Car vs. Raccoon

So it's late at night / early in the morning...whatever, and I'm watching an episode of the Sopranos. Tony is driving and a raccoon is suddenly in the middle of the road.....Tony swerves, catches the embankment, flips his SUV.....mayhem ensues.... 5 seasons now I've been watching on DVD....I love Tony, I largely agree with Tony, I mean....but a raccoon??? WTF???? Tony....it's a f*cking raccoon!!! I mean WTF?? I realise I live in a very different world than many, and yes...some of you may even believe the "SUV" had it coming wahh wahh blah blah......but this is not how it would play out here. Now don't get me wrong....if one of gods critters is in the road, be it a squirrel, raccoon, possum, I'm going to slow down and really really try not to hit it if at all possible.......but roll my SUV......no my friends....no no no Wife..."Zig OMG raccoon!!" Zig..."OMG!!! Thump Thump! Wife..."We probably need to get the alignment checked tommorrow." Zig..."Yep....so what did ya think of the party??" True, it may seem cold hearted but car beats raccoon like rock beats scissors.....in the old days I'd have spilt my beer.....so I am making progress......:) Take care goofs and friends!! :)

Trying to be good......

Today.....I'm trying really really hard to not say anything about mimes.........nuff said....:)

Parents say...the dumbest shit.....

So I'm enjoying my morning coffee this fine day as I'm listening to the lovely wife struggle with the princess. I'm well aware of this ritual, I usually do not interfere...this is girly stuff. For reasons I'm still pondering, I decided to participate.... Wife...Drink your milk, you need to, it's important.. Princess...I don't like milk Wife...Drink it anyway, c'mon.. Princess...No, I don't like milk.. Zig...Princess, did you know that every time a child makes her mom mad......someplace a carebear gets dipped in poop? Princess...(Bemused WTF?? look on her face)?? Ummmn...I don't have any carebears.. Zig...Well that's ok, I'm sure you have friends that do.....and it'll be your fault next time one tells you it's been dipped in poop.. Princess...Cool!!! In retrospect, I perhaps should have thought this one through. After all, now that I think of it, I used to step on cracks when I was her age and mad at my mom.....:)

No...I really did expect bacon with this....

Ok....I'd really like to preface this a little for clarity. While it's no secret to me or any who know me, I am well aware that I'm an asshole. I'm usually a well meaning and often amusing asshole, but an asshole none the less....I digress.. See that lovely slab of dead cow there, thats what we call a bacon cheese burger. The name is in and of itself....well....perfect! I mean really, when you think of it, what better name? As the name implies, this little slice of heaven should at the very least consist of 3 fundamental item in no particular order..... 1) BACON!!! 2) cheese 3) burger So it confounds me now, that the last 2 times we've gone to a resturaunt that offers this fine food item, the waitress cannot understand my frustration by it's lack of bacon. I mean, not just not enough bacon.......an utter and absolute abscence of bacon.... The 1st time, I gave her the benefit of a doubt. She offered to make it right and apologized. She explained she had a head cold and her ears are still plugged. She also failed to hear mushroom sauce for the lovely wifes salmon(though it's part of the menu item) and chili for the princesses chili cheddar fries. She was pleasant enough about it......OK, we all have off days. The 2nd time, I was less amused. Less than 3 seeks later we returned to this establishment for the princesses birthday, and as luck would have it..same waitress. Again, I ordered this fine menu item "bacon cheese burger". I know she heard me too, because she even asked what kind of cheese, we made eye contact, I felt pretty good about this one. I was wrong. Perhaps I was cross when she returned, perhaps I had set the bar too high. I pointed out that while the burger looked wonderful, and the cheese looked melted to perfection, I had really anticipated bacon with my bacon cheese burger. I pointed out that we had had this talk just a few weeks ago, and was starting to see a pattern. Her response somewhat threw me when she looked at me and with honest surprise asked..ohh would you like some bacon with that? When she returned with a plate of bacon, I was satisfied enough. Sure I was alittle disgruntled, but it's just a burger..no real harm done, it's the princesses day, lets just have a good one...then she returned. I have alot of respect for anyone who works in this industry. I mean really, the base pay usually sucks, you work your ass off for tips, and you have to deal with people like me. I wouldn't want that job....and my hat off to those of you that do it with a smile, and good service. I do not have the same respect for somebody who comes up to me, leans over me as I'm eating, puts an arm around me, and explains to me how I've been ordering this food item incorrectly........and I quote "Look, lets avoid this kind of mistake in the future. I'd like to get your order right, so next time you need to (yes she did say you need to) ask me for a burger with cheese and bacon ok?" I still have my burger in my hands as she's doing this....I'm eyballing my table trying to find the appropriate words....I'm pondering the response. My dad is here, my wife is here, my grandma is here, my daughter is here,,,,her birthday. I manage in a slow even tone...."Thank you for the bacon". game on bitch.......game on...:)

Remembering September 11th....

No graphics..... No poems.... No links.... My memory of this day, on that day 6 years ago was a mixed and confusing experience. I started my day watching some of the coverage of Katie Couric outside tower 1, they were still speculating it was a private plane that had hit by accident.. I was well on my way to O'hare to catch a flight to canada to see a friend/potential girlfriend. I was still in Michigan when I heard the radio say all flights at the airport had been cancelled, but no explanation why. I turned my van homeward and stopped at the gas station to get a cup of coffee, and only then did I start to understand what was happening, the 2nd plane had recently hit the towers and rumours of a 3rd hitting the pentagon... I watched with a chill as what I thought was a random accident, turned into what it now so clearly was not....and I got angry. I made phone calls and IM's to friends I knew who worked over there. I collaborated with friends to help locate our missing. I made assurance calls that I wasn't on any of those planes as I was sceduled to fly that day.....but mostly, I watched, as the gravity unfolded... Today I remember where and who I was that day, and all those lost, I hope you join me. Where were you that day friends and readers? What is your memory?

Setting up your tent in daylight....

To tell you honest, I don't believe I've ever done it. That red tent in the backround.....that's the lovely wifes and mine. In 5 years of camping with it, I'm not certain it's ever been set up in daylight. It's a running joke in the family now that not only can we set it up in 10 minutes, in the dark, but can't do it in the daylight. As a youth I've been exposed to "pup tents", "cabin tents", even old school "army tents"....but to be honest, 99% of my tenting has been with the slow and steady evolution of the good ole "dome tent". For better or worse, these things keep getting bigger, improvements here, bad ideas there, and rainflaps that just plain never work..:) Perhaps I'm a cynic here, but when you have to make a tent over your tent, of tarps...something is wrong.....but I digress.... Anywho, it was somewhat a surprise to me at camp mid week when mom and dad in law asked if I could help with a problem they had. Seems a tent needed to be set up for some of the kids camping with us, and it had 3 very large problems. Problem 1, Neither had set this one up before, and no instructions.......... Problem 2, The elastic string had broke on 1 of the rod assemblies........ Problem 3, It was still daylight, so they were not sure I could help......:) Problem 1 was no big deal at all, simple dome with a rainflap....piece of cake, but 2 now, 2 scared my mom in law to death. Here is the truth about dome tents.....when they came out, none of them had that elastic string running through the fiberglass rods. The elastic exists for 1 reason and 1 reason alone. It's not for structural integrity, it's not a conspiracy.....it's far more entertaining........ It's so drunk/hungover campers can assemble/take down there tents without loosing rods!!!!!! Assuring her of this on this premise seemed to work, as I got drafted and quickly went to assembling the tent I now look back on as "Tent-o-crying-babies".... Granted, it was in the daylight, so it took me twice as long, but we got it done... Now if somebody can invent an elastic string to my tent spikes so I don't loose those....................

Camping with the old fart...

Two of my favorite things about camp are spending time with my father in law, and my lovely wife's grandpa. Time with the father in law is golden, but time with the old fart is by far more rare. I only call him the old fart here because that is how he introduced himself to me our first meet. It was a family party, everybody assumed I knew everybody, he sat next to me, offered his hand, and said..."I'm the old fart". We've chuckled that ever since. This camp was interesting and more fun not because I got to yak with him a few times, but because he now goes out of his way to yak with me. This man doesn't do this lightly, if he shares words with you, he likes you. If he doesn't like you, you might get a hello and a handshake,,,,maybe. This trip, I feel pretty honoured this. Silly as it sounds, now he's my grandpa too.....:)

Not all campers...are friendly campers...

I dunno goofs and friends, but it just strikes me odd. Odd that you escape the city by dragging a 30+ft trailer that cost almost as much as your house....out into the woods to not camp. I know...perhaps I'm a camp snob here, but big screen TV with the dvd player, satellite hook up, air conditioning and microwave...to me friends, this is not camping. Usually we are a friendly bunch and tolerate this type of silliness. We are rednecks, but we understand some don't understand this simple concept. That's what they made KOA or Jellystone camps for.....but..... When you bring not 1 but 4 of these monsters to a primitive campsite...off the road...wayyyyyy off the road, it's kinda damn rude to expect the campsite down the road to be quiet just for you. This is especially true if you set up days after the loud campsite has dug it's trenchs. So anywho, our tent city started around last monday.....and grew proud till about wednesday. It was a fine city, full service bar, enclosed pooper, and about 8 or so tents scattered around a big ass fire ring. We my friends, as always, were camping in style. Friday...the flatlander circus arrived. We watched with some bemused chuckles as they tried to cram all these trailers in a site way too small...but hey, they seemed happy, so what the hell, we share the woods right?? WRONG!! The first thing we noticed is that they don't like locals very much. They expressed this with funny looks when we'd waive to them...and not waive back....we stopped waiving. We thought they lightened up by saturday, because we got really really drunk and sang around the fire....as we always do saturday night.....and finished every song with WOOOOOOOOHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! By golly, they woooohoooooed back! We thought maybe we made friends and they'd walk over and share a beer and a story....no such joy. After several WOOOHOOO's!! and such, we went to bed only to find out they weren't wooohoooing with us at all. They were shouting very very unkind things. Unkind things like "rednecks", "a-holes", "inbred", and such........this hurt our feelings. It may have been a bible camp trip or something....because they actually yelled A-Hole and not asshole........that still chuckles me.....I digress... Now I pose a question dear friends and readers......is this good camp behaviour? I mean, lets set aside the obvious saftey factor of taking your crew deep deep in woods..so deep nobody can hear you...and insult the local rednecks.....thats just silly. I mean, is this friendly camping?