901 Gale

I know, I know, quite some time has passed since the electrons flowed down
this stream.

Such is life.

I'm back and the only excuse for my absence is that I've been enjoying life in the real world.

I was digging through my trusty three year old and fairly outdated Pocket PC and came across this collection of Quotes. Thought you might like to read 'em.

"Why God is good to Republicans is beyond me."
- Senator Joseph R. Biden
Dem. Delaware

"Life is difficult, but it's extra difficult when you're stupid."
- Anonymous

A FUNNY BUT TRUE NAME:
Horatius Bonar, 1808-1889

"Everyone could break the law if they wanted to."
- Anonymous

"Should we or Should-We-Not follow the advice of the galacticly Stupid?
- Tom Cruise as Daniel Kaffee in "A Few Good Men"

"Freedom and fear; justice and cruelty have always been at war and we know that God is not neutral between them."
- President George W. Bush
(19 Sep 2001)

"Fear is the path to the dark side...
Fear leads to anger... Anger leads to hate...
Hate leads to suffering."
- YODA

"Don't walk in front of me,
I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me,
I may not lead.
Walk beside me and be my friend.
- Albert Camus

"If everything you try works, you are not trying hard enough."
- Gordon Moore, Intel Co-Founder

"Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new."
- Albert Einstein, Nobel Laureate, Physics

"The game is too great to reduce it to excuses or making bogus statements like: 'If this would have happened or that would have happened'. Well, it didn't happen. Be a man and congratulate the winner and go on."
- Mike Krzyewski, Coach, Duke Blue Devils

"Twenty-inch humans with big heads and no neck strength intimidate everyone except maternity nurses, who throw them around with the casualness of U.S. postal workers handling mail.
- Vicki Iovine, from The Girlfriends Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood

"Indeed if we consider the unblushing promise of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too week. We are half-hearted creatures like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
- C.S. Lewis

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself."
- Anonymous

"You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck."
- Anonymous

"Good judgement comes from experience. Unfortunately, the experience usually comes from bad judgement."
- Anonymous

"Whatever happened to the genteel art of sitting back and letting someone go on and on thinking he's right while you bask securely in the knowledge that he or she is completely full of crap?"
- Dennis Miller

"Pain Heals. Chicks Dig Scars. Glory Lasts Forever."
- Keanu Reeves as Shane Falco in The Replacements

"At my age, you don't even buy green bananas."
- Anonymous

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
- Proverbs 27:17

Well, it's been forever and two days since I put anything here. It's not that I didn't have anything to say... It's more like Adult ADD that only affects the humorous moments of being me. At least once a day something happens that I think, "I should blog about that". However, with the passage of a varying amount of time, that semi-composed mental post is gone. Oh, it's not forgotten, at least not entirely. I can usually remember that I was going to post something about that thing I did or heard.. Or was it what I saw? I know it's there somewhere in the gray matter, "Like a splinter in your mind"... Maybe remembering stuff has nothing to do with your mind. Maybe it's all about your sight. I've never had to wear glasses in my life and I still see fine now, but I have noticed that after a long day of peering into my 23" wide screen LCD, my eyes are about the same color as a wide angle shot of the crowd gathered at Owen Field. Surely this is affecting my sight in some way. I'm thinking that since I see the world around me OK, it must be affecting my ability to see all the splinters in my mind. I need either a mental magnifying glass or I need to increase the size of the splinters that get jammed in there. I don't know of any mental magnifiers that are guaranteed not to cause long term brain damage (although at this point, I'm not quite sure why I should care), so, I'll have to start breaking off larger pieces of mental wood.

Yes, that's right. It's time for another installment of "Silly ways that I'm irritated with Braums". We recently bought some Ice Cream Cones from the B-Store. I pulled one out today to make an Ice Cream Cone for the kids and there it was - The Defect. Not just any old defect mind you. The entire bottom of the cone was missing, so I guess it was really more of an ice cream cylinder. Try explaining that to a 2 yr old... "No really, just hold your hand under it so the Ice Cream won't fall on the floor. It will be just fine, really".

Irritation Number Two for today came when my wife showed me a coupon she was given at Raumsbay by the cashier. It was a dollar off if you spent $10 from the Fresh Market Meat and Produce Section. Why would I be irritated with that? There in plain English it states, "Expires December 31, 2003". ARGH

If you've been following along, you know that Braums has been teetering on the brink of being labeled a crummy place to visit. Just the other day there was the mishap with the plastic bag and now I have from a very reliable source that they do not give refills. Period. Not even for a quarter. You finish your drink at Braums and you want more, you buy the whole deal all over again. Twice this has happened to a friend of mine. The first time, he was just stunned beyond belief. The second time it happened, the cashier must have known what he was at the counter for, because she wouldn't even stop to help him and when she did, and he asked for a refill, she wouldn't even look him in the eye. Just a "We don't give refills" and on about her way. Now, I know there are still a couple of places that charge you a nominal fee for a refill, but this has to be the worst example I've ever seen of a bean counter run amok. I can hear him now.... "Hmmm... According to these figures, if we stop giving refills we'll save 2.9 cents per day and alienate our best customers in the process!!" And I'm sure there was yet another store meeting I'd love to have been able to hear. I"ll bet it went something like this...

"OK troops. Gather round. Just got an urgent message from HQ in Tuttle. Yeah, they sent it by carrier pigeon again. Says here that effective immediately we are to implement Ops Plan 'DRY GULCH'."

"AHHHH... OH.... What?" Collective shock and amazement from the troops. Squad Leader Stimpy finally pipes up, "Boss, do you think it will work? Can we really sucker our customers into paying for every cup of soda pop they consume here when they can go to any other place in town and drink all they want for one price?"

"Of Course! HQ is never wrong! Now are you with me!"

"Uh, yeah. OK."

"I can't hear you! Are you with me!!"

"Yeah!"

"Boss, should we send a confirmation message back with the pigeon?"

"What? No, no... Our last shipment of chicken sandwiches was a little short. Start plucking, Stimpy...."

"I had weird dreams last night," she said...

"Me too. What were yours about" I yawned.

"Hmmm... It was about Lance and Vicki. They were engaged. We were all in Florida and Shirley was telling me about how they got engaged. They had been kayaking on some river, you know the one they told us about... the one with all the shops along the way. Anyway, they took a break and went into one of the shops and they had these big oversized crayons. Lance had snuck one in the store that had a label on it that said, 'Will you marry me Vicki?' and he told her she should pick out a crayon. Well, she found the right one and was so surprised, it took her about 15 minutes before she ever said yes. How romantic... What was your dream about?"

"Some crazy man who held a whole town at bay with a six pack of Grape Soda," I said truthfully.

This statement was met with 'the look'.

"No really... I don't know why but everyone was chasing after him. The guy grabs a six pack of Grape Soda and uses it as a weapon. At one point, he bashed in the window of a motor home and chunked an open bottle of soda through it like a molatov cocktail. Everyone near it really started running when he tossed in the lit match. Then, some unsuspecting gal stumbled into his grasp. Now he has a hostage. He cracks open another bottle and holds it threateningly above her head like it's acid. 'Don't make me do it! I'll burn her! I'll do it!', he says..."

The 'look' again followed by "You need your coffee..."

The shock and awe of my previous post turned to pleasant surprise when I went to Braums for the Family Fix and was rewarded with a good old paper sack made from good old trees. (Cut down in the prime of their life I'm sure, but that's another story) Apparently, (Due to my post) Braums decided to rethink their comple move to plastic.
From what I gathered in the checkout line, if you get Milk or Ice Cream or any other dairy product weighing more than the 3.5 oz weight limit of the plastic bag you will get a paper sack. All the grocery items that Braums has recently started carrying will go in the plastic sack. I'd like to have been in the store meeting when the manager explained that one to the troops.

"OK, here's the deal. Dairy goes in paper. Grocery goes in plastic. Any Questions?"

"But what if they request a paper sack? Or what if they buy Dairy and Grocery?"

"Hmmm. Hadn't thought of that. OK, then. You can do a little test tomorrow. If some guy comes in and buys a gallon of milk and some chocolate syrup, just put it in a plastic sack see what happens."

"Boss, You're a genius! A twisted evil genius!!"

I was shocked (and I'm sure you will be as well) to learn today that Braums, the primary purveyor of paper sacks which this family seems to covet, has switched over the Dark Side. That's right, they've gone the way of the Evil Empire and now only provide plastic bags. What was most disturbing about it all was that there was no explanation, no sign posted to annouce this upcoming, life altering change, no "Sorry, but you won't be getting your 2% milk in a nice rectangular sack (with handles) anymore. In it's place we've decided to give you this whisp of plastic. No, really. We mean it. Go on... You'll get used to it. I bet by the time you hit the door, you'll be right as rain." (Yeah, my checkout lady reminds me of the Oracle)

At least there's this site to keep me occupied now that the cold weather has set in. And they say I have too much free time...