Not Impressed

Last week, I went swimming at the rec center.  I was doing butterfly stroke, the Fly, flyin’ through the water.

When I stopped at the end of the lane after a lap, or half a lap, a young boy, appearing about ten or eleven, was standing on the deck of the pool, above me.

He said, “That was some good swimming!  I saw that in the Olympics.  Were you in the Olympics?”

I said, “Thanks.  I was in the Senior Olympics.”

He looked at me with obvious disappointment.

“Oh,” he said and walked away.  I guess my answer was not what he hoped for.

Me neither.  It was not the answer I wish I could give.

If given another chance, so as not to disappoint any young admirers, I will say, “Yes, I was in the Olympics.  Would you like my autograph?”

I might add, with feigned humility, “I also play for the Broncos.  I left my Super Bowl ring in the locker so I won’t lose it in the pool.”

That would make the kid’s day, to meet someone as admirable as me.

It would make my day too.

P.S.  I thought of how to sign my autograph — Walter Mitty.

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Engineering 411

I do not know if any of my loyal readers are graduates of M.I.T. or any other fine engineering school.  (I myself am largely self-taught as a mechanical engineer, yet I do not denigrate the path of those who felt the need for mentoring).   If you are an engineer, you might learn something from me today.  If you are merely a member of the general public, you still might learn something, provided the subject is not way over your head.

First, some family history:  my maternal grandfather on my mother’s side was a civil engineer who worked for Union Pacific Railroad (as distinguished from a locomotive engineer who operates trains and probably has much more fun).    Like me, he did not go to engineering school, nor to college of any sort, going directly to work after graduating from high school.   One day at church, a man who knew my grampa at U.P., came up to me and asked whether I knew that the man who replaced my grampa had a Ph.D.

So, apparently I have engineering genes so strong that actual coursework is unnecessary.  And that brings me to the topic of the day.  I put together TWO home projects in ONE week.

My ever confident wife, Miss Sugar, purchased two items which each came in a box clearly labeled “Assembly Required.”

One of the projects was a fire pit from Home Depot.  It is no longer in the box.  It is actually assembled.  You should have seen me.  Anyway, we have had four successful fires.  Grampa would be proud.

The other project was a bird bath.  There were six, waddayacallem, yea, bolts, and just as many, you know what I mean, nuts.  I won’t explain the entire process.  All you need to know is that the finished product is already in use.  Charlie Sheen and I call that WINNING!

If you, loyal readers, ever have any home improvement projects, now or in the future, simply call my toll free number for expert assistance over the phone.

I will let you know when the number is working.  I have delegated that to Miss Sugar.

Gender Inequality and Numerology

During my childhood, I did not realize how unfair it was of God, I suppose, to allow unequal gender distribution in our family.  I felt secure and loved for several decades, but now I wonder whether I have been a victim in some manner, so I am writing this to see if there is some organization for people like me and, more importantly, if there is a compensation fund or government program to make it up to me.

Now that I have your attention, as well as anticipated sympathy, I will explain the situation.  It is really a mere census report rather than a sociological, psychological, or biological study.  I leave interpretation to the experts.

Do I still have your attention?

Bated breath?

Okay, here goes:  My paternal (i.e. father’s} parents had grandchildren of the following, i.e., hereinafter,  birth order and gender identification designations:

One granddaughter, Ten consecutive grandsons, and then my sister, who we shall label as the Second granddaughter and, simultaneously, Twelfth grand child.

Let’s focus on me, me, me for awhile.  Let us consider my particular location in the family tree of the family previously referred to herein-above-described as the  paternal side of my family as referenced in the paragraph preceding the paragraph immediately prior to this very paragraph.

I was the tenth of ten grandsons.

I feel special.

I was also the eleventh of twelve grandchildren.  It was a coincidence that no one noticed until it dawned on me as a write this, but get ready for a sleepless night:  I was assigned and wore jersey number 11 on a Y.M.C.A. basketball team.  How did Coach Lawrence know?

Think about it.  There are things we can never fully understand.

 

Show Time

You know that awkward feeling when you ask if someone is going to a party that you will be attending and the person you asked tells you that he or she was not invited?

Out of kindness, I suppose, I have not told my wife, a former model and television actress, that I am being contacted on a daily basis by Casting 360, which has modeling gigs, acting jobs, and movie extra work for me.

I am not certain how this agency discovered me.  Perhaps this very blog site attracted their attention.  I imagine that some folks at Casting 360 have been ogling photos of me posted on this site.  I am surprised that they did not respond as positively to the many photos of the photogenic Miss Sugar also on this site.  So maybe I was discovered in another manner.  Sometimes, as I walk down the street, I notice people noticing me.  They never come right out and tell me how good-looking they think I am, but I can see it in their eyes.  Probably some of those admiring eyes work for Casting 360.  It is hard to say.

Nevertheless, for whatever reason, Casting 360 is desperately trying to recruit me.  All I have to do is pay $7.99 a month for them to send me notifications about the jobs they have for me.

That is a good deal.  My first movie job should more that pay for it.

That is when I will tell Miss Sugar.  She might notice my absence when I have to travel to the movie set.  For $7.99, I could use my connections to bring her back into the family business — show biz.    If you, gentle readers, also want to try show biz, simply send me your credit card information, Social Security number, and a portfolio of photos.  I will see what I can do for you.

I can’t make any guarantees, however.  Modeling and show biz are very competitive.  Good looks are all that count.  Some of us have it, some of us (present company excluded) don’t.   You know who you are.

Do You Want Cheese With That Pizza?

Miss Sugar and I visited a car dealership, where we met an interesting sales person, who was very entertaining.

He is, he told us, 47 years old and does not run out to nab prospects “like the young spider monkeys” who are also part of the sales team.

We asked about a certain vehicle, a Lexus RX350.  Miss Sugar said she would like leather seats.  I said that I think all Lexuses (Lexi?) come with leather seats.

The car salesman confirmed my assumption.  He said, “When you order a pizza, you get crust and cheese without the cheese counting as an extra.  You don’t have to order cheese, but you might have to pay extra for sausage.”

This was a fitting analogy because the salesman has a very Italian name.  Sugar understood immediately because her father is Italian.

I just liked being right.

March Madness on the Ranch

With the lack of moisture and high winds, there are frequent warnings about fire danger.  So frequent are those warnings that one must be an idiot to light a fire in these conditions.

So when I put trash in the burn barrel, I was aware that idiots should not do what I was about to do.  As a special person who is not a member of the general public to which the frequent warnings were directed, I wisely checked the wind and determined that there was not much of it.  Therefore, I took matters into my own hands and lit the tissue paper from the waste basket from the bathroom.  As expected, the tissue paper ignited immediately.

Having successfully started the fire within the safe confines of the burn barrel, I took the waste basket back into the house.  There I went to the other bathroom and picked up another waste basket.  Then I heard the loud pop.

I looked out the window and saw that the grass next to the burn barrel was burning.  An aerosol can had exploded and landed on the ground.  It was a hairspray can which my wife had foolishly placed in the bathroom waste basket without warning me that I should not put it in the burn barrel.  What was she thinking?

Anyhoo, as a result of my wife’s utter carelessness, the grass fire spread quickly, beyond the reach of the hose I had heroically stretched to spray water as far as I could.  So, with great embarrassment, I reluctantly called 911.

“What is the nature of your emergency?” I was asked.

“A grass fire,” I explained, deciding not to tell the dispatcher that it was all my wife’s fault.  The investigators would see the hairspray bottle and determine that it was clearly not mine.  Ergo, it could not be my fault.  Fortunately for my wife, she was not home.  I determined that I would simply tell those investigators that she was a fugitive and they would never be able to catch her.  I would keep them busy while Miss Texas made her getaway.  It is my job to protect her.  She could count on me.

In the meantime, before the firefighters arrived, and before the criminal investigators arrived, I bravely filled buckets with water and kept trying to stop the progress of the fire.  While I was so engaged in that task, a nice man stopped by and pitched in.

Eventually, the professionals arrived and got the fire under control.  The nice deputy sheriff did not give me a citation because he recognized that it was “clearly an accident.”  He did not even ask about the whereabouts of my wife.  I imagined how grateful she would or should be for my success in clearing her name.

While on this streak of righteousness, I decided to text my wife at work to inform her in advance that I had found a clever way to clear that old dry grass out of our yard and beyond.  I decided that she would likely notice the 3 acres of black grass when she returned, so, like George Washington before me, I took responsibility for burning down the cherry tree.

Actually, the fire stopped at the banks of the irrigation ditch and did not reach the trees on the other side.  God protected us because the wind (the slight wind, I mean) blew the fire away from the house.  The firemen protected us. And I protected Miss Texas.  I am no snitch.

I just hope that she learned her lesson.  It could have really been bad.

Day at a Time — Day 1

So, today Miss Texas, my personal trainer, suggested that I return to the swimming pool in order to prepare for success at next summer’s Senior Games aka Senior Olympics.

A few years ago, I competed somewhat successfully in six swimming events at the national championships and the World Senior Games.  No brag, just fact.

My training was interrupted due to a number of reasons, including a trip to the hospital for a bum knee and a bicycle accident that injured my right shoulder.

Rather than swim at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Miss Texas and I decided to start our return to competition at the therapy pool at the Fort Collins Senior Center.  Not surprisingly, the pool was full of old people.  Clearly, we did not belong.  Nevertheless, we tried to blend in.

There is something wrong with me besides my knees and shoulder.  My competitive drive is unhealthy.  The old lady next to me did not realize it, but I saw her as a challenge and targeted her by giving her a headstart and then trying to pass her.  She did not realize that she was in a race.  But I did.

Maybe tomorrow she will recognize just who she is dealing with.  Or not.

 

Kim K Copies My Fashion

Very recently, I saw a photo of Kim Kardashian wearing jeans with holes in the areas of her thighs and knees.  My first thought was that she must be bucking bales of hay because I have over the years had many pairs of jeans with that exact same look.  I suspect that Kim and other fashion leaders noticed me at the feed store or while I was doing chores.  I know I look good in jeans, but I always believed women were studying my Wrangler butt.  Apparently, they study my thighs as well.

Here is how to get holes in the thigh area of one’s jeans.  As you lift bales of hay, use your leg to help bring the bales to your middle area immediately prior to using your arms to lift the bales above your waist or even head, depending upon how high you are stacking the bales or throwing them onto the hay wagon as another person standing on the wagon aka hay rack (as in hay rack ride), to stack bales there.  I perfected the technique as a young teen trying to keep up with older fellas picking up hay bales from the field and then handling them again to stack the bales in the hay loft of the barn.  “More bales!” we would yell, implying that the other cowboys were not keeping up with our respective selves, the superior workers.

Kim did not explain the worn-out jeans that she was wearing so she might not want me to explain the process of achieving that look.  She does not seem the type to throw bales of hay, but now you know.  I see her in a whole different light.  What a hard-working cowgirl!  I had previously thought she shopped on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills or Hollywood or wherever it is.  I do suggest she get more sensible footware.  I wear cowboy boots.  They have heels, but not spindly ones such as Kim wears above.  I doubt she wore those shoes in the hay fields.

I hesitate to publish this because I fear that a bunch of California girls will be contacting me to ask about stacking hay bales.  I will have to reject their assistance.  After all, I am married to Miss Texas and she looks good in her jeans with or without holes in the thighs.  Kim could learn a lot from Miss Texas but I wonder if she is capable of grasping what Miss Texas knows.  Miss Texas is way out of Kim’s league.

Take a bow, Miss Texas!  (I doubt Kim can ride a trick horse).

Russian Allies

I have heard in the news that Russians have hacked into some voting machines across the nation and altered the outcome of our presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. It sounds very complicated and is even more nefarious if voting machines are not connected to computers into which to hack via the internet, also known, appropriately, as the worldwide web, which, as we know, was invented by Al Gore, who was cheated by hanging chads in Florida, prior to the involvement of Russia in our American presidential elections.

I, for one, am suspicious that the election fraud was not caused by computer hackers from afar but rather by Russian spies among us, who have wormed their way into the offices of election commissioners across the land, posing not only as Americans, but as election workers in the highest positions with access to counting ballots, or I should say, miscounting ballots.

These serious allegations do not trouble me. They teach me. In prior blog posts, I have announced my plan to skip traditional election campaigning to focus on obtaining votes in the electoral college from faithless electors. I have revealed my strategy of raising money by selling influence and using donations with strings attached to bribe electors to vote for me regardless of who wins in their respective states.

Now I see an alternate strategy. That is, I should recruit Russian spies and hackers to help me win the election in 2020.

I have a few years to learn the language in order to make friends with Russian spies and hackers.   It is all falling into place.

“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

I am grateful to Hillary Clinton and her minions for explaining how to win an election.  She can really teach.

Campaign Finance

This is a sequel to my prior blog concerning my path to the Presidency.

You will recall, if you read that blog post, that I plan to bribe electors in the Electoral College to vote for me.  I estimated $1 million per elector would be sufficient.  I need 270 electoral votes.

Some might criticize my plan by questioning how I can raise $270 million. I am glad that you asked.  The answer is simple:  selling influence.  Admittedly, I am not the first to come up with the idea.  Some other political candidates have used the technique without always admitting it.  I am being transparent.

So here is the deal:  Pay me money, which I will use to bribe electors, and when I am successful obtaining 270 electoral votes, I will use the office of the Presidency to do favors for you.  The size of the favor depends on the amount of money contributed.  You scratch my back, I will scratch yours (in accordance with your generosity).

Some have used the term “pay to play” in connection with the Clinton Foundation, inferring some sort of access to the power couple for those donors.  I do not need huge donations.   I will provide small access to me for small donations.  Win/Win.

If 270,000 people donate $1,000 each, I will win the Electoral College.  Those donors will get VIP tours of the White House and a commemorative coffee mug.  For just $100, you get the mug.  For $10, you get an autographed photo of yours truly, suitable for framing.  We can do this.  Together.

Thank you in advance for your support.