To Fly

I dropped my children off at school this day.
Finally a beautiful spring day after a long and droopy winter.
#1 walked to the door of her school, looking so very grown up.
Breaks my heart into tiny little pieces to see her so Beautiful. Happy little pieces yes, but shattered nonetheless.

#2 starts school a little later, and gets out a little later. She explained to me yesterday that starting later is fair, "#1 has a lot more to learn there at the big school, my little school just teaches little things"
She has a point. I guess.
In true #2 fashion she also added "But we should get out of schools at the same times, Dont they knows we needs to plays together?"
She has a point.
I shall be informing the school board post-haste.
She really does talk like that, by the way. #1 talks like an adult, actually better then most adults. She far surpasses me.
#2 surpasses everyone, she speaks her own language.

I watched her this morning.
There is a small hill that slopes down to her school yard.
An asphalt track runs down it on a gentle angle, most kids just walk down the path.
Not so, #2.
I watched her today. Backlit by the rising sun.
She stood at the top of the path, saying nothing to any one. She adjusted her school bag and unzipped her coat.
Very deliberatly then, she stepped off the asphalt path.
Put her hands in her pockets, spread her wings and flew straight down the hill.
I could see her swooping and gliding, the wind blowing hard today giving her that extra height she needed to clear the curb. She used her momentum from the flight to glide in and out of the other children. Whriling and diving in and out of the cliuques and the single children, she flew circles around them all.
I saw her land perfectly at the end of a line, knees slightly bent to take the gentle shock of returning to earth.
She smiled in disdain as she slowly took her hands from her pockets and zipped her wings away.
Silly Humans.

Faster

I try to keep this blogthing fun.
Or at least entertaining.
I got to thinking last night.
About going faster.

The weekend after I got the motorcycle I have now, I went on a ride with my Cousins.
Just a short little jaunt.
I still had the salesman's admonition to "Take it Easy until She is broken in" which meant nothing over 80ish for the first 100 miles or so, ringing in my head.
So I was taking it easy.
We got to a gas station, 78 miles from home.
Not too far, about 1/2 way on our little journey.
I checked my phone.
1215 PM.
There were three missed calls from the wife.
So I called.
The reception was horrible.
I heard "Has  gone into anaphalactic shock and the ambulance is on its way" I caught number 1s name a few times so I knew it was her.
42 minutes later I walked into the Hospital and was Holding their hands when the Doc gave #1 an epi shot.
Faster.
Last night I got thinking about speed. Not just the speed at which we travel, but the speed in which we live.
SO many crises, so many things.
Faster.
Just a random little thought.
Faster.

Alligators are FUN

Nothing ever turns out the way I expected. I suspect that this is either because I expect the impossible and/or I am Gods designated one man comedy show.

A short example would be spray foam insulation.

Everyone else in the world presses the top and the foam comes out.

I had a can explode in my face and almost kill me.

This is irony.

http://colneyhatch.blogspot.com/2009/06/foam-of-death.html

It was also hilarious.

Irony.

I just remembered something.

It is a little Irony and a lot of stupidity.

You see, I lived in the south for a few years. They have alligators there. I have since learned that to alligators, we (You, humans) are nothing more or less then food.

I knew this then, but I don’t think you ever really KNOW this until some animal has tried to eat you.

Its humbling.

A friend of mine and his father owned an alligator farm.  The theory was, to raise alligators for their skins and meat. The practice was, they couldint get the right permits to sell the hides and steaks so they were just feeding them until they did.

They asked me  ”ifn I warnted to gos and feed them gators”

Of COURSE I did. Shazam! Feeding Gators! How cool is that?

It sucked.

I had no idea that in order to feed the Gators we would first have to get the gator-chow.

It comes prepackaged with feathers.

Dead Chickens.

I drove a 1 ton dump truck to 20 different farms, Egg farms, to gather up and load all of the chickens that had died that week.

A one week dead chicken that has been steaming in Alabama July for a week is an olfactory joy. If you are a rabid mentally unstable red tick coon hound.

To all other sentinent creatures it smells.

Bad.

Then off to the gator farm to feed the livestock.

Simple process, you dump the chickens and chuck them to the gators.

Did you know that when Gators get fed a lot they get big? I mean like really big? I guess an average gator is right around 8-9 feet long, these old boys were pushing twelve. They would hiss and snap and pop those chickens the way you or I would pop a grape. It was something I should probably tell my therapist about. If I had one.

Once the frenzy was over the owner, smiling wide enough that I could see his tooth, asked me If I would do just one more thing, since I was already there?

Sure. I mean, no problem Cleetus! Or whatever his name was.

He asked me ifn (is that really a word?) I would drive round the whole 12 acres and see ifn (crap) I could spot any dead gators. You gots to gets the skins offn em pretty gol-durned quick. I guess.

So, me and the kid (thats what they all called him, I am not sure ifn his name was “Kid” or he was just the youngest? he was about 45)

drove off to seek dead gators. I really wanted to find one. I had seen live gators, now I wanted to see a dead one.

Truth be told, I really wanted to touch one. I dont know why, I was very curious in my 20s.

And lo….. WE FOUND ONE! I was so excited! The kid was too, even though he didnt even blink, or smile, or move, or even glance at the dead Gator. I KNEW he was excited. Who wouldint be?!?!?

I knew it was dead because its fore legs and head were under water and its rear legs and tail were stretched up on the bank.

I watched it for 15 minutes. It didnt move, no bubbles, not a twitch. It was dead.

So I went to touch its tail.

Perfect chance, and every boys dream, touch a dead gator tail.

Just one second, what in the HELL was wrong with me?

ok.

Like I was saying, perfect chance.

I had it all planned out, I was going to saunter on down, bend, touch its tail, have the Kid snap a picture for proof and saunter back.

easy peasy.

this is the ironic part.

That stupid chicken eating reptilian ass-dodger was faking.

Faking. as in, not dead.

I bent down to touch its tail and a very small part of my brain screamed “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!!!!”

That part of my brain picked up a rock and threw it at the Gators head.

We, that part of my Brain and I, were watching the rock slowly drift through the swamp water to the gators head

and

Its jaws snapped one inch from my face.

That fast.

I jumped straight back and straight up and landed on the hood of the car.

The Gator threw itself into the water and began to thrash and roll in a circle.

I think it thought it had got me.

I sat, very quietly and contemplated the irony of the situation.

The Kid, laconic and stoic, and I thought;  Mute.

Laughed so Hard I think he did himself an injury.

Tis ironic.

A bit Chilly

THIS is my brother.
Shane.
He kicks ass.
We are only 14 or so days apart and we don't look anything at all alike, I cant figure out if my Dad is his Dad or his Dad is my Dad? Since both of our Dads would Kick my ass I am not going to ask.
Neither will Shane.
We went on the Polar Bear Ride today.
For those of youse who don't indulge in freedom,aka, motorcycle riding. I shall explain.
The PBR is when a bunch of Motor Cycles and their Riders get together in the early spring and ride their motorcycles, try to keep warm, and show the world just how freaking awesome they are.
Cows around the world dread this Day.
(think about it)
Its a bit chilly.
My Genius wife kindly informed me right before we left this morning that with wind chill added in we would be riding in approximatively -2.
My other brother Darrell has been riding this ride with me for 6 years, but he was in Canada for work.
I bet he was sad.
Although Canada does have those cool loonies and toonies......
anyways.
We left early and Shane forgot the cardinal rule about riding with Tom.
Dont Follow Tom.
NOT if you have a specific destination you want to arrive at.
I have the direction sense of a spoiled mango, I can barely feel gravity.
So we (I) got lost and we were late for the start.
Essentially we pulled up at the starting point just as the biggest group (3-400) was leaving. We had to pull in with the second group.
The second group was lame.
They were actually going the speed limit.
lame.
So when the DEMON DAMSELS passed us on the left I just tagged along.
I dont know if that was the name of their group, but they all had spiffy back patches that had a kneeling topless women on them.
They were all a bit on the large side.
One of them had a purse flying straight out behind her like a cape, she was my personal favorite.
The leader, a strapping lass, had about 6 inches of angry frozen red ass-crack showing.
She also had these weird hand signals, If I did not know any better I could have sworn she was calling to circle the wagons. Pretty sure it meant "EVIL MEN IN OUR MIDST" cause they took off.
Really Fast.
So I passed them with a cheery one finger wave and ventured ahead.
Shane pulled up next to me at this point.
He is a good brother.
We got to the Midway Point.
Lame.
We got mauled by a mascot.
I did anyway.
This stuffed eagle in a leather Jacket ran up and Hugged me.
Why?
I don't know.
But the evil characters at Disneyland want to hug me as well.
There is a pattern here.

So Shane and I pow wowed and decided to go back to my house and play rock-band.
We couldn't feel our hands or faces anyways.

So we left.
and rode back.

OK.
It was a lot more fun then that.
We were riding back, Just us.
we got passed by a Corvette. acceptable.

we got passed by a mini-van. bearable

we got passed by a chevy aveo. HELL NO!

and as the driver of the cute little aveo passed us he gave me this look, the look I have always interpreted as "Please sir, I am in need of someone smashing my face with their fist, are you available?"
So we passed him. Then the mini-van.
Then.
I saw the vette.
and he saw me.
I will spare my wife any worry by avoiding telling you, dear reader, how fast 120 feels like.
Its so cool.
The wind blowing the other direction actually made it very difficult to hold my "I am a Bad ASS" pose as I passed the vette. But hey. It hurts to be cool. :)
Then Shane pulled up next to me.
Yep.
Its good to have brothers that kick ass.

Licence to Practice

I hate going to the Doctor.
All they are going to give me is bad news, or at the very least soften the blow of bad news with a little good news.
"Yes Tom. you are broken but you have remarkable bone density for a man in his 50s"
Yeah?.? Its too bad I am 37.
It started when I dislocated my elbow. I had been on an arm wrestling binge and finished it out by loading concrete bags into a truck. Midway through a throw my elbow popped and my arm flopped uselessly on the end of a stab of pain.
Followed by more pain from laughing.
I promise, when you are throwing a 90 pound bag of concrete and completely by accident knock a fellow co-worker ass-over teakettle when it thumps him in the back, the look on his face is FUNNY!
When I recovered enough to apologize I flopped my arm in the direction of the car and had Franz drive Jared and I to the Clinic. Me, I was hoping he could just re-joint my elbow. Jared, well. Lets just say that as funny as it was, I was hoping for permanent brain damage. Sadly, he was completely OK. Which really was too bad.
 Cause I owed him money and I was hoping for at least some memory loss.
The Wife got there to sit with me and drive me home after the Doc fixed my floppy arm. It was taking a long time. Once the Doc found out that I was injured at work he discovered 3 new and previously unused machines that he just had to try.
Practicing his Medicine no doubt.
After the third life sucking torture device had been applied he came into the room and using the newest and most refined techniques on the cutting edge of medical practice, grabbed my hand and yanked.
I didn't pee myself. Just barely.
When I had recovered my composure to the point where I was able to wipe the drool off of my chin my very own self, he explained.
Doctor: Sorry about the pain, but I find its easier to just go for it. Too much talk and people have a tendency to tense up.
Me: mmmmphgahhhh
Wife: Thats ok, he is Tough. Is his elbow back into place?
Me: ackkk ackkk pthllbbbb
Doctor: Is he Ok?
Did I mention that I was drooling? From the Pain?
Dislocating was bad, relocating was 10 times worse.
The doctor did as Doctors do and pulled out a wad of test results and X-rays.
explain, explain, explain, blah blah blah blah and then the punch line....
"You know, when you construction worker types get into your 40s you really need to slow down,"
Wife:  um?
Me: achk achkkk acckhh I am 27 Asshole"
Doctor: Oh. oh my.
I guess I should not have expected much. I do look old, I realize this. Even then I did have access to a mirror. But it still stung a wee bit.
I hate going to the Doctor, they never have good news.
This past couple of years I have been developing pain. Cultivating it in my spare time. I was waiting for it to get huge enough to stand a chance of winning at the annual "Idiot Fair" Held in Des Moines.
Before I could even fill out the entry form the wife had made an appointment for me to see the Doc.
Oh well.
So I went in and gave him the litany.
It hurts here and here and here. But it really hurts here.
So, I guess they still haven't paid off the machines since I was here ten years ago. Cause they put me through all of them again. This time I got a full body deal.
Maybe there was a special?
Sitting in the waiting room with The Wife, waiting for the Doctor.
No doubt he was in the hall, practicing.
After an hour or six of waiting he comes in with enough paperwork and X rays that he apparently needed three assistants to help him carry it.

The Doc and Larry, Moe and Shemp crowded around the room and looked at me.
Waiting for Curly.
Curly arrived with a tray.
The music switched from calming new age to an ominous techno beat.
Before any one could say anything I blurted into the semi-silence
 "I am only 37"
silence.
The Doc and the stooges appeared flummoxed.
The Doc Cleared his adenoids and began...
"Did you play pro-football?"
um, no.
"Do you play competitive Rugby?"
HAH! no.
"Have you been in a high speed motorcycle or car accident in which you were ejected from the vehicle?"
um, not that I remember.
"Ummmmmm."
and they all looked at each other. Glances of concern from the stoodges and a worried little crease appearing on the doctors botoxed brow...
"You appear to be very healthy. Its just that."
and a very long pause.
"Well, to put it bluntly, You have the body of a retired rodeo clown."
I hate Doctors.

Black Irish

The title is misleading.
Tough tittie schmitty said the kitty.

This is actually an excerpt from a book I scribbled called "My Life as an Apron"
about my 10 years in Retail.

Things got boring pretty quick.
We had managed to hide pretty much all the evidence at this point and nothing was left to do except work.
Work, as all of us know, is to be avoided at all costs. So I started teaching the boys some Man Games.
My Uncle Hack invented Man Games, and I will glady kick the ass of anyone who says different.
His favorite was a manly feat of strength with a 20 lb sledge hammer and a beer.
It goes like this.
You hold the Beer in your Left hand.
With your right your grab the very end of the handle on a 20 pound sledge. (15 lb min)
You hoist the hammer up to shoulder height and hold your arm straight out from your body.
Without bending your arm or dropping it from below shoulder level you lower the head of the hammer down until it touches your nose.
Without bending your arm or lowering it at all you raise the hammer back up to starting position.
Then you drink the Beer.
Hack could do this all night. Sitting down.
I could do it three times.
Just enough to show the kids, then repeat. Then the "oh Yeah!"
Kelly tried first.
It was not a catostophic failure, but it was a near thing.
After his first try I made them hold their left hand in front of their faces to catch the Hammer when they dropped it.
We didnt have any Beer anyways.
Our Boss, Eric the Black irish came up and saw what we were doing.
Notably not impressed he growled at me to "Put the Hammer back and the rest of you monkeys get back to work".
He walked with me to the end of the store to put the Hammer back.
As soon as we were out of sight of the boys he asked me to show him how to do it. Then he demanded to know the trick.
The trick?
Try a lifetime of manuel labor.
Some trick.
So he had to give it a whril.
I really did try and talk him out of it. Eric the Black Irish was my favorite boss of all save one, and I still felt bad about beating him in the arm-wrestle.
Oh well.
I talked him into going down to the 15 lb from the 20.
This was a very good thing.
He refused to put his hand in front of his face and when his arm gave out he was not as Fast or as lucky as Kelly.
15 pounds of hammer dropped from two feet right between the eyes.
ouch.
His head bouncing of the concrete floor would have hurt too.
had he been concious.
I thought it had killed him.
So I wiped my prints from the hammer and re-racked it
A demonstration, by me :)

Making Loud noises

Ever blown anything up?
I am not talking about firecrackers.
For those of you that have known me for a long time, you were probably aware of this. For those of you who are just meeting me here ya go.
I like to blow stuff up.
Or as I shall refer to it henceforth "make really loud noises" to avoid being put on any sort of watch list.
Let me re-phrase.
To be put on ANY MORE watch lists.
I love Dry Ice.
It makes the best loud noises.
I even have a special recipe, after years (kid time, one summer) of testing I came up with three things.
1: Powder the Dry ice
2: Use cold water
3: Two liter bottles work, BUT, Listerine bottles are EXCEPTIONAL.
I won’t go into the details of the process of obtaining the un-obtanium on this list.
Watch list.
We used to make them at night after church activities in the summer. Praise God and blow stuff up.
Its an age old practice.
We launched a 50 gallon drum around 1/2 a minute high. It was dark and the drum was black and we couldn’t see it. It was in the air 1/2 a minute.
We had a pound of dry ice and a whole bunch of bottles. We had yet to figure out how perfectly they fit inside a mailbox, that was the next summer.
For this summer we were content to set them on the street or throw them in the air.
They are near as loud as Dynamite.


The group of us were making them and laughing and running and just being kids.
Every time a car would pull into the neighborhood we would scatter to shouts of "it’s a cop!" but it was all in fun. Never did any of us for a second think it actually was a cop.
Kids.
We had just enough dry ice for two more noises but only one bottle, so we doubled up everything and screwed the lid down extra tight. We were in the road, two houses away from mine. We set the bottle down and ran across the street, the bottle rolled to the curb and just sat there.
Waiting.
Waiting.
wai..... Car coming into the neighborhood, shouts of "its a cop" accompanied by the sound of Air Jordan knockoffs (except for Darren, his were real) running away from the scene of the soon to be crime.
Our giggles and laughter turned to silence. It was a cop.

Hiding became paramount.
Its amazing how many kids can fit into a window well, especially when someone whose name I will not mentions runs into his house and LOCKS THE FREAKING DOOR!
Shit, Danny.
Leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves as the killer of fun pulled slowly up to the curb.
Parking.
Directly over the as of yet un-exploded noise maker.
we collectively whispered "oh shit"
The guardian of the peace flipped on his little spotlight and began to shine it hither and yon, looking for, no doubt, the source of the whispered scatological reference.
Remember in the Fire swamp?
You know, when Buttercup and Wesley are escaping from Prince Humperdinck?
The popping that comes right before the flames?
Seconds before a dry ice b..........
Sorry. Slip.
Seconds before the noise maker detonates it clicks.
It was clicking in the silence.
As the cop found us in his light, opened his door, started to put his foot on the ground....
Yep.
It was loud.
Really really loud.
Its amazing how fast kids can get out of a window well.
Even more amazing is how many police and fire trucks and unmarked black helicopters responded.
It took me three hours to get home.
Every single back yard in the neighborhood felt my feet that night.
It was.

Wonderful

Not us, some other morons