The Blogger’s Excuses for Not Blogging…

I’m used to sleeping a lot more. Maybe it’s a sign of age. In any case, I’m tired. Tuesday we took the cat to the vet for a checkup (he’s fine) and went to the tax guru (he’s fine too). Have no fear – we took pictures of the cat’s reaction to the whole “vet” experience. I’ll post those later…

Wednesday I met a buddy of mine and went to the Chesterfield’s weekly jam session. That was a lot of fun! Heard quite a few local musicians, some of whom I’d never seen play before. In a market the size of Sioux City it’s always surprising to find new talent… There just ain’t that many of us. There were only three bass players there, though, so I ended up playing a bit more than I had anticipated. It’s always fun trying to jam with people you’ve never met before – a lot of “what, you don’t know Metallica?” and “anyone play blues?” and “how about we just play something funkish in E?” before every song.

Tonight I have rehearsal with the Clams. We have a half-gig tomorrow at the Chesterfield. Randy’s coming back from Washington State for a visit, so we’re gonna have a reunion of sorts and make him blow into the business end of his sax in public again… We’re opening for another band, and we’ll play during their breaks too. It’ll be fun to see if we remember any of the songs we used to do when he was in the band, oh so long ago last June.

Whoops, the boss just wandered past. I’d best pretend to be working or something… With any luck I’ll write more later!

Cartoons

In the past few weeks there have been several cartoons that have pushed the boundaries of good taste.

The Washington Post received a letter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (signed by all six of ’em) saying that a cartoon previously published in the Post of a soldier who had lost his arms and legs in combat was “beyond tasteless.” I have not seen the cartoon, so I’ll refrain from saying if it was tasteless or not (though I think it probably was), but I will say that those in our government should NOT be trying to influence our media. If they want to write to the editor as American citizens, that’s fine and dandy. But don’t be trying to throw your weight around. And besides – if they didn’t want people printing political cartoons of the soldiers they’ve sent into battle, well then, they shouldn’t have sent the soldiers into battle in the first place.

The next incident was the infamous “Mohammed” cartoon published in a Danish newspaper. I have several observations about this… The first is, yes, the cartoon is offensive. But I also find people who burn the U.S. flag and cut people’s heads off offensive as well. The second observation is that the cartoon was published months and months ago. If the Islamic world had simply ignored the cartoon, no one would have seen it other than a few Danes who probably don’t care much anyway. Now, though, since they’ve made a big deal out of it, millions and millions of people have seen the cartoon. I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are nice, easygoing people, but they’re letting the minority speak for them. If you get upset because people equate your religion with violence (and this goes for us Christians, too), well then, police yourselves. Make your religion the most tolerant, rational group around – a paragon of virtue. Then no one will offend you by drawing nasty cartoons.

If you don’t think the “Mohammed” cartoons are inflammatory, by the way, simply think of your reaction if you’d see a cartoon portraying Jesus in such a negative light. Think of Pat Robertson’s reaction – he goes ballistic at the slightest provocation. Now think of what would happen if Pat Robertson were influential in our government…

The world’s a delicate place, people. We need to work together on this stuff. We can’t afford to stifle free speech, and neither can we afford to overreact to those who think differently than ourselves. (“If there’s one thing I just can’t stand, it’s intolerance.”)

Them’s just my thoughts.

Now I’m scared…

In the past few hours I’ve read a bunch of stuff on the Internet about the Superbowl. Unfortunately, what I’ve been reading hasn’t had much to do with the Seahawks or the Mighty Mighty Steelers, but instead people are talking about the chances of our elected government bombing Ford Field during the game.

Let me repeat that.

People are worried that our government will set off a bomb during the game. Here’s one link.

What kind of world do we live in where thoughts like that even cross our minds? And what kind of government do we have where I can read stuff about them bombing American citizens and think, “Oh, geeze – they might actually do something like that.”

I am NOT saying that I think our government would actually bomb the Superbowl. But I am saying that it’s very, VERY sad that our government is so sneaky and greedy that people believe they would. Sad. We have to remember this stuff when we go vote!

New Things

Not being a web-guru type guy, when I started this blog I used a “canned” template. In other words, I took someone else’s design and put my words in it. The template was available through Blogger, so it wasn’t sneaky-plagiarism or anything, but as a graphics guy it bugged me. So, as I’m sure you noticed, I finally changed the look of the blog a bit.

Aesthetically, I changed the powder-blue picture of a lighthouse to a pretty picture of our motorcycle. Then I took out the powder-blue clouds at the top and made the background red. That’s about it, actually. Like I said, I’m not all that web-savvy. I just got tired of feeling, well, a bit feminine whenever I read my own blog.

The other major change is the little bar at the top. You can search my blogs now, and there’s a neat little “next blog” button on the right that will take you to someone else’s randomly chosen blog. (I didn’t do this, it’s something the Blogger people offer. I just pushed the “yes” button.) It’s kind of fun, but I can’t guarantee that if you go to someone else’s blog you won’t be offended. There’s a lot of strange stuff out there. Good stuff, too. Sometimes it’s hard to tell one from the other.

What do you want?

I’ve only had a few people leave comments on my blog, but they seem to be equally distributed between three major categories – funny stuff (like Dagmar’s Operation), political stuff (like my Grassley Rant), and personal stuff (like the time I reminisced). What do you guys wanna read? E-mail me or leave a comment if you have an opinion… (My e-mail address can be found somewhere on my regular website HERE, just in case you don’t already have it.) If you don’t tell me, I’ll just continue rambling and babbling at random.

No one’s ever commented on the photos I toss up on the blog every now and then. I’m gonna keep doing it, though. I like pictures. Especially when they’re pictures of my beloved wife Dagmar playing with the nieces, Peyton and goddaughter Maddie. (Looks like Maddie’s stuffing her hand in Dagmar’s mouth for some reason. Strange kid.)

Cool!

A nice blog lives HERE. It made me smile. Well, it’s only five or six hours ’till the Superbowl starts. I’d best kick the cat off the couch and reclaim my spot and get all my accoutrements in order (remote, chips, salsa, popcorn, Tootsie-Rolls, lollipops, crackers, phone to call the pizza, etc.). Pre-game started last week already, so in a way I feel like I’ve already watched the game, but the commercials should be good!

Puppy Dogs

You gotta be kidding me… Yesterday I wrote about the neighbor’s dog (you can read it here), which has been crouching in a pickup topper they’ve got lying in their back yard. (If you click on the picture you can see the poor pup.) We called the Animal Control people when we first saw the dog there. They said they’d send someone out to check on things. We called them the next day, too. Twice. After the third phone call they finally came out to see the dog. (I have to admit, I’m peeved that it took them so long to check into things.)

“Well, he’s got food and water,” the guy told me on the phone when I called to check on the situation.

“But the dog’s been in there for three days now,” I said. “He can’t even stand up – he has to crouch in there. And who knows when the owners are gonna come home?”

“Well, he’s got food and water,” the guy said again. “He seems healthy. There’s nothing we can do.”

So the dog’s still in the topper. He’s been lying down for the past day and a half, not moving much. I’m worried. I really, really hope the neighbors come home soon!

The New Van

I mentioned yesterday that the company bought a new delivery van. They decided to go with a flame motif for a paint job. It’s certainly eye-catching! I had something completely different in mind… Oh well. My buddy Drew did a good job with the flames, though! They’re pretty.

Dog Daze

Yesterday as I was walking home from work (all good hippies walk to work you know) I heard a yowling in my neighbor’s yard. I stopped and peeked around, but other than the three piles of garbage, two garbage cans laying in the mud, five flat basketballs, kitchen chair, grocery cart and the pickup topper laying in the corner I didn’t see anything. I shrugged, looked at my privacy fence (which the neighbors have broken several times) in dismay, and went on inside.

Today, on my way home for lunch, I heard the same yowling. This time I spotted the yowler. A pair of forlorn eyes gazed at me from inside the pickup topper laying in the corner. Yep, my neighbors put the dog inside the topper, which is sitting on a patch of mud in their yard, and blocked it shut with bricks. The poor pooch doesn’t have enough room in there to stand up, so he’s just sort of crouching there, yowling and staring at the world.

I called the Animal Control people. They said they’d send someone over to investigate. I’m curious whether the doggie will be there when I get home or not.

The sad part is that the dog belongs to a little kid, I think. The boy doesn’t seem to have much, other than five flat basketballs and a mother that yells a lot, so I hate the thought that the adults in that house are not only being such bad role models that they abuse dogs, but through that action they’re going to cost a boy his dog. It makes me sad. But not sad enough to let the dog be neglected.

That reminds me, I have to change the kitty litter tomorrow, no matter what! The poor cat’s about at wit’s end, and I’m out of fresh sand for him…

Van-dalism

The bosses bought a new delivery van today. For the past few days I’ve been mentally designing the paint job… I finally settled on something, and e-mailed them my proposal this morning. Somewhat subtle – press gears on the side, our logo, and our phone number. On the other side was pretty much the same thing. It had a neat graphic on the back… My thought was to go with something catchy, but classy. The graphic didn’t really need to be recognizable as a printing press, but something that indicated sophisticated machinery at work.

The bosses decided to go with flames. “Hot off the press.” Catchy. Or is that kitschy? So they’re getting flames painted on the van. It doesn’t look bad – just not what I had in mind. (The photos here are my proposals. I’ll see if I can get pictures of the flames later…)

“Too bad we can’t park it here at work,” the boss said. “We’re going to let the delivery guy take it home with him at night.” I asked why. “Why?” I asked.

“The first delivery van we had, we parked it here by the loading dock at night. Within a week all the hubcaps were stolen…” (Does anyone know why people steal hubcaps? When’s the last time you bought a hubcap from a guy off the street?)

In the past few years, the company van has had the hubcaps stolen, we’ve caught a homeless guy pooping behind our loading dock, the side door’s been jimmied, I saw a cop chase a robber through our parking lot, and we’ve been hit with graffiti four or five times. It’s a good neighborhood to raise a family in…