On the Road Again...

It's been a few days since I blogged last. Mostly because I was on the road. I (and my wife and 2 year old) drove from Atlanta, Georgia, to Sweeny, Texas (southwest of Houston) last Friday afternoon (through Saturday morning). It is roughly a 13 hour drive, mostly on Interstate 10. Boorring!!

My family reunion (the Butler-Hoods) was Saturday morning. About 85 of my closest relatives were there. We had a grand old time. Of course, it was a billion degrees, but hey, I'm used to it.

I also got my mom switched over to a gmail account and ordered her DSL. She was still suffering (even though she didn't know any different) with dial-up. Hopefully, she is reading this now!

I hung out with a couple of my best friends from childhood, and spent a lot of time with family. Actually, most of it was them spending time with my 2 year-old! They can't help it. He's extremely cute and fun.

Then, Wednesday, we drove from Sweeny to Tyler, Texas, which is in the heart of east Texas...it took about 5 hours or so. I am actually doing my first "remote blog" from the computer of the friend we are staying with. (Props to Tiff.)

Tomorrow night is the wedding rehearsal of another friend of mine, and then the wedding is Saturday...which I came out of retirement to perform, by the way. First thing Sunday morning, we are heading back to Atlanta. This time the drive will be about 11 hours. Of course, we lose an hour heading into EST, so it will take 12 hours on the clock. Whew!

What a "relaxing" vacation. :)

Overall, it has been great though.

Now you may have noticed that one of the "labels" or "categories" on this post is "blogging". That's because I thought I would end with this: I missed blogging for those few days I was away from the computer. Who would have thunk it.

(Map created using Google Maps - maps.google.com - try it, you'll like it.)

Courtesy Wash - Part 2

Okay, if you haven't read the first part of this two part post, you might want to go back here and read it. In fact, I would definitely encourage you to do that.

I'll wait...

Alright, now that you are back from reading the other post, let's get started with the missing lost episode of Seinfeld. Now, of course, this is not really a lost of episode of Seinfeld. It's something I made up in my little brain.

If you are a fan of Seinfeld. try to imagine Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer saying the lines. It makes it funnier. I promise. If you've never seen Seinfeld, and don't know who these people are, imagine your mom, dad, kindergarten teacher, and mailman saying them. Totally different effect, but still possibly funny.

Here we go!

First, let me set the stage...

George, accidentally does something extremely hygenic. A woman, who happens to be totally obsessed with cleanliness notices, and is attracted to him because of that. They date a few times, and everything appears to be going well. Our scene begins with George and Cleanella (just made that up) at a restaurant eating dinner. George excuses himself to the restroom and returns shortly thereafter.


SCENE: Restaurant

George returns from the restroom and sits at the table with his date.

Cleanella: "George, I've really enjoyed the time we've been spending together. I feel like I've..."

At this point, Cleanella has reached across the table and taken George's hand. She pauses in mid-sentence.

Cleanella: "Your hands are dry."

George: "Yeah."

Cleanella: "You just went to the restroom."

George: "I dried them off."

Cleanella: "Do they have an air dryer?"

George: "No."

Cleanella: "Then they should still be damp. Did you wash your hands at all?"

George: "Of course I..."

Cleanella interrupts.

Cleanella: "Did you?!?"

George: "I did."

Cleanella turns George's hand over and looks at his fingers.

Cleanella: "Your nails!"

Cleanella jumps up from the table and storms from the restaurant as George calls after her.


SCENE: Jerry's apartment

Jerry: "She just walked out?"

George: "Got up and walked out."

Jerry: "Stormed out of the restaurant?"

George: "She was a veritable tempest of anger, Jerry!"

Jerry: "A tempest? Wow. What do you think set her off?"

George: "I don't know. Everything was going fine. I went to the can, and when I came back she started yelling about my hands not being damp and left."

Jerry: "Your hands? Did she think you didn't wash your hands?"

George: "Well..."

Jerry: "Did you wash your hands?"

George: "Well..."

Jerry: "George!! I can't believe you blew it over something that simple. Why didn't you just do a courtesy wash?"

George: "Courtesy wash? What's a courtesy wash?"

Jerry: "You know. A courtesy wash."

George: "Never heard of it."

Jerry: "Sure...you just run your hands under the tap, get them a little damp, dry them on your pants...courtesy wash."

George: "No one does that! That's crazy!!"

The door flies open and Kramer slides in.

Kramer: "What're you guys talking about?"

Jerry: "George here has never heard of the courtesy wash."

Kramer does double-take at George.

Kramer: "What?!? That's something every boy learns in junior high. It's one of the first ways we learn to beat the system."

George: "You've heard of this?"

Kramer: "Heard of it? I do it almost exclusively. I find that restroom soap causes my hands to chafe."

Jerry: "See there...courtesy wash."

George: "Why didn't you guys tell me?"

Jerry: "We just assumed you knew!"

Elaine enters the apartment.

Elaine: "Hi guys."

George: "Elaine, have you ever heard of a courtesy wash?"

Elaine: "A what?"

Jerry: "George!"

Kramer: "You don't talk about that in front of, you know, women..."

Well. If you've watched Seinfeld, I hope you can picture those scenes in your head. If you haven't watched Seinfeld. Sorry I just wasted ten minutes of your life.

To waste a few more seconds of your life, go to Google and do a search for "courtesy wash".

Courtesy Wash - Part 1

Ladies (and Gents), if you answer yes to any of the following questions, DO NOT read this blog.

1) Are you easily offended?
2) Do you get "grossed-out" easily?
3) Do you consider yourself "prim and proper"?
4) Do your friends consider you "prim and proper"?
5) Ever gagged just watching Dirty Jobs?
6) Was Seinfeld just an OK television show to you?

Okay, now that we've got that out of the way.







I would like to discuss a very common phenomenon. I call it the "courtesy wash". For laziness' sake, I will heretofore refer to it as "CW". This is NOT referring to the television channel equivalent of a B movie. Nor to a style of music that is now almost just like rock but sometimes still performed by people wearing cowboy hats.

What is a "CW", you might ask. All men have experienced it. I experienced it today. I was in a restroom stall (yes, ladies, guy's restrooms have stalls, too), and I heard someone enter. They took care of their business very quickly. Then I heard it happen. The water turned on...the water turned off. The sound of a hastily grabbed paper towel and the person was out the door!! Now, I didn't witness this with my eyes, but my ears could not lie.

It was a CW!! (remember, that stands for courtesy wash)

For some reason, men at times feel too guilty to leave the restroom without washing their hands. However!! The don't really WANT to wash their hands, so thus was invented the CW.

In case it is not clear, here's how you do it.

1. Enter the restroom (this part is required)
2. Use the restroom
3. Turn on the sink faucet
   
4. Pass your hands (or sometimes just one) underneath the water as quickly as possible
5. Then you either
1. Grab a paper towel, wad it up, throw it away, or
   
2. In the event of (stupid) air dryers, you wipe your hands on your pants.
6. Exit the restroom
   

I've never met a woman who has done a CW. I've never met a man who hasn't.

Tune in next time when I'll relate the lost script of the forgotten episode of Seinfeld, involving the notorious CW!!

Father's Day

I wonder how many blogs have that topic today? I am a father of almost two years. My son's birthday is July 5th. But Father's Day always makes me think of my father and what he meant to me. He, without a doubt, has had the most influence on the person that I am today.

Originally in this post I started to give you some background details about my dad. Where he was born, how poor he was growing up, etc. But I deleted that lengthy paragraph. I'm not writing this post to tell you the history of my father. My intent is just to share two stories about him with you.

First story:

My dad was Santa Claus. Not only did he look like Santa Claus (yes, that's him in the pictures), and play Santa Claus at the mall and other places, he was Santa in his heart. For evidence, read the following story. My mother often played "Mrs. Claus" to his Santa. Especially at the mall, where it required a little more organization.

One day, a little girl got on my dad's lap. He asked the standard questions of her.

"Have you been a good girl?" and "What would you like for Christmas?"

I never heard what her answer to the first question was, but her answer to the second was, "Glasses, so I can read better."

My dad held it together and finished his "Santa time" with the little girl. After she got down and went back to her mother and they left, my dad called my mother over. He explained to her what had happened and told her, "Go buy that little girl some glasses!"

My mom caught up with the mother, pulled her aside and did in fact buy the little girl some glasses. I don't know the story of why the mother couldn't afford the glasses. You can fill in the blanks yourself with whatever back story you want. The point to me was the instant compassion my father felt, and the instant action he took.

Second story:

When I was young, we lived very close to a busy highway. Consequently, I lost my first couple of dogs to the high speed traffic.

When I was about seven, a Boston Terrier wandered up to our house. He was the cutest little dog you had ever seen. My parents explained that he was someone's dog and that we had to try to find his home.

We did our due diligence and put up signs near our house and contacted the local vet (which also acted as the animal shelter). I think we even put an ad in the paper. After a few weeks, we gave up looking and my parent's declared him our dog. I had named him Buster. I used to feed him hot dogs and cheese from the frig.

About this same time, my father had a '68 Ford (remember, this was 1976, so it wasn't that old then) parked by the road for sale. A gentleman stopped to look at the car. Buster came around the corner of the house. The man took one look at him and said, "That's my dog." Sure enough, he called Buster by name his original name and it was obvious the dog knew him. He only lived a few miles down the road from us, but for whatever reason hadn't seen any of our attempts to find him.

Needless to say, the man was very excited to get his dog back. My dad told him how attached I was to the dog (by this time it had been a couple of months).

The guy replied, "I understand and I'm sorry, but he's my dog."

So then my dad did something that I still think about all the time.

"If I give you the car, will you let my son keep the dog?"

My dad gave the man the car. Now, I don't know how much the car was worth, or how bad we did or did not need the money. It doesn't matter. What does matter is my dad's heart in the situation. It took him 3 seconds to decide that my happiness was more important to him than selling the car and making some money.

Now the worst and best parts of the story. The worst part is that my father died in a car accident on December 1st, 1999. The best part? My mother told me this story after he passed away.

Dad never mentioned this to me. Twenty-three years, and he never said, "You know what I did for you?"

That's selfless love. He wasn't doing it for me so that I would think he was great or so he would have some leverage to use against me in the future. He did it because he loved me.

He wasn't perfect. He made plenty of mistakes as a dad. I, of course, swore I wouldn't make the same mistakes with my children. I'm sure I have and will.

But I hope I can one day be a father (and a man) like him.

Eisley

You know, it's cool when you have an opportunity in life to get to know some people that are really talented and cool. Take Eisley for example. Eisley is a band made up of 3 sisters, 1 brother, and their cousin. And I will have to say I really dig their music.

But one of the coolest things is that I have the privilege of knowing the siblings' parents, as well as the two older sisters and the brother. That being said, it has been a few years since I've seen "the kids", so they may not even hardly remember me, but they attended our church youth group quite a bit (in fact, I distinctly remember giving them rides home), went to youth camp with us a couple of times, and played at our youth service at least once. Boyd (the dad), is a graphic artist and he designed our youth group t-shirt.

Now let me back up and say that Boyd and Kim (the mom) are extremely cool people themselves, and they have raised some really cool artsy people. Notice how many times I am using the word cool? This is one of those times when it is really, really appropriate.

They started out as a band called "The Towheads" back in the day when the youngest in the band was a pre-teen. Since then, they have been signed on a major label, released a handful of EPs and albums, toured with the likes of Coldplay, played on Conan O'Brian, and generally kicked some butt.

However, they have yet to get that "main stream" acceptance. Partly, I believe, it is because their music is unique, doesn't sound just like everything else on the radio, and doesn't consists of "he broke my heart, how I hate him" and "she's a jerk so now it's over".

Below are a some links of interest for Eisley. I recommend you check them out. Spend some money on them, support them. They are really cool (and I know them).

Eisley's MySpace Page

Invasion (Video)

Memories (Video)

Marvelous Things (an older Video)

Eisley's YouTube Page

Eisley's Official Website

Check them out!! They are also on iTunes!

Blogging

You know, pride really stinks. I ought to know...I have plenty!

I have enjoyed blogging so far, but I keep asking myself, "Self, why would anyone want to read your random blatherings?" Then I respond, "I don't know, why would they?" My pride wants all my hard work (haha) to be read and enjoyed by millions!! (or at least tens)

Then I start thinking about making my blog more topical like Jeff's, who, other than the random digression, is writing about rediscovering his Christianity outside the confines of the traditional church institution. It's very cool.

I, on the other hand, write about diseases I've had, things I find stupid in the news, and superheroes.

So...should I make it more topical? Do I even know enough about an interesting topic to blog on it more than once? Am I even now rambling?


What are some good topics? What could I build my blog around? Some ideas:

Things To Never Do In Public. I think could write on this one for a while. I have plenty of experience in it.

How To NOT Pick Up Women. I've been happily married for almost 15 years, but I remember lots of things that don't work in the area of meeting women.

Gaining Weight...and Keeping It On. This is one I would rock on! Of course, for me personally it's mostly just great genetics.

Other Interesting Blogs. Seems kinda like a cop out.

Comparative Analysis of the Works of William Shakespeare and William Shatner. Could be promising.

Ceiling Fans.

Books I Haven't Read. This could be a tough one. Or a short one. Or both.

Things I Am Allergic To. This would be 1 post.

Quantum Physics and the Wrath of God. No, I'm serious.

Things Bob Said At Work Today. Some days this one would be genius...others, not so much.

Any ideas floating around out there? What do (the both of) you (that read this) think?

It's Africa Hot!!

Summer is finally here in Atlanta. It didn't help that it rained just enough to make it approach 100% humidity.

Being a man of substantial girth (read: fat), the heat is not my friend. If it is warm, I sweat. If it is very warm, I sweat a lot. High humidity only makes it worse.

Today I was privileged to go to a Braves game in one of the big fancy executive suites with all of the food and drink provided. The pizza was especially good, by the way. While we were there not watching the game, it started to pour. It rained just enough so that when we walked to the van afterwards, it felt like I was taking a shower with my clothes on. Yuck!

Now I am home, and my friendly A/C unit is set on 68 degrees Fahrenheit and is dutifully working to pull all the moisture from the air and my body. Yeah!!

I always think of that line from Biloxi Blues when I'm hot. You know the one. Matthew Broderick, playing Jerome, says of Biloxi:

Man it's hot. It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot.

And when I think of that line, I laugh to myself, and feel just a little cooler...

Not really. It doesn't help at all. I'm still hot.

MCs - not Hammer, but in General

MCs. You know, the people that come out and introduce whomever or whatever you are actually there to see. It's a tough job. I've done it lots of times. The audience is usually just waiting for you to get off of the stage and for Bono to get up there.

Why is it then, that they feel the need to use they same phrases worn out phrases in an attempt to "hype" things up? Is there a special MC school? I think that's going to be my new moniker: MC Skool. But I digress.


---

Example 1: "I wanna give a shout out to..."

You don't have to shout, you have a microphone. Just tell us the people you would like to recognize and/or say hello to.

---

Example 2: "C'mon everybody, puts your hands together for..."

This one's not too bad, but still, there are probably better ways to say it.

---

Example 3: "Everybody give it up for..."

My least favorite. First, I would like the MC to clearly state what "it" is so I can decide if I want to give it up. Secondly, I would like some well-defined reasons as to why I should give it up. That's not too much to ask, is it?

---

Example 4: ....

There was another one that really annoyed me the other night. If I can remember it, I'll edit this post and add it.

Peace out, yo!


*********************************

Okay, I'm back....

Example 5: "The next act/person/band bringin' it to the stage..." (Jeff added example 4 in his comment.)

Another example of "it". I would prefer they bring their act, or talent, or something definable. "It" scares me.

An Update...

Well, my HFMD is mostly gone. (Hallelujah!) Cheryl was sick for a couple of days before that, and Nathanael the week before that. But now...(drumroll)...we are all healthy!!

Nathanael has been enjoying his swing in the backyard, and it is nice in general just to not feel terrible. My feet are still a little sore, but overall, much better.


I'm not feeling overly bloggish, though. I was thinking today about what I might want to blog about tonight, and nothing really struck my fancy. I will share one funny thing I heard the other day. A comedian was doing a little stand-up that went something like this:

You know, the Internet (with a capital I) caught us totally by surprise. Everyone knew we would have cell phones. That was no big deal, but go back and watch old Star Trek episodes. That was supposed to be the distant future. Sure, they had communicators and phasers and teleporters, but no Internet.

You never heard this conversation:

Kirk: "Spock, get me the coordinates for the Gamma Quadrant!"

Spock: "I'm Googling it now, Captain."

Or this one:

Uhura: "Captain, we just received an instant message from the Romulans..."

Kirk: "What is it?"

Uhura: "We are going to destroy you. LOL."

I thought that was pretty clever.

Thanks for stopping in.