragraph to the Gettysburg Address that I learned in 5th grade. The reason I still remember it is I have spent the last several years proving I still remember it to anyone willing to sit still long enough.

4. I still remember the Shakespeare I memorized to impress women, not realizing it was (at the time) the 20th century and most of the women I wanted to impress couldn't care less about Shakespeare. As I've already stated, I was a little unaware of how the world worked back then.

5. I have learned 2 phrases in 6 languages (I used to know more, but I have since forgotten them). Those 2 phrases are, in no particular order, "Do you speak (insert language)" and "A little, and badly". So that whatever language someone is speaking that I'm trying to pretend I know, I can always get at least a little chuckle and, have a good excuse for shrugging my shoulders at them when they begin their rapid-fire assault in their native tongue.

6. My first memory is when I was 2 1/2 and I was on a small fishing boat with about half a dozen other people. I was sucking on a grape tootsie pop that my Grandmother had given me and I accidentally dropped it overboard. My 4 year old brother, who had an orange one, threw his over too, just to keep things fair. Ain't brothers swell?

7. I can't remember the last time I was really sad. I just don't get sad. I think there's something wrong with me. I can remember my grandfather's funeral when I was 5 or 6, and I tried to be sad about it, because so many other people were crying and I felt guilty that I wasn't. But I got bupkiss.

8. I tailgate people all the time. Now, in my defense it's much more common in my part of the country than in others I've been too, so it's not as bad as if I did it where you live. The significance of this statement is I still get a little annoyed when people do it to me.

9. I don't really like infants. I love kids. I love playing with them, I love teaching them stuff, I love watching them grow, but I just can't get excited about infants. They don't ever do anything. More than that, they don't react to anything. At least, not with enough consistency that any sort of scientific study would call conclusive. I can't wait until my kid can actually talk and walk and all that stuff. Of course, I might look back at this in 20 years (if we're all still here, 2012 is coming) and kick myself for wishing she would hurry up and grow up already.

10. I occasionally catch myself reading fortune cookies and horoscopes and trying to fit their portents into the current or future events in my life, thereby lending them some kind of credence.

11. I'm such a snob. I used to like reading anything, watching any kind of movie, or watching just about anything on TV. Now I'm nothing but a critic. Which is funny, cuz I kinda look like the character Jon Lovitz played on that cartoon. Kind of, but not really. But I spend all my time saying 'That's so dumb' or 'I can't believe they made a movie about that' or 'who writes these commercials?'.

12. I've been training in CPR and First Aid for almost a decade now, but I'm fairly certain I could never bring myself to actually press my lips to some fat old guy going into cardiac arrest to save his life. Also, the idea of removing something jagged from where it punctured some guys side and bandaging him up creeps me out. Also, broken bones give me the willies. Arms are not supposed to just hang down like that halfway between the elbow and wrist. It's just wrong.

I'm just going to do half of them right now. I'll put the other half up later. If anybody even wants to read the other half. Anybody? Whatever.

What a Great Idea!

So I've read a bunch of weekly blog post themes, and I thought I'd give that a try as well. My idea for a weekly blog post is a weekly idea blog post. I have some ideas (some good, some not) on ways I could potentially improve certain deficiencies I see in the world around me. The only problem is that I am too lazy to make any effort toward implementing these changes. So I have decided to present them to the world to see if anyone else would be interested in implementing them.

My first post in this vein will be toward the TV advertising agencies of America. There is a big problem with people fast forwarding through your commercials, thanks to the invention of the DVR. Now I will admit to being a culprit of this particular crime myself, back when I had such technology available to me. But it is so easy to skip over the commercials now, that they have been rendered next to useless.

I suggest we harken back to a method of "commercial"ism that was used in days gone by. My idea is to use the actors for a particular show in the commercials aired during that show. Better still, to use the same sets as well. That way, when someone is fast forwarding, waiting to see their favorite program pop back on, they will be forced to pause more often and increase the amount of time they spend watching your commercials.

This would also help with the people who are as technologically defunct as I am, who simply leave the room when the commercials come on. They would also have no choice but to sit and watch since they wouldn't know, for a few seconds at least, if it was just a commercial or if the show had returned.

Of course there are numerous budgetary concerns for such an idea, what with the actors no doubt expecting more money than your average commercial actor would want, but these things could be included in their contract with the main show.

This isn't the most thrilling idea I've come up with, but it is one of the more fleshed out, thus bringing it to the top of the list. If you have any interesting ideas, or any suggestions about mine, feel free to let me know.

Sorry, but life is good

I feel a little guilty, seeing as the last post on this blog was dated almost a month ago. I'm not sure where the source of this guilt lies, since my weekly update continues to report a grand total of 2 visitors a week. But the guilt remains. Must be my upbringing. What can I say? Things are going pretty good. I can't even think of any piddling little detail I can exacerbate for the purpose of amusing my 2 readers.

I guess I could tell a story. Let's see... It can't have too many personal details. Some people are already getting a little too close. I know, I'll tell you about the time I got lost at a Mennonite Quilt Auction. It was a blustery Autumn day in October, somewhere in the Midwest, and I was tightly wrapped in my jean jacket with waaaay too many pockets. Man, the crap I used to carry around in that thing is incredible. It was all so stereotypically little boy too. Half a yo-yo, a super bouncy ball, some double-bubble (I can't stand it now, but I used to love that stuff), an odd bit of steel I had found on the ground that vaguely resembled something that could potentially come in handy. I was very much a pack rat back then.

Anywho, we were wandering around what I guess were fairgrounds, taking in all the sights and sounds of a bustling rural community. It was a Saturday, so the crowds were out in force. We all stuck close to one another and made our way to the main stage to see what was being proffered. It was a very interesting experience to see/hear my first auctioneer. There were so many assumptions about them being barrel-chested old men with thick handlebar moustaches bellowing out across a crowded room with a torrent of words so fast that it seemed like a foreign language.

Let me tell you, this guy did not disappoint. He was a little more barrel-shaped around the midsection than the chest, and his moustache was a little scrawnier and salt-and-peppered than I expected, but man did he spew forth with a steady stream of-well, I'm not entirely sure I am qualified to say what was coming out of his mouth. In the hopes of propriety I can only assume it was bids being placed, but to be honest he could have been cursing out my mother for all I know.

Despite the intrigue at this new and exciting experience, my siblings and I soon grew bored with the ever-rotating display of quilts. So to stave off the mischief that typically accompanies such boredom, ma and pa decided to do a little more wandering (read:wear out the little ones with excessive walking) before settling in to begin their bidding.

We had no sooner left the small stadium where they were doing the auctioning, when we came across some sort of penny display. This was great for me since just a few months prior I had begun what would be a life-long obsession with coin collecting. So I paused there briefly to see what they were up to. Unfortunately, I was the only one who paused.

Let me set the stage for you here. There were thousands of people at this small event. Got it? No, but seriously, there were hoards of people, moving very quickly from event to event. It reminds me of traffic on L.A. roads, as well as some of the big cities in Texas, where you are about 4 1/2 ft away from the car in front of you going 80 miles an hour. It's not really like the traffic in New York, cuz that's pretty much just at a standstill all the time.

So I look up from the penny trough, assuming that my big brother will be blocking my path and I'm surprised to find my path clear. Like, completely. As in there were only a handful of people left in the area of this booth. And none of them were related to me. This display was set up in the entrance to the auction building, so I rushed outside to try and catch sight of my clan. But they were nowhere to be found.

Not one to panic, I quickly reassured myself that I had heard which displays in which building my mom had planned to visit, so I could just head in that direction and catch-up to them there. It never occurred to my 8-yr old mind that they would actually notice being short one child and return to the last spot they had seen him. So I spent the better part of an hour wandering the fairgrounds searching for my family, with nothing but half a yo-yo for company.

At some point I had the brilliant idea that I could just head to the car, since at some point they would have to leave (if they hadn't already) and so the best place to be would be by their only means of transportation. It just so happened that the car was quite a ways away, which meant I was out of earshot of the announcements over the PA system they had started to make thanks to the vehement cajoling of my dear sweet worried sick mother (see where the guilt comes from?).

So cut this long story short, I hung out by the car for a while until I started to get cold (that denim was fashionable, but it didn't do much to cut the wind) so I headed back to where this all began, not really sure what I would do next. It just so happened that as I was walking into the auction house, my dad was walking out. Cue the joyful reunion, rushed explanations, the telling of how my dad almost bought a $900 quilt because the auctioneer mistook his wild gesticulations to my mother as a bid. It was great.

I look back on it now with such a shudder to think if I lost my child at a crowded fairground for 45 minutes, and the sheer panic that would have overtaken me by that point. I try not to think about it too much.

I have plenty of friends...

Another good one is, "I wasn't really in a clique in high school. I was friends with everybody." More like, "I was friends with my parents." Today I write about one of our greatest social morays. That is, our social Quasimodos.

Everybody knows one. Most people know several. They are the people that you "have" to spend time with, rather than the people you "want" to spend time with. That may be a gross over-generalization, but it more than includes those I am referring to.

Essentially, there are people in the world that somehow made it to the adolescent development of about 11 or 12 and decided it was far enough. They are the ones who just don't get it, whatever "it" is, although each and every one of them, despite any protests to the contrary, desperately want to.

How do I know? Because, I used to be one. (Dun dun duhhhhh)....(used to?) I grew up in the world of make believe those social midgets among us call acceptance. I believed I had plenty of friends, because television told me that it was normal for smart, well-adjusted, generally put-together young men to get picked-on and bullied mercilessly. Of course TV didn't say this was a daily, if not hourly, occurrence, but I was able to infer.

Also, the socially challenged (that's my last one, I promise), or SC's, create their environment. How is this accomplished? By carefully crafting the boundaries of their reality to only include those people who accept them and enjoy their company. For most of us, that only includes very close family. My own cousin was in the same class as me and a member of the "gang" of boys that tormented me throughout my early schooling.

Sure, I had friends. Two, to be exact. That was for the whole of elementary school and middle school. One of them was more socially awkward than me (only because he didn't care (no, I'm not contradicting what I said before, but he had far less concern for acceptance than I did. He was an exact duplicate of Napoleon Dynamite. Right down to the snow boots and Trapper Keeper. I'm not even joking)). The other one was probably the nicest guy I knew throughout that entire period of my life. He was just friends with everybody. Everyone liked him, without him being popular at all, if that makes any sense.

But I believed that I was accepted. I knew I wasn't cool, but people would talk to me (occasionally). The truth is I would talk incessantly. To anyone who would listen. All the time. We had a system of punishment in grade school that included talking in class(1/2 a mark), fighting (2 marks), being late to class (1mark), etc. I was almost expelled because I got so many marks for talking. That was it. Just talking. Mark after mark. When the expulsion review board met (I'm not even joking) the principal looked at my record of talking, looked at the teachers responsible, and said something to the effect of, "Maybe we should just challenge him more academically."

Because that's how we SC's fool ourselves. That's the Achilles Heel of any path to rehabilitation of anyone you know like this. We are good for something. And we cling to that like -ahem- a child clings to his blanket. That one thing we are gifted with, be it math skills, singing ability, bow-hunting skills, computer hacking skills, whatever. That gets us attention, much the same way a freak show garners it's following. Those people have no interest in bringing home and/or hanging out with these abnormalities, but look at that one guy shove a nail up his nose. Isn't that cool!

So we think 'People think I'm cool' instead of 'People are only friends with me so I'll help them with their math homework'. And it's a nearly unbreakable cycle. Because the people willing to hurt our feelings to help us see the light (the bullies) are the same people whose voices are forgotten as the day is reviewed, and the ones we are willing to listen to (very close family) doesn't want to hurt our feelings/is an over-protective mother who sees nothing wrong with her baby spending all their time at home (not the case for me...at least I don't think so).

If you have one of these people in your life, I have a method of solution. How I was able to solve my own shortcomings and become a paranoid schizophrenic, certain of annoying someone around every turn. It's a simple process. It works for kids or adults (though a bit harder for adults). You just have to make them your friend. I felt each and every one of you cringe at the thought of that, but it's what has to be done.

And I don't mean the kind of "friend" where you say hi to them at the supermarket, and know a single fact about their lives that you constantly ask them the status of. I mean a 'invite them out with you to events or shopping and have them over for dinner' friend. Then, once you're close, you tell them everything they are doing wrong. Maybe not all at once. But casually mention how disgusted you are when people burp in public (sex neutral) or scratch themselves in public (mostly the guys) or don't use proper hygiene (unfortunately sex neutral).

Don't mention it just after the SC has done or said or acted out your pet peeve, but maybe after someone around the two of you has, or at random, or when you see it on TV. Your new friend will take that information to heart. They will seriously consider trying out a brand of deodorant (any brand will do), or over-hear you telling someone to go to the bathroom to make those kinds of noises and do just that. It's a long, arduous process (kind of like this post), but keep in mind, this person wants to be accepted. They may not realize what that entails, and the hours in front of the mirror a young woman has to spend to get ready (not 12 minutes) or the physical activity a guy has to maintain to remain fit (not reading and posting blogs), but if they work up to it, they will be grateful as they leave you in the dust for their new cooler friends. See, they turned around to wave. You didn't see it? Aww.

Well, Shart

Men are, by all accounts, less concerned with gas than women. It's a fact of life, brought on through a cycle of encouragement from our elder men that we then pass on to our own offspring. More often than not, when faced with a painful bubble and alone, or perhaps as a passive form of spousal abuse, or more commonly in an effort to amuse those of the same sex that surround us (they were brought up in the same cycle), men will let freedom ring.

Now this is no small matter. There are the obvious repercussions that effect all within olfactory range. But there are risks to the perpetrator as well. While slight, there is always the chance that it isn't gas, desperate to get out. Now these occurrences are rare, and typically easy to detect. But there are those rare times, perhaps early in the morning, or after a long night of drinking, when our judgement (as well as feeling in our extremities) just isn't what it should be. Thus the shart is born.

It's an unfortunate word, as it is married to a word I typically withhold from my usual dialogues. But to change it to the more kid-friendly "poop", and we are left with "part", which can easily cause a great deal of confusion.

"Mommy, I parted!"
"You farted?"
-whinier-"No Mommy, I parted!"
"You parted what? The Red Sea?"
"I parted in my pants!"

Mom starts breaking out the needle and thread, and Junior worries that the punishment for this offense is far greater than he anticipated.

Now for those of you who have never experienced or even witnessed such an event taking place, let me set the scene for you. Imagine, if you will, that you have just realized something so profound, so ominous, that your entire demeanor changes. You immediately leap to your feet, like a person possessed. But instead of rushing off to accomplish some newly realized life-goal, you very slowly, while at the same time very quickly, make your way to the restroom.

For any of you who have been witness to such events, you know what a special category they fall into. It is without a doubt, one of the most instantly recognizable and incredibly entertaining things anyone has ever seen. It has all the necessary elements of comedy. It's spontaneous and unexpected (and how), it is something unfortunate befalling someone else, and it involves poop. That's the trifecta.

Suffice to say the reason for this fecal-filled post is due to my own sad occurrence. Yes, you read right. I parted in my pants. I'm not afraid to say it. Especially since this is a completely anonymous blog. And now forever will be. Worse yet, I was only a couple of hours into my day. So I'm sitting at my desk, happily typing along, when I felt the urge. I had low expectations, so I let what I thought was a little gas slip out. Oh how wrong I was.

I of course, immediately rushed (sort of) to the bathroom, all the while hoping to minimize the catastrophe. So what ensued turned into a sort of leaning-back-and-squeezing-in-while holding-my-pants-out-without-looking-like-there-was-anything-wrong run/walk. Luckily I'm just a few dozen steps from the facilities.

Now all the while, some small part of me held out hope. Hope that I was mistaken. Hope that the results of all this effort would not be in vain. So I get into the room and almost start taking down my pants before I got into the stall. Now that would have been bad, since there were other people at the urinals. Worse yet, I knew one of them. So I casually made it look like I was adjusting myself and went into the stall.

Well, I won't go into too many details (HA HA HA HA HA) but suffice to say while there had been an accident, we did not have full penetration. Of course this left me with yet another dilemma. Do I clean up as best I can and soldier on, or do I remove the offending (offended?) garment and join the ranks of the commandos?

Well, I attempted the first option, with little success. So on to plan B. Well, the problem was, everyone and there brother (almost said mother, that would have been confusing) decided that moment was the best possible time to crowd into the stalls around me. Now, I don't know about you, but I think I would be able to tell what was going on if the guy next to me started taking off clothes.

So I waited. And waited. Things were starting to get sore. Eventually there was enough of a gap that I could make my move. But then it hit me. What do I do with it while I'm washing my hands and exiting? I can't exactly leave it sitting on the counter. So I come up with what I still consider a brilliant solution. I removed one shoe and one pant leg, got my leg out, and left the other leg in. I made sure the offense wasn't pressing against anything, and got the heck out of dodge, with a slight bulge around my upper leg. No one was the wiser.

Of course, when I got back to my desk, I had to struggle to get it out of my pant leg. That would have been an interesting discussion if my boss had come around the corner.

Me:"Have you seen that movie Zoolander?"
Boss:"No, I'm straight."

For some reason, I had a Ziploc bag sitting on my desk, which is now being used to seal in the freshness. I resisted the urge to suck out the air as I closed the bag.

Economy sucks

Pretty much everything to do with economy of any kind sucks. Maybe I'm preconditioned as an American to think less is in no way more, but the fact remains that anything to do with economy, economics, and any other word that gets it's root from the Greek oikonomiā sucks.

For starters, our economy sucks. And not just because of greedy bankers and incompetent politicians, but because nobody involved has the first clue what they are talking about. Not to say I am some kind of expert on the subject, but I've been around the block enough times to know when I'm being mushroomed*. This whole system is waaaaaayy to complicated to explain with a single theory to incorporate Life, the Universe and Everything. But yet those darn humorists economists just keep on trying.

It's so funny to see things like this, where a group of "experts" will take all known data and throw together a hypothesis based on that data. The only problem is that they only have about 10% of the data. What results is akin to several overweight, middle-aged men chasing after a chicken. If you don't know what it looks like for someone to chase a chicken, watch the movie Rocky, and then instead of Sylvester Stallone picture the old guys.

Every time one new facet of the problem gets discovered, there's a flurry of activity to
a.) Incorporate that new aspect into their already loosely formulated idea
b.) Debunk the new fact since it doesn't fit
c.) Be the first to come up with a whole new all-inclusive solution, regardless of how ridiculous.

The economy also sucks because there's so much activity about it and so much discussion that it has become a mandatory course in college. I am now taking said course. There are many reasons this is not fun. One, I am not college-age. I blame the military. But because I am not college-age, the text is not geared toward me, but to the budding, hopeful youths of tomorrow who surround me, idealistically believing that in just a few short years they'll complete their degree and go out and really make a difference.

Since I know better, I feel confident that this (along with 95% of the rest of the courses I have to take) are a waste of my time. I mean, for crying out loud, I'm going for a business degree. How hard is it to run a business? Balance input with output to make a profit. Duuuuuuhhhh. They have all these classes on leadership and other such nonsense. What are they going to tell me that I haven't already experienced by having a job? It's not like there's some super secret managerial technique that they can teach me that will make me the best supervisor in the world.

"All you have to do is play this ultra-high frequency tone three times a day and your employees will increase their efficiency 20%." Every business is different, every job is different, and nothing I learn in those classes will help me be a better leader. Either I'm a good boss and listen to my employees (when possible) or I'm a jerk and do whatever I can to get ahead.

But I digress. The economy class is the epitome of such stupidity. "If you want to sell something, first you have to make it. If you want to make something, first you have to figure out how." Holy Hannah! Are there people in our higher educational systems today that sit in these classes and say, "Huh, so you can't lay everyone off and still make money? Who knew?" It's so painful, and it's only made worse by the self-righteous instructor who just knows that what he's teaching could one day save your life.

And it all boils down to economy sucks because I don't have any money. Stupid $140.00 books. What a load of bull.

*Mushroomed-to be kept in the dark and shoveled a bunch of horse manure.

Bucking the System

So I found out today I have the Loudest Lunchbox Zipper In the World. It's probably the loudest zipper period, but if I just put "loudest zipper in the world" some minds will go straight to the crotch. Unfortunately I made this discovery at the start of my day in my ultra-quiet cubicle. To put you in the proper mind frame, imagine trying to open and eat a bag of potato chips at the library. You slowly tear open the top, the screeching plastic ripping apart, only slightly masked by the half-hearted cough you let out to try and cover it. Then take the chips, and one by one put them in your mouth. Of course you have to struggle to get your lips closed so the crunching sound will be somewhat muffled. All the while everyone around you knows exactly what your doing and the only thing you've accomplished with this charade is to make yourself look both like a jerk and an idiot.

So that was a great way to start my day. You may be asking why I, a grown man of...some age would be bringing a lunchbox to work. Well I'll tell you. While 99% of the blogs I have read have decided they are going against the norm and not starting a diet this year (FYI, 99% would probably be considered the norm, I don't know where ya'll got your math skills), I've decided to fight this trend by going with the other supposedly more prevalent trend of starting a diet.

Yeah, that's right. I'm a guy, and I'm dieting. After all, swimsuit season is just around the corner. But seriously, I'm fat. Fattie McGee ain't got nothin' on me. There are things that jiggle on me long after the ride has stopped. After serving this country by living in a tropical paradise for a few years, I got out to a life of decadence and sedentariness (it's a word, I looked it up). It has slowly been catching up to me over the years, until finally I breathlessly arrived at my desk one day to realize that walk up the single flight of stairs was hard.

So no more soda or fast food for me. And since everything here at work more or less falls into one of those two categories, I have been relegated to ranks of schollchildren everywhere, with a pretty new red lunchbox with an incredibly loud zipper. Well, it's actually 2 zippers, but I only use one of them and open my lunchbox halfway, which forces me to try and shimmie several oddly shaped lunch-type objects out throughout the day. Oh, I forgot that part. Part of my diet is to eat several small meals a day. So I'm not just ripping into this sucker around noon. Oh no. This goes on all day long. I feel such pity for those who sit around me.