Russell to the Rescue

I’ve had many flat tires over the years.

On my first car, the 1974 Camaro, I burned a hole through the rubber trying to smoke the tires.

Thinking back, I can remember changing many a tire. When I was in college, I even had a blowout on 635, the LBJ Freeway here in Dallas. I pulled over and changed it right there on the highway. I’m lucky to be alive!

However, I haven’t had a flat in years. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that on my Trailblazer, while I know technically what has to be done to get the spare tire lowered, I don’t actually have any working knowledge about how to get the spare tire down from its little spare tire hideout.

Oh sure, I can work the jack and get the lug nuts off, and truth be known, given time and the opportunity, I could figure out the whole “tire lowering” thing.

But when it’s dark, and it’s raining, and you have a car full of loud ninth grade girls it is hard to have the mental skills necessary for that kind of mechanical problem solving. At least it is for me.

So you can imagine my shock and awe as my wife and I are driving our daughter and five of her friends home from Chili’s when we get a flat tire.

As it turns out, Russell, the dad of one of the girls, hops in his truck and comes to give me a hand. I was hoping Russell would at the very least have a flashlight, which he did. Russell also had a floor jack, a crossbar lug wrench, and he had a wealth of knowledge about how to lower the spare tire on a 2005 Chevrolet Trailblazer…. Go figure!

In the end the tire got changed, no girls got injured or even wet and I didn’t even get all that dirty. (Only because I let Russell do most of the work. After all, they were his tools!)

Yep, I’ve had many flat tires over the years.

Maybe next time I’ll be a little bit more like Russell...

First White Christmas

I’m 45 years old and I have never experienced a white Christmas…

that is until this year!

While it didn’t actually snow on Christmas day, it did snow Christmas Eve, and we did have snow on the ground on Christmas morning.

And baby, in my book that’s a white Christmas!

I got some pretty impressive pictures on both Christmas Eve and Christmas day.

See what you think.

So was my Christmas White?

You be the judge!

Funny Man

When you’re a guy who like to be funny, and you’re around people on a daily basis who think you are hilarious…well baby, you’ve got it made!

That’s how it is for me every single day. At least, that is, until summer vacation.

Never mind my audience is a room full of nine and ten year olds who aren’t allowed to boo or walk out. If you’re keeping your audience (captive or not) in stitches it’s great for a comic’s ego.

Sure, the adults in the building think I’m funny too, at least the hip adults do, but they aren’t my core audience.

You see, my crowd has a fascination with cooties, nose picking and bodily functions. All I have to do is ask someone to quit picking their nose, and the room explodes with laughter. It doesn’t matter if this person was actually picking, because the room still falls apart.

Truth be known, it actually works better if he or she wasn’t engaged in the afore mentioned behavior, because their violent protests create even more giggles.

Yep, I may only be a teacher, but I’m livin’ the stand-up comedian’s dream…

Go Figure!

I realize that my postings were happening at a frequency of about one per month. Then suddenly, as if by magic, I blast out three postings in a week.

I'm not sure what's gotten into me...maybe it's the hair.

Go figure!

Shocking Results...

I was being the dutiful son-in-law and helping my mother-in-law hang her Christmas decorations. She didn’t have a lot of lights to hang, but it was a cold, drizzling day so I believe that will award me some extra jewels in my crown when I get to heaven.

“Don’t you mean IF you get to heaven,” I can hear people like K-Dog saying, but I just don’t listen to those people.

Anyway, I’m just about finished hanging the lights on the first part of the house, when I plug them in to see how I need to adjust the strands.

I noticed some haphazard spacing between a few of the rows of lights that’s on one of those prickly holly bushes. As I grab the lights I feel this sharp prick in my finger. Thinking it was just the holly bush I just ignored the pain and kept moving the lights.

That’s when I felt the jolt.

Now, the sensation you get from a jolt of electricity is not something new for me. I do enough “handy-man” type of work around my house that I’ve touch more than my fair share of live wires. I also worked with an electrician at Peacock Chevrolet in Houston while I was in high school. I made everyone in the shop laugh uncontrollably on several occasions when I was knocked on my butt after grabbing the coil wire of a car before turning off the engine.

As it turned out, there was a broken bulb on the cord that I didn’t see. When I grabbed the cord, my finger landed on the exposed negative and positive leads. This was only a 110 connection, so I wasn’t ever in any danger. If that was all that had happened I wouldn’t have thought twice about it and wouldn’t even be writing this post.

However, probably half an hour later, as I was driving home my iphone made an odd noise. I pulled it out and the message on the screen said, “No SIM Card.”

I was very puzzled, tried to use it and nothing. All my contacts where there and the games would play, but I couldn’t make calls.

After restarting the phone everything works again. No problems at all.

The only thing I can assume is that the shock somehow went through me into the phone and caused some kind of a glitch. I may find other problems later, but for now it’s business as usual.

I am, however, quite intrigued by being a human conductor. My class is just finishing up a unit in science on electricity and magnetism. I can’t wait to tell them about their teacher’s Christmas light adventure and its shocking results…

In Search of Neon

And so I’ve got this very creative friend…Let's just call him K-Dog.

K-Dog is forever pulling out some new thing he’s into that just exudes creativity. His latest thing is neon signs.

He told me about his fascination with neon a few months ago.

“What I do is find some cool, old neon sign, take a picture of it, and then I can digitally rebuild it. The whole process is really amazing!”

At first I was intrigued and curious. I like neon as much as the next guy, or at least I thought I did. Come to find out, K-Dog will research each sign to find out its history. He’ll know things like when and where it was made, when it was placed on the building and probably even the brand and size of boots worn by the workmen who installed it.

For some, like the signs on motel chains such as Holiday Inn, he tries to find out where any of the surviving neon signs might still be up and working.

K-Dog is a neon nut!

I’ve only seen a couple of his digital, neon re-creations, but I was blow away.

I know of two really cool neon signs here in Dallas that K-Dog hasn’t seen. One is pretty nice, the other one is really amazing. I’m not going to say anything more about them, because K-Dog and I are going to go on a Dallas Neon search sometime over the Christmas break. And since K-Dog is one of the few readers of my blog, I don’t want to give it away.

However, rest assured that I’ll post some before and after pictures of any of the neon signs we happen to find that K-Dog ends up rebuilding.

Long Hair

So I decided, back on March 5^th of 2009, to just let my hair grow. I’ve kind of had long hair before, but this time it’s different.

You see, before now, when I’ve had long hair, parts of my hair would be long (like the back for instance) but I’d keep the rest in check by getting it trimmed about once a month…or so. Now I don’t have any actual pictures of this, but rest assured it was in no way a mullet.

Anyway…

On March 5, 2009, I was getting my hair trimmed and I just decided to not go back for two months. Before I knew what was happening, two months turned into three and then into four.

By this time my hair had gone through several stages or phases. I would wake up one day and discover that I couldn’t get my hair to work right at all and that it was time to get it cut. However, after a week or two of procrastination, I would wake up and find that it was working again. Then, almost on schedule, a couple of weeks would go by and I’d be right back in the same “bad hair” dilemma I had been in only a few weeks ago. Once again I would fully intend to go get it trimmed, but just wouldn’t get around to going. And the “Good Hair/Bad Hair” thing would start all over again.

I began to find the whole “Good Hair –vs– Bad Hair” situation a wee-bit comical.

At this point I decided not to go to the barber for anything other than getting my sideburns trimmed until 2010. And that brings us to today. Having long hair has been a true learning experience for me. I've learned some valuable lessons that I couldn't have learned with my previous do.

Some of the things my long hair has taught me:

1. Washing long hair is nothing like washing short hair. I see now why my parents gave me a buzz-cut until the third grade.

2. If you have long hair, the wind is not always your friend.

3. If you’re a guy with long hair, people talk to you about art and other cool things like you actually know about them.

4. And if your boss asks you to cut your hair, this is sexual harassment. This never actually happened, it just occurred to me.

Over Thanksgiving, my family was walking to a little restaurant near my parents home when, due to the wind, my hair was being kind of funny. Luckily for me, my daughter captured it on film.

Check out Hugh’s funny hair pictures below.

Me trying not to laugh.

Me doing I don't know what...but looking rather dumb.

I don’t know how long I’m going to let it get…but I’ll keep you posted.

When Your Age Rounds to Fifty...

I woke up yesterday and realized that my age rounds to fifty. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been aware of this for quite some time. I have actually gone to great lengths to and taken great pleasure in reminding my brother of this fact.

However, I somehow thought it would feel different. I can’t exactly put my finger on just how I thought being closer to fifty than to forty was supposed to make me feel, I guess I just didn’t feel very enlightened. Whatever that means.

So far life closer to 50 is not all that much different than life closer to 40, with the possible exception of my hair.

I’m 45 and my hair is the longest it has ever been in my entire life. I don’t know why I decided to grow my hair long…I just did.

So in a nutshell, that’s what is happening in this old man’s life.

As for the hair, I’ll keep you posted. I may even tack some before and after pictures.

Wouldn’t that be kooky!

Faux Pas

Yes, you may have heard of,

What some other folks saw

Of that which I speak,

Is Hugh’s verbal Faux pas

I was tying the bow,

On my UPS lesson

When I strayed from my plans,

And my thoughts started guessin’

We’ve all had that happen,

At least from time to time

And the truth is that usually,

Things work out just fine

You start to say one thing,

And your brain turns to wood

Your thoughts take a twist,

And don’t work like they should

Most times you just mentally,

Shuffle each word

And the message you meant,

Is the message folks heard

But then there are times,

When your brain turns to goo

And you say something that,

You just didn’t mean to

You sense your mouth moving,

And your thinking just falls

Then you hear yourself mutter,

About “Bob’s two balls”

You try to stay cool,

But you look up to see,

Your whole team’s eyes widen,

And then they all flee

You sense the night’s over,

So you bow low your head

Then you exit stage left,

With your face very red

Last night, as I was talking with a group of parents about our math problem solving strategy, I was trying to make a point about the difference in the amount of reading comprehension involved in math these days as opposed to back when I was in elementary school. I said something like;

"Back in my day, math word problems would be like Bob has two balls and Dave had 3 balls, how many balls do they have all together?"

Laughter is the last thing I remember.

Isn't life just a wonderful thing?

A Visit From A Farm Animal

There aren’t all that many farms or ranches in Dallas anymore these days. Oh sure, we live less that 20 miles from South Fork. The former Ewing ranch made famous decades ago by the mildly popular television show Dallas. Perhaps you’ve heard of it…

Anyway, other than that I don’t really even know where you’d go in Dallas to find an actual working farm. (South Fork hasn’t been a working farm in years)

However, even with the lack of farms here in Big-D, we found ourselves on the receiving end of a visit from a rather pesky little farm animal.

The animal in question is both pink and plump with a flat nose and a curly tail. And no, I’m not talking about Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web…for us it was nothing than mundane!

Our little friend goes by the name “H1N1” and carries with him a basket of little goodies with things like a cough, sore throat, fever and chills.

That’s right it’s everyone’s favorite, the Swine Flu!

To tell the truth, for now, only my daughter has gotten to see our little pink bundle of joy, and the rest of us are washing out hands constantly in an effort to avoid any pork related illnesses.

So far, so good.

When did the other white meat get to be such a nuisance?

Fun with Head Injuries...

Our daughter was having what we could only assume was some form of migraine headache. After several months of visits to the pediatrician, the pediatric neurologist and a sleep deprived EEG, we were finally at what we hoped would be the final doctor’s appointment for at least six months if not a full year.

Doctor Zinser, the pediatric neurologist, was walking us through all the ins and outs of the “Alice in Wonderland” migraines that our daughter was experiencing.

To make a long story short, especially since this isn’t the true crux of the story, she’s doing fine and hasn’t had a migraine is quite a while.

The real story is about a funny thing that happened while the whole family was with Doctor Zinser.

He had a medical student with him who was simply there to get her feet wet, as it were, in the field of pediatric neurology. Suddenly, Doctor Zinser fires off a question to the student doctor.

“So at what age is the frontal lobe fully developed?”

All eyes shoot across to the student who we had all but forgotten about for the last 20 minutes. “Um…20?” Was the timid, stuttering answer.

“Nope, 25.” Was the somewhat stern reply from Doctor Zinser.

Turning back to us, the parents, but really speaking to the medical student, he said, “Now this is pretty amazing. I’ll gently tap the forehead and due to the fact that she’s only 14 and the frontal lobe of the brain is not fully developed we will see some twitching in her lip and under her eyes.”

He went into much greater detail than this, but it’s not like this happened yesterday, so I have no idea what he said.

Using his reflex mallet he tapped her head and sure enough, the twitching began. I don’t mind telling you I was VERY intrigued.

“What would happen if you did that to me?” I asked without ever taking my eyes off her face.

“Nothing at all. Do you want me to show you?”

The words weren’t even all out of his mouth when, sounding somewhat like a girl who was just ask out for her first date, I gleefully shouted, “Are you kidding? Of course I do!”

As he began tapping my forehead I started to experience what felt like twitching under my eyes.

Melissa told me later that my eyes were actually twitching more my daughter’s had.

He paused, obviously more that a wee-bit puzzled. Melissa said that, while his face never changed expression, she saw in his eyes a look that said, “Oh Crap, something’s wrong, what do I do now?”

That’s when Melissa jumped in and blurted out the words, that saved the day for our doctor friend, “Hugh probably should have told you that he is a diffuse axonal head injury survivor.”

In a blink of an eye, the good doctor's demeanor went from panic, to relief, to interest. And I had to give the streamline version of my head injury story. One I’m sure he’s all too familiar with, but was intrigued by all the same.

He explained that my brain’s frontal lobe must have been pretty severely damaged and other parts of my brain took over and learned to do whatever it is that the frontal lobe does. Therefore, my frontal lobe didn’t have the chance or really even the need to fully develop.

It’s not very often that you get to snap a doctor to attention like that.

Yep, as far as practical jokes go…this head injury thing is turning out to be a gold mine!

And So I've Got This Tree...

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. It is a red oak tree that’s tall with a wonderful spread of branches that create a nice, comfortably shaded sitting area. We have some patio furniture under it and everything looks nice.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. A few months ago this tree, after I rather stupidly cut a low branch off, started leaking sap onto our nice new patio furniture. The sap was leaking out of the spot where I cut the branch off. I simply moved the furniture, and sprayed some black pruning sealant on the stub of the chopped off branch, then went about my business.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. Some days go by and I discover, much to my chagrin, that insects have come and not only eaten through the pruning sealant causing it to leak again, but they have also started boring through the bark on other branches and now my tree is leaking sap in half a dozen other places.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. As it turns out, this tree is becoming somewhat of a sap sprinkler. Each and every day there are new spots on the patio and the furniture and we have bugs of all kinds all around the tree. At this point I begin to get concerned that there may be a chance we could lose our wonderful tree.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. A friend suggests that we call an arborist (or tree doctor as I enjoy calling him) to assess the condition of our now ailing tree. Dr. Matthew, the arborist, comes and makes a “yard-call” to check out our tree. He inspects the sap on the ground and furniture, takes a look up through the branches and says, “Yep, you’ve got boring beetles. They bore holes through the bark and the tree creates the sap to fix the holes. However, the sap is what is attracting all the other bugs, plus more boring beetles. It’s an endless cycle. We could give the tree some injections and that would kill the beetles as well as make the sap that the tree makes taste bad so the boring beetles won’t come back. It will cost about 160 dollars.”

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. After weighing the cost of the anti-boring beetle injections against the cost of dead tree removal and replacement, I decided to go ahead and have the tree doctor administer his medication. He came, made the injections and in 48 hours the tree was leaking much less sap and things were getting back to normal…or so it seemed.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. A couple of weeks pass and the tree’s sap leakage is right back to the amount that it was before the injections. So I call Dr. Matthew and he comes back for his second yard-call. He couldn’t find any trace of the boring beetles, but after scraping, smelling and probably even tasting several bark samples, our tree doctor came back with this diagnosis. “What you have here is a fungus, but not just any fungus. Now, this isn’t a fungus that is usually found in red oak trees, that’s what’s so fascinating! Your tree’s bark smells like apple cider that means it’s in the fermentation process. What’s happening is the insects that have been coming to eat the sap have introduced some kind of yeast to the tree. And so the sugars in the sap, combined with the yeast from the bugs is fermenting to create alcohol. Basically, your tree is making beer.”

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. And now, living in my tree are a bunch of alcoholic bugs who are spending their days lapping up keg after keg of my homemade tree beer. Not to mention the fact that our two baby opossums, the ones from the grill, have made this tree their home and have also been eating the sap. Which explains why their little squeals sound slurred and they’ve been seen staggering around with bloodshot eyes.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. According to my tree’s doctor, this condition isn’t life threatening for the tree and there’s nothing you can do but wait and hope it stops. Our tree is just an easy fix for all the alcoholic critters I’ve created in the neighborhood.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio.

And for now...it’s open bar!

Somebody Moved My Cheese

I played around with the settings a little bit...even added a picture!

May do more later.

Hugh

Fun With Wildlife

School starts tomorrow and we decided that it might be fun to grill some steaks for dinner.

Now, while I haven’t actually used my larger grill in well over a year, I do in fact own two grills. Don’t ask why, because I’m not actually sure what the reasoning was behind getting two, suffice it to say, I’ve have, or rather I used to have, two grills.

I usually use the smaller, newer of my two grills. It just works a little bit better. However, we decided that grilling some corn sounded good, so I went out to see if I could even still fire-up the big grill. We moved to this house in May, and I hadn’t done anything more than push the large grill into a corner on the back porch and forget about it.

I pulled it out from the corner, opened the top and was greeted by not one, but two hissing opossums!

Slamming the lid shut, I did a ten-foot, standing long jump. After I landed I’m sure I looked like Fred Sanford as I stood there holding my chest and panting.

They scared the crap out of me!

In my defense, opossums are really ugly! And even if you were expecting to be face to face and six inches away from one of these little guys, I dare say you’d be on pins and needles. So, when it’s completely unexpected you’re lucky if you don’t need to change your pants.

Being the loving and concerned wife that she is, and thinking I had just blown myself up, Melissa started outside to check on her husband.

When I told her what had happened any concern for me flew right out the window, and the new object of her affection our were newly discovered grill squatters. Carefully reopening the grill, we found that the two opossums were actually babies who seemed not only extremely frightened, but also somewhat malnourished.

This is the point at which Melissa begins talking about, only kind of in jest, us keeping them as pets. I don't think I ever even responded.

We called animal control and explaining that we had two opossums in our grill. A somewhat perplexed operator explained that animal control doesn’t actually provide grilling instructions. After a hearty chuckle on our end of the phone, we did our best to help her understand that, while lighting the grill did cross my mind, varmint extraction and not food preparation was the actual reason for our call.

It was about then that we noticed, as we peered through the window, that the sicklier of the two youngsters was actually beginning to venture out. After comically breaking several laws of physics, she somehow managed to move from the grill to a nearby bush. Seeing this, we started rooting for the second of our grill’s residents to move out as well. However, he didn’t seem to be ready to leave the nest. At this point I rushed to the garage and found a stick about four feet long. I came back and poked a now very irritated opossum until he finally got the hint that he had worn out his welcome.

As soon as both were out I closed the lid and pulled the whole grill around to the front of the house for tomorrow’s scheduled bulk trash pick up.

I know what you’re thinking…we still have two baby opossums under a bush in our backyard.

Let me tell you that that is the least of my worries. You see, behind out house is a creek that is surrounded by all manner of plant life, not to mention snakes, armadillos, opossums and who knows what else. We’ve found snakes in the pool and seen both armadillos an opossums roaming the yard. So now that these two trespassers are free from their grill prison, I’m sure they will have no trouble finding their way back to their real house, or their mom, or their whatever it is they have out there. At least not after it gets dark.

While I’m on the subject, how in the hell did they get inside my grill in the first place?

I couldn’t find any openings large enough for them to fit through. If they did happen to somehow squeeze in from the bottom, then they would have to lift the grill rack and then climb up through a small gap to get on top. I know they have opposable thumbs, but come on…that’s a bit much!

In the end, the opossums are gone, I didn’t get bitten and we still grilled steaks!

I guess we can say that in the end a good time was had by all!

Well, maybe not the opossum I poked with a stick…but he as being stubborn!

Watering less really does pay...

Our old house didn’t have a sprinkler system, so I really didn’t know anything about setting the zones, or setting the watering days, or setting the watering times. Basically, I knew nothing.

Our controller is a Toro, (a brand I’ve heard nothing good about, but that’s for another story) so I read the book and figured it out. However, I had no way of knowing how long to set each zone to “sprinkle”. In my old yard, I would set the sprinkler in the yard with the hose and leave it on for about 30 minutes, but for some reason this seemed too long for each zone to be on. So I decided to cut that in half and set it to water for 15 minutes per zone, seven days a week.

Then I got the first water bill…$569.27!

What I failed to take into consideration was the fact that my yard has eight zones. 8x15=120. That means I was watering my yard for two hours each day. Something had to be done.

Thanks to the rather rainy summer we’ve been having here, and the early settlers in Dallas we rarely ever have any real watering restrictions. Back in the 1800’s, evidently, the Dallas city or county leaders had the forethought to buy or trade for all the water in the surrounding lakes that is below 30 feet. (This number could be wrong, but you get the idea) This means that in the summer when the lakes levels drop and all the surrounding cities are limiting the watering days and times, because they have to buy most of their water from Dallas, Dallas city residents are leaving the faucets on while they brush their teeth, they are watering whenever they want to and basically just pouring water down the drain.

But I digress…

My mother-in-law, who lives in one of those surrounding cities, told me that she is allowed to water on three days a week and she does so for 10 minutes per day. Her grass is always green and her yard looks nice so I decided to alter my watering plan.

I was watering 15 minutes per day and seven days a week for a total of 840 minutes per week. Now I’m watering four zones for 10 minutes and four zones for five minutes, but only three days a week for a total of 160 minutes. That’s a difference of 660 minutes a week, or 2,640 minutes per month.

Yesterday, I got my new water bill and it was 400 dollars lower!

That’s when I realized watering less really does pay…

And my yard still looks good!

My Dog

I recently noticed a skill my dog has that I am extremely envious of. And no, I’m not referring to places she can lick, or her ability to eat things straight out of the cat box.

What I envy is her ability to completely trust somebody.

I’m forced to assume, simply because I’ve not seen any evidence to the contrary, that there is no “maybe” for dogs. For them it’s either yes or no, black or white, wrong or right. There’s nothing in the middle.

I believe that, because of this dichotomy of emotions, she is able to completely trust someone. At least until that someone does something to change that and then she will be completely unable to trust this someone.

It’s all or nothing.

In our house we have tile in the hallway. Maddie, my dog, likes to lie there because it’s cool. If I’m walking down the hallway, I can step with my foot landing two or three centimeters (about ½ inch for you non-metric folks) away from her nose and she doesn’t even flinch. I believe that until I bop her in the nose once or twice, which I don’t plan to do, she will continue to trust me not to hit her, and therefore simply lay there without moving.

Maybe it’s the result of caution, maybe it’s result of fear, maybe it’s result of having an older brother…I don’t know. What I do know is that I could never have that kind of trust in a person. Not even a really good friend.

I think it would be wonderful to be able to trust that way, but alas, if I’m lying on the floor and somebody is walking in my direction…I’m getting out of his way.

Yep, for me life is all about NOT having someone’s shoe that close to my face.

Ever!

Randy, my closest Canadian friend

So we’re in Cabo. We get up in the morning and head down to the breakfast buffet at around 8:30 – 9:00. I know you’re thinking that’s way too early to be getting up on vacation, but for some reason we were up, so why not.

Anyway, we’d go down, eat breakfast then head out and find a chair by one of the pools. PTH (Prime Tanning Hours) are 10:00am – 2:00pm, so we pretty much had that covered.

But back to breakfast. The buffet breakfast ended at like 11:30, so we were by far some of the first ones there, and the large room was pretty much empty when we were there. Don’t get me wrong, there were people, but the size of the room allowed for people to be seated fairly far apart.

We sit down, order our juice and coffee, then we head over to get our food. Did I mention it was all included? It was kind of like being on cruise, only without the lifeboat drill and the constant rocking…but I digress.

When we get back to our table, it was a two-topper with a second two-topper only inches away that could easily be pulled together to accommodate a party of four, there are two people sitting at the table only inches from our own. A bit of a surprise, with all the other tables around, but I just shrugged and said hello.

Randy and his wife, whose name I can’t remember were fun breakfast companions. Randy is about six foot-five, with a white flattop and one of those black cable design tattoos on his arm.

They’re from Canada and so the weather was extremely different for them. We were laughing about something when Randy told me I look like his doctor back home. So from then on whenever we ran into our new Canadian buddies, Randy called me Doc.

After breakfast we were sitting by the pool when I said, “You know, Randy is probably my closest Canadian friend.”

We both laughed and I had the strange desire to say…

”No way eh?”

You Just Can’t Tell About Some People

Melissa and I spent a few days at an all-inclusive resort called Riu Palace in Cabo San Lucas. I had never been to an all-inclusive resort before, so I was a wee-bit skeptical. I mean, they tell you EVERYTHING is included and you start to wonder. My first question was, “Do they mean food, drinks, shows, everything? Or, do they mean everything as in the bed and the bathroom and the sheets and the pillows, everything?”

However, this post isn’t about the legitimacy of the “Everything’s included” promise, but suffice it to say, “Yes!” everything was included.

I want to tell you about the most unexpected and probably the most incredible thing I witnessed on the entire trip.

Allow me to set the scene:

Melissa and I had taken the 20-minute cab ride into Cabo San Lucas to have dinner and look around. Melissa had done some research and found a couple of restaurants we decide to look for, but after asking our driver about them he suggested a place called Pancho’s.

Now in Texas, Pancho’s is a chain restaurant known for its inexpensive, semi-edible Mexican, or rather Tex-Mex food. It’s a buffet style with a Mexican flag on each table that you raise when you need your waiter to bring you more food, or more drinks, or more anything. In college, because of the prices, my roommates and I went several times a week. These days, however, it’s not a place I frequent.

That being said, we were both a bit reluctant to take our new friend’s dining advice. He said he could drop us off at Pancho’s and there were different restaurants all around and we could choose after he let us off. So we agreed on Pancho’s.

I couldn’t imagine Pancho’s Mexican Buffet from Texas had a location in Cabo, but we had already driven past a Home Depot, a Bridgestone Tire, a Blockbuster video, and of course a Starbuck's so I had still had my doubts.

As we pulled up in front, it was easy to tell that this Pancho’s had nothing more than spelling in common with his Pancho’s neighbor to the north. Needless to say we were very happy.

The food was wonderful, but that’s also not the incredible thing that happened.

We had been there probably fifteen to twenty minutes, when this very large and very loud group of Americans came in and were seated at three tables pulled together right next to us. There were at least five couples, plus about eight kids between the ages of five and twelve. Turns out it was the birthday of one of the ladies. A very loud, very blond, very busty lady.

Our first thought was, “Is it too late to move?”

We had drinks and our food was on its way, so we just decided to sit back and enjoy the show.

We were sitting there being both amused and repulsed by our new neighbors. I’m mean we’re sitting in this place full of people, where about half to three-fourths appear to be local residents and I was suddenly very embarrassed to be an American. We were trying to pick up any hints about where these people might be from and praying it wasn’t Texas.

Right about then a small girl, maybe eight years old, with a plastic tray full of about 20 little bobble head toys walked up to our window, held up the tray, kind of half shrugged and in a very timid voice said, “Three for Five?” Melissa was mesmerized with the goings on of our American friends and wasn’t looking, so I gestured for her to wait while I turned to get Melissa’s attention.

I guess the little girl thought I was telling her to leave, because when I turned back she had moved do to the window by the loud table.

At this point there was a shift in the Force, and I rediscovered that you just can’t tell about some people.

One of the men in the loud group, who was sitting next to the window, saw the girl, stood up and started yelling for his group to, “Shut the F**K UP!” He took the girl’s tray, quickly counted the toys and yelled, “Let’s just give her 40 bucks for the whole tray!” He glanced over at us and Melissa didn’t hesitate to let him know that we wanted in. He handed Melissa the tray and I dug out eight dollars.

Melissa picked the three she wanted, then he dumped the tray on their table an handed it back to the girl with the cash.

With a tear in my eye, I walked over to shake this guys hand. Turns out they’re from Orange County California. I was little embarrassed to tell the guy that saying, “I’m from Orange County”, didn’t tell me a thing about where they were from, so I just gave an approving head bob.

The rest of the evening was very enjoyable. Suddenly, our new Orange County friends didn’t seem all that loud anymore. Well, except for the busty birthday girl, but then she spent most of the night at the bar. A fact that made both us and most of her group very happy.

Like I said, you just can’t tell about some people.

But sometimes that’s okay.

My Car Got Hit...

Yesterday, I’m running some errands with my daughter and we stop at Walgreen’s to pick up a prescription plus some last minute camp things for her. We walk out door and the first thing I notice is a huge white scrape down the back of my car.

I was livid!

I don’t know how you are about your cars, but taking care of mine is a big deal to me. I might go for weeks without washing them, but that’s about it. I think it comes from working as a mechanic in high school and college, but the fact of the matter is things like this on cars is a HUGE deal to me.

I get to the front of my car…there’s no note from a sorry and regretful driver. There is nothing or no one anywhere around. After being calmed down by my daughter, thank you Macy for keeping me from flying off the handle, I angrily, but calmly drove home. If she hadn’t been there I probably would have gotten a speeding ticket too…so thanks again.

When I got home I reassessed the damage and found not only scrapes, but also a nice sized dent just behind the door. The fact that the dent has two creases going in different directions suggests that this person (and I use that term lightly) hit my car, stopped and had to readjust their wheels and then move again. This is on the passenger side of my vehicle, so there is no way this person didn’t know they had hit my car.

I’ve only hit a car in a parking lot one time. However, I managed to find a scrap of paper and leave the guy my name and phone number. He called a day or two later and was so impressed that I had left my name that he said just forget about it. It was an old truck with several other dings, but I left my information all the same.

Now for the “glass half full” assessment:

1. The damage goes right up to the door, but the door only has a small scratch. Damage on doors usually hikes up the price of repair.
2. Also, after using some rubbing compound to clean the white paint off, the once glaring, almost neon, blemish on the side of my SUV is now only marginally noticeable.

BUT IT’S STILL THERE!!!

Next week I’ll go to Herb’s Paint and Body to get an estimate, then decide if I even want to speak with my insurance company. I can’t imagine I will, but you never know.

And to the “person” who hit my car:

If by some strange and quirky twist of fate you actually can read, and you actually happen across my blog, and actually are able to figure out that I am talking about you, and you actually feel some remorse for the grief you have caused me…

Don’t call, don’t write, don’t try to contact my in any way. You see, with me, it is too late to do the right thing. You missed that chance when you drove off without leaving a note.

However, what you can do is this. The next time you hit a car in a parking lot, take the high road and leave THAT person a note.

This is the only apology I will accept.

Just me on my soapbox.

Thanks for reading.

Don't Mess with Texas

Have you ever been driving somewhere when you get a really fun idea? It happened to me just the other day.

Don’t Mess with Texas is an anti-litter campaign that was started several years ago. There are signs and billboards on the highways, bumper stickers and even t-shirts with this logo. I don’t know how successful the campaign has been in reducing litter, but it is highly recognizable by most Texans.

A few days ago Melissa and I are in the car when we see a big SUV in front of us with not one, not two, but three Don’t Mess with Texas bumper stickers…and of course I start wondering about the driver of this car.

I imagine he was thinking something like this, “If I put only one or two of these stickers on my car people might not pay attention and really stop littering, BUT if I have three stickers in a line across the back, then that is sure to make a difference.”

I mention something along those lines to Melissa and we chuckle a bit. It could have stopped there, but the antagonist within me took over and here’s what came next.

At the next light, we pulled up next to this guy and I rolled my window down. Just as the light turned green, I tossed my mostly empty Starbuck’s cup right at his car. It hits at eye level on the passenger’s side windshield and slides across to the driver’s side with coffee splashing out as it went. It bounces off the windshield wiper and rolls down the hood. That’s when I wave and hit the gas.

Now, before you start thinking that I’m crazy, or some kind of monster, let me assure you that while the events mentioned above did both cross my mind and bring a smile to my face, they never actually happened. Yes, common sense mixed with a healthy dose of self-preservation kept me from seriously considering my trashy idea. (Pun intended) I mean for all I know this guy was a pistol packing, anti-litter vigilante with a chip on his shoulder.

But you have to admit…it would have been funny.

Picky Trash-man???

Dallas has those big grey cans that either gets grabbed via remote-control by the driver then hoisted up and dumped, or they have a couple of guys who pull the cans over to a lift on the back of the truck.

In our old neighborhood, we had the driver/remote-control system and it didn’t matter what I put in that can. As long as the top closed, I could have put a person in there and nobody would be the wiser. (I’m not admitting to anything here, I’m just saying…)

In our new neighborhood, we have the guys pulling cans to the truck.

So I’m heading down the driveway just as the trash truck pulls up to empty our can. They’re blocking the driveway, so I just sit in my car and watch.

The guy gets to our can, opens it and looks inside. He shoots a half-frown glance in my direction, then reaches in and pulls out some pieces of wood and throws them on the sidewalk. Next, shaking his head, he yanks my can over to the lift on the truck.

I was dumbfounded.

By definition trash is: discarded, unwanted, or worthless material or objects.

This was a trash-man working on a trash-truck, does he get to decide (for me) what materials or objects are worthless or unwanted? Or shouldn’t he, by definition, simply pick up the objects I deem to be “trash” and haul them away?

The gauntlet has been thrown down, but I promise you this…somehow, someway these few boards I have WILL be taken by this picky trash-man.

Once again, I’ll keep you posted.

Month to Month

We recently moved into a new house and we all love it. The new house has a family room and we had to buy some new furniture. The sofa we bought has six, 36 inch square pieces. Three of the squares have a back on one of the four sides, two of them have a back on two of the sides that forms a corner, and one piece has no back at all.

When we first picked them out I had the idea of having a different pattern for each month of the year. That way we’d always know what month it is based on the arrangement of our sofa. We kind of laughed about it, but in the back of my mind I thought, “Hmmm, could I really do this?”

The sofa arrived on about the 15^th of May and we set it up like the pictures below.

As June was winding down, I just didn’t have the gumption to move anything. I started to see my monthly seating arrangement as nothing more than a pipe dream. A nice idea, but one that I would never see actually happen.

Then it happened.

I was sitting at home, with all of my honey-do projects finished for the day, when I had a new sofa arrangement vision. It was a work of art! So unconventional, yet so practical, so easy, and so user friendly. Check out the pictures below.

Now I see that I’m going to have to open my mind and let the month’s sofa pattern find me. To tell the truth, August is Melissa’s turn, so I’m sure it will be great.

As for future sofa patterns…I’ll keep you posted!

First Time's a Charm...

I did something today that I’ve never done before…and baby, it felt good!

It was 8:00am and I’m out cutting the yard. I don’t know where you are, but I’m in Dallas and it was hot. Not “HOT!” but hot all the same.

Let me put this in perspective: It was eight o’clock in the morning and already 85 degrees, with a projected high of around 102 for the day. To me, that’s hot.

So anyway, I’m cutting the grass on our new, much larger yard. On our old house, cutting the yard took me about 30 minutes. This new and improved bad boy takes me every bit of an hour. Needless to say, when I got done I was HOT and sweating like a pig! I was so hot I was beginning to get a headache.

That’s when I get the idea to jump in the pool.

It’s never occurred to me to do this before, simply because I’ve never had a pool before.

I was headed that direction and started wondering if my sweaty body would get the pool dirty. Then I thought, “Who cares! I mean isn’t that what the chlorine is for?”

I jumped in, crossed my legs, sank to the bottom and sat Indian style on the bottom for what felt like an eternity.

I came up, wiped the water out of my eyes, ran my hands through my hair and I felt incredible.

Yep, I do believe I’ve started a new tradition.

Now I get it...

There’s this guy at my church, who reads this blog. I’m not sure how often, but I do know that he reads it, which puts him in a very exclusive and rather small collection of individuals known fondly to me as “My Readers.” I’m quite certain you can count them all on one hand and still have fingers left over.

But anyway, at church there is this guy, we’ll call him Pablo.

Pablo and I teach Sunday School together and we were just hanging out and taking attendance before the lesson started, and our conversation went something like this:

“Let me see your hands.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, I assume they’re broken, or burned and bandaged.” Looking down and toward my hands. “Nope, hmm? I just assumed since you’ve posted nothing since May that there must be some kind of problem…but I don’t see anything. It just makes you wonder.”

“Hey! I’ve been busy. I’ve had all the end of school stuff, we just moved and …”

Pablo just rolled his eyes and nodded his head.

And that’s when it hit me.

Pablo is a nice guy, a little socially inept, but a nice guy all the same. I’ve been posting here for three or four years, and in that time I’ve had a couple of posts that “tons” of people read. I don’t know how they found them, but these few posts had more than their fair share of readers. And that felt good. However, unlike my brother’s RLP blog, I didn’t really have any true Third Grade Mind followers…not until Pablo.

So for Pablo I’ll try to do a better job of keeping up with my writing schedule.

Note: Don’t you worry about Pablo. He’ll read this, but he won’t have any idea “Pablo” is really him.

Exemplary

In Texas public schools we have the TAKS test.  For teachers, it’s the equivalent of a mandatory, educational prostate exam given by a doctor with a frozen finger.  Students, schools, districts and even communities are rated based on these scores.  

The TAKS test has four scores.  The highest is Exemplary, then Recognized, Acceptable, and finally Low Performing.  For the schools, this is a pass/fail test and each school is ranked based on how many of its students pass or fail. 

We got the preliminary scores back from the state and it looks like my school, Moss Haven, is Exemplary for the second year in a row.  

It’s funny, but I have mixed emotions and I’m not sure how to feel.  On the one hand, I’m feeling pretty good.  My students take Reading, Math and Writing tests and all of my students passed all three tests.  

However, there is a part of me that despises these tests.  This is the same part of me that screams, “Traitor!” at the top of its lungs every time I look in the mirror.   For you see this part believes I’ve turned my back on true education and sided with the “Let’s teach them how to take tests,” faction of the education war.  

I hear the rationalizations everyday…”We’re not teaching them to take tests, we’re teaching them educational life-skills.  Life-skills they will hone throughout their public school experience and then use to be successful either in college or out in the workforce.”

I want to believe it…

I try to believe it… 

I think some days I do believe it…

But then I go to school and I see the faces of my third and fourth grade students.  These are faces whose biggest worries should be about things like Barbie, GI-Joe, ballet, and little league.  Not whether or not they are going to pass some huge, scary test.  

Yes, my school is Exemplary for the second year in a row. 

And I’m very proud,

I guess…

Moving...

Moving is a pain in the butt!  

There's the packing, the unpacking and all the little glitches along the way.  First we had no electricity, then we had some electricity and finally we have most if not all electricity.  It's been a crazy, mixed-up world.

However, after about a week, things are finally getting back to normal...well, kind of!

I'll keep you posted as best I can.  

Looking Behind the Curtains

Life is full of curtains.  

There are stage curtains, window curtains, curtains that separate patients in hospitals, and we even have a curtain that hides our toilet.  However, some the most interesting and necessary curtains are the ones we put up to hide the parts of our lives we don’t want anyone to see.  

I got a glimpse behind one of those curtains today, and it was very humbling.  

I teach eighth grade boys Sunday school at church.  We were talking about our testimonies when a boy, we’ll call him Pepe, who recently made a profession of faith asked if he could give his testimony to the class.  

I’ve known Pepe for several months, but to tell the truth, the only thing I know about him is the fact that he has a great smile.  It’s one of those incredibly infectious smiles that can brighten any room. 

Pepe started talking and only a few of the other boys in the room were really listening.  Most were engaged in kind of half-whispering, off task conversations…but after about the first sentence, you could have heard a pin drop.  

Pepe talked for about 20 minutes and I’ve never been around that group of guys when they weren’t talking until today.  

Out of respect for Pepe and his unique situation, I’m not going to go into specifics.  What I can say is that first my jaw hit the floor.  Next, it took every ounce of strength I could muster to not become a blubbering idiot. 

This is a church in a well-to-do area of Dallas.  This is an area that I never would have expected anyone to have something like this behind his or her curtain.  But maybe I just haven’t taken the time to look. 

Like I said, life is full of curtains.  

And I need to pay more attention.