The Freedom Rock motorcycle ride, part 2, day 1, Friday June 8.

So anyway, like I said, we left an hour late.  SNAFU solved.  Off we go, like a dirty shirt.  64 miles to Albert Lea Kwik Trip; we like them because they have decent food, a good rebate policy, and dependable restrooms.  Plus the credit card bill is paid automatically online, we're green like that.  Gas, breakfast sandwich, restroom, adjust gear, deviate from directions.  We were going to zoom on down the interstate to highway 13 west to take us to either 65 or 69, I don't remember which.  Probably 69.  We did not set a land speed record on the interstate, I find that the gas mileage diminishes so rapidly that it isn't really worth it.  I figgered once and likely will again (in July) that going faster will cost us time in the long run because we'll have to make more gas stops than if we went a more sedate, leisurely (greeny) pace.

On really good days, my bike will get 42/43 mpg.  Val's will do a little better...it's smaller, lighter, she's lighter, etc.  This is going approx 65 mph, or less.  If/when I increase speed to 75, mpg will decrease to ~30, or less...the faster I go, the less mpg I will have.  My tank is 5.3 gallons and it starts to look empty when 3.5 gallons are gone.  150 miles between gas stops is good, you can really get somewhere, so long as the bladder cooperates.  105 miles per tank...you can see that it won't be very long at all....2 fills at the slower speed before there's an extra fill at the higher speed.  And when the day is 600+ miles.....

You're thinking....big deal...how long does it take to get gas?  In July, there's going to be about 15 of us, which can totally take over a gas station.  Takes a few minutes to fill, takes a few minutes to hit the restroom, takes a few minutes to BS with everyone, eat a snack, drink a pop/water/coffee; it's very easy to spend 30 minutes at a gas stop with a big group.  It's easy with just 2 of us, as we soon found out.

Sometimes, the bladder cooperates, but the colon does not.  That can make for a crappy day.

Hope you enjoyed that brief sojourn into my rambling thoughts.  We set off for Crystal Lake to see the worlds largest bullhead.  What a nice little town.  What a nice little lake.

Yep, I have a yellow shirt.  Actually, I have 2 yellow shirts, they came from the same thrift store.  I'd linky to that bloggy episode, but I don't know which one it is.  There were a couple of grumpy old men fishing, some little kids screaming and splashing just behind us to the west, which is to the left, as you're looking at the fish.  It was about 11, and well above 80*.    Across the street is a retired train car, the windows are painted to look like people are in there, there are flowers all around it...but no train tracks.  No pics, we didn't go look at it. Check in with the bladder, get a drink, put on coat?  Put on vest?  Gloves?  Yeah, vest today.  You can see that I sit on a piece of dead sheep, it keeps my butt from sweating.  Really.

Time for some unfinished biz.  Last episode I mentioned that I was a little sad, and a little glad that no one came with us.  I was a little sad because I invited our friends, some said they were coming but didn't.  Some said they wanted to but couldn't.  I put a lot of time and energy into this thing, and I was a little sad that no one else put it onto their calendar...they had 4 months notice.  Oh well, it was nice to get away with my princess and really nice to have lunch with a couple of high school friends....people I had not seen for 25 years or more, except for facebook.

Time to go south and west, west and south, to Britt...where there is a Hobo museum.  We decided to not go in, we were still running late and this is where we made up some time.  Apparently there is a large convention for hobo type people, they converge upon the town for a weekend of panhandling and train riding.

Yes, they converted the theater into the museum.  I don't know where they see a show.

Here's a partial list of some of the things we saw:  tractors, hay, dead coons, corn fields, trees, green grass, a creek, bridges, dead opossum,  red wing black birds, semis, fish, boats, barns, towns, brown grass, rivers, crows, vultures, cows, churches, Pocahontas.

Pocahontas?  You bet.

Look, a princess with the princess.  We had lunch in Pocahontas.  At Pizza Farm, not in the statue.  We're not termites, for christs sake.   We got to the ranch at about 1:15, they told us:  "buffet ended at 1, we won't be putting anything else on it, but you're welcome to eat it..."  So we did.  Paid full price for half a buffet.  It was ok.  We got gas there, too.  No, not at Pizza farm, at Cenex or Sinclair.  If I recall, 3.25 gallons for me, 3 for Pocahontas.  Er, I mean, Val.  Mostly straightly south to Pomeroy.

Pomeroy, home of the Kaleidoscope factory and the college of Leonard.

 Leonard is a great guy, lots of fun, and funnier than me on my best day.  I got the opportunity to feel smart, however, because I answered his question correctly:  when you look in the mirror in the morning, is the image looking back at you: 1. larger? 2. smaller? 3. the same size?

We took the sunlight tour, he showed us all the different types of 'scopes, told stories, asked questions, we looked at his wood shop, Val looked thru the fused glass bits and bought one.  To conclude the tour, we went to Byron's bar for a drink, nice place.  It'd help a lot to be a deadhead if you lived in Pomeroy.

Holy crap, this is getting long...oh well...you asked for it.  Off we went to Storm Lake to see......what do you suppose we saw there?  You guess it!  A

lighthouse.  It's not in the middle of a cornfield, but it's close.  It's at the junction of Hwy 7 and Hwy 71.  From there, we had to decide if we wanted to go to Ida Grove to see all the castles, but chose to just head to Sac City....it was hot, we were tired of cross winds and we were ready to rest.

The world's largest popcorn ball is in a little barn with a barn quilt on it.  Sac County has what might be the world's nicest veteran's memorial, not that there is a competition for things like that...it's very very nice, and I think every county should have one.  Stay tuned for pics from Iowa Falls memorial...and speaking of competitions....the Sac County Cattlewhateverthenameis won "best burger" 2010, so we went there for dinner.

Cash or check only, no cards.  Fancy joint too.  I actually had a steak; I almost NEVER order a steak at a restaurant...I can do it at home much cheaper.  Ribeye was very good, I didn't regret it a bit.  The patron behind me read each patch on my vest out loud, using his outside voice.  I don't know if he wanted me to talk to him, he didn't bother to talk to us.  Small town people are different, huh?  Different is good, though.

After dinner, we went to check what time the cafe opened, get some ice, snap some pics, went back to the motel and we were in bed at 9.  I maybe should have taken pics...the room had the world's smallest toilet and world's greenest shower.  (The tile were green, it was clean.)  Pretty nice place...I'd stay there again.

The Freedom Rock motorcycle ride, part 1, a synopsis.

I don't know if synopsis is the used properly or not, I'm sure someone will let me know.  :)

The Freedom Rock ride:  3 days, open to the motorcycle riding club that we're in.  We're the only ones that went.  I'm mostly happy about that, but I'm partly sad about it, too.  I'm happy because we were able to do what we wanted to do without any dissenting opinions or arguments.  We could stop where we wanted, eat what we wanted, where we wanted, we didn't worry about holding our farts (not that I do anyway), didn't have to apologize to anyone when we were late.

And we were late.  The ride started with a SNAFU, which thankfully was not FUBAR.  If you don't know what those are, you can ask Uncle Google.  I'm not going to tell you why we started off late, either, it might embarrass Val.  Suffice to say, we left almost exactly an hour late.  Since we each had most of a full tank, we didn't leave from the gas station as planned, we just left from home, cruised on down the interstate to Albert Lea, where we got gas, some breakfast, changed some gear around, and wondered if we should call Leonard.

We didn't.

Right away I deviated from my directions...no point to go back east to the interstate, just to go back west again.  This is not the only time there was deviation from the directions, but it's about the only time that it saved time or miles.  There was another instance today, maybe I'll tell you about that later.

So!  We rode down, around, up, over, under; we were kind of like a merry go ride, only not quite.  My strategy when on a long ride is to plan hotels, plan stops, and plan some meals, but not all meals.  I also reserve the right to stop and take pics of different things.  Here's an example.

Sac County is the "barn quilt capitol of the world".  Barns, signs, buildings have these painted quilt thingys  all over the place.  Could have stopped at least 100 times to take pics, none were the same.  Impressive.  The other things I've pictured are self explanatory, right? No?  Well, I don't know what the deal is with the middle pic. It has a John Deere sticker on it, though.  The first pic I'll have to ask Uncle Google about.

Get busy on those, too, will you?  And while you're at it, imagine a pic that has a old looking hiker on it and the words "Dragoon Trail".  WTH is that?

Some ride leaders insist on getting gas at every bio break.  Not me.  Sometimes we'll gas up at the restroom breaks, sometimes at lunch, whatever.  Some say:  every 100 miles.  Not me.  We gassed at 60, sometimes at 120, once at 162.  We were getting nervous about the gas supply at that point, however, it turned out ok.

This ride review will be broken down into several parts, one for each day, probably, and that likely means that I'll never get to the last day.  If that happens, get over it, ok?  thanks.

Happy national bus driver's day.   That means that today is the last day of school for an entire month...which is when summer school starts, 4-4 day weeks. *insert excited emoticon here*

No school means that I have lots of time to my favorite things...like mow the lawn, paint the garage, paint the bathroom, ride my motorcycle, give massages, etc.  I've got some pickup repairs scheduled, some motorcycle repairs planned, I'll get serious about selling some crap we have here in the house...or haul it to Goodwill/Salvation Army.

Last day of school.  Should be an early dismissal, but it isn't.  What genius thought that one up?  Probably the same one that decided that all of JR high kids should go on a field trip to the zoo, or  Mall of America, or some other waste of time place.  Ok, the zoo is educational, but the mall?  WTF?

So far, I've gotten 2 gifts, and was told that: "I was going to bring you brownies, but I forgot"  I guess it's the thought that counts, but I would really enjoy a GC to a liquor store than the thought of non existent brownies.

If you have kids and if they like their bus driver...give him or her a little something, we need to know that you appreciate our efforts.  Here's some suggestions.

In no particular order:

• liquor store gift card
• cd w/pics of your boobs
• gift card to a decent restaurant
• gas card
• sack full of SuperTech oil filters in the 3 sizes I use
• home made/hand drawn thank you note

I realize that I should have posted this last week for you people, but now you can feel guilty for an entire year!  OR you now know how to start the next year off correctly.

BTW, I use ST3593A, ST8A, and ST7317

which scenario is the one that actually occurred?

Below, find a number of scenarios, your task shall be to determine which is accurate/occurred and which did not.  To determine this, you will engage your BS detector and utilize your knowledge of me, your memory of what I've told you, etc and so on.

Don't be a creepy lurker bastard; you can either post a comment here or on FB.

It's a nice hot sunny day, and I'm driving the bus, sort of between routes, I'd finished dropping off all the junior high kids and was heading for the high school, it's a 10-15 minute drive unless there's road destruction like there was last May and June which caused all sorts of stress, irritation and tardyness on my part arriving to the high school.  I like bananas,  I eat a couple of them each day, unless I forget to have some on hand....ripeness, you know.  I can't eat them if they are green.  So after I've dropped off the last kid, I haul ass to the high school to get the next batch.  Often, on the way, I enjoy a banana.  I made the mistake once of putting the peel into the trash....holy swarm of fruitflies, I was afraid they were taking over.  I ate the banana, and put the peel on the ledge next to the window.  Had to stop for a red light, and got to looking around.  Huh, I thought.  That could be fun.  The light was about to turn green, the convertible next to me had his top down, I tossed in that banana peel.....I just couldn't help myself.  Believe me when I tell you that I laughed my ass off the rest of the afternoon, too.

Couple weeks ago, I had to go to WallyMart for something.  Seems like we always have to go there for something, probably because we can't ever remember to get everything we think we need at one time.  I was walking thru the pharmacy section, and I see a really old couple shuffling along, leaning on the buggy, looking at everything like Christmas is coming and they were making out their wish list.  Could just see the list, scrawled in their spidery old folk handwriting:  Preperation H, Depends, enema, chap stick, powder, vaseline, super polident, XLax, aspirin, rolaids....I can see that getting old is not for sissies.  I grabbed up a box of condoms and dropped it into their buggy while they were not looking.  I had nothing going on that afternoon, so I loitered on the bench near the front of the store to watch them check out with their pile of goodies.  She's unloading the cart, and when she gets to the box

She says:  "XL?  30% larger?  What the hell is going on here?  Are you hoping they make you 30% larger?  And a whole dozen of them?  We have not had rumpy pumpy 12 times in 20 years.....are you having an affair?"  I commenced LoLingMAO as I left...

To be continued....

LOL here's one I banged out a while ago but never posted.




Good morning, happy Tuesday....

Clicky this linky, listen to the music as you read. 

The sky is dark, the sun is several hours away from coming up, the bed is soft and warm, all snuggled in with my wife.  5am comes and goes, and I sleep, dreaming of a college volleyball team doing yoga and jumping on a trampoline.  5:30 slips past, with dreams of Grandma making pies, pies with no calories or fat.  Link for more mood music. it's not exactly the same alarm tone as Val has set for her first alarm at 6, but you can bet that all dreams came to an abrupt end.  Maybe you've seen my glasses...I've got astigmatisms in each eye, can't see very well at all w/o my glasses. 

So her alarm went off, instantly I knew that I was late.  I set my alarm for 5, normally I hit the snooze once or twice, then get up.  I shower, sometimes I even shave.  I get dressed, make some breakfast and coffee and check in on FB.  That's not what happened today.   My alarm didn't go off, or if it did, I turned it off, I have no memory of hearing it.  Val uses her phone as her alarm clock, sets one for 6, one for 615 and one for 630.  Yeah, kinda weird....but effective.  That trumpet blasted reveille, I shot out of bed, grabbed my glasses, hauled ass down the stairs.  I saw the time, 6:02 after my bathroom pit stop...decision time...do I call in or not?  I could call, say "hey, dude, I'm on the way, but running a bit late...can you get it going for me?"  I calculated drive time:  10 minutes.  Not going to call.  I was out the door in about 5 minutes, I even grabbed my coffee, my book, made sure I had my phone and wallet, was very happy to see there was not any frost to scrape. 

Usually, traffic on Tuesday is the worst traffic all week.  Today's trip in was ok, hit some red lights, but right at the end of the red.  You know how it is, get up there right before it turns green.  Just enough red light to irritate you.

What's the point to this post?  Just bragging, I guess.  I can go from bed to work in 16 minutes.  Of course, that means I have had no breakfast yet, but I get a short break at 730 at Kwik Trip.  Different industries have different rules/needs/expectations.  If you're a paint delivery guy, it's not too critical to be on time.  If you're a secretary at Mayo, a few minutes here or there won't affect much.  Bus driver?  Pretty important to be on time.  There's 45 kids heading out the door to wait for me to pick them up starting at 640.  By 652, I've got them on the bus and heading for school.

So this will be as boring as Mr Ness' speech class or that blonde twit's health class for those of you that don't live here and ride motorcycles, but hey....you can't have everything (where would you put it?) and eat your cake too.

Friday night (last night) I wanted to go for a short ride to make sure no parts would fall off my newly repaired bike.  Most people would ride by solo, as to not endanger others....but I decided to join the CMA club instead....because I knew that some of them were paramedics and they're plenty religious so if I crashed and died I'd get lots of prayers.  Plus turns out one of them pretends to be a mechanic, but I didn't know that before I went...

The top pic is what the bike looked like before I took it apart, and the bottom pic is what it looked like apart.  Fun stuff.

If you're curious, I serviced the steering head bearings, they go in that black tube in the bottom pic, the left side in the middle.  I put on a new front tire, and front brakes.  And now it looks like the top pic again.

So...the CMA.  Christian Motorcycle Assoc.  They ride every Friday evening, meeting at 6:30, riding somewhere and then coming home.  Nice people.  Very, very nice people....which you'd hope to expect to find in a religious group, right?  Note:  even though they're nice, they don't hesitate to "take the piss out of a guy"; which is an Andy McNab way of saying "pick on" "heckle" "rib" "poke fun at".

Here's an example.  There is a guy, Bob, that rides an older GoldWing with a Voyageur trike kit. He also has a hole in the base of his throat, and uses a gizmo thingy to talk.  At DQ, Bob got a shake and had a tremendously hard time getting the lid off.  And he also forgot to get a straw.  So when he went to get a straw, someone put the lid back on.  And then a while later, the guy across the aisle fumbled around with his lid and asked Bob for help to get his lid off.  It was pretty funny....you should have been there.

Decent enough route for a short ride, 63 to Hammond, on to Millville, 4 to 60 to 2 to Plainview to DQ, south to 2 to Rochester.  Uncle Google will help you with that, if you want to see the route., just google Hammond, MN and you can see the roads once you get the zoom set right.

The problem was:  they too slow!  I was bored, practically to tears...I was yawning so much.  Next time I'll take my mp3 player and make sure I'm ahead of Bob, he was all over the road, way over the center line, onto the shoulder kicking up rocks....someone should knock that fucker in the ditch.  I might have, but he said that he likes the sound of my bike....which is something that I can't take any credit for.

Some of the passengers were talking about all the deer that they saw...I didn't see any.  I did see a dead bird, a dead racoon and hit a bug with my forehead when he flew into my helmet.  I saw some cows, some horses, some eagles, a redwing black bird, and some redneck people.  It was a good ride, and I'll join them again.

More Sheridan Egg:

Lucky for me the dump was downtown, next to the grocery store, which stayed open past our break, which was dinner time for me.  I think I bought my dinner there every night I worked there.  BTW, that was approx 730pm.  I'm quite sure the stepmonster never provided anything for my dinner.

First night:  show up for what amounted to orientation, if I recall correctly, they sort of showed me what to do and turned me loose.  Holy hell.  They don't start the new guy doing the easy work, they start the poor bastards doing the many tasks that I told you about.  About half way thru the 2nd half of the night, I was dying of thirsty, so I went to the water fountain and did my camel imitation.  The supervisors were sorta surprised that I came back.  My cousin Billy had not come back for entire night, big strong all state throwball player and wrestler/marine-to-be couldn't handle it.

That same spring, I had yanked the engine out of my old car and overhauled it.  At one point, grandpa and I were loading the block into the back of his pickup so I could take it to town to get Jim to use his ridge reamer on the cylinders (selfish bastard would not loan a tool!); Grandpa heaved when he should have stood still, because he pinched my right pinky between the block and the tractor.  This was shortly before graduation...and I remember this because the pinky nail turned that lovely shade of black and hurt like hell even during graduation...some guy was shaking my hand and I was being a wimp about it, he wanted a good hard squeeze, so I showed him my poor dead pinky nail and gave him a proper shake leftywise.

I told you that story to tell you this one.

I was working away in the egg dump, maybe I even graduated to flat loader from the shitty hump the boxes and flats and egg bucket task; I slid my hands down into the box to pull out the flats and the edge of that dead fingernail caught on box and peeled back.  What a funky f'n feeling, I guarantee! Put on a bandaid, but a few nights later finally just pulled it the rest of the way off.

Probably as early as the 2nd night, I took in a jug so I didn't have to make a trip to the water fountain, I kept it on top of the machine thingy.  At some point, one night, some dickhead  must have put an egg in it, I went to take a drink but found the lid to be loose, and when I looked in....it did not look right, so I figgered some smart turd had been up to shenanigans.

One time I wore a white Tshirt that I had worn whilst painting the barn with Steve and Grandpa, of course it had red paint on it.  One old dumbass was worried that it was still wet....he was sure that the USDA inspector would throw me out for wearing a shirt with wet blood on it.  Dude, don't assume.

Once while the "ladies" were cleaning up after a rotten egg incident, I was resting, apparently I was emulating a plumber, and a wiseass thought it'd be fun to pour some egg down my ass crack.

I worked there about 10 weeks, long enough to get pretty strong, long enough to get sick of burning egg smell, rotten egg smell, egg processing plant smell, etc.  The end came when we'd been putting up hay, mowing it in the very back of Grandpa's barn.  I was throwing the bales to the other guys, and my back rebelled.  I guess I wasn't as strong as I thought, huh?  Anyway, I called in sick a couple days, they said:  bring a doctor's note.  I didn't have one, so they sent me on my way.  Dumbasses.  I wasn't going to stay there a long time, anyway...had a church trip to Chicago coming up, moving to Phoenix coming up, so long Sheridan Egg.

As promised, my memoirs of the Sheridan Egg company.

I applied for the job while I was still in high school, they called in early June, 1987.  2nd shift, which paid 10 cents more per hour!!!  Remember, minimum wage was $3.35, back then.  Minimum wage has not increased much since then, but lots of places that used to pay it have given up on it, since you can't get decent help for that wage.

2nd shift was awful...4:00 or so until about 2am.  That's right, 10 hours.  I do not do well at night...more of a morning person I guess.  Here's the deal.  They would buy eggs and process them.  That means some poor sucker, (me, that first night and for many many more nights) would be on the end of the line, filling the line with cases of eggs.  This means opening cases of eggs, 30 dozen per case, putting them on a knee high bench.  The loader dude would pull the flats out of the box, putting them onto the conveyor.  My next task was to catch the empty flats, stack them, tie them for reuse.  That meant separating out any that had contained a broken egg.

It was kind of neat, the system of transferring the eggs from the flats to the washer conveyor, 30 rubber suction cups would pick up the eggs and swing over to the next belt thingy which rolled them thru the washer.  From there, they move over a bright light for candling.  There, the dude would pick out the rotten, the bloody, the broken shells, etc.  One old bastard insisted that the egg was sour if it had a big bubble in it.  I don't know.

My next task was to keep a bucket under the suction area which would catch the egg that came running out of the washer; sometimes the heat or pressure would break the egg.  Those shells would be hauled out to a farm somewhere, used as fertilizer.  The egg was strained out and used somewhere else, somehow.

The good boxes and good flats were reused, the bad boxes and dirty flats were burned.

So!  the eggs are candled and transfer onto a breaker, which I could only see thru the little window that the conveyor went thru.  A girl would sit there watching this spinning thing, hitting the levers for each egg, whole, yolk and white.  Not entirely sure what they'd do with it all, sell it to Betty Crocker, I think.

Sometimes we'd get lucky and the eggs would come in on plastic flats and steel wheeled racks instead of in boxes and on pallets.  Much less work involved with the plastic...the eggs were cleaner, hardly ever any broken, and of course no boxes to open and unload.  Sometimes a suction hose would plug, causing all sorts of hell/havoc to occur with the flat stacking.  :(  Just imagine an egg remaining in the flat...they don't stack well.

All for now...I'll be back with the good stuff.  Just try to imagine the smell of this place.  

Pizza, the magical food that is a separate food group.

You can put anything on it as a topping, you can eat it any time of day, hot or cold....magical!  Wash it down with pop, lemonade, beer, coffee, tea, milk, even yak blood makes a good beverage when eating pizza....magical!

So....why don't I like it?  I do like pizza; or perhaps most accurately I don't dislike it.  But I don't love it like some people.  Jerry, Bekke, and Val for example.  I think they could eat it morning, noon and night every day.

Let's dissect a pizza, shall we?
Crust:  thin and crispy, double dough, pan, rolled/stuffed crust chicago, new york, wood fired.

Sauce:  red or white, sweet or spicy, herby or not.

Toppings:  too many to list

Cheese:  any

Cooking method:  heat!  grill, oven, etc.

Sounds good, right?  Bread, sauce, meat, cheese=sandwich.

For me, I think it's finding the right blend of crust thickness, sauce spiciness, (don't like sweet sauce), the right toppings and not too much cheese.  (gets slimy)

Val got my half as meat lovers of supreme or something similar.  Her half was most likely ham and mushroom.  Tombstone it'd be hamburger.

Here's the thing.  It comes rocket hot, I always burn all the skin off the roof of my mouth.  It's messy....either some sauce squirts out or some grease from all that meat, or some cheese will slide off, or even the entire load of toppings will slide off onto my shirt.  Then I forget to treat the stain, and it gets set in the shirt and then I have to wear a stained shirt for the next 12 years.

I quit my first job at the Junction Cafe to work at Buddy's cafe, which is where Dell's cafe was...he put in a pizza oven and hired me to take the place of some dumb kid that was going to move to CA.  I took a 50cent/hour raise to be cook part of the time and wash dishes part of the time.  But the cheap bastard wouldn't put in a new water heater, so you couldn't wash the dishes quickly and get them all done, you had to kind of space them out so the water heater could keep up.  One week he tells me:  you're the best dude ever, learning all this...blah blah blah.  The next week he tells me:  we've got to let you go, you're putting too many toppings on the pizza.  And then I find out that dumb kid decided to not go to CA after all, and they liked him better.  It's ok, I didn't much like working there, either.

Maybe I'll tell you about my job during the summer of 87, working at the Sheridan Egg Co.  If you're lucky.

A year has passed, been pounding on this bloggy thing for an entire year.  Happy birthday, dear bloggy audience, raise yer hand if you've been with me the entire time.  Yeah, ok, good.  You can put your hand down now, as if I can see you thru the cable modem thing.  duh.

I must get some good therapy out of it, since I'm willing to keep it going.  Maybe I'm addicted to revealing my goofy thoughts to you.  Remember when I was doing the Val updates?  Several people suggested I put them into a book.  Or maybe they were suggesting I write a book.  Who would pay for this, though??? Clearly none of you have sent a contribution...even when my keyboard was not working right and I had to get a new one, no one sent $20 to replace it, no one sent a WallyMart gift card with a note:  "that missing N is killing me, please use this to get a new keyboard, you bloggy bastard!"

I suspect if Uncle Google decided to make everyone pay to use the site, everyone would say "F You, Uncle Goo, I'll go somewhere else for my daily dose of gibberish."  I know this to be true, you see....we've changed forums with my riding club and half of the former members won't take the 5 minutes to fill out a 2 free forms so they can continue to be a part of the best mc riding club in the county.  Hell, some of you people won't take 3 minutes to fill out a form so that you can post comments.  And some of you, like Sheila, for example, has filled out the form, all she has to do is log in.  It's ok, though, since she will post her comments on the FB page thingy.

And now, let's discuss inaccurate phrases.  You know...those phrases that people say that SEEM to mean something, but actually mean something else.

I slept like a baby last night.  So you mean to say that you woke up every couple hours screaming, crying, wetting and crapping the bed?

Worked like a dog.  This means you spent the day sleeping on the couch, sleeping on the floor, sleeping on the bed, peeing on a tree, sleeping in the sun, sleeping in the shade, crapping on the grass, sleeping some more, until it's time to go for a 20 minute walk.

Soft as a baby's bottom.  I don't have any experience with a baby's bottom.  I know what comes out of them, and I don't want anything to do with it or them.  I did, however, once give a massage to an 18 year old girl.  Her bottom was indeed soft.  And smooth.

This would be a perfect time for a lotion, moisturizer  and sunscreen commercial, don't you think?

Drunk as a sailor.  Like every industry, sailors on duty are not allowed alcohol.  Except the captain of the ship, and they're not supposed to be drunk ever!  But, as we know, the bastards don't follow that, do they!  Pirates, don't follow the no drinking, so it'd be much more fun to be a pirate.  Booty, Swag, Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.  Peg legs, eyepatch, hook for a hand....

Why did the chicken cross the road.  No one knows, and not too many chickens are running around loose, except on Kuaui.  The better question is:  why does the squirrel cross the road?  If you could trap the bastard and ask him, I bet he won't remember.  Talk about enjoying every minute of insanity and ADHD....those fuckers run around all the time.

This could rapidly deteriorate into stoked, blast, sick, etc.  Been there, done that, wearing a thrift store T shirt.  Speaking of deteriorate....have you seen the side of my pickup lately?  Holy Rusty bucket.  It has a sticker on the thing, says:  Northland edition, which clearly means nothing, because it was not given any more rust proofing than the desertland edition.  

We have dog years, leap years, how about vehicle years?  hmmmmmmmmmm

Most of the winter and all of this spring I've been watching a dead deer.  No, I didn't expect her to jump up and do a dance while wearing tight shiny pants, (like a pirate of Penzance)

I guess I've just been watching it dehydrate.  Most of the time, a dead deer will be eaten...we've all seen a dozen crows dive bombing a squished caterpillar during rush hour on the interstate, right? The black bastards will fly in, grab a bite and either hop off to the side as you approach, or fly away, just barely missing being made into road kill himself.

I have not gotten out to inspect this dead deer, I just glance at it and notice that it is shrinking.  I don't see any evidence of anything eating this damn thing.  Maybe it is too far off the road?  No, I watched a different dead deer totally disappear, and it was well off the road.  That was kind of neat, watching first a small hole appear and the guts disappear, watching the leg bones materialize from the brown then red coverings, seeing the rib bones gleaming in the sun, then the leg bones vanishing during the night.  Who stole the leg bones, a dog?  A fox? A coyote?  A wolf???  Probably not a wolf.

One morning as I was driving the bus towards school, I observed 2 bald eagles perched on a dead deer, enjoying some breakfast.  Or maybe it was lunch...with eagles, you never can tell.  You sure can't ask them, either.  Have you ever tried to get a simple questioned answered by a bald eagle?  Honestly, I bet none of you constant readers have ever gotten a letter or email, or even a text message from one of those bald bastards.  They're not really bald, either, like a vulture is, they're just mocking the people that are bald.  That'd piss me off, so it's good that I'm not bald yet.

One haircut girl assured me that I would not go bald, either....I assume she was trying to get a better tip.  Here's a tip for you, haircut girl....to get a better tip from me, you have to get those boobs displayed a little more prominently.  Or rub your thighs on my arm.  That might do it, might not.  Depends on the legs.  OH, a ZZTop song.  Distractions.  Maybe I do have that ADD thing. I am not hyperactive, that's for damn sure.

Here's a linky all you need to know about vultures.  Learn something every day, that's my motto.  That and insult someone, or even better:  irritate a liberal.  Just in case you're a lazy bastard and can't be bothered to clicky the linky, here's a paragraph as to exactly why they have a bald head.  No, it's not a solar panel for a sex machine.

There is an important purpose to the vulture's bald head.  When the vulture is eating carrion, it must often stick its head inside the carcass to reach the meat. A feathery head would capture unwanted pieces of the vulture's meal (just like food can stick in men's beards), along with all the bacteria such pieces would host. The bald head, ultimately, is a matter of hygiene for vultures.


5 or 6 pounds is all that a healthy adult vulture weighs.  And if you want to know the difference between vultures and buzzards, you have to read the web site linky I've so generously provided.


Honestly, I expected to not see that deer after the first snowstorm after it was killed there at that intersection.  I figgered that the snow plow would blast it into the middle of the ditch or that someone would pick it up and haul it away, like they did on Dirty Jobs.


And that reminds me:  One fine warm day I was driving the bus home from school, came back down a culdesac, stopped at the stop sign.  There was a car on the other side that was not there when I went up the culdesac, and the driver was getting out.  I paused to see what he was going to do.  He walked down the road a short distance to where there was a dead opossum.  He bent over, picked it up by the hair, carried it off the road and into the ditch.  The kids looked to see why we weren't going, and watched this occur.  The girls really groaned/squeaked/whatever when he wiped his hands on his pants, which prompted me to say:  "Imagine what you'd have thought/done if he'd licked his fingers".  


This pretty well sums up my dead deer bloggy episode.  Check back to see if I've added more.

I hugged a tree and I liked it
the bark was rough, there were some bugs and my shirt got dirty
I hugged a tree and I liked it
it scratched my cheek, snagged my pants and then I fell down


It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I hugged a tree and I liked it
I liked it

Ok, there you go.  Clearly none of you people were going to write any lyrics for me.  Yeah, I'm not above plagiarism....it's based from a  Katy Perry song and while she's not a Latvian pole dancer, fellers, I'm pretty sure she'll command some attention.

I know what you're thinking.  Listening to prancy girl music, hugging trees, making soap...But I assure you, that even though I have some pink shirts and even have some pink-ish underwear...my tasseled loafers are not even close to being light.

Soap? kind of a new agey thing to be making, isn't it?  Perhaps.  Once upon a time I thought I could make some money at it.  After all, lots of other people make and sell soap, they get a buck per ounce for it.  It hardly costs a buck a pound to make...not sure what the justification is on the price....you can make a huge amount per batch, maybe they're trying to make up for the trial and error batches that they made.

I've had a few of those, too.  Once I made some soap from peanut oil, and nothing else.  It never really got hard, and let me tell you about the temptation I have to make a joke about Hugh Hefner's dick.  Not that I have any solid information about it, but....the dude is old...and we've all seen the ads for erectile dysfunction.  How many of those ads do you get in your spam email folder?  Yeah...I don't count them, either.  In the spirit of education and clarification, not to mention taking up another line of the blog, I looked at a viagra email.  They guarantee delivery, but they don't  promise that it'll work.  And they boast that they have 35,000+ satisfied customers.  I wonder if that means 17,500 couples or 12,000 3-somes, or 35,000+ inmates and introverts are able to sport wood again?

We saw a comedian talk about the 4 hour erection side effect....that was pretty funny.  Can you imagine trying to sleep that off?  Try to roll over, it'd be like having a kick stand.

What the hell, we're talking about soap here, quit asking questions, you distract me.  I put some green colour in that peanut oil soap, and some minty fragrance.  I think the problem was that the oil was used....I'd used it to cook a turkey and then was re using it to make soap.  So I took a cheese grater and grated it, tried to remelt it, and finally just stirred it into some fresh new soap.  I've done that a lot, over the years, grind up scraps of soaps and mix into the new soapy goodness.

Some of the best soap I made was with coffee, called a kitchen soap.  Supposedly the coffee (and it has coffee grounds in it) adds some abrasion to remove dirt, as well as removing odors from your hands.  Smells like onion, or dead fish, garlic, for example.  It's called KITCHEN soap, not bathroom soap.  I bought some pumice to make a LAVA like soap when I run out of the kitchen/coffee soap.

One batch of soap, and it was really just a very small test turned out smelling just like sugar cookies.  Never could replicate that again.  :(  Kind of like "best ever bread".

Today's recipe:

1 pound palm oil
2 pounds coconut oil
2 pounds peanut oil
30 oz water
12 oz lye
essential oil to flavor

Soap Bar Quality Suggested Range Your Recipe Hardness 29 - 54 46 Cleansing 12 - 22 27 Conditioning 44 - 69 47 Bubbly 14 - 46 27 Creamy 16 - 48 19 Iodine 41 - 70 51 INS 136 - 165 172

Lauric 19 Myristic 8 Palmitic 16 Stearic 3 Ricinoleic 0 Oleic 33 Linoleic 13 Linolenic 0

The above is copied from a soap recipe calculator;  you can see that it's in the range of everything except for "cleansing" and conditioning is a little low.  It'll be a little drying, probably, but not too bad.  I don't know what INS is, except that unlike our president, I'm a  natural born citizen and I don't have to worry about being deported.   We could take time out from making soap to talk about that bastard, but I don't really want to.  Here's a linky for the calculator, just in case you're interested, and I know you're interested in every little thing that I do.  What is wrong with you?  j/k....you're perfect just the way you are.

Flavor?  I mixed some orange, grapefruit, bergamot, lavender, tea tree, together; I was out of bay.  I think I'll make another batch, make it minty.

Maybe you're looking at the recipe wondering how to make it work.  It's pretty simple, although if I get much more clumsy, I may have to give it up.  Ok, if I'd spend a month cleaning up the damn basement, it'd be a lot easier.  Here's how you do it.

Melt the solid fats, and then add the liquid fat.  In a separate bowl, add the lye to the water, a little at a time, stirring with something wooden.  It will get HOT.  I once used hot coffee with the lye...nearly had a catastrophe. Yes, it boiled.  Very quickly.  Almost scared me.  Lye is some scary stuff...if some gets on the skin, it's best to brush it off, not wash it off...although once it is brushed off it should be washed off, and thoroughly.  One grain got on my thumb today and started burning...but since I'm in the basement, there's lots of water available.  When the oil and the lye mixture are about the same temp, less than 120, ideally, or something like that, stir them together.  Then stir frequently until the soap shows "trace", then you can pour it into the mould.  I built a wooden box and line it with plastic, sometimes I use a small tray that came with the freezer, I was going to pour some into the plastic boxes that Crystal Light comes in;  Val likes a more oval shape for soap.  She's pesky.

You can't get lye just anywhere, any more.  Some hardware stores still carry it as a drain cleaner, be very careful when you buy it, make sure it is lye and only lye. NaOH is what you want.  KOH is what you use if you want to make liquid soap or shampoo, I suppose.  (BTW, lye is the only drain cleaner that works.)  You do not want this crap in your eyes or on your skin, it attracts water, so it would be esp happy in your eye.  Holy hell, I can't imagine the burn.  I bet you'd forget all about that burning sensation you have when you pee.  I said YOU, not me.  2 years ago I bought some lye from someone in NY called The Lye Guy, the price was pretty good, even with shipping.  However, this stuff pulls water in so well, that it's clumped up in the container.  This stuff is so powerful, that I won't reuse the containers.  For anything.  Ever.  Just in case.  I'll throw the fuckers into the recycling box, though, let them sort it out.

Trace is the thickening of the mixture, to where you see the swirl left in the mix from the stirring implement.  Sometimes this takes a long time, sometimes a short time.  Sometimes I've gotten tired of stirring and pour it into the mould  and forget about it for 6 weeks.  It always works.  Today, I stirred it together, went to prepare the smelly stuff, came back a few minutes later...it was already pretty thick.  Weird.  I don't know if sometimes I don't the math right or the measuring/weighing isn't accurate...won't know if it's good till it's ready.  There's a scientific test to determine readiness...simply touch the tip of yer tongue to the soap....if it feels like you've touched yer tongue to a 9 volt battery, it's not ready.

I once saw a guy put his tongue to what LOOKED like a 9 volt, except it was 22 volts.  He was driving at the time, and it rather startled him.  But if you just get a nice soapy taste on the tip of yer tongue, the soap is ready!  I generally cut it long before I use it; it gets too hard to cut...Oh, what do I used to cut my soap?  Nice of you to ask.  I built a soap cutter, from some 2x4s, a wide board, some maple scraps, a bolt, some wire, some screws.  Drilling a hole in a 3/8 bolt and finding piano wire was the most difficult task.  Yeah, I could have bought a whole spool of the stuff, but I only wanted a foot!  Turns out that welding wire works too.  If I did it over again, I'd not make it infinitely adjustable, I'd just have it set for one thickness.  If you want a pic of this thing, I could take one.

Why make soap?  it's kind of fun, it's nice to be somewhat self sufficient, it's good to have real soap, instead of an over processed detergent, full of chemicals and poisons.  I can make it out of almost whatever I want, flavor it or colour it however I want. That pretty well sums it up...but feel free to ask Uncle Google for his opinion....there's a website out there called treehugger that has some opinions that are similar to mine, and written out a little better...hard to believe, I know.

Let me know if you make some soap, if you're successful, if you fail...so I can laugh at you.

what the hell is "swag"?   I suppose uncle google will tell me, if I'm lucky.  I keep seeing "swag" being used on the FB thingy, here's today's example:

The Busted Knuckle Garage

While everyone is writing captions and gathering likes to win the BKG Give-away swag on Monday I came across this article that just doesn't seem right.

The concept of a car that drives itself is thrilling to some, disquieting to others. But it's no longer preposterous.

By the middle years of this decade, several auto makers could offer technology to make vehicles capable of piloting themselves under certain conditions without the direct participation of the driver.

My guess is that it means "crap", "stuff", "junk", "merchandise" and this "swag" thing is some new clever way to say it.  Here's what google has to say about it.  

swag/swag/

Noun:	An ornamental festoon of flowers, fruit, and greenery: "ribbon-tied swags of flowers".
Verb:	Arrange in or decorate with a swag or swags of fabric.
Synonyms:	noun.  loot - booty - spoil - prey - plunder verb.  swing

Good evening, my name is Mick and I hugged a tree today.  The tree was not sad, injured, or depressed; quite the contrary, it is alive and doing fine.  You see....I'm a cheap bastard; we've relied on that old elm tree to shade our house from the afternoon sun the entire time we've lived here.  (since 1994, for those of you new to our friendship)


Pretty sure the tree was planted when the house was built, 1950, and I'll tell you why I think that.  The house is located near the forecourt of Dr Gram's belgian draft horse barn.  He had some pretty special horses and built a special barn for them.  I rather doubt that there were 3 elm trees all in a neat short row....


Uncle Google is being a bastard and not finding anything.


When we moved in, there were 2 elms and one stump in the middle, so that's how I knew there were 3.  Then one died and I played lumberjack and cut it down, only ruining a perfectly good chainsaw in the process.  Ok, only the bar was ruined, but since the bar is a pretty important part and they were no longer available....that tree measured 24" across the trunk.  I did not grind up the stump, but I cut it flush with the dirt and then used the chainsaw as a plunge router, cut some kerfs/slots into it.  Then I'd water it every time I had the hose out; my theory being that the wetter I could keep it, the faster it'd rot.  Eventually I was rewarded with a hole in my yard which was too happy to trip me and twist my ankle as I mowed the grass.


The trunk of this remaining tree is enormous.  I can't get my arms around it.  I suppose as a conservative feller I should be against hugging trees.  I talk to them, too, though, in an unabashed unashamed fashion.  HOWEVER, I don't think that the tree hears me, or feels my hug, but I've been wrong before, and I'm willing to err on the side of caution when it comes to shading my whole house.  I'm sure that tree saves me several dollars a year....keeping the A/C from running. 


Several years ago I planted a maple tree fairly near the elm.  Thinking that someday that elm is going to die, either from dutch elm disease or the tree trimmers are going to get a little carried away and kill it.  The maple will zoom up and also shade the whole house, as soon as the elm is out of the way.  I did take a limb off the elm once, to give it a little more sunshine.  The maple has not had an easy life; it's first winter a rabbit ate it.  I didn't panic, and my patience has been rewarded.  The maple came back right away that spring and is now about as tall as the house.  No, I did not stake it.  See the bloggy post from last spring to see my thoughts on staking a tree.


 I've planted a total of 6 trees here, but only 5 are alive.  In '95, I bought 2 red maples and put them in the front yard.  The runty one did not survive, and was replaced with an ash that sprouted in my rain gutters.  I did tie it one night, it was covered with seeds and when the rain it, the tree bent way over.  So I took a rope and tied it to something to make sure it did not break.  Somehow the tree grew tall and skinny....Showing off, I suppose.


We've talked of the maple, but I planted another maple in 06.  Val mowed it off that next spring, and it has thrived since.  Last year was it's best year, going from 7' to at least 12.  And I planted an elm that sprouted in the gutter, don't remember what year....and it's really done well.  Probably 30' tall, a nice sturdy tree.  There's been a locust sprout in the yard a couple times, and I've always wanted to let it grow, but they always come up too close to the sidewalk.


While I've got your attention, while you're perched on the edge of your seat, reading each and every word, drooling down your chin waiting for more, you're practically begging for sex, drugs, rock and roll, scandal, gossip and farts, but there really isn't any of that crap today. 


What there is, is a song.  Set to that weird goofy song sung by that girl.


I hugged a tree and I liked it
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah


yeah, well....I'm not a song writer.  If you can do better, post it in a comment.

by now, you must have realized that I'm a goofy bastard.  I've been this way most of my life.  I doubt that I'm going to change anything other than my clothes, so either get used to it or go away. Maybe you remember a few weeks ago I posted on the FB thingy something like:  took sloppy gloppy to a new level today.

What the hell is sloppy gloppy!  No one asked on the FB page what it was or what I meant.  Perhaps they were afraid.

Dad would occasionally cook it when Mom was not home.  It usually consisted of a pound of hamburger and some other stuff, it was usually reddish coloured, and it tasted pretty good.

My version:  take leftovers from fridge, dump into a pot.  Apply heat and cans of stuff to make palatable.  I don't remember what it was that I put together that day, but this is what I had for lunch today.

Oh, hell, who am I kidding.  I don't remember what was in there, either.

The base might have been white rice, can o'corn, can o'pinto beans, can'o'manwich, can o'diced tomatoes and chilies.  Next day I added some................thing that was protein.  and maybe a spoonful of peanut butter.  Or maybe it was sour cream.  What's the difference!

The next day I added left over macNcheese.  The next day I cooked some "pork cutlets" and added them to it.  That might have been the end of that batch.  weird, huh?  Good for getting rid of left overs...because I could have added fried rice or some shrimp or scallops, or fish, or hamburger helper or a OH YEAH!

I remember what I added that first next day.  I cooked a pound of "mechanically separated chicken a/k/a pink chicken slime.  It was good, and only $2/lb.

You can put anything in sloppy gloppy that is fit to eat.  Of course that means that these items will never come into contact with batch of SG:

• beets
• cabbage
• Brussels sprouts
• green beans
• hominy

I'm sure there are more items that are not fit to eat, in my opinion, of course, because it is my blog and I'm the only one sharing an opinion.  And you!  You are willing to sit there and absorb it.  What is your problem, anyway, do you need a therapist?  The dumbass I rented space from for 3 years liked to take that word apart, called me  massage the rapist.  I said he was a dumbass...and shortly after I left there, he went out of business.  HAHA dumbass.

Of course, most people that I call dumbass are not dumb at all, figure out for yourself if he was or not.

Stay tuned for a bloggy post about me hugging a tree.

Poke 'em in the morning, poke 'em in the evening, poke 'em at suppertime....

And now, a word from our sponsors:  Pink Slime!

Eat more lean finely textured beef!  Why?  Because you've been eating it for years and you  can't tell the difference anyway!  Seriously, friends, do you want the price of hamburger, hotdogs, and canned chili to skyrocket?  Demanding that this lean finely textured beef be taken out of the grocery stores and out of the fast food stores is going to increase prices as well as unemployment.  It's good and good for you!  But wait, there's more!

Eat more "ground chicken" otherwise known as mechanically separated chicken!  Pigs everywhere will thank you!

Facebook pokes, demystified.  First, a question:  What the hell is wrong with you people that you're looking to ME for guidance?  My qualifications:  none.  My experience:  one brother, one sister, one gold station wagon.  2 smokers in the front seat.  I usually sat on the left behind Dad, Susie in the middle and Steve on the right.  Not sure how that worked itself out....other than since Susie was youngest...

Another question:  why is it that when I ask for comments or feedback I get none?  Maybe I should add this at the end of the bloggy thing:  I don't want to hear another word from you little bastards!

Maybe that will get you to answer my questions.

Pokes.  Pokes are different things to different people.  A friend, commonly referred to in bloggy land as Bertha, asked:  What's the deal with pokes?  Turns out that guys that she does not know were visiting her page and poking her. That, friends, is a lame method of flirting.

Sometimes I read about a friend being involved in a poking frenzy.  If I am able to determine who is doing the poking, often I will join the fray, even though I may or may not know who they are.

Once upon a time in a FB-land far far away, (MO) a friend had the same sort of query as Bertha (who does not look like you might imagine a Bertha to look, BTW.) and one of her friends commented about how utterly stupid it was that pokes were even available.  So I promptly went to her page and poked her.  About 5 days in a row.  Why?  I don't know why.  Because I'm immature?  Because I can?  Because it's free?  Because it is likely to irritate her?  Ah, now we're getting somewhere.  She finds it irritating, some find it to be funny, you know, like a friend poking another in the eye with a stick.

And I'm sure some find it to be sexual.  It must be quite a thrill to see on the FB page:  Mick King has poked you.  or perhaps it's not. (you'll notice that I don't have any friends named "bubba")  After all, Val quit poking me several months ago.  Hmmmmmmmm.  Let's explore this a little while, shall we?  And how does that make you feel, Mr King?  Makes me wonder if she can't find it under the little gear looking thingy in the top right corner, actually.  (she is blonde, you know)

It's a quick way to let a friend know that you're thinking of them.  Actually this FB thing is good for that.  Good for reconnecting with long lost friends.

Speaking of an old friend...this came on the radio just now  Music from 1987, which is about the last time I saw my newest FB friend, Tonya.  I knew her for a 6 week spell in one summer, or maybe 2.  Fun stuff.

Back to the pokes.  Here's a quote from a poking friend:  Lisa wrote: "nothing like a great poke before bed, sure helps you sleep at night....LOL"  

Got this pic from a different friend today.  Seems timely and appropriate.  

Bertha's friend and neighbor wants to know why I poke.  There's not a hug button.  There's not a high 5 button, there's not a pat on the back button.   That's pretty much it.  I really don't pretend I'm having sex with the pokee, even during a 6 way poke fest.  Too old and too fat for that crap, too married as well.

Stay tuned for a word from our other sponsor:  

It chops, it slices, it dices it does much much more...............it's so sharp it'll slice off your finger if you're not careful!

[mute]

[unmute]

I used to dream about a 6 way poke fest, back before a couple of my prospective girlfriends decided that they were lesbians.  Actually, that's not true at all.  

To summarize:

• fantasy
• flirting
• indication of thinking of you
• irritation
• fun and frivolity
• relive youth

If this does not clear things up for you, conduct your own experiment.

Look, friends....I still have my keyboard.  Perhaps I should explain the circumstances of this last week:  Instead of driving my school bus, I was in a shuttle bus, transporting adults...and the driver's seat puts my head about ass level.  My windshield afforded a view of everything in front of me, thankfully the view was interesting.  I drove from 4-9am and again from 2-6 pm.  I was able to take the bus home 4 out of the 5 days, thus saving lots of time and gas.  Therefore, I needed lots of coffee, naps and interesting scenery to keep me awake and alert...not to mention pleasant and cheerful.  I did come up with a positive spin:  after a week of getting up at 3 to work at 4, getting up at 5 to work at 6 should be easy and delightful...so long as nobody pukes.

I can drive along, and mentally compose the most beautiful and eloquent bloggy posts, but when I get home and start banging away on this damn thing...I forget almost everything that I thought I'd write.  I take some notes, but I still forget stuff.  It really annoys me, and I'm starting to think I've had a brain injury.

I have several scars on my forehead from falls as a kid, perhaps I'm brain damaged.  It would explain so much:  why I can't think of what I want to be when I grow up, why my grades weren't too good in school, why when I go to read the directions of nearly anything my eyes glaze over, even though I allegedly supposedly had good reading comprehension in school.  It would explain why I can't explain how things work, even though I understand how it works.  I can't figure out new software or new hardware without a huge struggle, this is why I'm resistant to getting a magical map thingy, a "smart" phone, eyepods/eyetunes, and that goofy little computer thingy we bought which I can't make work.  Sometimes I don't remember conversations, I can't think of words, names, etc.  I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm a retard.

You know how facebook is always changing....well, Google bloggy thing has changed formats too.  Do you hear/read any complaining about it?  Now I can put on a post title, if I should think of a clever title.  Good luck with that one.

Some of you will remember a year ago, my Princess had a hip replaced...and that is what started this bloggy thing; after writing a couple dozen email updates, you begged and pleaded until I relented and agreed to continue the onslaught upon your eyes.  Here's that first surgery update:

In the event that you live under a rock and are not on Facebook, here's the updates that you've been missing.  Those of you lucky enough to have known us for a long time, you're either happy to see this missive or rolling your eyes and already spitting. 

On Friday, Val was told that there were 2 patients, and that she was first.  Instructions said to call on Sunday night after 8:30 for the official time to arrive.  9:30?  WTF?  That means that someone had a bad weekend, and needs emergency surgery.  I drop Val off about 9:30 and go to park (which means I took the car home and grabbed the motorcycle so I could park it free in the motorcycle parking area.  This was not an option in 2003 due to a couple of factors: 

1. it was February
2. we didn't have motorcycles

So now we have motorcycles, and a whole bunch of new friends because of that.  Wonderful!

At some point, someone came by, and said pretty much nothing.  I said:  "about how long before she goes on down for the real fun?"  Dunno, waiting for an OR.  Great.  Finally at noon a smurf shows up with a wagon and hauled her away to sit all alone, pre-op, they call it.

I should mention that this keyboard has no wrist wrest, so I'm risking carpal tunnel syndrome to keep you  informed.  You can show your appreciation with a hotdish or bourbon or cookies, or lawn mowing, if the grass ever turns green.

Ok, they took her at noon, so I went to lunch.  Nothing too exciting, should have gone home, actually, there are cookies at home.  I then went across the street to Fivebucks, found a chair under a speaker and took a nap, glad I had worn a hat to shade my eyes, because there was a 1,000,000 candlepower spotlight focused on that chair, as well.

If you're on the facebook thing, you may have seen the updates from 2:00 on, but I may insert some new drivel, so tune out at your own risk.  Went on a scouting mission, I already knew the waiting room on floor 2 was uncomfortable, with vinyl chairs and instant coffee, so I went to 8, that little room was packed, so on up to 9....much nicer....2 computers, one with the Decorah eagles on it, and one free.  There are recliners, puzzles, chatty old women, a view north of a concrete mixing facility;  I can see Taco Bell, so that means that I can probably see Tony and Patty's house.  so, I sat here, emailing and facebooking a bit, until I decided that they were not going to call....I went back to floor 2 to check in at the desk.  They finished construction on the OR, moved her in at 2:29 and THIS JUST IN, started surgery at 3:10.  They told us it'd be at least a 2 hour surgery, so stay tuned.

She'll be in room 9210, Methodist/Eisenberg hosp, phone of 507-287-5411.  Don't call till Tuesday afternoon, because she's not going to be phone worthy till then.  I doubt she'll sleep 2 winks tonight; they told us that they'd be poking and prodding her all night.

If you don't want these updates, reply in some sort of fashion, and I'll remove you from the list, and depending on the fashion, from my address book.  I know that there are some duplicates, yahoo just showed your name and not which email was attached to it....let me know which one you want removed.

For those of you clear out of the loop....Val has had/is having total hip replacement, degenerative arthritis ate it up in about a year.

Val just had a checkup on Friday, all is well in hipland.  But here's a pic anyway (yes, I stole it from facebook):

If you want, I could post the rest of them, or search thru them to see if any are worth reposting.  Someone said I should publish them into a book, but really....who would buy it?  

This bloggy episode is the one that will probably get me killed, beaten, or worse:  my keyboard may get taken away.  It seems easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission...but I'm probably wrong about that.  I'm sure that I'll be corrected...but hey, if I wind up in the hospital, please visit and do wear your yoga pants.

Let me say this before I get too involved with the main subject:  I found a penny and picked it up, but I did not get lucky today.  Yeah, Yeah, you say you're not interested in that, but you are.  Admit it.  Of course, you don't want to watch, you just want to hear about it.  And that is ok.  I did not have bad luck, but that's probably because I also found a dime.

So, after 4 days of intense scrutiny, I've noticed that lots of womens are wearing fancy embroidered ass jeans.  [disclaimer:  after I decided to do the research for the bloggy thing, I saw no more of these jeans, only plain]{sometimes research is fun, sometimes it is hard}

I was going to post some pics, but I'd either have to take some pictures, or pull them off the interwebs thingy, and it's hard to find a real picture, the shopping websites are kinda goofy.  If you have some pics of yer butt in fancy assed embroidered jeans, please send them to me, I'll post them on the bloggy thing.

To stave off boredom while driving in circles today, I let my imagination wander.  I'm thinking that a good way to make some money would be to create a calendar.....women of Mayo, wearing fancy assed embroidered jeans.  From what I've seen this week, there'd be no problem finding enough to fill a calendar; might be enough to do a weekly.

Some months (or weeks) the girls could be bent over pushing a gurney into a ambulance, they could be hanging off the side of a shuttle bus, weeding the tulip beds, the possibilities are endless.

Of course, maybe for those weeding girls, we should find some of those yoga pants and get the words LOVE MICK emblazoned on the rump.

Ladies:  do you buy/prefer the jeans with fancy pockets or do you prefer the plain boring style?  Why/why not?  Here's my thoughts:  I'm thinking that you womens like to have a little more decoration, "bling", so to speak.  Embroidery is just the start of the excitement...there's beads and shiny stuff, defies description.  The funny thing is that the girls that have these jeans, have a nice butt....of course, this could be due to the magic jeans.  I need to halfway retract that...the girl I saw with the beads/jewels/etc was too skinny to have a nice butt...she clearly had the fancy pants to make up for having a small butt.

I wonder if those that don't get the fancy assed jeans prefer to not have anything to act as a  distraction to the casual or professional observer who should be watching for the wriggle and the jiggle.  Of course, if you get them tight enough, there's no wriggle....or are you too cheap to get the fancy pants?