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Storm Troopers

So there I am driving home from a day of meetings in Oklahoma City. The new guy in the office is with me. He is a former cop, former storm chaser, former EMT (who resents it if you pronounce that as Empty). So there we are driving home and we get a few splatters of rain.

"Oh this is on north of us," said the experienced weather guy. "Its really going to make a rough storm about 60 miles north of here. Its that big of a system."

So I drive through the smattering of rain. I have an experienced storm chaser here with me! Hell, this is better than Dopler Radar dude! So I punch the car on up to about 80 MPH when I hear, "Yeah this is how one of our cops got killed. (pause) Hydroplaning." So I back it back off to about 65. He is, after all, the expert.

Then I see speckles around the large rain drops. "Uh-oh," I said while thinking about my poor 2007 Fleet Silver Chevy Malibu. "We are about to get some hail."

The new guy looks around confused, since there is no hail falling. "Nawwww, the hail is all north of us."

Immediately we are met with the pinging sound of semi-solid hail chunks ricocheting off the car body. Soon we hear the CRACK! WHACK! of larger, harder stones trying to crack through the windshield.

"I thought you said this was all north of us!" I demanded at the new guy. About then both of our cell phones buzz and we get an urgent storm warning from the local TV weather guy (costs about $7 per year for the service). We are in a severe thunderstorm, do not venture into it unless you are a total douche bag that doesn't care if his car is beat to hell.

"Look up ahead," the guy soon to be known as "Short timer" said to me. The sun is shining, so there is no hail there."

I speed up to hit the clear spot sooner.

"Hydroplaning kills people!"

I slow down and endure the click clack cracking of the hail stones on my car. Soon enough we are driving in sunshine. "See," said the former employee, "It all went to the North. We are free and clear now!"

OK two more hail storms later, each worse than the one before it, and we finally made it home. I hate driving in Oklahoma Spring weather.

SADER

No I am not sad. Tomorrow my children and I are going to a semi-traditional Sader. I say semi-traditional because it will be held by the good people at the Presbyterian Church and it wont really focus on Passover or the Festival of lights and... well... an Easter Ham might be involved.

So tomorrow night will begin the Easter weekend festivities. Easter Sunday will mark a full year we have been going to our new church. From what I understand, we have a Sader on Thursday, we do some kind of somber ceremony on Good (depressing) Friday and Easter Sunday is a much happier day.

Oddly enough I have wanted to attend a Sader for years! In fact I kept trying to get the few Jewish people I knew to invite me over. Plus it involved a lot of free food... which my church says makes me an ideal Presbyterian in my thinking. So the whole dang thing has moved in a puzzling circle for me. I have been a cynical, non-practicing person of faith that was interested in tradition and wanted to experience a Sader and all it involved. As a reward I will get to go to a Sader because I joined a different Christian church.

OK you gotta admit, if you are still reading... that's pretty damn cool.

Things I have learned Lately:
1. Deadliest Catch comes back for another short season in about a week!
2. It is not good to answer your Supervisor's text of, "I have a Dr. confirmed case of the flu. I will be out all week." with: "WooHoo! Fuck Yeah!! Party at the office! Woot!!"
And of course there is my old standby Life lesson"
3. Never keep the toothpaste in the same drawer as the Preparation H.

Oh yeah... and I am pretty sure Nina at Flibbertigibbet invited me to a sleepover at her house this weekend. I REALLY want to show up with a bottle of Patrone (it makes your clothes fall off) and visit. But it's Easter weekend and I love my kids.

Easter Look

Mr. Touchy Feely

Men don't cry damnit! That's all there is to it and if you don't know that you ain't no man! And its not just my Mom that keeps saying that to me. You never saw John Wayne cry and he got shot a lot! You never saw Denny McClain, Indiana Jones or that Transporter guy cry and they always get kicked in the nads.

So in my world that I like to think I live in, real men don't cry. ...except maybe at movies or real sentimental TV shows or reading some email because people are fucking with their emotions and deserve their ass kicked for doing it. So there, I have stated my position and that is how I try to live my life, as my Daddy taught me and as I taught my son who never listens to me.

Sure, you end up with an emotional cripple. That's what we call MEN! HELLO! Thank you for keeping up with the story to date.

So today I go to work and a girl I work with tells me she has an unexpected doctor's visit. I ask if things are OK and get the feeling we might need to talk. "If I talk about it, I'll probably start crying." She says.

Good enough for me! Case dropped! New subject introduced, can't wait til that freakin football season starts up, how about you?

Then I go by an old friend's office to invite her to lunch with the group and introduce her to a co-worker who wants to contract with her for training. I am met by a distraught woman who's son is having some control problems and a family (grown children) situation that is getting out of hand. Stress level is REALLY high!

So there I stand, seeing all of this vulnerability of a dear friend and I take action as a real man in my world will! I sprang to her verbal defense by eloquently saying something like, "Uh... sorry about your uh... son and stuff. Uh.. you can hug me if it will make you feel better."

Oddly enough, this dear friend recoiled as if a sulfur bomb had exploded in the space between us. Then looking at me from this now exaggerated distance from her leaning away, sneering in disgust and acting like a general gramophone, she says, "No, I am afraid if you did I might cry."

So I go on to lunch, trying not to feel too sensitive about how two women threatened to break down into tears if I even came close to touching them. We have a lunch with the majority of co-workers, including my wife, sitting as far away from me on the other side of the restaurant as possible.

OK I don't need to go into great detail here but there were others today who seemed ready to break into tears at my mere touch. They did NOT seem like tears of joy. They were not happy tears. No, those seemed like the beginning of tears of misery and heartbreak. And there I am, armed with my life's experience and ingrained certainty that I will be imprisoned as a sex offender if I even accidentally brush against a female co-worker.

You know, the problem here just might be that I am just too darned manly. I am just too dog-gone macho for all the women I have to deal with in life. I am no Dr. Phil, who can seem to answer any problem by forcing guilt on the person feeling like dog crap, with a simple, "So how's that working out for ya?"

Damnit! Here I am overwhelmed with an inability to help or make things better and all I really needed to do was act like an asshole, then tell everybody I am helping them deal with their feelings! Yup! That's me from now on! Mr. Sensitivity! What, you are the one who felt bored and decided to see if there was something more interesting than your family on-line. SO how's that working for you?

heh heh heh It's Brilliant!

Fun With Blackberry

So there I am in church. All dressed up with my really religious tie and trying not to fall asleep in the pew. Then I realize, as I sit there in the pew, with my head bowed and hands in my lap... nobody would be able to tell if I am praying, reading the bible or playing with my Blackberry. So here is my top 5 fun things to do with a Blackberry while in Church.

5. Go to Google Image search, turn off the safe search filters, and search each female church member by first name only. "Amber" or "Heather" etc.

4. Brickbreaker

3. Go to the phone book section and Text all of your friends, "I'm currently in church so that means I am holier than you are, you fucker!"

2. Craigslist personals

and the number one fun thing to do with your Blackberry while in Church...

1. Call other church members to see if they remembered to put their phones on silent.

The Plays The Thing

So tonight we performed. Last night was the one and only semi dress rehearsal that included blocking. It was terrible. A lot of it was my fault, the script I thought was in the back seat of my car turned out to be a grant RFP we have decided not to write. My bad!

So the rehearsal went bad and we never had a good idea of how the play would look. It had been written by a community member so this would be the first and maybe only performance. Than around noon today I get an email on my Blackberry. "We decided to change the blocking so that most of the play will be wandering through the audience. No need to rehearse, we'll wing it."

So we do the play. I wander around the audience and try to make myself hated to the point everybody wants me dead. It is a murder mystery and I die first. So I wander around, pick on people, try to publicly embarrass as many as I can before the beginning of the play.

So we do it. We finish. There is laughter. Afterward I walk around and visit with friends in the audience. There is my friend Micah, whose wife was in the play. He does not look amused. When I ask if the play was all he expected, he makes a disgusted snort and agrees that it was.

Thinking I might get my needed positive affirmation elsewhere, I wander over to a group from our church. I sit down asking if they enjoyed the show. I am greeted by stony silence. Finally, the old retired minister in the group advises, "Don't quit your day job." The wife of one of the actors leaned in and seems to support the assessment.

The old adage is true. Dying is easy, comedy is hard. Community Murder Mystery Theater is Way harder.