There’s an old joke about folks in Tennessee wearing orange over the weekend because it’s a triple threat: they can wear it for hunting on Friday, to the Vols football game on Saturday, and for their prison work-release duties on Sunday.
But I’m not in Tennessee, I’m not a hunter, I’m not a Vols fan (Go Hogs!) and I’m not subject to court-ordered work (yet!). However, I’m still wearing orange today. Here’s why:
Learn more here: https://wearorange.org/
Today would’ve been my dad’s 87th birthday. Hard to believe it’s been more than eight years since he passed away. He’s still with us in spirit.
Herb (yep, that’s his name) served in the military during the Korean War… and pretty much hated every minute of it. The “command and control” structure fit him like a hairshirt. (Gee, wonder where I get my rebel streak from…) Besides, his biggest battles were yet to come. Watching your wife succumb to leukemia. Moving your four kids to Arkansas. Struggling to get by. Fighting depression.
Not all heroes wear suits. Or fatigues. Sometimes they wear horn-rimmed glasses and polyester pants and thrift shop shirts. And they love their kids, and raise them the best that they can.
Happy Birthday, Pops.
Another week, another school shooting. Yesterday it was Noblesville, Indiana, where a middle-schooler asked to leave the classroom and came back armed with two handguns and started shooting. Let’s read that sentence again, shall we? A middle-schooler… armed with two handguns.
It’s the 23rd shooting on school grounds (including colleges/universities) in the 21st week of 2018.
26 children and 5 adults have died as a result, with dozens more injured, and hundreds more psychologically scarred. 31 lives lost in buildings set up for education, while during this same time period 13 members of the military have died in active combat zones. So in 2018, schools have been more dangerous than combat zones.
Don’t give me your “arm the teachers” argument. They have enough on their plates as it is.
Don’t give me your “cars kill more people than guns so we should ban cars” argument. Because we both know that getting a car involves:
Whereas getting a gun requires:
If you want to institute the same requirements for gun ownership and operation as for car ownership and operation, I’m fully on board. And then we can discuss safety enhancements for the guns themselves, similar to the way the auto industry has added seat belts, anti-lock brakes, air bags and dozens of other features. Heck, my daughter’s phone has a fingerprint lock… yet we can’t put that same technology in guns?
It may seem hopeless, especially when the NRA has hundreds of politicians in their deep back pockets. But don’t give up, because progress is being made, slowly, but surely. This series of tweets from the founder of Moms Demand Action proves that.
Thoughts and prayers are not enough. We need more action.
I’m a huge Rush fan (read: nerd) and because I’m in charge of employee communications at work, I manage to slip a Rush reference into all-company emails every once in a while (read: nearly every week).
So all of my co-workers are aware of my undying devotion to Canada’s premier power rock trio (suck it, Triumph!). One colleague sent me a link to an article posted yesterday on the Onion AV club. A dude named Garren Lazar has been setting Peanuts footage to rock songs for a while, and he recently posted a clip that syncs up the Peanuts gang with the entire twenty-plus-minute “2112” song suite.
Naturally, I love it. Having Linus as the protagonist is pure genius… the same goes for Pigpen playing the drums like Neil Peart. Check out this three-minute excerpt:
The entire clip is here if you have 21 minutes and 12 seconds to spare. (Yes, 21:12! We see what you did there Garren!)
Have a Rushtastic weekend!
Today’s the last day of exams for my “rising senior, rising sophomore and rising 8th grader”… which means they won’t be rising at the crack of dawn for a few months. I’m sure they’ll celebrate in typical movie scene/music montage fashion this afternoon.
Well, they’re not the only ones who are celebrating. Daddy is delighted too! Summer vacation also means freedom for me:
I know it’ll end all too quickly, but I’m going to enjoy it while I can.
The whole “Yanny or Laurel” audio clip was a viral sensation last week. (I know, I’m behind the times… I’m used to it.)
This New York Times slider will let you hear both.
But if you were born prior to the internet age, you’ve seen contentious debates like this before.
It divided the country. Even bowling teams nearly came to blows over it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74a1d0J-4sE
And then there was the great “Chocolate in my peanut butter/peanut butter on my chocolate” feud:
(I wonder if the kids were listening to Yanny/Laurel on their Walkmans.)
We’ll figure it out.
It’s Graduation Day for our oldest child.
Seems like just yesterday he was a toddler, and we were signing him up for preschool at the church down the street.
He’ll be leaving the nest in a couple of months, but he won’t be venturing too far from home. He’s attending the University of Cincinnati (dreaded basketball rival of my alma mater… kids are such rebels) to study engineering. I’ve talked to several folks who have either been through the program themselves or have kids who’ve gone through it, and it gets rave reviews. And as my friend Art (who was my college roommate) says, “college can be as far away as you want it to be” – meaning just because you’re going to a school that’s 10 miles from your house doesn’t mean you have to come home every weekend… or any weekend for that matter.
He’s a great kid. He’s smart, kind and a hard worker. He’ll do just fine.
As I type this, a B-list actress from the U.S. has just gotten hitched to a British prince… Harry or William, I can never remember which is which. Here’s how many damns I give about the whole spectacle:
Now that the wedding is over, can we please call it a day on the whole monarchy business? You can keep the palaces open as Harry Potter-style theme parks, and keep the silly hats, but treating people like royalty (literally) just because they come from a certain gene pool seems antiquated at best.
You get a sash, and you get a sash, and you get a sash… but not you Kate.
They only serve ceremonial roles anyway… they’re basically the UK equivalent of Wal-Mart greeters, only with a LOT better pay scale.
Welcome to England!
This is the only Queen that matters.
This is the only Prince we should adore.
Game (of Thrones) over. Exit stage left.
I’m on the ‘Green Team’ at work – we try to encourage our colleagues to reduce waste and increase recycling throughout our building. Recently, a group of Green Team members visited a local recycling center.
Hard hats, ear protection and safety goggles… we’re ready for the catwalk!
As a tree-hugger, it’s heartening to see the amount of materials they receive each day… and it’s also a bit daunting. First the recycling items are dumped onto the “tipping floor”:
Then bulldozers and the world’s largest “claw game” move it onto conveyor belts.
From there, it gets sifted and sorted into the various types of recycling materials (cardboard, glass, paper, plastic) with human intervention to pull out non-recyclables.
While it’s great that this much stuff is being recycled, it’d be even better if we created less waste in the first place. After all, recycling is the final and least desirable of the ‘reduce/reuse/recycle’ trilogy. The low-hanging fruit is plastic water bottles – switch to reusable bottles. Then, put a stop to the junk mail you receive by unsubscribing, and sign up for e-delivery of other mail items. Buy in bulk to reduce the amount of packaging. Buy fresh instead of packaged. You know the drill.
OK, I’ll get off my (eco-friendly) soapbox now. Nobody wants to listen to a reject anyway.
On Saturday, I attended a Jazzercise class for the first (and perhaps only) time in my life. My wife has been an instructor for nearly two decades, and on Saturday they had a “bring your sweetie” strength training class. So basically it was me and all the other spouses/significant others of the instructors and a few class regulars.
Team shirt.
My wife has been asking me to attend a class for many years — the answer was always a resounding “no way!”
But some of the other spouses/boyfriends have attended classes occasionally — I call them “curve-wreckers” — and I hear all about it for months. Because it was Mother’s Day Eve, I finally waved the white leg warmers of surrender.
Not me. Not Jazzercise either.
Also, I was promised there would be beer afterward.
Here’s what I learned from my adventure:
1. I am the most uncoordinated human being on the planet.
2. “Jazzercise” may sound like something your grandma does at the senior center, but it will kick your butt. And your pecs. And your abs. And every other muscle area in your body. It’s like P90X, set to music.
3. They really need to update their name… because I didn’t hear a single jazz tune. It was more like a “hot hits” radio station.
4. Beer tastes better after a workout. If I keep going back, maybe I can have both kinds of “six-packs.”
5. Happy wife, happy life!
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