Sunday, February 07, 2010
Super Bowl Sunday...
02/07/2010
I think Super Bowl TV coverage began at 1pm today. It’s just a friggin’ football game, for crying out loud. I don’t know about you, but I am really sick of football. I am sick of having to watch every stupid football game that happens to grace the TV airwaves.
You might be thinking in your unknowing mind that this is a choice I have. Not so fast, Kimosabe! To have a choice one has to be in control. My choice is to watch the game, regardless of whether or not I care to watch the game, or suffer the wrath of a very unhappy wife. In other words, it is a requirement I suffer through sixty minutes of shear hell or pay the price. The price is very ugly.
The Super Bowl is now half over. What comes next is the stupid Super Bowl Halftime Show. I am overwhelmed with excitement. “The Who” is the featured Halftime entertainment. “The Who,” a bunch of ancient relics from yesteryear “Who” have more than outlived their 15-minutes of fame and should give it up, in my humble, yet apparently uniformed, opinion. Aging rockers make me ill. Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson sure ruined the hell out of what used to be a less stupid spectacle
It is 8:01 and I will be happy when this is over so I can watch something of relevance. Oh God, help us. “The Who” are performing now. They are bad. Maybe it is just me? Perhaps I am really wrong and these guys don’t really suck. Notice I said “perhaps.”
And that is all I have to say about that…
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Snow Woes...
02/06/2010
Snow has been falling here since about 10am yesterday. I have a yardstick planted in the snow just outside a window off our sun-porch/dining area (for want of a better description), and it measures 24” at this moment. The forecast is for the snow to continue to somewhere between 8pm and 10pm and perhaps accumulate another 8” to 10” before ending tonight.
In case you don’t recall or are new to this blog, our home, aka The Farm, is located just about a half-mile off the paved road up a gravel drive. Two feet of snow makes it a little inconvenient to attempt to get to the main road. Bottom line, we are stuck here at the mercy of the elements, and we kind of like it that way.
The older part of this house was built in 1912. Back then the farmer who owned this place did not have a snow blower or a snow plow. The non-farmer who now owns this place also does not own either a snow blower or a snow plow. We will have to rough it out until the crap melts or we shell out another $100.00 to get it plowed. For the next couple of days I will keep a tight fist on my wallet and enjoy being stranded – just me, The Nancy, our kitty cat and a fridge full of beer in the basement.
And that is all I have to say about that…
Friday, February 05, 2010
Heading Eastward Toward the Abyss
02/05/2010
This Southwest aircraft is above the grayness that just minutes ago hung low to the ground and almost prevented this plane from lifting off the runway. I am going home after nearly a week of a training session for my company’s newest sales reps.
I did not wish to be here; I did not in any way want come here especially to be part of training people. These days I don’t feel I can contribute much. The business has radically changed since I last had a sales territory. Good grief! It has been over twenty-four years since my stogy body graced the doorstep of a customer as a company sales rep. You know, way back in the days prior to cell phones and e-mail, and even before fax machines were available. But, as usual, the more things change the more they stay the same; the only real difference today as opposed to yesteryear is now there are electronic enhancements and it takes a little more youthful hubris than I can conger up.
The huge thrill of the week for me was being with all these young people. Watching ten strangers come into a building as individuals and leave as a part of a family – brothers and sisters united to a single cause, that being success. Each of them enjoyed an epiphany of sorts; I enjoyed one, as well. I found I am not as out of touch as I thought. I got to share my experience and experiences with them and I found it attracted their attention, especially when I got out of my head and spoke from the heart.
Now with the week behind me I am heading home. The weather eastward sucks. The forecast for the area surrounding Beautiful Downtown Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, population 711 calls for 24” to 30+” of snow. All of this followed by another storm next week bringing joy to all the little boys and girls of school age, and even me, especially if I cannot get out to go travel to Indiana on Tuesday. The weather will be what it will be, and I don’t really care if I get stuck, but I can go home with a smile on my face knowing I did my best and that I may have made a difference in someone’s life.
And that is all I have to say about that…
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Dinner with the Girls...
01/31/2010
You don’t have to know them to love them. Jessica, the granddaughter, and A.K, her BFF are both fifteen; both are very beautiful young ladies; both very intelligent, but both very fifteen.
The Nancy and I had dinner with them last night. We had a blast. The girls, Jessica typically quiet around us when just with us, unless she wants something, became alive with A.K. present. A.K. is a talker, without a shy bone in her body. If they survive adolescence unscathed, both will find success in adulthood, on that I have no doubt in my mind, provided, that is, they can learn to utter a sentence that is not punctuated with a repetitive “like” between every other word.
I am in love with both these girls; they are just a joy to be with. I fully suspect had The Nancy and I just taken Jessica to dinner the conversation would have been more just between the two of us than the three of us. I get the distinct feeling Jessica is not enamored with having to satisfy the need of her grandparents to spend time one-on-one with her, but she does it for her Maw-Maw.
The most interesting part of our time with these wonderful young people was listening to them rag on their parents. It was as if these two were the first teenagers to realize what old-fashioned, boring, so-un-with-it idiots, whose sole purpose for being on the planet is to make their lives unbearable, were made by God to be their parents. Why couldn’t they have cool parents like some of their friends? We listened to their complaints and acknowledged their pain, all the while chuckling on the inside knowing we had similar experiences a million years ago ourselves.
I so want these girls to grow into educated, productive, English-speaking adults, and to find success in their chosen field and in who they truly are. I sincerely hope the path to it is without major obstacles getting in the way. And my biggie is, I hope I live long enough to see both of them with daughters of their own who think they are “psychotic” and beyond reason.
And that is all I have to say about that…