Here’s a little something from the MidWest that I’m sure you’ll love.
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I do!
TJ
Ketchup Brewings
Actually, it’s “Catch-up/Brewings”… but that’s not as funny (I know…. like Ketchup Brewings is).
Anywho, I have not died, dropped off the face of the Earth or moved to a hippie colony/coffee bistro in Seattle. I’m still here… letting the rants form and brew in the twisted imagination I have to put out and brighten your otherwise humdrum-piss-poor-excuse-of-a-day!
Being interested in keeping connected and observing the other wierd shit people come up with… I have a MySpace page. If you don’t know what MySpace is… I would suggest that you get out from under your rock more often. By the way, you can find some of the blogs here on that site, along with some of the fun videos of TCO there.
Anywho, being the social site it is… it is sus
Holiday Joy
On to the more pleasant parts of the Christmas Holiday Season…. watching your child get more and more excited about Christmas every day.
Without fail, TCO will always ask me before I tuck him in for bed, “Is it Christmas tomorrow?” My son is at the age where he realizes new things about Christmas everyday. His latest thing is, “I have to be really, really good… because Jesus and Santa Claus are watching!”
And you know, that’s the best way to look at Christmas….. through the eyes of a young child.
TJ
The Holidays
Merry Christmas!
Yes, I said it! Merry Christmas! A bunch of people don’t want me to say that because it “infringes” on somebody else’s delicite “sensabilities”. Well, think of it this way….
1. It’s my way of saying Happy Holidays (however the heck you want to celebrate this time of year… if, in fact, you can pull that large barbed-wire stick out of your ass long enough to have a little joy in your life!)
2. What about my right to express the Season in the way I see fit?!? If someone comes to me and says that I can’t say “Merry Christmas” because it offends them, that’s an offense to me!
Bottom Line is: Saying “Merry Christmas” is not the end of the world for anyone. If someone comes to spit in your face, drag you from your home, beat the crap out of you, burn down your house and piss in your lasangna…. that could be considered offensive.
Personally, I’d rather just say “Merry Christmas”.
Happy THANK GOD MID-TERM ELECTIONS ARE F*&#%-ING OVER Day and other Points of Interest
I am acutally posting a response to another friend of mine’s blog (tb) which bares repeating.
1. The next time you hear someone trying to talk like Borat (because he just saw the movie and has not one original funny bone in his fucking body, but damn-it, he tries hard enough) walk up to him.. laugh long and hard at how funny he’s trying to be… kick him square in the balls… and tell him that you just watched Jackass II and thought that would be funny, too!
2. Your Election Day could have been worse. (tb lives in Minnesota…. ’nuff said) You could have had a bunch of loud, obnoxious demonstrators both for and against Referered Law 6 (the Anti-Abortion Bill that… rightfully so, was shot down like the flying piece of crap that it was) screaming at the top of their lungs all day right by your house and stopping traffice. There were actually more Pro-Lifers than Pro-Choicers there… some having their kids out of school holding signs while the parents toted around large pictures of aborted fetuses (just what I want my child exposed to!).
3. Breathe easy while you can… only a few months before they start hammerig for ‘08 Elections.
On a side note. Wynter had me take the Political Placement Test on-line. As it turns out (by the way I answered all of their politically skewed questions), I happen to be to the left of Gahndi. As a result, replacing all of my wardrobe with bedsheets and eating nothing but celery sticks and chant 20 times a day… and then go kick a bull… in the nuts.. just to bring me back to center!
LLL (Long Live Libertarians)
TJ
The Soldier’s Life
This is something that I received from Brother Jamie, a close friend that is just getting ready to come back from Iraq. Even though he says that this isn’t completely accurate, I would say that it’s pretty good, all things considered!
——-
Since my
time in Iraq is quite limited now, I thought I would
spread some funny about it. Most of this is
based on truth, but dramatic liscense has been taken
to improve the humor! Enjoy, this will most
likely be the last Iraq thingy I
send!!
How to Prepare for a Deployment to Iraq
1. Sleep on a cot in the garage.
2.Replace the garage door with a curtain.
3. Six hours after you go to sleep, have your wife or
girlfriend whip open the curtain, shine a flashlight
in your eyes and mumble, “Sorry, wrong cot.”
4. Renovate your bathroom. Hang a green
plastic sheet down from the middle of your bathtub and
move the showerhead down to chest level. Keep four
inches of soapy cold water on the floor. Stop cleaning
the toilet and pee everywhere but in the toilet
itself. Leave two to three sheets of toilet paper. Or
for best effect, remove it altogether. For a more
realistic deployed bathroom experience, stop using
your bathroom and use a neighbor’s. Choose a neighbor
who lives at least a quarter mile away.
5. When you take showers, wear flip-flops and keep the
lights off.
6. Every time there is a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking chair and dump dirt on your head.
7. Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it on “HIGH” for that tactical generator smell.
8. Don’t watch TV except for movies in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch and then show a different one.
9. Leave a lawnmower running in your living room 24 hours a day for proper noise level.
10. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.
11. Once a week, blow compressed air up through your chimney making sure the wind carries the soot across and on to your neighbor’s house. Laugh at him when he curses you.
12. Buy a trash compactor and only use it once a week. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub.
13.Wake up every night at midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a saltine cracker.
14. Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in your food cabinets or refrigerator. Then serve some kind of meat in an unidentifiable sauce poured over noodles. Do this for every meal.
15. Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. When it goes off,
jump out of bed and get to the shower as fast as you can. Simulate there is no hot water by running out into your yard and breaking out the garden hose.
16. Once a month, take every major appliance completely apart and put it back together again.
17. Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for five or six hours before drinking.
18. Invite at least 185 people you don’t really like because of their strange hygiene habits to come and visit for a couple of months. Exchange clothes with them.
19. Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.
20. Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front and back doors so that you either trip over the threshold or hit your head on the sill every time you pass
through one of them.
21. Keep a roll of toilet paper on your night stand and bring it to the bathroom with you. And bring your gun and a flashlight.
22. Go to the bathroom when you just have to pass gas, “just in case.” Every time.
23.
Announce to your family that they have mail, have them
report to you as you stand outside your open garage
door after supper and then say, “Sorry, it’s for the
other Smith.”
24. Wash only 15 items of
laundry per week. Roll up the semi-wet clean clothes
in a ball. Place them in a cloth sack in the corner of
the garage where the cat pees. After a week, unroll
them and without ironing or removing the mildew,
proudly wear them to professional meetings and family
gatherings. Pretend you don’t know what you look or
smell like. Enthusiastically repeat the process for
another week.
25. Go to the worst
crime-infested place you can find, go heavily armed,
wearing a flak jacket and a Kevlar helmet. Set up shop
in a tent in a vacant lot. Announce to the residents
that you are there to help them.
26. Eat a
single M&M every Sunday and convince yourself it’s
for Malaria.
27. Demand each family member be
limited to 10 minutes per week for a morale phone
call. Enforce this with your teenage daughter.
28. Shoot a few bullet holes in the walls of
your home for proper ambiance.
29. Sandbag the
floor of your car to protect from mine blasts and
fragmentation.
30. While traveling down roads
in your car, stop at each overpass and culvert and
inspect them for remotely detonated explosives before
proceeding.
31. Fire off 50 cherry bombs
simultaneously in your driveway at 3:00 a.m. When
startled neighbors appear, tell them all is well, you
are just registering mortars. Tell them plastic will
make an acceptable substitute for their shattered
windows.
32. Drink your milk and sodas warm.
33. Spread gravel throughout your house and
yard.
34. Make your children clear their Super
Soakers in a clearing barrel you placed outside the
front door before they come in.
35. Make your
family dig a survivability position with overhead
cover in the backyard. Complain that the 4x4s are not
8 inches on center and make them rebuild it.
36. Continuously ask your spouse to allow you
to go buy an M-Gator.
37. When your 5-year-old
asks for a stick of gum, have him find the exact stick
and flavor he wants on the Internet and print out the
web page. Type up a Form 9 and staple the web page to
the back. Submit the paperwork to your spouse for
processing. After two weeks, give your son the gum.
38. Announce to your family that the dog is a
vector for disease and shoot it. Throw the dog in a
burn pit you dug in your neighbor’s back yard.
39. Wait for the coldest/ hottest day of the
year and announce to your family that there will be no
heat/air conditioning that day so you can perform much
needed maintenance on the heater/ air conditioner.
Tell them you are doing this so they won’t get cold/
hot.
40. Just when you think you’re ready to
resume a normal life, order yourself to repeat this
process for another six months to simulate the next
deployment you’ve been ordered to support
—–
Whether you do or you don’t agree with why we’re “at war”, support the people who are there in this.
TJ
Milestones
Alright. I think I calmed down now after that last posting. This one is light-hearted and melancholy at the same time (if that makes any sense.)
My son turns 5 years old today. That means it was 5 years and approximately 7 hours since I witness the miracle of my son coming into this world firsthand.
My life has never been the same since. I’ve watched as TCO (The Cute One – for the unititiated) has grown and evolved with his surroundings and with our guidence and antics.
There are things that I know he got from Wynter and I and others that just seem to come automatically. For example, the trademark grin and mischevious glint of the eyes I give…. or Wynter’s large vocabulary.
There are other things that just seem to come naturally. TCO has a very large thing for Family. Every one of his toys has a family. There’s the Bear Family, the Puppy Family, the Monkey Family, the Gorrila Family (and he definitely knows the difference between a monkey and a gorilla), the Bionicle Family, the Motorcycle Family, the Leggo Airplane Family… etc.
He also picks up rocks that he finds in parking lots and at pre-school that “looked sad and lonely” and brings them home and makes families for them (most of them are named “Rocky”… don’t ask me how you can tell them apart!)
He is also known to think of his sock puppet has his “little brother”, who he named Jack Peter. It’s not bad enough that everyone else is asking when we’re going to have more kids any time soon… our own son chiming in to guilt us into it.
This is one of the reason kids get pets.
The biggest thing that he has is Love. He loves his Mom and Dad with everything that he has. He will stop in the middle of whatever he’s doing, run up to Wynter and I and throw his arms around us… alot of times at both of us at the same time. He loves Family Hugs and Snuggles. He has all sorts of varieties of hugs and kisses that he can give.
And I’ll take those as long as he’s willing to give them out.
TJ
Pissed Off! (Ode to Financial Aid at NSU)
I have to start out by saying HOLY CRAP!
The last two weeks have been the angriest that I’ve been in a long time! I mean angry as in manifest angry. By “manifest” angry, I mean that it seems like I grow three times my size and (to paraphrase Bravehart’s William Wallace) shoot daggars out my eyes and fireballs out of my ass!i
Therefore, BE FOREWARNED!
My wife goes to college at NSU. She has worked hard very hard to get where she’s at and thoroughly enjoyes working with students. The problem that has come in where every time the term starts, she got a letter from Financial Aid that she’s no longer eligible because of how many credits she’s taken.
Therefore, she’s alwas written a letter explaining (in small words so as not to fry their poor little brains that bad) that, while she has had a lot of credits in her college career, the majority of them had been paid for out of her own pocked (when she was younger and had money and yodelled more). They came back and approved her, but they were always late in getting things done… giving excuses like “We only cut checks at a certain time” or “We never heard anything from anyone on your status”. Most of the people they’re waiting for are (gasp) either in the same building or (double gasp) they share the same email system!
Fast forward to now… September 2006… My wife’s last semester before she graduates and has the BA to be able to be a full member of NSU’s growing ESL Center or go out into the world for that “better career” that is always touted. She gets a letter from “the Director of Financial Aid” for NSU stating that “after careful review, they are declining her appeal letter”…. refusing to give her that last bit of help to graduate! Needless to say, she goes into panic attack mode. I came home early from work to take care of my son while she goes to the DOFA to find out why and ask what to do from there.
Here’s where things go from bad to fucking worse! Instead of discussing why they made the decision to decline her and help her with her options (the DOFA’s job, by the way), she pushes some papers at my wife and tells her to fill it out and return it the next day. My wife had questions as to other private loan options or the need for co-signers, but the DOFA refused to answer any questions. She was rude and couldn’t have cared less of the postion that my wife was in.
So, she fills out the paperwork for AFG and returns it the morning. Fast forward to this last Tuesday. My wife finds out from one of the people in that office that is nice enough to show some courtesy that the student loan request had been denied. She then called AFG and talked to another nice person that did her job just fine, but said that this could have been done much quicker if she did it online!
So, its 3:30pm… and if my wife doesn’t have some sort of arrangement for fee payment, Finance cancels her registration. After frantically calling around, she talked to her mom about co-signing. In order to get the proper forms here, they drove across the state and got here at 3:00am to get this done. They get the signatures and all go over to SFLC directly to turn it it. The lady with AFG, Ann, who doesn’t know my wife at all, appologizes for all of the hardship and gives her a hug! She then says that everything is in order and to check back with Finance on Friday to make sure that all is taken care of and she could get her dispersement check.
All this leading to today. My wife gets to Finanace, as directed. Finance has….. NOTHING! They contact Financial Aid, who don’t have a clue… but call AFG to find out if the check had been sent. AFG confirms that they sent it.
Bottom Line: All of this falls on the DOFA, or as I like to call her… the SSIHAPOS (Stupid Stick In Her Ass Piece Of Shit!). It is all because of her unwillingness to do her job, keep on top of the department that she supposedly heads up, communicate with other departments in the University and keep good repore with the students (whereby keeping a good image for NSU and making sure their students aren’t afraid to come ask questions or come to ask questions only to get the wrong answers and jepordize their college career).
The other people in that office at least try to do their job with some humanity and respect. The DOFA doesn’ feel like she needs to because she’s in a position of power, on the Board of Regents and doesn’t have the time. Guess what: WRONG ANSWER! What the DOFA did was TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE and…. if I have my way (and I think I will) she will be either taking early retirement or boning up on FLIPPING BURGERS.
It sure the hell will not be somewhere where people’s education are at stake!
PS: SK…. this means you…. you stupid cow!
Color Me Pissed Off!
TJ
The Way of The Walk
I was going to name this “What I Did This Summer”, but what I’m doing is pretty much going to carry through as long as I can take it.
A lot of people bitch about the price of gas, the enviorment and that expanding waistline. I decided to do something about it! And, amazing enough, I tackled all three in one fell swoop!
I walked.
Not just around the block or to the store (although I do that, too) almost everywhere. Now, I will say that there are a few times where a car has to be used to be expedient, but those times have been few and far between. I walk a little over two miles to work one way… so it takes me about 30 minutes to get where I need to be.
If it’s rainy (like it is today) I wear a rain jacket. If I’m walking at night, I carry a large MagLite flashlight. If its windy, I lean into the wind. Bottom line is, there is little reason I buckle and drive.
Since I started doing this at the beginning of April, I have used my car 5 times total. Two of those times were to move it so that I could mow the grass around it. I’ve also lost about 65lbs with all of the walking.
Also, since I don’t take my car to work, I can’t drive to a fast food joint to spead money for lunch. When I go grocery shopping, I get only what I can carry in a backpack.
So, far all of you hippie whiners that complain about the envoirment and gas prices as you drive your car to your next rally or Al Gore speach on Global Warming…. my seven words to you are “GET OFF YOUR DEAD ASS AND WALK!”
TJ
Is is just me?
Is it just me…. or does it seem like this summer just went way to F&*%ing fast?!? I know that its the most cliche thing to say this time of year, but doesn’t make it any less TRUE!
Part of it, I’m sure, is all of the Overtime I’ve put in at “Fractured Farms” this summer. Time flies when your nose is to the grindstone to bring home the bacon. It does allow me to appreciate the times I did have off, but I just had a lot less of it!
TJ\'s Blog on a Log with a Frog 