Thursday, March 11, 2004
05:44 p.m.
I'm so proud! A college friend of mine, Brett Single, has been dragged... kicking and screaming... into the world wide waste of time we techies like to call blogging.
I just added his link to my own blog here, so you may want to take a look. He has a great sense of humor, full of a lot of cultural and cult references.
Hazzah my friend, Hazzah.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
12:27 a.m.
I took a "trucker's weekend" and drove up to Minneapolis to pick up a woodstove and some equipment for work. I visited with friends and relatives, and managed to become tired enough to come home to screw up an easy plumbing problem. After sleeping on it, and getting some help, I was finally able to fix the outside faucet on my house.
The weather is finally getting nice, so I can get started on all of my outdoor projects. Whoopeee.
Monday, March 1, 2004
10:00 p.m.
I've been thinking of some new words to live by:
Never go far into the world... without directions to the nearest ice cream shop.
Keep your nose between the ditches... the smokey out of your breeches... and the greasy side down.
If you're going bungee jumping... don't lie about your weight.
If you're seeing camels humping when you lift weights... it's probably time to lay off the 'roids.
If you date a college girl... you can't date her roommate.
There are a lot of fish in the sea... just make sure you don't gut them all if you don't intend to keep them.
If you think life is hard... try walking around like a hermit crab for a day.
Don't tell someone who smells like mint that they smell nice... it might be Ben Gay.
When you take a mint... don't forget to leave a mint next time.
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Next time you fret about your looks... think about how lucky you'll be if you look as good as your grandparents someday.
Monday, March 1, 2004
09:53 p.m.
I was just thinking the other day that in an age of so many things that s#ck, there are a lot of products out there that are really quite amazing. Here are a few of my favorites:
1.Barbasol Shaving Cream
There is something special about this product. For one, you never really have to buy a can of Barbasol. My dad gave me my first can, and I think it was passed to him from his dad.
2.Mule Gloves
Common garden gloves, they are part cotton and part leather. And they cost a dollar. What a deal.
3.MP3
Sure, they don't sound as good as a regular CD, but an MP3 file is so small, you can fit hundreds of them in the smallest of places. They shook up the music business, which was full of money laundering and drugs. And best of all, the young inventor gave the MP3 to the world... for free. Not unlike Saulk and his Polio vaccine.
4.Pancake
There's something so beautiful about the pancake. They're inexpensive, they're ultimately stackable and they take up the whole plate, so there's no wasted real estate on the table. There's always room for a pad of butter on top. And the texture naturally soaks up syrup or jelly so that the two become a part of each other.
5.Percolator Coffee Pot
The hard core coffee drinker and the purist coffee drinker both know the best way to make coffee. And that isn't by passing steam through the grounds or by letting the tepid water seep through the grounds only once. Real coffee must be sent through the coffee grounds several hundred times before you can stand a spoon up in it. Real coffee, made only in a percolator pot, grows hair on your tongue and turns your insides black. Stop being a wus and buy a real coffee pot.
6.Square drive deck and drywall screws and bits
Somebody had their thinking hats on when they thought up this one. Anyone who's ever done any work with regular phillips bits and phillips screws has stripped out dozens of these. And when I bought a square bit, it was and probably will be the last one I'll ever buy. It's not the standard yet, but I hope it will be.
7.Plastic Zip Ties
I buy these plastic zip ties by the thousands. I use them to bind up cable, mostly. And while I find them personally useful, I was also impressed when I saw the first pair being used as handcuffs during Mardi Gras. What a great idea, you sickos!
8.Salad in a Bag
What a great idea. Chop up some lettuce, put in some carrot shreds. You don't even need a plate for this one. Just add the salad dressing, and eat your salad out of the bag. How convenient!
9.The Bicycle and the Motorcycle.
Two of the most efficient machines since Archimedes invented the screw, both will get you there quickly, and will not destroy your view. Many bicycles built these days are said to be better than 90% efficient. The motorcycle requires very little fuel to create more than enough horsepower for a few hundred pounds of metal and cargo. The only downfall of riding either machine is that other humans are either intrisically evil or stupid, so everyone out there on the road is trying to hit you. Keep that in mind, and you'll be O.K.
10.Electric Motors
Funny how we're just figuring out how to use a device, even 100 years after it was invented. We finally figured out how to move a car with an electric motor. We figured out how to use smaller motors in portable hand tools. We even figured out if we can make it wobble, we can make a cell phone vibrate so we wouldn't interrupt a meeting or a movie.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
05:37 p.m.
Meeting with family this week, the question was again posed about when I am going to get married. And while there is no real answer to this, I thought I'd bring back something I wrote a while ago, post it here on my blog, and see if I get any response (which I hope does not come in the form of backlash). It is entitled:
A Wedding Proposal
A while ago, my friend Stace and I were talking about an upcoming wedding she was attending. She was a bridesmaid and was being forced by her dear friend to pay an exorbitant amount of money for "just the right shoes."
They not only had to be a certain type, they had to be a certain brand, and be bought at a certain store. She was fuming.
I can understand said behavior if you are, say, bowling. There, the wrong shoes could mark up the floor a laneskeeper spend years waxing and perfecting before and after every shift.
I can also understand if you are an electrician and you need the right insulation from creating a short and electrocuting yourself.
But a wedding, as I understand it, is supposed to be a happy day. And unless your happiness comes from making your bridesmaids miserable, what is the point of forcing your bad shoe choices upon your friends?
At that point, I came up with an idea. The bride, the groom, the minister (priest, rabbi, or fill in the blank) all get to wear costumes on this day, why not have the rest of the attendees wear costumes?
I could just picture some of the gawd-awful ideas that some of my friends and relatives could come up with, so there would obviously have to be some policy in place.
It might even be more fun to pick everyone's costumes, or give them a limited choice, so nobody picked up any lame costumes. I thought it might be fun to have the ring-bearer dress up as Mini-Me. Maybe the flower girl could be Janis Joplin, or Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in a flowing black robe.
When I later mentioned this whole idea to my little brother Drew he started laughing, and came up with an even better idea. He said you could shave the ring-bearer's head, paint a squiggly mark on his forehead and have him come as Charlie Brown. The flower girl could be Lucy, and hold the pillow like a football and pull it away as the ring bearer came down the hall to kick it.
It's no wonder why neither my brother or I are married yet, is it?
I don't remember who came up with the idea, but one of us was thinking that if you had two mother-in-laws with good senses of humor, you could dress them up as the Wicked Witch of the East and West. (red and white striped socks, too)
The only problem this might pose is what to dress up the father-in-laws. Maybe Hannibal Lecter or Frankenstein would be fun.
You might be able to put the two together and have one couple be Al and Peggy Bundy. The other parents could be Homer and Marj Simpson. Or one could be Santa Claus, the other the Easter Bunny.
The bridal party could be based on Marvel Comic superheroes. Superman would have to be the best man. Batman, Robin, The Flash, The Green Lantern. On the women's side, you could have Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Courtney Love and Martha Stewart.
The ushers could dress up in those fluorescent suits and wave big flashlights like those guys who direct planes on the runway. And the Hosts could be characters from Gilligan's Island or the Addams Family.
The photographer could dress with a fedora and a "press" card in his hat.
I mentioned this whole idea to a college friend of mine. He said if I ever talked my future wife into this idea, he would have dibs on being Madonna.
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
10:14 p.m.
I don't usually post anything here that isn't mine, but today I'm going to make an exception. I recently ran across a hard copy of it, and I figured I'd post it in my blog for anyone interested in wanting to know a little bit more about me.
I won't preface this with a lot of my own writing. I will simply say that this man was my hero. He seems to have always said the right thing at the right time. And when he gave this speech to a group of television execs and celebrities, he left the whole room silent, with people only wiping away tears. It was the first time since my grandpa died that I cried.
It also is, in part, why I do what I do. And it is, in part, who I am trying to become:
Fame is a four-letter word; and like tape or zoom or face or pain or life or love, what ultimately matters is what we do with it.
I feel that those of us in television are chosen to be servants. It doesn't matter what our particular job, we are chosen to help meet the deeper needs of those who watch and listen-day and night!
The conductor of the orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl grew up in a family that had little interest in music, but he often tells people he found his early inspiration from the fine musicians on televison.
Last month a thirteen-year-old boy abducted an eight-year-old girl; and when people asked him why, he said he learned about it on TV. “Something different to try,” he said. “Life's cheap; what does it matter?”
Well, life isn't cheap. It's the greatest mystery of any millennium, and television needs to do all it can to broadcast that... to show and tell what the good in life is all about.
But how do we make goodness attractive? By doing whatever we can do to bring courage to those whose lives move near our own-by treating our “neighbor” at least as well as we treat ourselves and allowing that to inform everything that we produce.
Who in your life has been such a servant to you... who has helped you love the good that grows within you? Let's just take ten seconds to think of some of those people who have loved us and wanted what was best for us in life-those who have encouraged us to become who we are tonight-just ten seconds of silence.
No matter where they are-either here or in heaven-imagine how pleased those people must be to know that you thought of them right now.
We all have only one life to live on earth. And through television, we have the choice of encouraging others to demean this life or to cherish it in creative, imaginative ways.
On behalf of all of us at Family Communications and the Public Broadcasting Service, I thank you for all the good that you do in this unique enterprise... and for wanting our Neighborhood to be part of this celebration tonight. Thank you very much.
Fred Rogers
Acceptance Speech
Television Hall of Fame
February, 1999
Monday, February 16, 2004
06:15 p.m.
I wound up in Wisconsin to cover the primaries. And while normally the thoughts of all the good beer and cheese I can drink and eat sound very appetizing, I will forgo the usual fun for a good night of rest and catching up.
I made it to the bookstore today, but It simply was not meant to be. My phone rang every 30-seconds, regarding every issue under the sun. Most of them I couldn't do anything about, since I didn't go in to the store under the premise that I would have to play office all afternoon. But it sure beats having to take notes while driving. There's nothing more nerve-racking than that. I don't do that anymore. Especially now that I'm driving more than 13-tons of expensive equipment down the road.
By the sounds of things back home in Kansas, the snow is melting and there should soon be enough bare, hard ground to put a few loads of materials for my barn. I'm trying to get it done soon enough so the cost of materials don't go up. And I'm trying to hold off just enough to make sure that I have the capital to put up for all of the materials and labor.
Monday, February 16, 2004
03:09 a.m.
This Valentine's Day got me thinking about how I've never placed a personals ad. So I thought I'd write one.
Sam writes a personals ad:
samiskewl-2004-789
You do not want to date me:
I'm not a jerk, is just that you will never get to see me, because I'm on the road all the time. And that's not a bad thing, I love my job and I love to travel. Staying busy keeps me sane. I work as an engineer in the television business, and the work takes me all over the midwest and many other parts of the country. When the time comes for some type of promotion or a job change, it will probably mean MORE travelling. Living on the road is my life. And as I see it, that will never change. And if you haven't learned by now, you cannot change anyone. They can only change themselves.
You should date a guy who has a 9-5 job, and gets weekends and holidays off. That's not me. This year, I made it to Thanksgiving, a wedding and a reunion, but I missed the rest. I spent one Christmas fixing a generator in -20 degree temperatures. The last ten Valentine's Days were spent covering basketball games or breaking news events.
Maybe you could check out the grocery store, or try hanging out at the lumberyard. You might meet some nice guy there. Look for a guy who appears to be cooking from scratch, or is looking for large bags of grass seed or some lumber for a backyard project. He's probably a real hands-on guy and cares about the quality of life.
Sure, when I'm not working, I am that guy who cooks things from scratch. I work on my yard whenever I'm home. I play a lot of different instruments and love to sing. I live in the country, and I love to take trips into the city. I do what I can to not only treat everyone as an equal, but to try to build them up with kind words or by helping them. Family is very important to me. And even though I lose track of most of them, I care very much about all of the friends I've made over the years.
Maybe I'm the type of guy you really want to meet, but believe me: If you saw my calendar, you wouldn't want anything to do with me.
So, you're asking, why would I want to post anything if I had no chance of attracting an incredible person like you?
Maybe I just want to say what so many other people should be telling you right now: You are really beautiful. You deserve nothing but the best. You should turn off all of the sources telling you how you should look, how you should feel, how you should act, and who you should be dating. Everyone I know who's bought into those lies are very unhappy right now. And maybe I should be included. Maybe I bought into it at one time, too.
When I think of all the times I missed my chance at being with someone special, I see a lot of women who are just like you: One woman was just a little too Catholic. One was just a little too earthly. Another was a little too athletic. One had a little bit too much emotional baggage. And one was into playing games.
I wish those women could have met me now. I might be able to find the right words. They might see me as stable or professional or whatever words and ideas you might use in a personal ad like this. I might get the chance to make them happy, even if just for a date or two.
But I digress. Remember, you do not want to date me. You may like me. You might even fall in love with me. But you don't need me.
Saturday, February 14, 2004
01:58 a.m.
My tractor parts finally got done last week, and my dad went over to Missouri to pick it up. Once I get it installed, it will allow me to use 3-point hitch equipment on my tractor.
Of course, I still need to do a lot to the tractor to get it looking and running like new. I don't really have any type of schedule, but I should probably set a goal of getting it overhauled mechanically by next winter.
As soon as the snow is gone, I need to get moving on my barn. That's going to happen fast, once it gets going.
