Sardines

I am one of those people who love to eat sardines. Today I purchased 8 tins of sardines. When I go to the grocery store and reach for the sardines people look at me as if I was buying a Hustler magazine. The checkout clerks ask me if I actually eat "those things". "No - I am purchasing them for garden fertilizer" is my standard reply. Yes, I know they smell funny and still have their scales and guts but they taste good.

One time I was at the Twin Cities Marathon Pre-Race Expo in Minneapolis. Two college age girls were handing out free tins of King Oscar Sardines. Business was not good even though these delicaces were "FREE". I went past their booth 5 or 6 times until it became obvious that I was hoarding their offering. Finally one of the young lady's asked me if I wanted to "take a case". It turns out that the distributor had hired them to handout four cases and once these were distributed their job was done. I could not believe my luck. Well these sardines were packed 8 to a tin - I guess one could say they were packed by "family unit". The mom and dad and all the brothers and sisters. It was then that I found out that sardine families were limited to 8. In my case I found 64 tins or families. Using my engineering mind I quickly determined that I had 512 sardines. My Gosh - I had an entire "village" of sardines.

Well I took these to work as my wife would not allow them at home. I put them in my desk and used them to punish my co-workers for the better part of 6 months. I always had fun disposing of the empty tin after I ate a family. I would sneak around until I found an empty office and quickly deposit the tin in the empty office's garbage can.

I guess one could say that sardines taste good but smell bad. It is obvious that most sardines shower infrequently.

Anyway - Give them a try. They're good for you!

Turkey Day 2005

Happy Thanksgiving to all who may stumble across this. Today I am having a nice relaxing day of doing nothing around home with my family. I don't get to just sit around very often as I am always on the go. We went to a local supper club with my parents so we didn't even have to do dishes today! I am looking outside at our bird feeders. We have a patio door with 13 bird feeders outside. The wind chill is -15 degrees F and the wind is blowing 40 mph. The birds are working hard to stay on the swinging feeders. I am sooooo relaxed I feel like mush......

Been Away Too Long ....

Well, it has been awhile since I last made a post. I worked very hard on my NaNoWriMo novel but came up short! I found that there were some days when I fell behind on my word count and this led to a snowball effect where I ended up to far behind to get caught back up. I am not used to outright failure but I really did it this time. I learned some things from the experience that are valuable on their own. First, a novel is difficult to write. Second, I need to learn to type! Third, I will need to more carefully map out my plot next time. Life's a learning experience and I am learning as I go. I am already anxious for next year!!!!!!

Almost Time to Write......

Well, A few more hours and my first NaNoWriMo novel will begin. Believe it or not I still do not have a plot! I'm just going to go with it and see what happens. In other words I will just start putting words on paper and see how my Pulitzer Prize novel developes (yeah right!). I am most worried about my available time to write since I am a perpetually over committed person to begin with. I will however work hard at making time to do this. I am goal oriented and writing a novel in one month is a quantifiable goal which works well with my engineering mind :)

This last weekend I took my 16 year old son duck hunting for diver ducks on Green Bay. For three days we got up at 4 AM and were out on the big water while it was still dark. Lots of big waves, windy weather, and lots of ducks. We had a great time! Ran our 18' Lund Alaskan with a 60 hp 4-stroke a minimum of 15 miles every one of the 3 days.

Tonight I took the 10 year old trick-or-treating. That was a great time for both he and I. I never get tired of watching little kids participate in this holiday. Great Fun!

Grisham, Clancy, Lewis, Rowling, prepare to be joined by a new world famous novelist - Me!

Reading....

I am one of those book addicted people. I used to only purchase a book when I finished reading the only other previously unread book I owned. Not any more. If you gave me $10,000 and turned me loose at B&N I would run out of money before leaving with everything I like. If I never bought another book I could never read what I own before I die. I absolutely love books! Any type of book - fiction, non-fiction, you name it I would read it. If I became blind tomorrow you might as well just shoot me. Books to me are like an addictive drug. When I travel for my job I bring two suitcases - one with books and a smaller one with clothes. No one can ever understand why I need two suitcases for short trips and they cannot understand why I sweat when I carry the larger suitcase. Well if you want to know it is filled with books! Imelda Marcos was top shoes what I am to books. I am also a fussy book person. I hate books with bent, dog-eared, or otherwise damaged covers! I once spent 2 months reading a novel from the library. I recall it was 31 chapters. At least that is what the table of contents indicated. A previous borrower (bastard for short) had torn the last chapter out of the text. Oh yes - did I forget to mention that the book was out of print and to this day I do not know how it ended? I'm like Rodney Dangerfield. I get absolutely no respect!

Bird By Bird

Last evening I attended our local group's NaNoWriMo Kickoff Party at Barnes & Noble in Appleton, WI. What a great group of people! I believe there were 7 people in attendance with all levels of experience represented. I was obviously a novice having never participated in NaNo. Our area coordinator Stacie gave each of us a goodie bag with lots of fun stuff inside. I look forward to keeping in touch with this group as NaNo progresses. In the mean time it is T minus 5 days and I still do not have a plot!

At the party Stacie recommended a book entitled "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamont which I purchased. It gives advice to writers of all ability levels and I am having a great time reading it. It is not only informative but at times hilarious. Strongly recommended.......

Tonight we carved pumpkins. Our 16 year old feels he is too "mature" for such an activity so the 10 year old and I completed this annual task. He had fun designing the face and scooping out the seeds. I did all the "knife work". He was very proud of his pumpkin when complete. In general it is a very basic facial design.

It seems as if as the week progresses I get more tired from lack of sleep. Too much to do and so little time.........

Who I Am...What I Am...What I Am NOT!

Who Am I?
A friend, A husband, A father, A lover, A confidant,
A helper, A Christian, A problem solver,
A do'er, An Engineer, A reader,
A citizen, An employee,
A sinner, A listener,
A writer wannabe,
A fisherman,
A hunter,
mortal ....

What I Am....
Adventurous, helpful, caring, overly committed,
horny (all guys are), organized, opinionated,
misunderstood, inquisative, tempermental,
literate, humorous, impatient, domestic,
over-tired, interested, emotional,
goal-oriented, brave,
sympathetic ....

What I am NOT....
A liberal, A democrat, A do-gooder,
A cheat, patient, handy,
mean-spirited,
a musician, ....

I AM ME

Chess and My Small Mind

I've been playing chess since the 5th grade. I was taught to play in 1971 by a teacher at McKinley Elementary School in Appleton, WI. The teacher's name was Mr. Ron Luppein and he would stay after school teaching kids how to play this great game of the mind. At that time Bobby Fischer was single-handedly dismantling the Soviet chess machine and most kids had an interest in chess. I continued to play on and off for the next 20 years. I always thought I was a chess stud. I suppose being a chess stud is the next best thing to being a real stud. 15 years ago I was living in Green Bay, WI. One morning in the newspaper I read an article about the Green Bay Open Chess Tournament that would be played on that very day. The prize for 1st place was $500. I could see that money in my pocket! All I had to do was show up and claim it. I told my wife to get ready quick as I was going to win a chess tournament.

I walked into the host hotel with a studly strut that would have made Sylvester Stallone gawk in awe. I paid my entry fee and proceeded to get absolutely hammered during all 5 rounds of the tournament. I fact I went many years and never won a tournament game. I learned through chess how absolutely average I was.

I guess I would not classify myself as dumb. I am an Electrical and Computer Engineer with a Masters Degree. Being smart and being good at chess can be mutually exclusive however. A good tournament chess would absolutely destroy a noble prize physicist at chess if the noble prize winner did not have a chess mind. Chess takes hard work to become good at and smart people are not instantly good chess players just because they are smart. It takes many years to become a proficient tournament chess player.

Our 10 year old son loves chess. He has played in national tournaments for the last 2 years. He can crush me in chess as simply as I can crush a mosquito. My Electrical and Computer Engineering Masters Degree mind cannot compete against his 10 year old chess/lego mind. He actually gets bored playing against me. I get frustrated. He then goes back to his legos and sand box for mental stimulation.

Don't think I am a mental midget - he'd crush you to .......

NaNoWriMo

Well I have decided to take the plunge. I am actually going to give NaNoWriMo a try. Last year I was traveling in Duluth, MN listening to Wisconsin Public Radio. The program was about a month long contest called National Novel Writing Month (i.e. NaNoWriMo). This is basically a contest against one self to see if one can write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Sounded interesting - if not a bit crazy. I have always wanted to write a Novel. No, I am not a Tom Clancy, John Grisham, C.S. Lewis wannabe. I possess not the talent or the creativity to set such an unreachable goal. I would, however, like to give this contest a good effort and see what comes of it. I have signed up on the contest's website http://www.nanowrimo.org/. My mind is working on a few ideas but nothing definite as yet. Next Tuesday we have our local NaNoWriMo kickoff party at a Barnes & Noble. I picture all attendees to be "Tom Clancy like" having won many Pulitzer Prizes. I view one of them questioning me on "What is you current project?" and my response being "Oh - me - this weekend I am planning on cleaning the garage". I probably need not worry - hell - Clancy, Grisham, and Lewis all brush their teeth, put on their pants, run to the bathroom, and have horny thoughts like any other red blooded American male. Oh - forgot - Lewis doesn't have such thoughts - he's dead. More to come ......

Honesty

Kids are sooooo honest!! We have two boys ages 10 and 16. Our 10 year old is on an honesty push. He would rather eat liver than tell an untruth. Last night he was watching his 16 year old brother flex his still developing musculature in the mirror. The 10 year old asked the 16 year old what those "funny bumps" were on his stomach. The older guy indicated that "that is called a six pack". The 10 year old thought a few seconds and asked his older brother why his Dad only has a "one pack".

A few weeks ago the house got incredibly quiet as I read the newspaper. My wife was supposedly taking a shower. Our 16 year old was out of the house with friends. The 10 year old was supposedly playing in his room. It was the sort of quiet that parents with kids view as un-natural. Immediately my parent instincts went into effect - Something must be going on ..... quiet does not exist in a home with two kids...... I immediately sprang into action to determine the cause of the quiet problem. I slowly crept down the hallway past the bedrooms peering into each one expecting to see "no good". As I entered our bedroom I saw a pair of white socks on 10 year old feet sticking out from behind our dresser near the bathroom door on the other side of which my wife was showering. The door was cracked slightly and the little guy had his nose and one eye mushed up against the crack of light, coming from the bathroom, as he stared intently at the "mother-lode". I asked in a quiet voice what he was doing and he shot to attention as if found sleeping on the job. His reply was "I just wanted to see what she got". I asked if he saw anything and he told me the shower door was steamed up "but you can still sort of see". He then asked if I "wanted to peek too".

Our 16 year old got his drivers license yesterday! Lord have mercy on my soul. He is a responsible kid who is a good driver for a beginner. He only wrecked my new car once while he had his temps. He was driving with my wife at night and was still on our long driveway. He decided that he should stop and back up to the house to turn off a light. My wife cautioned him against doing so and he promptly put our high-powered super-charged "Chick-Picker-Up'er" 2005 Gold Buick Century in reverse and powered up the driveway at high speed. My wife told him to slow down but a male does not listen to a woman's instructions on driving a car. What happened next included leaving the driveway and T-Boning a 3 inch elm tree located 25 feet off the driveway, denting the gas tank, blowing off the driver side mirror, and destroying my new pristine rear bumper. Did I mention the paint scratch down the drivers side of the car where the branches shot out from under the car and hammered the new paint? But he's a great kid..... I'm sure I have no worries with him hurtling along the highway in 4000 lbs of American iron at 65 mph...... Lord have mercy on my soul.

I forgot to mention that I am one of the fortunate workers in America. I only work half days...... 6 AM to 6 PM.