The List (With Commentary)

Happy Thankgiving!

I am sitting at the table, looking at my 1/3 completed tile floor in the main room. By some serious fallacy of judgement, we decided to invite people over today for dinner. Dinner in a construction zone...how charming. It did get me thinking that no matter what, something will always be going on with this house, so really if I wanted until I was done, it'd be 20 or 30 years before someone came over.

Jill and I went to dinner a friend's home last week. It was a lovely home, very clean. Completely decorated - probably less than 4 years old. There were no hammers lying on the kitchen table, no mortary footprints on the hardwood, and their garage didn't look like a contractor's storage area. Actually it looked sanitary - like an ER. The whole thing was depressing. I hate them.

It makes me think of all the things I need to do here. Here's an abbreviated list for your reading pleasure. I accept donations of time and material.

1) Finish Slate Floor in Living Room - OK. Real slate - completely irregular. Some pieces are really thick, some are much thinner. They're not necessarily square. Its totally free style - throw the spacers out and just start laying down stones and hope that grout fixes all. Scary. I hope it looks good, because this floor is literally set in stone.

2) Fix almost every door in house: All of a sudden the doors in my house don't close. I'm not sure if the house is settling or preparing to fall down around my ears. All I know is a bedroom door that doesn't close with a 5 year old in the house is like playing Russian Roulette with the Kid's Psyche. "Mom...What's Daddy doing to you?" That would be a mojo killer for all of us, I think.

3) Fix the master bathroom: How does a supposed nice house have the Master Bath of a Flop House? Cheap Ass Light fixture with 4 out of 6 bulbs working. Shower Stall with a door we have to wedge shut with an old razor handle, and a floor that creaks and groans as if to say, "If you eat one more piece of cake, you're going through this fucking floor. In fact, you better move the couch to catch your fat ass - because its going to happen." And a toilet that only flushes when it damn well pleases. Oh and big blue and pink vagina-flower wall paper - ick. That has to go.

4) Window Coverings: We're cheap, and one of things we never got around to doing is putting blinds or drapes in the front windows. Only because there were bigger fish to fry and we were unsure of our decor intents for those room. Big Mistake. Apparently our neighbors monitor our every move, and discuss the latest intel over their dinner table. This past weekend, I received some technique tips from my neighbor, who thought I was going about a project all wrong. How helpful.....does he have any other technique advice he wants to share? Maybe a little something for me and the Missus?

5) Replace Exterior Wood Paneling: Here's a good idea for all you aspiring builders out there. Use MDF to build exterior wood panelling. It handles moisture very well - in fact it's like a big fucking brown sponge. I replaced one column this fall, I have one additional column and then several sections of bad panelling and trim on the bump out. The bump out also contains part of the Master Bath - so maybe its just the whole thing is bad. Like an cancer slowly spreading from the Bump Out, into the Master Bath, out to the bed room door and then down the stairs to slowly dissolve everything to crap. Maybe the house is falling down...

6) Garage Door: I was in the garage the other day when I heard a rattle, a groan, and then a slapping-boingy sound. Then I ducked because something was flying through the air. Turns out, it was a door spring. Can you buy those?

That's enough for now...any more and I'll contemplate arson.

That Was Stupid....

Did you ever do something, where even as the idea formulated in your brain, you instinctively knew it was a bad idea? But yet despite the warning bells going off in your head, you did it anyway.

Yeah, well. I looked at my 401K yesterday. Holy........Shit.

I knew it would be bad, but I couldn't buy a bottle of cheap whiskey and a cheaper whore with what's left! (I guess like the rest of America, I'll be making some tough decisions in the future...)

Now here's what pisses me off. When the Market was booming in the late 1990's, I worked at a restaurant. When I got a check, which was rare, I contributed $15.00 a week. The company didn't match. I had no idea what fund out of the three we had to choose from to use, so I just did whatever. Every quarter, no matter which lousy fund I had my money it, it grew at like 20%. That money actually became my down payment for my first house. And I was sold on the concept of investing.

Now I work in a real job, with a better pay check. I believe (d?) in the 401-K concept so I put at least 10% of my salary away. I study the funds. I re-balance. I diversify. One year ago today, after being employed for almost 8 years, I ran the numbers and thought that by the end of 2010, at the latest, I would have 6 figures stashed away. And I felt great! I was delusional.

The closest thing I'm getting to six figures now would be the Star Wars guys in my son's toy room.

The market rallies one day and plummets the next. There's no real rhyme or reason to it. Everyone says its going to get worse, and I tend to believe them. Through every high, and more frequently every low, I keep telling myself that I am buying at a value price. The Market, I reason, is undervalued. I resist the urge to slash my contribution or move what's left into a safer sector. First of all, is there one? Second of all, I move that money and I realize all those losses and basically give up on getting it back. I can't do that yet.

When you get into a 401K, you hear a lot about maximizing matching funds, give yourself a raise first, research etc. But my favorite is: Invest in the Long Term! The reason being even though the market fluctuates, the average gain is 8% over time. Even in periods of retraction, the market typically wins back its losses in less than two years.

You financial bastards better be right. I'm a Maker's Mark kinda guy, and this Kentucky Tavern stuff is killing me!

Dear Jim: I'm sorry, I'm leaving.

It's been a long, brutal election cycle. The new President isn't even in office, and the opposition is already posturing for 2012. I've seen Palin's and Romney's face as much in the past week as I have heading into the election. As a nation, we've become hyper-politicized. Unfortunately, it's changed everything. We used to consciously avoid political discourse in polite conversation. We didn't want the public at large to associate us as a Democrat or a Republican. Media outlets went to great lengths to avoid any type of real or perceived bias. We treated politics like we treat religion - you're free to vote, or belief as you like but keep it to yourselves. We were all just citizens.

But now I find, bias is everywhere. You cannot buy a cup of coffee without having a political statement printed on the cup. Everywhere you turn, there's a bumper sticker, a T-shirt. You pick your news channel based on what brand of politics you prefer. I thought the news, was the news. But we're not consuming news anymore, we're consuming commentary - and we want our commentators to mirror our beliefs. You disregard news from sources you don't prefer. Depending on which side you lean to, Fox News or the New York times is either the last remaining pillar of civilization or the a virtual fountain of lies and propaganda. The urge by media or companies to appeal to the center, I think has been replaced by an urge to sell a split electorate.

Fox News wants the red states and millions of voted for McCain, and so they load up with programing to appeal to those viewers - its newsertainment, and MNSBC does the same thing on the other side. And they can both make ton's of money doing so.

I'm not sure politics as a marketing strategy is a healthy idea. I'm not sure that's the way to heal partisanship and bring this country together. By continually focusing on what makes us different, we lose all the things which tie this whole country together. I'm also not comfortable with the Politicization of Truth. Our facts sets depend on which side we're on. We pick and choose from the all available facts to build our chases. Shouldn't we use all the facts? Shouldn't media outlets report the entire story, not just the part that sells? What are the long term effects of a society that gets its information filtered to suit their tastes? Shouldn't we form our opinions and make our decisions on the sometimes hard, uncomfortable, and distasteful facts? I fear over time, this trend will make us a more narrow minded society - on both sides.

The alarm woke me up yesterday morning and Jim Scott was on the radio. I've listened to Jim for 10 years. In recent months I've noticed that his political commentary has become more and more pronounced. Every news story has a personal slant from Jim. Snarky, Sarcastic, Biting. The guests have a more political slant. On Election Day he interviewed Ted Nugent, who certainly is qualified to weigh in all things political, and Ted used his 50,000 watts and 30 seconds of air time to call Barak Obama a Socialist.

I don't mind that Jim Scott (or Ted Nugent) has an opinion. I don't mind that he doesn't agree with me. I'm used to it. Most people around me don't. But I don't want New-Sertainment at six in the morning. I don't want to be sold at 6:00am, and I don't want to buy at 6:00am. I could care less if it was Jim Scott, or Al Franken bashing on Sarah Palin. Either way, it's too damn early! I want the news. I want the weather. I want the traffic. And I want cheezy old Jim Scott working in his silly, old school Select Comfort Commercials. But I cannot do it anymore. I changed the station.

Today I switched to NPR. I was afraid there would be snarky commentary from a left perspective. Instead is was calm, news reporting with no commentary. Perhaps because NPR is a non-profit program, they haven't felt the urge to chase a demographic. You might be thinking, NPR is essentially liberal radio, but I didn't hear that. They did cover much more international news. It wasn't as business focused as WLW was. They didn't do Traffic and Weather on the Ten's - which I missed dearly. But it wasn't partisan.

I'm sorry Jim Scott, but we're through.

Things That Outrage Me...

It's been awhile since I've went on a rant. It's been a while since I've taken the time to call some people out. It's been....to0 long. A lot of bullshit's been going down, and I've got a shovel. So...

I overheard someone today say, that if they took into account last year's weather and temperatures, that it would disprove global warming. That was annoying, but what he said next outraged me. And I quote, " Its so silly to think that anything we could do, would cause global warming or.....hurt this planet." I almost jumped from my chair. I must also add, that the person spouting this garbage working in the organic department of a major grocery store, trying to convince other people to buy recycled products, sustainable goods etc. See the disconnect???

And we're off!

1) Listen up, Moron! One year cannot make or break a trend. See definition of trend. I don't have time to provide it. Also, neither can one continent, region, zip code or church parking lot. There's a reason its called Global Warming, not Kentucky Warming, or 45202 Warming.

2) As for Man not being able to hurt planet. Sit Down and Listen. Since you seem to repeat whatever you hear from Fox news, or Rush or whatever "non-biased" source you pick and choose from, I need you to please realize that some of I what I will cite, relies on Scientific Research. I know this is a scary thought for you. You've spent several years insulating yourself from Science. But I assure you, Science is your friend. Science's best friends are Learning, Rationality and best of all....Measurable Data. It makes your cars go faster, makes you medicines, lifted us out of the Dark Ages and also helps us better understand ourselves, the world we live in and our relationship to it.

Now I know that God gave the planet to Adam, and it's been handed down for thousands of years until it's in your chubby, non grateful hands. My only comment there is, if you truly belief that story, then why would you belittle anyone or anything that wants to take better care of God's Gift to you.

Wait...I know why....its because you are a hypocrite. Big Head-Slap over here People! And an even bigger, "Duh!" I guess we all should have seen that one coming!

But I digress, in my ranting. Here are few examples of man's adverse effect on the planet, or what I like to call, examples of bad stewardship. In no particular order:

Strip Mining, Superfund Sites, floating islands of garbage in the Pacific, Chernobyl, Trace amounts of synthetic material in ground water, Ozone Layer deterioration, Acid Rain, increasing rates of cancer and autism, increased extinction rates of animals across planet. I don't have time to hot link all these now. I am also sure there is much more and better examples I could use, but I'm pressed for time and still a little pissed.

Now that's just detailing man's negative effect on the planet. I could go off like Mount Vesuvius on global warming and bury your sorry ass is cloud of ash 10 feet deep. "Scientists" called "Archaeologists "would find you hundreds of years from now and undoubtedly would deduce from little things they like to call "Facts"that you are not just an ignorant jackass, but the worse kind, that being a purposefully ignorant jackass!

And yes, I am a Captain Planet, and yes I believe that we can by our actions and choices do good or bad to our communities, the people around us and the ground on which which stand. I'm not perfect, I live in a big house and I drive to work everyday. I own an SUV. But I do what I can, I recycle, I compost, I try to make my house as energy efficient as possible, I use those stupid canvas bags. It's not much, but its a start. The first step is admitting there's a problem, how much progress can we make if we cannot agree on that?

Taking Back Sunday

Most you know that I am an ardent Bengal fan. You can insert any joke here that you want about their current record (win/loss or prison), coaching (or lack thereof) or players (or the pack of Girl Scouts impersonating real NFL players) , or ownership(I really cannot comment further...I'm too tired) . I have heard it all before, and repeated most of it...yet for some reason, I am a season ticket holder.

Going to the games in a year like this is horrible, but since you pay months in advance, you kind of resign yourself to it. You show up late, you leave earlier, you divest yourself emotionally and you hope for better next year. You play the Barge Game or the Escalator Game to pass the time. (The Barge Game is where you bet which direction a barge will pass, in what quarter, and what type. I.e.: 1st quarter, heading east, a coal barge. Whereas the Escalator Game is where players take bets on when the escalators will turn from up...to down. Start of 4th quarter is always a good bet, but the bold can sometimes reach for late in the 3rd quarter)

The real bummer is Away Games, where you have this beautiful HD TV set up. All summer long you look forward to and make plans to drink beer and eat nachos and watch football. But when they're this bad, you don't want to. If you do, 4:00 comes around and you realize you've wasted your day. You're pissed. You thought today might be the day. They have to win sooner or later..... recent seasons have shown us you might sit through 10, 11 horrible games to get that one win. People...it's not worth it!!!

This season, rather than watch on TV, I decided to do something positive. As a symbol of what life could be like, if we didn't invest ourselves every year into this terrible team. Something I could look at for years and say, "All this....because I took back my Sunday." And we can. We can all take back our Sunday. We can lift ourselves up from the wretchedness that is our existence as fans, and look forward to Sunday once again.

Here is how. Pick a project...any project. Put the game on the radio if you must, but come kick-off, abandon the TV and start working. Maybe it's painting a room, mowing the yard, staining a deck. Something physical that says, "I didn't waste my time."

Maybe they'll be better next year, maybe they'll be worth the investment of time. But not this year. My project is the dining room. My wife and I laid a tile floor on Sundays. Call it... Fan Therapy. The first step is always admitting you have a problem.

Here goes, I'm a little nervous.

Hi! My name's Chris, and I am a Bengal's fan. I have been in recovery for 9 weeks. This is my project.

Shopping...Because I'm a Black Tie Kinda Guy.

This weekend I get the rare opportunity to wear a tuxedo. I have wore a tuxedo exactly 4 times in my life, all of them were when I was under the age of 21. My wife's firm is having a big black tie/formal wear gala. This event forced Jill to look for the perfect gown and me to go shopping for a rented tux.

First of all, why isn't there places that let you rent designer gowns? Aside from fit issues, I believe a large part of it is stigma. A woman wouldn't be caught dead in a rented outfit, yet most men wouldn't dare purchase a tuxedo. But I say...James Bond doesn't rent shit. He either buys it, steals it, or fucks you until you give it to him for free. But...I'm not 007, so I'm renting. But I digress.

I want to talk about how different the process was for Jill and myself as we prepared for the Gala.

For Jill's dress, we looked at fabrics, hemlines, backs, fit and finish. It had to be long and slinky....but not too slinky. Her firm had sent out full color, multipage guidelines for his and her outfits. No little black dresses, nothing too short, these colors were in, these colors were out. There was lots of selection and lots of guidance, plenty of helpful sales associates.

At the local men's store, I looked at a laminated 9 page catalogue, half of the tuxedos were suitable for rap videos and maybe Junior Prom. The Clerk couldn't have been less knowledgeable or less interested in helping me to avoid looking like I was going to Junior Prom. While I didn't read the emails regarding men's wear from her firm, I can assume white tux with matching bowler hats and canes are not the look they want. But....peak lapels or no peaks? 1...2....3 button? What about the pants? Actually seeing or trying on a given tux would be nice, after all they only have nine styles....but no. He couldn't even bring himself to get up to measure me, he had some girl do it.

My whole experience lasted 15 minutes, and I have to say I feel cheated. Jill on the other hand, spent hours.

My wife went to no less than 6 different places and travelled well over 50 miles searching for the perfect dress. I went to one place, and took what they gave me.

Now I know what you're thinking, "You're a man, what's the problem?"

Here's the problem. If I look like a douchebag in a rented tux Saturday night, it's going to take more than a few free Manhattan's and several eye fulls of 65 year old cleavage to make me feel better. Jill had the opportunity to try on several dresses, go to several different retailers and ultimately pick a dress. Now she may have picked out of exhaustion, or despair but it was her choice. I feel like I was herded into a narrowing shoot and then assigned a tux.

Maybe that's fine....maybe it's better...but if I run the risk of looking like a dolt, I want more control. I want complete responsibility.

I pick the tux up tomorrow. Maybe I'll post pictures for some feedback.

The Fart Rule

Being a parent is much more involved than I imagined it ever could be. There is no such thing as autopilot, or taking plays off. You cannot assume that kids will just grasp what seems to you like simple concepts, or that their senses are attuned to the subtle differences between two things.

Take my son for example. We have been having a really rough time with sporadic accidents. Disturbingly, these accidents had been increasing as of late. And they weren't of the urine-variety. Let's just say, I've been going through a lot of Shout on laundry day. Clearly he is too old for this behavior.

Initially I assumed it was laziness or distraction. Maybe he was too busy playing. He always tells me he just didn't make it in time. We tried to shame him and warn him that other kids might make fun of him. I was beginning to worry he had some sort of colonic issue, but then I began to think like a little boy.

Question: What's really funny to a 5 year old boy?

The Answer: Farts.

What might happen if you're trying to force out a fart to impress other 5 year olds?

The Answer: A Shart

Shart(verb) def. To accidentally crap one's pants in the process of farting.
Sentence example: We have to leave now....I think I just sharted.

I tested this theory with a bed side chat, man to man with my son. I have to be honest, this wasn't the 1st serious farther-son conversation I envisioned having. Be that as it may, we discussed the chronology of his accidents in detail and my shart theory seemed to resonate.

In response, we devised The Fart Rule. The Fart Rule eliminates confusion that exists between where a fart ends and a crap begins. A border that my son apparently has issues perceiving.

The Fart Rule: (i) Henceforth it is mandated that when the urge to fart is felt, we are to immediately and without hesitation head to the nearest restroom. (ii) There is no be no penalty for false alarms. (iii) Failure to follow said rule, may result in the unfortunate label of Mr. Poopey Pants following offender well into Junior High.

Its been several days now, and I have seen marked improvement. That is to say, his underwear has been relatively unmarked. He came home today all excited. "No accidents today Dad, it was a close one, but I followed the Fart Rule"

Its not a family moment Norman Rockwell would have painted, but it was a moment.