- Family Vacation Math – 3 People times 3 Days on the Road = 6 Large Loads of Laundry
- Family Dinner Math – One crockpot each of chili and chicken-n-dumplings is enough to feed a family of 3 for 3 days, assuming that the teenager in question eats like Godzilla and considers leftovers as snack food.
- Corollary – 2 pounds of bacon, cooked properly, yields between 1/2 and 3/4 of a pint of bacon grease, and will feed that family for at least three breakfasts. That is, unless the teenager in question decides that 2 pounds of bacon, cooked, makes for a dandy snack.
- Parenting tip – Telling the teenager that the yogurts you bought are for his mother and threatening to rain down hellfire if he so much as touches them can be effective, especially if that special red light comes up behind your eyes as you say it.
- This may also be true for the cherry sorbet you keep at the back of the freezer.
- One of the biggest lessons I learned in life is that I am under no obligation to set myself on fire so that others can be warm.
- “You’re not working, so you should be able to do this for us” is not how you get someone to assist you in something that is not a necessity of life.
- With the change in my employment status, so too comes the change in my medical insurance. Apparently, in order to get the medicine for my arthritis, my doctor is going to have to chant arcane passages from the Silmarillion, in the original Nawatl, while standing next to a bonfire at the top of his office building during a full moon. I will then have to journey through a dark, misty forest to meet pharmaceutical fae at an abandoned crossroads and exchange the sweat of my brow and the blood of my veins for two small vials of iridescent ointment that will have to last me through three full cycles of the moon.
- My firstborn is no longer available, so we had to go with an alternate method of payment.
All posts by daddybear71
Musings
Posted by daddybear71 on April 9, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/04/09/musings-388/
News Roundup
- From the “Resurrection” Department – Scientists at a genetics company have successfully created dire wolves, a species that died out 10,000 years ago. Currently, 3 pups of unusual size have been born, and are doing well at an undisclosed location. Work is underway to produce a wooly mammoth later this decade. While I applaud the skill demonstrated by this endeavor, I hope that important species like short-faced bears and cave bears are recreated and reintroduced into their former habitats, currently occupied by the headquarters of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
- From the “Bear Tested, Bear Approved” Department – A waste management company is working with a local zoo to test its bear-proof trash cans. Bears at the zoo are being given an opportunity to break into the containers to get at the treats inside. The hope is that the data gleaned from the testing aids in improving bear-proof devices such as trash cans, storage lockers, and sleeping bags. Lawyers for American Tourister luggage could not be reached for comment.
- From the “Weekend at Biden’s” Department – The Harris campaign kept a secret list of Republican-appointed judges that were to be used in the event that President Biden died and then-Vice President Harris needed to be sworn in. While this is a good cover story for an aborted plan to assume power that would have played out like the last 30 minutes of Clue, I’m sure that Mrs./Doctor/Svengali Biden would have had issues with someone interfering with her marital marionette in the event that something as inconsequential as breathing stopped happening. While I applaud the planning for a peaceful transfer of power, I mourn the opportunity we all missed to watch a cat fight of biblical proportions unfold on national TV.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 8, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/04/08/news-roundup-265/
Musings
- Through absolutely no fault on her part, Girlie Bear scheduled her wedding the same weekend in San Antonio as the NCAA Men’s Final Four basketball tournament.
- I guess that explains the cost of airline tickets, hotel room, and automobile rental.
- We took Irish Woman and the Young Prince down to see the Alamo the morning after the wedding. I figured a little history education would be good for the boy.
- He really enjoyed it. They’ve added quite a bit to the plaza, and it’s got a lot more educational content now.
- However, ESPN was just starting to broadcast from Alamo Plaza when we left. To say the crowd was large would be a gross understatement.
- There probably haven’t been that many rowdy people in front of those walls since 1836.
- When looking at a statue of Jim Bowie, the Young Prince asked, “Is that the guy who came up with the knife?”
- Just at that moment, Irish Woman caught up with us. She asked, “Is he related to David Bowie?”
- There are two kinds of people.
- We walked over to the San Antonio Riverwalk, which was thick with basketball fans. My newly minted son-in-law directed us over to an area that is usually quieter.
- You’ll never guess where all four teams, along with their cheerleaders, bands, and throngs of adoring fans, were holding a pep rally.
- Did I ever mention that my beautiful wife bleeds Kentucky blue, and the Duke fight song was playing just as we got there?
- She’s still pissed about 1994.
- Funny story – A ‘friend’ tried to convince me to name the Young Prince “Christian”. No, I did not know its significance, and yes, he most certainly did.
- After that quieted down, I started hearing chanting. I couldn’t be sure what they were saying, but it was close enough to “No Justice, No Peace!” that I decided happy fun time in downtown San Antonio was at an end.
- Note to self – Check a personal protection pellet thrower next time you fly. All I had was a CRKT folder I’d checked in my bag almost as an afterthought.
- Ladies, when your husband gets his game face on and starts herding you away from a crowd, that is not the time to start making new friends. It makes the little vein in his forehead throb something fierce.
- We visited the hotel bar a couple of times this weekend. Sometimes, when you’re marrying off your one and only daughter, you need a beer.
- Irish Woman noticed that the bar had a bottle of Elmer T. Lee bourbon. This used to our go-to. It was reasonably priced (around $20), and tasted good. It hasn’t been available in Kentucky liquor stores for about a decade and a half.
- Of course, Irish Woman imbibed. It was like she found someone who could make fried chicken just like her meemaw did when she was a kid.
- Did y’all know that a serving of top-shelf bourbon costs $30 in San Antonio? I sure didn’t, but my wife’s happiness is worth every penny.
- The trip home was positively boring compared to the trip to Texas. The most exciting part was seeing the tornado damage to the Cincinnati airport after we landed.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 6, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/04/06/musings-387/
Rumblings
- Nothing says “Let’s get ready to go on a trip!” like tornado warnings at midnight the night before you leave.
- We were OK, but our old neighborhood got tore up a bit.
- Nothing foreshadows how your day is going like leaving for the airport an hour before you absolutely have to and barely making it to your flight due to traffic.
- Is it a bad thing when the cause of the backup was two pickups being pulled onto a wrecker and a second wrecker with its cables running into the holler next to the interstate, all of which is bookended by a 50 foot rip in the guardrail?
- Gentlemen – It is a bad thing to mess up your wife’s birth date on her plane tickets. TSA has neither a sense of humor about such things, nor a willingness to help.
- Irish Woman had to go back to ticketing to fix it, then do her best O.J. Simpson impression to our gate, which was at the end of the furthest terminal from security. She made it, barely.
- I’m worried about what other O.J.-style skills she may be considering. Please note, if I am eliminated in a rather sticky manner this weekend, I deserved it.
- Irish Woman has joked that 1996 must be the birth year of my mistress. At least, I hope that was humor I saw in her eyes.
- We were supposed to have a two-and-a-half hour layover in Dallas, but due to weather, the pilot flew us to Dallas from Cincinnati via Kansas City and Laredo. We landed at about the time the doors for our next flight were closing.
- Being the seasoned travelers we are, we tried to get booked on the next flight to San Antonio, along with several hundred of our closest, newest friends.
- After standing in a line that wrapped around the terminal for 2 hours and moving a total of 30 feet, we decided that Plan B would not work, so we moved to Plan C – Rent a car and drive. Hey, it’s only a few hours between DFW and San Antonio, right?
- Arranging a rental car was relatively easy. Notice that I did not say inexpensive.
- Did y’all know how expensive a last-minute, one-way car rental is?
- Did y’all know that when you save money by prepaying for your car rental, you can’t get a full refund when you are no longer flying into the airport you originally planned on using and have to cancel?
- Getting our luggage out of the airline, open the other hand, was an adventure in and of itself. After… speaking… Yeah, that’s it, speaking with a small man with terror in his eyes about how we got our bags back, he put in a request to have them retrieved. He was brave enough to tell me it would take between 30 minutes and 3 hours to get them.
- Pro tip – When a customer says they no longer with to do business with your organization that day and would like their belongings returned to them, do not try to argue with them about how they can’t. That is especially true when the customer acknowledges that they will not be getting any sort of refund for the services your organization has not provided.
- The gentleman with the frightened eyes had an issue finding our luggage, because it had been rerouted in their system to be loaded onto a plane.
- American Airlines, may the brass allergy outbreak on the insides of their mothers’ thighs clear up soon, helpfully rebooked us on a flight the next day. Did I mention that they didn’t tell us about that?
- For some reason, Irish Woman used her Human Relations voice immediately afterward to talk to me about my people skills. Not sure where that came from.
- After securing our rental car from an adorably pleasant young woman, we went on “The Quest to Get Off of DFW” and find some food while the airplane minions gathered our baggage. It is at that point that I realized that I hadn’t eaten in 24 hours, and hadn’t had any coffee in almost 36. Suddenly, any bit of grilled critter slapped between two pieces of bread with a bit of tasty grease sounded good.
- Once we had acquired said greaseburgers and some bubbly caffeine, we retraced our steps back to the airport, all the while entertained by plumes of smoke emanating from the pits of Mordor, locally called DFW airport. After retrieving our luggage and playing “Rental Car Jenga” to get it all in the trunk, we repeated “The Quest to Get Off of DFW”, and headed south to San Antonio.
- We arrived in San Antonio after being on the road, in one way or another, for 18 hours. A quick query on my cell phone showed that it would only have taken 16 hours to drive. Taking into account the time to stop for gas and such every so often, it probably would have been about the same time to drive as do whatever it was that American Airlines did to get us sort of to our destination, and I would have had my own car and about $2000 still in my bank account. Lesson learned.
- After driving around San Antonio for a few hours today, I have to say that the Texas highway department doesn’t have a hair on their collective asses if they don’t partner with Mattel and paint all of those elevated highways orange.
- I told my soon-to-be son-in-law that there were no give-backsies with Girlie Bear. I think he thinks I’m kidding.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 4, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/04/04/rumblings-27/
Rumblings
- There’s something awesome about having a teenager when you’re in your 50’s.
- You get to share all the things you enjoyed as a kid because they’ve come back in vogue.
- You have the wisdom to know what does and doesn’t work, so you can guide him to better experiences, but still be there when he ignores advice and goes it alone.
- You can watch the light behind his eyes die as you hand him a list of chores to accomplish before sunset on the third day of his spring break.
- Trying to fly out of Kentucky in early spring is a lot like watching a close horse race. You’re betting on whether the flight will make it off the ground before the wrath of god descends on the Commonwealth.
- Being seasoned travelers, Irish Woman and I have a contingency of getting in her car, along with all of our luggage and the Young Prince, and driving 20 hours non-stop to get to our destination.
- One sign that you’ve truly been domesticated is that you get pleasure from how well the new carpet cleaner works compared to the old one.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 2, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/04/02/rumblings-26/
News Roundup
- From the “AAARRRRMMY TRAINING, SIR!” Department – Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced late last night that all uniformed service members will be required to pass the Marine physical fitness test, with an additional two-mile open water swim for time, starting in fiscal year 2026. This is in addition to the new requirement that all service members in combat arms jobs must pass the same fitness requirements. Notable among the early objectors are Army leadership, who has been working feverishly to include tiddlywinks and plate spinning to their fitness tests in recent months. Air Force units have already begun adjusting their fitness training to include outdoor activities on a limited basis. Navy PT will now include hurdles as sailors try to get their daily run in without breaking their shins on hatches.
- From the “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” Department – The United States Department of Commerce has released revised economic data for the U.S. economy from January of 2021 to January of 2025. It appears that we have been in a depression, coupled with just-under hyperinflation, for several years now. Reports are coming in that the former administration not only subverted the process of collating and reporting economic data, but also worked with several shadowy nongovernmental organizations to spirit away the poor when they coalesced into mass protests or took up residence in so-called ‘Bidenvilles’. Where those people have been sent is unknown at this time, but reports of military aircraft circling the interior of Alaska are starting to filter in. No word from President Trump on his plan to pull us out of this nosedive, but footage of government vehicles speeding through the White House gates have popped up on Telegram and other social media.
- From the “Adults in Charge” Department – Portland, Oregon, was recently the scene of chaos as the indigenous population of that picturesque city rose up and expelled the hordes of hippies, communists, anarchists, and performative politicians that have afflicted Portland for the past decade and a half. Leaders of the “Portlandia Area Isolationist Network” have produced a manifesto calling for the building of a wall around Portland to keep out the “riffraff”. They also call for federal aid in cleaning up the environmental and societal mess that successive municipal administrations have allowed to occur.
- From the “European Vacation” Department – French President Macron and British Prime Minister Starmer announced the formation of a pan-European military organization meant to replace U.S. participation in NATO. Dubbed the “Central Organization for Battle Readiness Activities” or COBRA, the force will provide overarching command over sub-units that specialize in infiltration and espionage, mountain and arctic warfare, jungle and swamp operations, and advanced weapons development. The German government is expected to decide on whether or not they will participate in this new organization, or if they will continue to allow the rest of Europe secure the continent for them.
- From the “Gotcha” Department – A middle-aged, semi-retired goofball in Kentucky wishes each of you a happy April Fools Day!
Posted by daddybear71 on April 1, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/04/01/news-roundup-264/
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on April 1, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/04/01/todays-earworm-851/
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on March 27, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/03/27/todays-earworm-850/
Musings
- Not sure which indicates that I’m getting older more – The fact that I looked forward to going to breakfast yesterday at Cracker Barrel with Irish Woman, or my excitement in seeing that the polymer/wood rocking chairs were on sale out front.
- 30 years ago this month, I felt a rather large sense of accomplishment at successfully completing a really ugly assignment. Today, I felt almost as good at having both the dishes and the laundry caught up at the same time.
- All I’m saying is that 20-something old me would never have been pleased to see that quarts of beef and chicken broth were on sale for less than $1 at Kroger.
- I found out just how much of a light weight I’ve become last night, as my neighbor served me two small servings of bourbon and I woke up feeling like I’d been on a 4 day bender.
- Not sure if I should remedy that with more exercise of my alcohol consumption faculties or not.
- Starting to think about what to grow in the raised beds this year. I’m considering going full all-spikes-no-food to get back at the critters that decided I didn’t need tomatoes last year.
- In other news, the local deer were very grateful for the bowl of too-old-to-use apples I tossed into the side yard, but wanted me to know that the bird feeders need refilling.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 26, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/03/26/musings-386/
Today’s Earworm
This movie was released 40 years ago this week. If you saw it in theaters, it’s time to start scheduling regular checkups with various medical professionals.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 24, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/03/24/todays-earworm-849/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 