Weekend Update

Happy Monday, everyone. My weekend was much the same as always; the wife went to baseball games while I stayed home and smoked a cigar, read, and drank. A good friend was in from out of town, and Friday he and I got together for dinner. Others were supposed to show up but they all bailed. He and I had a great time catching up and talking (mostly about music.)

Also I got some yard work done, and started a little on the project to patch up my driveway. As it happens, I don’t think I used to right patching material for what I have, but I’ll let it set a week or so and see how it works. I really just need to pull the trigger on having the whole driveway redone, but I don’t have the money for that right now. (I’m assuming I don’t, anyway; I haven’t really looked into how much it would cost.)

If you’re into football, this was a big weekend as the NFL had its annual draft. The only team I really care about is the Dallas Cowboys, and I’d say their draft was a little above average. They picked up some defensive help, which they sorely need, and shored up the offensive line. I still don’t see us in the playoffs this year, but that’s because I’m a cynic when it comes to… okay, just about everything but especially about the Cowboys.

If you’re into equality this year’s draft was big for another reason; Michael Sam was drafted in the 7th round (249th overall) by the St. Louis Rams. He was four or five spots away from being “Mr. Irrelevant” (the actual title given to the last person drafted every year.) So what makes him so special when I couldn’t tell you the names of anybody else drafted in the 7thround, including the five guys my own team picked? Sam is the first openly gay player to be drafted in the NFL.

Several months ago, Sam came out as gay prior to the start of the combines and other events college players go through before the draft. Some say it was a publicity stunt, designed to raise his draft status (and therefore earn him more money.) He was projected to be a fourth rounder, give or take, and as a good-but-not-great defensive end probably couldn’t have expected any kind of publicity to move him more than a few spots. If he just wanted to draw attention to himself, though, it certainly worked. If he washes out of the NFL (which is always possible, even for players who are expected to succeed) the publicity could pave the way for a lucrative career as a sports analyst.

Others say he was brave for coming out, as it could have (and probably did) negatively affected his draft status. I don’t think he was necessarily brave for declaring himself gay, though I do applaud him for doing it. It was more smart than brave; many of his teammates in Missouri knew he was gay (and he formally came out to them last August, before the season had started; now THAT’S bravery), so it made sense for Sam to make the announcement himself instead of waiting for it to come out from others, as it inevitably would have.

His falling to the seventh round isn’t terribly surprising, despite his projection as a fourth rounder. There were some questions about his size, and his skillset is more in line with a 4-3 defense, and even then likely as a backup at first. But there’s no doubt he dropped at least in part because of his coming out ; teams won’t say it publicly, but few want the distraction of a spotlight shining on an otherwise “in the trenches” kind of player who may well not make the cut. The Rams will be second guessed no matter what they do at this point; if they cut him, many will say they kept a lesser player and cut Sam because he’s gay. If they keep him, many will say they cut a better player to make room for Sam only because he’s gay.

Sam probably won’t be a star player, nor will he be a total washout; he’s more likely destined to be a solid, reliable backup who gets work when the starter needs a breather or gets injured. A guy like that can expect to make a few million over an average career span of five years (barring injury) and maybe shuffling around to a few different teams along the way, but remain in relative obscurity.

I’ve seen a number of comments online from people who claim that they don’t care that he’s a homosexual (which means they obviously do care) but resent all the attention he’s getting “just because he’s gay.” It’s a fair point; outside of his being openly gay, there is nothing (as yet) remarkable about Sam as a player. But he deserves the attention he’s getting and any benefits that comes from it.

There are certainly gay players in the NFL now, but they remain closeted out of fear of what it would mean for their careers (among other reasons). But there will be a time when an NFL player’s sexuality is no more noteworthy than their hair color, and that will be good for society as a whole. Acceptance of homosexual players in sports will lead to acceptance of homosexuals in general.

That level of acceptance is still likely several years away, but Michael Sam, who may ultimately have no lasting impact on the NFL as a player, has probably ensured that it will happen sooner than it otherwise would have. I could only ever dream to have that kind of impact in my life! So yes, no matter how mediocre (or worse) a player Sam may be, he deserves the attention.

Joke of the Week

Before the joke, I just wanted to give a quick update on the kittens: all five survived and are eating and playing and being kittens! And while that’s wonderful news (and much better than I was led to believe it would be earlier this week) it was also strongly hinted that, since they will need homes soon, I should adopt one of them. Uh… no! Still not a cat person, here.

Besides, while the boy dog may grudgingly look the other way and pretend a cat doesn’t exist, the girl dog would think it’s a new chew toy. Chew toys don’t have a good track record when it comes to things like surviving a day with the girl dog. “It used to squeak but it don’t squeak no more! Where’s the squeak?”

Now, on to the joke (it’s been around awhile, but still funny):

St. Peter is doing his daily duties at the Pearly Gates when the need for a bathroom break comes on. He looks around and sees Jesus walking by, and asks him if he can fill in for him.

“I’ll be glad to, Pete!” Jesus says. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

“Oh, it’s dead simple,” Peter explains. “When someone comes up to the gates, ask them about their background and what was important to them in life. Then based on the response, you decide if that person deserves to come into Heaven or not.”

“That sounds easy enough.”

Peter hurries off to find the facilities and Jesus eagerly awaits his first customer. Soon enough, an old man appears and greets Jesus. Jesus starts questioning the man about his life on Earth.

“I was a carpenter for most of my life,” the man says. “I didn’t have much except for my son.”

 “A son, you say? Tell me about your relationship with him.”

“Well, he wasn’t technically my son, but I loved him and raised him as my own. And truthfully, he wasn’t entirely human.”

This piqued Jesus’ attention; it was starting to sound strangely familiar. “How do you mean he wasn’t entirely human?”

“There is some question about how he came into the world and what his purpose was. I think he was supposed to learn what it means to be a man, and to bring love and understanding.”

Now Jesus was almost certain who the old man was, but needed one last piece of confirmation. “Tell me, did your son have any distinguishing features?”

“Oh, certainly,” the man replied. “He had holes in his hands and feet.”

With a tears streaming down his eyes, Jesus hoarsely whispered “Father?”

The old man started crying too, and whispered “Pinochio?”

Hey Look, a Soapbox!

On my way home yesterday evening, I was passing (at the posted speed limit) a semi on the interstate that, inexplicably and without warning, decided to move into my lane. As scary as that would have been in my Pathfinder, it was downright terrifying on my motorcycle! Fortunately I’ve come to expect these things (especially from truck drivers) and had time to slow down (while applying a judicious amount of horn and middle finger) and get behind the truck before anything bad could happen. When the driver finally noticed me, he swung back to the right and waved his apology to me. That made me feel LOTS better, asshole!

 

Ironically, this happened less than a mile past a highway warning sign flashing “May is Motorcycle Awareness Month – Share the Road”. (That IS an example of irony, isn’t it?)

 

Off the road, I’m sure individual truck drivers are just regular Joes (and Janes). In my experience, it’s a different story entirely once they’re in their trucks and on the road. As much as I hope the driver from yesterday contracts a nasty stomach virus and shits his pants every 15 minutes, at least he finally noticed me and acknowledged that he fucked up. Most of the time truck drivers just do whatever the hell they want without any regard, or seemingly any notice, of other vehicles.

 

Not that the “regular” vehicle drivers are any better; last week when the wife and I were riding, within five miles two different drivers tried to come into our lane with us right beside them. We weren’t in their blind spots, and were in fact in the process of passing both, and in both cases the drivers failed to give any indication that they were coming over or looking around properly before they did. So no, it’s not JUST truckers, but they are the ones who scare me the most.

 

Motorcycle riders understand that we are responsible for our own safety while riding, and we have to pay attention to everything and everyone around us. There’s no room for daydreaming when you’re only on two wheels. Of course there’s really no room for that on four wheels, but zoning out on four wheels likely means a fender bender; on two wheels it can kill you.

 

Wearing helmets and not driving drunk are no brainers, of course. Or they should be; I’m constantly amazed how common it is at motorcycle events like poker runs or other gatherings to see riders throwing back drinks left and right. Just about every rider I know has a story about a wreck they’ve had, and very few of them start “I was stone-cold sober one night when…” Of course it can happen; even sober riders have to deal with the other idiots on the road. I’ve had some close calls on my bike and none of them involved alcohol (because I don’t drink when I’m on the bike.) Any of those close calls could have been accidents had my reflexes been slower for any reason; alcohol isn’t necessary for a driver to make mistakes (or fail to react properly to other drivers’ mistakes), but mistakes seem to be a lot more common when alcohol is involved.

 

Now that the weather is getting nicer, there are more bikes (with and without motors) on the road. It’s easy to overlook us when you’re used to looking for cars and trucks, and when you do see us it’s harder to gauge our distance from you and our speed. A mistake that might normally be just a fender bender can become much worse for a biker, so please take the time to look a little bit closer.

Weekend Update

Happy Monday everyone, and if you celebrate it, happy Cinco de Mayo! Thanks to everyone for your comments on last week’s post about the kittens; I hope everyone knows I was kidding about the “hero” thing, though. The real hero is V, as far as I’m concerned. By the way, I spoke to her this morning and she said they’ll get updates here and there on the kittens and will pass them on to me, which means I’ll most likely pass them on here. Word of warning, though: she said the lady who took them said two of the kittens are extremely week; brace yourselves.

It was a moderately busy weekend; we went to see my parents and did our shopping chores. The wife had a haircut appointment, and while she was doing that I mowed the lawn. Afterwards we went riding while we looked for some things she needed/wanted. When we got home I started on dinner; I grilled us a couple of steaks and for the first time I baked potatoes and cooked corn on the grill. The potatoes could have used another five minutes, and the corn maybe another minute or two, but the steaks were absolutely perfect! I usually do okay with grilling steaks, but these were by far my best effort.

Sunday I started a project that I’ve needed to do for the past two or three years. Our driveway has cracks, some of them pretty darn big, and one area where the wife has to get in the mud to park so I can get my Pathfinder out in the mornings. I dug out the grass and a little of the dirt from that area and filled it with concrete, and later we’ll put some driveway patch there and the other cracked areas. Then in a few weeks I’ll get some driveway sealer and seal the whole mess up, and hopefully be done with it for a year or so.

I don’t really go out of my way to celebrate Cinco de Mayo; I’m not a Mexican, and the battle they won that day didn’t really have any overall effect on the war with France, which Mexico lost. But I’m not opposed to getting good deals at Mexican restaurants in America that capitalize on American’s who otherwise wouldn’t care about May 5th but who like getting good deals at Mexican restaurants. Since the wife is going to a game tonight (if it doesn’t rain), we decided to go to our favorite Mexican place yesterday for dinner. And despite the fairly high winds, we decided to go on the bike. Dinner was great, and the ride afterwards was really nice.

That was my weekend; how was yours?

By the way, my buddy Simplicity is starting her new job today; if you get time, go on over and wish her well. http://simplensexy.blogspot.com/2014/04/highs-and-lows.html

Hero is too Strong a Word (Probably)

Wednesday morning I happened to see a cat coming out from the bushes right in front of the main entrance here at work. I didn’t think much of it, but I did notice it looked scrawny and (now that I think about it) moved like its back leg was injured. It went down towards the back parking lot which abuts a wooded area.

Thursday morning, one of my co-workers was coming in the front door and stopped to look at something on the sidewalk. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t figure out what it was until I got up and went to look; it was a kitten, probably a day old at best (its eyes weren’t even open) crawling around and mewling its little head off! I looked back in the bushes where I’d seen what I now knew to be the momma coming from the day before, and sure enough there was a little litter of kittens. Five total, including the little guy on the walk.

I picked up the wayward kitty and put it with its siblings, then called the county animal rescue. The guy I spoke to told me they don’t pick up cats (which is the same policy as the county where I live) and said it would be best just to leave the kittens alone; momma would come back and take care of them. By now I suspected momma was long gone, but hoped that I was wrong.

A female coworker (V) heard about them and came up to look. She said she would bring some food up later and try to get the momma to stick around the kittens until she could round them all up together and take them to Angels of Assisi or another organization around here. I told her I’d keep an eye out and let her know if I saw the momma come around, but by the end of the day I hadn’t seen a trace of her.

Friday morning (today) V came up to the front desk and asked if I’d seen any hint that the momma had been by. I hadn’t thought to look yet (I’d just gotten in myself) so we went out to see what we could see. V had put the kittens in a small box with some foam to try to help them stay warm, and put food and water out. The food was gone, but the little kittens didn’t look like they’d been cared for at all. In fact, we couldn’t even see any signs of life in them at all, at first.

I reached into the bushes and shook the box lightly, which got a small response from one of the kittens, but it wasn’t looking good for the others. V went into the bush from behind and tried to get to the box, and was able to pick up one of the kittens that were moving. She said it was ice cold and stiff, and would be dead soon. She couldn’t get to the box with the one kitten in her hand and she was reluctant to put it down knowing they needed warmth. She got out of the way and I went in pushing and shoving heavy, sharp branches out of the way (whimper) and finally got the box out.

Two more were moving, so V told me to put them in her arms so she could keep them warm. At first the other two appeared to be dead as they didn’t move at all, and rolled around stiffly when I move the box. But first one, then the other, started moving. All five were like little blocks of ice, but eventually we got them inside the warehouse and wrapped in some warm towels. I’m not much of a cat person, but I hate seeing helpless animals suffering.

V’s partner drove out here and got the kittens, saying she’d take them to a clinic in town to at least get them looked at and maybe fed. Later I got an email from V saying the kittens were in good hands, and had a new momma and new brothers and sisters. A happy ending to start the weekend!

Joke of the Week

The taxation office suspected a fishing boat owner wasn't paying proper wages to his deckhand and sent an auditor to investigate him.

Auditor: "I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them."

Boat Owner: "Well, there's Clarence, my deckhand; he's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $1,000 a week plus free room and board. Then there's the mentally challenged guy. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle Vodka and a dozen PBRs every Saturday night so he can cope with life. He also gets to sleep with my wife occasionally."

Auditor: "That's the guy I want to talk to - the mentally challenged one."

Boat Owner: "That'll be me. What do you want to know?"

As a former business owner (co-owner) I can attest to the wages and the mentally challenged part.

I have one more quick joke; I read this one this morning and thought it was cute.

Two deer walk out of a bar after a long night.

"Girl, that was insane!" exclaimed the first deer.

"I know!" agreed the second deer. "I must have blown 40 bucks!"

A Memory

My oldest  sister would have been 53 on Tuesday. I've tried several times since her death in December to eulogize her in some, but I've not really been able to. Our relationship was a strained; we'd go many months without talking or seeing each other, despite living only a mile or two apart. Then she would call or message me, asking if I was mad at her and why hadn't I called or anything. I'd remind her that the last time we talked she told me she didn't want to have anything to do with me, and that when I (or anyone else) did try to call she wouldn't answer her phone or return messages. I once told her she was more like L than she'd ever know, and she didn't talk to me for another three or four months.

So it's hard to write about someone like that, especially once they're gone. I could talk about all the bad times, and how I suspect she was bi-polar, and she certainly suffered from depression. But though those aspects came to dominate her personality in the later years, that's not the full story. Yes, she had her dark times; and let me tell you, her dark times made my dark times look like a festival of lights! But there were times when she would work her way up from the depths, and she could be a wonderful person.

When she left her first husband, she came to stay with us for several months. She'd left her husband for another guy, of course, but she couldn't be with him at first, and though the wife and I were concerned about how it would go with her staying with us, we welcomed her. And you know, she was mostly fun to be around! She and I would laugh our asses off together about silly things while the wife just shook her head. She had her moments when she was staying with us where things just overwhelmed her, and she'd be upset about things, but she stayed in good spirits for the most part and was never bitchy with us.

I could write volume after boring volume about her, and how she'd be nice and sweet one moment and be psycho-bitch from hell the next seven months... actually, I can't. I've been trying for the past four months and keep deleting everything because it just gets too jumbled up. I loved my sister, but she was hard to like sometimes, and that's really all that you have to know. But I do want to share one story about her, and it's the one I remember most when I think of her.

Back in the mid 90s, I'd quit my cable installation job (the first one I took after getting out of the Army) and tried my hand at sales. As it happens, I'm terrible at sales, but it took almost a year of trying various jobs before I threw in the towel and decided to get back into the real working world. (No offense to any sales people who are reading.)

It was almost two months before I even got a call for an interview, and I was starting to get desperate. I couldn't even get unemployment, because my sales jobs had been "contractor" based and I'd voluntarily left my last job. When I finally did get an interview, the first person I told was my sister. (The wife was at work so I couldn't tell her until later.)

She asked what I was going to wear, and I told her my only suit still fit (I was much thinner then, my last sales job having involved lots of walking every day) and had been cleaned since the last time I'd worn it. She said good, and was I going to get a haircut, because she'd seen me the previous weekend and it was getting pretty shabby. I told her it wasn't that bad, and I didn't have the extra money for it at the moment. Without any hesitation, she said "Get over here right now; I'm going to give you $20 and you're going to get your hair cut!"

It might not sound like much, but it meant the world to me. She and her then husband didn't have much either, but she gave me what she had to help me out. I wound up not getting the job; the guy actually told me he felt like the job required someone with an edge to them, and I looked too clean cut and acted too normal. It turned out that it would have been another type of sales job, so I was just as well off. A week later I started a temporary assignment that became a full-time position, and was a much better fit than the other job would have been.