• I came very close to writing a Minivandian story about going to the doctor, but I just don’t have the energy.
  • Maybe later I’ll have the oomph to write tales of high adventure.  Right now I’m lucky to be able to look at pictures of kittens.
• Carharrt makes nurses’ scrubs.  I did not know that.
• When the pharmaceutical reps came through the waiting room with Olive Garden bags, I realized how lucky I was to have a good book along today.
• I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure Century Arms manufactured the needles they used on me today.
  • At least, they felt like they’d been assembled by chimpanzees using ball peen hammers.
• Today was not the day to try to convince me that if I would just give up this modern lifestyle and eat only whole-grain, macrobiotic, organic, fair-trade, shade-grown food and virgin spring water, then all of my issues would disappear.
  • Lady, I had issues way before all this neo-Graham, Road to Wellville fooferahh came along, and I’ll still have them when all of you are back to doing lines of blow off the lid to a toilet in some dive bar, so back off.
  • No, she wasn’t my doctor, just a concerned citizen who is lucky to still have a scalp.
•  Yet again, the chorus teacher proved that it is impossible to have a concert that isn’t held in a 100-year-old stone church halfway across town and do it in less than four languages.
  • Apparently the churches and auditoriums near Girlie Bear’s school, some of which are specifically designed to have great acoustics, aren’t up to snuff.
  • Spanish, Latin, Hungarian, and English.  I was halfway expecting Mandarin Chinese or Tagalog to sneak in there somewhere in the “sing by rote memorization” drills.
• Maybe I’m wrong, but wouldn’t it make more sense to have the students sing Haydn’s latin mass from the church balcony and then sing “My Old Kentucky Home” from the front of the church instead of the other way around?
  • Apparently I was supposed to know that we stand and face the music for “My Old Kentucky Home”.  My bad.
    • I may be in Kentucky, but I’m not from Kentucky.
• I think that it’s the epitome of rudeness to up and leave a school performance as soon as your own little precious snowflake is done performing.  What say you guys?

• I seem to have caught Roberta X’s cold.  
  • Pretty amazing, considering we’ve never met face to face.
• Nothing says “Hi honey! I’m glad you’re home!  I love you!” like saying “The dogs have been outside in the rain all day, the hose has another hole chewed in it, and I have to go get on a phone call and make dinner.”.
  • Bluegrass ran from the evil jet of cold water.  I had to drag her over to the hose and spray her down like a horse.  A horse that shakes cold water and gray mud all over me every time the hose hits her pelt.
  • Moonshine thought it was a game.  He’d run past me, I’d spray him for a few seconds.  He’d shake, we’d repeat the process.
  • By the time I was done, I was as wet as the dogs and couldn’t see through my glasses anymore.
• Siamese cats do not like cold rain storms.  They are  quite vocal in their displeasure, especially when they are steam-rolled into a mud puddle by a black labrador.
  • I’ll have to post a guard on Moonshine for the next few nights, for I am sure that Koshka has vowed vengeance in a rather toothy manner.
• Is it a bad thing when a co-worker shouts out “Who’s on call tonight?”?
  • It seems he was expecting trouble, and wanted to make sure I knew that if something goes pear-shaped, I am to call management immediately.
  • I responded by making sure the pager is on my nightstand and set to an annoying sound pattern that is sure to wake either me or Irish Woman.  Hopefully Irish Woman.

• It is a loving wife who makes the extra trip to the hardware store to exchange the electrical outlet her idiot husband mistakenly bought the night before.
• The new outlet worked.  No more breakers tripping and I’m starting to make a dent in the mound of laundry.
• First row of garden beds in the new set is done.  Now to fill behind them and build the second set.
  • Irish Woman is itching to get the garden in now that we’re not getting frost, so I better get it done.
  • She got the onions in tonight, and bought 9 cucumber plants which she plans to plant tomorrow.
    • Last year we had three and they were coming out of our ears.
    • I have no idea what she plans on doing with even more this year.
• Boo is displaying a lot of innate family traits.
  • His teacher had to take him to the school kitchen and scrub his legs in a sink because he came in from recess four shades grayer than when he went out.
  • He asked me at the store today if he could have both a nerf shotgun and a super soaker because he, and I’m quoting here, “needs it to get Mommy”.
  • I’m not sure, but I think he was trying to belch the alphabet after dinner tonight.
• When it starts raining hard enough to streak your eyeglasses, it’s time to quit building garden beds for the night.
• My idea to purchase, refurbish, and live in an old ICBM silo as a retirement home has been officially rejected.
  • I never have any fun.
  • It would have made a great place to entertain.  Imagine the blogshoot potential.
• Remember the rule about not trying to catch a loaded firearm?  A corollary of that is to not try to catch an uncapped bottle of soda.
  • The cause and effect nature of the results are quite similar, and made almost the same amount of mess for me to clean up.
• I considered buying fishing line to get my pole set up, but decided against it when I had an honest moment with myself.
  • Who was I kidding?  When I take Boo fishing, my pole won’t even get wet.  Might as well just get his pole ready and go along for the fun.
• Want to lose an hour of your life and a bit of your faith in humanity all at the same time?   Just read the blotter report for your city on the website of the local newspaper.
  • My inner-voice response to most items was “Really?   Are people that stupid?”.

• Is it a bad thing when part of the 220 volt electrical outlet to the dryer falls to the floor when I open it?
  • The breaker for the dryer keeps tripping about five minutes after we turn it on.
  • The part that fell out was half of one of the metal parts that comes in contact with the prongs from the dryer.  My guess is that it was in just enough contact to allow a connection, but would cause a short and trip the breaker once resistance heated it up a bit.
• Why no, I didn’t take the old receptacle and its faceplate to the hardware store when I went to buy a replacement.  Why should I do that?
  • I’ll be going back tomorrow, with both the old receptacle and the ‘new’ one in order to buy the ‘correct’ one.
• I actually have a spare receptacle around here somewhere.  Darned if I know where it is.
  • Hey, it’s only money and time.  It’s not like I don’t have an abundance of both.
• The paperwork for sending Girlie Bear to JROTC summer camp is thicker than my first enlistment contract.
• Irish Woman had the manners to not wait until I was done with the new garden beds to request a ‘small’ change to the design.
  • I only have to undo a couple of hours worth of work to accommodate it, instead of a couple of days worth.
  • She’s so considerate.
• Got news today that one of the units training at Fort Knox had a fatality last night, along with several hurt.  If you’re of a mind, there is a family out there that could use your prayers.

• I need to install cameras around here just so I know what goes on around here while I’m at work.
  • Bluegrass is favoring one of her front paws, and has grass stains on her rump and her forehead.  She isn’t cooperating with investigators.
• Quote of the day – “Son, you opened this can of whoop-ass.  I’m just here to make sure you take a nice long drink from it.”
• Note to salesman – It does not bode well for your continued relationship with me when you make a point to mention and discuss the amount of caffeine-laden liquid I am consuming.
• How my afternoon went –
  • Hmmm, how do you do this?  Well, let’s try the easy and safe way.
  • Nope that didn’t work.  Let’s try the slightly more difficult and a tad more risky method.
  • Nope, not that one either.  OK, let’s try the overly complicated and insanely dangerous way to do it.
  • Well, what do you know, that worked like a champ.
  • I can never let anyone who doesn’t absolutely know what they’re doing attempt this.  I owe that much to the stock holders.
• Don’t tell me I can’t brace and level something.  Given enough creek rock, lumber, and decking screws, I can make anything work.
• Of course I didn’t notice that the sump pump won’t shut itself off automatically when it trips.  That would have required being smart and checking it a couple of months before the rainy season.
  • Oh well, it’s not the first time I’ve had to get up every four hours to check on machinery.

• Of course there was a construction zone with a backup between me and the birthday cake when I went to pick it up at the last minute yesterday.  What fun is there in being sane and calm when you get to the party?
• 15 children, about 15 adults, 15 pizzas, 60 cupcakes, 1 large birthday cake, assorted fruit, and two cases of soda and water means I have leftovers coming out of my ears.
• We did help one father discover something healthy that his son would eat – strawberries.  Lots and lots of strawberries.
• Hottest food at the birthday party?  Surprisingly, it was bananas.
• Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate.
  • In February, when we booked an outdoor pavilion next to the splash park, we thought it would be hot by now.
  • Instead, it was foggy, breezy, and chilly.
• Progress on the new tiered tomato and pepper beds is coming along nicely.
  • If the weather cooperates, we should be planting the garden next weekend or the weekend after.
• A few weeks ago, I bought a $500 gift card to my lumber yard so that we could try to stay on budget with our projects.
  • It now has $12 on it.
  • I’m pretty sure I have all the materials I need to finish the garden beds, but will need to spend more on the fence and other stuff.
• The price of gas here has gone down about 40 cents a gallon since the Kentucky Derby.
  • Of course, if you ask the owners of the chain gas stations, that had nothing to do with it.
• I either need to quit working in the yard so much or stop working in the yard at all.
  • I hurt in places I had forgotten I even had.
• Man hath no love like a Siamese cat who thinks she might be getting bits of fried chicken.
• Moonshine is officially trained.  He slipped out of his collar this morning on the way back to the dog area, and he obediently ran to the gate, sat down, and waited for Bluegrass and me to catch up.
  • Now if I can just get him to stop eating everything made out of rubber.

• Irish Woman commented tonight on how Moonshine has had an attitude with her lately.  I commented that if she had me castrated like she did the dog, then I’d be a bit ornery too.
• I’m so proud of my wife.  While she was checking out at the grocery store, a man decided to stop cussing out his wife in some foreign tongue long enough to start cussing out my wife in that foreign tongue.  She decided to give him a small piece of her mind.  Quoth the Irish Woman – “Here in Kentucky, when our husbands act like that, we call them assholes.  Welcome to America!”.
• You know, when you call a pizza place and try to order 15 pizzas to be picked up the next day, you shouldn’t be given attitude over it.
  • Luckily for me, I live in one of those rare localities that has more than one pizza restaurant in it.
• If my back yard gets any swampier, I’m going to have to start checking for pythons and alligators.
• Moonshine ate the end of our new garden hose today.  I momentarily thought about using his hide to patch it.

• At the doctor’s office today, the tongue depressors tasted like snozberries.
  • Whoever thought to flavor doctor’s instruments for kids should be given a Nobel Prize.
    • The President has one he’s not using.  I’m sure he could be persuaded to part with it.
• The doctor was shocked at the difference between how Boo is now compared to how he was when we first went to her practice 18 months ago.
  • Intense speech and occupational therapy, along with full-time preschool in an environment that’s designed for kids with learning problems, has cleared up just about all of his issues.
  • It weren’t cheap, but it were worth it.
• My project-management skills were tested today, but were not found wanting.
  • Go ahead, throw murky, almost unintelligible tasks at me, including things that I’ve never done before, and to be honest scare the daylights out of me, and I will have them scheduled in time to get out to my truck before it starts raining.
  • Fastest project plan and change control in the west.
• The Louisville Friends of the NRA banquet is going to happen on September 7.
  • More details to follow, but if anyone wants banquet tickets or tickets for the AR-15 we’re holding a drawing for in June, let me know.
• Quoth the Irish Woman – “Don’t you already have an AR-15?”
  • My reply was “You can never have too many!”
• To the guy who yelled “NRA sucks!” at me when you saw the sticker on my truck’s rear window during a traffic light tonight, I will always treasure the look on your face when I replied with “I wish your mom had!”.

If you’d followed this advice last year, you’d already be way ahead of the market.