I’m A Ramblin’ Guy

Winter is now behind us, Spring is nearly halfway through, and I'm finding it hard to stay awake long enough to post a blog. My problem is that I'm an early riser. Somewhere between 5:20 and 6:00am my internal clock goes off and it wasn't built with a snooze alarm. I show up for work around 6:30, 7am at the latest. I really hate the internal alarm clock on Saturday. 7am comes and I'm wide awake trying to find something to do around the house that isn't noisy so that I don't wake the sleepers in the house.

As for writing the blog I have a number of ideas that I believe have some validity but again, spending hours on a pc at work don't motivate me to come home and do the same. It was during one of my many trips to the men's room at work, a side effect of blood pressure medication that I'm on, that I had a moment of revelation.

Why not take a number of the random thoughts and put them on paper, or the screen. Fair warning, I'm not going to make much of an effort to censor my thoughts.

• Our cat died the other day, last Friday to be exact. And we're sad around our house and no one wants to talk about it. It was sudden and unexpected. Well, not really. Truth is I took her to the vet and they put her down. She was old, maybe 16-18 years old. We had named her Drooler because she drooled. I was surprised at the options given me by the vet. Did I want to spend time with her before they put her down? Did I want her cremated and put in a special urn that I could display at my house? I'll tell you what I wanted, I wanted her to quit peeing and pooping all over my family room. Any compassion and love I felt for the cat went right out the window the first time I found that where I put my feet while sitting at the pc was her choice of a new litter box. Besides, there is a point that you have to make these tough decisions. I reassured my wife that if my mother-in-law showed the same symptoms that I would be happy to put her down too.
  
• I was in a rather unusual conversation with someone the other day and at the end of the conversation I walked away and started thinking about sperm. The conversation had nothing to do with sperm; I just wondered after finishing the conversation about what would I be like if a different little swimmer of my dad's got to the egg instead of the one that did. I mean one little swimmer basically was in the swim meet of his life, odds of winning the race anywhere from 50 to 500 million to 1 and all of a sudden my dad's 23 chromosomes and my mom's 23 chromosomes collided and I'm here years later wondering what would have happened had a different sperm won. Nobel Prize, serial killer? Who knows?
  
• I'm thinking about selling my truck. I have a 1996 Ford F150 that I have owned since 1999. It has been a good truck considering that except for regular oil changes I have done nothing for maintenance over the past 10 years. Yes, I replaced the u-joints a few years ago, new brakes, tires, minimal stuff but nothing major. Now my "Check Engine" light comes on and I'm feeling betrayed. And the guys at Ford, the engineers, they are sadistic evil men and women. Both of my oxygen sensors went bad. The engineers put the first sensor in an easily accessible area of the engine, easy to access, easy to replace. I was singing their praises! Then the slime sucking pig dogs placed the second one in a place right near the catalytic converter that was as easy to replace as say shoving a baby back into the birth canal. And that's what's got me thinking about selling the truck. I replaced the sensors and figured that I spend most of my time driving the bed of the truck around town so it might be time for a change. Besides, I don't have a dog anymore so what's the need for a truck.
  
• Mothers Day. To honor mothers our church congregation decided to serve the women in our congregation cake and ice cream during the third hour of our meeting schedule. The men would cover the responsibilities that the women had for that hour. I was asked to do "Sharing Time" in Primary, 15 minutes with about 20-25 kids ages 7-11. Plus I had to conduct the meeting. Oh my gosh! I think that I would rather put my private parts in a vise and deal with the pain than do that again. If I had to do that more than three weeks in a row I might kill a few of them or at the very least myself. Kudos's to all of you that teach children and have compassion to do it week in and week out. I felt like I was herding cats.
  
• I finally broke down and hired a company to take over the lawn fertilizing chores. What a great feeling to see someone else take care of those responsibilities. And I feel really good about the decision to fertilize. Until now. I don't know what I've been doing all of these years because it hasn't been fertilizing. Yes my grass is greener now, yes, the unwanted weeds are going away, but DANG! I didn't think that lawn would grow like it has been. Now I'm going to have to mow twice a week. Maybe there is something to that brown and rough look in a lawn.
  

So this is just some of what's going on in my head. Thinking out loud can be therapeutic.

You Can’t Make Me!

I am a big fan of the TV show "Bones". For a guy who can hardly handle the smell of a nasty diaper it is a mystery to me how I can sit and watch an hour of TV where the real star of the show is the mangled, mutilated, and gross remains of some dead person who died under mysterious or sinister circumstances. I will admit that there are a few times that I have covered my eyes while they inject fluid into or remove some portion of the inner workings of some human. I might have to have my man card taken from me. I'm a wuss.

As for the show I think my appreciation or obsession with the show is a fondness and appreciation of well written, even entertaining dialog. And it applies to other shows besides Bones. Eureka on SciFi, Psych on USA, Moonlighting back in the 80's, all of these shows have witty dialog that makes me wish these characters were real.

But now I'm mad at the show Bones and I'm thinking of turning it off, blocking it with Parental Controls, leaving town whenever it's on, all to avoid the disgusting and immoral activities that are becoming more and more blatant with every episode. It's hard to notice among the storylines about whether there is a God or not, love the one you're with, murder, violence, etc, etc, etc. This is worse and someone needs to do something about it.

They're trying to push the metric system onto us.

It's been in the background the whole time, a cc of this, a millimeter of that, that third vertebrae is a centimeter out of place. I've politely ignored all of these attempts to drag me into a system of measurement accepted the world over. But the other day they finally got the best of me. It was an episode where someone had been run over by a particular SUV, the impact to the person occurred, wait for it, at 54 centimeters in height on the vehicle.

And that is when they had me. All of a sudden I found myself wishing that I knew what a centimeter was, I jumped up from the easy chair and yelled at the TV, "WHAT IS IT IN INCHES?" I thought for sure that Booth being the man's man that he was would ask Bones to speak in English.

"C'mon Bones," he would say, "what's that in English?" "Sorry," Bones would reply, "I meant 21 and a half inches." And then Booth and Bones would have some conversation where Bones would tell Booth that the metric system is used in most of the world and that it is only people in the U.S.A. that were holding onto such a barbaric system of measurement. Booth would reply with some very pro-American comment and then we would all feel the sexual tension escalate.

So I went to the Internet and Googled "How To Understand the Metric System". Now if you are a slow typist and you have your computer set up to "auto fill" your typing you will find that if you delay at all after you've typed in "How to…." that the first return on suggested sites is "How to Put On a Condom". So after my curiosity was satisfied, I wanted to know in case I had been putting it on wrong all these years, I finally typed in my original request and 8,760,000 results popped up on my screen. Carefully reading the site descriptions I initially chose wikiHow. That site only showed me tables in standard and metric. So far no success. The next site provided a practical approach, for instance;

"Learning metric really only requires a few reference points and a way to use them in everyday life. To help me use metric units, I have a Celsius thermometer, a kilogram scale, a liter water bottle, several meter sticks, and a metric odometer and speedometer on my bike."

I'll be honest that the only part of that paragraph I could understand was "water bottle", "speedometer", and "bike". I decided that I would have to get serious in my research and found a great site that provided information in a way that was both educational and entertaining. The "Facts on Farts" webpage had nothing to do with the metric system but was way more entertaining. For instance, researching how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius is nowhere near as much fun to read about as "Why do Farts Make Noise?". I mean we all know why but reading why confirms our suspicions. What? You don't know. Facts on Farts does.

"The sounds are produced by vibrations of the anal opening. Sounds depend on the velocity of expulsion of the gas and the tightness of the sphincter muscles of the anus. Contrary to a popular misconception, fart noise is not generated by the flapping of the butt cheeks."

See, you smiled at that description. And even though it dispels the idea that fart noise is generated by the flapping of the butt cheeks we can still tell our children and grandchildren that it does. Besides, who doesn't like to say "sphincter". You can't have this kind of fun with the metric system.

Hottie, and I believe I speak for most wives, does not really care about the metric system. She does however have very strong opinions about farts. Women want to talk. Choose the wrong subject, like the metric system, totally kills the female conversation mood. Not farts. Recently I experienced a rather long burst of flatulence, low in tone, long in time, nasty as to smell. Hottie jumped all over me, not about the sound but the smell. "You could have warned me!" she exclaimed. "That's what the sound was for!" was my manly response.

See, conversation. I'm in touch with my wife's needs.

And I know the metric system is easier, units of ten is better than fractions, kilometers per hour sounds like you're really flying compared to mph, and freezing at 0 degrees Celsius makes more sense than 32 degrees Fahrenheit. And I'm going to convert one day.

As soon as the webpage is as entertaining as "Facts on Farts".

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.