Antwane Beefcakes and the Get Down Gang

The Twins

2009-06-09T10:52:00.001-07:00

Who needs Hollywood Rebels? I have 9th St. Tattoo and John. John was Spider's apprentice years ago. Spider did the right leg. John did the left. I'm really happy with the work- both are my own original designs. You can get a better (but short) look next time we're on a run or ride together and I'm dropping you.

Imperial Tattoo

2009-05-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

Soon I will be getting a new tattoo. I've been working on a design for several months off and on and it's about 99.5% complete. There are several tattoo studios in Columbia. The tattoos I have were done at a place called Dream Catcher, done by a man named Spider. I really like Spider and his work. Unfortunately, at least for my plan, Spider has moved. I think moving was a good thing for him so I'm glad he moved. Now I have to find someone else to do my tattoo. Spider had an apprentice named John a few years ago, and he is a very good artist I plan on finding if he's still around. This decision was finalized yesterday after a visit to Hollywood Rebel Tattoo. I guess Hollywood Rebel is "the" place to go nowadays and several people have recommended it to me. I have been there a couple of times to get estimates on a couple of different designs. The problem is I always get the feeling that this place is too cool and not very welcoming to those who don't seem as cool- like me. When I went there yesterday there were about four guys hanging out in front of the store. As I walked up to the door they just looked at me like "What do you want?" I don't know if they worked there or were just hanging out. So I go to open the door and one guy asked what I needed. Obviously, he worked there so I told him I wanted an estimate. I showed him my work and we began to talk. A moment later, out comes this big guy cussing and throwing a fit talking about how he hates foreigners and how they can't speak English and blah, blah, blah. It was bad enough that the guy I was talking to kind of told that guy to chill out and then asked us to go inside with him where he then apologized for the other guy. I could tell he was a little embarrassed by the situation. We finished talking and we left. I knew at that point I wouldn't be getting any tattoo done at that place. I just can't see going somewhere to have my body permanently altered that has people working there who don't accept others. Language barriers can be frustrating but I felt like asking the big angry guy why he didn't just speak in the foreigners language if English was such a problem. The fact is that a foreigner who can speak English to any standard is doing a better job than an American who can't speak a lick of any other language because he or she thinks that English is the universal language. I love America, but we're not the center of the universe. It's ironic that a place that has rebel in its name actually has people with conformist philosophies. I don't know, maybe it'd be a good place to get a swastika tattooed on my ass.

Messing with a man's vehicle

2009-05-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

Some things are valued by women that men don't really care about. Other things are valued by men that women don't really care about and don't understand why men would value them. One of those things to this man is his ride. I've had several cars, trucks, and SUV's in the time I've been driving. Ever since my first car, 1979 Volkswagon Scirocco, I've always taken the best care I can of my vehicle. It's just something I do. Some vehicles don't need as much care. I used to have a Honda Element with plastic quarter panels that weren't painted. I could lean my bikes up against that thing and not worry about any damage. Also, all those vehicles were fairly cheap. I'd take care of them like they were worth much more than they were, but I knew little things happening to them was not a big deal.

Now I have a Honda Ridgeline RTL- the best of the Ridgeline line. This is the nicest vehicle I've ever owned and I see no need to ever go beyond. So I take care of it like I plan to have it until it dies. Maybe 10 years- who knows? So I do what I have to in order to keep it in like new condition. Don't get me wrong- I use it for everything from hauling wood to mowers to furniture. But inside it's a luxury ride: big comfy leather heated seats, lots of room, tinted windows, quiet, and a way smooth ride.

I always walk extra in parking lots so I can have plenty of room to keep others away from my ride. I don't double park- I think that's rude. But I always take the extra precautions to keep it safe.

Yesterday, Leslie and I went to Flatbranch to meet with a group for a friend's birthday. There were no places to park at or around the restaurant so I wound up going to the parking garage. I parked on the end of a row near a handicap space and hugged the line of the handicap spot so anyone parking on my other side would have plenty of room. When we came out there was a piece of shit old rusty pickup parked next to my truck. When I got to my door I could see that the passenger of that heap had hit my door with his/her door hard enough to leave a nice amount of their paint on my door. It had been a hard hit but I guess the angle of the strike was such that a dent didn't happen. Since I was kind of dark in the garage I couldn't see how much damage there was, but I could tell that it wasn't just a matter of the other person opening the door and "oops" it tapped my door. It was scraped hard like, "Hey look at that nice truck I don't have, I guess I'll make a statement with my piece of shit and take them down a notch." As you can imagine, I was pissed. I knew immediately what I was going to do to satisfy my need to even things out. The air was to be released from the tires because what's worse than a flat? Four flats. What's worse than four flats? Four flats you can't fill when the air valves are removed. But... at the request of my wife and her informing me there were security cameras in the garage, I backed down and drove home. When I got home I immediately went into action with my arsenal of car care products. Luckily, I was able to remove the other vehicles paint from mine and buff out the scratches to the clear coat. So I was relieved and satisfied.

It wasn't so much that it happened because we all know accidents happen. It seemed very intentional though. It wasn't a tight parking spot and it could have easily been avoided. The bottom line is this: I do not mess with people, their lives, or their property no matter what value I would personally place on it. It is theirs and I respect that. You know, do unto others as you would have them do to you. I want and expect the same from others. I really just want to be left alone and allowed to do what I want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. But when you mess with me or my family or property- it's on and not easy to turn off. I don't get doing things to others that are negative, but I do have a streak of wanting revenge.

The whole situation reminded me of a scene from "Pulp Fiction" that you can view here on the YouTube.

Photos I don't want to see

2009-05-20T06:48:00.000-07:00

I just did a photo shoot last night that I've been doing for three years now. It's easy, somewhat boring, and high paying. Shooting photos of local community members presenting scholarships to high school students is pretty easy. You have your American flag and green drapery background. Other than that you just have to position the people so the bad edge of the background (brick wall and advertisement board) doesn't show. Doing a shoot like this is cake. But who does the photos that show up on the side of the Internet sites I visit? I'd like to know so I could punch them in the face. I don't want to see this

when I'm trying to compose an important email. Jeez! The middle shot looks like something from a Tool video. The top one looks like some kind of child molester. If I become a paid photographer, will I do shots like this for money? Probably, but I won't like it.

Here's another one I can't stand: The fat man/woman mid-section shot. This is always accompanied by a diet pill ad. I find this repulsive. I don't want to see it early in the morning when I'm drinking coffee and checking out the weather online.

Sidebar photos need to be of things I want to see. Like this:

ahhh... sushi. Now that's pretty.

Brainwashed Children Visit Columbia

2009-05-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

If Columbia wasn't so diverse I guess we wouldn't be lucky enough to attract the attention of those who feel the need to let us know we're all DOOMED! I'd rather live in a town like mine than one where no one cares to protest, march, or assemble because everyone thinks and is the same- or at least pretends to be out of fear. Sort of like the town where I work.
Check out Drew's photos of the latest visitors to Columbia. Here. I wasn't at the march, but I would have liked to have observed it. Probably better I wasn't there- I might be in jail right now. Just can't stand people pushing their morality on me or others.

Drew Piester Photography

2009-05-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

I love photography. I'm not very good at it myself because I never put to memory what I read and learn about it and I don't experiment too much. So I'm a hack. Drew Piester is not a hack. Check him out here.

The above photo is not Drew nor did Drew take that photo. I was looking for a photo of Drew or one he's taken but I didn't want to break any copyrights. I did come upon this photo I liked. Connection to Drew: He's a surfer and he's got a dog. I'm a surfer too. I surf I-70 everyday in my truck. I am the bodazapha of the Columbia/Boonville break.

Hope you had a good birthday Barry... Or should I say...Michael?

2009-05-04T07:59:00.001-07:00

Barry?

Or Michael?

Either way, great hair.

Antwane Beefcakes and the Red Beans and Rice

2009-04-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

Want to make some good eats on a crap weather day? Make some red beans and rice. I used to live in New Orleans. If you haven't been there you need to go. I've never been to another city in the country that has such a unique flavor. It's not like many other cities that in my opinion could exchange names with another city and still be the same place. Maybe it's the age of the city, the culture, the food, the history... the smell. Whatever it is- it is its own and I loved it when I was there- except for being sick all winter every winter.

My family and I ate a lot of good unique food while we lived there. Champagne brunch at what used to be the the Hilton on the River was one of a kind. I doubt the Hilton is there today after that bitch Katrina came through. I'd like to go back and see what it's like now. Back to the point.I think I will have posted after this post one (if not the only) recipe for red bean and rice that includes photos of the process- and aren't you lucky to have found it. So let's get it on! First you need a helper. This is my helper for the day: Ziggy

He gets really excited about red beans and rice.

Step 1: Get your stuff:

1 lb. red kidney bean (dry- not in a can dufus)

1 thing of celery

1 big onion

1 or two bell peppers (color doesn't matter- unless of course you're "that way")garlic- use as much as you want- I get mine from a jar minced- sorry, I'm not cool enough to chop it up myself. But like the Beastie Boys say, "If you don't like it, then hey fuck you"

1 lb. smoked sausage

few bay leaves

Some thyme leaves- maybe a teaspoon or so.

Worcestershire sauce- some (a few dashes)

hot sauce- I like Frank's or Red Hot or Crystal or Tabasco if you've actually got some down there (and no I'm not talking about your country region- look in your pants)

First you need to plan this meal for the next day. Soak the bean overnight in enough water to cover them. The next day they will look different. Yeah.

Drain out that nasty water and refill it with enough to cover the beans.

Boil the beans for about an hour. Watch out for boiling over.

When you're getting close to the bean getting done, saute' the chopped up onion, pepper, and celery until the onion is just about getting clear. Don't overdo this because you'll be killing the flavor and forever be hated by the vegetable gods who WILL visit you in the night.

Throw all that vegetable stuff in the bean and add the rest of the seasoning. You really need to season it how you like- some like it hot and nasty, some like it smooth and easy. I'm a hot and nasty guy just in case you were wondering.
Add the sausage that should be sliced in about 1/4" pieces. Man, that's some good looking sausage.

Bring it all to a boil again and then turn the heat down to a simmer. There should be movement in the pot while cooking- not a rolling boil by any means, but it should be mixing around. I call it "socializing" It's like, "Hey man, I'm sausage, who are you? Oh I'm bell pepper and I think I like you and your meat." That's nasty, but you're at least smiling now- right?

Now, here's the deal, you need to cook this party for at least 3 or 4 hours. If you don't have that kind of time- wait until you do because it will be better. It will be even better than that the next day after it's all been cooked and cooled down in your fridge. When you are ready to serve it you need to have white rice (or some kind of rice) to put it on and French bread. You put the rice on your plate and ladel the beans over the rice. The bread goes on the side dummy. I really need to apologize for not having a picture of the finished product but by that time Mizzou was about to have their butts out of the NCAA tournament for this year and I had family over and I had a few beers in me. But if you put it all together and it tastes good- you done right. Cheers!

Ghost Bird

2009-04-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

The other day in class- actually it was at least a month ago, things were as normal. I was telling all the students how they'd never amount to anything and have a life full of disappointment and regret. All of a sudden Mr. "B", the special ed teacher that claims to work in my class this particular hour, and the rest of us jumped. There was a loud bang and it startled us all. Just a few minutes before I heard pigeons cooing outside. In five years there have never been pigeons on or around the rooftop that is outside the windows of my classroom. Today there were. It made me think that maybe I should put a bird feeder on the roof so when they came to eat we could observe them. Wouldn't that be touching? "Oh look Jimmy, it's a bird at the feeder. Maybe you can talk to it and finally have a friend."

After hearing the birds, things went on as normal, "No goddamnit! I said cross-multiply not divide you fool!" Then was the bang. None of us actually saw it happen, but the results are still there today. I'm not sure what the results are made of, but obviously something was left behind to let us remember the day by.

F'in Old Man Winter

2009-02-28T19:34:00.000-08:00

Gawd! Go away. Enough already. Winter needs to end. This has been a crap winter. Almost no snow, very cold for the most part, and boring. I just walk around my house going, "Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored." Freakin' sucks! I'm not built for this. I'm built for heat. I'm like a heat sink- long and slim. I disperse heat. Short round folk keep it in. Everything is dead. I like things alive and green. Winter has it's place, but it's worn out it's welcome. Beat it deadbeat!

I look forward to hearing the peep frogs peep. A true sign of spring. Soon enough I guess. March starts tomorrow and with that it's my birthday month and the month spring begins. Bring it. I wish you well on the ides of March.

P.S. Brady, your prize for GCF and LCM is on it's way. Took me a while to collect. You'll get it this week. Yeah!

Winter Float Pictorial

2009-02-22T10:49:00.000-08:00

Did my first winter float on the Current River a couple of weeks ago. It was a unique experience. The weather was actually really warm for February- in the 60s during the day and the upper 30s at night. I got kind of cold sleeping but nothing awful. The fishing on the day of the float was bad. We didn't catch a thing and neither did anyone else we came upon during our eight mile trip from Cedar Grove to Akers Ferry. We had a good time and seeing the Current in the dead of winter is very interesting. You can see the hillsides and the way the land lays with the absence of leaves. It's dead quiet too. I didn't take any pictures on the actual float because it was just too risky having the camera out while trying to steer around all the rootwads. I think we saw close to 15 armadillos during the float and pictured below is one that visited our camp the day we got down there.

My Superbowl pick (just so it's in writing ahead of time)

2009-01-30T11:53:00.001-08:00

Cardinals 21-17

I burn my arm (or is that my calf)

2009-01-29T20:30:00.000-08:00

Can't tell since they are about the same size. Thanks alot fireplace!

Winter is kind of slow around here.

Didn't seem like much at first. One of those burns that doesn't really hurt. That's because it freakin' killed all the nerves in it's path!

On the heal and looking forward to a cool scar. Way better than a lame lightning bolt on the forehead. You've got nothing Harry...nothing.

Profanity in Fiber

2009-01-23T15:49:00.000-08:00

Catchy title. This is my third year being the breakfast supervisor at my school. Basically, my morning consists of making sure I'm in the breakfast/lunchroom every morning by 7:35 when the students are allowed in. Then I get to watch them eat and hopefully clean up any mess they make. You'd be surprised how often they want to leave without cleaning up their area. It's really frustrating. It's like, "Why would you want to leave a mess? That's like taking a crap in the bathtub." So I'm like the breakfast cop. It's not all bad though. Lots of kids come tell me things they otherwise wouldn't since it's an odd time of the day. School hasn't started but they are there and a little more relaxed. Or maybe it's me who's a little more relaxed at that point- not sure. I also get free breakfast everyday and I get paid a whopping $50.00 a month for the job which is about $5.00 an hour.

So we have a big menu at breakfast:

Monday: Pizza

Tuesday: Sausage on a stick wrapped in a pancake (a breakfast corndog! Are you fucking kidding me? No. They even have syrup to dip it in.)

Wednesday: French Toast sticks (holy shit- this is a deep fried heart attack)

Thursday: Biscuits and gravy (THE BEST DAY OF THE WEEK FOR BREAKFAST)

Friday: Sausage egg and cheese biscuits (second best day of the week for breakfast)

Now, you must understand this isn't the full menu. There is also a wide variety of juice and cereal. The continental school breakfast if you will. Thrown in with the mix we also have cinnamon toast, yougurt, bagels, oatmeal, and some other better choices.

It's not all as bad as it seems, but I often opt for the cereal with skim milk and a couple of juice cups. So this brings me to my main idea. This morning I got the Raisin Bran. I like this cereal. It's the most healthy of the ones they offer and a guy needs his fiber. So I open the cereal which conveniently comes in it's own bowl. All you have to do is pour on the milk. Well, on this particular day, they should have just called it "Bran". There wasn't one goddamn raisin in the whole goddamn bowl! It was weird and I took it as a bad omen for the day. A day I was giving a test. Fortunately, the test actually went better than expected. So let's see what you know about 6th grade math. I'll send a prize to the first person who can define "GCF" and "LCM" correctly with an example in the comments section. Good luck. This is not a joke- I'll really send you something. You have to say what the letters stand for and give an example of each.

Coach "K" on the track

2009-01-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

I was just informed via email that I "got the job" for coaching track this year. My reply, "Wow! Well, I knew it was a close race." I thought that was appropriate since I was the only one in the race for the job. The high school has been lacking a full coaching staff for the past several years. Last year I was asked to coach, but I really didn't want to since I was already the cross-country coach. Not to mention the fact that the principal here at the time told me, "If you coach anything else it has to be at this school- not the high school." I was fine with that but the superintendent wasn't and ripped the principal a new one. Then he asked me to coach and I still said no. This year I decided to give it a try because they drastically changed the meet schedule and I also figured if I coached I would take the summer off completely and not work like I did last summer doing construction work.

Next week we start running "open track". Basically, I go run and if any other runners want to come out and run with me they are welcome to. It's basically preseason training. We'll see how it goes. I'm cautiously optimistic. It's going to be a lot of extra work of course, but the money is good, I like running with the kids, and I have a summer totally off to look forward to, and the kids want me to coach- so that makes me feel good. I was told that until I agreed to coach that several kids weren't going to run track because they didn't think it was worth it. I'm not bragging, but it's a pretty cool thing when a kid will come out for a sport just because you're the one who's going to be coaching them.

What's new?

2009-01-14T03:37:00.000-08:00

Wow! Just made my way back from falling off the earth. It took a lot to get back. Space is big and cold and the lack of gravity takes some getting used to.

A list of events:

Hunted and killed deer

Went to see the Tigers' first loss of the season

Finished another cross-country season

Seduced by brother-in-law's Honda Ridgeline

Traded Element for Ridgeline

Went fishing in Arkansas with Fish and Feather

Caught zero- but still fun

Visit from Santa

Cut and split firewood

Loaded firewood in the Ridgeline

Got Ridgeline stuck in mud and had to get help from a farmer with tractor

Signed up for track coaching

Wondering how that's going to turn out

Currently trying to stay warm

Early Season Hunting

2008-09-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

Went down to the Lake area last weekend and spent some time at the McNally Farm- beautiful. Killed some time and beer- no deer. Although, on Sunday morning, I walked out to my vehicle and 50 yards away a big doe stood looking at me from the yard. I didn't even have a shirt on at this point- so no shots fired. Early bow season is for the birds. But here's a nice picture from the farm.

music therapy

2008-09-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

When I was really little- like 4, my dad bought a guitar. It was a Yamaha acoustic electric. My dad is not a musical person. He loves music (as long as it's "uplifting"), but he's not a musical artist by any stretch of the imagination. In fact he's a real bad singer. I can't count how many hymns I suffered though as a teenager at church listening to him sing off key- and then off key in another key. I'm still embarrassed. But that's not the point. The point is he had this guitar and started taking lessons. He never got good and quit taking lessons. I used to mess with that guitar and I thought it was pretty cool I guess.

Years passed, now I'm like 9 or 10- you know, like first grade age when you're home schooled. And I going to this elementary school in Miami, where we lived and the music teacher thinks I'm real good. So I take these tests to go to this special school for the performing arts- and I get accepted. Pretty cool, I could grow up to be a rock star. BUT... it's in kind of a bad neighborhood- so my parents decide not to send me there. I was bummed, but I didn't protest. Besides, you don't have a lot of pull when you're 9 or 10.

More years pass, I'm in high school (before I dropped out), and I'm taking this guitar class. It's a total blow off class, but it's cool and I learned some cool things, met some cool people, and had my first chew of tobacco. I met this guy Bill Kays and he could already play any song by AC/DC. I took my dad's guitar down to the sort of local music store and traded it for a piece of crap electric guitar and a tiny little amp. We lived in Osage Beach, which is part of Lake of the Ozarks, also known as the White Trash Riviera, and there wasn't much to do there through the school year. So I played guitar a lot and stared figuring some things out.

1993- I start college in a wanna be branch dividian cult school also known as "AU". And that "U" should really be in quotes all by itself since that place was anything but a university. I have a dorm make named Scott. Never before and never since have I played guitar with someone more talented. I never learned more either. We would play for hours on the weekends and more than once Scott fell asleep while playing late into the night. We played a talent show once. It was a instrumental I wrote.

The next year Scott moved back home and I got in this little group and we played at a coffee house in Longview, TX, a couple of times. It was fun. KAL remembers I'm sure since he was there with a HUGE mixing board and pro level speakers. We called ourselves "Little Brother". It was fun, but never as good as in practice since we were always nervous.

1995- I move back to Missouri and now I live in Columbia, since my parents moved there. I'm going to Columbia College and I don't know anyone in town. So I start spending a lot of time playing guitar. I'm playing 3 or 4 hours a day and I start getting really good. I'm not trying to brag, but I knew I was making some crazy music. Sometimes I would quit playing because I would get scared from how good the music was. It was coming through me. I would occasionally play with other people when I'd get invited to play in party/jam session situations, but everyone would always start asking, "What's that chord?" or "How are you doing that?" but I didn't know since I was just going by sound instead of knowing names for it. I wasn't having to think to do it. I was just feeling it, and it was happening. I could never record what I was playing because when I would try, I would think about it being recorded and it never turned out as good.

Over time, as I got busier and eventually got a job, I started playing less and less and the guitar I've had since 1993 isn't sounding very good to me. For the past few years I've hardly played. I've had moments of inspiration, but they went out fast. I kind of felt like that time was over.

But remembering back to that music teacher who thought I had some talent, and banging out tunes with Bill and Scott, and playing in my parents basement (my bedroom) for hours at a time, and remembering that feeling that I got when I knew I was really making music, and feeling like I need a creative outlet, I decided to get back into it. I never quit loving music, I just quit cutting out my own little spot of it. I heard this interview with jazz guitarist, Stanley Jordan, and his musical philosophy was so inspiring I almost went out and bought his newest album. As it turns out, I'm not that big of a fan of his music- but I really, really like what he had to say. So I got a new guitar. We'll see what happens. It's really just about how it makes you feel. Express and release.

Why did you turn off the jazz music?

2008-09-03T17:59:00.000-07:00

John Coltrane. He got in my head and I didn't need to blog for about three months. Then I went back to work and I need a ventilator. Now I think Butthead is in my head and I have lots of hate. More angry teaching. "No damn it! I said do the exponents before the multiplication!"

It was a good summer. I started riding bikes again. I even raced three times so far this year. I'm racing Gary Boring this weekend in Jeff City. I'm going to whip his old ass! Then I'm going to sell my bike and quit again. I built a wood shed with the dude. Then he drank my beer and left. I have no wood. Weeds grew in our flower beds as I worked for the one they call Barry. Things got built, weeds got big. Less free time = more weeds.

I don't work in ISS anymore, so no more funny stories from there. Fine with me. Nothing worse than being stuck in a room with pissed off middle scholars who didn't do it. I don't have much free time these days. Let me rephrase that. I don't have much time these days that I fill with doing what I choose. Even my dog is laughing at me...

Summer Break is 1/2 day away!!!

2008-05-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

Smoke 'em if you've got 'em!

Time Revisited

2008-05-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

I think the last post like this had somewhere around 28 days to go before school was out. Now it's 7.5. Not bad at all, but I get more anxious as it gets closer. It reminds me of getting ready to go on an exciting trip. It's really bizarre having time off in a big chunk like a summer. Not many jobs like it.
Plans for this summer: Part-time job, maybe a couple of bike races, couple of float trips, read a book. Outside of that I intend to play it by ear. I'm going to try not to drive much and either walk or ride as much as I can. A trip to Dallas, and Austin may require some time behind the wheel though.
With the end of the year coming up I think I'm going to try riding my bike to and from work next week after 4th quarter grades are turned in and I don't have anything to teach. I've done the ride home before a couple of times, but I've never done the ride to work. I'm planning on leaving my house about 5:30am. We'll see how that goes. Should make for a good post.

2008 First tirp to the Current River

2008-04-30T07:36:00.000-07:00

If you're into the outdoors and "floating" in Missouri, (by canoe, raft, or tube) you've probably been to or at least heard of the Current River (info) in southern Missouri. The Current River is a spring fed river with headwaters starting at Montauk State Park (info) and moving south towards Arkansas. This area is part of the Ozark National Senic Riverways. There are a lot of small rivers to float in south Missouri, but the Current is my favorite of all the ones I've floated over the past 20 years or so. Clear cold water, excellent landscape scenery, and lots of trout to fish. At the headwaters at Montauk there's a fish hatchery run by the state where they raise trout. It's amazing seeing these trout in the tanks. They're separated by size and eventually released into the Current River to go where they please. When it's feeding time you can't even see any water between the fish because they feed so aggressively. I read somewhere that trout were first introduced to the Current by railroad workers coming from the west. From what I understand, most trout in the Current are from the hatchery and not "wild", but that some decendents from the original stock may still be reproducing outside the hatchery.

One of my best friends of more than half my life, Morgan, and I headed down two Fridays ago for the earliest float/camping trip I've ever done in Missouri. The weather can be very volitile this time of year and a strong storm can change things for the worse very quickly when you're around a river. Flash floods are a real concern- it rains heavily upstream, you're downstream where it may not be raining at all. The runoff water from the rain upstream builds and a wall of water heads downstream while you sit on the bank considering your next trip to the cooler for another "coldun" (cold one) with your fishing line in the water. Next thing you know the river seems to be getting strangly bigger and you move back a bit to keep your feet dry. Suddenly you realize what's going on as the river rapidly rises and you grab your cooler to head for safety. You make it to higher gound as the rest of your belonging are swept downstream along with trees, brush, cattle,and the occassional human.

Well, none of that stuff happened on this trip- although we were very aware of the possibility. In normal conditions the Current runs about 2' to 2.25' above Akers Ferry (One of the landmarks of the upper Current). 4' is considered "flood stage". On April 10th the Current was at 12' at Akers Ferry. That's a lot of water. Luckily, the water was pretty much back to normal when we got down there. We camped right near the river at a federal campground that is not widely known. I hope it stays that way because it's much better than most of the outfitter campgrounds which consist of a big field that's been overused. At those places you tend to be surrounded by people, loud music, yelling and cigarette smoke. This federal spot is pretty much hidden, quiet, senic, and non-comercialized. No one even works there. You just put $5.00 in a box and choose your spot.

We arrived about noon and set up camp. Morgan likes to really get things set up quickly when we camp. He says it bothers him until it's all done. I think that must be some primative instinct. We knew the possibility of heavy storms was in the forecast. Luckily, Morgan brought his weather radio. After setting up we headed to the river and started fishing- no luck- the water was still too high in this spot and fast with no cover for the fish to hide behind. Morgan tried to start a fire by rubbing sticks together for about 10 minutes. Then I got out the firestarter block and got the fire going. We were visited by our neighbors from about three camp spots over. They were a couple of guys from Kentucky visiting for turkey hunting. I only have two things to say about their visit. One: First impressions make a difference and the size of one of the guy's shirtless beerbelly was enough to worry me a great deal- it was awful. Two: When I say, "Well, we better get dinner started." that's your cue to bug out instead of poaching another coldun. Anyhoo, Thunder began to rumble in the distance and drew closer. We cooked dinner, (chicken with tomatoes and black beans) and just as we sat down to eat- it began to rain. Luckily Morgan has set up a lean-to with an extra wall blocking the direction the wind was blowing from so the rain couldn't blow in on us. It turned out to be a full on storm as we sat under our lean-to staying dry. As we listened to the computerized voice on the weather radio warning of the severe weather headed our way we came up with an emergency plan that consisted of Morgan running for higher ground and leaving me to grab what gear I could since it was pretty much all mine- bastard. Luckily, the storm came and went in about 20 minutes. After the storm, Morgan thought we better put a water mark stick down by the river so we could see if it started coming up. He notched it for reference and we felt slightly more secure. Turned out to be a nice evening and the sky even cleared. It got calm. But still I wondered if the river would come up and get me in my sleep.

The night was filled with me waking up thinking I could hear the river roaring as it rose to drown me. It turned out to be the wind blowing through the trees that surrouned us. It got fairly windy since a cold front was coming though. And as it does when a cold front comes through- it got cold. Down to about 40 degrees. I got up once to check the stick and see if the water on our marker was coming up. As I peered down the beam of light from the mag lite onto the stick I could see I was worrying for nothing and slept better the rest of the night- until our neighbors rolled in from a nearby bar at about 4:00am. They kind of hinted at us joining them on a trip to the bar, but I didn't bring my banjo and this wasn't Deliverance.

We got up the next morning and got the fire going again, ate a pound of bacon, and broke camp. We saw one of our neighbors staggering to the outhouse about 8:30 and I was thinking he didn't make it up for the morning hunt. Morgan also discovered he had a tick on him in a real bad spot. I'll let you use your imagination on that one. We drove to Akers Ferry, about 9 miles away, and got picked up for the float by the outfitter. We were the first customers of the year. We put in about 9:30 and started our float by going right by the place we had camped before. Luckily, the river never came up whatsoever. It actually dropped a little. So much for the lost sleep over worry of a flash flood.

Something to keep in mind when going on a float. There are two kinds: Kind one: Float, drink, swim, and be rediculous. Kind two: Float and fish, have a couple but keep your wits about you for when you snag your line in a tree while getting turned around in a riffle. The main thing to keep in mind is that it's either a fishing float or not. Don't try to mix a couple of people wanting to fish with others who don't. It just doesn't work- sort of like socks on a rooster.

Turned out to be a great day for a float- sunny and 70 degrees. The trout were very active too. I think between the two of us we caught close to 10 fish. It took us a while to find out what they were hitting on, (rooster tail) but once we did it got pretty fun.

So to make a long story a little longer, it was a good first tirp of the year. I'm planning on heading down at the end of this month to do it again. It's good for your mind. Kind of clears your head. Here's a shot of Morgan reeling in a trout. Next trip- more pics.

Gardening at Night

2008-04-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

We've been very busy in the yard between cold spells, planting, trimming, and mowing. It kind of becomes a part time job this time of year. That's alright though, it really beats winter.

Leslie just had to get the pots done on Thursday evening. Then it became Thursday night. We needed light and it made for a couple of interesting shots.

People who should stop telling others how to live- the short list

2008-04-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

I just read an interesting article about this guy. Here. If all the facts in this article are true, I'd be looking for advice elsewhere. I'm not reallly surprised by what I read. I just find it irritating.

And here's his buddy who is apparently disin' him now that his rep is sliding.
She spends a lot of time talking about marriage. Funny, she's never actually been married herself. Tell Stedman I said hi.

Most of you don't know this guy. Try to keep it that way. He's a self proclaimed "slave" for Jesus. He always reminded me more of Mr. French from "Family Affair"

Oh wait, this one's dead. He can't do much harm in that state. HaHa.

Let's end on a positive note. This guy is worth listening to. Ohh yeah!

Elements of my life

2008-04-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of a vehicle guy. I've had seven vehicles since I started driving: 1 Volkswagon, 1 Ford, 2 Toyotas, and 3 Hondas. Big whoop, I know. This post is just about one (or three) of them- the Elelment. If you've never ridden in an Element or at least taken a close look- you should. You might even be among the majority that think it's ugly. Well, all I can say to that is that you're ugly if you don't love my Element.

Here's the family album of my "E" family.
This is the E I got in 2005 after riding in a friend's and loving it. Four speed automatic. At the time, this was the best E you could get- the EX. It had all wheel drive, waterproof seats, big stereo for a stock stereo- even had a subwoofer. I loved this E. Hauled everything in it- deer, wood, concrete, bricks, bikes (one time I had four bikes and three people in it), and anything else I needed. The E has over 75 cubic feet of cargo space. As a comparison, a Honda Accord Sedan has 12. So you really can put a bunch of stuff in it. I did a lot of bike race trips in this E. One of my favorite things about all Elements is that they have NO carpet. So it doesn't matter if you have muddy boots on or a dirty wet dog after a trip to the dog park. But I digress. On with the family album.

Another shot of my first Element.

Oh, #2... kind of a redheaded stepchild. This one was an '08. In 2007 Honda made some nice changes (upgrades) to the Element. More horsepower, five speed transmission, standard painted quarter panels, traction control, airbag front to rear, and some other cool trim stuff like blue back lit gauges instead of standard green. I was able to sell my first one for a profit and pick up this one for a basic flip. It was like getting a brand new car for less than what I still owed on the first one. It was a good deal. I didn't go with the black this time because I wanted something that would look cleaner longer- black is really hard to keep clean. It was kind of a boring color- but it was different. Then, after a few short weeks of driving, I started noticing a strange noise. To make a long story short, Honda's change to the transmission made this one "drone" loudly when at cruising speed. The exact speed I travel 250 miles a week for work. It got really annoying. So it went to the shop three times. Finally, it was discovered that ALL the new ones with the automatic 5 speed tranny do this. My solution- get rid of it. I only had this brown cow for about three months. Kind of a skeleton in the family closet.

Then one day, this one showed up from Chicago on special order.
Pretty. My favorite of the three. 2008 EX AWD 5 speed Manual. Like the one before it, this one is an '08 but since it's a manual transmission it's geared differently and doesn't make that noise that I couldn't stop listening to. It's much more fun to drive and the black is black. I also got splash guards and side steps with this one- nice touches. Since I've had it I also added a hood deflector (great for all the highway driving with semi traffic throwing crap up all the time) and a custom grill guard. At some point I'm going to get a short ram intake, torque dampener, and fog lights and bull bar. I plan on keeping this one for quite some time.

Where are they now: The 2005 lives in St. Louis and belongs to a nice family that does a lot of triathlons. The brown bag '08 also lives in STL and belongs to a guy who works in film. I made sure he knew about the sound- but it didn't seem to bother him. He was very excited about getting an almost new Element for a great deal.

Other Element facts: two power outlets (front and rear), front and rear seats fold down to make a bed (yes, I've used it), rear seats fold up into the sides of the vehicle or can be taken out completely to leave you with the practical equivalent of a 5 foot truck bed.

Mr. Fix-it

2008-04-11T09:37:00.000-07:00

"We know what to do when it rains." That's a quote applicable to this situation. A few weeks ago my wife and I noticed the dryer wasn't doing it's job- drying the clothes. It was running, just not drying. We thought it might be time for a new dryer- so I started researching and didn't like what I saw- high prices. We have a big dryer, and I couldn't see downsizing. So I start "experimenting". I thought it had to be something simple. I took apart the dryer until it didn't look like a dryer anymore, I check electrical connections, I put it back together, I turned it on, it ran- but it didn't get hot. Luckily, in my autopsy of what I thought was a dead dryer, I found a folded up piece of paper located behind the "control panel". It turned out to be an assembly drawing of the dryer with all the parts numbered and labeled. I looked over it briefly and set it aside thinking it wasn't worth trying to fix this dryer anymore- it is about 10 years old and it came with the house when we bought it.

A few days went by and we shopped for dryers. I really didn't want to buy one. I looked over the assembly drawing again and came up with one possible solution- heating element. The dryer ran, just didn't get hot. So I called up Sears and ordered the part. It came, I installed it, it worked! I was really excited since it had only cost $60.00 instead of hundreds for a new dryer. The dryer actually worked much better than ever before now. Upon examining the old element I could see it had actually caught on fire at one point from all the lint built up in the floor of the dryer over the years. Now here's some advice- clean your dryer out occasionally. On ours there's a panel on the front that you can take off and expose the inside of the "box" I vacuumed three or four loads of lint from the inside of the dryer. Taking apart the dryer also let me clean out the parts individually. I found money and a gym ID card from the previous owner of the house in the compartment that holds the lint screen. It really helps the efficiency of the dryer to have it all cleaned out too.
So all was good again...for about three weeks. Suddenly, while drying a load the dryer just quit. This was bad. Could be anything I thought. I again took the dryer apart and started tinkering. I thought I must have knocked something loose while working on it before and the vibration of the dryer released some connection completely. No luck- must be time for a new dryer I thought again. I went back to the assembly drawing. There were two fuses listed: a thermal cut-off, and a thermal fuse. Apparently, these are safety parts that shut the dryer down if it's getting too hot. You can't tell if the fuses are blown by looking at them- they don't even look like fuses. I ordered the parts again hoping I wasn't wasting my time. When they came in I installed them and immediately the dryer worked. I was really happy. I was still only up to $100.00 total investment for the new parts. The satisfaction of repairing something I previously knew nothing about was very cool.
I'm not certain, but my theory about the fuses blowing is that the new element wasn't a good match with the old fuses. The fuses/thermal cut-off were worn out and the extra heat of the new element just pushed them over the edge.
It was a great learning experience that I hope to not have again for a long time.

29 days to go

2008-04-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

Time moves slowly when you are bored and detached from what you're doing. That's pretty much the feeling I've had for a while now at work. I am cooked for the year. Next week is the second part of the MAP test (math portion), and after that I think I'll feel even more done since that test is the pressure cooker of the schools today. Somehow, someone along the way decided that the MAP is a good way to judge the quality of job teachers are doing. As if student performance is a direct reflection of the job I do. Yeah right, and every kid who wants to be a pro football player will be as long as his coach is good enough. I'm just ready for this year to end. I wouldn't recommend getting into education to anyone. Sure, you get the summer off. But I assure you, you'll do 12 months worth of work in the 9 months school's in. You are tied down for the school year. I've been doing this for eight years now and I'm very efficient at what I do. I don't take work home and I don't come in extra early to get caught up. It all happens between 7:20 and 3:20. At the end of the day though you're lucky if you have the energy to use the few hours you have free before going to bed at 9:00.

Yes, this is a rant- which I rarely do on this blog because I just don't want this blog to have that vibe. I don't like to read constant complaining on other blogs, so I try not to do it here. Since this blog is mine though, I'll choose this time to leave it as a rant session.

old and new

2008-03-02T15:56:00.001-08:00

Photos of before and after a meal and a shave.
The meal...

The shave...

Revelation and Disfunction

2008-02-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

I just realized how much our building principal and the President of the US are alike. Amazing...

Not much going on. Just here in ISS again. One kid is in here for making a "shank"- or is it "shiv"? Either way, a stabbing weapon-you know, like they use in prison to kill each other. You just take whatever you can sharpen and sharpen it. You might also tape it to something else to increase it's length. Whatever. I'm over these issues. I'm over people thinking my work output is directly reflected in student grades. My job is to lead horses to water- you can probably finish that thought. Mostly I'm over all you parents who should have used stronger protection or just kept it zipped up. I'm no parent, but when you're asking me advice about what to do with your 12 year old (and I'm not talking about how to do math) I think that proves there's a problem. Quit reproducing and dumbing down the species. McDonald's is going to have to quit taking applications at some point if you don't slow down.

Don't worry, I still have good students and students who want to learn. My guess would be most of them have two parents at home who are at least semi-hardasses- meaning they do the job of parenting even when it hurts. The rest of you so called parents need to get a clue and take some responsibility. I'm not a babysitter and this isn't daycare. You don't work and learn- you get a "F". Deal with it. That's how life will be in the future- may as well learn it now. "Why does my kid have a "F"?" "Why don't you ask him?" He or she might tell you something interesting like, "Well, you don't seem to give a F*^K, so why should I?"

Now that's an editorial.

Frozen Toes

2008-02-27T09:34:00.000-08:00

For the non-locals who don't know about the bike racing scene in BOCOMO, this past Sunday was the formerly know as "Froze Toes" Frozen Toes bike race. I'm not sure when the name was switched- perhaps when the president of the local bike club started calling it "frozen toes". Anyhoo, it's about a 60 mile race (two 30 mile loops) in some of the most boring land in central Missouri. Anytime you can see more than a mile up the road (or in any direction for that matter) it's more than likely boring terrain.
I didn't race this year, or last, and probably not "next year" either. Just not my kind of race. What I did do was volunteer to be a follow vehicle driver for the race. Kind of help create a "rolling enclosure" and try to keep racers from abusing the yellow line too much and winding up as a hood ornament on Farmer Brown's daily commute to give the cattle hay. I was glad to do it and I got to watch the race.
Two years ago I think there were about 140 people in the race. This year- only about 50. I guess a bunch of people thought the weather was going to be bad- as it should be- this time of year. So I guess you could say it was a more "intimate" group. Lots of guys helping each other out. You know, like when you have to pee and ride a bike at the same time- kind of hard to pedal. So what do you do? You get another rider to push you while you're peeing- or trying to pee as appeared to be the case for several guys who seemed to have some accute stage fright keeping them from relieving themselves. Or maybe they just couldn't find it in the cold weather- not sure. Nonetheless, this was probably the most entaining part of the race for Prozenberger and me to watch since the rest of the race was fairly boring and slow this year. At more than one point I looked down at the speedometer to see we were going 14MPH. It was more like a ride than a race. But hey, that's easy from me to say from the drivers' seat of a warm dry car and only pushing the gas pedal to move.
It was an interesting perspective to stay behind the group the whole time. I did see a crash and one of the guys landed squarly on his face while still holding onto the handlebars. That was ugly. It was fun pacing a few people back up to the group when they got gapped off because of the wreck. One guy had the nerve to complain about the quality of the pace he got after the race. Sorry, but I don't think the officials who were watching would have been real happy with you getting any pace. I was happy to do it for whomever I could. I know Buttsmackers was appreciative.
As ususal...no chili left after the race. I think that makes five years for me now with no chili after. At least I did get to see Jimmy again. I almost couldn't resist hugging him- but I didn't want him to get too excited and put on the goloshes and get out the tacklebox.
If you don't get a lot of this post- I apologize- lots of inside jokes.

Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T07:06:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day. It's an interesting day here at school because you have three types of kids coming in: Those who are into it (wearing pink or red, giving and getting gifts and cards). They know they're loved either here or at home. Those who are not (eh, just another day at school). Probably don't know what day of the week it is either. And then there are those who are depressed (no gifts, cards, or candy and a feeling of loneliness). Maybe very alone even when everyone's around and not many hugs in their life. It's interesting to observe who's who today. I feel bad for the depressed kids. I'm wearing a bright pink/coral button up. That's my contribution to the atmosphere. I've heard already twice today, "Real men wear pink." "Yeah, I know, now get to work changing that fraction to a decimal before I take your candy and eat it in front of you." Just kidding- The kids actually get a kick out of me playing with them like that and it keeps the mood a little lighter. I knew what I was getting into wearing this shirt. It's amazing how in this small town pink is still seen as a female color. In my whole life I've never attached gender to color. Color is color and they're all cool in one way or another. So I'm going to start changing my blog colors on a regular basis- just to keep it interesting. Speaking of interesting, if you haven't checked out my wife's blog yet (yoga gal)- I recommend it. Clickit And hey, hug somebody today- even if you don't feel like it- you'll feel better afterwards for sure...unless of course they are stinky- then you'll just want a shower.

Disaster or Sign from God

2008-02-12T08:15:00.000-08:00

Waaaaay back in January, New Year's day to be exact, and after a long night of celebration, I woke at 6:00am to the sound of water. I listened to it for a while trying to figure out what it was. "Is that one of our fountains? No, it's Zak splashing in his water bowl. Wow, he's really splashing a lot." I tought. "And so rhthmically". "Wait a second...something isn't right." I jump out of bed and open the door to the room where the sound is coming from. The same room that has my two aquariums set up. One is a 30 gallon and the other a 60 gallon. My first step into the room was a wet one. I know immediately what's happening- aquarium leak! I'm not ready to deal with this considering the previous night's activities. But trouble doesn't usually come when you're ready for it. So I flip on the light and luckily there's only about a quart of water on the tile floor. I'm thankful for two things at this point even though my mind is still a little fuzzy from the Southern Comfort. Thing one: we have very little carpet in our home. Thing two: we were home when this happened.

I run downstairs and out to the garage. I grab two five gallon buckets (very handy to keep around) and head back up. Very luckily, the water was dripping (flowing is more like it at this point) in a way that I was able to catch the water in the bucket. The leak was getting worse and the water coming out faster. There was nothing to do really except go downstairs and make coffee. I spent the rest of the morning letting it drain out and emptying the buckets when they were full. Towards the end I kept one bucket of water and transfered the fish into it. They were donated the next day to one of the local pet stores. The 30 gallon tank found itself on the curb and is now part of the landfill.

Here's the interesting part to me. First of all, I don't recommend ever having an aquarium on the second floor of a home. If that tank had drained out while we were away that would have been a major disaster for the first floor ceiling and walls. Probably would have cost thousands to repair. Second, just the day before this tank began to leak, I had set up my big 60 gallon tank. After the close call of the first leak I decided it was a sign that I shouldn't have 90 gallons of potential destruction set up to blow. So I drained that tank with a vacuum tube out the window and put that tank up for sale at the same local pet store. No more fish in our house.

ISS Post

2008-02-07T09:56:00.001-08:00

It's been a long time since I posted from ISS. Mostly because it's changed a lot for the worse. It used to be a place where kids would come and have to do their school work for the day and then read. Well our new asst. principal, who has never actually worked in the ISS room, changed some things about it and now it's a constant struggle of paper pushing to and from students. It makes the poor choices of students who get into ISS the ISS supervisor's problem. But that's the way things have been going around here. Instead of teaching the students responsibility, it's taken off them and put on the teachers. I'm not subscribing to this.

But yesterday was interesting. Keep in mind this is middle school- 6-8th grade. Five students. By the time I get there, a lot has happened. One kid has given prescription meds to two other kids. His backpack was searched and they found pot. Two girls had to be separated because they are lovers. And one girl's backpack was searched and razor blades found which she uses for cutting herself. "Oh, my dad knows I've done it before." Uh, I would classify this situation as "ate up". What happened to the good old days of fights and running the halls? If you think you have any concept of what middle school and high school is like now based on your experience from 10 or more years ago- forget it.

P.O.S.- Bissell Pet Hair Eraser

2008-01-21T06:23:00.000-08:00

Don't buy this. We've had ours one month and it's now broken. It's still running and sucking, but not without issue. First,one of the attachments ( the pet hair eraser mechanical brush) quit working when it allowed hair to accumulate around the belt and wheel that makes it a mechanical attachement. Luckily, I was able to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together. Then yesterday I was just cleaning the floor and noticed the the vacuum getting louder and louder and starting to vibrate. "Something's not right!" I yelled over the scream of the hearing eraser... uh, I mean pet hair eraser. I turned off the vacuum and noticed my hearing has now been notched to the certain frequency of one said double cyclonic action vacuum. Patiently, I examimed the PHE and cleaned every part I could find to clean. I turn it back on and still the vibration and volume comparable to that of the space shuttle take off is blasting from our living room. Even Ziggy, our cockapoo, (and yes that is a dog breed not a bird) won't come near as he usually likes to do to investigate and try to dominate. He's sure the situation is about to become very dangerous and takes shelter in the other room. I can only imagine how his hearing was effected. Anyhoo, I examine the rotating brush located at the front of the PHE and I can tell something isn't right. It's pivoting instead of just spinning. This causing the vibration and noise. I take the brush off and examine it. One of the bearings is jammed down into the bar at and angle and the plastic is warpped. I take it all apart and try to rebuild it, knowing full well that this will be a temporary fix at best. I put it all back together and try it out. This time only about 150db roar through the house. But by the time I make it upstairs it's back to full throtle-up and ready to make the final push into orbit. So I must get a new rotating brush. Really, that will solve the problem, but who wants to deal with that after one month of use. On the other hand, this vacuum really does suck! Pun intended.

Is it winter or is my life just boring?

2008-01-18T10:13:00.000-08:00

I have to laugh at myself for thinking my life is boring- because it's not, never has been, and probably never will be. I think I just get kind of bored in winter and blame it on my life. It's like every thing's on hold for about three months- which is really about as long as winter really lasts around here as far as I'm concerned.
I've just been working- lots of geometry lately- I love that stuff even if it's challenging to teach to kids who'd rather be playing Guitar Hero. But they like it when they get it right- so that's good enough on a daily basis.
I've also been going to the gym a lot and getting huge. I'm so massive I barely fit in my already gigantic ego that is starting to feel as if it's about to explode.
I did a lot of hunting for the elusive whitetail deer the past few weeks since the season was coming to a close. I wound up sticking one last Friday evening just before dark. But as fate would have it my worst fear came true and I didn't find it. It was kind of a weird shot. The deer was almost under me and facing right to me. I was about 20 feet up in a tree. I shot and stuck it right behind the shoulder in what should have been a spine severing shot- dropping it right there. But as the deer ran away with about 12 inches of arrow sticking in and about the same sticking out, I wondered what the outcome would be. It got dark, came back with a light, found blood, but no deer. Came back the next morning, looked for two hours and found the broken end from my arrow about 1/3 of a mile from where I had shot- and that's it. It is the worst to hunt and mame. Especially when you see some of the animal interaction I've observed while hunting and you start to see the qualities in these wild animals that we see in our domestic pets that make us love them so much. But that's the way the season ended for me pretty much. It was still a good season.
Sooner than later, the bike will come off the hook in the garage. That's the next adventure I suppose. Until then I guess I just try to keep it on the sunny side.
Oh yeah, I linked a couple of new blogs you should check out. One about breathing, one about a coyote.

Christmas Around the House of K.

2007-12-12T17:44:00.000-08:00

So now I'm just inspired. Here's some shots from around the house this Christmas. Everything was designed by Leslie or by Leslie and her mom. I did the outside lights. Reminded me of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation getting up there on the roof. Last year, the first year I ever put up Christmas lights in my life, I had some "Witnesses" come by and preach to me while I was hanging the lights. The irony made me laugh.

Empty Hands

2007-12-12T16:33:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting here with my hands on the keyboard for a couple of minutes now waiting for the words to start appearing on the screen. It would seem I have blog block. I try to write to an audience sometimes and tell interesting or personally funny stories. Those things keep happening- I just haven't been writing about them for some reason. Maybe it's because I compare my blog to KAL's. His if first class in my opinion. But I'm not trying for the same blog. I guess I should just let it flow.
I could talk about the verbal slap I gave another teacher today. I got pretty angry. The principal walked up, stood there for a second listening, turned about, and walked away. I'm finding it's better for me, and the other party involved if I just go ahead and confront them about whatever I'm pissed about. I'm the kind of guy who holds onto stuff for a long time inside. It's not good for one to do this. I don't like to upset people though so I often don't say anything. I just boil inside and lay sleepless thinking about the problem. I think I solved this issue- and I'm over it. I'm not mad anymore- nor am I holding a grudge. So that's that.
I could also talk about hunting. It's not going so good at this point. Oh, I killed another deer. Unfortunately, it had been shot twice about two weeks prior to our meeting. It was a mercy killing as it turned out. I knew something was wrong as soon as the deer appeared. It looked like the fur on it's back was turned up. I shot and killed the animal. When I approached it, it had a huge chunk missing from it's back and another from its chest. Someone had not been a good shot. It's amazing the strength of these creatures to carry on with such wounds. I have great respect for them. I left the deer where it lay because there was no point in trying to salvage any meat- infection was obvious. I returned to where I shot the deer last weekend. There was nothing but a bare white skeleton left.
Oh, I got a new Element. Very nice and this time Galaxy Grey Metallic! Woooweee! It has some really nice performance upgrades from my '05, and some nice trim upgrades. One thing I'm a little disappointed with is the new five speed transmission. It's nice and smooth but it has a bit of a shift drone just before upshift that bugs me. I've been talking to some folks about it on theeownersclub some of them noticed the same thing. Maybe there will be a recall. I've been making a stink about it to Honda.
My wife started a blog. I'll suggest it to you now. Heretis Good thoughts.
I'm pregnant. No wait, that's not right. I'm not pregnant. Many people are though, so I better get back to saving the universe. Tata.

If you are a dog AND cat owner

2007-11-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

you'll find this hysterical. Leslie and I have two dogs and two cats. The parallels of this read and our reality are just too close. I was laughing so hard I was crying.

*The Dog's Diary*
8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 PM - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
1:00 PM - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 PM - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 PM - Dinner! My favorite thing!
7:00 PM - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 PM - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 PM - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

*The Cat's Diary*
Day 983 of my captivity.
My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are Fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an Attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet. Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their Feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates my capabilities. However, they merely made Condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Bastards!
There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was Placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.
Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow, but at the top of the stairs. I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and Snitches.The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released, and Seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird must be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now......

Easy Hunting

2007-11-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

This summer my wife's uncle came up with an idea to build a hunting blind that his son (and anyone who wants to stay out of the weather) could hunt from. He asked me if I knew anyone who'd be interested in helping with the project and I came up with one name- Meathead. So I asked Meathead and he agreed and we started planning. I was the middle man going between Rick and Meathead (Eric) planning the project. The I got a supply list, took it to Lowe's in Eric's truck, filled one of those big lumber cart things until it was so heavy I had to push on it for about two seconds before it started to move, and then headed it out to the truck to find Eric's truck wouldn't start. About an hour later and figuring out the problem I drive across town and Eric and I build the base for this blind. Weeks later we take the base and the rest of the lumber out to Rick's farm and start putting this thing together. We prebuilt all the walls up at the shed and quit for the day. The next week we came back and put the walls on a trailer and took them down to the spot for the blind and started getting everything in place. We worked until dark that day and got the roof on while using the lights on the tractor to see what we were doing. Then we came back again and set the windows (which are Andersons) and put on the shingles. It was quite an ontaking but it turned out great. the actual "box" is 5'X6' inside with 7' high walls. The platform is 8'X6'. There is a trap door in the bottom of the box with a ladder going to it. There is also a ladder going to the 2'X8' landing on the backside of the platform. From the landing you can take the third ladder to the roof and hunt from there as well. Each window has been offset from the one across from it to prevent wildlife from looking straight through the box. The screen over the windows is screen that you can shoot through either with a bow or gun. Not all the screen was up when the pictures were taken. The inside of the box is painted black so it's nice and dark. It's almost impossible to see into the box with the combination of the screen and black interior. It was a big project that turned huge. The finished product is really cool though- so it was worth it. I don't know that I'll ever hunt out of this blind, but you could spend the coldest day hunting in it very comfortably. I need to take some pictures of the view from this blind. It looks out over a field that stretches for about 300+ yards. The blind is backed up to a small wooded area and hills are on both the left and right sides. Maybe I'll get some pictures of that this weekend when gun season opens.

The morning after State Cross-Country

2007-11-04T17:38:00.001-08:00

I really wasn't planning on hunting this morning. When I went to bed I was pooped. The state Cross-Country championship wore me out- and I didn't even race. Those kids have a lot of energy. It's funny how they can just ride up and down an elevator like it was Space Mountain. Anyhoo, I figured if I woke up and felt good- I'd go. I haven't had very good luck the past couple of years. Some of it has been my fault, some of it has been just bad luck. Like yesterday when my historically top two runners had major issues and the worst races of their season. You have to keep trying if you want something though. So I went and it paid off. Right now deer is becoming jerkey. Funny how your day can change quickly. One moment you're chasing a doe trying to get some action- next thing you know you're soaking in soy sauce.

Honda should sponsor me.

State Bound

2007-11-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

In about 3.5 hours I'll be leaving for Cross-Country state Championship in Jefferson City. It's pretty cool to think we made it this far our first year out with a sport we haven't had here in about 25 years. Even if we hadn't made it to the championships, I'd still be very satisfied with this year. Everyone worked hard and improved over the season. Next year will be even better.
Although we didn't have a full girls or boys team, we still qualified 4 of 7 individuals for the championship. That's a nice percentage.

Good Beers

2007-10-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

I love beer. Let's just get that right out there. I don't like Bud or any of that crap. I mean real beer. Beer that you don't drink more than about 3 or 4 of without feeling like you just ate a 5 pound and the grissle. Here's one that's been my favorite for a while now. Here's what the maker of the beer says:

Pyramid India Pale Ale has the distinctively hoppy flavor and aroma craft beer enthusiasts demand. Abundant helpings of Columbus hops gives this ale an astonishing 67 IBU's - truly a beer for bold tastes! The distinguished Celebrator Beer News aptly named this brew "hophead nectar" (June/July issue, 1998). Original Gravity: 16.7Alcohol By Volume: 6.70%Malts: 2-Row Barley, Munich, Caramel, CarapilsHops: TomahawkAvailability: Year RoundBest Paired With: Fish, BBQ and all things hot n' spicy.
But with cooler weather being here you have to try some of Sam Adams Double Bock. It's a very smooth, sweet beer with, no joke, a half pound of malt used per bottle. It's about as strong as wine and very heavy. Although I bought it last fall and winter here, according to the Sam Adams website, it's sale is illegal in several states including Missouri.

Well if I can't get that this winter, another favorite cold weather beer of mine is the Trippel from New Belgium Brewery. This is not a beer tasting beer. At least not by American norms. It's a good one though- very complex and almost strange. It is supposed to be a Belgin style beer afterall.

There are so many good beers out there anymore. It's hard to choose when I go shopping. Leslie's step-dad and I like to get together and talk beers when the opportunity comes up. I should start a beer tasting party. I could plan it on the same nights as the "other" parties that the ladies like to have. You know like, Pampered Chef and whatnot.

ISS Post

2007-10-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

I shouldn't have eaten those cupcakes. Every once in a while someone brings in some garbage for us to eat. This particular time, our counselor's husband who works at the local cupcake factory, brought in some cream filled badness for our gorging pleasure. I did partake. I regret. Now I am tired, heavy feeling, and I'm pretty sure my blood is stuck in traffic. It's weird how when you get away from eating that stuff and you're eating lean and healthy, the times you do get some junk food take an immediate toll on you. Sure did taste good though. Ummm, chocolatety, creamy... I feel like Homer Simpson. Well, I guess with the holidays coming up I better practice getting my eat on because before you know it I'll have a beer in one hand and a cookie in the other.

ISS has been busy lately. Seems people need to try new behaviors that others have gone before and tried. Sort of like mountain climbing, "Well all these other guys tried for the summit and died, but I think I have a shot." ISS is the same, "Well, he didn't make it, but I'll give it a shot." "Oops, no, that didn't work. Now I'm in ISS." It's even easier to get in trouble now because we have video cameras.

I haven't been riding much. In fact I haven't ridden but twice. Those were some sweet rides though. Ozenpro was a bit disappointed when I didn't get dropped repeatedly on my maiden voyage on the new bike. I was wondering why he brought his fixed gear. The only thing I could figure is that he expected me to be slow and weak. Well, spend three months running with high school kids five days a week and you'll stay in pretty good shape too.

Now it's three days since I started this post. Not too much has happened since I started it. We had parent/teacher conferences last night. That's always a blast. I love having some loud guys with bad breath get all up in my grill and tell me about how great the Patriots and Red Sox are for about 4.5 minutes and then save the last 30 seconds of our conversation to talk about his daughter. Oh yeah, and thanks for telling me about your eye surgery and how they had your eyeball all taken out and then shoved back in. Needed that. No, actually the conferences were fine. That one guy just kind of stood out to me for some reason- no idea why.

Tomorrow is the District Cross-Country Meet. The top 15 automatically go to State. I'm hoping for a couple of my team to make it. That would be really cool in the first year of the program. If not, we're done for the year. I'm about ready for a break anyway. Three months of one sport being the only coach is enough. We've had our ups and downs but overall it's been a good season.

It's no mistake...Dave can devistate.

2007-10-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

Rap has come a long way from this.

I wonder what Dave is up to these days.

The rest of the bad album covers are here. I find some of them hard to believe.

I think today is my first post from ISS. This place has become more structured and less fun. We have all these new forms to fill out and less time to observe and be amazed at the behaviors.

What I may be for halloween

2007-10-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

This could be useful the entire year. I could see myself using this for bike racing in '08. The helmet would be a hard fit.

Speed Poster

2007-10-03T04:19:00.000-07:00

I have no time...so...
Some people have blogs and no entries. That's not a blog.
Someone stole one of our hanging basket ferns from the front of our house a couple of weeks ago. Those ferns are like my childeren man! I have considered booby trapping the rest of them.
Did my first ride in a year on Sunday. It was very nice. Big Tree, WINDY! Jason and I. Should have been Luke too, but he had other things going on. Riding after having a year off is very strange. I need new bibs.
Leslie and I did a fall scene in front of our house this year. This must be booby trapped too.
Cross-Country is interesting. Why are so many of the meets on Saturday? We've had some good results for a first year team- even a first place out of 114.
Alan, I can't keep up with your blog- holy moly.
I have four minutes...
Uh, uh, oh yeah, we've been "investing" in fall/halloween decor this year. It's fun. I didn't get to do any of that stuff growing up in the cult I was in. No white bread either. Now we have scary stuff around the house- YES!
Check out the smile on Butthead's face on his blog. www.thebutthead.blogspot.com He doesn't usually look like that.
Oh. Time's up. Ding ding.

20/20

2007-09-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

Good: Taking a year off from riding a bike since I was sick of it, getting back into some other things I hadn't been into for a while, getting over the feeling that I have to train every single day or else I am falling apart, turning money from bikes and everything else involved in racing and riding into other valuable items like: a new bow, blind, puppy, tree stand.

Bad: Getting rid if ALL my bike stuff. I mean every single scrap. This wouldn't have been bad except for the fact that I'm wanting to get back into riding. So it's like starting over. That takes some money, but you just figure out how to do it cheap.

Advice: Take time off if you need it. Don't get rid of all your stuff.

The future: My outlook on cycling has changed some now that I've had time to get away for a while. I think I'll do some racing, but not much. I think I'll be able to keep it a lot more fun now also since I have no intention of trying to ride everyday. I'm not going to stock up on lots of stuff. I want to keep it simple this time and own what I need and that's about it. Nothing fancy. Nine speed for now. No epic long rides. No riding in bad weather- that's running and lifting weather. No more beer in the waterbottles- no vodka either. No carrying chili in a ziplock for a mid-ride snack.

Goals: Get my link spot back on Butthead's blog, go back to having Meathead call me five times in an hour to set up a 20 minute ride, get dropped by Mr. International Junior Toothpick, meet up at the Coffee Zone for a ride, drink coffee, forget about the ride and go home.

Ahh... good times ahead.

Roots, Blues, Rock and Bikes

2007-09-05T19:08:00.000-07:00

Columbia is a cool town. I've posted and boasted about this before, but it keeps getting better. It's cheap to live here, it's got lots of stuff to do- both indoor and out, culture, rednecks, gays, bi, lesbians, curious, Christians, Atheists, left-wingers, right-winger, intelligence, morons, city mice, country mice, hunters, anti-hunters. Everything and everyone. City parks, state parks, dog parks. Good weather, bad weather, moderate and extreme weather. Well, I'm starting to sound like Dr. Sueuss so let me get to the point. This weekend we have the BCNB Roots and Blues Festival. It's going to be pretty cool. Music and BBQ competition for two days. Did I mention it's free and even Taj Mahal will be here to open the weekend. Checkitout . I didn't realize it, but apparently I could enter the BBQ contest. I'm not going to toot my horn too much, but I think I could do pretty good with a big ol' pork loin like we had at Leslie's birthday last November. That thing weighed about 12lbs and there was nothing left by the time the sun went down. Then on the following Wednesday, Wilco will be here to play a show on 9th St. in front of the BlueNote. I may not make that show since tickets are high dollar. I could always just hang out on the corner down the street I guess and bring a pair of binocs. Then, on 9/11 the Tour of Missouri starts with one of the stages ending right here in C-Town. All this and Tiger Football. I must be living right.

What th! How'd that get there?

2007-09-05T03:24:00.000-07:00

So I go out in my garage this morning and look what's hanging between my Element and one of my climber tree stands:

Have you seen my keys: Update

2007-08-21T03:58:00.000-07:00

Well, about two hours after my last post I got a call from the gym. Some guy brought a set of keys up to the front desk from the "VIP" locker room. He said the keys had been back there for a couple of days and he figured someone would be missing them. So it wasn't a woman and they weren't in a purse. I don't understand how they got in the locker room though. Usually people take the keys off the front desk area when they're leaving. The locker room is back in the gym area. It must have been an old confused man who didn't know if he was coming or going or if he had got his exercise yet or not. I'm just glad to have them back.
Work started yesterday. I was in bed by 8:30 and lights out by 9:00. This will take a little getting used to.
Jason says I need to get a bike. I'm working on it. I may need a donated chamois.

Have you seen my keys?

2007-08-17T05:55:00.000-07:00

This post needs no picture. Two days ago I was at the gym. When you walk in there's a place where many people leave their keys. They are just placed in one of two bowls or left just under the bowls on the counter if the bowls are too full. So I leave my keys there along with most everyone else. I don't think I'll be doing that anymore unless I attach a rattlesnake (live) to my key ring. I always check to make sure I get MY keys when I leave. You wouldn't believe how many people there have a Honda. All the key fobs look alike and they all have these giant over sized keys. So you have to be careful. I've actually picked up someone's keys before but since I actually look at the keys carefully before I walk away I correct and get my own. Wouldn't it be great if everyone else did that? I'd sure appreciate it since it's now been two days since I had my keys which include my work keys. Did I mention I go back to work full-time on Monday? Unfortunately, the person who picked up my keys by accident doesn't believe in getting exercise everyday and they have not returned to the gym. What's strange to me and I'm sure you've already thought of this too is that this person with my keys is without theirs. It seems to me they'd get a clue when they can use my keys on their stuff. I also asked the gym staff if any keys had been left. No. So my idea is this: Someone rode to the gym with someone else on their way out they instinctively went to get their keys, picked up mine looking like theirs, got a ride home, left my keys in their bag or whatever, and found theirs at a later point laying on the kitchen counter, and just assumed that's where they put mine when they got home. So my keys are probably resting in purse (yes, I have a feeling a woman did this) somewhere here in town. I can only hope she put my keys in her favorite purse and it gets used in the next couple of hours. I have asked the gym staff to let me know who the person is when my keys come back because I'd really like to talk to the person who need to pay a little more attention to detail. The only positive to this is the lucky fact that just one week before this fiasco started I placed my only remaining spare in one of those magnetic boxes that you attach to the underside of your car. Without that I wouldn't have even been able to get home from the gym without running there or getting a ride- which by the way I had to do the week previous to that when my car key jumped out of my pocket on one of my runs. Yes, keys have been an issue lately.

Dis and Dat

2007-08-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

I have to get over this thing where I feel the need to post pictures when I want to blog. There's been lots to blog about: Cross-Country, floating, running, shooting, organizing, etc... But here are more pictures. The above is where we camped on the most recent float trip down on the Current River. As far as I've found, the Current River is the best river to float on if you want good scenery and cold, spring fed water. You'll have to leave your beer bong and jello shots at home for this river though because they are trying to improve the level of enjoyment for everyone on the river. This ain't the party cove after all. Moving on...

This is part of the land I'm getting to develop into a cross-country course behind the high school. Uh... it needs some work. It's been brush-hogged, but it needs to have a path mowed into it, smoothed some, and treated for various blood suckers. We started practice on the 6th and used the land but had to quit using it because the ticks were so bad. So over the next couple of years it should turn into something better. Here's a couple more shots of some of the land. The big loop is 1.7 miles around.

This is actually a good hill with my Element at the bottom. It might even make a good cyclo-cross course someday. It'd be cool if Josh could set up a race there sometime in the future. But like I said, it needs work. That's alright though because the runners do too. One kid got dizzy at practice. After a little questioning I found out she hadn't eaten breakfast or dinner the night before because she was too busy. They'll get there though. I took them to a running clinic and for a visit to Dr. Pam of sports nutrition this week. I think they're getting the picture. Much thanks to Pam and Amy for their time. If you have a catchy phrase to put on the T-shirts for cross-country we're going to get done up for the kids, let me know. I was thinking something like "I'm faster than your mama on her way to bingo night at the VFW". Just let me know if you have any ideas.

What the heck kind of bug is this? They were on one of our trees outside this afternoon. Kind of dangerous looking.

Ziggy (below) and Olivia say hi. They're not so much on this heat. The past couple of weeks have been hard times on outside life. We started CX practice just in time for some good triple digits. Luckily, we've been starting practice at 7:00am when it's only about 85 degrees outside. I think we got Dallas, beat on the heat. I'm getting tired of taking three showers a day.

Here's one kind of flower we have that doesn't seem to mind the heat.

Otherwise things are just cruising along. School starts next week. We'll probably get out early some the first week since some of the buildings don't have AC- although they should in the next couple of years.

I've been shooting my bow a lot since bow season starts in a month. I have big plans for the deer this year- I've been shopping for a deep freeze. I can put 3 of 4 arrows in a three inch circle at 30 yards at this point. That should be deadly enough.

I'm ready to have a bike again. Not sure what I'll do about that, but it's been good to be away from it for a while. I'm predicting to do well at the GatewayCup this year since I'll be riding a Vespa. Should be an easy win everyday.

Intentions #2

2007-07-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

The last post you can see on my blog without going back to the older posts page is "Intentions" and at that point I'm about to start summer break. Well, now I'm about to end summer break. It's been a good one. I don't actually start teaching again until the 22nd, but I start Cross-Country practice on the 6th- so that's kind of what I consider going back to work since I'll be there everyday for a couple of hours. I'm excited to get that going.

Another interesting thing this year will be just working in my building where we're going to have about 7 or 8 new teachers because so many left last year for various reasons. I'm going to tell them all I'm their boss and they must do as I say- you know like, "Bring me some coffee!" "Why aren't these papers graded?" "Who forgot to make my copies?" "You there, go get my lunch." "This child isn't behaving, he/she will be in your class from now on." Ah yes, it will be a good year.

Here's a random image for your viewing pleasure.

Chad Vader

2007-07-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

Watch Chad I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of or seen this eight episode series. I started watching it this winter and I love it. It's really well done for a spoof video. The link is to the first episode.

Hey All

2007-07-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much time to post because I've been doing so much dang dong runnin'! I got 32 miles in this past week. Two of the runs were 5:30am group runs with between 75 to 120 people showing up. Pretty cool to run in such a big group.

I've been watching way too many little snips of "The Ballad of Ricky Bobby". I keep catching it and if it's at a "good" part- I watch. Then I turn if off and go quote it with a heavy accent to my wife who now says she doesn't need to see it because I quoted the whole thing. Well, she doesn't need to see it anyway 'cause it's kind of dumb- but somehow it still kind of makes me chuckle. Speaking of chuckle... look at this...

Isn't that just terrible? Baby Sloth. But you laughed didn't you?

Haven't sold the Element yet. Don't really care one way or the other. We'll see what happens.

I have about three weeks of summer break left and then it's the beginning of Cross-Country practice. I hope the kids are ready to run. If not I'll just have to chase them. Maybe put on a scary mask or something. "Run I said! Run!" I tell you what, I bet they'd run if they saw little Baby Sloth come ridin' his little Superman scooter down the trail. I'd be right there with 'em.

Man in the Box

2007-07-08T07:32:00.000-07:00

This is a great "car"!

I have a '05 Honda Element EX AWD. I've had it for almost two years now and I have to say it's the most versitile vehicle I've ever owned. I've slept in it on hunting trips, hauled firewood in it (almost half a cord), carried concrete in it, all the supplies for my back patio project from last summer, lawnmowers, tillers, bikes, camping equipement and campers- everything. It has no carpet so it just wipes down and hoses off. It gets around great in the snow, gets good gas mileage (about 25 on the highway), and it's comfortable. So that's the '05. Right now I'm in the process of trying to get a new '07. It has some nice upgrades from the '05 and I can basically flip cars at little or no extra expense- so why not? I drive about 250 miles per week to work and back so it makes sense to have something that's fun to drive and super functional. Nice stereo too. If and when I get the '07, I'll have to post about it and it's upgrades. Until then you've got to check this out. The one's with the crab are the funniest to me.

Just remembered

2007-06-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

So when we were down in Mexico, I played some beach volleyball. This is post edge of death sickness- so I wasn't hittin' on all eight to say the least. I pretty much felt like half or a little less. Nonetheless, I tried. Well, there was this couple there from Texas, more than likely Dallas- westend folk. The guy seemed nice enough- kind of quiet and reserved but having a good time. His wife on the other hand was...hmmm....something else shall we say. She thought and dressed like she was every straight man's fantasy. It was just a little over "over the top". She was yelling at the other guys on her team when they'd miss a bump or spike or whatever and acting like she was ready to knock the ball down my throat. But what really stuck with me and still makes me kind of chuckle to think about today is what she kept yelling at her husband. You need to hear this in your head with a heavy Texan accent and think of an older, not really in shape, scantly clad, leather skinned, half buzzed, half naturally obnoxious "lady". She must have yelled to her quiet, reserved husband at least a dozen times, "SPIKE IT TONY!!!!" Yeah well, Tony was about 5'6" and there weren't gonna be no spikin' on this net ya'll. It was about two feet above regulation and he didn't even have the wind in his favor. But... she kept yellin', "SPIKE IT TONY!!!" I'll leave you with another gem she said when he missed a shot. "Well, guess what you're not getting tonight?"

Here's a photo just because:

This is a resort delivery truck. One more drink and I would have taken off on it and let them chase me.

Rainy Day Post

2007-06-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

It was getting kind of brown and dry around here, so I washed my car yesterday. You're welcome Columbia. No joke- the last time it rained here was the last time I washed my car by hand- pretty ironic.
It's been a month since my last post and it's probably be longer before I posted again but after looking at K.A.'s blog a moment ago I thought I better play a little catch-up. So let's see what's happened in the past month: Went to Mexico- good time except for getting very ill and not leaving our room for about 36 hours. I never really quite recovered the rest of the time we were there. I'd feel better- then worse, better- then worse. I think Leslie and I agree that Jamaica was better. Jamaica is just socially warmer.
I've been running a lot. I did part of the MU cross-country camp this week. I only did one of the runs, but it was a really good one out at Rockbridge State Park. We ran about seven miles and I was able to keep up with the halflings (kids half my age). Other than that it was going to talks on running mechanics and whatnot.
This Sunday I'm going on a camping/float trip with longtime friends, Morgan and Mac. We haven't done anything like this together in about 10 years or more. We're heading down to the Jack's Fork river which is spring fed and in big time Deliverance country. I'm sure we'll quote the movie more than once. You know, "Who's playin' that banjo?" "You got a real pretty mouth on ya. Yer gonna do some prayin' for me." "Take them panties off. Take 'em straight off!" Oh what fun we'll have. Kermit will be glad to know the squirrels will be safe. (inside joke)
I almost went out and bought a bike a couple of days ago. I just felt like riding. So I went out for a long run and got over it. Actually, I would like to get a bike just so I could ride if I wanted to. The problem is that I'd have to get a nice one after always having had nice bikes. That's a big investment I'm not sure I want to make today. We'll see what happens.
Let me see if there are any pictures I want to share... no. See you next time.

A new kitchen and new friends

2007-05-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

The past 10 days have been way busy. I finally finished the school year and on the last day,which was filled with meetings in the morning and playing poker in the afternoon, I was counted as a "no show" to a meeting while attending another. I don't even know why I'm mentioning it except that it pissed me off to be doing what I should be and having my "boss" think I'm blowing off work. Vel anyvay...

So the new kitchen... here's before sort of. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures before the demo started- but you'll get the idea.

Okay, so let's just add a little...

Bam!

Bam!Bam!

New quartz countertop, swanstone sink, faucet, under cabinet lighting, "over the sink" light, and a Colorado slate backsplash. Lots of work, work, work- but it was worth it. Leslie designed the backsplash layout and it is very cool with pewter accents. I ran the tile saw, Leslie's mom and step-dad helped out in a huge way doing a little bit of everything.

Like the title said, I made some new friends lately too:

I met this "guy" in my backyard. His name is Butthead. He's about four feet long and hard on mice and small rabbits.

Finally, I met these guys at Leslie's graduation party. Their names are Dino and Swen and they are members of a Swedish rock group called Onyourputer. Very friendly and obviously "artistic". They told me the names of some of their songs and their latest release includes the singles, "Dude", "Play my glockenspheil", "Oh no, it's baby poop", "Can I fix your sink?", "Seven bikes and nowhere to ride" and my favorite "Quit touching me there!"

Another One Bites the Dust

2007-05-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

See ya! Jerk!

Intentions

2007-05-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

Can we say "single digit days?" Oh yes- nine- count 'em. My plan for my first Monday off from school is simple: I will sit in my driveway, in a comfortable chair, drinking coffee and waving to people driving to work. I suppose I will wave to my wife as well since she will still be working at that point. I'll get her to take a picture before she leaves and post it the same morning. I may as well- it's not like I'll have to go to work.

16.5

2007-05-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

After today, which will be over in about 3.25 hours, I will have 16.5 days of school left before I get about three months off. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! At a point, time is worth much more than money.

Things have been really busy. I've been doing lots of yard work and it's paying off. My back yard is starting to look like a golf course. This time last year it kind of looked like a construction site. I'm most proud of my front yard where we have a really nice perenial flower bed that I've been working on since last year when it was pretty much a giant wad of lariope grass. I really need to post some before and after pics of that.

I've been turkey huntingand mushroom hunting.

Zero luck on either, but it's good to get outside in the woods in spring. There's a lot going on out there and it's a shame if you don't take a morning to check it out. I missed out on seeing any of that stuff for all the years I raced bikes. That was fun, but it's a nice change to get up, head out to the woods and watch everything going crazy coming to life. One interesting thing that I found last weekend when I was hunting was the fact that turtles can apparently see pretty well. I was walking kind of underneath this ledge of rock and moss. I got about 10 feet away from it and I could hear something making it's way through the undergrowth. I stopped and waited to see what it would be. Here comes this turtle doing his thing.

He stops and just stands there looking right at me. I wasn't even moving. Then he turned about and started heading away. He stops again and basically looks over his shoulder at me. He kept taking a few steps and looking back. It was weird.

I also thought of Butthead this weekend. I was looking for mushrooms in the woods and a 4.5 foot black snake kind of popped out and surprised me.

I taunted him with a stick for a minute until he looked fully pissed and started rearing up. Speaking of Butthead, I think I saw a photo of him at a race recently. Must be off the diet.

Mid-west culture on the skids

2007-04-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-04-10T16:40:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

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.

Prankster

2007-03-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

I recently saw a news report on our local news about a certain local news woman who is known at one of our local stations for pulling lots of pranks. She passed on some extremely valuable information I put to use the very next day. I can't tell you all I learned because you might use it on me, but I can and will tell you that putting scotch tape over the receiver button on a co-workers phone and then going to the other room and calling them is well worth the effort. You call them, they pick up the phone and say, "hello?" and the phone contiunes to ring. In my perticular situation this is even better because we have a brand new phone system and it makes the called person feel like they're doing something wrong. So they start pushing all kinds of buttons on the phone and generally getting really frustrated. The only drawback in my situation is that each phone has caller ID, so once they see the tape on the phone- I'm had.
The next prank I intend to use involves donuts and a certain pickling chemical that resembles powdered sugar. I'll let you know...

One thing leads to another

2007-03-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

First I buy some running shoes- start running. Next thing I know- I'm the new head coach for cross-country at the high school. Actually, there's a lot more to it than that, but it did happen pretty fast once it got rolling. I can't remember if it was my first year here or my second, but another teacher and I were talking about the possibility of cross-country racing coming to the district. It was just kind of talk- no planning or asking. I always thought it would be cool to coach cross-country and more interesting to me than football had been. But I was a football coach and we didn't have cross-country. Then there was a track coach clinic in the winter and the possibility of bringing cross-country to our district came up. My name got dropped for the coaching position. More time passes and the position becomes a reality. I apply. I interview with others. I become the coach. I make the paper. I'm famous in a small town. Yeah! Now it's my job to grow the sport locally and start a tradition. Apparently we had cross-country here about 15 or 20 years ago and it just kind of died out. It's kind of exciting to be the guy in charge of trying to bring it back.

The rainbow returns- and I thought nothing was going on.

2007-03-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

Last year sometime I posted about how diverse Columbia is as a town. On the day that prompted my post I was almost run over by a couple of redneck dicks in a monster truck. Later that day I got a flat tire on my ride and was offered help by none other than the mayor of our city. Columbia is a university city and that brings a lot of diversity. I'm glad to say it's a pretty progressive place to live.
Unfortunately, we have some not-so-progressive thinkers coming out to parade this weekend. The National Socialist Movement will be putting on a parade downtown this Saturday. The NSM is the largest neo-Nazi movement in the US today. I don't know how they came up with their name, but I've elected to give them the nickname, "butthole". I mean think about it, why go to the trouble of saying, "Hey dude, I'm in the National Socialist Party." Or you might confuse someone by saying, "I'm in the NSM." No, no, no. Just use the k.i.s.s. (keep it simple stupid) method and say, "I'm a butthole." Everyone will know what you mean. Nonetheless, here they come on Saturday. Not much to be done about it but ignore them I guess. Apparently a couple of years ago they were having a parade or rally in Toledo, OH and it started a four hour riot. I can only hope it doesn't come to that.
Well, whatever happens maybe it'd be swallowed a little easier with this .

Lawn Man to take over for Lawn Chief

2007-02-28T09:57:00.000-08:00

There's really no point to this post. I just like getting on other blogs and seeing new stuff so I'll try to do the same. It's the last day of February- thank God, because that means spring is coming and winter is leaving. I question why I live in this state every winter- I hate it- and this was actually a pretty bad winter for around here. Soon though, things will green up and I'll have to buy a new lawn mower because the Lawn Chief finally kicked the bucket last fall. You might remember the Chief from earlier posts where I had repaired him at least half a dozen times. Finally, last fall, his pull-rope broke and I didn't have all the tools I needed to take him apart, put in the new rope, and then put him back together. I tired but he resisted so I kicked him to the curb on a chilly Sunday night. Monday is trash day and in the early morning light I could see that someone had taken pity on the cheif and taken him home before he became a citizen of the local land fill. It'd be funny to see him chopping down a yard out about town some day on one of my runs that I'm looking forward to when it gets warm enough to get a sunburn. But that's all fantasy and the reality is that right now I'm in ISS with four of my past students. A fight and two brothers who thought they could both skip school without anyone putting the coincidence together. It's grey out, chilly, and windy. Guess I'll just sit back and wait for spring and the thought of being here in June, after Leslie graduates with her Masters in Counseling.
P.S. Consumer Reports lists the "Lawn Man" as the best buy all around push mower. Gotta get mine yo.

The new game- running

2007-02-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to the Starting Block. They are a running, triathlon outfitter next to the gym I go to. They put me on a treadmill and filmed me walking and running. Then they sold me these.

Notice the MU colors. I had become really frustrated the day before shopping at the mall for running shoes. First of all you can pretty much trust that the guy working at FootLocker doesn't know much about what you need. You know, "Try these on. Walk to the door and come back. "How do they feel?" "Uh, pretty good." "Good, meet me at the register." Well, enough of that. I actually got "fitted" for these shoes. Turns out there's a lot more to the different types of shoes than the colors and styling. I actually saved about $30.00 by getting the fitting done. If you are in the market for running shoes, you should find a place that does the fitting. It was free where I went.

Cute and Cuddley vs. Gross

2007-02-12T03:39:00.000-08:00

Below are two pictures: One very nice, the other not. Can you tell which is which?

Ice fishing has been good.

More Dreams- More death and destruction

2007-02-07T09:50:00.000-08:00

What the hell? Two nights ago I dreamed of a man being killed on power lines. Last night there was more death. I was walking down the street in a town I didn't recognize. It was warm and humid- perhaps New Orleans. I was with some guy and I'm not sure who he was, but I think it may have been Randy Jackson from American Idol. We were walking and talking. All of a sudden a man comes out of the dark, draws a large gun from his jacket, and starts shooting. Randy takes one in the gut and falls. I say I'll go get help and take off. The guy with the gun is after me, but luckily I can run fast in this dream. I somehow arrive at an apartment complex and turn to find him close behind me. I head upstairs and he starts shooting. He misses and I jump down to his floor and attack him. I put my thumbs in his eyes and poke out his eyes. I wake up... Not cool.

Winter Entertainment

2007-02-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

When it's truly cold out to the point you really can have skin exposed, you need to find unusual things to do. Around here, ice fishing is not a popular sport. But it's truly cold out and the lake that the Conservation Dept. stocks with trout is frozen over with 6+ inches of ice. So ice fishing is popular right now. The last time I went ice fishing was about three winters ago. It's a blast and a good lesson in survival.
I went out this past Saturday and was on the ice before 7:00am. Only part of my face was exposed, so I was in good shape. The problem is you can't do much in the way of fine motor work with big gloves on- so you take them off to get the hook from the fish or bait the hook. There's a formula for how much time you can have skin exposed at different temps. before it starts to freeze. I passed that limit. It's not so much the cold and numb feeling that's a problem- it's the warming back up part that smarts. I honestly don't think I've ever been in so much pain with no way to stop it. You just have to wait. It's three days later now and my fingertips are still just a little sore. I did fill my limit of four trout though with one really nice fish. Pictures to follow.
I guess I need entertainment when I sleep too. Maybe that's why I had a dream last night that I saw a guy get electricuted on powerlines... His face melted off. That one woke me up.

A ghost is born.

2007-01-31T03:53:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you can't get mad at kids for the weird things they do in class. When I looked up from my computer I saw a student holding up this little sign like he was advertising a new show coming to Broadway. "Bring that here!" He sat down and tore it in half and wadded it up. "No, no, no. Bring it here." He reluctantly brought it to me and waited as I ironed it out and pieced it back together. As I started laughing all I could say was, "Go sit down."

Finally...

2007-01-29T08:19:00.000-08:00

I got a response. The teacher approached me and asked if I was the "prankster". "What do you mean?" "I mean are you the funny guy who keeps putting things on the door that fall in on me when I open it?" "Someone did that to you?" She was on to me, but I continued to play it off. Since then I have come clean on that. Speaking of clean, I also started messing with one of our custodians. He's a real nice guy and a lot of people give him a hard time. I knew he wouldn't mind if I took his plunger from his cleaning cart the other day while he was in one of the other bathrooms cleaning and stuck it to the inside of the opposing stall. That was a pretty spontaneous one that cracked me up pretty good. The next morning he asked me, "Did you have a good time playing with my plunger?"
I think winter needs to end...

Keeping Myself Entertained

2007-01-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

It's really winter here and there's not much to do. It's cold and the ground is covered with ice and snow. It's not usually like that around here. It's been keeping me in more than I'm used to and more than I can take. So I'm finding new ways of entaining myself. Mostly by pulling pranks at work.
One of the other teachers here who works on the third floor like me has two doors that go into her room. One main enterance and one back door that is connected to a small supply room and another door leading to yet another classroom. I use that small room to cook stuff in the microwave that is in there. Always there is all kinds of stuff laying around- mostly stuff for projects and supplies for experiments. So everytime I go in the small room to use the microwave I take the two or three minutes it takes to heat my food or water to place something against the door that will fall on the first person who comes through the door of the other classroom. The first time I leaned two brooms against the door and never heard what happend. Then I started leaning other stuff against the door. I never heard anything about the result. No one complained. So I started placing items on the handle of the door opposite the side of the classroom- plastic jars that would make a bunch of noise, books, whatever I could find in there. Still no response. Yesterday, I placed this huge beachball thing hanging on a string right in front of the door so when the door opened it would swing in and attack the person opening the door. Finally this moring

Out In Space

2006-12-07T09:49:00.000-08:00

It's cold. Probably back when I posted last it was still kind of warm- considering that was going on two months ago. A lot has happened. Nothing bad- all good. Let's see: Quit racing bikes (very happy about that), Got a puppy (also very good), Put on a surprise party for Leslie's 30th B-Day (Perfect), Bought a bunch of new hunting stuff (cool) Put up Christmas lights on my house for the first time while having a conversation with some witnesses of Jahova (ironic), Played in the snow until I was sick (you don't get the chance to play in that much snow around here every year). Lots of stuff and more. Quitting bike racing is great. I think a lot more people would do it if they had the balls. I think a lot of people are hanger-ons. You know, "I don't want to ride or race, but I can't seem to stop." I was just like, "I don't want to do this anymore, so I'm not going to." Racing and riding has been fun. Now I'm looking forward to other interests I've put on the back burner for years.

Ladies...

2006-10-20T03:38:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter if you can't read what it says. It's probably better if you don't read much fine print anyway.
Nothing like having the chance to sleep in to 7:00 and waking up at 5:00. Eh, who cares? I could be doing a lot of things right now. Sleeping would be good, but I have an easy day ahead. I have nothing else to say right now. Butthead's picture of prime rib is gross! I hate that photo and I'll be glad when it's archived.

Crap to write, crap to read

2006-10-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

I've been writing blogs and saving them as drafts because I hate crap, and that's basically what I've been writing. I'd rather not write at all than write crap because you know- all the big time critics are reading this and I don't want to mess up my chance for a pro blog deal. Besides, I've been wanting to upload some pics, but I'm always writing from work and I don't have my camera with me.
Tonight is the last football game of the season. Last year we were undefeated going 11-0 between the 7th and 8th grades. This year we are probably going to finish up 11-1 if we win both games tonight. We lost one 7th grade game in the last couple of minutes of play. Not bad though considering before last season it had been over 20 years since the middle school had an undefeated season. I'm glad it's going to be over after tonight- I'm tired. That's all there is to it. It'll be weird to get home before 4:00pm now. The work day will seem very short.
Quite a bit going on actually, I've been buying tools: leaf blower, weedeater, chainsaw. Fun tools. The chainsaw is wicked. Stihl 290. I can really whip some ass with that thing. Tree ass that is. Never point a chainsaw at something you don't intend to cut. Or maybe that was pointing guns. Either way you have to be careful. If you need a tree cut up or cut down call me. You can't borrow my saw but you can watch me use it on your tree.
I've been looking at www.youtube.com a lot. There's good stuff on there.
Does Jimmy still live here?
Golf is going good. I made Meathead mad the last time we played because I had a couple of shots that were better than his. He can still kill it though.
I haven't ridden my bike in about six or seven weeks. I don't care really- it's just that time of year where football takes over for a short while.
We're getting a puppy in a few weeks. He's already picked out, but we can't have him until around Thanksgiving time. He should taste good with some gravy and stuffing. Looking forward to it.
Peeps are moving away, but I won't say who since peeps are posting about it themselves. Not my job to report the news of others. I'm not Geraldo.
Funny stuff at school...let's see...oh yeah. The other day I was telling the kids in one class how to do something on their homework. I said, "It should be pretty obvious what the answer is when you look at it." So a kid says (girl), "So, can just write, "it's obvious" for the answer on our paper?" "...no"
I think I mentioned before that I have breakfast duty this year. Or maybe that was just one of my drafts. It's turning out to be a good deal. It's cool to get free breakfast and actually seeing the kids before the actual day starts is a good thing. I just walk around while they eat and talk to them. I have to make sure they wipe down the tables and push in their chairs. Other than that it's way easy.
Jeff Buckley died way too early. His music is really good in the fall for some reason.
Should I build new tubular wheels for next year or just buy out of the box wheels?
The Mizzou game isn't on TV this coming weekend. What the hell? No. I won't buy a ticket and just go. I got too spoiled from getting free tickets for two years.
Five minutes to lunch. Frito chili pie?

We're all winners!

2006-09-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

I did the MS 150 for the first time last weekend. You could also say I did the MS 150 for the last time. Overall, the experience was good. It was cool riding with Ozenpro and Morgan. It was not cool having some super choad roll his eyes at me and shake his head when I told him I didn't drink Gatorade. He was like, "But where do you get your calories from?" "Uh, not Gatorade." The eye rolling and head shaking really sent me over the edge. I was so pissed I had to drop everyone out there the rest of the day. So I cranked it up to 14MPH and put the hammer down. I dropped fat women and children first. Then dorks and tri-geeks spinning a cadence of 20rpms. Before that incident Ozenpro and I were waiting for Morgan at one of the stops on the side of the road. We were clearly off to the side and there was tons of room left in the lane. All of a sudden, some woman rides by and yells, "Don't just stop in the middle of the road!" She said it as if we had been riding in front of her and just threw on the brakes. But we had been sitting there for like two minutes. Luckily, my quick witted MS 150 poaching teammate, Ozenpro, says without missing a tick, "Screw you." It was so smooth. Like he was just waiting for her to say something. It was the pro move of the day and it stuck. She didn't want none of us.
Overall, I'd have to say I wish the MS 150 would go to another town. I think charity rides are great, but we're going to need some new charities for local racers who have been assulted by drivers when pissed off motorists take out on us their anger of how some of the MS 150 riders behave. The problem is that all these inexperienced riders come here from out of town and while most ride faily responsibily, some ride like they are immune to being hit by a car, or as if courtesy doesn't apply to you if you're on a charity ride. I saw a pair of guys make a left hand turn right in front of an oncoming car going about 50mph. So here in a couple of weeks I'll be out on that same road with that same guy driving his car. Do you think he'll be thinking, "Oh, that's not the guy who pissed me off and turned right in front of me a couple of weeks ago." Or do you think he'll be saying to himself, "I HATE CYCLISTS! ALL OF THEM!"
I'd have to say that the MS 150 is probably not good for local cycling or cyclists. I'm sure to the public the people who do the MS 150 represent "cycling" and "cyclists" as a whole. I don't think we want most of these people making the impression of cycling for us.
In a nutshell: Charity- good. Charity ride cyclists- not so good.

Overheard

2006-08-30T07:36:00.000-07:00

School is starting out with a bang! I am expecting much to blog about this year and little to none of it will have to do with riding or racing a bike. Mostly because I quit. I'm sick of crusty old men giving me a beat down everytime I line up. I hate old people. Especially the ones who go fast on bikes with their skinny old bodies lapping mine. I'm not really quitting, but I did take a beating from one man last weekend in one of the last crits of the year for me. Now I only have to take four more beatdowns before I get to relax and just yell at kids all day.
We're having a fund raiser at our school to put phones in each of the rooms. Yesterday the representative for the company who kind of puts on our fundraiser had all the 6th graders in the gym telling them about how it works. Here's one of her first lines to the 10-12 year old kids, "Kids, what's the thing you think about ALLLLL the time?......................And, I'm not talking about SEX!"
"HOLY CRAP! Did she just say that?" That's what all the teachers' faces said as we looked at each other. Then our principal walks to the back of the room and as he's passing us he says under his breath, "Yeah, I'm going to need to talk to her about that." Maybe it doesn't seem like a big deal, but you have to realize that beginning of the year 6th graders are just little kids and when she said that they all just looked at her like she had pulled an axe murderer out of a hat.
Then a couple of days ago I was passing out text books. I was explaining how the books need to be taken care of because they're new and it costs $50.00 to replace one book. A kid raises his hand and says in a real slow low voice, "How about if you use your book as a weapon?" as he picks it up with two hands and pretends to crush the skull of the kid in front of him. "Would you have to pay $50.00 for that?" My reply while all the kids are giving a scared little giggle, "I think we'd have a different problem if that happens."

Yaaaawn

2006-08-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

I just woke up on my first Saturday of the new school year. I've been back to work for just one week now and I already love Saturday mornings again. You don't really care what day it is when it's summer and you're not working.
I'm sure in no time I'll get to post from the ISS room. So far though kids are being good. It usually takes until about the third week of school for anyone to test the waters of behavior. I don't mind waiting. This year is going to be different though because this is the first year where I've taught all the kids in the school- so being with them in ISS will be easier since I won't be wondering about the temperment of the kid who I'm telling to turn around, be quiet and get to work. You can say that same thing to any kid and get several different results ranging from positive to a reaction that gets that kid another pink slip and a trip to the office. It's not so much what you say as how you say it. We also go new desks in ISS. Pretty nice. You know, the ones with the walls around them so you can't see to you left, right, or front.
Oh yeah, I'm also the new breakfast supervisor. So for 25 minutes each day I stand there and tell kids to hurry up and eat, wipe down your table, push in your chair and get out! It's usually not a position anyone volunteers for, but it was either one person does it and gets paid for doing it plus free breakfast, or everyone gets assigned to do it on a rotating basis and no one gets paid. So I took one for the team. I was going to wind up doing it one way or another so I may as well get paid. It also gets me out of all other before and after school duties.
This blog is dull. What else is going on? I'm hitting golf balls better. Especially since I realized I'm left handed at golf.
One of my friends is supposed to be going to Iraq. Hopefully the deployment won't happen.
Five more races for me including tonight for this year. After that, it's pretty much over for me with football coaching.
I'm hoping to have some good parties for MU football games at our place this fall. If you can't have a good team, you can still have a good time.
Can you name the meat?

Tidbits

2006-07-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I was on a ride with Ozenpro and The Meat. They were telling stories about guys getting their finger caught between the chain and the chainring on their bikes. Sounded terrible. I was actually kind of glad to end that visual at the end of the discussion. So two days ago I got my finger caught between the chain and the chainring. Yeah, that's as bad as I thought it would be. I guess what makes it worse is the fact that all the stories, including my own, happend with a fixed gear bike where no coasting is allowed and fingers don't come out right away. They kind of go in and leave you with the choice to either go all the way around the chainring or stop the wheel and back the finger out the way it came in. I chose backing the finger out. It all happened really quick and blood was on the floor before I could scream, "holyshitgoddamnmotherfucker!"
The story isn't that interesting, I was cleaning my chain with a rag. The rag got caught in the chainring, pulled my finger with it a bit too far, and then the finger goes in between the chainring (fingernail side to the ring) and the chain, and then I get a full puncture through the fingernail with one of the teeth on the chainring. What is interesting is the irony of just having been talking about this very thing happening and having it happen to me. So be careful what you talk about, and if you're around me talk about finding huge wads of money on the side of the road, or eating large amounts of sushi, strangers buying drinks at the bar, whatever. Just keep it positive and painless.
In other news: It's hot outside. Pretty much the way it should be considering it summer. I'm no good at frying chicken but I keep trying. I'm trying again tomorrow night.

What You've Been Waiting For

2006-07-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

Here's the patio then...

Here's the patio now...

Throw Down and Throw Up

2006-07-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

I posted about a week ago and then saved it as a draft because there was something else I wanted to add- probably some pics that I didn't ever take. But now everything has changed so I better just post anew. Is that how you spell "anew"?
On the last post I was beginning work on the back patio. Now the patio is almost finished, but I'm not supposed to post pictures until my wife has added her final touches to it. I can say though it's looking real good. I can also say that it's probably taken some years off my life. You know when you start something and then about umm, let's say 40% of the way through you like, "Uh...what am I doing?" It was a big project that got bigger as it went along and as my wife and I started getting more ideas. I have to admit I enjoyed all of it. Even when I went to bed with swollen knees and numb hands. I have a greater appreciation of those who built the pyramids now. On the retaining wall what I thought would take two or three courses of stones wound up taking five. And as far as pavers go for the surface- let's just say they know me by name at Home Depot and after about a week of trips there I started getting credit offers from them because pavers arent cheap. If my back patio was a pile of money in my back yard I'd be sitting out there guarding it with a shotgun. Luckily, I got a break and went here with Leslie.
This is Cannon Beach, Oregon. It's pretty there.

Mostly, we were in Portland, to see friends and to reduce the swelling in my knees. It was a nice break and a great trip except for the return flight where we flew through a thunderstorm and doors started flying open on the plane. No, not the outside doors. Just the ones where they keep all the heavy stuff that falls out when the door comes open. How bad was it? When we were finally getting off the plane while clutching our souls the pilot asked Leslie and me with a grin, "Did you get your money's worth?" Jackass!

So here's a shot of the patio for Butthead.

What do you mean you can't see the patio? It's right there behind the case of the latest feature documentary starring none other than the fat man of cycling. We'll just call him "Tim".
This past weekend Tim won, and I mean hands down won the Tour de Doughnut. How many people were there? Oh, just 700. Tim finished with a NEGATIVE time of 6' and some change because he ate 20 large and shiny doughnuts and still rolled at an average of 26mph for 32 miles. The guy who finished second was 20 minutes behind. You get five minutes off your elapsed time for every doughnut you eat. No, you don't have to keep the doughnuts down and I can attest that I saw the pile of doughnuts on the ground after it was all said and done. Last year there was a film crew there making a movie about the race because it's well, bizzare, stupid, a bad idea, and fun. Tim quickly became the obvious choice for the most interesting participant by doing nothing less than unzipping his jersey and giving his belly a little push out will approaching the masses of doughnuts while pretending he was clocking in before starting to eat. Last year didn't go like we planned. He didn't win. So he came up with a training plan for this year- don't ride, eat as usual, and assemble a group of large men who could push him up the hills and create a draft that an 18 wheeler would appreciate. There were eight of us. I think I was the smallest and really of little use. I did what I could and didn't eat any doughnuts. I did go for the overall nonadjusted time win, but came up short when a few guys who weren't there last year showed up. One of them was a category one racer who lives two towns over from Staunton, IL, where the race was held. So I got fourth. Not bad, but I wanted the sweep of the adjusted time for Tim and the nonadjusted time for me. Nonetheless, I did come home with a copy of the movie and we're going to have a party for a local showing of the movie. So keep your calendar open because all are invited- and I mean all. This movie is not yet rated so I don't know if we can have kids over. It is somewhat graphic.
So I guess that's it for now. More patio photo soon. Hopefully some with you in them enjoying a pint of your favorite. No lemonade Butthead. You come on my patio and you're drinking beer.

Haus

2006-06-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

Probably no one will ever read this because it's been so long since I last updated that anyone who wastes their time reading this blog has given up on the posibility of me updating. But I've been busy and the only reason I'm updating now is because I honestly have nothing better to do. This is the first night in several that I'm not working on something around the house until dark. Considering I felt like going to bed at 6:00 tonight I figured I'd just sit for a minute and update this can.
As far as news goes, I've been out of school now for a month and I'm loving it. It's really cool getting up early and sitting on my front porch drinking coffee while watching everyone drive off to work. Riding and racing have taken a back seat this summer because I'm catching up on several years of not having a yard of my own to work on and change into what I want it to be. It's my new obsession. After I get done with big projects around here and move to the maintaining stage, I'll probably pick the bike back up more. It's just not too important to me right now. Of course there's golf too. I'm wanting to start playing that and I have zero experience so that may begin soon.
Here's some pics of what I've been recently working on: This is the old front porch area.
This is the new front porch area. It was a cool project. It's weird how many people stopped by to check out the work and comment on how good it looks. Our postman even stopped, got out of his mailtruck, and came over to check it out. Neato.
Here's the new project on the back. It's still in progress. This is the back patio as it was. Not bad, but kind of in need of some work.

This is the sketch layout of what the size and shape of the new patio will be. About twice the size and with a retaining wall. It will be much better for parties. We also have a deck in the back and I'm going to build a walkway going out to it. That will be right after the patio is finished.

So for other news. My back hurts, one of my cats spent the night in the garage last night. She got out there somehow last night and we didn't know it until this morning. When she came in our other cat was freaked out and hissed at her for about two hours. He probably figured she was out on the town all night messing around on him with other cats. I rode in the rain today. Haven't done that in a while. It started pouring when I was about two blocks away from home. I was already getting wet, so what the hell?
The Tour de Doughnut is in about two weeks and the movie about the race comes out about the same time. Should be funny. Here's a link to the race info. http://www.bebikeclub.com/tourdedonut/yearspast.html
Bye bye.

Randoms

2006-05-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

I like reading everyone's blogs. Wish I knew how to link everyone's to mine. I know not so much about dees tings.
When I care less- I like it more. Something I'm realizing. Like the Chili Pepper lyrics about Magic Johnson's basketball talent, "Other teams play for G's but he don't give a fuck."
Tomorrow is our housewarming party. Most of the outside of our house is new now: new roof, new gutters, new siding all the way around. Thanks Mr. Hail Storm.
Dealing with insurance claims sucks. Over the course of our claim, we had four adjusters. None of which knew what the previous one had done really. So my part-time job for the past month and a half or so has been calling State Farm and then calling my contractor, then calling State Farm and back again.
Uh...when kids make themselves vomit in ISS for entertainment- it's time to go home for the year. That happened the hour before I got here luckily because it would have made me puke too. That is nasty.
I wrote a kid up today for going around hitting other kids with what was basically a weedeater string. He hit one kid in the face. I feel bad for the kid because he has a jacked up homelife from what I can tell- basically no supervision. He's getting in trouble around town with the cops too, so things aren't looking very good for him. Anyway, he's done for the year. We only have 2.5 days of school left. He won't be here for them.
Some people are racing this weekend and going up some sick climb at the end. Good luck.
Prozenberger is racing his mountain bike this weekend in town. Last time I went out to watch a race at Cosmo, I wore what I had been hunting in that morning and when people came by I screamed at them with my deer call while hiding in the woods. That was pretty fun. This year I will just wear a distracing costume and wait for a response. I told Prozenberger I was going to wear one of these.

Just kidding.

Return of Hotdog Neck

2006-05-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

4 days of school left. I have never felt so blown out from a school year as I do this year. I am just done and holding on by a very thin thread. Over the past 5 days or so, there has been a full crew in ISS everyday. We're talking 12-14 bad attitudes stuffed into a room that is about 20' X 10'. That causes a lot of tension. Luckily, today when I walked in there were only two guys in here- one of them was 'ole Hotdog Neck- the kid who got in trouble for calling another kid "hotdog neck". He's actually not much of a kid. He's taller than I am and looks more like a man. He's a real good athlete too. This past year in football I saw him break upwards of seven tackles on some plays. I know you're thinking that's no big deal because it's only middle school football, but I'm telling you that most of the 8th graders are much more like high schooler than little kids. We have this one 8th grader who's into lifting weights and goes up to the high school and benches like 250 lbs. They all shave and their ugly. But I digress.
On my way to ISS I was thinking about the student I'm calling "hotdog neck". I hadn't seen him in trouble in a while and I was glad because he was getting in trouble a lot lately. So I walk into ISS and look who's there, old Hotdog Neck himself. I just started laughing because it was so ironic. He turns and looks at me and starts kind of snickering and shaking his head because he know's I'm going to give him some hell.
"What's up Hotdog Neck?"
"Aw man."
It goes on for a while and then I get this great idea. I pull up a picture of what I tell him is going to be his first car when he gets a little older and call him over to see it...

"Aw man."

How good am I at racing bikes?

2006-05-14T07:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't want to brag but... checkmeout
I had planned and registered for the Joe Martin Stage Race in Arkansas. For me, probably the most expensive race weekend of the year. I was "banking" on certain funds being available to go to that race, and there was no way I was going without those certain funds. Those certain funds alluded me. Chasing money is hard sometimes. Needless to say, I didn't make it to Joe Martin. Apparently it didn't matter because I still did well down there for the Friday stage of 110 miles. I was unaware of my results until Saturday morning when I received a sleepy voicemail from one of my teammates who is down at the race in person. He says, "Hey, you need to get down here for today's stage. Right now, you're sitting in 36 place overall. You're money." So I figure he's probably just kidding and making fun of me for noting being there. I get on the old intronet and check the results from Friday's stage. Sure enough,there I am finishing with the lead group. Damn, I'm pretty good. I hope I do that good in the following stages- my teammate is expecting a payout.
To complicate, appreciate, anticipate and deviate even more, yesterday I get a call from another one of my teammates and he starts reading me the above Velonews article. I never knew not racing would be so much fun. Just think how much fun it must be for the guys who do it for real- and on someone else's nickel.

Reasons I hate clowns

2006-05-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

I have hated clowns for a long time. I know I'm not the only one who hates clowns. I think they're hiding something behind that makeup- whatever it is they're hiding is something bad. Here's an example of clowns hurting someone.

I'm not even sure this picture is appropriate for this blog. That's sick! Sick clowns!

A slow news day?

2006-05-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

this is news?
Man, if that's news, I have front page stuff to report on a daily basis. For instance, between 2nd and 3rd hour today, while I'm standing in the hall "supervising", a kid slaps another kid on the back of the neck for no reason. Just reaches out and lays the smack down. It was loud too. Like snapping a towel. As you can probably guess the slapper got sent to ISS. The "slappie" fell to the floor crying and holding his neck. Now I don't know if he was putting on a show or what, but I can say he wound up getting picked up by his parents and taken to the hospital because he apparently couldn't turn his head.
Or how about this: There were so many kids in ISS today it was standing room only. It was a record for the time I'm in there. We've had it full, but never standing room only.
We have 9.5 days of school left.
We're having a party at our place on the 20th. If you're reading this you're invited: Butthead, Greenbeans, Bolt-on, Peeps of CX, Mr. Trek Rep, and of course those who got an invitation in the mail. I know some of your are racing, but some of you aren't. If you are racing- reconsider. Racing is overrated and costs too much. You look like a sissy in those tight shorts and no one wants to see your manscape in lycra. Parties are underrated and the stories that come from good parties are better than the best racing stories.
That's the news.

A Rainbow of Redneck color

2006-05-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

Columbia is a strange town. We're small enough to have big redneck hics and big enough to have enough diversity that lots of people feel good about hanging the rainbow coalition flag outside their door. It seems on some rides you experince all the rednecks- screaming at you, sometimes throwing beer bottles, screaming at you, swerving towards you, screaming at you... I hate those rides. I get home feeling lucky to be alive. Then somedays it's like every one you encounter is waving and smiling like you're some friend of theirs. I don't know what determines one day from the next on who you're going to meet up with, but a couple of days ago I got the ultimate mix.
I'm out riding, everything going fine, and I had just turned into a nice tailwind. All of a sudden I look up and there's a monster truck 4X4 in my lane headed straight for me. It was close enough I was just about to take the ditch when he swerved back to his side. So as he passed I did what I shouldn't do and gave him the finger. He and his buddy were smiling and laughing. I guess he didn't realize that "shit happens" and although he probably didn't have any true intention of hitting me, he could have easily killed me with a small miscalculation of throttle or wheel. That's like putting a gun to your head that you're 100% sure isn't loaded and blowing your brains out. Oops! So I was pissed and reacted. Probably a mistake because I quickly realized he could easily turn around and come back for the kill since I had nowhere to hide or run. It was just open ground. I kept riding and looking over my shoulder and decided I better get off the road. I hopped on the trail and started making my way home. It was cool because I hadn't been on the trail since winter. I'm just riding along and thinking about the incident when I notice my ride is getting really comfortable and cushy. Mostly flat tired feel that way. I wasn't worried or pissed at this point. I was just happy to be alive- besides, I wasn't far from town and I was just crusing at this point. I pull over and start to change my flat. Tools out, wheel off, in the shade. The first flat I've had on this particular bike. I'm in the middle of pulling out the flat tube when I hear, "Hey, you got a problem?" I'm thinking, "By words, that sounds like it could be a redneck with a tire iron ready to bash in my head. But the tone says, "Need some help?"" I look up and it's the freakin' Mayor of Columbia. Just an aside- have you ever noticed he looks like Alfred E. Neuman? Not making fun of him- just an observation. To make a long story longer, he just checked to see if I needed anything. I told him I had what I needed and thanks- so he rolled on. Nice of him to stop though huh? Columbia has it all.

Yo Blahbo In Ma Blago

2006-05-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

Don't even trip. New and improved. I just keep laughing at the name. My Bike Sucks was played out and Dan changed Your Bike Sucks, so I had to venture out on my own.
I only have a minute, but I can tell one quicky: I'm sitting here in ISS as usual for 5th hour, and one of the kids in here got three days ISS for calling another kid, "Hot Dog Neck!" Apparently, if you tilt your head back and make the skin roll up, it looks like a pack of hot dogs.