Nine Things

Here are nine things I probably already told you.

1. I won a tennis tournament at 10 and a city baseball championship at 15 or sixteen. I tried coaching, but I can’t stand the parents.

2. The most pain full injury I have sustained was a broken knee cap. Topped only in pain by kidney stones.

3. My aptitudes match that of a lawyer and a brain surgeon. I chose computers. I would like to be a plastic surgeon one day.

4. I play 2 musical instruments, trumpet and guitar. I want to learn 2 more; piano and french horn.

5. I have never lived outside of the state of Texas. If I did, I would want to try Tennessee, Georgia or Colorado. California would be nice, but too pricey.

6. My very first job was selling programs for a minor league baseball team at age 12. I progressed to popcorn the next year. It was one of the best jobs I ever had. My first paycheck was $112.

7. I love my dogs, I have always had one, but I really liked raising fish.

8. I like my tuna fish sandwiches with miracle whip, tuna, Cheeto’s and toasted white bread.

9. I love to nap and sleep.

Vengence is Sweet

Thanksgiving Memories

Some Eye Candy

I’ve had some good little nuggets of eye candy lately I wanted to share.

By far this was my favorite sign I saw on the donut shop window. My town has a very large population of Vietnamese and Korean immigrants. They all own dry cleaners and donut shops and sandwich shops. That’s a fact, not a racist comment and TD3K and AI can back me up on that. I just loved the wording on this though. ( Notice the grammatically correct placement of the comma after the word “but”. )

This was another cameraphone favorite. Something about the word “Clampitt” that makes me giggle. Kind of like Moe from The 3 Stooges would say something like, “Shut your clam pit!”

And no post would be complete without a picture of my awesome kid and her cuteness. My mom made her a pilgrim costume for her feast ( which was a croissant with turkey, 3 cubes of cheddar a hand full of grapes and 3 gingerbread cookies ) That’s high livin’ for a 3 year old!

Ya, well this is what comes up when you Google “Naughty Pilgrim”! eCostumes.com is kind of funny! I’m going to ask my wife why she didn’t wear this to the church pre-school feast!?!?!?!?

The Edge (Formerly Thunderfish) Christmas Card Picture

Every year we trek over to TFM’s compound and take the family portraits for Christmas cards. I usually end up being the one to pose people. This year was tough. Mrs. Edge/Thunderfish wanted us all to wear black, red or white. Go Tech, BIL didn’t like it, he’s an Ag. Anyway, when you take pictures you don’t want a lot of contrast ( black/white). I had the toughest time with this.

And here is the second photography lesson. Triangles. Yes, try to arrange people so that eyes and chins and shapes make triangles. Notice the triangles in this picture although not perfect you can see them. And check out M’s eyes! Incredible color on them. If M’s head had been between the Mrs. and H then it would have come out a little better. Not sure why she leaned.

Lesson 3 is this. Three or more people, shoot normal, one ior two then you need to rotate the camera 90 degrees. I broke the rule on this picture and shot it portrait, but notice if you take a picture of 2 people, it looks better if you rotate the camera 90 degrees. Anyway, here’s your Christmas card pic!

And a free nickel if someone can spot something about H that was in last year’s pic.

Home Schooling

A few years ago I tried to satiate a need to do something that would both earn me money and act as a soothing hobby. I turned to woodworking. TFM is a good woodworker so I figured I could bond and learn a skill, impress my wife with some extra cash and get away from a small house of kids at the same time. I built small wooden boats kids could build and float int he tub or at the park. My mom made the sails and I made the mast and hull. I know nothing about sailing. I bought a $100 band saw and went to work on a $3 2×4. I made 10 boats and sold them for $10 a piece. I made roughly $110. I broke even or was actually in the hole considering that I spent money on material for sails and screws and string and mast material. But it taught me a valuable lesson. And that was?

You can’t turn a profit or produce a profitable product unless you can do it on a large scale. In economics it’s called an economy of scale. We’ll come back to this thought soon.

I’ve recently been on a small tirade about home schooling. It seems my mailbox was crowded the other day by a well meaning individual praising our church for having such a great community of people who home school their kids. Some of you may be home schoolers or teach your children at home. I am against this movement. I don’t like it and I don’t think we have defined what we are really trying to do with home school – herewith referred to as “HS”.

Foolishly, I wrote the woman back and said, “I think home schooling is bunk” in so many words. First, socially, these kids are not around other kids and don’t learn social skills. Second, religiously, you are taking the “salt and light” out of a world that needs it, third, I have not found a study supporting or denouncing either side, fourth you are vilifying a group that doesn’t need to be vilified – the teacher, and last, you are taking the kids out at the wrong level if you want to avoid all the bad stuff in school.

The one thing I have never heard about any of it is substantial facts. Both sides like to say kids do or do not turn out better. I think we have not defined the issue completely. I think the issue is student to teacher ratio. If you really want to teach a kid you can’t really expect him to learn in a class of 30 kids. Maybe when they are older, but not in elementary school. I believe more kids get lost from over-crowded schools than anything else.

Second, when you really get to the meat of issues like abortion and creationism and socially related hot topics, you don’t do that in Elementary school. You do that in high school or junior high and that’s where these home schooled kids re-enter the world, socially unequipped to handle this.

And now back to the economics lesson, really its good. We’ll suppose HS parents want to keep their kid out of school all the way through, which is rare, but we’ll say that. You can’t tell me they are capable of teaching English, Chemistry, Physics, Calculus and Biology at a senior level enough to prepare them for college. So what do you do? You find other HS’ers who can teach these topics. And then there are other kids there learning this and what you really have is just a private school because you can’t handle the amount of work that must be done to effectively give these kids an education.

Or you can send your kids to public school ( like we do ), take responsibility for teaching them social skills ( don’t fight with other kids, keep your hands to yourself, stay out of trouble ) and teach them your values yourself ( which we do as M has an AMAZING view of abortion which she stands up for every chance she gets ). You see the small student teacher ratio happens at home and in the classroom.

As I remember this came about from James Dobson years ago when there was a heated debate about what’s taught in school. Like cattle a group sang the stupid chorus of “Pull them out pull, them out, we don’t know why, but pull them out,” and started this horrific movement. I will give this to the argument. There are SOME kids who benefit from this, but they are in rare groups. The average person does not contain the educational or licensed background to teach children at home. And usually they are biased because they are their parents.

Therefore, I’m against home schooling.

I found the cheerleader picture when
I Googled Home School.

The Urinal Game

At lunch today I ran into my restroom twin. When I worked in another building on campus, this guy and I had bm’s at the same time of day. Never failed. What makes it awkward is that he’s handicapped and I like the handicapped stall.

This may not appear as and issue to the ladies, but for men this is an issue. If I was first and needed to “take court on the throne” in the guy’s world, you take the handicap stall. It never failed if I went in first he was there a minute behind me.

I admit I was slightly ashamed to be caught in there with good legs and all , but he had a cane, and I’m just rationalizing. I was a jerk and I just don’t like the small stall.

And I’m glad I’m not a woman, because the stories I hear about your restrooms makes me wonder who REALLY is the more civilized of the two genders. All that hovering and squatting is just almost too gross to write about.

Quite honestly, the men’s room is a whole set of complicated rules. It’s like baseball, where it’s all situational and instinctual. You know, man on first and one out and the ball is hit to right field, where do you throw the ball?

Rule #1 is no talking and just as important is rule #2 is no peeking. Rule #2 could easily be tied and be a second rule #1, but hey, someone has to be the line leader.

It’s so complicated, I don’t even think I can explain it. But some genius has put this together in a game called “The Urinal Game”. Every guy I know who has played it all say that they get it 100% right. You just have genetic instincts on which urinal to choose. Take a look and tell me it’s not complicated to be a guy.

http://gamescene.com/The_Urinal_Game_game.html

Last Night I Ran Into My (Imagined) Ex-Girlfriend

I sat on the couch this evening. My daughter nestled snug under my arm watching a home movie of her mother’s kindergarten class. I had just finished an article in GQ about a guy who went back to experience his high school 15 years later. It was all fluff and nonsense compared to what was going on in my mind, my soul, my inner sanctum. And now it’s 10:48 PM and I’m here writing about it.

You see this whole name change and move and disruption in my life and yours can be accredited to a former friend who decided to run home to his mommy after leaving his wife. It seems this is his second wife he has up and left because he couldn’t handle things. Things like his wife’s weight gain his inability to express his unrest, his unhappiness with his job. He’s now at the stage of making stories up to feel better about his poor decisions. His latest involves me, and the anger is slowly creeping up from my inner soul to the pit of my already tender stomach.

The old adage of glass houses and stones and throwing is really popular in my memory right now. It seems his accusation is that I had an affair with his wife and took nude pictures of her. Mmmm, ya, that’s what I do to a good friend’s wife. Forget the act itself, when did either of us have time or the opportunity to do this? Why even justify or attempt to validate his accusation by attempting to piece a flimsy story together, because it never happened.

What upsets me is how absurd it is. To say I’m not attracted to his wife would hurt my friend who is already hurting. But it would be the truth. I’m not attracted to her in that way and I never have been. This is a desperate man trying fruitlessly to salvage his imagined dignity and trying to drag as many down as possible.

Instead of confronting me months ago he ran home to his mommy in San Diego and made his accusation miles away because he knew I would find him if he was here and have a VERY adult conversation with him involving legal fees and law enforcement.

As my wife slowly fell asleep I really thought out loud if I had lost my compassion. Had I turned my soul into the solid rock of hate? Did I not see other sides from behind my anger? It just really made me angry, sad for my friend who is dealing with her own troubles whom I desperately want to genuinely help. But now because of her cowardly husband I am rightfully powerless. It’s not my fight to enter into, and it never was, but I so want to enter that gladiatorial ring to slay the dragon.

And how did I dodge these bullets myself? Why do some couples stay together and some don’t? My wife and I have been through tons of stuff far greater than this guy and we made it through. Like parenting, I’m learning, slowly, that marriage isn’t for cowards. I’ve always said, marriage is a crap shoot and now it’s just a little more real.

Usually, I wouldn’t write about a friend’s troubles publicly. I would have much rather posted about funny stuff or how much I don’t like UT or even about my bowel movements, but some days are sad. Very sad and they are part of life just as much as winning the lottery or having birthdays. And some how, some way, we must all find a way to make peace with both.

My post where I try to offend everyone

This from Yahoo:

“ADRIAN, Mich. – Two Lenawee County Jail officers have been fired after authorities say they urged an inmate to strip and run naked around his cellblock in exchange for a piece of cherry pie. “We took decisive action,” Sheriff Larry Richardson told The Daily Telegram.”

My question is, “What would he have done for coconut cream pie?”

I must have a beef with Yahoo! today. I wish they would stop posting these types of pictures. My open letter to them is this, “Dear Yahoo!, Please stop posting stupid pictures like these. They may be popular, but they are gross or stupid. I don’t like animal movies or animated movies or animated animal movies and these are like still shots from some dumb Disney knock-off of ‘Bambi’.”

Dougie’s out of the closet. Could have knocked me over if you ever saw “Harold and Kumar” or “How I Met Your Mother”. I guess Dougie’s little friend Vinney had something to do with this. Maybe med school drove him to it. But where he sticks his willie? I dont’ care, I wonder if anyone really does.

Here’s an email snippet I had today about being from Texas:

Trust me, living in Texas is no better. … Every other episode of Cops is in Fort Worth. It’s good PR they say … hmmmph. Go to Colorado and tell someone you’re from Texas or to any other state outside our little 5 and you’ll get, “So do you own an oil well or ride a horse to work?” My response is generally, “Did I say Texas, I meant, Nebraska.” What I’m thinking inside is, “No, dumb$h1t, no one does that; not even on Gunsmoke.”

And speaking of Oklahoma, …

I was listening to Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” and found that this ad on Anywho.Com syncs up almost perfectly. ( The little blue lady dances in the ads, which I hate all these ads where silouhette people dance.)

Beth Of "So The Fish Said" and "Playground Dropout"

So The Fish Said

Playground Dropout

I really like to do interviews. I really do. It’s fun to get to know the people I read about in a one on one setting. One blog of interest I read whenever I can is Beth of “So the Fish Said” and “Playground Dropout” Her wit and shenanigans usually keep me in stitches with stories of “The Hottie Pediatrician” and her “Ass Jeans”. And she’s a great photographer to boot. Honestly, I didn’t think she would grant me the interview. My thought was, “She’s just too big time for a Thunderhead interview, why would she want to?” Well, I was wrong; big time wrong. Beth is a down to earth kind of person you grew up next door to and a great interview. Her husband Chris, of Rude Cactus, is incredibly lucky as is their daughter Mia. So without further …