I guess I have a slightly off sense of humor, and I'm also constantly adjusting to "new" ways of saying things.

Today I ran into the woman who lives across the road from us. She and her husband are nice people. So she says "By the way, we have a big announcement: We're pregnant". Now I know "we're" pregnant is the new way of putting it. But all I could think of is "If you're both pregnant, you'd better hope that your husband's doctor does Cesarean's".

We have a great Memorial Day parade here. Even though the area is growing, everyone still acts like it's a small town. Suits me.

I manage to embarrass myself at the parade every year. I have to wear sunglasses and pretend I'm wiping sweat from my face every few minutes.

I've had an "interesting" day, yet at nearly 2AM, I just can't find sleep.

I was up by 5:30 or so. Hung out around here for a while and then the wife called from church that help was needed at the fund-raising carnival at the school. Went up there and spent a few hours putting up tents and so forth. I was sincerely convinced once we put the tents up that someone was coming behind us to stake them out. Honest.

Well, we went to the evil sister-in-law's place for a while, and it was ok. The wives went off to visit my mother-in-law who has had a greatly exaggerated cold, and the brother-in-law and I consumed cold beverages.

During this respite we had a storm you wouldn't believe. We heard it coming, and the brother-in-law, who is a sheriff's deputy fer chrissake (and ought to know) said he heard fireworks. I knew full well it wasn't fireworks. It was a serious storm rolling in at 90 miles an hour. We got wind, we got rain, we even got hail. It was a corker.

I was doing other things, but apparently their garage door didn't close completely when Snakeeater, Jr. and his uncle put stuff away. Well, the evil sister-in-law came home and found, gasp, water in the garage. You'd have thought it was the end of the freaking world. So we pushed water out of the garage lest it get her *&%$ tires wet then bundled up to get the hell home before she melted down even further. It was ugly.

So then we cruised by the carnival on the way home to check things out, and the tents hadn't been staked down. None of them. It was utter devastation. I got brave and called the evil sister-in-law who is part of the carnival committee and they showed up. It was kind of neat in that a number of people showed up in the wake of the storm, knowing bad things must have happened, but we had to put up with the sister-in-law. We basically parted out the tents, saving frames that weren't broken and canopies that weren't slashed beyond repair. There will be a trip to the local discount place first thing Monday for more tents.

Meanwhile the evil sister-in-law behaved like a complete a$$hole. Her husband is a strange sort of fussy, prissy guy, but nonetheless, I don't envy him coming home to her.

I need to throw in another thank you. No man is an island and all that. No military marches to victory on its own.

A sincere thank you to all that may not have served, but who give support to those who are. Somewhere there's a quote to the effect that 'they serve as well, who keep the home fires burning'. A lot of people have done much more than just keeping the home fires burning. They've put a lot of energy into supporting troops who are fighting a difficult war.

I can't possibly thank you enough for what you do. I'm out of the fight now. The very thought of a parachute jump is somewhat intimidating these days given my knees and back (though I'd love to do it again), but the support that you give to those who are still in the fight is invaluable.

Memorial Day 2007


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae, 1915

To all in the fraternity of military service, thank you, my brothers and sisters in arms.

I just heard two news stories that boggle the mind.

In the first one, some teachers and administrators somewhere decided to stage a drill, along the lines of a fire drill or the air raid drills that I'm old enough to remember, and fake a firearms attack on the students. I can see taking some time to talk with the students and say "If anything should ever happen, this what you need to do...". But to actually simulate an attack on the kids takes a special sort of stupidity.

I'm pretty sure I know what happened. A management consultant named Morris Massey used to talk about what he called "The Abilene Paradox". It's a long story, but basically it addresses group dynamics in which a group of people can eventually come to a conclusion that none of them actually wanted. It's also called "groupthink". So, a bunch of educators got talking about what to do in case the school ever got attacked and ended up formulating a drill. But groupthink only goes part way to explaining this one. This was just plain stupid.

And then a substitute teacher somewhere decided to show a bunch of 12-year old kids "Brokeback Mountain", an R-rated film. Then she had the audacity to tell the kids to keep mum about it. Now whether or not you think stories about cowboys buttblasting each other are a good idea, fact is it's a R-rated movie. Period. And educators above all have an obligation to follow those sorts of rules. There's no doubt in my mind that she was taking advantage of a "recruiting" opportunity.

Almost tossed a coach from a game today. Ultimately I decided tossing him wouldn't help, but in retrospect it would have made me feel better. Next game his butt is mine, though. I'm just not going to put up with him.

He started whining about a couple of somewhat flat pitches one of the girls threw. Yes, they didn't have the world's greatest arc, but they were hittable, and that's my standard. He's one of these guys who likes to make snide comments while your back is turned. I heard him say "The baseball field is over that way", referencing the fact that he thought there wasn't enough arc on the pitches.

So then, right at the end of the game, there was a terrific play at home. The catcher stretched way out on the ground and caught a throw from third and managed to keep her foot on the plate. It was exciting, and I yelled "Out" just before I saw the ball roll out from under the catcher. Now, this is exactly what they tell you not to do. "Watch the play go through" is the teaching catchphrase. Think for a second. Rewind it in your head if you have to. Coaches hate this. They want a call RIGHT NOW and will start going "Well? Well?" if you take more than three nanoseconds to make a call, but that's just tough. I've made them wait more than once. But anyway, I jumped the gun in the excitement of the play and made the wrong call. Two seconds later I pointed at the catcher (who is a really nice kid) and said "You dropped it, the runner is safe".

At this point the coach on the team that had just scored the run called over to me and said "The catcher dropped the ball, right?". Yes. "So the run scored?" Yes.

Then the coach who had been whining about the pitches says "What's this? You're letting him make your calls for you?". I got furious and shouted him back down, but stopped short of tossing him of the field. It probably would have made me look like I was in the wrong and trying to cover it over. I went up to him after the game and explained in one-syllable words exactly what had transpired. I don't think he liked it, but he can lick my sphincter.

Oh, and coach whiner's team won the damn game 18-4.

And now, for the birth control image of the day.

I'm not ready to swear off women, but this brings me perilously close...

Guidons, Guidons, Guidons is always worth reading, and not just for the Girl Fridays. The blogger is an eggbeater pilot who is serving a tour in Iraq, hence he actually knows things that Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama et. al. claim to know.

This post is one of the best things I've seen in a long time. Maybe ever. And the last line of video tells it all.

 

What is it about Anna Nichole Smith?

I'm one of the few males in the country still capable of, umm, functioning, who hasn't had sex with her. And frankly, if I had, I wouldn't be bragging about it.

Then again, maybe I should be insulted...

Ever really, desperately wanted to strangle someone?

My wife is on the way to an appointment with the dentist. The dentist is a great guy, and the person who always used to work the front desk is a great guy. A bit effeminate, but very good.

I don't know if he left or today is his day off. Anyway, my wife just called and asked if I could look up the dentist's number and let him know she was running late due to traffic. Five minutes or so.

So I called and called and called and finally after about ten minutes the phone actually rang and someone actually answered. I told her my wife had asked me to relay that she'd be five or ten minutes late. Dumbass at the phone said "Well, actually she's seven minutes late now".

If I could crawl through phone lines, I'd be clutching her neck in my hands right now...