Water Under the Bridge

My Old School Dad who is wound like a Titleist 90 compression tour ball with a compound cover goes to another level when piloting his car. He flat out goes into a rage it is amazing. He just loses it. Okay, some observations: he is much more prone to rage when driving an American made automobile like the Pontiac Grand AM (yes the one from the Dad's back is out post). His newest car a four or eight year old Audi A4 (the choice of 14 year old figure skaters, hootchies and budget conscientious Italian men) does seem to relax him a bit. Here is my theory on the car manufacturer to rage ratio. The Pontiac Grand AM most likely has either a chemical that leaches from the real imitation naugahyde seats, dash and console or schmegma from the faux velour seats that rattles his brain's rationalization center. The result in effect opens up the NC17 portion of his subconscious and converts its contents to language before transmitting it out of his mouth as traffic events happen. Sort of a

Not sure about you but if this cacophony of noise about a crisis, meltdown, flood, tsunami, dire straits, teetering on the brink, collapse, all natural, depression era, unprecedented, global, massive scope, foreclosurization, all time high, all time low, wall street to main street, pals with terrorists, dangerous, precipice, liberal, erratic, tax and spend crap about real estate investment instruments, politics, world markets what the American people are really feeling doesn't subside, I am going to unplug. Since my social circle is not Main Street, it is more of an Avenue off Main street with really nice homes and a lot of type A folks who worry more about earnings announcements then the rest of the world, I am beginning to hear a steady stream of exhaustion creeping into conversations. Now keep in mind these are people who can work 60 hours a week, talk intelligently about red wine, afford to have their yard maintained, micro-manage their kids, eat Zoloft as a food supplement, an

Really old school. In fact he defines the last great generation of people who suffered in silence, SSRI inhibitor free, and aspirin is for whimps generation. Drug a kid in school to get him to pay attention? He will have none of that. Sit them down, tie them to the chair (alas no duct tape in his youth). He is proud, hard working and is a lifelong Republican because "those liberals will ruin the country." He says a friend who knows a key operative in the party has proof in the form of photos that Hillary is a lesbian. He also thinks Bill Clinton has super powers that make women take off their clothes which is damnable. So he hates him. However this year he says he will vote for Obama because GWB has "redefined the worst parts of our party and the next generation will suffer." We will see, my take is he will say one thing and do another (vote the party line). As the baby boomer generation gets up there in years our parents begin to slide into what I call the medical

This is the second time. Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice I am a pathetic loser like Harry in D&D. Now I am not one of the silicon valley intellectual, financial, and cultural elite. How do I know this? Because they stopped calling me back. Yup moved on to the next level and here I sit in the baby pool awash with other people’s… Apologies that one got away from me. That is another post entirely. So here I sit looking for the following items because Canon will graciously: “…(might) may be able to resubmit your request for processing if you are able to provide copies of your submission information. If you have retained a copy of your disclaimer page in lieu of the UPC, you may fax them to the number at the end of this email, or mail them to us at: Mailing address: Canada: Customer Service Department PO Box 979 Fonthill, ON L0S 1E0 USA: Customer Service Department PO Box 52901 Phoenix, AZ 85072 If you wish, you can also send your documents via email as a

Most of my posts come from a bike ride or a hike. For some reason when I am moving my brain is moving. Typically the physical activity I am doing is predominately linear the brain activity is definitely non-linear. So here are some thoughts, posers and observations of the miasmic soup of thoughts in my head, while I was moving. Has anyone other than the banks and the Nashville Predators done business with a guy named Boots? Seriously if there ever was a red flag for a business transaction it is a nickname like T-Bone, Buddy, Captain, Duke, Skip, or The Piston. In the interest of continuing to paint with a broad brush does anyone remember guys in college with a nickname as hopped up, genetic party animals with ample asset backing from the parents? Nicknames are signposts ergo “Bridge Out Ahead”. Barack. It is a sorry state in this country when the Republican Party watches its own political discussion devolve into fear mongering. In the valley of silicon our workforce is American born an

Published with all of its original haste and mistakes and it is true. Some background: bombing is when our dog repeatedly dives into our neighbors pool to get his training dummy a large cylindrical tennis ball-like object. My dog is named Elvis and I am not a big Elvis fan: Subject: Squirrel Drama So.... On Saturday afternoon I took Elvis over for some bombing. The usual, he goes in, comes out and repeat. On one of the tosses I notice movement below the fig tree by the SE comer of the deck. And not like the wind is blowing, the tree and surrounding fauna are all moving. So employing my best Steve Irwin I quickly crouched down and said, " Crickey , this looks like the urban tree squirrel and she's a beauty!" Initially I thought there was a raccoon and I grabbed Elvis because he would lose that engagement. But he was bumper focused and did not see the movement. When I let him go and tossed the bumper into the pool I peeked around the deck to the base of the fig tree like

The booing by some knucklehead San Jose fans during the Canadian National Anthem is crap. Compared to the U.S.A. anthem O' Canada is so far superior in every way it is embarrassing. I really appreciate the Sharks letting a saxophone player play the anthems and the fans at the tank singing O’ Canada. For me it was the right thing to do. BTW San Jose fans who booed the Canadian anthem: check our roster for Canadian born players you a-holes. Calgary is one of the hardest teams to dislike because they are hard working, tough, fast, and talented AND have Owen Nolan who San Jose loves, still. Not sure if anyone else noticed but when Nolan was skating off the ice in San Jose section 114 gave him a standing ovation. Owen Nolan is to the Flames what Roenick is to San Jose, Roenick won that match up in game seven. The reason Roenick was IMO better in game seven is he was rested in game 6. It would be hard for me to figure out which player has more hockey miles on them as I have not seen Roen

Up until last week I had a leather chair that was my go to chair for relaxing. Fifteen years I had that chair. Originally purchased at Pottery Barn before their products went to crap in the late 1990s, it was far and away the most comfortable and restful sitting place I have experienced. Through the entire X Files series, Firefly, Denver Bronco games (two Superbowls), Sharks hockey, Dog Whisperer, sci-fi channel, and on and on. It even make cracking sound as the leather cushion expanded back to its original shape after you got out of it. It sounded like the chair was breathing a sigh of relief. As I look at the chair for the last time I see where my activator has stained a Rorschach imprint resembling my head or as my one of my friends said, “Dude, looks like ghost in a bell jar.” Okay, puff, puff, pass. On the leather surface there is almost no place safe from the miles of wear and tear on the chair, food stains to numerous to classify, wine stains from an array of varietals, ink and

This is true. On a road trip back from Colorado with my brother who I will call; my brother, we had planned stops in Zion National Park, Tehachapi CA, lunch in Fresno, and Yosemite. I will skip the initial portion of the road trip and move right to the arrival at Yosemite. This is in the late February 2008. The skies were angry that day my friends. Actually we had missed the big snow the week before and were entering Yosemite from the Highway 41 side as it winds, and it does wind, its way to Yosemite. The staff at the park’s entrance was it usual proud self but they look was a bit different. The winter staff had a visual edge to them, almost a Sci-Fi channel original movie look. Not undead, but not Fit TV either. Anyhow I digress. After a quick awkward howdy and, “Hey is the park beautiful this time of year?” type banter we checked out the Sequoia grove hike and it was too late in the day to muster the two mile hike in the snow to see the giants of the cellulose world. So we pulled out

True story. During a session of Aquanauts, wait let me back this up for a full overhead view. One of the gifts I do not have is patience. As a result I know at my core I would be an unfit parent. From the top of our family organization my father was a study in living the American dream and occasionally the American nightmare. By this I mean that he was mostly overjoyed to have a family while IMO noticeably bordering on a psychotic break. Now I am talking about a very good father who had five kids and worked his a** off to provide for his family. His patience ran thin at times and this is where I learned to be anxious. Back to media and guns. In my married life I have negotiated a point system with the Misses. Because each of us has an extensive extended family there is literally a family event every other weekend. So in order to prevent oversaturation (mostly for me as she seems to enjoy these immensely) I devised a system of credits that I can accumulate and use for her family events.

This one is credited to my father, whose ability to not fully grasp emerging, (established) technologies (like a cell phone) spawned this latest “ism.” Manswering the phone the art of leveraging the caller ID feature to intentionally insert an honest and startling offhanded man-comment prior to engaging in the actual call. WTF? To further illustrate Manswering here is the process and an example; The mobile device rings or vibrates or plays the users inappropriate ring tone. The call recipient, it works best with men but some ladies can play this game at a high level, sees it is his wife by the caller ID registered in the device display. The call is answered and held just far enough away from the recipient’s mouth that the words the recipient will speak are obviously meant for someone other than the caller. Now comes the creative part, the Manswer must be not only relevant to the caller it must also be unusually inappropriate, the example; My brother who possesses a sharp and wicked sen