Everybody seems to feel the need to write something about Thanksgiving, so why should I be any different. Norman Rockwell saw Thanksgiving as an opportunity to gather with family, Dad in coat and tie, Mom in a frilly dress, slowly basting the turkey. Dick and Jane sitting before the fire, playing checkers. Clearly, Norman never visited the home on "Maniacal Lane".
Khiva and I had planned to make our usual family avoidance trip to Gunnison, CO. However, the demands of the Clone Army at TxDOT, and the weather caused us to choose to stay home instead. We had been invited to her parents here in Lubbock for Thursday and my parents in Austin for the weekend. We chose to just tell everyone we had gone to Gunnison and burrow into our own home for the weekend.
Fine with me...I had already composed a list of self-imposed "Honey-Do's" to keep me occupied for the four days. Rake leaves, clean the porches, put up Christmas lights, hang an exterior flood light on the north end of the house, golf if possible. Then, it began to snow. Crap, now what was I to do for 4 days?
Leave it to the hillbilly freaks living to my north to solve my problem. Mr. Gopher had made a return visit to my beautiful yard. Last year, 10 chlorine tablets and the water drained from the swimming pool took care of the problem. The pool was already drained, so I found the entrance to the burrow, dropped in a dozen chlorine tablets and turned on the hose. An hour later, and no water was running out of the hole. I decided to look over the fence into "Hillbilly Land" and saw dozens of gopher mounds all over their back yard. I could have pumped the well dry and not filled the damn colony up. I turned the water off, plugged the opening, and prayed the accumulated chlorine gas would make its way through the 8 miles of tunnels in the neighbors yard.
Spent the rest of the afternoon cloistered in the garage, cleaning out the Tundra and repairing various pieces of broken dog equipment. One day down, and three snowy, cold days to go. Not sure how I am going to keep myself busy for that long. With any luck, there will be a chlorine gas explosion in the neighbors back yard, and their dump of a house will be swallowed into Gopher Land.
For that, I would give thanks...
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Bang the Drum Slowly - Part II
Reading a post from my old friend, Shoeless,earlier got me to thinking back to days gone by, with friends gone awry. I recall a trip from the small town of Crested Butte, CO to the Village of Mt. Crested Butte, CO in a 1991 Maxima with Shoeless and "Payin' Ray", listening to Led Zeppelin. Most notably, the tune "In My Time of Dying",
This got me to thinking of one of my favorite "drummer" songs. As I have stated here previously, I think drummers are the forgotten force behind many great bands. John Bonham, of Led Zeppelin was one of the better of the bunch.
This song takes about 3 minutes to really kick off, so give it time. So, I give you Led Zeppelin
And to give you an idea of what I hear when I listen to this tune, here is a guy who shares my position Drummer's View .
And while we are at it...check out how hard Don Brewer works on this little known Grand Funk track Inside Looking Out .
This got me to thinking of one of my favorite "drummer" songs. As I have stated here previously, I think drummers are the forgotten force behind many great bands. John Bonham, of Led Zeppelin was one of the better of the bunch.
This song takes about 3 minutes to really kick off, so give it time. So, I give you Led Zeppelin
And to give you an idea of what I hear when I listen to this tune, here is a guy who shares my position Drummer's View .
And while we are at it...check out how hard Don Brewer works on this little known Grand Funk track Inside Looking Out .
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Maybe It's Just Me
Have you ever found yourself out in the general retail world, wanting to just beat the shit out of people? I found myself in that all too familiar position at Sam's today. I went to get some contacts, and found myself waiting as the only worker bee was helping some asshole get some glasses. Now, this guy may have been a perfectly nice guy, but the fact that he was there, and I was in a hurry made him an "asshole".
So, I went and picked up a couple of other things, and made my way back to the Optical shop, only to find myself being told to wait while the clerk screwed up someone else's order. When I finally found myself the center of the clerk's ineptitude, I was told they only had replacements for my right lens, and they would have to order the left. As steam roiled out of my ears, I had to remind myself that you go to Sam's for price...not service. The insipid worker bee did not make matters any better as she cheerily offered an "I'm sorry" platitude. I was intent on being pissed off about the whole sordid affair.
Not being one to learn from my mistakes, I ventured out to Wal-Mart this evening with the mission being to get my left eye contacts and pick up a few grocery items. First stop was the Optical shop, only to discover that they also did not have my left lens in stock. Fuck it...I headed to the grocery aisles to find myself behind a wide load in the pasta aisle who was commenting on the fact that "...that's a lot of pasta."
"There's a lot of pasta in those Spandex pants also, honey", I thought, while trying to maneuver around her centrally located cart. "How about you haul your ass over to the produce section and shove a salad down that gaping maw?" If nothing else, the aisles are wider. After doing battle with the rest of Lubbock's cheap bastards, I realized I had to traverse all the way to the Pharmacy section to pick up some Slim Fast bars for the wife. Pharmacy, my ass. Slim Fast bars are "food", and as such should be in the "food" aisles, goddammit!
Anyway, with Slim Fast bars secured, I made my way to the check out line, where I encountered two women who had obviously bought two of everything in the fucking store. About the time I had calmed enough to settle in and wait, they uttered that phrase that only two women would dare utter in a crowded check out line. "We need to check all of this out separately".
Why, why, why do women do this? If you are going to pay separately for two massive piles of Chinese made goods, GET TWO FUCKING CARTS. That way the rest of normal society will know to just leave their cart of goods in the aisle and beat a hasty retreat to the solace of a waiting whisky bottle at the house. Feminists, yell at me if you want. But, you would never see two men at The Home Depot pull this crap.
At any rate, I finally made it home, popped another blood pressure pill, pulled the cork on the aforementioned whisky bottle, and settled in to enjoy the company of the one person who doesn't constantly piss me off. Myself.
So, I went and picked up a couple of other things, and made my way back to the Optical shop, only to find myself being told to wait while the clerk screwed up someone else's order. When I finally found myself the center of the clerk's ineptitude, I was told they only had replacements for my right lens, and they would have to order the left. As steam roiled out of my ears, I had to remind myself that you go to Sam's for price...not service. The insipid worker bee did not make matters any better as she cheerily offered an "I'm sorry" platitude. I was intent on being pissed off about the whole sordid affair.
Not being one to learn from my mistakes, I ventured out to Wal-Mart this evening with the mission being to get my left eye contacts and pick up a few grocery items. First stop was the Optical shop, only to discover that they also did not have my left lens in stock. Fuck it...I headed to the grocery aisles to find myself behind a wide load in the pasta aisle who was commenting on the fact that "...that's a lot of pasta."
"There's a lot of pasta in those Spandex pants also, honey", I thought, while trying to maneuver around her centrally located cart. "How about you haul your ass over to the produce section and shove a salad down that gaping maw?" If nothing else, the aisles are wider. After doing battle with the rest of Lubbock's cheap bastards, I realized I had to traverse all the way to the Pharmacy section to pick up some Slim Fast bars for the wife. Pharmacy, my ass. Slim Fast bars are "food", and as such should be in the "food" aisles, goddammit!
Anyway, with Slim Fast bars secured, I made my way to the check out line, where I encountered two women who had obviously bought two of everything in the fucking store. About the time I had calmed enough to settle in and wait, they uttered that phrase that only two women would dare utter in a crowded check out line. "We need to check all of this out separately".
Why, why, why do women do this? If you are going to pay separately for two massive piles of Chinese made goods, GET TWO FUCKING CARTS. That way the rest of normal society will know to just leave their cart of goods in the aisle and beat a hasty retreat to the solace of a waiting whisky bottle at the house. Feminists, yell at me if you want. But, you would never see two men at The Home Depot pull this crap.
At any rate, I finally made it home, popped another blood pressure pill, pulled the cork on the aforementioned whisky bottle, and settled in to enjoy the company of the one person who doesn't constantly piss me off. Myself.
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