Adventurer Rich – Page 6 – HappyStinkingJoy

Camp Laramie Peak — Revenge of the Camp…

Okay, so the boy and I signed up for summer camp again this summer. We missed last year due to our whole family going on a cruise and me not being a doctor or a lawyer or some other rich dude who can afford all kinds of frivolous vacation expenses. In the past, the boy and I have attended Medicine Mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Camp Laramie Peak in Wyoming. This summer, the troop had decided to go back to Camp Laramie Peak (CLP). At first, I was a little hesitant, because last time we went wasn’t exactly a stellar, a-plus experience. In fact, I blogged about it.

Now, I have written a couple of lengthy posts about scouting. They are some of my most-“Googled” posts. I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I love scouting. I love the leaders, I love the kids, I love what we are trying to instill in the young men. Between cub scouts and boy scouts, I have been an adult volunteer for around 8 years (and the last two years, I have been involved in both cubs and boy scouts). Let’s remember that I am a cynical smart-ass and I make fun of stuff (myself included) whenever I write. Every time I poke fun at BSA, I get some militant buttmunch who comments about what a horrible example I am, how I should quit scouting and pull my kids out, and how I’m just an all-around jerk with no business posting anything negative about scouting online. To those with no sense of humor about scouting, please leave now. I think you may have a more pleasant experience here.

So, I somewhat reluctantly agree to follow the troop to CLP to help with the scouts. A short time before we’re ready to embark on this journey, the Scout Master approaches me. He tells me that he has some work obligations, and because I have been with the troop for awhile, he wants me to serve as acting Scout Master while we are at CLP.

Crap.

Responsibility, paperwork, having to be the adult that wakes up early enough to get the boys up…

sigh

“I’d be honored,” I told him, and I actually think I felt my nose grow slightly longer.

I am not the kind of person who handles stress very well. I don’t have a high-paying job with with a large amount of advancement opportunity because those kinds of jobs usually involve a large amount of stress. If I deal with an upset customer on the phone, I usually handle it pretty well on the surface. I can usually make the customer happy. However, I have the knowledge that I will ultimately die of a massive heart attack while on the phone with one of these people because I get so stressed while talking to them. Either an upset customer — or having to deal with employees under my direct command and their issues… management material I ain’t… So, the inherent stress involved with being directly responsible for 20 scouts is not something I am really looking forward too, but I can’t imagine another leader that I am sure all of the boys of all ages will respond well to. Kids like me (probably because I haven’t really grown up yet myself… going to have to do that one of these days). Besides, there are a lot of other adults going with the troop, and I know there are a few of them who are going to be great assets with the boys.

Finally, camp time arrives and we load up the cars and take off. CLP is about 2 1/2 hours from Scottsbluff and the drive goes by quickly. My car consists of my boy and two other scouts that are my boys age. I’ll just call those boys Mada and Neb to protect their identities. I have been dealing with these scouts for years now and we all get along splendidly. I always crank up the stereo and blast some tunes when I have a car full of scouts. They usually enjoy it. On this trip, I got the Mumford and Sons blaring and I hear giggles from the backseat.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“What’s this crap?” says Neb.

“Yeah,” says Mada. “Is this folk country or something?”

“It’s… it’s Mumford and Sons,” I say. “It’s good stuff.”

“It’s Garbage and Sons,” says Neb. “It sucks.”

I turn the stereo down, blinking back tears, and proceed onwards toward CLP. It’s going to be a long week…

Our actual Scout Master did an excellent job of preparing all of the paperwork for check-in at camp, which made checking in once we arrived a snap. We were guided through the camp to our campsite. Every time we approached a sight, I could hear scouts mumbling, “this must be it,” or “maybe it’s this one.” Needless to say, the sites we passed weren’t “it” or “this one.” Our campsite was Pawnee, and it was about as far as you can get from the main activities of camp… it was always an uphill walk to get there. I think our Scout Master requested a site on the outskirts of camp… because I think our Scout Master may actually be satan. Old fat guys with high blood pressure and weak wills are not meant to walk long distances uphill — several times every day — for a week.

So we get settled in and start our camp schedule. Up at 6am, flags at 7:45am, breakfast at 8am, merit badges at 9am… etc, etc, etc. Life at camp is supposed to be pretty predictable. And for the most part, it was. I had a really good group of scouts and parents. Everyone seemed to get along. I was very proud of the boys of all ages. The older scouts included the younger scouts in most of their activities and fun was had by all.

I was duly impressed with the staff at CLP. The food, although pretty much like a school lunch and very high in carbs (although not a single bagel was to be found 🙂 ), was plentiful and none of it sucked (although I did hear some of the health freaks from Colorado make complaints like “I never eat like this — so much processed food — oh my — I’ll have to eat salad for a week after I get back to straighten out my digestive system…”, thing is, there was a salad bar served with every lunch and supper, but there was no gourmet lettuce on the bar, and Coloradans like to make themselves sound healthier than they really are…). The counselors were all relatively knowledgeable and seemed to enjoy what they were doing. The staff was, for the most part, friendly and willing to answer questions. In other words, CLP this time around was a complete turn-around from when we attended in 2010.

One of the things I always find amusing at every boy scout camp I’ve been to with the troop is, no matter which camp we go to, there is always at least one cute girl serving on the staff who becomes a topic of discussion amongst the scouts. We try to get the boys away from the normal things of this world and help them get closer to nature and developing outdoor skills, and they end up infatuating over girls, which is what a lot of them do as a normal thing in regular life. At CLP, there were “the twins”. The twins were two attractive, outdoorsy young women who most of the boys would go out of their way to get a gander at. Mada in particular (one of the scouts who rode to camp with me) became very fond of the twins. I don’t think Mada actually talked to either of the twins, but I think he had visions of dating one — if not both — of them at some point in the near future.

The week progressed nicely. All of the scouts seemed to handle being away from home just fine, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Some of the boys weren’t showering quite as often as my nose would have liked, but that is just part of a week-long camp with boys. By the time Thursday rolled around, everyone was in high spirits. Thursday was the last day for the boys to complete any merit badges they were working on. Friday, we had planned on taking the troop on a hike up the side of Black Mountain to the fire lookout post at the top. It’s like a 3 mile hike uphill and it tests the younger scouts endurance. By the time the scouts hike up, check out the awesome views from the lookout post, and stumble back down, everyone gets a good night sleep before packing up camp and heading home on Saturday.
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Photobucket — Spending a summer living here would be pretty cool...

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Now, we had heard that there was a forest fire in the area, but it was a long way from camp and was in no way a threat to us. We all went about our scheduled business on Thursday. The camp director informed us that his wife had given birth to their son the previous evening and he would be going to spend time with the newest member of his family. He turned the reins of the camp over to one of the other staffers, and no one doubted her ability to get us through the remaining two days.

A couple of older scouts had no scheduled activities, so they decided to take a hike up Black Mountain just to say they did it twice at one camp. Upon their return, they informed us that a new fire had started from a recent lightening strike and it may pose a threat to CLP. Throughout the day, we were given bits and pieces of information about the nearby fire, and the stream of smoke pouring over Black Mountain grew in intensity throughout the day. By evening, there was speculation that there may be an evacuation of the camp… just as a precaution.

Beside the Pawnee campsite, there was a hill that we figured would provide us with a cool view of the smoke coming over the mounatin. All of the scouts and leaders took a short hike up the hill and were amazed by the ominous black cloud that rolled right over the fire lookout at the top of the mountain.
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CLP Evacuation Smoke 2012 — You can see a touch of the actual blue sky in the center. All of the dark is smoke coming over the mountain.

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Although the sky was filled with smoke, no one seemed to concerned. You really couldn’t even smell the smoke, and the fire seemed so far away… until the sun went down. As what little light that could be seen in the sky disappeared, the entire horizon over the top of the mountain glowed orange. I didn’t get any pictures of the orange glow because, at this point, I am starting to freak out a little.

We have the entire troop return to the camp site. By this time, it’s almost 10:00 pm and 10:00 is supposed to be lights out — everyone in their tents and down for the night. Well, because of the eeriness of that orange glow, one of the other adults and I decide we’re going to make the long hike downhill to the office to see what the plans are. We get to the dining hall and one of the staffers stops us.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

“Well, it’s lights-out and we were wondering if we should have the boys go to bed or what because the orange glow on the ridge is kind of freaky and I’d hate to have them get all comfortable just to wake them up to tell them we’re evacuating and that would probably freak them out more than if they just stayed up and …” I was settling well into freak-out mode before she stopped me.

“Listen,” the staffer said, “if and when… when (she looked me straight in the eyes)… we call for an evacuation, the fire bells will sound. Keep the boys up and listen for the bells. ”

“Okeedokee,” I said, and we started the exhausting hike back up the hill. We made it about 50 yards before another adult leader from another troop came running by.

“Did you hear?” he shouted. “They are going to evacuate! Get your boys ready to meet by the dining hall!”

Then he was gone.

Crap.

The other leader and I started to run — uphill — to our site. The other leader, being in much better shape than me (it doesn’t take much) soon had the lead.

“Screw… this…,” I barely was able to emit between grasps of breath. “I’m… calling… someone…”

The other adult kept running while I pulled out my cell phone and dialed one of the leaders back at out campsite. The smell of smoke that had been mysteriously absent earlier in the evening started to fill my nostrils.

“Yeah?” answered the adult back at camp.

“They… are… going… to… evacuate…” I stammered.

“What?” said the adult on the other end of the call.

I took a few deep breaths to try to catch mine, and I repeated the evacuation edict.

“What do you want us to do?”

Just then, the fire bells started ringing.

“Line all… line all… of… the boys… up…,” I stuttered while still trying to catch my breath, “and… wait… for… me…”

“Will do,” and the phone went dead.

I continued my brisk jog up the hill toward our campsite at the edge of the universe thinking about how much the real scout master must hate me for having chosen a site sooo far from everything. As I ran, I could feel my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest as my head felt like there was a balloon being inflated inside.

“I’m going to fall over dead of a stroke right here on this stinking trail,” I thought to myself… because talking to myself would have used too much precious breath, ” while I’m supposed to be helping a bunch of scouts to safety…”

When I finally stumbled into the campsite, the smoke was hanging heavy in the air, but there was a row of scouts and adults diligently lined up in a single file line, ready to head out for the evacuation instructions.

“Alright, guys, ” I said as calmly as I could, “they are going to have us leave camp early because of the fire. We are in no danger, they are just being overly cautious, which is a good thing, but I don’t want anyone to worry. We are all going to be just fine, so stay calm and let’s make sure ever one is here.”

From a nearby campsite, I could hear another adult leader screaming at his scouts, “Would you guys hurry up… there’s a fire coming and we need to meet at the dining hall to find out what we need to do to get out of here… HURRY UP… DO YOU ALL WANT TO DIE!!!”

I glanced at my scouts to see if they had overheard the other adult with the other troop — their faces all remained calm, so I couldn’t tell.

“We don’t need to overreact,” I tried to reassure them as that balloon in my head grew a couple of inches in size. I counted the scouts… and came up with 19.

“Nineteen,” I said, calmly at first. “There are only nineteen scouts here. We’re supposed to have twenty. Who are we missing?”

Everyone looked at one another and then back at me with blank faces.

“There are only nineteen scouts here… and we are supposed to have twenty. NINETEEN IS NOT TWENTY… WHY ARE THERE ONLY NINETEEN INSTEAD OF TWENTY… WHO IS MISSING?” The balloon in my skull felt like the Good Year blimp and my vision started to go all kinds of wacky, while I’m sure that my voice sounded like that of an 11-year-old girl.

One of the younger scouts at the front of the line looked at me and calmly stated, “Don’t you have a roster?”

Roster? Why yes, we had a roster. In fact, they made us have three copies of that stinking roster and I remembered thinking that was nothing more than overkill: two copies to the camp and one for the campsite.

We rounded up the roster and I performed roll call. When we I got to the name that didn’t elicit a “here”, a tent was checked and a sleeping scout was roused. Now we had twenty scouts and we headed to the dining hall for further instructions… all the way back down the hill.

A small group of leaders were taken inside the dining hall while the staff led the remaining adults and the scouts in some rousing campfire songs to keep their minds preoccupied. The fill-in camp director calmly gave us our evacuation instructions, which consisted of tearing down our campsites, getting everyone to their rides, and getting everyone calmly and orderly the hell out of Dodge. We were all to meet at Safeway in Wheatland, WY to make sure that everyone had made it out. There would be available locations for us to safely sleep in Wheatland once we arrived.

We went back outside and calmly gathered our troops and headed all the way back uphill to our campsite, which we promptly tore down and loaded in our trailer. Once loaded, we hiked all the way back down to the parking lot and loaded the boys in their appropriate vehicles. As each vehicle left the parking lot, CLP staffers stopped the vehicle and took a tally of who was in the vehicle and compared it to one of the copies of the roster that we gave them. We then started the caravan toward Wheatland.

For the journey to Wheatland, I chose Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain as our departure music. No one seemed to mind. As we traveled the dirt roads leading away from camp, the orange glow on the horizon gave us perspective on why we were leaving camp near midnight more than 24 hours early. After Set Fire to the Rain, I selected Someone Like You as our evacuation music. I noticed that Mada seemed especially upset during the Adele ballad of broken hearts and lost love.

We silently snaked along the roads all the way to the interstate and then into Wheatland. We arrived in the Safeway parking lot only to stand in another line while our names were once again compared to yet another copy of the roster that we had turned into the camp. We then assembled on the sidewalk next to Safeway and awaited further instructions. Finally, one of the twins came over to us and let us know where the city park was where we could sleep for the night. I glanced at Mada and saw the sorrow in his eyes as the twin walked away.

When we got back to the car, Neb whispered to me, “Please don’t play any more Adele. It reminds Mada that he may never see the twins again.”

“Okay,” I smiled gently as I put the car in drive and cranked Adele on the stereo.

By the time we arrived at the park and got everyone either sleeping on tarps on the grass or in the cars, it was around 2:30am on Friday morning. When we awoke a few hours later, we must have looked like a bunch of vagrants littering the park to all of the Wheatland residents walking around the park… and there were a lot of residents walking around the park. Apparently, there isn’t much to do in Wheatland, WY but walk around the park on a Friday morning 🙂 We received some strange looks and a few questions… and a lot of “we’re glad you’re safe” and “welcome to Wheatland”.

The drive back to Scottsbluff was a cheery one. Everyone seemed to be in a grand mood… even Mada. I later asked him if he was still upset about his missed opportunity with the twins.

“It’s not a missed opportunity,” he explained,” just postponed.”

The whole ordeal from our adventure at CLP gave me some perspective on scouting and the important lessons scouting teaches:

“Be Prepared” is not only a motto, it is a way of life.
Rosters are good and you can never have too many.
Boy Scouts of America trains it’s people well.
Always have some Adele on hand. You never know when it may come in useful.
Never — I repeat, NEVER — select a campsite as far away from everything as possible to try to teach some sort of lesson to the scouts. You (or your designated substitute) may actually have their head explode (which I’m pretty sure mine almost did) in case of an emergency…

Gering and Terrytown UNITE: Boycott Jimmy John’s…

Jimmy John’s sucks, and residents of Terrytown and Gering, Nebraska need to boycott it. (I wrote this intro sentence after I actually wrote the blog post because I’m working on my SEO 🙂 )

A couple of days ago, the wife was looking for some fast food for supper. It was one of those crazy hectic evenings where there really wasn’t a lot of time to cook. She had a rough day and was looking to have something (other than the standard pizza) delivered. “Hey,” she says to herself (because she talks to herself when she is losing her mind), “Jimmy John’s has good, relatively healthy food and they deliver!”

So, the wife calls Jimmy John’s, orders some grub, pays for said grub with a credit card, and then (thinking it strange that delivery was not offered) asked to have the order delivered.

“Uh, you live in Terrytown,” says the fast food genius on the other end of the line.

“Yeah,” says the wife.

“We don’t deliver out of Scottsbluff,” says the minimum-wage-earning superstar at Jimmy John’s.

“Huh?” says the wife.

“Yeah, we don’t deliver anything south of Beltline,” says my new favorite person in the whole entire world.

“But we’re only like 1 mile south of Beltline,” says the wife.

“Uh, you are gonna have to pick up your food,” says, I believe, Mr. Jimmy John himself, and can’t you just imagine him picking at a pimple as he’s talking?

So, the wife rubbed down the horses, pulled the irrigation line, pulled the milkers off the cows, rounded-up the sheep, put down our rabid family dog, pulled the fevered baby from his crib, loaded the crew into the sled and mushed the dogs all the way to Jimmy John’s. Okay, that may be slightly exaggerated, but it was a pain in the ass. Thanks for being a buttmunch company, Jimmy John’s!

Jimmy John’s does not deliver to Gering or Terrytown?!? How have the noble citizens of Gering not taken to the streets en masse to demonstrate against this monstrosity? How has this not made the cover of the Gering Citizen (a Gering-based tabloid that is pro-Gering… so extremely pro-Gering that its reporting often makes FOX News’ reporting on anything conservative and the Huffington Post‘s reporting on anything liberal actually seem fair and balanced), or at least the topic of a scathing editorial? I cannot comprehend how one of the loud-mouthed, opinionated citizens of Gering (and Gering has a plethora of those) hasn’t started a boycott of some sort against the tom-fool shenanigans of Jimmy John’s! Let me say that, as of this point in time, I shall lead the call for a boycott of the ridiculousness that is Jimmy John’s!

For those not from the panhandle of Nebraska, please let me explain the ridiculousness of that which I just wrote. See, Scottsbluff and Gering are two communities separated by the North Platte River. Terrytown is a village that occupies a sliver of land between Scottsbluff and Gering and is only a “village” at all because some guy named Terry with a lot of money wanted a town named after himself. For all intensive purposes, these three municipalities are one community.
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Most everyone in this area would agree with that except for the residents of Gering — they tend to be anal and think they are better than everyone “north of the river” (which is how they refer to the unwashed masses in Scottsbluff).

See, part of me blames the residents of Gering for the whole Jimmy John’s debacle. If Gering would merge with Scottsbluff, we would become like the 7th largest “city” in Nebraska. Instead, we are two puny little communities (three, if you count Terrytown… which no one does) who have issues attracting not only decent-paying employers (wanna work at Walmart, anyone?), but we have issues getting in amenities and businesses that many in the area would like to see come in (Red Lobster — the lower-middle class’s fancy seafood place). If we were merged, I bet Jimmy John’s would deliver to Terrytown and Gering.

However, I’m not going to blame this one on Gering (mostly because I wouldn’t rule out a vehement Gering resident trying to murder me in my sleep). I blame this one on the cheap-ass who owns the Jimmy John’s franchise. I’m guessing one of two things is happening:

The franchisee only bought the rights for the Scottsbluff zip code and is therefore contractually prohibited from delivering outside of the stated franchise area. See, the franchisee doesn’t really care about the residents of Gering and Terrytown (whom I’m guessing provide a significant amount of business to the restaurant). I guess the franchisee wouldn’t care if we all just stopped supporting the business? I say we give it a try!
The franchisee or management of the restaurant all come from an alternate reality where people in Scottsbluff look at people “south of the river” with the same contempt that Gering residents currently look at “northies” in our reality — because I could see some diphole actually opening a business in Gering and making deliveries to Gering only just to spite people from Scottsbluff.

It’s almost like the Hatfields and McCoys around here… except Gering is the Hatfields and they are out for blood, and Scottsbluff is the McCoys and they gave up on stupid, ego-driven feuds years ago.

I can almost guarantee that some ninny from Gering will read this post and think, “Adventurer Rich, as smart and well written as he is, just doesn’t understand the ramifications of a merger between Scottsbluff and Gering and how that merger would diminish the “voice” of the people of Gering. Our opinions would be lost in the cacophony of noise coming from north of the river. Not too mention the fiscal determent to our community and the … blah blah blah. Come on, folks, we all (by choice or not) live in Nebraska. Nobody gives a rat’s sittin’ spot about any of our voices. The least we can do is try to come together with a unified voice so that we can all grow together.

Of course, I live in Terrytown. Neither side of the river gives two cares about what Terrytownians (dibs — I claim credit for making that word up!!!) think.

Residents of Gering and fellow Terrytownians, let’s show the powers that be in the world of Jimmy John’s that we are not going to be subjected to their abuse. I propose that all Gering and Terrytown residents refuse to purchase anything from that despicable restaurant until the day when we can have our orders delivered to our doorsteps. All three worthless little communities making up the Tri-Cities of the panhandle of Nebraska deserve equality!!!

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!

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!

The Dead Want Women, and I Want My 78 Minutes Back…

Why are so many parents sooo screwed up these days. I mean, the wife and I are far from perfect, but I consider us to be pretty good parents. And I know a lot of good parents exist — but there are some pretty poor excuses out there as well.

I recently rented a movie at RedBox. I’m kind of into cheesy horror, and RedBox had a brand new release. I couldn’t find any real reviews or anything for this gem because it was that fresh (straight-to-video). The movie is called The Dead Want Women. It features Eric Roberts, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad, right? I mean, Eric Roberts is Julia Roberts big brother. Sure, he’s been in some duds, but he usually plays a pretty good meanie. And the cover of this thing looked so campy that I figured it had to be good.

Now, when I rented this, I was not planning to sit down and watch it with my kids. I wouldn’t let my 8-year old (or even my 14-year old) watch a R-rated horror movie. The violence is just too much. I don’t need my kids having nightmares. Any horror movie that is scary without violence would be rated PG-13 (and there are some pretty good ones). When you throw R-rated on a horror movie, you just figure there is going to be a lot of blood and guts and gore. Personally, I love the gore, but I don’t want my kids exposed to it. Too desensitizing, in my opinion. There will come a time when we can enjoy the gore together, but that time will be some years in the future.

Okay, so I watch The Dead Want Women, and it totally sucked raw rhubarb. I mean, this thing is a worthless pile of crap. Eric Roberts seemed to be having a good time playing this role, and for that alone he should be permanently barred from ever making another movie… EVER! The acting really wasn’t bad. The make-up was horrendously clownish, and the plot was totally dented. Now, the silly make-up would have worked if the movie had some campiness to it, but this dreadful wretch tried to take itself too serious and failed on more levels than I want to take the time to write.

What really gets me, though, is that by the time I got around to writing a review for this festering boil-of-a-movie on the RedBox website to prevent some other poor soul from sitting through even part of this monstrosity, there were some other reviews filing in.

Now, to be fair to some of the reviews that this film has garnered, there was an unusual amount of seemingly unnecessary nudity in this movie. There are some strange sex scenes, and this one poor actress goes for almost half the movie completely nekked. I think she may have lost a bet with the director or something…

So anyway, back to other reviews of this pile. The very first review of the movie on RedBox stated (due to the sex and nudity) that the film is “Not for children.”

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I’m sorry. If it weren’t for sex and nudity, is this reviewer saying that a violent, R-rated horror film normally would be cool for the kids to watch? Does this reviewer normally sit back and watch people’s flesh disintegrate in Cabin Fever while sharing popcorn with the toddlers? Hostel is fine for the kiddos, but if they added too much nudity or sex, suddenly it would be deemed “not safe for kids”? Seriously.

I thought maybe this one reviewer was just a little bit tilted as far as his or her perception went, but then I came across another gem that read, “Unclothed scenes put in at bad time! Dont watch this with kids!!” Wow, the splattering blood and charred human flesh are all fine and good, but put in some “unclothed scenes” and suddenly it’s not kid-friendly?

I guess I can only hope that these reviews weren’t actually written by parents. Maybe they were written by single people who dream of some day watching horror with their children. Maybe they will realize that the violence and gore of a typical R-rated horror movie are enough that you really shouldn’t be letting your kids watch it in the first place.

Or maybe — just maybe — watching The Dead Want Women was enough to actually cause some temporary brain damage to these folks. I feel that even I have been somewhat dented from the experience…

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…

Once Every Blue Moon Or So, Something Nice Happens Here…

Last night, the wife and I took our youngest boy and two of our nieces to see the local high school’s rendition of The Wizard of Oz. I’ve been to a couple of high school plays here locally (Beauty and the Beast and High School Musical), and they were both very enjoyable. Good acting, great singing, a good testament to local talent destined to find futures somewhere outside of the panhandle where their talents will be useful. Last night’s performance, however, was something really special.

The wiring that caused the Wicked Witch and her monkeys to fly was cool, but that wasn’t the reason this performance was so special. The pyrotechnics made me jump on more than one occasion, but they weren’t the reason the performance won’t be soon forgotten. The reason I found Scottsbluff High School’s performance of The Wizard of Oz so endearing was… they got it right!

The original movie starring Judy Garland is over 70 years old. I grew up watching that stupid old movie once a year, every year, throughout my adolescent years. It never got old. It was always exciting. And last night, I felt like those teen-aged kids up on the stage had seen that stupid movie even more times than I had. All of the kids in this play were excellent. Even the tiny munchkins, played by a bunch of little kids who were up way past their bed times, were absolutely amazing. It was a few of the leads, though, who stole my heart.

Maggie Hopp, who played Dorothy, pulled off Judy Garland’s pouty, defiant innocence with flair. She sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow to near-perfection. At times, I almost believed that the late-Garland’s spirit had possessed young Hopp. Watching her made me feel like a child again, sitting in our small living room in front of our small television, my brother, sister, mom, dad and me, wishing for Dorothy to be able to click her heels at least one more time and once again return to Kansas. If I had realized then what I know now (that Kansas is a lot like Nebraska), I would have wished for poor Dorothy to go to New York, or Los Angeles, or somewhere she and Toto could have a successful future… but I didn’t.

Carlos Santana (no, not the aged-musician who still rocks) was amazing as the Cowardly Lion. His no-holds-barred performance was hysterical. For a teenage boy to get up in front of a full auditorium and hold nothing back in his performance of the blubbering coward who slowly finds his courage… it was unforgettable in the best of ways. It takes someone with a lot of talent and self-confidence to get up on stage and play a chicken so well 🙂

Chris Brening pulled-off a convincing and very likable Scarecrow. Like Carlos, Chris didn’t seem to have an issue being a complete goofball on stage, and this character needs to be goofy…. and dance… and wobble around… without falling off of the small stage. There was more than one occasion where I thought the Scarecrow was going to fall into the orchestra pit, but he didn’t!

During the first half of the play, Aaron Aguallo’s microphone wasn’t working very well and he was hard to hear. After the intermission, Aaron’s voice brought life to the heartless Tin Woodsman. Once I could hear his voice, I had a very hard time believing that Jack Haley himself wasn’t actually up on stage instead of Aaron. This was what was so cool about this performance: the kids pulled off the characters so closely to the original casts’ rendition… yet each with just a hint of uniqueness that made them their own.

Karenna Booth was stunning as the good witch Glinda, and her singing gave me goosebumps. The only things that commonly gives me goosebumps in Nebraska are the chilly winter nights.

Emily Yanke was terrifically evil as the Wicked Witch of the West. She cackled like an old pro and seemed to relish her inhumanity. Kind of makes me wonder what this young lady does to small animals on the weekends… but her performance was superb… and that’s not a word I use much 🙂

I could go on and on… but I’m not really used to having nice things to say. Don’t get used to it! If you don’t already have tickets to tonight’s performance or the final performance on Saturday, you are probably out of luck. Both nights are sold out. However, if you know someone who has tickets and you don’t like them very much… steal them. This show is worth petty larceny.

Thanks to the cast and crew of the The Wizard of Oz. Old guys like me seldom feel young anymore, but all of you helped me feel a little younger for a couple of hours last night.

Next post: back to bitching, I promise…