Affirmative Action

There has been a lot of talk in the news lately about affirmative action at that one university. Which university? I don’t know. I don’t care enough about the issue to pay attention to any actual facts. I just read enough of a headline to form an opinion, and then I stick to it. For all I know, affirmative action is taking place in all of our schools. I, for one, am against it. It has no place in our schools. I am not talking about the kind of affirmative action where schools fill racial quotas as to who gets to attend. These quotas are usually based on how many past injustices any particular race has suffered by the hands of white people. If you ask me, there’s nothing you can do to make up for a past injustice like that, so why even try? But that isn’t what I have a beef about. I have a beef about scholastic affirmative action, the kind that you have seen, and complained about ever since you were in high school, and really noticed once you got into college.

I am talking about the kind of affirmative action where they make you take classes like 18th Century French Art Appreciation when you are trying to get a degree in Computer Programming. Why do they care if you have a certain amount of Phys Ed classes unless you are getting a degree in Phys Ed? The answer is that there are people out there who graduated with a degree in Art Appreciation that got out into the real world and found that they do not have a marketable skill in anything. Though these people have many different names, we will call them “useless”. These useless people got out into the job market and found that not only will no one pay them to create art, but there are even less people who will pay them to appreciate it. Natural Selection should have taken care of these people long ago and removed them from the gene pool. Unfortunately, these people also had families to support. Whoever marries someone with a degree in Art Appreciation and expects to eat for the rest of their life is an idiot. So there were a lot of idiots out there who were married to useless people, and they all had lots of kids. It wasn’t the kids’ fault that the parents were that way. But they still had to eat.

So the useless parent went back to his university and complained saying that it should have been explained to him that Art Appreciation would get him nowhere and that he should have graduated with a degree in Sanitation, something that will always be in demand. The university decided to avoid any legal fees by offering these useless people jobs, teaching in the fields that they know best. The university would pay them based on the amount of people that attended the classes. Makes sense, right? You get paid for doing something. If a lot of people attend, then you are doing a lot and should get paid a lot. If no one attends, then you are doing nothing and should be paid accordingly.

That didn’t work out at all. Turns out that there are only so many people (3) out there that want to take these classes. The rest of the population chose to take classes that they could use in life, like Auto Mechanics. But that did not pay the bills for these useless professors. They went back and complained even more to the universities. Why were the Psychology teachers getting paid so much when the Modern Dance Theory teachers were not? It actually had to be explained to them that there were thousands of students taking the real classes and almost none that wanted to take Theater Arts. It was then decided that a change had to be made. Students would be forced to take the useless classes in order to give the useless teachers something to do in order to feed the idiots that married them and the unfortunate kids that resulted. So now, a Civil Engineer has to take so many credits of Fine Arts and Phys Ed classes if he hopes to ever get a job working with hydroelectric dams. He doesn’t take the P.E. classes to build muscle so that he can hold the dam up if it breaks. He has no idea why he has to take the P.E. class. He just has to.

In Jason’s University, there is no affirmative action quotas on subjects. You take whichever classes pertain to your field of study. If you want to take Art Appreciation classes, go for it. But you may be the only one in the classroom. Those useless teachers would then either keep teaching because they like the subject, or go to a Fine Arts School where there is enough of a population of people that want to take such classes that the teachers can make a living. This is why communism failed, people! I learned that in the history class that I wanted to take. I didn’t learn anything in the pottery class. And guess what? I don’t plan on making any money with pottery in the future. Wasted time and money on my part. Oh well. Such is life.

Some Nerve!

I got home from watching Dare Devil yesterday. It was the best way I could think of to spend a holiday. I was in a good mood. The sun was shinning, the birds were singing, and somebody was stealing my electricity. That dampened my mood really quickly. Let me give you some background on the thieves.

Right behind my parking spot is an electrical box and cable hookup for our whole apartment complex. People who park in that spot, and I include me in this statement, tend to hit the box when backing out. I hate the people in the condo association so much that I have been known to hit the box on purpose. Well, they decided to cement some steel posts into the ground around the box so that it could not be hit. That sounds like a good solution. But the workmen seem to think that they are above the law.

They park their trucks in the fire lane behind my parking space. This not only makes it really hard to get my truck in there, but they are breaking the law by being in the fire lane. My condo association is notorious for towing people, even if they aren’t in the fire lane. These guys park there all day and get in my way. One time I was trying to get around their truck to park, and one of the guys just stood there in my way. I was coming in at a good speed, and he didn’t seem to care. Maybe it was because he was familiar with the laws of physics. Since he weighed a great deal more than me and my truck, he would remain at rest while my truck would absorb all of the impact. Well, I managed to park despite him. He glared at me the whole time as if I had done something wrong by wanting to park in front of my own place.

So then I come home yesterday and find an extension cord going to the outlet by my door. They were using my electricity to power their tools and such. I don’t think so! I unplugged it and threw it on the lawn and went about cleaning my kitchen. I left the front door open so that I could confront the guy when he came to complain about the lack of power. I finished with the kitchen and then started cleaning my guns which I had shot over the weekend. Suddenly, there he was, filling the doorway like the moon covers the sun during an eclipse.

Man: Hey, did you unplug this?
Me: Yeah, I didn’t want you using my electricity.
Man: Well the condo association told me to just plug it in anywhere.
Me: That’s great! Did they give you money to pay for my electricity?
Man: Well, this is your project out here and…
Me: No it isn’t.
Man: Yes it is!
Me: No, it isn’t. I don’t care if you get that done out there or not.
Man: Well, do you belong to the condo association.
Me: Unfortunately, yes.
Man: Then this is your project.
Me: I will tell you one more time. That is not my project. I don’t care if you do it or not. It doesn’t concern me. What does concern me is paying my electrical bill. You will not use my electricity!
Man: Well then I will just ask brother so-and-so, because he’s in charge of this.
Me: That would be great!

Then he left. I don’t know if he left because I said everything in a cheerful way and he couldn’t really argue about it, or because I had a gun in my hand and more on the table. Either way, I was through with him. I then left a while later to go buy food for my ferret, and he and his equally massive friend glared at me really hard as I drove away. They had to run their cord to someone else’s house for power and it bothered them. If they plug it into my house again, I will chop their cord in half with one of my Miracle Blade knives. Heck, if I ruin the blade between the concrete and the cord, they’ll replace it for free.

Whatcha Gonna Do?

With all this talk of Police lately, I thought I would tell you a little story about an experience I had once.

What talk about Police lately?

Oh yeah, you weren’t there. But I have been talking about Police a lot lately. If you had been hanging around my desk, you would have heard about it.

Ok. Go ahead.

Thanks. Anyway, one time I was driving some missionaries around for the evening. I used to do stuff like that in between volunteering at the Old Folk’s Home and building houses for Inner City Rats. I had taken them from McKinney up to Sherman for the evening in my 1969 VW Bug. This car was a piece of crap. It had a lot of problems. But, I risked it anyway and drove the missionaries around relying on faith that God would either guarantee the continued running of my car, or at least provide us with a cool experience to share with family and friends for generations to come.

We were driving south along I-75 when my car started to fill with smoke. This was not a good thing, even in a classic car like mine. My car had been leaking oil a lot lately and I figured it was the same old thing. I decided to pull off the freeway and onto the frontage road. It was about 10:30 at night and so it was too dark to see what the problem was when I lifted the hood, or “bonnet” for you crazy people out there who refer to the hood in such ways. I could have just put more oil in and tried to drive away, but I wanted to make sure.

I didn’t have a flashlight but I noticed that there was a cop up on the freeway that had pulled some guy over. I figured that I would go ask him for a flashlight since cops are known to be prepared with very large flashlights in case they need to illuminate anything, or just club someone over the head when their gun misfires. I started to walk up to the cop who was busy talking to the passenger of the car who had gotten out to talk to the officer. I stood a few feet off and waited for him to finish so that I could ask him for his light.

Just then, the driver of the car jumped out and started running for the cover of the nearby woods. The cop drew his gun and ordered the passenger down on the ground and he proceeded to handcuff him. I just kind of stood there with the missionaries looking a little stunned as to what was going on. The cop looked at us and ordered me over. “You watch this guy right here and you do whatever it takes to keep him here, Understand?” I nodded and he took off running into the woods after the other guy.

I just kind stood there with the missionaries while the handcuffed guy sized us up.
“So you’re supposed to watch me?”
“I guess.”
“I could kick your butt! I could kick all of y’all’s butts!”
The missionaries and I looked at each other and then back at him and said in unison “while handcuffed?”
The guy then stuck out his chest and tried to look all tough and intimidating. It didn’t work. There were 3 of us, and only one of him, and he was handcuffed. Unless we were dealing with Jet Li, we were going to be fine.

Then after a couple of minutes, another cruiser pulled up and the cop got out. He walked up to all of us and tried to figure out what was going on. He looked at the missionaries and could tell that they weren’t up to any trouble. So he looked at me and asked what I was doing. I told him that my car broke down and I needed to borrow a flashlight, and that I was told to watch this guy. He then looked at the guy in cuffs and asked what he was doing.
“well officer, I was in my friend’s car and we got pulled over and he took off into the woods, and…”
“wait a minute, are you in handcuffs?!?!”
“uh, yes sir.”
“get in the car!”
The officer then stuck the guy in the back of the car and called for some more backup. The first cop was busy running around in the field, looking for the guy that had run off.

I then borrowed the flashlight and took a look at my car. Oil was everywhere. I would be lucky to get home. I put in all the oil I had and then took the flashlight back to the cop at his car. Another cruiser had gotten there at this point. They had the spotlight out into the field and had the guy spotlighted. They got on the loudspeaker and ordered him down. He then took off running again, and the cop on foot started running after him. Then they released the dogs. I knew that I would just be getting in the way, so I took off with the missionaries. I was getting them home after curfew, but they had a good story to tell the others.

So you had a cop tell you to do whatever it took to keep that guy there?

Yeah, I figure that he could tell that I was trustworthy and could handle myself against him if he tried to run or attack.

Plus he was handcuffed.

Yeah, that helped. Some little kid could have kept him there. But that isn’t the point. The point is that I had a cop give me authority to use deadly force on someone. That’s kinda cool.

Thank goodness you don’t have that authority all the time.

Agreed!

Exercising my right to Bare Arms.

I have the right to Bear Arms. This is not the same as everyone having the right to Bare Arms. I think there are a lot of people out there that should not be baring any part of their bodies, especially their arms. You know who I am talking about. Your 3rd grade teacher was one of them. You’d stare hypnotically as her saggy arms wiggled back and forth as she wrote on the chalk board. It scarred you for life. People like that need to wear loose-fitting full-length body suits.

Having Bare Arms would also make it harder to conceal a handgun, which goes along with the right to Bear Arms. And it is concealing a handgun that is on my mind today. On Friday, Scott and I went to certify for a concealed handgun permit. Getting a permit like this gives us authority to walk around almost anywhere with a handgun hidden on our bodies. This handgun can also be loaded and chambered. Why would we want to do something like this? I don’t know. Why not? Mostly, I think it is for paranoid people who think that something bad is going to happen when they will be around to stop it. Some sort of a Superhero Complex. These people think that had they been in the right place at the right time, and had a gun, that they could have prevented some of the greatest crimes in history like giving an Oscar to Cher. They may be right.

Basically, we sat through a 3-hour class where some guy ran us through scenarios and told us when it was legal to use “deadly force” and when it is not. This guy was a very qualified individual to be giving the class. He had been through SWAT training and is a hired bodyguard for top executives of the Nu-Skin Corporation. He knows how to handle guns and knows the laws concerning them. His only problem was that he was trying to teach some very important things to a bunch of morons. I do not include myself in that group. I was there, and I learned a few things, but most of it was common sense. It was not common sense to a lot of people there. And that scared me. This guy was going to be giving permission to conceal a handgun to a bunch of morons.

Example: he was explaining that it is legal to pull out your gun and shoot someone that is in the process of committing a felony, but not if the felony has already occurred and the person is running away. Then it is up to the cops. Simple enough, right? Not for a moron. So he gives us an example and says that a guy was robbing a bank with a gun. You see him as he is running from the bank to his car. What should you do? Ok. The felony is over, he is running from the scene, it is up to the cops. Those morons came up with so many “what ifs” to try to justify shooting the guy that it was unbelievable. So I interjected that one should wait til he is running away so as to shoot him in the back. Makes an easier target, and he isn’t pointing a gun at you. They didn’t get the sarcasm. Half the class tried to explain to me why that situation wasn’t right. At least they realized that you shouldn’t shoot someone in the back while they are running away, but they didn’t understand that I was mocking them.

Then the guy was showing us where we should shoot a person to stop them from being able to cause bodily harm to you. He pointed out head and body shots that would take out anyone that is attacking you. I then asked what you should do if the attacker is immortal and just keeps coming. Again, half the class started explaining to me how to take out an immortal attacker. Luckily the teacher was smart enough to recognize the sarcasm, and the word “immortal”. No one else did. Do I feel comfortable with these people carrying guns? I don’t know. I guess so. I mean criminals already have guns. Smart and dumb ones. Maybe it is only fitting that good guys, both smart and dumb, also have them.

So where can I carry my gun? Almost everywhere. There are very few places that prohibit it. I cannot carry into a National Park, but I can carry into a bank. I cannot carry on BYU campus, but I can on the campus of the University of Utah, despite the fact that they say I can’t. Legally, I can. I cannot carry a gun into a courthouse. But I can walk into an airport with it, as long as I don’t try to go through the security gate with it. But I can go up to the counter and buy a ticket, or go to the luggage claim. I can carry pretty much wherever I want to. And it applies for like 12 states.

Am I going to carry? Yeah, I probably will. Do I think that I may be at the scene of a crime and be able to stop it with my being there with a gun? I doubt it. There is that chance, and I do have a Superhero Complex of sorts. Maybe I’ll save someone from robbing a bank. Maybe I’ll end up shooting off my own thumb. But either way, I’ll be exercising my right to bear arms.

TV, or not TV

The worst thing happened this weekend. I got home from work on Friday to watch the Food Network, and the TV wouldn’t turn on. Everything else about our entertainment center worked. I could hear the TV, I just couldn’t see it. For those of you who are not familiar with TV, the big advantage of TV over Radio is that you can see the things that you are listening to. There is no point to me simply listening to TV, I need the full experience.

So without TV to keep me company and tell me what to do and think, I had very little else even available to me. I could have gone to the gym, read a book, gone fishing, or something like that. But TV through the years has worn down my ability to do anything physical or mental. So I took a nap. But I kept the remote with me.

Then, later that night while Scott and I were taking classes on how to kill people, some of our friends came over to mooch off us. They were there to do laundry and watch movies. Ha ha, the joke was on them. It turned out that they couldn’t watch their movies. So they did their laundry and read books or something. For those of you too familiar with TV, books are something that you look at that are supposed to make you see and hear things like a movie would. Kinda like those stupid “magic eye” posters that I can’t get to work.
Well, these friends read books, did laundry and ate half of the tamales that I made the day before and then forgot to take their books and movies with them when they left. I’m pretty sure they took their clothes with them because I didn’t have any bras mixed in with my clothes when I did my laundry.

We would still be without TV today, except that another friend of ours is lending us his TV until we get ours back. We took advantage of that to watch “Donnie Darko” and “Teaching Mrs. Tingle” last night. Last night was one of the few times where I felt that TV was a waste of my time. I could have been reading a book for goodness sake! I either need something worth my time on TV or I need to do something else. Funny how that is.

Biscuit the Magnificent

I told you about my first encounter with being hypnotized and that I was going to do it again. Well, I did it again. I am a man of my word, after all. I tried to get a large group to go with me, including some people from work, but hardly anyone came. Jacqui came and brought her husband with her, and Rachelle came, so it was just the 4 of us. For everyone that was supposed to come and didn’t, you missed out on a good show.

Biscuit was great as usual, but I wasn’t there to listen to his jokes, I was there to be hypnotized. Boy, did I get hypnotized and faster than last time too. Jacqui’s Husband Jason also got hypnotized and got to go on stage. Biscuit put us through the whole routine and got us under his spell. That’s when we started to make fools of ourselves.

There were times that we were on a cruise ship and flexing our muscles for the ladies. Other times, we were told that our shoes smelled really good, and we really wanted to smell our own shoes and the shoes of other people. My shoe smelled like new leather. Nothing exciting, but it smelled really good. Then we had magic shoes that played our favorite song. We all just sat there listening to our shoes and jamming to the music. There was a guy next to me who thought that I should listen to his shoe too. From now on, we’ll refer to this guy as the Jerk, because he really was. I didn’t want to listen to his shoe so I turned away from him.

Then it was time to audition for American Idol. We were going to sing our favorite song for the judges and see if we got to go to Hollywood. When he asked who wanted to go first, everyone’s hands shot right up. I really wanted to sing my song. I had one that I knew would get me to Hollywood. I was like the 3rd one picked and I got up to sing “It’s the End of the World as We Know it”. I don’t know if everyone was surprised that I knew the words, or they were just playing along, but I got some big cheers from the crowd. I had them all sing along for the chorus. It was really cool and I felt great. I would have done the whole song, but I was cut short. I got picked to go to Hollywood though.

Then it was time for the Jerk to sing. He got up and started singing the wrong words to a stupid song. They asked him to sit down. If I were Simon, I wouldn’t let him go to Hollywood. Then some other guy got up and started singing. In the middle of his song, the Jerk started saying to no one in particular. “Have you seen Goonies? Have you seen Goonies? That guy looks like Sloth. Do you know Sloth? He looks like him.” I had to admit that he did have that “Sloth” look about him, but I still didn’t think that was nice.

Some girl wanted to get up and sing, but the Jerk said that she wasn’t really hypnotized and that she should sit down. Biscuit asked if the Jerk could tell who was and wasn’t hypnotized. He said that he could. Biscuit asked if the girl was hypnotized. The Jerk said that she wasn’t. He asked if the Jerk thought that I was hypnotized. The jerk looked at me and said “yeah, he’s pretty hypnotized”. Then biscuit told the Jerk to sleep, and he conked right over and relieved us of having to listen to him. He also fell asleep on my shoulder, which I wasn’t a big fan of.

The only other thing that I did to make a fool out of myself was do a redneck dance of sorts. I got up and danced like a redneck. If you don’t know what that looks like, just watch a few old episodes of Hee-Haw. I think that’s where I learned it. After dancing for a bit, and not winning the prize money, we got to go sit back down. But Biscuit had another surprise for us. He left us with a going away present. Once we sat down and he said his name, we were programmed to jump up and yell in our native E.T. language to our mothership that we were down here and wanted to get back. It worked. We all started yelling. I think I said: “Blith blather zim zame”. But my mothership didn’t come. Then Biscuit released us from his spell and the show was over.

I was feeling really good after that. It was better than spending an hour in the hot tub. I was relaxed without a care in the world. Except that my mothership didn’t come for me. That had me a bit worried. But, it turns out that they were running late, and got here on Sunday.

The Concealed Chef

I need my own cooking show. I’m trying to come up with a platform from which to market myself. There are a ton of chefs and cooking shows out there. They all have something unique about them and they market themselves like that to get you to watch them instead of someone else. You have the Naked Chef, the Two Fat Ladies, Emeril Live, Iron Chef, and The Food Hunter. Then you have shows that specialize in one type of cooking. Mexico: one dish at a time, Eating for $40 a day, and stuff like that. They all have something different about the chef or the theme that makes you want to watch them, rather than a cooking show called Cooking with Rainman or something.

Cooking with Jason would be ok. But nobody knows who Jason is. I haven’t made a name for myself in any field. Emeril gets away with it because everyone knows his name. There are no famous Jasons out there that one would associate with cooking. You have Jason and the Argonauts. I guess I could dress as an ancient Greek and go on cooking quests or something. The only other Jason I can think of is the hockey mask-wearing psycho killer. But no one wants to see what that guy is cooking up.

I could try to combine my other hobbies with my love of cooking. Scuba wouldn’t work well since underwater cooking is not really possible. Target shooting might work. Emeril has his famous “Bam!” when he tosses in some ingredients. Maybe I could do the same thing. I could fire a gun in the air when the dish is finished. Or shoot at the food. That wouldn’t go well though. I can see someone getting upset about that. Maybe camping. I could feature foods and techniques to use while camping or backpacking. Whenever I used to go backpacking, I would eat that dehydrated crap that the astronauts wouldn’t eat. They sell you something called Chicken a la King. That sounds gourmet, right? It starts out as a white powder with hard chunks of chicken, that when you add water to it, magically turns into a white, runny liquid with hard chunks of chicken in it. You can’t eat it. All you can really hope to do at that point is throw it at a small animal and hope to kill it for dinner. So from then on, I had resorted to taking up beef jerky and ramen noodles. My friend Ammon got me hooked on taking donuts, but that isn’t really a “camping” food.

But I could change all of that. I could go up in the mountains and show people how they can make real food even while camping. There’s no reason why, with a little preparation, you can’t have chicken enchiladas, stew, or real chicken a la king. Or, we could even stick closer to the theme of camping and show how to prepare things that you would find while camping like trout almondine, elk steaks, squirrel kabobs, or for those vegetarians out there, pine cones. That way, I could get paid to go camping all the time and get to cook some cool stuff. I just need to market this and get the Food Network to buy into my shows. If it doesn’t work out, then the world will be stuck eating donuts while they camp. That dehydrated stuff really isn’t an option.

If Only

I went to the doctor the other day to find out why I am so tired all the time. I have my own theories as to why, but I wanted to get a professional opinion. He did a bunch of blood tests and came to the amazing conclusion that he has no idea why I am tired. He told me that my thyroid is normal, my blood sugar is normal, and my cholesterol is low. And then he left it at that. All of the information he gave me was great, but I didn’t ask for that. I wanted to know something else. Oh yeah, and he got paid for this.

I would love to be able to get paid to do something other than asked. I used to wait tables. If someone asked me to bring them a burrito, and I came back with a bowl of tomato soup, I wouldn’t get a tip. And if I did that often enough, I would not have a job at all. It may very well be that they person likes tomato soup. But if someone asks for a burrito, they want to get a burrito. When I ask to know why I am tired all the time, I don’t want you to tell me that my cholesterol is fine.

I would also like to be able to do this at school. Taking tests would be a breeze.
Teacher: Who was the 23rd President of the United States?
Me: I don’t know, but did you know that hamsters are only pregnant for 18 days, while an elephant is pregnant for 22 months?
Teacher: Hey that’s great! You get an A.
Me: And your cholesterol is low.
Teacher: A+!

Why do I keep going back to my doctor? And why does he get paid? I think from now on, if I do go to the doctor, I am just going to be really ambiguous. I’ll just go in, slap some money on the counter and say, “Tell me something, Doc. Doesn’t matter what, just tell me something.” It would be just my luck that he wouldn’t tell me anything at all and still take my money. I just can’t win.

Look into my eyes

I got hypnotized this weekend. I went to Johnny B’s here in Provo to see Biscuit the Magnificent perform. He’s a comedian/hypnotist that comes around all the time. I have seen his shows before and even volunteered to be hypnotized once. I have done a fair amount of research on the subject and wanted to be hypnotized, but I was never able to. I tend to analyze things. He would be talking and trying to get us volunteers into a hypnotic state, and I would think about what he was saying and try to figure out why he was saying that, and what effect he hoped to get from me. By the time I got done analyzing what he was saying, the show was over and I was being ushered out by the janitor. I missed the whole boat.

This time was a little different though. I was determined to just let myself go and not think about things too much. I guess it worked. He got a group of volunteers up on stage and attempted to hypnotize us all. Obviously not everyone who volunteers is able to be hypnotized. Some people analyze things too much and get asked to sit back down in the audience because he can tell if you are actually under hypnosis. That’s what had always happened to me before. I would attempt to go under, and then he would ask me to sit back down. He was having us imagine things while he talked us into a deep relaxation. I did everything he told me to do without thinking, and it felt really good. The main thing with hypnosis is that it puts you into a state of euphoria and if just feels good to do what they suggest that you do. So there I was, falling asleep when he announced to the audience that these (speaking of us on stage) would be his volunteers for the night and would be performing.

I didn’t think that I was hypnotized, despite the fact that I closed my eyes and put my head down when he told me to. I still had conscious thought and could hear everything around me. But there was that euphoric feeling, and I didn’t care that I was in front of 300 people acting like a fool. I have a hard time keeping a straight face when I am goofing around. I like to make people laugh, but I like to laugh along with them. I was stone-faced up on stage. I felt great inside, but there was nothing funny about what I was doing. It felt good and I didn’t care that the audience was laughing at me.

Unfortunately, I really didn’t understand what I was feeling and asked to go back to my seat. I didn’t think that I was hypnotized and didn’t want to waste his time up there. It was when I got back to my seat that I realized that I had indeed gone under. I sat there stone-faced the whole time. Scott looked over at me a couple times to see if I was ok. One of the skits that they did onstage was called American Idol. He told them that they would be auditioning for American Idol and would have to perform a song for the audience. I wanted to get up there and sing so badly. I never wanted anything more. I almost jumped out of my seat to be able to perform. I didn’t because I realized that I had given up. But I was still under enough to feel the euphoria of wanting to do what he suggested. I wanted to get up and sing. I am not a good singer, and I know this. But it didn’t matter. I wanted everyone in the audience to listen to me perform and judge me so that I could go to Hollywood with American Idol.

It was like that with all the skits. I wanted to do them so badly, but didn’t because I had given up. There were even times when he told the group to go to sleep that I started dropping my head into my lap. Man, it felt good. Had I understood what was going on, I would have stayed on stage and gone with it. In fact, I am planning on going to his show next week and do it again. This time, I am positive that I will go all the way with it. Then I’ll be able to report back on the complete experience.

Old People Are Funny

I went ice fishing with my friend Jared the other day. We were just sitting there minding our own business when this old guy walked up to us. Normally that would be fine. It is perfectly normal to go up to people and talk to them for a minute while ice fishing. It is just neighborly. You ask how the fishing has been, what you’re using for bait, and then wish them luck. Conversations between strangers on the ice shouldn’t last much longer than that. You are there to fish, not make new friends.

Well this old guy walked up and started talking. Little did we know that it would be a long time before he left. This old man exhibited every stereotype of old people out there. He was basically Grandpa Simpson incarnate. Luckily, he spent most of the time talking to Jared. He asked Jared where he was from, how the fishing was, etc. Fine. That is normal. Then he started telling us where he was from.

Old Man: I’m from a small town in Idaho called Clinton. I bet you don’t even know where that is?
Me: (bet I don’t care) Nope, can’t say that I do.
Old Man: (takes 10 minutes to explain where it is in reference to other small towns I have never heard of) There’s a real famous person from there… Harold B. Lee.
Me: (yeah, really famous if you’re a Mormon over the age of 70) Is that so?
Old Man: Yep. Hey, I have some jokes for you. Did pirates ever have to pay to get their ears pierced? Yep, a buccaneer.
Me: (oh man, get me out of here) Ha ha. That’s pretty good. I love puns.

Then the old man pulled out some papers from his pocket and asked if we wanted to buy his jokes. He had typed them all up and carried them with him. We told him “no thanks” and he kept on talking about how funny his jokes were.

Then the old man started checking out the fish we had caught. Jared and I had done pretty well for ourselves and had kept 3 apiece. We were catching a lot of smaller ones and letting them go. The old man asked Jared why he wasn’t keeping them all. Jared mentioned that it is just him and his wife at home, and they don’t need that many. Jared then proceeded to catch a small fish and was about to let it go. The old man asked to keep it for himself. That really bugged Jared and I. You don’t just ask to keep someone else’s fish. It is one of those things. So Jared didn’t want to hurt an old man’s feelings and let him keep the fish. But it really was too small to keep and should have been thrown back.

Then the old man walked over to me.
Old Man: So, are you his wife?
Me: (looking over at Jared and exchanging looks) Yep.
Old Man: Oh, I thought at first that you were a man.
Me: (then why did you ask if I was his wife???) I am a man!
Old Man: (chuckling) Oh, then you aren’t his wife.
Me: (help me, captain obvious!) Only in some states.

Then I proceeded to catch a fish. It was too small to keep, so I started to toss it back, knowing full well that the old man wanted to keep it. It was an ethical thing. The fish was too small to keep. I am not going to let it die because some senile old man wants to keep it.
Old Man: Hey, don’t throw that back, I want to keep it!
Me: (helping the fish down the hole in the ice) ooops, there he goes. You should have told me that you wanted him.

Then the old man turned his attention to Jared who just had a fish bite on his line.
Old Man: Did you get one?
Jared: (dropping his rod tip to the water) Nope, he got away.
Old Man: Oh.

Then he started to tell us all about this book he wrote. He did it on this guy named John Eckles. I had actually heard of this guy, but didn’t care enough to want to read a book about him. The old man then proceeded to tell us all about Mr. Eckles. At the end of what seemed an eternity, he pulled the actual book out of his pocket and asked if we wanted to buy it. This old man was just a salesman walking around on the ice trying to pawn off his crap on other people. And he was trying to take our fish. Jared didn’t want to buy the book so the old man turned to me.
Old Man: How ‘bout you, do you have any money?
Me: (I do, but not to buy some crappy book about some guy I have barely heard of. For all I know, and can probably guess, you are a terrible author.) Sorry, I don’t.
Old Man: Well, maybe I could get your names and addresses and come by sometime.
Jared: You know what, I’ll look you up if I am interested. The name is Winward, right?
Old Man: Yep, you remembered my name. Just look it up in the phone book.
Me: (impressed that Jared remembered the guy’s name. I hadn’t paid any attention) We’ll call you when we want to buy the book.

Then he started to tell us how his name came about. The story was so inane that it stuck. Now I can’t forget it even if I wanted to. It is Scottish, or Irish. I didn’t remember all of the story. And his ancestors came from a small windy island. His family lived on the Windward side. The others lived on the Leeward side. Thus the last names. His family took off the d and went with Winward. Just like how my family name used to be ‘miller’, but they changed all of the letters around and went with ‘hunter’. Whatever, old man.

Then the old man started to go away. He had been there for like 30 minutes or more. And my brain couldn’t take it any more. As he walked away, Jared pulled up on his line revealing a fish on.
Me: (loud enough for the old man to hear, unfortunately) hey, you got one?
Jared: (shushing me, and glaring) No, he got away.
Old man: You got one?
Jared: No, I think I lost him.
As the old man continued to walk away, Jared mouthed to me that the fish had been on there for like 15 minutes and that he was waiting for the old man to leave to bring it in.
I had a good laugh about that one. What is it about old people that makes them oblivious? He just stood there talking to us. Not with us, to us. We weren’t responding. We were fishing. We didn’t want to buy his jokes or his book. We wanted to fish. The old man then wandered off to go talk to another poor group of fishermen. He was still with them when we left an hour later.

It’s a guy thing

My roommate and I took part in a classic male ritual last night when we went to the shooting range. We are going to take our Concealed Handgun class next weekend and wanted to practice up. We don’t want to be in the middle of class where they take us out to the shooting range and not be able to hit our target. What if we were in some kind of situation where we were required to shoot a drug-crazed Nazi who had taken a bus load of nuns as hostages? Would we be able to shoot him without killing too many of the nuns? Would the bus be ok? Would we get to keep the bus as a reward? These are the questions that cannot be answered when you are actually in that situation. You need to ask them now and then be prepared to deal with it when the time comes. So Scott and I went to the shooting range to prepare ourselves for the class which prepares us for tough situations like inner-city nun rescuing. I am all about being prepared.

We went to the shooting range which is located right across from the Stouffers’ factory in Springville. Rangemasters takes care of all of the shooter’s basic needs. Besides the shooting range, they sell guns, accessories, teach classes and build small gattling guns. They had a gattling gun just sitting on the counter. It shoots small caliber ammunition, perfect for that rabbit hunter out there who needs to unleash 350 rounds on a rabbit in just a few seconds, thus providing his starving family with the basic necessities of rabbit fur. That’s basically all you would have left after hitting a rabbit with that thing.

Rangemasters also has perhaps the best mix of two sports that I have ever seen: Bowling and Target Shooting. For $12, you get two full hours of Pin Shooting. It is a lot like those games at the fair where you throw a cotton ball at a stack of lead bottles and try to knock them over for a great prize. But in this game, you try to shoot them over. There are 5 bowling pins set up on a table for each lane. You compete against others to see who can shoot their pins down the fastest. You may wonder what the point of something like this is. When are you ever going to be in a situation where you have to shoot 5 bowling pins faster than the person next to you? Well, we are lucky to live in a country where that doesn’t happen a lot. But there are places in the world where bowling pins attack on a regular basis. And if you are not faster than the guy next to you at shooting them down, you’re in a world of hurt. “Hell hath no fury like a bowling pin scorned”. I think that I will have to try this game sometime. I like to think that I am a fairly good shot. From now on, I am going to refer to my shooting ability in reference to bowling pins: “Yeah, I can take out a bowling pin with my .38 at over 25 yards!” Professional bowlers will be impressed.

But Scott and I were there to practice on our accuracy. So we got a couple targets and went onto the range. We chose a picture of Osama Bin Laden as our first target. We sighted in our new .380s by trying to shoot the turban off of his head. After a couple of rounds, we were able to group the shots pretty close. Needless to say, if either Scott or I are attacked by a picture of Osama, we will be ready for him. We then spent the rest of our rounds shooting at other targets that weren’t so exciting, but provided us with the needed practice so that we don’t embarrass ourselves next week. Why do we want to carry a handgun around with us when none of the situations described will ever happen? I don’t know, it’s just a guy thing.

American Idle

I was asked today if I was going to watch ‘American Idol’ tonight. I told them that I really don’t care about it and probably would not. The sad thing is that I probably will. I feel badly about this. I should have better things to do than to just go home and watch some TV show. It is entertaining. I love seeing really crappy singers get up on stage and make a fool of themselves and then get ripped on by Simon. The best part about it is that they really think that they are good singers and they feel badly about being criticized. Ha Ha, now THAT’S entertainment! It would be different if I were to go try out and get shot down. I know that I am not a good singer. If I were to go and audition, and then get torn down by Simon on national TV, I would have already won. I would be my own American Idol in my own competition of getting on TV by doing something that I am not good at. How many people get to do that? Ok, the entire cast of Saturday Night Live do that every week. But most people have to be good at something to get on TV.

So ‘American Idol’ is entertainment. But is it worthy of looking forward to, or planning my evening around? I hope not. I would like to think that I have better things to do than look forward all day to a TV show. I actually do have other things to do. I could clean my room, read a book, work on my website, take a nap, go to the gym, write some letters or emails to friends, wash my truck, or any other number of things. But you know what? I bet I end up watching ‘American Idol’ after all. I am going to go along with millions of other Americans and sit on my couch to turn into a Cheeto-munching lump of inactivity while I watch a bunch of people make fools of themselves. I would like to see Mr. T as one of the judges, because he would have a lot of fools to pity. I know, they do have some good singers on there, but nobody cares about them until the end. We want to see the weeding-out process along the way and jeer at the losers.

Maybe I will at least do something while I watch. I should go to the gym and watch it while I run on the treadmill. That way, I would at least be doing something constructive. My mind may turn to mush, but my body will be nice and toned. I just wish that it were summertime. I wouldn’t even have this conflict. I would be out fishing, hiking or something else. But this darn season we call winter keeps me inside all day, making me available to watch TV and remain inactive in both body and mind. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I’m going to do my best to have something to do tonight, but if it turns out that I have nothing better to do than to watch ‘American Idol’, please don’t think poorly of me, I just gave in to the temptation. I already know that Mr. T will pity me.

No Pain, No Gain

I hurt right now. Supposedly, this is good for me. I went to the gym for the first time in a long time to “get back into shape”. That phrase has never made much sense to me as I was already in a great shape, if shape meant “round”. I am a member of Gold’s Gym and I actually make use of my membership. At least more so than my membership with desperatesingleguyslookingforarelationship.com… I don’t really take advantage of the benefits from that one. But I do go to the gym.

I went and lifted weights to help build my arms and upper body strength. I should have gone easy on myself since this was the first time my arms had lifted anything heavier than a sandwich in the last few months, but I overdid it. I lifted a lot of weight a lot of times thinking that I was going to get in shape in one night, even if it killed me. Right now, I am wishing that it would have… killed me, that is. Because I hurt now.

My arms are so stiff and sore, that I can’t extend them out fully, nor raise them above my head. This made for a difficult time getting ready this morning. I had to roll and launch myself from my bed and hope that I landed on my feet. If I missed, I wouldn’t have had the strength to lift myself up again. I would have lain on the floor until my muscles healed. Then there was showering. I mentioned that I couldn’t lift my hands above my head, which made washing my hair a real ordeal. I stood in the shower trying to wash my hair like a T-Rex would, ducking my head down to reach my stubby little arms which can’t really move or reach to do the job properly. Scientists now believe that the T-Rex went extinct because it spent so much time trying to wash its hair that it never had time for hunting. Putting on my clothes took some effort too. Looking back on it, I should have looked for a button-up shirt. Instead, I took all morning getting a t-shirt over my head. I ended up having to put the shirt on the ground and wriggle into it like a snake. By the way, scientist now believe that snakes chose to go without limbs just to make putting on clothes a little easier. Especially after working out too hard.

I will be going back to the gym tonight. I may try to lift a little bit to try to get some motion back in my arms, but I am not going to overdo it. I think that most of my workout tonight will be working up a sweat in the steam room, and walking up and down the stairs to the Jacuzzi. That’s a workout that I think I can handle. If I don’t come to work on Monday, send someone to my house. I probably didn’t land on my feet when getting out of bed and am on the floor, probably talking to my ferret to keep myself company.

Bacon Day

This is a great day for many reasons. First of all, it is Friday. That means that I can sleep in tomorrow morning and not get fired for it. Secondly, it is the first of what I hope will be many Bacon-themed days to come.

This was an idea that got tossed around here at work while I was really bored. I don’t know how this happens, but a lot of ideas that I come up with when I am bored actually come to life, despite the fact that they really sound like ideas that I came up with when I was bored. Remember when I came up with the idea to shoot a toilet? Me too. That one actually came to pass. So I was sitting there the other day and I said: hey, why don’t we have Bacon Day? I had to hurry and come up with what that all entailed when someone showed some interest in actually doing a Bacon Day. We decided that a group of us would all bring a bacon-themed food item and then we would all have a pot-luck lunch of it.

Just for some background, my roommate Scott and I hold bacon in the highest regard. Actually, we hold pigs in the highest regard since they are the fountain from which flows so many tasty meats: ham, sausage, pork, and bacon. We have not been able to come up with a food that isn’t made better by the addition of bacon.
Example:
Good: Hamburger.
Better: Bacon Burger.
Best: Hamburger fried in bacon grease and topped with bacon.

It has been hypothesized that everything I have ever cooked could have been improved on by the addition of bacon. So far, whenever we have tested this, we have been right. I have made bacon-stuffed trout, bacon-wrapped scallops, bacon-wrapped sausage, etc. As far as we can tell, even desserts should be better with bacon. I keep waiting for an Iron Chef episode where the theme ingredient is bacon. I’d get a couple good bacon dessert ideas then.

So, I was thus pondering when I mentioned that we should have Bacon Day. Landon took me up on it and got his team to start a sign-up sheet for bringing bacon items. People brought a potato/bacon soup, bacon-wrapped water chestnuts in bbq sauce, bacon salad, bacon-wrapped bacon, and then I brought grape tomatoes stuffed with a basil cream cheese and bacon. I bet that if we had more people involved that we could have had hundreds of different bacon items.

We haven’t officially kicked off Bacon Day yet. The dishes are all just sitting there waiting for lunch time. But that isn’t to say that I haven’t tried more than one of the dishes already. I can’t help it. It’s bacon for goodness sake! It can’t just sit there, it has to be eaten. I can tell you right now that Angie’s bacon-chestnuts are amazing. And I could sit here and eat the tomatoes all day long. I would have brought stuffed mushrooms too, but that’s a little more expensive than what I wanted to do for lunch at work.

So we’ll see how it all pans out. I can’t imagine it being a failure. It’s bacon, after all. We may just have to come up with other theme days. They would never be as good as Bacon Day. You just can’t improve on perfection.

[1/6/2003 12:44:46 PM | Jason Hunter]
Thought for the Day

The ends justify the means... always!

If you disagree, I would like to see your example as to why. We can discuss.

1/13/2002
Ice Fishing: When Hell Freezes Over

Ice fishing. Who came up with that? Most sports have a season and when that season is over, you hold off on that sport. Fishing is done in water. Water abounds in the summertime and fishing is good. In the wintertime, there is no water… at least not visible. The water is under a lot of ice. Ice that is thick-enough to drive a semi truck on. Normally, you would think that fishermen would just call it quits for the winter and come back when the ice melts. I mean you don’t see downhill skiers looking for a way to go skiing in the summer. When winter is over and the snow is gone, they give it up for another year. But not fishermen. They figured that if they could get to the water below the ice, they would still be able to do what they love best… hang out with the guys, drink beer, and make up stories about the size of fish that they almost caught.

So it is with me. I love fishing. I decided a couple of years ago that I could no longer wait until spring to be able to go. Luckily, ice fishing is a very cheap sport to be able to get into. It doesn’t take very much gear, and the gear you do buy is really cheap. Getting started into fly fishing can set you back several hundreds of dollars for the rod, reel, line, waders, flies, etc. But you can get started ice fishing for about $50, and $30 of that is for an auger. Augers are the things you use to drill through the ice. This is the only athletic part of ice fishing. Once the hole is drilled, all activity ends. The rest of ice fishing consists of sitting there waiting for a fish to bite. That’s it. You don’t need a box full of fancy lures or flies. You don’t need a boat. You don’t need anything but a $10 rod and reel, some small jigs and worms, and a way to get through the ice.

Getting though the ice can be an ordeal. The ice can be pretty thick. This last weekend, it was about 14 inches thick or more. It takes a lot to drill through all of that ice. It doesn’t matter how cold you were when you started drilling, by the end of it, you are really warm from the workout. If you have to drill 2 or 3 holes for others in your group, you can get enough of a workout to burn off more than enough calories to justify eating a box of Twinkies. By the way, you need to take Twinkies with you while you ice fish. Trust me.
So drilling holes warms you up. Sometimes I use that as a way to stay warm, even if I don’t need another hole drilled. I’ll sit there shivering until I say enough is enough and go drill a hole. That will keep me warm for another 30 minutes or so until I decide to drill another hole. If you see me ice fishing someday and decide to walk over and say Hi, beware… You may be walking through a minefield of pre-drilled holes and fall through one of them.

Speaking of falling through the ice, that isn’t fun. There is no threat of falling through when the ice is thick like it was this last weekend. They say that it only has to be 4 inches thick to be safe-enough to fish on. I like having that extra 10 inches or more as a buffer zone. Well, I went fishing one time and the ice was not quite ideal for it. There was 4 inches of ice on the lake, but the ice didn’t come all the way over to the shore. They had a plank running from the shore over to the ice. That seemed kinda sketchy to me. But, I didn’t want to waste a trip to the lake. So I walked the plank over to the ice. I did some fishing without success and decided to go to a different part of the lake. The ice didn’t come all the way to the shore there either, so I threw down a plank of my own and started out. I got onto the ice, and found that it was not the requisite 4 inches thick, as I promptly fell through. I worked my way back to shore and climbed out, embarrassed that I had been so stupid, but pleased that I didn’t lose any of my gear, life, etc. I was going to try to find another place to fish, but it started snowing. I figured that I was cold, wet, and no amount of drilling was going to make me warm-enough to enjoy myself, so I went home. Note to guys: Stories like this are not to be told to the women in your life. They will never let you go ice fishing ever again. They’ll make you feel so guilty about worrying them like that, and you’ll be forced to stay home from then on and participate in non-lethal activities like watching Steel Magnolias.

Other than being cold, having nothing to do, falling through the ice, or getting your truck stuck in the snow, ice fishing is great. I’ll probably go several times a month this winter. Come with me sometime and I’ll show you how it’s done. We can get a whole party going out on the ice. It may not be as safe and warm as staying in watching a chick flick, but it’s a lot more fun.