Our 13 year old, taught me a new word.....

I cooked one of our thirteen year old's favorite meals last night. Chicken breast, Lipton chicken rice, and cooked carrots with brown sugar. We add barbecue sauce to the chicken.

She enjoyed it with some milk with about a cup of Nestle Quick mixed into it.

Flash forward to about 9:45 PM. She's almost ready for bed, when she headed out to the garage and the refrigerator out there. We keep drinks in it. She has ICB creame soda, root beer and Canada dry ginger ales. We tell her to drink milk and not sugar drinks at bed time. She then informs me that she needed the ginger ale to settle her stomach. Seems she had just had a burp. Except she had a new term, at least it was to me. "Dad...I need the ginger ale because I just burped and it was BABY BARF"

I started chuckling. I've not heard that term before.

Next time, I just open the door

Here at work, they have us stacked like cord wood in the cubes. There is zero privacy, so everyone lurks in the stairwells to use cell phones. Or, they head outside. I prefer outside for very private conversations, but weather can present an issue. About twice a day, I head outside to walk about the parking lot. On this mornings exit, there was some person pacing fast right outside the exit doors. He was having a very, VERY animated conversation in some foreign language. There were arms waving everywhere. I went for the right hand door. Nope, he was in front of it. I went for the left door, nope he was there. I pause 1.3 seconds in hope that this ping-pong person, and I would be out-of-step and I could exit. Nope, he’s to fast for me. I finally just pop the door open an inch. He screeches to a dead halt and then GLARES at me. He then went back to yelling and waving. I guess it was the new iPhonepodcamTVtoothbrushcombtissue model and the other person must have been able to see all the gesturing.

Number Ten envelops – a new aggravation

I get home from work and tackle the mail. I do this as I’m watching the early news and changing into non-work cloths. I try and handle all mail only once. Junk mail goes straight into the trash can, which is the shredder also. Bills get reduced to just the return slip, which I then use to set up the electronic funds transfer. I shred the rest. Statements and such get stapled together for filing. Some of the junk mail solicitors seem to have started a new trend in the number ten envelops they use. Regular number tens have the fold over flap to the rear. That way, you place the stamp, return address and address on the front which has no fold on it. These new junk mail envelops, have the sealed flap on the front. I guess the mailing machine doesn’t have a problem printing the address on the front and then sealing it and running it through their automatic stamping machine. What I get annoyed at is that I’m programmed to glance at the return address to see who is sending me something, and then flip it over to tear open the flap and remove the contents. With this new junk-mail number ten, I find myself turning it over and then searching for the flap. And then turning it back over, where the flap is on the front. I might just save myself another three seconds and forget opening it. Just tear it in half and toss into the trash can.

You can always tell when school is about to start up..

Today is Sunday, August 24, 2008. The last day of summer break for the school district. Kids are in a total "bummer" mode. On the way to church this morning, we drive through an upper middle class neighborhood. They have a fountain.











At least they didn't dump in the blue dye and shoot for the full Tidy Bowl look.

Chupucabra – the Goat Sucker of Texas in our back yard?

I should submit this grainy photograph to the local news and let them flood the AP news lines with it. Recently, there was a video of the famed Chupucabra, or Texas Goat Sucker, in the news. Our house seems to attract wildlife. I think it is the gallon buckets of water and dry cat food my wife insist on leaving out. We have a skunk family. We have a few armadillo’s, several possums (those are one ugly creatures…) and for the last few years, a FOX. Yes, that grainy photo isn’t a chupucabra, but a fox. Between it being 9:30 PM at night and the fox was being rather skittish; the photo didn’t come out well. I wonder if the skunks weren’t about either. The fox probably wants no part of the skunks. I didn’t use flash either, as that would have frightened it off. The fox has managed to frighten a 13 year old out for an early morning jog. He thought it was a coyote, which we also have about. Another neighbor, a hunter, breathlessly rang our doorbell one Sunday. He and his daughter had noticed the fox at the house next to ours, and watched as it went through a hole in the fence into our back yard. I think the neighbor was disappointed when I replied “Oh, yeah, the fox. He’s been around a few years. He sleeps in the bushes back there. Our cats and he seem to be friends. The crazy squirrel hates them all”.
A few weeks back, I was in our back yard trying to get some water on our bushes. That was when the temperatures were 107! I noticed Mr. Fox, trot across our back yard. He saw me, paused, and then kept going. He went under one of my trailers and then laid down to watch what I was doing. Following Mr. Fox was one of our cats. The cat made it to the shade, but not under the trailer. The cat then decided to show the fox, that if you roll around on your back, on the concrete driveway, that you get a nice scratch, maybe the human will pet you, or, better still, FEED you! The fox had a look on it’s face of “what is that cat doing?”
Maybe we should sell tickets to the zoo in our back yard.

Olympics - Bob Costas or ???

So the 2008 Olympics are a happening in China. It's been fun to watch. This past Friday night, we took some Papa John's Pizza over to some old friends home. Their son has had a very rough patch, with a collapsed lung! While sitting and talking, we were also half watching the Olympics. Bob Costas kept coming on and talking. The lady of the house, mentioned that "something is just not right with that guys hair". I had "one of my moments" as my wife calls them. And I blurted out "Yeah, He's working on that Herman Munster look". About five minutes later, the laughter died down.

You be the judge.

Add some bolts and a scar......

Funny and surprising video about guitar books and the chord charts.

Lets see. Mark Knopfler of Dire Straights doing Money for Nothing.
Lemmy Kilmister of MotorHead doing Ace of spades
David Gilmore of Pink Floyd doing Another Brick in the Wall
Mark King of Level 42 doing Listens in Love.
Gary Moore doing Parisians Walkways.