Tim Wheat's Blog, page 4

If only I were 116 years old...

Welcome to Wednesday everyone.  Just so you all know I'm on vacation, sitting on the beach drinking cool drinks with the sand between my toes while playing in the water and riding sharks while I hobnob with the folks at NASA and bring them up to date with my latest earth orbit delivery vehicle specifications and sign autographs because everyone just figures I'm an astronaut.    Be jealous, at least for a second, until we get to this week's subject.

The Chicago Cubs.

I am a Cubs fan and I have to live with it every day.  I'm not a buy a Darwin Barney jersey because it's the cheapest one, because he sucks, show up at a game once a year, hang out at the Cubbie bear until the 3rd inning, get blasted out of my mind, and then leave after they quit selling beer in the 7th kind of fan.  I'm the guy who watches almost every game, compares stats, reads advanced scouting sheets, looks at the analytics and yells at the tv when one of our pitchers thinks his 95 mph fastball is somehow more special than everyone else's, and maybe this time he'll be extra sneaky on an 0-2 count and throw it for the third time in a row because he'll probably get it in on the hands of a Cabrera or Pujols or Trout, or whoever, and then, oops, it turns out those guys can turn on 150 mph fastballs that are only an inch away from their bodies.  Sigh.  Yep, that's me, a masochistic nerd.  

Do I love the pain?  I must, because it's not even on my radar to change.  A part of me died in 2003 when our shortstop of whose name I no longer speak kicked that ball and even though we had Prior and Wood in games six and seven and even without Rafael Palmeiro (who we had via trade but exercised his 10/5 rights and I'm still mad at him because he could have just shot some roids and came on over and helped win a championship) and even through Moises Alou's baby tantrum when a fan interfered with a ball that could have been a fantastic catch but shouldn't have had an impact on the game and if I'm talking about Moises Alou I can't help but mention he and Ramirez bought non-refundable plane tickets home after game six, but don't worry, they assure us that they did it all the time which I understand because why would you expect to win with one of the best pitchers in the game that year on the mound for you the next night and even though Dusty Baker can't manage his way out of a box and my friend The Kriz and I were screaming at the TV at some of his horrible moves...  Wait a minute.  I lost track of what I was talking about.  Probably one of my longest run-on sentences ever right there.  And I ended a sentence with there.  And these aren't even complete sentences.  Sigh.  Anyway, despite whatever I was just talking about, I remain the eternal optimist.  This year, or next, or maybe the year after that, or possibly even the year after that is going to be the year, though, and all of these facts I'm about to throw at you will no longer be relevant and the murder rate in Chicago will no longer be a national talking point because the city could quite possibly burn to the ground.  

106 years ago on January 1st the ball dropped in Times Square, New York for the first time to signify the new year.

106 years ago the average life expectancy in the United States was 47 years, probably because only 14 percent of American households had their own bathtubs, 95 percent of births took place at home, doctors didn't actually go to any kind of medical school, and women washed their hair an average of 1 time a month.  Gross.  I wonder if they shaved their armpits.

106 years ago sugar cost 4 cents a pound, eggs were 14 cents a dozen and coffee was 15 cents a pound.  Think of the Starbucks profit margins back then on a Caramel Affogato Java Chip Frappuccino with an extra double shot of espresso.  (At least I assume they were around, I didn't fact check that.)

106 years ago you were most likely to die from dehydration and fever which were directly linked to influenza, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.  Often these diseases were intertwined and complimented nicely with a handy little case of diarrhea which oftentimes was considered chronic and people would live with for weeks, or even months.  Gross.  Again.  Especially because of the whole bathroom and cleaning yourself thing.  

106 years ago you could buy heroin over the counter and oftentimes it was lauded as a cure all.  Have a stomach ache?  Take some heroin.  Headache?  Heroin will fix it.  Smashed your toe with a hammer?  A couple heroin pills should do the trick.  Girlfriend broke up with you?  Take some heroin and go visit a brothel and the sporting ladies will help cure what ails ya, well, because prostitution was still legal too...most places.

106 years ago rural mail delivery service was still only a decade old and most people had to travel a day's time to pick up their mail.  I wonder if they were as frustrated as I get when my router gets screwed up and I have to get off my butt, go downstairs and unplug it, wait 15 LONG SECONDS, and plug it back in, or when my browser on my phone locks up and I have to shut it down, do my google search all over again, and then it won't even sync with the right gmail account to pull up some vital stuff that I was working on.  #firstworldproblems

106 years ago they didn't have hashtags.

106 years ago today would mark the 106th backwards anniversary of the first time I used a hashtag in a blog.

106 years ago on February the 12th the New York to Paris auto race via Alaska and Siberia began in New York city.  George Schuster was the winner in a mere 88 days.  This has also screwed up my entire learning that Pangea was a long time ago, which 106 years is kind of a long time, but I was thinking more along the lines of a REALLY long time, like, at least twice that long.  Perhaps George had a flying car or Marty Mcfly loaned him his.

106 years ago King Leopold II sold Congo to Belgium, and no, not a crappy dvd bootleg of the movie Congo, the actual Congo.  I wish I had a country to sell.  I bet they go for pretty decent bank.

106 years ago the Cubs didn't have a mascot.  Now they do.  His name is Clark.  He's for the kids.  Unless they had Renteria, Miller, Epstein, and Hoyer spending their days developing and creating him instead of working on baseball I have no idea what the big deal is.  

And finally.

106 years ago, on October the 14th the Cubs took the 5th game of the 5th World Series, defeating the Detroit Tigers.  With a team .OPS of a paltry .632 the team was best known for its pitching with a combined earned run average of 2.14, and the Tinkers to Evers to Chance double play combination.  I expect the Cubbies to approach those ops totals this year.  The ERA, not so much. Oh well. #I'mgoingtokeepwatching #canyouputapostrophesinhastags #becauseilovethecubs #evenwhentheyareterrible #hashtagsareweird #clarkisforthekids #dontgetyourpantiesinabunch#Idoubtanyplayersorcoachesworkedonhim #vacationsareawesome #IwonderwhatthelongesthashtagofalltimeisandiftheyaregenerallyonlyonehundredandfortycharactersbecausetheyareatwitterthinganditsactuallykindofmindbogglingtotypelikethisbecausemyfingersaresotrainedtohitthespacebarinbetweenwordsbutifIcanpossiblybeintherunningforaworldrecordofhashtaggingIsupposeitisworththeeffortjustlikewhenIhavetogodownstairsandrestarttherouterwhichonehundredandsixteenyearsagoIwouldnothavehadtodobecausethesestupidhashtagswouldnothaveexistedandIprobablywouldhaveevenseenthecubswinonebutthatisokbecuasewearewinninginthenextcoupleofyearsanyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Remember, if you like the blog you can hit the subscribe via email button which is right above the comment box if you click on comment.  Then you'll always know when I've posted!  Also, I appreciate it when you share on facebook/twitter and the like.  It only takes a second.  Thanks!

Bling, Bling, Pinky Ring, That's a Billion with a B, son...

We're halfway through the week everyone!  I'd like to thank the Retired Teacher's Learning Institute of Spoon River college along with everyone who attended last Friday's presentation.  I thought it went well and I look forward to seeing some of you down in Rushville!  Oh, and I sold out of paperbacks!  Alright, that's it for announcements.  Onto the blog!

So, I was laying in bed last night thinking about what I'm going to do with my billion dollars once I have a perfect bracket in Warren Buffet's March Madness Billion Dollar giveaway.  I know the odds are somewhere in the neighborhood of nine quintillion to one, but in the immortal words of Lloyd Christmas, "So you're telling me there's a chance."  Also, I read somewhere that if you actually have some basketball knowledge those odds come down to a hundred billion to one or something.  See, I already increased my chances by, like, a flabillion percent, give or take.  

Luckily for me, a million years ago, I must have already signed up for a yahoo account, because I got to skip that laborious process of entering the contest, and got right to the big balla money making.  Anyway, that song by Lorde, or whatever her name is, was running through my head, (you can call me green bean), and I contemplated getting a tiger with a gold leash, and maybe a cadillac or two.  A caddy seems a little on the skimpy side for a new billionaire, though.  I'm thinking more along the lines of a really nice truck, a Tesla S, a 67 Camaro, and then whatever the wife wants.  I'm not really a huge car guy, although I certainly have an appreciation for the feats of engineering they represent.  Maybe I'm undershooting a little bit here.  I'm probably only in for about $200,000 on land based transportation, which is practically nothing.  I would assume I'll be heating my house by burning hundred dollar bills and will probably be fueling my vehicles that way too.  Maybe I can still find one of those Vector, 1000 horsepower, hand built supercars from the 90's sitting around somewhere and waste some money on that?

OK, so after I get my tiger and my cars, then what?  Well, then I decided I should probably go ahead and pay off my debt and whatnot, but we're out of there pretty cheap.  I'm assuming I won't have to call into work or anything.  I'm thinking maybe I'll just go in there, throw down $50k, lock the doors, and let the employees eat and drink whatever they want.  Before I even get that far, though, I guess I have some other business affairs I should get in order.  For instance, where do you even put a billion dollars?  Should I ask for it in 100's, or 50's, or can I get some of it split up into gold bars, or platinum or something?  Well, that probably wouldn't exactly be the most prudent thing since I don't know anything about the precious metals markets.  Maybe they've been volatile lately and then instead of having a billion dollars I could lose a bunch right from the start and only have nine-hundred million or something.  That would suck.

Then I remember the thing that super rich money winners always complain about.  Taxes.  I wonder what the rate is on my billion?  Wait a minute.  I wonder if Warren is even giving out a billion, or is it like the lottery that says it's a billion and then, oh no, wait, it's really only a one-time payout of 600 million?  So now I'm down to 600 million and I haven't even paid my taxes?  That stinks.  I just lost 400 millions dollars, and just a few minutes ago I was upset over maybe investing in gold and losing 100 million.  100 MILLION!!!!  Chump change.  Alright, so I assume my billionaire benefactor, War-dog, is going to try to screw me over, he didn't get to be the Oracle of Omaha because he's a sucker.  So, I get my 600 million, and then the government is going to be in my pocket for another 240 million or so.   That leaves me with 360 million free and clear.  

360 million measly dollars?  It wasn't that long ago I was going to be a billionaire.  Does anyone even know how much tigers cost?  I'm pretty sure he'll be one of the first things that I cut out of the budget now that it's tightening up a bit.  I can't even get anyone in the house to help me feed and water the dogs.  I have to think the tiger would be a little more labor intensive.  Well, unless I bought 1000 acres, fenced it all in, and then get myself a herd of deer or something that the tiger could hunt.  I would assume he would hunt deer, but I wonder if you can even buy wild tigers that still like to hunt, or if they're all lazy "tame" tigers that just like to sit back and have steaks thrown into their mouths and gnaw on Roy's face every once in a while.  (Sorry Mr. Horn.  That wasn't very nice.  I'm glad you lived through the tiger mauling.)  I know I don't particularly care for deer, maybe I could just get him a herd of  cows.  I prefer beef myself.  Oh no, can tigers even hang out here in the midwest?  I'm thinking they are more of an equatorial pet.  That settles it.  My pet tiger Rodolfo is going to have to wait until my finances are a little more stable.   Chalk that up to some savings!

If I'm not going to have a tiger, though, I'm not sure what else awesome I should get.  I mean, everyone who has 360 million stashed under their bed probably has a sweet house.  I want to be more original.  Maybe instead of stashing the money under the bed I should build myself a bunker or something, like those doomsday preppers.  That's what I'll do.  Ok, I'll buy a really big iron pipe, or culvert, or whatever it is those guys put under ground, and get ready for the apocalypse.  How many AR-15's do you think I'll need to defend myself from the zombie hoards?  Since I have plenty of money I could probably just go ahead and get my dealer's license and get some fully automatic weapons though.  I watched World War Z, a semi-automatic with thirty, or even hundred round magazines just isn't going to cut it.  Ooooooohhhhhh!  You know what would really come in handy when those rabies infested, bite crazy, sub-humans find the fresh air intake on my secret underground lair and start stuffing their dirty underwear down it or mindlessly throw themselves into my vent fan and get chopped into bits while fouling the air inside of my cocoon?  Some of those motion detecting sentry machine guns from Aliens!  I could just set them up all over the perimeter outside and live in comfort with no fear of being eaten or turned into a writhing, undulating, brain dead, single minded purveyor of all things dreadful, like Justin Beiber.

I don't see much that could go wrong with having fully automatic, motion detecting machine guns that indiscriminately gun down everything in their path.  

My brain is starting to hurt.  Being rich is hard.  

I bet, even after building my underground fortress, fully furnishing it with a bowling alley, a full size indoor baseball facility, 60 bedrooms, 30 bathrooms, and stocking it with enough food, water, booze, and ammunition to allow my Aliens inspired sentry units to kill off the plague of non-survivors, I'll still probably have 350 million or so dollars left.  Richard Pryor made this look so much easier.  

I guess, at some point, I'm going to have to decide who gets to come down into the zombie proof lair with me.  Obviously my wife, kids, mom, dad, sisters, all in laws, and all of their kids make the cut, but who after that?  I suppose I would probably just do it like everyone else and take doctors and scientists and stuff.  They all could have been infected too, though.  Oh, no!  I just thought of something!  What if, instead of zombies its a comet or something like that?  Underground might not be the best place to be in the long run.  I'll need a back up plan.

I wonder if I can buy a destroyer or cruiser, or maybe even an old battleship from the Russians?  Those guys will sell anything.  Then I'll be covered in case a tsunami washes over the Rockies and Appalachians and we have to sail our way out of the midwest and start civilization all over again.  It looks like I can pick up a fully loaded Arleigh-Burke class modern American destroyer for about 2 billion.  I bet I can get an old Russian one for a hundred million.  I'll go ahead and get three, just to be safe.

Now we're talkin!  

I wonder now, though, if the Navy will even let me sail my three destroyers up the Mississippi river so that I can put all my stuff on there?  Maybe my fully automatic firearms license that I picked up for the autonomous, motion detecting, sentry machine guns will cover warships as well?  Now that I think about it, though, It might not even be possible to sail one or three of those up the Mississippi.  I'm not sure what the draft is on those things.

You know what?  This is just getting too difficult.  I think that instead of turning in my winner I'll go ahead and post it on here and let you guys deal with all of these headaches.  I'm cool with being poor.   

 

Remember, if you like the blog you can hit the subscribe via email button which is right above the comment box if you click on comment.  Then you'll always know when I've posted!  Also, I appreciate it when you share on facebook/twitter and the like.  It only takes a second.  Thanks!

The Dumbification

Ma'iitso Rises is still $2.99 this week.  Head on over to the Shop section of the site to download it now!  Also, I'll be at the Retired Teacher's Learning Institute in Havana this Friday where I'll be giving a 45 minute presentation and doing some meeting and greeting.  Hopefully I'll see some of you there.  Onto the dumbification!

The dumbification is a perceived disease I've become aware of in my time in the service industry.  Everyone always thinks that everyone else is stupid, especially if they are younger, and they also believe that this malady is affecting more people today than in the years before.  I am not a subscriber to the theory of an exponentially increasing dumbification since I've been in contact with dim witted individuals my entire adult life.  They are always out there somewhere.  I can only go back about 16 years on this one, but I assert that the dumbification has to have begun sometime before then and seems to be holding steady.  I offer the following stories as proof.

The Apocalypse is nigh:

Me:  Hey 99, (we called this man 99 because he constantly jabbered about the world ending on December the 31st 1999.  Other than that belief structure he was normal in every way.)  What are you going to do now that the year 2000 has come and the world is still here?

99:  It seems my calculations were slightly off.

Me:  That's OK man.  Math is hard.

99:  I believe I was only off by one number, though.  The world is going to end on December the 31st, 2999 and I will ride a comet to the edge of the universe.

Me:  That sounds awesome AND you get to keep your name.

The Thick Headed Alcoholic

Super Drunk Guy: My sister is taking me to rehab tonight. Can I get a free shot?

Me: No.

SDG: OK, well how about a free shot?

Me: No.

SDG: Well, what if I paid for it?

Me: No.

SDG: Come on, one free shot before rehab.

Me: Fine. How about Patron?

SDG: Perfect.

(I put water in a shot glass with a lime)

SDG: Man that was smooth.

Me: The smoothest.  Have fun in rehab.

One Half + One Half = ?

Angry Swearing Guest: You messed up my togo order.

Me:  Where is it?

ASG: In my car.

Me: OK

ASG:  Do you need it?

Me: Yes

He returns with a box that is pretty majorly damaged.

ASG:  I ordered a full rack of ribs, this is two half racks, and you didn't give me two orders of fries.

Me: I saw you eating the fries, also, what's the difference between a full rack and two half racks?

ASG:  Well, I mean, I ordered a full, and you gave me two halves.

Me:   Fair enough.

Ignorance, meet hatred, with a side of stupidity:

Me:  Thank you for calling (insert restaurant name and location here).  This is Tim, how may I help you?

Angry Racist Dude: I wanted to call and tell you I won't be coming into your restaurant tonight b/c you serve racemixers.
Me: We serve what?
ARD: Racemixers.
Me: What's in a racemixer? (I thought it was a drink)
ARD: You know, when a F'n N eats with a white girl.
Me:  Ohhhhh, so you're just calling to tell me you're a racist?

ARD:  WHAT!!

Me:  You heard me.

ARD: I, I, (mumble,mumble)

Me: Ok, well, good luck finding somewhere to eat.  Bye.

Yeah, I have the only 9 digit phone number.  Deal with it.

Me:  (taking a togo order). What's your phone number?

Phone guy: 815-654-354.

Me:  That's not enough numbers.

PG:  815-654-354

Me:  That's not a phone number.

PG: Yes it is.

Me:  Nope

PG: Is too

Me:  Still nope.  Bye.

I didn't know I couldn't do that:

Me on the phone with the owner of the restaurant:   You have to get down here, my drop for the night is $1000 short and I have no idea where it could be.

Owner:  Are you sure?

Me:  I've counted it a bunch of times and I know I don't have it.  You have to get down here.  I swear I didn't take it.

Owner:  Let me call you back.

(A few minutes pass and the phone rings)

Me:  Hello.

Owner:  My son took the $1000 out of the drop earlier tonight.

Me:  So I've been here sweating this out for hours and he's probably out doing cocaine with strippers.  

Owner:  Probably.  He said he didn't know he couldn't do that.

AND the coup de gras:

This is absolute proof that the dumbification has existed for years and isn't isolated to the young/old/poor/rich/men/women.  Everyone can be affected, and even a college education or upper echelon position in a prominent company doesn't mean the dumbification hasn't taken hold.  I once worked at a restaurant on the riverfront.  At this restaurant I mainly worked as a bartender/server/trainer, but toward the end of my tenure I was also given additional responsibility, along with a nice pay raise.  I was offered this position by the area director himself, and needless to say, it angered my immediate superiors.  They were my bosses still, but I made more money than them.  We clashed on a few occasions, but I was a young man then.  I didn't really care what those guys thought.  One day, I walked into work, and sitting at a table in the empty dining room is an especially cranky assistant manager, our diminutive general manager, the area director who hired me, his boss, and a woman I'd never met before, who was in fact my boss', boss', boss', boss', boss.  They called me over to the table.

I figured I was in some kind of trouble, but I wasn't sure why.  I sat down and the assistant manager, who I especially didn't get along with, began pulling papers out of a manila envelope.  Part of my new duties was to do the beer/liquor order and keep inventory.  I had only been in the job for five or six weeks, and these were the weekly numbers.  He then pulled out another set of papers.  On these were the inventory he and the general manager had done four times in the prior two weeks.  The numbers did not match.  Not only did they not match, but they were off by A LOT.  We're talking about being short three cases of Bud Light, three cases of Miller Lite, a case of Sam Adams, eight bottles of Absolut, three cases of zinfandel, and the list went on and on.  I don't remember what the total value of the inventory was, but it was in the tens of thousands of dollars, and I was being accused of stealing it for some kind of epic party or something.  

At first I was kind of taken aback.  My first thought was that I had made the GM and Assistant so mad at me that they had stolen all of this stuff and were now going to pin it on me.  I didn't really know what to do, so I just picked up my checklist, and invited everyone to do inventory with me.  We started in the bar area and after counting just a few items, and having them match the numbers on the GM/AM checklist, I knew what was going on, and couldn't wait to wipe the smug looks off their stupid faces.  We kept counting and the different levels of bosses just kept nodding their heads in agreement as the numbers matched up with the accusation that I had been stealing from them.  At some point, though, I was having a hard time suppressing my own smile, and the boss', boss', boss', boss', boss called me out on it.  She said something to the effect of

"I don't know what you can possibly think is so funny.  Once this is over with we'll be calling the police and pressing charges."  

I literally laughed out loud and said something to the effect of...

"You're right, I don't think its funny that of the six of us I'm the only one who knows how to do an inventory, or maybe even count, but here we are anyway."

Everyone glared at me and my perceived arrogance.  So, we continued, and after everything was counted and the management team's numbers were confirmed it seemed I was doomed to be on my way to jail.  That's when I decided to interject.

"OK, that's the front.  Now let's go count the closet and cooler."

I could see the blood drain from the Gm and AM's faces.  I whistled and told smart alec jokes as we first counted the locked closet where we stored all of our reserve liquors and wines, and then moved on to the cooler where all of the backup beer and cold wines were kept.  I made a big show of the rest of that little experience and made sure to let my superiors know that the dumbification had hit them all square in the face.  The boss, the boss' boss, the boss', boss', boss, the boss', boss', boss', boss, and the boss', boss', boss', boss', boss all went along with the rest of the count, and I wasn't sure why, unless it was just in the hope that my numbers would still be off enough to get me in trouble.  At the end of the day we were short a bottle of courvoisier and I quipped on how it was strange that I was always short a bottle right after the area director visited.  Because I was young, I also made a point to tell every one of them that I thought they were stupid.  That really served no purpose other than to anger them, and I can see now was actually the dumbification trying to get a foothold in me.

I learned some things that day about the dumbification.  It crosses generational gaps and is highly contagious, moving through like minded groups like a deadly pathogen.  I know for a fact that four out of the five bosses there that day had college degrees.  It would seem that having the ability to count would be a necessity in graduating from college, but the power of the dumbification is able to overcome all of that.  I won't lie, the dumbification has gotten its hands on me more than once in my life.  Don't be afraid, though, because succumbing to the dumbification is done out of choice, and is easily counteracted.  It is pretty simple really.  Read books, learn new things, go new places, try different things, meet different people and keep an open mind, because the minute you close it the dumbification sets in and you end up like angry racist dude on the phone, drunk, unable to count or add, high on cocaine and magic mushrooms while talking to a glue sniffing fairy and riding a unicorn on a comet away from the end of the world with a stolen $1000 in your pocket and rainbows shooting out your behind.  I've seen it all before a hundred times.  

 

Alright, Alright, Alright...

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for all of the kind words and messages in regards to last week's blog.  I wasn't expecting the avalanche of well wishes and am glad Lucy could reach out and touch all of you as well.  So, from everyone in the Olson/Wheat/Miller/Stoner clan, I thank you.

I do have a little bit of business to get out of the way here too.  Congrats to Simone Everly, our giveaway winner from two weeks ago.  Your book is in the mail!  Also, the .pdf version of Ma'iitso Rises is now available in the SHOP section of the website.  This week only it will be on sale for $2.99!  That's an entire, full length novel for wayyyyyyy less than three dollars!

ONTO THE BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!

I love music, but I don't watch the grammy's.  I very much like movies, but I don't watch the Oscars.  It seems that a large percentage of the time my own personal tastes have absolutely nothing to do with who wins or loses at that sort of thing.  Probably because they all take into account a bunch of stupid politics whereas I mostly just like stuff that is awesome.  I mean, EVERYONE in the music industry thought that Nirvana's In Utero sucked when they first heard it, and that album RIPS.  So, when I woke up the other day and read that Matthew Mcconaughey (I did have to look up how to spell his name) won the Oscar for best actor I was strangely proud, like my big brother had just done something really super sweet.

You see, I kind of feel like old Matthew and I have done a little bit of growing up together.  Even today if someone asks me how I'm doing there is a pretty decent chance I'll answer, l-i-v-i-n.  (There's also a chance I'll say "You know, strikes and gutters", but that has nothing to do with Matty Mc C and a lot to do with The Duder.  Maybe another blog...)  Anyway, I remember seeing Dazed and Confused for the first time at a friend's house when I was a senior in high school on VHS.  After that, another friend of mine got a copy and we used to watch that movie incessantly.  I'm pretty sure he put it in every night before he went to bed.  Set in 1976, it was a story about the last day of school before summer vacation and the trials and tribulations of growing up.  Wooderson (Matty Mc C, I feel like we're close enough for me to call him that) was an iconic character in that film and I've probably seen it no less than a hundred times since.  The post high school David Wooderson with the thick Texas drawl is a grownup trapped in the past with a bunch of great one liners.  "It'd be a lot cooler if you did."  "That's what I love about these high school girls, man.  They get older.  I stay the same age."  "Love those redheads."  "Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey.  Watch the leather, man."  "You just gotta keep livin man.  L-I-V-I-N", and of course "Alright. Alright. Alright."

 It always seems like my good buddy Matty is at his best when using that Texas drawl, and it also seems like any time I see him winning something or just being himself he kind of reverts into David Wooderson.  Although he's moved on and played a lot of different characters over the years, it just kind of feels like that's who he actually is.  A hard workin, hard playin, young man from the south who drives a seriously fine American muscle car.  I actually took the time to listen to his Oscar acceptance speech the other night, and although I've never met the man I could relate well to his speech, especially the part about who his hero is.  Its something I've kind of thought about myself over the years when people say their hero is God, or their Dad, or their Mom etc. etc., and those answers aren't bad.  They are in fact great answers and if that is who, in your heart, you really strive to be, then so be it.  

I myself, though, lean more toward the mindset of Matty McC.  Every day I'm trying to be a better version of myself.  Every day I'm pushing myself to do something new, or learn something difficult.  I use the fantastic examples of my mother and father and others, but it would be hard to pinpoint one actual hero.  It's more like a conglomerate of heroes.  In ten years, I just want to be better than I am today, and I realize that over the years my goals as a person have changed drastically, and that is kind of awesome.  If we all set a goal or measure of success, and then reach it, then we just kind of stagnate.  It's not about money.  It's not about fame.  It's not about others perceived vision of your own successes.  It's about becoming better every day, staying true to yourself, and striving for what drives you from deep within.  For me, it's a lot of things.  I, quite literally, would like to know how to do just about everything.  

When I say everything, that's what I mean.  If the power steering pump goes out on the Durango and I've never fixed one of those before, well, then it's high time I learned.  If I need electricity at a remote location, well, then it's time I sit down and read up on alternative energy solutions.  If the drain in the kitchen is screwed up, well, then it's time to take an entire wall apart, rip up half the kitchen, replace the broken piece, and then be glad that I already know how to redo all of the drywall, tiles, and re-install the cabinets, sinks, outlets, plumbing etc.  If I would like to run a remote server from a backup laptop at my house that I can remotely access via the web from any location, well, then I guess it's a good thing I know how to use Google.  If someone wants to know how they can record their full band live in their basement for less than $1000 and have it actually sound decent.  I could probably help with that.  If I decide that I want to write a book, and then another, and then another at the same time, all while starting a publishing company, that kind of turns into a media company, then I'm going to try my hardest to do just that, and do it well.  The list could go on forever and it always seems to evolve.

A while back I jammed with a couple of young men.  During this session, at different times, I played the drums, bass, guitar, and sang.  When we finished one of them asked me this.  "Man!  How did you learn to play everything so well like that!"  The answer was pretty simple and it is the same thing I tell my kids when they are learning to read, or do math flash cards or whatever.  Practice.  Hours upon hours of practice.  Am I a big rich rockstar?  Nope.  Do I even make a living off of music?  Nope.  That's not really the point, though.  The point is that it's a set of skills on which I've spent thousands of hours and countless sums of energy to be competent, and it feels good.  What drives me and keeps me going is that I haven't learned it all yet.  I'm not even close, and for that, I'm grateful.  When I'm an old man I want to be able to look back on my life and say "I did everything I did to the best of my ability and fought every day to do it better the next."  Until then, I'll defer to my good friend Matty McC  "You just gotta keep livin man.  L-I-V-I-N.  Alright.  Alright. Alright."  

Lucy Ruth

Usually when I write these blogs I try to keep them light and witty, focusing on funny stories and personal observations while trying to relate to you, the reader.  Tonight as a sit here writing, and even though I have a number of good blog ideas, I just can't seem to be funny or witty.  It has been a long week.

I've mentioned here before that I have a tight knit family.  Not only do I value highly my relationships with my wife and children, but my father, mother, three sisters and I are all still very much a functioning unit.  Although separated by states and miles, everyone can be counted on to help the others at all times.  It is a blessing, but it is also why last Friday was so hard.

We got a call from my mother around five that my littlest sister was about to be taken from antepartum over to labor and delivery to have her first born child.  Normally, this would be a joyous occasion, but as I saw the look on my wife's face and heard the anguish in my mother's voice, a knot started forming in my stomach.  My wife hung up the phone, and since she is a nurse on that floor, I asked her some tough questions.  None of the answers were good.  A little baby, no matter how wanted or loved, simply could not survive being delivered at 21 weeks.

We gathered ourselves quickly, dropped the boys off at their grandma's (Thanks Grandma) and got to the hospital.  My wife was scheduled to work in a couple of hours and since the situation was a little uncertain, we drove separately.  So, as I walked in by myself, knot in my stomach growing, I prepared for what was coming.  The first person I saw, standing by himself in the hallway, was my brother-in-law.  I swallowed hard and approached the man who almost instantly captured my sister's heart a few short years ago.  He's a man I could best describe as a little goofy/fun, with just a dash of childlike innocence.  Without saying anything, I gave him a hug and he broke down sobbing in my arms.  Instinctively, I grasped him tighter and whispered, "It's alright.  I've got you.  Everything will be alright."  I recognized the words immediately.  Every time my little ones, especially my youngest, would be crying uncontrollably I would always say the same thing and it seemed to calm them.  I doubt it worked quite the same on my bearded, heartbroken, 6'2", 260 pound brother in law, but I hope it was of the slightest comfort.

He had to get back into the delivery room so I made my way down the hallway preparing for what was next.  I saw my father first.  He is a man who feels deeply, but almost always holds those feelings to himself.  His eyes were red and puffy and he could only point me on to where my mother was waiting.  I fought the growing lump in my throat and entered the room where my mother and brother-in-law's mother were together.  My mom immediately sprung from her seat, started crying uncontrollably, and gave me a huge hug.  

Let me be clear.  I hate to cry.  It doesn't help me in any way and generally speaking is not a part of my process.  I don't feel better when I do it.  I just feel worse.  It's not a macho thing and it's not that I'm afraid to do it.  It's just not constructive for me and only serves the purpose of making me feel like I might throw up.  I'd rather beat on the drums, lift some weights, hit the heavy bag, get punched in the face, well, pretty much anything, but when my mom is crying like that and shaking in my arms, I just couldn't stop it.

The next few hours are a bit of a blur.  My sister who lives in Indiana was making her way over.  My sister in Alabama was staying in contact.  Various clergy members of our childhood/parents current church as well as from my sister and brother in law's current church came for support.  I mostly sat with my father talking about just about anything to keep his mind, as well as my own, from constantly running.  In our own ways we are both problem solvers, but this was a burden neither of us could take and shoulder ourselves.  As my youngest sister and brother-in-law went through the delivery and birth of their first child, we all waited and prepared ourselves as best we could.  At approximately 9:00 P.M. the doctor came out and told us that Lucy Ruth Olson was born alive and that we would be able to go in and visit in a few minutes.

All of the banter, talk, and plans stopped.  Silence dominated our little group and only the sounds of sniffles interrupted.  It was awful.  Minutes later, me, my wife, little sister, and other brother-in-law were allowed in to see the newborn.  Just walking down the hallway was hard, but as we entered the room I saw a slightly different scene than I had anticipated.  My baby sister and brother in law held their 12.4 ounce perfect little child, smiles adorning their faces.  I remember that feeling of seeing and holding your newborn for the first time.  It's indescribable and amazing, like seeing the hand of God himself deliver you the most precious gift you could ever receive.  I remember it being hard for me to believe I could possibly love someone so much who I had literally just met.  It was clear they were cherishing every moment.

Little Lucy lived for one hour and forty minutes and I feel privileged to have been a part of it.  I am so proud of my little sister and brother in law.  They have handled this entire situation better than I could have ever imagined and have certainly done it better than I could.  This is the same little girl, (and she would probably still do this today) who would run from the green bean patch if a bug got near her, leaving me and our other sister to do all the work, which was more like me doing all the work.  She is the same little girl who couldn't touch dry towels and would roam our house in her sleep.  Sometimes we would hold full conversations as I convinced her to go back to bed and she told me that I wasn't her boss.  This is the same little girl who has always put everyone else's needs above her own and reminds me so much of my mother and grandmother.  Even as I easily held her daughter's fragile body in my hand and marveled at how perfectly formed she was, emotion broiled inside of me.  I have never felt such sadness, which morphed into helplessness, and finally turned to anger.  How could this happen to these two good people, two parents who would have no doubt loved and sacrificed everything for this baby?   I mean, no child could ask for a better/more devoted set of parents, meanwhile another heroin addict screams obscenities at those trying to help her while showing no interest in her drug ravaged child.   It just didn't seem right and I felt like punching through a wall, but then I would see how they were dealing with everything and feel ashamed at my own weakness.   I am humbled that as I had feelings of anger and  frustration my little sister and her husband handled the entire process with grace and dignity while leaning on each other and their faith.  

I went home that night a fairly defeated man.  I hugged my kids a little harder and put them to bed.  I went through the normal nightly routine of letting out the dogs, locking the doors, etc. etc.  I sat with my wife and discussed a million different subjects.  I did all of the things I normally do.  Everything felt a little bit different, though.  In her short time Lucy Ruth reinforced upon me a valuable lesson.  Life is precious and often too short.  It is a lesson that first drastically impacted me when my perceived immortality left as I dealt with my own cancer at the age of twenty.  Over the years, though, life can get busy and we can take things for granted.  I am going to try my hardest, each and every day, to remember this lesson.   Thank you Lucy Ruth.  Your Uncle Tim loves you very much.

 

My sister and brother-in-law wrote this for the memorial/celebration.  I felt I should include it because its really good.

"A little of our story.....

We were both blessed with Godly parents who love us so well and do more for us than we deserve……it seems like there is no greater love than that. 
As most of you know, we have 17 nieces and nephews who light up our lives even in the midst of trying circumstances. We can both remember them being born and loving them with a greater love than we had ever felt. 
Then God brought us together, not when we thought the time was right but when He knew we were ready to meet. We love each other with such great a love that at times we can hardly form it into words. 
And then there was Lucy, sweet baby Lucy Ruth. We had her name picked out before we even knew we were pregnant. We would talk, read and sing to her often and at times she probably thought her parents were a little crazy, which many of you know we are. We would look at the sonograms in sheer awe while she kicked, punched and moved around on the screen. We began to form this love for Lucy that seemed so great for someone we had never met. Then we met her on her birthday, February 21st, the day God knew she would be born. Our love for her was instantly magnified. She was beautiful! We joked about how her long fingers were definitely not like those of her Daddy’s “sausage fingers.” She did however have Daddy’s ear lobes and her Mama’s lips. Her little features also resembled those of some of her cousins. We had almost 2 hours with Lucy before she went to be with Jesus and they were the shortest yet sweetest 2 hours of our lives. You see we had high hopes for her. She was named after Tricia's grandmother Ruth who was the type of person any parent would want their daughter to model. We just weren't prepared for Lucy to meet her great grandmother so soon. 
This past week has been the toughest time in our lives by far. Multiple times we pleaded with God to save our baby, even in the delivery room we prayed for a miracle. We held on to every heartbeat, praying they wouldn’t stop. But that wasn't God’s plan for our daughter and we may never know why. Our hearts are broken but we are reminded of Psalm 34:18 which says “The Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” One thing we can be certain of is that we are loved by a greater love than any of our earthly relationships and boy have we ever felt God’s love holding us now. God’s plan for our lives is perfect and this is part of it. He has never left us, in fact we have known His faithfulness and presence in our lives every step of the way, especially now. 
God has given us family and friends that have gone above and beyond when caring for us. We have received countless messages, encouraging verses, texts, calls, cards, food, gifts, visits, offers to help and the list goes on. We’ve found that the official love language of Christians must be cookies, delicious chocolate, peanut butter, caramel cookies which always vanished as quickly as they came. Several friends and family members gave us scripture to encourage us through our time and we posted them daily on our hospital board. One verse that we clung to was
2 Corinthians 12:9, But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
We want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for loving us so well and for continued prayers. We so appreciate how you've helped carry us through this and could never repay your thoughtfulness. You have been Christ to us and it has meant more than you know.
We wanted to have this celebration service today because we want you to remember Lucy as a baby who lived. Although she passed away from this earth, she is a new creation in heaven and that is something to celebrate! We will forever treasure the time we spent with Lucy here and look forward to seeing her again in our permanent home!"

A Lifetime of Learning

First of all I'd like to thank everyone who shared last week's blog!  I thank each and every one of you, but there can only be one winner.  Drumroll pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaasssssseeeeeeeeee!  Congratulations Courtney Ewing!  I will get a hold of you in short order and get you your very own signed copy of Ma'iitso Rises.  Enjoy!

Since last week was so fun and people seemed to enjoy it, I'm going to go ahead and give away a free book this week as well.  Soooooooo, share away on facebook, twitter, your blogs, the newspaper... I don't care where, as long as I know about it I'll put you into the running!  Thanks guys!

OK, now that all of that business is out of the way we'll get onto the blog stuff, A Lifetime of Learning.  

My seven year old's mind is like a sponge.  We play this game sometimes called Questions, where I ask he and his brother questions, and they receive arbitrary points for correct answers.  They then can ask me questions in an attempt to stump me, which sometimes they do, and I lose points and they LOVE when I come in negative. My little one usually quits after a little while, but my older one loves it.  He is in 2nd grade and is capable of doing large number addition and subtraction along with beginning multiplication and division.  He reads five-hundred plus page books and comprehends them fully.  (He has read a lot of Ma'iitso Rises)  He can tell you who the Axis powers were in WWII and who their leaders were as well.  The same is true of the allies.  The kicker is, is that most of this information are things that he has decided to learn on his own.  I mean, he literally asked me to tell him the story of World War II on a ride home from Grandma and Grandpa's one day.  It took the entire hour, but I managed to fit a lot of info in there, and he listened to every word.  The reason I tell you this is not to brag or anything like that.  It's because, despite all of his knowledge, he managed to bring home a report card with B's on it and scored below average in a number of areas on his standardized tests.  This is 4+3 and simple reading comprehension.  He should blow it out of the water.  So, as we tried to understand why he did poorly on the tests and asked ourselves some of the standard questions:  Maybe he has adhd?  Maybe he has some kind of testing anxiety?  etc. etc., it reminded me a bit of a kid I used to know.

This was a kid that didn't study a single thing until minutes before tests.  He was a kid who, as a fourth grader, was told that his reading comprehension was poor, then, years later, went on to get a perfect score on the ACT in reading comprehension.  From time to time this kid would get a little out of control at school and his mom would have to come hang out with him all day, and THAT was embarrassing.  One time the kid didn't want to learn about something incredibly boring so he memorized Pi to 100 digits (3.141592653589793238462643383279502... that's all he can remember right now).  Another time the kid had gotten too many detentions one week, all of them for disrupting class, and was one away from getting in school suspension, which would have caused him to sit out of the next basketball game, which was a big deal to him at the time, and all he had to do was be good for two more class periods, but he was still dumb enough to throw a football across a classroom during the second to last period of the day, which he knew full well would get him a detention, and it did.  This kid once tormented a teacher until the man was inches from his face, screaming at him, then politely asked the teacher to please stop spitting on him, which earned him a detention.  He was a kid that spent an entire week hatching a plan to cheat on a difficult exam, but accidentally ended up learning the hated subject in the process.  Another time the kid wanted to read more books than the library would allow him to check out, so even though he knew it was stupid, he just took them anyway, and when a random locker search went down at the school, got three days in school for stealing books and had to sit out more of his beloved basketball.  As he got older and found different ways to vent his energy, learning subjects he disliked got easier, until college.  In college, much of what he was being taught bored him to death.  He would try to find ways around the boredom and in classes like Sociology 314 would only go on test days, essentially earn a 96% in the class, but since he didn't read the syllabus to see that there was an attendance policy, would receive a substantially lower grade.  By that age, for the most part, he was able to force himself to learn things, however, his gpa didn't exactly mirror his actual knowledge base.

Now, that little kid is thirty-five years old and I still love to learn new things all of the time, just like my son.  So, I guess the dilemma I wrestle with is how to make sure he understands that doing well in school is important, even if it is boring.  How do I relay to him that even though you don't feel like you're learning anything, you actually are?  I don't remember when that realization hit me, and I'm not sure if it actually ever did.  When I try to remember things I learned in college the gaps are substantial, although I know I had to have learned SOMETHING!  (Its also possible that has something to do with extracurriculars as well)  So, if anyone out there has a cure for boredom.  We're all ears!

A Lifetime of Learning is a concept that I've been thinking a lot about lately, but not the concept of forced learning.  As I got older I was certainly able to force myself to learn things I didn't care about, but the best way to gain knowledge is to actually want to do it.  So, I've been developing a few strategies to turn forced learning into fun learning and have received positive feedback from my test subjects.  You can look forward to some of those coming out in the following months.  Just remember that when kids or old guys get bored they do something like this, Potassium Video     What those guys did was to demonstrate the reaction between a small chunk of potassium and water.  What I did was about the size of a baseball and in a pond just outside of the high school.  Detention?  Nope.  Got away with that one.  Guess what?  You probably just learned a little bit about chemistry.  Learning is cool.

Reality TV and Me

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I do not like reality tv.  I do not like it, you will see.  I do not watch it when I pee, or ride a bike, or climb a tree.  I do not watch it in my socks.  I would not watch it with a fox.  I would not could not in a box, or down the street or on the docks.  I do not like reality tv.  I do not like it.  Please die.

I think I messed up the last rhyme.  So, as you can see from my Seusstyle introduction, I am not a fan of reality television.  For all of you who love it, don't worry, I haven't started a campaign to have it eliminated, and I promise I won't.  My disdain for the genre, though, does not mean that one can not learn from it.  I myself am not much of a reality television watcher, but I believe my wife could watch it all day long, and because of her fandom I have been regularly exposed to the beast.  Here are a few of my observations/disappointments/what made me want to write about it, etc. in no particular order.

1.  The Real World:  This gets a mention mostly because it has been stupid the longest. Regrettably I learned more from Dave Chappelle's 4 minute spoof on the show than in its two thousand seasons.

2.  The History Channel:  I remember when they used to have shows about history on the history channel.  I'll admit that when American Pickers and the like first started airing I enjoyed the nostalgia, but that time has faded as the scripts, er, I mean, reality, have all become the same.  We find old stuff and act really excited...

3.  Survivor:  I actually kind of like the idea behind the game, but that's what it is, people playing a game.  I don't find it any more intriguing than watching tournament poker or the Scrabble world championships (I actually would watch the Scrabble world championships).  My wife was watching it once and I happened to look up and say, "That's Jeff Kent."  She had no idea who that was, so I thought it was kind of cool that a hall of fame caliber second baseman could just blend in.  My biggest problem with this show is when people get all hurt and offended that someone else lied to them or stabbed them in the back, because they were such good "friends".  Newsflash.  I've never met a million dollars, but I want it as my friend more than you, the person I've known for two weeks.

4.  Toddler's and Tiaras:  Little girls painted like whores and forced to parade around on stage.  I extremely dislike this one.  

5.  Chopped:   Chef Bald Guy:  Your dessert has excellent texture, but I can't get past the strong taste of turnip and feces.     What I wish the contestants would say:  You gave me 30 minutes to make a dessert using two turds, a turnip, three slices of cheese and a weather balloon.  I couldn't add enough sugar to suppress the turnips and turds.

6.  The Bachelor/Bachelorette:  Let's see.  You have one person who dates a bunch of other people for a few weeks and guys in a control room edit it in such a way as to create suspense so that the one person can eventually choose one other person to give a rose to.  Sounds very realistic, awesome, and I don't see how anything could go wrong.  I'm assuming that's how it was pitched to ABC.

7.  The Real Housewives of Wherever:  Follow my mom around circa 1988 or so if you want to see a real housewife.  She'd run every one of these actresses, I mean housewives, in the ground.

8.  247 Kids and Counting:  Please stop.

9.  The Jersey Shore:  What was the point of this show?  All Jersey people are really, really, really, really stupid?  That's the most I could ever get from it, and it makes me feel bad for actual contributing members of The Garden State.

10.  I can think of more: The Vanderpump Rules, Dance Mom's (Abby Lee and all the parents make me throw up in my mouth a little), Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Little People, Big World etc. etc., but I have to get to the show that made me start thinking about this subject.

Sixteen and Pregnant/Sixteen and Pregnant Two:  Never mind that none of the girls on this show are sixteen anymore.  I'm sure they all used to be.  Shoot, I used to be, although I've never been pregnant.  My wife was watching this one the other night as I worked on a book, and there was the usual.  Legal wranglings over custody, boyfriends who want nothing to do with their kids, little girls with developmental problems, and a heroin addict/still giant whore who screams at her mom all of the time, has absolutely NO business even being around kids, but has managed to teach her small son that she doesn't have custody of to say F#%$ in context.  I know, I know, that was a run on sentence, and I'm not the cussing police.  Long story short, its a train wreck with nobody running in to save the day.  I guess it makes for suspenseful TV, and maybe some young girls see it and get wise.  At least I'm hoping that is the point.  What it made me think of the other night, though, was my wife, and myself, before we had kids, and how we actually pulled that whole thing off.  It was a crazy few days, and an advertisement for birth control if you're at all squeamish or not sure of your relationship..

Now, I'm not going to go through the entire labor process because it lasted from five o'clock Wednesday, until 11:18 on Friday, and I didn't sleep hardly at all during that time.  I'm not really speaking much to the girls here either, because, well, I'm not one.  I'm talking to all of the guys who think they're grown ups.  If you're not willing to go through this, which is just a tiny snippet, then just put it away right now.

Like I said, I'm skipping through the whole pregnancy/labor/delivery process even though it permanently changed me.  I went from being a 28 year old kid with a pregnant wife to a man in charge of life and death decisions for two other people not capable of making their own.  It was harrowing, and, with help, I pulled it off.  I'm not sure I could have done it at sixteen.  As I finally sat with my wife, exhausted from being awake for two days, and convinced her the baby would be Ok, the end seemed to be upon us.  Then she thought she had wet the bed.  No big deal, that wasn't anything compared to what we'd just been through.  So, I peeked under the sheets.  That's not pee.  That's blood.  Lots of it.  We called the nurse.  She looked, and I can still remember the terrified look in her eyes as she left the room to get help.  Apparently it was a busy night because she only came back with one other nurse and a promise that the Dr. had been emergency paged.  She showed up pretty quickly, took one look, and demanded the nurses get more people.  A nurse left, and returned in just a few seconds to say that she'd called for help, but nobody seemed to be coming.  The doctor was mad and insisted that this was a bad situation and my wife needed to be picked up off the bed while at least two nurses pushed on her stomach.  Every second actually risked death.  So, without even thinking I said.  "I'll pick her up."  The doctor insisted we needed a lift team.  I remember saying.  "You said seconds count.  Show me where.  I'll pick her up."  That was all she needed.  The doctor showed me where to lift her and I held my wife in my arms in a half curl/bent over position for at least five minutes while the nurses pushed clots out of her body and the doctor fished the softball size purveyors of death from within.  My wife remembers it being longer, but I'm not exactly sure how I held her that way for even five minutes, covered in blood, while she cried out in otherworldly pain.  Crisis averted I took a step back, and my clothes from the neck down to my pants were literally soaked in blood.  We threw away my clothes, cleaned me up, put on some scrubs, and the doctor assured us that my wife was fine.  It was one of the longest and shortest ten minutes of my life.

So, what does this have to do with sixteen and pregnant or reality tv at all?  Nothing really, except for that that show made me realize I'm glad, for everyone involved, that I was 28, not 16, and taking on those responsibilities.  It makes me hope that maybe young men and women watching that show see how tough it actually is and think about what they're doing.  Maybe the thought of being covered in another person's blood clots can make someone think too.  I remember being 16, though, and I wasn't exactly well known for thinking before I acted.  So, I guess, I actually get that show, right down to the spoiled brat heroin addict that teaches little kids bad words.  I just wish the script writers would have her grow up already.

 

 

I like to drink peeeeeee!!!!!!

Bo:  I like to drink pee straight from the source.  Oh yeah.  I like to eat poop that way too!

Axl:  I don't mind.

I see people do this on Facebook fairly often and since I have a dog that is really gross, I thought I'd try my hand at it.  Let me tell you, this was not an easy picture to get.  Beauregard Duke is on the left and is about 10 months old.  He did not want to sit still with a sign around his neck.  Axl is on the right and is twelve years old.  He doesn't care what is around his neck, but wishes that he didn't have to sit up for a picture.  His life mostly consists of lying down and getting his belly rubbed.  So, yeah, Bo likes to drink Axl's pee and eat his feces, and Axl could care less.  Its a relatively disgusting relationship they have.

These two are essentially my second and fourth dogs of my grown up life.  My first dog was a black lab named Eddie who was given to me when I was 20 years old.  I had him for about a year before I left on a long baseball road trip and he ran away from his caretakers.  He was a smart dog, but also stupid as could be at the same time.  His big thing was that he absolutely loved to hump pillows.  He had one in particular that was his favorite, and if you couldn't get him to come in from outdoors, or he had run away, all you had to do was whistle and let him get a look at that pillow.  He was guaranteed to come running.  Anyway, if let outside that dog would run from anyone but me, and when I was in Los Angeles he made a break for it.  It was a bummer, but if he wouldn't have left I probably never would have gotten Axl.  

Axl is my second dog.  I'll come back to him.

My third dog was an Australian Shepherd named Maddie that we rescued from the pound.  She ate doors and trim and was a master escape artist.  She could get out of any kennel, chew through chains, pull her head through any collar, and jump over six foot high fences.  It was just a matter of time before that dog got away.  She wasn't meant for the house dog life and I hope she found a home out in the country with some sheep or goats to herd because she was really a sweet pooch.

Beauregard Duke of the House of Wheat is our latest edition to the family.  He is a full blooded Brittany Spaniel and loves to find/chase birds, and butterflies.  He's come a long way in his first year with us here, but is still struggling with the whole chewing thing.  He is probably the biggest baby of any dog I've ever met.  You can't even raise your voice at him without him yelping like you're killing him.  When he was only a few months old he jumped up and nipped my five year old on the chin and received a smack to his behind.  You would have thought I had chopped his back legs off.  We were then very proactive in teaching him to play with his mouth closed, and now he's great with the kids.  

Now I'll talk about Sir Wheat's Axl Grease.  He is easily the best of the bunch and its hard to believe what a different world this place was for him and me when we first met.  I had always wanted a purebred Golden Retriever, so, when I was 23 years old I got one, and yes I named him after Axl Rose.  They both have red hair.  I remember the day I picked him out well.  He was the only male of the litter, which I didn't actually know at the time, but when I stepped in with the puppies they all swarmed me except for Axl.  He just sat in the corner, yawned, and decided to take a nap.  The other puppies would jump on him and nip at him, but he was just relaxing and paid the world little mind, until I came over and scratched his belly.  His leg started twitching and his eyes rolled back in his head and I could have sworn he smiled at me.  I made him mine right then and there.  Anyway, I lived at 708 North Underhill across from St. Mark's school in Peoria and Axl was just a little ball of fuzz.  I only have one picture of him when he was a puppy, but rest assured, he was insanely cute.  We were a boy and his dog.  He'd ride in the front of my truck and when I'd leave the house for work he'd lay by the door and wait for me to get back.  He was never a chewer, or a biter, or a garbage eater, or a barker, or anything.  He didn't ever have any bad habits and hasn't spent a second in a kennel.  A couple of times he ate things off the counter that he wasn't supposed to, but he never really got stuck in a rut.  He always seemed to know when he did something wrong and felt REALLY badly about it.  Before there was a wife, and before there were kids, there was Axl and every night before I went to bed I'd hold his head in my hands and talk to him.  I still do it now, but not as often as I should.  He's an old guy and I honestly don't like to disturb him if he's resting, which is pretty much all of the time.    He's had kids pull on his tail, tug on his ears, poke him in the eyes, lay on top of him, and try to ride him, but not once did he voice any displeasure: no growling, no barking, no nipping, no nothing.  At twelve years of age he's already outlived his life expectancy by a couple of years, and I'm sure the puppy is pretty jealous of him.  He gets McDonald's Double Cheeseburgers, cookies, ice cream,  and bites of steak.  The puppy just gets dog food and beggin strips. Old Axl has a lame back hip, and a bad front shoulder, can't always hear you when you call his name and sometimes moans and groans in his sleep, but if you lay down next to him and rub his belly, his leg will still get going and his eyes will still roll back in his head.  He'll look at you with his big brown eyes every time, smile, and say "I love you Tim.  Do you have any steak?"  Yeah.  He talks too.  My dog is the best.  Deal with it.

Who is Rex Chase?

Those of you who know me will probably already know this, but I love baseball.  As a kid I dreamed of playing professionally and would badger anyone who would listen to toss me ground balls, or hit me flies, or play 500, or get a game of hot box going...   I absolutely loved to play.  As I grew older the countless hours of practice and play started paying off, and when I was accepted to Bradley University with an invitation to join the team, I was elated.  Now, I'm not going to say that I showed up at the Division I level and dominated, because that would be a lie.  It was hard.  Everyone was big.  Everyone was strong.  I couldn't throw my fastball by anybody.  Somewhere in the start of my second year at Bradley, though, I realized that for all those years, I had just been playing.  I had never really focused my intellect on what I was doing and it was going to take hard work that didn't necessarily involve play to succeed.  That revelation helped me to turn a corner, and things started to come around for me on the field.  Once again, I was by no means dominant, but the improvements were noticeable and my coaches had recognized the change.  Then, in the time frame of about 2 weeks, my entire world was put on end.

Whenever I host events or have a speaking engagement I can always see the people lock in when I get to this part of the story.  It's the story of a young man with cancer, and if you don't know me and want to hear about it, I'll be happy to oblige, but that isn't actually what I'm thinking about tonight.  I was thinking about a question I am asked with regularity.  I was wondering to myself if it's a question other authors are repeatedly asked about their main characters and whether or not they had pondered it as often as I.

Question:  Did you base Rex Chase on yourself?

Answer:  Kind of.

Generic, right?  I've thought about this question a lot, and perhaps at the very beginning the idea of Edward Rex Chase was based in my own life.  He's a lot smarter than me, and though I have a good memory, it's not exactly photographic.  Probably the closest thing Rex Chase and I had at the beginning was baseball, though he is a lot better than me at that too.  Perhaps Rex is a projection of the things I would have liked to have been or would have liked to try?  Perhaps he's a conglomerate of every hero I've ever read about or seen on the big screen?  Perhaps he's the representation in my mind of the most awesome man I can think about?  He's big, strong, fast, smart, brave, heroic, handsome, loyal, caring, but not afraid to do what it takes to get the job done.  In my mind, he's the epitome of a hero.  

That was essentially the answer I had come up with, and then one day I was writing The Sentinel and realized who Edward Rex Chase really is.  In the second book, and this has always been the plan, I start addressing character flaws.  As I was writing and making sure everything matched up I found myself basing all of his flaws on my own real life interactions.  So, it seemed as if Chase was based on me, and then my boys came storming through the room.  A lot of the time they don't stay very long and remind me a bit of a two part Tasmanian Devil.  They come in, wreck some things, and then move on.  After they had moved through I continued to write and then it dawned on me.  When I describe Rex Chase physically I picture my own seven year old son in his early 20's.  When I describe the way Rex Chase is thoughtful and caring I picture the way I see my five year old son interacting with others.  I started going down the list of who Rex Chase is, and it appears now that I have based him on myself, though a lot more indirectly than I had previously thought.  He's a fictional representation of my boys and I and everything I hope they can be without having to wade through the trials and tribulations I didn't always handle correctly.  Don't get me wrong, I've learned a lot from the path I've taken, but maybe, just maybe, I'll have shouldered enough of the bad that they'll be able to skip it over when it comes time.  All of Rex Chase's weaknesses are my own, and all of his strengths are my kids, or what I wish and hope for them.  Huh, I think I might just be turning into a grownup.

It's also possible that I just made all of this up, though....  I am a fiction writer...  HAVE A HAPPY HUMP DAY EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

Sleep is overrated!!!!!!!!!!

I dream.  I'm a dreamer.  In order to clarify a little bit here, I'm not talking about pie in the sky, someday I'm going to be rich and buy my own tiger that I walk around with on a leash and feed steaks from my hand all while riding around in a solid gold stretch Hummer that's been converted to run on natural gas because I think it would be kind of awesome to have a natural gas car with tinted windows, license plate number bal2hrd.  I do think about those things, but that's not what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about being asleep and having dreams that are so realistic even Leonardo DiCaprio could take lessons from me.  Oh, and I REMEMBER them, at least for a little while.

I've been told I should keep a dream journal.  That sounds boring since usually I just want to go back to sleep and I almost never dream about anything useful like book writing or something.  I've been told I should try some recall techniques to remember even more.  Ummmmmm.  Why?  A lot of the time I don't like it because I wake up all amped up, or all depressed, or something, and can't get back to sleep.  I've been told I'm lucky.  I guess.  I'd rather win five-hundred million dollars though.  At least that was what I was thinking when I sat down to write this blog. Then I remembered this recurring dream that I've been having for years.  

This dream is set at the Springlake Missionary Church and I've been having it off and on for no less than 15 years.  Sometimes I won't have it for a year.  Sometimes I'll have it twice in one week.  Anyway, I'm at Springlake Missionary Church, and not the one that exists there today.  I'm talking about 1984, green velvet wallpaper walls and Big Pastor Mueller rocking a wife beater.  Have you ever seen a pastor wear a beater with brown pressed slacks and suspenders to greet his congregation?  Well, in my dream, that's the way it happens every single time.  One of the neat things about this dream is that I age in it.  It's always the current me walking into the church I grew up in.  Nobody else changes, though.  It always starts with me entering the double doors which lead up the steps near the sanctuary.  Big Pastor Mueller greets me there, and I comment on his attire.  I've actually tried very hard to remember what we say to each other, but either it changes, or I just can't focus on it.  Either way, the man works the beater like a boss because even as the most conservative of churchgoers pass him by.  Nobody else says a thing.  So, I make small talk with a few nearby people and then start talking about the Cubs with my cousin Kevin.  This isn't strange at all except that we are talking about the 1984 Cubs like they are the ones playing right now.  Maybe that's just my inner me wishing the Cubs would win 100 games every year.  Like I said, this is a dream.  So, I'm standing there talking to Kevin.  People are shuffling by to get into the sanctuary, and even as I sit here awake I can hear the church floor squeak.  Then, something exceptional happens.  My grandmother, Ruth Burks, walks in the double doors.  For those of you who don't know, she died in 1995 and was one of the kindest women the world has ever known.  I spent countless hours at her house as a youth and probably my fondest memories of her are epic games of Scrabble over a bowl of frozen strawberries.  Anyway, In my dream I am flabbergasted.  It is so real to me every single time as she slides her purse over her arm, grips the handrail with both hands, and step by step makes her way up the flight of stairs.  She is dressed in a colorful blue flower print housecoat that I must have seen her wear a thousand times, but had absolutely zero chance of being worn to church.  She moves slowly, as I always remember her doing, and when she reaches the top she smiles and says.

"Hi Timothy."

I respond the exact same way every time.

"You're dead!?!?"

I'm hoping that someday when I have this dream I come up with something a little better, but so far it has never deviated.  My grandma just smiles again and laughs, and it is SO REAL!!  It is amazing how minute details are stored in our brains because when I have this dream it is like I'm listening to an audio version of her laugh recorded at 32 bits and 192000 khz.  For those of you who don't know what that means, it's awfully clear.  Anyway, she hugs me and that is the end of the dream.  I wake up right there every time.  

I started off writing this installment thinking that I was going to do something kind of funny on how I have these exceptionally weird dreams that cause me to lose sleep, and I'd like to trade my superpower for invisibility or something.  Occasionally I will dream a bit about a book I'm writing or a song I'm working on, but most of the time it is just annoying and nothing overly fruitful comes of it.  I've woken up drenched in sweat, my heart racing hundreds of times and while I have saved babies from burning buildings, stopped shooting rampages, and ridden my Yamaha Virago 920 to the top of Mt. Everest, it always seemed that it would be better to just get more sleep.  I can probably get by without remembering the time I taught myself to flap my arms so hard I could fly anywhere I wanted to go.  Probably.  That would be a sweet power.  Anyway, for the most part I've always felt that my vivid dreaming was a curse and that I'd trade it in a heartbeat.  Sometimes, though, sometimes I get to see my grandma...Invisibility and flying will have to wait...sleep is overrated...