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 |  Groovy Blog v 2.0 |
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| I swear it was an accident. Maybe if my brain was younger and functioned better, it never would have happened. But it's not and it did. People my age probably shouldn’t get behind the wheel. Riding lawnmowers make for brutal weapons. My Dad’s been visiting my oldest brother in Alaska the past few weeks. He was set to arrive last night, so I spent yesterday sprucing up his place up north. It’s a rural setting with a huge yard filled with quite a few trees and bushes; each one containing about 4,529 spiders of various size and creepiness. If you want to mow the place right, you have to swallow fear and go for it. Combat mowing, with near constant contact with the spider-filled vegetation as you maneuver the riding mower tightly around and under shrubs and dangling branches. I’ve mowed his place before, but after yesterday, let me just say the spider economy is thriving this year. There were several times I nearly dove off the mower and rolled on the ground to try to shake the filthy sob’s off, but I was afraid the mower might wind up in the pond. “Swallow” fear. Sigh. Back to my tragic tale. When I first stepped outside yesterday, I noticed a baby barn swallow on the back patio rock. He was all alone and the last of the three to jump the nest above the window overlooking the patio. He hopped around to face me - so cute with his little bandit eyebrow markings – and I stopped to say hi. “Hey there, cute little bir-DIE,” I sang in my best sugary foo-foo voice reserved for cute animals. There are two kinds of people in this world -- those who change their voice for cute animals and babies, and those who don’t. If you don’t, there’s a good chance your heart is colder than most. My heart is warmer than most. The last syllable of the object of your affection can range anywhere from one to fourteen octaves above the previous syllable, depending on your vocal abilities. There are all kinds of variations to this, from a cute low growl that builds up to the crux of the foo-foo, but it’s all recognizable. “Such a sweet little pup-PY!” This can be done in reverse, too, with the first syllable being the high note -- “PUP-py” – but can cause serious vocal chord injury if you’re not experienced, as can the more complicated three-part rise of words such as “Cu-TIE-PIE.” My son and his colder-than-most heart laughs at me and thinks I’m insane to talk this way to the cute creatures of this planet, but it doesn’t feel right to walk up to an adorable baby swallow and mumble, “Hey….wazzup?” Once again, back to my tragic tale. I’m sure you know where I’m going with this. Little bir-DIE? Riding lawnmower? Yeah. So there I was, about an hour into mowing, when I approached the back patio area. Last I knew, the cute little bir-DIE was safely on the patio rock, but after an hour of mowing, my petrified brain had long since forgotten that the little bir-DIE even existed. I was riding tight up against the flowers and patio, my mind wandering back to the sexy girl from a past job who always hit on me, and wondering who her favorite president was and if she liked to bite the “lid” off of peanut butter cups to get to the yum-MY center like I do and if maybe she had any cute little ba-BIES or pup-PIES or ham-STERS in her life now. Baby swallows make no sound when you mow them. Not like boulders and sticks and garden hoses. In the mower, no one can hear you scream. It wasn’t until several minutes later, after leaving the patio area, that I noticed something dark and mangled shoot out from under the mower and land constrastingly (a new word I just made up because I needed it) lifeless on the freshly cut carpet of green. My heart jumped and enough of my brain returned to 2012 to realize what I’d done. A mower can create such beauty and such heartbreak in the very same revolution of its blade. I can’t blame the sexy girl from my past. If it hadn’t been her occupying my stagnant brain, it would have been the dead porcupine I found in the woods at age 12 and how much fun I had with that. The body was too mangled to make a positive ID and swallows have no dental records, but forensics believe it is indeed the cute bir-DIE from the patio. He was nowhere to be found. Still, I’m holding out hope he still exists in one adorable piece. It’s all I have right now. Last night I dreamed of being swallowed by swallows on lawnmowers as they chirped, “Such a cute little per-SON!” while the Angry Birds tune filled the air. I never should have gotten behind the wheel. |
| “July 12. On this day in history, Abraham Lincoln became the first standing president to witness a battle.” I get these little facts from my homepage when I open my browser each morning. I wonder who the first sitting president was to witness a battle. And I find myself wondering what my own personal ‘this day in history’ would be. Most people remember the big stuff – birthdays, weddings, etc. – but there have been tons of other events in my life that would make me say, “Oh yeah….I remember that”, if only my homepage would remind me. “May 19. On this day in your history, you had a major accident in your training pants and was late picking up your date to the prom.” Real history’s great and all, and it’s good that people know the dates and details of things like Custer crossing the Delaware to battle the Nazis, but personal history means more to a person. “Aug 4. On this day in your history, you found a Playboy magazine under your older brother’s bed, then took it outside and riddled it with BB’s and set it on fire before returning it. Much wrath was experienced.” (that one’s true) 365 days in a year, but only a handful of memories that I can truly lock down the date. I’d love to know what the most significant, or most memorable at least, event was for each of those days in my history. “Feb. 23. On this day in your history, you watched ‘A Room With A View’, the most boring movie in the history of the world. You successfully came out of the coma four years later on June 19.” Though it doesn’t matter, it would be fun to know the dates of the little things. The day I broke my wife’s antique sewing machine because it was the closest thing to punch when I whacked my elbow hard on the counter (wrath was experienced)…the day I ate the first of the 19,549 peanut butter cups I’ve consumed in my life…make that 19,550…the 3-fishbowl night at Lenny’s Lounge that put me in another coma…first car…first kiss…first pair of non-white underwear. “May 29. On this day in your history, you set your best friend’s fiancé’s hair on fire.” It grew back. And the scars were mostly covered. She survived and has led a productive life. “Nov. 29. On this day in your history, you married your sweetheart. Also on this same day in your history 11 years later, you forgot about the first one. Wrath was experienced.” I have kept a personal journal for years, but I’m too lazy to read through it to find any nuggets (or turds) in my personal history. I just want God to do it for me and put it on my homepage. |
| My wife sells Avon on the side and I’m always trying out the new perfumes because I feel it’s important to know the male opinion of these fragrances. Plus, I like to feel and smell pretty. It’s completely unfair that men’s colognes all come with names like “Rustic Barnyard” and advertise the “rugged scent of cows, rotting cedar, and manure-infested dirt”. Sometimes we men don’t want to smell worse than we already do. Yesterday, I spritzed some “Hawaiian Shores” on my wrist and rubbed both together, but before I could even take a test snort my wife said, “Don’t do that, you’ll crush the notes.” “Crush…the notes? What does THAT mean?” “That’s what they say. Don’t rub. You won’t get the full effect of the fragrance.” “Are crushed notes useless? Weaker? Perhaps they need to be crushed to reach their potential. Take the dead skunk, pancaked on the highway. His notes were not fully realized until he was crushed.” She had no answer for that. And I’ve never been to Hawaii so I can’t say for sure if this new perfume smells like its shores, but I highly doubt it. Perhaps if I hadn’t crushed its notes? Changing subjects. The other day my son and a friend were climbing Lolo Peak, which is about 20 miles south of town as the crow flies and 33 as the bat flies (yeah, I know…recycled joke). I happened to be hiking Mount Jumbo near town and had just reached the top at the exact moment my son’s text came in saying he had summited Lolo. It’s a straight visual shot from Jumbo to Lolo so I texted, “Flash me!” Not THAT kind of flashing! Perverts. But maybe he thought it was, because I saw no flash. Moral of the story: If you’re going to flash someone, make sure you’re close enough or have large enough flashing equipment. This is the world’s worst blog entry. Perhaps its notes were crushed. But I wanted to at least post something since I’m heading off to the family July 4th bbq soon and tomorrow morning I’m leaving on a backpacking with my boys for four days. Maybe I'll have better blog notes to avoid crushing when I return. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday, free from explosive dismemberment (or any other kind) and drunken dismembered relatives with explosives. May the Fourth be with you. |
| I was listening to a country song where the guy sang, “don’t take no rocket scientist” to explain how he screwed up with the girl and I imagined some rocket scientist in the throes of a bitter divorce, kicked out of his house and living out of his car, turning on the dashboard radio one night between swigs of Jack Daniels and hearing that song and mumbling, “What the hell?” That was a really long opening sentence. I felt it needed to be. And sometimes I’m just not in the mood to be pushed around by a little dot. Think about it; where else can something as small as a period make everyone stop and obey so suddenly? Sometimes I’m just not in the mood to put up with the period’s crap. This was one of those times. Anyway, for some reason I’ve been hearing the “rocket science” reference a lot lately. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist”, “It’s not rocket science”, etc., and I can only assume it’s God calling me to consider a career change. But rocket scientists seem to be held (unfairly) in very high regard in all world matters and I don’t think I could take the stress of having to know everything about everything, from actual rockets to relationship struggles to everything in between. I saw a clip recently of someone mocking a beauty contestant’s answer to a standard pageant question by saying, “She’s obviously no rocket scientist”. As if a rocket scientist knows anything about world peace! They build rockets for pete’s sake! That’s kind of the opposite. Apparently rocket scientists are at the top of the brain food chain. This probably makes doctors and other scientists real mad (although “It’s not brain surgery” has had some success). It just doesn’t sound the same to say, “It doesn’t take a Paleontologist to figure that out”. I imagine once people find out you’re a rocket scientist you can forget about getting any help with anything because everyone figures that whatever it is, it’s not rocket science and you should be able to handle it on your own. I wonder if there’s a rocket scientist support group. That’s all I have to say about rocket scientists. Period. (Do you have to use a period if you spell ‘period’? Seems a little over the top.) I was informed on Twitter today that it’s already been 13 years since the Spongebob Squarepants Krusty Krab Pizza episode. Man, I’m getting old. Despite the fact that I’m pushing 80 or 90-years-old, we hosted our very first garage sale last weekend. Garage salers are like ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ people and I’ve never wanted to be their target, but we went for it anyway. The free donuts and coffee helped soften them, I think. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see I’m not good at haggling, so I was put on Donut Defender duty. “Will you take two dollars for this?” “No.” My skills were put to better use by standing motionless next to the donut box and staring stone-faced at nothing in particular, like a royal sentry. I take full credit for the donuts lasting well into the fourth hour. Putting on a garage sale is a team effort. I did my part. And with 80 to 90 years worth of crap accumulated, my profit goal for the day was two million dollars. We had a pretty good day, but fell a little less than two million short of that goal. |
| Once again my ageless Chevy truck with nearly 350,000 fun-filled and loyal miles is on loan to another member of my Ford-loving family while theirs is being repaired. This time it’s my son, whose latest Ford truck is in the shop till Monday. To add insult he asked if I could babysit his dog because it keeps jumping their fence, even though we don’t even have a fence he can jump. I feel like I’m in a country song. “You stole my heart and my truck and left me your dog.” Me and Chevy…like a rock. I’m like a rock because I’m stuck at home like a boulder with no wheels! I’m getting used to it. It seems others have my truck more than I do. Just another part of the never-ending saga of being a Chevy-owning parent, and the hound could be good practice for any fence-jumping grandkids that may arrive in the future. It’s like my Daddy always told me, “Son, it doesn’t matter how many cows you can fit in the barn if you can’t get the rooster off the henhouse.” Daddy drank a lot. Speaking of graduation, yesterday was the big day for local high schoolers. There always seems to be at least one kid I know each year who’s graduating. Wish that would stop soon because it’s a painful yearly ritual. But this year’s entry was Hannah Montana (real first name, anyway), the cousin of my amazing new daughter-in-law, and a girl who’s pretty amazing herself. She WAS dating my youngest son for nearly a year and I was kind of thrilled about that and the way-out-there possibility that maybe I’d have TWO super-cool daughters-in-law one day, but my son had to squish my plans like a fresh pile of dog crap on the boot heel of life when he broke up with her last year. But that girl’s so just so darn nice and polite and still as sweet as a king-size peanut butter cup dipped in a big bowl of pure honey and I love her to Reese’s pieces. Or at least enough to go to her graduation, and that’s a lot of love considering how brutal high school graduations are. “We, the graduates of the class of 2012, have so many challenges before us…………and we will face each challenge with determination and pride….….because the challenges we face are challenging……” Look around the room and you’ll see the attention spans start to break down when the ceremony crawls into its second hour. Everyone tries, they really do, but it’s just not fair. The human brain and body weren’t built for that kind of punishment. Dad starts fidgeting and trying to remember if he refilled the beer cooler and the propane for the post-graduation bbq. “…and we know that to face these challenging challenges, we must face them with pride…and determination...because only then will we truly be able to face the challenges that challenge us to challenge them…” Mom slaps Grandpa who’s staring at the class hottie while younger brother and sis text profanities to each other from four feet away. “…and we will better face these challenges by remembering the challenging words of the brilliant 14th century philosopher, Yevgeny R. Plorvanivanchenkomonavic IX who once said, ‘It doesn’t matter how many cows you can fit in the barn…’” Despite the intense boredom, I do enjoy watching young adults, so full of life, shining brighter than the sun with excitement and hope. You know, before life has a chance to crush them like a pile of dog crap under its heavy boot heel. It’s kind of cute. |
| While I was sitting in the drive-through at the credit union this morning, their little screen that displays tidbits of news and trivia showed that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake on this day back in 1983 or something. I forget the year. But I was instantly reminded of the time Mr. Steak burned my steak and how traumatic that was at the time. Still is, if I think about it long enough. Does Mr. Steak even exist anymore, or did they mutilate too many steaks and have to close up steak shop? I’ll bet even PETA got involved for the double mistreatment of animals -- first by killing them, then by doing disturbing things to the dismembered parts on the grill. My steak that dark day came out oreo-like in texture. It featured a crisp, crunchy black exterior shell that protected a soft and very chewy interior that resembled cold raw meat. Obviously I still haven’t gotten over it. Keeping on the uplifting subject of death, I see that bluegrass legend Doc Watson died yesterday. I love Doc’s music. Years ago in my long-since-vaporized blog, I wrote an entry about my love of bluegrass music, despite its bizarre lyrics. I don’t think a bluegrass album has yet been made without someone singing about being in love and taking his gal down to the creek for a picnic with some homemade cornbread before stabbing her in the head and walking to the jailhouse to tell the sheriff. Lots of songs about food and murder, plus the occasional varmint like Doc’s “Muskrat! Muskrat! What makes you smell so bad?” and his insanely good version of “Groundhog”, a bluegrass favorite of many performers through the years. Greatest lyrics ever invented, all presented in that backwoods, almost off-key holler accompanied by the best darn acoustic pickin’ and fiddlin’ you’ll ever hear. You can’t beat lyrics like “Pa fell asleep and the hogs ate him” or “I just don’t look good naked anymore” or “If I can’t live without you, how come I ain’t dead”. But the death and destruction songs are the best. Some of you have probably seen the commercial where the guy and girl are having a romantic dinner together and he keeps sneaking a peek at his phone to check the game, but tries to act innocent. This exact scenario played out the other day when my wife decided to invite my brother and his wife out for coffee and dessert on the very night of a HUGE Celtics game. My brother Jeff and I are diehard Celts fans. My bro’s wife had wanted to hear about my wife and daughter’s recent Christian mission trip to El Salvador and see some of the pics, but did they have to choose THAT night? The women were intentionally given the inside of the booth because I knew a laptop was involved and would be opened near the wall, drawing their attention in the opposite direction. This created the perfect diversion to discreetly set up my Droid with ESPN Gamecast running live coverage of the game. This was set up strategically behind the coffee creamer and sugar container where only Jeff and I could see it. The game got close and there were a few tense words muttered just loud enough to draw a confused stare from the girls, but in the end we got away with it. The Celtics won. They needed us and we came through against tremendous risk of home-life and limb. I doubt my brother heard or saw much of my wife’s stories of sharing the gospel with third world folks, so he might be going to hell. I’d already heard all about it so I think I’m good. I had drifted all the way to the bottom of the third page of blogs. That’s, like, a third of the way to rock bottom. Now I’m the king again. At the top, all by myself….but ready to start the slow slide back into the pit of blogs, fingernails clinging to the cold stone walls of the Blogville well. Hey, that almost sounds like a bluegrass song. |
| One day not long ago, my Dad made the quarter-mile walk out his dirt lane to check the mail and witnessed a low-flying pheasant get picked off by a truck on the main road. He went over and did a quick inspection before bringing the bird home and cooking it for dinner. Another time he watched an osprey dive into the pond in front of his house and haul out a good-sized bass before accidentally dropping it in the yard as he flew away. Yep, Dad ate that too. This explains a little bit about his simple way of life. “Use it up and wear it out” is one of his favorite phrases. Duct tape plays a very important role in his existence, whether it be holding together machinery, electronics or clothes. I love this about my Dad. He couldn’t care less about how something looks, he just wants it to work and he’ll try to keep it working as long as he can. There are health risks to this lifestyle. A common joke/question whenever we visit and he pulls something out of the fridge is, “What’s the expiration date on that?” Last weekend we found a jar of relish that expired April 2011, easily one of the freshest items I’ve found in there. The basics – milk, eggs, etc. – are updated frequently enough. Everything else, check before opening. I’ve found things in the dark recesses of his fridge from 8 years ago, not-so-coincidentally the year my Mom died. According to Dad, if it hasn’t changed color or odor, it’s still good. He once kept a block of cheese for years (openly visible in the fridge) just to see how many colors it would develop. He finally got bored and threw it out when it went through all of them and started repeating the process. There is duct tape holding together t.v. antennas, hoses, sprinklers, mowers, rafts, gloves, rakes…the list is endless. Once while watching my younger brother try to patch together an old golf bag with tape and stitching, he said, “Jeff, sometimes you just have to sh*t-can it.” We never let him forget that comment since he has never s-canned anything in his life. You’d think that would make for a lot of junky clutter, but it’s quite the opposite. He keeps the old stuff going and going so it’s all he ever needs. Dad is also like one of those labradors who are maniacally obsessed with finding lost items. You know the type – they’ll wander through the weeds for hours looking for the tiny stick you tossed. If we ever lose something, Dad springs into action. He won’t stop until he finds it. A few weeks back on Easter Sunday, we had a bucket of old golf balls and were hitting them from his back yard into his 80-acres of pasture. Together, we probably hit well over a hundred balls and then went out to collect as many as we could find. For the next week, I’d get a daily e-mail from Dad (yes, he has a computer…dial-up, of course), “Found 7 more today…..found 4 more today…” He enjoys it, I think, and it’s always a good way to get him out of the house so we can clean his fridge. No, he doesn’t have strips of duct tape holding together the living room furniture. He’s not quite that bad, though if it’s ever needed I’m sure he’ll consider it. My kids love him to pieces and I hope some of his simple lifestyle habits rub off on them…minus the potential food poisoning. That labrador thing could come in handy, too. |
| Just killing some time before I finally fall asleep on an exciting Friday evening, listening to my favorite old tunes on youtube (Roger Miller’s “My Uncle Used To Love Me But She Died” currently playing) and checking out the blog pages. Things I’ve found tonight: There are actually only 9 pages of blogs (I expected more) and the one at the very bottom of page 9 hasn’t been updated in over 7 years. I think it’s time. That means it hasn’t been used since before my very first blog entry on Halloween Day in 2005. Lots of others that haven’t been updated in years and years and years. I had a few “Oh yeah, I remember them!” moments, but it also reminded me of some others who have vanished. Darn ads on youtube. Messing up my mood and my rhythm. I can think of 5 or 6 WDC-ers who I grew pretty close to and would interact with frequently here and through home e-mail and chat, but who have stopped communicating with me through the years. I feel so used and violated. Ha. The nature of online friendships, I suppose. I try not to take it personally. In fact, I blame Obama. Blogging thrived here during the Bush years, but has done a steady decline ever since BO was elected. Check your own blog views and comments and you’ll see I’m right. It’s been all downhill since late 2008. But hang in there, folks! His four years are almost up and things will start to liven up here within about six months or so. Heh heh. Another thing I noticed? Blogs can be huge now! I didn’t check every single one, but I noticed at least one with over 1,200 entries. Given that this blog has a measly 141 entries in over 3 years of existence, well…it’s obviously the only blog I’ll ever need. Which means it’ll need some remodeling. Yeah, I think I’d like to do that soon. A new header and all that. Something manly and mountainous. With dead animals hanging on the walls and the rustic smell of smoldering moose poop drifting in and out of every room. If only I knew how to remodel a blog. It’s suddenly Saturday. Guess I’ll shut up now. G’night. |
| We had a glimpse of summer over the past weekend here in Montana with sunshine and temps reaching as high as the mid 80’s. I’m happy to say I did my best to absorb as much of it as I could and have made good headway in dulling my blindingly white winter skin cells to a point where people in the vicinity can downgrade to a 30 spf to protect from the reflection. The welder’s mask is no longer required in my presence, which is nice since they’re not very comfortable or stylish unless you’re a welder. Officials now say normal sunglasses should offer enough protection, but if you’re unsure just call your local authorities or remain indoors until conditions improve. Thank you for your cooperation. But today it rains. Continuing on with the family’s birthday-heavy April, today is my oldest brother’s turn. Fortunately, Mike lives in Alaska so I don’t have to buy him a gift. That’s kind of the unwritten rule of family members - out of sight, out of retail mind. I check their webcam up in Valdez almost daily and they still have close to three feet of snow on the ground. I told him he should probably move soon, but he seems proud of his snow. In the same way some people brag about their many ailments or how much alcohol they consumed last weekend as if it’s a badge of honor, Mike loves to talk about their massive snowfalls all winter long. I get constant updates, and it’s not like he’s a winter sports enthusiast or anything. His idea of snow fun is to crack open a brew in front of his 80-inch t.v. and see what’s on Netflix. For much of this winter they had eight feet of standing snow on the ground, so I don’t really blame him. Personally, I’d just move. I’m not really sure what happened during his college years that changed Mike from a bit of a first class a-hole into the humble and gentle first class really great guy he’s been ever since, but his brothers are happy. Growing up, Mike was one of those ultra-competitive types with a built-in 500,000 watt rage that went off with no warning. It meant nothing to him that he towered over his little brothers and outweighed them by almost 2-to-1 in some cases. He went all out in any sport and destroyed us. And if we ever made the mistake of scoring on him, he’d come uncorked and start snarling and swearing and growling and foaming while breaking anything within his grasp (but never his brothers, only inanimate objects, so I have to give him that). Bruce Banner had nothing on Mike except a groovier color change. Board games were no better. Monopoly, Clue, etc….all went flying across the room at some time or another. Missing game pieces were common in our house as parts tend to disappear more frequently when airborne. Chess was brutal. You’d think it would be easy to purposely lose a chess match, but when the winning moves begin to open up in front of you, sometimes you just can’t help yourself, even if you know better. Of course, we knew the king and queen and all the others would soon be taking their turbulent flight on Mike Airlines before the actual end of the game, but in a way we brothers knew that was a sign of victory, even if Mike wouldn’t admit it. And as soon as we realized he wasn’t going to send any of us across the room, we learned to play this way and gain a certain silent satisfaction when the rage came. But those days are long gone. I’m not sure what happened, but the change all those years ago was almost from one day to the next. Invasion of the Body Snatchers had come out several years before and I had to wonder if this new Mike was a gelatinous pod from space. He was gaining weight, but did not appear intergalactically gelatinous. We eventually felt comfortable enough with new Pod Mike to play games with him again and were actually able to complete them with no foaming or flights, win or lose, for the first time in our existence together. Even video games, which we were thankful didn’t exist in Mike’s pre-pod form. A flying Xbox console probably wouldn’t land as softly as a chess board. Now it’s on to my niece’s birthday on Saturday. She lives within the retail zone, but what do you get a girl who has a penchant for accumulating DUI’s? A cake with a file inside or maybe a bicycle so if she ever wrecks, she’ll only hurt herself. |
| Today is my twins’ birthday. Or is it birthdays, with an ‘s’? There is much to do, but they’ve reached adulthood now and it got me thinking about stuff from life at that age so I thought I’d blog first. I was born in a time when hippies ruled the earth. Or at least thought they did. Maybe that explains why a redneck like me has a deep love for the simple singer-songwriter music of long ago. Never the hardcore “If you’re going to San Francisco…be sure to wear some flowers in your hair” kind of stuff, but the benign and unifying borderline hippie music of John Denver, Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot, etc. that rose from the ashes of the fallen hippie empire. Yes, hippies still roam the earth and probably always will, but I’m thinking the drugs must have been better back then because today’s hippies seem more like zombies. I guess that’s another sign of aging. “In MY day, we made fun of REAL hippies!” I’ll never forget the day at the seasoned age of nine when I walked the two blocks over to my friend Joey’s house and heard the amazing sounds of Simon and Garfunkel for the very first time. I couldn’t get enough of “Keep the Customer Satisfied” and “Baby Driver” that day and bugged him to play the record over and over. Joey’s dad was actually the mayor of our town full of hippies and looking back I now realize Joey was a nine-year-old hippie himself. He was advanced for his hippie age and actually already an old hippie since the 60’s movement was long gone by then. But I didn’t know what any of that meant at the time. I just liked the far out tunes, man. A few years later my family moved 25 miles north deeper into the mountains and about that time I heard “Rocky Mountain High” for the first time. Best song ever, I thought, and listened to it endlessly. Now that I was a mature adult (just turned 11), John Denver and all the singer-songwriters of the 70’s were really becoming a part of life and who I was becoming. I vaguely remember people making fun of John and calling him a hippie too, but, again, I didn’t know anything about that. I just liked all those songs about frolicking in the Rockies like I was doing and our mountain home was surrounded by hippies on all sides anyway and they all seemed pretty cool so I didn’t mind. I kind of lost touch with Simon and Garfunkel for a while, though. That is, until senior year of high school when I became friends with Mike, the twin brother of the girl from France I was dating. He played guitar, I played guitar, and he loved Simon and Garfunkel. I got back in touch with their music and soon we were spending hours together, singing just about every S&G song ever recorded as well as some of our own. We called ourselves Mikon and Davefunkel (only privately, of course) and were sure we had a bright future singing folk tunes from 15 to 20 years earlier as we went off to college together in a different town. What can I say, sometimes the stupidity of youth takes away all rational thinking. Here we were, deep into the 80’s British pop explosion, and at the same time country music had become wildly popular again by getting back to its classic roots with singers like George Strait and Reba McEntire. But never mind that! We were going to take the music world by storm with our gentle harmonies and acoustic folksy guitar picking from an era most people had pretty much forgotten and were in no hurry to resurrect. See, our brains didn’t work properly, despite our drug and alcohol-free existence. All we knew was we loved to sing these songs and everyone else would love them too, by golly. First, though, we became music directors at a local church in our new town, but our style did not play well with the 142-year-old pastor. The Sunday we brought in a fiddle-playing granola girl to add to the mix was the last straw. The next day he dropped a five-pound fossilized book of hymnals in front of us and muttered, “Do these,” before shuffling off behind the church to smoke more cigarettes. Legend has it he used to be a nice man before we came to town and I occasionally saw flashes of that. We tried the hymns, but it just didn’t work so we made the natural transition from church to the bars. I want to thank God with all of my heart for preserving Mike and I and not allowing our asses to be completely and thoroughly kicked during that time. “What a dream I had….pressed in organdy….clothed in crinoline….of smoky burgundy…softer than the rain…” Good LORD! These are not the words you sing to a room full of buzzed Cowboys in a smoky Montana bar. Thank you, God. Thank you. Soon after, Mike got married and moved to Boston to work in the film industry and I stayed in Montana to hike and fish and…that’s pretty much it. Mikon and Davefunkel disbanded in their prime, but at least no asses were harmed in the making of our music. I want to go on record in saying I have never been a hippie, not even a little bit. I have the spotless all-Republican career voting record to prove it. Ha. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a hippie, but I just never felt the calling. I just liked the music…man. It would be easy to blame crotchety oldness as the reason I find the earliest music I ever listened to as still some of my favorite (back in MY day…blah blah), but that’s not really it. I remember griping when disco polluted the 70’s music scene and ruined my adolescent life. I was already screaming “Back in MY day!” and I was barely out of diapers…or grade school. One of those, but they may have coincided. I was pretty crotchety for a 6th grader. |
| I’m sleepwalking today. Maybe I should stop multi-tasking and give up the walking part. I was up till 3 a.m. watching “Winter’s Bone” in bed on my Kindle Fire of all things. I blame gypsy4evermore for this, but it was worth it. Definite creepy factor…almost reminded me of the old mountain gold claim residences up around nearby Garnet ghost town. I'd mention Martin City, but their barstool races moved them up the social ladder. Ha. Well, the girls have been sick since they’ve been home from El Salvador. Flu-like symptoms, though they assured me they didn’t drink the water or make out with their interpreters, but they’re sneezing in Spanish so I know they picked it up down there. Yesterday was 420 day so maybe they’re just stoned. I could possibly be stoned soon as well since the girls brought me back some funny-looking little cigars with no labels from one of the local markets. I’ve never been stoned (other than with rocks) and I don’t want to start now, but it would be rude not to take a few puffs. Continuing on with this rambling entry, I’m reminded of a topic I’ve always found somewhat interesting: What we become while under the influence of truth serum (alcohol or peanut butter cups or whatever people use to impair themselves). This study can only be conducted with adult specimens. When teens drink, they just augment their natural stupidity and vomit on their friend’s dog or car. But with adulthood comes drunken maturity and less vomiting. The truth serum works more accurately. I think most people get either silly or sappy, but maybe I should make a poll about that to get the facts. Anyone voting in the poll must be under the influence of their favorite truth serum to ensure accurate results, but if you drink don’t drive do the Watermelon Crawl. I just checked my eye color poll from three years ago last night and I’m sad to say my home green has slipped to a distant third after a strong early showing. It’s kind of become a two-eye race (or four if you have two and not one which would make three...though some people may have two different colors…like junkyard dogs, though that doesn’t mean you’re junk or dog-like) between brown and blue, but brown’s lead is smaller than I would have thought, so there is still time….especially since the voting will continue on forever or until wdc ends, whichever comes first. If you haven’t already voted or if your eye color has changed since you did, go vote. Inebriation is not required for that one. There is no “bloodshot” voting option. I am a conservative so you can rest assured there will be no voter fraud issues. If I wasn’t, green would be winning! My Endomondo sportstracker app has completely flipped out. It worked great for the first few months, keeping track of the distance, time and elevation gains of local hikes and runs and automatically uploading the data to their website, but lately it’s all over the map. Literally. In the past week it registered a local 4-mile hike as a 10-mile run I accomplished in a blistering 46 minutes…a run that ended when I ran straight into the western waters of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Then it showed another local hike as a 4-mile run through a secluded dry river bed in a central Nevadan desert. But my favorite was when it logged my 7-mile run as a 0-mile run at 33,000 feet above sea level somewhere above southern Idaho. No wonder I was so out of breath for that one! It’s kind of my Bill and Ted app. These recent entries are just an attempt to keep my blog awake. Like talking to yourself to keep from slipping into a coma after slamming your head in the car door, which I’m sure we’ve all done a hundred times. That’s all this is…..just trying to stay alive and hope there are better blogging days ahead. But maybe a coma is better. |
| Forgive me, Dear Blog, it’s been 12 days since my last blogfession. Wow, 12 days. 12 days! Feels like it was no more than…..okay, it feels like about 12 days. Time flies when you have absolutely nothing of interest to say. Let’s see, since I last blogged, the girls of the house left the boys in the house and went off to another country. They return today, actually. I haven’t heard much from them since they left, but I did get one e-mail from my wife telling me about her wonderful male personal interpreter named Ricardo whom she hit it off with instantly and who says she doesn’t look or act her age. I should probably be concerned, but I’ve been far too busy having mucho manly fun fun fun every single night to worry about that! Okay, actually it’s been pretty boring. My son works at 5 a.m. every morning so he’s out by 9 p.m. I last slightly longer. My main bedtime excitement is browsing the Kindle fiction selections. Never actually purchasing a book, mind you….just browsing and reading ratings. However, I did learn a few exciting things while the women were away that I can share. First, it actually IS my son who is responsible for the large loads of laundry (as I suspected and accused) since they haven’t really changed in size much since the girls left. However, it’s my daughter who is to blame for all the dishes. I’ve hardly had to wash any in her absence and usually it’s 1.5 loads a day. Also, cotton ball consumption has ceased entirely (totally expected) and surprisingly the toilet paper is probably still on the same roll as when they left 8 days ago, which proves women use it for more than it’s intended (or maybe guys don’t). I never could have learned these things if they hadn’t left and I’m happy for this knowledge. I can’t wait to tell them tomorrow! They’ll be so excited. Other than that, I did my daughter’s taxes and helped my oldest son and his wife move into a new place last weekend. It’s a cabin next to the river tucked in the woods that’s very rustic and a cross between Jed Clampett’s and something from Deliverance. In the entire weekend of moving in I only saw one small spider and one squished mouse. The spider soon joined the mouse in squishedness. I expected far more bugs and varmints. Oh, and only two piles of bear crap nearby so far. And tonight, on the final night of guy freedom for my son and I left behind in Montana, we went to see the Hunger Games in the BIG theater. The one with the HUGE screen and HUGE sound and HUGE auditorium and HUGE poofy seats and HUGE ticket price. It was my first time in the BIG theater and I want one. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to anything else. Totally groovy. From now on whatever’s playing there, I think I’ll watch. Loved the movie…Jennifer Lawrence plays a kick-ass Katniss! Plus, I always love movies without sex and bad language. Nothing but the good ol’ timeless fun of teenagers butchering each other. I can live with that. I rarely blog after hours like this. Feels weird. I’m off to try to stay up for my last night of manly freedom. I should probably have alcohol for this occasion. Oh, wait…I do. Forgive any spelling or grammar issues. Why is there such a HUGE gap before the comment section??? I swear it's not my fault. |
| Yesterday was my annual Good Friday hike. This is the 27th consecutive Good Friday I’ve made the same 16-mile trek into the nearby Rattlesnake Wilderness area. Wow, I’m getting old(er). Hard to believe I’ve been able to keep it going through all the changes in life – marriage, kids, different jobs, etc. – but now it’s a yearly priority. It’s a deeply spiritual day, of course, but it also serves as the unofficial kickoff trip to a new year of spring and summer hiking in the higher elevations. Despite that, I couldn’t convince my son to join me since he says our climb to the top of Stuart Peak in a blizzard the first week of January took care of that, but, by golly, ceremonial traditions must be upheld. So, I went solo, as I often do on Good Friday. I always try to get a couple of songs going in my brain as I start up the trail each year; one of them a tune that actually inspired the hike all those years ago, but yesterday I could not get that ubiquitous song my daughter always listens to out of my head. “Toniiiiiiiiiight……..We are young……So let’s set the world on fire!...”, which should cause concern to anyone not young who prefers their world not in flames, but so far she hasn’t been playing with matches any more than normal. Darn kids. When I was her age, music made sense, like Paul Simon’s “Where do allergies go when it’s after the show and they want to get something to eat” or Joe Walsh’s “The smoker you drink, the player you get”. Weed-infused music was much better in my day. Good Friday also doubles as a moose poop gathering day, but yesterday there was no moose and no poop. Some years they’re late in delivering like this, but soon they will give birth to thousands of fragrant little treasured eggs and I will return to reap the harvest. The weather sucked butt-crack, but it usually does on Good Friday. In all the years I’ve done this, I can count on one butt cheek the number of times I’ve been able to wear shorts and a t-shirt (cracks and cheeks in the same paragraph….I hope you noticed). It snowed the entire day, but at least it kept the hippies away. I didn’t see a soul (or a person or a moose) all day. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Color develops before fully brewed I thought I’d include an exciting pic of my campfire featuring the trusty charred coffee pot I’ve had forever and haul with me all over the mountains so I can stay properly caffeinated at all times. That caption is an inside joke to my brother in Alaska who doesn’t even know this blog exists, so that was probably a waste of good blog space, but I prefer to think that I increased my word count, also known as Blog Density (BD). (Not to be confused with Blog Efficiency Rating (BER) which I’m sure everyone remembers is calculated by dividing the current number of days in the year by the number of days blogged.) Anyway, I made it another year. I’m not sure how long I can keep this streak alive, but I’ll shoot for an even 100 then think about retiring. I expect science to get off their buttocks and start keeping us alive longer, or at the very least products like the 5 Hour Energy shots hopefully will improve to 5 YEAR Energy, so that’ll help. Otherwise, I can see the Good Friday hikes shortening as the years pile up until I’m the nuisance geezer in the family. “Oh, that’s right, it’s Good Friday….great great great great grandpa wants to go on his stupid hike again. Can someone drive him up there?” Much arguing ensues until great great great great grandson Zontar finally agrees to take me, then waits in the Chevy Algae-Volt hovercraft (retail $472,000, offset by a $42,000 government subsidy), smoking my medical marijuana while I shuffle my walker about nine inches up the trail and back in roughly four hours. But at least the streak will live another year. Happy Easter to one and all. May your baskets be full and always remember the reason for the season – Jesus and Reese’s peanut butter eggs. |
| When I was about 12-years-old, my best friend in all the world suddenly decided one day that he hated me and wanted to kill me real bad, all because I had the audacity to build airplane models made by Monogram instead of his personal favorite brand, Revell. Matt’s outburst threw me off-guard, but I instantly decided to hate him back and I wanted to kill him even worser. We hurled 12-year-old insults back and forth (PG-13 rated stuff back then. Modern youth have moved on to XXX and weapons) until we got bored and went to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watch Happy Days. That was my first experience with irrational product pride. Truth be told, there was little difference I could see in the two brands, other than the assembly instructions and those were about as opposite as they could be. Monogram: Step 1: Carefully place unopened box on clear table. Step 2: Place box lid in area it won’t get damaged. Step 3: Remove model parts and organize by number, lowest to highest. Step 4: Did you find a safe place for the box lid? Step 5: Are you sure? Step 6: Now might be a good time to use the bathroom so as not to be interrupted. Step 7: Attach OSHA and solvent-approved respirator to head and remove glue cap. Step 8: I really hate to keep troubling you about that box lid, but…. They were about 90 pages long, but Revell on the other hand got straight to the point. Step 1: Assemble parts 1 through 209. Step 2: Enjoy. I heard that Monogram and Revell eventually merged companies, so maybe they found a compromise with the assembly instructions. But that was never Matt and I’s issue anyway. It was just as simple as “mine’s better and you’re an idiot.” I just wanted to build the friggin’ model, but when attacked that day, I instantly became a Monogram loyalist willing to defend them to the death even though seconds earlier that was the furthest thing from my model-glue-sniffing mind (secondhand glue fumes….I never inhaled). Pride comes in an untamed and irrationally stupid form when you’re 12. Okay, actually at any age, but more so at 12. Matt shattered my innocence that day. As I rolled through the teen years, there were more of these battles. Coke vs. Pepsi (Coke), Burger King vs. McDonald’s (McD’s), Betty vs. Veronica (okay, not a product, but still a contentious debate. Betty.). Then with driver’s licenses came the big one - Chevy vs. Ford. Every “discussion” seemed to start playfully enough, but soon deteriorated into insults. I admit this is a guy thing. We’re stupid that way. At least as teens and young adults…..and regular adults. And as senior citizens. But other than that, we’re good. Actually, it didn’t take me long to figure out I just wanted stuff that works, regardless of what name’s on it. I now drive the only Chevy in a family of Ford lifers, and it’s MY truck they constantly borrow when theirs are being repaired. I’m still a (Diet) Coke guy. McDonald’s and BK are far from the only players in the burger game anymore, but if I had to choose between the two, I’d take Wendy’s. And Veronica just keeps looking better and better the older I get. Amazing how she never ages. But I think I’d take the bad girl now. Hey, she had a sweet side too. Betty didn’t have a bad side. She was one-dimensional. In the computer techno-age, the product pride war of our age is Apple vs. everyone else. Mac vs. PC. iPhones vs. Android. I have a PC and a Droid. I’ve never had problems with either, but I’d certainly be open to trying Apple products if I ever win a Mega Millions jackpot. I do enjoy watching this new battle from the sidelines, which you can do by visiting any tech product review website. Grammar-challenged techies fighting online over operating systems can’t match the testosterone levels of the old face-to-face Chevy vs. Ford truck wars. “haha, you maroonic looser…try running your lame hi-res hdmi on ur crappy single core droid without GSM or CDMA….haha…droidiot…haha. how’s that 480 working for u? hahaha…lololol!!!” “better than your java-less 7.2 hdspa, apple ass. why don’t you ask siri why your screen’s so small? If that wimpy 600 cpu can handle it. roflmaoshoisilghmdl!!!!!” I’m loyal to whatever works at the moment. Submit to me and do as you’re told and I’ll love you until you don’t. |
| I’m happy my blog still exists. I thought for sure that while I was sleeping away the winter, WDC would have taken it out with the rest of the trash, but I guess they missed it. What really sucks is I haven’t written a word here or anywhere since my last entry back in…whatever year that was. Well, other than a few checks I wrote out to the power and phone companies, but I was totally uninspired when I wrote them and it wasn’t my best work. But today I’m taking the day off from politics and I’m going to blog, by golly….if I remember how. Being a news and politics junkie can be taxing on the brain, especially in an election year. I’m addicted to them like some people are addicted to alcohol, porn and sausage. And with a smartphone and all the groovy social media apps, I can now stay informed and battle the enemy all day long wherever I go. It’s fun and exhilarating, but also exhausting and sometimes I just need a little break. I’ll get back to fighting the forces of evil bright and early tomorrow, but today I need to figure out why my wife keeps putting the remote control NEXT to the t.v. every night before bed. Maybe it’s just me, but this seems to defeat the purpose of the device. I’ll sit down on the couch and reach for the remote on the coffee table, only to see it resting next to the t.v. clear across the room, taunting me. Why??? I’ve tried to explain that the word ‘remote’ in remote control does not mean it’s meant to be placed in a remote location. So far, talks between both sides have reached a stalemate. And speaking of bath towels, another domestic impasse has come to light in recent months. I don’t know why I didn’t notice before, since I wash most of the clothes. When I take a shower, I throw the towel I use to dry off in the dirty clothes, but while doing laundry I noticed there are never any other towels to wash. I asked my wife about this and she said she just hangs hers back on the bathroom rack to air dry and be used again. Apparently the kids do, too. I’m no germabacterialmicrobephobeaphobe by any means, but I think I said, “You all disgust me” or something like that. “I’m already clean, I’m just absorbing clean water. What’s the big deal?” she explained. “Certain body parts get rubbed intimately,” I said. “So, if we were at a motel and the previous guest leaves a used towel on the rack, you’d be okay using it?” “That’s different.” Right. My wife and daughter are going on a Christian missionary trip to El Salvador in a few weeks and the first thing I’m going to do when they’re gone is attach the remote control to the coffee table with one of those cables you see in electronics stores to keep the customers from horking the iPhones. Then I’ll wash towels. In other big news, I made spaghetti last night which is not my favorite thing to eat, but is one of my favorite foods to throw. I get to chuck the noodles against the wall to see if they’ll stick. I don’t know who made up this method of testing doneness, or if it’s even accurate, but it’s always my favorite part of spaghetti night. Just so you know, it sticks to the wife and kids, too. Lots of foods do, I’ve found. And the spaghetti trick always makes me think of doctors delivering babies and throwing them against the wall to see if they’re done. If they slide off, they’re most likely a preemie and need to be treated accordingly. If they stick, they’re good to go. Baby Wall cleanup duty would suck. Surely I’m not the only one who thinks about that when making spaghetti, right? In even bigger news, I finally put myself out of my misery today and looked online for the lyrics to Keith Urban’s “Stupid Boy” since I’ve been torturing myself for over five years now with one particularly difficult line. I’d narrowed it down to “noses never want me like the knife we studied” which made perfect sense to me, but I guess it’s actually “no one’s ever gonna love me like she loved me” which could work too, I guess. As you can see, nothing much has happened in recent months. I bought a new shirt three weeks ago. It’s kind of red but not really. No new socks or underwear to report. I’ll let you know when that news becomes available. Have I said some of this stuff before? I can’t remember. It sounds recycled, but maybe it’s just a hibernation dream. I’m still not sure what year I’m in, but I think it’s time to wake up. Spring is here and the hippies are getting restless and naked while they search for places to occupy. I’ll leave you with this bit of hopeful news. Last night at Walmart, I noticed that all the Angel Food cake mixes were sold out while plenty of Devil’s Food mixes remained. This confirms what I always suspected -- that most people reach for goodness and prefer to leave badness on the shelf. Carry that hope (brought to you by Betty Crocker and Walmart) with you this weekend. I hope everyone wintered well. |
| So, my wife saw my last entry about my old girlfriend and flew into a jealous rage. She dumped my favorite glitter lotion down the drain, then set fire to all of my Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books. Then she tore up my Justin Bieber posters before pulling out the cast iron frying pan and hitting me over the head…made some eggs…then hit me again while kicking me in the crotch at the same time. While I was writhing on the floor wishing I didn’t own a head or a crotch, she drove straight to the bank and withdrew ALL of my personal life savings and donated the entire $2.17 to the Democratic party! I’m kidding. She doesn’t know care. Besides, she still interacts with her pot-smoking midget of an ex-boyfriend over on Facebook. I’m using that knowledge as leverage and will probably use it as a first line of crotch defense if needed. My laptop is such a pessimist. Every day I get a little box that pops up telling me my computer is equipped with SMART Predict software and that “we predict your hard drive will fail.” It’s been telling me this every single day for the past year and it’s getting hard to stay positive in life when my computer keeps bringing me down. I’m waiting for the day it really does fail and a box comes up saying, “Ha! Told ya’. But would you listen? Noooo….I’m just a silly little machine, right? What do I know? Well, it’s always the same. I always warn them, but they never listen. Humans…sheesh. Maybe next time you'll pull your head out and pay attention.” Next time I want a happy laptop that tells me, “We predict your hard drive and you will succeed today and every day. Peace out.” This will be only a short blog workout because the big wedding is only days away and I can feel myself being sucked harder into that vortex with each passing hour. Guests will start arriving throughout the next few days and from what it sounds like, they don’t appear to be in any hurry to leave, so my blog may go dark for a little while. I spent three hours in the ER last night with my groom-to-be son who was experiencing dizziness and nausea after taking a blow to the head while cutting firewood. Everything checked out fine – a very poor attempt at getting out of a wedding. He should have added amnesia….and aliens….and that he’s now gay….because so were the aliens…they did something and there’s not much he can do now. So many more realistic possibilities. My blog predicts all of you will succeed today. |
| I had one of those Bill and Ted moments last night. I’ve always had nostalgic tendencies, but usually they’re brief and fairly shallow. Last night, however, I guess all the conditions were right and I found myself firmly back in a place I haven’t been much since I left. It was late and I was the last one awake, sitting at the kitchen table looking through the Facebook pages I’d just found of the two brothers who were my college roommates. These two also happened to be the brothers of Helene, the girl from France I dated for nearly four years during those college years. As I was sleepily browsing through the photos of their current lives, there it was. Mixed in with all the others was a shot of Helene, taken back in the 80s at roughly the same time we dated, looking just as sweet and gorgeous as I remembered. And that’s when the Bill and Ted thing took control of me. Suddenly I was swooshing back through time, just like in the movies. In a matter of seconds I flashed by key moments in my life. My children’s births, weddings, different homes, holidays…..past presidents…Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter….oops, too far (I’m not very good at controlling the Bill and Ted accelerator)…stuck it in reverse…back to Reagan and …I was there. And I mean really there. I guess you could say I was truly lost in the moment. I stared at the picture and remembered every inch of her pretty face….every curve, every soft freckle of her fair skin. We were so in love back then. We knew we would marry and be together forever. We fit so well, and we couldn’t wait to see each other whenever we were apart. Four years is a long time to be with someone and it truly was a very good four years. I spent the next hour or so lost in those years and the things that were so ‘Helene’…the cute notes she’d write, the nicknames, how sweetly affectionate she always was, and of course, Saturday night date night which was always the highlight of our week. I’m not exactly sure what happened to Helene and I. There was never any one thing that led to our breakup and we loved each other to the end. Though we’d grown deep roots together, we were still young and sometimes things happen for a reason. In the next few years we both wound up marrying the true loves of our lives. I closed the laptop and sped back to the present….Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Michelle Bachmann…  …oops, too far again.But is it possible to have more than one love of your life? I think so. Actually, I know so. And if Brittany Murphy hadn’t died, she would have come around eventually. The vibes were too strong. A good friend told me I’ve been very lucky in love and I suppose that’s true. I love my family with everything I have and given the opportunity, I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. Hardly a day goes by that I don't look at my wife and think, "Wow...I can't believe this woman is all mine." But if Helene and I had married all those years ago, would we have been happy? Yes, I do believe so. Next time I have a Bill and Ted moment, it’ll be about guns and football and spitting and elk meat and other manly stuff. |
| Being a conservative Republican type, I am automatically labeled as one who rapes and pillages our mother earth for fun and profit, but this is only partially true and I have the reusable coffee filter to prove it. Paper coffee filters are less than paper thin and come in packs of about 9 billion, so I’m thinking in my lifetime of coffee drinking this little eco-filter is saving the life of one average tree…branch. Okay, maybe a stick. If everyone did their part, the world would have more sticks. I think my rape and pillage index numbers (RPI) are pretty close to the national average. I’m not as good as some, but better than others when it comes to saving the planet, and I definitely want to save it because this is the planet I spend most of my time on. I admit that my conservation efforts are part-time at best, unlike the scores of ‘environmentalists’ populating my town who claim to be hardcore simply because they drive a Prius, buy organic kale, and pull one handful of noxious weeds in a sea of 42 billion weeds. These same people bag up their dog’s poop on local trails, but leave the plastic bag on the trail, thereby creating a biohazard that wouldn’t exist if they’d just looked the other way when Rover unloads. The RPI numbers of these so-called environmentalists are no better than mine, but their FOC (full of crap) numbers are way higher. Every little bit helps, even the little bits of the hypocrites. Just admit that it IS a ‘little bit’ like the rest of us! And stop the discrimination! Outside of our local credit union is a section of the parking lot with a sign that reads, “Parking reserved for low-emission vehicles only”. I looked but couldn’t find the section marked “Parking reserved for high emission gas hogs”, so I parked there anyway, figuring that while I’m parked I ain’t emitting nuttin’! I feel like such a good environmentalist when I park and don’t pillage. Plus, I eat pretty healthy. Fruits and veggies are good. And if you can break a tooth on your bread, you know it must be healthy. Though I’m thinking of suing Walmart for peanut butter malpractice because their all-natural ‘no-stir’ kind totally required stirring and I almost got a cramp. I’m not into sustainability because I have no idea what that means, but it’s a word that makes the hippies healthy and happy and nothing’s healthier than a happy hippie. Personally, I’m into ‘stainability’ and is something I practice all the time, but this starts an evil chain reaction because now I’m supposed to buy ‘green’ stain remover which costs twice as much but only works half as well. But at least I’ll probably feel good about myself and have more sticks. Can you imagine a world for our children and their children without sticks? This blog is biodegradable and stainable and possibly sustainable. You can read it with a clear conscience without worrying about its effects on my favorite planet. My old blog was not and was carelessly discarded where it’s pillaging somewhere and not decomposing. If I wasn’t a Republican I’d feel bad about that. This new blog has a softer tone that will break down more easily when the time comes for it to meet that big blog in the sky. Hug a blog today. |
| Five unrelated and really boring thoughts, just to keep the blog blood flowing. Maybe it’s the late summer doldrums, but Blogville has crawled to a virtual halt and it’s important to exercise your blog regularly, even if you don’t feel like it. Otherwise it gets fat and lazy and doesn’t even care that it’s fat and lazy because it’s way back there on the 42nd page of blogs where no one will notice. It becomes self-conscious, reclusive and just plain unhappy. If you love your blog, don’t let this happen. Just a few simple exercises a couple times a week should be enough to keep it healthy. 1. The other day my truck was apparently parked too close to the mailbox for the mailman to pull up close enough to reach it, so he parked and left a note INSIDE my box telling me that he couldn’t deliver that day because the mailbox was blocked. I scribbled an apology on his note, but also asked that if it happened again would he please be kind enough to leave my mail with his note since he’s in the general area anyway. Didn’t get a reply, but it’s probably not a good idea to piss off a postman. 2. If the same annoying mosquito is buzzing around my head for years and years and I decide to just ignore it, hoping it will go away, but of course it doesn’t and every so often comes down and bites me, at what point does the blame shift from the mosquito to me for allowing it to buzz and bite and annoy for so long? And how do I get rid of it without actually squishing it? This concludes the deep and philosophical portion of the blog workout. It gets shallower and less strenuous from here. 3. My wife sells Avon and uses me as a guinea pig sometimes for some of the male products, particularly the Patrick Dempsey line. It’s not working. I’m still me and she’s probably disappointed. It’s possible I now smell like Patrick, but just typing that out made me realize I don’t really want to smell like another man. I want a smell all my own. I want my own fragrance. "Eau-de-Party - the new provocative scent from Avon. With a rugged bouquet of musk and corndogs, you'll smell like the man you always wish you were but currrently fall far short of being." 4. Lana and I were talking about DVDs the other day and she asked how many I owned. I wasn’t sure, but I’ve since checked. 106. It’s taken years and years to reach that number and they’re not all mine. It’s a family collection, kids included. My very first DVD was “The Cutting Edge” and the most recent was “Inception”. My collection favorite is “Never Cry Wolf” and my least favorites would be “Beaches” and “Mona Lisa Smiles” (wives…what can you do?). And though it may be hard to believe, I do not own every Brittany Murphy movie ever made. Probably only about 4 of them, I think. I remember checking Ebay several years ago for autographed Brittany Murphy photos. At the time they were auctioning off in the $15 to $20 range. Should’ve done it. Now that she’s passed away, they’re all well over $100. At least I still carry a pic of Brittany in my wallet, and I’m pleased that my future daughter-in-law supports me in my right to do so. 5. Whoever said money can’t buy love was a wise man. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness was an idiot. That was not a good workout at all and I really didn't feel like doing it, but at least it got my blog up off the couch. Now it needs a nap and I need coffee. |
| On this day in 1977, Elvis died. And my dad had a stroke. Not because of Elvis. Dad’s still doing well. Elvis…I’m not sure. I saw a couple of guys walking down the street arm-in-arm this afternoon and just assumed they were gay until I went past them and realized one of them was blind. Though they still could have been gay. Then I passed a man and woman arm-in-arm and assumed they were not gay, but could not confirm the status of their vision. However, by then I had learned my lesson and decided they were also gay and blind. The moral? Not all gay men are blind and not all straight couples are not blind while holding hands. Not that there’s anything wrong with being blind. For in my blindness I failed to see the real blindness that I would have seen if I wasn’t blind to the blindness of the blind. Amen. I’ve been inspired in recent days from a couple of gifts my brother brought back for me from his vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming last week. The first was a Maker’s Mark bourbon-infused cigar that has inspired me to drink and smoke more, but the other was a book on the life of famed Teton mountain guide Glenn Exum. I have to say 2011 has been a rough year and with all the worrying and stress, I’ve gotten away from the things that make me whole, like climbing and running and mountain biking, etc. I’ve done some here and there, but not like I’m used to. So I’m less than whole. I’m not sure what percentage I am. Reading the tales of Glenn and his buddies climbing all over the Tetons since the 1930’s with no ropes and nothing more than an old pair of football cleats is inspiring. I used to do that kind of stuff all the time, but I’ve let it drift away in recent years. This book has been a swift kick in the butt, which is better than a kick in the crotch because those tend to lower percentages. Getting kicked in the butt and crotch at the same time is rare, but it happens. Life’s little do-overs are good. Not that this was really a do-over, just one of those kickstarts. I’m not sure what I’d do with a real do-over. You know, the age-old question, if you had it all to do over again, knowing what you know now, etc., etc. Imagine the chaos if everyone got one. Adam and Eve….would they make better choices knowing the fall of mankind held in the balance, as well as the apple forever being labeled as the black sheep of the fruit family, not to mention the low self esteem of snakes for eternity? Striking out labor pains for all women to come? Or would they say, “Eh…that’s their problem. Let’s party like it's 4,000 B.C.” In some ways, I always felt that Noah was Adam and Eve’s do-over. Not really, but…it was a fresh start. I do not blame Noah for the mosquito because I have to believe he tried to leave them behind, but they followed anyway. Sometime during the second week he probably pulled out the Biblical-Strength Deep Woods Off, but his wife told him to be careful because God was already pissed about the incident on Day 9 when Noah and the crew got hungry and butchered one of the mastodons for some burgers, thereby depriving all future generations of mastodon burgers. Of course, with only one mastodon left there was no reason not to have more burgers later in the cruise. Sometimes my entries have a point. This is not one of those times. |
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