Father’s day 2010

You know what I’m really lousy with? Greeting cards. At some point today, when the mail gets to Orion, my Dad is going to realize this also. Ask my mom. I get all proud and excited when I can get a card to coincide with the event that it is for. I don’t know why this is. Sorry dad.

I AM lucky that I have established this blog over time now and it can convey my Father’s day message better than a card. First? Last years message still stands.

Father's Day 2009 post

As I walked my 5,000 steps this morning I was trying to think what I could write today, that my mom would read to Larry, and have it take the place of a well written, witty, or sappy Hallmark card. I figured it out…nothing. I’m lucky in so many ways, but one of the luckiest things is that I’ve had almost 44 years of being with my dad. We have played softball together, water skied together, fished, done crosswords, mowed the lawn, built Pinewood derby cars, the list goes on. There are plenty of people in the world that would give everything they had to have more time to spend with their dad. I’m lucky. I may not get to hang out with Larry today or tomorrow, but I WILL get to talk to him, wish him happy Father’s day, and tell him I love him. Thanks for being a great Dad. Sorry about the card. August 16th is right around the corner isn’t it?

Just funny

Radio star? That’s nuthin’

While I’m sitting around pondering the meaning of things this morning I’ll let you in on another of my profound philosophies.

It’s not their fault.

I was wandering around Best Buy on Friday and like most middle aged men I was enthralled with just about everything there was in that place. I also noticed that I had to pull Sam away from just about every display and model of phone, TV, MP3 player, video game console, heck even the fans. Yeah, this one.

After doing this for what seemed like the 500th time it occurred to me that a complaint I had about “today’s kids” wasn’t really that valid. I think we’ve screwed up. The reason why I played outside with my friends, flew kites, built forts and rode my bike all the time is that if I didn’t it was boring. I didn’t have 400 channels of cartoons, internet, and 3 different consoles of video games. Oh wait…we had video games here is what baseball looked like.

I don’t blame them. I would rather play a racing game on a 50” television screen wile the latest tunes blasted from the connected stereo. That sounds like fun and it would have kept me off my bike for hours. Seriously…here is what a driving game on your TV looks like now.

The Cub scouts have a “gaming badge” now. Maybe they should just teleconference the next campout, and everyone can pull up a screen with a camp fire on it and tell scary stories like “The time the power went off!!” and about “Old Crazy Dial up Joe”. Ok…I’m done. I’ll fix it and let you know how it works. Don’t hold your breath.

Shuffle off to Buffalo

Yesterday I noticed something as I trudged through the local Home Goods store. I was doing the “husband shuffle”. I only really noticed I was doing it when I observed another poor soul engaged in it himself. Husbands, you know how it goes. You have absolutely zero interest in being in a store and yet there you are. Your feet start to simply slide along the linoleum like you are about 90 years old. Your hearing starts to suffer since there is absolutely no items to have a real conversation about. If you don’t notice those things here is the one thing you will understand. You know exactly where the exit door to this place is and every time you start to get close to it your symptoms start to fade. There are times in these stores when you get soooo close to the exit only to be thwarted by the “cute little salt and pepper shakers”. I am not posting this because I have an answer to it, but simply as a reminder that we are in a common struggle. Maybe some of my female readers will read this and take pity on one guy and it will all be worth it. Ladies…here is a list of stores that no husband should ever be made to shuffle through.

- Duh..Home Goods

- Michaels Fabric / Craft store

- Payless shoes or any shoe store for that matter

- Sephora

- Claires / Icing / Any accessory store

Good rule of thumb? If there are chairs in the store for the sole reason of allowing a stricken husband to sit while his significant other shops? This is not store he should be in.

My local hangout

Seems I’m going to have to re-name this blog. “Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned at the grocery store” or “101 Observations from aisle 10”? I either spend too much time at Publix or it’s the only time my mind is free of other encumbrances.

Today’s observations from aisle 10.

1. I saw the funniest cell phone disaster ever tonight. Lady comes out of Publix, fumbles for her phone…proceeds to drop it. This wasn’t all that funny until she kicked it. The topper? She kicked it into the parking lot and it got run over by a car. I had to leave the scene. I had no idea if I could contain my laughter. Last I saw she was just standing there. Staring at the parking lot.

2. The postal service is mean. I saw a perfectly good looking, middle aged, fit looking guy standing in the checkout lane. They made him wear this.

Sorry if it is hard to see

3. **DISCLAIMER – For single guys only. I do not condone or consider this for myself.** – The grocery store has got to be the perfect place to meet women. Let’s think about it.

ALL women have to eat. By choosing the grocery store you are not limiting your pool of candidates.

Don’t have to pay a cover charge for the grocery store.

You can tell by their cart some very telling clues. Pay special attention to the time they spend at the pharmacy.

If you REALLY hit it off with someone from the produce section you are only steps away from flowers and candy if you want to speed things up a bit.

There are no bouncers at the grocery store. If things get out of hand it takes a lot to get kicked out of the store. BONUS – Not likely to get a drink thrown in your face.

I seriously have not tired any of the above, but since I’m sure I have a vast following of single men, 18-49, I thought I would offer this public service message.

I WILL have a nice day thank you

I figured I should write about a good customer service day since I complain a lot when I don’t like something. It started at my least favorite place…the cell phone company. Verizon has become so big that I think they are now offering oil changes at their stores. To get your cell phone switched you have to go to the “special” store, make it through the gauntlet of “special offers” from the sales people, and the get on the, you guessed it, “special list”. I happened to catch them looking the other way and escaped the first two steps, the first person I talked to put me on the list, and within 15 minutes they actually agreed with me and gave me a new phone. No signatures, no new contract. Nothing. I do suspect that they are setting me up for some future whammy. I’ll let you know. After that I was encouraged by my success and visited one of my actual favorite places, Publix. They didn’t happen to have the one thing I was looking for on the shelf and I did something I never do…I asked if there was any “in the back”. Here is how the “Is there any in the back?” question gets handled usually.

1. – Employee laughs out loud and says no.

2. – Employee realizes that this is a chance to take a 20 minute break and “goes to check”.

3. – Employee asks the manager who does one of the above for them.

4. – Employee goes into the mysterious “back” and comes back with something completely different that they have determined “might work”

I happened to ask a person who not only knew what I was looking for, but actually said “I think that truck came in yesterday, let me check”. She came back with the exact thing I asked for. I almost hugged her. I managed to hold back because I didn’t want to be the “crazy dish wash detergent guy” every time I went there. I hate to be a pessimist, but I believe in karma going both directions. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.

My new job

I have found the perfect job for me. It occurred to me tonight as I strolled through the Barnes and Noble down the road. I want to be a book reader. That’s right. A book reader. I just want to read the books. I don’t want to discuss them, edit them, correct them or anything else. I know this seems like a relatively useless job, but I’ve seen other jobs that seem just as silly. Wal-Mart greeter for instance. I’m not sure what kind of secret corporate deal that was struck to make that a job, but more power to them. The next trick is to find the proper company to pay me. For such a unique job I feel like I should also be paid pretty well. I’ll get back to you.

A proper title ruins the ending…

So the other day me and Sam were out and about and stopped at a local store to get a treat. While we were seated I noticed a young girl about 11 or 12 approach the clerk. She asked how much something was and counted her coins. She then asked how much the next smallest size was and got one of those disappointed looks on her face when she knew she didn’t have enough. The clerk suggested the smallest size that they had and the young girl smiled meekly and although disappointed, she said yes. I knew the clerk had underpriced the small version of her order so she could afford it and not walk away upset. By now you are thinking to yourself…”Hey Jon. Why not reach into your pocket and help a little kid out?” You want to know why? While I was watching this unfold with fascination I was thinking to myself, “Why is that little girl ordering a latte with an extra shot of espresso?” For those of you that instantly think that she was probably getting it for her mother or father, she proceeded to sit next to me and complain to her friend about the prices at Starbucks these days.

Band-Aids needed

So for Sam’s 6th birthday the collective geniuses that = me and Jen decided to buy Rock Band for our Wii. This may eventually go down as one of the biggest mistakes ever. Interestingly PLAYING Rock Band is quite similar to being IN a Rock Band. Here’s why:

1. – All of the band members think they are better players than they really are.

2. – The latest gig ended up with the drummer freaking out and kicking the other members out of the band. (That was me)

3. – The guitarist / bass player is moody and can’t get along with the lead singer.

4. – Don’t even get me started on the manager…she is strung out on all sorts of medication.

Here are some promo shots of our band – Lorax

This photo is staged. No way would I look like that unless I was trying to look goofy.

Cart-ography

Since the economy needs all the jobs it can get these days I won’t take my latest observation to the CEO’s of Target, Wal-MArt, or (insert favorite grocery store here). Why do we have an army of people dedicated to the collection, organizing and returning of shopping carts? I was at a large Wal-MArt the other day and there were carts everywhere. Up on curbs, piled high in the parking spaces…everywhere. This may be becoming an overused phrase in this blog, but I wonder why we don’t do things the way they do in Europe? Maybe there are places that do things differently in the states somewhere, but I’ve never seen it.

The concept is simple. All the carts require a coin to use and you get the coin back when you return the cart to the line of other carts. Here is a picture:

The only downfall I see to this here is that our coin of choice would probably be a quarter. In most places in Europe it was a Euro. (Dollar’ish) I think a lot of Americans would decide to leave the quarter behind for the laziness of not taking the cart back. I also think that a clever person would know this and make a pretty good chunk of change in a large parking lot chasing those lazy Americans quarters for them. I guess it would achieve the same goal. Some of the grocery stores even would give you a slug coin with their logo on it to carry around with you so you would always have “the coin” Just trying to help America.

Taking the plunge

As mentioned, Sam wanted everyone to jump in the pool with their clothes on for his birthday. Why? Who knows. This kid is the product of some very goofy genetic code. We will likely be repeating this next year. Better to preserve a relatively tame tradition than to leave it open to his creative imagination to come up with something that might be more daunting. As promised, here is the video.

Will you still need me?, will you still feed me?...

Today is Sam’s birthday. Grandma and Grandpa Carroll are here. The weather is great. I think Sam picked a perfect day to join us 6 years ago. This is also the 1 year anniversary of my dad finishing his chemotherapy. It’s already been “one of those weeks”, but as I type this I know that things are ok.

 

 

Stay tuned because one of Sam’s wishes for his birthday is that everyone is to jump in the pool with their clothes on. I’m not kidding. I think this is best served by video.