Toys and Games

i was thinking the other day about the games and toys i had as a kid. tried to picture our kids playing with what i had and wondering if they would have liked them more or less than what they have now. granted, i grew up with a brother and no sisters. we have one son and two daughters so their toys are a little different.

our son has lots and lots of legos. so did we. i remember we used to keep ours in an old dutch holland bulb box. my brother and i would make cars, trucks, spaceships. we seemingly never had that one piece we needed to finish our masterpiece, but we perservered and got it done through improvisation. now our son has more than he knows what to do with. we don't dare get them all out or we'd have a huge mess on the floor. he likes to build planes, trucks, fire trucks, and smash them in to everything else. my brother comes over on occasion and calls it his "creative release" to play with legos. time to wind down and have fun playing with toys.

we had an atari. it was neat having the coolest games like missle command, asteroids, pacman, pitfall, or whatever we had. then we got a nintendo and it was even neater. used to have mortal combat with the computer generated blood when my character kicked the crap outta the other guy. now there's wii, which we have. it's funny to watch our son, and now our oldest daughter who's almost 4, play boxing and punch the other guy. she actually won a week or so ago. she got so tired she sat down while she was boxing. the kids like beating and banging on my rock band instruments. i like that game because of the music.

my brother had an erector set. i never did. i'd play with his. i think they're still around. there was one game i used to love playing with in 2nd grade during inside recess. it was nothing more than plastic sticks and plastic panels for making a building. i could make it tall, wide, whatever. it was actually kind of neat. haven't seen that for many, many years.

i can remember at one of my grandmother's house that she had a bunch of marbles. big ones, small ones, shooters, clear ones, colored ones. they all looked neat and i always chose the coolest looking ones. i think now that if any of our kids had a bunch of marbles that they'd end up being flung in to walls, or at the dog, or at each other.

we had our bikes, skateboards, and slinky. i had tons and tons of hotwheels. son has a lot of hotwheels and he loves playing with them. i have about 100 or so in the attic still in the package i bought them in. not sure if i'm going to hang on to them and sell them later or give them to him when he gets older.

a couple years ago we started buying the geotrax trains for our son. i had an ho scale train when i was a kid. a little different but the geotrax trains are neat. a lot easier to construct, destruct, change, add to, and play with. one year i spent a couple hours assembling all the pieces (4 trains in all) in the garage. very time consuming but it was fun. one of our uncles had a cool train in his basement. his locomotive could be loaded with smoke pellets to make it look like it was belching out smoke as it was running. that was the neatest train. i used to love going to the children's museum here and seeing all the trains they had set up. it was always a neat trip to see what had changed in their setup. talk about a neat job setting and running all those trains.

the girls have their dolls. one's all about dora, the other about barbie and princess stuff. they both have their dogs and cats they carry around and the world "ends" when they can't be found. same goes for our son. he has his puppies he takes with him. he used to keep one in his backpack he'd take to school with him. it's funny to look through his backpack at the end of a school week just to see what sort of things he carries in there. a pencil or two, notes he's written, a piece of candy, a stuffed animal, a tape measure, a "special" pen or marker, piece of yarn, things like that. i'm sure they have all have sentimental value attached to them and that's why he carries them. i'm sure i used to do the same thing when i was his age.

now our son has our desktop pc in his room. he likes playing games on there. he'll find games at sites i've never heard of. he plays war games, math games, shoot 'em up games, whatever. he also likes watching music videos which is kind of fun to see what he likes. never had a pc when i was a kid. i was 19 or so when i got my first one, a hand-me-down gateway. he has computer lessons at school. i saw my first pc in 6th grade and all we got to do was make starfields or make our names flash and go across the screen. it was a big deal to see those big tandy computers. we even had a computer club back then. man, how things have changed!

toys are toys. i like giving the toys-r-us ads to the kids on the weekends so they can see what they'd like. i usually get a, "daddy, i want that one" after they've looked at it for about 30 seconds. trust me, our kids have more toys in more toy boxes than my brother and i ever did. on occasion some of them will mysteriously disappear to make room for new toys.

give it a year and their tastes will change and we'll have a new batch of toys and games for them to pay with. who knows? i may even find something else from when i was a kid and they may actually like it.

Getting Old

ever feel that way? the old adage, "you're only as old as you feel" holds true. there are days i feel a hell of a lot older than i am. there are days, although not as often ,that i feel younger than i am.

i used to think it was funny when one of my grandmothers would say that they could feel it "in their bones" that the weather was going to change. thought they were full of crap. now i know it's NOT crap because i can feel it. my shoulder hurts worse, my knees pop, by hip pointer almost always acts up just before a front comes through.

it sucks having to pop my knuckles to make my hands work better. it hurts popping both knees when i get out of bed sometimes so i can walk painlessly. it hurts sitting in a chair when my butt needs popped (yes, my sacrum or coccyx does pop at the joint). my hip kills me when the pointer flares up. my shoulder really hurts when i lay on it or lean on it for even short periods of time or rotate it just at the wrong angle.

am i falling apart? not yet. i'm sure i probably exaggerate to a degree but these things actually do hurt. i don't complain a lot but they're noticeable. i'll lean down on the floor in the house and my knee will pop. sometimes someone else hears it an asks what that noise was. i'll blame it on a variety of things. i was a catcher in baseball for many years. all that stooping, bending, standing, squatting has caught up with me. running track, playing football, riding bikes, playing basketball, being a boy, climbing and occasionally falling out of trees; all those things probably helped somewhere along the lines.

now i just do it a little differently. i fight fires. i crawl on my hands and knees (ouch!). i lift people on to stretchers and backboards. i build things. i still swing an axe and sledgehammer when cutting wood. i pull when i should push. one might have thought that i'd learn a little, learn how to do things easier so i don't put as much wear and tear on my body. but i like what i do so i still do it.

we have 3 younger kids. they help keep both of us young or younger. i feel bad quite often that our son wants to roughhouse, play tag or whatever. i don't run like i used to. i'm old, fat, out of shape. i'm usually doing some other task, someone's at the house, or i'm just not in the mood to play those things that he wants to. i felt horrible a couple months ago when he came outside and told me he "wanted to work." hell, he's 7 1/2 years old. he's supposed to be playing, not working. he told me he likes to work. he gets a little of that from me in that there's always things to be done but gee whiz! enjoy being a kid. i did to a point but he needs to more than me.

i idolized my uncle because he was and still is the hardest working man i've ever met, the never stop work ethic. i don't think i ever worked that much but i learned from him that when the job's done you can stand back and look at what you accomplished and feel proud of your effort. i like being able to do that now. take splitting wood; a lot of people i know burn firewood, like we do. most have log splitters which takes a lot of the physical labor out of it. i use an axe and do it the hard way. i like being able to see how big my wood piles are at the end of a job and see just what i've accomplished by my own sweat and effort. makes me feel good knowing i did an honest day's work and my family will benefit because of it.

and there's the fire station. i see all these young kids running around whose parents i graduated with. these kids are seniors in high school or in college. there are kids that i can remember in diapers that now call me "old man." went to a fire a couple weeks ago and i was the senior man on the truck, by age only. our "daughter" is 22, as we've "adopted" her and she calls me "pops." i've always loved having a huge family and she's a terrific addition to our family. she loves our kids and they love her. but man, being called "pops" by someone who can legally drink DOES make me feel old.

i've been a paramedic for almost 19 years. i was giving patients narcotics before i could legally drink. i was an emt before my 18th birthday. in fact i had to wait for 1 1/2 months before i could get my certification because i wasn't yet 18.

i like watching cartoons, to this day, that i grew up with. i see that the tom and jerry, bugs bunny, et all, were made back in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s and they're still fun to watch. i listen to music i grew up with. what i grew up with is now on "classic rock" stations. i see the "one hit wonder" shows on vh1 and see a lot of the songs i used to like that are now 25 years old or older.

i can remember my first cell phone. i can remember not having to wear seat belts. i can remember not worrying about who was sitting in the front seat of the car. i can remember having gas pumped for you at the gas station and the attendant cleaning the windshield and asking if you want the oil checked. 55 mph speed limit. towns where everyone knew everyone and all the house doors were unlocked all day, all night, even when out of town. 45s and 8 tracks were how music got listened to. dolby was the latest and greatest sound invention. floppy drives, not the small hard ones but the big 5" + ones for computers were everywhere. hell, i just watched "wargames" the other night on tv. no email. no computers. pong was THE game to have. had to have cable to see mtv. friday night videos was a cool show to watch. the "a team," miami vice, magnum p.i., st. elsewhere, hill street blues, emergency!; vinny barbarino and the sweathogs, lenny and squiggy, "dynomite!" the jeffersons, edith bunker and "meathead," schneider fixing what the girls messed up, even fred flintstone and his brood.

all these things add up. experience? experiences? experienced? yep, yes, and yup. my history pales to others but these are things in my upbringing. things i look back on and see just how long ago they were around. gives me a lot to look back on to draw from for a reference, for knowledge, for a lesson, or just because they're things i want to hold on to because i liked them. it is amazing how computers and the internet have changed the way we do things. even now, i get to look at the history by using the present and the future. i have no need for a library when i can do it all on a computer.

Ho, Ho, Ho

when you're single traveling around on the holidays typically isn't that big of a deal. when you're married it becomes a little more hectic because of having a completely new set of family members to go see. when you're married with kids it's even more trying because of trying fruitlessly to wrangle the kids in their holiday best, put them in a good mood, the fuss and muss of putting them in to and then out of a vehicle, ge tthem all cleaned up, THEN going inside to see one of the two (or more) sets of family for the holidays,.... it's all very, very trying.

then i think of the people like the duggars. you know, the woman in arkansas who has the, what's the word,... elastic uterus. that a good descriptive comment? holy cow. 18 kids! can you imagine them coming to your house for a holiday dinner? i don't know if i should be empathetic to that woman or not. she likes having kids, and she likes having sex, and i like both of those things but gee whiz! 18???

i can't imagine how big their tree must be to have all those present under the tree. i know ours is a normal sized tree with a lot of presents for our 3 kids but that has to be larger than the one at rockefeller plaza. i guess it's all good as long as we have a tree.

our kids are growing older as are everyone else's. it seems that things are dwindling down a little, traditions are changing somewhat. some of the normal people and things we've done on the holidays are morphing in to new traditions; some good, some unforeseen, some not so good.

the people who are coming to our holiday gatherings are like normal. we have the core group that comes to them but on occasion someone new will be thrown in to the mix. we also have those who used to be a part but with a death here, a move there, some of those people stop coming. it's sad because we don't get to see some of these people on a regular basis and the one or two times a year is now cut in half if not more. family i grew up seeing on holidays no longer comes. why? anyone's guess really. it's the holiday season and everyone "should" like to be with family. i just hope i'm not a lonely bastard when i grow up around the holidays. i would be a real grump to be pissed off at the world because i couldn't be with my kids.

our son wrote a letter to santa the other day and i got a reply in my email that i need to give him. our oldest daughter likes santa. our youngest daughter loves seeing him on tv but freaks out and screams her damn head off when she sees him in person and is supposes to go sit on his lap. i just wait for the day when the three of them get to deal with their own kids and going to the mall to see santa. should be interesting.

then there's the toys. i used to be a picky bastard and get pissed when i didn't get what i wanted. i would sit and peruse the sears and jc penny catalogs for hours on end writing down everything i wanted. i'd write the page, the items, how many of each, and come that fateful day i'd be so looking forward to seeing all my bounty. i'd typically get none. little did i know that my mother usually had her shopping done before july 1st of the year even though we always were asked what we'd like to have for christmas.

all we had when we were kids was to write a letter and drop it in the box outside the post office. you can't "pray" to santa. we had no email. we did get to see him in the malls, but how was he gonna remember all those kids and their wants? i never saw him write anything down. maybe he had a photographic memory. must've been cloudy since i didn't get what i wanted.

usually the days leading up to christmas day my brother and i liked to go around and see which boxes were ours, look at the tags and stack each other's in our own areas. one year i actually was a bad boy (go figure) and slowly tore off little pieces so i could see what it was under the wrapping paper. needless to say, that wa the one present i opened christmas eve. it was a train bottle of cologne from avon. i remember it well as that was the only time i ever did that. one year i got in trouble and was looking around the house for presents mom hid and found a puppet under her bed. it was supposed to be for me but since i snuck around and found it my brother ended up getting it. i was so pissed.

probably the funniest, and i still smile about it, was one year when our mom got tired of my brother and me loking to see which presents were ours. she put codes on the boxes so we wouldn't know which box was for which one of us. come christmas morning she forgot the code. i'd open a box and be suprised and all happy and then i'd hear, "no, that's not for you. it's for your brother." and to make it worse there wasn't just one code for each of us, there were multiple codes for the two of us so that went on all morning. what a pain. i was happy and giddy just to be trodden over with santa's own sleigh because i had opened what belonged to my brother.

well, i guess it could have all been worse but i'm still here. i still believe in santa. our kids believe in him (for now). i see santas all over the place so i know "he" is real. i see some of the things "he" does so i definitely know he's real. christmas is very commercialized, unfortunately, but as long as the spirit of giving is still around i guess i can live with that. i like to see people happy with things they've gotten and i like feeling good about what i've done or been able to do for someone, even though it's because of a materialistic item; i like to know that i can still make people smile.

fair weather

trying to figure out just what to type on this one when it struck me. weather. we all have it, we all deal with it, it's just part of being wherever in the world you are at any given moment. how do we deal with it?

many time i've caught myself saying that i don't like cold weather, wind, i don't like the steamy hot, whatever. i would relish a life in about 75 degrees and sunny with the occasional thunderstorm. bad thing is there would be no season changes. i wouldn't be able to experience snow. i wouldn't feel any cooler temps or hot and sweltering climates.

the age-old dilemma with me is, would i rather be hot or cold? i think i'd rather be hot. i can seemingly never put on enough clothes to get or stay warm. hell, i'm sitting in front of my pc typing this with a winter jacket and hat on even though it's 68 inside. i can typically take off layers of clothing if i'm too hot or find some water, breeze, or fan to help cool down. plus i usually find myself eating more when it's colder for some reason. i excercise more in the warmer months and like to be outside. i don't like being inside during the winter because there's not as much to do and being couped up with 3 kids inside a house can be a bit hectic.

i can remember as a kid being snowbound in our house during the blizzard of '78. we were in the house for 2 weeks without power. close to 20' snow drifts lined the road in front of the house. mom cooked all the meals over the fireplace. my brother and i dug tunnels through the drifts all day and had a blast. no school. all of us sleeping in front of the fireplace at night with a fire to keep warm.

towards the end a farmer down the road used one of his tractors to plow a road through our backyard because the county plows kept getting stuck trying to clear our road. for a couple days i can remember getting picked up for school by the bus in our back yard being led by a tractor. talk about neat!

now i live on the same road, next door to that same house and i have the same worries. there's nothing stopping the road from being drifted shut again. i have a 4x4 truck but that's not everything. hell, last winter the driveway drifted over and the road was clear! just one of those problems living out in the country away from salt, sand, and plows.

one time when i was working in the persian gulf i got a dose of weather reality. i left around midnight on a flight to amsterdam. it was over 100 degrees and sweltering hot. by the time i got to amsterdam about 8 hours later it was 32 degrees and snowing. i was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. i was getting some really odd looks from people in schipol (the airport). got a room in the hotel there inside the airport, buddy gave me a sweatshirt to keep warm, and when i got home i told myself i'd never again travel overseas without wearing pants and having a jacket or sweatshirt of some kind.

well, i guess it's not as bad as getting a room at the ice hotel. you imagine?

i usually got lucky enough when i worked overseas to be in warmer climates. most of the time i was in tropical or sub tropical areas. on occasion i worked where it's cold and crappy like in the north sea. hell, even the gulf of mexico gets damn cold in the winter. but for places like africa, the caribbean, asia, the weather was usually nice and warm, if not hot. even their cold days were like spring or early summer back home. there were days when there was no breeze whatsoever and the humidity was off the charts making things hotter. in the persian gulf it's just as bad if not worse. dry, sandy and gritty, and seldom wet. seemed odd that on rare occasion they got snow in the deserts. never got to see it but always heard about it.

usually half the winter here in the us i'd be gone for. i'd usually come home with a tan from working outside in the sun while overseas and look kind of odd. it was always one of those perks from working overseas. nice and warm, missed half the winter, got a nice tan, wanted to go back to miss even more of the cold weather.

granted, there were times offshore i wish i was home for various reasons but i liked missing the cold. i was raised in the midwest where snow's a normal occurrence. i got spoiled when i began working overseas in warmer areas. some of them weren't the most picturesque areas but they were warm. at times it got boring seeing nothing but water, water, another rig or platform, more water, but i survived it all.

lots of times there were no quiet places to go to sit and think or just be by myself. privacy doesn't happen with 100 other guys crammed on a rig. the helideck was my only refuge. countless times i fell asleep on the helideck, relaxing listening to my cd player and just enjoying the warm sun and relative quiet that that area of the rig offered me.

dealing with climate changes has always been part of my life. there are those who don't see any changes. they're stuck where they're at forever. they don't get to see the leaves change. no thunderstorms, no wind chill, no snowball fights, no brown grass, all the things i've seen over and over again.

here in the midwest people go to florida for the winter. my parents used to spend a couple months there and miss the majority of the winter. i used to ask, "where to people from florida go for a vacation?" seems like most people go there for a vacation. think it'd be odd living in a tourist destination. trying to find a place non-touristy would be the key to get away from everything. i used to love goig to gatlinburg, for example. i'd try to go during the off season when all the tourists weren't there. lot quieter and not as much hussle and bussle. i'd go in the middle of the off season but still early enough that i could see the leaves on the trees in the smokies change. gorgeous, quiet, and relaxing. used to make that trip for a week every year in october or november. well worth it. it was my vacation away from everything.

just some of the views from the hills and mountains in the park were breathtaking. climbing up chimney top and being above the clouds while still being able to see the higher elevation's trees and their awesome colors was simply beyond words. quiet, peaceful, just made me smile as i was able to sit there quietly and take in all the world's beauty right in front of me. amazing how different seasons have the ability to produce so much tranquility.

and then lastly we get to the "other" seasons such as summer and tornado season, hurricane season, drought season, the rainy season,... they all have their names for a reason. i've gotten to see a couple tornadoes, seen a couple water spouts, lived through blizzards, experienced a couple tropical depressions, storms, and hurricanes. i just think that even though i'd like to be in a place where the weather's always warm but not hot would be wonderful, it'd be boring. no excitement. nothing to "ooooo" and "ahhhh" over. no scenery to speak of. nothing to tell me that it's getting later in the year. no anxiously awaiting the tulips to pop out in the spring or the leaves budding out to them changing their gorgeous colors in the fall. no smell of fireplaces in the wintertime keeping people and houses warm. all those things are part of changing seasons; seasons that i'm glad i still get to experience, good weather or bad.

tis the season

yes tis. but the season of what? eating? excess? vanity? forgiveness? take your pick but do it wisely.

no, no "ba humbug." just typed that in.

i've always liked christmas and the season surrounding it. seems like once halloween gets here it's holiday season from that point on. hell, even all the stores in our area had their christams displays up WAY before halloween even got here. the cold weather's already set in. it got here a little later than in years past but it's definitely here now. just hoping i have enough wood split to last the winter.

playing cards on the laptop last night and the wife asks me to try to find something unusual but cool for a present for our son. he's always liked guns and a couple years ago papaw got some authentic guns, albeit fake, that looked, felt and were as heavy as the real ones. somewhere along the lines of guns i found these.

i've never seen a marshmallow gun before but they look neat as hell and they shoot marshmallows, not rocks or sticks or anything else. one of them shoots the big ones up to 40 feet away. i can just see landon and me outside around the house, in his tree house, around the barn, in the woods shooting marshmallows at each other. along the way we get tired and take a break and use our ammo for a snack. so, i bought 2 bows and 2 guns. all of them use the mini ones and not the big ones. should be fun.

the two girls are getting clothes, which i'm sure is a sign of things to come and continue. clothes and jewelry, and more clothes, latest styles, fashion magnates they'll both become. one of them likes princess things while the other is in to a couple babies and her puppies. i think stuffed animals are a little cheaper. it's amazing that both of them have more clothes than i do! their closets are crammed the way it is and they'll be even more stuffed on 12/26. but as long as they're happy then it's all good.

i remember when i was a kid how i loathed getting clothes. i wanted toys. i never had the speak & spell that i wanted. didn't get the simon or any of the other cool games. i think my brother got a coleco football game that i always wanted.

when we were a little older we actually got an atari. had a couple games like asteroids and pitfall with it and we traded games with one of the neighbor kids who lived just down the building from us. we did have, at our gramma's house, one of the first versions of "pong." one of my uncles was a software magnate in california and they sent us the game to have one year. at the time it was the neatest thing!

after i got older, a couple years ago my mom actually asked me what i wanted for christmas. she had told me that she wanted to know what i wanted, not what i needed. so i told her i wanted an xbox. i got it and loved it. stil have it down in the basement. still have all the NASCAR and golf games with it but 3 kids doesn't necessarily lend me a lot of time to play it like i used to. too bad i can't have it at work when things are slow. might make the days go a little faster.

as everyone gets older their likes change, their desires change, their needs change. when i was a kid i wanted toys, i needed clothes, i desired all the cool things everyone else had. now that i'm a father i want clothes because i need the cool things because i desire the toys. well, maybe not quite like that. i still want the toys but i know i need other things first. what i realize most is that my family needs to come before me in every respect. i can deal without a lot of things. if they're happy, that's all that counts. i tend to me too materialistic and i need to get away from that. i just hope that they don't get that way and miss a lot of what they could be having and doing without all those gadgets.

hell, just give me one of these and i'll be happy. we'll see what sort of things i get this year. if nothing, no problem. i'll settle for my family being safe, healthy, and happy. that'll be present enough after a very long, trying, tough year for all of us.

music these days

when i was younger, a LOT younger, my best friend and i used to love pretending we had our own radio show. we'd mock other djs on the radio and we'd record what we did. we'd play songs off 45s, tell jokes, do play-by-play of fake sporting events, make news flashes, whatever. it was a way jason and i spent a lot of time and we loved doing it. he kept some of those tapes and he even gave me a couple a while back.

i happened to watch a video on roadrunner records' website the other night. someone had commented about a particular band and said that "rock and roll was truly dead," apparently because they disliked the band's song and video. i know that everyone's entitled to their opinion and i'll keep it at that. i'll also say that it really does depend on what type of music you like and too many people are varied in their likes these days. diversified? is that a good term to use?

after jason and i got a little older and in to high school we both became heavily involved in our high school radio station, which is still in operation today.
he and i both did sports, had our own radio shows, did live remotes, got to do a little bit of everything. one thing we got to do was spin a lot of records to songs that we loved. there was some censorship to what we could play, however, but we managed to play some of our tastes.

jason had a huge 45 collection of a little bit of everything. i can remember seeing all those records and wishing they were mine but all i had to do was go to his house and play them and i forgot about wanting all of them for myself. i used to tape the radio on a little cassette recorder i had. when i was little i thought that every time a song was played on the radio that the band actually came to the studio to play it. i was amazed how it sounded the same each and every time they played.

casey kasem was doing "america's top 40." i listened to it religiously and got pissed when my songs didn't crack the list or didn't move up in the #1 spot. then it was rick dees who took over and began doing his version. i liked casey's "long distance dedications" the best. no, i never sent one in.

but having the chance to be on the radio for 5 years helped me listen to a variety of music. some i wanted to play, some i had to play. some i just chose not to. then after high school i went to college and found jazz. fusion jazz is what it's called. mind you, i still listened to rock and still had my dislikes, but i liked jazz. easy to listen to, great for studying to, and nice to fall asleep to. the likes of joe sample, the rippingtons, fourplay, earl klugh and george benson kept me mellowed out. the rippingtons was my first jazz concert. loved it! saw them at the roof ballroom downtown indy. they were fantastic back in 1991. took the wife and saw them again just about a month ago. they were STILL fantastic. a couple new faces but they sounded awesome. my head bopped, my feet tapped, and my hands clapped inceasently all night long through the 90 minutes show. it was fantastic!

in indiana we're lucky to have the slippery noodle, home of indiana's oldest bar, and of some of the area's best live blues. short older black man who could wail on the microphone, beebop like cab calloway, and have fun doing it while having the entire crown at the front small stage cheering like mad. his best song, to me, was "big fat woman." terrific performer who had fun packing the crowd in the noodle and enjoyed singing.

i remember my first rock concert at market square arena. got to see guns n' roses open up for aerosmith. that was when gnr just broke out as a small but up and coming band from lafayette, in. they blew steven tyler off the stage. pure rock with great booming guitar with those cat shriekingesque vocals to each and every song.

my brother told me one time when i first heard his "doors" 8-track that someday i'd learn to love the doors. didn't then and still don't today. just personal taste. now, a lot of what he liked back then i love now. rush, van halen, styx, some of the good older rock he and i grew up with. i still listen to a classic rock station here in town. i also listen to an alternative station that has some good rock on it (the "x"). i don't like all of it but i like a lot of it. it's good to see a lot of the bands i grew up with either still around or making comeback or reunion tours. they still sound great and sometimes better than before. it's too bad that some of them are no longer around or members have died off.

take boston for example. brad delp was a wonderful lead singer. great band, outstanding coordination in band playing, nice easy lyrics, and usually kick ass guitars in all the songs that made them one of the better bands in the 70s and 80s. i watched a couple of their videos on youtube the other night. they played like they were having fun, not just high or stoned or drunk. they looked like they enjoyed what they were doing when out on stage. a lot of bands from that era went through the motions just to make money.

youtube has come to be such a library of videos of all types; it's amazing what you can find. i watched videos from toto, styx, rick springfield, the outfield, ah ha (just happened to pop up, i swear!), the fixx, lynrd skynrd, van halen and van hagar, just to name a few. i usually spend an hour or so just watching videos of songs i grew up with. we didn't have mtv back then so i didn't get to see a lot of these videos. then i went to roadrunner records' site and watched black stone cherry in a couple videos. their lead singer is relation to the kentucky headhunters. good "southern rock" band.
good sound, great guitars, all from a band whose oldest member is 24 years old. they put out a new video for "soul creek," one of their songs off their folklore album. makes me want to play strip poker.

anyway, rock isn't dead. it's just changed. from linkin park's chester screaming at the top of his lungs to genesis' abacab to the who's "who are you?" new and old, take your pick and find what you like. youtube seemingly has all there is to view at your convenience.

scary things

buddy of mine sends me (and others) pictures, jokes, videos from the net that he finds. i often wonder where he finds all this stuff. lots of it i keep for funny material for classes i do, to get a laugh out of at a later date, or just because they may, albeit seldom, raise an interesting or educational point.

this one totally loses me. it's downright horrid and scary. it's worrisome that there are things like this in the country that i love. and to think that there's one of these less than 10 miles from our house. i can't even describe some of what i saw as it may get too graphic for younger viewers. please view at your own risk and have a phone handy to call a loved one in case you get too terrified.

People of WalMart

Indianapolis Colts

Turkey Day and Calories

seems like every thanksgiving holiday the food is the same with a couple minor exceptions. bad thing? nah, it's good to have some of the same things i get to eat only a couple times a year. turkey, dressing, taters, things like that are the typical fare and they usually are a hit with everyone.

seemingly everywhere i go on the tube at home i'll see a show about thanksgiving cooking and how to make things better, easier, cheaper, different, spicier, jazzier, whateverier. why change? if it's something you like then keep it the same. mind you, i'm all for trying something new but i have a good sense of what tastes good with what. there are some things i can't figure out or have no idea what they are yet i'll try them anyway. reminds me of city slickers. the two guys who owned an ice cream company and their game was mixing ice cream flavors with food. there are times i fail miserably and there are times i hit it spot on.


i saw bobby flay's tweet this am about creamed spinach and nutmeg as a side for his dinner. eww,... i don't like spinach but it just sounds like an odd combination. every once in a while i'll throw out something different or put a little dash of this or that in something and it works. i'm lucky because i love to cook. my family eats 93.2% of what i cook and the girls don't throw it against the wall. i don't see anyone slyly putting their plates under the table to feed the food to the dog and then proclaim, "daddy, i'm done. it was terrific food!!!" i don't think i've ever coooked anything yet that someone has said, "this is the best i've ever had." i've cooked a lot of good food but that one exclamation has eluded me.

one thing i like doing is just being able to throw something together. seldom do i look at a recipe book unless it's something i've used before and can't remember everything. we have a lot of recipe books and we use them occasionally. all the smallish measurements throw me off. drives me nuts. a dash here, a dollop there, do what tastes good. gramma taught me that. i most certainly cook for flavor, not health. i like good tasting food. i know what i like. i know pretty much what my family likes. i love it when they want something i make instead of spaghetti o's or something out of a box. hell, even our son likes watching cooking shows with me. i usually hear a, "daddy, that looks gooooooood!" when we see something that looks killer.

couple years ago my cousin asked me if i wanted to send in a recipe for a cookbook she was helping put together. wow! i don't thin i did just because writing down what i cook, the way I cook, would be difficult at best. i don't typically measure a lot unelss it's out of a box. i would love to put some things down for our kids to learn later on but i like the way i learned to cook; by taste. i found what i like, how i like it, and tastes change.

i lived in louisiana for several years. my tastes changed from meat & taters in the midwest to good, full of flavor, kick ass cajun and creole cooking. good down home southern comfort food. went and worked all over the world, literally, and had my tastes change and get diversified from other places; other influences. i was able to bring some of those home with me and incorporate them with what i already did and make things different. i would say change things from being bland, rather adding new or different flavors in to things.

here's one; people talk about cajun food. when i hear people mention it they usually say, "hot" in the same breath. cajun food isn't hot. it's seasoned very well. there's a difference. for example, every hot sauce, believe it or not, has a different flavor. some are hotter, some have more of a pepper taste, some more salty or more of a tomato taste, things like that. i taste cajun foods at places up here and they usually taste like shit. gumbo is not a soup; gumbo is a meal all in itself. it is not like paste and it is not to be served over minute rice. if you can't make a dark brown rouz from scratch then you don't need to be making a gumbo because you'll either burn it or you'll cheat and buy "roux in a jar." lastly, campbell's soup is good but their chicken gumbo is just a soup in a can.

experiment. enjoy. try to challenge yourself with new ideas, recipies, or flavors. i love doing that and finding i can cook different things together. bad thing is, i do something one week and it's a hit at the table, i'll forget what i did the next week when i try to make it again.

Sports

i've seen a lot of of the older sports games where the protective equipment wasn't as good as it is today (go figure) or just non-existent. take for example the helmets in football. for a while they were leather. i think before that there weren't any. put that in to perspective in today's football games and you wind up with a lot of hurt people.

same goes for shoulder pads, gloves, neck braces, mouth guards, and anything else that wasn't then that is now. i know that a lot of the players today are larger, more physical, and hit a hell of a lot harder. just watched a game yesterday that had some hellacious hits. this is like people doing 360 degree spins in the air, their heads being jolted backwards, a guy got his leg under a couple guys and broke both his tibia and fibula (lower leg boes), things like that. a lot of bells have been rung. guys having 1, 2, or more concussions in a year. it's almost like boxing and the physical torture those guys take on an every fight basis.

baseball is no different. it used to be just hats. now guys are wearing full face shields to protect themselves. 90+ mph fastballs hitting guys in the face and breaking bones, line drives doing the same thing. i can remember as a kid getting hit right in the middle of the chest during an all star game. it hurt but it wasn't too bad. i got up and continued. wonder how i'd feel if i got hit with a 90 mph fastball in the middle of the chest!

more and more people, kids included, are wearing a lot more protective equipment to help stave off injuries. bigger people are playing, they're more aggressive and physical, and the injuries give longer rehab times just because they're a lot more damaging than they used to be. i worry about kids playing in sports just because of the injuries they can easily suffer.

Winter Wonderland

just got done talking with someone here at work and we were both agreeing that winter weather stinks. yeah, the first snow is always nice and pretty but after the first couple days it gets old really quick.

i can remember when i first moved to louisiana and got to experience Christmas Day in shorts and a t-shirt. i couldn't believe it when someone told me that i would, but shortly thereafter i did. definitely a new experience!

then i began working overseas. usually i was in tropical or sub tropical areas where there really wasn't any such thing as cold weather. i typically missed half the cold winters here at home while i was at work. i'd usually come home with a tan from laying out on the helidecks and look out of place in the airport. probably the funniest was when i came home from the middle east wearing shorts and a t-shirt. i left doha when it was 100 degrees. i got to amsterdam and it was snowing and 32. that was the last time i ever went overseas without wearing pants and taking a sweatshirt or jacket with me.

the winter around here is just around the corner. got enough firewood to last the winter and already building a stock for next year. last year some of the water lines froze in the garage which ticked me off. brand new house and already that happened. ended up spending some time and money insulating a lot of pipes and floors because of that. there's not a lot to block the north and west sides of the house from the cold wind so we have to deal with what comes. and with it being unblocked it usually gets pretty windy outside which makes the wind chill even that much colder.

i usually like the thought of putting away all the winter garb and coats and getting ready for warmer temps. now is when it all gets pulled back out. mind you, i love a good fire in the fireplace, keeping warm, curling up under a blanket watching tv with the wife and kids (if they sneak out of their beds). one of the dogs likes to curl up against anyone who lays on the floor like that. she likes to keep warm and she does a terrific job of keeping someone else warm. her arthritis is getting really bad so usually she's curled up in front of the fire herself.

last winter i got to enjoy a couple moments of true tranquility. it was a saturday afternoon and the wife and kids were all gone doing something. i was in the middle of the woods cutting on a tree that fell over. all of the sudden it began to snow. the large wet flakes coming down at a vigorous pace. the wind was blocked by all the trees so the pure white snowflakes were coming straight down.

i stopped what i was doing and just stood there watching, listening, taking everything in; how peaceful it was, how quiet it was. the only things i heard were the millions and millions of snowflakes hitting the remaining brown leaves on the odd tree and the ground, already crunchy with older snow from a week prior. i looked up, down, and around just to take it all in and put the sights with the sounds and log it all in my brain for future use when i might need a peaceful reminder of how the world can be truly tranquil and beautiful.

The Economy

i used to think it odd when i'd come home my dad would say, "alan's getting ready to speak." little did i know that "alan" helped rule the economy of most of the world. cnbc was always on at the house. everyone would talk about "alan" before he spoke, after he spoke, and then talked to everyone else about what they thought or what their interpretations were of what he said. when "alan" spoke, the world listened.

i wonder how many people wish that "alan" was back in office.

all i have to do now is walk around a couple towns and see the sights of people not working. the unemployment offices are busy, the doles are huge, the lists of people wanting to work but can't are just as long. people need to work. people want to work. i know the classifieds show lots of jobs but i've been told recently that people are "too qualified" of "over qualified" for jobs they're applying for, so they get turned down.


sad when people want to work but can't because they have too much brain power or experience. guess those who are doing the hiring are worried that their jobs will be taken by the ones they hire with too much qualification.

by the way, i loved this movie. thought spacey was killer. he had a "screw it" attitude and that's what i'd like to see more people have in the world.

all the stimulus money's beginning to go out. yet even with the money being filtered to states and localities, how many jobs are actually being created? are they permanent or temporary? are they providing a useful purpose and contributing to the economy or is it someone hoarding money and padding numbers?

around me i see a lot of road work going on; roadwork for the state which doesn't need to be done. yet i've read and been told that they needed to get this money spent on projects that were "shovel ready," and not in design stages. almost like seasonal work that could begin on a moment's notice and be done just as quickly.



i go to work and talk to people who have their brothers and sisters on "the bench" at the local union halls. granted, i'm not a fan of unions but the bigger picture i see is people not working. thousands and thousands of them across the country not working. they want to work. they have to work. lots of them have bills and families to support and without work they have nothing. some halls provide pensions and plans but others do not.

i see a lot of people who are working but many more who are not. it's not just the halls. it's everywhere. when is this stimulus money going to tricle down to everyone else? i haven't seen a raise in 3 years. my company stopped giving a bonus to its employees. our insurance rates have been jacked up,... again. gas prices are higher. food prices are higher.

the stock market's going back up but those who have money are playing in it. i would but i'm without money to do it. all i can do is my wimpy 401k that got raped by the economy the last couple years. can i get it back? nope. it's my pension, if you will, and i lost a ton. many more lost everything. i guess i'm one of the lucky ones.

i'll be blunt; this shit needs to change. nobody inherited this problem. we have it and it needs to be fixed. i realize that everyone can't be pleased all the time but we all need some help. $400 or $250 one time won't do dick. it's the cost of a good night out or a couple dinners for wife and kids. so while our government pays out billions to auto companies, banks, and insurance companies, the residents of the USA are getting screwed. that money should be going to us, to help prop us up, to put US back to work. bad thing is, they gave out all that money. it has to be repaid back. by who? US

Moose Stew

was that what she liked? yummy. reminds me of scrapple, heart, tongue, and all the other wonderful things that we used to eat as kids. eh, guess i never thought too highly of some of the other things i've seen and eaten in my worldly travels.

ms. palin's making her book rounds presently. think she started up in michigan yesterday and is now in indiana. cbs news said last night that she wasn't hitting any major metro areas. i find that odd and curious why she isn't. maybe she has enough of a following in the outskirts that she wanted to boost that rating up a couple points.


i saw the lines of people waiting to see her, get their wristbands, buy her book, and get a chance to see the hottest "ex" governor of the coldest state. one woman interviewed stated she was "so inspired by her that when i turn 18 i'm going to register to vote democrat." thought that was pretty damned witty for a 17 year old.

i remember when i was a kid how if i went "rogue," i'd get my ass whooped. my thoughts and opinions usually stayed between myself and my pals.

more and more people are wondering if she'll make a run for the big chair in the next election. i'd almost put that in the same breath as having bart simpson as a principal in springfield elementary. not a whole hell of a lot of experience trying to lead a nation of job hungry people, and one with the world's largest economy. nah, not a good choice for me. i can just picture her list of advisors and who they'd be. her husband would undoubtedly be the secretary of energy since he worked on the north slope for bp in the oil patch, meghann mccain would be the press secretary, and ross perot would be the secretary of the treasury.

it's sad the way politics have changed over the decades and generations. more and more arenas are being ruined by politics. "i'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" is heard a lot. i've heard it recently in the small town i live in. a lot of "good old boys" are around and they know who they like and dislike. there are ways to manipulate what you want, how you want it, and how you get it or get it done and there are masters of all of those traits. i'm pretty good at them myself yet i have learned to not use them for my personal advantage; i use them (no bullshit) for bettering others and what they do.

if ms. palin runs for and is elected to the hot seat i think it would tell the rest of the world that our country is grasping for something, ANYTHING, that they can to make things better. this hogwash about her being a normal "hockey mom" is crap. she's learned very quickly how to play in the political arena. she's young, attractive, has a good looking family, comes from a blue collar family, and rose to the top using those ideals. she's used those things to her advantage to get what she wanted. i still don't quite understand john mccain's choice in her as a running mate with such limited, if any, experience in big time politics. just seemed really, really, strange.

i'd almost say that tina fey impersonating ms. palin could do a better job as president. she knows how to joke around as it's her job. she's an actress. if she doesn't know the answer she can either baffle with bullshit or simply not answer a questions. when katie couric interviewed ms. palin a while back it was funny to see how she answered, or didn't answer, direct questions about certain foreign policies, programs, and national concerns simply because she didn't know. she had no experience. she had not formed her own opinions and was answering based upon what limited knowledge she had of john mccain's ideals and goals. sad, truly sad. and to think that that may be our commander in chiefette? oh my Lord, what will happen to us then? third world countries will begin looking at us the way we look at them.

i just hope that when people do go to the polls and vote they do it with their brains. too many people vote for who they want, not for who's the best for the job. i see it all the time with local smaller elections. the promises, the "pal factor," the back scratching, the whatever it's called. too many people still vote a straight ticket just because they're staunch republicans or democrats. sad that they can't form their own opinions and vote on who they want instead of following party lines and live with making one or two bad choices just to keep several more in power that they want. ultimately it's those one or two bad choices that could be the death knell for us all.

think for yourself when you vote. make a wise educated decision before you vote. use your brain and see what needs to be seen and ask questions. get the answers before a vote is cast. protect yourself by who you vote for. and yes, one vote does make a difference. it's those "one votes" that add up to thousands.

It was a dark and stormy night,...

the other day i asked my wife who always began their stories with that line. told her i'd give her a gold star for the day if she could tell me. guess it helped that when i was a kid my big brother had a whole set of snoopy / charlie brown books that i read all the time.

typically the beginning of something, a preface, book cover, or something along those lines, needs to be able to grab the reader and shout to them that this is something worth reading; something chocked full of information and useful tidbits of drivel. the old adage of not judging a book by it's cover is, in my eyes, half correct. i liken it to a rusty building; you can liven it up by giving it a new coat of paint but underneath the shell of the building is still crap, still rusty, and you still have the insides which may not have been fixed up or repaired. a book or article or magazine may not have an ounce of newsworthy or compelling thoughts but if the cover or headline is catchy enough it'll bring even the most pessimistic reader to it at least for the first couple sentences or paragraphs.

well, this won't be catchy. this is nothing more than me spouting off thoughts, opinions, mindless banter that i want to talk about. daily headlines, what i see, thought, did, my opinions, who's a hot topic,... whatever strikes my fancy. i wrote a book a couple years ago that's never been published. it was like my memoir. i wanted it for our kids to read when i'm old and gray and gone. that way they, or their kids, can see who i was and possibly why i did some of the things i did. same for this.

anyway,... let the blogging begin