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Finding Me

October 24, 2011 by Brian

I’ve covered a lot of ground in these posts. Many of the tags I use such as ‘magic, pets, animals, humour, friends, etc.’ I’ve used over and over.  This will be my 175th post.  I advertize my blog on Twitter, Facebook, Likeden and I’ve used a wide range of titles. 

So other than people directly looking for me how do people find me?  Simple really.  They go to their search engines and they type in the words, ‘mouse poop’.  I have had more hits through search engines that way than any other words or combinations of words.  True they don’t all say ‘mouse poop’  there are wonderful variations such as;

How big is mouse poop?

Mouse poop on my desk?

Mouse poop at work?

Do mice poop in piles?

How do I clean mouse shit out of my wok?

…and the list goes on.  Don’t bother going to google and type in any of the above and see what comes up.  I did it, and there are pages and pages, an unbelievable amount of information dealing with the  ‘mouse poop situation’  And in my in-depth research (all of five minutes) in how people are finding my blog I have found that when I type in anything about mouse poop into many search engines, my blog does not make a showing.  So I still have no idea how they find me.   I did however come across one interesting youtube video  Which I think everyone should take a look at.  But before you do I caution you it has very little to do with mouse poop.  It is about Sasquatch poop.  It appears these folks were tracking Sasquatch and came across, in their own words, ‘The mother load’ a big heaping pile of Sasquatch poop!  Go ahead, re-read the last sentence but it’s not going to change the result.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3GetVzf1OE

Posted in humour, Lifes Observations | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Nope, Not Going To Do It!

October 17, 2011 by Brian

 

I am not a fan of the ‘bucket list’ the movie was not horrible, but the idea of writing down a list of all the stuff you wish to do? I don’t know, to me that sounds like a recipe for disaster, at the very least, as time goes by it becomes a list of regrets.

I think a more satisfying list would be the ‘I’m Not Going To Do It’  list. Such a list would be more achievable then a bucket list. So after lots of time and thought I have started a list:

Not going bungee jumping.  I am not going to die hanging upside down by my ankles because I jumped off a bridge secured by a rubber band.

 Not going parachuting. The only way I am jumping out of a plane is if the plane is going down in flames. And you know? Planes don’t have parachutes so, not going to do it.

 Not going to eat the seaweed salad at the Chinese buffet. That stuff just looks nasty. I’ve never seen anyone eat it, not sure why it is even there.

 Never going to appear on a television show such as ‘Survivor’.  Because that would just be silly

Never going to my high school reunion. I fought hard and long to get out of that place, why on earth would anyone think I want to go back? 

Never going to vote for anyone named Barrack Obama or George Bush.  Lets face it George put the hole in the boat and Barrack doesn’t have a clue on how to fix it.

Never going to go into outerspace.  Actually I will go if the ship is anything like the Star Ship Enterprise.  If I have to be strapped down and pee into a vacuum cleaner hose, it is never going to happen.

Never going to be one of those people who win 5 million dollars in the lottery and then proclaim, “yeah, I like my job I am going to keep working!”  If you are one of those people, please stop playing the lottery.  You have clearly missed the point.

Ain’t never going to be no ‘Hillbilly handfisher’.  I watched five minutes of it on the TV and that was enough, thank you very much.

Never going to appear on the TV show ‘Wipeout’.  While I love watching the show, those people are just retarded morons.

Never going to be a clown or a mime.  Isn’t being a magician nerdy enough?

Well I think eleven items on my ‘Never Going To Do It’ list is a pretty good start.  How about you?  Anything you are not going to do?

Posted in humour, Lifes Observations | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Offensive? All in Context

October 12, 2011 by Brian

The other day I was in the bathroom at work and I noticed a strobe light attached to the fire alarm.  I had to laugh.  First off, if the alarm goes off and I’m in the middle of…’delivering the mail’ the fire is simply going to have to wait, it is that simple.  Secondly if there is a fire do you really want a strobe light going off?   I think that would be a little distracting.  Imagine if you will, flames a leaping, smoke billowing, fire alarms screaming in your ear, you drop to the ground looking for a way out, but now not only are you hot and choking and in fear for your life, you have no idea where you are going because the strobe light is assaulting your senses.  How does that make sense?

Speaking of assault on ones senses I am seeking words that people believe are degrading but in truth they are not.  Admittedly there are a handful of words that are actually degrading, however most of the time it is all in the context in which one is speaking.  I’ve been thinking about this for sometime because not overly long ago a friend of mine posted on Facebook on how we should not use the word ‘retarded’ because it is degrading.   I took offence to this.  Retarded simply means that there is a developmental delay.  The diagnosis for mental retardation is when ones IQ is below 70.  Wikipedia does classify the word ‘retard’ as offensive of course anybody can put just about anything in good ole’ Wiki and others will swear it is the gospel.  I often call some of my best friends ‘retarded’ when they do something that isn’t always the brightest thing in the world to do, many times I don’t even have to tell them because two minutes after they do what they did they will often proclaim, ‘oh man! I’m such a retard’.  Now yes that can be seen as degrading but it is also meant with love and affection and it is in context.  No friend of mine would ever go up to a person who actually has such issues and call them a ‘retard’ because that is offensive.  So hate me or think me insensitive if you will, but retarded stays in my vocabulary.  It is up to you to be smart enough to put the word into the context in which it is meant.

The word ‘ignorant’ is another good example.  My loyal followers have heard this from me before.  Ignorant only means lacking knowledge.  Ignorant does not mean ‘rude’.  Somebody who offends you is not necessarily ignorant.  More than likely, they are offensive.  Somebody who is rude is not necessarily ignorant, they are probably just rude.  You know who is ignorant? The people who repeatedly use the word, ‘ignorant’ in describing somebody who is rude, even after I’ve explained to them what ignorant means, those people are ignorant or possibly just stupid.   

Bastard, I do enjoy the word ‘bastard’ I’m not sure why I don’t often use it in reference to people.  Really I don’t care if your parents were not married when they had you.  Heck I don’t even care if you were a test tube baby. Usually I use it in reference to objects such as computers of course computers are usually rat bastards.  I don’t think rats can even be bastards since marriage is an exclusively human concept, but the words go together well.

Stringing all these words together as in, listen here you ignorant rat bastard retard…’ that I can see as offensive, in just about any context.

Of course you could soften the blow with the placement of the word ‘honey’ let us try it shall we?  Listen here honey you are an ignorant retarded rat bastard!    Yeah that makes it so much better.  It is all about context.  Of course just about any sentence that starts with, ‘listen here honey…’ is not going to end well.

I also like the word ‘moron’ unfortunately moron is offensive. The definition of moron is that which describes somebody with mild retardation.  It is odd that the word is offensive but the definition is not.  Offensive or not, I’m sticking with moron. 

I think that ends this post. Uh Oh, listen up honey I think some moronic, rat bastard, ignorant retard set off the fire alarm.

Posted in humour, Lifes Observations | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Yom Kippur, When Dates Collide

October 7, 2011 by Brian

Well it is Yom Kippur.  The first issue with this holiday is the name.  To the un-initiated it sounds like Yum Kippers! There is a lot wrong with those two words, ‘yum+Kipper’.  First off, in reference to the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur there is absolutely nothing ‘yum’ about it! Mostly because you have to fast for twenty five hours and I mean fast, no food, no water, nada, zip nothing.  Secondly a Kipper is absolutely disgusting. A kipper is a whole oily little herring which has been split from head to tail, gutted and then salted or pickled.  My theory on such foods is pretty basic.  When you have to pickle or salt to cover the taste of the original food to make it edible, then it only stands to reason that the food being covered is pretty much disgusting.  I’ll give you another example. 

Gefilte fish, which is another Jewish delight, what is it you may ask?  Well there is no fish that is called a gefilte, so don’t even waste your time at your local petshop looking for one.  It is a white fish that is poached minced and stuffed into the fish skin.  Yum Gefilte!  But there is a way to make this food palatable.  How? You may be asking.  Well I’ll tell you, it is a little secret weapon called Horse radish.  Wait!  Don’t go running out to buy some gefiltes and horseradish because it can’t be any over the counter horseradish.  No it must be old school grandma made horseradish, or more commonly known as the moonshine of horseradish.  When grandma makes horseradish it doesn’t clear the sinuses it reduces a liquid pulp.  When you open the jar it brings tears to your eyes. 

Let us imagine you are not Jewish sitting down to eat at your Jewish friends house. Gefilte fish is on the menu.  But the first thing that assaults you is the overwhelming strong smell of the reddish sauce that sits in the middle of the table, that is the horseradish.  It is always fun to watch the newbie’s in this situation.  They see all the Jews shoveling heaping table spoons of this toxic sauce onto the plates.  Now the hostess brings out the gefilte fish.  They look harmless, in fact they look just like dumplings, except for the disgusting looking goop that usually accompanies them.  With a little care you remove the goop and plop a gefilte or two onto your plate, after the first bite the need for the toxic paint remover otherwise known as horseradish makes a lot of sense.  It doesn’t matter that it is burning your sinuses, it doesn’t matter that you can hardly see through the tears.  It doesn’t matter that it is so strong that the horseradish is eating away at the pattern embedded into the plates.  All that matters is that you get enough horseradish on the gefilte fish so you can no longer taste the fish, in fact the goal now is to simply kill your taste buds.  It has taken me years to realize that I just don’t have to eat any of it in the first place.

So, what does all this have to do with Yom Kippur? Nothing.

Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement for us Jews.  The day is supposed to be spent in synagogue, (Jewish church) in prayer.  You also don’t get to eat for 25 hours in a row.  Growing up there used to be Jews who would cheat and at least drink water.  But you are not supposed too.  What you are supposed to do is pray. You read your bible and you confess your sins and at the end of it all we trust that our sins have been absolved by god.

There is a benefit however aside from atonement of course and that is Leviticus 23:27 decrees that Yom Kuppur is a strict day of rest.  I like strict days of rest.  I decree that there should be more of them.  Unfortunately you cannot have a light without a dark to stick it in, because there are five other observances one must follow on this day of ‘rest’.

  1. No eating or drinking (already discussed above)
  2. No wearing of leather shoes, (like anyone can afford those anymore)
  3. No bathing or washing. ( Not a problem not going anywhere anyway, I’m resting).
  4. No anointing oneself with perfumes or lotions, (okay so it’s may get a little smelly)
  5. No Marital relations. (I choose to believe that means no fighting or arguing of any kind)

This day, especially this year Yom Kippur takes on an interesting twist, I was born on Yom Kippur.  That’s right on October 7th on Yom Kippur I was born.  The Jewish calendar does not change.  So most years Yom Kippur does not fall on my birthday, sometimes it’s off by a week or two, but this year, just as it did 46 years ago the two dates collide.

Posted in Being Jewish | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments »

My Key Is Down There!

September 25, 2011 by Brian

Last Thursday night I really had trouble going to sleep. Every time I would get even close to a light doze our hooligan cats would start running around, jumping off of furniture hissing and snarling at each other. It was one of those rare occasions where I could not wait for morning to arrive.

Finally it was time to get up, my wife got up to take her shower after a moment I heard some sort of muted scream, seconds later she crawled back into bed. She looked at me and said, “I can’t deal with it, you have too.” With great trepidation and sinking heart I headed into the bathroom and found nothing out of the ordinary. I pulled back the shower curtain, evidently at some point during the night a full blown slaughter had taken place. The first thing I noticed was the mouse butt and back feet, the front of the mouse was missing. Over in the corner I found part of the head, under the shower seat there was another chunk, amongst the cat puke I noticed some other mouse parts.

I did manage to clean up the mess without puking, but I came awfully close, I did spend the next 2 hours in deep focused concentration reciting the mantra in my head, ‘do not throw up, do not throw up,’ For the next day and a half every time thought about the mouse parts I had to concentrate on not throwing up. Even now three days later I still feel a little nauseous in this retelling of the tale.

This is our prime suspect.

Saturday night we decided to pick up some pizza. We took the dog and as usual she jumped into the back of our SUV I leaned in the side door and secured her into the back. We do this so she does not become a projectile should we get into some sort of accident. Everything looking good I jumped behind the wheel and backed out of the garage. CRRUUNNCH! My wife and I look at each other, WTF?

Neither my wife nor I closed the back of the car. When the back hatch is up it won’t clear the lip of the garage door. While the hatch was bent out of shape, we could open and close it but the door simply would not stay shut. It took us half an hour to figure out how to secure the bloody door so we could still drive the car. The inside of the door is smooth as is the outside, no holes, no latches nothing to secure a rope too. Eventually we were able to pry the back panel up just enough to spot a hole on either side of the door, I fit a bungee cord into each hole and I hooked the other end onto the mounts for the child safety seat. Worked like a charm. Now of course we have the bother of sorting things out with the insurance company and having the door either replaced or fixed. Not sure if they can fix it, and they are no longer making Saturn’s so it should be interesting.

This evening we had some errands that we had to run. Once again I made sure the back of the car wouldn’t spring open and off we went. Upon arrival back home I unlocked the front door, and as I was pulling my key out of the lock the key somehow slipped off the key ring and fell through the less than the quarter inch gap in the boards of our deck.

My key is down there.

Posted in humour, Lifes Observations | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

The Bubble Machine, The Magic Shop And the Police

September 11, 2011 by Brian

I’m not much of a practical joker. Truth is I really don’t like them at all but every now and again when the mood is just right I just can’t seem to help myself as is evident in a previous blog about a co-worker and a fish.

The local magic shop, when there was one, was located directly behind the bank where I used to work. Can you believe it? I’ve spent most of my life in the magic business. I left the West Coast, changed countries and in the process stepped out of the world of magic, (for the most part) and I end up working directly across the street from a magic shop. Talk about fate.

Beside the magic shop was a little boutique that sold handmade soap. The soap boutique had an automatic soap bubble maker/blower mounted on the wall between the two stores. On nice days the bubbles would blow onto the sidewalk.

I was sitting in the banks lunchroom, the large windows faced the magic shop. John, the owner of the magic shop was sitting on the stoop directly outside his door. I was eating my lunch watching the world, watching John, watching the old lady slowly meandering down the street, watching the pretty bubbles. Suddenly the old lady stops and turns toward John and starts pointing at him. I couldn’t hear anything and the windows didn’t open. One thing was clear the Lady was not happy. John kept pointing at the bubble maker and the soap boutique. I watched in fascination, clearly the lady was upset and yelling. A few people crossed the street to keep out of the situation. John kept shrugging and pointing at the store next to his, but the old woman was having none of John’s explanations. The only thing that made sense to me was that a bubble landed on the old woman and she thought it was John’s bubble maker and was telling him what she thought. After about five minutes or so the lady stormed off leaving John standing in front of his store scratching his head.

I finished my lunch and went back to work. But I could not shake the scene from my head. While serving a customer a plan began to form. I didn’t think it would work but I had to try. I spent the next few hours cementing the plan in my head. Finally my afternoon break came and I bolted for the lunch room and grabbed the phone and called the magic shop. I did not disguise my voice, either it would work or it wouldn’t.

The phone rings

John: “Hello, Abracadabra Magic”

Me: “Hello, may I please speak to the owner?”

John: “I am the owner, how may I help you?”

Me: “Mr. Oglivy?” (not John’s real last name)

John: “Yes?”

“My name is Officer Dale from the State College borough police, we have received a complaint about the bubble machine you have outside your store.”

“Officer you want the store next to mine, I tried to explain to the lady who yelled at me for 10 minutes that it is not my machine. It belongs to the people who own the store next to mine.”

“Mr. Oglivy I did go ahead and check the regulations about any such devices. I found that they have to be at least 15 feet back from the sidewalk or a permit is required. I checked the maps and on your street there is simply not enough clearance from the front of the building to the sidewalk to operate such a machine without a proper permit.”

John sounding frustrated: “Officer, as I explained to the lady, it is not my bubble…”

“You do have a permit to operate that bubble machine, don’t you Mr. Oglivy?”

“Officer I already expl…”

“Mr. Oglivy does your landlord know about the bubble…”

“Officer I…”

Me starting to sound agitated: “Mr. Oglivy please do not interrupt me again. I am going to come down with a city inspector to inspect the bubble machine and take some measurements and check your permits.”

“Officer, I tried explaining to the lady, and I’m trying to tell you, it is not my bubble machine it belongs to the store next door, clearly there has been a mistake.”

“Mr. Oglivy let me explain it this way. You are the owner of Abracadabra Magic and a complaint has been made against you and I have to follow up on this complaint. I explained the city ordinance and I will be out there later today to complete my report. If you don’t meet the requirements to operate such a device you will be given a citation at which point you can explain it all to a judge.”

“Officer, the bubble machine is not…Brian is that you?”

“Yes”

“You son of a bitch, are you at the bank?”

“Yup, saw the whole thing but could not hear a word”

“Bastard you really had me going. That lady was so mad and I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t mine but she just kept on yelling.”

Me laughing: “So I really had you going?”

“She was so mad, her calling the police wouldn’t surprise me, and you had all the details so yes you bastard you had me going the whole time.”

It is odd that the only two practical jokes I remember being involved in happened while I was at the bank. I guess that place just brought out the worst in me.

Posted in Lifes Observations | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

Sometimes it is Who You Know

September 1, 2011 by Brian

Sometimes it just takes a little magic.

The bank I worked at had something called a call night.  These happened twice every quarter.   What is a call night?  Glad you asked.  Employee’s who are customer facing were required to profile customers.  We would look into an account and see if a customer had a lot of money sitting in a checking account that they are not using.  Or they may be paying on a loan with too high an interest rate. We would call these people and see if we could get them into the bank to talk with an advisor.  Despite the scary word ‘profiling’ this is an excellent program and greatly helps customers.  Most people don’t realize how many products banks offer. Believe it or not, to stay in business banks need you to succeed.  One would think convincing people to talk to an advisor to further their own needs would be easy. But it is not.   Peoples fear and distrust makes making these calls very daunting.

My first week at the bank there was a call night from which I was excused seeing as I had not been there long enough to profile anyone, nor did I have a clue as to what I was talking about.  Being the trooper that I am I opted to stay and join the fun.  The manager handed me a list of papers and told me to call everyone on the list.

I looked at the first name on the list checked their account and they had something like 25 grand sitting in a no interest checking account.  I looked at the history and they had that much sitting there for at least a year.  Clearly, at the very least this could go into an interest bearing savings account.  The call went something like this.

Me:  “Hi my name is Brian and I’m calling from your bank.  I’ve noticed you have a lot of money sitting in a checking account.  Did you know we can put you in another type of account and you could be making money on that money?

Them:  “Not interested”

Me—Stunned silence.

Me: “Really? Do you have that money earmarked for something, perhaps a home, or a car or sending a child to school? If you are we have many products designed just for those types of purposes that will be much more beneficial than a checking account.”

Them:  “No thanks,” CLICK!

Me:  Looking stupidly at my phone. 

At this point one of the other Tellers noticed me looking stupid and quietly told me that she just calls home and speaks to her answering machine.  That way it looks like she is making calls.  While I understood the concept, I thought that was a bigger waste.  With great trepidation I looked at the second person on my list.  His name was Bob (not really, but we will call him Bob) the first thing I noticed was that Bob had multiple accounts all with stupidly high balances.

 Me:  “Hi Mr. Bob, My name is Brian and I’m calling from your bank, I’d like to talk about all that money you have just sitting there doing nothing, in fact I’d like to transfer it into my account.  Okay I didn’t say that, what I really said was something to the effect of you really need to come in and talk to one of our people about making this money work for you.

Bob: “I don’t like big banks, they are very impersonal and you never know who you are talking too”

Me: “Well I can help you with that, I’m Brian I am calling from your branch in State College and I can be your banker”

Bob: “Well that is nice of you but I remember when it was a small town bank and I knew everyone who worked there, now I don’t know anybody and I’m not happy about it.”

Me: “I understand, progress isn’t always what it is cracked up to be, but I can help you out with your current accounts”

Bob: “Does Pat still work there?”

Me: “Pat?  Yes, she is my branch manager.”

Bob: “I remember her when she was a Teller and I’d show her magic tricks.  I’d show all the girls magic tricks and they always greeted me with smiles and were happy to see me, now there is no personal service.”

At this point I just leaned back in my chair, smiled inwardly and took a breath.  Here I was a week in the bank, my first call night I knew nothing about banking but I booked my first call night appointment.  I had a secret.  Bob was a magician, not only that, he was older which meant he was an old school magician, which meant he would have my back.

Me: “Really you are a magician?”

Bob: “Oh yes, I am a member of the magic circle in England, I’m a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, (IBM) and the Society of American Magicians, (SAM).  I’m not much of a performer on any formal level but I do show the occasional trick, and they used to love them at the bank.”

Me: “I was the regional Vice President of the SAM in Vancouver Canada”

Bob:  Silence

Bob: “Really?”

Me: “Yes really, my father opened a magic shop in Montreal in 1974 which is still going strong.  I just moved here from Vancouver where I operated the Vancouver branch for the last 10 years.”

Bob and I talked magic for about 15 minutes and then he said:

Bob:  “So if I make an appointment, what do you get out of it?”

Me:  “Not much except the fact that this is my first week at the job and I’ll have made my first appointment during a call night.”

Bob: “And what exactly is expected of me?”

Me:  “You just have to listen, you don’t have to commit to anything or do anything.  Just listen to your options and you never know something might just be right for you.”

Bob:  “Okay, for a fellow magician, okay, set up a date.”

After pinning down a time with Bob I went to my manager and told her that I made an appointment for her for the following day with Bob.  Pat looked at me with huge eyes and told me they have been trying to get Bob into the bank for years and he has always turned us down flat.  She asked me what I said that got him to agree.  I told her I just have a magical way about me.

Out of six tellers, three desk people the manager and two investment people making supposedly 10 calls apiece I was the only one to book an appointment that day. 

Sometimes all it takes is a little magic.

Posted in Lifes Observations | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

Rocket Richard

August 23, 2011 by Brian

Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard (French, pronounced Rocket Rishaaad) was a great Canadian,  he defines hockey.  He stopped playing the game five years before I was born.  He won eight Stanley cups with the Montreal Canadians.  He was the first to make fifty goals in fifty games.  He was the first to make five hundred career goals.  He actually made 544.  We learned all about him in elementary school, we wanted to be him.  You simply could not grow up in the environment I grew up in and not have heard the name ‘Rocket’ Richard.

Alas, this post has nothing to do with hockey.  It has nothing to do with the great Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard.  It has to do with my friend Richard. Sometimes I think of him as ‘Rocket’ Richard and it is not because of his talent with a puck. Rather it is because of an episode with a rocket.

For awhile Richard and I dabbled in model rocketry. A basic model can go anywhere from 300 ft to 1500 ft into the air.  They are easy to make, or you can buy a kit.  The kits can be very basic or incredibly elaborate.  I always went for the cheap simple ones or I made my own because while my successful launch rate was excellent I never had a successful recovery.

Richard decided to buy one of the fancier kits.  This one looked like a flying saucer rather than your standard tube shaped rockets.  If my memory serves me correctly this flying saucer needed a ‘D’ engine which was one of the larger classes of model rocket engines. 

A model rocket engine resembles a roll of quarters they are primarily made of gun powder. Basically you explode the engine and if you have made your rocket correctly the thrust of the explosion goes downward propelling the rocket upward.

When I left Richards house everything was fine.  He was tweaking the saucer and we made plans to launch it in the next day or so.  I wasn’t there for the incident but I was able to piece a few things together, but to this day I don’t honestly know if I ever got the whole truth.

The next day my phone rings:

Richard:  “I launched the rocket” 

Me: “Really?  Did it fly?”

Richard: “Yes”

Me: “But?”

Rich: “I launched it inside.”

Me: “Inside?”

Rich: “Basement!”

I thought about that ‘D’ class engine, I thought about the possibility of this thing launching fifteen hundred feet into the air, possibly more.  I also thought about the low seven foot ceiling of Richard’s basement.

Me: “Damage?”

Rich: “Uhm I think I can get away with it.”

We both know the alternative would not be good.

Me: “Seriously?”

Rich: “Can you come over?”

The basement was poorly lit.  Most of the light came from the tv, the aquarium or the really small street level window. Because of the poor lighting it did take me a moment to find the burnt spot on the ceiling and perhaps a moment longer to find the chipped and scarred molding.  There was a chance his father wouldn’t notice there was also a chance that this was just a bad dream. The funny thing is Richard almost got away with it, almost.  There was one element we didn’t take into enough consideration.  Stephen!  Richard’s younger. The problem with Stephen is that he wears his emotions and his expressions loudly on his face.  He is a horrible liar.  Stephen didn’t purposely throw Richard under the bus but that is exactly where Richard wound up. 

When Richard’s father came into the basement to say hello Stephen could not keep his eyes off the damaged ceiling.  Stephen could not look at us, his father, the TV or the aquarium.  No, he had to stare at that bloody spot.  Of course Richard’s father followed Stephen’s gaze.  So did ours.  There was no choice.  Stephen just couldn’t look away, not even for a second.

Why you may ask did Richard launch a rocket inside the house?  That is what I asked.  He didn’t think it would work.

Posted in Lifes Observations | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments »

There Be Woodpeckers in Them There Hills

August 18, 2011 by Brian

The other day, and when I say the other day what I really mean is, a few years ago my wife and I were watching TV.  Unknown to us there was a drama unfolding right in our own backyard.

 It started simple enough.  A bird or a squirrel was loudly letting its feelings known.  Living in the woods as we do, we often here such noises and usually they fade into the background of whatever it is we are doing.  During the show we were watching this was easy but when the commercial came on whatever was going on outside became increasingly annoying.  By the third commercial we realized the commotion outside was not slowing down, it was getting worse, but still we were able to ignore the noise, mostly. During one commercial my wife finally voiced what we were both thinking, “Jeeezuussss! What the hell is that noise?”  Once the words were out, all the focus was on that sound there was no way to push it back into the background.  I had to go out and look.  As I headed out the door my wife said, “It almost sounds like a bird trying to coax its young out of the nest.”

The problem with locating the source of a sound in the woods is the woods themselves.  Sound bounces off the trees and the animals tend to move around.  But this sound was constant, loud and annoying.  It took seconds to find the source.  Once found it was no longer annoying.  Two baby pileated woodpeckers were in a hole in a tree calling for mom/dad.  I bolted inside to get the video camera and told my wife what was happening.  She followed me out the door.   From the size of the little birds I was thinking my wife was correct.  The parental units were trying to coax the little ones out of the nest.  I was hoping against hope to capture their first flight on camera.  I never did, but what I did capture was amazing.  

 I did not get the story in one take and I can’t figure out how to combine the segments so I’ll just post all five segments separately.  I’d start with the first and work your way through till the end.  The whole thing lasts about five minutes.  Sorry about the bumpy ride but the ending is worth it.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYNyDHUF_Sg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA6Ta70TNsk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=971x9uMu9K8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVxuEHkNkiA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Ru2wJjFBI

Posted in Lifes Observations | 1 Comment »

World Famous 3 Card Trick

August 16, 2011 by Brian

Okay I admit it. Now that I found out how to post video’s on Youtube I’m constantly thinking of ways to use this tool in my posts. There is one video we took awhile back that I’m searching for, but in the meantime my camera person, (my wife) is learning to use the camera and I am learning how to add titles and credits to the video.  I know for a 12 year old this is probably standard stuff.  But for folks like me, well lets just say it is darn close to rocket science.

Anywhow, here is our latest attempt.  Hope you enjoy the world famous 3 card trick.

Posted in Magic | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments »

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