Hard Knocks

Jr. is a bum. It breaks my heart to say it, but the truth needs to be dealt with. The boy comes in, eats all the junk food he can find while watching cartoons and only tries to make it look like he was studying or doing any household chores. Then he wants to collect an allowance.

Now I am a firm believer in the God given right to fuck off. I work for the state of Oklahoma, after all. But this kid is claiming he is doing work, collecting money and buying more crap to keep him from doing what needs to be done. AND school just started!! I do not want to spend the next 9-10 months on his ass. Thus I determined that I, his loving father, would teach him a lesson in hard work. I would be with him all this long holiday weekend, getting the job done right.

My day of setting an example to the boy started early Saturday morning when Jr. woke me up around 9:00 am saying he had been trying to get the Weedeater started for the past hour. He was nearly in tears at the admission of his failure. So I poured me a cup of coffee, and went out to the shaded porch to try to start the machine. I was proud of not deriding the poor kid for not understanding how to work a choke at the age of 13. I simple patted the top of his head and told him I loved him even if he was kind of slow.

Then the damn Weedeater wouldn't start for me either. Fucker. So I told Jr to take it to the shed and we would pull the spark plug and clean it. I went inside and got my shoes on and carried my untouched coffee out to the shed where we spent the next two hours cleaning up all the mess that had been dumped in front of the door and on the work bench. I told the boy over and over NEVER dump things in the way of where we need to work, so yesterday I spent a good half day of showing him how to stow away gear.

Then we had to fine the spark plug wrench. That took another hour, but we pulled the plug and while it looked clean, we brushed it up and put it back in and cleaned the air filter. I tried to explain to Jr. that these are common little bits if maintenance all men have to do in the course of working with tools. And the fucker still wouldn't start.

The Mower had developed a problem that needed a better mechanic than the boy, so we needed to make a trip to town to get our trailer that a friend keeps borrowing. Since we were going to town we decided to fill all our old mower gas cans, service the chain saw and take it to clean up some trees growing in the foundation of our rent house. So we looked for another hour for the round file, then decided we would buy a damn freakin round file when we buy that fucking spark plug for the feakin damn Weedeater. Did I mention it was getting REAL hot?

The third store we went to had Weedeater spark plugs and a round file. This was, of course, Wal-Mart. One hour later we got gas and drove over to my buddy's house to get the trailer and sharpen the saw. Man it was hot. So then we go to the rent house and cut out several tall trees that grew up along the foundation and then I cut back a real pretty crepe myrtle that was planted too close to the roof line. We loaded this on the trailer and pick-up bed, visited with the neighbor lady (96 years old and still does her own cooking) then came home, unloaded the brush and loaded the trailer.

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD IT WAS HOT!! Sweat was pouring off of me. My knees were buckling and I thought I might throw up. We went out to the shed to replace the old plug with the new one and looking for the DAMN FREAKIN spark plug wrench for another half hour! AND THE FUCKER STILL WOULDN'T START!

So we load the mower, we put the Weedeater in the trailer and we go back into town and just leave everything in the yard of the repair guy. We get home and I can barely raise my arms. My stomach is cramping and I feel I might pass out at any moment. Jr. looked at me like he was afraid I might die and even said he would put away the gas cans so I could go inside.

.........?!! Then as I staggered into the house and flopped on the sofa to consume large jugs of liquids it occurred to me, "MY PLAN WORKED!" He saw the value of hard work by my unwavering example.

Too bad the gas cans were left in the middle of the doorway of the shed.

Opinion Fluff

NOTE: Too freakin lazy to look up correct spelling of names.

I have heard a lot of discussion on Sarah Palin (Am I the ONLY one who sees that name and thinks it reads Sarah Plain and Tall? I am sure there is a psych reason for that... maybe something to do with a word sight registrar?) I hear everything to it's great she is a woman maverick to she is way too lacking in experience. So, in the long standing traditions of "opinions are like assholes, everybody has one and usually they all stink," here are some of my thoughts.

Traditionally the Veep job has been a career ender. In the 1900s when Teddy was elected VP, he was deeply depressed. His political party put him there so that he could not cause any more problems. He was so distraught he left for the wilds of Colorado with his family. Within weeks McKinley was shot in Buffalo and Teddy was on a train back to DC to change history and shape the future... and make Oklahoma a state.

The position has served as either a launching pad for people like Bush Sr, or a political cock-block like for Quale, Dukkas, and Gore. Dick Cheney really changed the scope of the power of the #2 dude. But historically I would say the VP person is of little or no importance for the next 8 years. However, this VP will be stepping into the shoes of Darth Vader who wielded way more power than any Veep ever had before. (He fabricated enough intel to get a war for Haliburton after all... while still receiving a paycheck from the company!)

I think the main things to look at are the people who will make the calls in future policy decisions. I have not paid a lot of attention to Obama because I was informed very early our votes don't count. Oklahoma delegates will vote for whomever THEY want to vote for, despite the primary election. (Good use of taxes) What excites me is that Obama seems to make enough campaign money he could change the face of politics. There are rumors that most of his contributions are from foreign governments. But if he can break the hold Lobbyist and favor-grubbers hold over current politicians, Obama may be the savior this country needs. IF IF IF....

McCain, on the other, hand claims to be a maverick but plays the party line. He wants to stay in Iraq even if it takes 100 years. He votes against Veteran health benefits, he endorses torture of prisoners... after claiming that if we torture it will endanger our servicemen if they are prisoners, like he was in Viet Nam. He has flip-flopped on all of his core values to get more in line with his party. I thought he was the guy to elect in 2000. But as many political analysts have pointed out, this is not the McCain that should have won 8 years ago.

If you are looking to make a change, right now, the guy that stands the biggest chance to change politics seems to be Obama. McCain was too eager to give his values up to the RNC. Now he seems controlled by his wife's purse strings and his party's fickle support. I think the guy who seems more independent and says he wants to make things better for everybody might be the best choice.... but can we get him to cool his jets on capital gains taxes? Sheeesh... at least set some brackets! If I make $15K a year in rental income I don't think it is the same as the guy who makes $20 million in the same year.

Wood Bees

So I get this early morning phone call on my day off. Mother Y2K is headed for the OR again and they plan to "roto-rooter" her arteries out. She evidently talked to my step father around 11:00pm and informed him they were about to wheel her into the surgical room at any moment. Thus, by the time I heard about it, it should have all been over.

Only it wasn't.

"Really? You think they want to start operating on her around Midnight? She wasn't critical, she wasn't an emergency. This seems wrong. Are you sure she knows what's going on?"

Turns out she didn't know. She was heavily sedated and on loads of pain meds and was hearing all of her fears as reality. My sister, who had gone up there to stay with her, and protect her from sedated nonsense was off sleeping in her car. No problem, we cleared it all up rather quickly and were back on track. But it was still early, and I had a day of "no reporting to work" ahead of me.

I grabbed the hedge clippers I had been avoiding all summer and trimmed up the Holly and then the rose hedges. I trimmed up a couple of trees and then I put away the sheers before my yard started looking like my dog when I give HIM a haircut.

The rest of the day was a bust. I tried several projects, they all failed. It got hot so I grabbed some meat out of the freezer and slow cooked some roast for dinner. About a half hour before serving I fired up the grill and placed the cooked roast on a grill sheet and got an excellent texture. The girls in my house were mightly pleased with my heroic cooking effort. And YES that is how I like to think of it, HEROIC.

Shut up!

So while I am out there on the front deck I saw our wood bees have returned. These bees are not a threat to people, but they will do damage to wooden structures... like my front deck. The roof was already riddled with large bored holes from these winged beasts. Nothing seems to keep them away and I could stress over it until I was sick... OR I could take the redneck approach to home protection.

No I did not start blasting away with a shotgun! Sheeesh! Give me a little credit. It's bow and arrow season on them critters.

KIDDING!! I have a plastic "Little Tykes" baseball bat that is very wide, very short and very flat on one side. It's kind of like a wiffle ball version of cricket... only with wood bees. It's jolly fun! The secrete is to never take your eyes off of everything and try not to wipe out the dragonflies... they are cool.... Wood bees are not. And I have to admit, there is a great deal of satisfaction in hearing the endocrine shell of a hovering wood bee crunch.

On lessons learned. Don't play wiffle ball wood bee when Mrs. Y2K is visiting with you on the front deck. You tend to hit towards her all the time and she aint a good sport about it.

Thursday Thursday

So just a bit of a recap:

Mother Y2K had surgery this morning and we had better news than the doctors were predicting. Hopefully we will have her home and recovered quickly.

Jr. is off on his first entrepreneurial endeavor as he is a salesman for FFA Blue Gold meat products. And yes, I was one of the first that got to say, "I'll buy some of the gold meat but the blue sounds like it might be spoiled." PeePaw was the second and my co-worker was the third. Nerds all of us.

I rented a stack of 5 for $5 for five days videos. So far I can say there was a disappointing lack of nudity in the Resident Evil Extinction flick, and the critics were right, Brad Pitt's The Assassination of Jessie James sucked ass. I suspect if they would have added just one car chase and maybe a 15 minutes of Wedding Crashers sex humor and it would have made bank. But Nooooooooooooo, they went all artsy so nobody could stomach the freakin thing.

I took off tomorrow. No special reason other than I had the time in annual leave that either needed to be used or lost. So I used it for a long 4 day weekend. It will be over before I realize. Oh a local dude running for US Senate called and asked me to march in the parade with him. I am not special, I think he got my name off a sign in sheet at the local Democratic Meeting. They even offered a free T-Shirt. You know...? I should make him a deal. I will be in the parade wearing his Vote for Andrew Rice T-Shirt if her would wear one of my "Ball Licking Man" T-shirts! OMG it would be a marketing gold mine! I wonder if his phone number is still in my cell phone?

Hating My State Job

I know, I know, posting two Youtube videos back to back is so uncool, but I think it's time to follow the example of those cheeky Brits!

A State Prepares

Gay Bashing

OK I am going to do this gossipy style, like Entertainment Tonight kind of stuff.

The rumor is a well known City Councilman in my hometown was arrested at an I-40 Truck Stop for public sex with another man. I do not know if he was soliciting truck drivers or met a companion. The reports from area law enforcement are kind of crude.

As a result the guy has been asked to resign from the Board of Directors of the local YMCA because he made the other Board Members uncomfortable.

He claims he stepped outside to urinate but will not fight the charges of indecent exposure. The cops say that IS NOT what he was doing with the other guy.

I called just now, asking one of the YMCA Board members if there was a chance this was a prank some friends of (his/hers) were pulling and I was assured it wasn't. The YMCA Director supposedly confronted him and then had him resign from the board.

OK If true, soliciting sex of any kind at an I-40 Truck stop in your home county is not cool to the point of being dumb. Sex in the parking lot is dumb. But does the punishment fit the crime? If convicted he goes on the Sex Offender Registry, right? That is one of the most horrible things you can do to a person. Neighbors fear for their children thinking everybody on that list is a child molester, where as this dude seems to have been with a consenting adult. Plus he will be a total outcast in a town that thought of him as a civic leader just a week ago.

If he had been caught having sex with his wife of 20 years following a anniversary dinner, would he face the same punishment? What if he was single (I think he is actually) and he met some internet date and they did something wild, stupid, and exciting, like sex in the parking lot .... it's dumb, but do they deserve to be black listed? Is there a chance the cops would laugh at them and tell them to take it to a private room? IS THIS GAY BASHING? IS THIS A HATE CRIME committed by the cops because midwestern American Hates gay people?

I blame Bush!

An Opprobrious Look

Yin and Yang

OK first of all... we have this continual discussion now, "Is it Yin and Yang or Ying and Yang?" None of us have the level of curiosity to actually look it up during the hours and hours we spend in front of a computer or on the internet. No, that would be sensible. That shit just wont fly round here.

Second of all we had a good week. Mrs. Y got on as an adjunct Professor. She is not looking for another job, but teaching is not a job it is more like a calling. We sent people out of state for a work conference and they all got back safely. A good friend of mine got a bug bite that turned into MRSA, but she is home and recovering quickly. My family grew by one more as my cousin had ANOTHER baby girl. Finally, my Brother-in-Law and friend visited and we had a great time

Unfortunately the whole week did not go well. My dear friends that I have been close to since all of my adult life are ending a 30 year old marriage. Mrs. Y still has not looked over the material for her class on Tuesday night. I will be out of town on Tuesday night and not able to help her. My father's sister's husband has been told he has a terminal illness and my mother is facing all new health problems as she turns 68 year old. Oh yeah, and now she is probably mad as hell I said how old she will be on Wednesday.

So honestly I don't know if it has been a good week or a bad week. I tend to have an intrinsic guide that I use to determine if I had a good group of days or not and based on that I can make the following conclusion: It rained over the weekend and we did not get the lawn mowed. It was a bad week.

Great Moments In Olympics

How I Spent My Day Off

Mrs Y2K gets a call the other day. It's a woman she used to work with, we both went to graduate school with the lady so she is far from a stranger. A small college she works for is desperate for some adjunct teachers and they would like Mrs. Y to teach. She was all flattered and she really used to enjoy teaching day care parents how to do basic early childhood skills, so she said she would agree.

Then she told me about it. "Who are you teaching? Are they day care workers getting a certificate to baby-sit or are they college students on their way to an Early Childhood certification test? There is a HUGE difference in the level of information you will need to offer."

She didn't know.

"So... have you had any Early Childhood Literature classes? I mean like a semester long class and not just a couple of hours in a seminar?"

OK that one got me a dirty look. She assured me it was fine, but I took a college level Early Childhood Literature class and while the required reading list was kind of light... It was a heavy work load! And if you want to teach that class you better know your shit when you walk through that door, because those kids won't get another chance to learn the material and colleges do not refund.

Let's just say I got nervous. I start asking if she knows basic terms like "Literary Event?" No, I was not being an asshole! I started off describing a literary event and defined it for her. No, she had not heard the term before. I grew VERY Nervous.

Today I grabbed the text and started reading it and she gave me the rest of the course material. It was a mess! All garbled up and mixed together. I spent the rest of the afternoon putting it together in some order and identifying the missing material. I went over a lot of the lessons with her and told her she needs to spend the rest of the weekend reading the text and reviewing the semester's workload because her class starts on Tuesday!

You know suddenly I have two girls in college. I started laying out the material for her that she will have to know well enough to teach by Tuesday and she has never really even had a course in this subject. Within minutes she was saying, "Oh no! I made a mistake! I never should have agreed to this!"

It will be fine and she will come out OK. But I really did work all day on my day off trying to get an idea of what her class is supposed to present. It is the work horse type of class I took back in college alright. It's going to be a lonnnnng semester Bubba, real long.

ANAL

"Most people don't realize I notice every little detail like that Cris." my friend said to me. "I guess this is what people call anal?"

"Yes," I replied, "It means you were probably abused during potty training and never got over it."

"See I pay very close attention... Huh? It does not!"

"Yes it does." I said with the assurance of a certified Early Childhood Development degree. "It's a Freudian term and it refers to your potty training days."

"You are making that up!"

"No I am not. Freud recognized several stages of development. He said at certain ages kids find comfort and security by putting everything in their mouths. That's the oral stage. If you have a thumb sucker, you need to let them suck the thumb until they decide to stop. You should never punish them or you will screw up their sense of self. Then there is the anal stage where a kid's whole world revolves around their body. They love their reflection and the feel and look of their body and they love everything that comes out of their body. And this is also when we start potty training kids."

"I'm losing interest.." she interrupted.

"Hang on for a bit, I am nearly finished. If you are too strict or abusive in potty training you scar their mental development. What they loved is now called nasty and dirty. They are told they are wrong for something their bodies made and they are hard wired to enjoy. You retard them in development. They are retained in the anal stage of development. They are anal retentive. Freud says if you are overly lax in potty training the kids could be slovenly or lazy. Early childhood development is pretty serious stuff."

"Well I don't believe that has anything to do with me."

"Well, see, Freud says that if you have a strict potty training you will always feel like what you are doing wont pass inspection. You will become hypersensitive to all things to the point of obsession. Nothing is ever clean enough, nothing is ever neat enough. That guy on TV, Monk, probably had a very strict potty training, just like you."

"No. I don't believe it. I am very neat but my daughter is even neater than I am. It's a trait we share."

I paused for a bit. "And were you very strict on her potty training...?"

"Oh!" Nervous laughter, "Well... yes I was."

Mr. BIL Time!!

Hey my Bro-In-Law (BIL) is coming for a visit. My Bro in Law has a lot of qualities I find real cool:

1. He has the same first name as my Dad
2. He has the same birth date as my Dad
3. He is about 5 years older than my Dad
4. The kids love him
5. He love the kids
6. He is pretty much all the family my wife has left besides me and the kids
7. The wife has a place to go if she decides to leave me (kidding)
8. His girlfriend is way cool (for a Republican)
9. He (they) are not stupid
10. They realize what a catch my wife got. They always comment on how somebody in that house married WAY out of their league. I try to down play the comment so it won't hurt the wife's feelings. I'm thoughtful like that.

I don't know if I will be able to post nightly during the visit. Only time will tell.

OH I went to uncensored Google Image search and entered "Opprobrious" misspelled and everything and on the first page I saw not one cartoon or real pic of me or my web site, but I DID see SIX yeah SIX freakin pictures of this chick! How in the WORLD can she have more pics than me when it is the freakin SPECIAL SPELLING of my website that is ON Google?!!! Life just aint fair.

Beginning of the End?

So last night I have this very vivid dream that a friend of my daughter's drove up in the middle of the night, and came into the house in the dark. I heard the noise and grabbed a .22 pistol I was cleaning with my son while discussing gun safety. Hey it not all that red neck! The fact is there are guns everywhere in this state. If I don't teach him fundamentals, he could get hurt or killed out of ignorance. AND it's not like I handed him a loaded weapon to play with at will! We unloaded it (it had blanks in it from a community play I had been in last summer) Then we took it apart and carefully cleaned it. Then I let him try to put it back together and we had a long long talk about real guns as opposed to toy guns. Real guns kill what they are point towards. No redos, no taking i back, in an instant what was living is dead and will never live again.

This is followed by the standard Redneck, and if you ever touch a gun without me around to supervise I will beat every bit of hide off of you boy!

OK Guns scare me. I admit it. Maybe to be more precise, my kids around guns scare me! I grew up around them. My Dad loved hunting and was always taking me out to kill birds or some furry animal. I kind of hated it! I liked watching good bird dogs work, that was very pretty to see a well trained and disciplined animal perform. But I did not like killing the animal nor cleaning it nor eating it. I can, I have, there is a real chance I will again. But I don't enjoy it. So maybe the stress I was feeling spurred the dream I had last night.

I dream this boy my daughter is friends with snuck into the house. I didn't know who it was, although I seemed to know all along. I grabbed up the gun my son and I had been cleaning, knowing it was empty, but wanting to use it as a scare tactic. YES I KNOW IT WAS STUPID! CRAWL OFF MY ASS - IT WAS A DREAM!!!

So I go thought the house like a rounded middle age Starsky and Hutch, checking out the rooms and finally bursting into my daughter's room... well, OK I knocked first... No telling what you will see if you get in the habit of bursting into a 16 year old girl's room without warning!! Trust me!! SO I knock, wait a reasonable amount of time to cover up and the burst in with pistol drawn! Only to have the friend step out of the shadows in her room with his hands up saying it was just him.

I can't be sure but I think I pulled the trigger, knowing it was still unloaded... something you should never do with a gun (AGAIN CRAWL OFF MY ASS! IT WAS A DREAM) but I distinctly remember hearing the hammer fall with a click and the friend saying "Dude, you so would have shot me!"

So this is like the second vivid dream I have had this week. I NEVER remember dreams yet now I have two in one week. Isn't that what always happened to Buffy just before the next Apocalypse?

Oh freakin fantastic! Next on Maury... "I'm a female vampire slayer trapped in a man's body!"

Need DeFlowering?

I am a Canna What Flower Are You?

Mini Rant

OK So here I am looking over my Google News Reader when I see a story that has me ready to drop the service. Google is repeating a Newsweek story claiming Obama is making ad that use outdtated quotes to make McCain look out of touch. But then I look at the story and the old quotes they are claiming McCain made are all within the past 8 months and since the campaign started!

Now when did the Main Stream Media report on the bullcrap about Obama wearing a lapel pin? When did they come to the defense of his Muslim background? When does the MSM ever get involved in these issues in a political campaign? They never stepped up to correct the crap the Swift Boaters said about Kerry. They never stepped up to protest the way the RNC used crap to cloud the Florida Election under Gore. Why are they stepping up now and claiming quotes from McCain made within the past 6-8 months are outdated and out of context?

Must be another example of the Freakin Liberal Media, huh?

I'm Beat

You know I kind of hurt my back on Saturday at the Gun Show. I didn't do anything to it, other than stand a little longer than normal. Evidently that was enough. So I hurt all night Saturday Night and all morning Sunday. But Sunday afternoon .... I slept all day. I never do that! Well... I don't like it when I do. It's a day I lost with my kids, a day I lost that I could have been building something of a better home life, it's a day I lost trolling for horny chicks on the internet. It was lost and lost forever!

So I was still hurting today and made it in late. It didn't matter, I was busy from the moment I got there and stayed hooked up until nearly 6:00 p.m. At one point I made myself stop long enough to make a tuna sandwich... which by the way... I don't think I drained all the tuna juice out of it, so it was even nastier than a normal tuna sandwich.

I did catch up on a lot of last months paper work and I prepared for a youth group that came in to learn about parliamentary procedure. That was a long meeting where you develop by-laws. But they were just kids, so I went into the meeting with a set of by laws already written. All they had to do was tweak them a bit. They did a good job and walked away feeling they had made a difference. Which is cool, especially if you have ever been on a mission statement and by laws committee. Most people would rather be sodomized by a Velcro covered baseball bat than endure the painstaking misery of mission statements and by laws. These kids stuck with it and walked away with a pretty good start to their new group.

OK I made my point. I work a sometimes very boring but often satisfying job and it exhausts me. So unless you are a hot horny internet chick that is about to IM me, I think I will go to bed.

...... damnit. I guess that means I all I get is sleep. Fuckers.

How I Became Wanted By The FBI

So I get this call from an old high school buddy here in Oklahoma. "I was wondering what you got planned for Saturday.?"

Should I tell him I have had a war of options waging in my head all week? Take the boat out, set it up and leave it moored on Lake Oolagah for a couple of months, OR turn into a vegetative state and not move from the sofa in front of the TV until Church time Sunday morning. I am still considering if I should share everything, only part, or make up a lie that sounds way more cool than I really am when my buddy continues, "Because I was wondering if you might want to go to Tulsa to the Gun Show with me?"

Pshawww, I am a respected professional who used to teach for a medical college. I work for a major university and try to bring love, acceptance and tolerance into a state that has voted for a Republican President every year since 1968. So you-re damn right I told him I would go!

My buddy works on Computers and I gave him the nickname Computer Boy. SO Computer Boy tells me to meet him at his place around 9:00 a.m. and we would make the hour long drive to Tulsa. We get to talking and we realize that neither one of us have ever been to a gun show. His goal is to buy two target pistols so he and his son can go shooting on a range and he can teach the boy about gun safety. My goal in going is that I get in free to a $12 Gun Show!!

On the way up I mention how the only thing I know about gun shows is what I hear about FBI probes that monitor all the crazies. They identify these cults and follow them around to see if they are building armed encampments like the Branch Dividians in Waco, Texas. So as we are talking I start thinking how Computer Boy home schools his kids. He and his wife are part of a tight knit group of home schoolers that have strong Christian views and they all work together to provide as good an education for the children as possible while not exposing their children to the bad elements that roam about free and in public.

In other words, Computer Boy has created his own cult and we are now pretty sure he is the leader! And we are going to a huge Gun Show to buy hand guns in a state that does not require any wait time. OMG he fits the profile and now I'm guilty by association! GITMO here I come!! Can waterboarding be that far away?

But he did pay my way in, so that was nice.

Run Through The Jungle

So I had this dream the other night. It was so vivid, I am not even sure it was a dream, I mean it was animated, it had a sound track and it had gags and jokes. The memories of dreams fade quickly, but it might have even had a laugh track. The thing is, it was so slick, so well animated in my mind, and so choreographed with music... I've started thinking that maybe I saw it on TV before I fell asleep. Only... I don't watch cartoons.

OK so there was this animated guy I quickly identified with as the ME guy. He was a fat dude and all embarrassed to be in a gym. Worse, he was in a gym locker room, sweat pouring off of him and a bunch of guys that were shaped just like him were getting into the shower. You can see happy smiling faces and bare naked cartoon chests as steam and bubbles float up from the showers. Then there was the ME character, silently trying to work up the nerve to get butt naked and expose all that God did or didn't give me to the rest of the world. It was traumatic man!! So I see these male bodies wrapped in towels or whatever, walking towards the shower and know I have to join them and suddenly the hard driving music of Credence Clearwater Revival "Run Through the Jungle" fills the room. You hear the little impish guitar solo as the Me Character builds up the nerve to pull off my shorts and display this tiny little cartoon blippy thing between my legs. It looks like an upside down McDonalds M but with a little larger little blippy part in the middle.

I can actually feel myself blush in embarrassment, it looks as small as I had feared! Then the me character looks up and sees another guy in the gym, that looks a bit like the me character and... he has a little blippy too! Then I see another and another and soon realize the gym is full of these round old white dudes with nearly the same body shape and they all have teeny little blippy things and they are all happy and talking and life is normal. So, I get all relaxed and feel good and confident. The music blares even louder and I feel almost giddy because I am normal! I fit in! I am just like everybody else... There is nothing to be ashamed of and life is good!! Then suddenly the music stops as if somebody pulled the needle off a rotating vinyl record. A black guy walked in the gym, his towel is whipped off and we were all afraid to look down and lose our sense of confidence.

That's when I woke up and I have been wondering if it was a dream or an actual cartoon I somehow saw and remembered. Oh yeah.. and I can't get that damn song out of my head.

News 2 Me

OK During the Olympics you might have missed some of these BIG stories this week. So here's what caught MY attention!!

I was glad to see one of Sports legendary figures doesn't grow old with age. Now I totally believe he would throw eggs at cars with Adam Sandler!

If you have been putting off that family vacation where you drive across country and grab all the photo op's ya can with the clan... you waited a bit too long for this historic background.

My world came to and end this week when I heard somebody beat me to the first Bigfoot. Luckily, these guys might turn out to be quacks and not the real men of science as me and my Bigfoot drin... eh.. Hunting buddies.

By the way, does anybody know why the headline "Bigfoot Fails DNA Test" is filed under "Odd News?" I mean, wouldn't it actually be ODD if the DNA test revealed it WAS Bigfoot? I'm just saying.

Scene Of The Crime

So there it was, 1995. I was 33 years old, just out of college as a non-traditional student and trying to get established as a professional educator in my old hometown. Oh, did I mention I was also a father of a three year old daughter and brand new baby boy? Can we say the pressure was on?

I quickly became known as the meanest, most strict substitute teacher in the school. I only had two rules, and I only ever enforced one of them. My rules were simple: Don't talk when I talk and Don't open the windows.

Now I had good reason for the rules. I grew up in this town, I knew these kids and their parents. I know the houses they live in, the jobs their parents wished they still had and I might have at one point dated their mother and drank beer with their father... maybe even in the same night! So, if we want learning to take place, you can not talk when I talk. If you ever broke this rule, I liked to point out you were doing an exceptional job on the windows. This compliment was always met with a deer in headlights puzzled look, until I said, "Now you need to work on the rule of not talking when I talk."

What I never told my students was that I was from that school. Half the gum under their desk might have been in my mouth. Those old teachers they bitched about were the same ones I was bitching about 16 years ago. And I was a student in this very building when SUBS filled in for regular teachers. You always knew what classroom had the sub, because the windows were open and all the loose notebook paper, chalkboard erasers, unguarded text books and even a bit of classroom furniture was piled up on the ground below the window as class after class tossed out momentos when the new guy wasn't looking. I refused to be that guy.

So my rules got a little laugh and class order was restored, but the ground beneath my classroom stayed evidence free. Only two times did I ever have a real conflict. Once on a warm fall afternoon I walked over and opened one of the windows to let in some fresh air. And the sweetest little girl in my 10th grade History class smiled and told me I was doing a good job of not talking! The other time was with a kid I had already kicked out of class the week before because of fighting, he came back in, walked across the classroom, threw open a window, and yelled to some guy in the courtyard two stories down. I could NOT believe that bastard opened one of my windows! So I had him suspended for violating one of my classroom rules.

Oh did I mention that when this kid opened the window and yelled, the guy outside looked up... and my kid spit in his face?

Sales Are Lower than Expected

You know we have a restaurant here in Oklahoma called Eskimo Joes. It is "Stillwater's Jumpin Lil Juke Joint." Really it is a T-shirt shop with a burger place attached. The place got real popular in the 90s when the owner had a OSU Student draw a logo. The logo was printed on T-Shirts and the rest is history. People from all over want those shirts.

So why the hell would you want a toothy grinned Eskimo T-Shirt from Oklahoma when you could have an artists rendering of what the actual missing link just MIGHT actually look like? I don't get it readers! Expand your mind! Wrap it around the idea that evolution is real! Why do you think we break new records every year at the Olympics... do you REALLY think "it's gotta be the shoes?"!!

At first I was afraid the T-shirt design was way too crude, so I improved it to as professional looking as it will get here in the Sooner State. Still no orders are pouring in. I am left to draw only one conclusion from this failed marketing endeavor. I believe, based on low sales... You people must be a bunch of closed minded, Right Wing Christian Wingnuts that refuse to believe evolution is real!

Wellll SORRRRRRY fella Bible Thumper, but some of us with a REAL education (and not a certificate from Vacation Bible School) think of evolution as a fact and not a theory and therefore we have Scientific proof of the existence of Ball Licking Man. Maybe one day, when you grow up, you too will see how silly you were. And to think, you could have had a T-Shirt.

Bonus Post

So the children are all excited. We can hardly wait until next year when we start a new Big Dig adventure. In fact we are so jazzed about the thought we are thinking about making T-Shirts and selling extras to offset the cost of next year's expenses.

I don't know anything about making T-Shirts but I thought this design was pretty close to what we would want. So how about it? Would you want to buy a T-Shirt and join our team?

Oh yeah, can anybody figure out why the kids don't want to wear these T-Shirts to the Homecoming football game? I think it would be an excellent marketing opportunity AND the school can use it as an across the curriculum learning opportunity to teach about the fossil record.

BBQ Chicken and Fried Cabbage

So today I assessed Team Survivor after a grueling week of balls out Archeologicaling. We used hard scientific reasoning to determine where and how we would dig. We identified the missing link in the fossil record and only a few short days ago we embarked on an adventure that would make Indiana Jones look like a pussy in comparison.

We anticipated Catholic SWAT Team Monks repelling out of hovering attack helicopters in a religious zeal to cover the truth of evolution. We suspected G. Dubya and his Praise Cabinet might issue martial law, we even thought George Carlin's family might issue a cease and desist order since we were working off of one of his ideas. But all that happened was Team Survivor dug and dug and dug some more. It was brutal in the Oklahoma weather where a freak climatic change made tempretures soar to the low 80s most all day with rare amounts of direct sunlight. Conditions couldn't have been worse. Yet I was able to forge ahead from a comfortable lawn chair as Team Survivor shoveled deeper and deeper.

We had a loss along the way. Y2Kette found out her concurrent college courses started on Monday, so her part of the big dig was ended. That means all the thinking was left to me and all the hard labor was left to Jr.

Funny thing about us boys. When Y2Kette isn't around, we tend to play video games and watch TV and forget about work projects.

We do not see the end of this last day of the dig as a failure. In fact, I think, if nothing else, we have narrowed down the possibilities of where Homo Disgustingus (Ball Licking Man) will NOT be found. I propose a better financed, more prepared expedition with bigger, older workers... like Team Survivor is now... only a year older! It is our Moby Dick obsession to find the Missing Link and prove there was a stage in man's evolution where it was literally possible to go fuck yourself. If found, I am sure we will also discover the line died out very quickly, only to be replaced by Ball Licking man's brighter less sexually driven cousin.. Dude Who Stays Up All Night Watching the Fire and Drinking With His Buddies Man. Yes I am sure Science will show we are way more closely related to the next step in the fossil record, yet we all know that deep in our root reptilian brain, we still retain our base Ball Licking Man urges.

Oh yeah, and I celebrated the last day of the dig by cooking diner!

Day Three (Breakthrough)

So this is my week of the month stacked with meetings. I have meetings all over the place and will be chasing my tail, night and day up until Friday, then I will spend most of the following week filing reports on what I did this week, before I go into committee work for what I agreed to do in the meetings I went to the week before. Yeah, my life sucks, huh?

Anyway, I was in meetings until about 8:00 p.m. tonight, but I knew Team Survivor would trudge on without me. It is my greatest. proudest accomplishment as a Father. The fact that I am a parent who can create a huge undertaking like setting Science on it's ear with the discovery of the missing link, Homo Disgustingus or "Ball Licking Man" as the Cretins have taken to calling him. My children are steadfastly capable and trustworthy to continue this historic dig, without adult supervision, and maintain the painstaking care required in all Scientific endeavors.

My crowning achievement will not be the Nobel prize I will surely win off of my find. It wont even be the public cries that my find be named after me... Opprobrious Man. No, my greatest Ball Licking Man glory has to do with my children. Knowing they are hardworking and self directed shows a level of maturity almost never found among teenagers. While other children are vapid slugs vegitating before some mindless blinking video box, my children learned by following their Father's example of hard work and good living. Yes my crowning achievement will always be my children, and all the Congressional Medal of Honors, Honorary Ph.Ds and lifetime membership to the Playboy mansion are mere meaningless baubles in light of my awesomeness as a parent.

So I get home, and those lazy bastards never dug anything! In fact, the rain washed the dirt we had dug, back into the hole. Science sucks!

Day Two

It rained so I rented a few movies. Jr quickly pointed out we had already watched the action adventure flick. The problem with movies that are not memorable is, I tend to forget I already watched them. The next movie was a horror movie so we decided to wait until Y2Kette was home. That left the romantic comedy, Mrs. Y2K's favorite kinda flick.

OK How was I supposed to know a movie starring sweet little Jessica Alba was a Wedding Crashers-like sex comedy? So Mrs. Y2K calls me a pig and leaves the room while Jr just learned more about the birds and the bees than I ever knew.

This week is going very very badly and it's only Monday.

REALLY Bad Product Idea

An old high school buddy found this over on another site. I really hope it's a joke.

Dig This!!

So I have long held a certain fascination for the average Indiana Jones Archeologist. In fact, I would venture to say they are our true scientist, willing to go out on a limb and risk it all to prove a hypothesis. When they finally hit pay dirt and discover long lost ruins... or graves hidden from grave diggers like themselves... everything gets sent to a museum and the scientist gets screwed.

It is for this reason that I, Y2K Survivor, ardent adventurer and man of action, will embark on an archeological dig to find the missing link. You see, I have a theory based on the primative works of Darwin and expounded upon by Carlin. Yes, the late George Carlin who once observed his dog licking his balls and remarked, "If I had that ability I would never leave the house!"

This observation by Carlin brings to light that the majority of mammals have long truncated bodies that are tapering, while humans have short truncated bodies with thicker middles.... or at least I do. Nearly every mammal on earth can do the deed Carlin described in his stand-up act, yet man has been denied this ability in spite of generations of attempts. It is my belief that man kind once had this longer, curved spine that allowed for easy access to ball licking, but in a few short eons of natural selective "why bother to breed when I can do this" the genetic marker died out of the human race. Once found, I have determined to name my find: HOMO Disgustingus

Therefore, I have assembled my team of rag tag thrill seekers, Y2Kette and Jr. Together, "Team Survivor" will face unknown perils, danger, intrigue and yes, maybe even blisters. After much deliberation and study of the globe I have determined the great dig should be in my back yard. It's not that I think we are any more likely to find the missing link here as other places, it's just that school starts back on Thursday and I don't need permission to dig at my own house.

DAY ONE: Identifying the Dig

Initiation was brutal as Team Survivor was not as enthusiastic about the adventure as I expected. After a few well placed screams, demands and possibly a crying jag, the team was on board and eager to regain their cell phones and Playstation games. Y2Kette manned the string and wooden stakes, so we can plot our dig location. Luckily the advent of GPS has made this task much easier for future generations so that the reliability and validity of archeological digs can be maintained. Unfortunately, we don't have a GPS so Jr drew a small map that looked a little bit like Oklahoma and placed an X in the middle. True, Okmulgee is not in the middle of the state, but school starts back on Thursday so time is of vital importance!

In just a few short days we will attempt to find the missing link that has eluded such noted Scientists like the Leachy's and Johansen in the barren wilds of Africa. The odds seem great, but our exacting attention to detail is what I pray will lead to our success.

Basic Dig spotting 101 says look for a mound. But our back pasture is nearly 5 acres and has been terraced. Whatever mounds that may have existed have been bulldozed out decades ago. This was going to take a different approach. Dr. Craig Venter, the dude who broke the genetic code of DNA sequences used a method he called "Shotgun Sequencing." I don't really know what this means, but I wanted to point out I read National Geographic when I am waiting at my Doctor's office. I am guessing a shotgun makes a large pattern and covers more area, so this is the strategy I proposed!

After covering most of the back pasture with a large square of string I instructed Team Survivor to begin digging. "Are you freakin Crazy?!" was the general response. All progress ground to a halt until after a few more threats and a lot of bickering, it was determined we were only looking for one dead body. Dead bodies fit in a grave, so the dig shouldn't have to be any bigger than about 3 feet wide by 6 feet long. The argument seemed founded on solid reasoning, and that is the essence of Science. I applaud Team Survivor for standing up for more efficient methods that will save time in this critical juncture.

Oddly, Y2Kette walked away shaking her head and laughing to herself. She has had this superior attitude ever since completing her statistics course over the summer. It is my personal hope that a few days of honest hard work with a real team of dedicated Scientist Adventurers will bring her back to reality. Thus I tossed the post hole diggers to Jr and told him to start collecting core samples while Y2Kette and I made base camp. Soon Y2Kette had a nice lawn chair brought out under a parasol, so I could plot our next move as the labor part of Team Survivor did the actual digging.

By the end of the day I can't help but feel we are behind schedule. At one point I felt something hit my leg and saw my team members looking at me angrily. It was then that I realized they only had the post hole diggers I had given Jr a couple of hours earlier. I told them they need to do a better job of thinking ahead and since they must be so tired they can't think clearly, I gave them each a 10:00 p.m. bedtime for the remainder of summer. Yes there was a bit of grumbling and I am sure the Leachey's endured the same kind of discourse from the natives in Tanzania. After a few threats to up the bedtime to 9:00 p.m. the Team regained focus and got pick axes and shovels. Unfortunately, we lost the last of the day light and had to stop for the night.

Nuff Said

ASSHAT

So I think I am going to have to tell my oldest best friend in the world he has been a total tool for the past year. I got a call and there has been a separation in a 30 year marriage that is probably long over due. I mean I don't want to take sides here, because they are both like family, their kids call me Uncle, I love them both but she is right, he is wrong. It's that simple.

And before you start wondering what the problem is, I want to say I am writing this post for clarity in my head, not yours. In other words, none of your business. Nobody did anything wrong, nobody was hurt or done wrong. It's just he's kind of been an asshole for a long time. Everybody has tried to intervene in some form or another, but if you don't want to see what's in front of you, if you don't want to hear things that will make it better, then dude, there aint anything anybody can do but sit on the sidelines and wait for the train wreck.

So I get a call tonight. He's heart broken and he should be heart broken. He's scared, but he will never admit he's afraid. But he should be afraid. He walked through life with an arrogant expectation that "no matter what" she would always be there for him. After three decades and all kinds of trauma and pressure on them both, they stayed bound together as a single loving unit.

So he took it for granted that she would always stay bound to him. In spite of her pleas for this or that, in spite of her statements of this or that, in spite of the fact she has been miserable for months and months. He focused on himself and indulged himself and brushed away consideration of anybody's wants but his own. And now he is alone, heartbroken and feeling sorry for himself, and he SHOULD be that way.

But in a few days, when he is ready, I am going to tell him he has been an asshat. I am not going to tell him that in anger or spite. In fact, I really don't want to tell him that at all! But I know she is his world and she has devoted her life to him. I am going to tell him that because I love them both and she is right and he is wrong. I am going to tell him that so he can focus on how to be a better man for her. Because when you love people, you do the things that need to be done because you want what's best for them.

I hope he can freakin understand that.

TOONTIME

Palm Springs

I just got some of the pictures back from the big trip. All I can say is we survived 115 degree heat (I think it gets hotter everytime I tell the story) terrible airlines and an Earth shaking Earthquake. Yep, Y2Kette and I had a trip we will always cherish as something we go to share together.

It's Only A Test

How Old Is Your Brain?

Interesting . . . . . Procedure of Flash Fabrica Game: (Pull up the link below.)

1. Touch "Start"
2. Wait for "3, 2, 1"
3. Memorize (in a flash, because it ' s quick) the number ' s position on the screen, then click the circle from the smallest number to the biggest number.
4. At the end of the game, the computer will tell you how old your brain is.
Good Luck!

The only thing I didn't like is that it doesn't explain what the results mean. Does wisdom come with age, or is this a reflection of how adults process information slower as they age? What I can say is my mother took the test twice and she lost 20 years in "brain age."

CLICK HERE TO PLAY!!

Ooops I Ranted Again

OK so my cousin sends me this Email, he says is just for laughs because they are all good Democrats in his house. But the Email is an old one about how a father talks to his college-aged, liberal-minded daughter and tells her that being a Democrat is like studying real hard while your friends party all night. Then at the end of the semester the school tries to average the grades. First of all it's a stupid ass comparison that was created at least four years ago for the last election. So anyway, I guess I went a bit overboard and had a mini political rant:

Let's say you marry poorly. You work hard all your life, you deny you and your family a lot of the things you want so that they will have everything they need. You pay all your bills, provide for your family and try to save a little for the future. But unknown to you, your wife has amassed a debt off of several credit cards that is greater than anything you will be able to pay off in your lifetime. By the time you realize what a colossal clusterfook your life has turned into, you are way too deep to get out without paying huge freakin payments for the rest of your life.

Isn't the smartest, most logical course of action to get the credit cards out of the hands of poor management? See, no matter how the spin works in RNC created Email, the fact is Clinton balanced the budget.... even after Reagan's voodoo economics and Bush the First's "deficits don't matter" approach. An approach that was so costly it busted the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War Arms Race.

So if the Democrats keep raising taxes, it seems it is only to pay off the debts the Repugs walked off and left to the American Tax Payer. Just like a bad marriage to a bi-polar chick. Sure the sex might have been great but Ding-bat always wanders off to the next best party while Mr. Responsible stays around to clean up the mess and try to restore order.

Modern Times of Procrastination

So I still have AOL. Big deal! That alone doesn't make me a loser, and I don't care what you think, you judgemental jerk! ....you don't really think I'm a loser do you? I don't thnk you're a jerk. Honest, I never did. I was just hurt and lashed out. So really, it's ok to still have AOL, right?

Oh well, AOL says there is a list of things that are going the way of the dinosaur including, answering machines, dial up internet connections and land line telephones. I can agree with all of these, but I can't help but feel we are being manipulated into taking a bad deal. Cell phones do emit radiation. They do cause traffic accidents. And cell phones cost way more than your land line ever cost.

Our normal phone bill ran around $50 with a few long distance calls tossed in each month. Currently we pay around $140 a month for three cell phones and Mrs. Y2K keeps saying we need to add another! (As I am writing this, Mrs. Y2K just sent me an IM saying Y2Kette needs her own private cell phone... freaky timing huh?) Not only am I spending way more each month, but every two years or less I have to buy all new phones. You know my mother had the same phone in our house from the time I was four years old until I was probably in my mid 20s? My neighbor had the same phone in his house from the time I was a very small child to the day he died!

But today, we cleaned the house in a fall cleaning kind of way. I was still off work from the week in Palm Springs and we kind of needed to do a bit of deep cleaning since we had all been working for the past several months. As we go from room to room I notice I still have a cordless phone plugged in and the answering machine. We no longer have land line service, having switched completely to wireless a few months ago. So I am looking at this steady red light, which used to mock me with the unspoken message that nobody liked me enough to ever call. Now it is mocking me that, like AOL, I am paying money to run something that has long outlived its usefulness.

And you know, this post should at this point become a motivational entry on how we all need to go through our lives and pull the plug on the useless expenses in our lives. We should simplify, simplify, simplify until we reclaim the time we need to invest in those that are most important to us. I could even go on and on about the symbolism of "pulling the plug" on that old answering machine as I say my last goodbyes to the old analog world (it was a digital machine... sucked too) and I could compare it to saying goodbye to the loved memories and lifetime of friends that have never really left a bunch of messages on it (fuckers!) but I am not going to jump on that soap box tonight.

You can assume it is because I have too much respect for you to dwell on mundane and tiresome topics that compare real life to electronic goods. You can assume I care too much for your feelings to presume I had a thought that never occurred to you. You might even assume most of this paragraph is simply stalling so I can build the suspense of the real reason why I wont climb up on my soapbox tonight. And in THAT assumption you would be right!

See, the real reason I am not going to be all preachy about unplugging yourself from your past ties and simplifying your life for the present and future is because not only do I still have AOL... I never actually got around to unplugging that damn answering machine and cordless phone that have been plugged into dead wall jacks for the past four months.

But tomorrow, bring something interesting to read, cuz I feel a sanctimonious blog post building up and aching to get out! OK maybe the day after tomorrow, or even later in the week.

You know what I did today?

Stayed inside where it is cool! Sheesh it was 107 degrees in the shade. I had thought about mowing the yard this weekend, but with this heat, all I would do is damage the lawn. It can grow a bit more. It wont grow too much in this searing heat.

I had Jr go around the house and take all the hanging flower pots down and store them for the year. My typical summer schedule is I get flowers looking real nice and the house is very cute and inviting. Then I go to a conference while it is very hot and Jr somehow forgets the flowers need to be watered everyday. I suspect he also forgets daily requirements for the caring for the dogs, brushing his teeth and possibly clean underwear. I do the best I can as a parent, but I can't always be there to make sure he lives up to his responisibilities. But I can certainly point out how not living up to them caused death and destruction. ....to flowers.

I did see the first quarter of the FIRST Preseason game of the NFL!! Jason Campbell started for Washington and they looked pretty good. Payton was not there for the Colts. What was impressive was for the first game, actually a week early for Preseason... Neither team made a single penalty for the entire first quarter. Joe Gibbs is a genius and he turned that team around in Washington. It's a shame he felt like he retired as a has-been. I don't enjoy his style of play, and I never rooted for his players, but he is one hell of a coach.

A friend of mine told me before church that he went to see the new Mummy movie. He said it was really good if you are going for the old escapism type flick, kind of like the second Indiana Jones movie. He also agreed the new Batman movie was the best superhero movie ever made, but he did not really agree it was the best movie ever. He never said, but I suspect any logical mind would see it would take a really awesome movie to knock Tremmors off the throne of Greatest Movie Ever Made.

Home at Last, Home at Last

You will not believe this shit. Remember all the crap we had to live through for that airline experience from hell just getting to Palm Springs? The same thing happened to us on the way bock. Only this time there was no first class seats, no meal vouchers, no trams waiting at one end of the ticker counter to shuttle us to the next. In fact, we were treated with anger and rudeness by the very airline company who was screwing us over!

I don't get it! I lived up to my part of the contract. They were paid for the tickets in advance. I showed up WAY early to go through their security gauntlet... which by the way, they actually have a sign of the weapons of mass destruction you can not take on a plane. A sign with a picture of each deadly item that could place flight crew and passengers in deadly peril. These included, Guns, Knives, and Bottled Water. SO we pay them, we show up unreasonably early for state workers with all kinds of state tracking information on us, from where we were born, to where we work to where we are going for a conference put on by the Federal Government to get our Federal Funding for work in Local and State governments. Right down to state ID badges provided by OSU.

But evidently there is always the threat one of us might whip an Uzi out of our ass and decide to fly the plane into one of the desert's biggest landmarks... which by the way are barren mountains of rock and dirt. It's a freakin desert. Grass can't even survive there! So we show up two hours early because we don't know that airport nor how fast they process anybody. We wait and wait and then we hear there is a problem with the plane. Then they say we will fly with the problem, which turns out to be air conditioning for the back part of the cabin (where Y2Kette and I were sitting) so we board the plane and we wait and we wait. Did I mention the Death Valley in the Desert thing? You know, 120 degrees in full sun, on a concrete tarmac sitting inside a metal tube without any cooling system? And we wait.... Then the Captain tells us to get the hell off the plane because he's not flying this bitch without air conditioning.

We have missed our connecting flight by this point. A few people agree not to fly on this plane which somehow seems to meet the pilot's criteria for willingness to get in the air and we fly to Dallas. Once there we walk 10,000 from gate to gate and approach an American Airline's ticket counter at out designated gate. "Cris! Don't do it!" I hear screamed at me with the urgent shrillness you might hear if imminent danger could narrowly avoided.

I look around and there is a girl from the conference that is also headed to Tulsa. "They will bite your head off if you go up there! They wont even talk to you until your plane has arrived and they ask for tickets."

"But... We don't have tickets for this plane. We have tickets for a plane that left 2 hours ago! I need to know if I have a seat on this plane that is going to take off in about 45 minutes!"

"Uh Cris..." She said with a comforting hand on my shoulder and the sad look of somebody addressing that stereotypical hysterical person just before that crack up and need to be slapped. ...in retrospect, maybe that hand on my shoulder was so she could hold me as she slapped me... "You need to look at the lower part of that marquee, Hon. You flight has been delayed another 2 hours."

So once again we were in travel for over 14 hours to make a 5 hour flight. We got home at 3:00 a.m. Y2Kette slept on the car ride home as I struggled to stay awake while I drove. During the long hours of wait as once again my contract with American Airlines was screwed over and I was treated as the person who was the problem, not them. I was amazed by the level of mismanagement this company has amassed. None of the problems we encountered were due to fuel, or storms. It was mismanagement and poor maintenance. While we showed up in plenty of time to fulfill our part of the contract EVERY time, American Airlines failed to meet their obligation every time. Our taxes build those airports, our taxes prop up those airlines year after year as they management becomes more and more inept. I think it is time we start letting our legislators we don't want our taxes to support incompetence. If it's OK to outsource jobs, why should we be afraid to outsource airlines?

I guess it brings up the question of which is worse, the guy who is from another country and MIGHT be a threat to national security, or the CEO who has already proven he will sell out his loyal American workers for increased profit?

Headed Home

Well the adventure winds to an end here in Death Valley. It was hot, we had Earth Quakes, Y2Kette tried to get her freak-on with d-list actor and my credit card is in sticker shock.

New Co-Worker stayed in last night and did her homework for a presentation for the dudes that supervise her grant progress from the Feds. For a chick that was without clothes OR her computer up until the last minute, she did an excellent presentation. In fact, the supervisors called her presentation brilliant. All the others were told to call the grant over-seers and had a list of corrections. New Co-Worker got praise and adoration. Pretty freakin cool!

So I had planned on the final night to take them both out to a nice steak house like Ruth Chris. They went to the pool and kicked back and never ever called me. When I finally called Y2Kette she was eating her Cheesecake Factory left overs and New Co-Worker had ordered room service. So I ordered up a burger and Y2Kette came over and helped me eat it as she played on the internet and I read my new book from Border's Book Store. Living life on the wild side, huh?

It's been fun to get out and feel like rock stars at a big time Spa and Resort. But I think we are all ready to go home and do all the things that need to be done that make life real.