Z is for Zoo Fun

As a participant in the A to Z Blogging Challenge, I will be making my way through the alphabet all month.

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When my children were younger, (by younger I mean young enough that they still appreciated their father and hadn't learned how to talk back yet) we would take weekly road trips. I had a job where I worked long hours and didn't see the family much during the week, but I always had weekends off and we liked to spend it on the road. Every Saturday, we would load up the car, head to Huck's to grab some gas station road trip food (mini tacos, egg rolls, sodas, etc.) and hit the road.

Some days, we ended up in a state park. A few times we stumbled onto a small town festival. Other times, we would drive into a big city. Often, we didn't even have a destination in mind when we left the house. We would just pick a direction and start driving. I loved these trips.

One particular Saturday, we decided to head to the zoo. When it comes to zoo trips, we were really lucky. We lived in southern Illinois at the time and the St. Louis Zoo was less than 90 minutes away. This is the zoo I grew up going to and it spoiled me for other zoos. It is ranked as one of the best zoos in the entire country, so I always end up disappointed when I am visiting someone in another part of the country and we end up at a lesser zoo. Our zoo was awesome. Suck it, Cleveland.

I was particularly excited for this trip because my kids were at that magical age. Kirsten was two and Christian was six. They would think the animals were the coolest things in the world to get to see. Plus, it was spring time and we had been looking forward to getting out of the house after the long winter.

Once we got there, we headed to the exhibit I always insist that we visit first. THE PENGUINS! I love penguins. I always have. This practice of seeing the penguins as soon as we get there first started when I was a child and I still do it when I go back to visit. After I see the penguins, I don't care where we go. I am happy.

I couldn't wait to share these magnificent birds with the kids and hurried them into the penguin house. As soon as we got inside, I unstrapped Kirsten from her stroller, put her up on my shoulders and turned around to see this:

Chicka-Chicka-Wa-Waa

"OK, let's see what's happening on the other side of the enclosure."

We moved further down to get away from the happy couple and were met with another public penguin porn performance. However, this time it was more like a penguin orgy. There were at least half a dozen penguin couples getting an early jump on the day…and each other. As much as I love penguins, I decided that maybe we should come back later. I don't allow guests in my bedroom to watch without paying admission and since the St. Louis Zoo is free, this just didn't feel right. Plus, I had my kids with me.

We worked our way up the hill to Big Cat Country to take in the jungle cats. My kids lost interest in the leopard pretty quickly because it just sat there.  The panther couldn't be seen, but the tigers were much more playful.

In the very next enclosure, the lions were up to the same thing. My wife commented that the animals seem to be enjoying the spring time weather as much as we were.

About 20 minutes later, we learned that the monkey house was not the place to be right now either. I will spare you the pictures. They are much more graphic.

We left the zoo after being there less than two hours, but in that time we got to see elephants, buffalo, three different species of bear, antelopes and even snakes getting it on. We decided that in future years, we would wait until later in the season to visit the zoo.

P is for Prankster

As a participant in the A to Z Blogging Challenge, I will be making my way through the alphabet all month.

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As someone who loves a good prank, I enjoy April Fool's Day. I should have written about April Fool's Day on April 1 for A, but didn't think of it in time. April Fool's is my favorite day of the year and it time to pull out all the stops on my creativity. I have pulled my share of pranks over the years, both on this glorious day and throughout the rest of the year.

• Several years ago, a few of us went out the night before the first day of college classes to prank several of our professors. Using a car jack and some bricks, we raised their car axles just high enough that the tires were not touching the ground. The car appeared normal, but did not move when they stepped on the gas. Five professors were late to school the next morning.

• A college friend, Jayson Ferguson, later that year discovered a professor working late in his office one night. Upon leaving the building, he found a pile of cinder blocks to be used for a construction project starting the next day. A few quick phone calls provided the number of people necessary to haul the bricks into the building and block the prof in his office. Since his door opened inward, when he opened it to leave, he was met with a brick wall.

•  When my son Christian was eight years old, he wanted to go TP-ing for Halloween. We lived about 20 miles from town, which was too far to go buy any, and did not have toilet paper to spare. He and I walked to a neighbor's house, broke in, stole their toilet paper and then TP-ed their house with it.

• As a teenager, I had a friend that lived in a trailer with a flat roof. While he was at work, a few of us broke into his house and arranged the contents of his home onto his roof exactly as it was when it was inside the house. This included big items like the couch, entertainment center, beds, and dresser drawers. We even set the table for dinner.

• When my nephew was younger, he was fascinated with chickens. For his eighth birthday, when he opened his gift from me, a live chicken jumped out and started running around the room. It was a huge hit with the kids. The adults were not as amused.

• In college, when a neighbor went on vacation with his family one summer, a group of us broke into their house (yes, breaking and entering again), dug out their Christmas decorations and decorated their house. We put the lights up outside and erected the tree fully decorated. We used every item we found and turned the lights on. Their house was lit up for a week before they came home. It was July.

•  I had a job as a dishwasher at Bonanza when I was sixteen. One night while training a new employee, I warned him about the dangers of getting dish lung. I told him that the industrial strength dishwasher put so much water vapor in the air that breathing it for hours a day would cause a build up of water in your lungs making you drown when you laid down for bed. I explained that standing on his head at the end of each shift would drain his lungs and prevent a possible death. I demonstrated and dribbled water out of my mouth. As I explained, a co-worker in on the joke started coughing and spit up a bunch of water he had discreetly put in his mouth. The trainee quit that night.

•  In high school, our principal drove a tiny Mazda Fiat convertible. At lunchtime one day, when a guy making fun of the size of the car lifted the rear wheels off the ground, we decided to see if we could lift it completely off the ground. Discovering that we could, we placed it sideways in a nearby alley. The walls were less than six inches from the bumpers on each side.

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I learned this behavior from my father. One year after a fishing trip, after cleaning and gutting all the fish, he went to a friend's house and put the guts in the garden just outside their windows. He covered them with dirt just enough that they could not be seen. In a few days, their entire house stunk.

He terrorized his high school by burying a road-killed skunk in the window flower box of the English room. The stench got so bad the teacher opened the window to air out the room. Of course, this made it worse since it was just outside.

He also taped the hammers together inside the piano right before his graduation ceremony. When the class musician went to play, all the hammers struck at once. After a confused look, he tried again with the same result.

As you can see, I inherited this behavior. It is not my fault. It's just part of my genes. There's nothing I can do about it. Not that I want to.

Coming Soon to a Town Near You

Since I work in a school, I have a few fantastic perks. The best one being that I have summers off. I don't get paid during this time, but having that time off is wonderful. I gives me the time to do things that a typical job would generally prevent me from having the opportunity to do. This past summer , I took advantage of one of those opportunities.

People don't usually believe me when I say this, but I have a son, Christian, who's a rock star. He isn't selling out huge stadiums or giving tours of his home on MTV's Cribs, but his band is seeing a lot of success. He travels all over the country doing what he loves and will soon be going out on a tour of Canada. He plays lead guitar in the band AS WE ARE. You can hear their music here.

I got this image from Google.
Did you know Google tracks you?
Creepy, huh?

While he was in Indianapolis helping me move, he invited me to accompany him on his next leg of the tour. Fifteen days playing venues in Iowa, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Despite being newlywed, my loving wife encouraged me to take this trip. I don't get to see Christian much and this was a wonderful opportunity to spend some quality time together.

So, a week later we left. There were the four guys in the band and me. They put me in charge of merchandise sales. For over two weeks, we slept in a van, ate peanut butter sandwiches, schmoozed our way into people's homes or hotel rooms to get showers, and lived on almost no sleep. It was rough, but I had a great time.  Plus, we hung out with a lot of bands that I am a big fan of. Here are the ones that I can remember meeting over the course of this tour.

Piercing the Darkness • Newsboys • Bread of Stone • We are Leo • Mark Schultz • Medic • For King and Country • Everfound • Plumb • The Crossing • Random Hero • Project 86 • Echo • Chris Day • Zachary Freedom • Michael James Band • Disciple • Willet • Lybecker • Unspoken • Leeland • 7eventh Time Down • Rhett Walker Band • The Afters • Bob Lenz • Offering • Steven Curtis Chapman • Chasynn Canaan • Written in Red • Unscene Patrol • Kindred • At the Wayside • Satellites & Sirens • We As Human • The Neverclaim • Climbing Blind • Tim Timmons • Love & the Outcome • Kerrie Roberts • Offering • A Life Set Apart • Manafest • Children 18:3 • Fight the Fade • As Clouds Break • Scott Stapp (of CREED) • Tru-Serva • Eternity Focus • BOTB • Dawna Johnson • Paul Williams • Bubba Dowling • DJ Chris VanDam • What Was Lost • Red Jumpsuit Apparatus • Nine Lashes • The Elim Arrival • Crimson River • Last Watch • Katie Danielle • Captives Set Free • Chris Sanchez • Inner Rain • Death and Desire • Break the Fall • Phinehas • The Protest • Thousand Foot Krutch

Ft Yates, ND
Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe Reservation

We lived a few days in a parked RV, slept some nights in a church basement, and stayed on an Indian reservation in North Dakota for a few days. I saw Mount Rushmore, got a tour of the seedy side of Rapid City, SD from a homeless man, talked my way into the projection room of a movie theater, and spent an afternoon learning to play bridge with a bunch of old ladies in Montana.

Every single day was an adventure due to two simple facts. First, I tend to seek out a good time wherever I go. Second, we had some pseudo-celebrity influence that I was more than willing to take advantage of. Several times each day, I would walk into some business explaining who we were, pass out a few CDs, drop some names of people we had just hung out with and then explain what I wanted to do. It was very rare that someone told us no.

Once the typical person learns that you are in a traveling band and can prove it (or even better, they have heard of you), they bend over backwards to accommodate you. Luckily, I wasn't looking to be deviant. Most of the time, I just wanted to get some interesting pictures. Our first photo op was in Osceola, Iowa. I talked a city employee into letting us into the city council chambers. She actually unlocked the doors and just walked away. I assume it's because everyone trusts musicians.

Next, we visited the Women's Auxiliary of the AMVETS in Osceola. They taught us how to quilt.

In Terry, Montana, we walked into the Historic Kempton Hotel and and asked to borrow a vacuum cleaner. They just handed one over without even asking what it was for.

Then, we went to visit the city pool. Paul had an idea of a shot he wanted to get. They weren't open yet, but they let us in anyway.

I know that this is probably not what most people think of when they hear the phrase "living the rock 'n roll life", but I know I enjoyed it.

Sign, Pole ... MAILBOX!!! - Revisited

Some of you may have noticed that my blogging has slowed down. Well, not really slowed down, but came to a screeching halt. My daughter would say a mugging halt, but I don't really know what that means. I love my blog and have no intention of stopping. However, after the A to Z Challenge in April, I felt that I needed a break. Plus, my graduate studies have kicked in harder.

I will start writing again soon, but in the meantime, I have picked up a lot of new followers and need to put up material. So, I will be posting some of my older posts starting today. The following was originally posted on September 20, 2012.

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What to do? What to do?

School has been in session for a month and I have been broke for that entire time. The money issue has recently been resolved, but I still have this cloud floating over my head. Since summer is over, it's time to settle in and get serious about life for a while. I haven't really had much of a choice. Between both my daughter's school schedule and my own, plus not having any money, we haven't done much. This isn't truly a bad thing, but I think the awesome summer I just had and the abrupt halt to all the fun is bringing the winter doldrums on early. I'm getting a little stir crazy.

I've been reflecting on past trips and remembering several taken when the kids were younger. It used to be our tradition to take a small trip every Saturday. We usually kept it under a hundred mile radius, but it was something fun to do on a weekend. However, having small children was often a challenge on car trips. They traveled well, but sometimes I had to come up with something to busy their minds.

One car game that lasted for several years was born out of madness one morning. I married Christian's mother when he was three years old and it took him and I a little while to hit it off. You can read about our rocky relationship here and here. One day, I was driving into town and he was doing what he usually did when we were alone in the car. He crawled out of his car seat and was curled up in a ball on the passenger side floor.

He cried about being hungry.

He cried that we weren't going to see Grandpa.

He cried about forgetting his favorite toy at home.

He cried because his shoe fell off.

This was one of those days that I was trying not to pull out my hair and chuck him through the window. I was stressed and could feel the tension mounting more and more as he found new things to whine about. I was biting through my lip as his most recent wail reached a pitch that caused the dogs we passed to start howling. Suddenly, I had an epiphany. Small children are stupid.

It couldn't be too hard to distract him despite his thinking his life was in shambles. I looked around in desperation for an idea. Then, I saw it on the road ahead and started pointing. "Look, Christian, a mailbox."

Christian paused mid-sob as he raised his snot encrusted face. "What?"

"Right there, on the side of the road. There's a mailbox. We have one of those."

He popped up into the seat to see what had me so excited. Once he saw it, he forgot what he was upset about and smiled.

"Oh, Christian, look. There's another one"

He pointed at it and laughed. I innocently asked, "I wonder if there's more."

Who knew they were so much fun?

For the next twenty minutes, we pointed out all the mailboxes we saw. I made sure to let him find several of them first since it wasn't his fault I was smarter and more observant than him. Later, when his mom was in the car, he kept pointing out the mailboxes to us. She didn't question it.

This became our regular routine when in the car together. It kept him busy and more importantly kept him in a much better mood. However, mailboxes aren't always as plentiful as I would have liked them to be. If we hit a stretch of highway with no houses, he would revert back to his whiny ways, so I added telephone poles and eventually signs.

Any type of sign would work. Billboards, stop signs and mile markers were all fair game. So, trips in our car sounded like this: SIGN, SIGN, POLE, SIGN, MAILBOX, POLE, MAILBOX, SIGN, SIGN, SIGN, POLE, MAILBOX, POLE, SIGN!

As time went on, we began to apply rules to the game.

1. You could not identify a sign, pole or mailbox that someone had already pointed out.
2. Every 10 miles, someone was allowed to add something to the list (i.e. swimming pool, satellite dish, dog, etc.)
3. In the event of a disagreement, the loudest person would get the point
4. Kirsten was the only person allowed to identify water towers.

Once Kirsten was born and started playing this game that had been evolving for years, we gave water tower sightings to her. However, Christian loved to point them out as soon as he saw them (even when we weren't playing) and send Kirsten into crying fits. "Bubby took my tower. Those are mine!"

ME: "Christian, you know those belong to your sister. Give her back the tower."

CHRISTIAN: (pouting) "But I saw it first."

ME: "The mailboxes are yours. Her seat is not high enough to be able to see them. Give it back."

KIRSTEN: (throwing a toy at his face) "Yeah, Poopy Head. It's mine."

CHRISTIAN: "You can have it, Sissy."

KIRSTEN: (looking around) "Now I can't see it." (starts crying again)

Once getting that taken care of the game sounded like this:
(EVERYONE YELLING) SIGN, MAILBOX, POLE, POLE, THAT ONE'S MINE, SIGN, MAILBOX, SATELLITE, POLE, MAILBOX, DOG, SIGN, OH WAIT IT WAS TWO DOGS, SIGN, SIGN, MAILBOX, ANOTHER DOG, SATELLITE, DOG, NOPE THAT WAS A SMALL HORSE, MAILBOX, POLE, SIGN, POLE, CHIMNEY, THAT WAS LAST WEEK, NO CHIMNEYS, SIGN, POLE, SIGN, SIGN, MAILBOX, WATER TOWER

 CHRISTIAN, STOP IT!

"Z" is for Zoo

When my children were younger, (by younger I mean young enough that they still appreciated their father and hadn't learned how to talk back yet) we would take weekly road trips. I had a job where I worked long hours and didn't see the family much during the week, but I always had weekends off and we liked to spend it on the road. Every Saturday, we would load up the car, head to Huck's to grab some gas station road trip food (mini tacos, egg rolls, sodas, etc.) and hit the road.

Some days, we ended up in a state park. A few times we stumbled onto a small town festival. Other times, we would drive into a big city. Often, we didn't even have a destination in mind when we left the house. We would just pick a direction and start driving. I loved these trips.

One particular Saturday, we decided to head to the zoo. When it comes to zoo trips, we are really lucky. We live in southern Illinois and the St. Louis Zoo is less than 90 minutes away. This is the zoo I grew up going to and it spoiled me for other zoos. It is ranked as one of the best zoos in the entire country, so I always end up disappointed when I am visiting someone in another part of the country and we end up at a lesser zoo. Our zoo is awesome. Suck it, Cleveland.

I was particularly excited for this trip because my kids were at that magical age. Kirsten was two and Christian was six. They would think the animals were the coolest things in the world to get to see. Plus, it was spring time and we had been looking forward to getting out of the house after the long winter.

Once we got there, we headed to the exhibit I always insist that we visit first. THE PENGUINS! I love penguins. I always have. This practice of seeing the penguins as soon as we get there first started when I was a child and I still do it when I go back to visit. After I see the penguins, I don't care where we go. I am happy.

I couldn't wait to share these magnificent birds with the kids and hurried them into the penguin house. As soon as we got inside, I unstrapped Kirsten from her stroller, put her up on my shoulders and turned around to see this:

Chicka-Chicka-Wa-Waa

"OK, let's see what's happening on the other side of the enclosure."

We moved further down to get away from the happy couple and were met with another public penguin porn performance. However, this time it was more like a penguin orgy. There were at least half a dozen penguin couples getting an early jump on the day…and each other. As much as I love penguins, I decided that maybe we should come back later. I don't allow guests in my bedroom to watch without paying admission and since the St. Louis Zoo is free, this just didn't feel right. Plus, I had my kids with me.

We worked our way up the hill to Big Cat Country to take in the jungle cats. My kids lost interest in the leopard pretty quickly because it just sat there.  The panther couldn't be seen, but the tigers were much more playful.

In the very next enclosure, the lions were up to the same thing. My wife commented that the animals seem to be enjoying the spring time weather as much as we were.

About 20 minutes later, we learned that the monkey house was not the place to be right now either. I will spare you the pictures. They are much more graphic.

We left the zoo after being there less than two hours, but in that time we got to see elephants, buffalo, three different species of bear, antelopes and even snakes getting it on. We decided that in future years, we would wait until later in the season to visit the zoo.

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Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, 1,656 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

YAY!!! I made it!!!

What Would You Change?

On November 27, I asked my readers to submit questions for me to answer. This post is to answer the question posed by Good Youngman Brown.

How do you feel about death/dying?

If you died this very second, what would be your biggest regret? Biggest success?

These are some deep questions and I am not sure that I have the answers to the second part even after days of careful reflection, but I will try. Let's tackle these one at a time.

I am not scared of dying. Not even a little bit. I know a lot of people say this and I can't speak for them, but I mean it. I may be scared of certain ways of dying. I obviously would be terrified of being slowly swallowed by an anaconda or being trapped in a burning building, but it is the pain associated with that kind of death that would scare me. The death itself does not scare me

I don't bring up my faith on this blog very often, but this question goes right to the heart of it. I know without any doubt what I will be doing after death and it is nothing to fear. I have given my life over to Jesus and declared him as my Lord (Boss). Through following him I have been forgiven of my sins (there have been a lot) against God and other people. Being cleansed of my sin, I can stand in the presence of God in the place He created for me. I am not on a suicide mission, but I can't wait to get there.

That question was the easy part. The second half is the portion I have really struggled with.

REGRETS

• I hate that I have been divorced twice. I despise that as being part of my past. I wouldn't want to just write the past off, but there are many, many regrets associated it. My first marriage was a five month long nightmare that should never have happened. My second was happier at times, but was filled with mistakes, dishonesty, lack of trust and hurtful words on both sides. I have many regrets tied to the entire experience.
• I often reflect on the fact that I am over 40 years old and never gotten my act together career-wise. I have jumped from job to job my entire life and haven't gotten anywhere. I believe that I've finally found my focus and am on track for the first time in my life, but due to past experience I have little confidence that I will stick with it.
• This one is more reflective contemplation than regret, but I look back at how I raised my kids almost daily. Did I do a good job? Did I spend enough time with them? Were they aware of how much I loved them? Despite the turmoil of my marriage, did we provide a happy home? Have I provided them with the tools they will need to survive in the real world? Was I supportive of their dreams or did I crush their spirits? Did I provide the proper balance of discipline? Was I too lenient? Did I mold them into happy, productive, functioning members of the adult world? These are tough questions.

SUCCESSES

• I am proud that I finally completed my degree. I didn't get that piece of paper in my hand until 14 years after I started it, but I got it.
• I am happy that despite whatever other mistakes I have made with my children, they are happy and know how to enjoy life. I am a very positive and happy person and I love that it seems to have rubbed off on them. Their lives will be much easier simply because of that positive attitude.
• My proudest accomplishment is in knowing that my children love the Lord and their eternities have been secured. The most important decision that could be made in their entire lives is already behind them and nothing else matters nearly as much. If I were to die today, that part has been taken care of and we will all see each other again.

This was a hard post to write and I was choked up through most of it, but self-reflection is a good thing. Thank you, Youngman Brown for the questions.

Better Than Any Sleeping Pill

When I got off work yesterday morning, I was looking forward to getting to my bed. Working the midnight shift as a single parent gets a little challenging when it comes to finding enough time to sleep. I have no trouble falling asleep during the day, as I hear other people do, but parenting responsibilities get in the way.

Wake me at break time.

I get off at eight Tuesday through Saturday mornings. I have made arrangements to get Kirsten to school each morning, but I have to pick her up in the afternoon. She gets out of school at 3:30, so if I can be asleep by 8:30, I get almost seven hours. However, there are usually little things that chip that time away.

I may need to run to the bank, drop by the library, get my oil changed or go pay a bill. I try to do as many things as I can in one day, but it doesn't always work out that way. Many days, I am only able to get about five hours sleep. I can do this for a couple of days, but it starts to catch up to me pretty quickly. Yesterday morning was going to be a good sleep day.

My daughter was already out of school and had an event after school that even provided her with a ride home afterwards. I would be able to go to bed and sleep until I woke up. I had gone short for the last couple of days, so I was really looking forward to it. Plus, I knew that I would barely get four hours the next day, so I needed to be well rested going into the weekend.

As soon as I take my coat off in the house, I notice how cold it is. The thermostat showed 58 degrees. The pilot light on my furnace had gone out again. That happens occasionally. I re-lit it and went to bed. I don't even remember laying down. I was out immediately.

Some time passes and I am jolted awake by a knocking on my bedroom door. As soon as I sat up to answer, my chest and eyes were burning. I started coughing and was having trouble breathing. I stumbled to the door. As I opened it, the light from the hallway lit up the smoke that had filled the house, including my bedroom.

My son Christian had dropped by the house and was met with a wall of smoke when he stepped in. He had immediately woken me and told me that there was a lot of heat coming from the furnace. I opened the furnace doors and tried to turn off the gas, but the controls were too hot to touch. I got it shut down using a rag. The blue flames disappeared immediately, but I could see a red glow still coming from the interior of the furnace. At this point, I occurs to me that I will not be getting all the sleep I had been looking forward to.

Fearing my house was on fire, I called 911. They told me to get everyone out of the house. I suddenly became aware that I was still in my underwear. Since the house wasn't actually burning down around me, I got dressed quickly and then went outside. I could already hear the sirens. I started checking out the roof and piping coming out of it, but could see no smoke.

It took me about 30 seconds to realize how cold it was outside. I knew the fire fighters would not let me near the house again once they got there, so I held my breath and went back in to get my coat. While I was in there, I also grabbed my laptop and my phone. Still no flames, but I couldn't see through the smoke. I remember thinking, "At what point am I supposed to stop, drop, and roll?"

I step outside much happier now that I am not freezing and see the help arriving. Two police cars and three fire trucks fill up the street along with all my neighbors, who are coming out to investigate the excitement. I couldn't really explain it to them, because I was busy trying not to hack up a lung.

I cough out an explanation to the first fire fighter about what had happened as the others went inside. They determined that there was no fire, but the furnace was still very hot. The glowing I saw was probably glowing metal from the extreme heat.

They said the breaker to the furnace had blown in the fuse box, which means the blower was not running. The flames were building heat, but the blower was not distributing it through the house. I don't know anything about this stuff, but will attempt to explain it as I understand it.

Apparently, there are safeties in place to keep this sort of thing from happening. If the blower stops running, some little dude inside is supposed to notice and kill the flames. However, he fell asleep on the job or didn't show up for work and never turned the flames off. This allowed the heat to reach unacceptable levels. The same department must be in charge of my smoke detectors, because they never went off. Despite the battery change from six weeks ago. I'm going to make rabbit stew out of the Energizer bunny.

A few hours later, I was able to crawl back under the smoke saturated covers to go back to sleep. I was able to get a few more hours sleep and was immediately reminded of the events of the day when I woke up to the smell, a wheezing chest, and a splitting headache.

I am not one to usually play the "what if" game, but two scenarios come to mind. What if Christian had not dropped by?

1. The quickly increasing heat would have eventually caused a fire, burning my house down with me asleep in the back room.
2. Even before the fire started, the smoke inhalation would have probably already done me in.

I am truly amazed at how much smoke was in my bedroom and I didn't even realize it. The toxic gases lulled me into a deeper sleep than I have ever experienced.The deep sleep was nice, but not worth it in the end.

CHECK YOUR SMOKE DETECTORS, PEOPLE!

Sign, Pole ... MAILBOX!!!

What to do? What to do?

School has been in session for a month and I have been broke for that entire time. The money issue has recently been resolved, but I still have this cloud floating over my head. Since summer is over, it's time to settle in and get serious about life for a while. I haven't really had much of a choice. Between both my daughter's school schedule and my own, plus not having any money, we haven't done much. This isn't truly a bad thing, but I think the awesome summer I just had and the abrupt halt to all the fun is bringing the winter doldrums on early. I'm getting a little stir crazy.

I've been reflecting on past trips and remembering several taken when the kids were younger. It used to be our tradition to take a small trip every Saturday. We usually kept it under a hundred mile radius, but it was something fun to do on a weekend. However, having small children was often a challenge on car trips. They traveled well, but sometimes I had to come up with something to busy their minds.

One car game that lasted for several years was born out of madness one morning. I married Christian's mother when he was three years old and it took him and I a little while to hit it off. You can read about our rocky relationship here and here. One day, I was driving into town and he was doing what he usually did when we were alone in the car. He crawled out of his car seat and was curled up in a ball on the passenger side floor.

He cried about being hungry.

He cried that we weren't going to see Grandpa.

He cried about forgetting his favorite toy at home.

He cried because his shoe fell off.

This was one of those days that I was trying not to pull out my hair and chuck him through the window. I was stressed and could feel the tension mounting more and more as he found new things to whine about. I was biting through my lip as his most recent wail reached a pitch that caused the dogs we passed to start howling. Suddenly, I had an epiphany. Small children are stupid.

It couldn't be too hard to distract him despite his thinking his life was in shambles. I looked around in desperation for an idea. Then, I saw it on the road ahead and started pointing. "Look, Christian, a mailbox."

Christian paused mid-sob as he raised his snot encrusted face. "What?"

"Right there, on the side of the road. There's a mailbox. We have one of those."

He popped up into the seat to see what had me so excited. Once he saw it, he forgot what he was upset about and smiled.

"Oh, Christian, look. There's another one"

He pointed at it and laughed. I innocently asked, "I wonder if there's more."

Who knew they were so much fun?

For the next twenty minutes, we pointed out all the mailboxes we saw. I made sure to let him find several of them first since it wasn't his fault I was smarter and more observant than him. Later, when his mom was in the car, he kept pointing out the mailboxes to us. She didn't question it.

This became our regular routine when in the car together. It kept him busy and more importantly kept him in a much better mood. However, mailboxes aren't always as plentiful as I would have liked them to be. If we hit a stretch of highway with no houses, he would revert back to his whiny ways, so I added telephone poles and eventually signs.

Any type of sign would work. Billboards, stop signs and mile markers were all fair game. So, trips in our car sounded like this: SIGN, SIGN, POLE, SIGN, MAILBOX, POLE, MAILBOX, SIGN, SIGN, SIGN, POLE, MAILBOX, POLE, SIGN!

As time went on, we began to apply rules to the game.

1. You could not identify a sign, pole or mailbox that someone had already pointed out.
2. Every 10 miles, someone was allowed to add something to the list (i.e. swimming pool, satellite dish, dog, etc.)
3. In the event of a disagreement, the loudest person would get the point
4. Kirsten was the only person allowed to identify water towers.

Once Kirsten was born and started playing this game that had been evolving for years, we gave water tower sightings to her. However, Christian loved to point them out as soon as he saw them (even when we weren't playing) and send Kirsten into crying fits. "Bubby took my tower. Those are mine!"

ME: "Christian, you know those belong to your sister. Give her back the tower."

CHRISTIAN: (pouting) "But I saw it first."

ME: "The mailboxes are yours. Her seat is not high enough to be able to see them. Give it back."

KIRSTEN: (throwing a toy at his face) "Yeah, Poopy Head. It's mine."

CHRISTIAN: "You can have it, Sissy."

KIRSTEN: (looking around) "Now I can't see it." (starts crying again)

Once getting that taken care of the game sounded like this:
(EVERYONE YELLING) SIGN, MAILBOX, POLE, POLE, THAT ONE'S MINE, SIGN, MAILBOX, SATELLITE, POLE, MAILBOX, DOG, SIGN, OH WAIT IT WAS TWO DOGS, SIGN, SIGN, MAILBOX, ANOTHER DOG, SATELLITE, DOG, NOPE THAT WAS A SMALL HORSE, MAILBOX, POLE, SIGN, POLE, CHIMNEY, THAT WAS LAST WEEK, NO CHIMNEYS, SIGN, POLE, SIGN, SIGN, MAILBOX, WATER TOWER

 CHRISTIAN, STOP IT!

Working for the Man

She doesn't look like she would have
homicidal thoughts, but it is a dark
place inside her head.

Another of those milestones has happened that helps to assure me that I am a grown up. My daughter Kirsten has gotten her first job.

She started working at Arby's about two weeks ago and is learning what it means to have a job. She has already gotten to experience the heartache of learning that her friends are getting together and she can't go because she has to work.

So far, she hasn't worked longer than a three hour shift, but still complains when she comes home about how much her feet hurt. I try not to laugh.

She works the cash register and takes orders for people. She's seeing first-hand how nasty and mean some people can be. She has never before had to deal with the public in this manner and is quickly losing her faith in humanity. She already has a disdain for most people and this is just helping to solidify her belief that the world would be a much better place if she were allowed to kill people that ticked her off. Legislation is pending.

Her brother worked at this same restaurant for four years and was instrumental in her getting this job. He didn't want her to get grounded for not finding a job like he did when he was sixteen. He has learned a few things.

Arby's treated Christian well while he was there so I don't have many concerns. There are several places that take advantage of teenage workers knowing that they are new to the work force and don't know any better.

EVIL EVIL EVIL MACHINE

My first job was at Rax, a roast beef place similar to Arby's. They had a clock in/clock out rule that was not fair to the employees, but I didn't realize this until years later. They would round the time cards to the nearest quarter hour, but made sure that it always fell in their favor. When you came to work, you could not clock in until 7 minutes before your shift. If you clocked in a minute earlier, it would round back to the last quarter hour and you would get paid for 7 minutes you hadn't worked. This seemed fair enough, but they timed it that way for clocking out also. If you were scheduled to get off at 10, they would keep you busy until 10:07 to get those 7 free minutes. If you missed it and didn't get to the clock until 10:08, then you had to keep working until 10:22. Once again, to get those 7 free minutes. They did the same for clocking in and out for your breaks. On any given shift, they could get up to 28 minutes of free work out of their employees. Over the course of a pay period you might lose a few hours off every check.

My next job was at Bonanza. I was a busboy. On my first week of work, I got into trouble because I would come in at my scheduled time, clock in and start working. They didn't want their busboys to do that. That wanted us to come in and sit in the break room until we were called. We were required to be there, but were not supposed to clock in until the restaurant got busy enough that we were needed.

That means that I spent many, many hours sitting at work not getting paid. I wasn't allowed to leave, but was not getting paid. They would get us one at a time as the business picked up and occasionally would send someone home after sitting for a few hours. As a teenager, I was happy to go home and not have to work, but hadn't considered that they were demanding my presence, which means they should have been paying me. Years later, I received a check as a result of a class action lawsuit against them because of this illegal practice.

A few years later, I worked the midnight shift at a gas station. I was there by myself and was given a list of things to do every night. Besides this list, I had to take care of customers, watch the pumps to make sure no one drove off, keep the trash taken care of and keep the coffee pots full. Since the station was right off the interstate, there were a lot of customers. I got chewed out every morning when the manager came in and found that I had not completed the list.

I couldn't get him to understand that it was not possible. One of the tasks was to clean the pumps. The way he wanted them cleaned would require about three hours to do them all. That job alone made the list impossible to fulfill. There was about twenty items on the list and three of them were large jobs like the pumps. I honestly could not have completed that list even if I didn't have to worry about customers.

Adults know better and do not normally get taken advantage of in these ways. So when my kids entered the workforce, I tried to keep an eye out to make sure those things did not happen to them. Arby's seems to be a good place to work for a teen and I don't think I have much to worry about. She just needs to learn to deal with people.

Now if I could just get her to bring home roast beef sandwiches like her brother used to.

April Fools - Fun for Some

As someone who loves a good prank, I enjoy April Fool's Day. However, it's the day of the year that you have to step it up a notch, since so many people are on their toes and watching for it. I have pulled my share of pranks over the years, both on this glorious day and throughout the rest of the year.

• Several years ago, a few of us went out the night before the first day of college classes to prank several of our professors. Using a car jack and some bricks, we raised their car axles just high enough that the tires were not touching the ground. The car appeared normal, but did not move when they stepped on the gas. Five professors were late to school the next morning.

• A college friend, Jayson Ferguson, later that year discovered a professor working late in his office one night. Upon leaving the building, he found a pile of cinder blocks to be used for a construction project starting the next day. A few quick phone calls provided the number of people necessary to haul the bricks into the building and block the prof in his office. Since his door opened inward, when he opened it to leave, he was met with a brick wall.

•  When my son Christian was eight years old, he wanted to go TP-ing for Halloween. We lived about 20 miles from town, which was too far to go buy any, and did not have toilet paper to spare. He and I walked to a neighbor's house, broke in, stole their toilet paper and then TP-ed their house with it.

• As a teenager, I had a friend that lived in a trailer with a flat roof. While he was at work, a few of us broke into his house and arranged the contents of his home onto his roof exactly as it was when it was inside the house. This included big items like the couch, entertainment center, beds, and dresser drawers. We even set the table for dinner.

• When my nephew was younger, he was fascinated with chickens. For his eighth birthday, when he opened his gift from me, a live chicken jumped out and started running around the room. It was a huge hit with the kids. The adults were not as amused.

• In college, when a neighbor went on vacation with his family one summer, a group of us broke into their house (yes, breaking and entering again), dug out their Christmas decorations and decorated their house. We put the lights up outside and erected the tree fully decorated. We used every item we found and turned the lights on. Their house was lit up for a week before they came home. It was July.

•  I had a job as a dishwasher at Bonanza when I was sixteen. One night while training a new employee, I warned him about the dangers of getting dish lung. I told him that the industrial strength dishwasher put so much water vapor in the air that breathing it for hours a day would cause a build up of water in your lungs making you drown when you laid down for bed. I explained that standing on his head at the end of each shift would drain his lungs and prevent a possible death. I demonstrated and dribbled water out of my mouth. As I explained, a co-worker in on the joke started coughing and spit up a bunch of water he had discreetly put in his mouth. The trainee quit that night.

•  In high school, our principal drove a tiny Mazda Fiat convertible. At lunchtime one day, when a guy making fun of the size of the car lifted the rear wheels off the ground, we decided to see if we could lift it completely off the ground. Discovering that we could, we placed it sideways in a nearby alley. The walls were less than six inches from the bumpers on each side.

---

I learned this behavior from my father. One year after a fishing trip, after cleaning and gutting all the fish, he went to a friend's house and put the guts in the garden just outside their windows. He covered them with dirt just enough that they could not be seen. In a few days, their entire house stunk.

He terrorized his high school by burying a road-killed skunk in the window flower box of the English room. The stench got so bad the teacher opened the window to air out the room. Of course, this made it worse since it was just outside.

He also taped the hammers together inside the piano right before his graduation ceremony. When the class musician went to play, all the hammers struck at once. After a confused look, he tried again with the same result.

As you can see, I inherited this behavior. It is not my fault. It's just part of my genes. There's nothing I can do about it. Not that I want to.

---

I do have a prank planned for today, but the specifics will not be mentioned in case my intended victim is reading this morning. Be warned, if you are within driving distance of me, it might be you and knowing that it is coming will not make any difference.

I asked my niece to explain what today is all about.

Great Week for Blogging

I have had a very eventful week. Well, more eventful than my usual weeks of watching television, doing homework and spying on my neighbors. I even got out of the house a few times.

It started last weekend when I escorted my son, Christian, and his band Odysseus to a recording studio in St. Louis to record their first EP. It was a learning experience for me and, in an unexpected turn of events, my voice made it onto the album. For those of you who have been unfortunate enough to hear me sing, don't start investing in earplugs. It wasn't a solo and I wasn't actually singing. There is a spot in the chorus of one of their songs where we screamed chanted the phrase "Don't take it out on me." I haven't heard the whole song, so I don't know what that means.

$1.99 on Amazon

On Tuesday, which was Valentine's Day for those of you who might not have noticed, the very funny blog The Simple Dude had a give away for single people. The prize was a $50 Amazon gift card. It involved tweeting re-twitting re-twatting tooting re-tweeting a message he put out on Twitter that day and then he would do a random drawing. I re-tweeted (that word just doesn't sound right) his message and commented on his blog that if I won, I would buy his blogging e-book from Amazon.

I did not win, but the winner, who writes the blog Good Youngman Brown, decided to buy the book for me with his winnings. I had the link in my inbox by the afternoon of the next day. I have never met this man. He just decided to do this after seeing my comment that I wanted to buy it. Thank you, fellow blogger. You are one of the good people out there in this world.

Of course, I went to check out the blog of my benefactor and was pleased to find that he is very funny. Be sure to visit Good Youngman Brown and The Simple Dude. You will not be disappointed by either.

A heart, yes.
But no sappy pink
or frilly stuff

Earlier on V Day, I proposed marriage to Red at the blog Doesn't Speak Klingon. Well, I didn't really propose. I just told her I had decided this should happen and she agreed. You can see this in the comments of her February 13 post. We have never met and don't know if we ever will, but I expect that we will be very happy. Vesta Vayne at Cowardly Feminist gave us her stamp of approval. She even encouraged Red to accept.

Then this morning, I was informed by CopyBoy at the blog Not Worth Mentioning that I was the featured New Blog of the Day on his site. I just discovered this site last week and have enjoyed reading his take on the crazy facts he finds on the internet. Thank you, CopyBoy for today's plug.

I know I included a lot of links in this post, but I recommend every one of these great blogs. If I mentioned any you are not familiar with, pay them a visit.

Boredom in Music Land

Yesterday afternoon I braved a mini blizzard, arrived in St. Louis and have been sitting in a dark room ever since. I've been sleeping in an unfurnished room with six gaseous teenagers and really crappy internet service.

That really sounds worse than it is. I have been known to exaggerate.

Much too my disappointment,
there was not a single dinosaur inside.

Last month I wrote about going to see my son's death metal band perform in a club. It was loud, as is necessary for shows of that type, and my ears have stopped bleeding since then. This weekend I am with the band again, but this time it is to record their first EP. They have recorded once before, but it was in the basement of their lead singer's house. This time, we are in a professional studio. It is a much better experience when you don't have to chase rats away to keep them from chewing on the guitar cords.

My being here does not mean that I really have anything to do with this endeavor. Because recording is not a fast process, they have to stay here for a few days to get all the tracks done. With five band members, all their equipment and sleeping gear, it would not fit into one vehicle.

Proposed solution: "Christian, call your dad. He's never doing anything."

So, here I am.

The owner's dog. Pit bull mix to guard
his owner's coffee stash.

Despite not having much to do, it really isn't that bad. I brought my laptop, several books and a few rented DVD's. There is also a big screen HDTV in the next room with a large comfortable couch. I am using these things to distract myself because a person can only watch a drum track being laid down so many times. And it has been done many, many times.

It was really interesting in the beginning. When they first started recording last night, I was fascinated by the microphone setup, the sound board, the process and the beautiful 37" computer monitor the sound engineer has on his computer.

Part of the control room

First, the guitar track (scratch track) must be recorded. This is a basic recording that will not be on the final cut. It is used as the basis for the drummer to play off of later. Once the drums are recorded, other instruments get recorded and added in one at a time. It is an incredibly slow process. The guitar scratch tracks alone kept them up until about 3 a.m. this morning. Since I don't have the energy of a teenager they don't need me for any of this, I went to bed at midnight.

This studio is built for several aspects of the music business. They silk screen shirts for bands, create CD and sleeve art and rent out rooms for bands to practice in. Since we live so far away, they let us crash in one of the practice rooms. While I greatly appreciate the courtesy offered to us, I thought I was going to freeze to death. That room was cold.

Since it is not designed for people to be living here, it is missing some basic accommodations. There is a refrigerator, but no stove or microwave. We ran to the grocery store to have food for the next three days, but since we cannot cook, it is mostly lunch meat sandwiches and fruit roll-ups.

One of the motivational moments between takes

Whether well-fed or malnourished, the plan is to have the entire album finished sometime Sunday afternoon. The guys have really been enjoying the experience and I am thrilled that I got to participate and watch their excitement. Despite all the downtime for me, I love that I was asked to come. I've learned a lot. Hanging out with teenagers, a lot of what I learned involved new ways to fart on each other, but I learned some music stuff too.

Hopefully, the new Odysseus EP will be available soon.