Category Archives: Confessions

Things about me you probably never wanted or don’t need to know.

Can I Ask Your Opinion?

I had a gal ask me that last night.  I was in the changing room open area last night while Jessica was trying something on.  The woman had been trying on a dress and I think she liked it but she wanted to ask someone else’s opinion.  Fortunately I was there, Mr. unshaved with t-shirt and jeans on.  She looks really good in the dress.  I recommended she take it in to a tailor and have it hemmed up about 1.5 inches.  Me.  Suggesting that people get things tailored.  Imagine that.  But Mr. Craig got me hooked on tailored clothes and so now I’m a dress clothes snob.  If the pants or shirt don’t fit (get a size up  depending on the cut) and get the piece tailored and then you’ll look good, be comfortable, and you’re sure to score big with the fashion police.

The only problem was that I was pretty sure that I’m one of a small handful of people who actually have male body parts, who are straight, who would have been able to evaluate all of the outfits Jessica tried on as well as the dress this stranger tried on.  Apparently I’ve watched too much “What Not to Wear” 😛

The Most Fruitfullest Day in a While

I had a very fruitful Sunday.  We skipped church, which is abnormal, but Abby wasn’t well on Saturday and Jessica and I decided laying low was best for her, and I had no commitments.  I’m relatively sure I’m not going to hell for it, but its not a practice I intend to make a habit of for other reasons 🙂  But I accomplished a whole lot: I fixed an electrical outlet that’s been broken since we moved in, I hung Christmas lights on the front gutter.  I purchased a Christmas tree, mounted it on the stand, which we later decorated.  I also fixed my gas grill which had had an obstruction in the gas tube.  Abby and I snuck out and spread Christmas cheer while we bought Jessica a Christmas present or three.  I bought the presents, Abby said Merry Christmas to nearly every passer-by.  Only a few people actually said ‘Merry Christmas’ back to her.  I think I did other things, too, but I can’t remember.  It was a busy day, but I’m stoked to have gotten so much done.  I know that working on a honey-do list doesn’t sound like fun, but checking things off on that list feels really, really good.

Happy Thanksfiving!

I had a friend accidentally type ‘Thanksfiving’ last night in an IM instead of Thanksgiving. My mom will be proud to know that I am capable of spelling Thankgiving. Woops. Thanksgivng. Darn. I thought I could spell it, but apparently not. Anyway, I’m thankful for my family. A beautiful wife, a pair of beautiful daughters [which trumps a pair of jacks, but is still not quite enough to beat other hands, apparently. I’m going to Vegas in December for a business trip and have to practice my card counting skillz], a home that is warm, food that is tasty, a steady stream of income, and of course, a car that runs well.

I’m thankful for all of the things that I have, including the readers of this blog. Have a happy Thanksgiving! [Yeah! I spelled it right] But also, give someone a high-five this thanksfiving, because it will be cool.

Happy Thanksfiving!

He Fought the Good Fight

One of the elders at the church that Jessica and I have attended over the last two and a half years just went home to be with Jesus. Hal has been fighting cancer for some time now and his fight is over. What’s most amazing to me in this last half a year that we’ve known about Hal’s cancer is the number of people Hal has encouraged and witnessed to and offered hope to. You see Hal has taught classes on pain and suffering. Hal has been over God’s word many, many times teaching from it and living out what is in the text. Hal has told multiple stories about offering encouragement to chaplains that were responsible for coming in to cheer him up. Hal knew that what he was going through was not the end, and he knew that the suffering was their for his growth (Romans 8:28). He encouraged doctors to not cry (can you imagine being a doctor who is sad you’re losing a patient and the patient tells you to not worry because he’s excited about seeing his Savior?). Hal knew he was right where he needed to be and that the gospel needed to be shared there in the hospital or with various visitors.
I didn’t get to spend very much time with Hal compared to my dad or one of the other elders, Mike Doyle, but Hal and I had a few good conversations, and shortly before it was discovered that he had cancer he and his wife Lindey invited us over for dinner with the girls. Hal has been in the hospital and on bed rest for much of the last six months and so I really didn’t get a chance to visit with him. However, I kept feeling this deep sense of frustration because I know that there was much that Hal knew that I hadn’t learned yet. I suppose that the many recordings of Hal that we have will be a good source of teaching and I can learn much from what he explained as he exposited the Scriptures.

This evening, as his family prayed around his hospital bed the Lord decided that it was time for Hal to quit the suffering and begin the next part of eternity. I’m sure that the sound of the monitoring equipment alerting them to Hal’s resting heart was a tough, tough thing for them to hear, but I also know that they are relieved that their husband, or dad, or father-in-law is not suffering any more. As a body Holly Hills Bible Church has been very concerned. Some people have known Hal as a friend, a pastor and a mentor for a long, long time. Fortunately you can go online and listen to Hal’s teaching and testimony on the church website: http://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org.

Hal loved the Colorado Rockies and would often be seen after a Sunday service wearing a Rockies hat as he and Lindey were heading off to go watch a game. He’s a lot higher than a mile high now.

Germin’

I just had a moment of temporary concern for myself.  Not my current self, but my old self.  The one that was a little boy.  My concept of that which was dirty was based solely on my eyes.  I couldn’t see the dirt, therefore it didn’t exist.  I was rolling my fingers on my trackball and reminded of the old game Centipede (its a new experience for me to have a trackball, so the Centipede flashbacks happen regularly still).  Centipede in pizza parlors.  Centipede at restaurants.  Centipede that thousands of grubby hands have touched.  And it was at that point in time that I was concerned that maybe as a kid I ingested a plethora of germs that my immune system kindly warded off.

I think I’m going to go wash my hands and then rub down my keyboard and desk with bleach or hydrochloric acid 😉

People Ask…

People ask me, “Randy, what’s the best thing about having a recording studio in your home office?”  And I reply, “Knowing that if I actually had more time, I could record stuff.”  But people seldom ask, “Randy, what’s the worst thing about having a recording studio in your home office?”  Which would of course be the problem of me coughing and having approximately 12 or more strings resonate with my cough behind me.  That’s irritating!  Of course the upside is that when I finally debug some code and shout out, “Whoooo!,” they also resonate like a choir of angels.  OK, it doesn’t really sound like a choir of angels, it sounds like some guitar strings resonating quietly, but I have an over-active imagination.

The Jury Duty That Wasn’t

I received an invitation to a ‘party’ via the postal service requesting I come.  They even wanted me to RSVP, but threatened I could only declined once, and if I did I’d have to come the next time they invited me – no matter what.  Well, I took the Arapahoe County Jury Duty Computer Selection System up on its invite.  Except that today when I was ready to go I followed some of the instructions they sent me (I actually followed all of them, but some of them were pertinent) and called a phone number.  To my joy the number didn’t get typed in incorrectly so that I’d discover some adult hotline being run by the county.  Instead it told me I didn’t have to come in.  Therefore my civic duties had been completed but I never left my house.  Drat.

The upside is that someone is probably in court without me on their jury.  That’s good because the lawyers don’t like it when the jurors shout out, “All trafic violations should lead to capital punishment!”  Especially when its a small claimes case about shoes that didn’t hold up five minutes out of the store.

So I went to the Mall…

And who lets these teenagers go out with their brains turned off? I went into Hollister, which is kind of like a clothing store, except that the first thing that you think when walking in is not, “Clothes!” Instead you think, “Must have air!,” because they have perfume all over the place stinking the store up to the point where you honestly consider buying things at Goodwill instead, because you’re sure the clothes look as bad, and that the air will smell musty instead of like the inside of a perfume bottle.  Upon departing Hollister we walked about the mall attempting to get to various places to buy things.  At one point in time two teenage girls exited the shop I was about to pass and slowed me (and all three frillion people behind me) down because they were walking in the gear right before reverse, with little gas.  I don’t know what made them think, “Lets slow this whole mall down,” but whatever it was, I’d like to have it outlawed.

Whew!  I know that sounds cranky but it was a day filled with shopping, and while I love shopping, I love shopping with efficiency even more.  I’m an efficiency nut, which is why I drink water in glasses instead of from sieves, cullenders, funnels and firehoses.  I also try to buy low emission vehicles that get good gas mileage.  And, to reduce my shopping headache I shop for the holidays now.  Which is not as good as shopping in July, except that sometimes people want to get gifts that are more recent.  If I could pre-order more of life, I think I would.

There were other funny things that took place at the mall such as watching the elevator doors nearly close on a baby stroller because the designer of the elevator figured that the moms and handicapped people who were going to ride in the elevator also were Olympic athletes in speed training.  Fortunately the mother in charge of said stroller was a veteran and shoved the stroller further into the elevator causing the doors to relent.  Relent Green is people [sorry, I just thought that since soylent and relent sounded similar…].  Once in the elevator the scary scene in the movie started.  You know the one where the deep rumbling sound starts and then higher pitched dissonant sounds kick in and you really know something bad is going to happen?  The nasty, nasty sounds from the thriller movies were coming from the mechanics of the elevator.  Yippee!  But as passengers we didn’t race out of the elevator once the rapidly opening (and don’t forget closing!) doors expanded to their open position, instead we slowly paced out so that those getting on would not know that they were getting into the scary elevator.  We should have been screaming just to freak people out 🙂

One last brilliant thing happened in the mall.  I saw a security guard pick up a pair of balloons that had lost their ‘float’ and slowly lower the ribbons from the balloons into the garbage can and then take a utility knife *cough* of the swiss variety *cough* and pop them.  In the mall.  In case you have missed out on the sound of balloons popping in your life let me gently remind you that they don’t just go, “phhhhhhhhh.”  Popping balloons go BOOM!  And since post 9/11 too much of America is still scared of being wiped out at the mall.  By terrorists.  Shame on the security guard who has the sense to get rid of the extremely dangerous “unattended items” in the mall, but in a way that scares the kaka out of a large group of trapped lemmings.  By simply cutting the balloon by the thicker rubber at the knot he could have released the air in a slow and quiet way.  But Lone Tree’s best apparently like a good laugh.

I guess I laughed, too.  Inside, because I knew that laughing at all of the brainless teenagers and mindless adults would probably get me beat up.  And I didn’t need to be beat up.  If the security guard was as dump as it appeared/sounded he probably wouldn’t know how to break up a fight anyway.  At least I might have smelled good when it was all over if the teens shopped at that one ‘clothes store.’

Wheezing the Juice

Polly Shore, one of America’s most famous not-so-funny comedians (apologies to those of you who really, really enjoyed him) was in the movie “Encino Man,” and in that movie he used the phrase, “Wheezing the juice,” while inside of a quickie-mart type establishment. Write now I’m feeling like my juice has been wheezed. I haven’t written anything good and funny in a while and I’m not 100% sure why.
As my buddy Trint said, I need to get downtown so that I can see the inspiring sites. Basically I’ve got to get out more. I’m in a routine now where my evenings are spent running errands at places like Target or going to the chiropractor. Those are two incredibly hilarious places, let me tell you. No, don’t let me tell you. There isn’t anything to tell. Last night I had Bible Study, which was good, but its not good for comedic material per se. I’ve had some Mormons visit me the last few weeks and I’ve gotten together with them, but they just make me angry because they refuse to engage their brains – their whole religious system is based on turning off their brains.

So, I’m going to try to be extra observant at the mall this weekend as we try to actually get all of our Christmas shopping done in one day. And then come home and write the funniest thing I’ve ever written.

My Fiend Flicka

No, I didn’t misspell ‘Friend’ in the title. The book ‘My Friend Flicka’ has been made into a movie. I read that book as a ‘tween and recall that on a very bad day for me I was reading it. I had some sort of argument with my mom and crawled into the secret room in their house (at the time, they no longer live there) and read the book and cried off and on during the day. Sure, that’s not too manly but I had enough hormones surging through me on that day that I’m pretty sure that I would have qualified as a lab rat.

Anyway, I got to the end of the book and was all weepy and then my dad came home from work and searched me out. He was a bit upset that I had given my mom a hard time. I probably through one of the biggest tantrums of my post-kid life that day and I’m pretty sure my dad was ready to send me to Siberia. I can’t remember much about the book, I just remember being a completely goofy jerkwad to my parents.

Thanks Mom and Dad for not finishing me off that day when I probably deserved it 🙂