"Maybe it's anti-personnel?"

I played a quick game of Battletech on Tuesday with Shane. He spent the next couple of days drawing robots with special powers.

He was drawing Wednesday morning when Carrie walked up to me in the kitchen.

"Put that down," she said.

I put my cup on the counter.

Carrie gave me a big hug and hung on tight. I was still trying to process the situation when she whispered into my ear.

"He gave him a laser for a wiener."

I started laughing and Carrie said, "Aren't you glad I had you put [your cup] down?"

Shane told me all about his mech and the special laser beam when he noticed me looking. I don't know if he was talking about a different one or not, because my brain kept going there as I tried not to laugh.

Five Finger Whack!

Loki loves 'his' shoe.

The thing is nigh indestructible. The fact that it's survived tug-of-war, fetch, and general munching is enough for me to recommend the brand (no matter how odd it looks...).

Loki's learned to shake his head when playing tug-of-war. Only it turns the shoe into a flail when no one else is playing with him!

Shane wanted to play Robolox on my computer. 

"15 push-ups," I said.

Shane started and I gave Loki his shoe.

Hilarity ensued!

I made a gif, too. It would've been much funnier to film from the other side, but I didn't want to spoil the magic!

Shane got his Robolox time. I honor deals I make! I was happy to hear that it got Carrie laughing, too!

New Comedy Routine Material

I'm always writing stories in my head. Especially when it's quiet. It's one of the ways I organize my thoughts.

Sometimes the subjects can be silly as in these comedy bits.

A lot of comedy is in the presentation, pacing, and reacting to the audience, so you'll just have to pretend as you read.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unabashed Weeds

I'm not a gardener. I do have a garden and I have a wife who doesn't want it to die.

Somehow that translates to me weeding.

You'd think the person who doesn't want the garden to die would be the one to weed it, but that's one of the inconsistencies of life.

Anyway, weeds.

Weeds amaze me.

They're proof of the phrase "Life finds a way," because you kill them over and over and they don't know to stay dead.

One weed so impressed me with it's gumption I let it live.

I was a little lazy for a couple of weeks and then dagblasted thing grew so quickly I wasn't sure if it was a shrub my mother-in-law planted or not. 

Once I thought it might be something she planted the weed had won. Hands down. I wasn't going to pull it up without confirmation from on high that, "Yes, this is a weed. Pull it out. Good boy."

You see, my mother-in-law planted the garden. She's the reason my wife didn't want the garden to die. Not because my wife's a gardener! This story wouldn't have even happened, because she would have been out happily weeding and I could have stayed in my air-conditioning doing something stupid and less useful!

So I yanked every other weed out, but left the special weed alone.

A couple of weeks later my mother in law visited and was shocked. The weed was bigger than any of the shrubs she had planted! The weed was growing bigger and better than anything she planted, fertilized, and watered! 

If anything, she had tried to prevent the weed by putting down pre-emergents and a weed sheet, but it would not be deterred! That's the sort of preservation they make plucky underdog stories out of in Hollywood.

You have to appreciate that sort of gumption. You really do. I couldn't bring myself to rip the weed up at that point.

It's still there. 

Right now, I probably couldn't rip it out even if I wanted. It's the size of a small tree. Only took a few more weeks, too! If trees grew that fast we could have a new forest every summer!

My mother-in-law's not too happy, but I point at it whenever she's here and brag on how well it's doing.

Here's the picture:

I'm so proud.

If you're a gardener or a botanist and you need to warn me that this plant is something poisonous or will try and conquer the world if it comes to fruition.....wait until after I'm done to burst my bubble. Please.

Speaking of bubbles....There's something else I've noticed about weeds: They don't care about personal space.

All the time, I find weeds growing up in other plants.

That's right: IN.

I guess it's a good strategy. Whatever was planted probably had the good stuff. Good soil. Good fertilizer.

Plus, it makes them hard to see. Especially, if you're an idiot like me. I let that one weed grow to the size of a tree! All plants look the same at first if you're not a gardener! They're green! They have leaves! By the time they're grown enough to know the difference it's too late!

But it makes for some odd analogies if you think about it (There's plenty of time to think while you're weeding. This is the kind of thing I think about in between complaining about the sweat, the dirt and my back).

A weed trying to grow right underneath the plant you is like someone who invites themself into your apartment and won't leave. They just say, "This is nice" and set up shop on your couch.

You'd kick them out, but you're a plant. You can't move. You just sit there....stunned.

Then they keep growing. Soon they're in the kitchen rooting around. Next then in your bathroom (using your toothbrush?).

Another thought is that a weed growing under a plant is a lot like two people trying on the same shirt.

The one person was happy and then somehow someone else slipped in! How's that even happen!?

In the case of my weed tree, I like to think the second person magically morphs into a bodybuilder. The original plant is stuck in the shirt, choking on the collar and legs flailing in the air as this magnificent bastard walks off wearing it and the shirt.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time Saved

I have saved a lot of time this pandemic by not bathing.

That's probably not what you expected me to say.

I still have a job. Zoom doesn't transport smells! We'd all be in trouble if it did.

I used to shower off every morning before work. Now, I save that time. I let the sweat dry and go on with life until I can't stand it any more or my wife complains.

Honestly, I'd have thought she'd complain a lot more, but perhaps the fumes affect her thinking.

I tell her it's pheromones. Man scent. She doesn't buy that, at least, so she can't have lost too much mental capacity.

I like to think I'm being environmental: I'm saving water.

And I'm being economical: I'm saving money on soap! Because I'm not using it!

Just one of the unexpected perks of being told not to socialize. I got to lower the bar on my personal hygiene as long as I can remember to put on a shirt without food stains before a meeting goes live.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suggested Tasks

Have you ever noticed how people who suggest you do something have no concept of how long it will really take?

They always low-ball it. They make it sound like it's no big deal and you're wrong for not doing it.

But that's almost NEVER the case.

"The garden will be nice and low maintenance. You'll barely have to touch it." Yeah, right!

The other weekend I needed to take my laptop to work, so that it could do a secure update. The whole task should have taken 15 minutes. Tops. 5 minutes there. 5 minutes to update. 5 minutes back.

It took an hour.

I had to back-track, because the car waited until I left to flash a warning a tire was flat. Then I had to figure out which tire was flat (they all looked the same), figure out why, fill it up, realize my kid had left a mess to clean up, take a good look at the safety inspection that expired during the pandemic, and while I'm standing around the wife notices the gas cans for the mower are empty.

The update still only took a few minutes, but now I have to schedule a safety inspection and get the tire repaired. I'll have to bathe, too, because I'm going to have to speak to real people in person!

Saving the Planet....from Extraterrestrials

The X-Com franchise is one of my all time favorites. I remember waking up early on Saturday mornings to play the original before Pop would kick me off the computer.

I never realized that making custom soldiers would be such a draw, though. 

I customized a soldier into Carrie "Wifey" McC. I even gave her some Celtic warrior face paint in honor of our trip to Scotland. I did it as a joke will fiddling around with the idea of starting another ironman campaign. 

I didn't expect Carrie to show up on an intro mission. I couldn't let anything happen to her! She kicked some alien ass and made it through all right (but not all of her comrades did!). It made it way more fun than I expected.

So I went off the deep end. I started looking for pre-made X-com soldiers. Bob Ross? Velma from Scooby Doo? Yes, please! As long as they were in soldier gear and didn't require any mods I considered them.

Then I ran across the Sarge from Red vs Blue.

I went all in. I was giddy as I looked for voicepacks.

Moses Hightower was my first casualty. He nobly charged out of position to fire a flashbang to protect Matt Murdock after he missed a 90% shot. The "blinded" Advent trooper decided to squint and take a distant pot shot at Hightower with critical results. Hightower made it into cover the next turn but Advent reinforcements must have bribed the random number generator. The Police Academy was robbed of one of it's finest. Westley Snipes got promoted and became my main grenadier in Hightower's place.

Colonel Sanders had a good run, but he never made it to Colonel....

Carrie showed up again, so I recruited her for covert missions. "Guess what, Love!?" I asked. "You're going on a cover mission....with Caboose!"

"Why would you put me in the game just to have me killed!?"

"I needed someone I could trust to keep Caboose out of trouble."

"So he can get me killed instead?"

I'll have you know that Carrie and Caboose have formed a teammate bond. They can give each other a bonus action.

I'm not going to say that neither of them got wounded on any of their escapades....

And now I have another thing I do at night when I should be writing.

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: That doesn't mean what you think it means....

Sad funny -

Shane really likes seals. He thinks their babies are really cute. He had an assignment for school where he was writing about how cute they were and he wanted to upload a funny picture. 

He googled and got something like this.

He was very proud of himself and completely unaware of the context! I kept a straight face and asked him what he thought 'clubbing' meant in the joke.

A little bit later, there was a new cute picture more in line with what Shane intended!

The barn routine

Shane's a regular helper now, so I figured I should document how we spend our nights in the barn.

Step 1: Pick stalls

Horses poop. It's easier to pick up the poop when it isn't squished into bedding. I normally ask Shane to turn on all the stall lights to help him see and check the stalls for poop.

Step 1b: Food prep

This is normally what I do. I have let Shane help pour and measure, but it makes the whole process take at least five times longer. It's more likely that I'll ask Shane to grab any feed bowls that are still in stalls.

Step 1c: Water buckets

If all the stalls are already clean and I need to keep Shane busy while I'm prepping supplements and grain, I may ask him to check the water levels in the stall. This step gets skipped most nights. If we do things right, the horses already have water or they'll be out quick enough they can use the waterer in the dry lot (which most of them prefer).

Step 2: Poop scooping

This is the one that takes the longest. We let the girls in first, because they take the longest to eat (Kitty). Once the girls are in, Shane starts scooping. He has a flashlight, but with all the stall lights turned on he can normally see what's going on under the lean-to. I will normally go further out in the field with a flashlight in one hand and a 'fork' in the other. 

When Shane's bin gets too heavy, I'll either dump it into mine or pour it into the spreader. He normally gets a jump start, because I stop to let the boys into their stalls and work on their side after a bit.

The reason the girls come in first is Kitty. She eats slow and she has a lot of food. She's always the last horse to finish by at least 5 minutes.

I don't bring the boys in right away, because of timing. I can bring them in, prep their area while they eat, and turn them back out in a fraction of the time. The goal is to get them in and out fast enough they don't poop in the stalls. It's easier to scoop the poop outside and once they're out I don't plan on scooping further that night!

The boys' side usually has much less poop than the girls'. Sam and Eddie prefer to wander afield to graze. However, when they do poop close to home they can leave some massive mounds.

Depending on how hard Shane works and how much poop there is, I may send him back to the house the moment we're done with scooping. It all depends.

 Step 3: Hay

I throw the hay into both feeders while Shane scoops. He's not strong enough to carry a bale and not tall enough to stuff hay where it needs to be. That will change one day, but he's exempt from hay duties until he grows!

There's not a ton of brain work to throwing the hay, but it helps to keep an eye out. Sometimes the baler will scrunch weird things into a bale. It may have been a bramble bush or even an old riding crop (I've found both). Luckily, horses aren't likely to eat anything too odd.

Step 4: Blankets

This is a me job. If the day was warm and dry enough, the horses may not have on blankets. Depending on the overnight weather, they may need them. Worst case scenario: the horses have on light blankets and I need to swap them out for heavier ones.

Horses can survive some seriously cold weather. However, they eat to stay warm. Keeping them a little warmer should mean they go through less of our hay which costs money. Wet weather compromises their ability to stay warm and if horses are wet for too long other problems can arise (like Kitty's rain rot).

If I'm lucky, the horses are already wearing whatever blankets they need for the night. Then I can skip this step entirely.

Step 5: Prep for tomorrow

If Shane's still around I'll have him pick out stalls of any fresh poop. If we're fast enough we may be able to finish before anyone (save Maddy) drops any presents. 

If Shane's not around, it's all me.

I have the added task of prepping breakfast. The goal is to try and leave everything so that whoever has morning duty can walk in and skip right to stalling and feeding. 

Special tasks

Special tasks tend to happen on the weekend. If there's poop in the arena, we launch it into the woods before dragging.

We drag the arena maybe once a week. It depends on the weather and how much use the arena gets. Carrie normally does the task, but if it's a weekend I might give Shane a short driving lesson.

It's my job to keep the barn stocked with hay. I drive it down from the pole barn. I used to park outside, but Carrie's asked me to drive all the way into the barn to prevent loose hay from falling in the gravel.

I don't have any recent pictures of dragging the fields, because Carrie's been the one to do it the past several times. She does it when she rotates the fields the horses are on (it lets the grass have time to grow and recover).

Step Always: Keep your eyes open

Now that we have all of our basic routines down, it's easier to look for anything out of the normal. Like a deer head, downed lines, or an escaped horse walking down the aisles. Mistakes happen (especially when we're rushing or working tired).

Therefore, it's always good to look around and investigate if anything seems off.

Carrie's bought a new valve to replace the leaking waterer and that will probably get replaced when she decides it's A) bad enough and B) nice enough outside to deal with!

Overall:

It takes time. It'd be nice if it brought in more income. I do get some neat pictures out of it like when this storm was starting to roll through.

And poop is eternal.

When I say I prefer to start my day with something steaming and dark I mean my coffee. Unfortunately, horse poop on a cold morning also fits that description.

At least it gets me outside!

Tiny Feet Looking to Eat

Monday, I learned there was a mouse in my classroom. It shredded up some cough drop wrappers and devoured plastic and wax from a highlighter.

The cough drops I could see, but the highlighter gel? That stuff had to be poisonous! Or at least mildly carcinogenic! 

I removed all of the cough drops (and capped any remaining highlighters) and figured that was the end of it. Either the mouse would be dead, or it would move on because there wasn't any food.

I found out I was wrong after the snow days.

The mouse came back from some Pepto-Bismol! It shredded open a chamomile teabag, too!

The custodian handed me a glue trap. Kill traps are more humane, but it was what I had. I dropped the Pepto in the middle of the trap in case the mouse still had a stomachache and went home.

The highlighter must have mutated the mouse.

Friday morning, I found the glue trap. Half the contents of my drawer were stuck to it along with some fur, but there was a hole where the mouse chewed his way to freedom. There was no blood or sawed off feet.

I created a Teenage Mutant Ninja Mouse! It eats glue traps for a snack. What was in that highlighter!?

I found the entry point. There was a hole chewed through some insulation where the HDMI cords for the projector come in the room. A single mouse dingleberry confirmed my suspicions.

Of course, I told my students all about the mouse. I even projected the pictures you've seen and held up the empty glue trap (and I poked a highlighter pen threw the hole for dramatic effect!). Reactions were varied....especially when I said the name of whoever was sitting closest to the mouse!

If only everyone paid such rapt attention to congruence theories in triangles.

I couldn't do anything Friday, but I had a plan for Monday.

If I had duct tape, I could have tape the cords together and sealed the breach. I did have my mouse traps.

I brought a pair of traps to school. I offered to show kids how to set them and a few took me up on it! It was much more popular to put a pencil or something else in a trap I set (One pair of girls screamed).

I didn't trust the kids not to hurt themselves, so I didn't set a live trap until after they left Monday. Tuesday morning, I pulled it out before the arrived and repeated the process in the afternoon. 

Wednesday, I got a hit.

Some students get really creeped out when you tell them there's a mouse in the trash can. Others run right to it.

I asked the class to vote if they wanted to hear something gross, and most were all about it. Anyone who didn't want to know could get a quick drink of water.

Kill traps are blunt force instruments. They don't normally cause open wounds and bleeding. This mouse had a hole in it that almost looked like another mouse stumbled upon the corpse and turned it into a snack (Mice do cannibalize).

It was a good break from Geometry. I figured I'd tell the story to my B-Day classes, too.

I wasn't counting on catching another mouse Thursday morning.

Beautiful Shot

"Hey Love, look at this beautiful shot I took," I said. "It's almost perfect except for one thing."

I got the reaction I was looking for when I zoomed in!

Explosive Fun?

I spotted an usual combination at Food Lion the other day.

I had a reputation with yoohoos when I was younger, so I decided to share.

I grew up with aspiring comedians.

She Took It Up a Notch

In the past, I have called Carrie a monster.

Today, I called her Dr. Frankenstein.

She took it as a compliment!

Epic!

Watch Your Step

Shane ran ahead of me on our way into the house from the beach. He sped down the stairs, thumping loudly. 

I heard the crash as he slipped and crashed.

"Oh no!" Megan's voice came from around the corner.

Shane grunted. The crash sounded bruising, but it sounded like he was okay and trying to be tough.

I got around the corner, but Shane was already up and heading to our room.

"The floor was wet from when Sammy escaped from the tub," Megan said.

Shane limped into our room and started to wipe his arms off on my blanket. "Now I'm all wet!" he said.

"I'm sorry you fell. Good job shrugging it off," I said. I might have said

Then Megan changed the whole scene.

"I don't think that was water," she said. "I'd just dried Sammy off when he crawled away...."

Butt Why?

Shane is obsessed with butt humor. He points his butt, shakes it, rubs it up against you, chants, "Butt" or "Booty, and makes fart noises.

It's probably age appropriate, but it's also annoying and weird.

What makes it worse, though, is he has terrible gas.

He's been letting loose without regard to collateral damage. I've had to discuss why letting one rip in a car with closed windows and no warning is inhumane to the other travelers.

He must get it from his mom.

New Marriage Milestone

Carrie dumped iced tea on me in the shower after I refused to promise not to play Shania Twain songs in front of her.

Today, Shane learned a new way to get into trouble...

Today, Shane learned standing on the back of furniture and dancing in the window in your Finding Nemo briefs as Rah and Henry play on the porch is a punishable offense.

Doubly so when you're supposed to be putting on your Taekwando uniform, so you're not late to class.

Differences in Perspective

Funny recurring joke at my house.

Sometimes, Carrie is a monster. 

I stopped to ponder this.

Was there something fundamentally different with our thought processes? Maybe our viewpoints?

Standing viewpoint:

Thoughts: The toilet paper is an accident waiting to happen. Shane could send it for a final swim.

Sitting viewpoint:

Thoughts: Nothing could happen. At worst, the TP would fall in your lap.

Funny how a small change in perspective can change how you look at things.

Separate Needs

It can be tough to balance Carrie and Shane's needs at times. They love and want to be around each other, but some of their tastes are polar opposites!

      Shane                                                      Carrie

Wakes up early                                       Wants to sleep in

Wants to jump on couch                         Falls asleep on couch

Loves to make noise                    vs       Woken up by noise

Super social/wants visitors                     Home is her retreat at end of day
Wants to run, climb, and jump               Wants to snuggle calmly

Nova working nights lends weight to Carrie's side of things during the day. We try to keep the house quieter, because we're not really sure when Nova is or is not asleep (and we're not about to knock to check either!).

So far what works for us are busy days and quiet nights. Shane gets his energy out and then there's TV and video games to rest when it's dark and time to cool down.

Side note: I tried to be a little clever with the formatting. I hope it holds up. My interest has waned, so if it doesn't tough cookies.

Painful Joke

I'm glad Wegmans thinks of families when it comes to painkillers, but should I be worried they think we need them in packs of a 1000?

Draft Posts That Were Never Published: Dictionary: Irish On It (2016)

Irish On it -
phrase

Add an excess of enthusiasm or energy. Hope for good or at least entertaining results.

Examples: "Igor didn't think Mike could make the shot, so Mike put some Irish on it."

Origin - English
Igor once used this to describe Mike's early attempts to play pool.

Carrie Dared Me

I was asked by the division's public relations liaison to send in a pic for social media.

I told her I couldn't decide between these two:

What The.....No.

Shane brought home a new book from the school library. I'm disappointed with him and whatever librarian encouraged this pick.