The word is “snoff”.

A sniff is a short sharp inhalation through your nose.

A snoff is the opposite. A snoff is a short sharp exhalation through your nose.

Not to be confused with a sneeze.

Which is violent.

And fun.

My middle son has a new annoying habit, which is to snoff.

I found it very difficult to order him to cease making such an annoying sound because the english language (and, as far as I can tell, all languages) doesn’t have the word for the what he was doing, which was the opposite of a sniff.

Thereby I coined the word this morning.

You are very welcome planet earth.

Goodnight.

The post Definition: “Snoff” a short sharp exhale from your nose appeared first on The Blog of Sheltron.

Now, we’re used to noises out there — cats running around, jumping off furniture, fighting, that sort of thing. But this wasn’t cats. This was footsteps. And since nobody can access our deck except us, I thought, what on earth is going on?

I flicked on the exterior light, slid open the ranch slider, and sure enough — there’s a guy standing at the far end of our deck, jiggling the handle of another door, trying to get in.

I said, “Can I help you?”
And he goes, “I’m just trying to get into the cafeteria, but the door’s locked.”

I said, “This isn’t a cafeteria — this is my house. What are you doing here?”

He mumbled something, and as I got closer I noticed blood trickling down the side of his head. He had no shoes on, it was a very cold morning, and he just looked completely beaten up.

“Whoa,” I said, “what happened to you?”

He couldn’t really answer. I asked if had slept in the hedge last night, if he had been drinking, if he was on drugs. He couldn’t answer my questions.

At this point I figured the guy needed medical attention, so I called an ambulance. Explained the situation: there’s a confused man on my deck, blood on his head. They asked, “Is the wound actively bleeding?” No. “Is he conscious and alert?” Yes. Their answer: “We can’t send an ambulance. You’ll have to take him to the ER yourself or drop him home.”

Great. Thanks.

So I hung up and asked him for his address. He gave me one that wasn’t too far away, though he couldn’t explain how he got to my house. I thought, OK, fine, I’ll drive him.

We hopped in the car and about 7 or 8 minutes later pulled up at this house.
“Is this your house?” I asked.
“Yes, this is my house.”
“Who’s home?”
“My wife and my son.”

Which door should I knock on? He points to the back. Of course. As we walk up, a dog starts barking.
“Is that your dog?”
“Yes.”

Thankfully the dog was friendly. I knocked on the ranch slider, and at 5:30 in the morning, this poor woman in a nightgown opens the door, looking absolutely bewildered.

I said, “Hi, my name’s Sheldon. Is this your husband?”
She peers past me, sees him standing there shoeless, bloody, and dazed. “Yes… that’s my husband.”
“Right, well, I just found him at my house. He’s got a head injury, I think you should take him to the hospital.”
She goes, “Oh my god — he went out early to go fishing!”
“Uh, yeah. He didn’t quite make it.”

So I left him there, got back in the car, and went home.

A couple of hours later I was in my backyard again and found a pair of boots. His boots. I bagged them up, drove back to the house, and this time met his son. The son thanked me for returning him earlier, said his dad was at the hospital getting checked out, and thanked me again for bringing back the boots.

He said, “Can I get your contact details? I want to drop you off a box of beer.”
I told him I don’t drink.
He said, “OK, how about a pack of meat?”
Now that I said yes to.

The next day I messaged to check in and found out the full story: he’d parked his car with a boat trailer about a kilometre from my place, slipped on some rocks by the water, hit his head, got disoriented, and just wandered off — eventually ending up at my deck.

So no, I never got that run in that morning. But I did end up chauffeuring a half-dressed, concussed fisherman back home, returning his boots, and scoring a pack of meat. Not exactly the cardio I had in mind… but I’ll take it.

The post This one time… My Morning Run Turned Into A Meat Pack And A Rescue appeared first on The Blog of Sheltron.

I was happy for this to happen.

It made me feel grown up.

I welcomed it.

I wanted the world to see (mostly).

But in the following decades, the tide began to turn…

Body hair management in my teens

1. Hair on my face
   • I was self conscious of my coverage compared to my friends to I’d shave this often in my teens, but growing it was natural and not a problem
2. Hair on my balls
   • Fine. Didn’t have a problem
3. Hair on my legs
   • Not worried at all
4. Hair on my arms
   • Not a concern

Body hair management in my 20’s

My 20’s were the golden days of hair management. No concerns at all! It was fun!

5. Hair on my face – update
   • It was fun to play around with a few configurations!
   • A goatee, a mostache, a handlebar mostache, a beard, a chin puff, chin curtain and others. Some styles lasted a few hours, others months or years
6. Hair on my chest
   • A small patch has appeared in the middle of my chest. No big deal

Body hair management in my 30’s

In my 30’s hair management was also fairly straight forward

7. Hair on my chest – update
   • The patch has grown in size, and has become quite thick and no longer welcome so started to shave my chest once or twice a month
8. Hair on my back
   • Just a fist size patch, but unwelcome. Shaving occassionally
9. Hair on my neck
   • Getting a haircut every 3 weeks takes care of this so not a concern
10. Hair on my legs – update
    • During an office party one of my legs was shaved as part of a challenge. I shaved the other when I got home to make it even. And I liked it! Since then I shave my legs a few times a year

Body hair management in my 40’s

But in my 40’s the whole hair growing system seems to have gone awry! I’m losing hair where I want it (my head), and growing it in many places where I don’t want it. Such an undesirable distribution of resources!

10. Hair in my ears
    • Really not happy with this! Some hairs are thick and black
    • Any hair coming out of my ears is completely unwelcome
    • Shaving twice a week. Tried plucking but hurts like hell
11. Hair up my nose
    • Really not happy with the way the nose hairs are getting longer and peek-a-booking out of my nostrils
    • They appear once a week and I’m yanking these out with my fingers until I sneeze and my tears blind me
12. Hair on my back – update
    • The coverage has grown up onto my shoulders and down my flanks!
    • Unwelcome. Shaving once a week or 2
13. Hair on my neck – update
    • Growing just as fast as my face now!
    • Shaving every 3 or 4 days
14. Hair in my buttcrack
    • Disturbing how this forest is thickening and growing but not willing to do anything about it right now and it’s mostly out of daily view so easier to ignore
15. Hair from my eyebrows
    • Annoying how these eyebrows are now growing so long and starting to stick out in odd directions
    • Trimming these every 3 or 4 weeks

Body hair management in my 50’s?

What’s ahead of me for my next decade?

I’m 46 at the time of writing this, so what’s coming up for me?

Will I need to start shaving the backs of my hands? The soles of my feet? My toes?

Let me know in the comments section below what I might be in for.

The post 11 new places I’ve grown hair in my teens, 20’s, 30’s and 40s appeared first on The Blog of Sheltron.

After this he created his own website at beginnerbutterflyknives.com to see if he can help other people who are interested in learning how to do butterfly knife tricks.

Check it out!

The post Could my sons interest in beginner butterfly knives turn into a business? appeared first on The Blog of Sheltron.

I just can’t stop myself. I’ve paid up to $2, because that was the only coin I had at the time. 20c to see if he would refuse (he didn’t). And 50c this morning.

I pull out a piece of junk that I put on a shelf or kitchen bench and forget about. He comes along a day or 2 later, swoops it up and puts it back in his luck dip bag.

He made the same offer to his little brother (2yo) who could only afford to pay with a small elephant. Logan accepted and Nathan scored a yellow bracelet in exchange. Logan then added the elephant to his mystery bag.

I offered Logan similar non-cash items but Logan told me “No daddy, you have to pay me money”.

He is demonstrating sales principles that have taken me 40 years to learn: Scarcity, Intrigue, Bait-and-Switch, Gaming Theory, Value-Based-Pricing, Pricing-Based-On-Capacity-To-Pay, Establishing-Desire-Before-Making-An-Offer.

I’m amazed.

And proud.

And running out of coins.

The post This one time our middle sons reveals his entrepreneurship appeared first on The Blog of Sheltron.

My question way: “Logan, what sound does ‘duck’ start with?”

Logan (5yo): “Quack?”

*hysterical laughter*

The post “Duck” starts with… appeared first on The Blog of Sheltron.

The post This one time my eldest son has an idea for a website appeared first on The Blog of Sheltron.

I showed him the 100 trillion dollar note and Connor says “Why is their queen a pile of rocks?”

The post This one time, whilst trying to explain how inflation works… appeared first on The Blog of Sheltron.

We all love our Burmease cat “Muffin” so we said to the boys, “let’s go to a cat show guys!” It was a 45 minute drive from home.

We got to the community hall in the small town and it was full of people and about 100 cats in small cages being judged.

After about 30 minutes of walking slowly from cage to cage looking at these mildly interesting breeds, our eldest son comes up to us and asks “so when does the show start?”.

“What do you mean?” We said, “it already has, we’re here”.

“No, I mean the cat show, you know, the one on the stage” he said as he pointed to the back of the hall where there was a small stage with the curtain drawn and a small cardboard boxes stacked on it.

“Oh…” realisation dawned on us.  “Sorry son, there are no performing cats here, no acrobatics, or cats riding dogs, or swinging through the air, or performing stunts. A cat show, is just people with unusual cats showing them to judges in the hope they get a prize”

He looked stunned. And disappointed. “I want to go home” he said sadly. So we did.

The post This one time we got the kids excited about a cat show appeared first on The Blog of Sheltron.

grrrrrrrr!

I’m talking about the ones you buy from a shop for $5.95, scribble “To Sheldon” at the top, and “Love from your_name” at the bottom with some stupid generic message sandwiched in the middle.

5 Reasons Why I Hate Birthday Cards:

#1. Because you wasted $5.95, you chump

You could have spent that $6 on either:

• Added on to the value of my gift, or
• If you didn’t get me a gift, could have used to buy me a gift

#2. Because the pre-printed message means nothing to me

The pre-printed message on the cover or inside of the card means nothing to me because you didn’t write it.

Some dude who I’ll never meet wrote it 5 years ago and he wasn’t thinking about me when he wrote it.

#3. Because “humour” card’s are never funny

The joke is on you because you paid $6 for it.

If I wanted to read a joke I’d search the interweb.

#4. Because you are killing rainforests and the cute fuzzy creatures that live within them

Because people who buy Birthday Cards are creating demand through the supply chain for card >> paper >> pulp >> wood >> rainforest clearing

#5. Because you’re wasting resources

Going to the shop, buying the card, writing a message, posting it to me – all of that is wasting time, money and resources that you could be spending on increasing the size of my gift.

What’s Next?

• If you hate birthday cards as much as I do, say so in the comments below
• If you love birthday cards, re-read this article and realise that you now hate them

The post Birthday Cards: 5 Reasons Why I Hate Them appeared first on The Blog of Sheltron.