Mid-west culture on the skids

Don't 'cha wish your grandma was hot like me? Don't 'cha wish your grandma could drink the malt liquor like me? Don't 'cha? Don't 'cha? Sorry Jason, I couldn't help it.

Uh... I don't even know. I think we have a "Pat" in Columbia.

One for the good guys AKA: Ah Hell Yeah! Kevin gets his bike back.

So about an hour ago I was driving down a street here in C-town that I had never driven down before. I even mentioned it to Leslie as we drove down the dark street in the rain. Suddenly, I noticed a bike laying in the yard in front of a dumpy duplex on my right. I slowed down and Leslie says, "What are you doing?" "Hold on," I say, "I need to go back and check out that bike." I turn the car around, and I can tell the bike is nice and shouldn't be laying out in the rain. I look closely and I can tell it's a Cannondale. Here's what's weird. Just yesterday I was talking to this guy, Kevin, whose bike had been stolen a few weeks ago. He was telling me the story of how it happened when he had his back turned for just a moment before heading out on a ride. I told him I'd keep an eye out and maybe it would still turn up even though it had been weeks and usually those bikes get sold off pretty quickly after being stolen. But you never know... So I know this is the bike. I call Kevin up at his work, Klunk Bike Shop. He's there and I talk to his boss Karl, who says they'll be right over to meet me. (I was parked up the street like a sting getting ready to go down) After waiting a few minutes and getting really psyched, Kevin shows up. We pull down the street to the place where the bike is. Kevin gets out, looks at the bike, nods that it's his, walks up in the yard and grabs the bike and throws it in the back of his truck. We drive off. That's some sweet action.
It was just crazy. I had never been on that street before, and I had just talked to Kevin the day before about the situation. It was just meant to be. I wish I had had a camera with me.
I can tell you what the kid will say when he comes out and sees his stolen bike gone. "Oh hell no! Well ain't that about a bitch? Someone stole my stolen bike. god damn!"

Strange Days

I'm a firm believer that good blogs have lots of pictures. Lately, I haven't had any good pictures and I think about that every time I have an entry. So here's a random:

This is Ziggy when he was just few weeks old. Here he is now:

He's a sweet boy and a pain in the ass! He's about seven months old (teenager). Yeah, he acts like one too. But things have been better since we got Olivia:

She's a miniature Schnauzer. Lot's of attitude but very sweet. She's about half Ziggy's size, but she handles him just fine. You know, not the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog.

In other news, Folgers Coffee finally came out with something decent- Gourmet Supreme. It's actually good for cheap coffee. I'm a coffee snob and I wouldn't drink it if it was crap. Try it out.

In music news: check out Lotus if you haven't already. I downloaded "Germination" from Itunes and it's good stuff if you're into instrumental.

Drink Pyramid Thunderbolt IPA if you like hops- lots of hops. It has to be the hoppiest beer ever. 6.7%.

I think my next blog needs to just be about beer. I love beer. Only good beer though.

At the holidays, I find myself drinking beer and eating cookies. That's a personal choice.

Uh... This is from last Labor Day weekend. My first movie premier with none other than the fat man of cycling. Mr. Tim. Who's your daddy?

Just a couple more months and I'll be seeing this down in Mexico. Lesie is just about finished with her Masters in Counseling. She just got her Praxis test results back and she scored REALLY high. About 200 points above what she needed to. Very proud and happy for her. Your kid should be so lucky to have her for their counselor.

Until the time I am in Mexico, not much to do but wait for it to get warm again.

Did I mention it was 18 degrees last night? UG! This too will pass. Happy Easter! Whatever that means to you. To me it means I don't go back to work until Tuesday.

Ring the Alarm

Ooohhhhhhhh...Three hours and 10 minutes until Easter break and a four day weekend that should have been five if it had not been for Old Man Winter rapping on my head with a hickory stick. He's a bastard and he's trying to get back in the door at the moment with a big 'ole snap of cold again. Luckily, he'll be kicked to the curb by Monday and we'll be back to some reasonable temps.
Not that it's related to winter or spring or any other season, but I got an Ipod for Christmas. It sat for a long time and Leslie was beginning to wonder if I was going to use it. I finally started dumping CDs on it and last night I used my Itunes gift card that I also got for a gift(thanks Arnolds). It was actually really cool how obscure of songs you can find on Itunes. I'm pretty pleased with how fast the songs download too. The only thing I don't like about Ipods is all the extras you need to buy: The case, the cords, the headphones for those of us who don't have mammoth ear canals, the armband for the gym. So far I have bought one thing and it's a good one. You know how you can buy a dock for your Ipod that has speakers? If you buy the actual Ipod one, it's about $300.00. I just bought a cord that connects your Ipod to your home tuner/amp. It was only $30.00 and I'm sure I could have found one for even less, but I bought the Monster brand and it does have pretty heavy guage cable- so it's a good deal. My Element also has a port for plugging in Ipods and that been pretty useful lately. So now I can listen to the radio, CDs, XM radio, or the Ipod on my way to and from work. It's a pretty nice drive this time of year less the past couple of days of cold. Overall, it's been a nice spring. It was 80 on Monday. Today it's about 40. Someonesgottodoit

33

Days before summer break begins. Then I'll have about three months to do whatever comes to mind. Like using this:

The one I have looks a little different with the logos. Now we have two black SUVs and a black lawnmower. This is the lawnmower I talked about getting earlier. I don't know why I'm into lawn stuff but my lawn and yard has come a long way since the bought our house about 16 months ago. I should have taken more before and after pictures. I guess I'm into lawnmowers since I spent a lot of summers on the end of one. I used to push mow my parent's acre lawn. That was about three hours of calculating how many more passes it would take to finish the different sides. And of course there's the saga of the Lawn Cheif. That was about four years of do it yourself repairs and rigging. Wheels falling off, deck cracking, tinkering with the fuel/air mix. I was always kind of afraid that the blade was going to fly off and chop me right at the ankles. He's gone now and has either become parts or been reinvented to cut again. He disappeared on trash day before the trash got picked up. I thought I saw him the other day, but it couldn't have been. Now I have the Yard Man. The motto is: "Makes tall grass short" Great. That's pretty much what I was looking for.