Minnesota----------My Sincerest Apologies!

I have to offer my sincere apologies to the inhabitants of the great state of Minnesota, on this day of March 28, 2007. No, I haven’t committed any horrific or heinous crime against the statutes of the state and/or government. I have, however, committed what may be considered an unforgivable offense against the people of Minnesota, a crime against society itself. I may not ever be prosecuted for this transgression, but I truly should be. I have done the people a grave wrong. And I am here today to confess it, offer my sincere apologies, and ask forgiveness for what I have done, accepting whatever punishment may be doled out upon my person.

What is this great, horrendous deed you ask? Before I answer that question, I must describe the scene out my window at this very minute. Looking out upon this early morning, it is gray, gloomy, cold and rainy. There is not to be any singing in the rain in Minnesota today or for the next week or more. The rain is to continue for three to four days, and when it finally subsides, even cooler temperatures will descend upon us and our state.

You may say, “so what?” So what? I’ll tell you, what! Only three days ago it was eighty-one degrees. It was sunny. It was beautiful. It was glorious. Snow was melting. Trees were budding. Birds were chirping. To make a reference to the work of Douglas Adams, the long dark tea time of our souls was lifting. To reference Shakespeare, the winter of our discontent was being made glorious spring, if not summer. And now this! That’s what! And it is my fault.

Yes, it is every bit my fault. You see, I jumped the gun. I got excited about the untimely harbinger and just plain got carried away. What did I do, you ask? Well, for starters, I did a little bit of spring cleaning. Then I did some pre-season work on my boat. I actually did some work in the yard, knowing full well it was way too early to be doing such things. And if that wasn’t enough, I decided to do some serious gambling. Thumbing my nose directly at the fates, I put away the snow shovels. Yes! I did! Nobody in Minnesota puts away their snow shovels before mid to late April, but I, standing proud and bold put away mine! And since I was on a role and had crossed the line into flagrant affront with no chance of exoneration, I set my face toward the shed and determinedly marched to the door, flung it open wide, and (imagine a deep thunderous anouncer voice) rolled--out--the--Harley (echo, echo, echo).

It was then that I knew I had truly gone too far. Somewhere in the distance I heard the faint sound of rolling thunder. As I neared the garage with it, I could swear I could feel the barometric pressure dropping, and as I stopped to dust it off and wash it I felt a slight drop in temperature. Not more than a fraction of a degree, but I could feel it. As a man bent on transgression that leads even unto death, I didn’t care. I persisted until all physical signs of winter were gone from my yard and garage. I was hell bent for spring, whether its time had truly come or not.

And so, here I sit, along with the rest of Minnesota, staring out the window at cold, damp, pure ugly, gloom. From the sound of the weather reports, it’s going to stay around a while, and it’s all my fault. So, again to the people of Minnesota, I sincerely apologize. I beg your forgiveness and hope that some day you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.

Why don’t I just remedy the situation, you ask. Why don't I just put the Harley back in the shed and bring the snow shovels back out?

What? Are you nuts?!?

Screw that!

Storm Chasing

It's seems from the news and weather casts, we are into tornado season in parts of the country. In fact, some people have lost not only their homes, but their lives already. I just watched a news cast that showed numerous tornadoes and funnels video taped by "storm chasers". Storm chasing. Now there's an interesting past time. I've not really considered being a storm chaser. One reason for that is when it comes to storms and chasing, I have too many times been the chasee.

You don't grow up where I did and not know about tornadoes. I grew up in "Tornado Alley". In fact, I grew up in Tornado Alley of Tornado Alley, which is northeast Oklahoma. During the height of tornado season, we would go to the cellar at least once a week. I have, not by choice, either seen or been up close and personal with over a dozen tornados. I have toured the horrific aftermath of a mega killer tornado that hit a town I used to live in. In fact, one of my childhood homes got hit by a tornado while we were home one evening. We all survived, but I've got to tell you, it's not an experience I would actively pursue. In fact it sucked out loud (that's a little twister humor if you didn't catch it) It is from this background, I have one thing to say about storm chasing.

Chasing a storm is stupid. In my opinion, it's a lot like a dog who is always chasing cars. It seems like a lot of fun, until you actually catch one!

But, if you insist on chasing storms, maybe you should just hang around me. One will show up sooner or later. I can almost guarantee it.

Sorry It's Late

The text of an E-card sent to my son-in-law very near the end of his latest birthday---


Sorry it's late.

Actually it is still your birthday and if you get this and read it before midnight it will still be your birthday, but I know you probably won't, since you are busy right now and it's getting late, but you know, that's how it goes some times.

Some times you plan to do something and then someone at work says something weird and out of left field and it's while you are eating lunch and you spew diet coke and tuna salad out of your nose all over your computer screen, and then you can't find one of those computer screen wipes that don't really work very good any way, not to mention that diet coke and chunks of tuna sort of burn in the back parts of your nasal passages so you spend a few minutes producing a sort of "sknark" sound trying to clear the goo and phlegm out, and you get most of it except for this one irritating little piece of pickle relish which just won't budge until you finally sneeze, on your computer screen of course. And in the middle of all this, the boss wants to talk about something totally trivial to you but seems to be quite important to him, like project delays and budget over runs and stuff like that.

So he finally leaves and you are about to regain a small inkling of the original thought to start to re-enter the firing synapses of your brain, the office manager comes by and wants to know why you are using more than your allotment of screen wipes, "did you know that they cost money?" and "we all are responsible for saving money as well as natural resources!" Screen wipes being made out of trees or oil or some sort of worm spun non-absorbent yuk smearing fiber.

Anyway, while you are making your best effort to show some slight bit of respect (actually you are trying not to laugh or jump up in a rage and tear her oddly shaped head off) you let out an enormously loud and long belch from the air you swallowed while catching your breath from the diet coke/tuna/nose thing. Well that sends her type A personality into a serious tizzy and sends all of your adjoining cell—I mean cube--mates into fits of laughter and spewing of their own which, of course, only serves to deplete the natural screen cleaner resources even more. So in effect I got sent to the Principal's office at work and forgot to send off an E-card in time for you to receive it during your actual birthday.

What can I say, but what I said to my boss.

Sorry.

What to Do About Sanjaya?

I gave up watching American Idol about . . . . let me see . . . . Oh, yeah that's right. I never watched it. I got my fill of "reality" programming very early on. All that contrived drama and creative editing of supposed live, unscripted video turned me off before Rudy discovered that Richard was gay. (don't recognize the reference? Google it.)

The media won't let me escape the day-to-day melodrama of what's going on in the "reality" world, however. Every day, I check in to TV "news casts" and I am faced, not only with what is going on in the "exciting" lives of the Faux and Pseudo Celebs, I am accosted with reports of who is on and off the island, who is dancing and who is not, and who is surviving, not only the island, but the barbs of Simon, the sexual advances of Paula, and the on line voting of the devoted fans. And don't even get me going on Super Nanny. My Mom could take her on her worst day, hands down.

Now, however, comes a real enigma. A young, "tone deaf" (according to Rosie O’Donnell) Idol contestant is totally baffling the judges, the world and even me with what is going on around him. Sanjaya is his name (real? I don't know). He is young, good looking in a teen idol with interesting hair sort of way and he can sing, albeit, not the best. In fact his singing, though well chosen and well timed, seems to be of such quality that the other judges have made derisive comments about it.

The enigma is not only why he is still hanging on in the competition, but that fact that he has fans, and they are a bit devoted to say the least. Sanjaya, Let's call him "sonny", is first the focus of a bit of a hoax on the judges and possibly the viewers of Idol. A web site, which has been supported by the views of Howard Stern, has decided to instigate an uprising, as it were, to keep the worst contestant alive on American Idol. That contestant as of late is our dear Sonny. Don't get me wrong. I have not problem with anything that messes with the substance of such shows. In fact, I think it's a great idea. So, Sonny is still in and still smiling his very big, almost Steven Tyler-ish smile, and still shaking that mane, and still singing just a bit off key. Good for him.

The hoax is one thing, but I just read a headline that says that a young girl is starving herself because of sonny. Why is she starving herself? Is she such a devoted fan, or does his singing bring about this effect? Granted he's not a great singer, but he's not bad enough that I would miss a meal over. Of course it would take another rendition of the Star Spangled Banner by Rosanne Barr to get me to miss a meal, and that would definitely do it. So I have to assume (there is it an ass of u and me) that this young girl is starving herself because she is a fan.

To quote Jerry Seinfeld, "what gives?" Sure he's young and I guess he could be considered cute to a young teen and pre-teen girl, though I must confess I’ve never been either. I will admit to my age group, and confess that I was around when the Beatles hit American shores. They were a phenomenon. Young girls went nuts. They too cried, screamed, and I’m sure a number of them missed a few meals due to their devotion to the Fab Four. I believe it was totally out of proportion to their talent, at least for the time. They turned out to be an undeniable major influence on music and will be for a long time to come, but that was not who hit the shores. They were four young lads with instruments, some “boppy” styled songs, and interesting haircuts.

Wait a minute. That’s got to be it. The hair. It’s not the talent, or even the lack thereof. It’s not so much the cuteness. Ringo and George were not that cute. It’s got to be the hair. Take a Sanjaya, a Beatle, or even a gray haired hick, and give him a crew cut and what do you have? You’ve got nothing. No Idol contender, No British Invasion, No “Soul Patrol”, and definitely No weeping and/or starving fans. You’d just have a goofy looking punk who can’t sing that good.

I say, get rid of that hair! Maybe we should start a web site, not encouraging people to keep a less than deserving contestant on American Idol, but one that encourages shaving of all contestants heads. And while we're at it, why not Simon, and Paula, too. And some duck tape over Simon's mouth. Yeah, that's it.

What do you think?

Last Night I Went to Sleep Happy

Last night I went to sleep happy. I had been severely chastised by my wife, and though it may sound a bit strange, I was able to go to sleep happy.

No I’m not a wimp or a Casper Milquetoast who can’t stand up for himself or feeds into a relationship where the male part is only content when the female counterpart is in total control. I just accept the fact that, putting PC’ism on the shelf where it oft times belongs, men and women are different. They see things differently, and there is no getting around it. That’s what prompted the little disagreement between the little woman and myself last night. We just saw things differently; she went just a little ballistic at something I had done. We “had it out” as it were. I lost, in a manner of speaking, and went to sleep happy.
To help anyone reading this to understand the situation, there does exist a story that I might offer to give a little clarification. In fact, there are two stories that I could offer. The first story contains the events leading up to the butt chewing I received. The second story explains how I, a man among men so to speak, could be the recipient of such a butt chewing from a cohabiting female and still go to sleep happy, and totally secure in his manhood.
You see, as of late, I, admittedly, have been spreading my “man wings” just a bit too much. Now being a “real” man, I believe a guy in co-comittant relationship has the right and even obligation to spread his “man wings” now and then. Now and then - therein lies the crux of this story. To put it in easier to understand terms, I have recently been buying hunting paraphernalia (you may read that as shotguns if you like). Yes, I have been buying shotguns. Plural. As in “how many can one man shoot at one time?” It all started innocently enough. I was going to shoot with some friends in an informal clay pigeon league. Now as every sporting man knows there’s never a bad reason to buy a new gun, and the old pump Winchester just wasn’t up to clay pigeon league standards. Plus, I had never shot too well with it anyway. So a new (not previously owned by me) shotgun was in order, preferably something in the auto-loading fashion. The first one I bought was a good gun, but I realized later that it was not well suited to the type of shooting I was going to do so another one was in order. Let is suffice to say that I had been bitten by the bug. A collection of shotguns was started (all having a very good reason for holding a place in my arsenal) and didn’t stop until I had purchased a total of four. I will not tell you how much the last one cost, but it truly is a beauty.
So that’s where the first story rests. The female, though raising an eyebrow more than once, handled all of this surprisingly well. Not well enough that I thought I could eek out a fifth shotgun, however. So on to the second story.
The mate and I were at a restaurant recently with friends from her work environment. She works in the computer network field. Now most outsiders think that people, who have anything to do with computers other then being astute at hitting the “any” key, are complete and total geeks. I am here to tell you that is not necessarily true, or at least I didn’t think so until this dinner. Though these people are work companions of my wife, I have somehow been accepted into their company on certain occasions (I make them laugh). As we sat through the meal, subjects of golf, family, movies, and any number of other things were bantered about. Everything seemed quite normal, and we were having fun, but something wasn’t quite right. Every once in a while the “geek alert” hairs on the back of my neck would bristle. One such bristling was when one of the guys that I thought was rather regular talked about staying up all night rebuilding his computer. The reasoning behind this all nighter was he had come to realize that his was not the “fastest machine in the valley” anymore. Well, actually it was, but there were other contenders nipping at his heals. The only solution was an all night session to eek and tweak and geek out every last bit of performance from an already screamin’ machine. Now remember we are talking about a computer, here.
The second such bristling caught me off guard when a couple of the males at the table started talking about an all night weekend game at someone’s house. It sounded intriguing. The wife would be gone along with the kids. There would be food and freedom to play through the night and into the next day. I considered trying to score an invitation to this game. Maybe the funny guy would be a good addition to the festivities. It was only then that I realized they were talking about computer games. They were going to gather at one guy’s house and network their computers together and “game” to the proverbial death. My balloon deflated,
The dinner continued, but the third and final bristling was to come just as sure as the Ghost of Christmas Future came to visit Scrooge. Now, keep in mind here, that this dinner came on the heels of the shotgun-collecting spree. It wouldn’t be long before I overheard the spouses of the other men talking about their husbands spending unauthorized money (men, of course, never have any authorized money to spend unless it’s on eating out with the woman or buying her specific gifts). My spirits began to rise as I once again felt that I might, in some way, be among kindred spirits. Yes, these might be real men after all. They too spent unauthorized money. They too snuck out to those “men stores” and dropped cash on “men things”, and came home with the logoed shopping bags that they would unsuccessfully try to conceal from the woman. They too would be confronted and chastised concerning their unacceptable behavior, but find a way to proudly take it like a man. Yes sir, I was in the company of real men after all. “Wait a minute. What did you say they bought? Computer equipment? Chips, boards, cards, disks? Excuse me, but that’s not man stuff!”
I must tell you right here and now, that when you are in the presence of a group of people and your geek alert bristles thrice in one sitting, there is a good chance that you are, in fact, in the company of geeks. That is why God gave you that survival sense in the first place. And when that survival sense bristles, do as the wild animals do. Don’t hesitate, don’t investigate, - don’t even look back, just run. Run in the opposite direction, and run fast!
Being there with my wife, I couldn’t run, so I did the only thing I could think of. I stood up. And no, I didn’t “flip over the table, whip out the shotgun that I had recently sawed off and cleverly concealed in my boot, and treat the geeks to a little head pudding “ for desert, as my friend Ed Jones* and possibly others might expect of me. I merely stood up to speak.
“I must be in the wrong crowd,” I began. “I don’t understand you guys. When I stay up all night to squeeze the last bit of performance and speed out of something, it had better have four wheels, eight cylinders and at least one huge-assed carburetor. And if I stay up all weekend with a bunch of guys to play a game, it had better involve beer, cigars, cards and cheap greasy chips. And finally, if I ever take a thrashing from the wife for spending unauthorized money on something, I had better damn well be able to hunt or fish with it!”
There, I said it. I threw down the gauntlet. I drew the line. One this side are the men. On your side are the geeks. Well, so much for making them laugh. They just sat there with a blank sort of stare on their collective faces. I had obviously just spoken a foreign language to them. An ancient language of far removed times and places, and the faint hint of natural instinct that may have been peaked by these utterances was so deeply buried in cold ashes that not even a tiny ember glowed any more. They turned away from me, the grotesque alien creature, and continued to make plans for their “gaming” weekend. I, on the other hand, got the waitress’ attention and ordered some 12-year-old single malt Scotch straight and savored every drop of it.
Now back to the butt chewing I received and the part about going to bed happy. I did not receive the butt chewing for speaking up in the midst of a group of my wife’s co-workers. That remained a non-issue between us. The butt chewing came days later. The said chewing came when I admitted to her that I had just ordered a hunting bow off of that great on-line shopping Mecca in the sky on the web, Ebay.
Since I earlier used the term “spreading my ‘man wings’”, I will add a little color commentary here. We have a beautiful back yard, which is a natural habitat for birds. To enhance the natural habitat, we have added feeders and houses for our little feathered friends. We along with our cat enjoy watching the winged creatures as they go through their lives in our full view. I personally enjoy observing their physical behavior in relation to each other. Dances I call them. There are territorial dances. There are mating dances. There are relational dances of all types that can be observed.
Upon my conveying the news of my recent purchase, my mate and I entered into one of the very common relational dances that humans do. The male had spread his wings a bit too wide for the female’s comfort, and her posture was conveying that notion. The male, on the other hand, believed that this particular spreading of his wings was justified (read that, “a deal too good to pass up”). With her foot stamping, and wing flapping, accompanied by her high, shrill aggressive vocalizations the female let the male know that the “gun-buying spree” had not yet fully cleared her craw. The male responded with his own stamping and flapping as well as vocalizations, followed by what could only be recognized as capitulative behavior. He took his trouncing, head hanging low, and as is the custom of this species, vowed never to do it again. Then the male went to bed as happy as any male of any species could be.
No, he did not go to bed happy because he and his mate’s dance progressed into a mating dance. He/I went to bed happy because I had taken my lumps for something that mattered. I had not taken such a thumping for some pitiable piece of processed silicone arranged in a specific microscopic configuration. I had neither taken this pasting for some miserable magnetic media-recording device, nor for some elusive fraction of a gig, whatever that is. I had taken these lumps for something that was truly worthy of a man. I had willingly taken this beating for something that would bring home game . . .. Meat . . .. Flesh . . .. Wild and dripping with blood! Yes!
So, last night I went to sleep happy in the knowledge that I was not a geek. I was, in fact a man! I had splendidly spread my wings. I had faithfully performed the dance. I had once again paid that awesome price – the dues to the fraternity of manhood.
The female of this relationship may not realize what transpired last night, and I may not tell her of the part she played, or that she played that part so beautifully (no sense in letting her get too uppity). But as I began to drift off, I smiled and whispered under my breath a loving “thank you”. And went to sleep happy.