Went to the Doc yesterday due to three of my surgical sites looking infected. I had the surgery to remove the skin cancers almost 4 weeks ago, yet due to my poor circulation because of the spinal cord damage, and due to the high amount of blood thinning medication I take, a few of the sites were never able to heal. I was given some “Horse Strength” antibiotics to take for the next 3-5 years which the Doctor guarantees will knock out any infection in my body and in anyone Else’s body that happens to come within 10 feet of me. He did say however that the medication would grow hair on my tongue, cause my finger and toenails to turn green, would cause uncontrollable rectal bleeding, and that my testicles would retract up into my abdomen.

I think I would rather die of my staph infection than be forced to sit through any of the “Twilight” movies.

We have not bought a single Christmas present as of yet.

A house down the block already has it’s Christmas lights on.

Citibank is raising the interest rates on the credit card my wife has held for over 20 years to 21%…..even though we always pay off the balance. There is no reward for being a loyal customer anymore.

It seems to me that a year ago, I would get about a dozen mailers a week from every credit card company under the sun trying to sell me a credit card. Now we get none.

Should I be worried that my wife is trying to get me into looking into pre-paying for my funeral/cremation costs in advance…..yet mentions nothing about her own arrangements? If I should keel over under questionable circumstances….someone call the Authorities and refer them to this blog.

I saw on the news last night that Seattle has had rain for 30 of the past 35 days. Here, our town has not had a drop of rain for the entire month of November.

My parents, who were going to move home to Oregon next year, have decided to stay in Texas. The person who guessed November 18th as the date they would change their minds, please contact me, you have won the raffle and the cash prize!

I have taken to watching the BBC World News on BBC AMERICA to get an unbiased recap of our daily political happenings here in the US. Our major cable news channels have gotten to be a joke. FOX is blatantly Republican, MSNBC is blatantly Democrat, and CNN is too busy doing “human interest specials” like “Black in America”, “Latino in America”, “Asian in America”, “Gay in America”, “Cross Dressing, heel wearing, leather-clad, tap-dancing Businessman in America”….etc.

During a recent password audit, it was found that a blonde was using the following password:

MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento

When asked why such a long password, she said she was told that it had to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital.

Courtesy of Blonde Cousin Whitney….

The kid had his first ever Middle School Basketball game tonight. He started at point guard, scored 7 of his teams 13 points, had 4 steals, 2 assists, 2 fouls, and much to his dismay….was held “dunkless”.

He was mightily pleased with his performance…..to say the least. We had to press the little valve behind his ear to let out enough air from his head so that we could squeeze him into the car for the drive home.

Where he got his Basketball talent is a mystery to me. I had a major case of “White Man’s Disease” when I was in school, meaning I could not run, shoot, rebound, or put my jock strap on correctly (“Those aren’t arm holes?”).

We had a great time at the TCU-UTAH game on Saturday night. The Frogs crushed the Stormin Mormons 55-28 and are only 2 wins away from the BCS and a date with a “big name” school.

I sat directly in front of the CBS COLLEGE SPORTS broadcast desk and managed to get on camera a couple times, despite a burly security guard repeatedly motioning for me to sit down and turn around. “I can stand up and watch the game but I cannot turn around??? Is this Communist China that we live in???”

The game drew 50,300 fans, the largest crowd in school history. The place only seats 46,000. You could barely move to get to the restroom or snack bar with all the people clogging the walkways that had bought “standing room” tickets to the game. TCU has never sold standing room tickets before….ever.

CBS had a helicopter hovering over the stadium to get overhead shots of the game. We will know we finally made it to the “big time” when we warrant an actual blimp to fly over the games.

Three new autographs in the past week. Betty White, Emma Thompson, and Steve Martin. They are all posted on the autograph blog. That blog is now nearing the 750,000 visitor level. It should race past a million in February at the current pace. THIS blog should reach a million in 2013…..IF….the world is not destroyed before then…..either by ancient Mayan Prophecies….or by FACEBOOK gaining control of the world’s nuclear arsenals and unleashing a holocaust onto the planet……

Sarah Pain continues to make my head hurt. I heard that she sent John McCain an unsolicited autographed copy of her new book. I would bet that Cindy used it to start a fire in the fireplace that same night the book arrived. Do you think that every time Cindy McCain sees video of Michelle Obama in the White House that she gets a major “Sarah Palin Chill” down her spine?

How long before we get the inevitable Oliver Stone directed Sarah Palin biopic? Tina Fey….calling Tina Fey!!……

My wife is begging and pleading with me to start virtual farming on FACEBOOK so that she can have a neighboring farm to her own farm. I have no desire to virtually farm online. My life is useless and wasted as it is….why would I want even more misery by resorting to staring at the screen for 5 more hours a day watching my virtual corn wilt on the stalks?…..

The kid is in the living room watching wrestling on TV. Has Pro Wrestling always looked that stupid? Adults actually watch that crap without laughing uncontrollably? Power to you!

A new pet peeve…..going to the history bar, scrolling down to the desired web page, and then clicking on it…only to watch it dissapear from the bar…causing my lazy butt to have to manually type in the address again……aaaaarrggggg!!! Serenity Now!! Serenity Now!!!

I first started going to TCU Football games about 10 years ago. Although I never attended the University, I figured the 2,000 mile drive back to Oregon to watch my beloved Ducks play was just a tad too far…so I adopted the Horned Frogs as my team.
When I first started going to games, the team was terrible and they could not give away seats at the games. My first year as a season ticket holder, my seats cost me the equivalent of $6 a game, and I sat on the 45 yd line.
My youngest son has been attending games since he was 5 yrs old. As a 5 yr old he sat in the stands with a piece of paper and a pen and kept stats while all the other kids around us played and ignored the game. My daughter has also attended a ton of games and although her main reason for attending has always been to drool over the “hot” college guys, she has become a huge TCU fan along with my son.
Over the seasons, the Frogs got better and better, the stadium started to fill up, and like everything else in the world, the tickets got more expensive.
Over the past 3 years, the TCU Horned Frogs have quietly become the best team in College Football that no one knows about outside of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. People know all about Boise State football, as do we. We played Boise State last year in the Poinsettia Bowl when Boise State was undefeated for the entire season. TCU won.
This year we are 9-0 with 3 games to play and are ranked #4 in the Country. Probably the biggest game in TCU History is this Saturday against Utah here in Fort Worth. The game is so important that ESPN Gameday will be broadcasting from TCU for the first time ever. The game is so beyond sold-out that the school is selling standing-room only tickets. That is the first time EVER that has occurred for a home game.
My son and I will be there, along with my Father and nephew.
Why is this such an important game? Utah is the last major hurdle to an undefeated season and a trip to one of the big BCS bowl games which would bring the school a major amount of national exposure and respect. TCU has won 11 games in a row dating back to last season. The last game we lost was to UTAH. In fact, the last 3 times we have played the Utes, UTAH has won. Utah is our main nemesis in our league and probably the only thing standing in the way of this being the best TCU team in history.
You may not know much about TCU at this moment, but after Saturday, and in a few short weeks when the season ends, YOU WILL.

Go Horned Frogs!!

A great post submitted by my friend in Canada, Cheryl…..

A lesson that should be taught in all schools . . And colleges

Back in September, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School, did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom.

When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.

‘Ms.. Cothren, where’s our desks?’

She replied, ‘You can’t have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.’

They thought, ‘Well, maybe it’s our grades.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Maybe it’s our behavior.’

She told them, ‘No, it’s not even your behavior.’

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom.

By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms.Cothren’s classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.

The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, ‘Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.’

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.

Twenty-seven (27) War Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall… By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned..

Martha said, ‘You didn’t earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it’s up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don’t ever forget it.’

By the way, this is a true story.

Please consider passing this along so others won’t forget that the freedoms we have in this great country were earned by War Veterans.

Thanks Cheryl! and a very special thanks to all Veterans, here in the US and those in Canada!

Some of the Veterans in my own family:

My Cousin David (Current Active Duty US Army)
My Father Gerald (Retired USAF)
My Son Alex (USMC Veteran)
My Grandfather Sam (US Army Veteran)
My Grandfather Del (US Army Veteran)
My Uncle Keith (USAF Veteran)
My Uncle Dennis (USAF Veteran)
My Uncle Dwayne (US Army Veteran)
My Uncle Rodney (US Army Veteran)
My Cousin Whitney (US Navy Veteran)
My Grandfather-in-Law Cecil (US Army Veteran)
I am a USAF Veteran.

My Dear Mother-in-Law had the unfortunate luck of undergoing knee replacement surgery this past week. She is now back home recuperating and like all other people who have had that kind of surgery, she is wishing she had just taken a rusty saw and cut the kneecap off herself, without any anesthesia, in that she is sure the post-surgery pain and misery could not have been any worse than what she is currently experiencing.

I called to check on her and was told that she was resting comfortably in her favorite chair and in an effort to minimize her pain, she “pees” on her knee.

OK…..that is a new one. How “peeing” on your knee would alleviate the post-surgical pain associated with having bone and tissue carved from your body….is beyond my idiot level of comprehension.

I tried to visualize the poor lady trying to recline in a chair and going through the process of actually “peeing” on her wounded knee. This is not a memory or vision you want to have of any close relative…..

Maybe modern science had evolved to weird levels that I do not fully comprehend.

I banged my own elbow on a doorway yesterday and it has been causing me great pain and discomfort….so maybe I should “pee” on my elbow.

My mind started to race trying to figure out the painful and awkward positions I would have to contort my body into in order to successfully “pee” on my elbow….without “peeing” all over everything else within a 10 foot radius…..

I thought….”What the Heck….Give it a shot…”

I was just beginning to contort my crippled body into a pretzel-like position to commence the “peeing” therapy when the phone rang.

It was my wife, who is up taking care of her ailing, pee-soaked Mother.

I told my wife what I was about to undertake in order to “relieve myself” of my own elbow pain.

I cannot repeat the vulgar and filthy words that she screamed at me but most of them involved my apparent like of any semblance of common sense and my complete and utter inability to use my God-given brain.

Apparently, to alleviate her knee pain, my dear Mother-in-Law puts a bag of frozen peas on her knee. Peas.

Oops.

As Emily Litella would say…

NEVER MIND!!

After the tragic shootings at Fort Hood earlier today, I just wanted to send out a heartfelt THANK YOU to all the brave men and women who choose to serve our Country in the US Military. You are the greatest!

I am a veteran. However, I had the “luxury” of serving during peacetime. With wars currently raging in two different countries, you hear everyday about the brave soldiers that we are sending over for their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or even 5th tours of duty in the War Zones.

It is virtually impossible to get sent to Iraq or Afghanistan for three or four deployments unless you have voluntarily re-enlisted in the service during that time frame. These are brave souls who have been over there repeatedly, have seen the worst of war, and who come home and then re-enlist knowing it will most likely lead to even more deployments overseas.

To die here at home, on their own base, at the hands of one of their own, is just tragic and sad in so many ways. Home is the one place that they should be able to have the luxury of feeling safe and now even that appears to have taken away from our soldiers.

Keep in mind the huge sacrifices that these men and women make every day that they serve our great Country.

A special thanks to my cousin David Pakulak who has been serving in the US ARMY for well over a decade. Be safe Dave! We are proud of you and all that serve with you! Your Dad would be very proud to see the sacrifices you have made as you have served all these years!

Local Weather: Sunny and 85 degrees. I hear sleigh bells ringing…….

Kind of weird to see all the trees in their fall colors…..when it is 85 degrees outside.

The trees around here don’t really change colors with the seasons as much as this is the time of year they just up and die from the heat and drought conditions of the previous 9 months.

I followed a redneck pulling a boat behind his truck, which was plastered with 200 NASCAR bumper stickers, for about 20 miles today. His boat was named “WET DREAM”. I would take bets that the guy is a “career bachelor” and has no clue why.

My son and I went to Dallas today for a couple Doctors appointments and spent about 2 hours stuck in gridlocked traffic. What a maddening experience! I do not know how commuters who deal with that crap every day survive. After not moving at one point for about 10 minutes, I glanced at the car next to me and saw the driver seated with his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and his mouth hanging wide open…obviously napping. Come to think of it though….this was Dallas…..there might be a pretty good chance that the guy had been shot…..

Idiocracy of the day. The Dallas Cowboys forced a SEASON TICKET HOLDER to take down the banner she had hung up at this past weekends game against the Seattle Seahawks. The banner said “WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS” and had the emblems for each branch of the Military on it. At the other end of the field, the team allowed a banner to stay up that said “#24 BARBER SHOP in reference to Marion Barber, #24, the Star running back of the Team.

Also related to that same game…..the retractable roof over the stadium was kept closed for the entire game even though it was 73 degrees and sunny during the game….perfect weather. When asked why the team had kept the roof closed, a Dallas Cowboys Spokesman replied “For Fan Comfort”. Well thank heavens the team is looking out for the fans! We wouldn’t want anyone to break a sweat in that unbearable 73 degree heat…would we?

We had 2 local school bond issues on the election this week. One passed and one failed. The ballot measure asking for money to buy more classroom materials, portable classrooms, and upgrade the current facilities failed.
The measure to spend $100 Million dollars to build a 48,000 seat, retractable roof, 3 decked Football Stadium for our High School….passed in a landslide. There is a provision though that the retractable roof MUST be closed in any weather above 70 degrees….”For Fan Comfort”.

People in my area love to bash President Obama at every chance they get. They seem to forget that the man inherited what amounted to a broken down car parked on the side of the road that had all 4 tires missing, no engine, and no seats….all a result of the poor maintenance that the previous owner (“W”) did while he owned the car. Now, not even a year later, the GOP leaders are all siting in this broken down car, that the President is trying to repair as fast as he can,…all screaming…..”Come on already!! What is the hold up???? Why is this taking so long???”….wanting him to fix the problems….but not by spending any money in the process.

All the people that seem to be going nuts over health care are people that actually have health care benefits. Somehow I think that if you have a family and no health insurance, and one of your kids gets sick or hurt, then you tend to at least give the President credit for trying to do SOMETHING to give everyone benefits. Lord knows the previous man in charge did nothing about it. I have health insurance. I might gripe like Hell about the outrageous cost that we pay, but I am so thankful that we do have benefits. Everyone in our country deserves some kind of coverage.

Let’s just let Rush Limbaugh run the country. He obviously is the only one on the planet that knows how to fix everything that is broken in our Country and how to make everyone happy in the process.

Sometimes the beauty of Mother Nature and all of God’s glorious creatures is amazing. Yesterday I was kind of down on life in general and was in a foul mood when I walked outside to check my mailbox. Outside my front door, about 3 feet into my yard was a cute little bunny rabbit, happily munching away on grass and seemingly undisturbed by my presence so close to him/her. I saw this cute, cuddly little innocent creature, took a deep breath, let out a deep sigh, and then dropkicked the little furball about 30 yards across the yard.

Sometimes the beauty of Mother Nature and all of God’s glorious creatures is amazing. Sometimes in life you just need to kick the snot out of a bunny!

How low can a person get in life? When I post a “Status Update” on FACEBOOK…..I find myself clicking “I LIKE THIS” to my own comments….

Is it a bad sign when you log onto FACEBOOK and see that their are 5 “Friends” online….then within 3.2 seconds….4 of them log off?

The kid, piano prodigy that he is, sat down at the piano and started hammering a long piece of classical music virtually without any flaws or flubs, for about 20 minutes. I finally broke down and asked him what he was playing. “Rachmanonov’s Piano Suite in C Minor” he happily replied. Ever the idiot and with little appreciation for the fine arts…I politely asked him..”Can you play the theme from Sesame Street for me?”
Now THAT is some classical music!!

Sunny Day
Sweepin’ the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame Street

Remember the prison quality food you used to eat in the school cafeteria when you were a kid? I remember holding a rusty tray and sliding down the serving line like Chevy Chase and Randy Quaid in “Vegas Vacation”…telling the serving ladies….”some more yellah…and some green…..and give me some of the Blue….”

My 12yr old complains because he can eat Pizza every day, chicken strips everyday, hamburgers every day, and he complains because they don’t change the flavors in the SLURPEE machine often enough for his liking.

And for you bunny lovers out there. I did not kick the bunny, repeat, I did not kick the bunny. At least…that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Sesame Street is now broadcasting a special version designed solely for young viewers in the Detroit, New York, and Miami areas. (Below)