• Ever hit one of those traffic slowdowns that magically disappear with no explanation for why everyone was going 25 miles under the speed limit?  Am I the only one who screams “Why?” as he accelerates?
• JROTC cadets are so funny when they try to look battle hardened and professional as they give you directions to the math classroom.
• Remember all those perky people who got on your nerves all through high school?  Well, they have kids now, and they all came to the school open house tonight.
  • Come to think of it, so do the jackasses, and they were well represented tonight as well.
• Sitting in the back of the classroom having a discussion about your golf outing while my daughter’s biology teacher is discussing how the class is run gets you put on several of my lists.
• Telling me how hard it is to find a private sector job and how doing well in your class will help my offspring compete for the few jobs that are to be found, after you proudly tell us how you’ve been teaching for 23 years, does nothing for my estimation of you and your connection with reality.

• If someone ever writes my biography, they may mark this down as the day I snapped.
  • Want to know what’s more irritable than a bear with a sore head?  It’s a DaddyBear with a sore tooth.
• If I order coffee at 7:30 AM and someone hands me a cup that smells like potpourri again, bad things are going to happen.
• To the gentleman who complained about how much the abrasive soap in the men’s room hurts his hands, I will return your man card when you grow some callouses.
• I hope you enjoyed your lunch of rancid fish and old garlic heated up in the break room microwave today. That’s OK, I wasn’t hungry anyhow.
• I do not make charitable donations in order to make new friends, nor are they invitations for some simpering fool to call my cell phone four bloody times in six hours requesting additional funds.
• Unless you are a policeman, doctor, or EMS, there is no need to come to a complete stop at the scene of a fender bender that happened 15 minutes ago.
• Hint to grocery store personnel – Do not try to debate the value of the dog food your customer is attempting to buy.
  • Especially do not do this when he has a red glow behind his eyes.
• Overheard at the dinner table:  Irish Woman:  I tend to read happy stories, where everybody lives.  Me:  I read history, dear.  No-one survives history.
• I can hear geese heading south.  That may be the best thing I’ve heard all day.

• Some days there just isn’t enough coffee.
• Apparently wet weather brings out the stupid in Louisville drivers.
• When I woke up this morning, I had precisely two fillings in my teeth.  Tonight, I have four.  Yeah, it’s been one of those days.
• It must be a bad fiscal year in Louisville.  I saw 7 police officers giving tickets on my way to work, and an additional 5 on the way home.
• I’ve rarely felt as loved as I did tonight while helping Irish Woman clean the meat off of a turkey.  I looked up and every quadruped in the house was watching every move I made.
  • Apparently Irish Woman had a long day of animals being vocal about how much they loved her and the turkey she was roasting.
• Checked Girlie Bear’s grades tonight.  All A’s and B’s.  So far so good.
  • By this point in his freshman year, with Junior taking the same courses with a lot of the same teachers, I had had the “This world needs ditch diggers too” talk with him and had gotten several calls at home about his performance, so yeah, I’m happy with how Girlie Bear is doing.
• Girlie Bear appears to be enjoying the rifle team.  She announced tonight that she had almost gotten a bullseye at practice tonight, but she knew why she didn’t.
• Nothing matches the fear you get when your four-year-old announces that he just made use of the bathroom in your basement, when you do not, in fact, have a bathroom in your basement.
  • Luckily, he meant that he had washed his hands in the sink next to the washing machine.

• I really need to buy stock in SuperBigBoxHomeImprovement Incorporated.  At least that way I can get back some of what I spend there almost every weekend.
  • I only had to go there three times this weekend, which is slightly below normal when we’re doing one of our projects.
• Irish Woman told me about her “5 year vision” for the house today.
  • Nothing good comes when my wife starts having visions.
  • “Would you like a table saw for Christmas?” is never a good way to start a conversation.
• Phase One of the “We would be better off if a tornado ripped the porch off the house” project is done.  Next comes concrete repair.
• Half of yesterday was spent redo-ing things I messed up last weekend.
  • Bob Vila I am not.
  • Over a decade with Irish Woman, and she is finally starting to figure out that I am not a master craftsman.
• Today was spent putting up trim on the new posts and such.
  • We may be the only people on the planet who consider 8 foot 2×8 boards to be ‘trim’.
  • Pushing an 8 foot 2×8 two feet over your head and holding it there while Irish Woman tried to straighten it and get the first couple of screws in wasn’t my favorite part of the weekend, but apparently we were ‘bonding as a couple by working together.”
• One of three things is wrong with the van:
  • The new battery I put in it last weekend is a lemon
  • The alternator is out
  • The battery cables are shot.
  • Considering how hard it is to do anything in that engine compartment, none of these three things is much better than the other two.
  • I foresee multiple trips to the auto parts store in my future.
• On a warm September afternoon, it’s kind of nice to drive your truck down country roads rather than take the freeway.
• Coming home to the smell of steaks grilling over charcoal is also pretty nice.
  • Irish Woman rewarded me for all my hard work with an excellent home-cooked meal.
  • Tomorrow night will be roast turkey with all the trimmings.  Yes, I am a lucky man.

• Apparently I’m leading with my left shoulder.  That’s where most of the rounds impacted tonight.
  
  • I really need to have someone make up a tee shirt that has a “Bruises for Freedom” logo on it.
• Breaching charges are very loud, and do quite a number on hollow core doors.
• A real and for true AK-47, complete with happy switch, is a real hoot.
• If you are issued a real and for true AK-47 for firing blanks during a training exercise, please do not forget where you left it in the training area.
  • Doing so will cause the rest of us untold grief as we sit around waiting for you to find it.
  • No, I did not lose mine.  Both weapons I was issued tonight came back to the arms room with me.
• Check the corners.  Corners kill.

If the two words that run through my mind when I see your photograph on the news are “probable cause”, you might consider changing either your look to something a little less conspicuous or your profession to something a little less illegal.

• Today’s safety briefing pretty much boiled down to “Is plane, is not safe”.
• Taking the guy from Spain out for Mexican food at lunch time got me a couple strange looks.
  • So did suggesting a barbecue joint to the guy from Memphis when he requested suggestions for dinner.
  • No, I wasn’t being a smart ass.  I only realized how odd those suggestions were while I was driving home.
• I don’t know what oompaloompa the door between the crew and cargo areas on some of our jets was designed for, but it certainly wasn’t built for a 6’4″ fat guy.
• My instructor spent a good part of our breaks this morning calling to see if a spare airplane could be had for use as a training aid. And I thought getting a projector and sound system that worked for my classes was a pain in the tuckus.
• I have to remember that when you’re walking around on a concrete pad all day, you have to expect to get sunburned from both above and below.
• Who’s got two thumbs and has a wonderful wife who had a wonderful chicken stew with crusty bread ready for him when he came home tonight?  This guy!
• Apparently Boo was acting like his father at school today.  Irish Woman got talked to when she picked him up and I got talked to when I got home.

• I broke some poor kids heart today when I explained that Military Intelligence has as much in common with James Bond as fantasy football has with the Oakland Raiders.
• There were three marching bands in the parade today:  The army band from Fort Knox, the teenagers’ band from the local VFW post, and the band from the high school.  The high school band was playing some top 40 arrangement, while the other two were playing John Philip Sousa.  Guess which choice got a better crowd reaction.
• A pumpkin muffin, two pieces of licorice, and a Tootsie Roll, followed by a couple of hot dogs and washed down with a fresh squeezed lemonade makes for a well-balanced morning diet for Boo.
  • On a side note, he may have reached a frequency of vibration that allows him to walk through walls, so we’ve got that going for us.
• Not sure, but I may have broken one of the rules of physics today.  I got a 10 foot board into my 8 foot minivan, and I’m not sure how I did it.
• All the work except for actually jacking up the porch is done.  Tomorrow, I either replace the posts, or start redesigning our new porch after I clear away the debris of the old one.
• Waking up and remembering that Little Bear is 16 made me feel kind of creaky today.
• Boo learned what the whoopie cushion he got as a prize at the carnival last night is for.  I guess I’m going to have to acknowledge paternity of this one.
• Today felt like fall.  I think I could get used to warm but not blistering weather.

• Thou shalt not park in the spot marked “Clergy” while trying to find a spot at the church carnival.
• At 6:30 this evening, I had a breakfast of a grilled bratwurst and some french fries
  • No, I am working day shift, why do you ask?
• “Inflatable Bounce House” is another term for “Children’s Mosh Pit”.
  • Boo was very nice to the other children after he got the “Do not hurt the little people” speech.
• It is amazing how deep and loud my voice gets when older kids run over and pin my son while going through an inflatable obstacle course.
  • I have to remember that tone for the future.
• Ladies and gentlemen, when they announce that the pony ride is closed, that does not mean that 15 of you need to get your kids in line and then argue with the nice lady who brought the horses.
• How could  I tell I was at an Irish Catholic parish carnival?  The multiple women I saw with an older child holding the hand of a young child, a baby in her arms, and a big round belly full of the next one was a good indicator.
• You know your little one has had a good time at the carnival when they don’t even whine when you tell him it’s time to go and start walking back to the car with him.
• The cost of a McDonald’s ice cream cone is a real bargain when weighed against the look of absolute joy on Boo’s face when I handed it to him.
  • I swear it was as big as his head and he ate every bite of it before we got home.
  • On the other hand, I may need to hose out the back seat of the van tomorrow.
• It is amazing how easy it is to give a child who is both exhausted and in a junk food coma a bath.

Thoughts for programmers that came to mind as I waded through cryptic output and documentation all afternoon:

• At least four semesters of writing classes, preferably technical, should be mandatory to get a Computer Science degree.
  • Someone in the open source movement needs to publish a style guide.  Failure to use and follow the style guide should be public shaming and shaving.
• If your output is so cryptic that I have to write PERL scripts to be able to read it at all, your software is about worthless.
  • Related elements should not be in three separate areas of your output.  There’s a reason surgeons like to line things up in the order they will be using them, and the same goes for computer people.
  • “I gave up on calculating really small numbers, so I just rounded down to 0” is a cop-out.  Some of us are extremely interested in the really small numbers
• A screen of text that amounts to “Hey, I wrote this, and this is crazy, but here’s a link to my webpage, so read that maybe” is not what I want to see when I input “man opensourceegotrip”.  Yes, “man” has a manpage.
• Snarky emails in reply to polite questions about a confusing line in your documentation do nothing for my mood or my motivation to recommend your work to anyone.
• Days like this are why I agree that Unix SysAds are like ancient shaman.  We both like to cover ourselves in scars to show how tough we are.