An odd duck....

....that would be ME!

I've always been a bit "not normal".  Okay, a LOT not normal.  The things that most people do, or aspire to do, hold little appeal for me.  I've always been an outlier.  The flow usually goes its merry way without me.

I HATE summer.  I loath heat and humidity.  If I'm sweating, I'm not happy.  (To my Florida friends....what were you thinking? :)  Autumn is my favorite season, followed by spring, and I enjoy winter, and snow, too.  Keep in mind I live in Texas.  I'm not suggesting I want to winter in International Falls, Minnesota, however.  Is it true body parts spontaneously fall off people there in the winter?

I'm only marginally coordinated, which might have been at least partially responsible for my pitiful athletic career.  A golf ball on a tee is safe from me.  

Speaking of....I'm not a sports fan, at least as you normally think of a macho sports guy.  I love (American) football, particularly at the college level.  I know the teams, their standings, star players, etc.  But I wouldn't walk across the street to see a baseball or basketball game.  And golf to me is about as exciting as watching a bear hibernate.  I do enjoy Formula 1 (Grand Prix) racing and English (Union) rugby.  Thanks to me both those sports now have an American audience of one.

I'm an introvert who is intrigued by people.  I can see someone in a park, for example, say "hello", and in five minutes know where they're from, what their day job is, if they have any kids or pets, what kind of car they have, etc.  People somehow seem more than willing to open up to me.  I enjoy people-watching from a distance, too, wondering what each person does by observing them.  However I have very few friends.  Lots of acquaintances, but few close friends.  EDIT:  It's been suggested that I'm more "introvert heavy / extrovert lite".  EDIT #2:  Simon Butler says I'm an extrovert, and I trust Simon Butler on such matters / definitions.  He's very smart.  :)

I have three daughters (and six grandchildren) and I love them dearly.  I hope I was / am a good father.  I sometimes think I wasn't good enough, but then I look at them, see how they turned out, and realize I must have done something right.   (BIG kudos to their mom, too!)

I don't mind apartment living.  To most people an apartment is just a layover on their way to a house of their own.  Been there, done that....too much maintenance.

I like fast airplanes and cars.  I don't have an airplane, and my cars have been rather mundane, but I still appreciate high performance mobile exotica.

I like firearms.  *gasp*  But I'm not a hunter.  I'm too lazy to get up at O-dark-thirty, go out to a cold, damp hunting stand, sit there for hours hoping to see a worthy target, shoot it, field dress it, drag it to a processor and pay him $$$ for his service, when I can just go to my meat market and get a beautiful steak M-Sat, 9-6 for a fraction as much.

I don't understand vanity or narcissism.  If you have to tell someone how cool you are, you aren't.

I'm very organized.  I think three steps ahead.  Odd, huh?

I love dogs.  To hear of a dog being abused really eats at me.  If I were ever to actually see a dog being abused I'm afraid I'd wind up behind bars....but the abuser would wind up in the hospital!  While I'm not a great lover of cats or birds or squirrels, etc, I would never abuse one. 

I'm extremely loyal.  I appreciate loyalty shown towards me and happily return it.  Yes, I've stumbled before, and learned from it.  In my business I have friends (subcontractors and vendors) who I've worked with for 20 or 30 years.  To bring in somebody new means someone else either retired or died.

I'm NOT technologically savvy.  I have a smart phone with probably 100 features, but I only use five or six of them.  In a world where Microsoft Windows dominates, I'm an Apple guy.  I don't play video games.  Hitting a little cartoon monkey over the head with a club when he pops out of a hole in a log just seems dumb to me.  Do game designers really make BILLIONS of dollars designing them?  *I don't get it*

I'm NOT a music aficionado. Back in my "yout" I was, and still know the lyrics to the Beach Boys, Dion, Chuck Berry, and the other REAL rock and roller's songs.  I've heard the names of todays big "musicians" (?), but couldn't for the life of me identify one of their songs.  The music of today just isn't pleasing to my ear.  My few exceptions are barely on anyone else's radar.  Ever hear of Enya, for example?  Didn't think so.  Jazz?  *crickets*

I'm a skeptic.  I can see through most scams and political bullshit.  The Democrats and Republicans, although they like to tout their own piousness and lambast their opponents, are in reality equal partners in crime.  I trust them both about as far as I can spit into a hurricane.  I'm NOT an ideologue, and can't imagine how anyone else could be, either.  Inflexibility is stupid!

I often don't understand our legal system.  How can something be so wrong (as God and my mama taught me) and unethical, yet still be "legal"? "Loopholes" are evil.

I have more, but I'm tired of typing.  :)

S  

Here he comes....there he goes

Going to 4-yr-old grandson Parker's soccer game this morning.  I think later they'll break up and play positions, but for now they all just play "mob", as in wherever the ball goes, the mob follows.  It's 45 degrees this morning with a breeze.  That should wake everyone up.

Later we're going on a search for food trucks, probably downtown.  Looks like Luke the Wonder Dog is coming along, too.  There are always lots of dogs there, which should thrill him....unless any of them try to get too close.  

Then he does an admirable imitation of a greyhound chasing that little mechanical rabbit around the racetrack.

After that....gee....lemme think.  Oh yes!  Football, or as K calls it, #$%^&* football.  :)

S

Sports cheating? Who'd have thunk it?

Looks like another scandal is brewing in the Olympics.  No, it has nothing to do with doping, the usual athletic sin.  This time it has to do with cheating on the test for Olympians to go on to become judges in their sport.  That would be the ever-popular sport of wrestling....no, wait, they don't have wrestling in the Olympics any more.  This time it involves the high-stakes sport of "dancin' around with a ribbon on a stick".

*gasp*  So you mean previous great Olympic "rhythmic gymnasts" like 'ol....umm....what's-her-name....the one featured on the Wheaties box....what's that you say?....she wasn't on a Wheaties box?  Wheaties said they'd never heard of rhythmic gymnastics?

Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand how ribbon waving made it into the Olympics.  If that's such a big-deal sport, why then not marble shooting, or hula hooping, or horseshoes?

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Speaking of sports, professional football is inching it's way back into the news....who's not yet signed a contract, who's still nursing injuries, etc.  On this morning's local news their informal poll-of-the-day was "How far do you think the Dallas Cowboys will go this year?"

8% said "the Superbowl" (obviously delusional)

17% said "the playoffs"  (only slightly less delusional)

77% said "are the Mavericks playing yet?"

Ha!  Take THAT Jerry Jones!  (Cowboy's owner)  *Brooklyn raspberry*

By my math that equals 102%  (Sorta like Chicago election vote counting, huh?  ;)

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Gotta come out of retirement to play CEO again today.  Adios, y'all.  Enjoy your weekend.

S

Things are looking up!

To me this time of the year is just a huge sports "black hole".  I'll say right up front I'm not a sports (plural) fan.  I'm a FOOTBALL fan.  (And I'd best clarify that and say American football.)  I start to perk up when spring training begins, am on top of the world from September through the January bowl games, kinda coast through the pro football playoffs, then go into hibernation after the Super Bowl.  I really enjoy the Winter Olympic Games because to a Texan winter sports is the epitome of "exotic", but they're still a full year away so there's no sense getting excited about them yet.

I'm definitely a product of my upbringing.  Here in Texas football is King.  Twenty thousand will turn out for a high school football game, maybe a few hundred for a high school basketball game, and less than that for a high school baseball game.  The same ratio probably holds for college sports, too.  Hockey is a northern sport imported here when all the Yanks began heading south 30 years ago, and soccer is here because....well, I have no idea why soccer is here.  Golf for me is a near-death experience.

K has taken the lead on solving our off-season sports dilemma by introducing a new one for us to latch on to:  Rugby.  She chose rugby because last weekend she was channel surfing and there they were...the Northampton Saints VS Gloucester Rugby.  She decided Northampton would be her team because she liked the color of their shorts and T-shirts, and one of their guys flashed his tooth during a post-game interview.  Apparently there's nothing sexier than a guy wearing short shorts and showing off his last remaining tooth.

I must admit I found it to be rather entertaining, too.  They get in a big huddle, throw a f__ked up looking football in the middle, and have at it.  It's like tackle football, only without pads.  Or helmets.  It's not a game for wusses, for sure!

She was all heartbroken when she found out her team wouldn't be on the "telly" today.  But being the avid Northhampton fan that she has become she's following them via streaming live internet (audio only).  Now I've listened to many a football game on the radio, but at least I understood the terminology.  When the announcer said "the quarterback took the snap and ran left on a naked bootleg", I could "see" that in my mind.  

The only thing that made (sorta) sense to me on the streaming live audio rugby game K is listening to was when the announcer said the game was "simmering nicely".  Ohhh....now they're talking about "attacking".  I can almost see the bloody slobber and protruding bones.  I think I might like rugby!  

It's halftime.  Gotta go make nachos.  ;)

S

It's official. The winner is.....

....actually it's a tie.  It seems the good folks, all 10 of them, in Dixville Notch, NH have split their votes 5 (Obama) to 5 (Romney).  Dixville Notch is famous for opening its polling place at midnight, becoming the first to report election results to the world.  What they need is one more person to move there, and assuming he's an eligible voter, insuring there will never be a tie again.  Until one of the others dies. *sigh...why is this always so complicated?*

Here's what I'm proposing to end the stalemate:  I'll offer myself up as President.  Actually "Dictator" might be more appropriate.

My agenda: 

First, I'd banish all professional politicians to France.  That would mean no more Congress.  Those 9% of you who still like Congress....get over it!  They're now France's problem.

Next I'd go to "Wall Street" (the term to include all the ivory-tower crooked financial types), round 'em all up, and banish them to France.

Telemarketers and those who load up my mailbox with junk mail will be banished to France.  (This means YOU credit card companies!)

Anyone who's mean to dogs....let's make that just mean people in general....will be banished to France.

Chefs who insist on putting "colorful vegetables" on the same plate with my steak....will be banished to France.

Football would become a year-round sport, playing in two shifts.  Each plays for six months, then takes six months off for knee surgeries and rehab while the other shift keeps us me entertained.  Anyone who objects will be banished to France.

Anyone driving an electric car will not have to pay taxes.  Not because I like electric cars, but because they're saving lots of gasoline....FOR ME!  They'll be allowed to vacation in France, but they won't have to.

Anyone not in construction or agriculture who owns a pickup truck will be banished to France.  Minivan owners are on thin ice, too.

And people who are in front of me at a traffic light, yapping and texting and not paying attention, who wake up just as the light turns yellow again, making me miss MY turn to go.....will be banished to France.

I think I'm gonna like this Dictator thing.

Feel free to petition me with those you'd like to see banished to France, too.  After all, I'm here to serve.  :)

S

It was a cold and rainy day....

OK, "cold" might be a stretch.  Low 70's and rain does feel good, though.  We were out for brunch by 10....la Madeleine, then to REI for K to buy a rain jacket.   I already own half the store so I didn't need anything.  Finally we stopped at Market Street where K bought baking stuff and I bought football food for the rest of the day.

Shortly Tennessee / Georgia is on TV, then tonight my alma mater Texas Tech plays Iowa St.  This will be their first true test as their first wins were against the Rainbow School of Jewelry Design and the El Paso School of Flower Arranging. *yawn*  Time to fix the queso and guacamole....I like being prepared.

Have fun everyone.

S

Omen....the sequel

I wonder if it's some kind of omen when you go to the bathroom in the morning and when it's time to reach for the toilet paper, you can't find the end of the paper?  You spin it and spin it and spin it and the end piece of paper never flaps free so you can carefully pull off an appropriate length.  So you spin and spin and spin it the other direction, and still no apparent end piece of paper.  Shouldn't this qualify as a justifiable reason to just go back to bed?  Well, except that you still, somehow, have to find that damn end piece. 

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Then there's the current family turmoil centered around grape juice.  Seems yesterday K was cleaning out the refrigerator and way in the back she found a half-full plastic jug of Welch's Grape Juice.  She was going to throw it out but I leaped to the defense of the poor defenseless GJ and forbade it. "I'm sure there are thirsty kids somewhere in the world who would love this, and since we can't actually ship it to them, I'll drink it in their honor."  (When I was a kid those other kids were always in China, but I hear they're doing better these days.)

Now I'm having to drink this nasty stuff.  It's so old I think it's turned into wine.  Really bad wine.  Is that even possible?

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I have an old football injury that really began giving me fits yesterday.  It dates from last year when, on several occasions, I sat in my chair and watched football on TV so long my left butt cheek went to sleep.  That somehow irritated the nerve in that region and pinched it.  It hurt so bad it was difficult to sit, and get up, and walk, and climbing stairs was just excruciating.  Combining the opening weekend of college football this year with a 3-day holiday has wreaked havoc on me....again.  TMF....oh, but I love it so!

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All right K.  If you read this, you win.  I'm tossing the grape juice.  It's really nasty.  I need to go scrape my tongue.  YUCK!

S

Olympic swimming as I would like to see it

Is there anything more boring than watching Olympic swimming?  I mean, the only part worth watching is the last 50 feet.  Can your guy/girl hold off the challenge from the Godless ChiCom?  Can your guy/girl eek out a win by .0001 seconds over some Balkan swimmer whose name no one can pronounce?   Everything before that is 100% predictable.  The gun sounds, they dive in, then it's stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke...for 10 minutes until the last (sometimes) exciting 50 feet.


Of course, in many sports it all comes down to the final stretch to determine who wins, but at least before then there are a lot of variables.  In football you might see breakaway runs, long passes, fumbles, goal line stands, and always a grand strategy.  In bicycle racing you might see someone fall off their bike and get run over by the 50 people behind them.  And I find women wearing bikinis jumping up and down, flying through the air, rolling in sand, and spiking a ball over a net exciting start to finish!


Then there's swimming.  When is the last time you saw one of the competitors cramp up and have to be hauled off by emergency rescue kayak?  Or stop to pee?   Or dive to pick up marbles on the bottom of the pool?  Maybe if they were blindfolded and their coach had to guide them by yelling out "Marco" and the swimmer would answer with "Polo".  Can you imagine the chaos?  Yeah, I might watch that. But as it is now, B O R I N G !


S

Election? I don't need no stinkin' election

(It's actually a pretty good likeness.)

First, I'd call a joint session of (the former) Congress, then lock the doors and change the name out front  to "Cell Block A".

Then I would invite all the Big Bank CEO's and their top lieutenants to an "All You Can Steal" buffet at the Fed, then lock the doors (I'm seeing a theme here) and let Elizabeth Warren have her way with them. 

All government bureaucrats would spontaneously combust. 

All mean people would have to report for "re-education".

Shorts would henceforth be considered proper business attire.

Football season would be expanded to year-round.

The cop who gave me a ticket last week would be banished to Cleveland.

Any requests?  

S

Sunshine Blog Award

The rules of the Sunshine Blog Award are simple…

#1 Thank the person who nominated you with a link back to their blog.

#2 Answer a few questions about yourself.

Favorite color: Blue, although I must admit I'm not that passionate about any particular color.  Red, green, orange....they're nice, too.

Favorite animal: Dogs - They give so much and ask for so little.  And they're just so unpretentious.  I like that.

Favorite number: 1.  Hey, I'm a Leo.  ;)

Favorite non-alcoholic drink: Coke Zero, although recently I've been enjoying Arnold Palmer's Half & Half Iced Tea/Lemonade.

Facebook or Twitter: Neither.  I'm much too private to want people to know everything about me and everything I do.

My passion: Automobiles, aviation, college football, history, reading, and of course....my wife.  ;)  (Passions....plural)

Favorite flower:  It depends on who's maintaining them.  If it's me, I'd have to say "plastic".  Anyone else....the more, the brighter, the better.

Favorite movie: (Again....plural.)  All over the board:  Dr. Zhivago, Blues Brothers, and more recently I've liked Midnight in Paris.

Favorite painting: A real head-scratcher as I'm not very artistically literate....maybe a LeRoy Neiman sports theme?  Something more contemporary for sure. 

And finally, nominate a few other blogs and include links to them


Bugs Eye View


Thoughts From My Corner of the Couch


Westy's World  (I just need to light a fire under her to POST MORE!  *hint*)


Thanks for the award, K.  :)


S

I think I've already seen this movie....

....and I didn't like it.


Starting this weekend I have to go back to working on Sunday afternoons.  Ugh!  In our business weekends are "prime time".  That's when most other people have time off to go looking at new homes, so we have to accommodate their schedules.  


Mr & Ms W's home isn't nearly finished yet, but it is far enough along for prospective clients to get an idea of what we can do.  The W's have very graciously allowed us to show their home until it's completed, giving us an opportunity to hopefully find other clients to build for.  This is how the W's home looks at this time:

The kitchen cabinets around the perimeter are knotty alder, while the island will be enameled and lacquered.  Of course everything will be swept out and (semi-) presentable....that's about the best we can hope for by the weekend.

As my brother likes NFL football he prefers to work on Saturday's and keep his Sunday's open.  I like college ball, so I prefer to relax on Saturday's and work Sunday's.  This way we're both (sort of) happy.  Still, giving up 2 back-to-back days off is hard, but in this economy you do what you have to to make a buck.

Think we'll ever see any semblance of old-fashioned (3 years ago) economic stability?  I'm ready to slow down, not peddle faster.

S

An afternoon with Sluggo

Today I stopped by to visit with my daughter Erica and my grandson Parker....aka Sluggo.  This kid LOVES baseball...and football, and soccer, and basketball, and just being outside.  Today he wanted to play baseball, so we went out into the yard and he blew me away!  The little guy can actually hit the ball.  I can pitch 'em high, low, fast, slow, it doesn't matter.  He can judge them and connect.   The kid's amazing.  And he only 2! 

At what age do you think it's appropriate to get a sports agent for him?  Haha!

Otherwise today was spent playing referee between dueling subcontractors, trying to make sense of what the new building inspector wants (he contradicts himself), and dropping off/picking up the dog from the groomer.  I still managed to get home before K, so I'm doing a few household chores so she (and I) will have a completely free weekend.  

This weekend we'll be doing our homework researching things to see and do in/around Aspen so we can make the most of our limited time there next week. Can any of you who've been there make any suggestions? I'm sure a lot has changed since I was last there 20+ years ago.

Have a great weekend everyone.  Stay cool.  :)

S