Commercial

I was watching TV the other day when I saw a presidential campaign commercial. I pretty much tuned it out as soon as it came on. I think the only thing I get from these commercials is that I don’t want either candidate to be the next president. I don’t think that’s the purpose, but that’s what I come away with.

Well, after about a minute and a half of this particular commercial, I realized this one was a little different. He wasn’t attacking the other candidate; in fact, he didn’t mention the other candidate. I had to rewind it so I could listen to what he was saying.

This is a non partisan blog. I won’t take sides and I won’t even tell you what the sides are. But I will say this. It was rather refreshing to see a commercial from a candidate that is saying more that what a horrible person their opponent is.

I have to admit it seemed a little crazy, I mean, he was talking about the trouble with the economy, unemployment, the rising cost of everything and how to get America back on track. He also was saying that we should stop spending billions of dollars each month to build up other countries, and start rebuilding ours. And I think the craziest thing was when he started talking about our common interests as Americans.

Of course he’s going to say what people want to hear, but it’s a little refreshing to hear a candidate talk about something real. I don’t know if it’s the economy, world events or that I am just getting older, but I am more interested in this election than I have been in the past. I want to watch the debates and listen to what the candidates are saying about the “issues” impacting our lives.

My hope is that the primaries are no indication of what is in store for the upcoming election. It seemed that all I heard during those debates were personal and professional attacks on each other. If I wanted that, I would just schedule a debate in the living room between a couple of 8 year olds.

Is it possible that presidential candidates could have a civil debate and actually discuss the issues? I don’t know, maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Go Cubs Go

I grew up in the Chicagoland area, so naturally I am a Chicago sports fan. Since being transplanted into the Land of the Cheese I have come to realize that people around here don’t share the same team loyalties that I do. In fact, most of them have a general hatred for my Chicago teams. One of the individuals that is not particularly fond of my Chicago team is the father of my future step-children. Be sure to keep this little nugget of information in mind as it will come into play later in the story.

With the baseball season winding down, I am rather optimistic about my team’s chances. For those of you that have been brainwashed into thinking there are two teams in Chicago, let me be clear that although there is a team on the south side, the only real team in Chicago is on the north side, the Chicago Cubs.

It has become tradition in Chicago that whenever the Cubs win, they play the Steve Goodman song “Go Cubs Go.” I have to admit it is a rather catchy tune.



Even though I am living in Cheeseland, I try to catch the games whenever I can. And lucky for me, I can listen to WGN radio up here and hear the games on there. (For those of you that are within the radio signal range, I would strongly recommend listening as often as you can.)

Back to the Cubs, last week after work, I had turned on the radio to listen to the game on the ride home. Well, the Cubs ended up wining that game, and right after we picked up the kids that magical tune came on the radio.

I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but after dinner that night I was sitting at the table enjoying my ice cream bar when all of a sudden the kids broke out into song. They were singing “Go Cubs Go.” And they weren’t just repeating the words they heard on the radio. Nope, they were getting into it! Singing and dancing. Repeating lines after each other. It was pretty cool to hear.

Now, remember that little nugget of information I had you keep in mind. Well, right about the time the kids were really bringing it home, their Dad stopped by to pick up the dog. I don’t think “shock” can begin to describe the look on his face when he walked in and heard his little angles singing a song about the Chicago Cubs!

He looked at me and I shrugged my shoulders. I mean... what could I say? I didn't teach them the song, I didn't convince them to start singing it either. I just sat there and ate my ice cream. Is it my fault they have good taste?

Co Cubs!

Broken Promises

I guess it is election time again. Now, let me start off by telling you this; I love this country. I think we have a good political system in theory, in practice…eh, not so much. All of the elections, campaigns and debates really come down to one thing – who can lie the best. I would be curious to see some type of study that shows how many of the campaign promises made are actually kept.

Maybe this can be traced back to the student council elections in junior high school. I recall many “debates” for student council president, where the promises of no homework, shorter school days and a McDonalds in the cafeteria were made with great passion. It seems that the idea has just carried forward and promises of no homework were replaced with promises of tax cuts and the McDonalds in the cafeteria were replaced with free health care.

Watching the commercials on TV, all they are saying is what a bad president the other candidate would make. Is that really my option? I have to choose the lesser of two evils? Of the thousands of Americans in the US, do we really have to choose the one that’s not the worst?

Disclaimer: I am not a candidate for anything, and this article, although my dog kinda liked it, has not been approved by any party, committee or candidate. Any attempt to use this information in the decision making process would be stupid. And frankly, if you are that stupid, you probably shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

Mistakes made…worse

It wasn’t long after I graduated high school before I realized that my teachers were right…math is a valuable life skill that would serve me well in the real world. If I had only listened…

I was fresh out of boot camp and arrived at my first base. I did all of the things you need to do to start your life in a new city, including opening a new checking account. I decided I would make the best of my military benefits and opened an account at the base credit union.

Everything was going great. I was getting settled in on my own, was gainfully employed and had a steady paycheck coming in. One afternoon I visited several shops on base and made a few purchases. None of the purchases were big ticket items, I put some gas in my car (back when ten bucks could fill your tank, ahhh…remember those days?), bought some snacks and couple of other little things. Now, keep in mind that this was before the invention of the debit card and I didn’t have any cash in my pocket, so I wrote a couple checks. Well, three checks to be exact.

Less than a week later, I received a notice from the bank. It turns out all three checks I wrote bounced. I went back through my check register to find out what happened. As luck would have it, I made a little math boo-boo. I forgot to carry the ‘1’ and ended up thinking I had more money then I actually did. Whoops. Well, I guess that is a life lesson. Pay day was coming and I figured I would get some cash and pay my debts. That’s the responsible thing to do, right?

The following day I was called up to the squadron commander’s office. My boss said that he wanted to talk to me about the recent “problems” I’ve had. When I reported to his office he began lecturing me about responsibility and how being an adult and serving my country required certain character traits.

To be honest with you, I don’t recall most of the conversation. It was a little too deep and I began to glaze over after “character traits.” I began thinking, “Is he for real!? It was a simple math error. Tthe total amount of the checks I bounced was only like twenty bucks! The bank fees are four times that!! Why doesn’t he go lecture the bank president? That’s where the real crime is. This guy is making it sound like I am embezzling millions!”

As he neared the end of his lecture I recall him saying “…and if you continue down this path, it will have a serious impact on your military career, and will follow you for the rest of your life. Do you have anything to say?”

What could I say? “I bounced a check…It was a stupid math error. I throw myself at the mercy of the court! Pleeaasseee don’t call the firing squad!” Nope. I did what any stupid kid that age would do. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my checkbook and held it up in the air saying:

“The bank must have screwed up! There is no way I’m out of money, look at all of these checks I have left!”

Yeah, he didn’t think it was funny either.

My Life (In Four Hundred Words or Less)

Okay, so as I’m thinking about things to put on here, I realized that I might need to add some background information about me. Now, I know I posted my 50 Things About Me list on here, but it’s possible that I might need to add a little more. Relax. I am not going to put another list up. Instead I thought I would do a little something different.

I read a book once and the author did a chapter called “My Life (In Four Hundred Words or Less)” (I’ll give you 10 bonus points if you can tell me the name of the book). I liked the idea so much I decided to give it a try. I don’t know if I can take up 400 words writing about my life, but here we go:

I grew up in a small town outside Chicago. My parents are great. Scratch that, my parents are awesome. I had a normal childhood, went to public school, planned to go to college after high school and enrolled in college prep courses.

I managed to survive my freshman year, joined the cross country team, broke my arm and got kicked out of biology. I managed to flunk chemistry my sophomore year, was told by the teacher that I wasn’t cut out for college, gave up on college prep, transferred to shop class, got my drivers license and broke my ankle.

I managed to graduate from high school, started my adult life and joined the Air Force. While spending 4 years serving my country, I traveled to Texas and saw the Alamo, moved to southern Illinois for training, transferred to Ohio, got stranded in Elizabethtown KY, turned 21 and got drunk, and went to Korea where I lost a front-end loader.

After ending my brief military career, I returned home and worked a series of jobs… from the get-some-damn-money-coming-in job to potential careers. Sometimes they were good, sometimes… not so much. I found a decent job manufacturing drugs (legally), my parents sold their house and all of my childhood memories, grew tired of working second shift and began to evaluate my life and my future.

I decided to go back to school to get a degree and a start new career. The degree – Fire Science. The career – Firefighter. I went to the bank to make a deposit and left with a collapsed lung, leading to an emergency room visit and a weeklong retreat at the local hospital. I was forced to abruptly change my career path, lost my focus on school and began looking for a new career.

I found a new job and began working in the world of HR, turned 30, found a better job, met an amazing girl and asked her out. She said yes and we began dating. I moved across the Cheddar Curtain into Wisconsin, asked her to marry me and she said yes… again. (I guess she didn’t learn.) I am getting married and going to be a step-dad to her three awesome kids. Not sure how to be a step-dad, but I’m optimistic. I still have that great job, am still living in Cheeseland, and I started a blog… Life is good.

There you have it… My Life (In Four Hundred Words or Less).

Random Conversation

Here is part of a conversation I was involved in today. I have decided to change the names of all parties involved to protect the innocent…or guilty.

Veronica: “Where are you going on your honeymoon?”

Archie: “Somewhere all-inclusive.”

Veronica: “Really?”

Archie: “Oh yeah, I like to have my drinks brought to me.”

Jughead: “Isn’t that why you’re getting married?”

Silence…

Is this still good?

I am freaked out…..I repeat FREAKED OUT about poisoning myself by eating spoiled food. That might sound kinda odd considering that when I go over to someone else’s house, or even a restaurant for that matter, I don’t give it a second thought. I figure they must like me after all, they did invite me over for dinner. And well, even if they don’t like me (which is entirely possible since I don’t get many invites. Most of the time I end up being “guest”) it’s the same food they are feeding everyone else and they are good people. So if I just eat what everyone else is, I’ll be fine.

But when it comes to eating out of my refrigerator, I am glued to the expiration date. “What?!? It expires today…..gotta toss it.” They put an “expiration” date on there for a reason. They must have done some research on how long it is going to last. They probably paid some highly educated scientist hundreds of thousands of dollars to figure that out. Who am I to question that?

But wait. What about the food that expires tomorrow? What if there was a flaw in their calculation?? What if the highly paid scientist forgot to carry the ‘1’??? I did that once and ended up bouncing a series of checks! It cost me hundreds of dollars! I can’t possibly take that chance. No way! Out it goes.

Maybe this all goes back to some bad decisions I made as a teenager. You know…..working at the local fast food restaurant, taking home bags of leftover burgers with that “special sauce” to eat over the next couple of weeks. Yeah, looking back, they were probably way past their prime.

Or could this be a matter of pride? I couldn’t stand to answer all of the questions. “Wow, you were really sick, near death. And you did that to yourself?” Hmmm….almost sounds like attempted suicide. Next thing you know you are on the fourth floor of some hospital wing with a roommate that talks to the imaginary butterflies all around and the rotating staff member sitting on a chair at the foot of the bed because I am a “high risk patient” and need to be on 24 hour watch. No thanks. I’ll make a run to the grocery store for a new carton of milk.

You know, it could just be a self-preservation thing. I am all about the sanctity of life. As George Carlin says ”sanctity of life,…we made it up. You know why? ‘Cause we’re alive!”

Walking the Dog?

I was driving home yesterday when I saw a lady taking her dog for a walk. “What’s so special about that?” you might ask. Well, the dog wasn’t on a leash, the dog wasn’t even touching the ground. This poor dog was in a dog stroller. And I don’t know if “stroller” is even the right word. It was a dog prison on wheels.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a dog person and having a crate for the dog is a good idea. It is a great way to keep your dog out of trouble when you aren’t around. It’s a good training tool for puppies. But what the hell was someone thinking!? Let the damn dog walk. He’s got 4 legs.

Poor thing can’t do the normal doggie stuff like sniffing around to find the perfect spot to pee. Hell, he can’t sniff anything. Makes you wonder if the dog gets out of the crate, ever. Poor thing probably gets shuffled around from one crate to another. It just ain’t right.

Disclaimer: Any reference to the dog as “he” or “him” in this post is not intended to be a gender specific designation. In fact, I have no idea if the dog was a he or she. Instead of writing something stupid like “he/she” every time I referenced the dog, I decided to reference the dog as “he”. I don’t really care what you think about this decision. If this bothers you, you completely missed the point of the post.

FFA

Many moons ago I volunteered to teach Sunday school at the church I was attending. I was out of high school for a couple of years and serving my country in a small town in Ohio. Now, in my head, I envisioned a dozen small children looking up at me just waiting to absorb the wisdom I had to bestow upon them. I figured, how hard could this be? They have to have a workbook that I would just need to read from. Maybe answer a few silly questions.

Well, apparently all of the good classes were taken because I ended up with the high school group. Looking back on it, that was probably best for everyone. Who knows how I would have answered those questions. But moving on, I was ready for the first class. Only problem was they didn’t give me my workbook beforehand to prepare. Oh well, it wouldn’t be the first time I went to class not having a clue what was going to be discussed. Sounds a little like high school. And hey, I graduated from high school….I can do this!

To my surprise, when I arrived at the classroom there was no workbook. Nothing! As it turns out, once they hit the high school class they are too old for a workbook and ready for adult discussions about religion. What the hell were they thinking putting me in charge of adult discussions?!?

In order to make it through the first day, I figured we could take some time to get to know each other. Now, keep in mind that this is “rural, small town, one stoplight, if you blink you will miss it” Ohio.

I had asked them what classes they were taking at the local high school. One class they said I’ve never heard of.

“FFA”

“What’s FFA”

“Future Farmers of America”

I figured they were giving the new guy a hard time. But after a few minutes of my hysterical laughter not one of them cracked a smile. They seemed to have more of a confused look on their face. I guess they weren’t just giving me a hard time. Turns out they are rather proud of their FFA.

Now, I am not from the big city, but I guess growing up in a Chicago suburb there are just some things you aren’t exposed to.

Golfonomics

I don’t know what is going on lately but I have been asked too many times over the last two weeks if I golf. What exactly does that mean? I can hit a ball with a golf club, hell I even own a set of clubs. So I guess the answer is “yes.” Uh-oh, does that mean they now think I am PGA tour ready?!? They have obviously never seen me hit said golf ball. I mean, I usually keep the ball in the fairway. Just not the fairway of the hole I’m playing.

Best shot ever. The ball was 150 yards out. Straight shot to the green (I was actually in the right fairway!). I pulled my club out of the bag. Couldn’t tell you what club, but I’m, pretty sure it had a number on it. Lined myself up and took a swing. The ball rolled to rest 3 feet from the pin. Can you believe it? Now, if I was playing on the hole where the ball landed, it would have been an awesome shot.

Now, some people watch me golf and I am sure they are thinking “Man, he sucks. Why does he even bother? He’s just throwing money away.” Not the way I see it. In fact, I am getting a better deal than they are. Sure, everyone pays the same rate for 18 holes, but let’s look at it from a per-swing rate. If you break it down that way, I am sure they are paying a hell of a lot more than I am. Who’s the sucker now?

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I apply the same rate theory to just about everything. Take bowling for example, why would I want to throw a strike? I just shorted myself one throw and raised the cost of every other ball I throw. That doesn’t sound like good economics to me. Think about it the next time you go to the store and see the “6 for $5” sale. Are you going to tell them that you will just take 4 for $5? Ha! I didn’t think so.

My Blog

I have been playing around and checking everything out while setting up my blog. There is just about anything you could possibly want available on here. It got me to thinking……how much crap can I put on this blog? If I’m lucky, maybe everyone will be so distracted by all the crap I set up all they won’t notice that my writing sucks!

But then reality stepped in. Seriously, are people really going to come to my blog to check a stock price? See what the final score of the Cubs game was? Probably not.

Wait! I can put a Wikipedia search bar on my blog. Surely people will come for that! No, they won’t come for that, and don’t call me Shirley. (Okay, that one sounded better in my head)

Oh well, as George Carlin says “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” I guess that’s the half I hope find my blog.

50 Things About Me

Okay, so I feel the need to let you know a little about me. But how do I accomplish this? Well, I have looked around and something I have seen posted on quite a few blogs is a “50 things” entry. Well, sometimes it’s a hundred, but let’s be real, who wants to read a hundred things about another person. I think 50 should be plenty.

So, is this the best way to tell you everything about me? I pondered this very question for quite some time. Okay, so I thought about it for a good fifteen minutes, and in the end I said “Self…” that’s what I call myself. I said “Self…..Why not.”

Without further ado, here are 50 things about me:


1) I don’t care.


Huh?

What’s that you say?

There aren’t 50 things on my list?

See number 1.

Come on, did you see the title of the blog?
Did you really expect something different?