The other night I ran into my girlfriend – Relationships

“Denial is the strongest defense mechanism,” were the words I read. And I should have known better and seen that right from the start. As a matter of fact one of my favorite Pat Green songs, #2 ( only on the Billy Bob’s Live CD ) has a wonderful line regarding this.

“The other night I ran into my girlfriend
Sitting with another man at a table gettin’ stoned”

I don’t think I could have painted a better picture of a bad relationship. In no way am I sad my unmarried dating life is over. Well, that thrill you get when you meet someone and are attracted for the first time, ya, I miss that, but I don’t miss all the other crap you have to get to to get to that thrill.

Finding someone now is reduced to a “profile and a picture” as one love-retailer puts it. How do you really know any of those people on the internet? I think most of them are old men, lonely and bored. Maybe a few stay-at-home-moms, who haven’t had ANY conversation or affection for WAY too long. Truth is, we’re lonely and we want to connect with someone. Even if it’s through the written word, but dating, at some point for different people, is just difficult. The routine is trite, the cliche’s are lived out, and eventually you wonder if you’re stuck in some “Groundhog Day” like episode of Bruce Willis’ “Blind Date”.

It’s hard to find someone normal. Dating for me would be difficult. I’m older, fatter and have kids. That can just scream “recycle bin” in the wrong circles. How do you know if someone is datable? Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you interact with someone for years and never really know who they truly are.

I am convinced that the only way to TRULY know if someone is worth keeping is to search yourself. Yes! Yourself! Are you telling yourself the truth about people? The people in your life? That cute manly or womanly thing they do, ya that cool characteristic, is just a way to control. You feel bad they have had a trail of broken relationships, well, why is that? Or does he pay all the time to get an instant date, but never really appreciates your feelings because you are always available.

You see, the truth really does set you free.

I think, as a parent, my job is to help my kids ferret out the good from the bad. I think other cultures are GREAT about picking their child’s spouse. Most people say, “Whoaaaaa! No way my parent’s are picking my spouse.” But think about who has known you from the time you couldn’t even wipe your own a$$. That person has watched and observed you and has your age plus their own experience with relationships. The logic starts to fall in place that our parents might be better at arranging marriages than we are.

So is it any wonder we are in our 20’s and 30’s and we have problems? No, we’ve been lying to ourselves for years and exercising denial way beyond fathom.

I nearly peed my pants! – Humor

Thanks Bob Sturm at Bob’s Blog Live from Lewisville!

We have this afternoon off since kickoff is at 5:00 PM and they need the parking. University perks are the best. I get to run errands OHHHHH GLORRRYYYYY!!!

Oooh oooh oooh I’m on fire – News

It would be so much fun for you guys to caption all the photos, but I must relate the story, no less dramatic than Little a’s birth story.

But here it is.

Engine 12 arives at the Thunderfish Compound summoned by M – the honor student – who wanted to cook some Wingstreet chicken wings with foil in black styrafoam while her mother and sister and I were out trying to get my wife’s blood pressure checked because she was having chest pains.

As little a says, “the fires” check out the microwave for any additional fire. M and A check out the firemen.

As you can see M is admiring her handy work. A is doing who knows what and I’m photographing it all. Those Wings are looking tasty, M!

“Bye fires!” And Engine 12 rolls back to the station, Ding! Ding!

The lonely old home of the EWave Microwave Madness Machine. I got spices!

So guess what I get to do tonight? Mmmm hmmmm, Home Depot and a fun evening of installing a built in microwave. The old one sits on the curb no longer to spark when you press “Start”.

It was a horrible weekend. A and I faught almost all weekend. I’m the anal uptight one this time. I had to get new brakepads on the Civi which I am growing to hate. Then there were the 3 8 year olds that made me nervous all day and we ended with the microwave catching fire and not working. M feels bad, but I am exhausted from the ordeal of the weekend. Next week is looking MUCH better.

Oct. 2 Ooooooh ANOTHER colonoscopy for me
Oct. 4 A is having surgery for her numb hands
Oct. 7 trip to Lubbock for a football game!

I had an interview this past week for an internal position. Most fun I have had in a long time at work. Interviews here are all day affairs. I hope they will meet my salary requirements, I can’t afford the microwave.

And this is the world’s best daughter. What woman do you know who will let you take a picture of her in her pajama’s at 6:30 AM on a Saturday morning without hair or makeup? That’s my baby, the normal one this weekend for a change. She’s giving up her blanket and doing VERY well. For every week she leaves her “plain blanky” at home while she is at school she can get candy or clothes for “Blue Baby and Pink Baby” ( a whole post in itself ). I swear I have an angry political post about immigrants in the oven; maybe it was in the microwave and got burnt.

10 Things I want to say

I have a really good political post that I’m working on. It hits it all. This post is however not. I found this at someone named jujubee’s spot. and it goes like this.

LIST TEN THINGS YOU WANT TO SAY TO PEOPLE YOU KNOW BUT YOU NEVER WILL, FOR WHATEVER REASON. DON’T SAY WHO THEY ARE. USE EACH PERSON ONLY ONCE.*

1) I wish I could have stayed in touch with you. You were the first person who made me smile just thinking of you.

2) You are so bright, but your dad is going to totally screw you up.

3) Your boss is going to drag you into destruction.

4) Your grandchild is just like you and it doesn’t surprise me, in fact I was hoping for it.

5) You have totally wasted your life, I hope you can put it back together in the time you have left.

6) The sex was awesome, you were a wacko.

7) I’ve never met anyone as selfish as you in my entire life. And how things turned out really surprises me.

8) I have never met anyone who made me feel the way you made me feel. I never knew how much I could enjoy talking to someone.

9) Don’t lose your faith.

10) I never thought I could love someone the way I love you.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwZNYrndjMA”>

Losing YOUR Religion – Religion-Beliefs

In my life I have had the good fortune to be raised a Christian. Some of you may not agree with that statement on different levels. No it’s not fortunate you were raised Christian. No it’s not fortunate you were forced to go to church. No it’s not fortunate you were brainwashed by Christianity. No you are not fortunate to be raised Christian instead of Jewish/Muslim/Catholic/Mormon/Atheist/Agnostic/Tree Hugger. (Notice I put Jews next to Muslims to hack them both off?!?!?!).

I beg to differ. I find it fortunate I have had the chance not only to grow up in a heavily influenced Christian environment, but also to be able to have the opportunity to develop my own faith, but also to experience the faith of those around me. One of my favorite quotes that has stuck with me for the past few years was uttered by a seminary student. He said, “Everyone is a theologian, but not everyone is a good one.” I would say that is fairly accurate.

So often, we like to pick apart the religiosity of those sects and denominations we love to grudge much like the team playing our favorite sports franchise we pledge allegiance to Sunday afternoons. I tend to do this more than I should as Mrs. Thunderfish pointed out to me earlier in the week how critical I was. Slightly wounded, I mentally shot back, “Ya, well, it makes me a good blogger. So there … you …” And in the back of my mind I heard, “Was that a ‘niner’ I heard in there, Tommy?” as if to say, “Jef, you’re wrong on this one.”

But I have had the opportunity to observe a few of the great things different religions bring to the table. I don’t count this as an endorsement of any religion*, more a list of things my own religion could learn from those around me. The Bible explicitly talks about “unity among the saints,” not “discord among the religions”.

The top of my list is this:

Mormons – Family Values, Virtuous Behavior And Mission Work

You can’t doubt the Mormons have it going on when it comes to good living and spreading the Word. I really wish my denomination strongly suggested mission work. I think we would look at the world differently. Its no surprise their family values are so strong either. They really have set up systems and ways to pass on their values and build community.

Muslims – Dedication to Beliefs Exhibited By Actions

It’s close to fanatical to look at the Muslims and how strongly they act on their beliefs.

Catholics – Blind Faith

No doubt about it Catholics believe it if their priest tells them. I have no doubt if the Pope says, “That’s the way it has to be,” millions of the world most populous religions would fall in line. They also know how to have a good time.

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“Everyone is a theologian, but not everyone is a good one.”

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Jews – Tradition

I haven’t met many Jews, but I know that if there is a ceremony for them they usually follow it and its pretty close to the way it was when the tradition was started. It’s amazing.

Now don’t get me wrong, I in no way endorse a World Religion based on a set of beliefs that we should just respect everyone and tolerate everyone and throw all our rules out the window because it’s about how we feel and we all sit around singing Michael, Row the Boat Ashore and we worship trees and bird poop. Poppycock! Or as my grandfather would say Horse Hocky! ( I think he toned it down because I was 4 ). We need rules, we need a standard we need a truth. We need to be called on the carpet for our wayward behavior. Without it we are all just wandering around without direction.

So as the announcer says, “Here’s to you Mr. [fill in religion name].”

Now go to church …

* Please keep in mind religion is TOTALLY different from a relationship with God which He outlines how to obtain this relationship clearly in scripture. We forget that the people in a church building are not God and we should keep it honestly clear that humans are fallible and make stupid mistakes, God doesn’t.”

Alright …. time for a man post!

We’re going to talk about politics and religion and all those things we aren’t supposed to, but first, my friend Duane has once again sent me a great funny for you! Hope the language isn’t too strong … but this is a man post so get over it!!!

“True Friendship” (With none of that Sissy Crap!!!!)

Are you tired of those sissy “friendship” poems that always sound good, but never actually come close to reality? Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship. You will see no cutesy little smiley faces on this card- just the stone cold truth of our friendship.

1. When you are sad — I will help you get drunk and plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you that way.
2. When you are blue — I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.
3. When you smile — I will know you finally got laid.
4. When you are scared — I will rag on you about it every chance I get.
5. When you are worried — I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining.
6. When you are confused — I will use little words.
7. When you are sick — Stay the hell away from me until you are well again. I don’t want to catch whatever you have.
8. When you fall — I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass.
9. This is my oath… I pledge it to the end. “Why?” you may ask. Because you are my friend.

Friendship is like peeing your pants: everyone can see it, but only you can feel the true warmth.

Little Pieces That Make A Post

Funny conversation at Walgreens yesterday. The clerk was telling me about some marshmallow candy shaped like Winnie The Pooh characters. I asked him what they tasted like and he said they each taste a little different. “Which ones did you eat,” I asked. His reply was, “I like to eat Pooh.” I told him not to say that out loud.

I am obsessed with these two songs lately. Jibbs “Chain Hang Low” – Mrs. Thunderfish HATES it! I find it a gret testimony to Ebonics. How could you not be an educated person and hate what this song represents? Read the lyrics. Link to YouTube.Com.

My other obsession comes from my daughter. It’s a little cleaner, The Bellybutton Song from Veggie Tales. Here’s the video and the lyrics. Little A’s favorite part is at about 3:00 minutes when the little vegetable says, “Bellybutton, un uhh!” This is the oddest coincidence because my wife is a kindergarden teacher. The first kid song she taught me was a different bellybutton song. Still a favorite of mine!

So here’s more ….

I ran into some Mormon missionaries at Walmart a couple of weeks ago. I took their picture and promised to send them the pic. Problem is, I lost their email addresses. My bad … Here’s the pic and does anyone know how I can get in touch with their, I think it’s called a ward, and email them the pic?

And guess what’s been going on at home! We now have one of these …. and I am loving the greatness of the “Tivo”/DVR.

The Directv R15 DVR
Well all was going well when adding the extra satellite line. I run all my cables myself. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to run your own cables in your house. So I get the extra line for the DVR installed and the extra phone line. I come down the first time and I can’t fish the phone cable down from out of the wall. This is after I’ve been up in the 140 degree attic for over an hour and after I threw up. I go back up, fish the cable down again. I’m in the clear. I go to step off the beam onto the plywood and one of my recent fears materializes. We had a guy from our church fall through the ceiling and nearly die. The safety engineer at my office did the same thing and now he walks with a limp and a cane. For some odd reason he comes into the bathroom same time I do to “evacuate” the solid material and I’m always in the handicap stall. I feel aweful. I think he waits for me to walk in. I feel aweful about being in the stall, not that I’m going potty.

My leg plunges through the kitchen ceiling. Wife and daughter were underneath. Little a spends the next week telling me I need to “fix your hole Maudy” and my wife is kind of livid. You see her teachng friends husband’s all did the same, but in the attic over the garage. I like the kitchen, I guess. So I don’t get to fix it, my FIL, “The Field Marshall” gets too. It’s almost done except the texture and the paint. BTW – the stripe thing is a towel to keep the air IN the house.

What else …

In a compassionate act of self sacrifice Little a’s teacher reached to protect Little a from a flying object thrown by a deviant 3 year old. In the process, Little a gets scratched by her teacher. Teacher felt worse than we did. Little a’s new phrase is, “You wanna piece of me, cause I want a piece of you!” No joke!

This is Little a and I playing play doh. Notice her “special jammies”. My wife has special jammies she wears for me now and then. I have no picture of that, well, I might, but you’re not supposed to know.

My mom’s sugar cookies. The recipe is from a 50’s era Southern Living cookbook. Yes, scratch and ohhh so yummie.

Big game this weekend. My school versus the school I work at. Let’s hope I don’t get beaten too badly or we don’t beat them too badly. I have 3.5 pounds of frog legs if you want to share!

And So Here We Are

Well, here we are, five years later and we don’t have a police state, martial law or much disruption in our daily lives, unless you fly. I’ve been thinking about this post for a couple of weeks without a inclinkg of an idea what I wanted to say. Right now I’m listening to Jibbs “Chain Hang Low”, a fine ebonics master piece.

What I remember, and Andy may need to help me out on the specifics was what September 11th was like in 2001. I wasn’t married and in the death throws of the preparations for our wedding. Although it was small, I did the brunt of the footwork since my now wife was/is a teacher. I woke up at 5:30 and took a brief walk around the neighborhood.

What struck me most about that day was how ABSOLUTELY PERFECT the weather was. So much so, I had pulled the top down on my Jeep. After a quick shower and getting dressed I took off for work. I took the long way, of course, because it was such a gorgeous day and as usual, I had nothing to do at work.

At the intersection of Colins and Green Oaks, I was thinking about what a nice day it was and probably thinking about the wedding and going to San Francisco for our honeymoon. My cell phone rang and it was Andy.

AI : “Dude, have you been watching the news?”

Me: “No why?”

Ai: “My dad said a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.”

Me: “No way, really?”

AI: “Ya!”

And that’s about all I can remember of that conversation. I had wished I had switched on the radio to 1310 KTCK The Ticket. It’s a sports radio station, but from what I understood, they scrapped their schedule and covered it completely. I went on to work not thinking too much about it, only as something that was going to be on the news later on.

I drove through DFW airport on my way to work. To give you an idea how big DFW airport is, you can fit Manhattan inside the airport. It takes about 10 minutes to drive through it. During that trip I usually watched a few planes land. Mostly McDonald Douglas MD-80’s and Stretch 80’s. I remember there being a TON of planes landing that day. The next day, the runways were filled with planes. Just sitting there. It would remain that way for days.

My sister worked for the FAA years ago and I remember thinknig about how she would have been in ultra high mode during all this. I found a really good account of what happened that day. It’s a good read. Now I can see this post is already getting long, but if you have the time, please watch the videos posted and read the links if you can. You’ll look at all of this MUCH differently.

I remember going into the office and noticing how quiet it was. About every 10 minutes, you could hear a plane land and they did right over our building. You notice from the picture, we were right below the flight path. For the next few days it was deadly quiet. No planes no noise.

That evening after watching buildings burn and collapse. I went out to my yard to just reflect on the day. The neighbors would poke their heads out or scurry in from their cars. Cars were packing the gas stations to refill their cars. As they saw it. Gas was going away tomorrow. I guess there will always be jittery folks.

In the front yard, we heard an F15 scrambled from the Joint Reserve Base ( Carswell ) in Fort Worth. It was a terrifying thought. The sound juxtaposed against the silence was not only alarming, but caused panic being so close.

I have a lot of thoughts about those days, maybe the most prominent was yesterday’s headline in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “The Last Normal Day”. I think now we live in greater awareness. We are more like Europe and the Middle East than we think.

For years we thought the Atlantic and Pacific would protect us. They never have.

Please share your 9/11 thoughts.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~~+

Where Were You

Angry American

Have You Forgotten – Daryl Worley

Patriot Game – Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

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Loose Change

Chronology of Events

This is probably the best documentary I have seen. It makes you really think.

You guys crack me up

Either I’m a really good liar or I explain directions very poorly. Kristie was the only one to get the concept correct as well as 90% of the answers. She’s in web work and I’m surprised she missed the whole porn web host thing. As far as the truthfulness of my answers here are the results.

1. True
2. True
3. False
4. True
5. True
6. True
7. True ( http://www.getodd.com/stuf/stupid/woodchuck.html )
8. False Correct answer is 5:00 AM
9. False
10. True

Sorry Lee Ann, I didn’t kill anyone in the Gulf War, although a friend and I debated joining while we were in college. Glad we didn’t because the war would have been over by the time we got to boot camp.

Thanks goes out to Beth from “So The Fish Said” for the idea.

Survey Says

Per the last post here are the answers to the questions you asked. Please note you must flesh out which are real and which are false an let me know in the comments.

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

Answers:

1. Fred: “Have you ever thought about quitting your blog and spending the hours somewhere else?”

Yes, Fred, I have. But it’s really more like minutes. I would like to spend my time with some fnancial return, unfortunately, my employer frowns upon running businesses from work. Honestly, I have contemplated many times running a porn site as every web administrator has. The money is quite lucritive if you you find a niche. Let’s just say I would never really need to work again. For example, take the guy who ran whitehouse.com. He sold it for millions because he didn’t want his daughter to have to say in career day, “Ya, my dad runs a very famous porn
site.” And now you know why web admins aren’t running more porn sites. I have had offers for partnerships, but have never wanted to take them up on it. I wanted to be involved in the photography and the setup and the Mrs. actually gave me the guilt inspiring, “Do whatever you need to do” once and that kills any project motivation.

2. TD3K: “If I were to tell you that I had a ‘revelation’ from God, would you be obliged to believe it as the truth?”

Hmmm, ya know, I would have to take you on your merits. Who knows what’s in the hearts of men? I would also have to place your revelation up against the plum line of Holy Scripture to see if it matched up to God’s word. If for instance yoru revelation was that you should kill all babies under 12 months, I would say you probably didn’t have a revelation. Although I do believe man is inherently evil, or rather, selfish – which is evil – I have to admit I don’t know and have never lived the experience you had. There are many supernatural events that happen every day we never hear about and if it happened to you it happened. If you were to try to solicit money from me, I would tend to be more skeptical.

3. Lee Ann: ” What is the most outrageous illegal thing you have done? :)”

Since it’s been longer than 7 years and it was in a state of war I can now say what it was. During the first Gulf War, I was with the Marines that lead an exercise to simulate an anphibious landing. The real action was a flanking maneuver by the French and Americans on the Iraqi right flank ( our left ).

Seaborn landings are not very successful, so it was a good bluff by Gen. Schwarztkoff to draw attention from the real offensive. We landed in our amphib crafts, my kevlar pot on my head. We took small arms fire here and there and I saw a few buddies take a round or two, but nothing serious. We saw an Iraqi Republican Guards grab a woman in the area and used her for a human shield. That will piss any Marine off.

Well, we had the guy surrounded and our chaplain starts talking to the guy trying to get him to let the woman go. He wouldn’t and started saying something in Iraqi or whatever they speak. Never did get that figured out. My Captain gave strict orders to not fire unless fired upon. We were really just trying to talk this guy down. Well, he tosses her to the ground and puts a round in her – right through the skull – and takes off running.

That’s stuck with me for years because she was this really beautiful Kuwaiti teenager. Just out for a stroll or something. You never know when fate steps in. I lost it. I start chasing him down and telling my seargent to move on to the objective. There was nothing in front of us and I could see him moving away. I went prone and put a round in his leg to wound him. I wanted him alive.
Once he was hobbled I caught up with him and kicked in his teeth. I cut his beard to humiliate him as best I could with my knife and told him to get up. I fired off two more of his rounds in the air and then shot him execution style so it would look like it was a small fire fight.

The girl ended up being the daughter of a local politician, it was her 16th birthday.

That would have gotten me a courtmartial, but I figured no one saw and they heard the exchange of gunfire and no one questioned me later. There is honor in war, but yahoo had none.

4. K: “Why would we want to ask you a question?”

I don’t know.

5. Hope: ” Where do babies come from?”

The vagina

6. Mojo: Since you are receding as I am, what will be your future option:

A. toupee
B. comb over
C. short as it is now
D. a mullet
E. Transplant
F. Other

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I don’t have a receding hairline. I know id doesn’t look that way, but I have a pic that shows I have a high forehead. I’ll do what I always planned to do as my hair thins, nothing. I don’t even put anything in my hair. Haven’t since 1988.

7. Heather: “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

I think we’re getting off track here.

The answer to this age old question has perplexed people for eons. Part of the reason the question is so difficult to answer is that the amount of wood that woodchucks would chuck on a given day varies greatly with the seasons and with the metabolisms of any individual woodchuck.

The results of this monitoring are shown below. Please note that the numbers vary due to the dispositions of the woodchucks involved.

Average amount of wood a woodchuck would chuck in a given day 411 butt cords of wood.

Median amount of wood a woodchuck could chuck in a given hour 288 butt cords of wood.

Record high for woodchuck wood chucking of 347 butt cords was attained on 6-15-1996.

8. Phats: “What time do you get up every morning?”

Well, since I’m a former Marine I wake about 4:30 every morning and do some PT.

9. Anonymous: “What happened to Hopesbigeyedfish?”

I have been in contact with Hope recently discussing some Dave Matthews Band stuff. I asked why she quit blogging. It kind of stunned me. You know she recently went to his concert in up state New York. While she was there she got a back stage pass. Hope got to meet DM and they started talking about what Hope does, interior designer or something. He was thrilled. It seems his tour bus needed remodeling and he was looking for a fan to do the design. But, given his sense of humor, he said she had to take a leave of absense for about a month and live on the road with the band, ( she could bring Jeff along ) and then design the bus. DM would cover all her expenses and lost wages. So she’s on the DM bus somewhere designing the interior and having a blast at the concerts while DM isn’t on the bus.

10. Beth: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I don’t like the thought of growing up. Honestly, I do want to go into medicine. I kid you not. I wanted to be a doctor before I went to college. I have the aptitude to be a brain surgeon, but never followed through. They offer a good nurse anesthatist program at the university I work for. I’d also like to be a plastic surgeon. Really. I think if I did that I would have to wait for Little A to get a little older before I started. Can you imagine getting to look at boobs all day and women pay you?