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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

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Oh, laugh if you will, but when I was in high school, I sang in the chorus. Today, I'm just a backup singer; when I sing, people back up. But back in high school, we had some good times learning our parts, mastering our songs, and performing our concerts. Sometimes, if I was late for our chorus class, I could hear them warming up as I approached the chorus room. And this one warm-up was particularly monotonous: "mi,mi,mi,mi, mi, mi, mi, mi, mi." Don't change stations. I'm done. I won't do any singing. But...

Thursday, October 23, 2008

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Closing. That's what they call the day that you sign all the final papers to buy your home. I remember it well. It was a long time ago, but, I know that you're finally allowed to start moving in after your closing. You see, we sat with the previous owner in the attorney's office and I got to write enough checks to wallpaper at least one wall! Now, they wouldn't let us move anything in until closing day. That's the law. It was still the home of the previous owner until that day. But as soon as we left that office the truck could roll, and it did. And all our stuff could get moved in. This all has to be carefully timed. One family has to be out before another family can move in, right? Sure! What if we had rolled up with our truck and the previous owners were still there? We can't both live there! One has to move out before the other one can move in.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

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We might all be singing Dixie at our sporting events instead of the Star Spangled Banner if it hadn't have been for the death of one Confederate general. He was Robert E. Lee's most valuable general, Thomas Jackson. Maybe you know him better as Stonewall Jackson. He was such a brilliant leader and strategist. He repeatedly defeated and outsmarted the Union army. Unfortunately, for the Confederate cause he died in the middle of the Civil War. If he had lived, who knows how he might have affected the outcome. Dixie, here we come! Stonewall Jackson - obviously his mamma didn't name him that. Actually, he got that name during the second Battle of Bull Run. The Northern army was beating on the Southern army pretty bad that day, so much that the Confederates started to retreat, and as the boys in grey were running for their lives, another general saw General Jackson refusing to retreat! And he said, "There stands Jackson, like a stone wall!" That was the new battle cry. Jackson's courage rallied the Confederate troops and instead of retreating, they charged and they won.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

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With all the problems with the airlines, they still have those frequent flyer deals, and sometimes you can get a free coupon to actually take a free flight to somewhere in the country. Actually, I got an airline coupon a while back, and it entitled me to an upgrade to a first class seat on a future flight, a privilege that's really appreciated when I have major work to get done. They even let me board before any other passengers, which that meant I could get right to work on the plane instead of standing in line. Now you could be saying, "Well, aren't you special?" Listen, there's nothing special about me that gets me these special privileges, except that when you're a frequent flyer on this one airline, they give this kind of reward to anyone who flies a lot and does it consistently with them. The airlines want to train us to think one simple thought, customer loyalty pays off!

Friday, June 27, 2008

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A while back I heard a comedy routine that suggested some humorous ways to finish this sentence: "You know you're having a bad day when..." Well, I heard on the news about a man who might be a finalist for the "baddest day of the year" award, and there's nothing humorous about what happened to him. You may remember an Avianca Airlines plane that crashed on Long Island a few years ago. It was a flight from Colombia to New York. Well, this particular Colombian man was seriously injured in the crash. That is a bad day - that's a really bad day. They rushed him to the hospital where it was determined that they would have to do abdominal surgery. And when the surgeons opened him up, they found little plastic bags in his stomach full of cocaine. He was a drug courier, and he had ingested those little bags of cocaine to smuggle them into the country. So after he crashed and then was operated on, he was arrested. Now who would have ever thought he would be found out? He was.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

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Let's see, there was Gilligan, the Skipper, too, the movie star, the millionaire and his wife, you know, the cast of that eternally rerunning sitcom, Gilligan's Island. You probably remember the story, they boarded the S.S. Minnow that day to take a what? A "Three hour tour." Little did they know a storm would come up and they would end up shipwrecked on some desert island, and they'd have to stay there trapped forever in rerunland. When they boarded that day, they had no idea how far they were going to go, or how long they were going to stay. Some three-hour tour!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

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If you ever spend any time near the ocean, I'll bet you've got some photos of seagulls. They just soar around above the surf, you know, almost as if they're posing for some of us amateur photographers! Now, seagulls are impressive until they get together. I remember sitting on the rocks along the Maine coast trying to feed some corn chips to this seagull - see, they're into junk food too - and as soon as one gull started to go for the food, another one would land and start yelling at him. Then they were joined by a third gull - they got pretty nasty contesting who's going to get this little corn chip! Now, that's standard operating procedure for seagulls. Like the time we were enjoying this picturesque New England harbor. The highest point was this weathervane and one gull would land on it - sometimes he'd even trumpet the fact that he was number one. That lasted about ten seconds until another gull came plowing into him, knocked him off, pretty soon he's followed by another gull who knocked number two off, so he could have his ten minutes on top! Scientists have even put a red band on a seagull to see how the other gulls would react. They literally pecked him to death because he had something they didn't have. Nice birds, huh?

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

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Every other Wednesday morning it's hard to sleep in our neighborhood - not that I ever had that opportunity very often. But early in the morning you hear this clinking and clanking all over the neighborhood. The recycling convoy is moving through with these trucks collecting all the bottles and cans and newspapers we all saved for them, and off they go into recycling land. The other day I got behind one of those recycling trucks and I was in a hurry and I was not thrilled, but, because I had to slow down I got to read what was printed on the back gate of these trucks. Can you believe it? An inspirational message! Here's what it said: "Give your trash a second chance."

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

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The flight attendants call them "white knuckle flyers." It's those passengers who are scared of flying and they hang on for dear life. Now, we've seen an occasional plane crash over the years, and it makes some people nervous about airplanes. We also know the statistical probabilities of a person being in a plane crash; they're really pretty low. But fear doesn't always respond to statistics. When you're on a train you usually don't think much, or if at all about a crash. I mean, we know about plane crashes, but train crashes? But after a series of train derailings and accidents and collisions, the idea of a train crash suddenly becomes front-page material. Of course, it's like flying. The likelihood of a crash is minimal, but it still makes an impression when you see on the news the aftermath of two trains colliding. There's been discussion of one possible cause in crashes like these. They call it engineer fatigue. Someone suggested that some engineers run their shifts so close together that they don't have adequate time to rest. So some accidents might be caused in part by someone literally being sleepy or even falling asleep on the job.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

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If you offer a candy bar to my sister-in-law she just might shake her head in disgust and say, "Nuts!" Now, she's not being rude. She's telling you why she doesn't dare accept your offer - nuts. You see it all started one Saturday when she was doing computer work in our office and she was munching on some hazelnuts. Eventually she noticed this rash breaking out. Within a few hours she could hardly breath, and my wife was rushing her to the doctor. Her throat was literally swelling shut! Well, the doctor pulled her through that scare and then he took a battery of allergy tests. Well sure enough the tests showed that she has a serious allergy to all nuts and eggs and anything that has peanut oil in it. Those ingredients are in a lot of things that she loves to eat, but she doesn't dare. It could be fatal. Nothing tastes that good!

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