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May 31 5 Days in MayHolla, Amigos! It’s been a long time since I blogged at ya, but the call of summer and holiday activities got the better of me. Back in January I made the commitment to myself to write something each day. While I wasn’t able to keep up that pace, I did do alright - 4 to 5 times a week writing most of my stuff after 9pm when the kids went to bed. But I obviously didn’t look far enough ahead to realize that longer days would cut into my nighttime writing – especially when the May days make me more tired than the January ones. Realistically, I may be looking at 2-3 posts a week – which is probably 2-3 more posts of junk than needs to be in cyberspace. But I’ll definitely make time to blogwalk!
Anyway, I’ve had the last 5 days off from work, and each day had a little something different to offer. Here’s a recap with a quote that will help encapsulate the main theme each day:
Friday, May 26th
“Just thinking about moving was the most exhausting experience of my life!” After 26 years of life, Rudiger closed on a house of his own. Last year I made the mistake of promising him that I’d help him move. At his rate of lazy and apathy, I thought I was safe, and I told him so. But I swear he bought the house out of spite. He does stuff like that. At least I was able to take solace in the fact that he was moving from an apartment not much bigger than 1 room efficiency. Shouldn’t take more than 1 hour. Again, he got the better of me and the rest of his moving crew (his dad and Ed). He was able to fit a couch, a lazyboy recliner, a full sized bed, 6 drawer dresser, a nightstand, a 32” TV, its stand, a HUGE entertainment center, a 56” widescreen TV and its stand, 2 computer desks, 3 computers, 4 monitors, a 19” TV, 2 Tivo units, a Game Cube, a Playstation 2, an Xbox, and Xbox 360, a stereo, 10-15 boxes of books/CDs/video games, and a closet of clothes. These are the belongings of a 21st century bachelor. It took us 3 ½ hours to move him about 2 miles away. And Rudiger was as tired as I’ve ever seen him. I’m sure he asked his parents to leave shortly after I left so he could take a nap.
Before I headed home, I changed clothes and threw on a lot of Old Spice to cover up the moving sweat smell in order to stop by and wish Mrs Bluegrass Man’s wife a happy 40th birthday at Buffalo Wild Wings. When I arrived she was drinking Diet Pepsi (she volunteered to be the designated driver on her birthday – what a gal!). I told the waiter to bring her another one on me. What I didn’t know is that soft drink refills are free! So that became the joke for the rest of the time I was there. I am such an idiot. And what really makes me mad is the number of times I have been there drinking a soda and refusing a refill because I thought it would cost me!!!
Saturday, May 27th
Twin Spin! “Mulch! Mulch! Mulch! Mulch! Mulch!” (to the tune of “Spam!” from Monty Python) and “If it weren’t for bad luck, they’d have no luck at all…” Thursday and Friday I took our minivan into Bloomington without the back seats in order to pick up mulch for my weekend project. I figured the van could hold 20 bags without doing any damage to the suspension. Each day as I left town I stopped by our favorite nursery and picked up my mulch. So 42 bags of hardwood mulch waited for me to spread them around our house Saturday morning. 42? There should only be 40. Try telling that to the kids loading up my van. Apparently when 2 or more are involved in the loading, the quantities received can be unpredictable. Thursday saw them load 21 bags when I purchased 20.
At this time I should tell you that I have a very bad conscience when it comes to this kind of error. Anytime I end up with a “bonus” like this, I feel like I have cheated the system. And cheating is something I have a hard time living with. I credit 95% of this to my parents always trying to make things right. The other 5% comes from the Abe Lincoln story where he walked 6 miles (or something like it) to return 2 pennies to someone he had overcharged. On Friday I tried to make it up by paying for 20 bags but asking the guys outside to load 19 bags into the van. Unfortunately there were 5 guys helping with the loading, and the math went really bad. One of the owners was helping with the load and even admitted to giving me an extra bag or two. So that’s how I ended up with 42. I’m just waiting for something to go wrong from this…
Anyway, I spent most of Saturday morning weeding around the house and moving the mulch into the landscaping in the 93 degree heat. The only thing that saved me was a visit from a family that had moved from our area about 1 year ago to build a trucking business in Iowa. They had come back to pick up what was left of a machine shed they owned that had been destroyed by storms earlier in the week. Prudence talked to the wife, M, and invited them for lunch and supper when they took breaks from the cleanup. I stopped mulching to eat ham sandwiches for lunch and later to cook hamburgers on the new grill for supper. Normally I don’t stop to eat when I work as it usually slows me down or makes me feel ill. It was nice to visit with them – especially nice for Prudence as M was her best friend before she moved. Unfortunately their life stories are like a series of business moves gone bad, and the destruction of the shed was just another chapter that had gone wrong. They moved away at the end of May last year, but they forgot to notify their insurance company of their new address. The renewal notice for their policy on the shed was delivered to their old address at the beginning of May. Because they hadn’t paid by their due date, the policy lapsed and the building’s demise was not covered. Suck. And they were about to close on the sale of the property next month. Double-Suck.
In between visits I was able to finish laying the new mulch. I am about 15 bags short of finishing the work. I’ll pick those up this week. I’m sure it’ll be 100 when I attempt to spread it again…
Sunday, May 28th
“The balloon rides are here! The balloon rides are here!” As I mentioned above, we had some terrible storms roll thru our area late Wednesday afternoon. Straight-line winds were measured at 70+ mph. And while no one reported seeing any, I’m sure there was a tornado or 2 in the air. Wisely our church leaders cancelled the 2nd annual “family fun night” to signal the end of the lower grade youth group meetings. The biggest hits last year were 2 balloon rides – a slide and an endurance course. The Boy and Em were crushed it didn’t happen Wednesday, but they understood and began to look forward to the rescheduled date and time – Sunday, May 28th at 5:30pm.
After lunch on Sunday, Prudence and I took some time to nap and catch up on some things at our desks. At 5:25pm, The Boy, out of nowhere, yells at the top of his lunch “Its Family Fun Night!” Startled us good! So we loaded up the van and made our way to the church. The kids played on 2 balloon rides for almost 2 ½ hours, with a short break for hotdogs and cookies. As it often says in my hometown newspaper, “Fun was had by all.”
Monday, May 29th
“I collect spores, mold, and fungus.” On Memorial Day we traveled back to my home town to take my dad to services in the park, to treat him to lunch, and to visit his house before its sale at the end of June. Below is a picture of our favorite veteran from WWII.
The American Legion and Boy Scout posts that put on the ceremony did a great job of honoring those who have fought for our freedom. As usual I was choked up for most of the service. Afterwards the Boy Scouts ceremoniously retired a number of flags. After visiting with a few classmates I hadn’t seen in a year or so, we took Dad to DQ. His choice – he loves their onion rings and Dilly Bars.
When we finished, we met my sister at Dad’s house. He’s lived in an assisted living retirement center for the last 4 years. For the last 3 we’ve tried to convince him to sell it. This year he made the decision. It will go up in a whole house auction at the end of June. What this means is that the contents of the house will be sold with the real estate in one bid for the property. Our job before then is to take any personal effects we want to keep or sell on our own out of the house, as well as pitch anything that would never sell – such as the piles and piles of magazines. This was a first pass. The biggest complication to the process now is that over the last 4 years mold has overtaken much of the house. It’s a health hazard to those of us who will spend 3-4 days next week to complete the cleaning job. I’m not as much at risk as is my sister who struggles with allergies and asthma. I pray that she won’t get sick from this.
We spent 2 hours going over the high points of each room – about 1 hour more than I had planned. Memories kept pouring out of my head and I brought home all the pictures I could carry, plus a few items I will blog about later. When we arrived home, almost everything went into the sink with a water/bleach mix to kill whatever we could. But I somehow have this feeling that the blob is growing in my basement.
Tuesday, May 30th “On the 5th day they rested…” Well, this isn’t entirely true. But the day did end up with some rest. Prudence hosted a board meeting from 11am-2pm and I mowed and worked to repair some damage at our duplex caused by the previous week’s storm. By about 3pm things slowed down enough that all of us spent some time in the living room “vegetating” in front of the TV.
Now it’s back to reality tomorrow. Or will it be today by the time I post this? Maybe I’d better take another day off… May 25 Yeah, I can see this...Thanks to DrCara, et. al., for passing this one around. Geordi is a good fit. Problem-solving "go to" guy! Plus he has cool "glasses"! And I've always liked LeVar work in "Roots" and "Reading Rainbow". Prudence may have issues with my "romantic relationships". If she thinks I'm having any more than just with her, ours is sure to be bungled! But when it comes right down to it, I'm just glad I didn't end up as a "Redshirt"...
Your results: You are Geordi LaForge
May 21 With a Little Help From My Friends - Old and New!
It's been quite a ride being featured on Spaces this week! I hope I've done my part to earn the honor bestowed on me by my friends who nominated me and the good people at MSN who make this space possible. I've had so many nice comments and quite a few lurkers. (It's okay, I have been and am one!) My hit count has nearly tripled what it was just this time last Sunday! Now I think I'll spend the next few days catching up with friends (both old and new). I'm looking forward to seeing all the new sites. I'll take my "camera" along and bring back pictures/links of my travels to share!
But before I go, I want to share a few of my favorite entries by friends I've found on Spaces. A number of the sites have already been featured, so you may be familiar with their content. But some of them may not have shown up on your radar yet. Give them time, I'm sure you'll see them featured very soon. Right, Christy?
Thanks again for stoppin' by! Swing by again if you have the time! And have a terrific week! May 20 I'm Gonna Pay for that Madagascar Comment...This morning I moved the family computer from the basement to the kitchen/dining room for more visibility. We have a 12 year old who has earned the right to expand her use of the computer for research for school. But we want/need to limit how much time is spent and on what sites. While we could install a lot of child protection software, there's no protection like Mom and Dad's eyes. The area it's now in is very visible for both of us, where as the basement was just looking for trouble. We don't necessarily like its location, but we wanted to what issues we run into before we run out to spend $$ on computer furniture.
In the above picture, the kids are gathered around a game called Zoo Tycoon 2. It has become a favorite of Panda's. It doesn't hurt that she invested her own money into it rather than just have it given to her. She's been kind enough to let The Boy and Em play on it as well. And today it dominated our supper conversation. At one point someone mentioned that one of their gazelles was eaten by a lion. In a non-filtering moment, I introduced the following story from CNN
Bear Eats Monkey, Visitors Shocked
like this:
"Speaking of animals being killed by other animals, I guess that a monkey thru one too many poohs at a bear and it ended up with him as supper..."
The Boy immediately picked up on it. Remember in my last post where I said I couldn't stop laughing when Pik's stomach growled? I got my payback tonight. He spent the next 10 minutes laughing uncontrollably. At first I tried to act like the parent, but Prudence kept giving me The See-What-You've-Done Eye. After a few minutes, I lost it, too. That's when the whole house of cards fell. I finally had to send The Boy to his room until he regained his composure. But really it was for me. When he came back, there were a couple of snickers, but everything settled down for the most part. But I'm sure the laughs will come back at the most inopportune time. Any bets on tomorrow at church?
Meat + Fire = Good! In other news, today's weather has been perfect (71 and sunny!) so we used our new grill twice today: on brauts at lunch and steak at supper. It replaced the one we lost in the March storms. We got an excellent deal on it. Soon after the storms came, I received some gift certificates from our management at work on a project I worked on. Then a friend of mine from church who works at Lowes offered me a 10% discount on the grill after he heard we had lost ours in the storm. All in all I saved about $80. Excellent!
May 19 "Blue, Not Blue" and Other Work/Potty stories...This week has been a week of meetings and presentations for our unit. Normally I hate this kind of thing. I'd much rather be back at my desk doing something (productive or not) than listening to others talk about boring subjects concerning work. But these meetings were actually talking about work issues I cared about. Unfortunately, I have a track record of, as my dad says, "resting my eyes". I've experimented with energy drinks, but found they don't really work for me. So I've become the butt of jokes before, during, and after meetings and other gatherings. In a presentation giving by Rudiger on a new web development tool, he twisted an old introductory programming example to take a shot at me. For many programming tutorials, the first item that the student is asked to make is a window/page/message box that says "Hello, world!". His take was "Stay awake, Chris!" Nice.
Later in the same meeting, my friend Pik let everyone know he was hungry - or at least his stomach did. During a presentation about security, Pik's stomach and intestines did some gas shifting in a very loud manner. I've had that happen to me, and I realize that its usually louder to the person it happens to than anyone else around. But this was louder than any rumbling from my body. I dare say it was the loudest one I've ever heard. People 3-4 people away from him even heard it. Scientists are probably studying it as a seismic event! When it happened we began to giggle like 6th graders. No, I'm giving us too much credit. How about 3rd graders? Yeah, that's better. Others laughed as well, but it became a church laugh of sorts. You know when you're not supposed to laugh, and whatever is causing it becomes the funniest thing you've ever heard in your head. I strained to contain the laughter. Occasionally I'd let out a quick chuckle, which really just added fuel to the fire. Within a few minutes I had tears rolling down my face as I could hardly contain myself. The worst/best part of the story is that everyone thought it was me.
You'd never guess I'm a 42 year old father of 3...
Now to the potty story. Normally I reserve these stories for face to face storytelling. Sounds, actions, and facial features can add a lot to these tales. But because I haven't had a chance this week to talk with WHW, the king of all things potty, and I know he reads my blog, I thought I'd take the occasion to share it here. If you're adverse to bathroom humor, you might want to skip to the next story.
First of all, I need to share that Diet Pepsi goes right thru me. Before I switched to diet (dang Type II diabetes!), I could drink 4-6 cans of Pepsi at work and not have to go #1 (also known in our circles as "little potty" - you can probably guess the name of #2) until I got home. Basically about 12 hours. I was a camel. Now I go 3-4 times a day. And this has been hard because I hate public restrooms. Some people, like Ed, think of it as a "perk" to be paid to potty. I prefer to do my business in the privacy of my own home. But I've had to get over this because of the changes in my diet and the way my meds work on my bladder & intestinal track. Its really a work in progress tho...
Anyway, I was at the urinal one afternoon this week when I felt the urge to release a bilabial fricative. I had to fart. Now this can be a tricky thing to do while at the urinal. Its almost like being on the high wire without a net. Well, really you have one, but you'd rather not use it! I felt pretty safe that there was nothing behind this gas bubble in danger of escaping, so I thought I was safe. Thought it would just be a quick "blow of the trumpet" and that would be it. But somehow, it became more like the sound you make when you release air from a balloon by stretching the sides of its intake area. And it wasn't short. It seemed to last about as long as Will Farrell's burp in "Elf"! As the sound continued, I took a quick glance at the guy to my left. He glanced over at me and then away. I could tell he was annoyed/concerned/surprised by it. As I thought about the sound, its length, and what others must be thinking, I felt myself begin to laugh. But this can be dangerous as well. Aiming might go askew or whatever is behind it might make a run for it! So I tried to hold it in. But much like the church laugh mentioned earlier, a quick chuckle burst out of my mouth. This seemed to be just what my sphincter needed as it concluded its concerto with the quick trumpet sound I expected earlier. I still had to finish my #1 job, with 2 or 3 people in the room wondering if they had just entered a gradeschool bathroom. I quickly zippered up, washed my hands, and left.
What did I do afterwards? Came back and shared the story with the guys.
Quite professional, don't you think?
A number of years ago my workplace, like many others, went to a "business casual" dress code. Guys no longer needed to wear suits and ties. Girls could ditch their versions of the suit (don't know what it was called). Everyone started coming to work in Dockers and polos. And Kohl's became a guy's favorite place to buy clothes. They have a sale going on every day! If you hoard all their coupons, you can buy a decent shirt and pair of pants for about $35 - huge savings over the $200 suits, $20 shirts, and $15-30 ties! May 18 "I'm Mowin' in the Rain..."The weather in our section of the Midwest has been wet to say the least. Last year we couldn’t buy a raindrop. And we complain either way. Humans are funny. All the rain has done wonders for my grass. It seems like I’m mowing every 4-5 days or when I can fit it in between storms. As of yesterday I hadn’t mowed in over a week. The grass was so tall in parts it was going to seed. Weathermen had predicted big storms for the evening, so I hurried home to fit at least one yard in. As I finished, our tornado sirens went off. I looked around and saw that it was getting dark in the north and east, but nothing to be alarmed about yet. Turning on the local radio station, they had spotted some rotation about 25 miles north of us. The county controls our sirens. If it had been our spotters, they would have waited until the storm had come a little closer and shown their true before getting folks worried. I realize you can’t be too careful with tornados, but I’m also aware that too many/early warning can make people lazy about it as well. In any case, the bad part of the storm skirted us, just spitting rain. But it brought topsoil from miles away and created quite a brown out effect. I took a few pictures (just what you should be doing during severe weather, right?), but this was the best of the bunch.
As this storm passed us by, another one was on its tail. From all the weather radar on the internet, it looked like it would be taking the same path as the first one. So I decided to drive the 6-7 blocks on my mower and try to fit the duplex lawn in before any more storms. I was able to finish ¼ of the yard before it started to spit rain. But the drops fell so infrequently, I thought it would be like before and I’d just make it thru. On the next ¼, the rain picked up it’s pace. And so did I. The drops became bigger and the grass became wetter. So did I. I committed myself to finishing the ¼, so at least the front would look good. When I finished, I was dripping wet and my mower deck was dragging from the weight of the wet grass gunked up inside. I think more grass got knocked over than cut during the last few rounds. I was going to clean the deck, but I remembered I had promised a retired neighbor I’d look at a computer problem she was having. An hour later, it was too late to clean the deck (and to blog, for that matter), so I brought the mower inside for the night. Here’s what I cleaned out of it this afternoon.
But before I could go to bed last night, Lance needed to be walked. If I didn’t, he’d bark at me all night. So we walked around our church, which is just a block away. About ½ way around the parking lot, he started into a prance – not quite in a hurry to get home, but not necessarily needing to leave his mark on any trees or streetlights. When we got home, I let Lance in the house while I took off some of my wet things. As I opened the door from the garage into the house, I heard Prudence say, “Get that thing out of here”. Apparrently the reason why Lance was prancing was because he had picked up a dead bird in the grass and was eager to bring it home to us. He carried it the rest of the way home in his mouth and dropped it in the middle of the living room. The kids were grossed out/laughing about it. Prudence was just grossed out! (Don't you wish I had a picture of that?) Today’s weather was great for mowing (somewhere in the 60s with a breeze). The grass cut much better than the night before – especially with the clean deck! As I finished mowing our back lot at about 8pm, my neighbor came out with his 20” push mower to mow his lawn, which was much smaller than mine. Realizing that he needed some help to cut thru his jungle before the last ray of sunshine was gone, I dropped my mower by his house. You would have thought I was handing him a million dollar check the way he accepted the offer! And somehow that made the whole experience worth it... May 16 Em and Dani's Big Catch!Over the May 5th-7th weekend, my in-laws celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. We had a very nice time at their party and a great weekend overall, but Em and her cousin Dani had an experience we’ll be talking about for years to come.
Oma and Deda (German for “grandmother” and Czech for “grandpa”) own a home on a lake in Michigan. Of course it’s the main attraction for the kids. The Boy talks about fishing for days before and after we go, and spends any time he can while he’s there out on the dock or along the shore fishing. He has yet to catch anything. But just like Linus in the pumpkin patch on Halloween night, he’s sure that his sincerity will land him the “big one”. Em has really never shown much interest in the sport, except when The Boy is getting more attention than she is. Well, I don’t know if its because she’s a year older, or if she was trying to show off for her cousin, but she demanded more “pole time”. There’s only one good pole for kids (only about 3 ft long), and on this trip there were 3 kids that wanted to catch dinner. So The Boy was forced to share casting time. I thought there might be some issues with this, but he took it upon himself to show the girls how it was done. He’d tell them they needed to change their lure based on the fish they were trying to catch (an easy way to gain control of the fishing rod). He also showed them how to cast. I’d already gone over the rules for casting so when it came to swinging a stick around with a hook on the end of it, no one would get hurt. So Saturday afternoon they took turns trying to empty the lake of its fish. During this time, my brother in law (Dani’s dad) and I were playing pool in their newly finished rec room that looks out toward the shoreline and dock where the kids were fishing. In the room above us was Prudence, her sister, and their mom discussing plans for the party the next day. They also had a view that overlooked the water. At some point Prudence yelled down the stairs to me asking where the camera was. I told her and looked out the window to see that the 2 girls were no longer by the lake, so I assumed that they were up with their moms doing something cute that needed to be captured on film. When BIL and I finished our game we came upstairs to see what had happened. Here’s what was recorded for posterity: Apparently Em and Dani questioned the logic of casting the lure toward the middle of the lake when they saw “fish” right by the shore. I’m not sure who it was, but someone decided to start swinging the pole at the minnows at their feet! On one swing they managed to snag one of the “slower” students in the fish school! To his credit, The Boy didn’t get upset that they caught the first fish. In fact he was proud of them and helped them free their catch. But the story doesn’t end there. Instead of thinking of this fish as food, they thought of him/her/it as a friend (perhaps a little too much “Finding Nemo”). Knowing that fish need water, but not having a cup or container to put it or the fish in, they found the next best thing: a wrapper from a Rice Crispy treat with an end still in tact.
We didn’t realize this until about an hour later when we were loading up the family for a boat ride around the lake. They decided to set their friend free out in the middle of the lake during the ride – all the time believing the little guy was still alive. We were assured several times that he was still moving. Okay. About 10 minutes into the ride, I encouraged them to free him, so Em took him by the tail and tossed him overboard. A lot of waving and “goodbyes” ensued. Thinking back on it now, I wish I had planted the seed that they might catch him again one day… A Banner to Call My Own!!!"I get by with a little help from my friends..." Lennon & McCartney
For months I've been envious of the cool banners many of my friends have on their spaces. And while I can be deft at digitally altering pictures to put friend's heads in funny (and often embarrassing situations), I am not good at creating artwork from scratch. *Heavy Sigh* But I am good at procrastination and just waiting for something to work itself out. So I waited, and waited, and waited...until today! And once again, I'm rewarded for my lazyness :)
Soon-To-Be Dr Cara (DrCara for short), seeing how pitiful my site was, took it upon herself to make me my own banner! It's perfect!! And I couldn't be happier!!! How she found time to do such a great job on this (and others - check out Mama Christy's and Television's spaces over the next few days) and still keep up with her med school homework is beyond me!
And with the banner, I decided to go with a background that better matches the blues of the sea and sky. I'm also taking advantage of this change to move on to a larger font. Has anyone out there been complaining under their breaths about the size? If not, you should have been! I bought new glasses last month and I still thought it was too small! But I liked the consistancy of using the same font from post to post. It was the fear of change that kept it small. But DrCara's gift has liberated me from this as well! It's like she's the Dr Leo Marvin to my Bob Wiley. Baby steps. Yeah, baby steps!
DrCara, thank you SO much!!! I couldn't get by without friends like you! May 15 Why the "Three Hour Tour"?
I grew up in what I like to think of as the “Silver Age” of TV (late 60s-1981). The reason it ended for me in 1981 is because that’s the year my house got cable. It was available in our town a couple of years before then, but Dad couldn’t understand why anyone would pay for TV. He was a traveling salesman. Two-three nights a week he’d stay at a motel, but never at one that was an early cable adopter. So TV was never a priority for him. My guess is that in 1981 one of the places he’d frequent began to offer it and he saw how cool it was. Only THEN was it okay for us to get it at home. So until then, we “survived” on 4 networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS).
(Side topic: I met a kid at college that grew up in the western side of Illinois without an ABC affiliate. My mind can barely grip a world without “Happy Days”, “Laverne and Shirley”, “Mork and Mindy”, “Welcome Back Kotter”, “Soap”, “Charlie’s Angels”, “The Streets of San Francisco”, “Mod Squad”, “The Rookies”, “Marcus Welby, MD”, …) At night I was the remote for my parents. “Chris, turn the channel to 17”, “It’s a commercial. Turn it to 3”, or “What’s on 20?” were common phrases to my ear. I think I’d still respond to them if someone gave me the order. Nighttime TV was the parent’s TV. But I ruled the living room during the hours of 3:30-5pm. During that time Channel 20 (the NBC affiliate out of Springfield) carried reruns of the greatest TV shows on the planet. The rotation varied each spring and fall, but it always had 3 of the following shows:
GI was the anchor show of the afternoon. I don’t remember an afternoon that it wasn’t featured - usually at 3:30 or 4pm and always after we were out of school (3:15pm). My neighbor across the alley, CJ, and I would play together all the time. But we were always aware of the time. Whenever GI came on, we went home, watched the episode, and then came back out to discuss the finer points of Gilligan’s screw up that cost the castaways their rescue. I saw CJ last year shortly after Bob Denver died. It was the first thing she brought up in our conversation. I saw her sister 3 days later and she said she thought of me when she heard the news.
In the early 1990s I had the great fortune to meet and work with fellow blogger WHW. Our love for TV made us quick friends. During one of our unofficial “team building” exercises (otherwise known as bull sessions), we started a list of our top 10 GI episodes. But we couldn’t stop at just 10. It became a quest to name all the episodes! The white board in my cube was filled with notations for HH (Harold Heckuba), Jap (Japanese soldier), Tonga (one of 2 guest appearances by great character actor Denny Miller – do you remember the other one?), and others. When we finished, we had 79 of the 98 episodes created. It killed us to learn we left off favorites such as “Dr Gilligan, Mr. Hyde” and “Where there’s a will…” This is how big this show was to my generation!
But it’s a show that continues to grow its membership. If my kids are left to find a DVD they all enjoy watching, 9 times out of 10 it’s a GI disc. The Boy’s favorites are “The Mosquitos” and “All About Eva”. He’s a Ginger lover – I myself always preferred Mary Ann. The girls enjoy “Princess Gilligan” with King Kiliwani. They, like me, enjoy hearing the king count to "10" with Gilligan always resetting the count to “4”.
So as thought about a name for my blog, it was only natural to pick the trip that went awry but (hopefully) continues to provide fun and entertainment for years without end. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the “Three Hour Tour”. Join me here each week, my friend, you’re sure to get a smile…
Wow! That Happened Fast!Last Tuesday I was contacted by MSN about featuring my space. Because I work for a large corporation and know it can take weeks to requisition paperclips - and if you haven’t heard of them before, Microsoft is pretty big in its own right - I figured it would be a while before my meaningless dribble would show up, if at all. I really thought that they would recommend an inanimate carbon rod from the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant as a “Best Of” WAY before they’d use mine. But here it is Monday morning and I have some new visitors to my site. And I haven’t even put out the “Welcome” mat! Well, consider this the bristled porcupine that sits outside your garage door that’s used to scrape off all the mud and grass clippings before you wipe your shoes at the door. A shinier, more inviting doormat will be put out later in the day.
In the meantime, feel free to poke around and look in some of the “windows”. Here are a few items that will give you a little flavor of what you'll find inside:
Be sure to check out the other featured spaces as well. I don’t think I’ve visited any of them before, but they’re sure to be great! And make sure to visit my blog friends listed at the right. They're really to blame for the minute or so you've spent reading this - time, unfortunately, you'll never get back. Blog at ya later! May 14 Em will be in our bed tonight...... and it's all Stan Lee and Sam Raimi's fault.
We arrived home this evening after an Mother's Day afternoon spent in Champaign. Zorba's was great as always, and Prudence and I had a chance to look at some new chairs for our dining room table. The ones we had, while heavy, have not proven to be the most sturdy. As I have pointed out several times, I am undertall, and this doesn't help. Imagine Atlas trying to hold the earth on his shoulders and you'll get the picture. We also looked at Menards for materials for a new "nest" I may build over Memorial Day weekend to protect our new grill. What happened to our family friend that stayed up late at night cooking pork loins? More about this in a post later this week.
Anyway, when we got home, it was 7pm and too late to fix supper (we ate lunch at 2pm and had custard at 5:30 from Culvers - Yum!). While the kids and I walked Lance, Prudence made us some popcorn for a light meal to eat during a TV show or movie. But what to watch? The Boy and Panda have been pestering me to watch Spiderman for a long time now, and I finally succumbed. Ran the idea by Prudence, and since we both couldn't remember a lot of "bad" details for the little ones, we decided to try it.
Everything was going ok until the spider dropped on Peter Parker's hand. Then Em, who had been sitting on another couch, came running to sit on Mommy's lap. While Peter started going thru his transformation, Em's grip became tighter. During the scenes where Osborne was defending his human strength drug, she asked Mommy a lot of questions about spiders and if it could this really happen. Prudence, sensing that this would only get worse, decided to take her upstairs and watch some recorded "Little Bears" with her while the other 2 and I watched deeper into the movie. I stopped it about 1/2 way thru (it was after 9:30pm) and told them we'd watch the rest on Tuesday or Wednesday when we had time. About that time, Em came down with a lot more scary spider questions. I tried to reassure her that this was only a movie with special spiders that don't really exist. I tried to add some humor and funny voices to the mix, hoping to take her mind off arachnids, but I'm guessing they'll sneak back into her dreams. And eventually she'll sneak into our bed...
No, it's not really Stan or Sam's fault, but just like so many other things, it's easier to blame someone else...
May 13 In the line of "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"At the supper table tonight, The Boy brought up an interesting question that I'm surprised I haven't thought of. Last Saturday was Free Comic Book Day. We picked up a copy of everything they offered. One of the comics was a celebration of 65 years of Archie Comics. All the gang was represented, including Jughead. And being a new reader, he dove right into it. Couple this with his love for Scooby Doo and all it's variations, he asked the following thought provoking question to the group:
"If Jughead and Shaggy were in an eating contest,
who would win?" I was blown away, and very proud of the young reader and TV watcher who was able to assimilate characters from different mediums. Everyone "weighed in" (pun intended) with their theories, and I've had an opportunity to come up with my theory. But before I share, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this deep philisophical question...
May 10 PS2: Better Late than NeverVideo games have never been a priority in our house. Not because we don't like them. On the contrary, I think they're really cool! In college, Prudence and I used to spend our hard-earned quarters playing Frogger, Space Invaders, Tempest, and our all time favorite Centipede. In between classes, another friend of mine and I would go to the student union and play some kind of Kung Fu game that was fun to. But one thing we learned in school is that we could easily become addicted to video games and we already had plenty of time-wasting and waist-growing activities. So we decided not to purchase any of the game systems that came out.
Then came kids.
And in the age of video games, we (well, at least I) didn't want our kids to go to a friend's house and be a total gaming neophite. We (okay, I) could just hear the kids coming thru the screen door crying that Xavier X-Box or Polly Playstation had just called them "Sissy Thumbed". We (I) couldn't live with myself if that happened. So 3 years ago for Christmas, I put a PSOne on my list for the family. They were $50 and the games could be bought used for $5-$15. Used controllers were $2 and a multi-tap was $3. Just enough investment for good game play for everyone, but not enough that we would be tied to it forever. Our favorite games have been the Crash Bandicoot series - especially Crash CTR. Before Thanksgiving last year I bought Grand Tourismo 2 for The Boy. He loves realistic car racing. Me? Not so much. I prefer my car crashes to be comic in nature - something where an Isis-like whirlwind saves me from the depths and puts me back on the track. All-in-all, its been a fun system and has given us a lot of bonding time. But always in small portions. Remember, we could become gluttons for it.
A few months ago I began to look at some of our other game options. Pretty slim pickins for the PSOne. I've always been intrigued with the baseball and football games and certain shoot-em-up games, but there was nothing that screamed "buy me". That is until I saw Lego Star Wars for $20! This game looked so cool with some of the fight scenes - Yoda is awesome! And no blood for the kids! But alas, it was only available for the PS2 and other more expensive gaming systems.
So I began to pick the brains of two of the most knowledgeable game players I know - Rudiger and Mutt. Between them, they have every game system known to man and could advise me of my next gaming system purchase. They told me the PS2 played PSOne games and would cut down on my initial investment for games. The PSOne controllers and multitap would work with the PSOne games on the PS2. And it also doubled as a DVD player. Cool. Now to find a used one at a decent price ($150 new price tag was too rich for my blood).
Last Thursday as Mutt scanned the newly released weekly interoffice classified ads, he found a PS2 system with an extra controller for $50. He quickly alerted me to the deal and within 5 minutes I had a PS2 (in principle)! Yesterday, before we completed the exchange, the lady selling it (their family hadn't used if for almost 2 years) offered me a steering wheel and pedals for $20 extra. So today my $70 and I made the trek to her desk and picked up our newest edition to the entertainment center. Now I"m off to order my copy of Lego Star Wars. Can't wait to kick Count Dooku's Lego butt!
For future reference: does anyone know a good carpal-tunnel surgeon? May 05 "You always say 'Baa'..."During supper last night I received a call from Prudence's brother-in-law, Scotty. We discussed the merits of trying to save a broken relic from our wive's past - a kid sized rocker with a ripped vinyl seat cover and arms that continually break off. After determining that the item should end up at the curb during our community's garage sale/junk weekend (it can become someone else's treasure - see some of the finds from Beth and some good garage sale rules from Christy), I said "goodbye" to Scotty. At least I thought I did….
I'll be out of town for a long weekend, extending it into Monday. Prudence's parent are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this weekend in southern Michigan. Please pray that they can actually celebrate the 50 years instead of bicker about them. It's never pretty when they fight, but it's been the constant. If it weren't for fighting, they'd have no conversation at all. But I'm hoping that the joy of the day will bring out the best in them and us, too. Have a great weekend all! See you next Tuesday! Baa! er...Bye! May 03 New Busch StadiumOn Tuesday, April 25th, I was lucky enough to visit the newest edition of Busch Stadium - home of the St. Louis Cardinals! A good friend of mine from church knows a guy who has 4 season tickets. In the old Busch Stadium, they were along the right field fence about 20 rows from the foul pole down with the "beautiful people" (wide seats, incredible views, vendors and bathrooms at every corner, etc.). In order to keep his season ticket costs the same, the guy moved his seats to right field, about 10 rows up from the field and right next to the Cardinal bullpen. Not quite what they were - especially when the scoreboard/jumbo-tron is at your back - but still an excellent view.
We arrived at about 5:30pm before the 7:05 first pitch. This is the view we encountered driving up to the ballpark.
We parked our car about a block to the south of the stadium in a lot adjacent to Al Hraboski's. Here's the view as we approached the home plate entrance.
Walking north down 8th Street we came to the featured gate, left field, guarded by the great baseball warrior Stan "The Man" Musial statue.
Walking around the left field corner I came across the ruins that once was Busch Stadium II. This is all that's left of it: a dirt pile. Kinda made me sad. So many good times spent and memories made there.
Peeking thru the gate in center field, I came across this scene. Lots of room to congregate and eat! The building to the left of the people is where they are selling collectibles - signed baseballs and jerseys, memorabilia of the old ballpark. They also have someone there making personalized bats. I didn't catch the cost, but I'm guessing it was a pretty hefty price tag.
I rounded the center field corner and headed towards the right field gate - and my true mission for this trip. To find the brick paver we purchased for my dad last Father's Day. As one of the countless ways to exhort money from fans like me, they came up with this scheme of printing a personalized message on a brick (at various cost levels) and placing the brick in the sidewalk that surrounds the new stadium. Sounded like a good way to immortalize my dad (as "immortal" as anything gets these days - probably for the next 40 years) who shared his love for the game and this team. We could only afford the cheapest one and were limited to 3 lines with 15 characters (including spaces) on each line. One of the lines had to be Dad's name. It actually became only his first and middle initials and his last name (11 characters long with enough consonants to make any German spit on you with his pronunciation). The other 2 lines read "Cards & J Buck Fan Since 1961". Dad moved from northwest Iowa to Illinois in the late 1950s. One of his business partners started taking him to games and he got hooked! Below is the brick, the sidewalk its on, and the special Cardinal memory that his brick surrounds.
After pictures were secured for posterity and to send him on email, I went inside the gate and found the place to be incredibly spacious at the ground level - something the Busch II was not. There may have been enough room to put everyone out of the weather, in case it rained. It threatened to that night, but it held off until the game was over, so I'm glad we didn't have to test that theory! And there were vendors at every corner and bathrooms with urinals as far as the eye could see. Collector cup sodas were $5 and my favorite kosher dog was $5.50 - both about $.50-$1 more than last year. Gonna be even harder to take the family there any time soon. I walked around and stepped out about every walkway I could find to see where the good and bad seats were. Surprisingly, at the ground level, there doesn't seem to be a bad view in the park. I overheard people that sat behind the foul poles that the pole's base was pretty big and blocked the view somewhat. There are rumors that these poles will be replaced with much skinnier ones during a long road trip this summer. But overall I was impressed. Below is the view from behind home plate (sorry the other couple is in the way. Everyone was taking pictures!
At about 6:45pm, I made my way to our seats. Below is the view from right field and a peek into the bullpen. That's Jeff Suppan, the starting pitcher, warming up.
The night was cold (50 degrees) compared to all the other beautiful nights we could have been there. But I'm not complaining. Especially since they won 6-3 over the Pirates. Juan Encarnacion came out of his funk with a single short of the cycle and 4 RBIs. He won a lot of fans over that night. Right field seat holders were leading the "Juan! Juan!" chants all night long. They were also all over Jeremy Bernitz. He misplayed Encarnacion's hit into the triple and looked pretty bad doing so. Jeff Suppan got his first win of the year despite a weird 3rd inning that saw a wild hit-by-pitch and catcher's interference. Braden Looper looked outstanding, and Izzy made it a little interesting with a walk before shutting the door. A great night that I'll remember forever! May 02 Back to the Future Me!About to tackle a Herculean task that may last weeks, months, or years? Maybe you're facing an illness or a surgical procedure? Going back to school while managing a job and family? How about going on a diet or giving up smoking or drinking? Need to hear some words of encouragement or be held accountable along the way? Or maybe you just want to sent a stupid message to your "future self" for the fun of it? Rudiger just received a note today from a "past him" when he least expected it reaffirming something that he'd forgotten about himself lately - that he's a stud and is awesome: From: FutureMe. org <pastme@futureme.org> You can, too! Visit FutureMe.org and send yourself (or others) a message at a time when it's needed! Go ahead! It'll cheer you up! Guaranteed! May 01 Great Deal on a Dell!I'm always on the lookout for a great deal on computer equipment. Even if I don't need it, chances are someone will ask me if I've seen any. The two most reliable places I've visited for computing (and other) deals are Dealcatcher and Dealnews. They both do a bang-up job pointing folks in the right directions to save money. They typically only reference deals from sites that are known for good/great service, so you can trust their recommendations.
One special that Dealcatcher is featuring is a Dell computer with 2.5Ghz Celeron Processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, a CD/DVD Burner, and 17" flat panel monitor for $349! Inconceivable! But hurry! The offer ends on Wednesday, 5/3!
Just let me know if you buy one. Don't worry, I'm not working on any commission. I just enjoy living vicariously thru the computer purchases of others...
Chris, your Dell dude |
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