Victory is sweet- losing stinks

I am helping coach my two sons' soccer team this year. I am the coach yelling instructions on the side lines and firing up the players. The other coach is the strategist and the one planning substitutions and knows all the rules. I am there for motivation.

We got our first win last night. That set us at 1-1-1. It was good for the boys to finally have a win. We celebrated with a milkshake!

Tonight we got killed by a bigger, faster, and more skilled team. We got crushed. I even quit keeping score. It was pitiful. Now we are 1-2-1.

Chiggers!!!! and other events

For the uninitiated a chigger is also known as a red bug. It is an infinitly small bug that is mostly invisible to the naked eye but has a bite that leaves you wanting to skin yourself alive if they DO bite you. I had the pleasure of getting to know a host of these little bugs after a weekend civil war event outside Atlanta. I am still debating either self-skinning or amputation.

In other news, my oldest son was making a call on my cell phone yesterday. He was calling his grandparents and said my cell phone was making a strange noise like it wouldn't let him dial the number. I listened and it was...a BUSY signal. I guess this is just another lost thing thanks to the digital age and the proliferation of voicemail and cell phones. No more busy signals, and probably no more dial tones! Dang I feel old.

I have decided to play tennis at one level above my current ranking. I am ding this for the competition and the challenge. I am hoping I won't get smoked too bad. Season starts in a few weeks so I have some time to get ready. My team captain thinks I can hang with the next higher ranked players. We'll see.

Keep Gator in your thoughts. He just got some dream-shattering news that is kinda hard to swallow. But I'll let him blog about it.

Ruined Independence Day

Well my day was ruined. After busting my hump for 4 hours in the hot sun putting up electric fence for the dogs I was looking forward to a pool party/cookout up the road. It was all adults, no kids. I had already met my sun quota so I was waiting for the shade to overlap the pool so I could swim.

The sun had just about moved right and all is going fine until one of the geniuses decided to roll a big number right there on the deck and burn it with another woman there. I was gone after that. I told the wife I was leaving. No pool, no cookout. Plans shot. I didn't make a scene, just packed and bailed.

Kind pisses me off. Granted, it ain't my party, or my house and I'm the one who decided to leave, but it still pisses me off the only thing we had planned for the holiday was ruined by some inconsiderate ass who thinks he is still 19 years old and that pot is 'cool'. Grow up jackass.

I don't celebrate "the 4th of July", nor should you

This is nit-picky for most folks. I know it. I can hear you revving up your keyboards to jump on me. But I don't celebrate the "4th of July".

4 July is just a date. It falls every year between 3 July and 5 July. Absolutely nothing special about that date.

What is special? INDEPENDENCE DAY! Yes, my friends, the name of the holiday is INDEPENDENCE DAY. On this special day we celebrate our ancestors having the balls to stand up to an opressive and unrepresentative government as say "NO MORE!" It is this day that makes us all what we are today...AMERICANS! Free of opressive British rule. THE BIRTH OF AMERICA!

Semantics? I think not! By dumbing it down to "4th of July" we lose sight of what we are celebrating! This isn't about fireworks and hotdogs (although fun). This is about celebrating our freedom! This is about standing up for what is right! This is about honoring the sacrifice of those men and women who stood up and told the Brits to piss off and then backed it up by taking up a weapon and standing a post!

Some of those people lost everything they had...and I mean everything.

This day is the heart and soul of being an American. This day is where it all began.

Take time this INDEPENDENCE DAY and READ the Declaration of Independence. Don't get all wrapped up in the free time that you forget that a big part of free time is 'free', and that is what you are celebrating!

So don't wish your friends a "Happy 4th". Wish them a "Great Independence Day"

Now pass the relish before my hotdog gets cold.

Stream of consciousness writing

When you have writer's block my HS English teacher always encouraged trying stream of conciousness writing to generate ideas...

Hmmmm...I know for both of my blog fans the times have been rather slow. I have not been producing very many interesting posts, or even any uninteresting posts. It seems life has been rather routine.

-oldest son got a dirtbike
-put electrified fence in the dog pen (good clean fun!)
-new house air conditioner
-Rosetta Stone Russian language software
-still waiting for Company Command to be the "best job in the Army" as was promised
-the end of my Civil War hobby

Nothing seems to peak my interest.

Suggestions?

10 years this week

Well it is hard to believe that I have been working at the same place for 10 years. It sure doesn't seem that long.

I've been lucky I guess. This company has been good to me. They have supported my deployments and times I needed to be off for military service. They have sent me all over the planet on job tasks. They have always managed to find me coverage when things got slim. They have overlooked my off-beat humor and took it in stride.

I've had some good times and worked with some good people. Some are still here, some have moved on or retired.

I look forward to 10 more good ones.

Hell in a handbasket?

Ugggh, where to start?!! Tea Parties, Miss USA Pageant, Texas Secession, Georgia Nullification votes...

Will this country fracture apart? It is an honest question to ask. I never really thought a second civil war could happen, and in some ways really don't think it will come to that, but it is something to consider. Go back and study your history.

The 7th grade answer is that the Civil War was about slavery and that was the issue. But real reasons individuals took up arms are as vast as the numbers of men who served. Consider that today. History may record that the war in Iraq was about oil, but what do the individual soldiers say? See what I mean.

Also consider the fracture between the right and the left. Consider the fact that many see these fractures as irreparable and irreconcilable. How much more would it take to push the country into another shooting war? And why would Johnny go marching off? Was his home threatened? Was his livelihood threatened? Was his freedom threatened?

Folks only need to feel their safety and well being is actually, no joke, seriously at stake. It was easy to get folks riled up back then, and they didn't have the mass media availability of information. Rumor was strong medicine. And don't think for a second that just because we have MORE information that it is necessarily a good thing. "Internet Rumors" now make us disagree with folks on the other side of the country rather than just the other side of the fence. Where some of these issues would have only caused a small "Whiskey Rebellion" 200 years ago they could now cause a full scale uprising across states.

Alarmist? Maybe. But not beyond the realm of possibility. I'm not encouraging it, nor condoning it. Just studying on it and noticing some interesting parallels between now and the 1850s.