Hicks

My grandparents have a pond on ther farm in Northern California.  A mere thirty miles from the rocky cliffs of Mendocino.  I think that Mendocino is a Spanish word for hippies and liberals, but since I only took two first year courses in Spanish you should probably look that up.  Yes, I took the first year course twice.  Es muy bueno.  El queso es viejo y tiene molde.  Anyway, my grandparents pond supplies the water that comes out of their faucets.  The water tastes like fish swim in it.  The fish do swim in that water, so I feel good about it tasting like pond water.

The problem is that I’m on a business trip down to Grapevine, TX.  The water here tastes like fish swim in it.  After being filtered by a multi-dollar filtration system that I’m sure the city paid good money to have put in incorrectly.  The water has probably been filtered with a fish net and a pair of used pantyhose.  I know that sounds cruel, but you’ll find that they have signs that indicate that the water is ‘Superior’ by some random test that is performed by drunk people who have had their tongues cut out.  The drunk tongueless people find the water superior to the toilets that they were reversing into the last time they stepped past drunk and into vomiting mode.

The upside is that our friends the Mason’s gave us several bottles of contraband.  I believe we have several bottles of bottled water that has been filtered to the point of tasting like nothing.  Nothing is exactly what water should taste like.  It shouldn’t taste like fish, kool-aide, teriyaki or Coors.  Oh , or perier.   But God has grace so that when we defile the water with labels like ‘Coors’ or Naive ‘Evian’ the water doesn’t just turn into air through an instant evaporation process so that we’re smitten for suggesting that God’s creation wasn’t good enough.

I just wanted to let you know that I like water… I just like it to taste like water and not sushimi gone awry.

Oh, and I’m thankful for the Mason’s giving us water that you can drink and be proud of.

One Half Hour

This last Saturday morning on the way home from Indiana we stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Effingham, IL.  Shortly after we were seated an older couple sat down diagonally from us.  We didn’t think anything of it as the girls were chatty and wiggling.  Shortly after that a group of gals was about to be seated next to us and one of them said, “Ma’am, can we please be seated somewhere else in the restaurant?  We’re going to cuss and we don’t want to do it next to the children.”  They were seated elsewhere.

Our food came, we prayed and began to eat.  Suddenly I felt an arm around my shoulder and I looked up to see the man who had been seated with his wife diagonally from us looking down at me and he said, “I’m glad to see you praying in public.  It does my old heart good.”  I thanked him and he departed with a smile.

About 10 minutes later one of the gals who was going to be seated next to us but asked to be moved came by and said, “We didn’t mean any disrespect when we asked to be moved but we have been drinking and smoking marijuana all night long and we were going to be cussing while we ate.”  Huh?!  Why would you tell people this?  Why would you tell a total stranger that you were doing those things?

It is funny to me that in that short stretch of time two polarized events could take place like that.  We got on the road shortly after that hoping to avoid the drinking, smoking gals with their potty mouths.  Unfortunately there was a college game going on between Mizzou and Kansas University later on so we had to put up with crazy college drivers and birds being flipped all over the place as the drivers cursed each other for driving worse than the last crazy driver.

We made it past Kansas City and survived the day with great success arriving home at 11:05 PM.  Safe, sound, and really tired.

Can We Be Done with Bad CGI Commercials Already?

I don’t think that ‘just because it is CGI, its good’ has ever been an absolute statement about commercials… but the latest CGI commercials that I’ve seen (I’m watching the Colts/Chiefs game in Indiana now)  are just stupid.  Stupid.  Stewpid.  Dumb.  Can we dump the CGI ==  good assumption marketing folks?  I love good, creative writing that causes people to pay attention, laugh, and consider the message – it is what makes life’s communication interesting.  These commercials communicate to me that marketing departments at major fortune 500 companies are disconnected with reality or out of ideas.

My Favorite Self Composed Song

I did a series of Birthday Songs over the last couple years for friends, co-workers and pretty much no family.  However, my all time favorite ditty that I wrote was an instrumental song I never got to finish.  The music was so good in my proud opinion that I never could fit words that I felt conveyed quite what the music did.  You can listen to it here.

I’m really thankful for my parents having raised me with music in my life.  From a Grandpa that plays the saw to a wife who supports my crazy musical fantasies (one day I will be a famous musician, just you wait) I’ve been blessed with this talent (though I need to keep honing it for sure).  I loves me some music and I love to play for people – maybe some day I can hang out with you and we’ll play some music together.

Old Man

I am an old man.  Ancient.  I recall Ataris.  I recall Nintendo Entertainment Systems (NES) and I spent way too many hours playing Super Mario Brothers 1-3 in my youth.  Abby just came in with Evie on her tail singing the praises of the Wii because it had this new game with this one guy who went into outer space.  She knew to tell me that it was available at Target (a store she knows I like).  I asked her if she meant Super Mario Galaxy.  Excitedly she let me know that Mario was the guy.

Old.  I’m just old.

Smoke Your Own Meat Already…

…unless you’re a vegetarian.  In which case you should smoke your own veggies.  I’m in the process now of smoking my own salt, too.

See how someone made their smoker… mine is almost identical.

To smoke my salt I am placing it on an aluminum foil sheet with the sides folded up and letting the smoke permeate the salt.  When its done I’m going to make sure the salt is crushed to a finer consistency since the sea salt I’m using is bigger and chunkier (it is hand harvested and not Morton’s table salt).

Mind Games for Driving

I’ll be driving to Indiana this upcoming Thanksgiving week.  The best part of the drive is the mind games I have to play with myself to make the drive endurable.  I like the destination enough, its the road that makes me just a bit batty.

Colorado has a speed limit on the highway of 75, if the roads are dry and iceless then you can do a great jaunt to Kansas.

Kansas is the state that sucks.  The most out of the drive.  It is like driving across an empty piece of paper that is 410 miles long.  There are ruined old shacks sitting in the distant empty fields and porn towns (gas station + adult store with ‘town name’ sign at highway intersection).  To make my way through Kansas a little more exciting I’m going to poke my eyes out and drive with cruise control on.

Illi-noise, which is a special state where relatives live, is the dumbest state of speed limits that are falsely low.  Instead of the speed of geniuses 75 MPH, they have a speed limit of 5 MPH.  I know that doesn’t sound probably, but once you’ve been driving through Kansas at whatever your vehicle will do Illinoys’ 65MPH speed limit seems like a drug induced psychedelic experience of pain.  I think I’d prefer to have a porcupine stuck in my shoes when I’m not looking than drive 65 through Illinaise.  If you live in Illinoose how fast do you drive on the slow-ways?

Indiana has a speed limit of something I don’t recall.  I think its 70.  However, since I’m usually exhausted when I’m driving through it it doesn’t matter.  I play the game with myself that Indianapolis is about half way through the corn state so that once I’m getting into it or out of it I’ve accomplished something.

What things do you recommend to make the drive more sane?

Two’fer: Evie

Last night as soon as we got into our car after having a wonderful evening with my family we smelled a ‘smell.’

“Who tooted?,” I asked.

Without skipping a beat Evie said, “You.”

It wasn’t me I swear.

The other funny thing

Evie is symmetry girl.  If you tickle one foot you must also tickle the other.  If you touch one hand she’ll want you to touch the other.  If you kiss one cheek, then the other must be kissed.  Its actually pretty good because I figure that means we get to participate in double the affection.