Remember the reason for the extra day off.

Here is a hint: It is not so you can get never before seen prices on a mattress...

Diamond Dave has madd skillz

My friend Keith found this and I stole it for Facebook. But it really deserves a longer amount of coverage, so enjoy folks.

It's Mr. T's world, we all just live here.

I was cleaning up the dark, dusty corners of the laptop when lo and behold I came across a folder simply called "pity".

I was sure it meant something quite profound and was all prepared for a post dedicated to my feelings and such.

Imagine my surprise when I opened it up and found this collection:

Have You Considered a Career in Modeling?

From the fine people at Found Footage Festival, comes this wonderful piece of pure genius!



Remember, it's how you hold the bottle, and imagery sells the jeans!

Still Here?

He he he...

What's worse than the people of Walmart?

This collection of fine human specimens that my friend jack sent to me.

Go ahead, breathe it all in, I'll wait...












There you go, now don't you feel better about seeing all those people of Walmart pictures?

Your welcome, it's just one of my many services.

My Own Little Hole In The Ozone

I made a quick run to the local grocery store the other day to pick up a few items that we had forgot in our last big store run. Actually, we can't seem to go a day without going back to pick up something we forgot, but being brain dead is a post for another day ( if I remember to post about it).

So with my few items in hand I went through the regular line instead of the express or self check because it wasn't busy and the nice lady I know was waiting for somebody to check out. I have know this checker for a long time, she always says hi to Skyler and her kids went to the same school.

So as I got out my card to pay the new young chick who was bagging asked if I had my own bags. I said no, plastic would be fine. Then she asked if I would prefer a paper bag, to which I answered no, we use the plastic bags at home.

(side note to everyone out there, we use the plastic bags for Skylers diapers. I know that they are bad, but a weeks worth of crappy adult diapers in the can outside would cause the neighbors to assemble with pitchforks and torches)

So anywhodles, that was twice I answered no and asked for plastic. This is when the young eco-nazi sprung into action to attempt to educate me in my nefarious ways. She proceded to let me know all the harm the plastic bags do to the environment (I know) and then the kicker came... "And YOUR generation are the ones screwing things up for the rest of us"!

My first instinct was to grab her by her nose ring and pull her the wrong way along the conveyor belt, but I stayed calm. My friend the checker was turning to tell her (I presume) to shut up and do her job, but I said that's OK, she is right. They are bad for the environment. So I started to tell her what I use them for, and that I do a lot of other things to try and help the planet, hoping that maybe she could see that sometimes life isn't so black and white.

She interrupted me in the middle of my explanation to tell me that there is no acceptable reason to use a plastic bag.

I was kind of ready for this by now, so I told her that she seemed like somebody who truly cares about the environment, and I respect that. I told her I would make a deal with her (voice raising) if you come over to my house and change my sons diaper for one week, just one damn week, I would commit to never using a plastic bag again.

Store manager approaches as my checker friend is giggling to her self and the eco-nazi bag girl gets pulled away, and end scene. I never got her answer, just a stare.

So I have been going over this in my head since then, and I drive a fuel efficient car, don't waste water, and always recycle everything I can.

Am I such a horrible person for using plastic bags?

This one got to me yesterday

This story was passed on to me from a friend, who in turn got it from Chicken Soup for the Soul. It hit me pretty hard, and made me realize I need to start thinking more about the good things that happen day to day instead of worrying all the time about my job, my son, and a number of other things.

I hope you enjoy it also.

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday morning. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whomever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say.

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital." He continued, "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.

Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part.

It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail," he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1,000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear.

Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.

There's nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.

Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.

It was nice to meet you, Tom. I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 year old man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.

Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast."

"What brought this on?" she asked with a smile.

"Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out?

I need to buy some marbles."

For Those Of You Too Young To Remember The 60's

For all of you who remember being there....
and for those of you who are too young and weren't there -
but sometimes wish you had been...

Remember the words from the song...



"Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing"


Have you ever wondered what happened to all those really cute and crazy, good looking, barefoot, young hippie chicks?



who didn't wear bra's did drugs, smoked weed, got tattooed?



and shagged every guy they met during that great Age of Aquarius back in the 60's?



Well, wonder no more!

















Kinda gets you tingly all over, doesn't it?

The 54 year old reboot

On May 8, 1957, Mona Hull spit out little Christopher at somewhere around 6:43 according to the faded birth certificate.

I will forever be grateful that she hung onto me until the 8th, because if I had been born on the 6th, and had the same birthday as her dad, I would have been saddles with Alphonse as a first name.

Yep, that really would have changed my whole life track, from the incredibly well adjusted individual you all know out here (I hear those snorts, and you are all on report) to a serial killer from the life long heckling.

So to start my birthday off right, I have decided to try and crank up this here blog device again, and hopefully be able to give it some of my rare free time.

I want to try and write more about Skyler, and what it is like to have him as a son. And I want to try and be better at replying to everyone's comments. And on that note, does anybody have a favorite blogger plugin that allows for replying to comment through email? I would like to be able to do that so it is quicker and more personnel.

We will be seeing you around folks.