nebraska – Page 8 – HappyStinkingJoy

40 :(

It had to happen. It’s approach led to this started-with-good-intentions-but seldom-written-in blog. It has been the Moby Dick to my Ahab. It has been a black cloud on the horizon of my life for the past 10 years. “It” is 40, and it finally overtook me last Saturday.

Turning 30 sucked. Turning 30 meant the end of innocence. No longer a naive 20-something, I felt like my 30s were meant to be my true entry into adulthood. It was during my 30s that I felt I was meant to create my career-life. 30s are meant to be a career building decade and if you play your cards right, you will be well on your way to building wealth and flowing into your “prime income earning years” (40s and 50s) with ease.

Of course, turning 30 sucked. Did I mention that already? As I approached 30, I panicked. “What are you doing with your life?” I asked myself. I was in my late 20s and realized that I was not in a good position to enter anything that involved a long-term career plan. I panicked. I talked my wife into researching franchises so we could open our own business and start down the road to financial independence. We chose a business, we moved to Craphole… er… Scottsbluff, NE, and we tried to make a go of it. All of this panic was caused by the turn to 30.

A few things went wrong.

1st: The franchise we opened did not do bad… we made a small profit in our first year. The franchise did not, however, make enough profit to support my wife and I and our young son. The franchise did not live up to our calculated expectations. We ended up selling it.

2nd: We personally financed the person we sold the business to… and within a couple of months she declared bankruptcy. Guess there was a reason the banks weren’t lending to her…

3rd: After getting shafted by the person that we sold the business to, we could have probably declared bankruptcy as well. But NO… we decided to take the high, moral road and pay back all of our debt. So, instead of taking a lump to the old credit almost 7 years ago (which would have resulted in much less scrimping over the last 7 years and a better quality of life for my family over the last 7 years… and the lump would be healed by now), we have reached a point where we are only a few months away from finally getting rid of all that debt. I know I’m supposed to feel good about this, you know, for having repaid my debts… but I’d really much rather avioded the past 7 years worth of stress and that money, invested, would mean that I would have had a chance to retire some day. Oh well, retirement is overrated, right? Who doesn’t want to work until they die. At least I owned-up to my responsibilities… again, that just isn’t doing anything for me. Retirement would have meant more than making sure the stupid credit card companies got their money. Who’d a thunk that doing the right thing would suck so much?

4th: The wonderful panhandle of Nebraska is not a good place to attempt to open a specialty retail business. Not only is there little disposable income here, if you can’t make a living with the new business, your job opportunities in the Craphole are, well, quite limited. Let’s just say that bright futures aren’t created here. The Craphole is a retirement community… the Craphole is an agricultural community… people either come here to grow corn or people come here to die. People shouldn’t move here to open a little business (in an effort to avoid the stress of turning 30)… because the odds are that you will fail.

Turning 30 may not be a walk in the park, but turning 40 after getting yourself stuck in stinking Nebraska… I don’t know much about growing corn, so I guess I’m part of the retirement community in the Craphole just waiting to die. At 40, it’s really kind of too late to start all over again. Guess I’ve kind of just given up on having the kind of career making the kind of money I went to college to make. At least I have a loving wife and two great kids… if only I could provide for them the way I always imagined I’d be able to. And it’s not that we’re doing bad… it’s just that I always thought I would be financially successful… not fighting to remain middle-class.

I usually try to make these gripe-sessions at least a little funny. You know, cynically tongue -in-cheek. I just really can’t find anything too amusing about the entire situation… not this time.

Stinking McDonalds:)

I remember growing up in a small Montana town. I remember a small Montana town without a McDonald’s. I remember, on any trip that my family took, eating out at McDonald’s and a trip to McDonald’s being an exquisite experience! We would each order two fat-encrusted hamburger patties slathered in mounds of special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions served on a whimsical sesame seed-encrusted bun and enclosed in magic Styrofoam castles! With this magical burger, inside the “to go” sack that contained the wonderful burgers and their irresistible deep-fat fried french fry counterparts, rested a seemingly-endless pile of small packets of ketchup! A fry not covered in a conspicuous covering of the wondrous tomato-sugar mixture was not worthy of finding its way to your mouth. I remember that, after a trip to McDonald’s, my mom would not purchase ketchup for several weeks because we would rely on the small packets of ketchup from McDonald’s to provide our ketchup needs for several weeks after a visit to the restaurant chain 🙂

Flash forward to the year 2009. You are going through the drive-through at your local McDonald’s is an effort to provide sustenance for your body in an extremely rushed environment. You order a burger and fries and, most likely, some form of liquid refreshment. You pay at the first window in a clinical manner not reminiscent of your youth… you pull up at the second window and are hurriedly handed a grease-spotted bag containing the magical food-items ordered a few moments previously at the large order-stand at the back of your local restaurant… you drive away in a rush to get home and enjoy this meal in a friendly environment. Often, you will reach your hand inside the warm, moist bag to pull forth a limp fry. This fry will make it to your mouth… and, even more satisfying, your stomach… and in the front of your mind you are thinking about how good that burger will taste when you get home… and how good that piece of deep-fried potato will be with a little KETCHUP!!! And then you get home and… guess what… you forgot to ask for the STINKING KETCHUP… SO YOU HAVE NO STINKING KETCHUP!!!

Oh sure, you may have some ketchup in the fridge, but that just isn’t the same. The ketchup in the fridge is cold, and you had to purchase it seperate from the McDonald’s food… and purchased cold ketchup just doesn’t seem to go quite right with fast food. You need those little packets of ketchup that have been heated by resting against the heat-lamp-warmed food in the greasy bag on the ride home.

You can’t tell me that McDonald’s doesn’t take into account the cost of ketchup when they price their products! They budget a certain amount of those little bags for each customer for each purchase. So, when you go to McDonald’s and forget to ask for the ketchup, they are literally RIPPING YOU OFF! When you consider that there are even some freaks out there who do not partake of the ketchup while enjoying their fries, then you really start to get enraged. There are people who don’t take full advantage of what they are paying for and yet the staff at McDonald’s is still now being trained to not give me my stinking ketchup unless I ask for it?!? What’s next… the drink that comes with the “value” meal? You get home and realize they didn’t give you your Diet Coke (’cause we all know that a McDonald’s meal is a healthy choice as long as you order a Diet Coke). You will have to turn around and go back to the restaurant. Can’t you hear the response already:

“Well, you didn’t ask for it, so I didn’t think you wanted it.”

Ok, so let’s say you aren’t brain-dead like me and you actually remember to ask for the ketchup at the drive-through window. They don’t ask you how much you would like; instead, they look and rummage around for a good 20 – 30 seconds (as if no one ever asks for ketchup and you have just interrupted the magical flow that makes fast food fast). When they finally find the hidden vault of the nightshade-delight, they reach in and grab what looks like a large handful of the wonderous packets. They shove them in the bag (in an apparent attempt to wedge as many of them as possible in between the actual fries) and throw the bag in your general direction. Apparently asking for ketchup makes you somewhat of a nuisance. The really strange thing is, when you finally get home, you discover that large handful of packets that appeared to be placed into your bag is actually only four packets. Four (4) packets! Four packets is not enough to get me through a small bag of fries let alone the super-sized version that I let the fancy graphics on the stinking drive-through order-stand talk me into! You would think the amount of time and money that McDonald’s apparently spends on training its employees the make-it-look-like-a-handful-while-only-grabbing-four-bags technique could be better utilized by, oh, I don’t know… GIVING US AN ACTUAL HANDFUL!?!

I blame my ~~addiction~~… er… normal, healthy attachment to ketchup on McDonalds! They are like the drug dealer that used to hook you up with the crank for free, until you got addicted, and now expect you to pay for it. Ok, they really aren’t like a drug dealer selling crank… maybe more like sex and marriage. At first, you get as much as you want, so you become quite fond of it. Over the years, you get less and less until it gets to a point where you actually have to beg for it… or so I’ve been told by people in less-than-perfect marriages unlike my own marriage which has been, as of tommorrow, 15 years of perfection! Yes, my wife reads my blog 🙂

At McDonald’s, the staff has no problem asking if you would like to purchase anything else before the transaction is completed; the correct thing to do would be to ask if you would like ketchup with those fries. After all… one way or another… you’ve already paid for it!

Fundraising, or… “How Life Sucks When You Have a Boy Scout :)

I have been my oldest son’s Scout leader since he was a Tiger Cub. He is now in his first year of Boy Scouts working on his Tenderfoot. I have been a Scout leader for about 5 years, which is almost a year longer than I have held any single employment with any single employer in my almost 40 years of existence… how pathetic am I? Needless to say, the time of the annual “Popcorn Sales” is upon us. Oh, and how Boy Scouts of America (BSA) wants you to sell that popcorn! My oh my, it seems that perhaps the entire reason for Scouting’s existence is to sell that stinking Trail’s End popcorn!

I don’t get it… Girl Scouts sell those delicious little cookies for less than $5.00 a box. So, even if someone has already bought from a Girl Scout, they may be willing to buy a little more from another Scout; after all, who doesn’t love Thin Mints? In the past, when we have actually tried to sell this stinking popcorn, the biggest door-in-the-face we would get was, “Oh, I already bought from so-and-so,” or “my boss’s niece’s son is in Scouts and we always buy from him.” I think BSA needs to find a fundraiser where the garbage the Scouts sell isn’t so outrageously priced. I mean seriously, $15 for a box of microwave popcorn that (the last couple of years we have purchased and it) pops up like crap… seriously, there are always dozens of unpopped kernels and old maids in each and every bag; what a selling point.

After doing a little research, I have discovered why the higher-ups in BSA push for the popcorn sales. When a Scout goes out and sells (or, in many cases, the parents go out and sell) the – seriously – ridiculously priced popcorn and related crap, 30% of those sales go to the Scout’s troop, 30% goes to the Scout’s council, and 10% go to the Scout (in the form of worthless pieces of carnival-type trinket crap) . Seriously, the council gets 30%? For what… to maintain the summer camps that cost $200 or $300 per Scout to attend (and that doesn’t include all of the extra crap the Scouts have to buy at the camp to get their merit badges). Scouting is run by (I am under the impression) volunteers. I volunteer my time to Scouting… and I have never spent more of my own money “volunteering” for any other cause at any time in my life! I have to pay to go to the summer camp… and sleep in a stinking tent… and eat crappy food… and share a disgusting shower-type complex and filthy, falling apart toilet facilities with tons of other males (and there is something about many males that prevents them from being able to lift up a toilet seat when peeing… so if you have to go “#2”, which on a week-long campout, you will have to go “#2”, you are most likely going to be sitting in someone else’s pee… and when I actually catch one of these idiots peeing on the toilet seat, I will spend an undefined amount of time in a correctional facility for assault after rubbing said moron’s face on said toilet seat)… having a curfew at night of around 10:00 pm and getting up in the stinking morning at 5:30 or 6:00 am… all to help the camp manage the kids!!! And they have the stinking audacity to charge me!?! I should be charging them!

At least our troop doesn’t keep the whole 30% that is designated to the troop (at least they better not, because they don’t pay for squat). I believe the troop gives part of the troop’s profits back to the Scouts. The troop’s contribution, along with the 10% earned by the Scout, go into a fund that the Scout can use to pay for all of the camps and camping (our troop has come to the realization that the overpriced crappy trinkets that BSA tries to con the Scouts into redeeming their earnings for… which I’m sure is just one more way that BSA is trying to pilfer funds for unknown purposes; maybe BSA is building a secret underground facility for a refuge for all Scouts for during the 2012 phenomenon… are garbage) which are required for advancement in Scouting. At least, I’m assuming that our troop is giving a large percentage of their cut to the individual Scouts, because our troop seriously doesn’t pay for squat! All expenses for any activity that we do as Scouts are split evenly and paid by the Scouts and participating volunteer leaders… well, except for gas which is apparently solely the responsibility of the volunteer leaders. I’ve started charging every kid that needs a ride in my vehicle to any function a small fee (that never comes close to covering the cost of actual fuel used), which I feel is looked down on by the other leaders, but if they don’t like it, they can fire me. Seriously, I have no idea what our troop pays for, except, of course, helping those “down on their luck” pay for all the Scouting crap that the rest of us can barely afford (seriously, if my wife quit her job… and she ain’t making a physician’s salary… our family would qualify for all kinds of free crap: we’d get free school lunches for our kids, we’d get food stamps, we’d get free medical care at the “community service” clinic, we’d get scholarships to the YMCA [among many other places, I’m sure], and we’d get all of our Scouting costs paid for by the troop… and we wouldn’t have to sell a single canister of $50 chocolate popcorn that offers like 5 servings). Wow, I just really thought about what I wrote. Maybe my wife should quit her job… we’d be money ahead. Either my wife needs to quit her job… or she needs to leave my sorry rear-end and find a guy who makes above a free-school-lunch income 🙂

I am formulating a new life-philosophy. My new philosophy is: “If you can’t afford to pay for it completely out-of-(your)pocket, you shouldn’t assume that anyone else gives enough of a crap about it to help you out through fundraisers, so you probably shouldn’t do it.” I don’t mean to sound cynical or anything (yeah right, me not cynical 🙂 ) , but seriously, $25 for an 18oz bag of stinking trail mix?!? How are we supposed to sell this crap? And you want me to buy what: $15 for some sub-par enchiladas and crappy, Play Doh – tasting cookie dough to help send your kid to the private school that I can’t afford?!? Well, I guess if you buy mine, I’ll buy yours… but if you show up at my door trying to sell me some worthless crap, you had better be willing to buy some worthless crap in return!

If I could actually sell stuff that I thought was a complete screw-job without any sense of remorse, I’d probably be a successful Schwan’s Man or be selling endless amounts of Kirby vacuum cleaners. Is this what BSA really wants us to prepare our boys for: tedious, non-gratifying jobs in door-to-door sales? I don’t have the courage or confidence to sell crap door-to-door; how in the name of everything sacred and holy can I expect my 11-year old to do something that the thought of which makes me nauseous? I can’t… so it falls on my and my wife’s shoulders to help our son sell this garbage to people we know. Needless to say, a large portion of the people we know either have health conditions that prevent them from enjoying the benefits of ridiculously-overpriced popcorn products (diabetes and the like), moral stances against eating anything animal-related (and in their obscured minds, popcorn is not a vegetarian treat but an unholy monstrosity concocted of various animal fats and pelts… yes, these friends did far to much “experimenting” in their youths), have sons of their own in our troop, or know those friends of ours who have sons in our troop and have already purchased from those sons! Once again, if stinking BSA would find a fundraiser that wasn’t outrageously priced… you know, like Girl Scout cookies, where people are willing to buy more than one… it might not be quite so difficult for an average dude with an aversion to selling door-to-door to sell the stuff and save money on all of the crap BSA charges to be in Scouting!

Wow, now that I am almost done with my rant, I would like to say that, overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with my son in the Boy Scout program. After all, I don’t want anyone to assume that I’m not appreciative of the spot reserved for us when meteors strike the earth and Yellowstone explodes in December of 2012 🙂

Rocking the Podunk; Deaf Pedestrians and Egypt Central!

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a really good concert. This is very surprising considering the fact that I live, literally, in the middle of nowhere. Most concerts that come to this area are country performers. For example, this past summer for a couple of the big fair-type events, the performers that were brought in to entertain the masses were LoCash Cowboys, Terri Clark, and Jaime Fox. I know, I know, if you are anything like me, you’re thinking to yourself, “Who?” No clue, can’t help you with that one. All I know about the previously listed performers is that they perform country and I have never heard of them. You will notice that I refer to them as “performers” as opposed to “musicians” and that I refer to the style of performance as “country” and not “country music”. I think of country much the same way I think of the Barney theme-song; technically, it may be considered “music”, but no one with the intellect above that of a 4-year-old really enjoys it much. Just my opinion.

Oh, they have tried to bring some good old rock and roll to our area, but they seem to usually fail miserably. They either bring in acts so washed-up that it’s not even funny (think Pat Benetar) or they bring in those sudo-classic bands. You know the kind of bands I’m referring to: Credence Clearwater Revisited where the only original CCR musician is, like, the drummer, and the drummer did not CCR make. Or, one year they brought in someone with a name like Classic Rock Greats, which was like the guitarist from Air Supply, the drummer from 38 Special, a bassist from The Alan Parson’s Project, and a lead singer named Bob who they picked up from a cover band in Des Moine… or something like that. Anyway, they are bands that do not interest me.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic when I learned that Egypt Central was going to be opening for Deaf Pedestrians… in Crap-pile, Nebraska. I was STOKED! I wanted to see this concert more than anything I have recently desired. Now, I’m not a major follower of either of these bands, but I have heard music from both of them, and they kick some serious booty.

I feel obliged to mention the local cover band that opened for Deaf Pedestrians and Egypt Central: Six Shot Lullaby. There… I mentioned them. Just kidding. They really weren’t bad for a cover band from the Podunk… plus the lead guitarist actually came out into the crowd to try to get people into the concert… and he was kind of big and scary… and I live in the same town as him… so Six Shot Lullaby kicked butt, Mr. Guitarist Dude.

Now on to the main acts. Neither of these bands have hit the “Big Time” or had a “major” hit… you know the kind: the song that keeps getting airplay on the adult contemporary station play after play because it was featured in a Super Bowl commercial for Geico where that stupid British lizard gets his heart broken by the sizzling supermodel who decides that “size” really is important as Rob Thomas sings his ever-loving heart out while a full orchestra accompanies the whaling guitar of a past metal-great-reduced-to-Super-Bowl-half-time-status-hero (no offense to Aerosmith, but doesn’t this define them:) Man… I hate that kind of music!

Both Egypt Central and Deaf Pedestrians, however, are amazing talents with tunes you may have heard (unless coloring pictures of Baby Bop has given way to music time and it’s time to sing along with Taylor Swift until teacher says it’s time to lay down on the blankie and take the nappie before recess).
The Deaf Pedestrians (or ‘Deaf Peds’ as they are lovingly referred to by their fans) were the headliner for the show. If you have never heard of this Texas-based band, please click the videos following to get a feel for their greatness. Seriously, both of the bands I’m talking about are from southern states where I would expect nothing more than country-crap could escape the borders… yet these two rock?!? And from Texas… the Deaf Peds may seriously be the best thing to come out of Texas since… uh, given the lack of anything great to have ever come out of Texas… the Deaf Peds may be it! Deaf Peds have a semi-hit with “Hail to the Geek.”

They actually had a real-life video with (my favorite song of theirs) “15 Beers.”

The Deaf Peds also have an almost-brand-new cd out entitled We’re All Gonna Die.
This CD rocks. My favorite tune on this disc is “”Doomed To You”, but “We’re All Gonna Die”, “Tick”, and “I Hate This Place” (plus more) are well worth gracing the presence of your ears’ time:) The Deaf Peds were near-perfect… ‘near’….

The only thing that could have made the Deaf Peds better than they were would have been if they would have picked a less AWESOME band than Egypt Central to open for them! The Deaf Peds played a flawless gig. Very entertaining. The problem was that their opening act, Egypt Central, was a high-energy, get-the-crowd-involved, in-your-face act that leaned more toward metal than the Deaf Peds quirky alternative hard rock. Egypt Central has spent a little time opening for acts such as Korn and Disturbed… so they know how to ROCK! The crowd was too pumped to calm down and enjoy the more intricate styling of Deaf Ped’s music. People actually started leaving during the main act, which is disappointing. It will be hard to get any bigger-named acts to come to Podunk, Nebraska when word gets around that crowds disappear during an acts performance.

Anyway, Egypt Central has a semi-hit with the awesome “Taking you Down.” Here is a video someone created for the song with some pretty cool fantasy CGI stuff.

Even better was the band’s final song, which is a little less intense than some of their other stuff but is the kind of song you would expect to get some serious radio airplay without turning into drivel! I was waiting for this song the entire show and was pretty stoked that this is how they wrapped things up. The song in “You Make Me Sick,” and it rocks way more live than it does recorded, but here you go:

I really hope that the rapid fan-disappearance doesn’t discourage the local radio station (and others) from bringing in more contemporary, non-country performances. I’m tired of all the country crap coming this way. However, I feel a little bad about the comparison I made of country fans to 4-year olds… so I’m throwing in some typical country to make country fans feel at home on my blog:

Ye-hah?

Happy Food Stamp Friday!

You all know what Food Stamp Friday is, don’t you? It’s the first Friday of the month after the government has started handing out all the free money to all the families who can’t quite make ends meet… well, free to the families who receive the money; not free to us taxpayers helping to support them. A good portion of these folks are seriously just a little down on their luck and, once back one their feet, they will start contributing to society again. Some of these people are physically or mentally disabled to the point that they will probably never be able to contribute to the capitalist machine in a manner that would allow them to earn a self-sustaining living. I, and I assume most compassionate Americans, have no problem assisting these people live more comfortable lives (there but for the grace of God…)

It’s not the above mentioned people that I have a problem with. The people I have a problem with are the people who “believe” they are incapable of contributing to society because life has been too hard on them and they feel entitled to the free food that you and I are buying for them. Here’s a little wake-up call: life, in many instances, sucks. Life is often nothing more than a big pile of stinking crap. However, there is more than enough happy and joy to go around… so get off your lazy rear-ends and start contributing. Use the government programs for what they were meant to be… a stabilizing force that helps relieve the stress of starving to death while you improve your position in life.

In the past, there was a slight stigma associated with using food stamps. All of the people in line behind you saw you pull out the brightly colored coupons and knew that they had helped you buy your groceries. Now, if you are on food stamps, you get the fancy EBT card. EBT stands for Electronic Benefit Transfer. It reminds me of other little programs the government has… like taxes. You know, every paycheck there is that line where your employer has magically made some of your hard-earned money disappear and it magically appears in a government account. Well, part of that money magically appears as a credit on a little credit-card-like piece of plastic carried by food stampers. Magically out of your pocket and magically into the pocket of someone else… and now the government is going to be handing out free health care? Yeah, I ain’t even going to touch that viper… So, now that the government is issuing little pieces of plastic that look like credit cards to steal from the middle class and give to the poor… and the needy… and the big, lazy trailer trash that has learned to milk the system (read: steal from you), how can you spot a food stamper?

Okay, so the way you can tell it’s Food Stamp Friday is to head on out to Walmart and see that it’s 5X busier than normal and you see husbands and wives, or sometimes just a guy and sometimes just a gal, and anywhere from 4 to 12 kids in varying age from newborn to about 16, and these groups of people are pushing anywhere from 2 to 5 grocery carts and taking up entire aisles for huge blocks of time while they decide which flavor of stinking Zinger they want. And, after anywhere from a 3 minute to a 10 minute wait behind these wonderfully colorful people, they decide that they just can’t decide and they get a box of each and every flavor of stinking Zingers… all on your and my tax dollar. And if you look carefully in their carts, you will find a bounty of prepared foods and snack items. Can’t these people buy something a little healthier? Can’t they buy a little pasta and some rice cakes, for crying out loud? Seriously, if the husband and wife are together on a Friday afternoon at Walmart with all seven kids in tow, you know ain’t none of them working, so you’d think one of them could take the time to prepare a healthy meal!?! Most of the time, at least half of the members of these families look like they could stand to lose a pound or two… or fifty. But, with all the Ding Dongs and Doritos and Mrs. Fields cookies and Little Juan burritos sticking out of the 3 grocery carts they are pushing around… you got to figure weight loss ain’t a priority on their agendas.

Ahh… Food Stamp Friday! Nothing like a trip to Walmart on Food Stamp Friday to make you appreciate having a liberal, socialistic President in office… except for maybe tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is Food Stamp Saturday, and that’s when the fun really begins…

Man Toes :(

The family and I just got back from a much-needed vacation in Colorado. There were so many wonderful things to do and to see. We saw all kinds of animals at the Denver Zoo, we got to pet stingrays at the Downtown Aquarium, we ate what apparently is the best salt-water taffy in the world in Estes Park (I’m not a big fan), and although my favorite Italian restaurant of all time (Valente’s in Wheatridge) has disappointingly closed, we had a final farewell-to-Colorado meal at Cinzetti’s… which rocked (for Italian). And with all of these wonderful memories, my mind is clouded with one stinking thing: Man Toes!

You know… Man Toes; guys out in public wearing any number of freakishly designed shoes that allow other people in the near proximity to see their toes. No person should have to see a man’s toes while out in public… unless said person is at the beach, the pool, or in a public shower. The toes of a man are a thing to be hidden in socks and shoes and shadows and not to be seen by other human beings. Sadly, Coloradans do not agree with my philosophy. In Colorado, the Man Toes were out like bees on lilacs in the spring… except Man Toes don’t make sweet, sweet honey and they don’t smell like lilacs… they stink!

I grew up in Montana, and I currently live in Nebraska. In the places I have called home, men, for the most part, keep there toes where they belong: covered in tight-fitting shoes all day, festering and sweltering with heat into abominations of stinkiness that are only released either right before a cleansing shower or right before being tucked under the covers of a good night sleep. The toes of a man are not a thing meant to roam the daylight freely. The toes of a man are like vampires… hideously deformed creatures of the night that can suck the life out of other humans with a mere glance. I kid you not; Man Toes suck!

I have a little bit of an aversion to feet. Feet stink… period. But, being a guy, I have little problem with a female of relative normalcy wearing sandals or flip-flops while her dainty little toes with painted nails dance about in the daylight. Normal female toes are, I hate to admit it, cute. If one single person out there in my reading audience can show me a picture of one single male toe that belongs to a male over the age of 10 years-old that even somewhat resembles cute… I’ll give you a free one-year subscription to my blog. Yeah, ok, my blog is free anyways, but when I hit the big-time and can start charging you for the priviledge of reading my drivel… you’ll get a year free.

The average male toe is, to say the least, hideous. Large strands of hair stand out between grossly deformed knuckles. Often, the yellow nails growing off the ends of the toes are severely neglected. I have actually seen instances where the toenail is longer than the toe. Of course, there are countless instances where the toes themselves are monstrously long. Seriously, have you ever seen these dudes with the freakishly-long toes? You expect that, at any moment, these dudes will spring from the sidewalk and thrust their legs up towards the heavens, grasping the nearest tree branch with their elongated toes. They will then swing above you from the branches, spitting and urinating and defecating and doing all of that nasty stuff that monkeys and other nasty beasts with freakishly-long toes do! Ohhh… I shudder whenever I see these toes. Another common Man Toe that is visible on a trip to Colorado is the Preppy Toe. You know this toe: the soft foot skin, the delicate outline of white tipping the beautifully manicured nail, the trimmed hair resting peacefully between the still-freakishly deformed knuckles… this is a toe to be respected. This is a toe that the toe’s owner has actually paid another human being to maintain. Can you imagine being in such a low post in life that you would spend your days with a grotesque man-foot between your hands as you fruitlessly attempted to turn those orangutan-like appendages into something that can be displayed before the common humanity on a daily basis? Oh, you poor souls; the tips will never make amends for the damage assaulted upon your psyches.

Ok, so back to stinking Colorado. All throughout our peaceful vacation, I’m assaulted by Man Toes. In Estes Park, it’s Man toe after Man Toe, Berkinstocks be DAMNED! In Denver, flip-flop after flip-flop revealed the inhumanity of the Man Toe. Finally, I can take no more. We are finally going to head for home back to Nebraska where men hide their toes the way God intended (in fact, after Eve talked Adam into taking a bite of the forbidden fruit, wasn’t the first thing that Adam did after discovering his nakedness was he throw on a pair of Converse Chuckie T’s?) Ohhh… but wait! We have our final lunch before leaving Denver… and it a lunch not to be forgotten.

So we sit down at Cinzetti’s and I got Man Toe on the mind. But, I’m thinking to myself, ‘we’re in a restaurant… what kind of guy is gonna expose Man Toe to other diners during a meal?’ Apparently, lots of them! On my right, I got preppy-boy-freak-long-toe in his $125 Birks with his chica with equally long toes and their chowing on the freaking antipasta! On the left, I got Mr. 65+ on a business lunch with two young whipper-snappers who are trying to sell him the farm while he’s sporting flip-flops and grimy-nails filled with black-sock crud and other unmentionable black things that apparently he’s not willing to pay some high school drop-out to clean out every 3000 miles… I want to scream! Thank God for the stomach of iron that He has given me as I proceed to fill my gut with the most unbelievable pizza and eggplant parmigiana that my tongue has ever tasted. If those infidels had ruined my lunch (… seriously, I’ve cleaned puke off of myself from my son’s gag-reflex during a meal and not missed a bite of Tuna Helper… these geeks and their Man Toes ain’t stopping me from scarfing World-Class pizza…), I would have complained to management… or something.

You know how they have those signs as you enter a restaurant: “No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service!” ? These signs were created because most people don’t want to see a dude’s back hair or Man Toes! Seroiusly, if women were walking into Taco Johns with no shoes and no shirts… do you really believe that, even for a second, business wouldn’t be through the stinking roof? Guys would be standing at the counter ordering six-pack-and-a-pound after six-pack-and-a-pound until the police showed up… which means they’d be standing there FOREVER… ’cause no one would call the police because topless, shoeless women are invading Taco Johns! Those signs are directed specifically at males. Men are sucky, unattractive beasts, and many a weak-gutted person would not be able to ingest a meal with certain man-parts available for public viewing (I, for one, am blessed not to be included in this weak-gutted group). If the sign says “No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service”, take a look at your feet. If any part of your foot is exposed… and you are a male… you should not enter the premises! I couldn’t give a crap how comfortable those ugly flip-flops you picked up at Sports Authority are… NO ONE WANTS TO SEE YOUR MAN TOES!

Man… isn’t a vacation supposed to be relaxing?

State Slogans: for the most part, craptastic

Ok, I planned on this post being a gripe-fest on western Nebraska (if you’ve even passed through here and think it sucks, try living here), but part of my research (yes, I’m an idiot and have already run out of fresh ideas so now I actually have to research ideas to blog about) led me to the Wikipedia listing of state slogans. I was immediately struck at how absolutely ridiculous many of these state slogans are. Some of the slogans are simple, some are somewhat profound, but many of them are misleading marketing ploys that people with half a brain will find absolutely and astronomically ignoramical (is that even a word?… nope, just Googled it and it is most definitely not a word, but I’m leaving it because I think you get my drift).

Following is a list of the U.S. states and their slogans, as well as my observations on those slogans. Take my observations for what they are worth, and they are worth about the same as the price of admission to this blog. Since this is a blog and not a term paper, I am not going to reference or footnote or anything like that; Wikipedia took care of that and for the anal among you, go to Wikipedia for references.

Alabama:
- Share the wonder; “Share the wonder”… not bad; not overly original, but it’s simple and it’s catchy.
- Alabama the Beautiful; “Alabama the beautiful” was just some ad dude being lazy. “If people like ‘America the Beautiful’… well… Alabama can be beautiful too!”
- Where America finds its voice. Alabama.; This is just silly. What “voice” is exactly found in Alabama? Other than the country music group Alabama, I can’t think of anything famous voice-wise about Alabama. If the state of Alabama wanted to try to ride the weathered and worn coattails of the musical group Alabama, the state would have been better off going with “Dixieland Delight.
Alaska:
- Beyond Your Dreams, Within Your Reach; The folks in Alaska have their stuff figured out. When I read Alaska’s slogan, I think of beautiful wild country which it would be very possible for me to visit; it makes me want to visit.
Arizona:
- The Grand Canyon State; Like the bright people in Alaska, the folks in Arizona know how to keep it simple. Everyone has heard of the Grand Canyon, the Grand Canyon is in Arizona, so capitalize on your states biggest attraction. Much smarter than, say, “The John McCain State.”
Arkansas:
- The Natural State; Yeah, ’cause we all know that the rest of the states are artificial.
- (formerly) Land of Opportunity; Ok, one of the poorest states in the Union full of rednecks, Walmart corporate offices and Bill Clinton libraries. Opportunities?!? Guess “The Natural State” isn’t so bad after all.
California:
- Find Yourself Here; Lower your communist-style taxes and de-liberalize about 73% and the majority of normal Americans may consider paying your freaky, circus-like state a visit.
Colorado:
- Colorful Colorado; This slogan is way more boring than it is colorful.
- Enter a Higher State; … especially if you spend a little time around the potheads in Boulder.
- Pike’s Peak or Bust; This was used from 1858-1861… why it is listed as a slogan on Wikipedia is beyond me… although it is better than any of Colorado’s current slogans.
- Rocky Mountain High; Think “Enter a Higher State”… but toking with John Denver’s spirit.
- Where the Columbines Grow; If you think of what I think of when you put together Columbine and Colorado… not really something you would think Coloradans would want associated with tourism, is it?!?
Connecticut:
- Full of Surprises; Yeah, Adolph Hitler was full of surprises, too, and I wouldn’t have wanted to vacation with him. I think Connecticut needs to be more specific.
- (formerly) Better yet, Connecticut; Seriously, that doesn’t even really rhyme, does it? Apparently who ever thought up this gem spent a little too much time with John Denver in Boulder. Connecticut really is full of surprises.
Delaware:
- It’s Good Being First (Delaware was first state to ratify the Constitution); The portion in parentheses isn’t actually part of the slogan… but it probably should be since no one outside of Delaware probably gets it.
- (formerly) Small Wonder; Uh… in a “size matters” society, trying to go opposite of the blowhards in Texas probably isn’t too bright.
- (formerly) Smaller, Faster, Smarter; I understand the preoccupation with the size thing, but how can a piece of land (and a small piece of land at that) be fast and smart? And does saying that your state is faster and smarter than another person’s state really make that other person want to visit your gloating LITTLE state?
District of Columbia:
- The American Experience; Seriously, is there a single person on the face of this great country of ours (who does not work for the government) that believes that the true American experience is in any way, shape or form displayed in even the most minuscule way in DC?!?
- Taxation without Representation; They ADMIT it!!! They ADMIT it!!! It’s on their stinking LICENSE PLATES! Although this slogan is meant to pertain to the voting rights of residents of DC, I think it pretty much sums up what happens in DC that affects the nation as a whole! Guess it’s about time for Congress to give themselves another raise.
- (formerly) Celebrate & Discover; There should be nothing “former” about this. DC is a place to discover our history and celebrate our nation. DC should have left a good thing alone.
Florida:
- Sunshine State; Yeah, Florida has sunshine. It also has loads of old people waiting for their suns to set.
- (formerly) The Land of Good Living; Apparently all of the old people sucking up the social security dollars down there in Florida took away the “good living,” but they didn’t phase the sunshine.
Georgia:
- Georgia on My Mind; Well, if you aren’t original… see if anyone has written a song about your state and just go with that; it looks to the outside world like you are incredibly lazy but you are most likely too busy trying to put spray cheese on your Chicken in a Biskit to worry about what those stupid Yanks think.
Hawaii:
- The Island of Aloha; Most people know that “aloha” is a greeting in Hawaii, so this slogan hits the mark; it’s simple and it conveys something unique to Hawaii. Apparently a state has to be disconnected from the lower 48 to get the slogan-thing right like Hawaii, Alaska… and, uh… Arizona?
Idaho:
- Great Potatoes. Tasty Destinations. ; Uh… I didn’t know Idaho was known for its cuisine. “Tasty Destinations”? I know Idaho has the whole “potato” thing going for it, but is that really the only thing you got going for you tourism-wise? I love a good potato as much as the next guy, but when I think of potatoes having something to do with a travel… for some reason I think of traveling Irish people foraging for hidden potatoes during the Irish potato famine. What about the beautiful mountains… or the small colonies of radical white-supremacists you have tucked away in them; you should put that in a slogan.
- (formerly) Famous Potatoes; Alright, we got it already. They grow potatoes in Idaho! Oh… I get it! If you peel a potato, what color is the meat inside? And what does Idaho have tucked away in it’s mountains? It’s all code for, “If your skin isn’t the same color as mashed potatoes… stay away!”
Illinios:
- Mile After Magnificent Mile; i.e. Flat, boring country. Do not attempt to drive across alone or you may fall asleep and die at the wheel!
- Right Here. Right Now. ; That’s the name of a Van Halen Song! Any state that tries to work a little VH into its slogan is okeedokee in my book.
Iowa:
- Life Changing; Come on. Are you serious? “Life changing”… Iowa… I seriously doubt it. You can’t just lie in your slogan.
- Fields of Opportunities; If you’re a farmer, maybe. How is this supposed to attract the rest of us?
- (formerly) You make me smile; I don’t know who you are or why I make you smile… but you’re creeping me out so STOP IT!
Indiana
- Restart Your Engines; I can just picture it: a young couple pulls up to a service station on a trip through Indiana. The young man in the driver’s seat pulls the car up by a gas pump and steps out to fill the car up. The young couple is extremely happy because they have always wanted to go through Indiana because… well… ok, I have no idea why this young couple would be happy to be in Indiana. Maybe they are passing through on there way to some state that actually has something going on… like Iowa (after all, Iowa is “Life Changing”). Anyway, as the young man starts to pump some gas, a mob of Indianans slowly start to walk toward the car. The descending mob stares at the young couple with bloodlust in their eyes, each and every one of the mob drooling as they limp toward the car and moan with arms outstretched toward the young travelers. The young woman screams out to the horrified young man, “Jimmy, for the love of everything sacred and holy, get back in the car. Restart your engine… restart your engine…” Ok, I think Indiana needs to restart the slogan-creation process.
- (formerly) Enjoy Indiana; Yeah, a little hard to do with all the stinking ZOMBIES!
Kansas:
- There’s No Place Like Home; Not bad. Most people think of Kansas and The Wizard of Oz as kind of interrelated. Seems to be a little more original than something to do with Kansas the music group or some silly song about Kansas (is there such a thing?) After all, The Wizard of Oz is a Classic.
- Kansas, as big as you think; I’m thinking China… so see, Kansas, you’re not as big as I think.
- (formerly) Simply Wonderful; Simple… but kinda boring. I like the “No Place Like Home” reference better.
- (formerly) Land of Ahhs (pronounced lke “Land of Oz”); What a craptastic slogan! Let’s not spell it so anyone gets it (i.e. OZ). Instead, lets make it ridiculous so we have to explain it to everyone.
Kentucky:
- Unbridled Spirit; Not bad. Makes me think of the wild frontier. Makes me think maybe I can go a little “wild” in Kentucky. I doubt this is the case… but Kentucky has a pretty good gimmick going on here.
- It’s That Friendly; … which makes me think of the dog that buries its nose in your crotch.
- Where Education Pays; Apparently education is worthless everywhere else. If you’ve been wondering why you wasted all of that time and money on a college education and are currently a shift supervisor at McDonald’s, move to Kentucky! That education actually pays in Kentucky, so you may actually make assistant manager.
Louisiana:
- Fall in Love with Louisiana all over again; Ok, but what if I never fell in love with Louisiana in the first place. Can we still just maintain our existing platonic relationship? I think the possibility of a platonic relationship should be left on the table.
- Come as you are. Leave different. ; Somehow this makes me think of Ned Beatty’s character in Deliverance… which I find deeply disturbing.
- Sportsman’s Paradise; This I can live with; a land of fishing and hunting where there’s a buck behind every shrub, a bass on the end of every line, and PETA is banned forever.
Maine:
- Worth A Visit, Worth A Lifetime; This eerily reminds me of the plot of some Stephen King novel: an unsuspecting family visits some backwater Maine town only to find out that they have entered a different dimension and are destined to spend the rest of their lives in that town unless they sacrifice one of their own to the wild satanic beast that lurks in the local irrigation ditch. Man… I love that Stephen King!
- The Way Life Should Be; Again, a Stephen King novel about the folk in a small town that attempt to “conform” any visitors to the town’s way of life. Those who fail to “conform” end up as food for the possessed toaster that lives in the kitchen of the old man who everyone suspects is the spawn of Satan.
- Where America’s Day Begins; In this story, Stephen King takes his “dear reader” on a voyage to a wonderful town in Maine where time actually begins and ends; a town on the verge of a civil war between the forces of good and evil that could result in the end of time as we know it.
- Vacationland; Stephen King’s timely tale of terrorism in America’s favorite amusement park. Things get interesting when the vampire carnies show the Islamic Terrorists the true meaning of terror!
- It must be Maine; Of course it’s Maine; where in the hell else would it be? It’s where Stephen King lives, right?
Maryland:
- Seize the Day Off; I already do this. I seize every day off I can get… and I don’t have to drive half-way across the country to do it.
- (formerly) America in Miniature; I really have no desire to visit a dollhouse, which is what this slogan makes me think of.
- (formerly) More Than You Can Imagine; I imagine a land with self-refilling buckets of gold on every corner, free unicorn rides, and a land where democrats and republicans can just get along; can Maryland really offer more than that?
Massachusetts:
- Make It Yours; So what, it’s for sale? Doesn’t Ted Kennedy live there? Yeah… I think I’ll pass. Not only is it gonna reek of alcohol, the things gonna lose half its value as soon as you drive it off the lot.
- The Spirit of America; I was wondering where the American spirit had gone; it doesn’t seem to be on the streets of average America. Massachusetts stole our stinking spirit.
Michigan:
- Pure Michigan; …’cause if you’ve got any Wisconsin mixed in, the whole kit-and-kaboodle starts to smell like cheese.
- Getting the Upper Hand; On what? I am afraid that I really don’t want to understand this.
- (formerly) Great Lakes, Great Times; More To See; This wasn’t half-bad. I don’t understand these states that have something semi-good going and then they change to something semi-tarded.
Minnesota:
- Explore Minnesota; Yeah, not a lot of thought put into this one… but you have to remember these people elected Jesse The Body Ventura as their governor. It appears those cold winters wreck havoc on brain cells.
Mississippi:
- Feels Like Coming Home; So if you have those reoccurring dreams of your youth where your daddy used to lock you in the closet while he beat your momma… you probably want to avoid Mississippi.
- The South’s Warmest Welcome; I like this one. Makes me want to go down to Mississippi just to see if it’s true.
Missouri:
- Show Me State; i.e. Flashers welcomed!
- The Cave State; uh… your guess is as good as mine?!? I guess they got caves in Missouri.
- (formerly) Where The Rivers Run; Caves and rivers… who could ask for more?
Montana:
- Big Sky Country; It really is, you know, unless you’re in the western part of the state where all the mountains are, but there ain’t nothing but a bunch of Californian rejects that can afford to live in the western end of the state, and there ain’t much prettier a place than Glacier National Park in this whole country of ours. If you’re in the western end of the state, you will be so taken with the beauty of the mountains that you won’t even notice how small the sky is. If your in the eastern end of the state… I dare you to find a bigger sky. This is my home state and will always be my first true love (… at least as far as states go:)
- (formerly) The Treasure State; This fact is not listed at Wikipedia, which I find to be a crying shame! How can this not be documented. There was a gold rush in Montana at one time and Montana was known as the Treasure State. I can remember it being on our license plates when I was a kid. I would actually make my first actual addition to the great institute of knowledge that is Wikipedia… except I’ve been working on this blog entry on and off for three days and I’m slightly over half-way though. Why do we have to have so many stinking states? I think we should give Iowa to Canada… I’m sure there’s a few Canadians that would like to have their “lives changed”. If a visitor to this blog could kindly add this information to Wikipedia, I would be forever grateful… and please let me know!
Nebraska:
- Possibilities…Endless; My current home, and all I have to say is, “What a load of CRAP!” The Nebraska State Tourism people are a stinking pile. This slogan should read, “We tax so much out of you and pay you so little that your possibilities will be severely limited and you will die here miserably poor and discontented.” Ok, I know this wouldn’t make much of a slogan… but at least it would be true. Nebraska does offer things that certain people are looking for: simplicity, a slower pace of life, squirrels and prairie dogs… uh, I think that’s about it, but I’m sure they could capitalize on those ideas and not have to lie to get visitors and new residents to come to the state.
- (formerly) The Good Life; Ok, at least the folks on the tourism commission realized that this hummer was a lie and finally pulled it. If your idea of the good life is lots of wind, low paying jobs, high taxes and the lack of any kind of meaningful social scene… this slogan would have meant something to you. If you think I’m being too hard on my current state, go back and read the intro to this post. I had planned to devote an entire post to the things I dislike about Nebraska. That post is still to come. Still, I think “The Good Life” was better than the current slogan. There are people who think having nothing to do most of the time (aside from puttering around the back yard or going for a 35 mph Sunday drive on the backroads) is the good life… focus on those people.
Nevada:
- Wide Open; Simple. It’s got simple going for it. Simple is about all it has going for it. For me, this slogan doesn’t provoke any kind of response; perhaps that is because I have spent a good deal of time living in states with “wide open” spaces and this doesn’t particularly make me want to visit. I think they should have worked Vegas into their slogan somehow… since that’s really about all Nevada has going on.
New Hampshire:
- You’re Going to Love it Here; Wow, that’s a pretty bold assumption. However, I like this slogan; it makes me want to visit to see if New Hampshire can live up to its promise.
New Jersey:
- Come See For Yourself; Sounds like a dare, doesn’t it. “You know, I’ve heard New Jersey is a stinking pit, but how bad can it really be?” Then the voice of New Jersey tourism pipes-up, “Come see for yourself!”
- (formerly) New Jersey and You: Perfect Together; Seriously, if I wanted some kind of freaky matchmaking service that’s gonna hook me up with some mate from the wrong side of the tracks, I’d go to eharmony.com.
New Mexico:
- Land of Enchantment; I like this one. Makes me think I’m going to see little fairies flying around touching everything with their magic wands… and in a good way, not a San Francisco freak-me-out kind of way.
New York:
- I Love New York; Whether you agree or disagree, this one is classic. If you hate New York, you’re going to avoid it anyway. If you love it, you love it, and this slogan works.
North Carolina:
- A Better Place to Be; I guess it depends where you’re coming from as to whether this one works for you or not. If you’re currently a resident of Guantanamo Bay, yeah, I’m sure North Carolina is a better place to be. However, if your chillin’ at the Playboy Mansion… I don’t think NC is where you want to be.
- First in Flight; Another one I like. I know, I know, I don’t usually seem to gravitate to the slogans that have anything to do with history, but the whole Kitty Hawk think is pretty cool and it works for North Carolina.
North Dakota:
- Legendary; Uh… really? I’ve been to North Dakota… in fact, I used to live mere miles from North Dakota. The only legendary thing I can think of regarding North Dakota is the movie Fargo. I know that North Dakotans get mad because they don’t think they talk like the movie portrayed… but they do… and it’s really funny… both the movie and the way North Dakotans talk 🙂
Ohio:
- So Much to Discover; Uh, aside from Cleveland or Cincinatti (which really ain’t much to discover), what would that be?
- Birthplace of Aviation; Ok… so the Wright Brothers, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong were born there. Aside from being born there, what accomplishments did these men fulfill in Ohio? We can’t chose where we are born, but we can kinda chose where we accomplish stuff… if we are so inclined.
- (formerly) The Heart of It All; This is pretty good. If Ohio were actually at the center of something, this would make sense. Since Lebanon, Kansas is the Geographical center of the US… and Kansas really isn’t that close to Ohio… I don’t know what Ohio is supposed to be the heart of. Yep, I’m just gonna let that preposition dangle.
Oklahoma:
- Oklahoma is OK; So, how are things in Oklahoma? Well, you know, they’re OK. They’d be better if we could come up with a decent slogan
- Native America;… ’cause the rest of the states stole land from Oklahoma. Oklahoma actually lives on a reservation now and is troubled with alcohol problems.
Oregon:
- We Love Dreamers; … and their productivity proves it.
- Things Look Different Here; Not “things look good here” or “things look beautiful here”… “Things Look Different Here.” If you are having a colonoscopy and the doctor tells you things look “different” in you colon; I don’t think this is a good thing.
- Pacific Wonderland; I like this one. Who wouldn’t want to visit a wonderland?
Pennsylvania:
- State of Independence; Sounds like a child that has finally grown up. Of course, when a child first reaches the state of independence, there is often a lot of wild partying… not exactly a family friendly prospect.
- You’ve Got a Friend in Pennsylvania; No, I don’t.
- America Starts Here; Ok, no matter which direction you come to the United States from, Pennsylvania will never be the first state into which you run. The first state to ratify the Constitution was Delaware. How America starts in Pennsylvania is beyond me. Apparently there are some slogan-makers in Pennsylvania who are as cracked as that famous Pennsylvanian bell.
Puerto Rico:
- La isla del encanto; First of all, I don’t think Puerto Rico is a state. This loosely translates to “the island of enchantment”. Don’t really know much about Puerto Rico so I don’t know if it’s enchanted or not; I have my doubts.
Rhode Island:
- Unwind; I like this. Very simple yet catchy. I imagine sitting on the cool sand of a quiet beach munching on lobster. Ok, I’m probably giving Rhode Island a little too much credit for this oversimplified slogan… but I’m hungry, and lobster sounds really good, so cut me some slack.
South Carolina:
- Smiling Faces. Beautiful Faces. ; A little corny, kind of simple, but not too bad,… I guess.
South Dakota:
- Great Faces. Great Places. ; A little corny, kind of simple, but not… uh, hold on… you’ve got to be kidding me?!? Ok, who stole from whom? One of these “South” states is a major stinking copycat!
Tennessee:
- The Stage Is Set For You; No one wants to see me on stage, so this must mean the stage is set for me to watch. As long as it’s not country music or that a really bad Elvis impersonator, we should be cool.
- Follow Me To Tennessee; Who are you and why do you want me to follow you? Ooh, ooh… is that candy?
Texas:
- It’s Like a Whole Other Country; … so if you’re wanting to get out of the USA, head to Texas!
- (formerly) Don’t Mess with Texas; That really sounds like a threat. I don’t like being threatened… especially by a state that is trying to attract my tourism dollars.
- State of the Arts; So, what, now the Dallas Cowboys are considered to be art? I guess that makes sense since the Cowboys are obviously not a football team anymore.
- Every thing’s bigger in Texas; No, every thing is NOT bigger in Texas. In fact, the only thing bigger in Texas is the egos.
Utah:
- This Is The Right Place;… to commit polygamy.
- Life Elevated;… if your idea of an elevated life is having more than one wife. For crying out loud, dealing with one wife is hands-full… can you imagine having more than one?
- (formerly) Greatest Snow on Earth; Get it? It’s a play on words. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Circus was billed as “The Greatest SHOW on Earth” and Utah is “The Greatest SNOW on Earth”! Yeah… I think it’s kind of stupid too. I’m surprised the circus doesn’t sue for corny slogan infringement.
- Utah! Where Ideas Connect; Yeah, ’cause Utah is known for connecting ideas. Ok, Utah is known for Mormons and that tabernacle choir thing… but that’s kind of like connecting ideas.
Vermont:
- Vermont, naturally;. You really should have seen it when it was full of preservatives and other chemicals; it was horrifying. Ted Kennedy kept trying to squeeze Vermont into a martini glass. Natural is much safer for Vermont.
- (formerly) I LoVermont; Someone actually came up with this. What’s worse is that I’m guessing a small group of representatives actually approved that this slogan be used in public as a way to… uh… make people from Vermont look… uh… special.
Virginia:
- Virginia is for Lovers; Seriously, this is Virginia’s slogan. Look it up if you don’t believe me. I looked it up to list it here and I still don’t believe it. Virginia… for lovers… who knew?
Washington:
- SayWA! ; Dentists and orthodontists in Washington laugh their butts off every time they see this. The rest of us just think this slogan is stupid.
- (formerly) Experience Washington; … and part of the experience is a dental cleaning, “SayWA!”
West Virginia:
- Open for business;… and thank goodness. When my lover and I got to Virginia it was closed so we had to redirect to West Virginia. If West Virginia had been closed, we would have been forced to go to Vermont… and lord knows I LoVermont.
- (formerly) Wild and Wonderful; This is a great slogan… for Alaska. West Virginia? Seriously…
- Almost Heaven; If this is the case, I may have to start sinning with more frequency. If West Virginia is the afterlife for those who pass the pearly gates… brimstone ain’t sounding so bad. Ok, that’s not nice… I’ve never been to West Virginia, but I’ve seen pictures. It looks very nice… but heaven… I don’t think so.
Wisconsin:
- Live like you mean it; Yeah, no more of this mamsy-pamsy wimpy living! Live like you mean it (i.e. don’t be afraid to order cheese on that double quarter pounder at Mickey Ds.)
- America’s Dairyland; I like this one! Besides cheese, what do you think of when you think of Wisconsin? NOTHING! Oh wait, there is that semi-pro football team they have there in Green Bay…
- Life’s so good; Life’s not just good, it’s “so” good. What in the hell is that even supposed to mean?!?
- Escape to Wisconsin; Seriously, everyone in Wisconsin looks like a convict… you’ll blend right in.
Wyoming:
- Like No Place On Earth; This is the truth; there is no place on earth quite like Wyoming… and I mean that in a mostly good way. This slogan is fitting and creates a bit of mystique. Wyoming has gorgeous Rocky Mountains, the splendor of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, the unique beauty of Devil’s Tower National Monument… and then the rest of the state is crappy, flat, dry and windy just like Nebraska. I guess no state is perfect… but parts of Wyoming and the Black Hills of South Dakota are as close to heaven as I can imagine getting on this earth… so West Virginia can bite me!

Stinking 4th of July Weekend

Alright, I had been sooo looking forward to a long weekend for quite some time. I had been really wanting to go back to Montana for the 4th for several months. There is this big softball tourney in the town I grew up in and a lot of my old friends were going to be there. One of my friends is in a band and his band was going to be playing at one of the local clubs (ok, there are no clubs in Montana… it was a bar, but it would still have been cool to see him play). My wife’s sister, however, has been begging us to go to North Platte, NE for a couple of years now. There is a Christian camp that puts on this big 4th of July extravaganza every year and it’s supposed to be fun for the whole family. Well, listening to my friend wail some good old rock n’ roll in a bar sounds fun to me, but the family friendly fun of Maranatha Camp wins out and it’s off to North Platte we go.

We drive the 3-plus hours to North Platte. The kids don’t even fight the entire way and I’m thinking this may have been the better choice for our July 4th activities. We arrive at the in-laws. We are bringing in our stuff and unpacking our weekend bags when my sister-in-law gets a phone call from some dude at the camp. Her kids are counselors at camp so she has an “in”. The dude on the phone tells her they are cancelling the 4th celebration at the camp because of an outbreak of swine flu. Hold on, wait a second, it’s July 3rd and I just drove over 3 hours to North Platte, Nebraska for the sole purpose of going to a July 4th celebration that’s no longer going to happen? Well hoodeedoodeedoo… at least I’m in North Platte. North Platte is known for… there is a lot to do… at least in North Platte there is a… oh, who am I kidding, North Platte is just like crappy Scottsbluff but is a 3 hour drive away.

Ok, I’m not quite ready to put on my complaining hat yet (no… I have no idea what a “complaining hat” is and I know it sounds stupid… but it is what popped into my head and I’m going with it) and am ready to give this weekend in North Platte a try. So, me and my family and the in-laws put our heads together and try to come up with a plan. We decide we’re going to have our own little celebration. We’re going to buy our own fireworks. We’re going to buy our own food. We’re going to have the best darn 4th of July celebration that money can buy. So we head into town and quickly realize that in order for the phrase “that money can buy” to mean anything, you actually have to possess large sums of money, which we didn’t. CRAP!

You see, in Scottsbluff, we have a few crappy little roadside fireworks vendors, but we also have a couple of dudes that have actual warehouses they set up chock full o’ goodies and they sell the crap at a decent discounted price. Oh sure, it’s still WAY too expensive for little bits of gunpowder that take a few seconds to blow up in a multitude of colors, but it’s way cheaper than the little roadside guys. In North Platte, all they have is the little roadside guys.

Was it really that long ago that, on the 4th of July, grocery stores would have really good pop sales? You know, like four 12-packs for $10.00? Now they run specials like “Hot Sale – two 12-packs of Pepsi for $10.00… with a stupid club card”. Seriously, like twice as expensive for stuff as it was just a few years ago… and I guarantee you I ain’t making twice as much money as I did a few years ago. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work: the price of stuff rises over time, but so do wages? I see the price of stuff still going up, but my wages remain unchanged. I thought Obama the Holy One was supposed to fix this crap? C’mon, he’s had half-a-year already; that’s more than enough time to fix the economy, right? Stupid politicians… and stupid pop manufacturers (I mean, how much can a stupid can of soda with some carbonated water and some high fructose corn syrup really cost)… and stupid overcharging roadside fireworks vendors! Soooo, the outcome of our 4th of July was some of those stupid little snappers you throw at the ground (they were only like 25 cents per box), ramen noodles to eat and all the hose water we could drink! Stinking 4th of July in stinking North Platte!

Ok… actually it wasn’t so bad. The in-laws felt horrible about us driving all that way from crap-hole Nebraska to expensive-fireworks-crap-hole, Nebraska, so they pitched-in more than their fair-share for the meal and the fireworks. We had a decent little display and a feast of bratwursts, pork ribs, macaroni salads, coleslaw and sweet corn. It was yummy. The camp even let the niece and nephew come home from camp to celebrate with us (all of the kids were supposed to be quarantined whether they were sick or not… apparently this swine flu thingie is really contagious.)

So, all things considered, we had a pretty decent 4th of July. Good food, good fireworks, good family. With the odds against us, we had a good time. The overpriced pop vendors, the outrageously overpriced roadside fireworks stands, and the stinking lame swine-flu infested camp we drove over 3 hours to go to but didn’t get to go to didn’t ruin the 4th of July for the family of Adventurer Rich!

You know what’s weird, though? Ever since we returned home, I’ve felt a little feverish and have had an intense desire to roll in the mud…

Advice from the office sage…

I was having a little trouble going back to work today. After a vacation or a holiday it’s always a struggle to go back to the day-to-day monotony of work-a-day life. At work, I was doing a little venting to a wise coworker.

“Wouldn’t life be perfect if we could wake up every day and work at something we’re passionate about?” I asked. “When you get a job working for someone else, you are most likely trying to turn someone else’s passion into your own. Life would be so much easier and more fulfilling if we all worked on our own passion instead of trying to become passionate about someone else’s passion.”

The wise sage looked at me with a slight smile gracing the corners of his lips. “We humans grow tired of things so rapidly,” his deep voice rumbled as he shook his head knowingly. “If our passions were our means of earning a living, we would quickly grow tired of them and they would no longer be our passions. By keeping our passions separate from our means of economic survival, we maintain the passion that is our passion and our lives retain their meaning. After all, a job provides the sustenance we need to live… but a passion provides the fullness of heart and soul each of us need to live well.”

I looked at the wise sage and began to contemplate his wise words. This man, with his hair half-way down his back but contained in the most majestic of ponytails, had a lot of time to contemplate the meaning of life. This man… this 32 year-old hulk-of-a-man, lives in the basement of a house he shares with his brother and his… cat. This man’s passion is World of Warcraft and conquering that online games world with his band of misfit brothers. This man almost peed his pants when the new Mountain Dew Game Fuel (in tribute to World of Warcraft) came out… and he came close to punching me in the face when I told him I thought the “blue” tasted best (“Blue represents the pesky Alliance, a grouping of mere humans and their ilk, who are far inferior to the majestic, raging power of the Horde,” he had said to me in a raised voice with a fist at half mast. “Ok, Dude, the red is better… take a pill,” I responded, not really thinking the red was better but not wanting to get into a debate, or my butt kicked, over a stupid video game.) This is the guy I’m taking advice from on the idea of following one’s passion? This is the guy who, for one brief instant, I am considering a sage and one worthy of listening to? I’m an idiot!

Man… coming back to work after a holiday can really SUCK!

Stinking Walmart!

My wife was at Walmart earlier today getting a little of this and a little of that. When she got home, she told me know Walmart has its summer stuff on clearance… and they have some back-to-school stuff out. IT’S JUNE 30TH…JUNE IS NOT EVEN OVER… SCHOOL GOT OUT IN THIS AREA ABOUT ONE MONTH AGO!!!!????!!!! For crying out loud, Walmart has sooo changed the way we live life in this country… and not for the better. It used to be that you could buy a swimsuit at the end of the summer, you know, in case you actually lost that weight you were planning on losing. Not anymore. By the middle of July, no stores will even be carrying swimsuits anymore and it’s all Walmart’s fault.

Ok, I don’t know if this is all really Walmart’s fault or not, but I have a pretty strong feeling that it is. Walmart always gets rid of seasonal merchandise slightly after the season has begun. Walmart also always brings out the next season’s merchandise freakishly early. Does anyone really want to think about back-to-school when school just got out? Does anyone really want to think about fall holidays (Halloween and Thanksgiving) before school even starts? Does anyone really want to start planning for Christmas at the beginning of the school year? I’m sure the answer to these questions for some people may be “yes”… but those people need to be tied up with Christmas lights in the middle of July and whipped senseless with jack-o-lanterns until they come around to my way of thinking.

Have you noticed how time seems to go faster than it did when you were a kid? I used to think this was just part of the aging process; I don’t think this way anymore. I think time seems to go faster than it used to because Walmart has back-to-school supplies out in their stinking stores before June is even over. I think time seems to go faster than it used to because Walmart (and every other stinking store that has to follow Walmart’s stinking tactics in order to survive) forces consumers into thinking about the next major shopping season many weeks (often months) before that season arrives… all in the name of stinking profit!

So a big THANK YOU to you, stinking Walmart, for your contribution to the increasingly insane pace of life in the United States. After all, who really wanted to slow down and try to enjoy summer anyway? Thank you for forcing me to buy what I want and need when YOU want me to have it, not when I really want or need it. Thank you for making me hate you more than I hate a pair of underwear that is too small and constantly rides up and constantly has to be pulled back down at the most awkward moments… and I really hate that. And, finally, thank you for keeping your prices just slightly lower than your competition so that I feel like I would be throwing my money away by shopping somewhere besides Walmart!

Well, enough griping for now. I think I’ll head out to Walmart. I’m gonna need a new sled for next winter and there is a pretty good stinking chance Walmart has them on an end-display. It is the last day of June, after all.