Global Warming… I Mean Climatic Change, Has Arrived

I was recently taken to the wood shed by one of my readers; someone that I told was way too serious to read my blog, for calling "Global Warming", well… "Global Warming". I guess the proper term for ignoramuses like me is supposed to be "Climatic Change". The commenter said my ignorance is showing.

Well, EXCUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSE ME!

If you are here for intellectual stimulation then you took a wrong turn because here we are lots of things, but not intellectual. You are reading the words of a guy who got hit in the head with a fastball at age 12 while playing Little League. I've been hit by a car twice, skydived thrice, and bungee jumped from 170'. All's I'm saying is the score is Intellectual 0, Moron 1.

This brings me to the subject at hand.

Climatic Change.

My blog on Global Warming, I mean Climatic Change worked. I complained about the lack of GW/CC and now we are paying the price.

The Pacific Northwet is in a heat wave.

Okay, three days of lower to mid 70's is not exactly the blazing inferno of hell but we will take it, thank you very much.

Perry Como and Bobby Sherman were right. The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle.

This is why I'm inside.

Because, it's Opening Day for major league baseball and that alone can warm the heart. Right now the score is: Seattle 4, Minnesota 1. Ken Griffffey Jr. blasts a home run his first regular season game since returning home to the Mariners. All is right with the world right now. But it's only the 7^th inning. The world can go bad with one pitch.

I spent two days looking at the sun and I don't want to burn out my retinas by overindulging in sun worshipping. It is way too early to lose my tan, I mean rustover. If I go outside I might start to take it for granted. I want to experience opposites but I don't want to get carried away.

Baseball is on TV and it's in high-def.

I know, I know, we may never see it again, the sun. Don't worry, history has shown that it will appear again, I just want to transition to it.

This is baseball. There are some priorities in life and baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and mom are those priorities and what made this country great.

Even if mom doesn't like baseball.

And my loyalties; the Seattle Mariners… and anyone that plays the New York Yankees.

The End Of Civilization As We (Most Of Us) Knew It

Yesterday my wife came up to me and told me that my oldest son, who lives in Spokane, got into a car accident in their “new to them” used car. The accident was due to the unprecedented weather, as in more snow. Then she paused to gauge my reaction to the news. Being the kind, compassionate, and loving Father that I am my first mental reaction was; “Stupid Kid, thinks he’s Superman”. Delivering your own kid creates that kind of invincibility. My mental action was the only reaction that I had time to express before my wife said “April Fools”. She got me and I give her kudos for the joke. I’d forgotten that it was April Fools Day.

Seems like the rest of civilization did the same thing. When I called up two of my grand kids on the phone to pull off a lame attempt at an April Fools joke even they didn’t know the significance of the day. I pulled my joke, got a calm reaction and then exclaimed “April Fools”! “Oh yeah, April Fools Day” was the response from both.

Am I missing something or did civilization as most of us use to know it die in this new world of political correctness and giant leaps in technological progress? I think so.

The civilization as I used to know it, the world in which I was a child, had shoelaces that tied so when you pulled the old “your shoelace is untied” joke the person actually looked down as if they had forgotten to tie their shoelace. The reaction today is “I don’t have laces, I have velcro” or “can you tie them, I don’t know how?” With some kids they never tie their shoes so the joke doesn’t work.

What happened to throwing snowballs at a car and getting chased by the driver for three miles uphill? Gone, it’s now a misdemeanor. Want to tp someones house with toilet paper just because your bored? Your local supermarket has a way to automatically track who bought large quantities of toilet paper so they can make you clean it up. Where’s the fun in having to clean up?

I was in Lowes the other day to buy some building supplies, one of the items was spray paint. The self checkout wouldn’t allow me to process my order without an override from the clerk until my age was verified, graffiti and gang tagging have taken the fun out of buying spray paint.

What happened to “Friday Flipup Day”, when you went around the recess yard flipping up people’s dresses? Although I agree with that one, you can pick up quite the draft from the “flip”. When did teachers quit wearing ties, boys and girls start having PE together, and not taking showers at school after gym? Why don’t kids mow lawns for money, be excited to be a Boy or Girl Scout, build model cars and airplanes, swing cats by the tail, have a dog with them as they’re swimming at the lake, river, or creek? Why do we only swim in lakes where it is allowed and not in the areas banned by the county?

My kids have never come home from a day of play and refused dinner because they spent the whole day sitting in an old apple orchard eating themselves sick on green apples. They didn’t build go-karts out of wood and old lawn mower tires and then race them down a steep hill only to realize that they forgot to incorporate brakes into their design. We called each other names and got over it, my brother called a girl names and got decked for it, but that story has already been told.

When I was in high school there were four types of students: jocks, intellectuals, loners, and stoners. For the most part the jocks, loners, and stoners all got along. Intellectuals still don’t get along. We feared the Principal, hated the Vice Principal, cut school without having Senior Skip Day, cut classes whenever we didn’t feel like it, did detention, sometimes our homework, loved some hot teachers, and tolerated the others. By golly when I got an “F” I deserved it and I felt the same way about the “A’s”. I never blamed the teachers or the system for what I deserved.

You’ve never lived if you haven’t found yourself on the roof of the house moving the antenna around while your dad yelled at you from the living room “just a little more that way!” Prank phone calls? Thanks to Caller ID you can't make a random call and ask if their refrigerator is running or call up a store and ask if they have Prince Albert in a can. I want to get excited again after we thrust a man or woman into space on a rocket and we lay on the ground at night looking up at the stars wondering what’s out there while we wish upon a falling star.

And I’m not totally complaining, I like my iPod, my DVR, CD’s, DVD player, big screen, computer, microwave, and cell phone. I really don’t mind recycling, sports on 50 channels, McDonalds, going green, and e-mail instead of the US Postal Service. I’m just wondering if maybe we can be a little less civilized.

By the way, your shoes untied.

Bring On The Global… Uh, Regional Warming

Dear Global Warming Scientists,

Spring officially started today.

It’s about time. I’m so tired of winter that I’d like to go straight from winter to summer and then hit the snooze button on fall and winter a couple of dozen times and just move into summer for the next decade. Can you help?

I turn on my TV, Radio, surf the Internet, read the newspaper, and everywhere I hear about global warming. So here is my question: Is there an actual location that global warming is affecting on our earth besides Africa and the Middle East because it sure isn’t happening in the Pacific Northwet (pun intended). Whoever has control of the thermostat can turn that baby up a few degrees.

I’m not saying that there is no global warming, I’m not wired to understand the science thing that well. Just ask my old 7th grade science teacher Mrs. Vajdas, if she even knew that I could spell it would probably make her roll over in her grave, if she’s in the grave. Now Mrs. Hansen, my English teacher, she knew I could spell and write. I always did my homework for her because she was smokin’ hot! Her husband was a jerk though. Come to think of it my high school English teacher was hot too. I just figured out why I like to read and write.

Now we know you know the West Coast is a strange place to live. California has earthquakes and two seasons, “Flood and Inferno”. Oregon is like the best of California and Washington but unpredictable as to when you can expect what season. They can’t make up their mind there. They have year round skiing and assisted suicide.

Washington, well we don’t tan, we rust. The eastern half of the state spends most of their time hating the western half because 98.5% of the state budget is spent west of the Columbia River. Eastern Washington is considering letting Idaho annex it. Western Washington is the best of everything that you love about the earth, just the average temperature is about 20 degrees less than the rest of the states excluding Alaska and Canada. We have seasons, two of them, “Raining” and “Waiting for it to rain”.

And the rain does wonders for us. While you are conserving water due to shortages in the reservoirs we’re watering our lawns twice a day. Everywhere you go in Western Washington it’s green and raining! Moss is our state flower. Ever seen a rainbow? Here, it’s an everyday occurrence. Seattlites buy more sunglasses per capita than any other city because we can’t find them most of the time. We’ve got the ocean, Puget Sound, lakes, rivers, mountains with snow, mountains that are going to have snow. You want to see a wetland firsthand? Fly into Seattle and look out the window of your airplane. If you wait long enough in some areas the river comes to you or your house slides down the hill to the water. The reason water witching or dousing works in Washington is that you can’t miss, water is everywhere!

And now we’ve had enough. Snow the past two weekends! I’ve had to use my tire chains twice this winter. Who pissed off Canada and Alaska in our government that made them send us their weather? Give us global warming! Someone else can have the rain.

And here is why. While all of this rain makes things green, it’s against a background of gray. When the sun comes out the citizens start worshipping it like the second coming. Yes we’re green but we also have most of the crazy people here. If you look you’ll find the Unabomber vacationed here. In most states you have your occasional bizarre murder while we’re producing quality serial killers. Washington is a training ground for mass murderers, it’s the Al Queda of America. Why? They eventually get sick of the rain and with nothing else to do they kill. Give us some global warming and we’ll move to second place in a heartbeat. God’s creation of the rainbow along with the promise to Noah that he wouldn’t flood the earth again didn’t mean he wouldn’t regionalize it.

So, you scientists and people who got better than a D on your report card in 7th grade science… please send us global warming.

Sincerely,

Haynsy

Accessorizing Through Remodeling

I don’t know if I am a typical husband but like most of the other spousal units of the male persuasion I notice the subtle and the obvious changes that Hottie makes in her appearance, eventually. I mean obvious changes like major haircutting and coloring I’m on top of, say within about a week or two of the event. Usually my son who lives about 400 miles away asks me how I like his mothers new hairdo and then I ask what hairdo and then I’m in the doghouse. I tried to compliment her everyday on her hair, you know, “isn’t that a new look for you?” or “that new hair color really brings out the brown in your eyes”, but she soon caught on to my complete lack on sincerity and the fact that my eyes were getting browner with every compliment.

Subtle changes like a new outfit usually take me a year. Take for instance last Sunday. We were out of town visiting the in-laws/romantic getaway at the coast. I know, sounds like it sucked but we didn’t spend the romantic getaway with the in-laws. Focus. Hottie takes off her coat and is wearing this red long sleeved top that really, well, turned me on. I’m sure that it looked good on her but this being a romantic getaway I was also wondering what the world record time was for sincere-compliment-to-sex. I just know that looking at her in that outfit made me want to break the record. Sadly, she had owned the very cute little top for over a year and what I got was the sincere-compliment-to-lecture about how I never really notice her. I’ve got the world record in that category. I still wanted to see how easy the top came off even though I got the lecture.

Which brings me to the real reason for this blog.

Men accessorize through remodeling.

If shopping defines women then remodeling defines men. I shrink at the thought of having to buy a new pair of shoes, shirts, a new suit, and even socks. My wife on the other hand wants me to go shopping with her all of the time, to the mall, to the grocery store, and the furniture store. I know you can’t believe that I would pass up a great opportunity like shopping but most times I’d rather have my testicles put in a vise. Nothing personal I just don’t like shopping.

But every Saturday I’m at Lowes. And I’m shopping but I don’t think of it as shopping. I’m accessorizing.

Like most of you I’m big into home improvement. As Hottie will tell you I’m constantly working on the house, she will also tell you that I’m not big into finishing my projects in a timely manner. But I’m working on a project right now that is the perfect project for accessorizing. I’m replacing my electrical service panel/rewiring most of the house/rewiring the phone system/replacing the cable lines/finally finishing the laundry room/completely remodeling the garage/building my man cave. And how does a man accessorize?

With new TOOLS!!!

Ladies, men put as much thought into the tools, or accessories for the project as you put into matching an outfit with the right necklace, earrings, shoes or scarf. A project just isn’t the same without a new tool. Take for instance my current project. Overhead work, rough carpentry, drywall. To my very patient wife it’s dust, noise, and destruction. To the man who accessorizes it’s a new ladder, framing hammer and a Rotozip! And like those necklaces, earrings, and shoes that you wear with a wide range of outfits, our accessories will go with other projects.

That Rotozip is just as useful trimming tile for your new floor as it is for trimming electrical boxes in drywall. I’m toying with the idea of using it to trim my nose hairs but I’m having trouble finding someone to test my theory. Now the ladder will spend its lifetime gaining us access to the attic, the roof, trimming the trees, hanging Christmas lights, cleaning gutters, and getting the cat out of the tree (or putting the cat in the tree). The framing hammer is useful in so many ways, building a new shed, that arbor that you’ve always wanted, and it doubles as a nut cracker.

So the next time that you think that your husband doesn’t notice you, turn it around. Go down to Manland and sincerely compliment your man on his new tools. You’ll fumble, he’ll grumble, but when you show him that you are sincerely interested in how he “dresses” himself you’ll find the compliments will be returned.