Every guy sees himself as an outdoorsman. It doesn’t matter how civilized or soft life makes us, we are all positive that, if we wanted to, we could strap on a backpack and disappear into the wilderness for a great adventure. This is why places like REI and Patagonia are usually visible from the freeway.
A couple of years ago Jonathan and Jeremy ( both true disciples of Jeremiah Johnson and among a handful of people I know who possess a genuine knowledge of the great outdoors) and I went backpacking in New Mexico where Jonathan was about to start working. This is a picture from the last night on the trail and when I think of 'Lance the Outdoorsman', this is the image that comes to mind.
Most guys have a picture like this somewhere in their house, one that shows how rugged they are. They are usually holding up a trout or kneeling next to a dead animal. Or instead of a picture, they may have the animal itself displayed on their wall as a testament to their toughness.
The story this picture tells, at least the story we want it to tell, is about how we journeyed into the woods and lived off the fat of the land, taking advantage of the great bounty God provided. But this isn’t really true. It’s not exactly false, but in the interest of complete disclosure, and to help illustrate my previous point, I think it’s important to know the background of this picture.
This was the fourth (I think) and final night of our trip and earlier that afternoon we had emerged from the national forest (can’t remember which one, Santa Fe maybe?) and set up camp in a clearing overlooking part of the Pecos River. On a side note, the house Jonathan and his family will soon occupy is being built in that same clearing.
Anyway, after we set up camp for the final night, we started thinking about what we would do for dinner. Four days of dehydrated and freeze dried food had taken its toll and we were all looking forward to something different. The only wildlife we saw over the course of the previous three days was a rattlesnake and we were hopeful that being up on the prairie would yield a rabbit or two for the spit.
But our patience got the better of us and instead of rabbit we opted for the friendlier fare of a nearby restaurant. We ate heartily and headed back to camp for one more night in the high desert before heading home. It was dusk when we got back to the ranch and there were rabbits everywhere. So we did what every guy in that situation would do, we killed a couple of them. And despite our full stomachs, we cleaned and cooked them.
We didn’t do this because we were hungry and nobody wore a rabbit skin hat out of the woods the next day. Mostly, I think, we did it in order to live up to the image we had of ourselves. And I like how this picture captures that image, however real or imagined it might be.
Watch your top knot, pilgrim.
Donna, like most of us this week, is taking part in that bastion of office-place Christmas spirit known as Secret Santa.
I have always thought the least interesting programming you could air on the radio is baseball. The absence of any real, sustained action makes it pretty unbearable even on TV, but listeing to it on the radio is even more futile.
Click on the link below for a Christmas greeting from Chloe and Hannah.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1123941542
Donna and I see a lot of movies, it’s one of our favorite things to do. We probably average a couple of movies a month, and it’s not that unusual for us to see a couple in a single weekend. We’re usually not that critical, but occasionally we’ll see one that throws up all over itself. This was the case last weekend when we went to see No Country for Old Men.
The buzz around this movie has been strong, and it’s got several things going for it that Donna and I were pretty excited about. First, it’s based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote the book that one of our all-time favorite movies, All the Pretty Horses, is based on. Second, it has Tommy Lee Jones playing a sheriff and nobody flexes the long arm of the law like Woodrow Call himself. Finally, it’s a gangster movie and gangster movies are always cool.
But even with all of these promising elements, we left the theatre laughing at the sheer stupidity of it.
No Country for Old Men starts off promising enough. Some dude wanders onto the scene of a drug deal that has gone tits up. Dead bodies are everywhere and in the gory aftermath someone has dropped a bag of money. The rest of the movie is about the gangsters trying to get their money back.
Tommy Lee Jones plays (unintentionally) the laziest (and maybe the dumbest) cop to ever be sworn in. He can’t figure out who in the world is killing every dang thing in town, but in just about every scene he’s just sitting in some diner reading the paper. Actually going outside and trying to find the psychopathic killer never seems to become a real option until it’s time for him to retire.
That droning sound in the background is Al Gore, still yammering about global warming. And unfortunately he’s not alone on Mother Earth’s bandwagon. So, in an effort to get all of these prophets of doom to shut the hell up, Attack Deer is joining the crusade by doing its part to save the planet.
First, you should know that all of the words you are reading are composed of 100 percent post-consumer letters. Letters are actually very versatile, able to be rearranged and used over and over again – much like plastic water bottles or Brittany Spears.
This is an irrational approach, I know. But if I were a democrat they would be handing me Nobel prizes.
Fortunately, I'm past the point in my life when this news would have impacted me. But there was a time when this would have been devastating to both my budget and my health...
Totino's and Jeno's brands may have contaminated pepperoni
In college I occupied a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment with my friends Jonathan and Jason. As I've mentioned before, apartment #129 at Lakewood Village was a popular place in 1997 (wow, ten years ago) and we decided to throw a little Halloween party.
Jason was easily the most level-headed of the three of us, so when he came home with glow-in-the-dark crayons to draw monsters on the walls, we didn't object. It was really quite brilliant. You could draw on the walls, then easily clean them when the party ends. The glow-in-the-dark ghosts and goblins were a big hit and though it wasn't as easy as advertised, it did come off (the walls were about the only thing in that apartment that did survive).
After the guests left, I went to bed thinking about Linda Blair's head spinning around. In the middle of the night a large volume of IBC root beer and Yoohoo insisted on leaving my body.
When I opened my bedroom door, headed for the bathroom, I was greeted by the scariest glow-in-the-dark crayon monster of all. It seems in our less-than-thorough cleaning we missed one. Suddenly my trip to the restroom was no longer required, clean shorts on the other hand...
I like scary movies. I really like them. It's indefensible, I know. I don't have a single friend who shares this interest with me, so this is a hobby I enjoy pretty much alone. Which is ironic, considering this is one thing you don't want to do alone.
After seven years of marriage Donna and I have gotten pretty good at picking our battles. As newlyweds, what surprised us most about our arguments was not the frequency, but rather the subject matter. Our biggest conflicts seemed to be over the smallest things.
For example, our biggest argument to date was over where to hang a shelf in our first apartment. This shelf, no matter how inspired its placement, was never going to do anything more than hold books. But we fought like Crips and Bloods about where to put it.
However, I am hereby putting my arguing days behind me and forfeiting all future disagreements to Donna.
Why?
Because in her infinite grace and ever-loving wisdom she has acquiesced to me building this in our backyard…
With the amazing technological advances being made every day, I’m positive time travel will be possible very soon. To prepare for this inevitability, I have drafted a letter to Young Lance to share what I have learned along the way.
Dear Young Lance,
I know it must be strange getting a letter from your future self. Trust me, it’s a little strange writing it. As I write this, I (you) am 31 years old. I know, trippy isn’t it? There is no way for me to know how old you are when you get this, so I will try and cover all the bases.
First, let me give you a little primer on what your life will be like in the year 2007. It may not be what you expect, but it’s pretty awesome. Unfortunately, you do not become a professional basketball player, which might come as a shock if you are reading this between the ages of 10 and 14. After about 14 it starts to become pretty clear where your future as an athlete is headed. Also, I should mention that you do not become a juvenile delinquent either, which should come as a surprise to your (our) parents. Actually, you are a professional writer at a tech company in Austin. You probably already feel the tug of writing, so that may not come as a surprise. Keep at it, it serves us well. You work in a cubicle though, but it’s not as bad as it seems.
Now let’s get to the important stuff. If you haven’t noticed already, girls can be quite a distraction. Leave them alone until you get to college (SFA, by the way). It’s doubtful you’ll listen to me, even though nobody is better suited to give you advice, but the girls worth knowing don’t come along until after prom. Sorry dude.
Chances are you’ve already met Craig. Keep him close, he’s one of just a handful of truly steadfast friends you’ll come across. He’s an average basketball player, but it might do you well to teach him the difference between personal fouls and flagrant fouls. When he asks if you want to go to Big Bend for Spring Break, say yes. When he asks if you want to try rollerblading, say no.
Love on your grandparents because by the time you’re my age they’re all gone.
Don’t sweat the SATs. SFA has really reasonable standards and it’s perfectly suited for you. Don’t do the potluck roommate thing though. A whole year is a long time to bunk with Charlie the Ambiguously Gay Roommate. Don’t bother with those criminal justice classes either, all they accomplish is delaying graduation by a semester. When a girl named Donna asks you about some class you have together, play it cool because she’s the one.
Finally, you’ll never “feel” like a grown-up. You (we) haven’t outgrown comic books, cartoons or video games and I think that’s a good thing.
I hope this has been helpful.
Sincerely,
Old Lance
The Grassmick family welcomed its newest member yesterday. Baby Anderson joins Jonathan, Melissa, Emma, Johnny, Annie, Sleepy, Dopy, Niner...
Everyone fortunate enough to be watching the Dallas/St. Louis game on Sunday were witness to one of the plays of the decade. It's been a long time coming, but this makes suffering through the days of Anthony, Randall, Quincy, Ryan, Chad, Vinnie and Drew worth it.
OK, am I the only one who is tired of seeing Reggie Bush on every commercial? I know, Peyton is everywhere also, but at least he has done something. I cannot remember a time when an athlete was hyped so much before he did anything (maybe Tiger, and obviously that panned out). Yes, he was part of a Cinderella story last year, but now the clock has struck midnight and Bush has turned back into the too flashy, undersized back that the Texans passed on in the draft (they are beginning to look pretty smart now that Mario Williams is coming of age).
We should all thank the Packers for taking down two of our NFC east rivals in the first two games. I still think the Packers are not that good, but if they can win games like these last two they will make the playoffs. By the way, wasn't that TD pass by Romo as he was going down to his knees Favre-esk? Tony, like Brett, looks like he really loves the game. I like watching guys like that.
Cleveland Browns Crap! Just when I thought we were destined for the #1 pick in next year's draft y'all gotta go and hang half a century on the Bengals. Fortunately, our pick ought to still be pretty good because even after scoring 51 they still almost lost the game. Brady Quinn better get pretty comfortable on the bench for a while.
The Bengals are well on their way to returning to their rightful place as the "Bungles."
Aren't you glad that you ended up with the second pick in your fantasy draft and someone else picked LT?
Lastly, I'll say my piece about spy-gate, or tape-gate, or whatever kind of gate people are calling it. First of all, when are we going to stop tacking "gate" onto the end of every scandal? In 100 years if the President sends men to steal documents from the Four Seasons are they going to refer to the scandal as Four Seasons-Gate? Or from then on will all scandals end in "seasons" rather that "gate?" Anyway, I think the league was too soft on the Patriots. Obviously the Pats were cheating to gain an edge. If they got nothing from it they would not have risked punishment by doing it. If I can recall correctly, the Patriots did not dominate in any of their Super Bowl victories or on the way to those Super Bowls. It seems like there were several occasions when it came down to a field goal. If they were spying then as well maybe they got just enough of an edge to win by a field goal. Sure they were a great team, but they just needed that extra edge to win as often as they did. It reminds me of the arguments some disillusioned Barry Bonds fans try to use to change the subject. Was he a Hall-of-Famer before he took steroids? Of course he was. Did the extra boost of power and longevity allow him to break Hank Aaron's record? I think we all know the answer to that. Steroids turned several of Bonds' would-be warning track fly outs into homers just like knowing the opposing team's defensive calls allowed the Pats to eek out a victory from time to time.
I heard a reference to this song on Sports Center the other night so I think it is pretty main stream. But in case you have not heard it, here it is. I'm sure you will not be able to get the tune out of your head, especially when it is business time.
I spent most of my adolescence wasting time with my friend Craig. Our activities rarely extended beyond playing basketball, reading comic books or playing video games. But sometimes boredom got the best of us and we would try something different.
On one such occasion I decided to give Craig's new Rollerblades a try. Looking back, that he even owned a pair of Rollerblades seems ridiculous, but whatever. I walked out into his driveway and strapped them bad boys on. Once my feet were adorned with said footwear, Craig helped me take position in the middle of the street in front of his house. This particular street, Spanish Trail, seemed like an ideal place to stage my first-ever Rollerblade mission. Starting in front of Craig's house it was pretty straight and, best of all, downhill.
Standing on the crest of the hill, staring down Spanish Trail, I was wearing the following: a t-shirt, shorts and Rollerblades. I guess it was youthful hubris, but that this could turn out to be anything but my finest hour never crossed my mind.
With a healthy shove from Craig, I was off. I started out slow but before long I was picking up speed. I started drifting to the left and that's when I realized that Craig had left 'turning' out of his tutorial. He must have remembered too, because at about that time I heard him yelling behind me, "It's like skiing! Turn like you're skiing!"
By this time I was barrelling down the street, veering toward the drainage ditch and Craig's instructions seemed to come at just the right time. I know how to ski, so I shifted my weight, attempting a hockey-style stop. Bound by the laws of physics, the polycarbonate wheels were unable to maintain contact with the street and pretty quickly I was horizontal, flying through the air.
These are the things my brain processed:
1. "Craig has never been skiing, why would he know how to stop?"
3. "I am about the hit the street, which from this new perspective, can best be described as an asphalt cheese grater."
5. "Is that #$%&@ laughing at me?"
We live in different towns now.
I couldn't resist making this lyric from Lyle Lovett's song "Redneck Woman" the title of this post, but it has little to do with what comes next. So, I encourage you to take some time away from whatever you are doing and give this a listen. If your day does not improve by a factor of 10, I will refund every dime. Enjoy. |
A movie based on one of my favorite books, "Into the Wild," is coming out soon and the trailer looks fantastic. The story is based on the life of Chris McCandless, a drifter who starved to death in the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless came from an upper class family but rejected the trappings of his privileged lifestyle. Instead, he saw himself as an adventurer and was heavily influenced by the writings of Jack London.
What I find most intriguing about the book is the seemingly very honest portrayal of McCandless. He is not a sympathetic character, but John Krakauer, an outdoor journalist and seasoned mountain climber, is such an exceptional storyteller that it doesn't matter. Krakauer brings to bear much of his own experience in telling this story and in his hands it feels very authentic.
After graduating from college, McCandless cut off contact with his family and set off across the U.S. He tramped around the western states for a couple of years, living a transient lifestyle that was largely absent of any meaningful human contact. His ultimate goal: to disappear into the Alaskan wilderness and shed the civilized world entirely. When he finally got there he survived for almost six months, which is pretty amazing.
I read an article about the movie and in it the author compares McCandless to John Muir, the famous conservationist. In my opinion, making this comparison is irresponsible. Muir was at least an advocate for the great outdoors. McCandless, on the other hand, simply viewed nature as a place to escape to. He was, after all, homeless and living in an abandoned bus when he died of hunger and exposure. But because this bus happened to be located in the wilds of Alaska it takes on a completely romanticized perspective.
But it's still an interesting story and I hope the movie is faithful to the tone of Krakauer's narrative. I've included the trailer below.
Is this a typo? If not has such a thing ever happened before?
| MLB | ||||
| | Texas vs. Baltimore | 30 3 | F | |
This is a perfect example of why I hate baseball, especially regular season baseball. I was noticing that yesterday Baltimore beat Texas 6 to 3. How does that happen from one day to the next? Would the Cowboys ever lose to the Redskins 14 - 6 and then come back the very next day and beat the same team 182 - 21? It is all because in baseball the game relies far too heavily on one man - the pitcher. If he is on fire then it does not matter if the rest of the team sucks. On the other hand the rest of the team could score 29 runs, but (as apparently happened here) the pitcher could always give up 30! In my opinion baseball, as with dictatorships, puts too much power in the hands (or arm) of one guy.
This game must rank 4th for all time greatest moments in Ranger's history behind 3 things that Nolan Ryan did.
To see an extremely funny video go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoR2X8eZtns
Let's say, hypothetically, that your wife asks you to go to the kitchen and get her bag that's sitting on the counter. This is a perfectly reasonable request, so you would probably head to the kitchen and get the bag.
Then let's say, hypothetically, that when you get to the kitchen, this is what you find: 
But you are wrong. No worries, so was I. You see, to the trained eye, there is only one bag in this picture. There is also one purse and one tote.
If your wife asks you to bring her bag, you had better bring the right one. Donna is not what I would call "high maintenance" but I'll go ahead and call this the exception.
This has been a service of Attack Deer.
I was looking at one of my kids' place mats today. It's one of those educational mats and in this case it's a map of the world. As I strained to read the small print underneath re-heated pizza crumbs I was again made aware of how much of the world's land mass lies north of the US. It made me think of all the Global Warming hysteria that we are being bombarded with these days. As we in America are being encouraged and even mandated to cut down on our "carbon footprint" I think people in Russia, Mongolia, and Canada are probably secretly wishing that we would keep driving our SUVs and using more that one square of toilet paper. Maybe if we continue these practices the earth's temperature would rise a couple of degrees and farmers in parts of these counties could add a month to their growing season. Other parts of these countries would have a growing season and a more hospitable climate. It makes me wonder what all this Global Warming stuff is really about and I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a political agenda behind it.
After pondering the place mat I decided to post an article that I read a couple of weeks back. Maybe it will spark some discussion, maybe not, but I thought it was clever and interesting. I figured it was Attack Deer worthy. I got the article from the OC Register, which is not a publication I read regularly. I was turned on to the article from an Intelligent Design blog of all places.
Mark Steyn: Warm-mongers and cheeseburger imperialists
Something rather odd happened the other day. If you go to NASA's Web site and look at the "U.S. surface air temperature" rankings for the lower 48 states, you might notice that something has changed.
Then again, you might not. They're not issuing any press releases about it. But they have quietly revised their All-Time Hit Parade for U.S. temperatures. The "hottest year on record" is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century – 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 – plummeted even lower down the Hot 100. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the Nineties and this decade has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of America's Top 10 hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s, that notorious decade when we all drove around in huge SUVs with the air-conditioning on full-blast. If climate change is, as Al Gore says, the most important issue anyone's ever faced in the history of anything ever, then Franklin Roosevelt didn't have a word to say about it.
And yet we survived.
So why is 1998 no longer America's record-breaker? Because a very diligent fellow named Steve McIntyre of climateaudit.com labored long and hard to prove there was a bug in NASA's handling of the raw data. He then notified the scientists responsible and received an acknowledgment that the mistake was an "oversight" that would be corrected in the next "data refresh." The reply was almost as cool as the revised chart listings.
Who is this man who understands American climate data so much better than NASA? Well, he's not even American: He's Canadian. Just another immigrant doing the jobs Americans won't do, even when they're federal public servants with unlimited budgets? No. Mr. McIntyre lives in Toronto. But the data smelled wrong to him, he found the error, and NASA has now corrected its findings – albeit without the fanfare that accompanied the hottest-year-on-record hysteria of almost a decade ago. Sunlight may be the best disinfectant, but, when it comes to global warming, the experts prefer to stick the thermometer where the sun don't shine.
One is tempted to explain the error with old the computer expert's cry: That's not a bug, it's a feature. To maintain public hysteria, it's necessary for the warm-mongers to be able to demonstrate that something is happening now. Or as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram put it at the end of 1998:
"It's December, and you're still mowing the lawn. You can't put up the Christmas lights because you're afraid the sweat pouring off your face will short out the connections. Your honeysuckle vines are blooming. Mosquitoes are hovering at your back door.
"Hot enough for you?"
It's not the same if you replace "Hot enough for you?" with "Yes, it's time to relive sepia-hued memories from grandpa's Dust Bowl childhood."
Yet the fakery wouldn't be so effective if there weren't so many takers for it. Why is that?
In my book, still available at all good bookstores (you can find it propping up the wonky rear leg of the display table for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"), I try to answer this question by way of some celebrated remarks by the acclaimed British novelist Margaret Drabble, speaking just after the liberation of Iraq. Ms Drabble said:
"I detest Coca-Cola, I detest burgers, I detest sentimental and violent Hollywood movies that tell lies about history. I detest American imperialism, American infantilism, and American triumphalism about victories it didn't even win."
That's an interesting list of grievances. If you lived in Poland in the 1930s, you weren't worried about the Soviets' taste in soft drinks or sentimental Third Reich pop culture. If Washington were a conventional great power, the intellectual class would be arguing that the United States is a threat to France or India or Chad or some such. But because it's the world's first nonimperial superpower the world has had to concoct a thesis that America is a threat not merely to this or that nation state but to the entire planet, and not because of conventional great-power designs but because – even scarier – of its "consumption," its very way of life. Those Cokes and cheeseburgers detested by discriminating London novelists are devastating the planet in ways that straightforward genocidal conquerors like Hitler and Stalin could only have dreamed of. The construct of this fantasy is very revealing about how unthreatening America is.
And, when the cheeseburger imperialists are roused to real if somewhat fitful warmongering, that's no reason for the self-loathing to stop. The New Republic recently published a "Baghdad Diary" by one "Scott Thomas," who turned out to be Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp. It featured three anecdotes of American soldiering: the deliberate killing of domestic dogs by the driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle; a child's skull worn by a U.S. serviceman as a fashion accessory; and the public abuse of a woman to her face, a half-melted face disfigured by an IED. In that last anecdote, the abusive soldier was the author himself, citing it as evidence of how the Iraq war has degraded and dehumanized everyone.
According to the Weekly Standard, army investigators say Pvt. Beauchamp has now signed a statement recanting his lurid anecdotes. And even the New Republic's editors concede the IED-victim mockery took place in Kuwait, before Pvt. Beauchamp ever got to Iraq.
They don't seem to realize this destroys the entire premise of the piece, which is meant to be about the dehumanization of soldiers in combat. Pvt. Beauchamp came pre-dehumanized. Indeed, he was writing Iraq atrocity fantasies on his blog back in Germany. It might be truer to say he was "dehumanized" by American media coverage. In this, he joins an ever lengthening list of peddlers of fake atrocities, such as Jesse MacBeth, an Army Ranger who claimed to have slaughtered hundreds of civilians in a mosque. He turned out to be neither an Army Ranger nor a mass murderer.
There are many honorable reasons to oppose the Iraq war, but believing that our troops are sick monsters is not one of them. The sickness is the willingness of so many citizens of the most benign hegemon in history to believe they must be.
As Pogo said, way back in the 1971 Earth Day edition of a then-famous comic strip, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Even when we don't do anything: In the post-imperial age, powerful nations no longer have to invade and kill. Simply by driving a Chevy Suburban, we can make the oceans rise and wipe the distant Maldive Islands off the face of the Earth. This is a kind of malignant narcissism so ingrained it's now taught in our grade schools. Which may be why, even when the New Republic's diarist goes to Iraq and meets the real enemy, he still assumes it's us.
© MARK STEYN
As I write, my kids are dancing around me like wild Indians...sorry, Native Americans. They request Garth in the evenings so they can dance. Actually they request Garf, but being the in-tune father that I am I understand that they mean they want to hear "Against the Grain" or "Callin' Baton Rouge." They also like the Newsboys' song "Shine." They hold up their hands like they are holding imaginary drum sticks and wait until the drum part starts, at which time they play their air drums with as much enthusiasm and vigor as John Bonham. He was usually on speed but they are just being kids.
As you can imagine, my life right now revolves around my kids. I'm not going to lie and say it's been easy, but it is alot of fun and at times it has definitely been funny. I cannot imagine life without them. So, for my first post here I am going to give you a little window into my life - the kinds of things I hear every day.
Soon after Emma started making sentences Melissa and I began writing down some of the funny (we think they are funny anyway) things that our kids say. They usually say something funny every day, but we record only the best of the best. So, without further ado here's what we have so far:
June of '06 - Melissa asked Emma "where does milk come from." With a look that said "I can't believe you don't know that at your age" she replied "from the refrigerator, Momma."
August '06 - Lance and Donna were visiting and we were eating dinner. Emma was potty training at the time so her little potty was in the dining room (possibly with some pee in it). Johnny walked by with a piece of bread in his hand that looked wet. Trying to catch him before he took a bite I said with a sense of urgency "Johnny, let me smell your bread!" In my life at the time it seemed so normal, but the Loopers about fell out of their seats laughing.
Emma - "friggin' Maggie" (Our dog's name was Maggie. She recently got eaten by coyotes.)
September '06 - We were all sitting at the dinner table talking about why God sent Jesus. Melissa and I started singing "Jesus Loves Me." I guess we were singing kind of loud because Emma said "kids, kids, hush!" I wonder where she has heard that before.
Sept. '06 - On the plane to Michigan Emma looked at me and said with a sassy voice "Dadda, I peed OK."
Oct. '06 - Jared (one of our friends here) was letting Emma ride the horsey (his knee). When he stopped and said "the horsey is tired" she promptly asked "well, then can I ride the cow."
Oct. '06 - Andrew (one of our other friends) was riding with us somewhere and Johnny was whining pretty bad. After several failed attempts to make him stop he asked Emma if she could make him stop. Emma, like she says it all the time, said "Donny, do you want a candy bar?" he stopped whining and said "yes." That was the last we heard of him the rest of the ride.
Well, I have several more, but I will make a new post with them sometime soon. As they get older Emma will probably not dominate the quotes so much. Johnny, Annie, and Anderson will be bigger players in years to come.
Donna and I just got back from vacation after a great bit of rest and relaxation. We hit New YorkCity first, where Donna's sister Salli lives with her husband Dan. Highlights from this leg include a five hour delay that put us in NYC at 4 a.m. This at first was a little annoying but we had the city pretty much to ourselves for a couple of hours.
We visited the American Museum of Natural History and laughed our way through Spamalot. We also ate our way through the rest of the weekend, spending roughly $134,834 on food.
Donna and I are leaving Friday for a much needed vacation. We're headed to the East Coast to visit her sister in NYC and my friend Jason in Baltimore. I've been to New York City one other time (with Jason, actually) and met the world's dumbest con artist.
There were vendors on every corner selling knock-offs of all things imaginable. Watches were popular and TAG Heuer imitations were particularly hot items.
One night we were walking down the street and this guy walked up to us to ask if we wanted a nice watch real cheap. Unwilling to take no for an answer, he proceeded to show us said watch. It could be mine, my new friend told me, for the low price of $300. That was roughly one-fifth retail according to him. Unfortunatley for him, I had seen about a million fake watches that day and could tell this was a fugazi.
Being the persistent swindler he was, this guy assures me it's the real deal. And he can prove it. He then produces a receipt from his jacket pocket that, he says, proves the watch's value. But, and this is where it gets good, he didn't ACTUALLY pay for it himself. You see, he says, he stole some dude's credit card and bought the watch with it. But he don't need a watch, so he's graciously willing to pass the savings on to me.
So, this guy wanted me to take his word on the authenticity of the watch by convincing me that he was a thief.
In today's professional sports landscape where steroids, federal indictments and corruption are standard operating procedure, Michael Irvin would be considered a model citizen. I love the Cowboys and have been a pretty steadfast Irvin apologist, but I can't help but think that he was a pioneer for the bad behavior of today's overpaid and overexposed athletes.
But this weekend is a time for remembering what happened on the field. So here is a little reminder of how amazing it was:
This clip perpetuates the age-old question: Who's better, Superman or Batman?
The other day I was looking for batteries and found the Nintendo Game Boy I got for Christmas...oh...about 17 years ago. Donna and I have been playing it pretty much non-stop all week. It's been a good distraction during the wettest summer on record.
I am happy to report that my Tetris skills are still sharp after all these years. Donna is still working on her game, but we are confident that through hours of practice, she'll get to where she needs to be.
My friend Jeremy is the type of guy who can accomplish anything he wants by simply willing himself to do it. He’s run a marathon, written some cool songs and became a pretty good photographer, all basically because he felt like it.
It’s weird that when I hear a Don Williams song, any Don Williams song, I think not about my wife, but my friend Jonathan. Don Williams, for those of you unfortunate enough to not know who I’m talking about, sings some of the best love songs ever recorded. They’re sappy and sincere, which makes it a little weird that when one of these songs plays my mind wanders to Jonathan.
But let me tell you why.
Jonathan and I were college roommates for two almost-consecutive years. We shared apartment 129 at Lakewood Village with our other friend, Jason. Now, Jonathan was not only good looking, but just about the nicest guy I knew, so he tended to draw a predominately female crowd. On any given night there were usually 2-3 co-eds loitering around # 129, just hanging around.
Despite the attention, or maybe because of it, Jonathan didn’t date much and coasted through most of his school days pretty much unattached. But one semester he decided to develop a crush on one of our neighbors. I think they might have gone out once or twice, but nothing much happened. As guys are prone to do, the more disinterested the neighbor was in Jonathan, the more interested he became in her.
Now, it’s important to know that said neighbor was really only marginally attractive, slightly above average. I would say that among the throngs of girls who found their way in and out of Jonathan’s orbit, she probably ranked somewhere in the middle of the pack in the looks department.
The neighbor's name happens to be the same as one of Don’s best songs. So, naturally, Jonathan would play the song on repeat for hours at a time, over and over. It’s hard to get tired of Don, but Jonathan was pushing the envelope. This lasted a few days until one sunny afternoon he snapped out of it, ready to move on, forget about the unattainable neighbor and, at last, put in another CD. We all breathed a sigh of relief.
Then someone knocked on the door.
I opened it up and standing before me was one of the most confounding images I’ve ever served witness to. Our so-so looking neighbor was standing in our doorway, only now she was an absolute vision. I don’t know if it was how the sunlight was silhouetting her figure or the way her blue dress made her eyes dance, but in that instant Jason and I realized what our roommate had seen in her. We sat for a few seconds with our mouths open before she asked to use our vacuum cleaner or something. By the time she left, Jonathan was in the throws of a full-fledged relapse and Jason and I were following right behind him.
We reset the CD player. Disc 1, track 2, repeat.
He had a cast on his wrist and, hoping for a good story, I asked about it. He seemed a little hesitant to tell me about how it happened, which to me suggested maybe it was the result of some traumatic war-related activity. I pushed, and finally he told me he had broken his wrist playing volleyball in the Iraqi desert.
After a little more conversation, he made a comment about the book I was reading. It was a collection of essays written by important Texans. He said he could tell I was from Texas because “only somebody from Texas would read about other Texans.”
I told him only somebody from California would go all the way to Iraq and break their wrist playing beach volleyball.