Come Home, Work, Go Again...

Ahhh...back home, finally. I've been away on a work trip to San Diego. It was a pretty fun trip all in all, but it was work. We were there for a conference and stayed at this really pimp resort. They also treated us really well since it was the annual conference - anything we needed - I got spoiled. The problem with all this was that at night we were kind of expected to stay out and 'mingle' with all the rest of the people in our division. Mingling went into the wee hours every night. I bailed on two of them and made two of them.

Enough about work. The weekend before I left was our annual homebrew competition. This was actually the third round of judging, but was the only day of the actual event. This time I showed up late, which I did by mistake. The punishment for showing up late is having to judge what no one else wants to judge. It was specialty beers, and there were around seven of them. Actually, the best of show came out of that group - good stuff. Then, as a continuation of the punishment, I was to judge the Ciders. I really, really, don't like Ciders. When I say Cider, I am not referring to the nice, sweet, cinnamon-tasting apple juice you get in a craft store at Christmas. This Cider is the very alcohol-laden, sour, astringent, bitter beer Cider. Did I mention how much alchohol is in this stuff. It was rough. Rough enough to have to rinse it down with some stouts before getting picked up.

I got back from San Diego on Friday, and then Saturday I worked my freakin' tail off. I killed some ants, mowed the yard - front, back, and side - planted two trees, dug up one dead tree, went to Lowe's, then planted ten day lilies in the flower beds. Just livin' the dream, you know. Today it's been raining all day, and I haven't been able to get anything constructive done around the house. I ran an errand for the wife, and that was about it. I did finish packing for yet another work trip though. I'm heading to Florida tomorrow afternoon. This time I'll be back Wednesday night though - nice. Tonight we've been munching on DiJiorno's and watching Soprano's re-runs.

That's all I've got.

I Love Fridays

Yep, it's official. I do. I love Fridays.

There are several reasons why I love this wonderful fifth day of the work week. Let's review. First, it's the last day of work before two days of free time. The word "free time" here is subjective and changes rapidly and without warning when one becomes married. Also, since it is the last day of work, more often than not work gets pushed to that worst-of-days Monday for fear of "starting a 'project' and not being able to finish it before the weekend" anyway. There's also my favorite coffee mug that I only drink out of on Friday. It just tastes better, and no, I don't care if you think I'm crazy. Friday is also the beginning of the weekend if you like to go out and party. I used to like to go out and party more than I do now, but the same "not a week night" feeling still applies. I can stay up as late as I want without worrying about getting up early. It's the PERFECT day to ditch out early and get in nine holes of bad-played golf. It's a great night to grill out. I don't have any work to do. You don't have to put up with that infinitely annoying co-worker. And, there's always the excuse to go out to eat for lunch anywhere you want and take a little bit extra time because hey, "it's Friday."

Baseball games are always better on Fridays. One of my favorite movies is named Friday. It's also the day when high school football is played in the fall, and the night before tailgating festivities take place on the college stage. You can't beat it. You really can't. It's a movie night, it's pizza night, it's hamburger night, it's whatever night you want. It's the night you got to party in high school.

This Friday was no different. Work was easy, the coffee was great, we're watching a movie, and besides the Braves not being televised tonight, (thus the movie) everything has gone great.

Ahh, there's so many reasons why Fridays rock.

Didn't Get Much Done

You know that part about how I was supposed to be working a lot last weekend? Well that was before I remembered that I was to be a judge in a local homebrew competition. Yeah, I got to drink a bunch of beer, all good, all stouts. After that I had to sample a bit of the brewery's beer where the competition was. Then it was on across the street to a crawfish festival. It was pretty good too. And, since the crawfish were spicy, I got thirsty again and ended up back at the original brewery I started at. Now, the problem with all this is, by that time it was still only mid-afternoon. I grabbed some food and headed home. Nap time. Yard work was definitely out of the question.

It would be a good time to interject a bit of disappointment with the crawfish festival. I had been hearing about this thing for weeks. It was heavily advertised, and several of my friends chatted it up too. The crawfish were good, the music was lame though, and that was about all there was to the festival. It was a big parking lot, a stage in front of an 18-wheeler, and ONE BOOTH selling crawfish under a tent. That was it. Seriously. But they had great crawfish.

So, Sunday was filled with tons of work...the kind that didn't include judging in a beer competition. I did about two tons of laundry because I usually put it off until I absolutely have to. In the midst of all the laundry, I was in the back yard pulling all the weeds out of the flower beds. They were so bad they had clover growing in them. I got about half way through. I also finally put some fire ant killer on this gigantic, I mean gigantic, ant mound I had. It was kind of cool. I've been in suburbia for a while now and things like that just get amusing.

And that's about it. Monday and Tuesday have been rather mundane. I have continued the weeding and monitoring the entertaining ant mound, which is pretty much done.

Yeah, this post is done too.

Affliction to Poo

So I spoke with the bank's home loan person yesterday. The good news is that we're pre-approved to get a house in Denver. The bad news is the obvious in this market, we have to sell our house. It'll be tough to get what I have to get in order to avoid having to pay out-of-pocket expenses at the closing, but I'll have to. One thing we've decided to do, upon advice from EVERYONE, is to sell it ourselves. And, when you really think about it, what the hell do real-estate agents do anyway? They collect seven percent, that's what they do.

So, this weekend I plan on going to Lowe's, making a 'for sale by owner' sign, straightening up the house, cleaning up the flower beds in the back yard, and playing bachelor. Yep, A is out of town. Unfortunately her best friend's mother is sick, and A is there to give as much support as possible. Our prayers are with her.

You know, 'playing bachelor' sounds like fun, but nowadays all it means is that I have a lot more time to get bored, and I inevitably end up doing lots more work than normal. I guess for this weekend that's a good thing.

Funny story. I have this extreme dislike of dog poop. Well, any kind of poop really. When it comes to poop, I'm pretty much a wimp. Yeah sure, nobody likes poop. Nobody, likes to smell poop, nobody likes to clean poop up, nobody likes anything about poop really unless it is in your flower bed - and even then it's debatable. I really don't like it. It makes me sick and I involuntarily gag and sometimes straight up puke if I get a good whiff of it. At any rate, we are keeping our neighbor's dog this weekend, which happens to be a puppy. Like several times before, you know where I'm going with this by now. Put two and two together and you get a very bad situation for ol' me. A is out of town, and I have a pooping puppy in the house. She's pretty good about being potty-trained as long as you let her out every so often. So, today I get home and let her out of her crate. She goes straight to the yard and uses the bathroom. Sweet. Then she comes in, I feed her, and go in the back to change clothes. Yeah, you guessed it: I come back in the den and there's poop right there on the wood floor by the front door. I tried to man up and clean it before my gag reflexes kicked in. I went straight to the kitchen, put all the bad thoughts out of my mind, grabbed the paper towels and picked up the detestable clump. I dropped it in a plastic bag and went back for the second swipe. So far so good. I was managing to keep the smell away.

The second swipe smeared on the floor.

The gag reflex kicked in immediately. I quickly swiped up as much of the rest as possible, gagging the whole time. Walked over to the kitchen, dropped off the load - no pun intended - and went to the sink and did my thing. It was awful. The worst part was that I had to go back with some cleaning solution to finish the job. Same thing happened. Round two. Aaargh. I have no idea where this affliction to poo comes from, but it is terrible. I can't even handle a pungent cat box. Whoooo. Yeah yeah, laugh it up.

Time to think about something else.

Ok, I think my mind is off the poo.

Me, John, and Goofy

As I was bouncing around on my regular Internet spots the other day, I saw that an old friend of mine posted on the blog Hillbilly Savants. The blog is one of my favorites. It documents life and culture from where I grew up, and despite the obvious disparity, it reminds me of the line from an interview with Ice Cube when he says, "You know, livin' in the hood ain't all that bad." I'm an Appalachian, and dang it there's nothing wrong with that, and yes, I have a Southern accent. At any rate, I ended up making a comment on his post. It went something like "John Louis Kerns rocks!" Our exchange, and the topics of the blog in general, for whatever reason, got me to thinking about some of the times ol' John and I have had in the past.

Now, this isn't just any old friend. I've known this kid since Kindergarten. As a matter of fact, we were in the same class. I still have a picture to prove it. I've got tons of stories on this guy, and he's probably got tons on me too. Most of which I dare not share here lest I desire retribution. In the end, and I think John would agree, some of our most memorable times were to be had during a ski trip in the mountains of West Virginia.

I think we were in college at the University of Tennessee at the time. Actually I'm pretty sure of it, but there may be an outside chance it was before our freshman year. Either way, that's irrelevant for the story. You see, John and I both grew up skiing. We grew up about an hour and a half from the slopes in Western North Carolina. So, we both have several tales from leaving school on Friday afternoons (high school that is) and heading to the mountains for night skiing which started at 6 pm and went 'til ten. We were decent skiers, and we had another buddy who was yes, in the same Kindergarten class, who was a really good skier. We called him Goofy because when this guy laughed, he sounded just like the damn cartoon character - that's another story. Well, since we all loved to ski, and since we all were really good friends, and since we were all going to be on Christmas break, the three of us decided to go to Snowshoe West Virginia for a three day ski 'marathon.'

ROAD TRIP!

Now this wasn't just any road trip. We were cruisin' along for the five or six hour drive in Goofy's old Jeep Wagoneer. I mean this thing still had the wood peeling off it, and it smelled like gasoline, but damn it, we loved it. And when I say the wood was peeling off it, I mean the stuff they used to put on vehicles that looked like wood, but wasn't. Somewhere close to getting there we stopped in this little town to eat lunch. It was at one of those Subway/Gas stations. As we were leaving Goof backed up into a light pole. No damage done, we were in the Wagon baby.

Also along the way, and I won't mention any names, but we somehow got on this spurt of talking about someone's mother. Not in a derogatory way, but just referencing yo momma over and over. For example, John would say, "Man, this snow is awesome," and either Goofy or myself would say, "Yeah, so is your Mom (names have been changed to protect the innocent)."

Now that I think about it, I know we were in college at the time because the weekend we were there was when Tennessee played Florida State in the 1st NCAA Football BCS National Championship, and kicked their ass. This is a perfect segue into my next little tale. We're skiing along through the Evergreens, enjoying the powder, having a blast. John and I were (at least I can speak for myself anyway) admiring what Goofy was doing on skis. He'd jump, we'd try it and crash, he'd pull a daffy, we'd watch, and so on and so on. So it was in the midst of our snow play when this punk kid comes flying by us decked out in this cheap Florida State Starter Jacket. I mean this guy just blows past us. There would be no having of Florida State blowing past Tennessee, regardless if it was on a ski slope in West Virginia. The next time we saw the kid, he was laying on the ground after a crash, and for some reason was shortly thereafter covered with the snow from three skiers who just happened to carve snow in his direction one after another. He was also forced to suffer through repeated harassment from three skiers on the over passing lifts. Go figure.

I'll wrap up with one more tale. I must say, this is my favorite. The skiing was over, and we were headed home. On the way up none of us had bothered to monitor the gas tank. Hell, I don't even think the gas gauge worked after, if I remember correctly, the last quarter of a tank. So we were guessing after that point and - you know where this is going - incorrectly guessed we had plenty to get us down the mountain. The problem was that 'down the mountain' was seven miles, and that was the nearest gas station. Let me correct myself, we had plenty of gas to get us down the mountain, it just wasn't under the power of a combustible engine. We coasted down that damn hill for seven miles. No shit. Seven miles. I still laugh when I think about that time. We had about 20 cars racked in behind us because during the portions of the 'down the mountain' in which the grade wasn't as steep we were creeping. On top of that, Goofy's arms started killing him, and for a college kid who doesn't take into consideration the possibility of the lack of power steering in a 25 year old Wagoneer going down a mountain in rural West Virginia in January with 20 other pissed-off spring-breakers behind them, under only the power of gravity flying off the side of the mountain into a fiery snow-filled crash, it was freakin' hilarious. I know what you're thinking, we never made it. Well you're right, we didn't. The poor, thirsty ol' Wagoneer stopped about 15 feet from the gas pump.

That 15 feet took quite awhile because the three hilbillies pushing the thing were crying with laughter and talking about someone's mother who was great at pushing vehicles to gas pumps.

John and I are still great friends. In fact there's a camping trip tentatively planned this Spring. Goofy I hear is married now and living back in our hometown with his wife. Good for him. So between now and the next trip to Snowshoe, keep one eye on the Tennessee fans and the other on the gas tank.

'Til next time...

Spring Suburbia

Am I the only one who is completely tired of college basketball? Actually, It's not that I'm tired of basketball, it's that I'm tired of hearing the fans from tiger high talk about how they're the best team to ever play the game. And, I'm even more bitter because my wife wants to watch the game and is causing me to miss Tom Glavine pitching in a Braves uniform for the first time in years. I know what you're thinking - "how could someone want to watch a regular season baseball game instead of an NCAA national championship basketball game?"

Hi. My name is frobinso, and I'm a Braves fan.

At any rate, I've been pretty busy lately and have neglected the blog. This past weekend was kind of a work-filled marathon. Saturday morning I headed over to the local homebrew shop for a club function. Our annual competition is coming up soon and we sorted all the entries by category, labeled everything, and then transported them to another location. Sounds simple, but you try taking 300 beers and separating them by beer categories. That afternoon I did laundry and cleaned up a bit. This brings me to my next little story of the weekend. We have tons of work to do around the house, as we are planning the big move this July. It's no secret the housing market is horrible, so the house needs to be in perfect shape come this summer. We have lots of work to do. So much work in fact, I explained to wifey it wouldn't be a good idea to drink beer all afternoon, and that I was staying home to get some work done. "No no no, you should come too, it'll be fun." Despite my protests, she and a friend ended up going, I stayed home. And worked. What now makes the story funny....she actually called me a few hours later to come pick her up because the friend she was with didn't want to drive back out to our neighborhood. She knows I love her, and yes, I suckered in to going to pick her up, and again endured all the tiger high fans for about 30 minutes.

Sunday I was outside by 9 am and didn't come in until after 5. As if my neck wasn't red enough already - now it's sunburned. It's that time of year again, already. I was able to mow the front and side lawns, cut the overgrown juniper from off of our walkway, pull up all the weeds from the ENTIRE front flowerbed. I also met a new neighbor, talked with our friend the other neighbor too, and then we went to the local beer spot with the new neighbor. When we got home I went straight to the big brown chair and fell asleep...exhausted.

At this point Kansas is winning by five at the half. Keep it up guys, keep it up.

Today has been rather busy as well. Work was stuffed, stayed late for a Mon/Wed 5 pm meeting. I know right, who in the hell schedules a meeting at 5 pm twice a week? Then tonight I finished the back yard I wasn't able to attend to yesterday. It took me about thirty minutes just to run the weed-eater. Arrgh. That's what two straight weeks of rain will do to a lawn in April. Then I came in and flipped on the Braves, ate the wife's unbelieveably good hot chicken dip and chips, cracked open a cold one, and then got interrupted by a basketball request. Like I said, she knows I love her.

Oh sweet! The wife fell asleep on the couch. Bottom of the eighth, the Turners down by 1. Things are getting back to normal.

'Til next time.

Go Braves, Go Vols.