Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Joke of the Day
They continue walking and soon pass another door where a group of people are passing out food. "Methodists," St. Peter replies to the man's quizzical look.
Soon, they walk past another door. Loud music echoes down the hallway. The man looks inside and sees dozens of people dancing, singing, laughing, and raising their hands. "I'm guessing they're Pentecostals?" he says. "Correct."
They turn a corner. The man hears raised voices arguing. As he gets closer to the door, the din grows louder. He can hear harsh words flying back and forth. He opens the door and ducks as a Bible flies out. The sound is deafening. Everywhere he turns he sees people arguing, pointing fingers at each other, and fighting.
"Who are these people?" the man asks.
"Calvinists." replies St. Peter. "They haven't stopped arguing long enough to realize anybody else is here."
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Dreaming
One recurring theme in my dreams is it's the last day of finals. I have a final in a class I just remembered I stopped attending weeks before. I search frantically for the classroom but can't find it. I have that dream about once a month.
Another theme is finding rattlesnakes. Lots of rattlesnakes. I'm walking across a field and there are hundreds of rattlesnakes. I go downstairs and the floor is covered with rattlesnakes. There are rattlesnakes slithering out of my car. I wonder what this dream is all about.
Once when I was dating Tabitha, I dreamt I was racing my 1972 Datsun 510 down a mountain road. I was going pretty fast until I missed a turn, crashed through the guard rail, and flew into the air. I remember a sudden feeling of weightlessness and then I woke up.
When I was in the Navy on my way to the Persian Gulf I dreamt about a father who was angry with his daughter and killed her. That was pretty crazy.
Just today while napping, I dreamed I was travelling to another city with the kids. We were floating down a river on a small raft. We were making pretty good time too. We stopped for the evening in a small rustic town. My parents were supposed to meet us. I leave the kids by the raft and try to find a phone. I crawl through a small hole into a store. The young girl behind the counter lets me use the phone where I am dismayed to learn my parents haven't even left yet. I have to crawl through the hole again to get back outside.
Sleep would be pretty boring if we didn't have dreams to keep us entertained. I wouldn't mind if I stopped dreaming about rattlesnakes though.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Big Sky Country
But every time my wife gets to Montana, she starts looking at real estate. She finds an awesome house on several acres that would be "perfect" for our little family. The house she found this time is a newer 4 bedroom on five acres with a large shop with an apartment. For $225,000. And it would be really close to my parents.
Last week I drove with the family to Montana. I stayed a few days and then flew home so I could go back to work. As I write, they are on their way home. Last night when I talked to Aidan on the phone he told me he wants to move to Montana.
The boy needs room to roam. I get that. Abigail loves being able to see her cousins. I get that. Tabitha loves the slow pace of life. I get that.
I also have a job I can't leave so easily. I like it.
I've thought about moving the family to Big Sky Country while I continue working down here. I could fly home on my weekends and see the family. Flights aren't too expensive and I would rack up air miles pretty quickly. My in-laws have said I could stay with them. So it's all settled then, right?
The fly in the ointment is that it sucks to be away from my wife and kids. Sure, they can be annoying but I'd rather they were annoying in my presence. I don't think I could commute from Montana to California for the next ten years. It would get old after a while.
Enough excuses. Here's a few things I did on this trip:
- I helped my dad move logs in the yard by pulling them behind the Jeep.
- I walked through a cow pasture with Aidan and my nephew, Logan.
- I threw a rock into the canal and watched it sink to the bottom.
- I rode my bicycle up my parent's road.
- I drove in the Jeep with my dad and Aidan over gravel roads to the middle of nowhere. I used four wheel drive.
- I skipped rocks on Flathead Lake with my nieces and nephews.
- I had a root beer from A&W.
- I spent time with my sisters. And my parents.
- I contemplated buying a pair of cowboy boots.
- I drank cool fresh water straight out of the well.
20,000!
Wow!
Sorry I haven't had a lot of content lately to make that last thousand hits worthwhile. I'll try to make it up to you.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Roughing It
Friday, May 7, 2010
Bad Idea
They could be right.
However, If law enforcement focuses its attention on people of Latin American decent they will miss the true threat to the American way of life:
Canadians.
"But Canadians are just like us" you might say.
Au contraire.
Canadians might look white and middle class and speak English (albeit heavily accented and with a questioning tone), they are definitely not like us.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of Canadians sneak into this country to take advantage of the proud tax-paying citizens of this great country.
- They overburden our health care system with their costly "elective" surgeries.
- They flood our streets and old-folk's homes with cheap prescription meds.
- They subvert our proud American system of measurement with their kilos, meters, and kilometers (the metric system is the beachhead of the communist invasion).
- They swill Labatts and Moosehead with reckless abandon (at least Mexicans drink Budweiser).
- They steal American jobs at ski resorts and river rafting tours.
- They take university positions away from hard-working American students.
- They take acting jobs from hard working American wait-staff (Jim Carey, William Shatner, Pamela Anderson, Dave Coulier, et al).
- They poison our political system with their socialist views and gun control.
I could go on and on.
When is the last time someone said they wanted to stop at a Canadian restaurant at 2AM after a night of hard drinking?
I'll tell you when: Never! If Canadians even have a national cuisine it's probably whale blubber and goose grease.
This spring I drove with the family to the great American state of Montana. Along the way, we saw hundreds of vehicles with Canadian license plates driving north. I can only assumes they were driving back to Canada after pillaging our great country.
This menace must be stopped. We need to build a wall along our northern border and station Army troops to prevent this invasion. Our government needs to work with the Canadian government to prevent this influx.
I suspect the Canadians will not be very cooperative. Immigration to the United States is a safety valve that allows the Canadian government to ignore their problems of high taxation and a collapsing socialized health care system. As long as Canadians can travel south for good jobs and liposuction, there is no need to reform their system.
Besides, every good cop knows you don't mess with the people who cook your food.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Keep the Rubber Side Down, Part II
Two thoughts raced through my mind:
1. This is going to hurt.
2. Am I going to stop?
The answer was "Yes".
When I dressed for work that morning I didn't plan on crashing in the parking lot. I had a new summer job working for the campus electrician. I wore work pants, boots, and a t-shirt. My nod to motorcycle apparel was my Arai Signet Jimmy Adamo replica helmet and Kevlar reinforced Olympia gloves.
In retrospect, a full set of leathers might have been nice.
I'd had the motorcycle for about a year. I was a cautious rider. I'd read all the riding tips in the magazines and put them into practice. I always stayed alert and paid attention to the homicidal zombies half-asleep in their tin boxes.
But that morning, I was running a little late to work. The parking lot was empty. I turned in the driveway and rolled on the throttle. The revs shot up.
The wind roared over my helmet as the painted stripes became a blur. At the last moment, I shut the throttle and squeezed the front brake lever. The calipers clamped down on the whizzing rotor and the front end dropped as the forks compressed. At the same moment, the front tire hit a bump in the pavement. The suspension, fully compressed and unable to soak up the bump, bounced the front tire off the ground.
I flipped over the handlebars and landed on the ground. I slid for 200 hundred feet across the empty parking lot. As my body slowed I jumped to my feet. I ran to my bike and heaved it upright. The right side of the bike looked as if it had been attacked by a meth addict wielding an angle grinder.
My pants were torn. I had gravel embedded in my knees. My right arm from my shoulder blade to my wrist was an abraded mess. My left thumb was throbbing.
It was going to hurt. A lot.