In between… 11/29

It’s like being a squirrel, this way, that way, no this way caught - between right and left. Maybe it’s a state of mind or a fact of life. It’s more like March where you get up in the morning ready to face the day and it hits you. What to wear?
It could be 80 or 5 below. You’ve got no clue.

It happened to you between high school and college, the question was … do I want to study fire fighting or nuclear physics? Then after college it was do I want to sell bricks or used cars, so much for a college degree. Success followed success and the question was do I want a new AMC Pacer or a Ford Arrostar?

Some people are born with question marks on their forehead and the biggest problem of the day is what to have for breakfast when the dinner bell rings. I must admit that there are a few times in the year when the path for the day is unclear. It was 6am this morning when I hit this wall again. It was 5 degrees outside and I was toasty warm “in between” the sheets and the electric blanket. The question was do I stay in bed till noon or get up and kick the day in the ass?

I pulled a ‘Fred’ and got going by 10 am and stubbed my toe for it was blog day and now I’ve stubbed my brain. At least I could say, ‘mornin’ sunshine.

A bent nail or for the want of one.

Quite a few months ago I finished a project, a bath remodel. It was a undertaking which almost sent me , an undertaker, esp the wiring! Fortunately, someone reliable was around to hold the ladder this time. Now we are into it again, up to our eye balls.

First off, it’s a kids place up here, an old run over log cabin build in 1935. For the decades past the only inhabitants of this quaint old place ran around on the floor and flew around the attic leaving messes everywhere they roamed. When my daughter and her husband were thinking of buying the place they asked me to view the place. I even asked a builder friend who has rehabbed log homes to give me his thoughts….. He said, “Jed, move away from there.”

Needless to say they bought the place cause ‘it had possibilities’. The same thing Tom Hanks said in The Money Pit”. The first thing they did was to get the largest dumpster in town and after 2 days the thing is half full (or half empty) depending on your view of life.

During last winter our daughter and son-in-law got long distant help from a now South American, an international interior design queen. The project was a go. They are now at mid point. They used the maul, crow bar and large hammers and let me tell you the dust was flying. They are some what following a pre conceived remolding plan. Out came cousin Hal’s chain saw… ‘out with that wall ’ who needs a bath room anyway?

Then they focused on the flat ceiling…gone and to our surprise there was a beautiful vaulted wood ceiling with log beams… the place is a gem in the rough that is if it doesn’t fall apart on our heads. The plan is to have the place animal tight by mid winter … the squirrels, bats, mice will just have to find a new place to hang out over the winter. So the outside of the place is almost there. Next spring/summer the interior gets a make over as does my body parts. I ‘ll post a before and after pix of the place next summer.

A bird in the hand…

The bird is stuffed then slammed into the oven for 5 hours, add 17 adults, several tots, three dogs and one cat who gets chased, 10 pot lucks and brother Chris’ pumpkin pies and it’s once again Thanksgiving at Camp Coleman. Oh , I forgot to add in a pinch of Packers. I mean what’s Thanksgiving without football ?

Actually everything is quite clam these days. We happen to be in that state where our kids are all very matures and their kids are to small to cause the normal “what the hell is all that racket?” Our only problem now a days is trying to find a place to crash after over-forking on turkey.

Yes, Thanksgiving is a day to give our Maker thanks and to our founding fathers who thought it a good idea to let the schools out so families could be together and humbly spend a quite moment walkin’ the malls and checking out the pre-Christmas deal. This year I counted my blessing and ran out of fingers.

Nov19
The big fuss… the energy crisis9th

They say we have an energy problem on our hands. They say South American Oil sucks because it’s pinkish, a shade of red. Then there is the gulf oil, the Middle Eastern Gulf that is. This type of oil is exported by the crazies who happen to own 85% of the world and all the world bank’s. The other 10 % is owned by China and 5% by the Walton family.

So do we keep selling our future by buying “ cheap” $100 a barrel middle east oil? We could drill further off shore… no that’s to simple. So here are some real simple ideas about our energy problem.

1.) We all take off for the summer… no work is allowed, no commuting, only sitting on the beach. This would cut energy use. Air conditioning wouldn’t be running and the new rule is that you have to ride your bike to the beach.

2.) During the winter we’d all move to either Florida or the southwest. We’d all get jobs as boarder patrol guards. I know you wanted to look more macho. We’d use mopeds keeping Mexicans and people from Illinois out of the country… they use a lot of energy partying and keeping their lights on all night.

3.) We, the government could once again allow home distilleries as in the 1920’s. Along with commercial ethanol we all could make our own white lightin’ to run our cars on a batch corn mash thus helping the poor farmers as well as Detroit who would make a killing selling us dozens of replacement carburetors

Lastly is the shocking truth, electricity isn’t cheap Yeah, we need but to produce it at a massive level we burn coal and a huge amount of natural gas ruining the atmosphere and melting my knee cap The only thing the Dutch got right was the wind mill. So some yahoo needs to come up with (affordable) home wind mill mass produced that plug into your home electrical system without frying your nose off. The utilities companies would just love this idea, don‘t you think? So why hasn‘t Al Gore come up with some of these solutions? Pointing fingers is easy the hard part is brain power of which we seem to be on the short side lately.

You get the picture…for nothing is going to happen till we all run out of gas and that was me last yesterday. So we went out (walking) and had a Mexican dinner and now my personal gas tank is over loaded.

Get rid of the bum…The guy is over the hill. He belongs in a home. He’s older than rocks. Come on what is management thinking? Farve was over the hill two years ago and why is he throwing balls to the wrong colored jerseys? Some guys just don’t get it, the hill that they are to cross over is way to far in the distance for them to see - maybe they should see an eye doctor.

Ok, so the old fella is proving them and us wrong. I don’t care if you wear green and gold PJ’s or Bear underwear it sure is great to have someone other than goodie two shoes Brady (Mr. Smooth) to see and listen too. For the Bear fans out there (2) it shouldn’t be more than 4 or 5 years before Brett finally succumbs to gravity like we all have and admits his watch battery is out of juice.

Yes, the wheels will fall off very shortly as they do for every member of the human race. However, as a my youngest daughter taught me years ago… enjoy the ride.

In our younger daze

What's all this? Some type of error! I just tried down loading an image from my high school yearbook. That can't be me in the picture! I'am left handed and this clown is right handed. I was a 20 and this clown is a 4? uniform number that is. I thought a four was in golf something that comes after most golf shots.

I know the guy in the pix looks older than rocks but then so do a lot of us. I see no pot belly on this lad just a tongue mis'a'que. Come to think about it he does have a sharp eye and a mind set.

Yeah, I've got the same thing...mind set that is. His is set on something 80 yards down field. Mine is what's in the refreg. Got to go and fix a pound a bacon and 4 fried eggs, some of us have to keep up their playing weight, for there is a lot of hard hitting in Golden Tee.

OK we’re back….so tell the family! Nov. 7th

SITI and I don’t mean what you are sitting on.
My computer associate finally decide that she was completely bore and decided to spend 30 second to figured out why I have been in a lock out mode. I know you all thought the best and that a meteor had falen from the sky taking dead aim in yours truly, but no. It’s just that when it comes to computers I’m left handed. Speaking of stange things from above…

Last night was a very clear one and over Lake 16 (our lake is shinking) and you could see thousands of star. No I wasn’t counting each, just rubber necking. I even saw a satellite fly by which got me thinking, always a bad thing.

The search for alien life forms continues. Progress is being made. It a very slow paced thing. Hundreds of people are involved. They even have math guys involved calculating the odds of finding little green things on Mars. The object is simple. It’s to find some type of life form in this amazing universe of ours.

Our minds can not ponder the number of stars even in our own galaxy let alone the entire creation. Who ever lit the fuse on the big band sure got their fingers burned. And now with our pea sized brain we are trying to answer the one question of it all….WHY? And the second question… are we alone?

So billions are being spent looking for other life forms “out there” when right here at home we are still counting new species as well as destroying many with our excessive life style. Just the other day I turn over a rock and bingo I found a new life form. There was also a new life form sitting at the end of the bar at Whitman’s the other night.

SO look around open your eyes and U2 will be astonished at the number of life forms, like the mold under your sink or the number of wood ticks crawling on your cloths after a walk in the woods. Ahhh, life is grand in it’s many forms.