I know, I know.

First, let me start out by saying, I'm pathetic. I'm a simple, boring, childish man. I know this for one simple reason, and that is because I'm going to write about White Castle, again. I am now in Chicago, staying at a hotel I stayed at 2 years ago. This year, there is one important difference. That difference is, I did a search to find the closest White Castle to this hotel, and was happy to learn there is one .8 miles away. I all ready ate there and had only been in town for one hour. I think that because 5 of the past 10 posts have mentioned the WC, I have a problem. There would be no issue if I planned all trips around a disc golf course, which I love to play, but that I work everything around a fast food restaurant, is both sad and probably dangerous. I'm all ready not skinny, so these frequent trips to a place that is not only unhealthy, but also reeks havoc on my gastrointestinal track, is a sad state of my life. Will I change anything regarding this scary obsession? Not likely.

I decided to drive here, about 5 hours, instead of flying so I could avoid 2 airports, security and being trapped in a tube with sick people. It never fails that I end up sitting next to Carol Cough on every flight. My last trip from Akron, was finished off with a 45 minute flight next to a lady that sneezed and coughed the whole flight. I was kind of hoping those little masks would drop out of the bulkhead so I could breath some fresh air, but no luck. I'm not a nosey person, but I watched as this lady took breaks from her germathon to circle and highlight damn near an entire book. She kept underlining and circling and writing all over the book she was reading. At some point, don't you just give up on highlighting the entire book, and just say "The whole book is important." I hope it was her book or the next person to try and read it, will be confused and distracted.

While traveling by plane, I really like to people watch. It's one of the reasons I don't mind getting to the airport a little early. If you keep your eyes open, you can see alot. Here are a few things I remember from my travels over the past two months.

I heard a dad in the Houston airport, tell his kid that jet lag would go away in a few minutes. I'm not sure if he has no idea what jet lag is, or if he was just trying to calm his son.

I heard the same kid that was being duped by his father on the jet lag thing, call his brother a "Fucker" on two occasions. The kid was maybe 12 years old.

I listened to two ladies, probably in their 40's, try to figure out Angry Birds on their phone. It was funny to hear them discuss the strategy in flinging the birds, but they were way off. It was hard to listen to them, and not run over and take the phone away and show them how you REALLY do it.

A guy got on the plane in Houston and was so drunk, they tossed him from the plane. I knew he was in trouble when the medical staff came on board and asked him where he was, and he said Des Moines. Oooops. That is your destination, not your current location.

As I sat in one of my planes, waiting to taxi, it began to snow inside the plane. No lie, there were flakes of snow blowing out of the air conditioner and started to accumulate on my leg. Maybe it never got measurable, but still, it shouldn't be snowing inside.

One flight had the flight attendant slamming the overhead door 10 to 12 times, because it wouldn't latch. That's fun when it is right by your head and she decides she is determined to get this thing to close, but this method only. Not move things that might be blocking or check to see if the latching mechanism is stuck, no, lets just whack-a-mole this thing until it stays shut or falls off the hinges. It finally shut.

Question. When did flight attendants stop being friendly? I remember as a kid, flight attendants were nice, helpful and always had a smile. Today's flight attendants don't smile, seem to all hate their jobs and act like everyone on the plane is 2 seconds away from snapping and tossing their complimentary Coke right in their face. Can we crack a smile, or say something that is sincere and not the canned "Bubbye, bubbye, bubbye"? (I'm not sure how to punctuate that sentence, since the last bubbye isn't a question, so I put the question mark on the outside of the quotes, but that doesn't look right. Please pray for my kids, dad will surely get them an F in English class.)

And my favorite story from the airport, involved this couple:

I saw this couple in the Houston while I was waiting for my flight back to Des Moines. What caught my attention was, firstly, they looked so cute. So nicely dressed and both looked so sweet I just wanted to give them both a hug. I learned my lesson last time, unsolicited hugs in an airport gets you a visit with the TSA. I tried to explain that a hug is not the same as a bomb in your underwear, but they weren't hearing it. I watched as Dorthy pulled out a bag and began to divide the contents inside between the two of them. There were two sandwiches, a bag of apple slices and some cheese. I watched as they shared their lunch together and again, wanted to give them both a hug. I know her name was Dorthy, because it was hand written on the bag they were eating out of. As they ate, they whispered to each other and he was obviously funny, because she giggled repeatedly and he smiled, knowing he still had it. Again, my mind is screaming to run over and hug them. Finally, Dorthy noticed that I was watching them and said to me, "Stop staring at us, you fucking pervert!" So sweet. But I decided against the hug.

OK, maybe she didn't say anything to me, but I so wanted to hear a second old lady cuss that I almost coaxed it out of her. Honestly, I got a warm feeling in my heart as I watched them. I imagined that they have probably been married for years, and obviously still love each other. It made my day. I hope that when I'm there age, which doesn't seem to be that far off, that Marcy and I will look that cute, as we board a plane for destinations unknown. Mainly because my mind will be numb by then and I will have no idea where I am going. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing.

Hey granny, watch your mouth.

When I travel, I love to watch the people. I’m always fascinated to see what people will try to get through the security check. In LA a few years back, the TSA people were very interested in what a lady had in her bag, so I watched as they opened it and pulled enough electronics to open a Radio Shack, including one of those old fax machines with a phone receiver on the side. Not sure why that material couldn’t be shipped, or checked in with her other luggage, but it amused me. Almost every time I travel, I see someone get busted trying to get a bottle of water through. Even with 30 signs and recorded voice messages blaring every five minutes throughout the airport, they feel this rule doesn’t apply to them. Today, the lady in front of me INSISTED she didn’t have a bottle of water that they just saw on the x-ray. They started pulling her bag apart and showed it to her. She claims she didn’t know how it got in there. OK, is this one of the people we need to go over the “Did someone, other than you, pack your bag?” I always thought that was a stupid question, but now I want this lady pulled aside and strip searched, just to be sure she doesn’t have any explosives she “didn’t know about.”
My favorite thing from today was when the airport personnel wheeled a little old lady to the terminal and parked her just across from me. She appeared to be in her 80’s. She tried to strike up a conversation with a lady sitting near her, but the lady said she spoke very little English, just French. That didn’t stop grandma from continuing her conversation with Frenchy. Grandma said, and I quote, ”This is the first time they let me leave my shoes on at security. They usually make me take them off and they are a bitch to put back on.” Now maybe your grandma cusses, but mine didn’t, so I damn near shit myself when I heard her. My grandmas were very sweet and proper and I don’t think I ever heard either of them say anything stronger than “shoot.” This little tidbit made my whole trip.

I usually roam through the gift shop of every airport I’m in, if I have time. That includes the Des Moines airport, as I leave. I’m usually at the airport way too early, paranoid I will miss my flight, so time is rarely an issue. Today I watched as a man, probably in his 60’s, moved every black cover from the dirty magazines so he could sneak a peek. He didn’t choose one, but that would have made a good photo if I could have got him to pose with it. I always buy a Coke after the security checkpoint, since they find the bottle I’m trying to sneak in every time. The rules shouldn’t apply to my precious Coke.

The last couple of times I have flown out of DSM, I went out of the B terminal, but today I got to depart from the A terminal, which was recently redone. I think they did a pretty good job. They added a bunch of chairs that have power outlets built in. They have network USB outlets as well, but I’m not risking my work computer by trying it out. Not sure what it does, but curiosity is not going to kill this cat. I looked to see if they had free wireless, but no go. I did find a “Hotspot” that was unsecure and thought about trying to connect, but I’m too chicken.

It’s was a beautiful day in Des Moines, sunny and in the 40’s, which is fine by me. It was a little windy, so my hair was a mess by the time I got to the terminal. I forgot that the DSM airport is also in the midst of a major redo in other parts, so now they have a second floor enclosed walkway to get from the parking garage to the terminal. Now it won’t be nearly as cold getting inside during the winter. I have to say, for a small airport, it is really nice. If I had to compare to the other airports that I have been in, to this one, DSM would be in my top 5. Another nice one is the Minneapolis airport, which I was in a few years back. The other airports I was in today were Chicago and Akron/Canton. Yes, I’m in Akron Ohio, don’t be jealous. It’s rainy and cold here and the temps are supposed to be lower than at home. That sucks, would like to be home on the nice days. I’m only here for a few days, so I better soak up Ohio.

Father of the Year, and other crap.

I told this story to my sister-in-law the other day, and she felt it was worthy of a post, so here it is.

Makiah is really into playing football right now. He plays with his friends every day after school. He loves to go in the front yard and play catch, so we do it often. The neighbor kids come up and I'm throwing the ball to 5 kids, who are knocking each other out to get the ball. They play during recess at school, so one of the neighbor kids took his ball to school. I happen to be picking the kids up from school that day, all three of mine and the three neighbor kids. While I'm on the playground, waiting for all six to show up, Makiah gets the football and wants me to throw it too him. He takes off across the playground, and I do the typical guy thing, and have him go deep. I can throw it far, right? He runs about 20 yards out and I give the ball a chuck, and drill him right in the eye. Now he is trying to not cry, all the while holding his eye and walking back to me. He holds back the tears, and we load up the van and head home. He thinks he needs an ice pack, but I distract him with the promise to play catch in the front yard. We head out, the neighbor kids show up, and we start to play again. It's a lot of fun, and the game is going well, until I plunk him in the eye again. Again he holds back the tears, but if he ever goes blind in one eye, you might be able to look back on that day as the cause. My Father of the Year award has been put on hold.

Just to prove that I will point out my own dipshit moves, as well as those around me, I will share one of my biggest dumbass moves in quite awhile. I went to lunch with a few coworkers on Friday, and one of them drove. I volunteered to ride in the backseat of his truck. It is usually difficult for me to ride in backseats because of my long legs, but I seem to always end up in the front, so I figured it was my turn. When we arrived at the restaurant, I was trying to figure out how to pry myself out of the truck and knew I needed leverage. I grabbed the door jamb and started to pull myself out, when the front seat rider closed his door, which shared the same jamb I'm currently using. Yes, now my hand has been slammed in the door. I think I yelped like a beaten puppy, but I can't say for sure. I tried to pull my fingers out of the bear trap, but nothing. I have now began my "My fingers are in the door" cry, which my front seat mate hears and begins to pull frantically on the door, which is locked. The driver has begun his walk into the restaurant, keys in his pocket, when he hears the front seat guy yell to unlock the door. The driver is fumbling for his keys and not really sure why, so I reach into the front seat to free myself. I try to grab the lock to manually undo it, but it's one of the new cars that when locked, the knob is virtually inside the door. This makes it hard for a thief to use a coat hanger to unlock, but when you are an idiot with your fingers slammed in a door, it's a bit frustrating. I'm able to get enough of a grip on the lock, lift it and my front seat mate finally releases the metal death grip on my phalanges. From the get go, I didn't think anything was broken, and I still don't, but the "bad finger" is purple and sore. The other fingers had deep grooves on them on Friday, but they all seem fine now. I felt like a 5 year old, getting their fingers closed in a door, which I have seen. The difference? Their fingers are small and their bones aren't brittle. I got lucky.

Houston, we have a, well, a sight.

So here I sit in my luxury Hilton Hotel room, eating my room service pizza and watching Sunday night football. There are no kids, so it is quiet. Marcy isn't here, so the thermostat is set at 65 degrees, and I'm considering moving it down to 63 degrees. Do I like to travel? Yes and no. Yes, because of the things above, but no cause I actually miss my family. And, because I like to go into work. I keep caught up on my work and I like my co-workers. The main thing I like about my work trips is, I get to meet the people I normally work with via email and phone, in person. I get to get my hands on my inventory, so I can be certain that all is good in the world. Most people complain about the travel part, but I have been pretty lucky. I did miss a connecting flight in St. Louis once, the last flight to Des Moines for the evening, and had to drive home at 3am. That wasn't fun. I have never lost my luggage, knock on wood, and haven't been bumped and my plane has never crashed. What I have gotten, is entertainment.

My trip started off at the kiosk you now have to use to check in to your flight, since there are only 3 people working in the entire Des Moines airport, they typically focus on fueling up the planes and throwing luggage around. When I got to the kiosk, there was a couple, man and woman, who were traveling together, but were each at a different kiosk. I waited as they struggled to figure it out. I was about to push them out of the way, but the lady finally gave up and let me go, while the guy raised his hand like he was in kindergarten and the teacher was going to ask him what he needed. I checked my bag and got the heck out of there before he started looking over my shoulder to see how to work the dang thing. DON'T CHEAT! Figure it out on your own. I got up to security, which in Des Moines, is typically a 10 to 20 minute process, but usually 10. They only had one line open so we were headed for a 20 minute line, when a miracle happened, they opened a second line. Wow, that was a first. The people in front of me poured to the new line, so when it came to me, I had to decide, move to the new line or stick with the old one. I chose old one. Wrong choice. Not because the line was slow, but the lady in front of me was showing me parts of her anatomy I didn't need to see. When I got into the line, she was wearing a coat, like a suit coat. I was busy taking my shoes off when she removed the coat, so I missed the tease part of the strip tease. When I looked up, I saw that this lady, who was a bit overweight, had removed the coat and was wearing a "shirt" that didn't have a back. It had like straps that were holding it "closed" but there was a ton of skin. How do I say this? She had back boobs. I hope I'm not breaking any news to you, but if you get overweight, you can develop boobs, on your back. They aren't real boobs, so I don't think she was breaking any laws, but wow, that is a shocker to look up to. Who the hell wears a shirt with no back, let alone on a plane? People watching is my favorite thing to do at an airport. What people choose to wear, fascinates me.

My flight is on time, so we board. I have to almost crawl to get in this tiny plane, but I find my seat and sit down, just as my window mate shows up so I have to get back up and bang my head on the roof again. Flight takes off, seat belt light goes off and my seat mate has to pee. I let him out, cram my legs back into my seat and wait for him to get back. I pry myself out of the seat to allow him back in, then squeeze back into my seat. About 10 minutes later, he decides he needs something out of the overhead, so we go through the routine again. It's a 2 hour flight dude, get the shit you need and sit down. No upsie downsie. The other problem with these tiny planes, the dude next to me was about my height, so we played footsie all the way to Houston and his hairy ass arm was hogging the arm rest. This plane has 2 seats on one side and one seat on the other. I try to get the one seat whenever I can, but couldn't on this trip. On my flight back, I have the single seat.

Before you take off, the flight attendant always gives you the safety speech. I stopped listening to it years ago. I think I know what to do. If the mask drops, scream "we are all going to die," remove your seat belt and proceed to run up and down the aisle ripping all the masks out. I might have mis-understood the directions, but that is the gist of it. I'm not listening to the lady today, but out of the corner of my ear (is that a saying?) I thought I heard her say something about asparagus. Surely she didn't, but maybe she was trying to see if ANYONE was listening. There was no reaction from the rest of the plane, so she either didn't say it, or nobody was listening.

When I travel, I try to dress to be comfortable. I watched a show years ago that said you should always wear long pants and tennis shoes on planes. The long pants protect your legs if there is an accident and the tennis shoes so you can do wind sprints on the movable sidewalk that is in so many airports now. OK, that isn't right, it's actually because a sandal exposes your toes, if there is an accident, and flip flops can come off and if you have to run over fiery wreckage once you have been de-flip flopped, it can hurt. All of this is to cover your ass on a worse case scenario, but jeans and tennis shoes is how I want to dress anyway. Since the weather in Houston is in the 90's, I wore short sleeves. I also don't get could easily, so I'm usually good. A lady who sat two rows up from me, apparently, doesn't have the same temperature tolerance that I do. She was wearing a stocking cap that looked like one of those sock monkeys. It was pulled down over her ears and it was hilarious. Looked like she was heading to Alaska in February.

When we got to Houston, I was waiting for my luggage when I watched a guy grab a suitcase and moved it a bit, so he could get the handle of his suitcase. A guy right behind him, angerly told him not to touch his suitcase, seeing as the case that guy one touched, was guy two's. It seemed a little harsh, seeing as how guy one didn't chuck the case across the airport, he barely moved it. I guess travel makes some people a bit edgy.

I had a little luck on my side as well. I was standing in line for a cab to go to the hotel, when a van pulled up with one of those scrolleing message boards on the side that listed my hotel. I knew my hotel had a shuttle, but when I tried to call from the booth, I sat on the phone for 5 minutes and nobody ever picked up. I decided to take a cab, until this little miracle pulled up. I checked with the guy, he said he did go to my hotel, so I skipped the long taxi line. I'm glad I was able to find the shuttle, my hotel was farther than I thought and it saved my company some money.

All in all, a good trip. I'm off to my warehouse in the morning and will probably sweat like crazy in the 90 degree, un-airconditioned, Texas warehouse, so wish me luck.

Random pictures, hilarious comments

I always new there was a reason I had three kids. Now don't get me wrong, I love the them, but normally, they spend most of their days at home making messes. Their idea of cleaning them up, isn't on the same scale as mine, but they try, sort of. The reason I had kids? So someday, they can do the jobs around the house that I don't really want to do. That is why my parents had me, but as a kid, I never really appreciated all that they did, so I never quite got the whole having kids thing. I thought they were lazy, turns out they were just smart. My kids aren't very old, but they are just old enough to think helping daddy around the house is fun. I'll milk this until they are fully trained, then BAM! it's their job. My plan is moving along just swell. Here is Makiah mowing the grass.

You can see that he appears to be struggling, which he was. I keep cheering him on, and pulling the mower back into line. It seems that when you push with all your might, you tend to lean to your strong side. The lines in the yard aren't exactly straight, but if you look closely, half of the grass is dormant, so whatever. I didn't take very good care of the grass this year, so it's a bit weedy and a lot dry. Hey, Iowa is the Alaskan tundra in the winter and the Arizona desert in the summer. Just so Makiah didn't feel like he was having all the fun, I had Max working as well.

This is our pool, that he is power washing the mud off the bottom so I can roll it up and put it in the garage for the winter. Then, next spring, I will roll it back out and spend several hours looking for holes that happened when we power washed it and rolled it up. WTF! Mason hasn't exactly jumped on the bandwagon yet, but I'm dreaming up some jobs for him.

I found this picture from earlier this summer.

Now this picture cracks me up. Mason is holding my BB pistol and Makiah is holding my Red Ryder, single pump, BB rifle, the same gun from A Christmas Story. I have not shot my eye out, but the kids will at some point and Marcy will give me the "I told you so" speech. Bring it. I'm working with them on gun safety, with guns that probably won't kill them if they break a rule. Since both guns are single pump, that means two things. One, they can't pump either one of them, so I have to do it, so I always know when we are live. Two, since they are both single pump, not a lot of power. We shoot cans in the backyard, with my wood privacy fence behind the cans to stop the strays. The first time we ever shot them, two summers ago, Makiah was a dead eye. He hit the cans with every pull of the trigger. The cans were about 30 feet away, so not bad for his first attempt. This year, his eye is no longer dead. We could have thrown a handful of BB's and had the same result. Oh well, they haven't shot me or each other, or an animal, so we are good.

I found this shot that I took as I passed a car on the way home.

If you see that white dot, just to the bottom left of the gas door, that is her gas cap dangling there. Not sure why I thought this was funny but I did, and do. Maybe because I have never done it. I never lost a gas cap, when they weren't attached, back in the day. Now that I've said that, this will happen to me. There appears to be something under the wheel as well, but I'm not sure what it was. I would have gotten a better look, but I hadn't looked at the road in a few minutes trying to get this shot, so I thought I might take a gander at where I was in the traffic. Safety first.

Another shot happened near my office.

This is probably hard to see, but it is burned into my brain, so let me describe. This truck is all decked out. It has the huge CB antenna. It has large wheels. It has fricking smoke stacks on both sides of the cab. It sounds like across between a Harley motorcycle and a funny car. A deep rumble. Then, to top it off, it has a Rascal Scooter strapped to the back. Hilarious. At least if his truck breaks down, he can continue his trip and a whopping 3 1/2 mph.

And finally, I took this picture on my last trip to White Castle and was going to sign off my last post about the WC with it. Well I forgot, so let me sign off this post, with a very sad shot.

That was close!

Have you ever had something that shook you, and I mean shook you to your core? Well I had that happen to me last Sunday. Marcy works with a lady who lives on an apple orchard. They have about 1000 trees on their property, but don't pick or sell the apples. I got the impression that they have a lot of family and friends that come out and pick them, but they must leave a bunch that just don't get eaten. It was Sunday morning, and we decided to head to the orchard to pick some. Now the weather outside was frightful, OK, not frightful but as I was typing the first part of that sentence, the song just jumped in. It was a cloudy day, appeared to want to rain, but we were determined to get a bunch of apples, the rain be damned. We found the orchard, about 10 minutes from our house, and hit the trees to get our bounty. It started to sprinkle, but what I've always tried to teach the boys is, a little rain won't hurt you, it's the lightning that will sting a bit. There were apples every where. I tried to convince the boys, that just because the apples were low enough on the tree that they could reach them, didn't mean they needed to be picked. The first bunch of apples picked were the size of golf balls. I reminded them, the bigger the better. (glad I said it and not Marcy) They started passing on the golf balls, and started picking reasonable apples. Then we went over the condition of the apple. "Don't put an apple that is half rotten in with the other apples," I said. All three boys had either a bag or bucket to carry their treasure, and they were starting to fill up, well, some were. After walking around for about 15 minutes, I noticed that Mason had one lonely apple in his bag. I asked him why he only had one, and he said it was perfect, and he was only picking perfect apples. I wished him luck. The friend of Marcy's said that there were bigger apples on the other side of the road, so we headed over there, and she was right. As we crossed the road, the rain picked up. We were all ready soaked, so why stop now. After just a few minutes looking for bigger apples, it happened. My memory is a little foggy, but what I remember is a flash of light. Not from a flashlight, or from a camera, but more like the sun just landed in a farm field in Iowa. It was bright. That scared me, but the BOOM that followed just about cause my bowels to release. To say I was startled, would be an understatement. Like saying Katrina was a big storm, yeah, no shit. As soon as the boom happened, I knew that lightning had just struck nearby. My first reaction? RUN!!!! I yelled to the kids, who were now all crying, RUN!!!!!! And they did, but the little bastards dropped their apples, so I yelled to get your apples. Looking back, was that wrong? Should I have nearly sacrificed one of my offspring so I could pack an apple in my lunch? Huh, maybe, but at the time, "Get your apples." They took their hands off of the ears just long enough to pick up their apple bags in their now shaking hands, and run, still crying, to the van. Now my sprint, which wouldn't exactly be one for the books, consisted of a 6 foot 4 inch, slightly over weight, 42 year old, slightly frightened man, running at full speed, bent at the waist to get under the branches and trying not to turn an ankle on all of the previously fallen apples. I was doing my best to get around the trees and not running into one of my kids and knocking him down in his terrified state, loosing any chance of father of the year. BUT, they were on their own. I can't run my 6 foot 4 inch, slightly over weight, 42 year old, slightly frightened body, running at full speed, bent at the waist to get under the branches and trying not to turn an ankle on all of the previously fallen apples AND carry a crying 5 or 9 year old. Mason was at the van, so one kid was safe. Marcy was running at my left, van to my right, so her chances of beating me to the van were next to zero. I love her, but I'm not above smashing her to the ground so I get my butt into the van before the next lightning strike. I knew I had a little time, but mother nature has no rules on the amount of time between strikes, so I wasn't going to rely on history. I'm happy to say that we all made it to the van and I didn't have to sacrifice any kid or my wife, to be safe. We drove up to the house, and were greeted by Marcy's friend and her daughters, who had been riding a four wheeler around when the strike happened. The pointed out where it had struck, since they had a front row seat to the actual landing zone. It appears the strike hit about 300 yards from where there are now 4 or 5 pee stains. A little too close for comfort. As a storm rolled in today, Makiah was in the house at the first flash of light. I think he has a new respect.

Bucket

So I mentioned awhile back that I didn't have an actual bucket list, but I think they can be good ideas, as long as you don't see your life as a failure if you don't accomplish your list. Marcy and I started discussing our mental lists on the way to MN and realized that most of our list was comprised of travel, which is probably common. Although I don't actually have the list written down yet, I'm thinking I will just add a menu choice of "Bucket List" on this blog and add as I think of them. Seeing as how my memory isn't always what I want it to be, this will help me to remember my choices.

First off, I want to take a 2 week vacation, with no agenda, no destination and not even a direction. Load up the car and roll the dice. Roll a one, you go North, roll a two, you go east and so on. You say there are six sides to a dice and four directions, well then, plug something into the other numbers regarding roads that leave from your current spot. Is there a road that goes NE from where you are? That's a five on the dice. I think you get the point. Now, to figure out where to go, hit the next visitors center and start pulling brochures, or cheap hotels have the brochures as well, like the Super 4 we stayed in the other night. Ask the kids, what do you want to see? The worlds biggest ball of twine? Lets go. Can you imagine the blog posts I would have for a vacation filled with the worlds biggest this and the worlds smallest that? If you don't have an agenda, there isn't as much pressure to be "there" or see "that." Would it work? No idea, but it sounds like fun to me. My kids might not see the thrill in it, but if they are helping in the decisions, maybe they would enjoy it. "Where are you going on vacation?" Where ever the road, and dice, take us.

There are several places in the US that I want to see, the Grand Canyon from the ground, Glacier National Park, and Alaska. Those are the ones I have thought of so far, but I'm sure I will remember more that I have read about before and have just forgotten.

I've all ready cleared some off my list, and even did a few things that I would have had on my list, if I had had one. I've been to Hawaii, which definitely would have been on my list. I went to South Africa and got to ride around in an open air jeep with lions all around. I walked up to a Cape Buffalo, one of the big five African animals, and didn't shit myself. OK, maybe a little, but we were close and that was one big ass animal. That was probably something I never would have put on my list, because I would have though it was out of reach. I guess that isn't the point of the list, maybe you should shoot for the moon. Maybe not the moon, although that might not be out of the question soon. I was excited to hear what Marcy's list would look like as well. I was happy to hear we both had Grand Canyon and Alaska on our list and she had a different national park, but we are in the same category anyway. She liked my roll the dice vacation, so maybe I will start to refine that idea, so if we ever have the money to do it, we can. Now that I'm learning her list, I hope to be able to make some of those come true. I hope my surprise trip to Hawaii knocked a entry off her list. I know she would love to go to South Africa, and since I now have a connection to make that happen, the money is all that separates her from a pant load of crap after she sees what I saw.

Lesson learned.

So our hotel last night, which turned out to only be a 4 on the super scale instead of an 8, was close to the Mall of America. We decided to head over to the mall and find a place to eat. Largest mall in America, surely we can find a place to eat. We ended up at the Rainforest Cafe. If you've never been to one, they are all right. Food isn't bad, although expensive, and the atmosphere is pretty cool for kids, which we were without, so not nearly as impressive as it would have been. Their mascot is a frog, which Marcy loves, so we can at least go through the gift shop and see 100 things Marcy would like to have, but not buy. So I titled this post "Lesson Learned," so what did I learn? Well this place has large fish tanks all over the restaurant, and our table pushed up against one. Here is my dinner view:

As you can see, not bad. I like the blue fish, no idea what they are called, but they relax me with their smooth swimming and soothing blue color. OK, it's a fish, it's mesmerizing to watch them, I think I dozed off three times at dinner. So this seat just appears to be the best in the house, which is what the waiter said when he sat us there, but I'm here to tell you, not the best seat. Why you may be asking yourself? Well, because every kid in that restaurant wants to come see fricking Nemo, who is a foot from my dinner plate. The whole meal I have kids standing right behind my chair, openly praying that they might be able to find Nemo in this tank of fish. My mind wanted to comment to Marcy after we began eating "This fried Nemo is the best." Somehow I don't think my comment about eating their favorite movie character would have gone over well, so I stifled the urge. Along with these kids, came the parents, so I really felt I was in some slow, small, eating contest. I mean I had an audience, all be it not all of them were looking at me, but it sure as hell felt like it. One of the kids brought his grandma over and they were at the edge of the tank in front of me, so every bite I took, I'm looking into her eyes. I wanted to say, "Hey granny, divert your eyes and get junior out of here so I can continue my inappropriate conversation with my wife!" I can't have a conversation like that at home with my kids around, so we wait until we are in another state and someone else's kids are around. Maybe our conversation wasn't inappropriate, but if I think you are listening, I just might turn it that way. This is also one of those restaurant's that make a ruckus and sings to you on your birthday, which I hate. Not so much when they do it to someone else, but I don't want some waiter singing a birthday song to me and I don't want to be at the table if they are singing to someone else. I told Marcy if they come back out, they had all ready been out twice, that I wanted her to jump into the group of waiter/waitresses and start singing along. They can't kick you out for that, can they? That would make for a great blog story, but an embarrassing police report. They didn't come back out, so the world missed out on Marcy's public singing, but there is always next time. All in all, not a bad meal, but if you ever go to a theme restaurant, without kids, and the waiter says "This is my favorite table," ask to be moved. You are welcome.

Not again.

Oh yes, again.

I can't help it, I have an addiction. I have no idea why, as soon as I hit the Twin Cities, I start jonesing for a Slider. I made Marcy take this picture just so I could post it on Facebook to gross out one friend and sent it via my phone to my brother Brian and a co-worker. I tried to get Marcy to let me take a picture of her fake eating one, but I don't think she could get the burger near her face without gagging. She doesn't eat meat, which I'm not sure what is on a Slider could technically called meat, but it's close. Like John Capparulo says, "It's playing the fucking part." So as you can tell, I'm back in Minneapolis for a quick trip, then heading home tomorrow. We are staying in a fancy hotel tonight, I think it is a Super 8, which I think means on the super scale, its an 8. Not bad, that's how we roll. I didn't bring my tux, so I hope they don't look at me funny when I stroll through the lobby.

On our drive up, we were passed by four motorcycles that said "Patriot Guard." I see them on TV all the time, escorting our fallen soldiers with Old Glory flying high. It puts a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye every time. I wasn't sure if it was them until they were passed, or I would have made a lame attempt to show them I was proud of what they do. I'm not sure if other countries have the same kind of group, but they should. The best thing I have ever seen them do, is stand between the protesters from that church in Crazyass, OK, or where ever they are from, and the mourners of a soldiers funeral. I know they have their beliefs, and their rights, but I wish an out of control semi would take them all out the next time they protest one of our men/women in uniform. So this group passes us and all I can do is hope they are at the next stop we are at so I can take a picture of them and thank them. Next stop, no luck. As we start up again, I see a few more, then we go under an overpass and I see a firetruck covered in flags parked above. The fireman were out, so I knew the funeral procession was coming from behind us. We passed 5 or 6 more firetrucks, flags a flying, and my heart pounded. THIS is true American pride. I'm a big fan of America and this was about as good of a display as I had ever seen. I so badly wanted to stop and stand on that overpass and place my hand on my heart as our hero passed under me. Time didn't permit it, but it was on my heart and that soldiers family, who ever they were, are in my prayers. God Bless the men and women who fight for us, and God Bless America!

I had, the time of my life.

Saturday night, I spent the evening with a bunch of people I worked with 10 years ago, or more. This company was my first "real" job, whatever that means. I'm pretty sure the hours I spent at Taco Bell, serving tacos to the inebriated is considered a real job, but since I had no intention of it being my career, I always looked at it as a temporary stop on my road of life. I lucked into my job at CE, my best friends mom worked there and knew they were looking for someone in their production area to label computer diskettes and pack programs into boxes to ship to customers. It wasn't rocket science, but it got my foot in the door. I put in 15 years at the most fun place I've ever worked at. So Saturday night, a group of former CE employees got together to reminisce and catch up. I remember so many funny stories that one night wasn't enough to get them all back out. Of course, there were a bunch I had forgotten and enjoyed the refresher. Here's a few samples:

Here in Des Monies, there use to be a place called Big Daddy's BBQ. Now Big Daddy was know for making some incredible sauce, HOT sauce. So when a new guy joined the CE team, and started bragging about how hot he liked his food, it was suggested that he be taken to Big Daddy's and taught a lesson. The next time I saw that guy, he had black circles around his eyes and looked like he was dead, up until he came back to life and came to work. I asked him what happened and he said he was in the hospital because after he ate 1/2 of the sandwich at Big Daddy's, he threw up so much he burst the blood vessels around his eyes. He told me he still wasn't right, on the stomach and pooper side, but at least his tongue wasn't numb anymore. What a glass is half full kind of guy. There was one thing I learned from that. Don't challenge Big Daddy. You will loose.

My favorite story EVER from CE, was when we had a computer programmer visiting us from China. He was leaving our building for lunch with a bunch of other programmers. He came down the stairs and made a sharp left turn to head out the door to the parking lot. Unfortunately, the doors were not located at the sharp left location he was attempting to exit. No, the doors were actually about six feet to his right. So where did he attempt to exit? Through a 8 foot by 12 foot sheet of glass, which thankfully did not shatter when he smashed his face into it at full speed. It sounded as though he hit it three times, perhaps his head was bouncing off the glass, but it sounded horrific. I happen to be upstairs, just out of view of the impact area, but as soon as I heard it, I ran out to look over the balcony, to see the guy run out to his lunch group like nothing happened. I asked the ladies at the front desk who appeared to be in shock. They told me what happened, so I headed over to the glass and found a perfect face print on the glass, including forehead, nose, cheeks, chin and even eyelashes. To say that he hit it hard would be the understatement of the year. I laughed so I hard I nearly pee'd myself, and I wasn't alone. I think productivity was done for the day.

There were tons more, like putting a motion activated recorder, that when placed behind a toilet, scares the crap out of people when they go to use that toilet and it says "I'm watching you." Removing the pins from the hinges on a door, so when the person opens that door, it comes off the hinges and smashes the guy in the face. Many things were shrunk wrapped, which if you don't know what that is, wrap something in Saran wrap, and then heating it until it is super tight. Now imagine everything on your desk being wrapped, individual pens, stapler, tape dispenser, keyboard, mouse and anything else we could get our hands on. We covered a guys office floor and chairs with computer diskette labels. It was actually pretty cool looking and the guy loved it. Taught him to lock his office when he went to lunch though. We boxed up a girls car when she left it in the parking lot and went out of town. We had several days to work on that one. We had a big snow one year and a guy had left his car in the parking lot. After the plow truck sort of buried his car, we got out our shovels and finished the job. His car was buried under 3 feet of snow, then we watered it so it was icy.

I slept at the office on numerous occasions. One night, we were working late and it was about 2am. The cleaning crew was just wrapping up and getting ready to leave. We had spoken to them several times, so they knew we were there. I was using the restroom, when I heard over the loud speaker, "You have violated a restricted area, the police have been notified." I thought that was odd, so I headed out to the alarm panel, just in time to see the cleaning people look at me, then run for the parking lot. Somehow, they had forgotten we were in the building and set the alarm on us. Nice.

Everyday at this place was an adventure. The thing I remember most was, it was a family. We were together so much, it was our home away from home. How do I know it was family. Ask anyone who worked there and they'll tell you the same thing. It was a unique place, nothing I had heard of before or after. What group has a work reunion, 10 years after it, in all honesty, died. Half the people at that reunion were either laid off or fired. You get laid off from a company, do you go back to see the people that did it? I suggest that this might be a first. Do you hug your co-workers? I did. Do you tell your co-workers that you love them? I did. Still do. It was a great time in my life, a time I will never forget. Plans are in the works for next years get togther, and I can't wait. Hopefully more people can make it and more stories can be shared.

Pepper soup, pepper pancakes and pepper pie.

I'm not sure if I mentioned that we planted a garden again this year, but we did. This years attempt includes zucchini, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, squash, cucumber, green peppers, yellow peppers, red peppers, jalapenos and sweet potatoes. We have had a pretty good year, with a few exceptions. The first garden we ever planted, we had so many cucumbers that I was hauling several a day to work to give to co-workers. The next 2 years, next to nothing. The first year we had a bunch of tomatoes, but none turned red, so basically a flop. The first couple of years we have had a few green peppers per plant, but not as many as we want, so this year we planted 4 green pepper plants, a yellow and a red. The green pepper plants, at today's viewing, have approximately 10,000 peppers growing. That might be a bit overstated, but there are a ton. I might just be hauling these in to work, if they grow big enough and we can't keep up with eating them. We are going to have to get creative in our recipes and include peppers in everything. Do you think the boys will eat peppers in their cereal? The yellow pepper plant has 2 yellow peppers and a bunch that are still green and growing. The red pepper plant waited the whole summer to give off its first pepper, so it better be good. The cucumbers are a huge disappointment. We have 4 plants and have gotten a total of 2 good cucumbers and one shitty one. I'm not sure what the deal is, except for that the sweet potato plants are right by them, so maybe that has something to do with it. We learn new things every year and try to incorporate that into next years garden. For instance, the zucchini plant grew so big, it smothered the life out of 2 squash plants, killing them. We got bugs that ate the few squash fruit from another plant, before I even noticed they were there. The jalapeno plant is plugging right along, producing just enough for me to eat and they aren't too hot. In fact, could be a bit hotter for my taste, but no complaints. I almost forgot, Max brought home a pumpkin plant that we planted in the garden with little hope of it doing anything. It has grown and wrapped itself all around the garden and now has 2 little pumpkins that are starting to grow. The problem is, the plant has attached itself to the top of my rabbit fence and when they start to get bigger, they are going to either fall off due to the weight, or they are going to rip my fence down. I've considered cutting the little grabber vines that caused the vine to be at the top of my fence, and then lay the vine on the ground. I need to figure out if that will hurt the plant if I cut all those little vines. They grow fast and hold tight, so it would take a bit of work. This vine grew about a foot a day for over a week and the grabber vines grew faster than that. I'm sure if you sat there and watched them at peak growing, you could see them move with the naked eye. My scheduled didn't permit me to sit and stare at my garden for a day, so I missed it. Should have gotten NatGeo to film it. All that being said, it's been a pretty good year so far. I'm anxious to see if the sweet potatoes come out and whether we get to avoid buying Halloween pumpkins, because we grew our own. A pumpkin with a fence growing through the middle of it will be hard to carve. Here is a shot of todays tomato harvest.

Excuse me? Are you serious?

I just had to comment on an article I just read, about a kid who plotted and stabbed his teacher. The puzzling part of the article, was when the judge made a statement that just floored me. The defense attorneys ask for the teen to have a mental evaluation, which seemed reasonable to me. The judge agreed to the evaluation, and said, "to see if he is a threat to himself, or the community." Did I miss something? Didn't he all ready kill someone? I guess that isn't a threat, it's an action, so the statement is valid. OK, he killed someone, perhaps we should take away his "Happy camper" button and send him to his room, WITHOUT supper. Or maybe we should have a professional take a look at him. Yeah, lets do that one.

Add it to the list.

Have you ever had one of those days when you are getting all pumped up for something that is happening that night, only to have the rug ripped out from under you and the whole thing goes into the crapper?  Welcome to my Thursday night.  I'd been looking forward to last nights concert from the day I heard about it.  Got more excited when I purchased four tickets to attend the concert and spent all day Thursday at work talking about it.  The concert, was Casting Crowns, which is one of mine and Marcy's favorite bands.  We have probably seen them 12 times over the years, and never get tired of them.  They are kind of our Grateful Dead, because we would, and have, traveled great distances to see them.  Last night they were the opening band at the Iowa State Fair.  Now the Fair Grandstand isn't my favorite place to see a concert, since the last time I saw them there, my seat was right behind a poll.  That whole night, I could hear the lead singer, but could only see him if he ventured to the fringe of the stage.  So you can tell I didn't get to go, and I'm guessing that you are slightly interested in why I couldn't go.  I'm not full of myself so that I think you won't be able to sleep if I don't spill the beans, but I do know you will be disappointed in the reason, since it wasn't because I was arrested in a pre-concert road rage accident and it wasn't because something "better" came along.  No, we missed the concert due to a sick kid.  Not just sick, but strep, the fun one.  What are you going to do?  It's way to late to trade the kids in for a couple of ponies.  No, we have them, for better or for worse, and last night was one of the "worse" nights.  I felt sorry for Max, he felt like crap, but he could care less that Marcy and I were going to miss our only night out, for just the two of us, all summer.  With our current schedules, me working days and Marcy working nights, quality time is next to zero.  Summer is drawing to the end, the boys will be back in school, and hopefully Marcy will be able to get more day hours so we can go back to being a family.  I'm happy to say that Max is doing better after the antibiotic kicked in, but the two tickets to Casting Crowns at the Iowa State Fair are still in my wallet, I don't have the stomach to throw away the $70 that I spent on them.  Perhaps I can come up with a craft that I can incorporate them into, along with the other things my kids have cost me.  I'd have to include about a pint of blood in the craft, to cover the cuts and bloody noses they have given me.  There would be a lot of sweat, for pushing them around the yard in a wheel barrow in a dead sprint, with them yelling "Faster, Faster, Faster" and "Don't stop, keep running."  Kiss my ass, dad is pooped.  Ala Mike Tyson, there must be a piece of my ear.  No, they didn't bite my ear, but it has nearly been ripped off numerous times during wrestling matches or the dismount of a shoulder or piggyback ride.  My hair.  Nearly 25 minutes of every movie we have tried to watch together, and then you can take another 15 minutes off for every movie I have watched with Marcy AND the boys.  My ability to read, poop or talk on the phone without someone asking a question or telling on their brother(s).  I'm not sure how you could incorporate any of that into a craft, perhaps a collage?  No wait, that would be gross.  That all being said, I love those kids and would trade everything I have for them, so I guess I will let this incident slide.  This time. 

 

I can't remember if I ever told the story of when I met the lead singer of Casting Crowns, so here it is.  We were at Sonshine Festival a few years back and noticed the lead singer walking around in the crowd.  We said hello, recognizing him and he said he was looking for his drummer.  I love their drummer.  He is hilarious behind the kit and can play really well.  We started looking for him, hoping I could meet him as well.  The funny part was, the lead singer came over to us as we were chatting about the drummer being lost in the crowd, and introduced himself to us.  He said, "Hi, I'm Mark."  First off, great name, kudos to mom and pop Hall for naming him that.  Second, no shit, why do you think we are here.  Couldn't have been a nicer guy for the couple of minutes we spoke with him, and to be humble enough to think that someone at a Christian Music festival wouldn't know who he was, was refreshing.  There were probably a lot of people in MN that year who wouldn't be able to pick him out of a line up, but HE didn't know that, he just didn't assume we knew who he was.  He didn't say he was the lead singer of Casting Crowns, he was just Mark. (again, kudos)  I like humble people.  I like people who I look at as role models, to have no idea people look at them that way.  Our encounter was topped up by a rogue football that came into the crowd, struck a girl in the back of the head and then landed in Mark Hall's hands.  The girl turned around, rubbing her head, to see Mark holding the football.  I told him, "You better get rid of that ball, you look guilty."  He then went into his best "I didn't do it speech," but even he wasn't buying it.  I'm not sure if that girl ever believed him, or knew who he was, but I got a good laugh out of it, and that's all that matters.

Is she dead?

OK, this may be the scariest looking woman I have ever seen, the one on the right. I realize the one on the left is hot, and soon to be wealthy.

This is Maria del Rosario Cayetana Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva, the Duchess of Alba, and she is 85 years old. It appears that the MEANT to say that she has been dead for 85 years, so her actual age is un-known. Now I'm no model, not much to look at, but I'm also not worth 850 million to 5 billion dollars. That is the range of her wealth that I found. That seems like a huge range, but once you get 300 million dollars, it's all a blurr after that. The story I read was about her marring a guy 24 years her junior. My first thought was, he is in it for the money. But just look at her, who wouldn't want to wake up in a cold sweat and check her pulse every morning. I think she was the crypt keeper back in the 90's. The story goes on to say that she is giving all of her money to her kids before she gets married to prove the marriage is for the right reasons. I wonder if she would like to adopt a bald man from Iowa? Would I have to kiss her good night? Never mind, I'll stay poor.

RIP!

It's always a sad day when you loose a member of the family. You might not even be that close, but when they pass, it hurts. We have been expecting this for quite some time, he lived longer than we were told he would. I'm not sure how old he was, but I've personally known him since May 31st, 2010, when we proudly brought him home. If you are a long time follower of this blog, you may remember the day he joined our family, I wrote about him then. Of course I'm talking about Kirby, the green anole. He just might have been the most worthless pet you could own, but I've had other that would fight for the title. Lets look at the looser pets I have encountered in my 40 plus years.

1. Green anole. First off, it's a small lizard, so I'm always worried he will get out and crawl into something that we can't find him in, and then die and put out way more smell than the size of his body would suggest. He eats crickets, live crickets, which you have to keep in a cage, also inside your house. The possibility of the crickets getting out is a scary prospect as well, they might breed and then we have an infestation. Probably the worst thing about the anole is, they don't like to be handled. That means, he stays in the cage like a fish. The only time we actually touched him, was when we cleaned his cage, and he would flip out, and change color to try and hide. He appeared to be breathing so hard that his little lungs would explode. The only good thing was when we would feed him, if we could stand perfectly still for about 10 minutes, he would then eat the cricket, which was fun to watch. Basically a boring pet.

2. Fish. Do we really have to discuss this? I mean, the tank looks good and some of the fish look cool, but it is a pain in the ass to clean, keep the chemicals right and try to keep the fish from eating each other. I had a piranha that I thought would be soooo cool. I was wrong. He wouldn't eat if I was within a 5 mile radius. I tried everything, but no go. With the crickets and the piranha, I think I have a Mutual of Omaha thing going on.

3. Hermit crab. OK, they do no tricks and they bite. They don't eat live things and when they come out of their shell, they are hideous. You can't really hold them, but if you do, they go into their shell and you never see them.

4. Hamsters. These, on the surface, seem to be good pets. I mean, they are furry, they can do things that are semi interesting to watch, you can hold them, they stuff huge amounts of food in their cheeks and sometimes they do flips on their little running wheel. If you total all that up, seems like you have a winner, but lets look at the other side. The worst thing is, they bite. In fact, they make the hermit crab seem like a slug in comparison. I had tons of hamsters, mainly because they have the life span of a week and a half, and since you have $2000 invested in a habitrail that covers your entire room, just giving up on the species as a pet is out of the question. So you buy animal after animal after animal and before you know it, your backyard in a pet cemetery that would give Arlington National Cemetery a run for its money on the number of tombstones. The scariest thing is, they are like little prisoners and they are constantly trying to escape. They gnaw holes in the end of the dead end tubes and escape. I spent everyday after school inspecting all of the tubes and houses, looking for the hidden escape hatch that was in progress. I'm just glad they didn't have the ability to make shanks or I may never have been able to write this blog. They would have snuffed me out in my sleep on one of their jail breaks. I woke up one night and one of the escapees was crawling on my chest. Looking back, I know how close I was to death, gives me the shivers.

The boys have all ready asked for a new pet, but dad is putting on the breaks. I need to get over this loss before I try to move on. You just can't replace a beloved pet, by just bringing in someone new. So if we just went out and picked up, say, a dog, would that make the pain go away? I guess it would.

Kiss the frog!

If you know me, you know I'm not a political person. Don't get me wrong, I vote and I pay attention to who is running, but not usually until the media and the people have beaten a few down and they have dropped out of the race. Living in Iowa, we get a crap load of people who are running that most of the country doesn't get beaten over the head with. By the time your state has their primary or caucus, the back of the pack have fallen off to the wolves. Your welcome. This means, we get political adds for people you didn't even know were running. We get visits from EVERY candidate. Even John Huntsman might show his mug around, but my guess the other 49 states in the country will barely get a glimpse. I happen to know who John Huntsman is, because his family made their money in petroleum products, like plastic, and my company use to sell Huntsman Plastic. Every year we got a Christmas card with a picture of the whole Huntsman clan, and there are a shit load of them. Anyway, back to not being political. Since my interest in politics is only ankle deep, I don't go out of my way to meet candidates, senators or councilman/women. I don't have anything against them, just get a bile taste in my mouth when I see them, going around pressing flesh for your vote. I guess I would put them in the category of a salesman or a lawyer, not bad people, but their occupation has a slimy feel in my mind. During this time of year, the candidates are all over Iowa, showing up in the least likely of places to meet the people. Having a family, and little money, we are rarely in the places they are working the crowd, so the number of politicians I have met is a big zero, but the ones I have been around increased by one last night. I have no opinion of Michele Bachman, politically, and can't tell you what she stands for, believes in or her voting record. I don't know if she beat puppies when she was little or even if the story she told last night is true, but I'm leaning towards the story, not the puppy beating. She seemed like a nice person, believes in God and I felt like she genuinely wants to help us in the US get back on our feet. Can she do it? No idea. Will I look into her more? I'll see if the people and media spit her out the back of the caucus circus before I even start to ask, who do I want to vote for. Regardless of all of that, last night at Spirit Midwest music festival, she showed up to give her "testimony" during one of the band switches on the outdoor main stage. We didn't know she was going to be there, and because it was pouring rain on us when we got there, the crowd was small. Here is a shot from just before she got there.

As you can see, not exactly a sell out. I guess, since it was free, not a bad turnout in the monsoon. In this picture, the rain had stopped, but just 15 minutes earlier, we were in the rain forest. The rain was warn, really warm, like someone was peeing on you. Not that I would know, just saying, it was warm. There was no lightning, so I was fine standing in it. Since we haven't had any measurable rain in Des Moines since 2003, it felt great. I wish it could have waited a few days so the festival could have been more successful, but mother nature and I aren't on speaking terms, so I was without influence. So as we are listening to Tim Cooper and friends on the stage, standing in a warm piss bath and totally enjoying myself, being outside, I see a huge crowd. Ok, maybe is was 15 to 20 people, but look at the picture above. This is a crowd about to double the population of our area. I figured the band at the other stage just got done and the people were heading over to watch the Sidewalk Prophets play, which was who I was waiting for. Then I saw a guy I recognized from TV and I knew he was a campaign manager for a political candidate, I just couldn't remember who. I figured it out fast. Michele was signing autographs and when the crowd parted, I saw her coming right towards us. Do I get star struck? A little. When my brother Brian and I went to watch our favorite football team, the Washington Redskins, play the Chicago Bears a few years back, we stayed in the team hotel. When their bus pulled up, we both were like little school girls and chased the guys, some that were younger than me, around the hotel lobby. I got a whole book of autographs, but at the total expense of my dignity. I might have been blushing when I chased Clinton Portis to the elevator and blocked the door, just so I could get him to sign my book. Now he and his friends could have shoved me out of the elevator and left, and had every right too, but he signed it. So when Michele came across the field, I had a bit of a desire to run up and have my picture taken with her, mainly so I could post it on this blog, but I was more concerned that her security people would see my bald head approaching and assume I meant harm, and the picture on the front page of the Des Moines Register would be of some thug in a I love Jesus shirt, bending my arm behind my back while I cried like a baby. My decision? Hang back and see if she comes to me. Not so much. She scooted to my west and headed for the stage. If you have ever seen a candidate work the crowd, you know she isn't going right to the stage. Plenty of time for photos, autographs and talking to people who want to say they SPOKE to a presidential candidate. The other half of this long as story, is my boys are frog/bug freaks. They would spend 98% of their time catching frogs and bugs if we would let them. The other 2% would be beating the crap out of each other, but that percentage is negotiable. While I was listening to the music, my boys had located the creek, I think they have a part of their brain that just makes the ability to stay out of a creek, impossible. While they were in the creek, they located a small frog. They caught said frog and proceeded to run all the way across the festival grounds to show me, since I haven't ever seen one, today. Once they arrived, about the same time Michele arrived, Marcy decided that Max should show Mrs. Bachman the frog, since these things are only native to Christian music festivals in the greater Des Moines area, she might leave our state without seeing one. Max isn't shy. If you have ever met him, you are his best buddy and he will share everything. An example of this, Marcy was at our local grocery store one day when a lady she didn't know said, "Hi Max, how is your summer going?" Max shared his summer up until that point and moved on. Marcy stood their a bit dumbfounded, but asked the lady if she was one of Max's teachers, which she all ready knew she wasn't, but seemed like a good ice breaker. The lady said, "No, I teach 5th grade math." Well Max is my kid, so advanced math is not in his future for my soon to be 1st grader. So Marcy asks, "How do you know Max." Her response, "Everyone knows Max." Future politician? I hope not, I have skeletons in my closet. So Max heads over to meet Mrs. Bachman and show her his frog. (That sounds horrible) She, of course, is very sweet to him, looks at his frog and talks him up a bit. She could have freaked out and shoved the frog out of her face, but that looks bad on the Internet the next day. Here are the shots we took.


What we don't have, is a picture of the frog that Max and Makiah went back to the creek after their photo shoot and found, a much larger one. Max brought it over to us and Mom encouraged Max to take it over to show Michele, again. He did. This time, he held the frog up and the cameras went off. Look for that shot on the Internet, it just may show up. That was the end of The presidential candidate and the frog, but I will now make jokes about another incident that occurred.

As Marcy was leaving the area, a lady stopped her. I assumed she was getting Max's name so they could caption the picture, we have had this happen before with a photo of Makiah that was published from a local Des Moines Menace soccer game. When Marcy came back, she showed me the sheet the lady had given her to fill out, in support of Michele Bachman and to participate in the Iowa Straw poll coming up. We can put that away, Marcy is even less political than me, but I found the pen the lady gave her interesting. I assumed it would be a "Michele Bachman for President" official campaign pen, but no. It appears that they either purchased pens from Courtyard by Marriott, or they stole them. Now I don't want to get a big Watergate thing going here, but that seemed odd to me. I'm sure it was probably this ladies personal pen, which WE stole, but it seems like a candidate pen, might be an inexpensive idea. Even if you don't fill out the sheet, you might pass that pen to someone when they need to write down your favorite recipe for grandma's chicken noodle soup and they say, "OH, you support Michele Bachman for president?" Why no, we stole that. Just saying.

With the evening political visit over, we settled back into our night of music, and the band I came to see, Sidewalk Prophets. I had been looking forward to this since I heard they were going to be there. I'm a huge Christian music fan, and these festivals get you up close and personal to these inspirational bands. The lyrics in Christian music are safe for kids, so I don't have to worry about what my kids hear. Now we still listen to other stuff, my kids love Boom-Boom-Pow by the Black Eyed Peas, and there are words in there that I don't want my kids singing, but lets be honest, their mom says that shit all the time. See, she has me saying it. Anyway, I had never seen SP before, so I was excited. Our friends Michelle (not Bachman, we are just frog buddies) and Andy showed up to listen with us. After a half hour sound check, they started up. They were worth the wait. I loved their music and their raw approach to the set. They looked almost uncomfortable with the attention, but not in a bad way, in an unworthy way. They won the Dove award for Best New Artist back in 2010, and they deserve it. The first song you heard, if you haven't got fed up with my music and turned it off, is by the SP. I hope you enjoy it. Marcy and the kids missed SP because they were in the car. It seems my love of music festivals is not shared by my offspring, once the sun goes down and they can no longer play in the creek. Oh well, I don't mind going back to the "kids go to sitters while mom and I rock it out in the rain" format that we have followed for the past several years. Some day, I hope to hit the mosh pit with my boys, but I'm guessing the Red Hot Chili Peppers will be long retired before that happens. And my walker will get in the way.

"Better get a bucket....

I'm gonna throw up." That is a line from a Monty Python movie from when I was a kid. I can't remember which movie it was, but that line always comes to mind when I am making any kind of throw up joke/statement. You might think that I would rarely use that line, since vomit doesn't normally come up in everyday conversation, but I'm not your average fella. What brings it to mind in this particular post, is our recent trip to our local amusement park, Adventureland. I've decided that I will no longer attempt to be 14 years old. When I was a kid, I could ride the spinning rides all day long, no problem. Now, not so much. During last years trip to Adventureland, we were a good half day into the fun, riding all kinds of rides, when I realized that I suddenly had a bit of uneasy, rumbling around in my stomach. Now, I wasn't really close to spewing, but I was a lot closer than when I got on that damn ride. It was spinning around, and all I could do was pray I didn't become every ones going home story. You know, your in the car, all laughing and talking about their day, and telling the story of the guy who hurled all over the Lady Luck. Just because I can no longer go round and round, doesn't mean we don't go to the park at all. No, the kids love it there, so we go and I sit on a bench outside the ride and wait for the kids to come running off. Yesterday, my company had a family event at Adventureland, where they paid our way in, fed us lunch and even gave us $25 spending money. I sent a thank you email to the president of my company today, thanking him for not only SAYING they are family oriented, but backing it up. They have more than proved it to me over the past 2 years of my family issues. I always remember when I was interviewing for another job, several years ago, and the people I spoke to assured me they were a family company. When the offer came in, I started my negotiations by asking for more than the one week of vacation they offered. I was told they didn't give a second week. I turned the job down, thankfully. I told the guys I interviewed with, that when they say they are "family," then they should give you more time with your family. I realized that "family" to them, was your work family, not blood. Off subject by a few hundred miles, lets go back. So the kids are riding all of the spinning rides and Marcy and I are watching, and sweating, since the heat index was over 100, again. Luckily, there is a lot of shade, so we didn't bake completely. The day was going along just fine, until Makiah and Max decided to ride the Lighthouse. This thing spins around, and then makes this God awful noise that sounds like it is going to launch the cars into space, then it attempts to do that. Thankfully, the arms are attached to the base, so you don't go to high, but the thing spins faster, perhaps to lessen the disappointment that you didn't wing off into the log ride. The ride finally stopped and both boys ran over to my shaded bench. Makiah appeared to need a bucket and Max was crying, begging for a bucket. They never chucked, but I thought this would tell them that lunch, then round and round, don't go together. They decided to give it a rest. That lasted 2 minutes, and they were back on the spin rides.

Another option to this park, other than the vomit rides, is its water park. There are a bunch of slides, the now obligatory Lazy River and a big climbing, sliding water spraying thing. It's pretty fun, but on a 100 degree day, pretty crowded. We knew this would be the issue, so we decided to get there when the park opened, 10:00am, and do our swimming before we met my company for lunch at 12:00pm. We got there and walked into the main chair area and set out to find a few chairs. Now there are 5 of us, but I knew we would be in the water most of the time, so we decided to just score 2 lounge chairs to hold our stuff and for us to sit on, during any breaks. We find 2 chairs together, drop our stuff, slather in sunscreen and get ready to hit the Lazy River. Just before we left, I pulled our 5 towels out and tossed them on our chairs, so people would know these particular chairs were taken. My "assumption" was, that people would realize this and that any chair with out a pile of towels and shirts, was open. So we headed out, swam for awhile, then decided to hit the chairs while the boys played on the big climbing, sliding water spraying thing. When we get to our chairs, we see that someone has taken one of our towels and put it on a third, previously unoccupied, chair. Someone had grab a towel from our pile and placed it on a chair. I thought that weird, but had several possible justifications in my head. None of which I really believed, but I couldn't figure out why someone would move our towel to give us another chair. Today, someone suggested that, since all of our towels matched, that maybe someone thought they were water park towels. Could be, but it was on my stuff, so keep your hands off. I felt so violated. Marcy and I shrugged it off, left the towel and went back to swim. I came back a while later and now there was a shirt and a pair of shoes, on top of the towel. OK, now this is bull shit. First, not your towel. Second, who puts their dirty shoes on top of the towel on the chair? Why wouldn't you put your shoes under the chair like, oh, I don't know, like EVERYONE AT THE POOL? I think we are dealing with a pysco or at the very least, a severely stupid person. I grabbed my towel and momentarily thought about tossing the shoes into the Lazy River, but decided that if this person is choice one from above, there is no way I'm giving him a reason to follow me home. I never did see who did it, they never came back, but I was almost tempted to stay there all day, just to get a peek. My stomach over ruled my curiosity, and we went to lunch. I guess my life philosophy is, don't touch other peoples stuff. I'm thinking about having t-shirts printed up.

Damn your old!

My 25 year class reunion was last weekend, man it seems like just 24 years ago I was walking down that isle, getting a piece of paper that hasn't really helped me in my life. Maybe it was a factor in getting my current job, but I'm not sure. Since I don't have that piece of paper from a higher institution, I'm always afraid that I won't be hired for something, even though my work ethic and pure briliantness far exceed many that I know with that piece of paper that I am missing. I've never understood the requirement from some businesses that you HAVE to have a degree to even be considered. I mean, I want my doctor, dentist and proctologist to have a degree, but my customer service agent at Verizon doesn't need that 4 year degree to help me, they just need a brain. When my last job was winding down and I was in search of a new job, I was eliminated from even being considered to work for Wells Fargo here in Des Moines because I didn't have a degree. I was applying for an entry level customer service position, even though I had been the customer service manager at my previous job. I talked to the HR lady and was told the reason I wasn't going to get an interview. My thought? Your loss, I'm one hell of a catch. I was fortunate that when I was brought into CE Software as a production guy, that they saw my sweet muscles and brain and promoted me several times to do a crap load of jobs. Those were good days. My current company brought me on because of my experience and, I can only guess, my charm, and hasn't regretted the lack of paper. I mean, so what if I had a degree in say, criminal justice, if I'm not in the criminal justice field. How does the degree help? It only shows you that I can show up to enough classes to get that piece of paper, not that I have the brain to use that information. But I digress. Back to my high school reunion, which I did not attend, by the way. You might ask, "Why didn't you go?" Well I'll tell you captain inquisitive, because contrary to some peoples belief, high school wasn't a bucket of fun. I hated it, with all my being, and did everything to not be there. Looking back on it, I wish I would have seen the need to do better, so I could move on to the big school, go thousands of dollars into debt, just so I could get a degree in something I would never do as an actual job. Do they offer degrees in shootin hoop and hanging with friends? I was fricking awesome at that, but beyond that, struggled. My main goal as a father is to instill in my kids the importance of a degree, so my kids have that, so they will have the chances that I didn't have. Because so many places eliminate you without the degree, at least they can get a foot in the door. I was in a Facebook group for the reunion and all of the people listed were the same people that wouldn't give me the time of day 25 years ago. One of my current friends was one of those people back then and his recollection of high school is much happier than mine. He was at the reunion, I've seen the pictures, and appeared to have a good time. I'm pretty sure if I attended, I would have been known by 2 people, and that makes for a dull evening. My class was over 400 people, but of the 50 or so that attended, none were friends of mine during those 4 years. Reminiscing would have taken .2 seconds. In 2 weeks, there is another reunion, but this time for alumni of my first real job. I can't wait. At this job, I not only had the chance to show my work abilities, but I got to be a person, something I never achieved in high school. When I think back, I remember the days I spent at that job, having the time of my life. I was extremely fortunate to get hired there, at the base of the mountain we climbed. This company was one of the leaders in e-mail, before you even knew what email was. Cutting edge software design, with a leader that would make you think of Steve Jobs, only a bit quirkier. If you didn't know him, you would have thought he was "out there," but he led a team of VERY young people through some of the craziest times in my life. If you ever wanted the definition of a fun place to work, it was CE Software. We put in a shitload of hours, and loved ever minute of it. We made a butt load of money and the company treated us like kings. Now, I love the company I work for, but CE will always be a special time in my life. As I come together with these nuts on Aug. 13th, I guarantee you that my face will hurt, my sides will ache and tears will roll down my cheeks. Just like old times.

It just got warm.

What can you do in Iowa on a 96 degree day? Well, you can tube down the Des Moines river out of Seven Oaks Recreation in Boone, Iowa. This was the second time we have done this, the first being two years ago, and I was a bit nervous going into our first trip with three young kids. I had no idea how deep the water was, how fast the water would run and what kind of obstacles we would encounter. My fear was that the water would be high, the flow would be fast and there would be a bunch of stuff in the water to try and avoid. All of that was true. When we pulled up to the launch site, I about shit myself. That wide, brown torrent of death was looking back at me, and I'm pretty sure I heard it laugh. The kids were 3, 7 and 8 and I had no idea how we were going to keep track of them and keep them all alive. Well they all seemed to survive and in fact, Mason was jumping off his tube and swimming around all by himself, something I wasn't willing to do. This year, I went into the trip with a little less fear, a little less apprehension and a little less ability to hold my pee. Mistake one of the day, I downed a bunch of water so I wouldn't dehydrate, seeing as how all the weather people were predicting 110 degree heat index. That means I will be peeing on myself for the next few hours, not something I'm happy with or proud of, but what the hell are you supposed to do? This year, we got to the start point and the river looked the same as last year, but I wasn't worried. OK, maybe a little, but I heard no laughing from the river, so I was ready to take the plunge. Last year, they had lots of rope to tie all the tubes together, but when we asked today, they said it was a "liability" issue and didn't want us to tie up. Well that doesn't fly with parents with small kids. I found a few strands of rope and another guy with us found some more. The Seven Oaks people do tie your cooler to one raft, so you don't loose that, but I guess the kids aren't as important. They said that we couldn't tie up because if one person got stuck, everyone got stuck. My thought was, yeah, so you have people to help you get unstuck. If you get wedged on a tree, and everyone else makes it by, you spend the next hour trying to catch up to the group. We got about 200 yards down river and we all paddled to the side and tied as much of our group together as we could. We used our stolen rope, shoe strings and a t-shirt.

The float was smooth with few obstacles on the first half. Our main goal this year, was to make it to a sand bar so we could stop, get off the rafts, and do a little playing, eating and just hanging out. Last time, we had this same goal and failed miserably. We only saw a few sand bars and they were always on the opposite side of the river we were on. We tried to paddle over, but never made it. I'm happy to say that, even though we never made it to a sand bar, we did in fact make it to a rocky beach that we were able to pull ourselves out of the water on to and spent some time playing. There were tadpoles and frogs, so Max and Makiah were in heaven. There was a lot of mud, so Makiah looked like he had black socks on when we left. As we were trying to re-tube everyone, the tubes with people on them were trying to pull the tubes people were still tyring to get on, down the river. I hopped off my tube, holding on to the long string of tubes and tried to hold everything up so a few in our group could tube up. The ground was about 2 feet under the water and it was rather large, sharp, rocks. I was pulled off my feet and landed with my right arm down on the rocks and cut the palm of my hand, my wrist and my elbow. Nothing major, but seeing as I have my hand in less than desirable water, (somebody pee'd in it)I'm guessing I will need to have something amputated soon. There are 2 things that stand out to me as highlights of the trip. The first is the Kate Shelley High Bridge, which is the tallest double track railroad bridge in America. It really is quite spectacular, and you get to see it pass over your head. Max LOVES trains, so to be able to see 5 trains cross these bridges in the small amount of time it is in your view is pretty cool. The second thing is, on one of the road bridges you go under, there are hundreds of those mud bird nests, stuck to the underside of the bridge. It's really cool to see them flying around and diving into the mud homes. I might be the only one in our group that really enjoyed it, but I did.

We managed to hit the landing dock, loaded up the bus and headed home. The thermometer on the van said it was 88 degrees when we headed home at 1:30 pm. By the time we hit home at 2:30 pm, it was 96 degrees with 107 heat index. Why it couldn't have been that warm when my ass was being drug down the river, I have no idea.

Really? Is that 100% effort?

I've written before about how I try to take care of my lawn and landscaping. I don't have the nicest yard on the street, but I try to make it as nice as possible. I have no issue with someone who decides they don't want to put the effort into their yard. My opinion, it's your yard, do as you please. Of course, I'm not trying to sell my house, which means my opinion might be different if I was trying to sell. But with that said, I guess my next opinion would be, if you ARE going to do something in your yard, wouldn't you try to do that thing correctly? Here is my example. My neighbors on either side of me are the "I'm not going to do ANYTHING to my lawn" kind of people. Fine. They mow the yard and one even puts down fertilizer, but that is it. On one side of me, they have a riding lawn mower, so they mow fairly regularly, but they never trim. That means, along all of the fences and around all bushes and trees, the grass is waist high. I understand it is another step, and it takes another piece of equipment, but don't you think you would give it the old college try and see if you can whack a path through the bush? Here are a few shots of their back yard through the gate.



You will notice that at the top of the hill, just through the gate, they missed a huge section of grass. You can see the semi-circle of mowed grass and the rest is untouched. You can see the build up around the tree in the back, which isn't landscaping rocks, it's just 5 years of unmowed grass, piled upon itself. I'm not sure if you can see, right at the bottom of my wooden fence, that the grass is about 10 to 12 inches high. I should have taken a picture of the edge of their driveway, where the riding mower couldn't get right next to the concrete, so it left a mohawk right done the middle of their side yard. They never mow around their mailbox, but since that piece of their property is connected to mine, I just mow that while I'm mowing my yard. Again, the fact that it looks like this doesn't bother me, its the lack of effort that I find disturbing. I know they aren't out doing good deeds and just don't have the time. No, they are in their basement smoking weed. I guess that explains alot right there.