Damn it, I missed it again! Of course: yesterday was International Talk like a Pirate Day, and shiver me timbers, I forgot. Just think: I could have driven my wife crazy for an entire day by replying to everything she said with “Aarrr” or “Avast, me proud beauty” and my favorite “Prepare to be boarded, wench.” Of course, she might argue that I drive her crazy anyway, even without the pirate lingo, but what does she know, she’s just a …Read the Rest
Since we’re on the subject of color, whatever happened to the big box of crayons you got under the Christmas tree as a kid, the one with the cool flip-top box, wrapped awkwardly in translucent red or green tissue paper together with three coloring books and a bunch of word-find puzzles? Or two weeks before the start of 4th grade, holding your Mom’s hand while standing in line at Woolworth’s with a cart full of school supplies, and the promise of a root-beer float …Read the Rest
Whatever happened to blonde, brunette, and redhead? Last week we spent forty-five minutes at Target trying to find the right color because she forgot the damn box code. All I could remember was a picture of some smiling broad on the box, and while I was happy to keep looking, it turns out I picked the wrong one. Somehow, that turned out to be my fault. I swear, going shopping for haircolor is worse than going to the paint store. Each of the eight major beauty product manufacturers …Read the Rest
Look to the upper-right of the picture. Whoever designed this bathroom is a genius. Finally, a place to put your glass when you pee. What a great idea! What, you’ve never felt the urge to condense the fog, then wandered off to the men’s room only to find you forgot to leave your glass at the bar? It’s happened to me. So where do you put it? Girls have it made, they can put the glass on the floor right next to the toilet. Easy. But a guy …Read the Rest
I only know a couple dozen Californians, but they seem to be a fairly relaxed lot (well, maybe not my boss). However, based on the photo I took recently at the park near to where my daughter and the Catsitter live, I think maybe they’ve taken the free-love, flowers in your hair thing just a little too far. These three toilets are to public restrooms what the overflow parking lot is to J.C. Penney: you’ll go there in a pinch, but not willingly. But I …Read the Rest
Watching my daughter walk out to the mailbox this weekend, I asked myself: why? Ben Franklin started the United States Postal Service over two-hundred years ago. Today it has an operating budget of $79 billion, and is the second largest employer in the US. And according to Wiki, they have somewhere in the neighborhood of 260,000 vehicles and consume over 800 million gallons of gasoline per year. But is all this still necessary? You have to ask: how much of that mail is really needed? It’s mostly bills and …Read the Rest
California. Home to the Brady Bunch, Disneyland, and Charles Manson. I like it there. East of San Diego, just outside of El Cajon, there’s a fifty-foot tall inflatable Ronald McDonald, and even though clowns are creepy, still he’s quite impressive and I’m sure he can eat more hamburgers and terrify more children than I can ever hope to do. There are great big power-generating windmills out near the Indian reservation past Alpine. They even work, most of the time. I …Read the Rest
When it comes to communication, kids today have it made. They have smart phones, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, IM, Yahoo, and MySpace. What’s more, they have a secret and cryptic language which uses acronyms, emoticons, and shorthand in place of normal human speech. The only secret language we had as kids was Pig-Latin, and fooled ourselves into thinking that our parents weren’t smart enough to understand our talk of ex-say, rugs-day, and ock and oll-ray. In contrast to my then future-wife’s and my love letters and hours-long telephone calls, I …Read the Rest
It’s been four months since we lost Kaden. On most days, that night seems like such a long time ago, but once in a while the pain reaches out and grabs you, making you feel like it was yesterday. In the end, each of us must learn to deal with it in his own way. This morning I loaded a new page on his site – you should take a look: http://ourlittlefighter.com/?page_id=502
Read the instructions. After all this time, I finally understand that it’s not the beer, it’s not low fiber or poor diet. As it turns out, I have two rectums, and I’ve only been treating one of them. I’m glad we have doctors and pharmacists to point these things out. Now the only problem I have is finding the other hole. Maybe a mirror would help?