General Stench – Page 6 – HappyStinkingJoy

Stinking Hunger Strike…

I’m on a hunger strike! I have been on a hunger strike since yesterday. The last time I actually ate anything was Sunday evening, and it is currently Tuesday evening. I am approaching the 48-hour mark. I felt a little light-headed last night. Tonight, I’m feeling okay.

Why, you may ask, am I on a hunger strike? Well, I figure I’m going to do the hunger-strike thing until Nebraska quits sucking. In other words, I’m going to starve to death.

Last year, about this time, I posted about my experiences with the wonderfully craptastic County of Scotts Bluff. See, the county commissioners and the county assessor are in cahoots and regularly pull random property valuations out of their asses in order to charge more for property taxes for the abused residents of Scotts Bluff County. Last year, my taxes inexplicably went up. I filed a formal protest and appeared before the county commissioners. I intelligently stated my case and was quickly talked-down to and brushed off. I wrote a post about my experience last year.

Well, last year’s increase was like 2%. I filed my protest, appeared before the commissioners, was shot down and humiliated, and wrote a blog post about my experience. This year, the jackwads at the county decided to increase the value of my property by 6%. SIX FREAKING PERCENT! How can they keep doing this?

They can keep doing this because they are government — and government sucks! All forms of government suck, which is why I can’t understand liberals. Liberals want more government. Liberals think the government (through more taxation of those who work for what they have) should take care of those in need (those who don’t work for what they have). Screw that noise! I used to be a conservative… until along came Bush Jr. Seems to me Bush Jr. talked a good conservative game, and his tax cuts seemed like the conservative thing to do… then he created all of these billions of dollars in debt with all of these stinking bail outs. Bush Jr. was nothing more than a liberal in a Texan’s clothing.

All politicians suck. Period. There is not one person who is serving in politics who is doing it for 100% the right reasons. Every politician alive is doing it for:

Money
Power
Influence
Personal agenda
Attaching his/her name to a legacy

People will disagree, but people are idiots. There is not a politician alive who is serving for the good of all people. There is not a politician alive who truly puts the best interest of whatever he/she is representing (country, state, city, county) based on his/her actions. These jerkwads always have an agenda. These jerkwads are always looking to help either themselves or help whatever constituent provided the most kickbacks. I hate politicians. And Scotts Bluff county commissioners are politicians.

So, let’s see, what new and great things are happening around Scotts Bluff County that would justify a 6% increase in my home’s value (and, of course, the obligatory tax increase associated with that hike):

New employers with great new high-paying jobs? Hell no! Walmart may be hiring… The only people making good money are people in the medical field and trust-funders. Even teaching is considered a good paying job in the craphandle.
New amenities? Are you kidding? I suspect the newest round of tax-gouging is just to maintain the infrastructure at its current level. I guess there may be a new drug dealer in the trailer park in my neighborhood. Drug dealers = idiot drivers looking to score = a not very safe neighborhood for my kids to play. Yeah, increase the valuation of my property based on that…
Strong existing economy? I don’t think so. Gering recently had a new grocery store open, which replaces the grocery store that Walmart drove out of town years ago. I don’t know how long that new store in Gering will stay open, but if it were publicly traded, I wouldn’t buy its stock. In just the last couple of months, our local bookstore (Copperfield) has gone out of business, as has a pottery store downtown (Create Away). JC Penney recently announced they will be closing their store in our joke of a half-dead mall. I know about businesses closing. Closing businesses don’t seem to be the kind of indicator that point toward the kind of strong economy that would justify a 6% increase in a property’s value, does it?
The county figured out a way to block the wind, filter the allergens, get rid of the feedlot/sugar beet smells, or make the stinking old Germans drive faster? Of course not.

The pile of crap that falls from some county administrator’s mouth and gets printed in the local newspaper is that we aren’t being hit as hard by the housing crash as the rest of the country. We don’t have the big rises in real estate, and we don’t have the big crashes in real estate.

Really?!?

Yeah, I guess if my property value is increasing with me making no improvements to my property, it would be hard to say the market here is crashing. Stupid Nebraska.

I know, I know… I should be happy that the value of my property is increasing. A small part of me is happy. The rest of me is afraid that (if the local economy continues to sucktastically slide, and my wages remain stagnant while the cost of everything — property taxes included — continues to rise) I will find myself in the near future not able to afford my stinking house. That thought pisses me off beyond all comprehension.

So, I am not eating. I am not eating as a way to protest the suckiness that is Nebraska. I am not eating to showcase my displeasure in the idiots who run stuff around here. I figure I will probably make it about 2 to 3 weeks. And I will happily die knowing that my tombstone will read:

Here Lies Adventurer Rich.

He Died Because Nebraska Sucked…

The Life Right Out of Him!

Oooh, what’s that smell? Is that chocolate chip cookies? Damn it, I think the wife made chocolate chip cookies! She knows I’m on a hunger strike! Can she not stand behind just one of my attempts to show my displeasure at life in Nebraska?!? DAMN IT!!!

Crap…

I’m gonna go get me a cookie. Then, it’s off to McDonalds and its dollar menu… ’cause that’s what we have here for affordable fast food that allows me to STILL PAY MY FREAKING PROPERTY TAXES…

The Search for Purpose…

A friend of mine recently lost his father-in-law. Well… he didn’t actually lose his father-in-law. He knew exactly where his father-in-law was, which happened to be at home dying of cancer. It’s funny how cancer ravages an individual and leaves tattered survivors behind. No… not really funny, but, you know, devastating. Kind of strange how some of our ways of stating things make absolutely no sense, isn’t it? Why yes — yes it is. Stinking English language.

So anyway, my friend’s father-in-law retired not that long ago. Shortly after retiring, he was diagnosed with cancer. Shortly after being diagnosed, it looked like treatment was working. Shortly after the prognosis looked positive, the cancer got worse. Shortly after the cancer got worse, my friend’s father-in-law was given two weeks to live. A couple of days after being given two weeks to live, the father-in-law died.

The end.

… but this entire scenario has been playing with my head for the weeks that have passed since the father-in-law passed. And then this week, a nice lady who was not that much older than me had a relatively routine surgery and, due to complications from that surgery, she passed away. She left behind a loving husband and grown children who now need to find a way to their futures without her. Of course, she was warned about the dangers of the procedure before she underwent it, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of available options. Can anyone say, “Life bites”? She was actually someone outside of my immediate family who had read this blog and thanked me for doing what I do. She enjoyed it and got a chuckle or two from the experience… and now she is gone. Well, looks like my dad and my brother are, once again, my sole readers…

I’ve been thinking to myself about what I would do if I knew I had a determined amount of time left. Would I continue working if I knew I only had a month left to live? I’d dare say I would not continue working. I would want to enjoy as much of the last of life as possible. I’d quit my job and sell as much of my stuff as possible to make my final days an enjoyable memory for the family I’d be leaving behind. But then… people who are in the end-stages of life-ending disease rarely want to do little more than be as comfortable as possible and die in a timely manner, right? These people aren’t usually in any shape to tackle that European adventure that they kept saying “some day” to. So fantasizing about what one would or would not do during the final stages of life is a sick little game that will lead to nothing more than severe disappointment, I’m sure. And this really got me to thinking. Aren’t we all, in one form or another, in the final stages of life? For some of us, the prognosis is decades, for others, weeks, days, hours? And something can always come along and screw everything up, right? I wonder how many people who are given weeks to live due to disease die in automobile accidents every day…

We are all dying.

Period.

Dying is the only thing we are assured of in this life. Death is the only goal that will be reached by every individual on the planet, regardless of race, gender, creed, social status… or whatever. From the moment we are born, our bodies begin the various functions that will end up using us up and spitting us out.

We are all dying.

So why don’t we act like we are dying? We have precious little time on this planet, yet most of us still are avoiding the things that we really want to do; the things that, on our deathbeds, will end up being missed opportunities and fill us with regret. We keep telling ourselves, “Someday, when I have more time,” or, “Someday, when I have more money.” Wake up, folks. More time and money are things we may never have. If you have stuff you want to get done, you better get to getting after it. You could be dead tomorrow, so don’t delay. Think of all of the wonderful things we as a species could accomplish if we started living like our time here is limited. Think of how few people would be in a job or a relationship that wasn’t fulfilling to them if they started living like they didn’t have eternity to do something with this life… because no one does. What we accomplish in our short time here is the only shot we get.

Of course, realism always sets in when I start thinking like this. Gotta put food on the table, right? Gotta pay them bills. Gotta put gas in the car. You can’t just try to do whatever you want with your life without being destroyed by the consequences. My mind always quickly changes back to: maybe someday when I have more time and money… maybe then I can try to accomplish something enjoyable with my life. I can make the boredom of everyday life disappear once I have a little more time and money… Well, I’m coming to the realization that I need to say…

Screw that noise!

This is my life. Your life is your life. I have a deep desire to do something I am passionate about with my life… to figure out my purpose and pursue it.

When I was a kid, I used to think that when I grew up and started making money and got a family, that would be when life really began. Well, having a family is great and gets me through from day to day, but I soon realized that not everyone can make good money. So, I started thinking that once I can get to retirement, that’s when life really begins. Of course, to get to retirement at a decent age, you have to make good money (or sacrifice much of the comfort from current life to stick it all away for retirement)… and “good money” isn’t easy to find. So retirement (if I live to see it…we are all dying, after all), is close to half a lifetime away, and half a lifetime (when you are 42) is way too long to wait for life to begin.

I know that I need to appreciate the little things, or I will prove to the world that I can’t comprehend a platitude. But focusing on the little things, as fulfilling as that can be, does not seem like a very redeeming purpose. I know that our purpose is supposed to be God’s purpose for us, but I highly doubt that God’s sole purpose for me on this planet is to appreciate the little things… that just sounds too boring; I would hope that God has given me more talent than that.

The only non-family activity that I do that feels rewarding is volunteering. Boy Scouts, church, whatever. Time spent volunteering (as much as I usually dread actually going to do the work) always leaves me feeling fulfilled. You know, like a job has been well done (whether it actually has or not). It feels good. I do not, nor have I ever, felt the same kind of satisfaction working a job. It’s this whole big Catch-22. If I could actually make enough money to meet my needs by volunteering, I would probably be semi-satisfied with life. But if I made money, it wouldn’t be volunteering… it would be a job… and like most jobs, it would probably suck. So maybe I just need to volunteer more of my free time to find more satisfaction and purpose, but I am usually so drained after 8+ hours of working a job that the last thing I want to do is take more time away from my family than my current level of volunteering already takes.

See… damn it… this is why I should win the stinking lottery:

I enjoy volunteering; it leaves me feeling fulfilled.
I have financial needs.
If I win the lottery, my financial needs would go away.
If my financial needs went away, I could spend 8+ hours a day volunteering.
By spending 8+ hours of my day volunteering, I would be helping causes that need help and I would feel fulfilled at the end of the day (instead of just too tired to fulfill my current obligations to family and the organizations I volunteer time to).
This is a win/win situation. Nobody loses… so why can’t I win the freaking lottery?!?

I can’t win the lottery because God’s purpose for me isn’t to volunteer all of my free time. I can dig that. But if my purpose involves a future of life-draining 8-5s, I most definitely cannot dig that.

“Well, nobody said it was going to be fair!”

Yeah, and nobody asked my opinion before putting me here, so that doesn’t fly. Thus, the search for purpose continues.

I actually recently read “The On-purpose Person” by Kevin W. McCarthy… and I got excited. It’s a narrative about a guy (who sounds a lot like me… but who makes a crapload more money than me) who feels purposeless. Through a series of referrals, the man in the story visits various on-purpose people who volunteers their time to help the man find his purpose and start living his life on-purpose. Whoa… that sounds pretty cool. So, I check out an introduction to Kevin McCarthy’s web-based program that helps people find their purposes. The first lesson was free and didn’t really provide too much useful info. In order to get the good stuff, you need to pay for the seminar series… and it’s like 200 bucks. And it sounds like you have to stop having a lot of fun and grow up and stuff, so I’m not exactly sure this program is for me.

“But… in the story, all of those on-purpose people gave their time and advice for free to the man,” I point out.

“But that was a story,” says the voice of reason.

“So, in real life, people aren’t willing to give their time to help others find their purpose?” I ask.

“Of course not,” says the voice of reason. “In real life, people, including Kevin W. McCarthy have mortgages and life insurance policies and the need to eat.”

“Well,” I say, “real life kinds of sucks when compared to the story.”

“Nobody ever said it was going to be fair,” says the voice of reason.

Sometimes, I hate the voice of reason. So the search continues.

I’m kind of thinking a more self-sustaining lifestyle may have some rewards…

From Meth to Nikki Minaj: Low-Stress Careers in the Panhandle…

I originally started writing this blog to capture my journey through turning 40 and the pain that journey entailed. I wanted to, at least somewhat humorously, document how much turning 40 sucked. Well, I turned 40, it did suck, and now here I am at 42 and things get no better. People always say crap like, “Just give it time, things will get better,” or “At least things can’t get any worse.” Well, I have come to a realization: people lie. The only thing my future potentially holds is turning 50; I’m sure that will be a joy ride.

If you are down in the dumps or have a touch of the blues, people say ‘things will get better’ to prevent you from jumping off of a bridge or walking through the local Walmart with your hunting rifle a’blazing or something. There is no real guarantee that anything is going to get any better. In fact, things run a pretty substantial risk of getting worse. Still, you should not jump off of a bridge or take out the entire population of a Walmart (believe it or not, there may actually a few good people in there).

When I start feeling down about the suckiness that life often dishes out, I blog. It makes me feel better. It might piss some people off, but then maybe they need to start their own blogs. A small part of me has always thought that if I sit down and practice writing on a regular basis (i.e. blog), I might improve my writing skills to the level where I can actually making a living writing.

“Why would you want to make a living writing?” you may ask.

I don’t like dealing with people. Any form of conflict stresses me out to a degree that I can barely function, and you cannot deal with people and avoid conflict. What really amazes me are people who seem to thrive on conflict. You know them, the people who can take a completely calm situation and turn it upside down by inserting a touch of drama… which always leads to conflict. These people need to be locked away on their own island… hey, Total Drama Island!

Photobucket — Good cartoon... I miss it 🙁

I have not always been like this, but over the last several years, the degree of my anti-social thoughts and feelings has multiplied to the point that I really am pretty miserable a lot of the time. This is mostly related to time when I am actually earning a living. At home, and even in the occasional social setting, I am happy and pretty comfortable. I have tried to think of a job where I would have very little personal contact with people in the realm of the method I use to earn an income, and writing seems to be an excellent choice. There are additional choices, but none of them seem to fit quite right:

Methamphetamine Manufacturer

Oh sure, making the meth sounds like a great way to make a living.

*You can work at home.

*You make a very high (no pun intended) return on investment.

*All of the simple instructions are easily accessible online.

*The only people you would have to deal with would be your dealers.

*I’ve seen some of the people who make this stuff… you don’t have to be a rocket scientist.

*You are making a product that is in demand and makes people feel better about their miserable lives.

However, if you really look at the consequences of making meth, you find that there may be some drawbacks.

*You can burn down your home.

*Meth may make people feel better, but it has been discovered that it may not be good for them.

*Apparently, making meth is illegal.

*The only people you would have to deal with would be your dealers.

So… meth is out.

Pornography Actor

Okay, so you would have to deal with people, but I’m sure there wouldn’t be much conflict. Even if there is conflict, who cares?. Three words: female porn stars! This doesn’t sound like a bad choice…

And then reality sets in…

CPAP — Yeah... no one is going to pay to see that...

Crap! I think the wife may have an issue with me being in porn… as would God. Porn is out.

Let’s see… what are some more jobs that would either be enjoyable or have limited conflict…

Bookstore Owner/Employee

I love books and used to think working in like a Barnes & Nobles would be a blast. I mean, who in their right mind would be unhappy in a bookstore. I used to think that way, until I saw some poor information booth employee at Barnes & Nobles get chewed up one side and down the other by some jerkwad who was bent out of shape because the store didn’t have a copy of some obscure philosophy book. Jerkwad was upset that he would have to wait a couple of days for the store to get in a copy of Larry Fleitzerhinie’s Mans’ Walk on an Impartial Plain of Reason in the Twilight of the Mountains of Contradiction… or something like that. “What kind of bookstore is this,” Jerkwad yelled. Seriously… is there not a job on this planet where jerkwads are not present? So the bookstore idea is out.

Working with Children

I used to work at Discovery Zone (a Chuck E. Cheese-like place with tubes and tunnels and ball pits and video games and birthday parties etc. etc. etc.). One would think that a fun place like that would be reasonably stress free… but one would be wrong. Parents become absolute imbeciles when it comes to the happiness of their children… especially when they are paying for it. And these imbeciles love to yell at whatever employee is closest to them when their child is for one second not having the ultimate in fun (like the kid just got reprimanded for biting another kid in the butt).

“You have no right to discipline my child, you minimum-wage piece of $@#&!”

Meanwhile, the parent of the child who was bitten is screaming, “You need to keep better control of the kids in here. I should sue!”

Of course, neither of these parents say a word to each other… let’s just take it all out on the minimum-wage piece of $@#&!

So it is becoming relatively clear at this point that there is no such thing as an enjoyable job… or at least a job that is stress-free. I understand that stress is supposed to be a good thing in small amounts because it helps us make decisions and whatnot… but I’m getting too old to deal with the stress crap anymore. You know, if I had the money flowing in that I expected to be making in my “prime income-earning years”, the stress probably wouldn’t get to me as much. Sounds silly, but it’s true. If I was making six figures, I think my tolerance for all things stressful would be a little higher because I’d be able to put a sizable amount of that away for retirement and I’d have the knowledge that I would not have to deal with the crap forever. However, given my current situation, I will be dealing with some sort of crap for every single workday for the rest of my natural life.

Go ahead, say it. I know there is someone out there who is wanting to say it…

“Suck it up! Quit your whining and do what you need to do!”

“Nobody ever said life was going to be fair, so shut your mouth and get busy working!”

“People who complain like you need to be thankful they aren’t a starving child in Africa!”

“If you worked as hard as you complained, you’d be making more money!”

“Quit feeling sorry for yourself! We all gotta deal with it and you don’t hear us complaining, do you?”

Oh my… if I had a nickel for every time I was the recipient of one of these comments, I’d already be able to retire. I have never stated that I am not thankful for what I have. I just want more out of life than being a working stiff who begrudgingly works a job until the day he dies. I think it is best stated by Drake in Nikki Minaj’s song Moment 4 Life:

“I’m really tryna make it more than what it is, cuz everybody dies but not everybody lives!”

Word! … does anybody really say “word” anymore? Yeah, probably not. I’m kind of out of the loop. I am 42, after all…

Good gravy – I’m quoting a Nikki Minaj song?!? ‘Bout time to wrap this post up.

Anywho, writing is about the only job I can think of that would have the limited public contact necessary to eradicate a large portion of the work-related stress from my life. Of course, I only enjoy writing as a way to bitch. If I had to write how-to manuals or reviews of laundry soaps or something like that, writing would suck.

So, if anyone knows of a good writing gig that requires a whiny writer who loves to bitch, give me a shout out. Word!

Summer Break…

My boys have only one day of school left before embarking on their annual summer breaks. Ah… summer break… remember those? I sure do.

One of the completely crappy things about growing up (one of, I assure you, many) is the the loss of the summer break. I mean sure, kids need a break to let their minds reset, to spend some time outdoors, and to just be a kid. But seriously, do we think that adults don’t need the same kind of break? And a week of vacation here and a long weekend there just don’t stinking cut it.

I never feel refreshed and ready to tackle the monotony of the work-a-day world after a typical adult vacation. In fact, the last day or two of any break I take from work (including most weekends) is usually spent dreading the fact that I have to return to work in a day or two. Weekends consist of two parts for me:

Saturday, the day or relaxation.
Sunday, the day of dreading Monday.

As sick of I was of school by the time summer break rolled around in May, I never felt the dread in August (when school started again) that I feel after a week off from work. In fact, I always looked forward to the challenges of the coming school year.

I know that I have written of this before, but I really should have been a teacher. It’s pretty amazing how 20/20 that stinking hindsight can be, isn’t it? I like kids. Most kids respond well to me. Teaching young people skills that will help them be successful in life (… yes, skills they will need to get crappy jobs of their own 🙁 …) seems like it would be a fulfilling way to spend a day. In the craphandle of Nebraska, teaching is one of the best paying gigs around for an average schmuck like me. And… summers off!

According to wiseGEEK, only about 2% of the population in the US takes advantage of a career in teaching. I guess it probably does (or should) take a certain temperament and personality to be a successful teacher, but it seems like there would be more of us who wouldn’t want to give up our summers off. Of course, many people are probably like I was when I went for my post-high school education. I had it stuck in my head that I could make more money with a business degree than I could a teaching degree. I was an idiot. I was an idiot not only because I have not been able to make more money in the stupid business world than I could have teaching. I was an idiot thinking that making a lot of money (which I have not been able to do) is somehow more important than doing something that doesn’t make me want to gouge my brains out every day.

Marketing guru Seth Godin, in a blog post today (“Dancing on the edge of finished”), writes about the uber-busy society of today. His post struck home with me. In the glory of days past, there was a time when we could actually complete something and call it done. According to Seth, in today’s world, there really is no “done”. Seth refers to it as “the dance,” this constant go-go-go that is life today.

Seth writes:

“Facing a sea of infinity, it’s easy to despair, sure that you will never reach dry land, never have the sense of accomplishment of saying, ‘I’m done.’ ”

Oh how I agree with that! It is very discouraging to feel like each new accomplishment doesn’t really get you closer to an end goal but is only another tick-mark on a checklist that never ends.

Seth, in his always-optimistic way, follows with:

“At the same time, to be finished, done, complete–this is a bit like being dead. The silence and the feeling that maybe that’s all.”

NOOOO, Seth Godin! It is nothing like being dead! Well, not that I have accomplished a lot of goals, so I really don’t know… but it can’t be like being dead! Being dead is like being dead, and actually accomplishing a goal to the point of completion would (in my fantasies of actually making that happen) have to be one of the most satisfying things ever! Don’t spin the lack of ever finishing to be something good! It’s not! In fact, never being able to actually to say “It is done” makes life seem an awful lot like a grind. If life is nothing more than a daily grind, where is the joy? Of course, Seth has an answer to that:

“It’s a dance, not an endless grind.”

Great… a dance… and me with my two stinking left feet.

See, teachers get to finish. When the final bell sounds at the end of the school year, they are done. Whether good or bad, happy or sad, when those kids leave the school for the summer, the teacher’s job is complete. Whether the teacher can look back on the last nine or ten months of effort and be satisfied with the results is often dependent on the efforts that teacher made over the previous period of time, but it is done. And, in August (barring a near-total failure on the part of the teacher), a fresh start is guaranteed. The teacher can learn from the mistakes and victories of the past and carry what was learned forward into the next year. Each year is a goal completed. Each year has a resolution. Each year is followed by a summer break… BONUS!

In the world of endless tasks to be completed, to avoid the “grind”, I can only conclude that you have to be doing something you absolutely love in order to make the toil more resemble a “dance.” Settling for a grind and trying to make that grind somehow resemble a dance just doesn’t work — not if you want your efforts to seem like they have some sort of meaning.

Or, if for nothing more than a sense of closure on a previous period of time, maybe we all need a summer break every year…

Mother’s Day…

The people most in need of a day which celebrates what they do are recognized today.

Moms.

Moms hold families together. Moms are the stability in life.

Are all moms perfect? Are any? Of course not. Moms are flawed and emotional and worry-warts. But moms are also strong… stronger than most of us realize.

Just imagine a world with only dads. What a disaster that would be! Dads don’t tend to be as good as moms at multi-tasking. Most of us focus on one thing and work on that thing until it is done (or give up because we realize it is unaccomplishable… which isn’t a word, but I like it). A world with only dads would be a world of chaos. A world with only dads would be interesting, but it wouldn’t be as safe or sane as a world with moms. A world of dads would have lunches packed with candy bars and cold Totinos pizzas. A world of dads would be filled with overflowing diapers and unbrushed teeth and tardiness and scraped knees and eyes poked-out with “that thing”. I’m not saying a world of dads wouldn’t be fun, but a world of dads would not probably lead to the best chance of the furthering of the human species. Oh sure, some pretty cool crap would get blown-up in a world of dads. There would be no chick-flicks in a world of dads. “Barney” would be replaced by “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” in a dad-driven society. Burping would be considered polite, and a good fart would be commended. A world of dads… wait a second… where was I going with this? A world of dads sounds pretty cool… OH YEAH, moms are good.

Moms help maintain the order in society and they don’t need armies and navies and bullets and bombs; apparently only dads need those kinds of things. If moms were in charge of everything, there would be no war… but there would be a whole crapload of time-outs and dirty looks. Most of us appreciate moms, but do we appreciate them enough? I don’t see how we can. None of us can appreciate moms as much as moms deserve.

Are there bad moms? Oh sure there are. There are tons of really crappy moms who deserve no praise… just as there are super dads who do everything a regular mom does and more. But overall, in the grand scheme of things, moms deserve this day. Thank your mom or your kid’s mom or a mom who has influenced you in some way. The moms we know won’t be around forever, but the lessons they teach and the love they selflessly give shape generations!

Happy Mother’s Day 🙂

How We Mask Our Poopie Smell…

Air freshener spray.

Where do people use air freshener spray, and why? Occasionally, I’m sure someone will spray a little Glade in the living room because someone with stinky feet had spent a little too long in that room. Or maybe they will spray a little Air Wick in the bedroom after a particularly robust bout of bedtime fun. But really — where do people use air freshener and why?

The vast majority of people buy air freshener to keep in the bathroom to cover up the smell of majorly stinky poopies.

Period.

Fair enough? Now, air freshener companies are always coming up with new scents. I guess the lavender and the pine are getting old. We Americans want our bathrooms to smell of something other than flowers or trees when we make poopie. Apparently pine and poop may remind of us an explicitly bad camping trip where we had the runs (… or is that just me?), so we need something new to associate with our fecal smells.

But what scents can be sprayed after blowing out the toilet bowl that are acceptable to most Americans? Glade now offers the following:
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Okay, I guess that kind of makes sense. Anyone who has brought up a little bundle of joy is familiar with the scent of talcum powder and poop. It’s kind of the classic dirty-diaper scent, right? And apparently we don’t have as much of an issue with a poopie smell if we associate it with a cuddly little baby whose poop is even cute, right? I guess I can see why that scent is available. The problem that I have is that it’s not a little baby’s poopie scent that is being covered up. It’s usually Bob in IT who leaves the bathroom in need of some freshening, right?
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bob — Oh Bob... please learn to close the door...

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And we all know that there isn’t a baby reference on the planet that will make anything about Bob’s poop anywhere even close to cute. So, yeah, the “Powder Fresh” doesn’t really work for me.

Recently at work, someone bought another scent to try to knock down our industrial need for an air freshener. After all, the place I work is pretty much filled with “Bobs”. The choice of fragrance we have now really doesn’t work well with an office full of guys who I figure never actually poop at home. They save it all up to dispense at work, as any visitor can tell by the constant aroma permeating the office air. And when you have a bunch of tech guys unloading every hour or so, the last thing you want to associate with that nasty smell is:

Uploaded from the Photobucket Android App — Really, Air Wick? What in the hell were you guys thinking...

Seriously!?! I may never eat ice cream again…

The Hardest Job in the World…

What is the hardest job in the world?

Is it a rocket scientist — ensuring the trajectory of space bound thingies and other such sciencey stuff?

Is it a brain surgeon — holding all consciousness and memories (in essence, the entire “being”) of an individual between her fingers as she attempts to save a life?

Is it perhaps the President of the United States — deciding where to send our soldiers to die and who in our economy will suffer and how to make nice-nice with the rich and famous?

These are all good answers, but none are truly the hardest job in the world. The hardest job in the world recently had a vacancy, and it was recently filled.

Scotts Bluff County recently filled the hardest job in the world. Congratulation to Brenda Leisy…
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holder of the hardest job in the world. Brenda was hired by Scotts Bluff County as the county’s tourism director.

Tourism director: one who tries to get tourists to stop and spend their had earned money in our area by convincing said tourists that there is something worth stopping and spending money on here. Like I already pointed out, this is (in my opinion) the hardest job in the world.

Scotts Bluff County has little to offer. It’s kind of… what’s a nice way of putting this… boring here. There are many who disagree with me, but I’m sticking to my personal guns on this. There is nothing to do here.

“Oh, there’s a lot to do here!” scream the long-time residents who hate anyone speaking the truth about their beloved Nebraska.

“Like what?” someone may ask.

“Well… uh… you can go for a walk on the pathway by the river!” says the Nebraska-lover.

“I’ve done that before,” someone may say.

“Do it again,” says Nebraska-lover.

“Uh… why?” someone may ask.

“Maybe you’ll see a goose… or something,” says Nebraska-lover.

“I saw a goose the last time I walked the path,” someone may say.

“Well, go to the top of Scotts Bluff National Monument,” Nebrasaka-lover recommends.

“That’s fun to do about once every two or three years,” someone may say, “and I did that last summer.”

“Go fishing,” says Nebraska-lover.

“Fishing here sucks,” someone may say, “unless you like catching tiny trout and sunfish, which is all I ever catch. I suck at fishing, thus I don’t really like fishing, and can you imagine trying to get my 8-year-old son to sit still long enough to catch a stinking blue gill? Yeah, fishing isn’t for me.”

“There is good hunting,” says Nebraska-lover.

“No there’s not,” someone may say. “All of the good hunting is on private land, and landowners here would rather shoot you than look at you. You have to have some sort of backwater relationship with a landowner to access that landowner’s land, and I have no such relationships. Hunting here sucks.”

“Well,” says Nebraska-lover, a hint of doubt becoming evident in her eyes, “there’s always… uh… what about a trek in the Wildcat Hills?”

“Oh yeah, a hike through sage brush and cactus,” someone may say, “with the seasonal threat of rattlesnakes and the ever-present threat of mountain lions. Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea. Besides, you keep mentioning all of these outdoor activities, and Scotts Bluff County is notoriously bad for allergens. Spending time outside in the wind with snot running down my face and claw marks on my eyeballs from all of the scratching doesn’t sound very fun.”

“We have… uh… we have a mall,” Nebraska-lover says, as if she just remembered.

“Yeah, the mall,” someone may say. “The mall here is about, what, 1/4 empty? And it’s a small mall in the first place. Walking around the mall is good for about 15 minutes of wasting time.”

“Our downtown business areas in Scottsbluff and Gering…” Nebraska-lover tries to say.

“… suck,” someone may finish. “Parking downtown is horrible, there are very few shops that interest me or are within my price range, and very few of the downtown businesses have public restrooms, so you end up peeing in the freaking alley if you gotta go. I have an 8-year-old boy. My son now believes that it is acceptable to pee in an alley… which I’m sure is going to benefit him in his adulthood. Thanks, downtown businesses!”

“Well… uh… we have… uh…” Nebraska-lover stammers, “we have a lot of bars and liquor stores.”

“Yes,” someone may say. “Yes we do.”

“I could sure use a drink,” Nebraska-lover says.

“I’m buying,” someone may say.

There really isn’t much to do around here. You have to keep your kids uber-involved in sports and other activities to keep them away from the drugs, alcohol and sex. The teen-pregnancy rate in the area is high, as are the teen alcohol and drug usage rates. Why? Because there isn’t anything to do here. Adult alcoholism and drug use also run rampant in Scotts Bluff County. Why? Because there isn’t anything to do here… and there are many adults who are trying to numb the pain of watching their hopes, dreams, and aspirations float down the North Platte River.

I know that in the past, the county’s tourism department has stressed how important it is for “front-line” employees (employees in low-paying jobs who actually deal with potential tourists) to present a positive, excited portrayal of the community to aid tourism. This may be hard for a hung-over, pregnant teen to do while she is trying to figure out where she is going to score her next hit of meth. The only positive thing many front-line employees can think about is how in the hell they are going to get out of here, so it may be hard to convince them to speak positively about their communities. Front-line employees can’t figure out what to do with their free time, so how can they be expected to help tourists find something to do around here?

Congratulations once again to Brenda Leisy! She has the hardest job in the world, and I wish her all of the luck I can muster. She’s going to need it…

Women — Trying to Train Men How to Think Since the Beginning of Time…

Here they are again! You know what I’m writing about, those pictures that float around Facebook and the Internet in general… pictures that point out how women of all shapes and sizes need to be loved for who they are and not necessarily how skinny they are.

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Come on, the bottom row in the above picture is just as hot (if not hotter) than the top row. Very few men would argue against that. However, every person has his or her own personal preferences as far as what he or she considers attractive.

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I know that a lot of this “message” is geared towards women.

“Be happy with who you are.”

“Your uniqueness is your most beautiful asset!”

“Never let a man’s opinion shape your feelings of self-worth!”

I am not going to argue any of those points because, to a vast extent, they are all true.

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Okay, okay… we are supposed to “deal with it!” Alrighty, I get it. Men need to reconsider what they view as attractive. Women are going to tell us what should be attractive to us. Fine.

I don’t disagree with any of this argument that, you know, a person’s real worth shouldn’t be based on physical appearance. Hell, as a fat, short, ugly guy, I’d preach that little tidbit from the highest mountain. However, I do have a couple of issues with being told how I’m supposed to judge physical attractiveness.

First, the preachers of the whole “when did ‘this’ become sexier than ‘that'” deal need to come to a realization. That realization is…

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There is a significant difference between bootiliciously curvaceous and may have a heart attack just from sitting up. There are going to be a lot of guys who have an issue with a potential mate who could theoretically kill him in his sleep just by accidentally rolling on top of him in bed.
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Sorry, I know that may seem shallow, but it is the truth. But keep preaching… you may change our minds.

The second issue I have with the argument that all women are equally physically beautiful (just in different ways) is the hypocrisy displayed by those who argue it. Let’s take, for example, my randomly-taken-from-the-Internet picture of my not-so-real-friend George.

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George is the sweetest guy on the planet. He helps orphans and stray kitty cats find homes and he comforts little old people on their death beds. George makes a decent living and he is one of the most caring guys on the planet. George is very attracted to Britney.

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Britney likes George as a “friend,” and that is breaking George’s heart. George knows that Britney is secretly in love with Brandon.
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Now Brandon works with Myrtle. Myrtle has a major case of the hots for Brandon, but Brandon just likes Myrtle as a friend.
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Myrtle is also a sweetheart. She is a loyal friend, has a great sense of humor, and her career as a rocket scientist at NASA (where Brandon is a janitor) pays her quite well. Brandon, although tempted by Myrtle’s income (because all pretty boys are shallow), likes Myrtle only as a friend and is in love with Britney.

Britney and Brandon finally hook up. As a act of courtesy, Brandon and Britney introduce Myrtle to George. Myrtle is not attracted to George, and George is not attracted to Myrtle. However, given the other choices that both of them have (… zero), Myrtle and George go out, fall in love, and get married. They are happily married until they both have massive heart attacks a few years later.

Britney and Brandon date for awhile. They then have a horrible break-up after each of them find out that the other was having an affair with someone even better looking. This happens time and time again in each of their relationships for the next few years.

Finally, Brandon gets hooks up with a 16-year-old girl (because all of the women his age appear to “old” for him), and the girl’s father finds out and shoots Brandon dead.

Britney goes through pretty boys like they are going out of style. Finally, she decides she wants to settle down. She finds a nice, ugly, rich guy who has never in the past had a chance at with a hot chick. They get married. The rich guy is totally in love with Britney for the rest of their days together. Britney has various affairs with various, hot household employees (pool boys and gardeners and window washers and whatnot) until the day where she decides that she doesn’t need to take care of herself anymore and she gains 100 pounds. Throughout her life, Britney posts silly “When did this become sexier than that” pictures on Facebook. She posts these pictures not because she wants all chubby chicks to have an equal shot at the pool boy that Britney used to have. Britney posts these pictures because she is afraid that with her new weight she will not have equal access to the male hotties that someone skinnier than her has. Her picture posts are clearly self-serving for the whale that she always knew she would become. But, of course, Britney has no interest in the fat guy who works on her husbands cars. Fat guys are gross.

Okay, so maybe my Britney-Brandon-Myrtle-George example isn’t overly realistic, but it’s not as far from the truth as many hypocritical women would have us believe. Men who objectify women are dogs. Women who objectify men are just “cougars”, or liberated, or something else stupid like that.

Objectification is based on physical appearance and women are just as guilty of it as men. The only difference is that men don’t feel the need to post picture on Facebook like this:

Men realize that the question is stupid. We know we’re fat and/or ugly and we deal with it. We don’t preach that women should be expected to find our fat, ugly asses beautiful…

NEXT: The Panhandle’s Social Elite…

There is an organization here in the wonderful panhandle of Nebraska called NEXT. NEXT is a group of “young professionals” who have taken it upon themselves to be leaders in the community. They have made it their job to promote the panhandle as a great place to live. Good for them.

On their website, the folks at NEXT make some very clear statements as to what they are… and what they are not. For example, NEXT is: “A group of the Panhandle’s future elite leaders, not the social elite.” What a great statement… too bad it’s not true. If you visit NEXT’s website and click on the “board” tab, you will see the leaders of this “leaders’ group”. Judging from the last names of these leaders, the names of the businesses they work for, and the dates those businesses were established, I’m assuming three of the five board members have parents or grandparents who started successful businesses… and these kids are able to ride on those coattails. Can you say “trust fund”? The other two board members are pretty faces, and we all know that the pretty people have a higher likelihood of success than us normal (or, in my case, morbidly disgusting) people.

I am not saying that these people didn’t work hard to reach their current levels of success. I don’t personally know any of them (we don’t hang in the same social circles — oh wait, I don’t have a social circle…) All I’m saying is that, in my opinion, being a pretty person or having rich parents gives you quite an advantage over the rest of the population when it comes to future success.

So, the rich and the pretty… how in the hell is that not the social elite? This is life in the panhandle: have parents or grandparents who were successful — or be pretty — and you have a shot at true success. It takes money and/or looks to make it here… which is why there are so many of us who can’t really make it. The rest of us work to serve the social elite. Maybe this isn’t a panhandle problem. Maybe this is an American problem…

The rich and pretty of NEXT have made one of their goals to retain and encourage potential leaders (i.e. other rich and pretty people who either leave after 2-3 years because they think it sucks here… or don’t become involved in community leadership roles because they are too busy pushing their slaves to make them more money) to become active in the community by stressing “the great life that the Panhandle offers”. Are they referring to the same panhandle that I live in? Maybe there is another panhandle (one that deserves to be capitalized) that I’m not familiar with. Or maybe if you are part of the social elite and have the rest of the community bowing down to serve you, life can be pretty good here. Who knows?

Another of the statements made by NEXT is that they are “A group using a social platform to accomplish objectives, not a Saturday night social club.” Really? Again, looking at their website, the last few events listed were a “Mardi Gras” event in February of 2009, a “Peacocks and Potluck” event (at the zoo, I’m assuming) in May of 2009, and a “Comedy on the Rocks” event in June of 2010. Those all sound an awful lot like “Saturday night social club” events to me… but what do I know; I’m not part of the social elite.

I think I need to start my own leadership group. You know, a group for guys and gals who once thought they could find some measure of financial success but have come to realize that just ain’t going to happen. We could get together on Saturday nights once every couple of months and sit around a keg of Old Milwaukee eating chicken wings and talking about how we can’t understand why we are all still living here. We won’t be able to stay up late, however, because many of us will probably have to get up the next morning to go to work (because we will all be working at serving the social elite until the day we die). We could charge all members a cover charge to cover the cheap beer and hot wings, and whatever is left over could be donated to a local charity… I’m thinking Habitat-for-the-Non-Social-Elite may be a good choice…

*****INTERESTING TIDBIT ALERT*****

You know the saying “piss poor”? Do you know where this comes from? In the olden days, apparently tanners used urine to tan hides. If your family was poor, often the family would all pee in a collective pot to be taken and sold to the tanner. Your family was “piss poor”. Of course, if your family was super duper poor, you “wouldn’t have a pot to piss in”.

How do I know this is true? I found it on the Internet. Everything on the Internet is true, right?

I kind of wish tanners still used urine to tan hides. Not that I would want to be “piss poor”, it would just be an easy way to make a little extra cash…

*****INTERESTING TIDBIT COMPLETE****

So, until I get my own leadership group together, I guess I’ll have to make do with making fun of the existing organizations. You know what, though? NEXT is at least doing something to try to make the panhandle a better place. They even recently participated in an event that benefited Special Olympics, and I can’t dog on that. I am, however, skeptical of their motives because I believe they are mostly looking out for themselves. They could give a crap-less how the ordinary citizens of the panhandle are doing (as long as they keep flipping burgers and mowing lawns and painting houses and controlling pests and collecting garbage or any job where some peon is available to be yelled at when the elite feel like yelling). They want more rich, pretty people in the area to hang out with so they can defend themselves when the unruly, unclean masses finally rise up! But still, they are doing something. I have to give them credit for that. People who sit around and bitch like me probably drive the elite absolutely insane… hahaha… and that’s why I do what I do 🙂

Technologically, I’m an Idiot…

I used to be kind of a techie geek. I liked the newest tech-toys and the hippest websites. When I worked at Alltel, I was all about the newest, coolest phones. I was one of the guys that the customers would come to so they could transfer all of their saved crap on their old phone to their new phone (because we didn’t have fancy machines that did that automatically), or set custom MP3 ringtones on phones that weren’t supposed to be able to have custom ringtones, or whatever other crap needed to be done that took a lot of time but didn’t generate any commission. Also, friends and family, because I worked at a cell phone store, thought I was the be-all, end-all to tech greatness. I liked being a go-to geek. Then I started doing actual tech support, and everything changed.

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I also used to love to read. I loved being taken away to a life that actually contained adventure by having my imagination stoked by a master wordsmith. Holding a book, turning the pages, feeling its heft in my hands, knowing that someone had taken months of their time creating this tale just for me… reading was awesome. I always dreamed of being one of those wordsmiths, creating those tales just for that individual who chose to be carried away by my musings. I dreamed of having a mass of paper bound together and full of my words with my name embossed on the cover underneath a catchy, deep title like: Whereas Whispers the Will of our Souls, or, Arnklot, Last of the Vampyre Clan of Tillystone. All dreams must come to an end.
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The wife used to be pretty technologically ignorant. She was anti-smartphone because they were too “fancy”, and she didn’t feel she would ever use all of the “fancy” Internet features on a smartphone. Still, I was able to convince her to go into a Droid, and she has never looked back. Her next step was a Kindle. I was actually against the Kindle (this was after I stopped working at Alltel, and technology had started to lose its appeal to me).

“Books are books, and they can’t be replaced by a stupid e-reader,” I would tell her.

“I still love books,” the wife would say, “it’s just nice to have a whole library in one easy-to-carry device.”

“That’s crap,” I would logically disagree. “Kindles are stupid. Only babies have Kindles!”

Whatever,” the wife would say, usually rolling her eyes.
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So the wife got her a Kindle and started getting fancy electronic books. They were much less expensive than the good old paper books, and she soon had a decent sized collection of crappy e-books on her Kindle. I was disgusted.

I started to notice that more and more “experts” were predicting the slow demise of the paper book. Digital books were predicted to be the wave of the future. I disagreed.

“Who is going to take the time to write a book if they have to sell them on Amazon for 99¢?” I would inquire.

“There are writers out there who have become millionaires selling books on Amazon,” the wife would argue. “These writer’s would have never even received an offer from a traditional publisher.”

“But, without a traditional publisher, how do you get a paper book made?” I asked.

“Well, they don’t have paper books made,” the wife said. “They are all digital.”

“That’s stupid,” I would conclude. “Only baby writers don’t have paper books.”

More eye rolling always followed. The wife likes to roll her eyes.

Before I knew it, the wife was getting involved in all kinds of reading crap. She got all wrapped up in Goodreads, and there she found new Facebook discussion groups and whatnot. She learned more ways to get enjoyment out of her stupid Kindle. She actually was fast becoming an expert on e-readers and e-books in general.

This past Christmas, both of my boys and the wife all got Kindle Fires. Now, all three of them are supporting making authors struggle more by buying e-books instead of the good old traditional paper books. How in the crap are you supposed to get a signed copy of an e-book? You can’t, that’s how! Stupid Kindle. Stupid Amazon. Stupid Nook. Stupid Barnes & Noble (whose brick and mortar stores are on the verge of extinction thanks to stupid e-readers).

The wife was recently talking about how e-reader experts will probably be in pretty high demand in the near future. Traditional bookstores, libraries, and even many businesses will have a need for an on-staff e-reader expert. That sounds like a job I would like. That seems like a job the wife has positioned herself for. Stupid technology. After dealing with tech crap all day at work, the last thing in the world I want to do is submerge myself in technology after hours. I watch stupid scary movies or find some other mind-killing activity to help me get to sleep: things that in no way will help me transition into a fun job (if there is such a thing).
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I don’t really read much anymore. I used to read because I thought reading might be a good way to improve my writing skills. Now, I have given up on my dream being a writer. I won’t have my name embossed on the cover of a stinking Kindle, and nobody is going to let me sign their stupid Nook. Selling e-books for 99¢ isn’t going to lead to a full-time gig (… at least not with any of the hogwash I would end up writing), and who in his or her right mind would write seriously just for fun (I have this stinking blog for that).

Technology kills dreams. Technology erodes real human contact. Technology is destroying the world. My wife is now the technology expert in our house. And although I work with stupid Internet technology all day, I am thankful that, technologically, I’m an idiot…

Normally, I would end my post here with this profound thought, but I’m feeling kind of bad. Here I have written a kind of stupid post (yeah, so what’s new?) and interlaced it with attractive women with a more-than-necessary amount of skin showing for the sole purpose of getting guys to stay on my site longer and increase my stats. I may be a little geekier than I let on. This is not fair to the women who visit my blog: the wife and my sister. In order to make amends, I offer the following for the ladies: