The Nerdy Redneck

Poor Timmy!

2012-01-25T07:20:00.000-08:00

Haley! Timmy is trapped in the old Gunter mine! Go get help Haley, HURRY!

Wat'chu talking 'bout?

"Why? Why should *I* go help?"
"Well... because Timmy is your friend?"
"Really? And just why is Timmy my friend? Because he knows my name? Because I allow him to pet me? Because he gives me some of his hot dog from time to time? No! That makes me his servant not his friend!"

Yeah! Right! I'll get right on it!

"You are going to have to do better than that "He's your friend" shit! "
"Then do it because I said so!"
"HA! You don't even have body hair! You can't be MY alpha! So in your dreams bizarrely shaped hairless one! I in the meantime I am going to lay on your bed while you are trying to change the bedding and fart on your pillow for even asking me to do such a dumb-ass thing!"

I'll be rich in no time now!

2012-01-23T19:24:00.000-08:00

Seeing my stock broker reduced to such depths yesterday really hit home for me. I mean a one time very successful financial whiz reduced to panhandling out in the street really got me to thinking.

In the art of business when you see a need you strive to provide something to fill that need!

Clearly there is need out there but what can I, one little nerdy redneck, do to fill it?

Yeah, I think this is really the thing!

Times are TOUGH!

2012-01-22T19:51:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I went to see my stock broker. I usually do this stuff online but he was paying me for a change so I had to go see him.

I keyed the address into good old Map quest and I thought "Great! Out in front of the mall. THAT will really help narrow down where to find him in the mall! STUPID MAP QUEST!" Here see for yourself... (click pic to embiggen if you wish. (yeah, I make up words, leave me alone!))

I mean right smack dab in the middle of the road. C'mon!!

Well after a few laps around the building. I called him again and he said he had seen me drive by three times and look south, can I see him waving. Oh Shit! There he was! I had been avoiding eye contact with him which turned out to be really embarrassing in the end

My Broker!

WOW. Retractions all the way around.... Map Quest is dead on! He was in the road! I'm sorry Map quest...

MMMMMmmm, I shore do loves me some humble pie y'all!

Random Shorties today...

2012-01-20T11:27:00.000-08:00

I have a lot to do today and I have thought up a few this week none of which is long enough to make a decent post so I'm just gonna group up the shorties here...

There has been conjecture that perhaps Jesus was actually married. I just realized he was not. How do I know? When he was resurrected he actually left the tomb. A 33 year old married man would have been happy in the silence of the tomb. "Thank you father but I always wanted a man cave, I'll just hang here a while."

Social issues:

So why, why is it that now we call Killer Bees "Africanized". They used to just be killer bees. Just out of curiosity are they gonna kill us with AIDS, famine or civil war. Maybe they will just cut off our hands?

So Why, WHY is an Orca which is only half black still a "killer" whale? Hmmmmmm? So does that make Obama a killer President? I mean other than the economy.

Why, why is it that the black cereal makes you go Koo Koo but the white cereal is Grrrrrrreat!

I HAVE THE POWER!

2012-01-19T14:21:00.000-08:00

My wallet was stolen last November. The credit cards were replaced within 10 days.

I am still waiting for a new a drivers licence. I was in Illinois then. I got online and sure enough I could get a duplicate issued and mailed ONLY to my home from the website. Makes sense and no problem-o because then my son could send it to me up north.

Ironically I had to wait for a credit card to be re-issued so I could use it on the website to pay the fee for a duplicate licence. :)

So in December I still don't have a licence so I check my credit card statement and the modest payment to the state of Texas never hit so I assumed I somehow or another did not complete the website correctly. You know some silly like not hitting the confirm button AFTER hitting the submit button. (Being a UNIX guy the plebeian "Are you sure?" thing of the GUI baby universe often throws me off! ;) )

So I hit the Texas "Department of Public Safety" (State Police) website again and ran through the process again looking hard for the "confirm: or the "are you really, really, REALLY sure" button and I am pretty sure I got it right this time.

So along comes January and still no licence (several blog posts detailing many Christmas travel adventures with no valid ID will be written, this I SWEAR!) So I get online again and I get a big red box saying call this phone number. Well it turns out I have been flagged for trying to get two drivers licences online and now I have to come in person to get it.

No problem, I moved home over Christmas so a in situ meeting is not the issue it would have been in Nov. or Dec. So I head on over.

The line stretches out the door into the parking lot. thank goodness it was a nice Texas day, in Illinois this line could be deadly (literally). When my spot in line gets to the door I see this GEM of government think....

A tough call; laugh or cry? I chose hysterical cackling followed by sobbing in the shower when I got home.

At first I thought I could have made an appointment and not stood in line? Damn! THEN the stunning reality, the full soul crushing weight of the sign sinks in fully.... Even when you have an appointment you STILL have to stand in this line before your appointment will be "honored".

As a man who thrives on efficiency I begin to shiver, then giggle then drool while still giggling. As a defense mechanism from such madness my mind detaches and floats away into a safer happier place. Why my mind chose to "vacation" in an old vision of the LSD inspired movie "Yellow Submarine" I may never fully understand. (Click play on the song below and keep reading, its a great sound track for the surreal tale to follow)

Only after vomiting off the edge of the sidewalk do I begin to regain contact with reality and as my super-ego reconnects with the wet ware I catch myself mumbling "yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine". Whoa!

I was getting many dirty looks from my fellow line inmates for vomiting but as I wiped my mouth I simply stated, "You did not think I was going to give up my place in line for that did you?"

The dirty looks become glares.

Never one to back down in the face of reason I just growl, "You folks just better pray I don't have to poo before this is over"

No more eye contact is made with me. I have firmly establish my alpha-ness over this line herd!

Anyway, I eventually work my way up the head of the line.

Sidebar... Back in the 90's I fell in hate with our Governor here at the time, you may have heard of him. George W Bush. He signed a law requiring all Texans to give their thumbprints like convicted criminals in order to receive a drivers licences. The Prints are digitally encoded onto a magnetic strip on the back of the licence so they can swipe you license and make sure you and the licence match.

Hi big brudder! Wanna play some catch? I realize I have these old fashioned ideas about the Constitution and right to privacy and such so I was outraged. Me and perhaps four others (by my count)

Back to the present story... deep in the belly of the beast.... I reach the lady with the computer! "Ok sir, lost licence, no problem, I just need your social security card?"

"Ooooo, I don't have it on me."

"I am sorry sir, you will have to get it, we need it to identify you"

"OH!", tapping my side of her computer monitor, "You have my picture right here don't you"?

"I am sorry sir, I will need your social security card to identify you."

Pointing at the thumbprint reader "Uh, you have my thumbprints in that system there and here is a reader, you can't match that? After all that is why fearless leader Bush made us submit them right?" (sadly noting there can actually be benefits to evil which is why I suppose so many sheep accept it)

"Sir, I have to have your Social Security card to identify you."

"Do you know how easy it is to fake one of those? Do you know how long I stood in this line? Whereas the data you have in this computer is secure and I don't have to stand in line again"

"Sir, I have to have your Social Security card to identify you"

"So you are saying that if I was a mass murderer and the state police (you!) arrested me right now I would be executed as John Doe because I don't have a social Security card?

Silence.

In exasperation at the prospect of another day in line I simply say "FUCK!" and turn to walk away.
In that snotty tone only a public facing civil "servant" can use she ordered me to "watch my language"
"No ma'am! I still live in this funny place called America and I actually have the right to be rude and crude. So FUCK!!"

I'm not proud but it needed to be said... much like lancing a boil. It ain't pretty but it's utterly necessary.

OK! Irony tiiiiiiiiiiiime! Are you ready? 'cause this here is the kicker!

If I had not double submitted on the DPS (State Police) website I would have had my licence without showing my SOCIAL SECURITY CARD! Ponder on that a bit people! Let that sink in.......Yeah, I know right!?

So yesterday when I posted a much shorter and less humorous version of this rant on facebook I closed with "Rick Perry has been Governor of this state for 12 years, if this is the best our state agencies can do after 12 years of his "leadership" then he has no business being president"

Today he withdrew from the race! CNN Story Here.

BWUH HA HA HA! Can you feel my power young jedi's? I did not know I had it either but you people better start being nicer to me.

{waving three fingers....} "Its very warm in here ma'am; You want to remove your top..."

Obsolete but cool!

2012-01-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

Most of you know my fascination with history. We are all standing atop an inverted pyramid of technology.

The apex of that pyramid is the sharpened rock. Then the antelope thigh bone. With a simple thigh bone in hand to multiply strength via the lever primitive man is no longer an easy kill for every predator on the Savannah! In fact the tides turned and smart predators leave those clawless, toothless primates alone.

Towards the top of the pyramid and responsible for a huge surge towards the top is an old invention that changed the world yet many people have forgotten they even existed! I think it's time to reflect on that ancient technology if only for a moment and recognize it's genius!

BOOKS!

The acronym stands for Bio-Optical Organized Knowledge Storage.

It was a very cool concept! They wrote (then later printed) knowledge on paper frames and bound the paper stacks together and here is the key, they gave each paper frame an address! Then this is where it gets really cool! Then they used analog indexes (Yes ANALOG!) in both the front and back of BOOKS which contained analog pointers to page frame addresses inside the Knowledge Store so you could randomly access desired data without having to do sequential reads from the file header to the end-of-file marker thus eliminating full data scans resulting in a vast reduction in required I/O for a given data fetch!

It greatest flaw though was it was always a single-threaded process. Latch wait times for multiple BOOKS scans could run into minutes or even hours.

Still, it was absolutely brilliant stuff even if it is deeply obsolete now.

;)

Good thing she is pretty

2012-01-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

I have posted twice about an old girlfriend named Cindy She does not "do the Internet thing" so i can kiss and tell here.

As I posted here, at first when she could not get my name right I really did not think much of it since I have a bad case of mangled name disease myself. I mean I can remember the displacement of every engine I have ever owner and if it was an auto engine its' SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) reliability ranking. Still, I mangle names. Go figure

I first realized she may not be all that brite that when we had been seeing each other for a few months and she called up bored and wanted me to come over. I told her that Erika (my room mate of nearly 5 years at that point) had been working a lot lately, I had barely seen her in a month and she was leaving on a 2 week vacation in the morning, I wanted to hang out with her tonight and catch up. In a voice so loud Erica could hear her from across the room she demanded to know "WHO THE HELL IS THIS ERICA WOMAN!"
"Uh, my landlord slash room mate for years now."
"Oh"

That was my first real glimmer, there were many more glaring spotlights to come. We broke up last fall but remain friends.

After I moved back to Dallas.... I SWEAR TO GOD THIS IS TRUE! No exaggeration for comedic effect here! After I moved back to Dallas I got a text from her asking what my new area code was, she would like to call me but did not know my number so all she could do was text.

I swear!

Did I ever mention she used to me a model?

Redneck side feels neglected.

2012-01-07T07:14:00.000-08:00

For the last couple of weeks I have really been neglecting my redneck side. I have spent a lot of time on the computer and NOT gaming {gasp!}, I have not built anything or even destroyed anything. No off roading and no camping (since I got caught in the Memphis blizzard anyway! Does stranded at a rest stop count as "camping"?)

So for the last two weeks I have really neglected the 'ol inner redneck and he starting to get petulant. Trust me the last thing you want around is a petulant redneck!

At least one thing nerds and rednecks have in common is they are both lazy. Nerds love to call it efficiency but it amounts tot he same thing, how can I accomplish X with the least possible effort? So how can we de-peutualize the inner redneck?

Oh yeah, this makes him happy, for now at least.

That will do for now... I am back in Texas now and next weekend we have our big annual festival that is kinda geared towards rednecks. The festival title is simple..."Killin Thangs" (can you believe the spel chkr does not like our festival name what a dimmy!) That will cheer the inner redneck up tremendously. Note to self, I need ammo though, I broke open my last 1,000 round crate! EEEp!

Sonic lied and my appetite died

2012-01-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

OR

Chefs Suck Again!

So I pulled into Sonic breakfast yesterday morning! I (used to) love, Love LOVE Sonic.

I look a the menu...

Yeah! Thats the ticket for a hungry redneck clearing brush from his grossly overgrown house!

So that work of art is what I ordered . This is what I got. What the hell is THIS ?...

Lies, Lies, LIES!

I am not really sure how but I AM sure that somehow George Bush is to blame for this atrocity!

Oh, the second headline of "chefs suck again"...I am only ripping on Chefs because 3 months ago I would have eaten this without a thought. Terry you are such an asshole to feed me like a living a god for 2 months and ruin me!

Chefs SUCK

2012-01-02T14:08:00.000-08:00

Here is a post I meant to make anyway but another bloggers post about prepared food got me motivated...

Erika's residency in Springfield is nearly up and houses don't move that fast these days so I moved out Nov 1 (3 or 4 th actually and I STLL have stuff there! {sigh} being a nerd does have its downsides)

So I moved in with a new room mate, a working chef. As I moved in he began to unceremoniously go through my boxes marked "food" and throw most of it into a plastic tub labeled food bank.

"Rob, I have very few rules here but your gas station food brings dishonor to my kitchen!" (exaggeration of course)

He gave me a very short list of foods I was allowed to buy and I was starting to think I had made an awful mistake moving in here. Then he swung open the refrigerator doors and there lay before my eye was an oasis! I felt fear as some sects of Christianity claim you get your own personalized heaven after the rapture. This would be mine. When I saw this fridge I thought I had been killed (By an angry chef chucking 5 for a dollar mac and cheese into a plastic bin and had gone to my personal heaven

His fridge was full of stackable half gallon bins some with spouts some with little fold open doors. They were nearly refriderator depth and stacked neatly upon each other. They had lables like "Pulled Pork", "Baby Rays 'secret' BBQ Sauce", " Pork Chops, "Sirloin, "tender loin, "Roast beef, "Bacon, "Sausage (links), "Sausage Patties, Then in grease pencil the last "stocked on" date.

Whoa! Hello gluttoney have you met nerdy organizatrional skills? I knew you would like each other!

Then off course neat stacks of sliced chesses; pepper jack, colby, mozarella, cheddar!

Then he explaimed that one of my duties as his room mate was to help him eat food before it goes bad. He is really sick of throwing out food that is not appropriate for the food bank.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs -
What a fucking MORON!

AS I lay on the floor cunvulsing mildly and choking on saliva my sadness at no longer having hot women room mates began to fade...Just a little though; Everyone (should) know the male hierarchy of needs for happiness... sex THEN food THEN machines - DUH! (Oh that is why this is the most erotic picture on earth! )

As Kool aid would say - "OOOooooooooh yeah!"

As usual I drifted off track... I have been having a really good record lately on weight loss! I was immediatly scared that access to so much incredible food in nearly unlimited quantites was really going to screw up my progress.

It did not!

Terry would actually prepare me meals and I would not INHALE them! I would portion them up and eat them over a day or two though. My weight loss continued while I continued to eat, meal after meal, the best food I have ever had over a continuous period in my life! It was like "sunday dinner" with the extended family as a child but 21 meals a week! (flashback! post roast, mashed potaotes and grandma's noodles and home made dinner rolls! (Damn, more drool in the keyboard) but terry's left overs brougth home were that good!)

The first morning I was there Terry asked if I wanted some coffee as I dressed for work. "Sure buddy!"

"Cream and sugar?"

"Yeah!"

I sat at the kitchen table and nearly chocked on my coffee! It was the The Best Coffee I have ever had! "My god Terry!! OK, so what kind of "chefs seccret do you use to make your coffee so good!"

"Huh? It's just Folgers and a Mr. Coffeee"

"Huh? BULL!"

We may say "cream and sugar" in our cofee or tea. Have you ever had real life actual HEAVY CREAM and SUGAR in a cup of coffee! I have not and grew up on a farm (I have heard you can get a cup of coffee like this at Starbucks but being hetero I have never been to a Starbucks)

While I ate all the gormet food I wanted everyday I continued to loose weight.

Then I packed up and left springfield for Dallas. I got caught in a blizzard and spent a day in a rest stop (full post forthcoming!) I started eating gas station food again! Burritoes and 2 dogs for 2 bucks etc. I had no problem with portion control but I would consume the portions is shorter order. I begandto be hungry too often again. Now back in Dallas with a fridge full of "normal" food I am not gaining but weight loss has stopped and it is a struggle again.

I formed a hypothesis. Unlike the uneducated who believe in global warming, the inherent superiority of Japanese cars or that the problem with American education is that we don't spend enough money on it I BELIEVE in science and the scientific method.

1. I have observed a phenomena.

2. I have asked some questions and done some research.

3. I have formed a hypothesis.

However I would like to see some experiment confirm my hypothesis then like a REAL scientist publish my results and have independent confirmation of my repeatable results before I go around making asinine announcement of my "conclusions". (Thus making me more of a real scientist than many who call themselves scientists in this very dark age of politically correct "science") *

My hypothesis is that a a very good satisfying meal (much work to be done to lock down the definition of good but it has nothing to do with the common perception of "healthy") Will alleviate hunger pain. That overall "satisfaction" plays a significant role in satiety. Perhaps as significant a role a volume.

When I Had an omelets for breakfast with onion caramelized in butter and bacon fat, and then the main omelet cooked in bacon fat I would only eat a fraction of it and not get hungry again. Then my blackend roast beef sandwich layered with gooey pepper jack cheese, homemade (by Terry of course) mustard and mayo (OMG Who ever knew mayo had flavor and was not just a throat lubricant!? I sure as hell did not!)

My urge for afternoon snacking was gone!

For people who struggle with weight, give this a shot, eat a small but extremely delicious meal. See if the average period from meal time to begineing of hunger pains of hunger pains has a linear relationship with quality of eaten (defined by flavor!) vs quantity!

Oh yeah, the tittle, so why do chefs suck? 'Cause when you move out and have to fend for your self again food is just never the same. Terry, oh Terry, how do you make that omelet so fluffy that if it did not have meat for weight it would float away! The egg portion would melt like cotton candy leaving the onions, peppers and saudage! I'm jonesing Terry, I need my fix! {Wailing} Oh Terry don't hold out on me this way!

* I did not want to muddy the water by further wander off into bashing the junk that passes for science these days so her eis a one minute rebuttal to the idiots I hear on a daily basis. Data, oh yeah, all you "scientists" forgot that DATA is the heart of science not your arrogant repeating of what daddy told you like it is true....{disgusted sigh}

So 10 minutes of research (data, not some "journalists" OPINION) on each of my examples of really bad science above will show you

1. There is no verifiable repeatable data of global warming. In fact, just the opposite. For many years now the UN and NASA has refused to release the data or the methodologies they use to create the models they say proves global warming. Making them VERY suspect. Then of course the The East Anglia incident provided the final proof the "scientists" at the UN center for Global Warming studies were knowingly lieing and not just the piss poor scientists we all thought they were.(we being people who believe in science)

2. In quality some Japanese cars are better than some American cars and vice versa.(DUH) That list varies year to year.(DUH) Oh, In any given year the top ten most reliable cars on earth (ranked by empirical reliability data not OPINION! UGH!) always includes some American models. With makes like Rolls-Royce, Mercedes and BMW in the mix that is saying something) So anyone who makes blanket statements on the topic (Either way) is an idiot. (their idiocy being repeatable and verifiable- Sadly)

3. America spends more on primary education per pupil (BY FAR) than any other nation on earth yet we can only score above the top 20 nations on the topic of political correctness. Oh did I forget to say DUH? :) Money spent != quality but most adults already know this

(sorry for the mini rant - I can only absorb so much stupidity before my body expels it in an ugly puddle - You know, it's just like a pub crawl - Then you feel better and you listen to these children spout off for a while again without laughing in their face)

OK That SUCKS!

2011-12-31T20:34:00.000-08:00

I just went up to the convenience store to get MILK and there are beautiful people every where stocking up. I did not really think much about it it IS Saturday night after all....

Then as I ring up my 2 gallon milk purchase the clerk says "happy new years sir"
"Is this new years eve?"
"Why yes sir"
"My God I am buying milk on new years eve?"
Yes sir, but on the bright side you won't regret it tomorrow!
"Oh, you don't know me, I have a real cow on back!"

The good news for the rest of the world is there won't be any 4 am "I LOVE YOU" e-mails in any ones mail box tomorrow.

For me though that just means an other Holiday tradition shot all to hell. Damn!

I hate Dallas!

Dishonor

2011-12-28T12:01:00.001-08:00

Kwaii Lo! Your Christmas gift brings great dishonor to my house and your once proud family!

Go now in shame and pray that in the future you can perform some great task of sacrifice to wash the stain of shame from both our houses.

NOW GO!

Does your shame know no boundries Kwai Lo?

The gospel according to Steven Tyler

2011-12-28T11:53:00.000-08:00

Let us lift our heads and open our throats.. Deep breath...

Now that your spirit is cleansed click the link!

Yep, I'm back for a while! I have a bunch of what *I* think are hilarious stories queued up ad ready to go, so grab the reins and hold on

I pray to CROM!

2011-11-16T08:47:00.000-08:00

Ever seen “thereifixedit.com? It’s a site dedicated to redneck repairs.

I may have my own entry here but I don’t think it’s rednecky enough. :( Still I take enough pride in it to show it too you here!

Washing machines are pretty simple to operate, spin the knob to the correct cycle and duration then press the knob in! My ex-girlfriend ( PB02) and her room mate both liked to slap the knob though (which is why I kept her around as long as I did! AR AR!)

So they broke the plastic tabs off the switch assembly that slide into the slots of the panel and then the switch would just flap free.

I fixed it once with fiberglass and explained (and demonstrated) how you could gently press the knob but these two were dedicated knob slappers and broke it again in short order. So the next time I come over I get this lecture about how I suck at fixing things and how they called the repairman who wants $135 for a new switch (which in a perfect illustration of PB Syndrome it is somehow NOW my fault the washer is broken) .

"Conan! What is best in life?"
"To see ya enemy driven before you and to hear da lamentation ov da vemon!"

So taking a lesson from the Old movie “Conan the Barbarian” I made an invocation to Crom, the God of STEEL. By golly if plastic won’t fix a plastic part then STEEL will! So where do you find steel in the normal household?

“ Cindy, I need your oldest, crappiest fork… one that you won’t mind me destroying.”

So here is a photo of the handy work. The tines of the fork are in the steel slot where the switches plastic tab should be. The fork is bent sharply enough that there is a tremendous pre-load on it. That fork is holding that switch TIGHT against the panel!

And if Crom and steel cutlery can do one thing, they can handle a little knob slapping!

Of *COURSE* you repair delicate electrical components with bent up old forks! DER!

Looks ugly works GREAT took ten minutes to repair and cost 2 cents woth of STEEL! It's goooooood to be a redneck! MMMMmmmmm caqn you feel it? Oh I can feel it!

However estrogen and Crom are incompatible so she ended up paying the $135 and getting a new plastic switch anyway.

Did I mention Cindy is VERY pretty? I should. It s a key point I think! lol

PS unlike Erika Cinda never reads my blog! lol!

In fact here is an old post about Cindy from when I was first getting to know her!
There but for the grace of God

Ahhhhhh, Life is good!

On that note, and to ramble off of on a radam access data path, I am now 3 years older than my mother was when "the Cancer" struck her down in her 40's.
Every day is a blessing and a joy!

Too many people forget that. They have not been to enough funerals - Yet.

So that is where bad ideas come from!

2011-11-15T09:13:00.000-08:00

Freaking nature! So this is where Jack Black and Disney got the idea for those horrible kung fu panda movies eh?

Wax on Bee-yotch!

OOOOOO. Weird mental association there! But now I must go to YouTube and listen too "Sweep the leg Johny" (relating to the original Karate Kid movie). It's been years since Jules turned me on to that and every now and then I just need my fix! "Concentrate Daniel-sen! FOCUS POWER!"

Thats what I like!

2011-11-14T12:24:00.000-08:00

I remember when I was about 12 or so I went to the local bar and grill with my Papa (Pronounced Paw-paw) He was a mountain of a man, devoutly religious and soft spoken. So imagine my SHOCK when the waitres asked him how he wanted his coffee and he answered, "I like my coffee just like my women, light and sweet!"

Papa flirting with a waitress!? AS I said shocking!

However its a great joke! No matter how you like your coffee you can make it fit!

So this weekend I was able to bring a variation to the theme when I explained to my new room mate that I like my milk (moo Juice!) the same way I like my women, white and frigid!

I'm Pissed!

2011-10-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

Yes again!

You mean to tell me I been parking at the 100 acre box stores and all I had to do was just find one of these green boxes and help myself - FOR FREE!

So, who ever never sent me this memo is in for it! BIG TIME

Redneck Award #2 (The Reddy!)

2011-10-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

I humbly bow before this master of redneckdom! Here is a person who obviously has pent a lifetime perfecting the redneck arts! At first I thought it MUST be abandoned but note the contemporary decorations!

Man this guy is GOOD!

You want a twist! This shanty overlooks a very prestigious private golf course! Ya know, the kind where regardless of my income I would not be allowed to join. I am not quite as obnoxious as Rodney Dangerfield's character in Caddy Shack but I am striving to improve. I run my obnoxity flash cards and exercises every day! Someday I hope to achive the masters skill but alas, for now, I am an apprentice

CLARIFICATION!

2011-10-18T14:59:00.000-07:00

To all my dear readers.

I was a nerd last night, I was unaware of how my actions hurt someone I care about.

Those of you who have been reading for a while are well aware of how I adore Erika. I have been told more than once by readers here "even though you have never said it it's quite obvious you are in love with her whenever you talk about her!"

So to clarify Erika was not home when I was choking. I said ONE doctor was 15 feet and she was a snotty little thing. in the bedroom next to mine She was awake as well.

If Erika would have been home her bedroom is upstairs and other than my howls of agony when I break my toes on my bed legs she really can't hear what goes on in my room.

Most things on this blog are true or are "based on true events" as the tv shows say but I do try to do funny here and exaggeration (Gross enough to make it obvious exaggeration) are what makes it funny (I HOPE!)

For example, a couple of posts down I throw in some lines about how the dogs howl and the Jedi feel it when I take a dump. Nope! but that particular toilet tale is true but you gotta go big to make it laugh worthy, Otherwise ain't much funny about a painful dry bowel movement or choking in your sleep.

Erika no doubt would have found me before the kitties started in on me! (well, I do have some stuff I have attributed to spiders but we had one cat that now I think about might not wait until you were dead to start n on you! ;)

Either way, I am sorry I hurt your feelings Erika.

Rob

Cat Man?

2011-10-17T18:01:00.000-07:00

Not that long ago I Had worked real late the night before so I came straight home from work, ate some Popeye's chicken and went directly to sleep. I was really sleepy so I kinda wolfed it down. :(

Back in the early 80's commercial divers in the Gulf of Mexico were making good money on oil rigs so I got my commercial divers licence.

I was having a dream of those diving days and in my dream that something had come in through the regulator and was stuck in my lungs and I could barely get air in an out of my lungs. I was choking and it was scary! Then I woke up and I was choking on something barely able to get air! Adrenaline was flooding the system and the vision was fading. All of my instincts said to cough and force it out! I did not have enough air to force it out with a cough though! The commercial diving techniques are all that gave me the internal discipline to concentrate, focus on inhale and only inhaling until I could get a good lung full then really concentrate on that diaphragm! Then with everything I had COUGH! At the same time I slammed my chest on the hard edge of the mattress for whatever minuscule amount of velocity that chest compression might add and KAH! (well the years of Martial art might have helped a little too! (CONCENTRATE DANIAL-SON! FOCUS POWER!)
A chunk of bile-ey poorly chewed chicken pops out and I gasp and suck air, I get a few lung fulls in an out when I start to vomit , yep and through the nose too and even after dinner is on the carpet I am still gasping, gagging and dry heaving and coughing (often more than one of them at a time!) for several minutes. Then I go sit at the dining room table and for the next 15 minutes cough long and hard, the body trying to move that normally yummy Cayenne pepper and red pepper that Popeye's uses out of my burning chest and my burning sinuses. It was painful, it was LOUD and I was terrified. No doubt in my mind I was as close to death as I have ever been.

I like funny stories so this has all been the set up. So I had this vision of cats eating my carcass and my body being discovered, the story hits the paper,
"Man dies in bed eaten by cats"
(insert joke about "he had dreams and aspirations" here! HAR )
"Oh poor man so he lived alone eh?"
"Why no, he lived with two Doctors, one was less that 15 foot away while he died" (and never moved a muscle though all the gagging, heaving, choking and puking. Never even said, "You ok?", well, never even looked up)

True story.

Contrast this weekend, I was at a small party with blue collar construction workers folks I have gotten to know over the years here in springfield and had a bit of a snezzing fit. All these rough and tough folks watched in concearn and made sure I was OK. Funny it was just a one of those 5 sneeze burst things we get from time to time. Yet the concearn was genuine and the watchful eyes oh so reassuring.

You know, in spite of how most (certainly not all) doctors I know would look down at these fine hard working people, (and from my years in aviation I know many) I do not find it hard to choose which group I would rather be around the next time I hiccough in my sleep and aspirate a little chicken.

PS! OH MY GAWD! If I was not a man I would be tearing up right now! It's 755 PM and I was proofing this before posting this. I moved out of the doctors house last week and my new room mate, a lowly chef in those same disdainful eyes I mentioned a few minutes ago (Not MY eyes THOUGH!) just called me. Since it was so late and I'm not home from work yet, he just called me to make sure I was OK.

What a guy.

I'll take "the unwashed masses" anytime, thank you very much.

Thanks for checking up on me new roomie! It's nice to live with comeone who gives a shit

Oh my head!

2011-10-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

Whew! Look at all those bottles!

Man this weekend is just a blur! (as is the picture with my shaking DT hands)

That moo juice will bring you down boy-o
Or
Hi my name is nerdy redneck and I'm a teat squeezins addict (Hi Nerdy!)

We all know your trashman knows too much about you so screw him, I take all my bottles to recycle myself

Jihad!

2011-10-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

I am pretty agnostic when it comes to religion. Yet from the seemingly oddest of casual conversations my random access brain solved a centuries old religious question. (Humble aint I?) Empiricism is dead in the rest of the world (eg Global warming) but I still respect it immensely. So here is actual proof of a major religions tenet!

It all started on a first date. It seems to be one of those ‘standard’ “getting to know you questions”. Every single woman I have dated will ask, “So what do you like to eat”?

I guess this list of standardized date questions must be one of the things women hold committee and vote on during all those communal bathroom visits. ( I often wonder how single women when home alone are able to urinate without anyone there to lend support?)

Sorry, I wondered off a bit then… so the latest women in my life asks what do you like to eat? At the moment for some reason I was craving breakfast sausage so I mentioned it, then like a binary link list I just started down the chain, oh bacon and gosh ham is awesome, pork chops, BBQ pulled pork and pork ribs are to die for…

Then suddenly an epiphany! All my favorite foods are pork based. Then upon further reflection it becomes obvious that clearly the pig is the most delicious animal on the planet. I mean nearly every single cut of this animal simply burtsts with flavor!

Then the double epiphany hits! Oh....MA....GAWD! (Literally!) After centuries of debate and bloody conflict proof positive that God prefers Christians!

Picture ancient Jerusalem where three major religions were based at the same time... Imagine a vengeful God pointing his finger and mocking the poor Jews and Muslims..."

Na na na na na! I created the best tasting animal you will ever know of and YOU can't have any! HAHA HA HAAAAA!!

(This might also explains why the Jews and Muslims are still fighting for centuries now. Porkus envy! Freud was sooooo close!)

Then think of all those religions that require vegetarianism- Christians are the only religion (that I know of) that gets to sample all the wonderful delicious foods God created for us guilt free! Well except I was raised catholic and they make you feel guilt for even breathing! Shoot 30 years latter and those damned nuns still have me so messed up I still can't masturbate without guilt for making baby Jesus cry! Oh, sorry, drifting again.....

Yep, no more living in denial, Christians are clearly Gods spoilt children that get all the good presents at Christmas while the other kids get crap. Oh, well just like Christmas period! :(

Sorry all you other religions! But jump on in, the ham casserole if freaking AWESOME! There is always room for more at the table.

So I have adapted the old bible camp song to reflect the new reality:

Jesus loves me, this I know
because the ~~bible~~ pork chops tell me so!

Oh that old WWII song might have to be revisited too...

Pass the ~~ammo~~ bacon and praise Jesus! (This heathen spell checker keeps suggesting Perseus for Jesus, Perseus really? lol)

So all you Christians out there, show your love, kill a pig for Jesus today!

Ganesha.

Oh, as long as I am starting religious foment here let me add that I know from personal experience that jokes about the Hindu God Ganesha having peanut allergies are not freaking funny!

I thought the swelling and contortions made it obvious but every nerd learns sooner or later NEVER analyze some one Else's religion. :)

It not just fun- its fecal fun!

2011-10-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, for those who like to pretend that the things all our bodies do are disgusting please turn away now.

For those of you still with me I went camping for a few days last month. Which was stupid because it was still nice and sweaty hot out there! It sure looks nice in this photo though eh?!

Best of both worlds. Just kicking back! My Hybrid has a standard electrical outlet and 450 pounds of battery can drive a laptop for a loooong time! :)

So I got pretty dehydrated out there and my old colon performed flawlessly because it strained every last essence of water from my poo. In fact, as I was trying to eject this brick from my body my internal I-pod pulled up and started playing “Like a rock”

In other words this was what I call an Incredible Hulk shit. You know, you are sitting there gritting your teeth, blood vessels are bulging from head and neck, your arms are on the wall pushing, pushing whicih starts your shirt to ripping then you start to turn green from the pushing then this growling moan that hearkens back to more primitive man slips through your grinding teeth and clenched jaw! The neighborhood dogs even start howling in sympathy. Jedi half a galaxy away can feel the rippling in the force!

Then the “plunk!” that means the pain is over – for now

Yep the Incredible Hulk!

And in the pain and release of the male equivalent to child birth creativity sets and I start to laugh out out loud- I just
made up a Joke!

I love jokes but I am not a joke writer. My thing is story telling with hopefully humorous twists but I made up a real life question and answer joke right there on the ceramic throne.

Q. What do muscle cars, sex and bowel movements have in common?

A. The louder they are the better they are!

HA!

Then last week I got sick and it’s getting cold out in the early morning. So sitting on a cold throne I came up with the Bubba Gump (Blu) shit

Remember the scene in Forest Gump when Forest pulled the grievously wounded Bubba out of the jungle after he firefight? Bubba’s head is in Forest’s lap and a shivering bubba says “Forest, I wanna go home. “ then dies in his arms?

Well in the Bubba Gump shit your head is up turned and you are shivering while you squeeze it out. Adding a nice little ”Forest- I wanna go back to bed” just as it’s crowning is a lovely accessory to your celebrity shit!

Life is good!

On a related note (in my bizarre Random Access Device some people call a brain ) I read an article where suicide among mature males is increasing and they are having a difficult time understanding why.

Pfft! The “they” in question must be females because the cause is well understood by men. It’s those damned auto flushing toilets! You see, every time a toilet flushes before a man has a chance to admire the thing he just he just produced a little piece of him dies! After x-number of flushes with no closure the will to live is just sapped out of him.

It’s sad!

Back in the saddle again.

2011-10-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

Ahh back at work for the state government again!

I have actually gotten so acclimated to life at state agencies that I get this odd feeling that something is not right with the world if there are no blatant safety/efficiency issues in plain sight.

Look at this shot taken from my desk chair....

Ahhhhhh! I feel so much better now! All is right with the world!

Poor Deer!

2011-07-12T10:56:00.001-07:00

I am between Gigs at the moment so I am back home in Dallas (Frisco) Tejas sweltering!

My first day back it was 105 degrees and over 90% humidity! So much for acclimatizing!

I should not complain as the deer have it far rougher!

So thats it?

2011-07-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time science fiction was considered about par with comic books on the literary scale.

However, the field has grown and some of the best writers are in the genre and it is a respectable field of literature now.

Still, when I tell people I really love science fiction I often get very strange looks.

Well, when Erika switched to Direct TV she got ALL the movie channels for free for three months. That is something on the order of 30 movie channels. So over the long 4th weekend and following week I totally vegged out and watched a LOT of movies. Direct TV will let you search by genre so I watched a LOT of science fiction movies.

Mine Gott! Most of them were HORRIBLE. I mean like scar you for life horrible, like catching your Grandparents naked horrible!

So THAT is why I get those funny looks! Yeah that must be it!

Wanna see something weird yet fun?

2011-07-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

I just love how the perspective changes so completely and so quickly! The insect POV is fascinating... well, for nerds anyway! :)

You ate my cat!

BTW, what is it with all the cats in that video? She is far too young and too attractive to be a crazy cat lady already!

Nerd Overload!

2011-06-30T05:51:00.000-07:00

Erika recently switched us from Comcast Cable TV to Direct TV (Satellite). As I learned from Cheeseboy. Comcast is an expletive! Comcast me? NO you Comcaster! Comcast you and the horse you rode in on!

But Direct TV is just wicked awesome!

OH Direct TV How I love thee! I now have the Science Channel plus multiple history channels PLUS National Geographic and Nogin and multiple Discovery channels!

OH my yes! Yes! YES!

I have just been in the throws of mental passion with all that knowledge-porn giving me these totally raging brainers and multiple nerdgasms!

I am becoming a junkie! I only got three hours sleep last night because I could NOT turn off the TV.

Oh laugh if you will!

Just as an example; Stephen Hawking moved me deeply last night!

Super Nerd Extrodiaire Stephean Hawking. All Hail Hawking!

If that name is not familiar to you lets just sum it up by saying he is the Einstein of the modern age.
However this brilliant mind is encased in a failing body. He is immobile and speaks through his computer using eye movements.

So last night he opened a program with the following narration,

"Hello. My name is Stephen Hawking. Physicist, cosmologist and something of a dreamer. Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free. Free to explore the universe and ask the big questions.

Yeah buddy, if that does not move you please check your label, your Humanity may have expired and you need to pick some more up STAT.

Life is good! Man working 14 hour days with 3 hours of sleep SUCKS but life is good!

60k!

2011-06-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

Holy bat shit Batman! I broke 60 thousands freaking reads!

Unreal!

My old website (http://robjohnson.velocityxl.com/build.html) has been online since 1998 and only has 48k hits.
(tediously coded by hand with vi "back in the day" and man I thought animated gifs were just the shit! lol!)

OK, I am a bit oblivious because it just now clicked with me that between the two sites I have 108,000 hits.

To quote Neo- "Whoa!"

For a guy with just lousy self esteem that ain't too shabby. Suddenly I feel like Sally Field in the most mocked Oscar moment ever!

Well I love y'all too!

Rednecks can be stubborn...

2011-06-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

...and the great Robert Heinlein once proposed that if stubborn bullheadedness was an entirely bad trait it would have been bred out of the race long ago. :)

Texas has actually called a special session of the legislature to address the TSA's genital groping. (a special session was needed because Texas has citizen legislators. Legislator is a very part time job in Texas as opposed to the full time professional leeches that prevail in other legislatures. )

You know, Texas wants to pass a law saying you need some reason to believe a person might be a threat before the TSA is allowed to get to third base.

Hmmm, probable cause? That crazy talk man, crazy talk!

Of course I thought child molesting was already a crime but you know I have these wacky old fashioned ideas.

I know I feel safer now

Another state has the official motto of "Live Free or Die" but Texas does a pretty good job of living up to it. Which is probably one of the reasons why Texas has the strongest economy in the nation right now.

So in the process of reading up on this news from home I ran across this tidbit....

You are 12,571 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack
You are six times more likely to die from hot weather than from a terrorist attack
You are eight times more likely to die from accidental electrocution than from a terrorist attack
You are 11,000 times more likely to die in an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane
You are 87 times more likely to drown than die in a terrorist attack
You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack
You are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack
You are 1048 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack
You are 12 times more likely to die from accidental suffocation in bed than from a terrorist attack
You are nine times more likely to choke to death on your own vomit than die in a terrorist attack
You are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist

Now I do not have time to verify this data but it "feels right" with just common knowledge. So you professional fact checkers out there have at it... I have a job. :)

However that blurb does provide food for thought. So what price is your freedom worth to you? I am what is seemingly becoming a dieing breed in that I believe freedom is the most valuable thing a human being can have.

One of my favorite all time movie quotes is is from "Brave heart"

"Every man dies; Not every man truly lives."

If you live so in fear of the boogieman "terrorist" that losing your freedom is OK just as long as you feel safe then I posit that you are not truly alive.

Convenience stores are NOT convenient!

2011-06-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

It took me a while to figure this out.

You have one maybe two cashiers covering 20 gas pumps plus the shoppers. So there is always a long ass line and the cashiers are always slow as molasses.

Then there is always at least one idiot who has to think up his lottery numbers on the spot. uh, 1.......uh......uh......12....and uh........ well.....uh 24... GAH!

So no more "convienence" stores for me. No more living the lie!

Laundry

2011-06-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Over at The Layers The Onion wrote "You have to pay attention to laundry."

What? You have to pay attention to laundry? Really? Why didn't I get this memo?

See I usually throw a load in the washer then a few days later when I have no clean undies left I will start sorting the dirty clothes to wash and then I will go "What? No clean undies in the drawer, and only a few dirty ones in the hamper? Where in the hell are all my undies? Have my prayers been answered and I finally have a stalker stealing my undies?

Then Erica (seemingly having minor psychic powers) will say, "Hey Rob, your clothes have been in the washer for a week, mind getting them out so I can do a load?

OH! So there are all my undies! Awwww, another dream of being stalked dies on the vine!

Ah, a day in the nerdy life

The Date From Hell

2011-06-13T14:25:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned earlier I used Internet dating sites for a while.

One of my many astute observations in life (IMHO) is that if you meet someone lonely it is self imposed. Generally via a bunch of preconditions. "Well the person I date can't do X and they can't have Y and they SHOULD have Z and they have to be between C and D and blah blah blah blah. Show me a lonely person and I'll show you at least two people interested in them that they have ruled out for some (usually odd) reason. Then it's "I can't understand why I'm sooooo alone...."

I can.

So I have refused to allow myself to go down that road. I am willing to talk to anyone with no preconditions and and if I like them, go out. The fact that we find each other interesting is the *only* thing that matters to me. I kinda follow Clint Eastwood's philosophy in Heartbreak Ridge, "You can rob me, you can starve me...and you can beat me and you can kill me. Just don't bore me." :)

(On an interesting side, note I would much prefer to date non smokers but for some odd reason every single woman I have dated has been a smoker! My hypothesis is that I only appeal to women with self destructive tendencies. :) )

So, on to the meat of the story. I met "Amy" on an Internet dating site. She is a college senior finishing up her nursing degree. I married as a teen but I was married for 25 years(!). So I was married longer than this women has been alive. OBVIOUSLY we have an age gap. However, she is a sci-fi fan and we love many of the same books and we exchanged MANY e-mails and had MANY delightful conversations. Even though we were both wary about the age difference we both agree that we have something and we should meet.

So I set up a date at The Outback on a Friday night. (For good or bad I consider this the perfect first date spot, it's mid range enough you'll not get tagged as a "cheapskate", yet not so pretentious that someone is uncomfortable being there! Plus hey, they have good food!)

So I met Amy there and it started wrong right away. She was speaking "urban", "Sheet Dawg, what be yo shizzle gansta mo fo?" (Sorry, I don't have an urban to American dictionary so I am not sure if that makes sense or not) I was a bit alarmed but we had so MANY good e-mails I was not ready to run yet. I figured she was just nervous and this was a "phase"

So we ordered a couple of drinks while we waited on our food. Being Friday night they were jam packed so we waited a bit and we had a couple more drinks. Alas, her "phase" shows no sign of relenting. After 3 margaritas she is getting loud AND slipping deeper into "urban" AND adding some loud profanity to boot! Oy vey!

As a nerd, oblivion to social signals is part of my make up. However, even with my +7 Oblivion stylus and my +22 Oblivion Droid smart phone, I can still pick up on the turned heads and the occasional glares. I am trying to quiet her down but apparently my urban is not good enough to effectively communicate with her.

The embarrassment on my part is already reaching epic proportions when the manager came over and said to ME, "Sir, if you can't control your daughter we are going to have to ask you to leave."

OH dear Lord. Date.From.Hell!

PS I caught myself in a lie.. " I said " I am willing to talk to anyone with no preconditions and and if I like them, go out." That should read "I am willing to talk to any woman with no preconditions and and if I like them, go out" There was this pre-op tranny that was quite pretty and our e-mails were shaping up nicely but after a few conversations HE decided he should let me know he was still pre-op.

Man with all my oblivion points I sure am glad he told me! That could a been AWKWARD to find out out in the heat of passion, "Oh you are so beautiful, ooooo lets just slide this down... Hey, HEY, HEY! What is that thing doing here!" Sorry, dude, I do have a firm "only one penis at the party rule" :)

Can you smell it?

2011-06-10T15:01:00.000-07:00

The smell of genuine Redneck Brand Testosterone hanging thick and heavy in the humid heat of central Illinois?

Are you sure? It's pretty potent.

I remember when I was a kid, bicycles were pretty manly. I mean there was nothing misogynistic about it but they used to sell bicycles guys would like AND they sold bicycles that girls would like.Completely unlike the androgynous bicycle wasteland we live in now. Back then girls would put their stuffed animals in the wicker basket and boys would build ramps and jump over things and break bones like boys are supposed to do.

Look at this marvel of manliness from my childhood...

Oh Yeah, that is the shit buddy!

Note the springer front end, the seat mounted on shock absorbers, the big phallic gear shift. Note the manly DRUM brake on the front wheel! No little sissy ass pencil erasers squeezing your wheel rim, no we actually had brakes back then! (I realize modern riders probably don't believe me but back in the day we ROUTINELY laid skid marks with our brakes that actually worked! No! Really!)

Then something happened and bicycles started to get all sissy like. In my opinion it started off with forcing kids to wear pads to ride their bikes. OH no! My precious baby-darling might get a scrape. OH the mental anguish of it all. {geesh!}

Then god forbid, men, already feminised with pads in their formative years, started wearing spandex pants and Styrofoam helmets. (spandex is like bikini bottoms, Totally awesome on the lovely sex, traumatizing to children of all ages on males!)

Manly bike helmet is an oxymoron. Then add spandex pants and you are talking a prison inmates dream date now!

Sorry I drifted, we were talking about testosterone right? Aha, here is the source of that lovely aroma!

Man Bike - Who needs testosterone supplements? Here ya go, pure Redneck Brand Testosterone. It's the hairiest!

MMMMMMMmmmmm good! Oh now THAT is a manly man's bike! Yeah baby! If you click the picture and zoom in its clear this is a home made job. Note the strategic use of electrical tape holding the coil to the frame and keeping the loose wires out of the way.

Looking at this picture just makes me feel good to live in a world where not EVERYONE has been feminized yet. There are still one or two free range men men scrabbling about. Thank God.

This is my kind of creative redneck folks.... and I'll betcha a dollar he does not wear knee pads!

Political correctness?

2011-06-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

What the hell is this? Did I miss a memo where it's not polite to call these "fans" any more?

Was it offensive to sports fanatics? Are there so many Indians (dots) and illegal aliens in the country that the homonym "fan' was just too confusing for some people? (oh crap, it just now occurs to me that the very term term homonym is prolly endangered too!)

Oh dear lord someone please make me understand this before my logic circuits start to smoke and the halon system goes off in my cranial computer room!

Going Old School (Owd Skoo!)

2011-06-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

DOS
C:\DOS> cd \emotions\hopes\romance
C:\emotions\hopes\romance> del *.*

Unix
$> cd /emotions/hopes/romance
$> rm *

Windows or Mac
Where is that clicky thingy to throw folders into my trash can thingy?"

Empathy, Pro and Con

2011-06-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

Quick ones today - Been staying busy! (YA! :) )

My empathy thing again!

Ya just gotta feel bad for this guy. First he was a Chess Pawn. I mean it is the lowest rank in the game but at least being a Chess player gave him a touch a class. (Kinda like being a soccer style kicker in the NFL! )

Then they turned him into an ash tray. A freaking. ash. tray. Oh the degradation of it all.

The second hand smoke has him sick and terminal. Look at him all slumped over now. Between the cancer and the humiliation he can't even stand upright anymore. So, so sad!

Yet he is still on the job. Ya gotta respect that even if you feel horrible for how his life has just plummeted down hill!

But here is some happy empathy! (for a change)

I love the show Man Vs. Food on the Travel Channel. I like how he travels to cities large and small and does not just do the same old big cities all the time. Heck, he has even done TWO episodes here in Springpatch Illinois! He "takes" you to eateries the local people like as opposed to just the food critics.

Then for the last part of the show he takes on a big food challage of some sort. It's a fun show!

Here is the empathy tie in though... But the best thing about "Man Vs. Food" is seeing that Fred Savage (from the TV Series "The wonder Years" and the movie "The Princess Bride") is still working and did not share the curse of so many child actors! !

I command thee!

2011-05-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, I hesitate to tell this story. *I* think it is hilarious but it may come off a tad perverted. (I can already hear CrazyMamma "Tad? TAD?)

However, the highest compliment I have ever been paid on this site was by former reader Taj and Jules from House of Jules. They once debated in my comments whether I was perverted perfectly or perfectly perverted. Awwww, isn't that sweet? :)

But here it goes I am going to let this one out of the bag.

I was once on this dating site that when you sent e-mail you could look in your sent folder and see the status of it in the recipients inbox., unread, read and kept, deleted.

So I saw the profile of a very attractive women and her profile said she was a sub and looking for a dom. I was married for a looooooong time so I actually had to google these terms and go "Ohhhhhhh!" I usually Tailor an e-mail to the profile (to show I actually cared enough to READ it not just e-mailing to pretty photo's.)

However, I'm not just not a Dom type guy, I actually *like* women and want a partner not a slave, so I went ahead and wrote my usual kind of letter. It was deleted almost immediately. I pondered that for a bit and an evil idea crept into my head.

I wrote the following e-mail to her the next day (paraphrased from memory. )

Do as I tell you! Do not hesitate!
Right now get your camera.
Find a mirror.
Take your top off.
Take a picture of your breasts.
Send me the picture.
NOW!

DO NOT MAKE ME TELL YOU AGAIN!

She did not send me a picture of her boobs BUT SHE DID NOT DELTE THE LETTER! It was flagged "read and kept" until her account was off lined!

Now I thought that was hilarious! It was backwards world. The letter that SHOULD have been deleted was kept! (we can debate if my sweet letter should have been kept or not. Lots of women read my letter, look at my photo/profile and delete. say la vie) but without a doubt a "SHOW ME YOUR BOOBS" letter should be junked immediately!

Of course if you disagree, by all means feel free to send me a pic or two! :) As Ron White says, "Once you've seen one set of boobs, you know you want to see the rest of them"

(speaking of Taj, she would prolly be the one emailing me commanding me to send her a pics of my chest!)!

PS! It just NOW occurs to me years too late that if I had sent that sub girl another e-mail getting more bossy and threatening punishment I probably would have gotten a picture not too mention a date! ROFL!)

((God as long as we are on stories labeled Internet dating hell, remind me to tell you all about the nursing student! Oy Vey!))

An Acute Case!

2011-05-30T14:58:00.000-07:00

Doctor doctor,give me the news,
I got a bad case of loving you...
No pill's gonna cure my ill,
I gotta bad case of loving yooooou.

To paraphrase Jabba the hut,

"HO HO HO HO! This is my kind of nerd! Resourceful and brave!
(brave enough to go total rouge nerd in public!)

Nerdy Movies that Transend Nerdom

2011-05-27T04:58:00.000-07:00

Since it is a holiday weekend you might have some downtime so here are some ideas!

I have tried to make a list of really good nerd movies that no one has seen. If you have not seen the following movies you really really should. Yes, they are nerd movies on the surface so most 'danes blow them off and misss a really good show for it. However they are soooo good you will be glad you did see them!

Bicentennial Man. - Based on an Issac Asimov story. Asimov is considered one of the three grand deans of Science Fiction.

This is one of the best sci-fi movies ever made though there is very little "sci-fi" in it. Only something on the order of 12 people have ever seen it! Nine of them I held at gun point and forced them to watch until they were hooked on their own! (Average time required to put down fire arm; 12-18 minutes ;) )

Robert Heinlein (another of the three grand deans) said that good Sci-fi is always about the the people, the characters. Oh certainly people who are impacted in some way by the technology in their life but it's still about the people. This movie totally NAILS that concept. Even if some of them are not even technically people! :)

After you see this movie you WILL thank me for it. Ignore the rest of this post if you like, you MUST see this movie! Don't make me get my gun! :)

Please come back and comment after you see it. I really want to know what you thought.

October Sky - The true story of how the launch of Sputnik affected the lives of a group of high school kids in a poor mining town. Its is one of the best movies you have have never seen. Laura Dern's character is truly special and it may be the only Jake Gyllenhaal movie made where he does not make you feel vaguely uncomfortable. :)

I.Q. - Meg Ryan, Tim Robbins, Walter Mathou. That really should be enough for you to want to see it. BUT OH MAH DEAR GAWD! MEG RYAN AS A HUUUUUGE MATH NERD. Oh my heart! I could actually feel it melting and running down into my legs. Well maybe that was the popcorn butter but STILL! Wow!

Then other than his incredible good looks and the fact that I was an aircraft mechanic instead of auto, Tim Robbins character was written after me. Yup! (even if the writers did not know it!)

Real Genius - A very young Val Kilmer (Pre- Top Gun) stars in this flick about child geniuses in college. Not a serious flick by any means but it's a lot of good goofy nerdy fun. If you knew any nerds in college the "life in the dorms" parts of the film are pretty damned funny!

Nerd Guy - "I can't pee while your watching me"
Nerd Gal - "That's weird. Why not"

It's a solid 9 on the nerd-o-meter!

Galaxy Quest Hmmmmm, I debate; I'm not sure if its obscure enough for this list. Among nerdom it is well known (unlike the most of the others listed here) but I am not sure how well known outside of nerddom! Either way, you can't go wrong in seeing it. Alan Rickman finally shook off the Klaus typecasting in this film freeing him up for "Marvin" (next review) and ultimately Snape.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Ah, originally written by one of the writers for "Monty Python's Flying Circus" (Douglas Admas) This is the first comedy sci-fi I know of. And its pretty darned good comedy too...

"I decided long ago I would rather be happy than rich."
"So, are you happy?"
"Well...Now, that is where the plan falls down now is'nt it?"

Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin the depressed robot is pure art!

"Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to take you to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction, 'cause I don't."

Marvin: I've been talking to the ship's computer.
Arthur: And?
Marvin: (Dripping with venom) It hates me.

Ok, to finish this lame post up - invest a measly 3 minutes of your life in this old animated song. The graphics were high tech at one time! I adore the campiness though and parts of the tune have just a bit of the old brain worm effect going. This may be the only rap song I have ever liked (even though the Yoda segment is the only really "rappy" part)

I know, you are hesititing now! Show some trust! You'll like it, I promise! It's only 3 minutes! what do you have to loose,

Darth Vader "Churning the butter!" Really? Does life get any better than that?

("Owwwww, why'd you slice off my hand?!")
Your welcome!

A Northerner thing?

2011-05-26T10:44:00.000-07:00

When I'm Springfield I stay in what for all intents and purposes is a Corporate apartment with multiple users.

That kind of life is generally a short term deal but I have been staying here with Erika off and on (mostly on) for the better part of 5 years now. Since I have been steady we have had about 12-13 "room mates" over the years who have come to Springfield for short term stays..

Three of them have been from Chicago.

Two of that three have had this "thing" about keeping the bathroom door shut all the time.

So I was ~~whining~~ commenting to Erika, what is this bizarre thing? I have never heard of it. Toilet seat wars sure. Bathroom door closed? I've never heard of this.

Erika replies that she has heard of it, Perhaps it is a "hide the room where "dirty" things happen" thing?

Jules you out there? Is this a "Chicago thing"?

Either way this concept just hurts my head.

What is this a 50's sit com where the "impure" potty room does not exist and the married couple sleep in twin beds separated by a censor appointed minimum of 2 feet 7.5 inches?

I like to believe I am a creature of logic and reason so:

1) When you take a shower the bathroom gets very humid. If you keep the door shut and don't allow fresh air circulation, your wall paper/paint will be damaged over time and even worse you will probably end up with mold and mildew; With both smells bad and can be a health hazard.

2) I realize the base realities of life may be "TMI" for some weak minded people but for you mature people out there lets face it, we do things in there that don't always smell nice. Again, some basic air circulation cures that little problem. I don't want to smell what happened in there yesterday!

Both of these really apply this time of year when the weather is too nice to run the heat OR air conditioning.

3) And this one is BIG. If the door is shut how do you know weather someone is in there or not? What? You are supposed to knock on the the door every single time you use it? Really? In what bizarre parallel universe does this make sense?

I went to use the bathroom the other night, the light is on and the door is shut. Normally a clear sign of "ocupado" but I can't tell anymore so I knock on the door... yep, our Chicagoan is in there.

I do gotta go but it's not "epic" yet. So I go putter in the kitchen, fix a snack, chat with Erika. Every couple of minutes I lean back, look down the hall and and check the bathroom door. Light on, door closed. After a while hydraulic pressure is starting to build. I start doing the doing the pee pee dance. I walk back that way to put something in my room and notice the Chicagoan's bedroom door was open before but now it's closed.

Oh no!

So I knock on the bathroom door. Yeah its empty and who knows how long I been hopping foot to foot while it was empty. Grrrrrr.

Ok, so I gave three solid logical reasons NOT to close the door when not in use. Can anyone give me ONE logical reason to shut it?

Thank you for listening, thus concludes Rob's bizarre rant of the Day.

ps. Don't get me wrong he is nice guy and there is ALWAYS going to be a little friction where ever moving people are involved. This is a minor thing - BUT blogworthy, no?

A Cheap Shot

2011-05-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

(some original non-whiny work for a change)

Sandra over at absolute narcissism was recently bragging about her super pooping powers. Hey, I shit you not! (Ar!)

She bought some very high priced frozen yogurt and then apparently the geologists were issuing volcano warnings after they detected all the rumbling on their seismographs!

Now being a a man I have an inherent appreciation of a good squeezing! However, being an (adapted) southerner, a cheapskate AND an efficiency nut I weep for the fact that $8.50 was spent on yogurt to do the simple job of the cheapest of foods that every Southwestern person already knows and loves!

Refritos frioles e Taza! Translated into Yankee speak that means re-fried beans and rice! Oh my, be sure to stir in plenty of hot peppers, onions and garlic too! For an authentic south of the (U.S.) border touch, add a little lemon juice! Then not only does this guarantee clear bowels, open sinuses and a clean mind , it is utterly delicious to boot! The bonus is $8.50 worth of this culinary masterpiece will fill a small cauldron and ~~feed~~ medicate the entire family reunion instead of buying one smallish tub of yogurt!

So how does this delicious culinary miracle work you might wonder? Well stand back, I'm gonna get all science-y on ya now! You see the rice provides the sticky starchy fiber needed to scrub down the sides of a growing girls intestinal tract leaving them squeaky clean (and lemon fresh!)! The beans and hot peppers produce the gas pressure needed to provide the propulsive force required to rudely brush aside any blockages.

Yes my friends- this is the original "scrubbing bubbles!" ("cleans your bowels so you wont have toooooooooooo")

Yes! After a delicious nutritious helping of rice and beans you too can exclaim with pride, delight and relief...

Now every given solution to a problem does have it's down sides. This particular solution can be more difficult in the winter time. You wake up in the middle of the night freezing your ass off to find you have no blankets. There they are floating over in the corner! It seems as though that "propulsive force" can convert your blankets into a balloon and they can float away on you!

Of course, pilots are lucky too!

2011-05-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

I know the Brits do not have all the puritan hang ups we North Americans do but WOW!

Every Girls Fantasy!

2011-05-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

Lucky Girl! She married a Pilot!

It's not just a T shirt.

2011-05-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

I have been having writers block on any kind of funny story for a week or so now. So I am going to do something rare and be serious here today.

Run while you can. Its never pretty when I get serious.

I am a slooooooooooooow learner. I also have the curse of empathy. I can feel others pain. Damn it.

Back in the late 80's I lived in Little Rock Arkansas. I don't know how much has changed since then but at that time Arkansas had three things going for it. It was a state of natural beauty, it was the most overtly racist place I ever lived (I could write a slew of depressing posts on that topic alone) and like racism wife beating was common and socially acceptable

I volunteered at a battered women's shelter in Little Rock for a little while. After the fourth time I watched a lovely intelligent women come in battered and bloody then GO HOME with the sick sumbish a few days later (He has changed now!) I really could not take it anymore. I simply am not tough enough. That stupid empathy thing.

Fast forward a few years.

A nice young couple moved in next door. They had been there about a month or so when on a Saturday night I was sitting on my porch drinking a beer. Their kitchen curtains were open about 3 or 4 inches and a fast movement past the curtain caught my eye. He had her by her long hair pulling it back and down to turn her face upward making it much easier to smack around.

I am not a violent man (I'm sticking to that story too) and this guy was ten years younger than me and in far better physical shape. Logic was in no way involved though. I was seeing though this small red tunnel filled with floating white dots as I bashed in through his front door. At that point he had her by the throat but he audaciously yells at me "What they fuck do you think you're doing?"

As I strode purposefully across the front room to the kitchen I did not answer out loud but I was thinking "About to get my ass kicked by a much younger stronger guy!"

I guess something about my demeanor tipped him off though because suddenly he let go of her, dropped to the floor, curled up into a fetal position and started begging me not to hurt him. I do not mean laid down, I mean he DROPPED to the floor. I had been bracing to get my ass kicked so I was taken aback just a bit.

The words of my hero/philosopher Robert A. Heinlein popped into my head at that moment- "Bullies do not want to fight, they just want to hurt people." Ah that explains his behavior but sadly that sword cuts both ways. At that moment I was a bully because all I wanted to do was hurt him. What have I become? All my fury for the bastard evaporated once I realized what a worthless little chicken shit he really was cowering and begging on the floor. Well for a few milliseconds. Then I looked up at her bloody face and then I was on the floor too whaling on his crying curled up ass. Wish I could say I regret my loss of control but beating a wife beater feels good. Feels damn good.

Guess who grabbed my arms and begged me to stop? I'll never forget those words "STOP! Your hurting him!"

It was the women's shelter all over again.

I stopped for her but I made him grab some clothes and leave. He tried to come back a few times but as soon as he pulled in his drive way the tunnel vision would return and out my door I would charge. Then he would rapidly back out of the drive way. After a week or two of this I started to think "Maybe, just maybe I can save just this one."

Ah self delusion is so important!

She moved out so she could be with him again. She was nice enough though to stop by my house while the movers were loading up to let me know that she could not stand to live next door to me anymore what with my interfering with her life and oh, yeah, she *hated* me for the damage I did to her relationship.

How sweet of her.

Fast forward a few years.

My littlest sister married one of these bastards.

That is all I have to say about that.

Fast forward a few years to a month ago...

Remember my story "Tall Tales"- Read the first 5 paragraphs again.

As I said in the story I made several friends that night including the attractive blond showing off her scars and her husband. I have spent several evenings at their house since.

I had uneasy feelings though and stopped going over there.

The last two Saturday nights in a row. I have been awakened by the girl with the scars asking for help. At least she is smart enough to run out of the house mid beating. Then she calls me and like the slow learning dumb ass I am I crawl out of a warm comfy bed to get her and take her someplace safe and listen to her woes.

Both times she is back with him within 24 hours.

So how many decades does it take a nerdy redneck to learn? ">= 4"

The tough question is what am I gonna do next time? I tell myself I won't even answer the damned phone and just go back to sleep.

But I know I won't.

Self delusion is so important though.

Speaking of which- why the fuck do these women go back to their abusers? My mom did things to me until I grew up enough that I was physically strong enough to stop her. When I was 16 I joined the Air Force and got away from her and never, EVER went back.

When I went to her funeral my relatives kept saying to me "My god, you are so strong! How can you not cry at your own mothers funeral" I would just stare at them. They were there. Ya know when I "fell" through the glass coffee table or when I ran into that door and got all those stitches in the side of my head. The question is why would I cry at her funeral. But I guess it's hard to believe your sister/wife/aunt/niece is a monster so you wonder aloud what is wrong with ME not to cry at her funeral.

Self delusion is so important.

But no, I'm not bitter, why do you ask? :)

Thanks for letting me blitch tho. Wish I could say I felt better now. 26 hours of sleep did not help either. I had a bout of hysterical laughter going last night. That might of helped but apparently hysterical laughter is disturbing to the roommates. Go figure. My bad.

Damned Empathy!

Ok, I will try to be funny (well as close as I get to it anyway) again soon.

It not about the north or the south side, its about the dark side!

2011-05-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

Damn the Sith!

Dark Energy Driving the Universe Apart!

Blogger is back up!

2011-05-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

It was down for days and days. Now I can't remember any of those truly AWESOME stories I wanted to write while it was down.

Damn!

Aftermath and thanks

2011-05-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

Continuing from yesterday's story. I had the rollover accident in the early morning on the way to work. The emergency room released me about noon.

When I got home I called the firehouse to check the schedule. The crew that rescued me would be on duty until Noon tomorrow. So I called the Kroger's Bakery dept and put in an order and took a nap until the time they told me my order would be ready.

When I woke up I went and picked up my order and while I was there I picked up several cases of soda in a variety of flavors then headed for the firehouse "my" crew worked at. I really wanted to buy a keg of beer but I thought that might be frowned on! :)

When my buddy that talked me through the extraction saw the biggest sheet cake Kroger's makes that said "Thanks a million guys!!!" on it with little firemen related motifs every where he started to get real, uh, misty eyed, which in turn made everything get blurry for me.

In my usual playful tone I asked him, "What the hell are you getting emotional for? I was the one scared to death until your hand came through that hole where my window was supposed to be."
"Rob, I been doing this for 10 years now. On average we cut open a vehicle and free trapped people about once a week. In 10 years you are the first person that ever come by after wards to say thank you let alone throwing us a little party."

Can you believe that? I still struggle with that; Nobody ever said "thank you" before? Those guys were and are my personal heroes. How could you be freed from being trapped in mangled steel with very hots fluids very close by and NOT feel overwhelming gratitude for your liberators?

That reminds me, I think I need to throw them another little party!

Oh and have I mentioned- FIREMEN RULE! :)

Doctor Tales II

2011-05-09T07:10:00.001-07:00

OK, so apparently the dream state story is a dud! :) so we now return you to our previously scheduled story....

In 2000 in Frisco Texas (Northern Suburb of Dallas) I got clobbered by an unlicensed uninsured illegal alien driving a tractor trailer dump truck full of gravel. He weighed approximately 70,000 pounds at the time.

My vehicle rolled 3 1/2 times. The roof collapsed down and I was pinned to the seat upside down.

I am not claustrophobic but I felt it then, alone, upside down, it's pretty dark in there and I can't move. Then the imagination takes over. What if hot water comes out of the engine, or fuel? I'll just sit here and burn! Men are not supposed to admit to fear but I am a nerd so I will gladly admit I was scared. (However not panicked or stupid! "Fear is the mind killer"). Within in 5 minutes though, a Fireman's hand comes through the small gap that used to be a window, grabs my hand and says "You OK? We will have you out of there in a minute. He held my hand and talked to me for the next 20 minutes while a small team jacked and blocked up the truck then cut it open with up BIG manly tools and pulled me out of there!

Oh, if you think there is anything even remotely gay about holding hands with a fireman of the same sex, you have never been pinned in car upside down in the dark! :) So I LOVE firemen!

One fireman took this shot at the scene.

Dragging my ass out of the wreckage. Firemen RULE!
(Note how they jacked up the rear end so they could pull the roof down to free me!)

I took this shot at the junk yard later...

That roof is awfully close to the seat! {shiver}

That's not the funny part of the story though!

I came out of it completely unscathed but no one would believe me! The firemen wanted to load me into an ambulance and take me to the hospital. I just wanted to get to work. But when the one guy who was talking me through it while the other guys cut me out said, "Please? For me? I would feel so much better if you got checked out." how could I possibly say no?

So on the way to the emergency room they went through this routine where they ran their hands all over my body then moved my extremities through range of motion and kept asking me of if I felt anything any numbness, pain etc. Then shortly after getting to the emergency room. A nurse ran through the identical exercise, then (10 year old memories get fuzzy) someone else (possibly a intern/resident?) went through the exact same process. I am a nerd, I hate inefficiency. A double check is good. Three times is waste.

Then about a 1/2 hour went by with nothing going on. Then a middle aged fellow came in, introduced himself as my doctor and proceeded to repeat the same procedure again. AGAIN?

Feels and moves my left arm "Any pain or numbness?"
"Nope"
Feels and moves my right arm "Any pain or numbness?"
"Nope"
Feels and moves my left leg "Any pain or numbness?"
"Nope", by now I am getting bored and decide to have a little fun.
Feels and moves my right leg... As he lifted my leg up at about 45 degrees I gasped and put a look of shock and concern on my face!
He goes "What? What is it?"
"Doc, both my legs just went numb when you did that!"
I saw the look of shock/fear/concern come over *his* face!
"KIDDING DOC Kidding!"
So with a big grin and a relived look he said "Oh you are gonna be one of those kind of patients huh?"
My only reply was an impish smirk.
"Yeah, well just remember, paybacks are a mother and I have all the sharp instruments!"

I liked him right away!

WTH was THAT about?

2011-05-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

I just woke up from the weirdest dream!

In my dream I was asleep and I heard someone trying to break in the house through the window. The curtains were closed so I knocked on the window frame (through the curtain) and said, " I hear ya buddy, your busted, you better move along now"

and the rattling and the banging on the window got much louder!

Then the front door started rattling and banging so I ran into the front room. I could hear several sets of foot steps on the front porch. I laid down on the floor so I could peer under the door and confirmed it. Four people were out there! Then one of them laid down and looked under the door too and we were were eye to eye!

I jumped up and now I'm scared. My breath is coming faster and I can feel the adrenaline.

I called 911 and told them what was going on and the reply was, "So what do you expect us to do about it?"
"What? Come and stop them!"
"We don't do that here!"
"WHAT?"
"Hey, you knew what you were getting into when you moved to Detroit!" Click.

??????

So I start looking desperately for something to use as a weapon as the banging on the front door gets even louder. Run into the kitchen...what happened to all the knives? Where did they go? Nothing! I finally chose the broom for the handle and was thinking "this handle is way too thin to do much damage, I don't stand a chance against four people!

So I am standing in front of the door holding a broom in a hopefully menacing manner watching the door bulge in under repeated assaults. The fear deepens! I can feel my heart beating and the breathing is coming heavier and heavier as the adrenaline does it's job! The fear is verging on terror but not yet, not yet! I work to control the fear in the dream - (fear is the mind killer! fear is the little death that brings obliteration!! i will face my fear and let it wash over me!)

Then the door bursts open and framed in the doorway is Will Smith! Behind him stands his 'posey'. He throws his arms wide open and yells, "Heeeeey Roooooob!!! I have not seen you in a while and decided to come visit!"
I throw my arms wide open too and as we hug (in a very manly way of course) I yell back, "Why Will Smith you old Sumbish! You scared the living crap out of me! Good to see you again too you bastard!, want a brew?"

End of dream

I have never met Will Smith and I never lived in Detroit!

Just what the hell was that all about???

(but man are the Bene Gesserit good or what?)

Doctor Tales (I)

2011-05-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

When my son was about 11 I was building a a plane in my garage.

One Neighbor asked if I was building a boat

What? No plane in YOUR garage?Well me neither anymore. :)

It was a fiber glass plane so surface prep and cleanliness are critical to good bonding so I had a large basket of clean rags and lots of denatured alcohol handy for cleaning any surface prior to laying down any fiberglass.

Of Course, as required by law in the south I have rolls of duct tape just every where.

So my son was taking out the trash and he is swinging the trash bag to and fro as he strolled through the garage out to the alley. Apparently there is a broken mayo jar in the trash and a big chunk of glass is sticking through the side of the trash bag. As Brian swings the bag he really slashed his leg as the glass sung by.

So I hear him yelling for help, I run out to the garage and though it's only been seconds there is already a largish pool of blood on the floor, he got himself good on that one!

Well the old Boy Scout First Aid training kicked in and said "pressure bandage" I reached into my clean rag hamper folded a hand towel sized rag into a 4 inch square and clamped it over the cut with my hand then started looking around for something to to hold it on with.... AHA! Duct tape! So I wrapped duct tape moderately tightly around leg and over the 'bandage', threw him in the truck and had him in the emergency room in less than 5 minutes.

The doctor came into the treatment room, took one look at the duct tape bandage started laughing and said, "Oh man! I gotta get a picture of this!" He was laughing and taking several pictures so I was feeling pretty self conscious that the finds my patch work so funny! I start to explain what happened and even though he was still laughing he says, "Oh no, you did the right thing! I just have a collection of 'things I have seen people do with duct tape' picutes but this is absolutly the first medical use of duct tape I have ever seen! AWESOME!"

There but for the grace of God...

2011-05-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

No wait, I do go there!

I am the worlds WORST at names. I blame my general nerdyness for this!

Like Will Rogers I never forget a face and when I see your face I have a VERY good memory about our shared past (be it personal or professional) but most times I will NOT remember your blinking name!

THEN I have this deal that if I learn your name wrong I probably will never get it right in the future. Once I have managed to burn it into the neurons it's there forever, right or wrong!

As a consequence I refer to the world as bud, buddy, amigo, compadre, partner etc.

"Hey Bud! Long time no time! Whacha been up to amigo?"

Sigh. Yes I know it's terrible.

One of my few redeeming qualities though is I am not a hypocrite. I wont live in an 8,000 square foot house and fly in a biz jet that burns 113 gallons of fuel an hour then lecture you on your carbon footprint.

So, I met a woman few weeks ago. Somehow, just like I do, she learned my name wrong. She calls me Rich instead of Rob. I corrected her a couple of times at first but then since I understand the syndrome I just let it go and I am getting pretty good at answering to Rich/Richard.

What makes this story funny though is that in her case it seems her name mangling is an hereditary trait! I went to a family picnic thing with her last Sunday and as she introduced me to each of her family members as Rich I would immediately say "Actually it's Rob, nice to meet you!"
"Nice to meet you too Rich!"

Now her whole family calls me Richard!

Since I am NOT a hypocrite though I just laugh uproariously on the inside and grin on the outside and answer to Rich

Angry Birds

2011-05-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

Is everyone familiar with this cultural phenom?

You know, that simple little addictive phone game where the pigs are stealing the birds eggs so the birds are are getting all medieval on the pigs?

Well now you are! :)

Screen Shot of "Angry Birds". See the happy but soon to be DEAD pigs?

Ok, a simple rule for the game, or any game. Before you get frustrated and start yelling things at the game be sure to take a look around and and notice who if anyone is around. While always a good rule it is doubly true if you playing while eating your lunch in "Trooper Memorial Park" right next door to State Police HQ....

"OH would you just DIE already you stupid FREAKING PIG!!!
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, OH! Not YOU officer, the game, on the phone! Angry Birds! I swear! No Really!"
"Keep your hands where I can see them, sir!"

Irony Divine

2011-05-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

I was at my desk sucking on a lifesaver candy. (only 10 calories and you can enjoy it for quite a while!)

My bud walked up behind me and startled me! I inhaled my lifesaver and started choking. My bud smacked my back and we got it back up.

So, I was nearly killed by a lifesaver.

Remember that ditty?

2011-05-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

There was one of the innumerable infomercials selling music on TV. These were "oldies" so this song is before my time but I have heard it and it is a memorable tune but for the first time the words really "clicked" for me.

She's 16
she's beautiful
and she's mine!

Whoa! A tad disturbing there dontcha think?

Need.a.life

2011-04-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

This is post 400.

Such a sad little swirling vortex of lost productivity!

Shorties

2011-04-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

I was raised catholic and went to catholic school (with real live NUNS to boot) If anything will make you reject Catholicism when you grow up its nuns!

However I was watching a thing on the papacy on the history channel this weekend and as I watched it I had to rethink my whole position on the catholic faith. You get up in the morning and put on a really weird hat, slam down some wine, molest some kids, go to heaven! What a gig!

It's strangely like being a TSA agent

*************

Have you ever noticed that the people who will tell you ever so seriously about how the American Indian used every part of the animal and how fantastic it was that they wasted nothing are the exact same people who when offered a a hot dog (or bolgna) Will go into pratical hysterics "My God do you know what parts of the animal they use in that? Ewwwwwww"

Tall Tales

2011-04-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

I have ALWAYS loved telling stories!

That is why my friends encouraged me to start blogging... so they would not have to actually listen to my stories anymore!

Switching to written story telling from oral you loose a lot of the tools of good story telling, tone of voice, body language maybe even some accents thrown in here and there.

Friday night I had a chance to get all oral again and it was GREAT.

A buddy of mine wants to go to this party but I don't know anyone there. As a nerd I HATE going to a party period but to a party where I don't know anyone? Oh the horror!

(Also bear in mind from my last post that I wrenched my knee pushing a boat and am using a cane for 10 days. )

So we walked into the front room and right off there is a weird situation, there were 3 people comparing scars, and one of them was a pretty hot blond. I have seen guys doing "scar competitions" before but outside of the movie lethal weapon 4(?) I have never seen women play the game. But here it was in living color!

So I said Ooooo- can I play?

Sure.

So I lifted my shirt and showed them my stomach surgery scars, I was wearing shorts and I have a nice double scar above my knee where the propeller of a radio control plane got me and then I have several good misc hand scars from farming and mechanizing.

Now I am telling YOU where the scars came but that is not what I told them.... for them I just pointed them all out. The Surgery scars are the best of course but the others made nice "accessories"

So they asked where did you get all those scars...

Well during the first Persian gulf war I had to eject from my crippled F-15 fighter deep over enemy territory!

"Oh man! What happened to you!?"

Well there I was deep over Saddam's stronghold, flying high cover on a moonless night, moving nearly as fast as a bullet 10 miles above the earth. At that altitude on a moonless night the stars looked like diamonds scattered on black velvet. So crisp, so close, you can easily convince yourself you have in fact left the planet and are in space. It was gorgeous! It was so ironic to experience such beauty deep in a war zone!

Suddenly my reverie was shattered by a flashing master caution alarm!

With no warning at all a fan belt had broken! You want to talk about fear! Fear that grabs you deep in your gut and won't let go!

Still, I tried to salvage the situation but when the fan belt on #1 broke apparently it flew off into #2 engine and took out its fan belt too. I was hosed! I had no hydraulics! (Power steering) You simply can not fly an F-15 without hydraulics! I had no choice but to eject!

It was during the ejection sequence when I snagged jagged pieces of the canopy and got the belly and leg scars I showed you.

More people are gathering around now, it's getting quiet at this party.

So I went on about how hard it is while drifting down in your parachute to judge when you going to contact the ground in the dark dessert and I misjudged the landing and to this day I have this cane to remind me of it.

I managed to evade capture for a few days but they finally got me. The scars on my hands are from the interrogations...

Finally one guy, challenged me, "What? Those scars are not from torture!"

With a grin I said, "Dude! You mean you bought the fan belts breaking but you are NOT buying the interrogation scars?"

People are looking a each other and the blond with her own scars asked me if any part of this story is true?

With my grin growing wider I answered "Helllllll no! But its a good story huh?"

Every one laughed and suddenly I was not at a party of strangers anymore.

High tech

2011-04-25T09:03:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago I hurt my knee very badly. (well to ME) I went to the doc and a couple of blogworthy notes came out of it.

The doctor had an x-ray machine in his office and one of his nurses was unsure of the settings so the doctor come in and was helping her.

I don't know about you but when someone is pointing a radation gun at me and is not quite sure what all the doohickeys are for I get nervous and when I get nervous I make jokes

So when they finally shot the front view of the knee I cupped my balls and yelped "OW! MY SPERM! Oh the looks on their faces was soooo precious!

(a thousand nerd points to whoever can name the show that came from. Googling disqualifies you! )

When they shot the side view I said, "Thats funny! My sperm did not hurt that time!"

So in the end he writes me a script for some muscle relaxers and a cane. A cane? In this day and age? With all the high tech goodies at our disposal he gave me a fucking STICK!

Well yes he did and it worked GREAT!

I asked for one with flames on but apparantly they don't watch "House"

A tale of nerdy vengence!

2011-04-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, as I have discussed before my son did not directly inherit my nerdmanity. All through school he was the jock, the football star.

We had satellite TV then which carried the BBC and more than once I tried to get him to watch reruns of Monty Pythons Flying Circus with me but he HATED it. "This is so stupid Dad!"
Oh my- the squirting sound as my heart was crushed could be heard in the next room but you have to accept that while he is your son he has his own tastes.

At my Dallas house his bedroom is next to my home office. It was a Saturday and he had several members of his football team over but the weather was shitty and there was noting on TV. I could hear them complaining about how bored they were. After about a half hour of listening to them whine I went to my room and got my Holy Grail DVD.

I knocked on his door and told the group, "I been hearing you guys say how bored you you are so I I want 5 minutes of your time, just watch this DVD for 5 minutes and if you don't like it I will just pop it out and not say a word more about it.

I could see them trying to figure out what the catch was so I added, "you are already bored to tears, what do you have to loose?" So they agreed.

As I pulled the DVD from behind my back my son was like "Oh No dad! Not that!" I just replied, 5 minutes, what do you have to loose?

So I went to scene selection and chose "The tale of Sir Lancelot"

This is the scene where the kings gay son is being forced to marry against his will and is locked in the tallest tower to await the marriage. So he sent a tale of woe on an arrow arrow telling of his plight and asking for some brave knight to rescue me.

Of Course sir Lancelot assumes someone being held in a tower, forced to marry and looking for a knight is a DAMSEL. So lancelot rips into this little fiefdom peacefully preparing for a wedding and commenced to hack and slay his way through men and women who have no idea at all they are being attacked.
"Oh aren't these flowers lovely- Ung!!"

The boys, (being teen age boys) were howling with laughter. Its a 7 minute scene and at the 5 minute mark I pulled the DVD.

"They were all like "whoa wait a minute we want to see that!"
"OH I know how stupid Monty Python is. Sorry I made you watch it. Sorry Brian for boring your friends with this stupid stuff!"

Oh I was so mean, I made them BEG for it! BWUH HA HA HA HA!

A nerd's revenge on the football team 20 years delayed but fulfilled!

I still owe the those cheerleaders though! Some day, some day my nerdy vengence quest will be complete!

Another Military Story (sorta)

2011-04-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

So one day I was working on the rudder (foot) pedals of a fighter. The ejection seat was out so i was laying on the floor where the seat would be with my head up under the "dash"

Climbing into a fighter is much like mounting a horse, you swing a leg up over the canopy sill and step down into the cockpit. So the crew chief, a rather portly fellow, decides to climb in. He did not check to see if *I* was there first though so he swings a leg up and over the canopy rail and plants a boot right into in my groinal arena!

Oh my descendants!

I set up fast and wanged my head on something under the 'dash'. Then I laid back down and moaned for a minute. We all had a good laugh at my expense and went back to work. You know, both heads were injured in one accident ha ha ha ha! I was moving slower then before though.

About 15 minutes later I had to use the restroom. When I peed it was pretty dark. Blood in the urine, uh oh.

Long story short some blood vessels were ruptured in the sackal region and one side flooded with blood and distended.

Oddly enough, I came to learn this is a VERY common condition in the Air Force but its generally happens to pilots under high g loads.

After a few more follow ups it was confirmed that I was, in the words of my doctor, rendered sterile.

So fast forward about 7 years. My wife gives me the supposedly happy news that she is pregnant. She is confused that I am not happy. "I'm sterile ya know. So who got your pregnant? "

Well needless to say this set off a marital crises. So it turns out sterile is a relative term. I am technically sterile but I still have some squigglers so a better term than 'sterile' would be "low probability"

Plus when "the boy" turned up, there was no doubt whatso ever that I was the father. He is my clone. The only thing he really got from his mother was his full thick facial hair. Wish I could grow a beard like that!

Vegans

2011-03-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article about vegans this morning. Interesting stuff. As you all know I *love* word origins and it turns out vegan is an old American Indian word meaning "Very shitty hunter".

I just love how some languages can say so much with one word!

You know, it makes me wonder though if vegans have sex? I mean there is the whole aspect of do they have the stamina for it but I mean even philosophically are they allowed to have sex. Milking a cow does not hurt the cow it a bit. In fact, they need to be milked or utter destruction could occur (ar!) Yet vegans are not allowed to drink milk. So no oral for sure!

So in the same vein, uh, train of thought, are male vegans even allowed to ejaculate? Seem like Sperm Murder to me!

Neanderthal bastards! Somebody throw some red paint on the sperm murdering bastards!

BABY KILLERS!

My manhood lost

2011-03-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

This story is NOT about the first thing that popped into your mind when you read that title (however that does remind me of another perhaps blog worthy Air Force story)

In this case the manhood in question is metaphorical rather than physical.

When I was 11 my grandfather (Papa? Pawpaw?) went legally blind. His vision dropped to 20/400 corrected. He had a farm to run though and his financial future was at stake. I became his eyes and hands. He would sit next to me and tell me what to do but I was the guy! I drove him where ever he needed to go, I plowed the fields, planted the crops, fertilized and cultivated mid season then finally harvested in the fall and took the grain to be sold.

Small town Nebraska ( population < 500) was a special place, there are no secrets. Everyone knew I was driving cars and grain trucks, even on the interstate highways, but everyone also knew that I was all that was keeping Papa from bankruptcy. I worked hard and I received something I had never really received from adults before, respect.

I remember the one night we went to town for supper at the bar and grill and I was allowed to drink a beer, in a bar. I was 12. The local motto was "Work like a man get treated like a man." Little things like that made up for not being able to do the things my tween age friends were doing.

I did that for three years while I was 11, 12 and 13 years old. I thought I was going to do it for the rest of my life but property values got very high and papa sold all his land for 3 million(!) bucks.

I moved back to the city. After 3 years of being treated like a man suddenly, I was a child again.

Oh how that chaffed my soul. I oh so desperately wanted to be a man again. It was hard to ever be satisfied again. For example, getting a drivers licence? Pfffft. I was driving huge dump trucks loaded with grain 5 years "ago"!

So all that frustration combined with several other reasons saw me joining the Air Force when I was 16.

After basic training I was a man again! Yay! For a while at least.

After advanced training I reported to my first duty station. I was getting a tour of Hanger 1. The end if the runway was 500 feet from the hanger. An F-4 phantom started its take off run with full afterburners.

The F-4 is a fighter but it's take off weight was a full 30 tons. It is a BIG airplane with BIG engines.

F-4 Phantom Engine Exhaust. Big huh?

Then lets mention afterburners; Afterburners are simply pumping raw fuel into the exhaust stream of jet engine where it combusts, expands and adds considerable thrust. A.k.a. heat and noise. That fuel is injected from a fuel line ring around the inside of exhaust tube. Each ring is considered a stage. Working from memory here the F-4 had 32 stage afterburners (times 2 engines). If the pilot moved the throttles forward slowly you could hear (and feel) each stage kick in individually. If he moved the throttles fast it was a single sound

It was not unheard of for formation take offs with full afterburners to actually break windows on base.

F-4 with full afterburners. Can you feel the power?

So here I am first day on my new base, walking through the phase docks in hanger one when the pilot a mere 500 feet away pushed the throttles all the way forward pretty fast. I heard and felt a tremendous rippling ba-ba-ba-ba-BOOM as the stages kicked in. I thought the all the tanks on the fuel farm were going up in a chain reaction!

Damn my cat like reflexes! I ducked!

I was immediately a laughing stock. The fighter mechanic that was afraid of fighters. All respect and therefore all manhood was lost within hours of stepping on base. {sigh}

Then, just to pile it on, later that day someone coined my new nickname that would stick with me for years to come. No, not "killer", "tiger", "Ace" or any kind of even remotely cool nickname, nope, "baby face" was my new moniker. For one who ached more than anything to be a man to be called baby (face) every day was nightmarish.

My degradation was complete. {sigh}

However, here is a picture taken of me four years after I "earned" that nickname. So I guess maybe they were on to something.

Confusing Headlines

2011-03-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

Check this out this headline...

Apple under fire for 'gay conversion' app

When I first read the headline I thought they had an app to convert me to gay. On one hand that would be pretty kewl because then lots more women would be attracted to me.

One the other hand that app would be a silly waste of time to write because if I am male and I have an Apple then, clearly, I am already gay!

AR!

ps. Just a joke roomie. (But humor only works if there is a nugget of truth in it!)

Catch and release is cruel!

2011-03-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid and we went fishing we kept the fish. Nowadays they almost always release the fish afterwards, I got to thinking about the law of unintended consequences and I realised that at first blush this was a good idea in the end it turns out to be a very cruel practice.

Can you imagine how the fish are shunned after their return? Then the other fish who have the same experience seeing how their friends where treated after their return never say anything about their experience and suffer post traumatic stress! Cruel I tell you. I mean imagine this fish, Jerry, telling his friends his story of catch and release....

"You guys are not going to believe this! There was this strange vehicle just floating there in the sky! So I went closer to check it out and it was dropping food! So being hungry I ate the food!

The food had some kind of power because as soon as I took the bite I was being lifted up to the vehicle! I struggled and tried to swim away but the force was overwhelming! No matter what I did I still was being pulled into the sky, I was pulled out of the world and into the vehicle!!

As I lay there in their odd sky ship gasping on their strange atmosphere they turned me over and examined me, weighed me, measured me and took photos of me. It was so humiliating! Yet I saw things! Advanced technology! I even saw a screen that showed where the rest of you were at below the ship! So I was terrified, humiliated and fascinated all at the same time!

Then just as my consciousness was fading and I was convinced I was going to die they threw me out of the alien ship and back into the world. That's my story"

OH MY GAWD! Oh guys you GOTTA hear this! Jerry says he was abducted and probed by ALIENS AHHHH HA HA HA HA!

Then the group (school) starts chanting "Cra-zy Jerry, Cra-zy Jerry, Cra-zy Jerry" and every one calls him Crazy Jerry for the rest of his life and he never gets to mate or have friends again as he slowly descends into alcoholism and eventually homelessness.

Sad. Really sad!

So eat your fish your heartless bastards! It's the only kind thing to do!

Picture Day

2011-03-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

I LOVE good irony. We can debate how good this is but it lets me chuckle...

Irony.

I always thought I was pretty dirty minded but I can admit it took me a good 10 count to "get" this one. Worth the wait though in my twisted opinion! :)

Management Think #9

2011-03-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

Recently I had to change my e-mail address and I do all on-line bill pay so I go to all my vendors, ya know, phone, cable, credit card, etc. and change my e-mail address.

Logically they all sent me an e-mail notifying that someone had changed my e-mail address online and if it was not me alert them to the security breach immediately.

However, two, count them TWO vendors sent that e-mail the the NEW e-mail account. So if I had been hacked I would never know it. Since sending the e-mail to the new address defeats the entire point of even sending an e-mail you gotta wonder just what were they thinking?

Oh stupid question, hell I have been in this business long enough to "hear" the design meeting...

DBA: "Well the Idiots Guide to Website Design says to send a notification to the the old address for security"
"But how am I to be sending it to the old address when they just changed the address? I am not having the old address anymore"
DBA: Well we should have an audit table where we track changes and we can pull from there, OR in the change address screen you can hold the new address in memory, send a note to the old address THEN change the address in the database OR,...{three other ways to skin the cat}"
"I am not knowing about these things. Let me get back to you."

47 meetings and 1,487 excuses about why they just can't do it right later the manager says "This is taking too much time, just send it to the new address, what the hells the difference. Gah DBA's are such a pain in the ass"

Cheapskate

2011-03-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

I have true cheapskate tendencies. Now I am not too cheap to actually buy things but once I buy them I WILL extract every cent of value out them.

I won't spit out gum till the flavor is GONE! Etc etc.

So I tend to use the same razor blade too long. I pulled a fresh blade out of the medicine cabinet and started shaving and as I took the first stroke down my jawbone I was like WOW!! That is like shaving glass, it is sooo smooth and frictionless! Second stroke, "Man I got quit using these blades for so long. I forgot how nice a new blade feels!"

Then I noticed that where the shaving cream was gone I still had prominent whiskers sticking up? Huh?

Oh. Take the little plastic guard off the blade and lets try this again.

Manual SpamBot

2011-03-11T14:09:00.000-08:00

"The circle is now complete Obi-Wan"

They used to pay people to spam. Then they automated the process with SpamBots. So to defeat the spam bots most sites set up some kind of test on comments/posting, weather it be a simple math problem or the skewed pass phrase.

So far that has defeated the SpamBots. I have been waiting for a while now for someone to crack the skewed pass phrase model used here on blogspot- so far so good. I am guessing it has worked this long because it is just barely human readable (at least to this human)

So now we have come full circle- they are now paying humans to post spam again. I have gotten a couple of them them in the last few weeks. I got this one on the "good news" post....

"I'm impressed with your post which i'm looking for. I have a forum which lets people to share and express their feeling. so come and join with us :) Place to share feeling

(I changed the link to prevent accidents.)

I have several observations about this spam post..

1) If you are going to pay someone to ~~market~~ Spam for you then you really should hire people who can speak the language you want to market in. (duh)

2) I think its HILARIOUS that my post about trying to replace Charlie Sheen on 2.5 men was "the post he was looking for" lol

3) This blog is (theoretically) about the hybrid nature of my nerd/redneck personality. There is often a lot of conflict there but one thing both nerds and rednecks agree on is that they have ZERO interest in "sharing their feelings" So a major "swing and a miss" there buddy!

4) Man, human SpamBot has GOT to be a shitty way to make a living.

Shhhhh. Bad news for the kiddies!

2011-03-10T13:48:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is a delicate situation. This is news I hate to break but I want you parents of younger ones to have time to adjust and get your stories down before you talk to the kids.

We have to ease the kids into it. We can't just blurt out there will be no Easter candy this year and have them be traumatized. So with this lead time we can ease them into it. Prepare their little hearts with news that the Easter Bunnie has gone to a "better place"

Easter Treats are no more. :(

Bad News Good News

2011-03-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

Bad News - Well negotiations fell through with CBS today. They were only offering a million per episode with no back end. How can I live off that? Pffft!

Good news - However, I am now in negotiations with Martin Sheen to be his replacement son. The big question at this point is can I get along with Emilio Estevez or will Thanksgiving dinners at the Sheen house continue to be awwwwwwwkwaaaaard! :)

Good News!

2011-03-07T14:30:00.001-08:00

I am in talks with CBS to replace Charlie Sheen on 2.5 men. Whoo hoo!

Failing a test and Passing a test

2011-03-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

Ok, this story is the flip-side of yesterdays story!

I was looking for that critical first job right out of college. You know, you have the degree but you have zippo experience and employers are wary.

I went to an interview at Automated Telephone Management systems. I interviewed with one of the lead programmers there. After about 5 minutes it became painfully obvious I had nothing they were looking for. What I had studied and what they were doing were just totally different.

I knew I was not getting this job so I relaxed and with the pressure off my playful personality came out. I remember even cracking a joke about how I did not like their toilet in the lobby. It had a "booster seat" for the handicapped and said I felt like I was 5 years old with my legs dangling off the toilet like that.

The people in the surrounding cubes and the guy interviewing me all broke up laughing.

They made me an offer. I was SHOCKED!

Everyday I was there I was convinced they would realize their mistake and fire me so I really hit the books and studied all the new technology they used. I was given simple assignments that let me learn without overwhelming me. Still I was ready for that ax to fall any second!

In the meantime that manager at the hospital in the previous story would have LOVED this place. It was full of anti-social nerds who never said anything or talked to anybody. The monastery like silence was killing me! Once day I even stood up in my cube and yelled "What is this a library!? Somebody say something!"

So I started just going to random cubes and saying something like "It's break time lets go outside and see the sun?" Then I would get a chance to talk to that person and get to know them a little. Once the ice was broken they would talk to you in the future. One by one I pulled the monks out of their cubicles and got them talking to me. Before long I had us going to lunches together or hanging out together after work. Of course some people never joined in but most did.

I had been there about 5 months and I knew I was getting the technology down when I was assigned my first major project. It was a tough one too!

When I pulled off that project I felt secure in that job for the first time. There was a question I had wanted to ask for 6 months but never dared ask before. Now that I longer felt they were going to fire me at any second I finally asked it.

Mr. Manager, why did you hire me? I knew nothing you needed!

He nodded and chuckled! Well Rob, I had a personnel problem here. I had a lot of really bright gifted people working here but I did not have a team. They were not working together. No one ever talked to each other, they never bonded. I had tried to loosen them up but as the boss they would not ease up around me. In your interview I tagged you as a team builder and even though you had NONE of the tech skills I needed I thought you would be a net gain as an actual team formed. I was right.

It's just a bonus you actually learned the skills we needed to boot.

So, after years of hard work and sacrifice to get that degree I was hired for my personality?! Ouch!

So that is how women who get hired for thier looks feel like huh? :)

Giving a test and failing a test

2011-02-28T10:41:00.000-08:00

One time I was interviewing at a hospital in Dallas. I was very conflicted. The technology was uber cool and I really, REALLY wanted to play with it, however the department manager was making quite a point about what a buttoned down formal place this was. I mean he was selling it, bragging about it and how great it was to work there because they had regular cubicle inspections and such. Wow.

Working with technology is the art of creative problem solving and creative people rarely do well in constrained formal work environments. Most technology firms understand this and in order to profit from their talents create work environments that fit them.

I am ex-military and I know I suffered there. "Don't think, follow the manual." is the rule. I once had an old master Sergent tell me that in wartime my solutions to problems would make me a hero but in peacetime they made me a pain in the ass.

So as much as I wanted to work in this hospital I did not think I would be happy there but I was not sure. So while the department manager was taking me on a tour I had a sudden inspiration! A test! While we were in the cube farm area, I said in a moderately loud voice, "We are the knights who say ..." as I heard at least six discreet "Ni's" emanate from the cube farm I turned to the befuddled dept manager with a smile and said, "I think I will be happy here."

I never got an offer. In hindsight I am guessing my little test got me tagged as "pain in the ass" on the spot from his perspective.

Say la vie.

Super shorts

2011-02-22T15:46:00.000-08:00

None of these random thoughts are worthy of a post so I thought I would group them up, you know on the principle that zero raised to the fifth power is greater than zero.

So, if I have a glass of milk in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other hand am I drinking white Russians or am I just a raging alcoholic?

Men like to think on the toilet. So, do you think that is where Einstein came up with the concept of black holes?

Is "I giggled mightily!" an oxymoron?

There is this really hot girl on TV called Katy Perry. Does she do anything other than acne cream commercials? Her infomercials are awesome though! Even with acne she is devastating gorgeous. E! should start 42 new reality shows about her! Now!

So in pro wrestling, how long is it going to take them to learn to quit leaving those folding chairs laying around? I mean c'mom man!

A New Show Idea

2011-02-17T07:22:00.000-08:00

As if the the E! Network is not already unofficially the Kardashian channel they are getting ready to add yet another program to the Kardashian line up.

Wow, so how do any of these shows stay on the air anyway? Yes, The Kardashian girls are gorgeous. A given, but they are whiny, self possessed and annoying as hell. They are every bit as bad as conceited 13 year old's (since they were raised rich and spoiled 13 is probably about their correct emotional age and state)

Hey E! Here is an idea, How about turning the Kardashian's out into the wild and having big game hunters stalk and hunt them down them with tranquilizer guns? Now THAT is a show I would never miss!

Oh yeah, at least one of the hunters has to be Australian so we can get the whole crocodile hunter format thing going. Imagine all the following in an Aussie accent:

Oy, look here mate, we are on the trail all right! We have spoor! A purple speckled toenail and a tuft of matted hair still stuck to the waxing strip! Clearly we are on the trail of a wild Kardashian. Sssh sssh, mate, if we listen carefully we can hear the mateing whine of the wild Kardashian..."

{enhanced fuzzy audio} "Nobody ever gives me any respect! I can't believe I was not invited to her party! I mean I invited her to my party, why didn't she..."

"Yes, yes, mates, we are clearly closing in, quiet now, very quiet as the wild Kardashian can lash out with sharpened claws and really damage your eyes mate.... {stalking...stalking}

A sadly not so rare photo of a wild Kardashian beast in it's natural habitat.

{wispering} Crickey! Look at that, we have found a wild Kardashian in her natural element, admiring herself in the mirror and whining incessantly. Now is the time to strike, lets shoot the tranq. (FOOONT)

Crickey she is a strong one mate, she is dazed but not going down! Looks like all that partying has built up her resistance to the tranqs! Looks like we need a second tranq for this beefy girl... (FOOONT)

My Gawd, she is still up- the force of self possession and self importance is strong in this one, Two tranqs and she is still stumbling around, we better end this before she hurts her self {FOONT FOONT)

And. she. is. down! It took 4 tranqs! What a trophy mates, what a trophy!

Well mates, that was a smacking good hunt eh? Tune in again and let's see which Kardashian falls next time on "Kardashian Hunters"! Only on E!

Ahhh California

2011-02-16T08:57:00.000-08:00

Out in Santa Clara California they are banning the "Happy Meal". The logic goes you should not entice children with toys, clowns and I guess happiness. Interesting thought process.

So I recommend McDonald's create the Unhappy Meal, livers and onion, broccoli and prune juice. Yeah that will sell!

In a great twist, the unhappy meal will probably make all the unhappy people who think up all this silly shit very happy.

Quickies...

2011-02-15T11:30:00.000-08:00

Today is my first full day out of bed since last Friday. I have been pretty sick. Then Monday something happened that I thought I thought would never happen to me! I got tired of laying around! {gasp}

Remember the old Olivia Newton John tune, "Lets Get Physical"? If not here is the YouTube of it...

Well yesterday my internal iPod modified it just a bit and I was singing:
"Lets get vertical, vertical,
I wanna get vertical,
Yeah lets get vertical!"

On a different note, here is quick video showing what it would be like if totally oblivious but still over analytical Nerdyredneck somehow wound up in prison...

They even got my sexy accent down pat!

Man I hope I get royalties off of this!

Prophecy Fulfilled! (eep)

2011-02-10T09:21:00.000-08:00

Ahhhhhhhh! Run people RUN! Michael Jackson's zombie has returned from the dead! I knew this would happen I just KNEW it! I get sooo tired of being right about this shit!

(Full disclosure - I used this bit on Face Book a few months ago but nobody paid any attention to me over there (it seems my humor (such that it is) and face book are not compatible) so I brought it here for you folks to uh *cough*, enjoy)

Chicken Thoughts

2011-02-09T06:33:00.000-08:00

Ok, the full story is linked below but the gist of is that a man in the audience of a cock fight was attacked and killed by one of the fighting game cocks.

Armed rooster kills man

The roosters possible thoughts...

"You killed and ate my entire family! DIE you bastard, DIE!"
"Man, I hope I don't fry for this!"
"Oh Sorry, I thought you were Colonel Sanders"
"Oh Sorry, I thought you were Micheal Vick"
"You bet against me, ME? I'll show you!"
"'The Crow" is in a contract dispute so they sent his work over to me"
"Don't be singing "They Come to Snuff the Rooster" around here be-yotch!"
"Yeah, this will get me on Oprah fer sure! What, she is off the air? NooooOOOoooOOO!"
"I will kill one every day until put they George Lopez back on the air!"
"So when do I get my 72 virgins?"
"I hope this makes the "Darwin Awards"
"You wanna see my flair? YOU want to see MY flair?"
"Yeah, I am talking to YOU!"
"I'm LEEEEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOY JEEEEEEN-KIN'S! (gamer joke)

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die

The victims possible thoughts...

"Damn, I knew I should not have worn my red Star Trek shirt today"

Ehhh, that's all I got folks. Overall lame I know but it was fun brainstorming. Feel free to chime in!

Where the wild thoughts go

2011-02-08T08:41:00.000-08:00

So recently I get a phone call from a beuatiful woman I have known for a few years....

"Hey Rob, how ya doing?"
"Other than freezing pretty good."
After some chit chat she comes to the point, "You know there is something I have been wanting to do for a long time and I hate to admit it but I am a little scared to try it but I just knew you would be the guy to help me out with it."
"I am intrigued, go on"
"Well, for a long time I have been wanting to have a three way"
"{gulp} And you thought of me?"
"Well sure. Will you help me with it?"
"{pause} This is some kind of trick, right?
"What? No."
"Uhhhh, Ok, well I guess it depends on who the third person is going to be."
"What difference does that make?"
"Well it matters to me!
"I can't see why but it was going to be my friend Ashley"

Wow. I've met Ashly and she is pretty hot too, "So is Ashley on board with this?
"Well sure. In fact she is pretty excited about it too."
"... ... This is this some kind of trick, right?
"Why do you keep saying that"
"Well you know, that old saying, if its too good to be true..."
"Your so silly! What is too good to be true about teaching me how to make a 3 way call?

Pure Beauty!

2011-02-04T08:43:00.000-08:00

If you don't know what this is then you should be ashamed. You are looking at one of the top moments in human history here... and it is gorgeous!

Click it to enlarge!

Not knowing what this is is roughly akin to saying "What Pyramids in Egypt?"

Yep, it was a blizzard!

2011-02-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

I took this Thursday afternoon just west of Springfield Illinois...

Click to enlarge to grasp the full horrifying beauty of it all!

If you look on the left of the road in the middle distance you can see the tundra growing.
Way more to come on this topic

I don't think so...

2011-01-28T13:35:00.000-08:00

They say that beer and coffee are diuretics and will make you pee more fluid out than you take in by drinking the coffee/beer.

Now being the scientific type I simply follow where the data takes me. So I opine that this can not be true of coffee and beer. If it were true I would be a dessicated husk by now with bits flaking off and blowing away in the breeze by now.

Don'cha just love science?

Yeah, he's one!

2011-01-27T06:30:00.000-08:00

Nerd, first class, reporting for duty sir.

(click to enlarge if you need too)

Apparently "Captain Kirk" is a little on the paranoid side. He saw some guy sitting behind him (trying) to take a photo and he was OFF! So it turned into a movie based car chase before he got stuck at a red light I got my picture. Yesssss!

Oh, the things I do and the sacrifices I make for my three readers!

Ahhhh, Good Marketing

2011-01-26T17:26:00.001-08:00

A New Leaf

2011-01-20T06:31:00.000-08:00

We are all trying to get a little greener! So from this point forward I vow this blog will only be printed on 100% recycled electrons!

Yes, I care that much!

Nerds Rock!

2011-01-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

Note the following e-mail thread from here at work.

Names have been redacted to protect the guilty...

-------------------------------------------------
To : Supportgroup@il.gov
From: XXXX

Subject: Hung processing this morning

Hey XXXXXXXX,

As a preemptive strike... XXXX told me the CRI.PROCESSNATMSINMSGS has run since 9:08. I'm guessing some user had a lock on something yet again. Would you please take a look? Also, could you let me know who the offender is.

What are your thoughts on providing scripts/privileges to whomever is on call to check to see if there are locks on this job and to kill the offender's session?

------------------------------------------------

Now knowing there is no way on Earth they were going to let the requester have the access needed to keep things running smooth (its a government thing) and knowing that this is the kinda of thing that starts wars I decided to throw a little levity in to defuse the situation and "replied all" with the following...

------------------------------------------------

To : Supportgroup@il.gov

From: Nerdyredneck
Subject: Hung processing this morning

What were you thinking! Mine gott man, do you have any idea how much whirling and twirling and knocking we have going on in this system here?

If they gave you the level of access you requested then it is possible, even probable that squirrels could collide on the exercise wheels, then fly off into space, fall through a black hole and travel back in time to a primordial earth. At some point it then becomes inevitable that squirrel DNA would be infused in the primordial ooze and all life on earth would become squirrel based. Humans would never have existed.

So seriously, do you want that kind of responsibility on your shoulders? DO YOU?

I did not think so.

Nerdyredneck

------------------------------------------------

So for the last 10 days or so since I sent that out I have been receiving nearly daily e-mails from team members with the subject of TOO LATE containing um, interesting photos, here is a sampling....

Avast thar maties and heave too fer a code walk through.

Kin ah go to da salt lick Pa? Kin I?

Die Infidel pig!

And now young Jedi, you. will. die!

Nerds are just sooooo awesome!

Then of course we have one from me from over three years ago... Former Pop Star Gunned Down
.
.
.

Sea Salt

2011-01-13T11:57:00.000-08:00

So what the deal with sea salt grinders? Now pepper grinders I get. You release aromatics when you grind a peppercorn and you get more flavor. I don't think that applies to salt.

Now Erika has a couple of salt grinder that I like just 'cause they are mechanically cool. Plus when I am not in the mood to grind my own I can just use a real salt shaker!
So what has me whining about this is that now restaurants are starting to jump onto this faddish band wagon...

I go to a restaurant and pay 20 bucks to eat and I have to grind my own freaking salt? What did we just jump back in time 200 years. "Pa, why don you head on down to da salt lick wit a hammer and a bucket?"

Don't they have machines to do this shit?

At least put a real salt shaker on the table for those of us who don't have time for all the latest fads.

By gard, pre-ground salt was gud nuff fer me pappy and it's damn sho good nuff fo me!

Next time I eat at one of these place that makes me grind my own salt I am going to attach an invoice for my time spent grinding .0002 cents worth of salt to the bill and deduct it from my total.

Thus concludes Rob's bizarre rant of the day!

(Get off my yard you little bastards!)

Thanks for your support dear!

2011-01-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

I was dating a girl last summer. She and her room mate got into a big fight and since i have a truck I helped her move out. My truck sits pretty high and I jumped off the tail gate. I landed a little wrong and hurt my foot. I was gimped out pretty bad for a while there

Now she was really nice and she went grocery shopping for me (since I hurt my foot helping her) but I needed to go to the bank. My bank in Texas has one and only one branch here in Springfield and its in the giant Wal-Mart. So anyway you slice it it a pretty good walk to go to the bank there. So I kept putting it off.

So this gal was saying, "Just use one of the powered carts up front that is what they are there for."
"No they are there for old people, I just HATE it when I see young strong people using them, its the same as parking in the handicapped spot to me."
"Oh quit being such a baby, you need to go to the bank, your foot is injured so just use the cart!"
"No."
"Men!"

So she wheedled and cajoled (nice words for nagged) me into using the cart. No sooner than I sat on the seat the burn on my face and neck began! I was soooooo humiliated. I could feel every eye burning me with their glare!

I could hear ever single person thinking "Look at that lazy worthless bastard using the old peoples cart!"

It. was. horrible.

I wheeled up to the tellers window and was filling out my slip. You know how you "know" tellers and hair stylists and such? We make small talk every week or so. So I 'knew' these people at the bank so I was telling them how horrible I felt for using this cart and how my girlfriend "wheedled" me into it when my phone went off, I just got a text. It was from my girlfriend- it said:

"OMG! You should see this! It's horrible! There is this perfectly able bodied ASS in a powered chair at the bank in the Wal-mart! What a douche!"

She cracked me up but I don't care what the tape measure says, the trip out of Wal-Mart on that scooter was three times longer than the trip in.

NEVER AGAIN!

It's the law.

2011-01-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

Oh, my once hot but ditzy wife was raised by a hard core west Texas gun loving redneck. (Whereas I as was raised as the Nebraska breed.)

So about a decade ago we ended up shooting in competitive couples matches on weekends. Oh amateur level to be sure but it was a lot of fun.

Now she was a good shooter but she was still not the mechanical type so I did all the break down and cleaning of the rifles.

During this time frame I had some customers in Chicago. One Sunday afternoon after a match I was sitting on the floor cleaning rifles on the towel covered coffee table watching football when the phone rang. It was one of my clients in Chicago.

"Hey Rob, I hate to bother you on a Sunday but we wanted to get a jump on Monday and wondered if you have time for some questions? Are you busy?"

"No, not at all I am just cleaning my wife's rifle, Just let me turn off the game..."
With an odd tone he said, "What? You mean your cleaning... your rifle"
Still a little oblivious here, "Nope, I'm all done with my rifle I am working on hers now."
Now the tone is disbelieving and hesitant, "Your wife has a rifle?"
"Yep"
"Why on earth does your wife have a rifle"

Now I am (finally) catching on that he thinks it is really bizarre that my wife shoots so I simply replied, "Well Jerry, it's Texas, it's the law."

Moments of silence then, "So about that meeting...."

How I hate Micheal Bay...

2011-01-10T07:52:00.000-08:00

Seriously I don't know how this guy keeps getting work. Well I take that back, "Transformers" saved his career and yet the two transformers movies (so far) are pretty indicative of why he sucks so much.

You know movies/stories are supposed to manipulate your emotions to some degree but when done by a true artist you are never even aware you are being manipulated. Micheal Bay uses a sledgehammer and even puts a sign on the screen that says "Emotional manipulation technique 3A commencing NOW!" Then you are just setting there rolling your eyes going, "Really?"

In his film school efforts to manipulate our emotions he just WONT STOP! Action sequences are just waaay too long and just way too many things happen (that each last tool long). Eg In Armageddon it just went on and on and on and on and on; Space station blows up, (takes 20 minutes) shuttle crashes (takes 20 minutes to crash too!), burns up the drill, show down over the bomb, FOUND A NEW DRILL!. space dementia (eye roll!) and Steve Buscemi goes nuts with the chain gun (Uh, BTW, those were Mars rovers. Just what were they planning to shoot on MARS?) Then remote detonator wont work, Shuttle engine wont start, then Bruce Willis cant even pull the trigger without yet ANOTHER "action" sequence! By the time Bruce Willis killed himself I was like "YES! FINALLY! Dear god thank you!! It's over.. or is it?! .... YES it really is!" and you break down weeping for joy in the theater. This is pretty much true of every film he makes. By the time it is over you are sick to death of the movie.

Oh and what the hell is the deal with all the camera shaking? Is the fact that I can't see any thing supposed to make me think it is more "real" Gah. It started in the "The Rock" with the car chase between Nick Cage and Sean Connery. Then it went completely overboard (like anything Micheal bay) in "Pearl Harbor"

I read this story I read in a pilots magazine. When Bay made Pearl Harbor he went to the owners of many actual WWII aircraft and rented their very expensive museum pieces from them. (Not cheap) then he broke them down and shipped them to Hawaii and had them reassembled there. (Not cheap) Then he filmed many action sequences with the plane at Pearl Harbor. Then broke the planes back down, shipped them back and reassembled them.

So he spent a LOT of money to use authentic aircraft in his action sequences. So I read about this before the movie released and I was thinking, "This is gonna be cool!!"

Then he did the "shaking camera" thing to such an extreme you can hardly tell they are airplanes let alone be able to tell they are authentic. What kind of moron spends all that money and does all that work then does not let you SEE what he spent all that money to film? It's just boggling. (and if the shaking is that violent how could anybody operate the plane? GAH!)

On top of that - how can you possibly make a movie about Pearl harbor and make it BORING? He pulled it off.

So what set off this rant? He offended my nerdy sensibilities this weekend, They are running a trailer for Transformers III. Watch this trailer for it on YouTube. Pay attention to Walter Cronkite, They are now on the far side of the moon. Far side of the moon? Once you land on a given spot of the moon You can't move to the far side! The moon is tidally locked, it does not rotate in relation to the earth. Throughout all of human history we have ALWAYS looked up to he same side of the moon.

I mean this is not rocket science; Can we at least get the 4th grade stuff right? Wow.

So to cap it off- Apparently Sean Green feels about the same way towards Micheal bay as I do- Micheal Bay Parody (very short)

Thus concludes Rob's bizarre rant of the day!

Obliviousness

2011-01-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

When I was younger man and my son was still a toddler I had beautiful black fastback Mustang with a Sun roof and a hot but ditzy wife. (Picture of her if you care)

The sun roof was hinged at the front and had this latching mechanism where if you held a little locking tab with your thumb then pulled the handle the BACK part of the window would tilt up.

I smoked back then. Now even as a smoker I hated nasty ashtrays so I used to just flip the sunroof up then I could hold the cigarette up close to that opening and the low pressure area would just SUCK the ash right off the butt and out. Loved it!

The other really neat thing about that was when you parked a black car in the Dallas sun you could leave that sunroof tilted up and hot air could escape out the top and keep your interior temps in the barely human habitable zone.

One year we drove that car to a family reunion 600 miles from home. It was not a great traveling car especially with a little one but hey, I had to show off my Mustang ya know? You see, back then I had not come out of the closet yet and I not even admitted to myself let alone anyone else yet that I was a nerd; I was still desperately trying to prove that I was indeed cool! (see that opening paragraph again! :) )

So we are at the reunion 600 miles from home and my wife asks for the keys to the car.
"Where are your keys?", I asked
"In my purse! I locked it in the car so I would not have to carry it around."
"Oh", that made sense to me.
5 minutes later.
"Honey, I locked your keys in the car too."
Weeeeee! At least we were close to home!

Luckily since it was summer I had left that sunroof tilted up for the heat to escape so now I am breaking long skinny branches off the tree so I can slid them in through that little slot and try to hit the power lock button on the door.

My father walks out and sees me poking tree limbs into my sunroof and asks, "What in the hell are you doing boy?" you know in that gentle concerned way only a father can.
"Trying to unlock the door."
"Your kidding? You locked your keys in?", in that helpful concearned way only a father can.
"Well Julia did."
"So where are her keys?"
"In there too."
"Mmmm. Ya know, son if you opened that sunroof it would be a lot easier."
"What? It is open?"
"No Open-open?"
"Whaaa?"
"Here..."

Dad reaches in front of me, holds down a little catch on the side of the latching mechanism, I heard a "Tooonk! " and he lifted the whole glass plate off the roof! Then he picks up my son, lowered him through the now gaping hole in the roof and says "Press the button!"

"That's cool Dad, I never knew it did that!"
"How long you had this car son?", you know in that gentle concerned way a father has.

"Well..."
"Here look at this.", he opens the hatchback and there is this shelf at the top with an elastic strap, "That is where your store the glass when it's out."
"OOOOoooooh! I wondered about that."
"Don't you know anything about your own car son?", he said in that gentle concerned way only a father can.

Well I can make it go vroom! :(

Yup, oblivious!

Fire pot

2011-01-06T09:58:00.000-08:00

Ever seen one of these? I never had. Erica brought it home and it sat for awhile before I realized it was not just yet another useless vase! (so ladies, what is it with you and vases anyway? ;) )

Unlike vases though this is cool! It's called a fire pot! Bet ya can't guess why!

It makes FIRE! Fire GOOD! Rob Like FIRE! Hmmmm.

The vase part has a metal cylinder in the center you fill with fire pot fuel and then light her off. It has a "lid" that will snuff the flame when you put it on. As you can see it's a nice flame! It even crackles and pops nicely.

Like most people I find an open flame comforting and like to fire up candles on occasion but hey guys, let's face it; Candles are a little effeminate. Ok, they are pretty gay so here is the solution...

This here is a MAN candle! Yeah buddy!

The SHOCK!!!

2011-01-05T07:13:00.000-08:00

I hit my head when I passed out!

Seriously, the shock was simply too much for my system. Raunchy HUMOR on a warship? Oh my dear Lord. It's just inconceivable! Warriors on a warship in a war zone were NOT being POLITICALLY CORRECT! OH THE HORROR!

What I love is how EVERYONE is offended. Liberals are offended because of gay jokes and religious conservatives are offended because of the sexual nature of the humor. Yeah, like God does not know about sex. pfft! As is normal in my life as a nerdyredneck I really don't fit anywhere. I think BOTH groups are nuts!

So now we wear helmets to ride bicycles, men drive Volvos (well males anyway) and sailors can't tell dirty jokes anymore. Man what have we become?

Ok, everyone, go rent Gran Torino right now. Maybe the ladies in the church basement don't talk this way and if "Will and Grace" has taught me anything then other than calling everyone bitches all the time gay folks/liberal ideologues don't talk this way but MOST of America does MOST of the time when Children are not around.

If that offends your delicate little sensibilities then too fucking bad. Grow up and deal with it and quit being such a disgusting little wimp trying to force everyone to think the way you think. Then go a step further and prove your really an American and you really believe in freedom and the next time you hear one of the thought police (either left or right) lecture forth tell THEM to fuck off and grow up too

The last thing ANY military needs is warriors with "delicate sensibilities" After 10 years in Afghanistan I submit we have already made our military too sensitive. It only took 5 years to defeat the Nazi's and they were way tougher than these cave dwellers.

{sigh} What is wrong with people? I'm too young to be such a surly old curmudgeon. I guess it's time to bow to the inevtiable, buy a cane and sit on the front porch yelling at the nieghborhood kids:

"GET OFF MY YARD YOU LITTLE BASTARDS!"
-Nerdyredneck Circa 2011

Gub'ment Propaganda ;)

2011-01-04T06:55:00.000-08:00

Alright ladies, you told me about laps dogs. and I already knew that if I looked like a girl that would help but you NEVER TOLD ME about this secret!

Ok, it's kinda cute, they rotate these and put up a fresh one every month. They are all about equally as cute.

Seriously though, this state is running a HUGE deficit! This state is either the second or third most financially screwed up state in the union (California is #1 of course. At least we have electricity here! ;) ) yet they have money to print and distribute cutsie little reminders about basic hygiene every month.

This state is also PSA crazy. (Public service announcement) Drunk driving, slow down in construction zones, wear your seat belts. These ads are on TV every night. Of course I realize they don't spend any money to RUN them ( I think) but the production costs of dozens of television commercials are not inconsequential.

The politicians here say they can not find ANYTHING to cut to solve the budget problems. :) Nothing at all!

Well, I could tell some "inside" stories but won't as long as I work here. :) ;) (which will only be another couple of months) but this stuff should be obvious.

-----------------------------

Correction: According to this Bloomberg Story. This is THE most financially screwed up state in the union. This year the budget is 26 Billion with 13 Billion of it deficit spending. Wow. Just WOW!

Road trip shorties

2011-01-03T10:24:00.000-08:00

I already posted the Redneck sign but I thought I would share other short thoughts from my recent road trip with y'all.

I saw an old man peeing on the side of I-44. He made NO effort to hide. I laughed. I could hear his thought process: "I'm old, I have to pee and I mean NOW and I am not stumbling around in the mud to "hide" on the shoulder side of the truck. So deal with it puritans! lol!

Ok, so how do you know you did NOT stop for food and fuel at a "classy joint"?

Now really, are FOUR big master Padlocks needed? If you have the means to get one BIG master lock off (Bolt cutters) is having three more going to matter? Uh, no. That's just bad engineering. Well perhaps it's just good marketing to idiots who think "horny goat weed" is a good revenue stream.

So who buys this stuff anyway? "Hell Bubba! My dates a shore thing! I gots me some horny goat weed at the truck stop!"

I drove through two tornado generating fronts in one day. This is the first one.

This picture is NOT blurry! See how the dash is in focus? Note the light levels? It is 10 AM. The wipers are on high, emergency flashers are on and we are driving s-l-o-w! I found out later 3 people were killed about 20 miles from where this picture was taken. About 6 hours later as I was punching through the second front and keeping my Mark IV eye balls tracking the clouds and potential places to stop and take cover my internal I-Pod pulled up and loaded a seriously old tune!

I started singing "Duck and Cover" (Youtube link) Wow, I was really dredging the depths of the wet ware for that one huh? I can't believe they were still showing that one in 1971 or so when I saw it. It was 20 years old then. I can't believe I still remember it!

Weird how the mind works huh?

Love it!

2010-12-31T11:03:00.000-08:00

Seen in Springfield (south west) Missouri! I just HAD to stop and take a picture to share with you all! :)

My son, my son

2010-12-29T07:29:00.000-08:00

Two quickies about my boy...

So Sunday I was working on my truck, flush and fill the coolant, change the oil , etc., getting her ready for the trip back to north of the the arctic circle (aka the Mason-Dixon line) . As previously noted my truck is pretty tall. I stand 5'11 and its still hard for me to reach inside the engine compartment as the fenders nestle nicely into my armpits. :)

So I am standing on an old chair to work. My son takes a look, walks to the garage wall grabs the step ladder and says "Here, try this Pop".

Who's son is THIS? I mean just how UN-Texan can you get?

On the other hand, just a week or two ago I told you all he did not seem to inherit any nerdiness from me. I might have to rethink that. The ladder clearly works better, its easier to get up and down from and even has a handly shelf for my tools and everything! The step ladder far far was more efficient! (and therefore nerdy) Hmmmm. Maybe a few nerd genes did slip into the old baby batter after all?

*******************************************************

Last summer he picked me up from the airport in his Ford truck.

He pulled up to me in arrivals and he had a cute little dog in his lap. I just stood at the curb with slight vertigo while my world view rebooted.

"What's wrong Dad?"
"Son, you did not have to lie. I would love you no matter what."
"What are you talking about?"
"You did not have to hang posters of Tyra Banks and Jessica Simpson in your room all those years."
"What are you talking about?"
"You could have just told me you were gay. You did not have to hide it, oh from your friends on the football team sure but not from me!"
"What THE HELL are you talking about Dad?"
"You have a little lap dog in your truck dude! That is profoundly gay son."
"No it's not! Lots of Texas men have dogs in their trucks!"
"In their trucks YES, in their laps, NO!"

We both had a decent laugh then I got in the truck.

Then I found out "lap dog" is not a voluntary act. In two minutes I had a lap dog like it or not. (damn thing was so cute too!)

So my brilliant son says in a dead pan, "So that whole marriage thing with Mom was just a cover up, huh Dad?"

That boy is sharp...I am soooo proud.

Back in Tundra Town

2010-12-28T13:40:00.000-08:00

Well I made the 12 hour drive back to Illinois yesterday.

As I listened to the radio all day I learned a couple of things. As I heard about the thousands upon thousands of flights canceled and the havoc wreaked on the air transport system I sure am glad I drove!

I also learned I have a medical problem! (but it IS treatable!) An ad came on and started listing symptoms. It asked do you suffer from A or B? Well no A but a big yes to B! So now I am intrigued
Yes to C - hmmmm
Yes to D as well! Wow!
Yes to E too! Oh no!

Oh man, they really have my attention now!

Apparently I have Menopause!

Thank God it IS treatable according to the man with the smooth voice on the radio!