S-a-t-u-r-d-a-y

March 13, 2007 · Posted in Reflections · 7 Comments 

Growing up, Saturdays were always my favorites! Why Saturdays you ask? Simple really, it was cartoon day. My favorite was the Bugs Bunny Road Runner hour. Between Bugs and whatever else I could get I was usually transfixed for about three hours that day!

Heres a quick side note. If you want to get rid of childhood obesity in this country then get rid of all the 24 hour cartoon stations. They have no reason to get up and go outside when they have a constant barrage of cartoons to pacify themselves.

Right after the cartoons ended I would go outside and enjoy the weather. Didn’t matter hot, cold, rainy, or dry, I was out there in it! I loved the cold snowy days because I could go out in my parka and walk the neighborhood and it seemed like I was the only one left on the planet. It was so peaceful! You can’t get that kind of quite anymore either. Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere and they don’t care what the roads are like. They all pile in their SUV and take off like theres no tomorrow.

I had to use my imagination a lot when I was growing up. Not like today with everything spelled out for us. Even playing with my Lincoln logs I had to use my imagination, I mean how many log cabins can you build before you realize they all look the same? Tinkertoys, I have no idea what those were about but they required either a good imagination or a PHD in engineering to get anything out of them. What else, oh yes, the Erector Set. I loved my erector set, not because of the building potential that it represented but because of the words that came out of my dads mouth when he stepped on one of the bolts in the middle of the night!

I loved those days but there are times when I wonder how I survived. My fascination with tormenting my father came on pretty early and stayed with me well into adulthood.

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Gin and juice

March 9, 2007 · Posted in Reflections · 5 Comments 

First let me tell you that the title has nothing to do with the post at all. I just heard Hayseed Dixie on my mp3 player with this song, it cracks me up every time!

I will try to make sense with this post but it is coming at me in snippets and it is really hard to catch them all before they fade away in that crazy memory of mine! I was thinking about school, particularly kindergarten and first grade, the two which pretty much warped me for life. I grew up in a small, very small, farming community. They had one real factory at the time and it pretty much employed most of the town, even me for two nightmarish months but were not here to talk about that!

Anyway, I still remember my first day of kindergarten. My father dropped me off that fateful day and if I remember correctly, I was none too happy to be there. I hadn’t really had a lot of playmates up to that time so I wasn’t really crazy about being in a room full of screaming idiots, not that I wasn’t screaming too. Kindergarten set me up for my first real let down too. They start you out with a half day and give you milk and cookies, plus a nap. Then, one day, you stop going. I had no idea what summer vacation was, all I knew was that I wasn’t going to that dreadful place anymore. I was sick to death of playing with blocks.

Then as summer wound down they started talking about going to school again! I mean what were they thinking. I had already done that gig I was ready to move on! So we get to first grade and all I did that first day was watch the clock. As soon as it got to noon I let out a sigh of relief as I had made it through the day. But wait, they weren’t sending us home? No, they made us go to this God awful smelling room with several tables in it and get in line, FOR LUNCH!

Now I admit that what I got at home was not gourmet cuisine, but when compared to that garbage I was ready to promote mom to the greatest cook who ever lived! They had good days and bad days, though mostly bad. I remember my favorite day was pizza day. Those little rectangular pizzas were the greatest thing I had ever tasted. Even better was the fact that half the kids didn’t like them so we could trade them the other stuff on the plate for their slice. I usually had a stomach ache by the end of the day on pizza day, but at least I was content.

Then there were the kids I went to school with. To be fair, most of them were normal, but this was a farming community so we also had more than our fair share of oddies! I mean these guys came to school on a bus. They had to get up earlier than I did and then sit on that yellow monstrosity for a horridly long time. They talked about doing chores such as slopping the hogs and gathering eggs. Now slopping the hogs I had no idea what that was, but I had went to the store with my parents many times and sometimes they let me gather the eggs from the shelf! I did have a heck of a time eating eggs for awhile after one of those dumb hicks told me where the eggs came from!

Alright, thats enough for now. I have a lot more I want to talk about on this subject but if the post gets too long then no one will read the darn thing!

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Up all night, sleep all day!

November 30, 2006 · Posted in Blog, Reflections · 1 Comment 

I love you guys so much that I lost some sleep so that I could find you something. This is an audio clip (WMA) of an old Levis commercial from the 70’s. If you have any trouble with it let me know and I can send you a copy in a different file format such as mp3 or whatever!

Linda had suggested that I keep it up with the commercials and this is just a tidbit of what I have. It took a little legwork. I also have a video of it but I can’t get it uploaded to youtube yet so maybe later! In the meantime click the link to hear something that has haunted me since the early seventies!

Clicking the link will take you to the download page. Please be kind and check it out now as I probably won’t keep it here long to save on space and bandwidth! Levis 70’s commercial

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Hey ho, let’s go

November 28, 2006 · Posted in Humor, Reflections · 1 Comment 

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Ancient Chinese secret huh?

It’s shake and bake, and I helped.

Have you ever noticed how some of these just get under your skin? For the most part commercials are easily forgotten but every once in awhile someone comes up with a catchphrase that you just can’t shake. Most of these even die after a year or so but then you have the ones that are in for the long haul like the ones I previously mentioned.

Now imagine that you have a vivid imagination and one that holds on to everything and won’t let it go till you are darn near nuts from it. Now you are in my head. I quote commercials all the time. No, never in context either, just whatever pops into my head at the time. It can be quite maddening to anyone who has to deal with it.

I think I may use it as a self defense mechanism. If I drive my co-workers crazy enough, maybe they won’t bother me. “Hey, it’s shake and bake” I say in my best southern accent. Suddenly they turn the other way, dreading what comes next. Unfortunately I am in hot pursuit and not about to give up. You can see them cringe even though they are facing the other way. I go all out heavy southern drawl for the rest.

“And I heylped!”

I may be a pain in the butt, but I enjoy it!

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A sense of longing?

August 31, 2006 · Posted in Blog, Reflections · 1 Comment 

Does anyone else here miss the eighties? You know, except for the hair and the clothes. Some of the music was pretty ok don’t you think? Sure most of the bands of the eighties didn’t make it past one or two albums and you would be hard pressed to find any of them today but still it was alright, wasn’t it? So what if Boy George is picking up garbage, I mean everyone has a bad day sometimes!

And who can forget Men At Work, oh yes so most of the world has, well I haven’t! Who else, oh yeah, what about Rockwell? Now he was a hoot. Spandau Ballet made me want to slow dance with my broom. The Thompson Twins set the standard for hair doos for the longest time.

Sure INXS tried to make a comeback but without Michael it just wasn’t the same. That and they made themselves into a freakshow by having that stupid reality show to find a new lead singer.

Think, think, oh Big Country, now there was a hit machine. Dexy’s Midnight Runners with their somewhat nasty “Come on Eileen”, wow what a song that was! Frankie Goes to Hollywood, nah they sucked. How about Berlin, mmm that sultry “Take My Breath Away” rowr. The Pet Shop Boys, whoa baby they rocked the house. Wham/George Michael, well what can you say about them and still keep your sense of pride?

Yeah thats has my sarcasm level up pretty high. I think I will go talk to the president now!

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hindsights 20/20, in retrospect, blah blah blah.

July 10, 2006 · Posted in For His glory, Photography, Reflections · 1 Comment 

Want to know what I did over the weekend? Saturday to be exact?

No, what do you mean no? This is my blog and I write about me and you came here and don’t want to hear about it?

Tough nuggies buddie, your gonna hear it anyway!

Actually the family and myself went to a concert. A local Christian radio station was having their annual “family picnic”. Basically in entails a bunch of bands and a lot of people crowding into one small section of the Indiana State Fairgrounds. In spite of that fact it was a lot of fun. Due to some home delays we were late getting there and missed the first few acts and really missed out on the better spots to spread out the blanket. We had fun though and that is what it was all about.

Are you wondering about that title yet. I actually have a reason for my post title for once. See I took my small camera so I wouldn’t have to lug around anything heavy all day. Well except for the folding chairs and cooler and my little backpack. Well my little camera does not have much in the way of zoom power so I missed out on quite a few good photo ops. I still got a few good ones but they are framed by the tent that was to my right and the main beam that held up the roof of the stage on my left. I did a little cropping and cut out the beam on most of them at least but the tent is ever present! Now lets get to some photos!

As always you can click any of the images to enlarge them.

George Huff

This first shot is of George Huff. Pretty good stuff! Tight crop to eliminate the womans hand!

John David Webster

Next up we have John David Webster. Great music I highly recommend his CDs!

John David Webster 2

He as well as the other artists were very accomodating. They tried to make sure that everyone could get a decent shot of them!

Point of Grace

And next is Point Of Grace. Lovely ladies, lovely songs, but they liked to hide behind the tent a lot!

Point of Grace 2

See what I mean. Now not only are they hiding but the got Michael Passons, formerly of Avalon, to hide as well!

Chris Rice

Last but certainly not least, we had Chris Rice. He almost didn’t make it because his bus got caught behind an accident in KY. Point Of Grace graciously switched time spots with him to give him more time to get there!

All in all it was a great time and I wish you all could have been there. Then I wouldn’t have had to type up all of this as you would have already known it!

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