Me, CherkyB

Advice from a Stranger

2012-01-20T22:19:00.006-07:00

I was sitting in the Sacramento airport in the A-terminal bar last week, having a bit of lunch while waiting for my flight home. You know, and maybe a beers. Hard to say for sure. Well, a feller sits down next to me and begins to talk to me.

Now, as you all know, I'm not a very friendly person. It's not that I don't like people. I'm just absolutely terrible at chit chat. I watch a little football, but I don't memorize any of the games. Other than that, I don't really follow sports. I follow politics, but I don't make chit chat about it with strangers (or, for that matter, with fambly anymore given how much of my fambly is raging leftists or, at the very least, buys into the popularly-held misconception that liberals are smarter than conservatives, or that conservatism is just thinly veiled racism, or both). While I am an astute follower of the weather, one runs out of weather observations rather rapidly. So mainly I smile and nod and pay close attention to see not so much if I can learn about the subject being discussed as I can learn about how to make idle chit chat without feeling like it's completely forced.

At this I am a failure.

But after a beers or two, I can nod and smile very convincingly, and I can inject wry little witticisms into the conversation for color. Like this:

"That's great. And I thought the best thing that could happen today was that .223 ammo went on sale at Cabela's, and if you order $99 or more of anything and enter the promo code "12FREE" on the checkout page, you get free shipping this weekend only. And you know how expensive it is to ship ammo. That stuff weighs a ton. It's like they filled the box half up with lead or something."

See that - useful information followed up immediately with sarcasm. It's like I have a gift, just not for chit chat.

(I'm required to tell you that Cabela's has not paid me any fee or consideration for promoting their sale. I just finished ordering some ammo moments ago, after Slushee text messaged me about the sale, so it was on my mind.)

Well, we're chatting some of the standard airport-bar chatter about whether you're going home or leaving home, and whether you're actually from the place you're going to or coming from. Blah blah blah. Then, out of the blue:

Guy at Bar: "So, how long have you been married?"

Me, CherkyB: "Wait! Don't tell me! I know this one! Uhhh..."

Bartender: "You damn well better know this one if you expect to stay married."

See, the thing is that I, CherkyB, am a man. Therefore, I remember things the way a man remembers things - I remember when they happened. I don't remember how long it has been since it happened. Somebody says to you, "How long has it been since the Declaration of Independence?" You go, "Hmmm...July 4th, 1776. It's January 2012. 235 and a half years." You don't just know that's how long it has been. And believe you me, the signing of the Declaration of Independence is a hell of a lot more momentous an occasion than any particular person's wedding - yes even more important than Princess Di's.

So, I'm doing math in my head. While taking shit from a bartender. Who I guarantee doesn't know how long he's been married, he's just making chit chat.

Me, CherkyB: "Oh, a little over 15 years."

Guy at Bar: "I made it 18 in mine. Lemme tell you something."

Me, CherkyB: "What's that?"

Guy at Bar: "Divorce. You should try it. It's like the best thing in the world."

Me, CherkyB: "Hmm."

Guy at Bar: "Yeah. I thought it was going to be horrible. But it turns out to be fantastic. Fan-f*^king-tastic. You really should try it. If you don't like it, you can always get married again."

Me, CherkyB: "Well...I'm not really thinking about getting divorced at the moment."

At which point I may have added, "because my darling wife is the best thing that ever happened to me, and we love each other more every day, and she's one of the last people who avidly reads everything I write in my blog," or, "I have kids."

One of those.

Guy at Bar: "Let me tell you - I was telling my girlfriend how I wanted to quit my job and start my own business, and the next day she had deposited $10,000 into my account to help pay for startup costs. And look at this:"

At which point he starts digging in his wallet and tossing credit cards onto the bar.

Guy at Bar: "This credit card is hers. This is hers. This one is hers. She pays for everything. You should seriously try divorce."

Me, CherkyB: "Well, I'm glad it's working out for you, but I can't imagine being without my dear, beautiful wife who hangs on every word I write on my blog so that she can discuss it with me and/or her mother as though it was some sort of literary masterpiece."

Guy at Bar: "Yeah. OK. I'm just saying. Hey, have you seen this online game? It's like a war strategy game where you have armies and have to equip them and fight battles against other players? It's the best. You've got to try it."

I bring out the best in people. It's my gift.

CherkyB, Father of the Year

2012-01-01T11:15:00.005-07:00

Yes, it's a fresh new year, and this gives us the opportunity to grab the much-coveted Father of the Year trophy, even if just for a brief moment.

You see, yesterday for whatever reason, The Mrs. decided she would clean out her closet of all the "old clothes" that she "never wears anymore".

All you married people, of course, know that that is code for something that cannot ever be mentioned, not even in a whisper. But the fashion industry exists in large part to create a built-in reason to get rid of old clothes - they're "out of fashion" - so that marriage can exist happily without anyone ever having to mention the unmentionable.

She spent hours up there yesterday, and she even vacuumed the walk-in. When I went up there last night, she had wiped out about 90% of her clothes. It was vast expanses of empty hangers and space the likes of which we haven't seen since the moving van arrived the day after we got here.

Well, my darling Childrens spent most of that time sitting in the fambly room with me watching the last 6 episodes of Top Shot off the DVR (that we've been saving up for a special occasion) and waiting for the New Year, so they didn't really know the fury that was ongoing upstairs. Fast forward to this morning, where I am blissfully asleep in my nice warm bed when all of a sudden:

The Mrs.: [poke poke poke] "Hey, I'm going to see the king."

Me, CherkyB: [startled awake] "Huh? What? What king?"

The Mrs.: [speaking very slowly, as if to an idiot - which I hesitate to even write here, as this has actually been her normal way of communicating to me since she had childrens and decided I was largely superfluous, though she hasn't figured out how to replace my income yet and is thus filled with resentment] "Iiiiii'mmmmm goooooiiiiiinnnnggg sssshhhhhoooooppppppiiiiinnnnngggg. Alone."

Me, CherkyB: [rolling over to go back to sleep] "Great."

The Mrs.: "There's pizza in the garage fridge that needs to be eaten."

Me, CherkyB: "Bye bye."

Later, I got up. I was in the kitchen making my coffee, which is much easier now that we have a Cuisinart machine that does single-serving K-cups. MaxieC asked me where Momma was, and I said, "She moved out." He laughed and went back to watching TV.

A few minutes later, after some consideration, this happened:

HannahC: "Really, Daddy, where is Momma, and when is she coming back?"

Me, CherkyB: "I told you, she moved out. She's not coming back."

HannahC: "Oh, come on."

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah. She packed up all her stuff and left. She even packed up all her clothes. Have you seen her closet."

[HannahC runs upstairs...checks closet]

HannahC: "Daddy! What's going on? Did Momma actually leave?"

Me, CherkyB: "No. She packed up all her old clothes to give to the Goodwill, and now she's gone out to buy all new clothes."

HannahC: "Daddy!!! You're a jerk!!!"

Then she burst into tears and ran into her room. I haven't seen her since.

Maybe she moved out.

A long, hard winter

2011-12-19T21:04:00.002-07:00

So, I'm watching the NFL, as I am wont to do around this time of year, and then one of those things happened which is so cliché that I hesitate to report on it, given how you all will think I'm just spinning a yarn. But here goes:

MaxieC: "Dah?"

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah?"

MaxieC: "What's 'erectile dysfunction'?"

A long time ago, I heard on the radio (prolly from Dr. Laura) that the best way to approach uncomfortable questions of children is to answer them matter-of-factly.

Me, CherkyB: "Erectile dysfunction means you can't get a boner."

MaxieC: "A what?"

There are many drawback to being a homeschool parent. The most obvious being that I get to pay taxes to send The Childrens to a public school that they do not attend, and then I get to pay to buy tons and tons of curricula so that my hovering wife, bless her heart, can pick and choose the "best parts" from, say, 5 different math books, because god only knows that there are many ways to teach fractions, but only one of them could possibly be best, and who can tell which will be the best until you've tried them all? And, of course, having a wife who is always angry because she spends every waking hour with the precious little tykes - precious little tykes who have spent their whole lives with their mother and thus know absolutely every possible button to push for maximal annoyance. But, deep down in the list of drawbacks to being a homeschool parent is that your kids just don't pick up all the dirty stuff you normally expect them to learn from their friends.

One of which is the definition of "boner".

Me, CherkyB: "Well, MaxieC, a 'boner' is when your penis gets hard. Erectile dysfunction is when your penis doesn't get hard."

MaxieC: "Why would you want your penis to get hard?"

Oh, MaxieC, MaxieC, MaxieC, where to begin?

Me, CherkyB: "You remember that video with Howie Mandel? The guy from 'Deal or No Deal'?"

MaxieC: "Kind of."

Me, CherkyB: "You remember how the daddy has to put his penis in the mommy?"

MaxieC: "Oh gross!"

Me, CherkyB: "Well, your penis needs to be hard to do that."

MaxieC: "Yuck!"

Me, CherkyB: "And these pills make your penis hard if you have erectile dysfunction. They're called 'boner pills.'"

MaxieC: "Stop! Yuck! Gross!

Just then, The Mrs. walks in.

The Mrs.: "What the heck are you telling him?"

Me, CherkyB: "He asked what erectile dysfunction was."

The Mrs.: "And you're telling him???"

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah - he asked."

MaxieC: "I just saw the ad on TV and I asked, but I didn't know what it was, and now I wish I hadn't asked. It's disgusting!"

The Mrs.: "Up to your usual standards of parenting again, I see."

Me, CherkyB: "He asked. Am I just not supposed to answer?"

MaxieC: "I wish you hadn't."

I never get any support.

I feel like I've neglected you

2011-10-26T22:10:00.000-06:00

So I weatherblogged.

CherkyB, Moron

2011-07-12T20:37:00.002-06:00

Yes, that's right folks. You heard it here first. Except for those of you who heard the story earlier.

It started out innocently enough. My Goombah, Mugsy, asked me to go rifle-shootin' out at the range on account of how he wanted to shoot his new AR-30 at 200 yds. Well, given that I'm on sabbatical, I couldn't say "no." Plus, I wanted to shoot my new belly gun with the special Speer Gold Dot short-barrel +P personal defense ammo I had picked up for it.

Though not at 200 yds. A 3" barrel is not really the right equipment for 200 yds.

I decided it'd be fun to shoot my old elk gun that I bought on the spur of the moment when I went to a gun show with a co-worker who wanted to buy a .22 rifle (I ended up buying both a .22 rifle and a .300 Win Mag rifle, and my coworker bought nothing). I had an old friend who had been asking me every year to go elk hunting with him, so I just bought the rifle so's I could go.

And the closest we got to an elk was that we had to wait for some to cross the road before we could get to the national forest.

But that's another story. One that happened 11 years ago.

Now, me being Me, CherkyB, I bought a really nice scope for the rifle - a Leupold Vari-X III of some sort - and I had dutifully gone to the range to zero it in and learn how to shoot a rifle. I had never shot one before, so I bought Jeff Cooper's The Art of the Rifle, read it, and then tried to put into practice what I learned. This went alright until the night before the hunt, when my buddy's dad tried out my rifle and said, "Your scope is out of focus."

And I noticed that, at 100yds, it was slightly out of focus - which it had not been prior to this. I figured despite buying a very pricey flight case for it, United Airlines had knocked something out of whack. But not to worry, as these scopes come with a lifetime warranty. I'd just send it back, and they'd re-align it or whatever.

Except I never did.

In fact, I'm not at all sure I ever shot that rifle again after the elk hunt until this past Sunday. Now, I kinda have a recollection of shooting it once after the hunt, but I can't really put my finger on when that would have been. I think it's just been in the safe the whole time, with me cleaning and oiling it maybe once every couple years to make sure the bore doesn't rust.

So, at one point, Mugsy and I switch rifles, and the AR-30 is one hell of a sweet gun. Virtually no kick, despite being .338 Lapua Mag. As I was looking through his scope, I was thinking to myself, "Self, wow this is a clear image." Then I went back to my gun, looked through the scope, and said, "My scope is out of focus."

Mugsy's reply, "Good. Then it isn't just me."

Damnit.

Well, today I had a little time on my hands, so I looked up the tech support number for Leupold, then I got the scope off the rifle to look for a model number and serial number before calling it in. And then it went like this:

Me, CherkyB: "Self, I can't believe that people would make such a fancy scope with fixed focus and no way to adjust it. And now, I'll probably have to find the original receipt to get it fixed, and they'll probably say I damaged it and won't fix it for free."

Me, CherkyB: "Hmm...what's this knurled ring next to the zoom? I thought that was part of the zoom, but it doesn't turn when I zoom."

Me, CherkyB: "Oh...sweet Jesus."

Yeah, that's right. That knurled ring actually was a lock ring for the eyepiece, and when you loosened the ring, the eyepiece could be rotated. Which, yes - you guessed it, adjusted the focus.

Duh.

Sabbatical 2 - Day 1

2011-07-06T17:16:00.002-06:00

I think it’s the parenting that will kill me.

Not that this is unexpected.

As almost none of you know, since I’ve never spoken of it here and only briefly mentioned on that killer-of-blogs, jumper-of-sharks Facebook platform, I am on sabbatical.

“What?” you mouth slowly to yourself, in that confused fashion you’d think by now you’d be used to, given the propensity of confusion swirling amidst your life, “I didn’t know CherkyB was an academic. I thought he, like, did stuff.”

For once, you’re right. I am not an academic, though “do stuff” is probably more than I’d like to commit to with respects to describing my job. For almost the past two years, I have been able to tell people that I am a “Power Architect.” Then, I get a blank stare and maybe a, “So you have a background in construction?” and I realize that, while being a “power architect” is an excitingly snazzy title compared to my previous one of “binsplit guy”, I’m still not really ready for the cocktail circuit with either of those titles.

Not that a proper title would, per se, make me ready for the cocktail circuit, as I can’t for the life of me pretend that socialism is the proper order for a sophisticated society rather than the evolutionary dead-end that obviously is to anyone whose aspires to more than living off other people’s money. But I digress.

I am not an academic. I work for The Company. And one of the perks of working for The Company is that every few years, they give you a couple months off as a “sabbatical”. This has been a long-standing policy of The Company that started back in the days when it was a new and cut-throat industry, and you had no idea which companies would make it and which would not, and so you worked day and night to try to just stay alive. Thus, the danger of burning out was ever-present. Nowadays, it seems we have our act together pretty well and can accomplish substantially more without burning out, yet the sabbatical lives on as a time-tested tradition in much the fashion that we thought having The Company dump a large portion of money into our 401(k) every year was. Right up until they dialed that way back.

Today is officially my first day of sabbatical – my second sabbatical – but it comes on the heels of a 4-day weekend. So I’m already on my fifth uninterrupted day of family time, and I’m tired. The Mrs. Decided I should take The Childrens to their swimming lessons today so she could stay home and clean the house. This after I nearly died yesterday after sitting on the floor of the living room, which was the only clear space in the whole house, to go over the Colorado Big Game hunting regulations handbook with HannahC and was overcome with dust allergies that caused me to sneeze and cough and my eyes to water for about three hours until I could find the Benedryl (it was in with the dog’s medicines, of course). Apparently, that particular carpet has not been vacuumed since we took the Christmas tree down in January.

I used to vacuum a lot, but I have a rule that I won’t vacuum any room where I can’t see the floor. So now I don’t really ever vacuum. The Mrs. actually moves the vacuum around from room to room so that it’s in a different place every day when I come home from work, but she’s recently admitted that she never actually turns it on cuz she can’t vacuum a room where we can’t see the floor. She puts it in a room as a reminder to herself that she’d like to vacuum that room as soon as The Childrens pick up all their junk, but then she makes HannahC work on 4H projects all day long and makes MaxieC watch TV and play Playstation all day to keep him quiet so HannahC can work on 4H, and, well, not much progress is made on the floor thing.

I’ve only managed to go fishing once so far. I caught a single Bluegill. HannahC caught about 11, of which 6 were big enough to eat. It was one of those days where every time I went to put my line back in the water, HannahC would come romping up with another fish for me to clean, so I didn’t get to fish much during the peak catching time. We were there for about 2.5 hours and caught all the keepers in a span of about 20 minutes about 45 minutes after we got there. Then, nothing.

HannahC was using new high-technology bait - worms that have been fed something that makes them fluorescent green. Now, I don’t know if they are the glow-in-the-dark worms that I’ve seen at Sportsman’s Warehouse. We’ve been meaning to check each night, but always forget. These were from Walmart, and they cost about double what non-fluorescent green worms cost (which means they’re $3 for 12 instead of $3 for 24), but they’re big crawlers that you can cut in half before baiting a hook. I’m not at this point willing to declare that the fishies love the green worms more than regular worms, but they sure love them more than a Mepps Aglia gold spinner with a Berkeley Gulp Alive minnow trailing on the feather-dressed treble, which is what I was fishing. Scientifically formulated attractant that fish can’t resist, my ass.

Lure Researcher: “I’ve come up with a breakthrough formula of pheromones and long-lasting scents that promises to be the most powerful attractant the fishing world has ever known!”

Boss: “Do fish like it better than worms?”

Lure Researcher: “And I’ve slightly changed the formula of our slow-selling plastic swimbaits so that they can absorb the stank and stink for hours.”

Boss: “How does it do versus worms?”

Lure Researcher: “And we can sell them packed in little jars with extra liquid so that you can re-charge the swimbaits after you use them.”

Boss: “But does it work better than worms?”

Lure Researcher: “Well, like regular worms?”

Boss: “Yeah”

Lure Researcher: “Yeah, you know, it’ll depend on the individual fish, but yeah, probably.”
Boss: “How about them green worms?”

Lure Researcher: “Uhhh……”

Boss: “Aw hell, them green worms is cheatin’. Ship it.”

Around these parts, a “keeper” bluegill is only 6-8” long.

On an unrelated note, I’ve decided that for my upcoming birthday, I’m going to get me a high-quality fillet knife.

Those Two Little Words

2011-05-29T22:46:00.004-06:00

Here at Me, CherkyB, I rarely wax philosophical. Lately, I haven't been waxing much of anything.

Saying that made me think about how I have never waxed my truck, despite having it over a year. Unless you count carwash wax. But I digress.

The past week has given me pause to reflect upon the power of two simple words in our language. You see, last weekend was what we like to call PMS Weekend. I've noted that before. Actually, a number of times, given it is a regular occurrence. The Mrs. was all crabby and blaming it on me, as per usual. She even rehashed the standard revelation:

Me, CherkyB: "Why do you have to be so nasty?"

The Mrs.: "I'm not nasty. You're the nasty one. You know why you think I'm nasty? You know what's different this time?"

Me, CherkyB: "Oh for God's sake. Don't give me that, 'I've just decided not to put up with your crap anymore,' line again. Every month you get really nasty, and then you say, 'I've just decided not to put up with your crap anymore,' like it's some kind of new behavior. It's PMS. In a couple of days, it'll be over, and you'll be back to normal."

The Mrs.: "It is not PMS. I've just decided not to put up with your crap anymore, and so interpret that as me being nasty."

Me, CherkyB: "Yes dear."

[I might note that about a half hour later, The Mrs. came wandering into the room and declared, "You were right. It was just PMS." I thought I'd immortalize that here, but she'll probably deny it and insist she just decided not to put up with my crap anymore right up until the very moment her PMS ended, and then she decided to put up with it again "for the sake of the marriage."]

So, in the couple days leading up to that fateful moment, I got to use those two little words that all marriage counselors and self-help gurus tell you are the key to a lasting relationship. I know, I know, it's kind of cliché, but you all know that deep down inside, I'm a sappy romantic. I'm pretty sure I've talked about that before.

You all know what I'm talking about. The two magic words that make it all OK:

Right now.

"You have no idea how much I hate you...right now."

See? All better.

The real problem

2011-03-28T20:24:00.001-06:00

I've cut way back on my drinking, and you should never blog sober.

It's OK Now - I'm Here

2011-03-12T17:48:00.004-07:00

As I age, I get more philosophical. I believe this is something called "wisdom." I never really played that much Dungeons and Dragons, but with all this Wisdom, I think I should be learning some spells presently. After all these years gaining wisdom, you know what I've figured out?

The biggest inconvenience of being married is having a wife.

Especially if, like me, you have a wife who considers you some kind of superhero Mr. Fix-it. And a wife who is completely unfazed about volunteering you to help all kinds of other wives' husbands.

--

On an unrelated note, today I held my first clinic on how to build a Pinewood Derby racer for three other boys in MaxieC's Tiger Cub pack. Now, you might be asking yourself:

You: "Self, now why would CherkyB being holding a clinic on how to make a Pinewood Derby Racer? He's never made one before. He's gotten through the first two steps of the 8 or 9 required to make a racer, and he's never even read the direction book all the way to the end. It seems odd."

Now, the fact that you are sitting there asking yourself that (and slowly forming the words with your mouth as you think) is a pretty good indication that you are not my wife. No, when my wife attends a pack function and hears the other moms kvetching about how their husbands don't know how to make a pinewood derby car and may, in fact, not even own any tools, well, her thought go more like this:

The Mrs. "Self, my husband is very busy, but being that he is some kind of a god, he always has time to help out others, even on things he doesn't know anything about. He's a sooper-genius, and he can figure it out. I'll just volunteer him, and then I'll paint him into a corner so that he can't back out of the task without looking like a total ass. That's worked for 25 years. If he really didn't like it, he would have left me by now."

The Mrs. [to others]: "My husband can teach your husbands what to do tomorrow. I'll ask him what time when he gets home tonight, and I'll email it to you."

Later.

The Mrs.: "Remember how when you opened the pinewood derby box, you didn't know what to do cuz it was just a block of wood?"

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah."

The Mrs.: "Well, a lot of the other dads are having the same problem. I told them they could come over tomorrow morning, and you could teach them. You think about 9am?"

Me, CherkyB: "...Uhhhh...What?"

The Mrs.: "Should they all come over at 9 o'clock in the morning tomorrow?"

Me, CherkyB: "I'm not even out of bed at 9:00 on a Saturday. What's going on? Who's coming over?"

The Mrs. "OK, I'll tell the 10:00."

Me, CherkyB: "10:00 for what?"

The Mrs.: "For some of the other scouts to come over for you to show them how to build pinewood derby cars."

Me, CherkyB: "But I don't know how to build a pinewood derby car. I just bought a book at Michaels, and I'm following the instructions. Can't they just buy the same book?"

The Mrs.: "A lot of them don't even have tools."

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah, but I don't even know what I'm doing. And I'm supposed to spend all day helping MaxieC and HannahC work on their cars."

The Mrs.: "I already told them you'd do it. I suppose I could sent them an email saying that you don't want to help and you don't care about their kids and the pack cuz you're just too busy to help at all. But they'll think you're a dick."

Me, CherkyB: "[sigh]"

The Mrs.: "I could tell them how I forgot how busy you are. But their wives were so counting on your help. They'll be kind of upset with me, but that's OK because I don't really need any more friends, so if nobody in the cub scout pack likes me, I'll still be OK. It'll just make going to pack meetings a lot more uncomfortable."

Me, CherkyB: "OK . 10 o'clock."

We spent about 4 hours this morning getting them to the point where they could paint the racers and attach the wheels on their own. We cut, sanded, and added ballast to the bodies, and we polished the wheels and axles. It was a zoo. Four 7-yr-old boys running around getting into everything other than making their derby cars. But one of the dads bought us pizza and another ran out to Sportsmans Warehouse to load up on Pepper Jigs when we ran out.

--

My new holster came last week (finally - almost 5 weeks). It's fan-f-ing-tastic. Here's a picture of it:

Helen Keller

2011-03-02T20:26:00.003-07:00

A few moments ago, I was thinking this exact phrase to myself:

"It's OK to drown olives, cuz they can't cry for help."

I'm not going to try to explain to you all the events that chained together to end up in that one particular thought. You're reasonably bright, so you'll eventually make something up that your mind is comfortable with and latch onto it with the zeal of a religious fervor.

But it did get me to wondering.

Enough about you, though.

I'm still battling with the cable company who steadfastly refuses to try to diagnose the problem with my bandwidth, though it's getting harder and harder to find a tech support person who is willing to try to pin the problem on my modem (well, their modem that they supply with the service). The fact that I can always get the advertised bandwidth to their local server, but that the bandwidth I get to any other server in the country varies by time of day and tops out at half of the advertised BW at prime time, but is perfect from 1am to 9am is awfully suspicious of an upstream problem in the line feeding their local server. Only the dumbest of tech support people could possibly deny that. Instead, I'm getting, "we'll monitor the situation and call you back," and on the callback all they ever say is, "we can't find anything wrong with your modem."

Of course not. We've already eliminated my modem from contention.

The guy today really thought he was on to something. Maybe, he posited, I was using a VPN. I swear they don't read the tickets at all.

They are all very seriously polite, though. And they speak English perfectly. This isn't some off-shore support operation.

--

My foot still hurts. My Dr. Scholls custom-fit orthodics inserts have managed now to also make my shins hurt. Possibly my foot hurts slightly less, so maybe we've accomplished lowering the peak magnitude of the pain by spreading it out over a wider area. I'm not convinced that's an improvement, though.

This is perhaps just what it's like to get older. My dad is double my age. At the rate I'm declining, I can't imagine I'll make it that long. I try to convince myself that I'm just approaching death asymptotically, and that once I make it around the knee of the curve, it'll be a smooth, long glide down until life becomes a rounding error and, poof, it's gone.

But I have a hard time believing myself given that I just make stuff up.

I should probably exercise more.

--

Max and Hannah have lost TV privileges for the rest of the week. I don't really know why, as it happened while I was at work. When I asked The Mrs., she said something to the effect of, "they're a couple of spoiled little shits who never do what they're told," though I've cleaned that up a bit given this is a family blog and all. The end result of this is that MaxieC has become a lot more annoying, given how bored he is.

I have to make paper airplanes with him now.

Bandwidth

2011-02-27T23:01:00.003-07:00

How wide is yours?

Lemme open by saying that I just shook myself up a very large martini (don't try this at home - I'm a professional), and when I poured it, it was full of all kinds of unspecified black floaty things. Now, I don't know if the glass was dirty or the shaker was dirty, but it was one of them. I thought for a minute about whether or not I could just drink it anyways, given that probably there isn't a lot of little black things that could live through a long swim in chilled vodka and then kill me, and it was probably just dishwasher grit in the shaker, and dishwasher grit, while unappetizing, is effectively sterile. And I would hate to waste $3 of Ketel One. (No promotional fee was paid to Me, CherkyB for promoting Ketel One vodka.)

But I tossed it, washed everything, and made a new one. Drinking a substantial martini is one of life's simple pleasures, and there's no reason to compromise.

That said, I'm mad at the cable company. And that's unusual. Now, I understand that pretty much everyone who has cable is mad at the cable company, but I haven't had cable since 1998, having gotten by with first C-band satellite, then Dish, and finally many many years of DirecTV.

But that all changed when I bought a Blu-ray player capable of Netflix streaming. Suddenly, I needed high speed internet, and my DSL line was topped out at 1.2Mbps. The phone company was kinda pissy when I asked about upgrading the speed, so I got cable modem instead. Of course, the cable guy upsold me to cable TV and VOIP phone, with an HD DVR thrown in as well. Heck, saving $35/month vs what I had before.

Fast forward to last weekend, and MaxieC is complaining that the Netflix streaming keeps rebuffering. Now, this should never happen with 12Mbps service, which is what I'm paying for. And it, in fact, had never happened until then. I ran a speedtest at my favorite speedtest site, and it said I was getting 5Mbps.

I watched it for a couple days, and it fluctuated between 3 and 7Mbps. Never approaching the 12 I subscribe to. So I called tech support.

Tech support for cable modem goes like this:

unplug your modem and take the battery out
turn off your pc
remove your router and plug the modem directly into the pc
reinstall the modem battery and plug it back in
wait for the lights to come on
turn on the computer

No change? We'll have someone contact you.

Give them the cellphone number, since there's no point in the cable technician talking to The Mrs. The cable tech then calls the next day at the home number and either leaves a message on the machine or talks to The Mrs. Instructions are to repeat steps 1-6, cuz maybe it didn't work last time.

Eventually, someone leaves a message saying to use a particular speedtest site that is linked to form the customer support page of the cable company. Lo and Behold, if I pick the local server, I get 12Mbps from that speedtest. If I pick any of their other servers, values range from 3-7Mbps.

Ah ha! I know the problem. The fahrchakotchettas have sold me fictitious bandwidth. I have a 12Mbps connection to the cable company, but they only give me 5Mbps to the outside world. They've oversubscribed their bandwidth (probably with the $99/mo triple-play cable/modem/phone deal they've been saturation advertising that I subscribed to).

BTW, as an aside, Amazon movie streaming doesn't work at all with 5Mbps. Netflix does, but it drops out of HD. You need around 8 for HD. Amazon shows 30 seconds of a movie, then stops for 10 second while it buffers, then another 30 seconds...

So I call these scammers back to let them know that I'm on to them, and they want me to power cycle my modem again. Nope, not gonna fall for that - especially since with the VOIP phone it means I lose my connection to tech support. I explain in simple terms what the problem is: "It's not at my end. I'm getting 12MBps to the local US Cable server, but I'm only getting 5MBps to any other location including other US Cable servers in my state. You have a bandwidth problem in your server."

He runs a speed test and says, "I'm showing full bandwidth to your modem." Yeah, duh, of course you are, since you just pinged it from the local server. The problem is upstream from your server.

"Lemme go ask my supervisor a question."

[hold]

"Can you run a speed test from speakeasy.net?"

Ok. It says 3.32Mbps.

"Can you rerun it?"

It says 4.20Mbps this time.

"OK, is there anything else I can help you with tonight?"

Uh, is anyone going to fix this?

"I'll re-escalate the ticket. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

I may call up the phone company. They've been begging to get me back, and they've offered me 40Mbps at a very reasonable rate, now that I canceled my old service.

I didn't know you were still listening

2011-02-26T21:59:00.005-07:00

Mainly cuz you're not.

Today was a very exciting day. Very exciting. I bought propane and brass screws, and I got an oil change. Plus, I got some porterhouse steaks and jalapeño-cheese bratwurst made from local, grass-fed livestock.

My foot hurts, though. My doctor convinced himself that I have gout, but I'm not convinced. Especially since all the gout-treatments he's put me through haven't affected how much my foot hurts at all. Though the big, green pills [indomethacin] give me the most raging and prolonged, uh, side-effects, that I have to come home from work after being on them for a couple days.

I am a bit irked that it has been 4 weeks, and my fancy new holster is still now here. It said, "allow 3-4 weeks for shipping as we make these to order." Instead, I have had to make do with this, for which my review is not glowing.

The Childrens have a homeschool science fair tomorrow. Max had me make him a model of an ear, and Hannah originally wanted to do a project on earthworms, but all the worms died. So she decided to do a project about defrosting your freezer, cuz the freezer in the under-the-counter bar fridge needed defrosting. She did an excellent job on that. We took a lot of pictures of her defrosting it, and she did some research on the history of refrigeration (burying stuff in the ground packed in snow, ice boxes, early fridges, and frost-free models), and she explained how refrigeration works. She even used a semi-colon in one sentence.

She'll get a medal. Everyone gets a medal - the same medal. They make us buy the medal in order to be allowed to participate. The thing with homeschoolers is that you always think of them as crazed, right-wing religious nuts, but in fact most of them are actually radical leftists who homeschool because they think public schools are too strict and conservative.

Though when I refer to them as "your people" when talking to The Mrs., she gets irked.

I shot this a week ago, but I only managed to get it uploaded today. Enjoy.

Christmas Tree

2010-11-26T09:16:00.002-07:00

Shortly after this tree was felled, The Mrs. decided she hated it because it had some bare spots on the sides. She harshed on it non-stop for the 45 minute drive home. She loves Christmas.

Something Not to Do 22

2010-11-26T09:04:00.004-07:00

Let's say, purely hypothetically, that you overhear your wife yapping on the phone with her mother (something that happens two to five times per day), and you hear her say, "He doesn't want to see that! He knows what I looked like then. He knew me when I was twelve." And then, in order to prove her point in some twisted female-logic way, she proceeds to describe in great detail exactly how you dressed when you were twelve.

So you decide to surprise her and dress exactly that way for the next two days, and she doesn't notice at all. Eventually, you break down and say, "Look, I'm dressing just like I did when I was twelve. Just like you described on the phone to someone a couple days ago. Was it your mother?"

"Yes."

"Why were you describing that to your mother?"

"Well, she found these pictures of me when I was twelve, and she wanted to show them to you."

Now, we all know your penchant for inappropriate humor. But take it from me, no matter what you do, no matter how funny you think it will be, do not ask, "Are they topless?"

That, gentle readers, is Something Not to Do.

[ previous ] [ next ]

Thanksgiving Live Blog!

2010-11-25T10:58:00.028-07:00

Having all kinds of troubles with Qik today. The "stop" button isn't responding all the time, so this vid goes on a long time after I hit stop.

--

Things just don't go smoothly this morning. For some reason, my phone refuses to connect to my laptop via the USB cable to let me copy the pictures off of it. It used to work fine, but now it just spins the "busy" wheel at me.

--

Oh, there it is. It just took about two minutes of spinning to work. Now you can get pictures.

I haven't tried the Morning Fresh Dairy eggnog that we get delivered to our house yet, but HannahC seems to think it is spectacular. It is spectacularly expensive, at least. There is no expense The Mrs. will spare to get dairy products in glass containers.

Now for the secret ingredient that will help me weather the holiday.

--

Last night, as I was putting HannahC to bed accidentally late (it was 12:45am, and we had been up watching Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America which I watch because The Mrs. hates it, and thus I can get some peace, and HannahC watches because she's fascinated that someone rich and famous could actually curse that much) and HannahC was again asking the same questions she has been asking for weeks, as she's been unsatisfied with the answers:

HannahC: "So, Waddy, what is Thanksgiving supposed to be about?"

Me, CherkyB: "It's a celebration of a good harvest, just like on that Charlie Brown Pilgrim video thing you just watched. The Pilgrims were happy that they lived through the year and had enough food to make it through the winter."

HannahC: "So, if you had a good harvest, don't you think you'd want to save some of it up instead of just eating it all at a big party?"

Me, CherkyB: "Well, there's a limit as to how long you can keep food, so if you've got more than you can possibly eat before it goes bad, you might as well have a party."

HannahC: "So, it's basically a holiday for making a pig out of yourself."

Me, CherkyB: "There's also the whole 'being thankful' part. You're supposed to think of something that you're thankful for and celebrate that."

HannahC: "What are you thankful for Dah?"

Now, you have to realize that I've had this exact conversation at least once a day for the entire month of November, and I have a hard time taking anything seriously (especially insipid pap like being thankful for great friends and blah blah blah), so I responded ChrkyB style. I farted.

Me, CherkyB: [farting] "I'm thankful for the richness and depth of my farts."

HannahC: "You're an idiot."

--

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We'll be sitting down for appetizers (instead of lunch) now.

--

Now Qik is acting up. I shot another video, but it won't embed properly.

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OK, now it works. Qik servers may be overloaded today.

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I'm surprised no one as asked about the weather. It's nice. I uninstalled and reinstalled Qik to see if that would fix the stop button issue. I dunno if it did, as my phone rebooted while I was shooting this time. That's why it ends kind of in the middle of a sentence.

--

The Stop button worked this time.

--

It's sad, really. I posted one video to Facebook, and it generated two comments and an phone call, whereas the old blog here has nothing. No wonder I've only made $25 off my ads in the last 10 months. I should probably post stuff more often to try to build the readership back.

--

I'm going to drink some coffee and maybe watch some TV now. Almost nap time.

--

Deal or No Deal is so stupid, yet it's the only thing on right now. Angry Thespian had the game cracked, IIRC. I wonder what ever happened to her. She's probably a TSA screener now.

We've been having a debate about this year's Christmas tree. We normally go to a tree farm in Greeley to cut our own tree down, but this year (a) I have a broken collarbone, and (b) the trees were all picked over pretty badly the past two years with last year's tree being horrible. We go the morning after Thanksgiving (which is when they open), so it's not like everyone got there before us. They're just pretty much out of trees taller than 4 feet.

The Mrs. has been making noise about getting an artificial tree. To me, that's just a sign you've given up. We're going to try a different Christmas tree farm this year that may or may not have been recommended by a friend. We're pretty sure this one is the place she's talking about, but she said a different (nearby) city. There are only two Christmas tree farms in that whole county, the other of which is the one we regularly go to. So this has to be it. Check for photos tomorrow.

--

Checked statcounter. The only person who has read this so far is The Mrs. Probably cuz everyone else is busy checking Facebook...

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It's possible the Cowboys might be good enough to beat the Bills. Not for sure, though.

--

--

Damnit, I made coffee, and now I'm out of Irish.

--

HannahC just brought me this month's Car and Driver and asked if we could send the $1 coupon for Camel Dip to Uncle Locksmith for Christmas. She's so thoughtful. I told her no. Aunt Ellie would get mad, and we all know how fragile Aunt Ellie is. Plus, Aunt Ellie's FB friends would disapprove as well, and that would be quite embarrassing for her.

--

I just noticed that I have 4 people "following" my weather blog, and I have no idea who any of them is.

--

--

--

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Our sink garbage disposal just died. It gave off a smell that we refer to at work as, "letting out the magic smoke".

--

Yeah, we're gauche. We turned on our Christmas lights Tuesday.

--

That seems to be it for today. Settling in to go to bed. Tune in tomorrow for Christmas Tree hijinks.

The Mrs. - Emasculator

2010-11-24T10:14:00.002-07:00

As you all know, given the very frequent posts I put up here, I've been nursing a broken collarbone for about 4 weeks now. It's on my right side, and I'm right-handed, so this has put quite a crimp in my ability to do all the stuff I normally do. The Mrs., on occasion, has been called upon to help with things I normally would do. Needless to say, while she's been quite a trooper, she hasn't lost any of her charm:

Me, CherkyB [trying to unload items from Sam's Club shopping cart into back of winivan]: "Ow."

The Mrs.: "Is this hurting you?"

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah. A lot more than I expected it to."

The Mrs.: "Well, I can do this. I do this all the time."

Me, CherkyB: "OK."

The Mrs.: "Here. You just stand there and hold my purse."

I've never been so insulted.

I don't like meatloaf

2010-10-24T21:09:00.002-06:00

My dear wife unfortunately grew up in an environment where they didn't have a lot of money and are mostly dirt and bugs. Thus, she has a soft spot in her heart for things normal people don't think of as delicacies. Like eating bologna off of a vinyl couch, ground spam and onion sandwiches on hamburger buns, and meatloaf.

Now, I detest meatloaf. I always have. The Mrs., though, absolutely insists that I love meatloaf. She has no evidence of it, but she clings to it like a liberal clings to the belief that higher taxes creates jobs. Every damn year for the twenty years she has lived with me we have gone through the same little ritual. As soon as the weather stats cooling off in the fall, she starts thinking about meatloaf.

The Mrs.: "I love fall. Fall makes me crave meatloaf. Will you east a meatloaf if I make it?"

Me, CherkyB: "I don't like meatloaf."

The Mrs.: "You don't like your mother's meatloaf. You've never had a really good meatloaf. You've never had my meatloaf. My meatloaf is fantastic. You'll love it."

Me, CherkyB: "I've had your meatloaf. I don't like meatloaf."

Then, I have to try to choke down a horrible meatloaf. Tonight it was a new recipe that was so foul that The Childrens couldn't even eat it. It was supposed to be Ted Turner's recipe got bison meatloaf. I doubt very much Ted Turner ears anything like that.

But the most disappointing thing if that I can't convince her that I've ever tried her meatloaf. Twenty years this has been going on. Twenty years of trying meatloaf, with always this one going to be the one I'll like, and continual denial it ever happened. Sheesh.

MaxieC - Man of Wit

2010-10-23T16:55:00.002-06:00

The fambly was soaking in the hottub a couple days ago, and The Childrens decided to tell jokes. There seems to be very little I can do about this.

MaxieC: "Knock knock"

Me, CherkyB: "Who's there?"

MaxieC: "Banana"

Me, CherkyB: "Banana who?"

MaxieC: "Knock knock"

Me, CherkyB: "Who's there?"

MaxieC: "Peach"

Me, CherkyB: "Peach who?"

MaxieC: "Peach banana pie! Bwaaaa-haaa-haa-haaa-haaa....."

Me, CherkyB: "Did you write that joke yourself?"

MaxieC: "Yup."

Me, CherkyB: "Well, don't make up any more jokes. "

MaxieC: "Why not?"

Me, CherkyB: "Because you clearly have no idea what's funny. You'd think that after all these years living with your mother you'd have developed a sense of humor. As a defense mechanism."

Democrats - They're Everywhere

2010-10-11T12:35:00.005-06:00

Back when I was in grad school and The Not-Yet-Mrs. was living with me on account of her inability to actually earn a living with a degree in music, she convinced me not to kill spiders I found in the apartment because, "Spiders are good. They eat all the bad bugs." Spiders, however, like to have hundreds and hundreds of babies. If you implement a no-kill policy (or a no-relocate-outside-where-they-belong-policy), a couple months later you realize your entire place has been overrun with spiders.

This is what has happened with Democrats.

On Sunday, I took Max up to the Cub Scout camp for Tiger Cub Day. Tiger Cub Day could be best described as a day in which the parents stand in lines, holding places for their childrens, while the boys go off to play. If you're up in the mountains at a camp with a big pack of 1st grade boys, and the only things to play with are are piles of boulders and lots of sticks, well, it's only natural that wars are going to break out with sticks for guns and rocks for forts.

I overheard this from the mom standing in line a couple people behind me talking to her husband.

"I told him it was OK to make guns with the sticks but that he wasn't allowed to touch any of the sticks that looked like handguns."

The line we were standing in? The BB gun line.

Democrats.

They're everywhere.

Isn't it Dreamy?

2010-09-03T20:42:00.005-06:00

Wow. Two posts in one day. Can you tell The Mrs. isn't home?

The following is a Certified True Story (with no asterisks). I had this dream Saturday night while sleeping at the wonderful Cambria Suites in Pueblo, Colorado. We went there to go to the Colorado State Fair, at which HannahC had four 4H exhibits (she got 3 Grand Champions and, I think, Champion on the fourth one). I submit for your analysis the following dream:

I am in prison, where I have been sent for some sort of DWI infraction, though I don't remember any of what happened. I just remember I'm supposed to be in prison. I am not in an ordinary cell because I am considered to be extremely dangerous and need to be kept in a special cell, like Hannibal Lecter.

The cell itself is a giant cube that is three stories high and has bars on the front in a 3x3 matrix, as though what had happened was they had taken three cells across and three floors up and just removed all the walls and ceilings to make one giant cell. The inside of the cell is tiled completely in shiny, white 12" ceramic tile. There are windows on the back of the cell up near the ceiling through which sunlight streams, making it very bright (given that everything is white tile).

The front of the cell looks out into another room that is the same size, but instead of tile, it is the drab, unpainted concrete you'd expect of a prison. There's a door that goes from that room out to the rest of the prison, but I don't know what it looks like out there as I can't see out it from in my cell. The guards keep watch over me at all times from this other room, lest I devise some method to escape and kill a bunch of people. They sit on what looks like uncomfortable wooden benches - long, rough wooden planks on legs, no backs to lean on so that they can't doze off.

I have no furniture whatsoever. I sleep on the cold tile floor, but this doesn't bother me because I spend all my time thinking about how afraid they all are of me, and how being such a complete bad-ass comes at some cost in personal comfort. But I can't for the life of me recall ever doing anything that would cause me to be considered dangerous. Still, it is reassuring that the guards fear me. I spend time thinking about how I would act if I were in a movie playing a dangerous prisoner and trying to act like that.

Suddenly, it is visiting hours. The guards open up the cell, and all the guys from my project at work come in. The guards don't lock the cell - they leave the door open. Everyone is just milling around between the cell and the adjoining guard chamber like it's some kind of cocktail party.

My co-workers brought me my coffee mug from work filled with the free coffee we get at work. How thoughtful. My boss asks me a couple work status-related questions, which I answer, because I haven't been emailing out my weekly status reports on account of me being locked up in prison.

One of the guys on the team comes up to me and says, "Hey check it out. I finally got my new Droid X!" I say how the thing I miss most about prison life is my Droid. Then, I get resentful that he has a Droid X, and I'm not even allowed my Droid in prison, so I snatch it away from him, wave it around, and yell very loudly so that the guards will hear, "Maybe I should shove this down your throat and choke you to death with it."

He looks frightened, and I feel bad cuz he's a nice guy that I had no intention of killing, but I was really just trying to impress on the guards what a shit job they are doing of keeping me, total bad-ass killer, from killing anyone. Then my boss slaps me on the back and says, "Quit screwing around. You can't kill any of us. You'd get fired."

And I nod, thinking to myself what a hell of a great deal it is that I get to keep my job even while I'm locked up in solitary in prison, and how I better not mess that up. But still, I think the guards should be taking quite a bit more seriously the fact that I am apparently some kind of devious, demented killer who bites people's faces off or something, and I am upset with the disrespect and shoddy work ethic from these low level government employees.

Then, someone says something obvious, "Wow. It must suck to be locked up in a cell and not be able to do anything you want ever and never have any fun at all."

Not being able to resist a straight line like that, I respond, "Yeah. It's like being married. Only here, they'll let me out after just 20 years."

At this, absolutely everyone stops talking and turns to me with aghast stares. My boss breaks the silence, "That's not funny, man. Don't even joke about that."

I try to think of something to say about his mom, but I can't.

I had Chicken on a Stick with a side of lo mein at the fair for dinner, in case that helps with your analysis.

I've never gotten used to it

2010-09-03T19:50:00.006-06:00

Some day, maybe. I've learned to expect it, I suppose. I imagine this happens to everyone, though. It just happened to me a couple hours ago. There I was, in the friendly neighborhood liquor store, picking up some provisions, when the Bacardi rep tried to sell me on exchanging out some of the brands I had selected for Bacardi brands (in this case, to trade my Tanqueray for Bombay Sapphire) in exchange for a $5 rebate and a free shot glass. She was young and blonde and, uh, well put together, so I let her talk me into it. Plus, I actually like Bombay Sapphire better, but I'm not willing to pay the extra $2 for it.

While I was filling in the rebate form, she glanced over my shopping cart and said,

Blonde Liquor Girl: "Sooooo...you having a party?"

Me, CherkyB: "Uh. No. That's actually all just for me."

Blonde Liquor Girl: "Oh."

Me, CherkyB: "Well, it is a long weekend."

Blonde Liquor Girl: "Yeah. That's why I asked you if you were having a party cuz it's a long weekend and I saw that you had so much...uh...OK. It'll take 4-6 weeks to get your rebate check in the mail."

Of course, the most fantastic part of all this is that the Deschutes Brewery truck was out front, and they were giving away free hot dogs, and I was hungry, and Deschutes beer was on sale. I got a 12-pack of Mirror Pond. Mmmmm.

The shot glass turned out to be total shite, though. Plastic.

Those of you who follow my occasional updates on FaceBook know that I'm heading out to go dove hunting tomorrow morning. And, yes, as I explained to The Childrens, that means I'll be hunting those nice little mourning doves that go "cooo cooo" and wake you up at the crack of dawn. Like the one that laid eggs in The Mrs.'s hanging flower basket on the front porch.

Now, I've never been dove hunting before. In fact, I've only ever been elk hunting before, and that was just once. Why just once? I take you back nine years:

The Mrs.: "You spent a thousand dollars on hunting gear, and you'll probably only go once."

The Mrs. is quite prescient. She has never let me go again after that.

A while back, as I'm sure you all remember, I picked myself up a shotgun. Not because I had any particular use for a shotgun, mind you, but because I'm a man. And a man should own a shotgun. I also felt like I had enough pistols (for now), and enough rifles (given I'm not allowed to go hunting anymore), and I felt it was time to branch out some.

Well, up at work I've fallen in with this bad crowd of folks who honestly and truly own so many guns that they can't even name them all. The ringleader is a guy who used to be named Mark something-or-other, but that wasn't special enough so, I kid you not^*, he changed his name to Harrison Balzonya. He's taken pity upon me cuz of my sorry state of being so henpecked, and he's decided to teach me how to hunt doves, as you don't need a tag for that at all, and there are a number of places within a half hour of home where you can do it.

[It'll help if you read this paragraph with the voice of Carson Kressley in your head] Plus, the thing that is so very fun about hunting birds is that you get to dress all up in urban-chic camouflage, not in that dreadful orange that big game hunters wear.

Yeah, OK, Carson probably isn't a huge fan of camo hunting gear. But the accessories are a blast.

Mt hat doesn't match my clothes, and the gun isn't camo. But that'll be OK, cuz I understand that there probably won't be any doves where we're going hunting them anyways. It's a secret spot that usually mobbed on the weekends. I'll let you know if I kill anything.

^* as far as you know

CherkyB, Man of Reason

2010-07-22T18:25:00.000-06:00

MaxieC: "Dad, can we order the pizza now?"

Me, CherkyB: "No. "

MaxieC: "Awwwww..."

Me, CherkyB: "We can't do anything until we get these dishes cleaned up so that we have some room to eat. I don't know why Mama has decided to stop doing dishes again. I really should get you a new mama. Do you like this mama?"

MaxieC: "Yeah."

Me, CherkyB: "You don' want a new, younger mama with bigger boobs?"

MaxieC: [silence]

Me, CherkyB: "Yes? No?"

MaxieC: [silence]

Me, CherkyB: "Oh. You don't want to answer."

MaxieC: "I can't decide!"

Back from Hiatus

2010-06-14T21:50:00.002-06:00

My toe hurts. It hurts quite a bit. I don't know why. I assume it's gout, which is why I've given up drinking.

I'm currently treating the ailment with one of the best pain killers known to man - bourbon. Woodford Reserve Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey. Whiskey with an e.

We have multiple ongoing sagas here at the homestead - it's almost like an episode of Lost, except without any time travel, aliens, dinosaurs, or an audience. At least, I imagine it's like that, as I've never in my life seen an episode of Lost. I'm much too sophisticated for that.

Plus, it conflicted with Manswers, or 1000 Ways to Die, or something like that.

The first saga is that of camping. The Childrens have been nagging me about camping ever since we visited their aunt and uncle at a campsite in the Medicine Bows (a couple years back, I think). I broke down and purchased an enormous tent two weeks ago. A Kelty Parthenon 8. I bought the last one on Memorial Day, and I was back there yesterday, and they didn't have any more. Heh. The price was excellent. Much cheaper than anything I could find online.

Thus far, all we've managed to do is spend one night in it in the back yard, and then in the morning, I toasted bread on the camp stove with the toaster attachment, slathered it in Nutella, and served it to the fambily as breakfast. I also percolated coffee on the camp stove. It was just like camping, except there was a nice hot shower and a proper bathroom. The Childrens had a blast, though I had to remove the room divider early on. The Mrs. hemmed and hawed about joining us in the tent until well after we were all asleep out there, so she wasn't there at first, and when HannahC realized that it was dark and she was the only one on the "girls' side" of the tent, she got all worried.

I slept fine excepting for two instances. The first, I had just drifted off to sleep when I suddenly had this dream that there were bright lights shining in my eyes, blinding me. I awoke to find that there were bright lights shining in my eyes, though I wasn't blind. No, The Mrs. has decided to join us, and so she had flipped on the flood lights in the yard while she trekked back ond forth like 40 times to get all her gear. I dunno how many times, cuz I went back to sleep after about the second trip. But in the morning when it was time to break camp, I found she had her self-inflating ground cushion, zero degree "Deer Hunter" sleeping bag, two feather pillows, her teddy bear, and the body pillow.

That's right, gentle readers, my wife managed to stuff one of those 4 foot-long body pillows down in her sleeping bag. Her sleeping bag is enormous, though. More like a bedroll, really.

Me, CherkyB: "Wow. You brought all this stuff down here for the night? Not a very good dry run."

The Mrs.: "What do you mean?"

Me, CherkyB: "Well, we're not taking all this stuff with us if we go camping."

The Mrs.: "Oh, I'm bringing it."

Me, CherkyB: "We won't have room."

The Mrs.: "The pickup bed is enormous."

Me, CherkyB: "Well, it's not really in the spirit of camping."

The Mrs.: "Why are you always gratuitously attacking me? You're such a jerk!"

The second time I woke up was about 4am, when the howling of the coyotes all around us stirred something deep inside me that I had repressed years ago when I got married and have tried to keep repressed in order to be a good husband - my survival instinct. I got to thinking about how, though we have never seen a coyote actually in the yard, they like to run along the trail behind our yard. A trail separated from our yard by a 3 foot high fence that FreddyC, despite being 12 years old and rather smallish, has no problem jumping whenever it seems something on the other side might be more exciting. But if the coyotes clear the fence, they'd still have to make it the 15 feet across the grass to where the tent is and then somehow make it through the tent walls, which are multiple meters thick, if you go by their static water pressure resistance rating.

Naturally, though, I just thought to myself,

Me, CherkyB: "Self, the coyotes aren't going to try to eat you. Now, they might try to eat MaxieC, who is right next to you and quite a bit less imposing in size. Plus, he's probably covered with whatever nasty candy he was eating right before bed, making him especially stinky."

Me, CherkyB: "But still, if they do attempt it, as The Man, it'll be your job to thwart the attack."

Me, CherkyB: "That, Self, is why it was good thinking to bring the .40cal with 14 rounds of JHP all loaded up instead of that pissant little 9mm. And the spare magazine with another 13 rounds."

Me, CherkyB: "Oh, and Self, you need to stop referring to it as 'your divorce attorney'. The Mrs. doesn't really think that's all that funny. And even though you and I both know she thinks it's hysterical - after all, she wanted desperately to marry you, of all people, so she must appreciate your inability to take anything seriously, even if she doesn't let on - it's the kind of thing that can be used against you at some later date."

I slept like a baby after that.

Now, though, I cannot go camping because I don't have a good ice chest. I don't like any of the ones I find locally except for the Yeti, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $300 for a stinking ice chest. Bear proof or not.

Which bring me to my second saga. I decided to see if there was a way I could make it so that the air conditioner cools the second floor, where all the bedrooms are, on hot days. It turns out there is. It just involves completely replacing my entire HVAC system (other than the duct work, though the duct work is certainly as defective as everything else), plus adding a second A/C that will have the blower unit in the attic with all new duct work up there to cool just the second floor. But, hey, that's only $25k, and I'll get close to $5k in rebates and energy tax credits and such on top of that.

See, I have one of these. It's out of warranty and 12 years old, which turns out to be rather old for one of these to still be running.

CherkyB, Giver of Fatherly Advice

2010-06-10T09:53:00.002-06:00

MaxieC: "Hey Dah, have you ever considered that every second that you live you"

Me, CherkyB [interrupting]: "Are one second closer to death?"

MaxieC: "Yeah. Exactly."

Me, CherkyB: "Yup. In fact, I'm pretty close to death."

The Mrs. [from the next room]: "Oh stop."

Me, CherkyB: "I'm probably halfway to death. Maybe closer. Hard to say exactly. Now, womens live longer than men by like 7 years, so Momma's not as close to death as I am despite her being older then I am."

MaxieC: "So I'll die sooner."

Me, CherkyB: "Well, not sooner than Momma. But you'll probably die sooner than your wife. That's why you should always marry a woman who is at least 7 years younger than you."

MaxieC: "Why?"

Me, CherkyB: "So that your wife doesn't live a really long time after you die. Hmmm...wait. That's backwards. You'd have to marry a woman 7 years older than you for that to work. Well, you should still make sure you marry a woman at least 7 years younger than you anyways."

MaxieC: "Oh. Ok, Dah."

MaxieC, Man who Minces Not Words

2010-05-24T10:25:00.002-06:00

We were sitting around discussing the logistics of trying to go anywhere on a vacation, when the Mrs. noted that some friends of hers have a house sitter who charges $20/day to watch the house and pets as long as she's allowed to have her boyfriend over.

MaxieC: "What's a house sitter?"

Me, CherkyB: "Well, you know how a baby sitter comes over to watch the babies when parents go out?"

MaxieC: "I'm not a baby!"

Me, CherkyB: "I didn't say you were. So, a house sitter is someone who watches your house while you're out. With all the pets we have, it's very hard to find people to watch them all, and Camp Bow Wow charges like $35/day just for FreddyC."

The Mrs.: "And we had to take the rat over to K's house, and the guniea pigs to N's house, and I had to have S come over to feed the fish and water the plants."

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah. You remember how we took that road trip to Barfalo last year to go to Auntie D's wedding? Well, I guess Auntie D's and Uncle D's wedding. Wasn't that nice of them to schedule their weddings at the same time so we could go to both in just one trip?"

MaxieC: "Duuuhhh...they got married to each other!"

Me, CherkyB: "I suppose they did. By the way, who got the better deal out of that marriage?"

MaxieC: "Uhhhh...."

Me, CherkyB: "Auntie D did. You know why? Cuz she's the woman. Women always get the better deal in a marriage."

MaxieC: "Why is that?"

Me, CherkyB: "Because the entire institution of marriage is structured around the desires of women. There's really nothing about marriage designed for men."

MaxieC: "That's not true. The man has a very important part in a marriage."

Me, CherkyB: "What's that?"

MaxieC [making a sweeping had gesture where he holds out his left palm and swings his right arm down to land his index finger on said palm]: "The man has to deposit the sperm!"