I have mAnswers

OK all you hot chicks that are always pissed off about stupid people ruining your life. It turns out there is a way to solve the problem and you are sitting on the solution right now baby! Oh yeah.

There was a study released back in 2007 where Scientists had noticed that brains seem to have retarded growth in bad stress situations. So they naturally started wondering what would happen if they exposed brains to the opposite stimulus, and created stressful situations that caused pleasure. The result was they compared mice they isolated to mice they pimped out for sex.

I am SOOOO happy to report that study findings show that sex makes your brain grow! Oh yeah baby! So if you are bothered by the bovine plodding of the pimply faced store clerks or the smelly old man who holds up the check out line while he searches for his double value coupons, you KNOW what you gotta do cowgirl!

The study also had another interesting find. Mice that had been exposed to sex not only had bigger brains than the virginal mice, they showed less anxiety. This was shown by the fact that sexed up mice would quickly go to new food when introduced wheres virginal mice were more timid and anxious. It has been suggested that the sexed up mice were more ravenous due to increased activity, but I suspect the male mice reasoned it out. I mean after hours of sexual activity they probably felt there was nothing left that they could put in their mouth that would hurt them now. Then again, I am not a scientist. Just a man with a computer and a thirst to share.

Empty Nest

It's an odd feeling. After 19 years of obsessing and hovering, nurturing, protecting and providing for the first born... she is suddenly gone. Not dead or anything tragic, in fact it is wonderful that she gets to do what she has prepared for all these years and start her college life. She secured funds and created a plan that will provide her a good professional education at a good school.

Yes the house is quiet and haunted by memories of a lifetime of her growing up. Daddy's little girl took her last trip in a little three hour drive to a new and exciting life that holds all the promise of a future that we parents have always targeted. But I look in her room and see the long line of nights at work or play, with friends and alone. The long, deep philosophical discussions of right and wrong, good and evil. All ghostly and faded memories of a little girl that no longer exists.

Every time I see her from now on she will be a newer, more grown up, more educated, more responsible adult. Carving out her independence as young adults should. As all parents hope their children will.

With a flash of painful realization I see that my parental drive to raise a capable, independent and self sufficient adult daughter means the most tragic pain of loss for a parent. Because by design of nature she is clawing and scraping to gain independence FROM ME! Just as I clawed and fought to be free of my dependence of my parents so many years ago. Every achievement now will not be a shared victory but another wedge driven solidly between us, separating the little girl that clung to my neck and smothered me in sweet kisses. At one point her mother and I made up her whole world. Now we are like the old playthings of her youth, left behind to collect dust in the back of the closet back home. Sure, she will always look back with love and fondness, but for a short shining time in her history I was the greatest man in the world. I don't know when that changed but I knew for certain the time was over when I left her at college and she hugged her mother, kissed her boyfriend and waived goodbye to her father.

Hukuna Matata Bitches

The Heat is ON

Mrs. Cris took the little furry dog for a haircut again. Usually the lil fella is so please he got pampered and trimmed and is so relieved he has lost all those pounds of fur and can see, hat he bounces all over the place in joy. Today he scooted to the front edge of the porch where he was hiding from the heat.

How hot was it? Well at one point I got in may can and noticed I couldn't touch anything! Not the steering wheel, not the center consol, not the dash. My on board temp reading was 114 degrees. The banks downtown said it was 107. In the peek heat I decided to walk a block over to a store. I was at the office doing some weekend work and thought the walk would do me good. The trip over was slightly downhill. The trip back was slightly uphill. I had no trouble going to the store but thought I might not make it back! It was HOT!

Hey did anybody else see the gay cell phone commercial? I mean I look up and see these guys that are so gay they make the Village People look understated. I am shocked at the marketing strategy. I was so shocked I keep asking why would they feature guy people?

Now we have a fairly non judgemental house. While I doubt if anybody is really successful, we try to not push prejudice onto our children... except towards lazy stupid people that refuse to work or think about financial responsibility. ...but I feel that is our job as parents, show them the real harms and dangers of life and hope they never see barriers like color, race, sex or orientation.

But these guys selling cell phones were like WAY gay! I mean gayer than Jack on Will and Grace gay! "So what's wrong with featuring gay people?" my son asks me.

"The message they are giving is it is a gay phone service," I explain. "That commercial is airing here in Oklahoma! Once that image sticks to the phone how many kids in your school would be cool if that was your cell phone service? Do you want to be the kid in school with the gay cell phone carrier?" The adds are bold and unapologetic about gay... to the point it's kind of "We're here, we're queer: Get used to it." That will not play well in the reddest state in Oklahoma. From a strict marketing view it is near corporate suicide to air that commercial in Oklahoma.

Good news... I bet there will be a few job opening as a result of that commercial. Bad news... you know the jobs wont be in Oklahoma.

Boy Story

So the boy comes bouncing into the room. This is a rarity as he usually only ventures out of his room to feed or beg for money. This time he tells me he has good news. His friend's mom came home early and said he could have company for the night after all. It is a Friday night, the end of summer vacation is looming before us like living with a terminal cancer patient.

Unfortunately for the boy I came home tonight and decided to dive into my favorite summer past time... my fruity gay drink. While I value my son's waning youth, in what he calls the final summer of his childhood: Next year he will be 16 and a licensed driver who has to work to pay for his underage 25 male insurance premiums as well as cash for gas and probably hookers. Thus he knows, his idle days of video gaming and sleeping til noon will have soon past him by, "Nope!" I stammer over my faded Eskimo Joe commemorative plastic cup of rum and Wal-Mart brand Koolaide. "That taxi ship has sailed. I am not getting out again tonight."

"But I wanna go to Jacobs!!"

"See if your sister will take you," was the first buck I tried to pass off. Then a thought occurred to me as I pictured my 18 year old daughter snuggled up in the other room watching movies with her boyfriend. "In fact, if you go in the other room and jump on the snuggle buddies and wiggle down between them... I'll give you a dollar!"

He looks at me with that sneer of adolescent morality and nicely asks his sister for help. "DO I OWE YOU A DOLLAR YET?!!" I yell out because I don't hear the screams of protest.

"No!" He shouts in reply. "I am not going to do that!"

My wife stirs next to me. She has fallen asleep while we watched Eureka. I don't know how she could, because I love that show! I tell her the boy needs a ride to his friend's house but I thought it best if I don't drive. Then I asked if she would be willing to take him. "Sure," she agrees in a tired mumble, "if I can just wake up."

Soon the boy wanders back into the den and slumps into the recliner. Defeated and dejected vibes radiate his sorrow into the room. "What did your sister say about taking you?"

"She said she would only do it if I gave her gas money," he said glumly. I knew he was penniless because he spent all of his summer money repairing his computer after he fried the motherboard last week.

"Well hey, I told you how you could make some money!" I encouraged.

"No I am not going to jump on them and wiggle in between them."

I wait. The silence builds. He begins to suspect his sorrowful broadcast is analog in a digital household when I happily tell him, "Hey Colin...? Mom says SHE will take you to your friend's house if you can wake her up first." Then I smiled as big and innocently at him as possible.

His eyes widened in surprise only to narrow in suspicion. "Wait... You're messing with me! You just want me to try to wake her up so she will be mad at me!"

"Colin!" I gasp in mock shock. "Why would I do that?! What could I possibly gain from that?!!" I always ask him this question when I am messing with him.

"You think it is funny when I get in trouble because you are mean!"

We sit in silence. He in shrouded in clouds of suspicion and me in what could only be called a shit eating grin. Finally I break the silence. "Hey Colin...? You know she really did say she would take you to your friend's house if you wake her up first."

"I don't believe you!"

"Colin...? Hey Colin...? You know what you need to do here?" OK so now I am laughing, I can't help it. This does not help sell my story and I really was being nice but he thinks I'm being mean... and I REALLY hate to disappoint my children. "What you need to do is decide what you want most. Do you want to go to your friend's house... OR do you want to believe I am playing a mean prank on you? Hmmmm Which is it Colin?"

He squirms and twists and you can see the battle play out across his face as he desperately needs to be with his friends. "Really? You would rather believe I am mean than try to go stay with your friend? REALLY?"

Just as he was about to break, my wife wakes up and ruins the game. She took him. He was happy. And best of all.... next time... when I really AM messing with him... He will never see it coming! BAHAHAHA

Protective Dad

We drove across the state as the sun went down. I drove the whole way in spite of the plan to allow my daughter to drive, so she would get used to finding her way through Oklahoma City. OKC is one of the largest cities in the nation in land mass and has some pretty dangerous driving where I-40 meets I-35. But it was about dark and there was no reason to take chances with my little girl at this stage of the game. Therefore I drove.

The next morning the college made the parents go to a different orientation session than the children, even though I felt I should be there when she enrolled in her classes. I do have a Master's Degree in Education and have spent more than a few hours deciding the best courses a person should take, but for some reason the college wouldn't allow that. I can only assume I will have to make corrections later.

The presentation is predictable and boring. I take care of business on my Blackberry that ranges from checking on the site-visit back at the office to dealing with the local bank. Then the Dean of Students took the stage.

I don't remember her name, she referred to herself as "Dean." She showed interest in the students on the stage and even the equipment they used in the presentation. Then she turned to face the assembled parents and with a look of concern asked how many were there with their first child?

Suddenly overcome with a wave of emotion at the "loss" of my baby girl that I have cherished and helicoptered around for the past two decades, I raised my hand with eyes brimming with tears. Be a freakin man, you big wuss! I silently screamed to myself as I struggled to NOT wipe away the drops welling around my lower eyelids. I glanced around nervously and saw there were a few other parents (yes, mostly the moms) who were openly weeping.

The Dean nodded her head as she surveyed the room, like she had seen this several times in her career. "Now," she said. "How many of you are here with your last child...?"

The room erupted into cheers and whoops of joy. An aged and broken looking couple even got up and began a little dance of joy. "Well you people need to stop trying to push those poor kids out of the house already! Sheesh! They know you intend to turn their rooms into the guest room or game room or whatever you plan... they know because some of you already have them sleeping in the laundry room! Quit it! They will be gone soon enough but they are NOT feeling the love at home, so scale back for a little bit longer."

Then she focused on first group of parents who went from tears of loss to amazement and shock at the other parents. "And you first timers take note... you need to let go. Your child will be fine. We have a long history of taking your life's work and turning them into the adults you always hoped they would become. Trust them and trust us... and back off!"

So now, a few days later I am reliving the words in my head and I can see maybe I was holding on a little too tight. I let her drive home.... well up to Oklahoma City and and then after we got through Oklahoma City. I griped and yelled and cussed at her so she would pay attention and stop texting and watch the road and the traffic. "This is important!" I told her as I dodged a semi moving into our lane without warning. "You will be making this trip all by yourself in two weeks when school starts. You are an adult now and you will have to do this on your own from now on."

Is it wrong that I only made sure she learned how to drive through Oklahoma City on the way back home? Maybe she will use that knowledge before Thanksgiving... you think?

Love

I have been thinking about love lately. I have often said I never fully understood the word until I was about 30 year old. At that time my cousin Jason had been in a car wreck where he sustained a brain stem injury. In that torturous week that followed we gathered in the hospital and watched the blood supply slowly stop flowing to his brain, and I came to understand the word.

I know this sounds like an odd time to find love but that is exactly what happened as I stood by a boy I loved from the day he was born. I held his hand as machines breathed for him and prayed not for his recovery, not for a miracle, but for whatever was best for him. Like a light had been turned on in my head, I realized that true love is unconditional and freely given. I know I am capable of unconditional love and I both feel it for others and I know others feel it for me.

BUT the other day I am watching a TNT showing of "When Harry Met Sally" and Billy Crystal is saying how men and women can never be friends because the sex thing always gets in the way. And THIS raises the question that should never be asked: Can married people actually UNCONDITIONALLY love each other?

I mean, really?

Without conditions?

I. Don't. Think. So.

Lets say you get married and life is great then not so good then you get a divorce because you find you can not longer live with THAT person. We will have to punt on the reasons for the divorce as there can be many ..and really, shouldn't there be many reasons to end a marriage in the first place? Sure you felt love for them. You made love to them. You declared your love at them... but when they walk away with half your stuff and control who sees the children and when and how... you might not even be fond of them after that! So did you ever really love them? I mean really? Because if you did you would have loved them regardless of how they acted before the divorce, right? Your love for them would have been unconditional, right?

You can have an addictive child and you can toss them out, call the cops on them, refuse to see them but you will always love them and you only use tough love on them BECAUSE you love them unconditionally. A spouse is different. It is meet my needs or hit the bricks so I can find the missing person that WILL meet my needs and I will love them... if that is possible... which I am beginning to think IS NOT.

There are rare cases where two people have undying love for each other. They stand by and defend and support the other until the bitter end and when one dies, the other can't seem to live alone with a part of their heart missing. But that is the exception and not the rule! Today most marriages end in divorce and the second marriage is less likely to last than the first. Not only that but we KNOW that divorced couples are not known for LOVING each other... excluding the guilt free hook ups I hear happen from time to time.. that ironically might have prevented the divorce had they happened prior to the big split... but I digress.

So here is the question that should not be asked: If men and women can feel love for each other and then fall out of love and even into dislike... was it ever really love? Trust me, if we are going to share our lives together I WILL HAVE CONDITIONS! I want the house maintained a certain way, I need a level of privacy and you KNOW I have expectations on sex. Therefore... am I incapable of unconditionally loving anybody as a spouse? Does this in turn make me unlovable?

Wind Storm

It all started by my wife asking, "When can we move to a cooler climate? I am sick of this 100 degree weather for months on end!"

That led to me doing my yearly search for a more reasonable summer state to live in, which always has me yearning to be Canadian then looking at the west coast, then Maine. This year however, I added affordable states to live-in, and cross referenced them to cooler climates.

NOW THE FOLLOWING IS CONFIDENTIAL AND I AM TRUSTING YOU NOT TO BLAB THIS INFORMATION TO OTHERS AND CAUSE THE AREA TO OVER POPULATE BEFORE I GET IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR.... am I concerned about the general population seeing this protected information on a public blog...? UH... have you seen the number of hits I get a year? I think the secret is safe!

The most perfect place in the Universe, with upward mobility, nice climate, similar job opportunities for my degree and work experience and an overall Freakin Cool Place to live... Canton Ohio.

Yeah Canton! While it has cooler winters it has super mild summers. Oklahoma will stay around 100 degrees from July 1 to September 15 and then will hit 90-100 several times up until November or mid December. Canton exceeds 90 degrees maybe 7 times a freakin year dude! SEVEN! We might exceed 110 seven times a year! It has a booming economy compared to Oklahoma, it has a much higher level of educated people compared to Oklahoma, it has way lower poverty than Oklahoma and did I mention it only exceeds 90 degrees something like 7 times a freakin year?!! The final kicker... Canton has cheaper housing than Tulsa. Oh and every year the first NFL football game played will be the pre-season Hall of Fame game in Canton Ohio! Which means Joe Montana will probably be there every year.

So I am telling the family where our new dream home will be located and the boy (future leader of the world) asks me if that is near the Great Lakes. It is, by the way, but just far enough South that it doesn't have snow squalls.

"Yes it is son, can you tell me which lake it might be near?"

He struggles a bit and ventures, "Yukon?"

All of my attention is not suddenly focused on the boy who hopes to start driving this fall with a learner's permit, "uh... did you say Yukon?" I snicker a bit, "Can you name any of the other Great Lakes?"

I should point out that for most of his life I have had my study wall covered in a huge dry/erase map of the continental United States and I know the kids spent hours and hours studying it as they progressed through Elementary, Middle and now High School. "There is that big one... Superior..and Yukon.. eh..Ohio.... um..." his voice trailed off.

"Yes Superior, Yukon, Ohio, Erie.." I jumped in so I could help him out. "Any others? ...how about Ontario?"

"No," he shook his head. "I think it is named for some place in Canada."

Now, as a certified History and Geography teacher, I am getting wound up with pride in my progeny. "So do you know what people do up on the Great Lakes around Ohio, like on the Great Lake Ohio? They Ice Fish! Can you imagine, fishing for ice? But they do, they cut holes in the top of the lake and fish for ice cubes. Then they turn around and sell those to the Eskimos so they can make Igloos. That's where they came up with the saying, 'Can sell ice cubes to an Eskimo.'"

"No way!" the boy comes alive with suspicion. "Now I know you are full of crap! It's hard to tell with you but you went too far. I know what ice fishing is and they don't fish for ice they fish for fish."

"Son, son son..." I say sadly while shaking my head. "See once again you have jumped to conclusions due to your limited education and lack of experience. I, on the other hand am a man of the world that has been all over and watched a lot of TV. In fact, as far as you know I might have been ice fishing on the Great Lake Ohio and turned in my day's catch for cash from the Eskimos."

"You did not!" He semi-laughs and screams in protest. "You don't even like to fish!"

"I don't like to fish for fish because I don't enjoy killing or hurting animals." I countered. "But this was different. Up there we just fished for ice cubes which we could sell. Actually I didn't sell mine. The place I fished for ships them off to a nearby prison where the prisoners turn the big ice cubes into little ice cubes and sells it as crushed ice to restaurants all around the country."

"That's not true! It is so obvious you are so full of crap your ears are turning brown." Then he leans in and says in a stage whisper, "I'm not gullible like Mom."

"Son at 15 you think you know everything in the world and that's the attitude that will hold you back from success in the real world. Have you ever been ice fishing?" I asked

He looked guarded, "No."

"Have you ever met anybody beside me that has gone ice fishing?"

"Not that I know of..."

"Then at this point you have to admit I am the area expert on the matter. Where the heck do you think crushed ice comes from anyway? It certainly doesn't grow on trees and it is way too hot around here to make the amount of ice that is used in restaurants. Nope it comes from colder climates and they use prison labor to crush the ice. They used to also let the prisoners make shaved ice but they had to quit because the inmates were making shanks and shivs out of the ice razors."

My son retreated to the only defense he had left, "I am not listening to you anymore! I know you are full of crap and I am not listening."

"Yep they made the prisons stop allowing the inmates to make shaved ice and now only the juvenile prisoners can make it down in juvy hall. You know that's where the expression 'Little Shavers' comes from. You have heard of that expression haven't you?"

"I hate you." he mumbles from between teeth clinched to keep from grinning.

Presby Proud

Presbyterian leaders voted to allow gay clergy, but not gay marriage, during the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly last week. But PBS's Religion & Ethics Newsweekly reports that the measure now goes to the presbyteries, or local jurisdictions, which have previously rejected resolutions to ordain gays and lesbians.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/beliefbeat/2010/07/presbyterian-assembly-approves-gay-clergy-not-gay-marriage.html#ixzz0tiebF0cY


You know my good friend Flip once sat me down and tried with a good deal of patience tried to explain to me that being gay is not a matter of sexual choice but orientation. Naturally my strong right wing conservative back ground rebelled against what he was suggesting... that people are born attracted to same sex and it is not a choice. That no sane or reasonable person would ever choose to be gay in Texas. He has been both.

I don't have gay children. I am not gay. I do not have gay family members that I am aware of but even at an early age I could not get on board with making gay people to be villains. The older I get the more I see the way we, as a society, treat gay people is like the way blacks, and women have been treated in the past. The older I get I am opposed to Don't ask, Don't tell, ban on marriage, and any number of ways we thumb our noses at people because they are different. My old philosophy used to be, "How can it be wrong if there is love involved?" but that is evolved to a simple discrimination is wrong. I am happy to be Presbyterian and have made this big step, now lets regroup and marry some of these people off.

Geez I hope I don't have to give up making gay jokes over this.

Boomers Did It

So there was this interesting article I just read on how businesses were dreading 2012. "Sure" I thought, "so do the Mayans and anybody with HBO because we know that will be a movie shown 200 times in the next six months."

Surprisingly, the article didn't deal with either of those past/future tragedies. The article instead focused on the massive amount of people that are now employed and facing retirement. Baby Boomers are the generation that was born when Papa came home from War back in 1945. When the Country got so involved in the follow up to the war to end all wars that it swept the nation clean of able bodied men to the point traditional housewives were recruited to work on assembly lines. Rosey the Riveter was a character created to describe the type of woman worker needed to help keep the war machine rolling. The level of feminine empowerment lasted until the end of the follow up to the war to end all wars and Rosey was sent packing so real PTSD enabled war veterans could return to MAN the assembly line.

What happened to all those empowered working women, you ask? They were sent packing to be retrained to care for the returning hero by making the perfect home. These talented superwomen did such a fine job of creating a warm and welcoming island of domestic bliss that our returning veterans did what they do best, they knocked up the gal back home. The problem here was there were millions of returning veterans getting welcomed by million of superwomen and nine months later the big welcome home party began producing results! Millions and millions of them! But hey Rosey wasn't riveting just because she looked hot in overalls, nope she was a can do gal with a wanna do it attitude to the point that these post war families now had 2.5 children born between the years 1946 and 1964. And those little tykes in the class of '46 will be eligible for full retirement in 2012. We are talking MILLIONS of them hitting the over strained social security system at the same time followed by wave after wave of aged out baby boomers.

Sure we have all heard about how this will wreak havoc in the Social Security system but now area businesses are thinking about what it will mean to the bottom line of production. See, while these post war tykes grew up and became hippies and smoked pot, burned bras and draft cards while putting flowers in their hair in San Francisco, they also advanced through the ranks to management and became the man they once so vehemently protested against. And the man is about to step down. Only it isn't just A man, it is millions and millions of men and women that have clawed their way to the top of lower and middle management.

See the big concern isn't the top 5% of the wage earners... nooooo... what we are concern about here is the Alpha personality that devotes his/her life to a job to make the trains run on time. They get the produce to the stores and the mail sorted and the bank accounts balanced. We are talking the top mean ass grunts that run our businesses by keeping their thumbs down on the irresponsible twerps that followed the class of '64. The people our society depends upon to thrive and feed us and support us and provide us the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to over the past 50 years. Those guys are about to age out and who... WHO do we have to replace them?

Sure we could deal with the loss of one or two or nationwide maybe even a hundred or possibly a thousand... but we are talking millions of them. Possibly ALL of them and it all starts in 2012. So maybe the ancient Mayans aint so dumb and superstitious after all huh? Maybe... just maybe they were watching a baby boom in the stars and saw the tragedy that would follow teaching a nation of women a solid work ethic and then sending them home to please a man. We are all doomed. DOOMED!!

Lack of Virtue

I am not a craftsman. I have some skills but I lack the basic, most fundamental trait or virtue necessary to be a true craftsman. I lack patience. In fact, a co-worker, a former police administrator, often calls me “too timid” (pussy) because I refuse to drive across multiple lanes of traffic on left handed turns. The simple truth is not that I lack nerve… no… I have good insurance and a cheap car, so I am pretty sure that means I have the right of way. The fact is I lack the patience to wait and wait and wait when I can simply drive around the block and ease into traffic with a right turn.

So this week I took off work. My annual “I am too cheap to take the family on a trip so I will STAY home STAYCATION. I flipped channel s and played on the computer and got bored. SO I started a little project by taking some scrap wood and making a guitar hanger. Over the years I have made a few of these and everyone is slightly different as I improve upon the design of the past. This last one was a master piece. I created a fork to hold the neck of the guitar and I placed a simple shelf under the fork to reinforce it and prevent sagging from the weight of the instrument. I glued as screwed each piece together to give it added support and I believe you could have hung sides of beef on those hangers as well as a guitar. Then as an added bonus and because I was off work and hate to be bored, I upholstered, or covered the fork in black leather to give it added gripping power, prevent scuffing of the guitar neck and because I thought it would look cool.
I decided I would stain the back of the hanger pecan brown, mainly because I knew I had a small can of stain. So I spent two days making the hanger, mostly waiting on the glue to dry and applying the leather. Then I searched for a full day for the stain and never could find it. In the end I got impatient and used last of an old old gallon of pale green paint I had used in the bathroom years ago. I drilled a hole in the center of the backer board and went to the wall to hang the bad boy next to the piano.

Now I have all sorts of stud finders. I have a simple magnet that flips when you pass over a nail in a stud. I have a super electronic sensor that uses sound and telepathy and I think taps into my cell phone to call Ms Roberta the radio psychic. Of course I can never find one of these, and thus out of my lack of patience, I reverted to the old fashioned method. I tapped on the wall until I thought I heard a full solid sound and I tried driving the screw into the wall with an 18 volt Sears Craftsman cordless drill. Nothing. So I pulled out the screw and moved over an inch to the right and tried again. Nothing. So I pulled the screw out of the wall and a small chunk of wall came out with it, but hey I was going to have to repair the other missed hole anyway, right? I moved over another inch to the right and
tried again. Nothing.

At this point I should inform you that standard wall framing dictates that you place wall studs every 16 inches. I know for a fact the studs are 16 inches apart on this wall because I put up the dry wall myself a few years ago. So I moved over another inch to the right and tried another hole. Nothing. At this point I am growing really impatient and blaming everybody who has ever even driven down the road in front of our house for my inability to find the stud finder I never really bothered to look for because how freakin hard can it be to hit a Godamn stud in the fucking wall when you know the bastards are only 16 fucking inches apart? RIGHT?!!

Eh… did I mention when I get frustrated I tend to maybe swear a tad bit? Anyway, because I am trying to hang a guitar that will be on a wall and displayed in the living room, I am making all of these attempts by holding the hanger and the heavy 18 volt Sears Craftsman cordless drill over my head and by this time the hanger and the drill are getting really heavy. The screw is now firmly embedded into the backboard of the hanger and after the past several attempts of not getting a really square stab at the screw head, the powerful Sears Craftsman has stripped out the head. I move another inch over and another inch over and on the 14th GODDAMN attempt I hit the fucking stud only to bury the screw about half way in before completely stripping out the head. Now I can’t get the screw to go in and I can’t get it to back out. My arms ache and burn from effort, profanity is blistering the paint off the walls, my wife got out of bed to see what was happening because…

Did I mention it was about 12:30am and how hard is it to put a simple fucking screw in the damn wall right?!!... but when she walks out and sees a 15 inch gash in the living room wall next to her piano and me tearing out a huge hole in the sheetrock because the screw head is stripped, she quietly turns back around and goes back to bed without saying anything.

I have to say I am blessed with a wife who has more than enough patience for the both of us.

So there I am going absolutely bat shit crazy trying to rip this guitar hanger off the wall because it is NOW semi secured into the only stud that must exist in that damn wall when I hear the fork of the guitar hanger I worked on the for the past three days crack and break someplace under the upholstered leather cover that looks real cool.

Now it is two hours later I again show I am not without skill. The holes in the wall are patched and the first coat of mud is drying. Later, after my staycation is over, I will reseal all the wood trim and repaint the entire living room. I have been saying all year that It needed repainting anyway, so it is no big deal, right? I mean I have the skills and how patient do you need to be to paint anyway?

Female Viagra

So usually I joke around in this blog but today I want to address something of a more serious nature. There are reportedly hundreds of thousands of women in this country, possibly millions world wide, who don't wanna put out. What is worse, they would like to wanna put out, but they just can't seem to get in the right frame of mind. They curl up in a shawl and settle into a matronly feeling of content while their girly parts slowly rust shut from lack of use. Remember, if you don't use a muscle it will wither away and die... that's why guys touch themselves all the time even if they "don't feel like it."

OK OK seriously here: When Mrs. Cris and I first got together my mother in law had a stroke. She spent the remainder of her life trapped in a body where she could think and feel and want but never express herself physically or verbally. She was trapped against her will and you could see the frustration she dealt with on a daily basis.

Somehow I see this "Not Puttin' Out" or "Frigidity" disease as the same kind of betrayal by the body. And while many of these women will tell you that they are fine and they do not miss sex or have an interest in sex they, fail to see the devastation wreaked by this lack of desire.

I could go into many theories of the causes of a lack of desire. It could range from anthropological to superficial attractiveness. Maybe it is the lack of reproduction ability that quells the innate dive and desire to have sex for procreation. Possibly it is the fact the human body is only designed to live about 40 years, so after 15-20 with the same person the average relationship is incapable of thriving. Perhaps it is because of today's rapidly changing world, people grow apart due to different interests, or perhaps super sized meals lead to super sized asses to the point women don't wanna see it or have it seen. The thing is there is no single answer for all cases and there may not be a single answer of any individual case. It is what it is.

When you look at the family dynamics you can't fail to see that children, who develop a view of the world by watching and modeling the behaviors of the adults, primarily parents, in their lives. When they see a disconnect in wanting the touch, the sexual energy and desire in the home it has to have a residual effect. Oddly it seems that while the frigid women don't want sex they still love the chick flicks that rely on sexual desire to drive the storyline. Yet this element is totally lacking in real life, so children grow up believing life long love and desire are merely parts of Hollywood fantasy.

You know this puts a strain on marriage and most will not survive the lack of sexual desire from one partner or the other. Back in the day when couples had to cite reasons for divorce, sexual abandonment was a legitimate cause for divorce. The tragedy is the relationships end while both parties still deeply love and care for each other. This is not even counting the life-times spent working towards common goals, and decades of shared assets. The dissolution of which most likely leads to the animosity and bitterness in divorce.

Now I mention this because I was reading an article today about how drug companies are working to develop a female version of Viagra, only the medicine would create desire rather than boners... well hopefully it would ultimately create both. And there are groups out there protesting the creation of a drug that could potentially save hundreds of thousands of families. This fear of tampering with a woman's body would have prevented the use of anti depressants, insulin, or birth control. Every day we see data that represents information that has been in front of us for centuries and never recognized. We know there are many women out there that want to function sexually but can't. It is not normal. It effects the quality of life of those women and has a residual effect on those closest to them in the family. These women do not want to lose their marriages or cause harm to children or families. They need help the same as a person with in infection needs antibiotics, a broken bone needs a cast and a teenager needs condoms and duct tape.

My New Summer Fruity Gay Drink

So I think I found the perfect summertime drink for me. It is easy, tasty and will knock you on your butt. Did I mention it was cheap too?

Go to Wal-Mart (or where ever) and get box of those individual flavor packets for bottled water called Raspberry Ice. It is sugar free and there is like 12 drink mixes in it for $2. Then take thee to yon spirits store and purchase a bottle of Blackhart Rum. OK the type of rum might not matter but this bottle was $10.99 with a $10 rebate(...sure wish I hadn't lost that rebate ticket) AND it has a sexy one eyes pirate chick on the label!

So you mix the flavor packet with a glass of water and a shot glass full of rum and ice that bad boy down. No special bar tricks, no bottle twirling, no mad mixing skills. Trust me, you will like what you get even if it IS kind of an iced down fruity gay drink for the summer.

No carbs, no sugars, and no problems. YOU. ARE. WELCOME.

Suck THIS Pythagoras!

So there we were, the home building crew of "The Boy" and myself, out in the yard and embarking on an all new project. Our projects have been many and varied over the years as we have progressed from the initial flower beds we made when he was grounded as a little boy, to the major building projects we have undertaken with our present house. And all in all, he hates each of them equally.

Oh don't get me wrong, he does not dislike working with his hands or creating something from nothing. He HATES working with his father. But to be fair, a lot of this pent up disdain is from years of his being too small to be any real help, so he would stand around most of the time waiting to hand me a hammer or a some other assorted tool. Come to think on it, I would probably hate it too, but learning starts somewhere and now that he is taller than me, stronger than me and ha a more capable knee than me... I am letting him do sooooo much more of the labor part of our little projects. ...and you know what? I think his enjoyment is growing!

Several months ago a buddy of mine needed some quick cash and offered to sell me a carport. He said he would take his carport down and move it to my house and set it up for a little less than the price if of a new carport. It was a good deal for both of us and I do need a car port, only I wanted to level off the ground where the carport would be located. I agreed to pay him but he would have to wait until I had time to get the ground ready, and I told him I was so busy it would probably be months.

This week I was full into my annual STAYCATION. You know, where you work all year and you get time off to do what you want, but I have so many things I don't have time to do during the year I can only do them when I am not working... like my time off. So today I slept late, got up the boy and told him I was going to give him a practical workshop in the application of the Pythagorean Theorem. And for those of you following along at home, that's a2 + b2 = c2.

We trudge out in the yard where the July sun beats upon us without mercy. It has rained every day this week and the boy ventures that maybe we should do this another day since it might start raining again. I berate him for his foolishness, this is Oklahoma in July. It might have a freak rain every once in a while but there is no way it will keep raining.

So it began pouring down on us. Rain quickly soaking our shirts, matting our hair... ok HIS hair and leeching into our eyes and mouths. "DON'T WORRY!" I screamed over the pounding deluge and rolling thunder, "THESE SUMMER CLOUD BURSTS ONLY LAST A FEW MINUTES!" Then I handed him a tape measure and a roll of thin rope. We measured off six feet along the house from the corner and marked the spot. Then we measured out 24 feet from the house where we wanted to create a retaining wall and marked the distance by tying one end of the rope to a screw driver and jamming it into the ground. We went back and measured eight feet from the corner on this rope. Then we simply went to the two marks and made a triangle with a length of rope that measured ten feet long. When the two marks touched, we had a perfectly squared line for our retaining wall.

See I was taught that if you use multiples of 3,4,and 5 you will always make this work. Since we were working with a bigger number I decided 3,4,and 5 feet would not work so I multiplied them by 2 for greater distance and accuracy and because I did not have enough rope if I multiplied them by 3, plus I get confused easily so multiplying times 2 seemed the best solution.

Only it was REAL obvious, once we laid out the heavy railroad ties along our string line that we were not square with the house. Not even close! OK I will admit that maybe I was not REAL exact with the measurements. I mean, I used what I thought was a fleck on the wall of the side of the house rather than actually draw a mark on my siding! And maybe I tied a knot in the rope around where the eight foot mark would be and I was within a couple of inches, and MAYBE I didn't drive a nail into the siding to hold the hypotenuse rope line so MAYBE I kind of tied it to the front tire of an old bicycle that was leaning against the house so there could have been a little wiggle room there... but mostly... I never could see how simply using multiples of 3,4, and 5 equaled a2+b2=c2... I mean shouldn't the hypotenuse side be 14 feet long and not 10?

Oh well, we ended up using a large framing square and eyeballing it into place. As we placed the final railroad tie into place we were soaked and covered in mud and creosote. We rushed to put up the tools in the barn and just as we put away the last tool and walked towards the house the rain stopped and the clouds parted and filled the land with sunshine.

The boy gave me a disgusted look over his shoulder and went back into the house to play his video games and watch TV. As for me... I showered and made an excuse to go back to the office where I worked until about 9:00pm. It's a good thing I only relax like this once a year, I don't think the boy could take much more than that.

Mystery of the Gages

So I am a Fat Ass Diabetic. You know, the kind who was not born with the disease but "grew into it" by way of my fat ass. Yes I have eaten my way into bad health with vengeance, according to modern medical literature. Naturally I am not as supportive of that firmly held true-ism as say... a skinny freakin dude. But that is besides the point.

The point is I am trying to monitor my sugar intake. For the past decade I have been a minor diabetic. Evidently after 10 years you loose your armature status and have to at least enter the ranks of the semi pros if you wish to stay in the game. The game being LIFE. So about 6 months ago I had an alarmingly high blood sugar count of about 300 and I was on medication. Up until then I was always around 100 and I never even bothered to check except when in the doctor's office. Since that day I try to check every morning.

Herein lies the mystery. My blood sugar level doesn't make any freakin sense!! After doubling my medication a few different times and then adding a new medication I have dropped from a daily 200 level to about 130-140. Still too high but it beats the hell out of 200. I will be around 135 every day for about three days and then I will be like 64 or 70. This is falling a bit low so I might add something to my diet like whip cream to my coffee.

So this week I made cornbread. It is a no-no for diabetics because... ok I really don't know why. It is high in carbs and is considered the more evil of breads, as opposed to whole grains or NO bread. I was not surprised to see the next day I was a 179. But the morning I was a 179 Mrs. Cris made me breakfast.

Older readers may remember Mrs. Cris lacks a certain proficiency in the cooking skills. So this breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs and sausage. I know, I know... it is impossible to ruin this simple fare.... and yet she manages quite easily every time for the past 30 years of wedded bliss. We have two dogs that seem to think they live around here and they wont even eat this stuff! I slip it outside in the hopes of a little help and the worthless mutts act as if they prefer discount dry dog food to Mrs. Cris's home cooking... and you know... they MIGHT be on to something there! As a result I have stopped trying as all we end up with is a slowly decomposing bowl of unborn chicken and ground up pig in the back yard. Not even the ants will touch it!

OK I digress a bit. The point is after the exemplary first bite and courtesy "Yumm baby" that you have to perform to maintain a marriage for three decades, I HAD to find a way to maintain the contents of my stomach. I grabbed a cookie, then two and maybe three. Later that day, hours later the memory resurfaced and I had two more cookies, OREOS, and I am pretty sure I had the last of the corn bread. All in all I had a BAD CARB day with real sugar, several cookies and corn bread and today my sugar level is....

129

WTF DUDE?!! It should be WAYYYY higher today than it was yesterday at 179, but instead I am damn near healthy. My sugar level is bouncing around all over the charts and I can't figure out why. Maybe my gauge is defective. I have a second one. Maybe I should alternate them. I could check one and then check the other but those strips cost money and... well I AM me.

Or maybe... just maybe I am right and all those so called medical ex-spurts are wrong as I have always suspected. For years I ate a half a box of sugar coated donuts every morning and was as healthy as a horse. Now after 10 years of acting like a sickly diabetic I have turned into a freakin old man! Maybe the real message here is I need more OREOS in my diet!

Problem Fixers

So yesterday was the Fourth of July. We had a good time with family at the lake. The boys went all pyrotechnic and kept running in the house with tales of encounters with bears, and fire, and near drowning heroics. It should have been amusing but they kept running the house screaming about man eating carnivores and near death experiences while we adults were trying to eat and visit. Naturally we yelled at them and told them to stay outside.

That is all pleasant and nice but the real purpose of this post is to do what I do best.. or most. BITCH! Yes I have a major bitch to share with you. Last winter my mother needed to get rid of cat. We have a mouse problem out in the country and I agreed to keep the cat as long as she could be an outside cat. I needed a predatory mouser.

Everybody was in agreement this cat would be perfect for the job. She had claws and loved to attack anything, and grew up fighting off neighborhood dogs. So we welcomed her to our happy yard where she began killing everything she found. Lizards, snakes, moles, horses, and mice. It worked out well and when all the local wild life was depleted she would skulk across the street and take out a few of the nearby farmer's pigs or cows. She was working out fantastic except whenever we opened the front door this stupid cat would run in and bolt to the inside cat food bowls.

This was a nuisance, but the real problem has been the hitchhikers. Yes there are always a hand full of fleas that ride along the outside cat's fur and jump ship onto the inside cat's fur. Over the course of a few weeks these fleas have bred and had a thousand babies each and now our house is overrun with fleas.

Today I have been doing research and have made the Man O' The House Decree: Either we are flea-less within one week from today or all cats must go! I have checked out the web and I think Wikipedia is the best guide on this. I will go invest the children's college savings funds in "Advantage" for the cats which will kill off 98% of all fleas within 12 hours and will stop eggs from hatching and the cats will become roving flea traps for the next few months.

Yes I will turn our cuddly little snuggle buddies into roving toxic instruments of death. They will roam through our house and dispense death with no more thought, compassion or consideration than BP Oil has for gulf fishermen. Only, unlike the oil companies and the US Government, WE WILL deal with our homeland disaster and we will do it quickly and efficiently with forethought, and research based, proven best practices. Not because it is the American Way, or the smart way but because Fleas piss me off and I want the fuckers out of my house ASAP!

And maybe that is key to fixing the oil spill. Scoop up all the oil we can and dump it on Washington and the homes of the BP executives. When you have to live in the disaster then suddenly you find the inspiration to fix the problems of your life. I know I am motivated!

A Positive Future Ahead

OK OK OK so I tried to post a blog post everyday and then decided to take a little time off. Is a year really all that much time? I mean really? In that year I have tried to devote myself to learning my new job duties. A task I still feel I am not equipped to handle. The issues that popped up was there was not enough time in a normal 8-10 hour work day to get everything done and in spite of all efforts to beef up my internet abilities here at home... my service grew less and less. Yes I blame Bush. In the end I had to let something go, and to my great distress that something had to be you.

There are so many things I wanted... NEEDED to share with you since I know you are the only one who really understands me dear unnamed faceless reader who stopped checking this blog site six months ago. What things you ask?

Did I mention my daughter went ahead and graduated from High School?!! Despite all my protests she turned 18, graduated from school and will leave me in a six short weeks for the life of an adult. AN ADULT!! I am not ready for that! I am no where near grown up and mature enough to handle that kind of change! AND WORSE that would leave me home alone with the wife and the boy and no sanity buffer!

Did I mention I sent my son off to an ex-stream survivor camp we call call Camp PeePaw? Yes he was to spend a month living the Spartan lifestyle my father lives and in which I was raised. No TV, no video games, no friends, just work and more work and when you finish you can talk about all the work you aren't doing but should if you were man enough but you never will be. HA THAT will hold him! That will make him into the tough lean mean working machine I grew into as a man. The boy left for the month's adventure the day my daughter graduated high school.

Did I mention I went to an old drinking buddy's house for Memorial day and decided to show a bunch of 17 year olds the PROPER way to play volleyball? On the first ball that came to me I was text book in everything I did to make the perfect set... right up until I hyper-extended my knee. On the first freakin ball!!! Yes I realized with the sickening thought I might vomit on the volleyball field and at the same time I realized that I might be too fat and too old to play volleyball anymore.

Did I mention about one week leter I got a call from my father who said my son had been working fantastic around the old farm. He was driving tractors, and shoveling feed and working on machinery and then he busted up his knee one morning while trying to put on his pants after he showered. Naturally I thought they were taunting me and my now famed athletic ability. So after the grandfatherly scolding I got for calling my son's "injury" bullshit, I had to drive across state to bring him home for the local doctors to look over. We were one pathetic site. He was on crutches and I could barely walk. I refused crutches or a cane but my damn leg tried to buckle under me with every step. Another month has gone by and his knee has bounced back with the vitality of youth... I still hobble around like a fat old man who needs to be put out to pasture.... or put out of his misery so he wont suffer any longer.

Did I mention I will be 48 in a couple of weeks? Part of me thinks 50 is still a long ways off and part of me thinks I will never live that long. My blood sugar has been real high and we have been trying to bring it under control by changing up my meds. I really think stress is the main cause but I am back to induction level low carbs because it is effecting my vision and possibly even my breathing. We are closer but the sugar level still bounces all over the chart and not the steady 100 mark I want. I know, I know, you think "So big freakin deal if you turn 50. Lots of people turn 50 every day and you are only as young as you feel. It aint the end of the world just because you turn 50."

Did I mention I turn 50 in 2012? Do you suppose THAT was what the Mayans had in mind when they stopped adding dates to the stone calendar? Is it possible all of the cataclysmic events I just described are foreshadowing the end of my world? Oh great, just when I might get real DSL the end of the world would have to happen. Aint that just my luck?