VIVA VIAGRA!

I will admit that I have a lot of favorite things. I have a favorite shirt (short sleeve blue, faded and stained BYU Tee), favorite car (MGB GT), favorite color (British Racing Green), favorite author (C.S. Lewis) and favorite movie (It's A Wonderful Life). I have a favorite something that most would find hard to guess.

I have a favorite day of the week. But not just any specific day in the week. My favorite day only comes around every four years. It's not February 29th because that is a day in the calendar.

It's the first Wednesday after the first Tuesday in November in even years. It just so happens that it happens this year on November 5th... the day after national elections.

This day that I celebrate is the first day after a busy and intense political campaign. It starts out promising enough, candidates promise that they will not be negative, they only endorse a positive campaign. And then the first poll numbers come in.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN! Can you hear the trumpets blow. It's like an English fox hunt. They're off and running. And you and I are bombarded with the campaign ads. It's difficult to sort out the truth amongst all of the lies. But one thing I am sure of as I am sure the sun rises and sets every day.

The ads are gone the first Wednesday after the first Tuesday in November in election years.

I just long for a nice tame Viagra ad.

At least I'll know with Viagra if it lives up to promises. Not that I use it, I don't, can't afford it, can't afford the chance of an "erection lasting four hours" and "seeing my doctor". I can afford Niagara, the spray starch. Again, my wife says I don't need it. You know, the Viagra or the Niagara.

TMI. Moving on.

I'm so sick and tired of political ads that I'm looking forward to seeing ads for women's products. Yes, I admit it. I want to see an ad that promotes a pad with and without wings. Bring on the Tampax, the Stayfree Mini and Maxi-pads. Give me a lousy douche ad over a great McCain or Obama ad any day. I want to see women discussing their periods every fifteen minutes.

Digressing again.

I can't wait for the Santa Claus to slide around on his Norelco shaver in the snow. I love Billy Maes and can't wait to have him sell me Oxy Clean.

And the best part is no one is going to pay for a political ad saying "Thanks to those of you who voted for me" and a big "shove it" to those who didn't. We only get to know if the winner was lying in the future. What did Dukakis, Kerry, and Gore do as President?

I don't know, they were losers!

The economy wins! People will start buying again. We have ads for things we can buy and put on our credit cards instead of putting our money into people.

And no matter who wins or loses I'll win. The first Wednesday after the first Tuesday in November is my day every four years.

Now bring on the ads. VIVA VIAGRA!

How Fast Should I Repent?

At 18 I worked cleaning carpets. I didn't necessarily aspire to that job, I kind of needed it. That need is related to my desire to eat regular meals. The truth is I was homeless. Now I never spent a night hanging curtains in my cardboard box or living under freeway overpasses. I just didn't have a place to call home for more than a week or two. And to be fair to my mom and step dad I chose to be homeless, but that's another story.

My employer was one of the greatest people that I have ever met. I never saw a man so happy in my life! Eugene was one of the most dedicated Christian men that I have ever met. To this day I remember his great example and how he lived what he believed. I think Eugene was also a minister. Now his wife was a very nice woman and I believe that she lived her religion, but I don't remember her being as happy as Eugene. I know that she irritated Eugene on many occasions but he dealt with it in such a way that I always had the thought that I would be that way when I got married. I guess it should have been a goal.

Now Eugene was a black man, or African American as is politically correct to say, and I'm happy to say that I never thought of him as black or as an African American. I just thought of him as a great guy and someone to look up to.

Eugene employed many people over the few months that I worked for him. None of them memorable except for one. I don't remember his name and I couldn't pick him out in a crowd. But he put me to shame, taught me a lesson that I will never forget.

At the time I worked for Eugene I had decided to give God some time off, a little vacation. To be completely honest I had been a faithful Christian for many years, since the age of five. But after 13 years as a practicing Pentecostal, member of the Assembly of God Church, and member of the Reformed Church of America, I felt that I had been abandoned by God in so many ways and decided that if God really needed me he would know where to find me. There was no Mapquest then so it would have been harder than you think. (At the time there was a move among Christians to find Jesus and I assumed that God if didn't know where he was then it would be harder to find me.)

Which brings me back to my co-worker. He was a new Christian. He had made mistakes in his life. As we worked together I found that I was working with a former addict and petty criminal, someone who previous to becoming a Christian had not strayed off the straight and narrow path but had never been on it. I'm not sure that he even knew it was there. I'll have to admit that he scared me a little bit. I was still learning about life and was very naive.

We were working on the carpets of a mobile home not far from where I live now, part of the equipment was a very long vacuum hose connected to the van outside. In the van was a gas powered motor and a propane powered heater to heat the water. It was a complex system of hoses, there was always the opportunity for an accident.

As I was feeding him the hose line and watching the monitoring equipment on the van I turned and saw him coming out of the door. As he moved through the door with the hose and cleaning wand he moved wrong and jammed the equipment and himself in such a way that he hurt himself. As soon as he did he let out a loud curse word that totally surprised me. It started with "s", ended with "t" and had a nice "hi" in the middle. What really surprised me was what happened next.

He disappeared.

What happened after that surprised me more. He hadn't really disappeared, he just had dropped on to his knees without considering his surroundings, without taking thought as to whether he was embarrasing himself or me in public and was asking God for forgiveness right then and there for cursing. He was living what he believed and I think God forgave him right then and there.

I like to store up my repentance. If I was to repent when I sinned that would take all of the fun out of repenting. I like to have lots of things to repent at one time that help to balance out the bad from the really bad. Say I've taken a pad of post it notes from work (hypothetically), which would be stealing which is bad. Well I like to have say, ten impure thoughts that I need to repent of at the same time. Ten impure thoughts and you stole the post-it notes. If I'm judging I'm thinking that the ten things that I didn't act upon kind of trump the one that I did and I'm even.

Speed repenting would create a whole new set of problems for me. If I was to start repenting when I sinned I might actually start to sin less because I would become more aware that I was sinning, especially on repeat sins. Some of my repeat sinning I've grown accustomed to, I have to give all of that up.

If I start to speed repent I might serve more, criticize less, look for the good in other people more, and heaven forbid... I might start to become Christ-like. Speed repenting would require me to talk to God more. If I want to be forgiven I'd have to start listening to my Heavenly Father. I might improve my relationship. All of these things might cramp what little style I have.
This kind of trend might make me likeable, feel better about myself, others might like to be around me, start talking behind my back with comments like; "he has a glow" or "I wonder what he's doing different because he is different". How about; "he sure lives his religion".

No, speed repenting takes the fun out of procrastinating. What kind of person wants to be obedient all of the time? What individual wants people saying nice things behind his back?

Who?

Maybe there was a reason that Eugene was always happy, seemed at peace with his place in the world. Maybe Eugene was a speed repenter and had taught that to my co-worker. Maybe Eugene was as Christ-like as I used to think I should be or possibly think I am. Who knows?

But it was thirty two years ago and some lessons are never too old to remember.

Maybe there should be more doing and less hearing.

If I Could Live To Be A Million...

In 1969 The Moody Blues, one of my favorite bands, put out an album called "To Our Childrens Childrens Children". In genealogy terms that means my great grandchildren. On that album were two songs, "I Never Thought I'd Live to Be A Hundred" and I Never Thought I'd Live To Be A Million". Besides having a certain amount of reverence for the incredible idea of having two songs on the same album with the same tune with the same name except for the last word, it is a song that has always made me think, something that none of my teachers accomplished.

Would I want to live to be a million? Or five hundred?

Well, when I bring that question up in casual conversations most people that I talk to say no and that's before they even know the conditions.

So I pose the question to you. Would you like to live to be five hundred?

You would be in relatively good health, which means you're not a vegetable, you can walk, drive, converse. You would have all of your mental capacities including all of your senses. Diminished slightly but you'd have them.

You wouldn't look like a prune, more like Paul Newman or Audrey Hepburn. Before they died. You'd still have your personality, you'd be able to sing, learn new things, play the guitar if you could before, learn to play it if you didn't. Your memory would be as sharp as can be expected and you would behave much as you do now, with choices and consequences for those choices. You would experience love and hate, joy and sorrow, new life's and the deaths of friends. If you forgot to zip up after going to the bathroom you probably still would. If you forgot to zip down, well, maybe you don't want to be five hundred.

You have to make the decision that you might be without your spouse. Or accept the fact that over 470 years together might grate on each others nerves. You'd get tired of chicken and , sandwiches, may even steak. You'll have seen things that others have only read about in history books. You'll be history.

Any takers? I've only found one so far and we agreed to hang out together somewhere around age 125.

I'm in. I like this world. And despite every one's effort to say that we're destroying it I love this earth. And it's not the prospect of dying that makes me want to live to be five hundred. It's the prospect of living. I think that knowing that most of us won't be around much past 80 let alone 500 stops us from doing things that remind us that we are alive.

Besides, can you imagine how much money you can get from Social Security if you live to be 500? 428 years of monthly checks! I'd be happy just because I was getting more than I put in.

What? There won't be any Social Security? Well dream smasher, I'm setting the conditions and it will be still paying out checks to me in the year 2458. Global warming will have come and gone a dozen or so times, same for global cooling. We'll find that oil and other natural resources will be enhanced by new technologies to be efficient or we'll have come up with alternate methods of energy.

Somewhere around age 115 they'll start asking me to be on TV talk shows as the oldest man in the world. Kids will write me letters asking me what its like to be the oldest man. I'll have a steady source of income as a analyst/expert on talk and news shows. I won't be a Republican or a Democrat, I'll just be an American, kind of like right now. I'll finally be in the Guiness Book Of Records.

My children will still be around because they will choose to be 500 also. My wife, she'll go 3 years before me so she won't be lonely (But I don't think she wants to be 500). The last 30 years of my children's lives will be the toughest because I'll already be gone and they'll have to miss me. My class reunion will have an attendance of one after about 2048.

And through the centuries that I live some things will never change. I'll still have hope and faith, still like my old t-shirts, my favorite song will still be from 1973, and I'd still want to drive one of my old cars. Of course I might need the 500 years to get them restored. I would still prefer green over blue, stripes over solids, real potato's over potato flakes.

I'd never get tired of looking at the ocean and hearing the tide go in and out. I would never tire of having a child hold my finger as we walked, pulling my finger to get a laugh and falling asleep on my chest when the day just got too long for them. Flowers would amaze me, the smell of fresh cut grass would still set off memories, I'd still catch snow on my tongue and teach my grandchildren to make snow angels.

And some things would change. I'd withdraw from the rat race and become more involved in the human race. My home would be in a small town where I could know my neighbor a little better. My happiness would come from what I have, not from what I want.

So yes, I'd live to be five hundred years old and once I get close to that I might make the choice to be a million.

The Worst 9 Minutes Of My Life

There are very few people that I have hated in my life. As I have aged I have hated less and liked more. Love is too strong of a word to describe my progression so we won't banter that word around. Let's just say that I don't think that I have enemies so much as I know people that I might cross the street to avoid.

Except one person. It's not the guy who used to put 10 hot dogs in the hot dog package when there were only 8 buns in bun package. Remember, in order for it to balance out you needed to buy 4 packages of hot dogs and 5 packages of buns. And then someone always didn't want a bun with their hot dog. I had anger problems.That problem was solved when the hot dog people got together for lunch with the bun people, (there was 40 people at he lunch) and worked out a solution. It took an additional 40 negotiators to come to lunch and sort out the problem but they did. The hot dog people took two hot dogs out of the package, created a new package, slapped on a new and improved label and voila! Buns and dogs evened out and the dog people kept the price the same.

No, I'm over that one. Same for the guy who installed locks at 7-11. I just accepted the fact that open 24 hours isn't reality when the original premise of your store was that you stayed open 7am to 11pm. Didn't know that one did you! I cut them some slack.

My angst is directed toward someone who deserves it. The inventor of the 9-minute snooze alarm.What did mankind do to you that you have cheated us out of that extra minute. Did your mother wake you up in the morning for school only to have you respond "just 9 more minutes"? What kind of sick and depraved world did you grow up in?

Or is this part of your plan? Are you an overachiever who jumps out of bed after the first 9 minutes ready to take on the world? Have you spent most of your life saying "if I had just one more minute" or "gimme a minute". I don't know what kind of world you live in but you must be a Democrat for no self respecting right leaning Republican would try to take a minute from me.

In Britain you'd be a Labour Party member and not a Torie, in Russia you'd be.... well a communist, because they still are communists even though they say they're not. If you lived in that environment I'd be immigrating or trying to take over the world.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. Who are you? You have taken two many one minutes from my life!

And now for the mathematicians. If you live to be an average age of 74, and assume that you don't get an alarm clock until 18 (because I don't want to figure out how many days you were going to miss school, sleep in during summer, winter, mid-winter, spring vacations and assorted holidays), let's assume that you get up for Church on Sunday, Saturday if you are a Seventh Day Adventist, assume that you get 10 sick days a year, that by the time you retire you don't sleep in anymore because your internal alarm clock has taken control of your body, assume that you don't drink and and won't be in a situation where you wouldn't hear an alarm because you had passed out in some strangers house. Using those assumptions that means for 17,441 days in my life I have missed out on one minute of sleep. That tranlates to 17,441 minutes of lost sleep. See how tricky that math was? 17,441 minutes translates into 290.683333333333333333333 hours of lost sleep. 290.333333333333333333 lost hours translates into 12.111805555555555 days that I could have been sleeping. And I did factor in Leap Year.

Yes Mr. 9 minute snooze alarm guy you have robbed me of a minute of sleep and I hate you.
And if you think I don't hate you enough, I usually hit the snooze twice.

Do that math.

All Dogs Go To Heaven?

There is travelling around the Internet, you know, that thing that Al Gore invented, a pictorial battle between two churches located across the street from one another. One is Catholic, the other Presbyterian. These churches each have sign boards in front of them and the Catholic's started it, put up a message that said "ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN".

Well all God-fearing-right wing-gun toting-bible-clingers like ourselves know that that ain't true and the Presbyterian's shot back with a message of their own; "ONLY HUMANS GO TO HEAVEN READ THE BIBLE". Sometime after bingo the Catholics dug deep into the scriptures and fired one back "GOD LOVES ALL HIS CREATURES DOGS INCLUDED". That seem to incense the Presbyterians because they responded with "DOGS DON'T HAVE SOULS THIS IS NOT OPEN TO DEBATE" (punctuation added).

The Catholics had had enough and the war of words escalated. They brought out their big guns, longer sentences. "CATHOLIC DOGS GO TO HEAVEN, PRESBYTERIAN DOGS CAN TALK TO THEIR PASTOR".

Now I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like to ruin a good story so I won't share the rest with you right now. Besides, I now know how to spell "Presbyterian" without looking it up in the dictionary. If you'd like the full e-mail let me know and I'll forward it to you.

I just thought that it was an interesting argument. It actually got me thinking. First I thought about Al Gore and the Internet. Then I thought about how I wasted my vote on George Bush instead of Al in the first election. And then I realized that the only reason I would have honestly voted for Al Gore is that his daughters were hotter than George and Laura Bush's daughter's.
I thought about that scripture that seems to back up the Presbyterian argument, the one that says "we should be holy, without Spot". So no dogs in Heaven. But I found the Catholic argument compelling. And then it hit me.

Would I actually want to have dogs in Heaven?

Being a former dog owner I feel that I am an authority on this. I'm the former dog owner that in a moment of incredible triumph convinced my wife that we should have a dog. It didn't hurt that the gift of jewelery was blinding her decision making ability. My logic and reason had left the building with Elvis. I owned a truck, it needed a dog.

My life begged for a dog. I had an easy chair, the aforementioned truck, a large fenced yard, and money for the dog food. We had dogs when I was a child. We had had big dogs and little dogs. Mostly little dogs. Dogs were easy. From everything I had observed dogs were truly a man's best friend.

So I got a dog. Gave her a cute name. Bought her a dog bed, a dog brush, a dog collar, some dog shampoo, and a dog leash. I bought a pooper scooper. It was a great pooper scooper. I just liked showing it off to friends so that I could say "pooper scooper". I was a little short on friends for a while. And then it happened...

I had a dog.

And if dogs are allowed to go to heaven we are going to be in real trouble with the landlord.

Something that I didn't know about dogs when I grew up. Dogs that live on two acres poop in the woods with the bears, not on my nicely manicured grass. Dogs on two acres have over 90.000 square feet that they call their own and they choose to poop in areas that most humans don't inhabit or travel.

Dogs on two acres don't leave paths throughout your nicely manicured lawn as they scurry about pooping from place to place in the woods. Dogs on two acres consider that two acres their domain and will defend it from other dogs that want to poop in their woods.

Dogs on two acres don't chew through your: power washer hose, building level, lawnmower pull handle, steering wheel of the borrowed lawn tractor, shoes left outside, lawn furniture, handles to your wheelbarrow, and small children that wander into your yard. Dogs on two acres are content to use the two acres to stay entertained. Dogs in fenced yards bark just to hear themselves bark.

Heaven will be a mess with dogs. Let's face it, our mansions on high are going to be in trouble if all dogs go to Heaven. Now I would argue that this would be the case if only "some" dogs went to heaven. And it doesn't stop there. Consider what else could be in Heaven.

Cats.

They don't serve much of a purpose here on earth so let's imagine what they would be like in Heaven. Heavenly hairballs, shedding, litter-boxes that don't get cleaned out when they should. Cats lead to another problem. If you’re going to allow cats in Heaven then you have to allow:

Mice... and rats, moles, possums, skunks, badgers, elk, deer, bison, hippos, those little invisible things that dogs chase while you're not watching them. Let's face it, allowing dogs into Heaven just opens up a real Pandora's box of problems. If you let one in you have to let them all in and I'm not sure that I'm ready for that responsibility. I plan on going to Heaven to rest on my laurels and sing hymns. If I constantly have to stop resting and singing to let the cat out or take the dog for a walk then Heaven isn't going to be heaven. I'm looking forward to the rest.

And here is a little thought, what about all of animals that we've shot for sport, just for the fun of it. Don't you think they might have an attitude? What do we do with the whales? Will there be a tub big enough? No, we've gone too far. I'm still having trouble with knowing that some humans will be in Heaven. I don't want to be worrying about the...

Elephants.

Of course I have no problem with all dogs going to %&**. Let the devil clean up a mess or two and maybe he'll be nice and leave us alone.

I Y'am What I Y'am

Everything I learned about self-confidence I learned from cartoons on Saturday mornings.

Cartoons are a cultural melting pot; cartoons have been the leading medium to tolerance and acceptance. Where else can you find cows, ducks, oversized mice, rats, and other assorted creatures getting along so well? By the way, they also can drive, play instruments, sing, build houses and boats, anything we can do as humans they can do. How many mice do you know that have a dog for a pet and another dog for their best friend?

But I digress. This isn't about tolerance. I'm not very tolerant.

Let’s talk about confidence. The king of self confidence has to be Popeye the Sailor Man. You know the guy. Sailor, toot toot, spinach, big muscles (the “cles” is pronounced “culls”). Popeye was a good looking guy, if the light was right (and you couldn’t count on the light). His main object of affection is Olive Oil (who has gained in popularity recently as a food additive), a razor thin anorexic wafer of a women who is about as attractive as two monkeys eating bugs off of each other’s private parts. His challenger for the love of Olive Oil is an overweight beast of a man named Bluto. Bluto is actually less attractive than the two monkeys. J Wellington Wimpy is his overweight, panhandling, burger obsessed friend. Mostly used for comic relief.

If you have seen one Popeye cartoon you have seen them all. Popeye wants Olive Oil, Popeye makes a date with Olive Oil, Bluto tries to break up the date, Bluto beats up on Popeye and just when the end is near for Popeye a can of spinach falls out of the cupboard, off a shelf, out of the grocery bag, off a truck, is sitting on the bottom of the ocean, lake, stream, in the belly of the fish, the whale, the dolphin… well you get the picture. Popeye eats the spinach, gains super strength (a modern day Samson) and beats the living daylights out of Bluto. Olive Oil exclaims “Oh Popeye!” gives him a kiss and a hug and all is well in their cartoon world.

Wimpy is inserted into the story always searching for, begging for or having found, is eating a hamburger. Popeye sings that song at the end and all is well with the world. It is Oscar winning and incredible heart tugging dialog. But what do I remember about Popeye? He always managed to say “I am what I am” but more like an old seadog; “I Y’am what I Y’am”.

And therein is the great message. This overly buff, short, ugly sailor with an obsession for overly skinny girls with no apparent figure just liked who he was.

Will America: I Y’am what I Y’am.

I love cooked spinach, I tolerate raw spinach. But if I had my way I wouldn’t eat raw spinach ever again and if I was God I would make raw spinach one of those foods that you could only eat cooked because it would just be awful raw. Of course, I think that is the way God did it anyway.
I’m 50 years old and I know what I like and what I love. I know what I will tolerate and what I hate. I’ve got 50 years experience. I’m past the point of thank you bites and no thank you bites.

About food; I’m old enough to know that just because a food has a fancy name doesn’t mean that I don’t know that foods I hate are in it. Tell me the main components (ingredients) of a dish and I know whether I’ll like it, love it, hate it, or just be plain indifferent. There is a hidden meaning in this paragraph. Life is too short to eat something that you don’t like. No one should tell you what that you have to eat something and if you do it only pacify them then your life is wasted.

I’m pretty sure that I would hate the taste of dog crap even though I’ve never even come close to trying it. I’m pretty sure that most humans feel the same way. I’m absolutely sure that if you try to serve up a dish with an ingredient like dog crap to the public that they wouldn’t order it and would even go so far as to say the chances of that being a successful restaurant would be nil. So don’t try to convince me that you can take what I hate, mix it together with things I love and come out with a winning dish that I’ll be packing the leftovers up for the next day’s lunch at work.

I love to drive. Give me the choice of being the driver, riding shotgun or shoving me in as the backseat passenger and I choose driver every hour, every day, every week. You could bury me in a bucket seat and I’d prefer the seat with the seat controls on the left (unless it’s a British right hand drive and then I choose controls on the right). I don’t like being anyone’s passenger. If I could drive the bus that I occasionally have to ride I’m wishing that I was the bus driver. I wouldn’t own a Yugo or most German cars but I’d drive them if the only other choice was to ride in them as a passenger. If I ever ride a camel with two humps I call first hump.

I like cheap tennis shoes. I don’t like to pay much over $20 for my shoes. I don’t know if they look good or not. I’m just into comfortable. Same view on t-shirts. I don’t like to buy or wear t-shirts advertising Old Navy, The Gap, or Abercrombie & Fitch. They aren’t paying me to advertise for them, in fact, they charge me extra to do so. I’ll advertise a car on a shirt; that’s a cultural thing. I don’t know when the moment comes that you part with a favorite shirt. It’s somewhere between holes in the hem at the bottom and the collar barely hanging on. My jeans preference is 501 Levi’s. I like cuffed pants over no cuffs with my dress and suit pants. Pin stripes over solids, black suits over blue.

My favorite color is British Racing Green. I’m not fond of pink or purple. My favorite song has been “Clouds” by David Gates (of Bread) since 1973. My favorite singers/bands are Bread, The Moody Blues, The Eagles, Cliff Richard, The Beatles, Crowded House, Paul McCartney, and The Corrs, although not always in that order. To me the Rolling Stones just got lucky. Five of the ugliest blokes in the British Isles that don’t seem to know more than 6 guitar chords, and a 40 plus year career. Luck.

You cannot convince me that rap is music, that most of today’s music is music, and that any movie put out since It’s A Wonderful Life showed up on the silver screen in 1946 can compete with the greatness of that film. None of today’s actors capture my attention or my heart as does Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, William Powell, Audrey Hepburn, and others from the golden age of film. But I grew while rock 'n' roll was a child and while the movie greats were still alive.

I like women who leave things to my imagination. There’s nothing sexier than a woman who makes you wonder what kind of girl she is. Today’s girls are like Las Vegas lights. You know exactly what they want even though they say they don’t. I'm happy with my wife. She stills leaves things to my imagination.

I’m not homophobic. I have no fear of gay people and no aversion to someone that is. I don’t discriminate against someone who is gay. I just do not agree with the lifestyle choice and do not support special rights for someone that is gay. I believe that if gay was okay the big guy upstairs would have outfitted males and females with duplicate plumbing. Should I tell you what I think about gay marriage?

And I’m not absolutely sure I’m always pro-marriage between a man and a woman. It’s hard. You have to stop being selfish. You have to commit to someone. Men commit to a woman thinking that she thought he was perfect prior to marriage and found out that she’d been making a list of things that she wanted to improve. Women commit to someone who was happy to get a girlfriend to go home with every night for the rest of his life. Women are complex and men are simple. You buy a sexy outfit to turn him on and get him in the mood, women require expensive jewelry. And here is how simple we are as men; sexy outfit not required to get him in the mood. You have to put your spouse’s needs before most of yours. Kids get in the way of having regular sex, marriage gets in the way of sex. Some dreams die only to be replaced with other dreams. All kids disappoint at some time, all kids make you proud at some time. Some kids are ugly, some are beautiful. Mine are all beautiful. And yet we love them, hurt with them, laugh with them, ache for them. Some people believe in marriage and commitment, others use it as a disposable relationship.

But here is the thing. I don’t hate anyone. I just disapprove of lots of things. For instance, baseball purists say that the designated hitter is the worst thing that ever happened to baseball. Seriously? Have you ever seen a pitcher hit? They don’t have low batting averages because they’re in a slump. Most pitchers have been in a batting slump since they picked up a baseball as a child.

Dolphins are not the smartest animals on earth. Humans are. Of course, that depends on the human. Now Hitler was not smart. Attacking Russia in the winter is not smart. Nor was Stalin. Killing your own isn’t smart. Pol Pot was stupid too but to his defense the name he got stuck with was kind of a handicap. If dolphins were as smart as some would have us believe they would have created some kind of weapon to eliminate all of the sharks and whales in the seas, leaving a few for Sea World. That way they could have all of the fish. See, not smart. Humans have found ways to spend time underwater for long periods of time. It’s called a submarine. Dolphins still have to come up for air at fairly predictable times. Dolphins aren’t even close to coming up with a way to live on land. Chimpanzees only look like they have potential. Take humans out of the equation and they are still just trying to find the best tree for bananas.

Time out is for sports and not children. Discipline is for children. Who came up with the idea that a child in need of time out should only spend one minute per year of age in said time out? In prison they call that an early release. What a 5 year old child learns is that 5 minutes in time out is time worth doing the crime. I believe that a misbehaving child will die of malnutrition before I let them out of “time out” without a sincere apology and a hug and a kiss (so they know I love them). Interested in what I think about parole, sentencing to multiple life terms, probation? Yeah not in favor.

I don’t think we’ve had any good politicians and certainly not any great ones since Abraham Lincoln. I’m in favor of “We the people” which translates to “less politicians” and ”less government”. I think that if you’re going to take welfare money you should work cleaning streets and parks. You do that enough days and you’ll get an education and a job. If you live on welfare you shouldn’t have a pet, have a bigger TV than me and anything more than basic cable. Your Christmas should be smaller than mine. I think that welfare should have an expiration date. Food stamps should only buy basic food staples. If you’re going to have babies and be on welfare you should pay for the diapers. Keep having kids while on welfare and your benefits should be reduced. I don’t have a problem drug testing anyone on assistance.

I’m for school uniforms and outlawing gangs. I believe in the “F” grade. I think that for some people General Education is a waste of time and that they should be in a trade or a tech school. I say pay the good teachers good money and get rid of the bad ones. I think that kids should look at a teacher with a little awe and some healthy fear. Being sent to the principal’s office should have some meaning put back into it. I think that if you cheat you fail that assignment. You cheat three times, you fail the class.

I’ve seen the kind of art supported by public money as a requirement of law. I’ll be honest, the drawings on my fridge over the years are worth more than the crap I’m forced to pay for through taxes. If most of the public art is indeed art then I think we should all get a refund or at least get paid to not look at it.

If public transportation can’t serve the public or only supports a small percentage of the public then I don’t believe in giving them more money. It’s like putting a turbo on a Yugo.

There. I Y’am what I Y’am. This isn’t my all inclusive list. It’s just some healthy ramblings. I think that if you slowed down a bit and considered your life you could come up with some of the same conclusions. Happiness is truly wanting what you have and not having what you want.

Be you. You’ll be happier.