Adventurer Rich – Page 4 – HappyStinkingJoy

Another Panhandle Disappointment…

The Union Bar in Gering Nebraska has its own little claim to fame: the Diet Burger. The Nebraska Beef Council holds a “Nebraska’s Best Burger” contest every year. The Diet Burger was one of five finalists for this year’s coveted top spot. Needless to say, it didn’t win, but still… a burger recognized as great in a state where cows are more populous than people has got to be good, right?

A tradition that my boys and I have is to go camping for a night somewhere local to give the wife a night with the house to herself. We haven’t been able to do this for the last couple of years, but this year we just made it happen. We planned on camping at a local campground on Friday night, cooking out that night. Then, our big plan was to go to The Union for lunch the following day to try us one of these Diet Burgers. I’m a big burger fan and am at a loss for anything other than chain and fast food burgers around these parts. I haven’t had any burgers locally that have made me say to myself, “Wow, beef really is better in Nebraska.”

At first, my boys were a little hesitant going to a “bar” for lunch, but I had them so psyched up to try one of these burgers that I think it could have been served in an alley on East Overland and they would have been willing to go. See, the Diet Burger is supposed to be a pound of beef and a pound of bacon mushed between two grilled cheese sandwiches. Sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen, right? Sounded like the perfect thing to split with the boys on the one “cheat day” I allow myself away from my stinking diet.

So, the boys and I camp Friday night. We have a good time. We do a little geocaching, we play with our new puppy (who joined us on our trip), we ate some campfire stuff, we played us a little UNO, and we talked about how cool eating that Diet Burger was going to be. The next day, we pack up camp and head to The Union to top-off our adventure.

Now I was especially excited. I have a lot of people who know me who complain that I never write about anything positive in this here blog. They say stuff like, “Why can’t you focus on the positive” and “There are lots of good things around here to write about.” So, I’m excited that I am finally going to be able to write about something in a positive light in the good old panhandle of Nebraska. I’ve never actually seen one of these Diet Burgers, but I was imagining a monstrosity of meat and cheese just oozing with goodness. I couldn’t wait to get a picture or two of the behemoth and attach them to my stellar review of the burger. I haven’t been this excited about much of anything in the panhandle of Nebraska since… well… ever.

The boys and I stroll into The Union and take a small table by the front window. Our waitress is a cute little blond gal with short shorts and a pleasant smile. “What can I get you guys?” she asks.

I don’t even hesitate. “We’ll take a Diet Burger,” I say, my mouth already starting to collect drool with which to help the feast of beef and pork that I am soon going to be devouring slide down my gullet.

The waitress got kind of a wrinkly look on her face and said “Oooh,” and I knew my dreams were about to come crashing down around me in small piles that somehow resembled mutilated unicorns.

“We don’t serve those on Saturdays.”

Suddenly, with her face all scrunched up, little blondie with the short shorts wasn’t so cute anymore.

She points to a little list of like 10 bar-food-type appetizer items. “This is our Saturday menu.”

“Well…” I start, looking at both of my boys who, like me, are visibly fighting the onslaught of tears on the verge of exploding from their eyes, “… we really wanted the Diet Burger.”

“Sorry,” says blondie.

“Okay,” I said as I started to get up from the table. “I guess we’ll go somewhere else.”

The boys and I got up and, stepping around the small piles of blood and unicorn guts, made our way out of The Union. “Gering sucks,” I said to the boys as we climbed back into our car. “You know, if Gering would merge with Scottsbluff, The stupid Union would serve Diet Burgers on Saturday.”

See, now I will never have a Diet Burger. The Union pissed me off, and the ability to forgive isn’t my strongest trait. It is completely within The Union’s rights as a small business in the USA to serve what they want when they want. Maybe the Saturday lunch crowd (which may not exist… there were like two drunk dudes sitting at the bar — and that’s it — while we were there at right after noon) doesn’t deserve this “famous” local treat. The Diet Burger is no longer “famous” to me… it’s dead. See, I also have rights… like the right to never set foot in there again.

We drove into Scottsbluff and went to the Original Submarine Sandwich Shop located in Route 66 Mart. We got some 4″ subs, which are served on Saturdays, and although they weren’t as flavorful as I’m sure the Diet Burger would have been, they were seasoned with the extra saltiness of our tears…

Losing Weight Sucks…

Have you ever tried to lose weight? I have, but I love the taste of good food too much and I despise anything that makes me too sweaty. Needless to say, the loss of weight has never been easy for me. Why is it that all of the goals that have a positive impact on your life are so stinking hard and take so much stinking work? Every… single… one. Being a good parent is hard and takes work. Relationships are hard and take work. Making money is hard and takes work. Just getting through an average day isn’t exactly a walk in the park. And being healthy is absolutely sucktastic.

Theodore Roosevelt is quoted as saying, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” Why exactly in the hell do we quote this man? If your life is full of effort, pain, and difficulty, you are to be envied. What is the purpose of living a life like this? What joy can be found in a life like this? I guess if the effort, pain, and difficulty result in some sort of reward, there is a silver lining. Silver is overrated. I want my lining to be gold.

Life would be so much easier if you could just eat whatever you wanted with no negative consequences. Why isn’t life like that? Why does everything that tastes good have to be bad for you? Why can’t turnips cause cancer and aged cheddar cheese lower your cholesterol?

There is going to be some healthy jerk who reads this and thinks something like, “Oh, nothing tastes better than fresh arugula sautéed in olive oil with organic pine nuts and a touch of sea salt!” This person has never tasted bacon.

There are those who say that our bodies crave “junk” (i.e. good food) because that is what they are used to eating. If we would just change our habits, we would come to love the taste of fresh greens and other low fat crap which are really what our bodies crave… our bodies just don’t know it.

… uh, sure…

Then why did almost all native people risk their lives in the pursuit of wild game? I’m sure there were all kinds of leafy greens that could have been gathered with minimal risk of death. They wanted meat! They wanted roasted meat and charred meat and raw meat. They wanted to bite into the still beating heart of their latest kill!

“The fat of the land” refers to the best part of something… because fat rules! I don’t remember reading anywhere in the Bible, “And take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the brussel sprouts of the field.”

And then there is the whole “eating in moderation” train of thought. Eating in moderation is all good and well if you don’t mind walking around hungry all of the flipping time. I hate being hungry.

Of course the whole secret to losing weight is taking in less calories than you burn. Exercise helps burn calories. So, in theory, if I could just exercise all of the time, I could probably eat whatever I wanted. But I can’t exercise all of the time. First of all, exercise sucks. It’s hard and it makes me tired. Second of all, even if exercise didn’t suck, there is no way I can do it all of the time. Why? Because I have to work a job to make the money to buy the food to put in my mouth to intake the calories that need to be burned by the exercise that lay in the house that Jack built… or something like that.

Needless to say, I’m trying to lose weight. At a mere 5’7″, 200 pounds puts me on the verge of obesity. Once I can actually call myself obese, I am left with no choice but to pitch a tent in the sporting goods department and live out the rest of my life at the local Walmart. I don’t want to live in Walmart, thus the weight loss regimen. I’ve been “dieting” for almost a month. The pounds are very, very, very slowly coming off. I track my caloric intake, I track the calories burned through exercise, and I constantly crave a bacon double cheeseburger. Losing weight sucks… and I wrote “pitch a tent”… heh heh heh…

Cosmo: It’s Not For Everyone…

… yeah, I know. I’m a dude. What in the hell am I doing going to Cosmo for advice on anything. I blame Google.

I’m trying to turn over a new leaf, you know? I’m trying to be more positive at work. We have some new people and I’m trying to not let my negativity rub off on the new people. I figure if I can make it through the next 9 years, I can leave the panhandle of Nebraska in the dust… FOREVER. I just need to make it through the next 9 years.

As I point out regularly, working sucks. When you are at work, you are not doing the things you want to do… you are doing what someone else wants you to do. Such is life. It sucks, but what are you going to do. You have to pay your bills somehow. You have to have money for the scant time you do have to do the things you want to do. Ahhh… the American Dream of we, the faithful sheep of the USA. Spend your good years toiling and consuming so that when you are old and decrepit and have nothing much physically or mentally left to offer others, then you can take a year or two to yourself… before you kick the bucket.

So with my obvious new-found positive outlook, I went searching the Internet for ideas on how to make going to work more enjoyable.

And Google directed me to Cosmo…

And I should have known better than to even read the first sentence…

I’d love to copy the entire Cosmo post here and rip it apart piece by piece, but I believe that would be some sort of violation of something, and I’m sure Cosmo‘s lawyers are a little better than my lawyer… or they would be if I had a lawyer…

I apologize in advance for the following, but here is the link to the Cosmo article, “8 Ways to Make Your Job Suck Less”, by Anna Davies.

Now, if you’ll notice from the first piece of advice from this list of “8 Ways to Make Your Job Suck Less” that this article isn’t really written for anyone with testicals. Maybe some women (and, I suppose, dudes… maybe…) can make their day brighter with a bouquet of pretty flowers, but that doesn’t do squat for me.

Item 2 is (if you read it, you know I crap you not) “Suck Up a Little.” O…M…G… I remember that class from college: “How to Suck Up to Your Superior to Get Ahead at Work.” How could I have forgotten this simple rule that is so well respected by employees the world over? Everyone loves a good suck-up, right? I can’t tell you how many times I have heard something like, “Man, Jenny is such a good suck-up. I wish I could suck up more like her. She is destined for greatness with that sucking ability of hers!”

Items numbered 3, 5, 7 & 8 are sexting, playing Angry Birds, watching YouTube videos, and planning a vacation. Half of the stinking list of things to do at work to make your job suck less are pretty much, “Don’t do your job”! That’s just freaking BRILLIANT! Why hadn’t I thought of that? If I don’t do my job while I’m at my job, maybe my job won’t suck! MY MIND HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY BLOWN!!! Pure genius…

Item 4 is to spend more time outside of work with your “office BFFs.” Dear Lord… “office BFFs.” Are we really supposed to have “office BFFs?” I’m all for getting along with coworkers, and I even like a couple of mine, but if I ever refer to anyone that I work with as an “office BFF”, I want someone to promise to shoot me dead. I already know which one of my office BFFs I can count on to make sure that happens…

Planning for the Future…

How does one go about planning for the future? I’ve tried doing some planning, but it all seems like such a waste of time. Things never work out the way you want them to, and life always gets thrown into the mix and screws everything up… like stupid “fix-it” tickets that you have 5 days to get taken care of that involve probably hundreds of dollars worth of electrical work on your vehicle that you can’t afford… stinking Scottsbluff police…

Planning small things isn’t such a big deal. Planning a birthday party or a weekend trip or something like that is pretty doable. I’m talking about the major plans like retirement or future career direction or where you would like to live. I know that there are people who successfully plan for such things; I’m just not one of them. There are those who say it is all in God’s hands and to trust in God. I don’t disagree about the God’s hands part, but I don’t think God is going to pay my mortgage. I don’t think God is going to make sure my electricity doesn’t get shut off because I quit my job. God doesn’t take care of “fix-it” tickets… although I’m hoping some prayers for a certain police officer getting a random plague of locusts will go answered. God has never led me to believe that I can just quit my job and lead the life I would like. If this life didn’t contain vast amounts of major suckage, why would we turn our eyes toward heaven?

I tried to plan for my future by going to college. I went to college, I got good grades, and I got a job. I wanted to make a lot of money, but I have never made a lot of money. The only reason I went to college was to get a job that pays a lot of money.

Period.

I will never have a job that pays a lot of money. Different people have different definitions for “lot of money”. I have mine, and I will never see it (and it probably isn’t as much as you may be thinking). In hindsight, I would not have focused on money. In hindsight, I would have focused on doing something that utilizes my inherent talents and skills… something like… uh… okay, so I don’t have any inherent talents and skills. Planning sucks.

I’ve tried planning for various other things, including retirement. Retirement planning is kind of a joke. If you don’t start enforcing a plan right when you get in the workforce, it’s too late. I know there are people who are able to do it later in life and find some success… but those people are either making more money than me or are willing to sacrifice more than me. I don’t have a big issue sacrificing, but while my kids are still around the house, I am willing to sacrifice less. Kids are expensive. Worth it? Of course. But expensive none the less.

Recently, I was talking with a couple of friends at a high school soccer game and we started talking about life after all of the kids are out of the house. Interestingly enough, one of the friends said she and her husband plan on traveling around the country after the kids are gone. You know, just kind of moving from town to town, getting jobs that pay enough just to get by. The other friend said he and his wife plan on doing something similar, but more of a retirement-type thing. Get out and see the world. This point is probably where I made my mistake. I started thinking and planning which are two things I don’t do very well, especially together.

Retirement has always been very important to me (just not important enough to completely quit living in the here and now, which seems to pretty much be what it takes at my income level). I hate working. I hate the way life is laid out. I hate the fact that you spend most of your waking hours working at a job in order to pay for everything. Call me lazy, call me whatever you want, but I hate working. Now, I helped a young man with his Eagle Scout project a couple of weeks ago and it was actual physical work. I didn’t mind it at all. In fact, I enjoyed myself. I do various household and community projects. I volunteer for BSA and at my church. I do stuff, and I don’t hate doing stuff that involves “work”. So I don’t really think I’m lazy. I just hate working for a paycheck. I understand that there are lots of people out there who would love to have a job and I can hear the tiny chorus of voices saying, “Be thankful you have a job!” I didn’t say that I’m not thankful I have a job… but I still hate working for a paycheck. Thus, retirement has always been like a stupid dangling carrot that urges me to get out of bed every morning. I really don’t think I will ever be able to retire… at least not fully:

I started too late.
I dipped into those funds at one point for something I probably shouldn’t have.
I can’t contribute as much as I would like at this point.
Most success that the stock market has seen recently has eluded me.

Okay, so working until I die is sounding more and more like the reality of my situation.

That sucks.

That really, really sucks.

So, back to the conversation I had with my friends at the soccer game that involved the thinking and the planning. As long as I’m going to have to work up until my death, I want to travel and see stuff and try to get a little enjoyment out of the whole situation. The wife and I have discussed it and she agrees that, once the boys are out of school, selling much of our belongings and going transient sounds like a doable plan. You know, move up to Estes Park for a year and work at the shops up there. Spend a summer working in Yellowstone…. or maybe a year or two. Spend a year or two working in Key West! Just travel… and get little jobs with little responsibility and little stress in places we would really like to live! Try out different areas. Make enough to pay the monthly bills. Retirement isn’t an option, so why stress about it? See the US (or maybe even the world) and just get by.

When I mentioned the “goat farm” idea to the wife, she was less than enthusiastic. The whole “see the country” plan she seems to be on board with. And in a mere 9 years, both of the boys will be out of high school… so although it is a little further away than I would like, it’s not an eternity. I don’t wish my children’s childhoods away, but they are slipping by without any prompting from me. Might as well have something to look forward to at the horrible time when the nest is empty.

The problem now rests with the fact that I am planning for the future. Whenever I plan for the future, stuff seems to get in the way. Therefore, stuff will probably get in the way of the plan to travel once the kids are on their own. It’s like I’ve jinxed myself by thinking about it!

Damn it!

Raising Goats Would Suck… NOT!

Everyone has his or her own version of the “American Dream” tucked away somewhere in the nether-regions of her or his subconscious. Our personal versions of the “American Dream” are part of what motivates us to get out of bed every morning and live life.

Little Johnny wants to grow up and get married and have a family and own a home and be a fireman so he can spend his life saving the lives of others. Then Little Johnny wants to retire and travel and enjoy his final years.

. .

Little Suzie wants to grow up and get married and have a family and own a home and be a doctor so she can spend her life saving the lives of others. Then Little Suzie wants to retire and travel and enjoy her final years.

. .

Little Barack and Little George wanted to grow up to be politicians so they could meddle in people’s lives and screw over a country.

Everyone has a dream. Some people realize that dream, and the rest of us learn to settle.

Settling sucks.

Little Adventurer Rich wanted to grow up and get married and have a family and own a home and be a something-that-makes-a-lot-of-money-and-helps-a-lot-of-people-but-isn’t-dangerous-or-doesn’t-involve-sticking-his-hands-in-other-people’s-guts. Then Little Adventurer Rich wanted to retire and travel and enjoy his final years.

. .

Little Adventurer Rich got a cold slap across the face as a wake-up call. When you decide to grow roots in rural Nebraska, there is no such thing as a job where you can make a lot of money. If you don’t get the job that pays a lot of money, the retirement and travel associated with the retirement become pipe dreams.

I’m thankful for the marriage and the family and the house. The rest of my “American Dream” is things I will need to learn to live without. Well, I guess those things are already lacking, so I won’t need to learn to live without them… I need to learn that I will never have them. It’s called “settling”.

As I cruise through this ever-increasingly difficult mid-life crisis, things start to fall into perspective. I’m not the kind of guy who wants a fancy sports car or a token 20-something-year-old mistress to help realize unfulfilled dreams. I’m happy driving crappy used cars (even considering getting a minivan). My wife is my only link to sanity. If I lost her, I would lose all bearing on life. So, I’ll keep my 40-something-year-old model. Besides, the only 20-something-year-olds interested in old farts like me are after gold, and my veins are full of nothing but pyrite and cholesterol.

So, since I’m not looking for the typical remedies for my ills, I’ve been trying to figure out how to become less miserable. I look in the mirror and this old guy looks back at me, with his gray hairs and his frown lines, and I start to get pissed off at him. He looks so much older than I feel. Why didn’t he do something with his life? Why couldn’t he have been better looking or more self-confident? Why didn’t he take advantage of opportunities that I’m sure were available to him (yet, strangely enough, neither he nor I can think of any)? Why has he let me down? Ooh, sometimes I just want to throttle that loser in the mirror. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would ever be successful. He looks like a stupid goat farmer…

… goat farmer…

…GOAT FARMER!

. .

OH…EM…GEE! I look like a goat farmer! A stupid goat farmer! Being a goat farmer would be AWESOME! No stupid customer problems! No stupid technology! Just lots and lots of goats! You feed them, you breed them, you take care of them, maybe you milk them, then you kill them and you eat them. Maybe you sell them. Maybe you sell the milk or sell the meat. Maybe you hire them out to breed with someone else’s goats.

OH… EM… GEE! I could be a GOAT PIMP!

. .

If not goats, maybe ostrich, or rabbit, or some other semi-exotic meat that people are willing to buy. I wouldn’t make my riches being an exotic meat farmer, but being out on a farm, working with my hands, being responsible for only my own actions and relying only on my own efforts… I may not be able to retire, but I wouldn’t want to gouge my brains out through my ear holes before going to a “job” every day, so it is something I could see myself doing until I finally snap and they end up throwing me in a loony bin!

Maybe my family wouldn’t be able to have some of the things we have now, like satellite television or cell phones or Internet or new clothes or gas for the used cars or, you know, food to eat other than goat… but it would all be worth it! If you can’t make it to the top of the food chain doing something you hate, crawl to the bottom of the food chain raising goats!

Now, I just need some land and a shack to live in. I’m sure I can pick up some land on the cheap in Nebraska, right? And I’ll need some starter goats. Do they sell starter goat kits? Never mind, I’ll Google it later… while I still have Internet 🙂 And I just need to convince my family that we would be better off without all of the stupid “conveniences” or modern life. I’ll never be able to provide for my family in the ways I dreamed as a kid, so it’s time to change the dream!

Little Adventurer Rich wants to grow up and get married and have a family and own a home and sell that home and buy a goat farm and raise goats! Then Little Adventurer Rich wants to lose his mind and get locked up in a “facility” with lots of padded rooms where he will enjoy his final years dreaming of his goats…

. .

Finally, a dream I may be able to accomplish…

Email… The Best Way To Blow-Off Personal Responsibility… For Anything…

“Did you follow-up with that customer?”

“Yeah… I sent him an email.”

***Really?***

“Hey, did you talk to Larry about getting his numbers up?”

“Yeah, I detailed it in an email.”

*** Right!***

“Hey, you missed the meeting! Didn’t you get my email?”

“No, I never received an email from you.”

Email sucks… period.

Email serves two purposes:

The first purpose is to”communicate” with a customer, co-worker, friend, etc. who you really don’t want to deal with. You really don’t want to take any kind of personal responsibility for whatever the situation is, so you shoot an email off to someone .
The second purpose is to cover your ass in the event that someone accuses you of abdicating your responsibility. “I didn’t drop the ball on the Smith project. I sent an email…” And I bet you have a copy of that sent email in some file or folder proving you didn’t drop the ball.

Email sucks.

Have you ever taken some time off… you know, like, say, a weekend, and you come back to work and have a stinking pile of email to go through? In addition to trying to get some actual work done, you know, like attending meetings and stuff, you have to find the time to sift through a buttload of mindless email. And usually about 5% of the email has anything at all to do with you. And then, because you are trying to get through the email, most of which is of absolutely no interest to you, you actually miss an email where, at the very end of an email written by someone who is trying to be Shakespeare writing Hamlet or something, you miss something that does pertain to you. And then the Shakespeare wanna-be follows up with an email asking why you didn’t follow up on his original email… which you didn’t know really had anything to do with you because your mind started to numb-over in the fifth paragraph and you didn’t make it to the end and actually discover that there was some instruction for you at the end of the email. And you act like you don’t know what Shakespeare is talking about (because you don’t know what Shakespeare is talking about), and Shakespeare says, “It was in my email!”

Email sucks. Have I mentioned that yet?

Email used to be great. Man, the jokes I used to get forwarded to me were hilarious! Oh how I’d laugh at the recycled Little Johnnie jokes. The Bill Clinton Jokes never got old — he just made it way too easy, you know, with the cigars and the “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” and the Hilary…

Now, I’m so busy using stupid email for “work” that I don’t even take the time to read the funny forwards; they go straight in the trash. Email as a joke delivery system was one thing. Email used as a method of actually conducting serious business… well… sucks.

The only nice thing about email is you can say you never received the email. Abdication of personal responsibility on both ends…

And don’t even get me started on the constantly ringing phones. Does anyone ever call a business without a problem that needs to be resolved? They are paying a bill because not paying the bill is a problem. They need new service because not having service poses a problem. They have a problem with the service… these are the most funnest of all! Problems, problems, problems, all day long. Hey, I got problems of my own! What makes you think I want to deal with your stupid problems… oh yeah… it’s my job. Jobs, email, and especially jobs with email… you know where this is going…

A Way To Make Tourism In Nebraska Work…

Since finding myself living in Nebraska, I’ve felt a touch of compassionate empathy for those poor folks involved in the tourism industry in Nebraska. I mean, we are a world in search of adventure. Nebraska is no grand adventure.

Life is actually usually pretty boring, if we sit back and think about it. I remember, after going to see the latest installment in the Spider-Man big screen adaptation behemoth, my teen-aged son saying to me, “Man, being Spider-Man would be cool, huh? I mean, after watching Spider-Man, real life seems kind of boring.” Yes, boy, I thought, real life seems kind of boring. And he is a teenager. Just wait until you are an adult, with bills and responsibilities and a job, which if you are like 70% (and I believe this percentage may be a little low) of the population, you will hate. That’s why people get lost in television series about zombies and movie franchises about vampires and book series about young wizards, that’s why people get all tied up in “a galaxy far, far away” — because real life is boring. That’s why grown men and women lose themselves in the utter ridiculousness of “sport fandom” — because our lives are pretty boring, so we need to live vicariously through people who we view as having “exciting lives.” So, when we go to spend our hard-earned and hard-saved vacation money (or rack up credit card bills we have no intention of actually paying off in our lifetimes), we are searching for some relaxation, some adventure, and getting away from our boring lives. Why would anyone in his or her right mind search out wind, allergens, the smell of feedlots, and the miles and miles of mind-numbing cornfields of Nebraska as a place to spend their vacation dollars? Nebraska is a place you pass through on your way to somewhere that has something to offer. No one in his or her right mind…

My thoughts are often with those poor folks who have jobs that require the promotion of Nebraska as a tourist destination. Talk about some of the hardest jobs in America. I’m actually surprised that Dirty Jobs hasn’t featured Nebraska Tourism in its spotlight…

Mike Rowe walks into the State Tourism office in Lincoln. He is immediately greeted by a weary young woman who welcomes him with a weak, sweaty handshake.

Mike: Well, this looks like an office job. It can’t be that bad.

Woman: Yeah, it’s an office job.

Mike: So, what do you guys and gals do here?

Woman: We try to convince people to spend their vacation dollars in Nebraska.

Mike (rolling up his sleeves): Well, Nebraska can’t be that bad. What are some of the things in the state that people would want to come see?

Woman: … Kool-Aid was invented here…

Mike: Okay, that’s a start. And we have a museum for that?

Woman: Well, no. There is a display for Kool-Aid in a museum in Hastings, but no stand-alone museum.

Mike: … okay… what else we got!

Woman: We have corn, and cows. Growing is big here. We grow corn and meat and beans and stuff.

Mike (hamming it up, winking at the camera): How about pot? Could we promote pot? Some states are legalizing it!

Woman: The state is about 99.7% Republican…

Mike (coughing): … okay… uh… celebrities? Any living celebrities people would want to visit the home towns of?

Woman: … Larry the Cable Guy…

Mike (tearing off his microphone and yelling at his producer): Nebraska? Who in the hells idea was this? They are FIRED! We are out of here…

Woman (weeping): … Oh please, God, don’t leave me! Are you hiring… anything… somebody has to wash the crap off your clothes after you crawl out of the sewers… I’ll do that…

Okay, Nebraska tourism might be too much for even Dirty Jobs.

Now, with Nebraska tourism being on my mind more than not, I am constantly looking for ways to help those poor folks involved in the industry. So, when I came across a small article in the local Star-Herald newspaper, my grand plan began to formulate. Nebraska might not be the logical choice for people in their right minds… but what about nutjobs and whackos? We might be the place for those folks, and there are a lot of those folks… and they have money too.

The article in the Star-Herald was about a vampire in Serbia. Now, you may be asking yourself why a small newspaper in Scottsbluff, Nebraska is carrying a story about a vampire in Serbia. Well, it’s Nebraska. Not much happens here, but there are pages to fill. Now, from what I could glean from the story, the locals don’t really believe there is a vampire on the loose in Serbia. The locals are just playing up the sensational story for — you guessed it — potential tourism dollars. The residents of Zarozje, Serbia, want the nutjobs and the whackos to come spend their hard-earned vacation money in search of the elusive vampire. This will probably work. People go to Transylvania because of Dracula. People visit the Loch Ness in hopes of spying the monster. Weirdos and psychos head to the Pacific Northwest with the intend of snapping a picture of Bigfoot. Now, if only the good folks of Nebraska had something freakish going for them… other than the freakishly boring everyday stuff…

Now, I’m thumbing through another edition of the Star-Herald and I see a piece on Stephen King giving a speech at the University of Massachusetts… and the Golden Tourism plan is devised for the great state of Nebraska!

Stephen King has used Nebraska in a few of his stories. Children of the Corn takes place in and around the fictitious town of Gatlin, which would be somewhere in the western part of the state near the real-life Hemingford. The real-life Hemingford is the namesake for Stephen King’s Hemingford Home, which was the residence of Abigail Freeman in The Stand. Hemingford Home is also where Wilfred James killed and was haunted by his wife in 1922. Stephen King doesn’t seem to have a problem imagining strange things transpiring in Nebraska. We should SELL THAT! Screw vampires! Screw hairy guys with big feet! We’re talking killer children in the cornfields! All of a sudden, those stupid cornfields seem to be more than a source for allergy issues. Guys murder their wifes and bury them in old wells around here, folks: come and SEE IT! Come to Nebraska and try not to get caught up in the ultimate battle between good and evil! Try to keep your SOUL!

Oh man, this is tourism gold. I mean, you walk into the local Walmart at an hour of any given day and about half of the dudes walking around look like they could have potentially buried their wives in wells. Nebraska could be the freak-out capital of the world. Farmers could have mazes going through their cornfields and hire some of the local illegals to chase tourist with machetes. There could be bloody body parts scattered along the trails. The whole state could become like the worlds largest haunted house! People would come from near and far to be freaked-out in Nebraska. Oh sure, the new breed of tourist this campaign would bring in might not be the most mentally sound of people, but money all burns the same, right?

And I even have the new state slogan. Screw “The Good Life”, because we don’t want to mislead people with false advertising. Our new slogan would be:

Nebraska: Something’s Just Not Quite Right…

Scotts Bluff County Building: The Kind of Words My Kids Get Their Mouths Washed Out With Soap for Saying…

I turned ancient yesterday.

Truly ancient.

43.

Only 7 more years until I hit 50, but I really don’t count on living that long. 50 is way older than I ever imagined myself getting, and the thought of being a 50-year-old man holds no joy for me. “50” reminds me of all of those fogies who think that you should automatically respect them for no reason other than the fact that they are old. Just because cancer decided not to claim you yet doesn’t gain you my respect. I don’t want to be that fogey.

Anywho, along with marking my crawl toward death with another anniversary, yesterday was the day that my driver’s license expired. I had been putting off going to get my license renewed because I have never… NEVER… had a completely positive experience in anything I have done at the Scotts Bluff County building in Gering. Whether it’s registering an automobile, or anything to do with my driver’s license, or protesting my property valuation in front of the county commissioners — it’s like the entire place is run on the foundation that you are going to leave pissed off; this is their goal. And they will tell you that this is not their goal, but they lie.

Government employees have some of the best training in customer service of any profession… said no one… EVER!

So, three days ago, I put on my big boy pants and went down to the DMV in the county building for what I was sure would be a miserable, stresstastic experience. I get in line and grab the paperwork to fill out. The other guys waiting in line are bitching about how much it sucks to have to deal with the DMV, but I try to ignore them and just concentrate on my paperwork. I don’t need anyone else to raise my stress level — I do a plenty good job of that myself.

Well, I get my paperwork filled out and come to the realization that the reason the other guys in line are complaining is the fact that the DMV’s computer system is down. They can’t do anything with their computer system down, and they have no ETA on when the computer system will be back up. So, I sit there for my lunch hour, hoping that the computer system will come back up, and it doesn’t. I go back to work feeling a little like I just wasted an entire lunch hour… and knowing I have to go back to the DMV…

… but I prepare.

I actually read over the “required forms” crap at the DMV before I leave so that I can make sure I have every stupid piece of paper that I am going to need to get out of there with no hassle, because that is usually where most of the issues at the Scotts Bluff County building come from. You see, there are various hoops that have to be jumped through. Many of the hoops seem ridiculous, and many of the hoops are ridiculous. The hoops are what make any visit to the Scotts Bluff County building a major pain in the ass. Well, the hoops and the hoopmasters.

Hoopmasters are the employees within the walls of the Scotts Bluff County building. Many of the hoopmasters are so mired in rules and regulations that there ability to use common sense is turned off as soon as they walk through the doors of the building to begin their shifts.

One guy one time did such-and-such with a doohickey which caused issues for the county. All of the “customers” of the county are criminals. Therefore, a rule is implemented that no one can now use a doohicky, because everyone is out to screw the county and everyone must be blatantly treated like they are out to screw the county. “We” (the residents of the county) are the “them” in the “us vs. them” that is how the hoopmasters view our relationship.

I have a different address than what appeared on my old license, so I need various proof of this in the form of various pieces of paper. I make the necessary photocopies of all of the required pieces of paper in the morning before going to work so that I can use another lunch hour to get my license renewed.

When I arrived at work in the morning, I went online to once more check all of the required paperwork. I immediately called the wife and asked her to bring in the original forms that I had made copies of — because copies will not be accepted. One of the forms was a recent credit card statement.

“But the part that you have to mail in with the payment is the only part of the statement that has your address on it,” said the wife.

“Yeah, but there is one that hasn’t been paid yet,” I said.

“But that one is in my stack of bills to be paid,” said the wife.

“I know, but I need it,” I said.

“But you’ll lose it, and then you will be making it harder for me to pay that bill,” said the wife.

“Yeah, I probably will, but I have a photocopy here that we can use to pay the bill if I do,” I said.

“Why can’t you use the copy you made?” asked the wife.

“DMV,” I said.

“Oh yeah, right,” said the wife, “one guy one time with the doohickey.”

“Exactly,” I said.

So, the wife brought me all of the necessary originals, and when my lunch break rolled around, I was all set to go. I had even taken a blank check so that I could pay with a check. The county treasurer accepts credit and debit cards, but they add on some stinking fee if you pay by that method. You know, kind of like the cheap-ass gas station owners who charge an extra 3¢ per gallon if you’re using plastic.

Cheap-ass gas station owners and Scotts Bluff County, almost one in the same.

So I walk in expecting the worst, even though I feel like I am as prepared as I can be. There is no line. I take a number and a pleasant lady immediately asks what she can do to help me. I tell her I need to renew my license. I already have my form filled out, so she takes my form and my expiring license and sets to work typing into her computer. She gets a little bit of a pained look and she glances at me from the corner of her eye.

“Uhm… it looks like your address has changed,” she said.

“Yep,” I said, and I handed her a pile of check deposit tickets, credit card statements, mortgage statements, utility bills and my most recent copy of Sports Illustrated. Her pained look disappears and she digs through my pile until she finds two suitable forms of proof of address.

I look into the little eye tester dealie, she makes some notes, and I’m off and running to the treasurer to pay for my new license. I AM STOKED!

I am so basking in the glory of having a pleasant experience at the Scotts Bluff County building that almost don’t understand the elderly lady who helps me at the treasurer’s office.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“How would you like to pay?” the elderly lady repeated.

“I don’t like to pay extra fees, so I brought a check,” I said. I was almost giddy with how easy this was all going.

I fill out the check with the appropriate amount and hand it to the elderly lady. This is the most fantastic experience I have ever had within the four walls of this building and I have never…

“I don’t think I can take this check,” says the elderly lady.

“…”

“It’s from out of county, and we can’t take out of county checks,” says the elderly lady as she points at the little homemade sign hanging on the back wall that reads:

NO OUT OF COUNTY CHECKS

“But I live in Gering,” I say. “My address on the check is Gering. This county building is in Gering. Isn’t all of Gering in the same county?”

“It’s not your address,” says the elderly lady. “Just a second…”

The elderly lady calls over a slightly-over-middle-aged lady (who I’m assuming is some kind of supervisor or something) and shows her my check.

“Yeah, we can’t take that,” says the slightly-over-middle-age lady, “it’s from out of county.”

“It’s from Western Heritage Credit Union,” I say. “They have branches in Alliance, Scottsbluff and Gering.”

Now, I have banked at Western Heritage Credit Union since moving back to the craphandle of Nebraska in 2000. Western Heritage Credit Union has been doing business in the craphandle for over 75 years, and has had a branch in Gering since at least 2000 (probably longer, I’m guessing). Yes, their main office is in Alliance (a county over), but I bank at a local branch. In fact, the local branch is less than 2 blocks from the Scotts Bluff County building.

“I’m sorry, the address under the bank on the check is Alliance,” says the slightly-over-middle-age lady, “and Alliance is in a different county.”

“But the branch I use is less than two blocks from here,” I say, my voice probably rising as I point to the south (the direction of the local branch).

The slightly-over-middle-age lady’s eyes start to get big and she thrusts her finger at the little homemade sign on the back wall. You remember, the sign that read:

NO OUT OF COUNTY CHECKS

The sign looked like it was probably made on an inkjet printer and was printed on a standard 8.5″ x 11″ piece of printer paper. The bold, capitalized lettering was in red. The sign actually looked kind of junky, but now I was apparently supposed to bow down to the sign in all of its glory.

There is a Sign on the wall! Yes, we made the Sign on an inkjet printer, but the Sign is all powerful! There can be no arguing with the Sign! Common sense cannot overrule the Sign! The Sign has spoken! Now, fall to your knees and worship the Sign!

I am left just staring in wonder at the fact that the slightly-over-middle-age lady felt that pointing at that stupid sign had some kind of meaning. I guess I should make a sign. I have an inkjet printer, I have 8.5″ x 11″ printer paper, and I can print in red. And I have something to put on that sign.
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“You know,” started the slightly-over-middle-age lady, “one time there was one guy from out of the county with a doohickey…”

“NEVER MIND,” I’m pretty sure I may have shouted. “I’LL PAY WITH A CREDIT CARD.”

“Well,” said the slightly-over-middle-age lady all indignantly. “If you wouldn’t have gotten argumentative, I was just going to tell you that I was going to make an exception this one time.”

Argumentative? All I did was interrupt her insipid story about why the stupid homemade sign was placed on the wall in the first place. I wasn’t argumentative. I was upset. I was justifiably upset that they were refusing to take a check from a credit union with a branch that was less than a two minute walk from where I was sitting. If she wanted to truly offer customer service, she wouldn’t have started her spiel about the “one guy” and his “doohickey” and she would have led with the “we’ll make an exception this one time” part. You can’t get argumentative. You aren’t even supposed to get upset. They have signs all over the place threatening you with deputies and crap if you lose your temper in probably one of the few place on the face of the earth where losing your temper is guaranteed.

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Walking into the Scotts Bluff County building is like walking into the largest catch 22 of all time.

“I’LL PAY WITH A CREDIT CARD,” I say. “I DON’T NEED YOUR EXCEPTION. I’LL PAY YOUR STUPID FEE AND USE MY CREDIT CARD.”

The slightly-over-middle-age lady turned and stormed off and I handed my debit card to the elderly lady who now refused to look me in the eyes. She swiped my card and started doing her thing.

“Do you know your security code?” the elderly lady asked… AS SHE IS HOLDING MY CARD!

“No, I don’t,” I said. “The security code has worn off, but you are holding the card. You just swiped the card. You don’t need my security code if you have swiped the card.”

“Yes, I do,” said the elderly lady.

I give the elderly lady my Amazon Visa without saying a word. I am looking around for an object sharp enough to slit my throat, but nothing appears to be within my reach.

Now, because the elderly lady swiped the card that I do not know the security card for, the machine does not seem to want to accept my Amazon Visa card. The elderly lady is starting to look really nervous. She keeps saying, “Oh my” with every button she pushes on the keyboard, and sweat is starting to pool in the wrinkles on her forehead. She keeps looking around as if looking for help, but everyone has cleared my portion of the office. I just sit there, staring at that stupid sign.

After about 10 minutes, I believe a drop of sweat from the elderly lady’s forehead fell on the keyboard and shorted something out to the point that she could use my Amazon Visa. She insincerely apologized for the wait, and I left without saying a word, the sign burning an image into my brain as I tried to keep my head from exploding…

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Here’s an idea! How about instead of putting these flipping signs in every nook and cranny of your stinking building, instead of that, try training your employees to treat people in a manner where those people will not have such a strong desire to use abusive, threatening, or profane language! Could we try that? I know I sure in the hell wasn’t being treated in a courteous manner when the idiots in the treasurer’s office told me they couldn’t take a check from a bank that was two blocks away! Could I have summoned a deputy to escort them from the premises for their noncourteous actions? IS NONCOURTEOUS EVEN A WORD…

Sweet & Spicy Porken Gyros…

I like gyros. I especially like real, fresh gyros with lamb. I decided that I was going to make real, fresh gyros with lamb… until I found out that lamb, in the panhandle of Nebraska, is hard to come by. None of the local grocery stores or butcher shops carry it. The chamber of commerce recommended I try a local farm that specializes in goat stuff, but I never got through to a person and I didn’t leave a message (because I wanted to make gyros right now), so I gave up after a couple of calls.

See, I think rural, sparsely populated states should have weird and wonderful meats available for purchase. Nebraska is pretty hick, so you’d think you could find some goat or squirrel at the local stores. You’d suspect that there would be some rabbit and duck hanging from hooks in your local meat department. Squirrel and possum should be staples of the local diets. And lamb should be easy to find. But no… apparently the steroid-filled big money makers (beef, pork, chicken and turkey) are the only meats in town. Even buffalo is hard to come by…

So, I figured that the lack of selection that I attribute to living in the middle of nowhere (one of the many wonders of panhandle living) wasn’t going to stop me from making boring beef gyros. I decided I was going to do my own thing. Pork didn’t sound quite right, and neither did chicken…

Sweet & Spicy Porken Gyros

What you’ll need (Gyro Meat):

1# Ground Chicken
1# Ground Lean Pork
1 Large Onion
2 Cloves Minced Garlic
2 tsp Oregano Leaf Flakes
2 tsp Basil Leaf Flakes
2 tsp Sea Salt
1/2 tsp Ground Black Pepper
2 tsp Smoked Crushed Pepper

What you’ll need (Sweet Tzatziki-style sauce):

1 Medium Cucumber, peeled and finely diced
12 oz Sweetened Greek Yogurt (I used and recommend “honey”)
1 large chopped fresh Jalapeno (seeded or not, depending on your love of heat)
2 Cloves Minced Garlic
1/4 tsp Sea Salt
1/4 tsp Ground Black Pepper

What you’ll need (Other Condiments, all optional):

Flat Bread or Pita Bread
Feta Cheese
Sliced Tomato
Diced Onion
Chopped Fresh Jalapeno
Any Other Thing That You Want To Put On These Bad Boys…

Okay, let’s start with the meat (’cause it’s the most fun!) Preheat your oven to 325°. Chop up the onion and throw it in a food processor.
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Process the hell out of it.
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Scrape the processed onion out of the processor and dump it onto a tea towel. Wrap it up and squeeze the hell out of it.
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You probably want to do this over the sink or something, cause onion juice is sticky and smelly and I don’t think you want it all over your floor… or counter… or feet.

Now, throw that big bad ball of oniony goodness back into the food processor…
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… along with everything else listed above for the “Gyro Meat”.

Oh yeah… it’s gonna be a party!

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Once again, process the hell out of it. You want the resulting mixture to be a smooth paste. And yes, you can play with it if you want… just wash your hands first!

On a side note (this is why I don’t do many recipes… because I get easily distracted and I’m sure that frustrates the hell out of someone actually trying to follow one of my recipes), the “Smoked Crushed Pepper” I have listed in the ingredients for the meat mixture is a creation of my own. I smoked hot cherry peppers with applewood for a couple of hours, then I threw them in the dehydrator until they were crispy-dry, then I ground the hell out of them in the food processor. You probably won’t have this on hand (you should!)… and you probably can’t find this at the store. I like the mild smokiness that this spice gives to whatever I add it, and the mild heat is nice as well. For a substitution, you could do like a tablespoon of regular crushed red pepper and a tablespoon (or so) of smoked paprika (which you should be able to find at most grocery stores… I think… we got it here and we’re pretty hick). You could also substitute a couple of teaspoons of ground smoked chipotle (also might be at your local grocer)… but use teaspoons instead of tablespoons… unless you want the heat! Okay, end of side note 🙂

There are a couple of ways to cook this stuff. Some recommend that you form it into a loaf and refrigerate it and then cook it on a rotisserie. Then you can shave it off like they do at the fancy gyro trailers that you see at the high class county fairs and whatnot. I chose to do it the easier way. I threw it into a bread pan.

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Then I put some water in a glass baking dish and placed the bread pan right in the center of the dish. While baking, the water keeps the meat moist… or something else kind of sciency like that.

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Place the meat mixture (in the above combination of pans) in the preheated 325° oven and bake the hell out of it for about an hour (you want an internal temp of at least 165°).

While the hell is ceremoniously being baked out of the meat, whip up the special sauce! Everything listed above under “Sweet Tzatziki-style sauce” gets thrown into a bowl and mixed together. Cover it and throw it in the fridge. Easy, huh?

Now, you could use a non-sweetened yogurt and have a more traditional Tzatziki sauce (you’d have to leave out the jalapeno as well). I just thought that a little spicy/sweet would go good on the gyros (and I believe I was correct). The yogurt I used was honey flavored…

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… but any sweetened yogurt would probably work. I chose honey because I wanted mildly sweet, I wanted to use Greek yogurt, and I didn’t want my gyros tasting like strawberry. You may want your gyros to taste like strawberry, so more power to you!

Now, if everything is going as planned, the meat is still baking, the sauce is chilling, and you’re wondering what to do now. How about you whip-up a side dish!

THAT’S RIGHT… ANOTHER RECIPE HIDDEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ADVERTISED RECIPE! Just think of it like a blogging Easter egg or something!

Rich’s Roasted Potatoes

What you’ll need:

1.5# (1/2 of a 3# bag) Baby Red Potatoes (cut in half)
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (regular virgin would probably work, but we all like extra virgins. Just ask the Muslim suicide bombers… oh… wait…)
1/2 tsp Ground Black Pepper
1/2 tsp Ground Sea Salt (or regular salt, if you’re not a fatty trying to control his blood pressure)
1 tsp Oregano (I used the crushed-leaves-stuff , not the whole)
1 tsp Basil (again, “leaf flake”… which I grew out back, by the way)
1 tsp Rosemary (leaves, not ground)

Throw it all in a zip-style baggie and mix it up! Let it soak and marinate until the meat is done.
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Once the meat comes out (later… see, I can’t even write one of these recipe things in the correct order), raise the temp of the oven to 400°, throw the sauced-potatoes on a baking tray, and bake for about an hour.
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The meat will be chilling while this happens but will still be warm enough to make for a fantabulous meal once the potatoes are done!

In the meanwhile, the meat will have cooked to perfection. Remove from the oven, remove from the pan, and let that sucker rest on a cooling rack while the fabulous potatoes bake.
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When the potatoes are getting closed to finale, take that chunk of meat and slice it up super slim. Put it on a serving thingie and arrange you choice of condiments beside it.
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Plate this crap up with a side of the fresh-from-the-oven potatoes and you’ve got a meal befit most men who like gyros!
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It’s probably way easier to make than this recipe leads one to believe, and it’s some of the best gyro eating I have experienced. The fact that it came from my kitchen made me think I needed to share it 🙂 Let me know what you think…

You Might Be A Redneck If…

… you don’t see anything wrong with the following sign:
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Now, this isn’t a bar in some seedy part of town. This is a bar right on Main Street in downtown Gering, NE. The bar is driven past by many, many locals on a daily basis. This bar is only a block from the local convention center that hosts visitors from all over the region. This bar posts its daily lunch specials on the little sandwich board, and usually there is some stupid backwater play on words that usually is little more than misspelling, like “turkey sammich”. This one, which I snapped a picture of this past summer, in my opinion, doesn’t seem quite right.

Now, I am far from a prude. My mind is in the gutter more than I care to admit, and off-color humor has it’s place; however, I’m not so sure that place is a downtown business district.

You know, I think I am slowly establishing a knowledge base for what truly makes a redneck. Off-color humor can be (and usually is) funny. You don’t have to be a redneck to believe that. When a business owner has the same sense of humor as the typical 13-year-old boy, we’re getting into redneck territory. When 13-year-old humor is posted on main street for everyone to see, the redneck is running rampant…