Great Caeser's Ghost

My new blog

2013-02-18T18:28:00.001-06:00

I've moved. Come visit my new blog site at greatceasersghost.wordpress. com

And Now For Something Completely Different

2012-11-07T13:31:00.001-06:00

Winter is coming.

A Pruitt Looks At Forty

2012-08-24T13:07:00.000-05:00

Sunday will be my 40th birthday. I've spent a few weeks thinking in the back of my mind that I should say something here for posterity. Something maybe about who I am and where I am at this milestone. But for the life of me, I can't think of much worth sharing.

unless you read this later

I've been in kind of a malaise for the past few months as this milestone has loomed out there like a big dead end.

Neither of my parents lived to be old. My mom passed away six days after her 50th birthday. My dad passed away at sixty. I've been wondering if they would have faced their final decade or two differently had they known it'd be their last? Will I face mine differently with my own mortality constantly hanging around the next corner? No. They wouldn't have, and neither will I. Nor would you, I suspect. One of things that separates us from other animals is that we're aware of our own mortality. Turns out that doesn't make a difference. We live our lives each day as though we'll live forever.

Ignoring the genetic risk for a shortened life, I'd say I'm probably around the mid-way mark. Life Expectancy in the U.S. is currently 78.37 (which is 51st place among all nations. Life expectancy is only 31.88 in Swaziland, though. So there's that), but I know of plenty of people well into their 80s who could easily pass for 60. With advances in medical science, my generation will likely make it comfortably into our 90's on average, maybe longer. If the singularity movement is correct, we'll achieve immortality in 2045 which makes this all moot.

So how's mid life working out for me? Meh! I'm not at a crisis point... yet.

I started training for a marathon this year. That's sucky and boring. Running actually makes me feel older. I feel slow and old and fat. I'm not sure what this runner's high is that they talk about. Most days it just pisses me off.

I've got a fast red sports car. That's an indicator of mid life trouble, right? When I want to feel my oats, I can go crank up the tunes and drive really fast. I like that. Most days, though, I slog through traffic at 25 mph listening to audiobooks or podcasts or NPR.

No risk here of running off with a young hottie. Let's face it, I'm way too antisocial for that. Also, I love my wife. We've got a great little family unit, and I draw tremendous joy from that part of my life.

No risk of quitting my job to become a cowboy. (My dad did that.) I'm one of those rare people who actually likes their job. I get paid to go to a place everyday and do stuff that I'd do for free. I'm constantly challenged to move outside of my comfort zone and to master new things.

So what then? I'll pass this birthday, the way I pass every day. I'll have a meal I enjoy with the people I love (Lisa and Jacob). There'll probably be cake. There'll probably be booze. The next morning, like every other morning, I'll get up and move forward into another day. Always one day farther from home and one day closer to the grave. There'll be a new thing to learn, a new obstacle to overcome, a new experience to be had. That's a pretty good life.

Political Blog 3: Manifesto

2012-08-19T12:41:00.000-05:00

This is the one where I explain what I believe and why I believe it. It'll have a few links for anyone interested in reading more. Also, as before, I will be sharing my political opinions. So if you are easily offended by the opinions of others, turn back now.

In my first post in this series I talked about how two generations ago a bunch of Democrats became Republicans. Ronald Reagan was the most prominent of these. He said, "I didn't leave the Democratic party. The party left me." My journey has gone the other direction. I started as a young Republican in the Reagan era, but in the last five Presidential elections, I have voted for the Democratic candidate. I won't go into detail as to why I voted for each, but I do want to take a few paragraphs to explain how I got here.

First, just to clarify, I don't consider myself to be a Democrat. If I had to classify my political leanings, I'd say I am a moderate progressive. A lot of misplaced Republicans reclassified themselves as Libertarians. There are several Libertarian surveys that ask a bunch of loaded questions about your beliefs in the limits of government power. Once you take the survey, it tells you that you're a Libertarian. Because most modern Republicans believe in a limited government, it's easy to fall for this one. The problem is that even those who believe in limited government, in reality, still think the government should collect taxes and pay for things like education, roads, and defense. A true Libertarian believes the government should scale back defense to protect our borders only, scale back education to the point of privatizing education, and scale back infrastructure support until private industry fills the gaps. So for the sake of keeping this discussion centered around realistic governing principles, I am going to dismiss Libertarianism outright, except that I reserve the right to come back to it when discussing the Tea Party movement.

Speaking of the Tea Party, let's go ahead and get this out the way. The Tea Party movement grew out of Republican resistance to President Bush's TARP program. I won't go into much detail. I'll just say that the economy killed over, and President Bush signed legislation that allowed the Federal Government to spend a butt ton of money trying to resuscitate it. This was the right thing to do. If you don't believe me, check out what happened when President Hoover faced the same scenario and did nothing. However a bunch of the far right wing base disagreed, mostly because they were already living close to the poverty line and didn't feel the impact of the crash. This specific niche of Republicans is far removed from the Rockefeller Republicans. This is the guns, god and hate branch of the Republican party. These are people who have been in an economic recession for thirty years. Nothing changed for them when the recession happened. They are literally opposed to everything. This movement has been bankrolled by some very rich, very powerful people who have an actual stake in what the government does. And they're using the movement to send people to Washington who are completely unqualified to be there. In 2010, the Tea Party took over the House of Representatives. How? House elections are quick, happening every two years, and they take place on a small scale. The average House district is barely larger than a city. It's easy to mobilize an angry undereducated mob on a small scale. So the newly bank rolled Tea Party swept into office a group of Congressmen who are barely qualified to be dog catchers, and also beholden to the movement. Because these people don't believe in government spending in any form, they stopped passing bills. Because they were elected as Republicans, the Republican party took over control of the House, and the new majority stopped governing. Hence, the party of Hell No. Why would a bunch of rich guys want these yahoos in government? Because the rich guys oppose President Obama, and they're willing to bring the government to it's knees to prevent him from passing a single piece of legislation.

What I've described above is the modern Republican party. A once great party now dominated by an angry mob of undereducated, economically depressed bible thumpers. I don't want to offend my religious friends here. When I say bible thumpers, I'm talking about people whose politics is informed by their religion. Not normal religion. These aren't the Baptists and Methodists we all know. I'm talking about hands in the air Evangelists who honestly believe that God and Michelle Bachman have two sided conversations. I guarantee you Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum aren't religious zealots. They know that act wins votes from the Tea Party. And while we're on it, the Tea Party's love of guns is tied to a mistrust of government and a blatant desire to see it overthrown forcefully. Bloody revolution made America, but it didn't make us great. America was made great by the peaceful transfer of power provided by our Constitution. If we disagree with our elected officials, we vote them out of office. We don't storm the Capitol, guns a blazing. I didn't leave the Republican Party. The party left me.

So now you know what I don't believe in. Time to tell you what I do believe in. It's called the Third Way. It's a modern progressive set of ideas that came about in the early nineties. It supports the pursuit of equality in society through the distribution of skills while rejecting the redistribution of wealth. The very most basic broad brush distinction would be: Conservatives believe that if we provide economic opportunities through tax breaks, etc to the wealthiest in our country, they will build businesses and spend in such a way that provides economic opportunity to the middle and bottom wage earners. This is trickle down theory... a rising tide raises all boats. Liberals believe that if we take from the wealthiest through increased taxes and give it to the middle and bottom wage earners, then everyone will be better off. This is an old fashioned redistribution of wealth. The third way suggests that if we provide opportunity through education and training to the middle and bottom wage earners, they will take advantage and improve their station in life. It involves a large government investment in education and infrastructure. This is all way over simplified, but it'll do. The third way is liberal. It was embraced by Bill Clinton in the US and Tony Blair in the UK. It's also dominant in Australia and Canada.

To fully flesh out my political philosophy, this is what I believe. I believe in extravagant government investment in education, infrastructure and R&D. I believe in marriage equality. I believe in a woman's right to choose (and yes that means I support her right to choose to have an abortion. Not because I hate babies, but because I firmly believe this is not in the government's wheelhouse). I believe in equal access to health care. I don't think the ACA (Obamacare) got it right, but I think it was a good first step. We live in the richest country in the world, no one should be going without health care or going hungry, even if they've made horrible life decisions. I did not support the invasion of Iraq, the establishment of the Guantanamo prison, or the use of water boarding on terror suspects. I accept man made global warming as a scientific fact that requires immediate action to reverse. While we're talking about scientific facts, I also believe in evolution and think creationism has no place in a science classroom. I believe in stem cell research. I strongly support the separation of church and state. While I think we should allow our morality to influence our decisions, we should never allow one theology to dominate our public discourse. Allowing a radical theology to take over a single party and then allowing that party to take power is what happened in Iran in 1979, and it wasn't pretty. I believe a well regulated free market will be the secret to reestablishing order from the current economic chaos. I do not support the new movement toward voter ID. There have been less than five documented cases of voter fraud in the past twenty years. Anyone who is telling you voter fraud is a problem is using scare tactics to convince you it's okay to restrict access to the voter booth. The people who will not get an ID and thus be unable to vote are the elderly and minorities, people who traditional vote Democratic. This same strategy was used for years in the South as a poll tax. They had to pay to vote. This kept the poor, mostly the black poor out of the voter booths for a hundred years. We can't go back there. Almost everyone I know will vote for Mitt Romney in November, but I would never do anything to prevent them from doing so. We can't win by cheating.

I will be voting for Barack Obama for the second time in November. Do I think he's the ideal representation of what I believe? No, but he is the closest representation of my political beliefs. Do I expect you to do the same? Of course not. I expect you to vote your conscience. I just wanted to use this platform to explain what I believe and why?

Politics Blog 2: Chicken is Money. Money is Speech.

2012-08-18T11:48:00.001-05:00

I'd rather not rehash the whole Chik-Fil-A thing, but I want to cover why it was important. In 2010, in the case of Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. In other words, corporations and unions can give unlimited money to political campaigns because a) corporations and unions are people, whose freedom of speech is protected by the Constitution and b) money is speech.

You're thinking, "Who cares? I don't own a corporation, belong to a union or have a ton of money. So why does this matter, and what could this possibly have to do with Chik-Fil-A?"

Here's why it matters. You have a limited amount of income that you're willing to donate to a political campaign. Most of the people reading this will either not contribute to the Presidential campaign this year or will contribute less than $50. If you do give to a campaign, it will be based on your own personal political leanings. However you will give every penny you make to corporations in exchange for goods and services without regard to their political leanings. Corporations have way more money and way more incentive to give to political campaigns. Elected officials create and enforce legislation that has a direct impact on their earning potential, so they are much more likely to donate based on their business interests rather than the interests of the country.

Warning: This is where I'm going to start sharing my opinions. If you're offended by the opinions of others, this is your chance to just stop reading.

So why was the Chik-Fil-a hubbub important? Because it exposed the fact that they donate a copious amount of money to political action committees that lobby for policies that directly contradict my personal philosophy. Specifically, they spend money to prevent gay couples from being allowed to get married, or to share any of the legal benefits of being married. So I had to make the decision to no longer spend money there, because I didn't want my money to contribute to a cause I don't believe in.

We have one vote, but we have lots of dollars. Now because of Citizens United we must spend those dollars with the same caution with which we cast our vote. This is difficult for me, because I like to spend willie-nillie on things I want without wondering if my purchase is going to keep gay couples from getting married. I wouldn't buy tuna from a company that snares dolphins with their nets or buy shoes from a company that uses child labor in a foreign country. It's the same principle. The money we spend for the things we want has an immediate and direct impact on our lives and our world. And it means even more since the Citizens United ruling.

This political cycle or the next will likely bring this to a head. We'll find that there's a limit to the effectiveness of money. At a certain point, campaigns will have more than they can spend. They'll buy all the TV time they can, and they won't sway any more voters by spending more money. The effect of monetary volume has a limit. The bigger risk is of course that corporations will expect favors in exchange for their contributions.

We've been here before From around 1830, with the election of Andrew Jackson to around 1881 with the death of James Garfield, this was called "The Spoils System". Huge campaign donors were given government jobs in exchange for their donations. We ended up with a government full of people looking out for their specific interests who were also not especially qualified to do the jobs they were given. That included not just political appointees but elected officials as well. Back then it was political bosses pulling the levers rather than corporations, but the effect is the same. Bosses were rich guys who usually owned the newspapers (and later the radio stations) in their regions. Their realm of political control was called a political machine. Selling political appointments was made illegal at the end of the Gilded Age. Political Bosses continued to weild power through the Great Depression. But eventually people were exposed to opinions that came from outside their bosses area of control. A few couragous politicians, who were put in place by the machines revolted and the system was changed.

Last time around the whole mess lasted for around a century, but so did newspapers. Technology changed much slower back then, so it took longer for the things influencing people to change. Now we can be exposed to new and different ideas because of our ever changing technology. We are closer to a one-world-experience than most Americans would admit. When people finally get sick enough of the current system, they'll look beyond their pre-programmed news services and start to demand a change. Once the cry for change is loud enough, a few courageaous politicians will revolt against the system that put them in place and we'll once again experience one of the bloodless revolutions that make America great.

Politics Blog 1: Civil Discourse or Civil War

2012-08-17T15:21:00.002-05:00

A little over a year ago, I published a post about religion which lost me a few Facebook friends. Here's the link. I didn't set out to offend anyone, I just had something to say, and I said it. I have several friends who are Christians in the truest sense, who not only didn't take offense, but accepted my right to believe what I believe. They probably prayed for me, but that's fine. In that same spirit, today I am starting a short series of long blog posts to share some of my political views. If you're someone who is offended by the opinions of others, turn back now.

I've always been very interested in politics. In the Republican primary of 1988, I was a Precinct Chairman in Jack Kemp's Presidential campaign . I was 15 years old. I remember the shock on the faces of the people running that campaign when we met in person, and they realized I was a kid. Up to that point, I had only dealt with them by phone, and always delivered whatever I was asked. The first vote I cast was in 1990 for Clayton Williams, who was a Republican running for Governor of Texas back when that was unheard of. I campaigned for him and met him on a few occasions. Like many Republicans of his age, he'd once been a Democrat. He said, "I was a Democrat until Truman fired MacArthur."

Ronald Reagan, who was a Democrat until 1962, famously said, "I didn't leave the Democratic party. The party left me." I'm making this point to show that's it's normal for an intelligent, engaged person to change their views over time if they're exposed to and open to dissenting views. It's okay to start as one thing and become another thing. That generation of Republicans was uniquely able to see the humanity in the Democrats of their age because they could remember a time when they would have agreed with them. President Reagan and Speaker Tip O'Neil where political rivals who disagreed on almost every important policy decision, but they were also close friends who could share a drink and a joke off the clock.

The modern Republican Party is eagerly awaiting the next Reagan. Yet we live in a time that cannot produce him. We've lost our ability, not only to compromise, but to see the humanity in the people we disagree with politically. We demonize anyone with an opinion different from our own. Even outside of politics, if someone disagrees with us, we take it as a personal affront. How can we develop new ideas if we're completely closed off to the opinions of others? How can we change the minds of our opponents if we don't let them try to change ours? How will the new Reagan get in if the doors are all closed? During the recent Presidential primaries, the Republicans anointed each candidate at some point as their front runner. Each time they held them up to the light to see if they might be the next Reagan. All except one, John Huntsman, who probably was the next Reagan, but got drummed out of the primaries and it appears out of the party altogether because he served as Ambassador to China for the Obama administration, and he was espousing the politics of compromise.

The current political season is as mean and devoid of ideas as any I can remember. Over the last two decades we've become so divided by party politics, that now we all just sit in our corners reading and listening to news spun to reflect our opinions back on us and shouting hateful things at the people in the other corner. I thought the last Presidential election would finally bring us a popular leader who would unite us again as a nation. I still think our President could have been that man, but the response to his election was for the right to move even farther right. The party of Reagan became the party of "no". Speaker Boehner even said they would be the party of "Hell no." I'll take a moment to say here, that I think John Boehner would, in any other period in our recent history, have made an excellent Speaker. He's compassionate and intelligent and understands the political necessity of compromise. He has, however, been undermined at every turn by his own party.

We started down this road after Clinton was elected in 1992, and Rush Limbaugh started his "America Held Hostage" series. He spent the next eight years being the crazy voice in the wilderness claiming everything the President did was part of a calculated plan to destroy the country. I doubt the real Rush Limbaugh has much in common with the radio Rush Limbaugh, just as I doubt the real Bill O'Reilly has much in common with the TV Bill O'Reilly. Those guys are entertainers who have created personas that sell a lot of ad time. I'm not comparing O'Reilly to Limbaugh because I think O'Reilly realizes he has a responsibility to center that character occasionally. My point is, Limbaugh's angry right winger became a popular character, and a huge mass of people believed everything it said. Then more angry right wingers sprung up to sell ad time on more radio and TV stations. Follow that with the election of 2000, one of the closest in our history. It didn't get contentious until it was over and there was no winner. Then we saw the birth of the angry left wing character. Fox News' right wing slant was met with MSNBC's left wing slant. Pile onto that a Supreme Court ruling that allows unlimited corporate campaign contributions and virtually unregulated Super PACs. Now we're so far down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories of secret Muslims and false birth certificates and socialist agendas that we can no longer find the truth in all the lies.

So what do you do? You have two men, the leaders of their parties, the smartest kids in the class run for President. You can't have them tell blatant lies. So you have their surrogates on every morning news show telling the most egregiousness lies. You run ads saying one of them killed a guy's wife or the other one wants to bring back the old welfare system. Then you put the actual candidates on stage to take the high road and refute the lies of the other guys surrogates. We all get worked into a lather and nothing gets accomplished. No one talks about policies.

In November, there will be people who will vote for one guy because they're actually afraid of the other. There will be people who won't vote at all because they're turned off by the whole mess. Over the next few posts, I will be very open with you about who I will vote for and why. I'll do this without saying a single disparaging thing about the other guy. I'll tell you how I got to this place from where I started with Jack Kemp in '88. I'll also tell you why it's important that you vote, regardless of whether you agree with my choice of candidate or not, and why it's important for you to defend the rights of others to vote whether they agree with you or not. And finally, I'll share my opinions on the modern political system, how it's changed since Citizens United and where it will all end up. I'll do all of this with a healthy dose of optimism and decency.

I know this isn't my usual fare, but these are things that are important to me, and I want to share them. Bare with me, and I'll promise to write a funny (to me) post once I'm through.

Secular Funeral

2012-05-04T14:31:00.002-05:00

While I plan on becoming immortal in 2045, there is always an outside chance that I could die before then. I'll be 73 in 2045 and anything could happen between now and then. I could be killed in auto accident on the way home today. note to self: click on "publish" before leaving work today. If that happens, I want to make it clear to [all three of] my readers that I want a secular funeral.

It has always unnerved me to go the funeral of a, shall we say, less than religious person and find it to be little more than a church service held over their dead body. Which, by the way, is likely the only way they would have attended a church service. I've said before that I support organized religion, but I don't necessarily buy what they're selling. After I'm gone, I don't want anyone living their life in the false hope of meeting me again on some far distant shore. I fully accept that we live in an 11 dimensional universe, and that we only observe 4 dimensions. So I won't discount the limited probability that human consciousness may somehow be able to exist in a non-corporeal trans-dimensional form, but I've never heard that mentioned at a funeral.

So if I bite it before downloading my mind into an android, here's what I want in the days following. First, there needs to be a wake. Not a sad-ass-everybody-crying wake, but a proper drunken celebration of my life. There should be lots of food and alcohol. There should be stories, both funny and sad. At this time everyone should remember that had I been invited to this party, I wouldn't have shown up, because, let's face it, I'm a little anti-social. The party should be held at someone's house so my body doesn't have to be there.

Next, the funeral. Rather than a preacher, I'd like to be eulogized by someone who knew me. (In order to know me, the eulogist must have either gotten drunk with me or shared an adverse experience with me.) We go to church and we have a preacher, but he doesn't know me from Adam's off ox. When we joined the church, he introduced us as "the Pratts" even though our name was written on a paper he had in his hand. I guess no one ever said religion is the opiate of the literate. If I were a proper religious person, I'd suspect this is some sort of game the devil plays, where you can't be saved if the preacher says your name incorrectly. I've known, and even been close friends with a few preachers in my life. If one of them shows up and wants to do the eulogy, make them read this first.

There should be music, but no hymns. Music is such a big piece of the human experience, but you usually get just three songs at a funeral. Here are my three songs. For the Processional, "Never Been To Spain" (Elvis, from An Afternoon in the Garden). For the Hymn of Meditation,"Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" (Willie Nelson, from Red Headed Stranger). And for the Recessional, "That's Life" (Frank Sinatra, from That's Life). These are not my desert island top three favorite songs. That's a post for another day. This is just my funerary pick.

Finally, what to do with my remains... I don't care. I have absolutely no investment in what to do with my body once my brain has been deactivated. Bury it, cremate it, defile it, give it science. Do whatever is the most expeditious thing.

Hopefully this will be the most useless thing I've ever written. I'll be sure and delete this entry when I'm a robot.

The Borax

2012-03-27T14:45:00.003-05:00

I'm a nearly forty year old full time mathematician.

Facing the start of a mid-life "transition"

I can't sleep at night, and can't wake in the morning.

Everything that I do is mind numbingly boring.

I'm bored of my work and bored of my home.

I'm sick of people but hate being alone.

I'm bored of listening and bored of talking.

I'm tired of sitting and running and walking.

I'm bored of sobriety and bored of drinking.

I'm sick of emailing, texting, and syncing.

I'm bored of reviewing the social networks.

Election year's filled them with whiners and jerks.

I'm bored of following and bored of leading.
I'm tired of the Internet, TV and reading.
I'm bored with the dogs and bored with the kitty.
I can't stand the country, and I'm through with the city

I can't write anymore. My mind is a fog.

I'm bored of this. I'm through with this blog.

For Jacob on the Occassion of his 13th Birthday

2012-03-07T17:38:00.001-06:00

Jacob

As you take your first weary steps into adulthood, I feel the overwhelming need to lay down the ground rules for you. As puberty will continue to dull your mind for the next several years, you may want to print this out, keep it in your wallet and refer to it often. It's going to be a lengthy list so you may want to look into getting a bigger wallet. Maybe one of the big fold over kind that men used to carry in their coat pocket.

The Rules of Life:

Education

School is your job. Right now, and until you graduate from college.
Average is not acceptable. This rule applies to everything, not just schoolwork.
You are solely responsible for your success or failure in all things. Sometimes this means you'll have to work harder because you have a bad lab partner, bad teacher or bad boss. Those people aren't responsible for your success or failure. You are.
College is mandatory. In the Game of Life you get to choose college or career. Real life is not a game, so you don't get to choose.
Make a lifelong commitment to learning. Learning doesn't end after college, and for some people college doesn't even end after college. It's okay to stay in school forever. As long as you can make a living, go for it. Once you've left school, keep learning. Travel, read, research and grow.

Relationships

Your mother is the most important person in your life. If you don't have a healthy loving relationship with your mother, you will never have a healthy loving relationship with anyone else, ever. The same is true of other people. Don't get involved with people who don't like their mothers.
It's what you like, not what you are like, when it comes to making friends. Don't get this wrong, strength of character is important, but for making new friends, it's good to start from common ground.
You will be judged by the company you keep. Pick your friends wisely. Avoid people who make bad or dangerous choices.
Women aren't mystical creatures. They're just like men; manipulative, emotional men with boobs. They'll try to make you think they can't be understood, or that you can't even pick out your own clothes without them. It's a trick. Don't fall for it.
Sex is not for only after marriage. If you wait, you'll be sorry. I know you don't want to hear about this now, but in ten years, you'll thank me.
First marriages are for practice. If at all possible, try to avoid making babies with your first wife. To nullify this rule, wait until after you're thirty to get married.
Be Faithful to your wife. The rules on fidelity are thus- If you're the married one, it's cheating. Don't do that. If she's the married one, technically you're not cheating, but you're also not bulletproof, so advance at your own peril. Also, no good relationship ever started with one of the parties cheating on their spouse.
The first girl you love is not the girl you'll marry. You'll fall in love in high school and think it's special that you found your one true love on the first try. You didn't. Trust me on this.
The greatest gift you can give your mother is to love your wife.
You'll never outgrow the family you grew up with. If you believe "a son is a son till he takes him a wife, but a daughter's a daughter the rest of her life," you don't know your mother. She'll destroy any woman who tries to take you away.
The greatest gift you can give your father is to be a good father yourself.

Career

You will hate most of your first jobs. You just have to push through those times. You'll need the cash to do all the relationship stuff above. These experiences also prepare you for later, less crappy jobs
Job satisfaction is more important than high pay. If you can score both, you've done well.
Pick a career that interests you. Find an employer you believe in. Don't spend your adult years hating your job.
Anything worth having is worth working for. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. These are called truisms for a reason.
Don't be afraid to quit. All that hype about not being a quitter is bull. Dedicating time to a losing prospect is much worse than quitting early.

All the other rules (in no particular order)

Rinse your dishes immediately after use. This will save you more work later.
All IT problems can be solved by turning the device off and turning it back on again.
Don't slam doors or hit things unless you mean it as punctuation to a crappy mood.
Always judge people. This is contrary to what everyone else will tell you, but trust your instincts where people are concerned.
Don't exercise in pajamas.
If at any point, you find yourself in jail, there is a very real chance you have failed completely up to that point, and your life will require a reboot.
Say what you mean, mean what you say, or don't speak. Words are powerful. Use them wisely.
Learn to be self sufficient. There will be periods in your life when you will be completely alone.
Be weary of anyone who claims to profess the one true religion. For that matter, never trust anyone who claims to have conversations with an invisible deity.
In your late teens you're going to discover alcohol. Don't drink to excess or in public until you're 21, and don't ever drive drunk. Call me or call a cab. (#TAXI or #8294 from any cell anywhere).
Nothing good ever happened between Midnight and 5AM. Always be in bed under the covers during those five hours.
The toilet has a bowl, a lid and a seat. Each has a function.
Toilet paper should unroll toward you, not toward the wall.
Replace the TP roll when it's used up. An empty cardboard tube on a spool may be of use after the apocalypse, but for now when the roll is empty replace it. (I know I just rattled off three rules about the toilet, but you'll start every morning there, and you don't want to start every morning of your life wrong.)
College, marriage, babies. In that order!!!
Deadlines are due dates, not start dates. Plan accordingly.
Question authority. But first be sure you're in the right.
Wear nice shoes and drive cool cars.
Caffeine cures depression.
Avoid the victim mentality. Don't let impersonal things affect you personally.
Barney on "How I Met Your Mother" is not a role model. If you have to pick a role model from a TV sitcom, use one of the guys from "Big Bang Theory".
Everyone loves a smart arse, but no one likes a jerk. Know the difference between sarcasm and meanness.
Use Social Networking responsibly. Be sure you don't accidentally share a post with the world that you only wanted your best friends to see. If you want to share your most intimate thoughts with the world, start a blog... like this one, where I share our private conversations with anyone interested in reading them.
Avoid hypocrisy. Be who you are.
Honesty is always the best first option.
Spellcheck - Yes. Auto correct - No.
Variety is not always good. It's okay to pick something you like and stick with it. It's called consistency.
You learn from failure. So don't be afraid to risk and fail.
Be resilient. Don't get hung up on the losses life will deal you. Dust yourself off and move forward.
Confront your fears within reason and where possible. Don't go out of your way to walk on the wing of a flying airplane or anything like that, but don't let fear of rejection or fear of failure prevent you from doing things you want to do or having things you want to have.
Try to find the humor in every situation. Laughter will save you from the dull monotony of every day living.

And Finally...

Break all the rules at least once.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T13:03:00.005-06:00

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, my High Holy Day. Lisa's family will come over and we'll once again blend our traditions, each person carrying a ghost from their own childhood in the form of a platter of food. It may be the stuffing their grandma made or the pie their favorite aunt used to make. Some new traditions may start tomorrow, and some old ones may vanish forever. This is only the most recent incarnation of my favorite holiday.

My Parents

I'm not someone who likes to spend a lot of time dwelling on the past. I am very good at compartmentalising my life, and that includes keeping the past in the past, where it belongs. But at this time of year, it seems like the veil separating the past from the present is so thin I may fall through. I feel like I could be driving home from work, sitting alone in my car, and suddenly find myself sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner at my Mema's house thirty years ago. It may be seventy degrees out, but I can feel the chill of the last Thanksgiving before my mom passed away. It was 1993, and it snowed and iced on Thanksgiving. I almost skipped it because I was scared to drive on the ice. Only a handful of people were able to make it that year. I'm glad I was one of them.

I've shared the Thanksgiving feast with representatives of every generation of my family who lived in my life span, from my great grandparents, who were born in the 1890's, to my son, who was born over a century later. Some day I'll eat the feast with my grandchildren, and maybe someday with my great grandchildren. Those future feasts will be as different from tomorrow's as tomorrow's will be from the ones in my memory. But each will carry with it the joyful memories of all that came before.

Tomorrow, the memory of my parents, grandparents and great grandparents will share a table with us, as though they were still here. And hopefully, years after I have moved through the veil, the memory of me will live on to share Thanksgiving with the generations I will never meet.

World Series Blog 4: How Minor League Baseball Ruined Major League Baseball

2011-10-25T15:38:00.000-05:00

Field of Dreams

Is this Heaven.? No... It's Dr. Pepper Ballpark.

I always thought there was no better place to be than the ballpark. Any Major League Ballpark would suffice, but I have a special affinity for the Ballpark in Arlington. I never loved the name, but I love the design. I love the smell and the sound. Cold beer. Hot dogs. Then a few years ago we went to the Dr. Pepper Ballpark in Frisco, TX to watch the Frisco Rough Riders. I immediately fell in love with the smaller venue of the Minor League park.

Teddy

Minor League ball, when done right, is everything you should love about baseball on a smaller scale. Fewer seats let you be closer to the action. Lower concession prices let you enjoy the full ballpark experience without breaking the bank. Great deals on ticket packages will help you build a relationship with the team in a personal way.

If you've never been, and you can get to Frisco in the Spring, you should go. If you're local to North Dallas, you should really look at getting a ticket package. They've got an all you can eat section, the Teddy Express Section, where your ticket price includes unlimited burgers, dogs, brats, chips and sodas. Getting eight or thirteen games with burgers, dogs and sodas really makes it special.

Now that we've made a habit of going to the Rough Riders throughout the Spring and Summer, we don't go to Arlington anymore. I don't love the Ballpark in Arlington any less, but I love the Dr. Pepper Ballpark so much more.

World Series Blog 3: How Technology Ruined Baseball

2011-10-23T09:32:00.014-05:00

It's been almost thirty years since MTV started shrinking my attention span with three minute bursts of entertainment. The progression of technology since has made entertainment more readily available and more personal. If we're measuring from the end of World War II, then it starts as a slow progression, but thanks to Moore's Law (look it up), technology has advanced at an increasing rate which enables me to get to my point before I lose interest.

Here's how it went:

C3P0's loyal sidekick

1945 - Radio - baseball was edge-of-your-seat exciting.

1955 - TV - 3 Channels. You'd watch a monkey washing a cat. You'd damn sure watch baseball.

1965 - Still just 3 Channels. Your choices were watch Vietnam or watch baseball. In two years you could add Star Trek to the list.

WTF

1975- 5 TV channels - baseball was still slow and no one noticed. We even sometimes listened to games on the radio for the nostalgia, and so we wouldn't have to see Rollie Fingers' mustache.

1985 - Cable TV - more channels. Should we watch baseball or 540 music videos. Tough choice, steroid abuse made baseball a little more appealing, which made the choice easier.

1995 - Internet - Baseball or porn? Why not both. You may not know this, but the history of the Internet dates back to the 1960's. Formal Internet Protocols were established in 1982. Chances are, you first experienced it in the mid to late 1990's. Then checking your email or chatting via AOL were such novelties that they interrupted most of your life.

2003 - MySpace. Birth of social networking. More distraction.

2006 - Facebook. Ever growing need to know what your third cousin ate for lunch. Baseball seems kind of boring in contrast

2007 - iPhone. OMG! Social networking in my pocket. The whole Internet to look at while Jeter fouls twenty consecutive pitches.

2010 - iPad / Android phones / Android tablets. I'm streaming the exciting parts of the game real time thanks to my nifty MLB app. There's no need to spend three hours (or four if it's on FOX, thanks to the three minute commercial breaks) if I can watch it in three minutes. Besides I'm playing Words with Friends, checking email, updating Twitter, and watching a monkey wash a cat on YouTube. Who cares what's happening on the TV.

World Series Blog 2: How Steroids Saved Then Ruined Baseball

2011-10-22T19:53:00.002-05:00

This a short one. It's the story of how for one shining moment steroids made baseball burn brighter than ever. Then with the help of a Red Sox shareholder and the U.S. Congress, the fire burned out.

Claims this was natural

In my early adulthood, baseball suddenly became awesome. Thanks to performance enhancing drugs, records were falling almost weekly. Players stopped looking like Babe Ruth and started looking like Mark McGwire. They had biceps the size of a normal man's thighs.These guys were titans, willing to abuse their bodies for the sake of competition. Their testicles shrank, their tempers flared, and they were hitting home runs out of the park nightly.

This is when I discovered baseball, and it was incredible. Then George Mitchell, Senator from Maine and shareholder in the Boston Red Sox, set out to prove that there was a doping problem. Shockingly, no Red Sox got outed, but the bastard did out Yankees greats Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. Then the U.S. Congress got involved. Never mind MLB isn't a department of the Federal Government. It's not even a Federally regulated industry. Congressmen just wanted to meet the stars of baseball.

After that, steroids went away. Players went back to being normal sized athletes, and the game got boring again. Doping, no doubt, still goes on. I'm sure A-Rod is using HGH or some such thing. Whatever they're using, it makes them muscular, but worthless. So here I sit watching the Rangers and the Cardinals in the World Series, dreaming of the cornfield in Iowa that will one day be home to the freaks of the '90's.

World Series Blog 1: How Al Qaeda Ruined Baseball

2011-10-21T15:23:00.003-05:00

Most years I spend October watching my beloved New York Yankees in the World Series. When they're not in the Series, I spend the month hating baseball. From the depth of my disappointment, I will now begin a best-in-seven-short-blog-series on the things that have ruined baseball. If it takes seven blog posts to get this out of my system, so be it. If I can kill it four, then all the better for my four loyal readers.

This is the story of how Al Qeada ruined baseball.

Other hand genius.

After the attacks of September 11, the Commissioner suspended games until Sept.16. The Yankees had their first post 9/11 home game on Sept 25. At the seventh inning stretch, instead of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", an Irish Tenor sang "God Bless America".

Okay, that was patriotic and sentimental. I'm glad we got that out of our systems. But it wasn't a one-time happening. This became a new tradition for the Yankees. Then the tradition spread to almost all of Major League Baseball. Yankee Stadium even put in place a "no moving" rule during the singing of "God Bless America". A guy sued them in 2009 because he was forced by security to leave the game because he left his seat. It's the stretch!!! This is when you're supposed to get up!

Wait. It get's worse. Fans and players alike remove their caps and face the flag, hands on hearts. This is not the national anthem! It's an Irving Berlin show tune. Sometimes it's not even a person singing. It's a scratchy old Kate Smith record. No one should have to stand solemnly in place, and face the flag and salute for a scratchy recording of a show tune. We don't genuflect for "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man. We don't lower our heads in prayer for "Maria" from West Side Story.

WTF MLB?

Low T

2011-09-15T13:02:00.001-05:00

On the way to work I pass a clinic with a huge sign that says "Low T". This new-age disorder has replaced "Restless Leg Syndrome" as the new made up thing that people think the suffer from. They call it Andropause (this is "male menopause") or Low T. The "T" is for testosterone. Here's a complete list of symptoms:

"Your T is low, Fool."

Fatigue
Memory Loss
Muscle Loss
Weight Gain
Low Sex Drive
Erectile Dysfunction
Depression
Irritable Male Syndrome
Hot Flashes
Night Sweats
Hair Loss
Sleep Apnea
Prostate Problems
Osteoporosis

Oh God! Where do I start? One of the symptoms is "Irritable Male Syndrome". I cut this definition right off a website called renewman.com, "Getting irritated by things that never used to bother you? Have you lost your temper suddenly or for no apparent reason? Never quite know when you’re going to fly off the handle again?" I've been an irritable male since puberty. I thought flying off the handle was a sign of testosterone rage. Are they saying if I take their drugs, I will have more testosterone, but I'll be mellow? OH THAT MAKES ME SO MAD!

Fatigue, memory loss, muscle loss, weight gain, hair loss. Find me one man over forty who doesn't suffer from four of those five things and I'll buy him a wig. Hair loss? Really? They are claiming that hereditary male pattern baldness is actually a symptom of this disease. Whah?

Low sex drive, erectile dysfunction, and depression. If you spend enough years being emasculated by women, subjugated by the boss, treated like an idiot by your children, and beat down by life you will exhibit all of these symptoms. Hormones have nothing to do with it.

Sleep apnea, prostate problems and osteoporosis. These are all serious problems, the cause of which is not low testosterone. They are each actual health problems. Diseases in their own right. If you suffer from one of these, go to an actual doctor and get help.

Wait a minute. Is this all some B.S. reason to legally get steroid injections? Why didn't you they so? Every man wants to be a pumped up action hero. They're going about this all wrong. The ad shouldn't say "Remember when you had the energy to [do a bunch of wussy stuff like be romantic and go to concerts]" It should feature Mr. T saying, "Wanna get ripped? Wanna bust some heads? Tired of takin' shit off everybody all the time? Then get your T back, Sucka!"

Hell yeah! Sign me up.

Thirty Nine

2011-08-26T13:56:00.002-05:00

On the occassion of the 18th anniversary of my 21st birthday, I'd like to take a 3.25 minutes to review the stats for my life so far:

I've been with Lisa and Jacob for 9.12054794505479452054795 years.

I can honestly say that 9.081532158016554 years of it has been pretty awesome.
We've been married for 6.795205479452054794520547945205 years

I've had the same cat for 17 years.
I've been legally elligible to drink for 6,570 nights. I don't remember how many of those nights I actually drank, but I can say I puked probably less than 20 times.

This is only since I turned 21. Underage drinking gets expunged from your record.
It can be assumed that I've consumed 462.6 gallons of booze. (This stat is based on normal American per capita consumption, That's 2.14 gallons per month. Jesus, America, slow down. It's not a race. Is this why Rick Perry is so popular? You bunch of drunks!)

I've owned 11 cars

3 were bought new
10 were American
1 was German

I've eaten 14,235 breakfasts, but I've only had 1,768 bisuits
I've lived 9 places (4 apartments and 5 houses) in 4 different cities, all within 60 miles of my place of birth.
I've voted in 5 Presidential elections. 3 times, my candidate won.
I've been to 19 states
I've had 7 jobs, with an average tenure of 3.4 years.

I better get back to work now or this stat may be in danger

Left Behind

2011-08-11T12:41:00.003-05:00

I am forever fascinated when people don't embrace new technology. I have friends and family who aren't on Facebook because they aren't on the internet and don't even have a computer. WTF? There are two adults and a child in our house and we have ten internet access points (3 smart phones, 2 tablets, 2 PC's, 1 Laptop, 1 PS3, and 1 Wii), and I'm about to add an eleventh (a Roku player). The reason, it seems, that so many people aren't connected to the web isn't money based, and it's not because they're old and don't understand the technology. It's because it's just not a priority to them.

Newsflash! Technology should be a priority to you. It's not just about Facebook. We don't just use technology to stay connected, and to stay informed. This is how we advance our human civilization.

Google's Autonomous Car

Google has developed a fleet of cars that drive themselves. They've clocked over 160,000 miles. The precision android driving of this technology will one day eliminate traffic by allowing us to have smaller lanes and leave smaller gaps between moving vehicles. There will never be an auto accident, a speeding ticket or a drunk driver.

I have an app on my phone (a devise that fits in my pocket and has more computing power than we took to the moon) that allows me to have a spoken conversation with someone who doesn't speak English. I say something in English, and it speaks it in Spanish. The person speaks to me in Spanish, and the phone speaks it in English. I've almost eliminated the need for a wallet because there are apps for store cards and library cards, and coming soon a debit card app. And you want to know something? If I could get this technology off my phone, and implanted in my body, I'd be first in line to do it.

I can no longer conceive of a world in which I'm not constantly connected. I use the internet on the fly to find directions, movie times, restaurants, to settle arguments over trivia, to read, to watch movies, to listen to music, to work. Today we have all the world's knowledge at our fingertips. We can't be many years away from brain implants that give us the internet in our heads. Imagine all that information instantly available as a thought.

Cybernetic implants and prosthetics are already common place. Some day soon, every part of you will have the potential for an artificial replacement. Immortality can't be far behind. I'll tell you now, that as my human parts give out, I will harvest parts from the people who today don't even have internet access. That will be their punishment for hiding from the forward march of civilization. Their parts will be harvested by the cyborgs. And when those parts give out, I will replace them with robot parts. Then finally, even the last remaining bits of the people who aren't able to read this will get left behind.

Suck on that!

Walmart: Hell's Vestibule

2011-07-25T19:28:00.000-05:00

Every Sunday, like Dian Fossey, I spend time in observation of my closest relatives in the animal kingdom. I feel as though I've been sent by National Geographic to observe the native population and their social habits. Only instead of watching chimps fashion tools from twigs and share bananas, I see huge women on motorized carts loading up on Ramen Noodles, and double size family packs of Nacho Cheese Doritos. That's right, I'm talking about the weekly trip to Walmart.

I struggle to find the right words to express how much I hate going to Walmart. Just thinking about it makes me want to curl up on the floor and go to sleep. There are always so many people, and they're always right where I need to be. Even in the produce section. I can tell by looking at them that these people don't eat vegetables, but there they are hogging the space.

This is a true story. One week Lisa was working on Sunday so I went without her. I went late in the day and during a Cowboys game in hopes of avoiding the crowds. Even though the aisles were less crowded, there was someone standing in front of every item on my list. This is true. I wanted bacon, but there was a couple arguing in front of the bacon. I wanted soup, but there was guy on his cell phone leaning against the soup. I needed toilet paper, but there was a lady standing indecisively in front of the toilet paper I wanted. It felt like a set up for a hidden camera show.

If we're going to make this recession work, we need some ground rules for Walmart shopping.

Crowd Control. Each family can only send one delegate to do their shopping. It doesn't require the whole family, and the entire process will go more smoothly if there are fewer people involved.
Freak Factor. When choosing your family's shopping delegate, pick the least freaky person.
Dress Code. If your family's least freaky person is still side-show worthy, here are a few dress code tips:

Underwear goes on the inside of your pants.
Just because you can tuck your boobs into your pants doesn't mean you don't have to wear a shirt.
A skirt and heels is never an option for a man.

Courtesy. If your shopping needs fill two carts or if you are an extreme couponer, you'll need to shop on a weekday while the rest of us are at work.
Self Control. Those motorized carts are for the handicapped. Lazy is not a handicap. If your too fat to walk through Walmart, it may be time to switch to Whole Foods. I'm just sayin'.

Together we can get through this. We're going to have to share this world until one of you rednecks pisses me off for the last time. So lets pull together and make the best of a bad situation. Ah, forget it. I'm going to Kroger.

The Third Place

2011-07-25T10:34:00.000-05:00

Here's a qucik one.

A wise man once said your life is out of balance if your time isn't spent in at least three places. After that he was no longer called the wise man. Presumable two of the three places are home and work. The challenge is finding your third place. The third place has to be equally important to your story, like Arnold's, Central Perk or Cheers.

I spend my time at home and work, but I don't have a third place. Can a book be considered a place? What about a video game, movie or TV show? What about "in traffic"? Can that be considered a place? If so, my third place sucks.

I suppose church could be. You'd have to spend a significant amount of time there, otherwise it's just a place you go once a week, like the grocery store. Maybe if you have a close friend and spend a lot of time at their house. Maybe this is why continuing education is such a draw. College, combined with work and home is clearly a proper division of your time and resources. Some people go to the gym for an hour or more three or more times a week. That would count.

The changing way we interact with the world brings this concept into a new light. Is Facebook a place? What about the combined social network; Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, etc.? What if you spend most of your day with your head up your butt? Can you count your butt as your third place. We all work with people like that. But then, they can no longer count work as a place. Anyway, that's more like having an alternate state of being than an alternate location.

My Testimony

2011-07-07T19:38:00.001-05:00

Religion. Here's a topic guaranteed to piss off anyone. If you don't believe me, take a minute to turn to the person on your right and say, "I'd like to talk to you about Jesus." Believe me now?

I don't consider myself to be a religious person. I go to church most Sundays, more for my family than myself. I believe in the organized church and all the good that can be done in a church community. Unfortunately, a lot of bad can also be done by church communities. It's possible to convince a person to do almost anything if they can be made to believe they are doing it for religious reasons, and groups of people are more suggestable than individuals. It's my opinion that religious faith is a delicate balance of hope, ignorance, and suppressed disbelief. As long as the latter makes up less than half of your faith triangle, you probably consider yourself a religious person. If a big enough piece of that pie is made up of ignorance, you could probably be incited to blow up yourself or your neighbor if the request was preceded with "God says". If your triangle is made up only of hope and ignorance, you should probably let someone else hold your wallet.

As a child my religion was built solely on ignorance. I believed because I was told to. The same is true of a child's belief in Santa Claus. As I matured, hope moved in. My hope was informed by my burgeoning fear of death. I hoped there was a heaven, and I hoped to go there if I died. As my experience grew, I began to find there were many religions that were different from my own, some even disagreed with the most fundamental things I believed in. Some have a hell and a devil to stand in contrast to their god and heaven, and some don't. Some have a messiah and some don't. Some don't have a heaven at all, but instead believe in reincarnation. Some have no heaven and no reincarnation. Some religions once dominated the earth, and are now laughable and quaint. Some have many gods, and some just one. Some have demi-gods and some don't. Which one is right?

Let's check the evidence. Uh oh, there is no evidence. None at all. Well, there are a bunch of scientific studies showing that prayer has absolutely no impact on results. There are also a bunch of studies attempting and failing to prove the existence of the human soul. This is where disbelief was born, and immediately suppressed. As Christians, we are taught that the only unforgivable sin is to deny the Holy Spirit, and God knows what we're thinking. So I had to work hard to suppress the doubt and the denial that would surely follow. Because if we doubt, and then deny we'll go to Hell (assuming, of course that all the other stuff isn't bullshit).

Once doubt met logic, the scales began to tip. As hope and ignorance fell away, the triangle of faith became a circle of reason. Now here I am with only my experience to trust and only myself to believe in. I have only myself to blame for my failures and no where existential to look for support in times of crisis. I am the master of my own destiny. And you know what? It's pretty sweet. There is great relief in rising from the attitude of penitence. There is liberation in knowing the laws of man are sufficient, and that progress, both social and scientific, is a good thing. There is great motivation in knowing I have only one lifetime in which to accomplish and experience everything I desire to.

I am not writing this as a condemnation of anyone else's faith. It is not an argument for atheism. This is just my testimony. As for who is right and who is wrong, only the dead have seen the ending.

Cruising Poetic

2011-06-24T10:23:00.003-05:00

So we'll go no more a-roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart still be as loving,

And the moon still be as bright.

-Lord Byron

Those lines makes me think of all those teenage nights spent driving around with my two best friends, Matt Petty and Lee Walsh. We never seemed to have a destination, but we were always going somewhere. It was freedom like I had not known before. We were the Lewis and Clark Expedition of the streets of Fort Worth.

There's an episode of the Wonder Years right after Kevin gets his license. He and his friends go out wandering. At the end the narrator says, "We didn't really accomplish anything that night. Nothing of any real importance, anyway. But through the high school years that lay ahead... there would be a thousand other nights, just like that one. Stupid, ridiculous... and glorious." I love that line. It says it all.

It's a rite of passage for young American men after getting a driver's license. As long as there have been cars and roads to drive them on and cities to drive them through, boys have sought their freedom behind the wheel. Its more about the journey than the destination. Its about constant discovery and endless change and the element of chance. You can control the vehicle, but not always the conditions. Ahead lies risk and danger, joy and exhaltation. You can't easily turn around so you only move forward, pushing forever away from the place of your birth and constantly toward the grave. If you're fortunate you have close friends to share the wonder with you along the way.

Ah that's just drunk talk, sweet beautiful drunk talk.

2011-05-27T15:51:00.000-05:00

Alcohol... There are few things closer to my heart, and none closer to my liver. Come to think of it, there are few things closer to my heart than my liver. They say to write about what you know. Not sure who "they" are, but I'm certain I was drunk when I heard it. (The entire opening of this blog should be read as though spoken by Groucho Marx.)

I'd like to preface the remainder of this blog by saying:

I don't have a problem.
I can quit any time.
I learned it from watching you, okay!

I can't remember when I had my first taste of alcohol. My dad used to let me have a sip of beer if I brought him one from the fridge. (No need to alert Jeff Foxworthy. I know what I might be.) I've been drinking for the joy of it since High School, but I don't think I came to a mature approach to drinking until my late twenties. Before then it was always about getting drunk, usually for social reasons. These days I'm more of an anti-social drinker, and only occasionally drunk.

My favorite drink is wine. I prefer a Chiraz or Cabernet. This is a great cheap way to get woozy, and one of the only ways I can get a buzz without getting full. As cocktails go, I like Jack and Coke or Pineapple Rum and Coke. I drink my Jack and Coke from a special cup used only for that purpose. The Rum and Coke I drink from a 44 ounce glass filled over halfway with rum. I also enjoy a sweet salty Margarita. That taste of tequila triggers a puke memory in most of us, right? Of course beer is universal. It goes with everything from Monday night football to Saturday night baseball. (Don't let that sentence fool you into thinking I take Sundays off.) I hate it when I get to that first Budweiser commercial and there's no beer in the house. I will pause a game and go buy beer if that happens.

Most nights I have a drink when I get home. Usually it's just a glass of wine, but at the end of a difficult day it may be far more serious. I have no qualms about drinking alone. I don't know where that social hang up came from, but "drinking" and "alone" go together quite nicely. Sometimes they like to invite "in the dark" and "in my underwear" to the party.

One night I got tired of getting up to refill my wine glass, so I brought the bottle back to the living room with me. Lisa saw me refilling from the couch and said, "You don't have to use a glass on my account. You know you want to drink from the bottle." I considered it, but decided that's a line I don't need to cross. Not yet, at least.

Bananas Foster or: How I Almost Married a Chubby Girl Because Her Hot Cousin Dumped Me

2011-05-13T12:20:00.005-05:00

Thanks to Facebook, I have reconnected with a bunch of people with whom I have been out of touch for many years. When I look back at the past 20 years, I find there is not a single person I've been in touch with consistently. I suppose this is normal in the years after high school. So I will quickly fill in the gaps for all my new friends and reconnected friends and family:

1990 – 1993 Hot Tub Time Machine

In Hasbro's "The Game of Life" you get to choose the path for college or career. Both paths lead to the same place, and ultimately come out pretty even, but the career path requires crap work and low pay at first. In my life I tried college briefly, but chose the career path. I worked lame jobs and hard jobs during those years and many of the years that followed.

Most of that period was spent hanging out with Matt and Lee, my two best friends from High School. Those were wasted years, but fun times.

1994 – 1998 The Empire Strikes Back

I was orphaned in my twenties. I lost my mom in '94 and my dad in '98, both to cancer. I lost both of my grandmothers in the same week in February of '99. I lost my faith somewhere along that road. Then I found it, then I lost it again. That's probably a story for another blog.

I've been married twice and almost married a few times more. I married my first wife a month before my mom died. I almost bolted from the church that day, but I looked out of the groom's room and saw my dad rolling in my mom in a wheelchair. She had literally left her death bed to see my wedding. So I went through with it. Four years later, a month after my dad died, I threw out the first wife. If my first marriage was a book, it would be children's book, the kind with big innocent cardboard pages, simple words, and almost no sex, like "Goodnight Moon".

1999 – 2001 Doctor Strange Love or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

I highly recommend first marriages. It's a great learning experience. For example, I learned you shouldn’t marry your prom date. I also learned that I love sampling wedding cake, but I hate weddings. So after my first marriage ended, I got engaged a few times, but always avoided setting a date. Between 1998 and 2002, I sampled a lot of cakes.

2002 – present Field of Dreams

I met my second wife, Lisa in 2002. Our marriage is a dream. Lisa is my best friend, and my one true love. I could write pages about Lisa, and I will, but not yet. We have a terrific son. He's a smart and talented kid with a well developed sense of humor. It sometimes really pisses me off to see myself reflected so perfectly in another person.

I learned the value of hard work early on, and those lessons have served me well. I now have great job that I enjoy going to every day. What I do is also fodder for another blog post.

As I approach my middle years, I am satisfied with my life. I am married to a woman I love. I have a job I would do for free. We're mostly healthy and mostly happy most of the time. My life is full of laughter, and when I see the bald guy with the grey chin whiskers in the mirror, I generally like him.

Now… we’re all caught up. I’d ask how you’ve been for the last twenty years, but I’d rather read it in your blog. So get to work everyone, and start sending me those links.

Thoughts From Anna

2011-05-11T11:57:00.002-05:00

My cousin Anna has a great blog that she updates almost every weekday (http://annah40.blogspot.com/). I admire her dedication to maintaining it. Even more, I admire the thoughts she shares in her blog. It's all very personal. The topics range from the mundane to the deep. She's covered topics from her love of Easter hats to her waning spirituality. Early on she blogged about the death of her father. He was a huge influence in my life. I keep a picture of him on my shelf at home even all these years later. That blog entry hit me hard. It brought back so many feelings and memories, that it took fully a week for me to get back to normal.

Her blog has made me think about my smart-assy poorly maintained blog. I wonder if these are the thoughts we leave for posterity. When we die, will they somehow be maintained by ancestry.com or whatever archive we're using when that time comes? Will our children, grandchildren or future decendants read our blogs to find out what we were like at this moment in our lives? Do I want my message to the future to be a list of things that make my ass sweat?

The short answer is yes. I do want my great great grandchildren to read about the things that make my ass sweat. I hope they get a chuckle out of it. But I also want to say more. I am going to try to do a better job of updating my blog. Five days a week is never going to happen, but a few times a month is a commitment I can probably keep. It may often still be things that make me laugh, but I won't avoid covering other, more personal topics.

For the faithful five following my blog or those who browsed here from Facebook or Twitter, every entry may not be for you. Going forward, I may only link the funny ones to Facebook. For those in the distant future reading this, I hope your robot overlords don't catch you slacking. If Ray Kurzweil is right, then I am probably one of your robot overlords, and I promise vengence on anyone caught screwing off. For my lovingly tolerant wife, this may be as close I am able to get to sharing my thoughts and feelings... so stay tuned.

Couple Friends

2011-05-10T11:56:00.004-05:00

I'm certain most married men can relate to this. My wife, Lisa, is frequently trying to find us couple friends to hang out with. This involves starting with a woman she is already friends with, usually someone from work or from high school, then introducing the husbands into the mix. In order for this to be successful, the husbands (me and the other guy) must become friends. Ideally we would become the kind of friends who would hang out without our wives around, thus creating a sub-group within the couple friend dynamic. The statistical probability of this formula working is approximately 285:1 against. The obstacles to success are abundant, but I'll pick off a few obvious ones.

Social Science. Men don't quickly bond with other men. The bonds among men take years to form and are often shaped by shared tragedy or at least shared adversity. I'm pretty sure this is true of most male mammals. If you need examples, check out monkeys, lions or elephants. The herds, or whatever, are made up of females and babies. The males are either off somewhere alone or with males with whom they grew up. If a new male is introduced into the pack of males, it is summarily humiliated, beaten and assigned a lesser position in the chain of command or it takes control of the pack by ousting the current leader (this might happen in human groups if The Rock showed up).

Social Disorders. I used to think I was introverted, but now I'm certain that I'm antisocial. I'm comfortable in crowds, and I'm okay being openly antisocial. There is a quote in the new BBC "Sherlock Holmes" series where Sherlock says, "I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high functioning sociopath. Do your research." I get that. As Lisa has tried to bring her friends' husbands around, I have picked them off, one by one, as unworthy. I am willing to admit that if I had a problem with one man or two or even three, it could be them. But if my problem is with every man (or, let's face it, every man, woman and child), it may be me. I remember when I was much younger, choosing not to ask a girl out because she had a bunch of friends, and I really didn't like them. It seemed easier to just not try, than to start a relationship that would end with me telling her that everyone she knows is an asshole.

Offspring. We have a twelve year old son. If the other couple has a child of similar age, then they must also get along. If the other couple has a baby or toddler, then it's just never going to work. I am past the point in my life where I want to make social arrangements around a little child. I don't want to double date to a Pixar film or have to work around naps or listen to tantrums. Sometimes Lisa, who is a Labor and Delivery Nurse, will meet people at work who are having a baby and who seem like a perfect match to us socially. All I can think when I hear this is, "do I really want to spend a lot of time around a baby?"

Alcohol. We like to drink. I like it a lot. I drink in crowds. I drink alone. It's one of the only ways I am able to function socially. That Lisa also likes to drink, and is okay with my constant drinking is one of the magic bonds that hold us together. Trying to be couple friends with people who don't drink is a deal breaker. If their reason for not drinking is religious, all the more so.

Humor, politics, and religion. I have a very dry sense of humor, and a caustic wit that is fully engaged 95% of the time. If you look up caustic wit, you will probably find sarcasm as a synonym. If the other couple is not of a similar demeanor, this could be a problem. Lisa and I are both quite liberal in our social politics and in our religion. Of the two of us, she is the one you would describe as having a religion. Any one of these factors if discussed openly can make or break a friendship.

So if you've been friends with my wife for years, and your husband and I are on an equal socio-economic plane, and we have shared a trauma together, probably brought on by being drunk, funny and antisocial in a public place, then this could work. If it's not a perfect fit, but you'd generally describe yourself as a secular humanist and you're willing to let your husband narrowly avoid being arrested or beaten up in a bar fight then it may be worth a try. Provided you don't have small children.