Let's Talk Some Football

Since our subject matter is supposed to be about Stinkin' Lincoln, let's talk about Stinkin' Lincoln's pride and joy, the Nebraska Cornhuskers. I don't even know how to start this off. The Huskers offense is horrible. How's that? It is a crying shame to have such an incredible defense with a guy that came back for his senior year and gave up millions of dollars to do so and have such a pathetic excuse for an offensive unit. Many people want to point the finger at one person, that being Zac Lee. However, it's not just Lee, though he is part of the problem. Still, it's not his fault if he throws the ball right between the numbers and his receiver drops the pass. It's amazing that you can go from having two slow white guys as your leading WRs from last season to a bunch of guys that are head and shoulders above the guys from last year athletically, but the only thing they can catch is H1N1. Then what was supposed to be the Husker's strength going into the season, their running game, has either fallen flat, fumbled the ball away or not been given a chance to succeed by their offensive coordinator. I understand that I haven't played the game before at the college level and it's hard for me to understand, but, I have eyes, I have seen what can be accomplished when they are given the chance. Every time the Huskers start playing the power game, they have success. But if there is one little hiccup, Sean Watson goes away from it. Yet they will pass the ball rain or shine, completion or interception until the cows come home.

So, this all begs the question, what is wrong and how do they fix it? Now, I am no expert, but I have made some observations. From what I hear in the Husker camp, the team is very business like in their approach to preparations to games. Whereas I do feel this has it's place, maybe it's making the team a little too uptight. Maybe if they would just relax and have some fun they wouldn't be pressing so much and coming in tight. Last week they gave up some early points in the first quarter, and then this week we see the same thing. Is it perhaps time to just have a few shots of Jack Daniels before they head out for the Tunnel Walk? Heck, it worked for the Boston Red Sox, why not us. The team just simply seems to be trying TOO hard.

Another possible problem is attrition. This is a normal process in the College Football world. Players will leave teams, or be kicked off teams, that is as sure as the sun coming up tomorrow. But, it has hit the Huskers pretty hard this last year. We had our co-number 1 quarterback, in Patrick Witt, quit the team because the coaches wouldn't declare him the starter before the start of spring camp. Then you have Quentin Castille being booted off the team for reasons that I will not go into. When both of those guys left, I figured the team was bigger than those two guys. Turns out, maybe the team isn't. It has become abundantly clear why Witt was the number 2 guy last season ahead of Zac Lee. Plus, we see why Castille was the number 2 guy ahead of about 6 other mediocre running backs.

No matter the reason, I hope the Husker coaching staff can figure out what to do. Pelini is an incredible defensive coach. I just hope he figures out who he can trust on the offensive side of the ball. I like Bo, and I want to see him succeed here in Nebraska. The nice thing is, Tom Osborne knows the value of giving a coach time to figure things out. Therefore, Pelini won't have to worry about his job, at least for the foreseeable future.

Super Scumbag!!!

Well boys and girls, it's been a while since we spoke. Somehow the fun has been zapped from this little blog thingy. I know why, and you know why, so why beat a dead horse? But, still things happen on a daily basis that I think I should write about. This is just one anecdote that I can't let pass by.

I was in the booming metropolis of Fremont, NE on Wednesday night. We have been doing some extra work there the passed week or so. Up until that point things were going pretty smoothly. Which is amazing considering we were working in a 24 hour store. It's amazing the upset one can cause when you close off 4 aisles of a 24 hour store. I do understand the people's frustration. Especially the people that come into the drug store that are in the middle of a life and death situation. You know, the drunk guy that needs some water and a frozen pizza. The skunky reefer smelling dude that has the munchies and NEEDS some snacks. Then we have my personal favorite, the guy that just got called by his parole officer and the parolee needs to come in the next morning for a drug test, and he has got to get the crack he smoked the night before out of his system, which he thinks he can do by eating a lot of fiber and drinking a lot of water. I would have hated to be that guys cell mate the next few days. Although, that's one way to keep from getting raped in prison. Anyhow, it's because of people like that, we have to put up a gauntlet for the customers to keep them out. I put up yellow tape that says, "KEEP OFF THE NEW FLOOR", then I use displays that we had to move and shopping carts to block the entries to the section we are working on. The carts are nice because they also serve as an alarm. As soon as I hear the carts being pulled apart, I know someone is attempting to breach our fortress. But, things had gone smoothly the previous nights. We hardly had anybody come in the store let alone anyone needing something in the section we had closed off. But, that was all about to change. At about 1 AM, three guys that looked like they were straight off the mean streets of Fremont came in and got some stuff out of the candy aisle and looked at some magazines and then headed out. But then, about 2 hours later, the same three guys came in and brought three of their friends. I'm not sure what they thought had changed. Now, I have this knack of knowing who is going to give us trouble. So, as soon as I saw these jokers, I quickly finished up what I was doing and started to head over to the area they were headed. I got about half way there and I heard my "alarm" go off. By the time I turned the corner to cut them off, they had my carts pulled out of the way and were all starting to march onto our freshly cleaned floor. Just then, I felt a rush of adrenalin and I transformed from the meek and mild janitor into the Incredible Janitor. I said, "NOPE! Get back on the other side of that barrier RIGHT NOW, or I will call the cops!" The mention of the word "cops" sent them and the beer in their pockets quickly back behind the barrier. But then one of them says, "For what!?" I pointed to the KEEP OUT tape and said, "It's called trespassing!" (Of course I made that up, because depending on the cop you would get, they might be able to hang a ticket on them for destruction of private property, but that is about it and that is only if they end up damaging a floor waxing job.) They then said, "Can you get us some stuff?", and I said, "If you had asked to begin with, I would have, but since you chose to disrespect us, you can walk down to HyVee." I then headed back to what I was doing in the back of the store. Then from the other side of our barrier the shortest and smallest guy of the bunch pokes his head around the corner and asks me to come over there. I explain to him that I am busy, what does he need. It is about at this time I realize how drunk the guy is.

He says, "Do you own this?"

I say, "Own what?"

"This CVS!"

First of all we were not in a CVS and secondly, what would the owner of a CVS be doing in the store in the middle of the night cleaning the floors? So, naturally, I say, "No."

He says, "Say you own it..."

I say, "What!?"

He says, "Say you own it... just say it! And, like, a group of guys come in to buy some stuff and they spend $20, that's 20 bucks out of your pocket, man. You're gonna turn away $20!?"

Me, "Take it up with the manager, man, I'm busy."

Drunk dude, "I'm talkin' to you, man! We came in here, we didn't want any trouble, we just wanted to some food. We didn't do anything wrong, and..."

Me, "You see, that is where you are wrong, the second you crossed our barrier, you started trouble and did something wrong!"

Drunk dude, "Fine! Have fun workin' at CVS! %$#@ SCUMBAG!!!"

At that point the manager comes over and kicks them out of the store and follows them out so they don't get any ideas. Usually when something like this happens, the first thing I am concerned about is the offended person going out and doing something to one of my trucks. But they started making their way to HyVee, which was about 6 blocks down the road in the cold and rain.

Now, the thing that gets me about the exchange I had with the brainiac in the back of the store, is the end where he calls me a "Scumbag". If that wasn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is. I take a certain satisfaction that by the looks of this guy the best job he could ever hope for is drug smuggler and/or runner. I sure as heck wouldn't hire him to even clean a toilet. Why do people put tattoos on their necks anyway? Is it so they can limit the jobs they can ever get hired for? That way they can continue to collect unemployment and stay up late and harass the floor cleaning guys? It sure seems that way sometimes.

The Grass is Always Greener

Okay, what the hizzie!? (Look that one up in a your urban dictionary.) In typical Nebraska fashion, we went directly from Summer to Winter. Okay, okay. I know it's not as cold as it is going to get, but I happen to enjoy FALL. What we are experiencing here in the Midwest is what it feels like right before the snow starts flying. Like I said, I enjoy fall. In fact, until recently, it was my favorite season. I love the colors of fall, the cool weather, football, and even the occasional cloudy/rainy day. But enough is enough. Rain, rain go away, come again...IN SPRING! I am sure I will get no sympathy, or even empathy for this next statement, but here it goes. What makes all this worse is it's hard to come back from very summery conditions in Grand Cayman to near winter-like conditions here in Hell Frozen-over, USA. Imagine, one day you are on a boat in the middle of the ocean with the sun beating down on you and the temp a horrible 105 degrees, then a couple days later you get off the plane in Omaha, and it's 38. No wonder I caught a cold. That is a tremendous shock to the system. But, like I said, I am sure you are all thinking, "Cry me a river!". So, I will just shut up about the most wonderful place I have ever been, Grand Cayman. But seriously, this weather is just not my cup of tea. I have never considered moving away from this place. But, every passing year, my shoulders hurt more and more, I get more and more grumpy the closer we get to winter, and then when winter comes I get into my full fledged funk (say that one three times fast). My wife is annoyed with me. I am annoyed with me. Yep, the past few year, when we arrive at this most horrible time of the year, I start fantasizing about moving far, far, far, FAR away from here. But then I wonder, where would I go? Arizona? Nah, too hot in the summer. Texas? Nah, not only do I hate the state, but also, my wife has family down there. NO-THANK-YOU! Florida? Too humid. California? Too many people. Washington state? Hmmmm. Tempting. But, I have only been there in August and September, which are the best months to be there. Perfect weather, and Dave Matthews plays a 3 day concert every year. From what I hear, the sun hardly shines the rest of the year. That's exactly what I am complaining about now, why jump out of the frying pan and into the fire? How about Hawaii? Not independently wealthy. As you can see, the grass is always greener on the other side of the country. However, in a few years, as my bones start to ache more and more, maybe I won't care about hot summers.

The Human Race = Retards

I have a confession to make. I am an eaves dropper. I don't know that it is always on purpose, but I find myself listening to other people conversations on quite a regular basis. I like to think of it as something to do with my being an only child. An only child is always looking for things to entertain themselves. I think I have always viewed listening to other peoples conversations as entertainment. The things I hear very from "who cares" to scandalous. For those of you that don't understand only children, if you are talking and someone who happens to be an only child is just sitting there staring into space, or looking like they are contemplating the meaning of life, we are probably just soaking up everything that is going on in a room. I bring this up because I have come to a conclusion about people in general. Are you ready for this? Well, ready or not, here it comes! We, as the human race, are retarded!

I know some people may find this term offensive, but I figure I have offended plenty of people up to this point, it can't get much worse now. As I walk around and just peep in here and there on conversations everywhere, people are always complaining about other people. And rightly so. We are ALL, myself included, a bunch of absolute morons. Most of the time we think we are in the right, but in actuality, we are usually in the wrong. Try as we might, our selfish, imperfect selves get in the way of anything we might try to accomplish. I sometimes find myself thinking I am above such things, but then at a moment of clarity, like right now, I realize I could quite possibly be the biggest retard of all. I say things that hurt people. I throw a fit about things when I should just say, "Thank you" and move on. I roll my eyes when I should just say, "You know, maybe you are right." And I fart in your general direction when you tell me the obvious things I should already have gathered.

The reality of it all is we really should just all think of ourselves as the lowest person on the planet. Think about it. If we all went around thinking everyone was superior to us, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, would go so much smoother and maybe we would never get mad at other people for standing in our way, or if they say something insensitive. Maybe, if someone said something about us, we would look at it and say, "Maybe there is some shred of truth to what they are saying about me", and then try to make some changes to better ourselves.

But no. We all choose to be idiots (myself included), and view ourselves as the superior one. "Why did that idiot step on my foot and not say he was sorry?" It's thinking like this that makes me wonder how we haven't killed each other off by now. But, the human race lives on.

Yet, even with this revelation of mine, tomorrow, someone will be in my way, or step on foot, and I will wonder why this person has come into my the screenplay that is my life and ruined the scene. When in reality, I should just look at them, smile and ask them if I am in their way. Ugh! It really sucks being human.

Grand Cayman Trip

I just realized, I haven't said anything about my trip to Grand Cayman. Well, in a word, spectacular! I was gone for 7 days, which means I had 5 complete days on the island. Grand Cayman is ex-pen-sive! It's so expensive that they don't even use the expression, "There is no such thing as a free lunch." Rather they say, "There is no such thing as a lunch under $10." Actually, I made that up. That's why it wasn't funny. But, I was prepared for the cost and did just fine. Though, I wasn't able to bring anything back for my friends or employees as gifts. But really, that is more because of the flight rules than a lack of money. I wanted to buy rum for everyone. Afterall, who goes to a Caribbean island and doesn't bring back rum. Me, apparently. The reason for this is because I either would have had to pack the rum in my suitcase or smuggle it onto the airplane some how. Neither sounded like good options. If I put it in my luggage, I don't think it would have survived. I sat next to the window on a few flights down there and was able to watch them load and unload the luggage. Gentle, baggage handlers are not. So, I didn't like the prospect of getting home and having rum soaked clothes. There are many things I enjoy rum soaked, but clothes are not one of them. I know a guy that this happened to. He had to throw everything away. The idea of smuggling something on board the plane seemed impossible. Plus with the close proximity of Guantanamo Bay, I chose not to push it. So, I plan to go to Sam's and get my employees some booze there.

The highlight of the trip was diving, diving and more diving. It was awesome. In five days we did 13 dives. The first two days I had to spend getting my certification. But our dive master was a pretty cool guy. He made it nice and relaxed. The only thing I was really nervous about was the "emergency assent". This is when if you run out of air while in the deep, you swim straight to the surface. This is a last resort, because you are risking getting "the bends" really bad. But, if you run out of air, and your diving buddy is no where to be found, you are better off getting the bends than drowning. What you do for the emergency assent is blow out your air from your lungs very slowly all the way to the surface. My buddy got certified in Jamaica and his dive master made him do this from 30 feet below the surface and the guy turned off his air. So, that made me a bit nervous. I was relieved when our dive master told us we were going to do it at 15 feet and we were just going to simulate being out of air, rather than actually turning off the tank. Piece of cake! The only thing is, I blew out too much air in the beginning and about the last 5 feet I was out of air. But I made it.

Once I got certified, it was time for some fun. My buddy and me went on a night dive. That was a bit freaky. I was swimming so close to my buddy that I got kicked in the face a couple times. I am glad he knew where he was going, because I was lost. I had no clue which way it was back to the shore. Later on, he admitted to me he was a little lost for a couple minutes, too. Which I thought he may have been, because at one point he leads into a dead end and then just kind of looked at me. Talk about reassuring. The next day, we went out on the boat and the dive master took us to two deep dives. We went to "The Wall", which is the point where the shelf the island is sitting on drops down to 6,000 feet. So, imagine being at 80 feet and you come to a cliff where all you can see is deep blue water. This is the area where a man from Omaha the day before we got there died of a heart attack. Now you know why he had the heart attack. We swam down a little ways to look around, only getting as deep as 115 feet. Like our dive master said, you really don't see anything different at that depth than you would at 60 feet. But, somehow you just feel cool being at 115 feet.

After that dive we went to another site. The dive master told us it was going to be murky down there. Which it was. The previous dive we could see for 100 feet, on this dive we could see 30 feet. Which the dive master tells us, by the way, that this is the type of water sharks like to hangout in. So, with this reassuring information we drop to the reef. Yep, murky! Yep, SHARK!!! Actually, I am the only one that got to see the shark. He was making his exit when I saw him. He was about 8 feet long and bookin' it outta there. Fortunately, my buddy believed me that I saw a shark. He said you can tell by peoples reaction that they truly have seen a shark. Usually a great deal of animated gesturing and excitement. To see a shark is actually pretty rare. My buddy has been on 70 dives and seen just a hand full of sharks. So, if this is what keeps you from diving, get over it. Plus, they really are more scared of you than you are of them. I think I heard that there are only about 5 shark attacks a year for scuba divers throughout the world. Most of them happen because someone is being stupid. For proof of this, go to youtube and look up shark attacks. I saw one bozo on youtube kiss a shark and the shark just about bit his lip off. Just enough was left attached that they could sew it back on. Side point here: I got a blister on both of my second toes and they ended up bursting (the blister, not the toe). Let me just say that an open sore and salty ocean water do not mix! Imagine having your lip bit off in that same water. Ow!! Talk about salt in the wound.

Well, that is probably enough info for you to digest for now. I will write more later. Until then, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. I'm Casey Kasem. (Is he dead?)

Happy Freaking Birthday To Me

September 29, 1972, the day I was born. So, I guess that makes me 37. Yippy. The glory days are gone, time (and gravity) is starting to take its toll. When you are young, birth dates are looked forward to. When you are 9, you can't wait to be 10 so you are in double digits. When you are 12, you can't wait to be 13 so you are a teenager. At 14 you long to be 15 so you can get your learners permit. Then at 15 you start looking forward to 16 so you can drive all by yourself. At 17 you can't wait to be 18 so you can graduate from high school. After that, all attention is focused on your 21st birthday so you can down some free Tequila shots and act like a fool. Finally, you look forward to 24. Why, you ask? Because your auto insurance goes down because the insurance company finally views you as a mature adult. After 24 there is nothing to look forward to. Just counting the years as they speed by with greater and greater valocity. I have enjoyed my 30's up until now. It seems like with each passing year, people start to take you a little more seriously, which can be nice. You finally have the money that you have lacked to do the things you wanted to do, like scuba diving. But, in three short years, I will be 40 and in 13 years I will be 50. Youth is slipping by, it seems. I think that is why I have been doing things that 10 years ago I wouldn't have even considered doing. Things like scuba diving, learning to play guitar, writting a blog, and jogging. Maybe if I keep on this track I am on I will end up doing something really crazy like regular pioneering. I never thought I would even consider, but even right now I am sitting here thinking, "Why not?". I just wish I would have listened to my grandparents when then tried to tell me 30 years ago that I should take advantage of my youth and do things that I might not have a chance to do later. Funny how you can't see what you have until it's gone when you are young. No matter how many people tell you how great you have it when you are young, all you can do is look forward to being older. Well, I am done with that. I hope to stay forever young, but the way time is chugging along, I better really take advantage while I still can. So, WHO'S WITH ME!!??

The Ocean is Calling

Hello all my faithful readers. I apologize for not writing anything for you to read lately. As you may or may not know, I was on a scuba diving trip to Grand Cayman. To say it was fun would be misleading. It goes beyond "fun". It was more in the realm of beguilement, delectation, frivolity, or even perhaps whoopee! The only thing that detracted from my gaiety was the heat and humidity (HA! That rhymed). The one reason I could not live in the Caribbean is the heat and humidity. As I have mentioned in the past, I sweat easily, always have. To put me in that climate is like putting a glass of an ice cold beverage on the picnic table in summer. Next thing you know water is rolling off the side of the glass making little puddles everywhere. That's me, Mr. Puddles. But, I decided that scuba diving is the perfect sport for me. Even though the Atlantic Ocean is around 87 degrees in the vicinity of Grand Cayman, it's still cooler than my body temperature, so I did not get hot while diving. Even if I did get hot, who's going to know. It's a little difficult to tell if someone is sweating when under water. So, there you have it, it's truely the perfect sport for me. The problem with now being in love with the ocean and addicted to scuba diving, I have to figure out what I am going to give up in my life to make it so I can afford to go on a couple dive trips a year. I actually have put some thought into it already. Sadly, Dave Matthews Band is going to have to do without me next year unless they come really close to the Stinkin Lincoln area. Another factor is hopefully the vacation deals on the Internet will continue. Then I have to hope I can talk my lovely wife into going to some remote island where the only thing to do is lay around and drink Mud Slides or Pina Coladas. The latter will be the hardest part. My wife loves to shop. She usually contains herself very well, that is until we go on vacation. That's why she likes to go to cities for vacations. Dallas, New York, Milwaukee, Kansas City, they all have great shopping. Georgetown, Grand Cayman, not so much. That is, unless you have a few thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket. Everything is quite expensive on an island. So, what to use as a lure? One thing she REALLY wants to do is swim with the dolphins. For all my guy friends that read this, I am not referring to the Miami Dolphins of the NFL, I am talking about the porpoises. That's something that could keep her busy for an an morning while I am diving. But that ain't gonna cut it! Must...dive...MANYMANYMANY...times! I had 5 days in Cayman to dive and I got 13 dives in. The nice thing is usually you do your dives in the morning and then maybe one in the early afternoon, then you have the rest of the day for whatever. But still I am going to have to figure out how to keep her busy so she doesn't drive herself crazy sitting around (if you know my wife, you know sitting around doing nothing is NOT her style), or drink way too many Pina Colodas while waiting for me. I wish she would dive with me, but she doesn't think she could do it. Scuba is not one of those things that you really should be forced to do if you don't want to. The last thing you want is to freak out 80 feet down and make a deadly mistake because you weren't thinking straight. I guess the answer to my quandary, is to find someplace to dive that has a city nearby that can accommodate Mrs. H's needs. Research is in order. Before I head off to do that, let me say that if you have been wanting to learn to scuba dive, or you even just like nature, you MUST learn to dive. It was one of the most thrilling and beautiful experiences of my life. The ocean is already calling me back. On that note, I am off to do some research on dive sites with all the modern conveniences of Dallas. This should be fun.

Huskers...Ugh...

Oh Husker football. How you have the ability to make me feel euphoric one moment and devastated the very next. You give me hope for only the reason of being able to rip it away. You make me believe but it's only a lie. Yet, I continue to come back for more. Like a dog that is kicked by his owner, when you flash me that Big Red steak, I will come running back, happy and dumb, for yet another kick. This Saturday was no different. Late in the fourth quarter I was sure we were going to win. Even when VT got the ball with under 2 minutes left in the game, I felt it was in the bag. After all, Tech had been having trouble all day long moving the ball. Surely the defense would be more focused and stingy than they had been up to that point. But, what it comes down to is championship caliber teams already know how to seal the deal. The only problem was VT was the team that knew how to win. Nebraska has yet to learn that. After being losers for so long under Callahan they still don't have that confidence that VT has. I am willing to bet that VT never lost their confidence. They never felt like they were going to lose. I only hope that Bo, Carl, Watson and their players learn from this experience. My guess is they have. If anything it has made them more hungry. Plus, Bo isn't going to let them take a step back. Here is my prediction for the rest of this season: Nebraska doesn't lose another game this year. They will be the Big XII champions and they will play in a BCS game. Sometimes, you have to take a step back before you can take two steps forward. (See 1996 Huskers.) I think they will realize what they need to do to win from here on out. Oh, and hide the women and children this coming Saturday. It's going to get ugly. I feel an old fashioned butt-whoopin' comin'! The Cajuns won't be the ones Ragin'. No, it will be Bo and company taking out some hostility on those poor fellers from Louisiana. Break out the fava beans and nice Chianti. Ragin' Cajuns, it's what's for dinner!

Isn't It Ironic? Don't Ya Think?

I clean this little hippie coffee shop here in town. You know the type, you walk in and all the baristas are wearing hemp shirts with their hair in dreadlocks, the coffee cups are made of hemp paper and virtually everyone in the shop smokes hemp, or as I like to call it, doobage. The owners of this coffee shop do their very best to be as environmentally conscious as they can. They go to the extra effort to recycle, which means having several trash cans in the back to separate all the recyclables. They even recycle their coffee grounds. A farmer comes in once a week or so and takes a 55 gallon drum full of used coffee grounds. (Do you suppose his cows are all running around all hopped up on caffeine?) Without a doubt, they support "Go Green!". Now, here is the slap your forehead and/or funny part. They have an area where they offer free literature like "The Thrifty Nickle" and in addition their are probably another 15 publications available for your reading pleasure, half of which are dedicated to Green living. Does that strike anyone else as odd? Doesn't that go against what "Go Green" is all about? How many trees died to help promote going green? And to a large extent those publications will go unread and then thrown away, or more likely recycled. For those that say "Go Green" is a bunch of hog wash, they argue that to recycle paper, plastic, metal, etc., takes more energy than to just throw the stuff away and start over. I think that is neither here nor there. I think as long as you are keeping that stuff out of the land fills, and not killing more trees than necessary, that is what "Go Green" should really be about. Nonetheless, why throw unread newspapers on the fire, if you will? Why do they need 8 different magazines about how to lead a "green" lifestyle. I hope I am not the only one seeing the irony of this? It's like if a group was trying to encourage a healthy lifestyle and to promote it they had a bake sale. Or like the picture above that has an ashtray given out by the Singapore Cancer Society. What moron thought that was a great promotional idea? It's an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected. Oh, irony, what would I do without you. You make my life complete and happy. Plus you give me stuff to blog about!

#13, Good Thing I'm not Supersticious (knock-on-wood)

Break out the champagne! We did. Today my wife and I are celebrating our anniversary. Thirteen years since we vowed to spend the rest of our lives together. That, I am perfectly happy to live with. What came with that vow at the time, was Stinkin Lincoln. You see, my father-in-law said he never wanted to see his daughter live in Omaha. So, me being naive, I said, "Yes, sir!", when I should have done what I learned a while back. A district manager for the company we do better than half of our work for once told me when a manager is being difficult, "just let a sleeping dog lay". In other words, just say, "sure, I will take care of that right away", then just ignore the request. That has been working quite well for me for the past 10 years or so. Because what usually happens is they will make that crazy request, I will say I will take care of it, and then they will just forget about it because it is such a dumb request. So, to my father-in-law I should have said, "Yes, sir!", and then got the heck out of Dodge...or would it be, get the heck back TO Dodge. Either way, I should have gotten out of Stinkin Lincoln. Then again, I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. I knew the traffic was bad. Anybody can figure that out within a week of driving around. At first you think, "Wow, what a bad traffic day." Then the next day, same thing. The day after that, same thing. That's when you start to think something might be up. By the 5th day, you have it figured out. Stinkin Lincoln, the place where you get no where fast. But, the fact that people are so different here compared to Omaha was a very big surprise.





I just realized how totally off base I got with this installment. My intent was to talk about how great it has been being married to the V Lady for the past 13 years. So, back to that. One thing I figured out about her, she is too good for me. Why she married a clown like me is beyond reason. Granted, I am funny, sometimes I am charming, at the right angle I can be not too bad to look at, and I am fairly intelligent. But, at the time we became interested in one another, I was a loud, obnoxious, and somewhat arrogant fool. But, the thing that we have most in common is our love for Jehovah and that is what makes it work. But, that love motivates her in much better way than it motivates me. I don't want to get to deep into the differences, but on a spiritual level, she is head, shoulders, torso, waist, hips, knees and ankles above me. It's not a question of beliefs. We both believe the same things, she just is amazing the things she is able to accomplish. She is my inspiration.



One thing that really brought us close together is our appreciation for music. We see several Dave Matthews Band shows each year. Some people say we are obsessed. What they don't understand is it's something we enjoy doing together and we always have a great time together. Plus, we always try to see them in different parts of the country so we can see new places. For instance, this year, we went to Milwaukee. Never in a million years would I have any reason to go to Milwaukee. However, cheese is yummy! But Milwaukee, and Wisconsin in general is an overall cool place to go, and we never would have known that had it not been for our equal appreciation for DMB.



Well, I look forward to the next 13 years with my girl. Hopefully she continues to put up with me and my guy trips, my football obsession and my procrastination. If she does, I will continue to put up with her leaving the seat down on the toilet. I mean, how about a little common courtesy!

Me Or Bill Callahan?

Well, I think the glory days are over. The days where I could pretty much say anything I wanted to on here are done. The days of only having about 3 people (Kevin, Mom and Dad) look at my blog are history. I can't say that it is because it has become too popular. But it's more along the lines of the fact that people just find out about things. Word travels fast as they say. Next thing you know people that you barely know are looking at your thoughts and taking it too seriously. Anyone that knows me knows that most things I say are just for effect. I just want to make people laugh. Some could argue that I do it at the expense of others. Yes and no. Even if I am talking about someone, I don't name names and try to not even give enough information for people to figure out who I am talking about. The problem, you see, is when the person I am talking about wonders into my blog. If someone was blogging about me and said, "...that short, tubby, insensitive jerk...", I would have a pretty good idea they were talking about me. Either that or Bill Callahan. So, to the person I have offended, I apologize. To those that I will offend, and it will happen, not on purpose mind you, but it will happen, I apologize. Sometimes I go too far. But, there are two things you can take comfort in:

1) Most people that look at this are from Omaha, and have no idea who you are.

2) My wife is going to kill me when she finds out about this.

I assume now we will never be buddies, but I am not that great of a guy anyhow. You are not really losing out on much, as I am sure you have already made that assumption. To the rest of you that like me in spite of my faults, I promise to continue my sarcastic blogs, but first, a sensitivity course.

Update 4

First of all, for the record, those are not my gnarly toes, and no, I do not weigh 250 lbs. And now, on with the show! Well, I had someone ask me if I had lost weight today. I suppose that is a good sign. In my history of yo-yo dieting, I always notice people start to realize something is up around the 15 pound mark. I actually am still a couple pounds shy of that, but I will take it. As far as exercise since the last update. I did push ups one night, sit ups another night and have been going on pretty long walks with my wife and the dogs. I usually "cheat" on my diets during the weekend, and this weekend was no different, though I still ate pretty good. My parents took my wife and I out for our anniversary this weekend, so we partook of the dessert tray. I still need to get on a regular exercise program and eat more fruits and veggies. Well, I think I will stop here. No need to bore you any further with my personal battle of the bulge. But, I still wanted to get you an update so you didn't think I had given up. Oh, I will say that I have been keeping myself from getting on the scale. I have weighed myself once in the past week. I think I won't get on a scale until Wednesday. At that time I will give you another update.

Dancing with the Elderly, the Gay and the Creepy

I have been on this kick lately where I want to try new things. Scuba diving, going places I have never been before, and even this blog is kind of a step out of the norm for me. Tonight, I really ventured outside my comfort zone. My wife, her sister, her sister's boyfriend and myself went, and get this, dancing. I, for one, was not blessed with the feet of Fred Astaire or even Fred Flintstone for that matter. Yet, I found myself on a dance floor getting a free dance lesson from someone of questionable sexuality. We were taught the Samba, or maybe it was the Rumba, nevertheless, it was a mba of some sort. What scares me is it was actually kind of fun. The crowd that was there was leaning towards the one foot in the grave side of life. I seriously thought this one couple was going to fall and break a hip when a waltz came on. All kidding aside, having an older crowd there was actually kind of fun. There was this one little old man there, he kind of reminded me of my grandfather. Short, charming and all the young girls there loved him. Only this guy, unlike my grandfather's luxuriant head of hair, was bald as a cue ball. Come to think of it, he also reminded me of the little old man on Bennie Hill that Bennie would always slap on the head. Anyhow, that man's dance card was full. He even danced with the hostess a couple times. Yep, he was a charmer. Then you had the creepy guys. You could tell they were just there to pick up women. Which was odd, because as far as I could tell there only about 2 or 3 ladies there that came alone. Plus they are the kind of guys I would imagine being on the other end of an Internet chat room, with a studly picture of some other guy as their profile picture so they can hit on teenaged girls even though they are well into their 50's. Maybe they were there if one of the old geezers dropped dead and they could be the first one to ask the widow to dance. At any rate, they were creepy. In spite of the creepy guys, it still was a fun night. So, I guess the point is, it's nice to step out of your comfort zone every once in a while. Blue hairs, homosexuals, and creepy men are so far out of my comfort zone, I may as well have been in Council Bluffs.

Insomniac

I am an insomniac. Wow, I just felt like I was at an AA meeting or something. "Hello, my name is Brandon and I am an insomniac." My life is SO the very opposite of being scheduled. My job requires that I be up at different times of the day all throughout the week and then I have my family obligations on the weekends. Here is a typical Brandon week:

Monday: Get up around 10-11 AM. Big work day, take care of any 'fires' that may have been started over the weekend, get supplies, work on equipment, etc. Then usually have a late work night until about 3 AM. Go to sleep around 5 AM

Tuesday: Get up around 12 PM. Usually don't work very late on Tuesdays, since I got church. Usually get to sleep around 3 AM.

Wednesday: Get up around 11 AM. Another Big work day. Almost always an all nighter day, or at least late night job. Get home around 4 AM, asleep by 6 AM.

Thursday: Get up around 12 PM. Scheduling day. Call accounts to set up jobs for the next two weeks. Also, work around the house day. I usually can get to bed "early" on Thursday night. Much like tonight, but sometimes, actually quite often, I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep.

Friday: Get up anywhere from 11 AM-1 PM, depending on if I was able to catch some Z's last night. Friday is kind of an anything day. Whatever needs to be done is usually taken care of on Friday. Then depending once again on whether I slept well the night before, I either go to sleep at 2 AM or it could be as late as 5 AM.

Saturday: Here is where it gets interesting. I now have to shift into normal mode. We go out in the ministry at 9:30 AM most Saturday's, so that means I have to get my butt out of bed, throw some toothpicks and between my eyelids and get ready to go. Coffee is always a must on Saturdays. I don't care if that means we don't get to the meeting until 9:45 AM, I am getting coffee! Then it's either a 2 hour nap, or force myself to stay awake by never stopping movement. Any sitting down, or worse yet, laying down, will result in the body shutting down instantaneously. Regardless, Saturday is usually do whatever the Mrs. tells me day...until kickoff.

Sunday: Get up at 11 AM or noon. Church goin' day, starts at 1 PM, that is until January 1st when it goes back to 10 AM. Won't that be awesome! Sunday I usually just let my guys do most of the work but we will do some extra stuff from time to time on Sunday's. Usually get to bed around 2 AM.

Well, now you know why I look tired all the time. Because I am. The funny thing is I will be dead tired all day long, but then come about 9 PM, my body is ready to party no matter how little sleep I got last night. I am a big believer that people who sleep during the day don't get nearly as good a quality of sleep as people that live normal lives. There is a reason it is dark and quiet at night. God wants us to be asleep. He lovingly provided us with the perfect environment for sleeping. Yet, here I am, typing when I should be sleeping. I always say, "Why did my father have to be a janitor and not an architect?" It's not the work that I hate, it's the hours you have to keep. Although, it helps to be the boss. I couldn't do this job if I had to take orders from the likes of me. Certainly I would be smarter than myself! (You might have to think about that one a minute, but it's worth the effort.)

Update 3

Maybe I shouldn't be counting the days. It makes them drag. Like they say, a watched pot never boils, but an unwatched pot boils immediately. Regardless, I have pretty much made it through another day unscathed. Yogurt for breakfast, chicken chili for lunch, salmon and veggies for dinner. I started to drink a coke today, but guilt made me stop half way through. Other than that, it's been a good day. The only thing, I didn't do much in the way of exercise. I did want to go for a run today, but I think I tweaked my ankle a bit the other night when I did that run. It never fails. I am what they call, injury prone. If I were in the NFL, fantasy football leagues would be drafting me in the final round, even if I were a great player, just because I would be sure to miss some games because I hurt something. Anyhow, though I didn't do any official exercise, it's funny how when you are on a diet/workout kick that everything becomes a workout. You end up taking the stairs when you could take the elevator. You pick up something heavy and you squeeze your muscles to get some good out of that one lift. You try to do things with good form so maybe, just maybe, it will have some benefit in losing those unwanted pounds. So, what I am doing right now, is every time I bring this glass of beer to my lips, I work my biceps. Then, when I return the glass to the table, I squeeze my triceps. It's almost like a super set. Hmmmm, I wonder if I should do more than just one set?

Update 2

Okay, fresh off of work, here I am to give you the inside scoop to my weight loss efforts. Today was not as good as yesterday, I guess. I got up and had lunch because it was that time of day. I had a bowl of White Chicken Chili and a dinner roll. I wasn't hungry when I went to work, strangely enough, so when I got home, I was starving. Which can be dangerous. The frozen pizza was calling my name! But I resisted and had a cold chicken breast, cooked of course, but left over from dinner the other night. Still hungry, I had a small bowl of soup and I had a beer with my meal. I am now sipping on some water and going to sleep. I think one of my biggest problems is I probably don't eat enough. So, my body is always in starvation mode. It burns up all the carbs and leaves the fat behind. Funny how the body works. I wish there was a button I could push to let it know we aren't in a famine, I am just trying to drop some pounds. For "exercise" today, I worked. I had to strip two bathrooms and elevator, all by hand because they were such small areas. Normally I would break out a machine and let it do the work. But instead, I worked my butt off for 5 hours without stopping. I kind of think all this work I have been doing lately on the garage and at floor jobs is the reason I have been losing weigh without trying lately. It's funny, when people first start working for me, they almost always lose 10-20 pounds. Between the walking and the manual labor we do, it melts our new guys down to size. Hopefully, it will melt me down to about 175 lbs.

Update 1

Since I am about 3 minutes from leaving for work, I tought I would give you an update on the "diet". I forgot to do that last night, and I appologize. But, I didn't forget that I was going to be held accountable for my actions. Yesterday I woke up and had a protein shake. It was like trying to choke down a protein shake, if you know what I mean. Later I had some cantelope and pineapple. Then for dinner I had White Chicken Chilli with a dinner roll. After my meeting, and a 1 mile run, I had some chips and guacomole (did I spell that right?). Before bed I had a peanutbutter sandwich. And, when I couldn't sleep, I found myself craving a beer, and I gave in. That, besides alot of water and diet drinks was the extent of my intake. I will tell you later how today as gone. Off to work I go!

Wanna See What it Looks Like When I Run?

I have been a sports fan my entire life. I can't remember a time I didn't root the Huskers on to victory, and sometimes, defeat. I remember getting up in the middle of the night with my dad in 1976 to listen to the Nebraska at Hawaii game on the radio. I collected NFL football cards starting in 1981. Then in 1985 I started collecting baseball cards. That really became my main hobby. By the time I was a junior in High Skool, I had enough football and baseball cards that when I sold them, I went on a 7 day trip to California, and buy a really nice baseball bat and new glove when I got back. When I was a kid, I liked to play football a lot. One time, one of my grandma Lilly's house cleaning jobs gave her some football uniforms, complete with pads and helmets. There were 4 sets. I was supposed to share two of them with my cousin, but don't tell him, because being an only child, I didn't want to share them with him. Plus, he didn't like sports. He was a country boy. He liked fishin' and killin' stuff. Therefore, I wanted to share them with my friends. Because my cousin wouldn't have strapped on the pads with his friends and ran at each other as fast we could and slammed into each other over and over again. Each time my friends and myself would always say, "Wow! It doesn't even hurt! This is great! Let's do it again!" That's the joy of being a kid and not having a whole lot of weight behind you to make you or your friend experience pain. Then, as I got older, and stopped being afraid of a baseball, baseball became my sport. Most of my friends at that time liked basketball, especially since Michael Jordan was huge then. But, I am 5' 6", and at my peek, I only had a 30" vertical, at the absolute most, and that might be stretching it an inch or two. So, baseball seemed the logical choice. I was good enough that the baseball coach saw me play softball during gym class and asked me if I wanted to go out for the team (baseball team, not softball). I wanted to, but I had this problem. I couldn't stand the jocks on the baseball team. For some reason, they were the most foul people in school. They all chewed tobacco, and seemed to rarely shower. The last thing I wanted was to be around them any more than necessary. Later on, I realized that even short people can be good at shooting the basketball. So I started to enjoy basketball a little more.

So, what makes me bring all this up? Well, I have a fantasy football team that needs a quarterback. So I was looking to see who was available and I came to Kerry Collins. I thought to myself, "Wow, that guy has been around forever, he's got to be older than dirt by now." Much to my dissatisfaction, I looked at his stats, and he is younger than me by 3 months. It was an awesome feeling...NOT! But, it made me reflect back on my "career" as a sports enthusiast. And, I don't think I am done. I really feel like I can get back in shape. I have lost 10 pounds over the past 3 weeks, and have an incentive to lose more for my SCUBA trip. I also would like to request that you help me. Each day from here on out, I will give you an update on if I went to the gym, what I did there, and what I ate for the day. This will give me some accountability since I am not going to want to give myself a bad report. I have 13 days before I leave for my trip. I think I can lose at least 6 more lbs. Actually, I would like to lose 10 more, but that is probably not too healthy, so as my aunt Diane would say, "I am keeping it real! Keepinitreal! Keepinitreal! Keepinitreal!" (She has crazy amounts of energy. )

We will start with today. Since I didn't know I was going to do this, it's not going to be the picture of what the next 13 days will be like. But here it goes. I had a chicken sandwich with french fries and a Diet Coke for lunch, from McDonald's, of all places. What's sad about this confession, is I literally go to McDonald's once a year. Today just happened to be the day. Then I had a hamburger for dinner. Protein shake for a bedtime snack. For exercise today, I did 100 crunches, 40 push ups, and about 20 minutes of cardio.

What I need to do starting tomorrow: I need to start having about 3 protein shakes a day, starting with breakfast. I usually don't eat for a few hours after I get up. That's not good. After all, after lunch and dinner, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. (If you can tell me what movie that is from, you win a prize!) I should have some snacks in between meals, like veggies or some fruit. Fiber is important. A nutritionist once told me that the shorter period of time your food stays in your body the less time your body has to draw out all the fat in the food. Yep, a daily poo is very important. I need to do at least one hour of cardio a day, at least 100 crunches a day and work out a couple times a week.

Well, I will let you know how it goes. Check in tomorrow to see how I did.

Go Green!

You know, I am the kind of guy that likes a nice warm and sunny day. But, I think every once in a while, a dreary, rainy, dark day is called for. Number one, it's excellent for either sleeping in, or naps, or better yet, BOTH! I'm getting drowsy just thinking about the symphony of sounds that rain makes as it splash lands on the earth. It reminds me of an old "Frazier" episode where Niles is spending the night with Frazier. Frazier has his bedroom window open and Niles asks him to shut the window because the sound of the rain was keeping him awake. Frazier obliges him and shuts the window. No sooner does Frazier have the window shut, Niles turns on his sounds of nature CD with the sound of, you guessed it, rain. However, unlike Niles, I prefer the real thing. It puts me out like a light!

Not only are rainy days great for sleeping, they also bring out the green of nature. We used to have this spectacular tree in our backyard. It was a Hackberry. It was very old and very big. It had a split in the trunk so we ended up having to cut in down before it fell down. (The one shown in the picture is not ours, but it was the same size and age as ours.) I counted 98 rings when they cut her down. But, when it was still alive, when it would rain the moss would practically glow it was so green. Today as I was driving around in the rain, I was reminded of that old tree. I would look at the trees as I was sitting at a red light and notice how green the moss growing up the side of the trees was. It was pretty amazing. It's what I imagine being in a rainforest would be like. Looking at how green everything was today, it was hard to believe that in a few weeks, the only green we will be seeing is green olive in our martini. So, in a way, it seems like it was the last hoorah of summer in all it's splendid greenness. Sadly, another summer is just about to transform into fall. But what a beautiful summer it was!

#85

For my 85th post here at Stinkin' Lincoln, I decided to update my page and give you something fresh to look at. I have been wanting to change my look essentially since day one. I have always felt like a big copy cat. You see, a buddy of mine, (You know who are, at least I hope you do, otherwise who would you think you are?) he started his blog before I started mine and we had the same template all this time. Sometimes I didn't know if I was looking at my blog or his. Actually, it was pretty easy to tell them apart. He is a better writer than I am and typically more upbeat. If you haven't noticed, I can be a bit of a downer. But, that's because I am using you all as therapists. And just because I said that, I don't want to be receiving bills in the mail from you. It will just go in the paper shredder like the rest of them. Anyhow, I am now an individual. Just like all those individuals with the same tattoo of the razor wire around their arm. Yep, I am sure nobody else on Blogspot.com has chosen this same template. Well, that's my lame post of the day. Enjoy the scenery and come back and see again real soon.

Fall In the Air

Is it just me, or does Fall seem to be in the air? I went outside to head to work tonight, and I seriously thought about grabbing a sweatshirt. It was down right chilly. But, I decided to just grin and bear it. In a couple months we all be wishing it was 60 degrees during the day, let alone the night. Actually, I like the cool, crisp air of Autumn. Being a person who sweats somewhat uncontrollably at times, I like the prospect of walking from the car to the house without bursting into a sweat. My sweat usually comes on so fast when it's hot and humid that if you are standing too close to me you might get sprayed with sweat when it shoots out my pores. Okay, okay, I am exaggerating slightly. But only slightly. So, yes, I am looking forward to this most wonderful part of the year. If I have one complaint about Fall, it's that it isn't long enough. So, if fall is getting started now, it could be a nice long enjoyable season. Actually, it's been a very nice Spring and Summer thus far. It only got super hot a few times, and the humidity level seemed to be tolerable most of the time. In fact, if it was like this every year, I might actually enjoy living here. But, we won't go that far. Anyhow, fall does usually seem to fly by, so it's time to start planning for the next couple months so I can get the most out of it. One thing I know for sure is I have to go camping at least once, hopefully twice. I am not much on camping in the hot weather. You can't enjoy the camp fire and between the bugs and sweat squirting out of my body, it's not a fun time for me. So, when it's cool, and sometimes even cold, I love to go camping. I will say though, if you go camping in the cold, go with your wife or husband. This embarrassing story will highlight why. A few years ago, I went camping with my dog, Lucy, and an old buddy of mine. It must have gotten into the 20's overnight because Lucy's water bowl was frozen over in the morning. Before going to bed, it wasn't too bad. We sat by the camp fire sipping brandy and threw log after log on the fire. I thought my dog was going to spontaneously combust because she was sitting so close to the fire pit. But, then we headed off to the tent. Having a dog while cold weather camping is a must. Having two dogs while cold weather camping is a luxury! Anyhow, Lucy plopped down between me and my old buddy and we were competing for her attention since she is like having an electric blanket in the tent. Eventually we fall asleep. The next morning, I wake up and Lucy had moved down closer to our feet. I did not realize this. So, I roll over to snuggle up to my nice warm dog, and to my horrified surprise, I was snuggling up to my buddy. Now, I am about as confident in my sexuality as they come. There is no chance that I am gay. I find women to be way to amazing to ever find some big hairy guy attractive. For the life of me, I will never understand the whole concept. But, there is something very disconcerting about waking up while holding another man that closely. It was kind of like that scene out of "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles", only, fortunately, my hands were not between two pillows. But, we did immediately jump up and start talking about the Huskers. Thus the importance of cold weather camping with your wife or husband. Although, for some reason, women don't get a eeked out by human contact with the same sex. I wonder why that is? Oh well. Good for them, I guess. Well, now that I have thoroughly embarrassed myself, I guess I will head off to bed...with my beautiful WIFE!

Future of Communication, FTW

Txtin is roonin d wrld. I have been laid up for the past few days. I had a little minor inconsequential surgery. I won't bore you with the details, plus I don't want to tell you about it anyway. As a result, since Thursday afternoon, I have been laying here with computer in lap, shopping on eBay for some needed SCUBA equipment, reading about fantasy football for next weekends draft, and reading Husker insider's posts on my friends rivals.com account. You would think that most of the people that would be writing the things on the websites I have been looking at would be fairly intelligent people. I gather from what most of the posters on rivals.com say that they are college students or graduates. The people on eBay, you would think, would want to impress people with their intelligence so their potential customers would take them seriously. Especially when they are selling something that could mean life or death, like a SCUBA regulator. But what I find instead are people that can't spell. Now, I do not claim to be a spelling-bee champ from way back or anything remotely close to that. In fact, up until the past 10 years or so, I was a terrible speller. But, I think that over the years, writing up bids, contracts, and just goofing around with stuff like this blog has made me a better speller. I have only spellcheck to thank for that. I still goof up stuff like their and there every once in a while, but that is just because of my awesome typing speed. My fingers move faster than my brain most of the time. I just know that if I were an avid eBayer, I would want to make sure everything was spelled properly so people wouldn't think I was some sort of moron. For instance, today I was looking at regulators for diving. I don't think I want to purchase something of that significance from someone that spells compass, compus. Nor do I want to purchase something from someone that says they have many 'dive watchs' to choose from. Am I alone in this?

Then you have your Husker "insiders" that post all the various details of Husker football player's lives that they go to class with. These guys, for the most part, can't even type a complete sentence, plus they can't spell worth a lick. (worth a lick?) This seems to go for most people of that age bracket. The place where I get my occasional massages, this summer, they had an intern working there from the local massage school. At the end of the internship, he had to write a paper that stated what he learned during his internship and turn it in to his teacher. The intern asked my massage therapist to read his paper so he could critique it. My massage therapist told me it was like reading a text message from someone. Words were shortened up, spelled incorrectly and used incorrectly. Sentences were incomplete, and the thoughts were all over the place. That's our future. These are the future leaders of the free world. ROFL! We r scrwd, ftw!

Swimming With the Fishes

My first SCUBA trip is set. I have my passport, I have my plane ticket, I have a place to stay, and some SCUBA buddies to go with. Now all I need is some spending money. If you would like to help out, please send certified checks and/or money orders to my Paypal account. We also accept stocks, bonds, scrap gold, and real estate. We are going to Grand Cayman. I have never been there and am very excited. I have always wanted to go to an island. Of course, I have always dreamed of going while it was negative 20 degrees here in Stinkin' Lincoln and 85 degrees on the island. But, I can't afford such a trip. I can barely afford this one. Actually, I am lucky to be going at all. We actually have a ton of things going on the week that I will be gone and the week that I get back. My wife told me to go by myself so I don't forget all the SCUBA lessons I took and end up failing my open water certification. Yep, I got a great gal! She is going to mind the store while I am basking in the sun. If you know my wife, she wouldn't have had fun on the trip anyhow. She is not capable of detaching from life. Me, I am perfectly capable of not thinking about my problems for a week and then dealing with them when I get back. But, then I dread getting back to the problems. So, I see where she is coming from. Anyhow, I look forward to my little trip with my bestest buddy and swimming with the fishes. Hopefully they don't eat me.

Small Towns, Who Needs 'Em?

This week has been insane! Which, for the most part, is a good thing. Insanity in my life brings money to the bank book, eventually. Sometimes these big corporate moguls are a little slow to pay. They have an image to uphold, you see. God forbid they pay in a timely manner and make their profits look bad to their stockholders. I will stop myself there before I begin.

Anyhow, for one of my jobs this week I had to travel to Maryville, MO. Funny story about that. The day before the job, I called to confirm with the construction manager. I told him I was confirming for the new store in Marysville, KS. He said, I was mistaken, it's Maryville, MO. And it's for reasons like that I always call and confirm. Not because I am that incredibly smart, but because in the past I have been that incredibly dumb and ended up at the wrong place, or they had no clue I was coming that day, or something along those lines. Yep, that's right, I will only eat a poop sandwich once. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, or as George W. Bush once said, "There's an old...saying in Tennessee...I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that says Fool me once...(3 second pause)... Shame on...(4 second pause)...Shame on you....(6 second pause)...Fool me...Can't get fooled again." Oh, "W", only you can put things so succinctly. Anyhow, back to Maryville, MO. Walgreens is on this new kick, I assume they are taking a page from the Walmart school of business. They have started putting fairly small stores in fairly small communities. In some cases, this has worked fairly well for them. I imagine in the case of Maryville, it will work better than most. If you have never been to Maryville, MO, let me save you the trouble. What a dump. Plus it has all those small town things going for it that just get on a person's nerves. For instance, we roll into town about 6:30 PM. We go and unload our equipment, make sure everything is good to go at the store, and then the plan is to go get some grub. By this time it is a little after 7 PM. Due to the fact that most places have already closed, our choices for food are McDonalds (puke), Burger King (puke), Sonic (double-puke) and Subway. There were also two restaurants that seemed a little too nice for two dirty Janitors to wander into. Plus I told my right hand man Juan that one of them seemed like the type of place that if he walked into it, the music would stop, you would hear a glass hitting the floor and breaking and an old lady screaming at the site of Juan. Then some husky redneck would say, "You boys lost?" So, we opted for Subway. Poor Juan ordered his food in his thick Spanish accent and everytime he said something the small town girl just looked at me for the Spanglish to English translation.

After eating, we headed back to the store. As we start getting everything set up, the worst thing that can happen when you are 130 miles from your shop, happened. We forgot something! In this case a dustmop. This is a construction cleanup, mind you. It's pretty hard to fake it if you don't have a dustmop. Way too much construction dust and hunks of debris of every kind. So, I told Juan to go ahead and finish up getting everything set up and I would run to Walmart (of course this hell-hole had a Walmart) and get a dustmop. Surely the only game in town would have a dustmop, even if it was small, it would be better than nothing. Let me reiterate, I hate Walmart. They have small classifications of everything you could possibly need but never exactly what you need. You know, Hardware department, with two packs of screws, a hammer, and both kinds of screwdrivers. Plus the place is so dog-gone big it's hard to find anything. So, I am wandering around, and I know I am close to where I need to be, but, much like Bono of U2, still haven't found what I'm looking for. Ironically, at that moment, a Walmart employee, DUSTMOPPING, sees my deer in the headlights look on my face and asks me if I need help finding something. I said, "You're not going to believe this. I need a dustmop." We shared a brief chuckle, and he set his dustmop aside and walked me a few aisles down to the Cleaning section and pointed me in the direction of their available dustmop. True to form, the "Cleaning Section" was two different types of brooms, a dustpan various "all purpose" cleaners and a dust mop. The picture above is what they had. That's right, all 8.7 inches of it for the not so low price of $16.97. It was that, or a push broom, which when you are sweeping 9,000 square feet, neither will work.

Suddenly, I had an idea, maybe if I told the guy what my plight was, he would let me borrow a dustmop and I could return it after I was done with it. Unfortunately, he didn't have the authority to make such a high command decision. Bummed out by this, I started looking around for some Cokes or something to take back to the barren Walgreens to keep Juan and myself refreshed. Then when I came back towards where the nice Walmart sweeper guy was working, there it was. Apparently this guy is a customer service guru, because he had left his dustmop leaning against a shelf and yet again went off to help some other person looking for something they, no doubt, don't sell. It was at this moment, little devil janitor Brandon popped up on my shoulder and said, "There's your answer! Take it!".

Then, little angel janitor Brandon popped up on the other shoulder and said, "Don't even think about it! Besides, you already told him where you were working. This small town would have all three of their police, plus county sheriffs come raid the Walgreens in search of the stolen dustmop."

Little devil janitor Brandon then says, "You aren't stealing it, you are going to use it and bring it right back! Come on, you chicken!"

Little angel janitor Brandon fires back, "Come on, your parents taught you better than that." And with that, I bowed my head in shame for even hatching such a plan and walked out of the Walmart empty handed. Then on the way back to the Walgreens, I notice a Sutherlands, and a True Value Hardware. I thought to myself, surely they will have something at one of those places. I roll into the strip mall where the two stores are bookends for the mall, and the parking lot is packed with cars. I thought, "Surely one of these places is open, it's not even 8 PM yet." But, as with most small towns, they roll up the sidewalks at 6 PM, and this strip mall was no exception. So, I wonder, where are all these cars from? Let's just say that a mom and pop video rental store in a small town must be a pretty good investment idea. Here it was a Wednesday night, and this 5,000 square foot video rental place was hoppin'. Then the redneck bar next door was also crawling with patrons. And that accounted for all the cars. So, it's clear to me that the favorite pastimes in Maryville, MO are movie watching, and drinking. Plus, as blatantly flirty as all the girls are there, I will give you one guess as to the other pastime. Geez! All I wanted was a stinkin' dustmop!!! Over an hour later, Juan had the store swept with that stupid push broom.

In short, I have learned that there are places that are even worse, than Stinkin' Lincoln! Believe it or not.

I Have Been Reborn!

(Yet another shameless ploy to use a picture of Marissa Miller.) I love sports! My favorite sport to watch is football, hands down. This is my favorite time of year. The weather is still warm, but football season is gearing up for some action. But, my favorite sport to play is baseball. Why? Because I am, or at least used to be, good at it. I played baseball last night for the first time in probably 8 years. That being the case, I am not nearly as good as I used to be. The nice thing about baseball for a guy that is horribly out of shape is that there is time in between plays to rest up and catch your breath. However, I will say, there was one time that I was praying the ball wouldn't be hit my way because I would have puked if I had to run after another ball. But, back in my hay day, I liked playing center field. I liked that position for two reasons, number one, my favorite player, Kirby Puckett, was a center fielder, and two, I loved to run after every ball that was hit in my general direction. Plus as a bonus, you don't get many line drives bouncing off your face when playing centerfield. But now, I am in no shape to be playing centerfield. Therefore, last night, I started out in rightfield. Yep, that's right, the position that is reserved for the worst fielder on the team. Actually, I volunteered for the position because I wasn't sure what I could, and could not do compared to my younger days.

After getting out of that inning, it was our turn at bat. The captain must have thought he knew something I didn't, because he had me lead off. It's funny to me that a game that means nothing can give a lead off hitter such butterflies. I had stepped into the batting cages about 5 years ago, and I remember it hurting back then. But, that was before I had three surgeries to "fix" my shoulders. The first time I swung the bat, I totally missed the ball, plus their was a twinge of pain. That got the butterflies really going. After a few bad pitches, I swung again, but this time I connected! It was a chopper right at the second baseman that was fielded cleanly and thrown to first base for the out.

Next thing I know we are back on defense. Once I figured out that I could throw, and that I could sort of run, I let our team captain know I could play third base if he needed me to. You see, our third baseman SUCKED! He was the weakest link... Good bye! Fortunately, another guy wanted to play third. I am not fond of line drives there in the "hot corner" due to the fact I have taken one too many off the face. Anyhow, that left me at second base. I don't mind second. In fact, I ended up making a double play when a line drive came to me (not off the face) and I quickly threw it to first base to double up the baserunner. It felt awesome.

The bottom of the second inning and I find myself at bat with two out and two runners on base. This time though, it was different. I had knocked the rust off and realized it didn't hurt that much to swing a bat. So now, it's game on! After fouling a couple off, I swung the bat nice and easy and just about hit it out of the park. I was still a good 30 feet short, but it went much farther than I thought it would. Regardless, it went sailing over the center fielders head for a stand up double.

I can't tell you how exhilarating it is to find out you are not as old as you think you are. Yeah, I am out of shape and definitely not as young as I used to be, but when it comes to baseball, I can still hold my own. If nothing else, last night has given me incentive to get back in shape. I really don't want to waste the last 4 or 5 years of "youth" that I have left. Maybe I should start injecting the "juice" so I can be like all the major leaguers out there. Call it a mid-life crisis if you will. Next think you know, I will own a 1972 Corvette with 427 big block. Truth be told, I have been waiting my whole life for my midlife crisis.

No Loitering!

I saw this sign today, and it made me laugh. Not because of what it said, but where the sign was posted. I was at the South Point mall here in Stinkin' Lincoln. I hope I am not the only one that finds this humorous. But, what else are you supposed to do at a mall. And, if we aren't supposed to loiter, why do they have benches for us to rest, and a courtyard with pretty things to look at. When doing these things, are we not loitering? Please note the following definitions for the word loiter:

1) to linger aimlessly or as if aimless in or about a place
2) to move in a slow, idle manner, making purposeless stops in the course of a trip, errand, etc.
3) to waste time or dawdle
4) to pass (time) in an idle or aimless manner

After looking at these definitions, I would think if you were to consult a thesaurus, you might find the word "shop", as a synonym. Yes, the very act of shopping is aimlessly lingering in a place, or moving slowly making purposeless stops. Many times, especially when I was younger, I would go to the mall just to waste and/or pass time in an aimless manner. TO LOITER IS THE VERY ESSENCE OF BEING AT A MALL!

Inmates Running the Asylum

Time to gripe.

I can't even really pinpoint what it is I am about to gripe about, but here it goes. I noticed the other day that the ratio for intelligent people to idiots has started to favor the idiots. The sad thing is, it is becoming harder and harder to tell who the idiots are. For instance, over the past year or so, I have hired (and fired) several seemingly well put together young men to work for me. At first they seem very normal, in fact perhaps even above board. But, after a few weeks of putting up a good front, they can no longer stave off what comes natural. They begin to call in sick because they have a little sniffle. They start asking for favors. They start making excuses for all their stupid acts. In other words, their true colors begin to bleed through. Not to mention that, you start to put the pieces of their life together, and see how they have come to the point they are now. Sadly, in most cases, their is no way on earth they are getting out of the hole they have dug for themselves.

Then you have the idiots that you can identify just by looking at them. For instance, tonight I was doing a little job that was in a strip mall. In between coats of wax I would sit outside and wait for the wax to dry and take in the sites. Oh boy. The first site to behold was a 60-something lady driving, what I believed to be, her daughter around dropping off phone books to the businesses in the strip mall. When the daughter got closer to where I was, it was pretty clear to me that this girl was delivering phone books to support her meth habit. How can a woman in her late 30's have so few teeth? What's sad is you can tell that at one time she was probably an attractive lady. Not anymore! Yuck!

The next site I got to see, was the bar across the parking lot. I couldn't see the people in the "beer garden" because of the privacy fence, but I could sure hear them, especially when it started getting closer to "last call". They weren't exactly discussing Obama's health care plan, or even their mama's health. I am sure what they were discussing was very important to them, but from an outsider looking in, it was quite pathetic. Then at about 1:15 AM these ladies came staggering out of the bar, as loud as ever, and jump into the Ford Taurus with parts from about three different Ford Taurus', and all different colors. Winners!

I feel kind of judgemental for saying all this, but sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade? (I wonder where that expression came from? Here is what I just found out: "calling a spade a spade" as an expression long predates the racial connotation of the word spade. As Random House explains, "to call a spade a spade" originated in ancient Greece.) I think it all shows that the world is broken. Kids think it's okay that Miley Cyrus dances on a stripper pole at the Teen Choice Awards, and if anybody says anything, the kids say we are being judgemental. Meanwhile, some 12 year old girl sees it and the next thing you know she has a baby on the way and is addicted to meth. This world is just continually going from bad to worse. And now that that the idiots are winning, is there any hope for recovery at the hands of man? Doubtful. Yep, we better get used to the inmates running the asylum.

Happy Anniversary!!! AWWWWCHOO!!!

This is going to be a short one because I am dead tired. But, I just noticed something and I have to share. I was looking at a website that documents the Dave Matthews Band's shows. I just wanted to see what the setlist was from last night. On that same page, they display the shows that the band has played on that particular date. Well, according to that website, it is my 5 year anniversary for the first DMB show I ever saw. Yep, 5 years ago I went to Bonner Springs, Kansas to see Dave and the boys. You may be saying, "Gee, thanks for sharing...", but that isn't what I found interesting. You see, 5 years ago on this date, I was sicker than a dog. I had a fever, and was trying desperately to get over the cold I had. I decided to go ahead and go to the show for two reasons: 1) I am cheap and didn't want to waste the ticket I purchased, and 2) I didn't want to disappoint the buddy I was going to the show with since he had the other ticket. For those reasons I gritted my teeth, popped some Sudafed and headed off to Kansas. But, what I find strange is that I am sick on this very same date, 5 years later. Does that mean anything? Is it perhaps allergies? Or is it just a big coincidence? OR could it be a conspiracy by the government!? Let's just say I will be paying closer attention to my DMB anniversary to see if I am sick every time. And to ward off the government and mind reading gizmos, I will be putting tin foil over my windows and make a tin foil hat. That'll stop 'em!

Summer Cold, No, It's HOT!

The common cold sucks! But without so much as a doubt, the common summer cold takes the cake! There is nothing worse, well maybe a few things, but up on my list of the worst things is being stuffed up when it is hot and humid. It's hard enough to breathe during a Nebraska summer as it is when you are the picture of health. You see, during the summer here in Nebraska it gets so humid it's almost like when you take in a breath you are trying to breathe while under water through a straw that's above the surface of the water. It just doesn't work! Then you bring the stuffy head into the equation and it's like trying to breathe under water without the straw. So you feel all crappy when you are out in that hot and steamy weather, so you decide to go inside. Though you are hot and sweaty from being out in the equivalent to hell (if there was such a thing) the air conditioning feels even worse. It makes your nose and throat sting with every breath. So you turn down the thermostat and turn off the ceiling fans. Next thing you know you are sweating like a fat man on a treadmill. It's just a no win situation. About the only time I have felt comfortable today was when I took a lukewarm shower. I can't spend the next few days in the shower, my fingers might stay like shrivelled prunes if I did that. The only answer is suck it up (along with a bit of snot) and go about your business. Though it may feel like this virus will hang on forever, there will come a time when I will wake up and not have to blow a cup of green goo out of my sinus cavity. Oh, how I do long for that day!