A quickie.

A real short piece on my other blog, read it here.

Prisons. Part 2.

Shortly before my mother died she did a little time in a rehab home.  She despised it.  So much so that she called it a prison.

I thought prison was a little harsh for a place that was trying to keep you alive.  In the past few years I've started to reconsider.  Oddly enough, the high school I went to I called "The Prison" because of its lack of windows and the freedoms that school students don't have.

Background on retirement/rehab homes.  They feed you, try their best to keep you healthy, charge you quite a bit, and don't let you have the freedom you might want when you're an adult.  Each room had a tv, going outside was limited, meal times was at their convenience, and occasionally they had a field trip.

People don't want to go to prison and they don't want to go to a retirement home (normally).  One is free (to the inmates) and the other is really quite expensive.  Prisoners are given tvs for entertainment and access to law books to appeal their case.  People in homes get a tv and a window.  Neither group wants to be on the inside.

I'm still trying to figure out what's jumping around in the back of my head.  More to come.

Insanity.

Some people say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  I don't agree with that in the least.

Look into the research of quantum physics, these particles don't act in a logical manner.  The researchers do the EXACT same thing for each test and the results are different.  (Pick up a copy of "Science" or "Scientific American" for information about the tests and results.)  Are they insane?  Possibly, but it's not because of quantum physics.

Now look at researchers that study children.  When a kid does something they write it down and try to figure out what it means.  Some things make sense, the "pincer" grab (grabbing with thumb and index finger) is a developmental milestone.  It means that the child has developed the fine motor skills that are the building blocks of eating, writing and self-care to name a few.

That's a simple action, what about "other" actions?  I just watched my two year old put toy cars in the throw cushions on the couch.  First she had to make a cave out of the cushions then she proceeded to stuff these toys into the mouth of the cave.  When she ran out of cars she continued with small dolls.  Does this mean that she is hiding her toys so a sibling doesn't play with them?  Is she playing "house" with them and putting the cars to sleep?  Or could she have seen an older sibling do this so she's just copying them?

The researchers that do this I can understand someone calling insane.  So many variables and you can't question the children because of their lack of speaking and rational thought.  Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one for looking for rational thought in the actions of a two year old.

In my defense we have those immortal words of Joss Whedon "Aren't we all a little crazy?".  That is a paraphrase, extra points to whoever can place it.

Not a Twinkie but would it work?

Years ago a murderer was on trial and he tried to blame it on Twinkies.  It became known as the "Twinkie defense" and you can see it referenced in pop culture.  The defense didn't work, I guess it was just too ludicrous for the courts at the time.  I wonder if it would work now.

Musing on that made me realize something else.  Prostitution is a moral crime, in other words it's a crime because some people don't like it.  I don't really care what two consenting adults want to do with each other.  Remember, I said consenting adults.

Here's an idea for prostitutes, you don't have your customers pay for sex.  They pay you to be an actor in your performance art piece with customer participation.  It could be scripted or improvisational.  The alley, motel room, car, or house could just be the stage.  Condoms, outfits and toys are props.

Of course this is a legal defense theory.  The proper groundwork would have to be laid.  Having a script or improvisational outline ready, an understanding with the client, a reputation as a performance artist, and maybe not having a reputation as a prostitute.

I don't think it would work in the real world.  I have seen crazier things in the world though.  Maybe there is some down on her luck actress out there considering to turn her first trick right now thinking "I have a SAG card, might as well make that a prop as well".  She's already laying the groundwork for her defense.  Good luck, sweet lady and stay safe.

A review of IKEA.

Other blog time, a basic review of IKEA.  Look at it here.

Prisons. Part 1.

As I've written before, this blog is to practice my writing skills.  I've had an idea that has been running around in the back of my head for awhile.  I thought that writing parts of it down would help me figure out what I'm thinking of.

Let me set a few standard "rules".  If you do something illegal you may be sent to jail.  The purpose of imprisonment is twofold, a deterrent and rehabilitation.  Because of the Bill of Rights when in prison one can expect to not be abused or tortured.  Whilst "vacationing" on Uncle Sam's dime one can expect medical care, entertainment (library and tv), food, clothing, and shelter (the so called three hots and a cot).

As a deterrent it seems to work for some people.  The people that it doesn't work on are the people that think prison is better than the world they grew up in.  Is it a deterrent when people learn how to be a better criminal?  Yes, the death penalty is a deterrent to some but with the years involved with appeals is it truly a deterrent when the chance of death is very slim?

As for the rehabilitation part; where's the rehab?  People in jail don't learn new skills, at least not skills that make it easy to leave the criminal life.  Actually, the only skill I can think of that can be learned in jail and transferred to the real world is tattoo artist.

In theory, when a person gets out of prison their debt to society is over.  Is it?  Put ex-con on your application and try to get a job.  Try to rent an apartment.  When I was a landlord I would tell the applicants that we would do a background check, I told them that crimes against children, sex crimes, and attacking your landlord are the only things that would prevent them from getting the place.  After learning some different laws we expanded that to include drug dealing.  Some people say that people don't have to be forced to work with someone that murdered their co-worker or a stranger.  Fair enough.  Unfortunately, with that attitude an ex-con can only go back to crime to live.  Also, consider the psychology of the pit bull; people think they are bad dogs so they are treated like crap, treating a dog like crap will bring out the worst in the dog.  Apply that same logic to a sentient being.

Again, I'm just putting down some notes and ideas for expansion later.  I believe that something must be done in our society but I'm still trying to figure out what.

My little death.

In the science fiction masterpiece "Dune" by Frank Herbert introduced the world to the Bene Gesserit.  They said that fear was the "little death".  To have fear was okay but to let it control you was a type of death.  I'm okay with fear, it's my lack of sleep that kills me.

There are basically two types of insomnia, can't fall asleep and can't stay asleep.  I suffer from both.  Sleeping is the easiest thing in the world.  Babies do it, I think some cats sleep around 23 hours a day.  I have difficulty getting six.  The story of my life.

No one in my family has ever had problems sleeping so they never understood me.  My parents would tell me to try harder.  Trying harder doesn't work in case you didn't know.  That's when I started learning about biofeedback.  Twentysomething years later and I can normally get to sleep within half an hour.  Give me a few minutes and I can lower my blood pressure a fair amount.

I've done various meds to get to sleep.  I would do Claritin until I built up a tolerance and then I would go to Benadryl or something else.  Then I found valerian root.  Smells like an illegal trash dump in New Jersey in the middle of summer but it helps you get to sleep.

It is so annoying when you can't get to sleep, you try all of the tricks you know and even take your sleeping pills and you still can't get to sleep.  That was last night.  I'm wondering what tonight holds for me.

Trees.

I love trees.  Not Rule 34 kind of love but a profound respect and fascination for them.

Trees can be used for so many things.  Furniture, houses, ladders, artwork, fuel, cooking supplies, fruits and nuts from the right ones, shade (this is Texas and the temp is around 95), are just some things they can be used for.  When the English explorers hit the new world they started cutting down trees to use as masts for boats.  One of the first exports out of the new world was trees.

This chair was designed or made by Belter, if you know of him you know of his genius, if you don't look on in awe.  I'm not a big fan of the rococo style, but damn, that is beautiful.  Beautiful and functional.

Some pieces of artwork are not as functional, does that make them less or more beautiful?  My father was a woodturner and this bowl (he didn't turn this one) is similar to what he liked doing.  Now look at the thorns on a honey locust tree.  The thorns can be up to 4-5" long.  I was talking to my brother (also a woodturner) and I mentioned how the honey locust would be a beautiful bowl even with the thorns left on.  Cut a slice out of the log and turn it with the thorns on it.  Functional?  Nope.  Beautiful?  I hope so.  Hard to turn without staining it with your own blood?  Probably.  Even if the grain is ugly and/or boring it would be beautiful because it was hard as hell to turn.  Apparently you can even eat the seed pods, more functional than most other woods.

About the only thing you couldn't do with this tree is put a fort in it.  You could, but only if you hate your kids.  

So what can we do with trees?  Furniture, houses, art, and even food.  I know you can do the same with plastic (yes, you can find food with plastics in them) but where is the soul in plastic?  Even when the artist puts their soul in their work it can't compete with wood.  

Go out and plant a tree today.  Or if that's not in the cards why don't you sit under one and read a book, or paint one, or just look at one and see the beauty in it.

A twist.

I've been reading a lot of books lately that deal with nicety and respect.  I didn't mean to do that, I just read some books that I had laying around.

A business book about being nice, a couple books about ex-convicts (respect is a major thing in prisons) and a book about a serial killer.  The serial killer was the best.  The book was called "I am not a serial killer" by Dan Wells.  It's about a kid that has all of the signs of being a serial killer but he doesn't want to be one.  He has a set of rules that he created for himself so he won't slip up and kill someone.  My favorite is his rule of being nice.  Whenever he wants to kill someone, instead of killing them he has to compliment them.  See, I told you it was all about being nice.  Truthfully, his niceness did have an ulterior motive; not killing people, but he was still nice.  Definitely worth a read if you like the anti-hero archetype.

I force myself to be nice, not because I'm trying to avoid killing people, I just know that I look like I'm always mad.  Working in the food and beverage industry I would try to soften my image.  If I had to wear a suit I would have a fun tie to go with it.  If I was wearing a tuxedo I would have a small sock monkey in my handkerchief pocket looking out and flirting with the ladies.  Little things can go a long way.  Try it sometime.

Maybe if we could all be a little nicer (even if we had to fake it) then maybe this world would be a little nicer also.  Think about it.

A simple primer on alcohol.

Whilst packing I found a cookbook from a family reunion.  In this reunion we put together a cookbook compiled of recipes from family members.  I made a few contributions, this is one of them.

For years I've worked with alcohol in a variety of settings and I have noticed there is quite a dearth of knowledge in the non club industry people when it comes to alcohol.  Here is a little primer for the uninitiated:

Half of the proof is the alcohol content...80 proof equals 40% alcohol.

One shot of whiskey (1.25 oz.) at 80 proof is about the same as an 8 oz glass of wine or a 12 oz glass of beer.

If you cook with alcohol, some but probably not all of the alcohol will be cooked off.  Some items (like some rum balls) might not be cooked at all therefore they may give you a bit more attitude than you bargained for.

Some mixed drinks have more in them than you think, a Long Island Iced Tea is about two shots in most clubs; a good one won't even taste strong to you.

Most frozen drinks are stronger than you think; some machines are going to make the drink very strong.

Don't forget to tip your server or bartender.

If you're on medication, don't mix that with alcohol (pain meds and antibiotics amongst others).

Do not even think about drinking and driving.  Your last drink of the night we call "One for the ditch" for a reason.

Don't believe that just drinking beer or wine is safe, if you weigh 200 lbs. a six pack of beer in an hour will put you in the illegal category due to your Blood Alcohol Content (BAC).

Don't believe that a shower or coffee will sober you up, only time will.  About one hour for one drink to pass through your liver and be metabolized.

If you think you might get a hangover from your night of drinking take a couple of aspirin and a big glass of water before you go to bed.  Or don't drink as much.

I'm not saying don't drink, just use some common sense.

Other blog, about training.

An odd posting about unique training experiences, check it out here.

A restaurant review.

We'll be moving in about a month, I figure that a new town means a new start.  One of these new starts will be more writing.  I'm going to try writing for a local newspaper and what's my background?  I'm going to try and write restaurant reviews.

As my faithful reader(s) know, I went out to eat with part of my family on Sunday.  We went to the Red Lobster in Burleson.  I didn't think about writing this review until about two hours ago so I didn't take notes about what everyone had or the menu except my normal Food and Beverage interest.

We went to Red Lobster because they were close and three of the five people love to eat shrimp.  Two of my kids wanted the Popcorn Shrimp ($5.50) one with broccoli one with oranges.  The third isn't to the point of really ordering her meal so I ordered the Garlic Grilled Shrimp ($5.50) with green beans for her.  All three kids meals were a good size, I think that if my kids didn't like shrimp so much they wouldn't have finished it all.  In the menu it said oranges, I mistakenly assumed it meant "mandarin" oranges, half an orange cut into three wedges was the reality.  The only thing I didn't like about the kids part of the meal was the waitress automatically assumed I wanted fries for the kids.  Nope.

My sister had the Sailor's Platter ($9.90), a selection of fried shrimp, shrimp scampi, broiled fish and a side.  Again, big portions, big enough to share with the kids if needed, you could probably order it for two kids and split it between them.  She had no complaints with the flavor, presentation, and selection.

My brother had the Garlic Shrimp Scampi with green beans.  It was served with a cocktail sauce which my brother ignored because that would have slowed him down from eating shrimp.  That should tell you what he thought of the shrimp.

I ordered the Grilled Southwest Chicken Sandwich with fries, tasted good, I would have preferred it with a little more kick but my tastes are not the standards of the nation.  The chain must go with the tastes of the nation so I understand.  I wanted something basic and it was perfect for that.

We didn't order an appetizer, apps can be problematic when you have kids, too much of an app and they don't eat the meal.  Plus, my children love breads and we were served a couple of baskets of Cheddar Bar Biscuits.  One kid loved them so much that she wouldn't stop talking about them.

The service was...decent.  We had a short wait at the door for a table but it was Sunday on Father's Day at 1ish, the wait was about 15 minutes not the 45 or so I was expecting.  The waitress was very nice, I already mentioned the fries faux pas, she delivered the meals to the wrong people at our table and tried to give me my brother's salad but those were the only technical mistakes she did.  She kept our glasses full without being reminded.  She brought us to-go boxes quickly when we asked for them.  She brought us a bag of biscuits wrapped up to go because she knew my children loved them.  One child needed to go to the restroom and since it was in line of sight I let her go.  My children said that the waitress saw them in the restroom and held them up so they could wash their hands.

Would we go back?  Yepper.  The waitress made a few simple mistakes but they were noticed and fixed quickly.  Why do you go to a restaurant?  The food.  The food was good and the waitress was friendly enough so we will ask for her if we go back and forgive her mistakes.

A palate cleanser.

When tasting wine or food there will be a palate cleanser between courses.  This might be something simple like a cracker or a glass of water.  The reason is simple, before you try something complex you want to be sure that the previous flavors are gone.

I do that with some books.  Many of the books I read are rather dark and between books quite often I will read lighter books or some periodicals.  I say some because I'm rather tired of the constant whining and sniping in the liberal and conservative magazines I've read.

My current palate cleanser is "Love Bites" by Christopher Moore.  It has vampire kitties, an emo/goth chick, a gay cop lecturing a young gay kid, and the other zany Moore characters standard for his books.  It's a great cleanser between the darker Vachss's books that I've been reading lately.

There's enough darkness that I've seen, I can only take limited amounts of it in entertainment before it starts affecting me.  That's why I read palate cleansers.  Try one, it might do you a world of good.

Not a post for Father's Day.

I'm not going to write about Father's Day because my father died years ago.  Anything I write about him would smack of tooting my own horn about being a father.  Not going to do that.  I will write about accidental fathers though.

One of my brothers is in a group home.  We took him out to lunch today and checked out the home.  I was very impressed with the home and with the employee.  This guy is a father by pay.  What does he do?  He stays in a house with three guys and helps them clean up or cleans up after them, feeds them, if necessary he helps them bathe, does laundry, and takes them places.  Sounds a bit like a father to me.

My sister pulled some favors and got some tickets (enough for all of the residents, aides, and weekend residents) for Scarborough Faire.  These kids loved it, one aide couldn't go and asked my sister why they were talking about two people throwing knives at each other.  These two guys are a father/son knife throwing team (they are called "Stewart and Arnold", I highly recommend that you see them) and the perfect show for these kids to see.  Drama and action, what else could you ask for?  If the group goes to some activity the kids have to pay for their own snacks, souvenirs, and entry; therefore they try to keep it economical for all.  For my brother cash is not a problem, if they need something for him, he has four siblings that will get him what he needs.  Not all of the residents have that luxury though.  My sister was sending $20 with him for weekend outings and they said that was too much.  Some kids are using their government assistance just to get in and don't have the funds or family to pay for extras.  My sister went ahead and paid for a "pay per view" event for the house, I would like to do something also but I don't know what yet.

It's difficult to see my brother, his memory and body is worsening almost daily.  Every time I see him I say goodbye to him because it might be my last chance.  Maybe it will get easier with time.  I hope I get a lot of practice.

My future career.

I'm going back to school in a bit and I'm thinking and wondering about what new career to get into.  I like helping people learn and was thinking about being a teacher.  Then I thought about what would happen with a smart ass kid.  I would so get fired, I would be a smart ass right back and show them how to do it right.  I do believe that most parents would have a problem with that.

After my really bad day yesterday I was relaxing and keeping away from the kids by matching socks.  Then it hit me, I should design baby socks.  Think about it; you get a basic sock design and put a light green heart on it, just a little down from the top.  That's it.  If that design didn't sell that well you just change the heart to a cute little critter or put a stripe on it.  That was the only difference in these socks.  I can do that.  Hell, there are animals in zoos that could it.

I know you're thinking that this is a lame career.  I beg to differ.  What will give a person the feelings of love, compassion, and protection?  A child.  Wait a minute, babies are noisy, stinky, and expensive.  Baby socks aren't.  All of the good without any of the bad.

Reality again, these sock companies have designers again and they probably have some weird degree like Medieval English Literature.  I'm not going to get the dream job that I want to have.  So I have a small basket of unmatched socks, what to do with them.

Hello, sock monkey project.  Maybe there is another project to do with socks but are they as cute?  I don't think so.  What my future career will be I can't say.  But really, is there anything more indicative of innocence besides baby socks?

Other blog time. It's about "helpful" customer service.

A post about my fun times in a bank today.  Check it out here.

My muses.

I find inspiration in all sorts of sources.  One of my best emotional muses would be anger.  When I read or hear of something that I consider stupid and shortsighted, that anger that I feel needs to be channeled into something.  Writing is better than drinking when you're angry so I hit the keyboard.

Some of my sources are magazines.  I'll read anything you put in front of me (I'll draw the line at some crap from NAMBLA and most likely hit whoever thought I would be interested in that).  I learned some interesting indoor gardening techniques from a "High Times" issue, since I'm not a pot head the pictures of the finished product were rather wasted on me.  Sadly, most of the easily available information on hydro and aquaponics are from pot growers.

Another good source of inspiration is Facebook.  Unfortunately most of my inspiration on Facebook causes me to just get angry.  Some makes me sad.  A recent post from a friend was one.  She broke up with her boyfriend and posted her techniques to deal with the situation.  She's a friend and I'm rather bummed that I can't do anymore than offer a shoulder to cry on.

I liked the spirit of her post but let me put a male spin on it.  Throw yourself into work, eat barbecue, hit up topless bars.  

Some of my thoughts are completely random.  I came up with a Marine commercial yesterday.  I HAD to write it down so I could clear my head enough to go to sleep.  Sometimes... my mind just goes wacky.

A money making system.

Had another "best of..." post.  Check it out here.

Why should anyone smile?

I wrote this almost 20 years ago, I'm putting it on my blog as a space filler.  Just be glad it's not stick-figure cartoons or "The best of..." reruns.

Now picture this, you don't smile at me, I get bummed out and don't smile then you see someone (me) who looks all grumpy so you have another reason to not smile.  Customers see us so they get all grumpy and don't smile.  Then they see their employers, customers, spouses, and children.  So then these people have a reason to not smile and be grumpy.  The professional entertainers get annoyed with their audience never smiling and laughing, so they quit giving everyone another reason to smile.  Politicians and bureaucrats sense the mood of their constituents so they enact laws outlawing the smile.  The animals of the world pick up the air of grumpiness from the human population so they turn on each other.  As the human race unleashes their beastly nature more crimes are committed, more animals are hunted into extinction.  Eventually when spring comes around the young people aren't dating as much until they aren't dating at all.  The species is not being procreated enough to keep up the current technological levels.  Eventually the medical community cannot keep up with the forces of age and entropy so disease and pestilence run rampant through the remains of humanity and nature.  Eventually the planet earth is devoid of all animal life so of course the plant life follows since it depends on us for existence.
So then finally the entire planet is a lifeless husk
                                                                       all
                                                                           because
                                                                                       you
                                                                                             would
                                                                                                       not
                                                                                                            smile.

I am definitely not a happy smiley person.  I copied this they way I wrote it (I did fix one spelling mistake).  Do I think this could happen?  Nope, but I do take the long view and I could imagine people doing these things.

If I were to rewrite it today I would do it differently, but the original had attitude to make up for rationality.

A book review of sorts.

I recently finished the novel "Blackjack" by Andrew Vachss.  He is probably one of my favorite authors, a bit on the dark side (even for me) though.

Most of his books deal with child abuse.  Having kids make it a bit difficult to read his books back to back, I normally have to read something "lighter" in between.  I had to read a 'Captain Leary' novel by David Drake before I jumped into his next book-"Batman:  Ultimate Evil".  Already 40 something pages into this novel and I can feel the dread.  Something I like about the Vachss novels is the ending; generally speaking, a child abuser dies.  Never a bad thing, I do believe.

If you can handle a darker subject matter, I highly recommend his books.  All of his books deal with the part of humanity that genteel people normally don't associate with.  The characters are working on the edges of society; gun runners, hustlers, armed robbers, and various other criminal elements.  The author has a deeper knowledge of his subject matter than the average reader, it shows in his writing with his verisimilitude.  Check out his website www.vachss.com.  You have been warned.

On to the review, I'm not like a typical reviewer saying how this scene evoked this emotion reminiscent of this other book by this classic author.  Screw that.  His writing is good, the emotions are intense, and the descriptions are great and gritty.  My only dislike is all of the main characters are "perfect", whatever is their specialty is they are "perfect" at it.  You have one person that is "perfect" at their vocation and I'm okay with that, when you have a team of "perfect" people then it gets a bit old.

My favorite author is Donald Westlake (specifically Richard Stark) in his books the character may be the best at what he does but something always goes wrong.  I would like it if a Vachss character had a little imperfection by not associating with "perfectly" skilled teammates.

For the rest of the review read the book yourself.  All of his books are good and worth the time.  You may want to read something lighter afterwards though.

Words.

I like words.  I love to read, I expect people to mean what they say and I hope they say what they mean.  I like it when my children use words that I don't expect from their age.  I really like it when my wife uses those obscure long words.

What does this mean for the blog?  Something for me to write about that won't take too much time.  Been busy today and I want to go to bed.

I've noticed speech patterns getting worse; sometimes people will use bad grammar, sometimes they will use made up words.  What do I mean?  Don't and Didn't are not interchangeable.  One means "do not" the other means "did not".  One is present tense and the other is past tense.

Another trend I've seen is creating words, my pet peeve word is "conversate".  That's not a real word.  You can "converse" or have a "conversation" but you can't "conversate".

You ask me what's the matter?  If we don't know how to use words correctly will our art become stagnant? Will it revert to just visuals?  Will our only source or entertainment or news only be pictures?  They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  True, but does that picture need a thousand words because they don't know what words to use?

A little denial time.

It was a busy day today.  It started with visiting my special needs brother doing his Eagle Scout project.  He's suffering from either dementia or Alzheimer's disease, we don't know which.  Very depressing.

For those of you that don't know, these memory problems aren't just forgetting what you had for breakfast yesterday.  It's more intense.  He forgets things like how to put on shoes, he's putting his toes into the heel part.  He can remember the names of two of my three kids on a good day, one on a normal day.   It seems like he's getting worse on a daily basis.

After going to the Eagle project we went to a BBQ (this is Texas after all) and then to a birthday party.  Seeing my brother is getting harder and harder because he remembers almost nothing.  So you have someone that had about a 50 IQ at his best and now you're adding memory problems.

I know I have to say goodbye to him, but I don't want to.  Does anyone want to say goodbye to a loved one?  Of course not.  The longer I can delay saying goodbye means the longer he lives.  I know it doesn't work that way but I can have a little denial, can't I?

How to be a stay at home parent.

I've been using the internet for other purposes lately.  Yes, the internet does have a use besides porn and jokes.  I've been using it for research.  Specifically, research into how to be a better housedad.  Oddly enough, not that much research has been put into it yet.  I did find some stuff though.

Who is the best housewife in existence?  June Cleaver of course.  How did she do it?  Apparently, at the time speed and meth amphetamine were very common with housewives.  Let's see what will speed do to you?  Always chipper-good, house always clean-good, and weight loss-HELL YES,we have a winner.

This is going to be awesome.  Get up, take a hit of speed, have breakfast, get some laundry done, give the kids breakfast, do the dishes, vacuum the floor, clean up the kitchen from breakfast, even do a little aerobics.  Repeat through the day to get everything else done and meet my wife at the door with a martini (she's more of a wine drinker but the martini goes with the Cleaver theme, I do draw the line at the pearl necklace).  I would probably make a coffee cake with the speed to combine those two morning activities and actually make my children a proper breakfast so I don't have to share mine.

The downside is a bit of a problem with the law.  Wait a second, the drug has other side effects...teeth and gum problems are the most common but not the only.  Screw this.  I'll do it the old fashioned way.

For anyone not familiar with humor and sarcasm, this was a joke.  I'm actually very anti-drug.  My wife and I are going to shave the head of any daughters that "experiment" with drugs.  I put experiment in quote marks because if you're not wearing a lab coat and getting paid you're not "experimenting" you're using.

Religion in schools, other post time.

A post about Religion in schools.  Read it here.

A posting about the lowest bidder.

Other blog time, check it out here.

Changes and expectations.

I have an anniversary coming up.  Of course I'm trying to figure out how to top my wife's favorite gift (a garbage disposal) from me.  I'm still in the brainstorming phase.  During all of this thinking about marriage I also thought about marriages I've watched, some still working and some not.

Some of the failed marriages I've seen were caused by expectations.  The expectation that one partner of the marriage will change.  It's a standard gag in sitcoms that the wife will try to change her husband.  Do wives really try this?  I don't know.

I do know that if a person tries to change their spouse then they are really saying that they aren't really impressed with the person they married.  If a person learns different ways to make their spouse happy is that changing?  Nope, just the normal give and take between spouses.

Maybe couples just need more communication.

Rule 34.

I was thinking about what to write today and saw the number 34.  That was wiggling around in the back of my head for awhile until I remembered what the rule was.  For those that don't know Rule 34 deals with porn and the internet.  It states that "If it exists there is porn for it."  

What that means is that there is porn dealing with all of the cartoons from your childhood.  If you have fond memories of The Transformers or Scooby Do, don't look them up.  They do exist and you can't forget some things.  There is porn dealing with weird obscure fetishes that you didn't even know about.  Your choice on looking those up.

Is this a human thing or an American thing?  Is America so sexually repressed while at the same time so bombarded with sex in advertising and entertainment that we have to branch out to other forms of sexual enjoyment?  Is Rule 34 normal in Japan?  How about a country that isn't quite as online?  

I'm pretty much a live and let live kind of guy.  If someone has a desire to have sex while indulging in some scat fetish, I don't care.  I DON'T want them to let me know about it, but I don't care.  That sounds disturbing to me, but hey, if everyone is a consenting adult what does it matter to me?  Oddly enough, certain "common" fantasies (rape, incest, and child molestation) I find the most disturbing.  If someone finds a willing partner for their fantasy does that feed the fantasy or provide a safety release thereby preventing them from doing the actual action?  That is a question for others.  

I do wonder what our society will be like in a century.  Will we be so jaded that it will take all sorts of convoluted actions and plans and gadgets for us to have sex?  Will it be the opposite and they will look back at our sexual preoccupations and think that it's quaint?  

I can envision those two futures but what if it's in the middle somewhere?  I don't think Rule 34 covers that.

Heroes.

Heroes are an odd concept.  For a quite long time I didn't have the greatest relationship with my parents.  It wasn't until I realized that their time on the planet could be measured in years and not decades did I decide to change that.

My parents had five children (one of which is a special needs kid) and their own business.  The business was a time intensive one.  They worked seven days a week and 365 days a year, they would just put in a few hours on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but they still worked.  I remember when my father realized that he was getting older so he decided to work half days...4 am to 4 pm.  Yes, he thought that 12 hour days was cutting back, for him it was.

I'm not a big believer in heroes, but I do believe in accidental mentors.  When I have doubts about being a stay at home dad I think about my parents.  They had 67% more children and one was a special needs child.  My father didn't do anywhere near the amount of housework I did when I was employed.  Now that I'm the stay at home dad I do all sorts of housework and play with my kids more than my parents ever played with us.  I got my work ethic from my parents.  Unfortunately, I never learned about housekeeping from my parents.  My challenge now is to adjust my work ethic to a my at home work ethic.

It's hard, but my parents did more with less.  I think I can do it.

About image.

Other blog time, check it out here.