• Chewing gum while you are on the phone with another person ought to be a hanging offense.
• Note to self:  I am not allowed to put the phrase “I laughed, I cried, I came away a better human being” into my weekly status report.
• We had precisely one trick-or-treater tonight.  Did I mention that due to our annual tradition of not coordinating who was going to buy the candy, we’re up to our eyeballs in sweets?
• Note to self – When the wife says that she wants to go to a specific place for your anniversary, it is a good idea to remember to make the necessary reservations.
• Irish Woman shows she loves me by cooking food that will eventually lead to my death.  I show her love by building roaring fires in the fireplace so that she may warm herself like a turkey on a rotisserie.

Here’s a hint – Give a speech like this and make it believable, and you’ll probably get my vote in 2016.  Just saying.

• We went and got our pumpkins for Halloween on Saturday.  Girlie Bear decided that she could get the biggest one in the patch.  She didn’t think it was so much fun after I didn’t help her carry the darned thing to the car.
• I have met camels before, but this was the first time I’ve met a camel who was friendly or one with soft, wooly hair.
• If you claim to have gone to an engineering university, but still use words like “I believe” or “might” in your project status, it makes me question your bona fides.
• There are those who call for castration of men who rape women or molest children.  Would it be proper to do a hysterectomy on a woman who abuses children?
• “Make sure there’s room between you for your grandmas” was my advice last night when two young people wanted to lie down on the same mat to sleep during a lock-in party.  Mention of grandmothers always seems to calm down raging hormones.
• This morning, I was stalking around a bunch of people at 5 AM, with a steely glint in my blood-shot eyes, a cup of coffee cradled in my hand, and a gruff attitude when approached.  God, I miss those days sometimes.  Not enough to want to do them more than once every year or so, of course.

• Am I the only one whose teeth get on edge when they hear someone say “I repeat” on the radio?
• You know your life wife loves you when she drives an hour, round trip, to bring you the spare set of truck keys after you lock both your primary set and your laptop in the truck.
• It’s amazing how unproductive I am without my laptop.
• I’ve finally reached the age where three aspirin and a fish oil capsule counts is a night-cap.
• Just when I started to have some faith in humanity, I read the comments on a YouTube video of music from The Hobbit.
• The only thing more frustrating than arguing with a jackass who is on the opposite side of a controversial subject as you is arguing with a jackass who is on the same side of a controversial subject as you.

• If I ever find the guy who designed the wiring for this house, I’m going to stake him out, cover him with honey, and let the anteaters clean up the mess.
• I swear, Rube Goldberg and Wyle E. Coyote must have been subcontractors on this job.
• I finally stopped looking for zebras today, and after changing out a circuit breaker, the lights in the basement work again.
• Every so often, I remember why the ex’s are ex’s.
• Today, I was reminded of why I don’t live in the downtown area.  The used bandages in the bushes outside the sheriff’s office were a hint.
• I need to read the transcript of last night’s debate.  I’m sorry, but I just can’t watch that, live or delayed.

• Today, I discussed algebra with Little Bear while I was chopping wood.  The position of my left hand on the handle was a constant, and the position of the head and my right hand were variables.
• Girlie Bear, about 5000 of my closest friends, and I were at the Louisville Zoo tonight.  I was one of the ones giving out candy.
• Disney invented a machine to print money when it came up with the princess merchandising concept.   Somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 of the little girls were in some form of that line tonight.
• For once, I am impressed with humanity.  The kids tonight were almost uniformly polite, as were their parents.  I saw no prostitot costumes, and very few moms dressing up like fetish street walkers to take their kids trick-or-treating.
• I will not complain about listening to the same six songs from Halloween movies, because on my way out, I heard what other groups of volunteers  had to listen to.   How many hours of “A Whole New World” over and over would it take to make you jump into the polar bear enclosure with salmon strapped to your thorax?
• Tonight, Boo learned the term “cliffhanger” when Irish Woman read him the first chapter in a book, and now he has to wait until tomorrow night to find out what happened.

• It was kind of nice to get phone support from a vendor and have it actually solve the problem.
• It didn’t hurt that I could understand the person who was helping me, even with an accent.
• It is not funny to joke that the worst case scenario has happened while your coworker is doing brain surgery on a server.
• I’ve had two days in a row that involved automatic weapons and explosions.  I’ll call that a win.
• Anybody can stub their toe in the dark.  It takes pure talent to stub your toe, bruise your knee, and bite your tongue all in the same motion.

• It is quite refreshing to work with someone who not only comes to me with the information I need to help him, but also thanks me for doing it.
• Note to self:  I am not allowed to call meeting minutes and agendas “Whiny Bitch Bingo”.
• I take it as a sign of frustration when I hear the words “Screw it.  Go get the explosives.” through a locked door.
• Machine guns be loud.
• So are grenade simulators.
• Tell me if I’m wrong here, but I can’t be the only veteran who looks at a cloud of yellow-gray smoke and doesn’t immediately think of CS gas.

• When shopping for groceries, I am not allowed to complain about getting “cow juice” on my hands in the meat department.
• Also, cereal is not ‘kibble’.
• I had to ask Irish Woman to ease off the stories of the best ways to sneak booze and boys into the dormitory while we took Little Bear on a campus tour at her alma mater.
• I came back from a trip to the hardware store the other day to find Irish Woman had fully decorated the house for Halloween.  Apparently my plan to not have a $300 light bill this month has been vetoed.
• The weather must be getting colder.  Irish Woman put her cold hands on my neck tonight and tried to rip my soul out through my spine to warm herself.
• If you’re going to the Knob Creek Machine Gun shoot, I’ll be at the Friends of the NRA booth on Friday selling tickets to a drawing.  Come on out and see me!