Comic of My Life

This pretty well sums up my justification of winter cycling...

Paper It

I just figured I'd mention the existence of my awesome photo blog, designed for those who want above rad desktop backgrounds. Check it out at paperit.blogspot.com

Random Christmasness

So I'm sitting here listening to an eclectic variety of Christmas music. I figure I'd share the weird associations Christmas has for me...old...and new...and kinda just weird. I have a strange love hate of Christmas itself...I was aptly thrown in the "ba humbug" group by one of my friends. I generally hate the stress, uber expensive waste of money and time on stuff, and the empty emotions people try to impress on me. Being "the most wonderful time of the year," "peace on earth," and "the time miracles happen," is a total fail...it's just made up false emotions which aren't true. Not to mention the food is an overall fail...Chinese take out tastes a lot better than turkey and mashed potatoes.

On the other hand, I do like my brother and sisters being home, Christmas presents are always good, and I do find true joy in celebrating the birth of Christ...well actually I could care less about his birth in particular. I find my genuine emotions of the season based on the fact the God sent his own son to earth, made him live like one of us...to be precise a rather poor and boring one of us, and that Christ sacrificed his life by dieing on a cross to take the punishment for our sins (might it be noted that Easter is celebrating his rising from the dead...not the Easter bunny giving us chocolate eggs).

Also associated with Christmas is the beginning of my cycling season. This year it includes joining an awesome team, figuring out this team ride thing, spending a bunch of money, and doing a lot of planning. Last year my training plan was for 300 hours of riding...but I quit paying any attention to it in May. This year I'm planning to ride 350 hours...so an hour a day on average. However I can only ride five days a week...and I have a two month off season...and I have all sorts of family trips...and camps...so I end up averaging something like two hour training rides. Also when you figure the price of team membership, team kit (cycle talk for clothes with lots of sponsors ads on them), and then race registration fees...and I almost forgot about the TWO licenses I need, it costs a lot. But I can't wait to race, I just get the jitters thinking about it!

The really great thing about cycling around here is that the main part of the season runs from March to June. You need to start training three months before this, thus doing most of your training hours in the middle of the winter. Thankfully I've got an indoor trainer so I can ride while I watch movies on my laptop...except that team ride thing I mentioned happens outside...rain or shine...or dumping rain and freezing! On the two hour ride last weekend it took about half an hour for my feet to go numb...whatever, that ain't too bad...except that an hour and a quarter in my hands go numb...and then we have to ride through crazy downtown traffic without being able to feel my shifters...let alone my brake levers. Anyways about three hours later my feet thawed out and life was good again.

The most relevant part of Christmas to this blog is that I'm homeskooled...meaning I'm responsible to get my homework done on whatever schedule it takes. In this case writing about five papers this week and then doing about six papers worth of stuff Christmas week. I must admit this is better than having to cram it into the normal school year, but it doesn't really get one hyped about this whole Christmas thing.

Finally, the best part of Christmas time for me is all the artificial junk which makes life awesome. Exhibit A. My massive hot chocolate/mocha/latte mug, which makes the papers fly by much faster (in case you can't tell from the picture this is about a 24 oz. mug).

Exhibit B. My massive Christmas music collection, which includes Celtic Woman, Owl City, Mannheim Steamroller, Taylor Swift, Il Divo, and best of all Coldplay! (by the way I got some pretty sweet free Christmas albums from these guys Christmas for Kenya )

Click on it if you wanna big enough version to find out what I've actually got playing.

 Exhibit C. The bestest invention of style...plaid flannel shirts. As cool as a tee shirt when worn by itself. Insanely warm when layered on top of a tee shirt or under a jacket or sweater. And always cozy (I guess there's a reason I've been accused of being effeminate). These things are way better when your sister (home for Christmas) teaches you how to tailor them so they fit perfectly.

Anyways, Merry Christmas and don't let your toes freeze off...or the Christmas tree fall over...or the kids find their presents...or get any crazy ideas like that bike racing is fun...or...um start hating Christmas music...

Unraveling

On occasion I shock myself...well more accurately on occasion I don't shock myself. Regardless, I find it ironic how style can lead one in circles. Our family used to do these fancy studio photos every year, so we could mail it to distant relatives and friends who would then forget how tall I was in that photo and still comment on how much I'd grown up (unless they consider a half inch growing "a lot"). Any ways when I was about six I wore this black, purple, and green geometrically striped sweaters...perfect eighties look. I think that was the last time I wore that sweater, it has since pained me over the years to look at such an abominable style statement. I think the statement was something like, "It was in my drawer when I opened it, so deal with it."

Give it a couple years and suddenly I'm wearing tee shirts...if it's really cold a sweat shirt. Only freaky grandma types wear sweaters. Then another couple years pass, I now understand that hoodies are cool, but sweat shirts are for like little kids who don't know better. Sweaters seem to be a popular style among cute girls...but definitely not for guys...unless they're mock turtlenecks on super villains.  Then last year I discovered something...there are sweaters that aren't baggy misshapen things in eighties colors...and they are warm, and comfy, and uber cool, and I want one. I got one for Christmas that year, that thing has gotten a lot of wear.

So now I'm looking at my Christmas list...about two thirds of the list is clothes...and of that about half is sweaters...so I guess my style has really just unraveled to that same spot again. Here are some examples of what sweaters should and shouldn't look like.

This is a great example of a well fitting super villain sweater.

This is what it looks like when you wear a sweater two sizes to large for you...bad...kinda like a rich European dude trying to look gansta.

This is currently my favorite sweater design...shawl collar, cable knit in a nice fit.

I hope this one is self explanatory.

The Death of Doom

My last post was titled "Doom Has Come Again"...and then school came and I've been so crazy busy with trying to keep up with it that some stuff had to give...sadly one of those things was this blog. Luckily it looks like the tide has turned and I am now conquering Doom. So I have returned!

As I've been crazy busy doing school and such I've kept thinking to myself "this would make an epic post." So I figure I'll try to catch up a bit: As a good homeskooler I do weird stuff...like keep track of and get involved in politics. So when I get offered a week of intense campaigning before the election with fifteen other crazy homeskoolers and somebody else is paying for my room and food...life is good. Until you're a sick, starving, zombie, robot, ahem, I think I'm getting ahead of the story.

Anyways, my dad drives me down to this place like a couple hours away and drops me, my suitcase, and my fedora off with some homeskoolers and some college students he's never met before...and then he leaves me. This is at five o'clock at night, so rather than eating dinner and going to bed like smart people, we drive to campaign headquarters, eat some pizza, and start calling random people. Calling random people is fun in a really demented way. 'Cause you do this:

"Hi can I talk to Fred?"
"Hi Fred this is The Homeskooled and I'm a volunteer calling from the Hickville with a short survey, would you mind taking a minute to answer these questions?"

Then comes the exciting part 'cause Fred gets to decide what to say. Generally you get one of these responses:

1. "Sure, I'd love to tell some random dude from Hickville who I'm gonna vote for."
2. "Um, what?"
3. "CLICK!"
or 4. "Blank, you blankety blank of blank before I blank blank you!"

In reply to these I say:

1. "Do you plan to support Mr. Awesome for Congress in the upcoming election?" (this is a polite way of saying, "who are you gonna vote for?")
2. "W o u l d   y o u   m i n d  t a k i n g  o n e  m i n u t e   t o  a n s w e r  t h e s e  t w o  q u e s t i o n s ???"
3. "Hello, are you there still?...oh duh, it went click . The jerk hung up on me"
4. "Could you give me directions, I don't know exactly how to get to 'blank'?" or "Same to you, CLICK!"

So anyways after making calls 'til like nine o'clock we drive back to the hotel - side note: the hotel is actually like half an hour away from campaign HQ across a state line and a massive river - So after getting back to the motel we go to bed...nope! actually we go and do this awesome debrief meeting and then finally get to bed at like 11:30.

Next awesome discovery; my room mate is one of those extreme homeskoolers who gets up at 4:45 in the morning...I'm not a morning person so I "sleep in" 'til 6:30 leaving me a little time to get breakfast of biscuits and gravy before our morning meeting. After the morning meeting we have ten minutes to kill before getting in the van and driving to HQ. However there is a small problem, there are girls on our team...actually most of our team is girls...and inevitably at least one of those girls must attempt to do her makeup or something in those ten minutes...however also inevitably it takes more like twenty minutes to apply makeup...meaning we sit in the van for ten minutes waiting...but all is not lost because it's a great time to do the inevitable "how are you this morning? conversation" those cheerful morning people must inflict upon us in our groggy state of semi-consciousness.

"Welcome back! we've prepared for you to call from nine this morning till nine tonight with a great break of going door to door in the middle!" This is the warm welcome of one of the staffers at HQ, unlike the cold wet welcome that nature gave us as we hike from door to door. I typically could cover a five mile, sixty door walk list in an hour and a half. Note that this is averaging like three miles an hour (the speed a normal person walks at) while knocking on sixty doors and talking to a bunch of grumpy people, and in case you forgot it was dumping rain. My mind resorted to this strange process of making my current predicament bearable by looking forward to my next one. As I sat staring at the perfect sheet rock wall in front of my phone (actually there was this small hole left by a thumb tack, but otherwise it was perfect), I encouraged myself by thinking that in an hour or two I would get to go out doorbelling. Then as I stood in the rain on the umpteenth front porch of the day I thought of how lovely it would be when I got to sit in the warm, dry office and make phone  calls.

This wonderful cycle continued until it was interrupted on Sunday afternoon with the news that, "from now on we're just going to do phone calls." So of course Sunday night I woke up in the middle of the night and guess what? I had an incredibly sore throat. That morning we had "volunteered" to get up two hours early in order to go and wave signs on an overpass with a couple of the top dog politic people. So at eight o'clock in the morning in a frigid wind I'm standing over the freeway screaming and yelling with an all ready sore throat. Thankfully there was half of one of my least favorite kinds of donuts left to eat for breakfast when we got to HQ...it's not like I wanted any of the Starbucks coffee that everyone else had already drunk up.

Two hours and about two hundred calls later, I'm grasping for any sort of a handhold while sliding into a complete zombie state. Luckily, it just so happens that a bottle of Dayquil "appears" and I take a dose. Almost instantly I return to the land of the living...until two hours later when I fall deep into the pit of zombiehood...and I'm not supposed to take another dose for two more hours. Enter the human zombie cycle, which I remained in for the rest of the day. That evening however one of my friends had a great idea, split your doses in half and take them twice as often...duhhhhh!

Welcome to Tuesday officially powered by Dayquil Split Dose! Breaking the human/zombie cycle and coming out on the human end of things, I had to try to carry my share of the load making 15,000 calls on our final day. Suffice to say it was a long day of calling...and then we got to go to the victory party at like eight o'clock. - Side note: Victory parties are really dumb. First, half the time they're a losing party, not a victory party. Second, they're held in these muckety muck upscale hotels,where although the ballroom is large enough and has a high enough ceiling for a good game of ultimate frisbee, just taking out one of the lights would probably cost more than I make in a year. Third, there are a bunch of people there who have dedicated their lives working like twenty hour days for the last couple weeks on this campaign and getting paid about as much as you get from unemployment, who either try to A. drink their woes away when they lose or B. Celebrate with about ten glasses of champagne and I really don't like hanging out with tipsy people. Suffice to say the best thing there is the beer and wine...and I definitely don't want either of those. - Anyways we get to the victory party and just as the band starts up - Side note: I've never heard of a live band at a victory party so that was pretty awesome. - we get told that one of the races is so close that they want us to make calls to people and ask them to drive to a certain post office that is open 'til ten so they can still get their ballots postmarked in time. Yeah, people are REALLY grumpy when you're calling them AFTER nine o'clock and they think the election is already done with...but it is better than "partying." So we made a bunch of phone calls and then we went back to our motel...and you're probably wondering about the election...I'll get back to that later.

I was feeling good enough the next morning that I decided to go off Dayquil cold turkey. However, my stomach was feeling rather rebellious against biscuits and gravy for the seventh day straight. Regardless, we did the sad and awkward goodbyes and maybe we'll never see each other again thing. And then my brother was supposed to pick me up...but he wasn't there. So then I figured out that since my cellphone was dead (cellphone chargers never work when you don't have a back up charger), I didn't have my brother's number. So I started calling a bunch of people who didn't answer their phones trying to get my brother's number when he pulls into the parking lot fifteen minutes late...I think campaigning had frayed my nerves. Anyways, we go to campaign HQ where we end up sitting around watching the guys with hangovers attempt to do something productive, because we had to wait for something but I've forgotten what...and then my parents pick me up and I go home. The End.



























Oh, if you're wondering we WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!btw, this is the first campaign I've been on that's won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doom Has Come Again...

Yeah, it's that time of year again, school is upon us and with a vengeance. This year is different for me though, not only am I learning...I'm teaching! Being the teacher doesn't mean you don't learn though, you just learn different stuff.

• Like you learn anything you say can and will be held against you.
• Never say "This won't be on the test, or this will be on the test" unless you've had an entire team of lawyers review the test material to be sure.
• Your students may not listen to anything you say in your lecture, but if you say one thing that isn't true they will remember and remind you of it till the day you die.
• The easiest way to get an entire class to roll their eyes in unison  is to say "This is so much fun!"
• Excel spreadsheets are incredibly handy for keeping grades on...as long as you set the formulas right.
• Although your handwriting may be easily read by you, that doesn't mean anyone else can read it.
• I probably drove my teacher nuts with my scratchy handwriting.
• Just cause you're the teacher doesn't mean you can get out of pointless protocol...like wearing goggles while simply measuring a book.

So good luck to you out there who are starting up school again...especially the teachers.

Flip Flopper

I used to be a strong anti-flip-flop guy...but I kind of flip flopped on the issue *this is your cue to laugh* Ya, I used to have a lot of reason why not to wear flip-flops. Seriously, you can't run in the things. They make this loud flip-flop noise. They're flimsy. Not to mention, over fifty percent of flip-flops are pink.

Anyways, I figured some stuff out. You can run flip flops, and if you feel like they're slowing you down to much you can just kick 'em off and go barefoot (barefoot is like pure awesomeness and speed...however your mom might complain). They're cheap, so you can like buy ten different pairs, in plaid, leather, canvas, stripes, or even pink...just kidding on the last one. On top of that, they're the only footwear other than All Stars that look good with shorts. If you still don't buy it try wading into the mall fountain collecting your shopping change in your Nikes, it's a lot harder to explain to the mall cop why you destroyed your Air Jordans, than it is to say that you just felt like wading and there wasn't a sign prohibiting it.

I'mm Fiinnne

At the orders of a good friend (and future sister-in-law), I haven't written a blog post for a while. The reason why, involves a doctor with a drill and some really cool scuba diving equipment. Yeah, I got my wisdom teeth ripped out, and my good friend informed me that I could NOT write a post for at least a week...otherwise I would seriously regret it. Because I've been told the pain meds had me thinking funny. Anyways, here's the story from my perspective.

To start out with I had braces stuck in my mouth for two years of my childhood...yeah, not something I wanna repeat. However, they did make it so my teeth were straight and my front teeth didn't hang out way in front of everything else...including my lips. But then a few months ago I went to my dentist and he tells me "you've gotta get your wisdom teeth pulled out or they'll mess up all the good your braces did." All I could say at the time was something to the effect of "uh hoh" seeing as the dentist had his hands poking around in my mouth.

Whirr- Fast forward a few months. I'm coming in for my pre-operation appointment thing where they tell you how much it's gonna hurt and that they're draining your life savings while they're at it. They also handed me a cute little brochure which I'm positive was designed using the default Microsoft Publisher design (remember, I am a graphic designer). In this brochure they discreetly go about telling you A. Starve yourself before showing up B. It's gonna hurt C. Don't do anything for a week and D. Your parents have to buy your ice cream and yogurt. What they skip is actually telling you what they're gonna do...so I asked. "The doctor uses a drill to break your teeth apart and then they pull the pieces out," that nurse was a lot better at being concise than that brochure.

Whirr- Fast forward a couple weeks. Now I'm coming in to have them actually do stuff. After waiting a half hour (I really wish doctors could learn this thing called punctuality), I get led back and they tell me to change out of my shirt into this quadruple extra large hospital shirt/apron thing. Wearing that shirt was, honestly, the worst part of the whole thing. Then they take me to another room where I sit down in a cool chair and a bunch of nurses run around poking me with stuff and wiring my fingers. They had a problem though, my fingers were too cold for their finger sensor thing so now I have a nurse sitting there rubbing my hand and trying to get it warm...it was really hard not to burst out laughing. Eventually they got my hand warm, and all the wires straightened out...and that's when they hooked up the scuba gear and I passed out...well actually they told me to start breathing deeply and I started to wonder what sorta drill they used...I'm pretty sure it isn't a DeWalt...and then I passed out.

Whirr- Fast forward an hour or two. I've been told that I walked and talked a bit before this, but I remember coming round in this post-op room where my mom and a nurse are talking and it seems like I had my t-shirt back...thank goodness for that. After listening to and mostly forgetting a handful of directions we walk out to the car. Currently I feel a bit woozy and super hungry. This is time for a side note: I'm hypoglycemic, which means I feel really nasty and am a total grouch when I don't eat on a regular schedule...skipping breakfast and lunch really does not make for me being a happy camper: end side note. My mom has got a prescription for pain meds and for some reason I don't know we had to get the pain meds before I got my milkshake. This has to be embarrassing for my mom as we go through the Rite Aid drive-thru and I'm sitting here a bit woozy and rather annoyed with her for not getting me my milkshake yet. Finally she gets me a milkshake and I drip it all over my white t-shirt the way home (have you ever tried not to make a mess eating a milkshake with completely numb lips).

Whirr- Fast forward a day. I sat around and watched Burn Notice, Chuck, and other TV on Hulu.com while eating my ice cream and yogurt...life was good. Then I find out our hay was being baled so that evening I drove a truck and trailer while my dad loaded hay on and then helped my dad unload the hay into the barn, all the while laughing at what the doctor would've said...but hay, nobody got run over or anything. I felt pretty with it by the time my mom got on the freeway heading for home, however I've been told I was loopy for the next day or so. Believe who ever you want...but I'm right.

Yes, I did mean to spell "hey" "hay" in the third to last paragraph.

XKCD

Instead of going to all the work of trying to come up with some funny thing of my own, today's post is a collection of my favorite cartoons from the web comic XKCD. *I do not recommend XKCD in general because some of the comics are inappropriate*

Sock 'em

Yeah, I'm back from my impromptu blogging vacation with a yet another style oriented post. Nobody really talks about socks...well except for their ability to trigger the olfactory gland. Anyways I think it's a super important thingy, because well if you mess it up your totally screwed.

So rule number one, make sure they're clean...no more details needed.
Rule number two, make sure they're the same color. If you are not sure about this ask your sister or mom, they'll know.
Rule number three, stained socks are ugly so, either A. Throw away your fifty dollar-a-sock-(not a pair)-uber-sweat-and-you-don't-want-to-know-resistant-white-gym-socks as soon as they get a stain on them from running the trash can to the end of the driveway at 4 A.M. because you forgot about it the night before, or B. wear black socks. Black socks have some real advantages, like they're black and well black is cool, also once you come to appreciate the value of your socks not showing stains you take advantage of it by wiping off grease and blood on them when there isn't a rag or anything handy (don't mention this to whoever does the laundry though, it takes enough guts to wash your socks without knowing that).
Rule number four, when dressing up wear black socks or socks of the same color as your pants except darker and you shouldn't get into to much trouble.
Rule number five, when wearing pants people should never see above the top of your socks, unless your doing the weird short-pants-no-socks-thing in that case you probably have no reason to be reading this.
Rule number six, forget all previous rules when doing odd socks i.e. stripy, mix-matched, toe socks, cartoon print etc.
Rule number six point one, only wear odd socks in the appropriate situation. In other words if you're wondering if it's okay and nobody else is doing it you probably shouldn't be doing it either. For example don't wear bright red socks to a a Yankee game, it's a bad idea...as in after beating you to death with those massive foam hand things, they'll just write a warning sign on you with leftover fries and ketchup and leave you there as an example to anyone else with such bad ideas...then a couple games later the ketchup will get to smelling so bad they'll dump you into the opposing teams dugout and let them deal with you...anyways I think you get the idea.
Rule number 7, if you broke all these rules (except six that is) for the majority of your childhood...don't worry I did too.

Pea Shooters and Other Boy's Toys

One of the common things to hear around my place is a woman saying, "Boys and their toys." "Toys" is used under a broad definition to describe any of our pieces of equipment we enjoy using. This may be our F-350 truck or our pipe-cutting thingy-ma-bobber. I figured today was a good time to chat about some of the more noisy...and lethal...of our toys.

Men seem to be born with a fixation on weapons of mass destruction. By age five every boy has discovered his personal arsenal of imaginary fire arms and explosive - generally including: two handguns, three to ten different audio simulations of various bombs and machine guns, and a few more unique ways of killing and maiming imaginary foes. There are, however, those who wish to prevent us from our forms of self expression. They believe by removing our tools of cap guns, video games, and camouflauge clothing, they'll prevent us from imagining epic heroism. But as all mothers eventually find out, boys will be boys.

There comes a day, though, when imagination is replaced somewhat by reality. One day, you discover how to create a pea shooter...and your sister discovers how much a little pea can hurt...you then discover for the umpteenth time how much a wooden spoon can hurt. By your tenth birthday, your parents are so worn down that, contrary to better judgment, they buy you a BB gun. With strict orders to only shoot at targets mounted on a hay bale, you discover how boring this is...and discover for the umpteenth and second time how much a wooden spoon can hurt.

Finally, around age twelve, after much whining, begging, complaining, pleading, and possibly even some extra chores, comes the first "real" gun. Insert drum role The Twenty-Two! What is soon discovered about a twenty-two though is that it's truly a "useless" gun. A "useless" gun is powerful enough to be quite dangerous, but lacks the power to be consistently lethal. After another year or two of ceaselessly yammering about thirty-aught-sixes and twelve gauges, you receive what's expected to satisfy you...a four-ten. The downside is that a four-ten is the twenty-two of shot guns...deadly at point four yards. The upside is that you learn expert  stalking skills as you sneak into the middle of the flock of birds while your friends bumble around with their twelve gauges on the other side of the field.

At long last comes the day of your dreams...the day you buy your first hunting rifle. There's a problem though, now that you've bought your dream rifle - you have no time to hunt. Working from dawn to dark through all of hunting season was not calculated in...but there's next year...and the twelve gauge...and then year after that...and the glock...and year after that...and college...

On a Jet Plane

Sadly even a unsocialized, homeskooled redneck ends up in an oversized, shiny, piece of culvert. there are, however, ways to make your trip in a flying pipe more enjoyable.

maxing out your credit card on beer and instant play msnbc, while hitting on the stewardess doesn't work. Niether does bringing along your twelve gauge, in case theres a terrorist. With the voice of experience, I can say studying on a redeye doesn't brighten your day.

What does help is being cute...not like the chicks go for you. Cute like all your friends moms invite you over...when your friends not there. Thats the way to get toyour stewardess getting the can instead of the mini cup is worth a lot more than a fake number. Also those noise cancelling earbuds your mom hates do a great job of tuning out crying babies snoring businessmen and important safety messages. Most effective though is making it so rich that you can stylishly show up on your big green tractor...attatched to chinook.

Excuse the poor editing please. this was written with my thumbs on my bros droid.

Home Skool Style 101

You know what I'm talking about. When you're walking through Walmart, the park, or eating at Denny's, you simply know that that person over there is home skooled. They don't have to have their nose in a book or have ten brothers and sisters with them, you can simply tell by their style. Today I'm gonna give you a guide to achieving the home skooled look.

First, I'll address the crossing of your "t"s and dotting your "i"s of home skool style. Tuck in your shirt, no matter what it needs to be tucked in. Next find all the buttons, snaps, and zippers on your clothes. Button, snap, and zip them. Now that we've got that over with we'll get to some finer details, from the bottom up.

Shoes, tennis shoes do well. You can also go for dress shoes, hiking boots, or cowboy boots. Do NOT wear flip flops, skate shoes, or Converse.

Socks, you've got a lot of options here. No socks works, so does anything else. Mismatched adds a nice bit of flavor, but is optional.

Pants, evenly washed, regular fit Levi, Arizona, or Wrangler brand jeans. If you feel extreme pull out some Dockers. The key is to get the correct fit. First find what size waist fits comfortably, then go up or down one size from that. Second find what length will barely touch your shoe, then buy one size shorter.

Belt, skip it. If desperate use suspenders.

Watch, digital watch with a gigantic face, set to beep every hour.

Shirt, Make sure that the shoulder seam is one to two inches wider that your shoulders. If it has long sleeves find  ones that come two inches short of reaching your wrists. Thou shalt NOT have any brand name of ANY sort printed upon your shirt...except Carhart.

Hair, more options again. You can do nothing with your hair after getting out of bed in the morning, if you feel like being simple. However if feeling determined to master the look, you can force your hair into something resembling Jimmy Stewart's, but do not, I repeat DO NOT use hair product of any type (for folks like me that forces me to be lazy, cause my hair is rather um, defiant).

This completes Home Skool Style 101.

Warning: This look may cause your friends to instantly disappear and inspire awkward questions from others. It's NOT guaranteed to attract beautiful girls, however with the proper amount of prep it has been known to do so.

iHurt...again

I like cycling cause I'm addicted to the pain. But there are different kinds of pain. There's pain from getting yourself bruised all over AKA "that was stupid" pain. There's also pain from breaking and tearing your body apart AKA "That was REALLY stupid" pain. There's pain from using muscles you never use or didn't even know exist AKA "Old Man" pain. There's pain from heart break AKA "maybe she would've liked chocolates better than a box of powerbars" pain. There's odd, irregular, and scientifically non-detectable pain AKA "Great Aunt" pain. There's screaming and trying to keep it G rated pain AKA "that scar there was from when I had a bull chase me." And then there's pain from purposefully torturing oneself for hours on end AKA *insert epic soundtrack* "*insert corny victory line ie. "We did it!", "Viicccttttooooorrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyy!", "We are the champions!, "as you wish", etc.*"

I did my first bike race...and I'm definitely not the winner. However, I finished, which is quite an accomplishment for this redneck who loves pain. So to put this race in proportion think of this; First think of that big hill in your county that everyone talks about how they lost their brakes on it, how they blew out their engine on it, etc. In this case it was Michigan Hill (by the way, I no longer like Michigan, be it a street, state, town, or hill) About a 400 foot high hill, with a seven percent grade. Now imagine how fast you'd go if you went out the door and ran down the block. If you're not a future Olympic sprinter or sitting in a wheelchair, you should be going somewhere in the vicinity of 10 MPH.  Now connect riding your bike at that speed up that hill...yeah, painful. Now try doing that four times with ten miles of riding at 25 MPH between each time up the hill...yeah, that really seriously hurts. Now insert a guy on a thirty five year-old, steel, road bike, which weighs thirty five pounds (everyone else was riding one to ten year old bikes, which way fifteen pounds)...that's why iHurt...again.

Surrounding this torture session was first getting up at the unreasonable hour of eight o'clock on a Saturday *insert horror soundtrack*. Then eating breakfast, packing up, and driving for better than an hour to get to this aforementioned race. Then the true rituals start, making sure you're signed in right, pinning on your race number (I only got poked twice as my dad stuck it on me), changing into your skin tight, lycra racing kit (bike talk for clothes), eating a banana, warming up, and then the race official bungled up the whole ritual. He walks over, pulls the brakes on my bike, and says "you can't race, go get that fixed." He then gives me directions to the mechanic's station...if you can call a wave of the hand in the direction of a couple hundred parked cars, bikes, and people directions. Long story short I managed to track down a mechanic who informed me that my bike had issues, which I already knew. However he worked really fast and figured out how to fix the the brakes well enough for the UCI guy's liking.

Cool, now that my bike is working where am I supposed to be? I finally figure out that the Cat. 5's (my category) are lined up on the road behind a couple other groups. So I run over there and am the last one in line, grrr. A couple minutes later a race official comes over and tells us not to ride like idiots. From the back we only hear every other sentence, but we know enough to roll our eyes and laugh. Another couple minutes and the pace car starts to go, we all get clipped in and start to pedal...then the pace car stops...we all hurriedly stop and unclip from our pedals...then the car starts rolling again, so we clip back into our pedals and start going. After a two mile neutral start, the pace car takes off and the race/torture session begins.

I managed to hang on until after the third hill, I then watched somewhat happily as the peleton (main group of riders) left me in the dust, allowing me to slow down to a dismal crawl.

I maintained this crawl to the finish line...where I collapsed...except...the finish line is two miles of pure agony from the staging area OOOOOUUUUCCCCHHH! Those two miles were the worst part of the whole race...especially when you add in making a wrong turn.

iHurt

I did a handful of things for the first time in my entire life yesterday.

A. I ate six eggs and 4 pieces of bacon for breakfast.

B. I got up by myself at 4:40 A.M. by myself...and it was my own choice at that.

C. I drove for a couple hours with my friends and instead of
partying...they all slept.

D. I stopped at a ski resort...instead of driving past like I have
about 20 other times.

E. I went snowboarding...not skiing.

F. I got the most bruised and sore I've ever been in my entire
life...and I've gotten brutalized in Ultimate Frisbee.

G. I ate some weird potato chips...don't ask me what brand.

H. I crushed a package of graham crackers...in the package.



So the reason I did all these things was that I went on a ski trip
with a bunch of friends. My friends who had been snowboarding before like to talk about all the awesome wrecks. I discovered though, that all the wrecks my friends talk about generally fit into a few criteria 1. Somebody else saw the wreck 2. The observer saw the wreck from a perspective which allowed them to keep track of the flips, slams, spins, etc 3. Both the observing and wrecking parties remember the wreck. This in turn caused me to assume that 1. The wrecks really hurt 2. Each person averaged about 5 wrecks in a day 3. All the wrecks counted, but not described were minor wipe outs. What I discovered, however, was that snowboarding consists of two key actions: Standing up...and falling over. Interspersed between these two key actions are moments of spinning, flipping, whining, lying on the ground, and occasionally riding the snowboard.


So to go through the day in order; I got up at 4:40 A.M. (because of
the switch from daylight savings time, my body said it was 3:40) ate
6 eggs and 4 slices of bacon, grabbed my gear, and got picked up by my friends. We then spent about thirty minutes rendezvousing with some other groggy and/or caffeinated friends, before driving off toward the pass. After a coffee break midway through, we made it up to the pass at about 8:30. It then took us the incredibly short period of about an hour for everyone to change, get passes, rent boards and stuff, and get out to the powder.


This is where the fun starts...I'm like, "where do I go?" One of my
friends is like, "Here I'll take you over to the bunny slope." However,
nobody tells me what to do with my bindings and stuff, so I have to
look and ask around in order to figure out that you buckle your lead
foot in and leave the other one loose until you get to the top. Let me
introduce you to one of the hardest things when learning to snowboard...the rope tow. It's like a ski lift, except that instead of chairs it has ropes, which you grab onto, and then attempt to learn how to balance on a snowboard while getting dragged up the side of the hill. I was terrified that I was going to fall over and mess stuff up, which was only partially true. I did lose my balance on the way up, but I recovered. When I got to the top I flopped over and strapped my other foot in. Then the craziness started...


My first time down the bunny slope I knew to catch an edge...and that was about all I knew. With this basic piece of knowledge, I stood up and started sliding down the hill. I managed to catch an edge, then I discovered what I didn't know...how to slow down. About the time I hit 25 mph, I decided I'd better wreck before I killed somebody else, so I tipped over and had my first wreck of the day. After a fifteen minute lesson and about an hour of practice, I was cutting it up pretty good on the bunny slope. So I headed up to the lower lift with a friend. For some dumb reason the lower lift for the beginners is also the lift which doesn't slow down to speak of when you hop on, so it's pretty scary when all you've done before is the rope tow. At the top of the slope I decided was a total idiot (about the third time I thought that that day). My first run was dicey to say the least. I generally
tried to stay upright and not go too fast. I failed at both.


By lunch time I was only falling down a couple times per run, and was
pretty successful at keeping my speed in check. Once I got back on
the slope after lunch, this involved losing my claim card for my
board and a couple other mishaps. I discovered that it REALLY HURT
when I fell over. I decided it was time to perfect going down the
slope without falling over, even if I was really slow. Twenty painful
wrecks later, I made my first...and last...perfect run. I decide it's
time to stretch my skills a bit so I start cutting around (and into)
some patches of trees. My great friend though decides this means it's
time I experience some real pain, idiocy, and awesomeness. He drags me over to the upper lift...


...The good part about the upper lift is that the lift itself was
designed by somebody with a brain. The result is that the chairs
actually Slow Down when you're trying to sit on them and when you're
getting off. The bad part about the upper lift is that the runs were
designed by somebody without a brain. After getting off the lift I
looked around and said to myself, "You're a totally, undeniably,
incredibly, dumb idiot!" This stuff was twice as steep as anything
I'd done before, and about half as smooth and wide! Anyways I followed my friend down and only crashed about four times, all of which hurt like crazy because of my pre-existing bruises. I then repeated the process for the last hour or so before the lifts shut down, cutting down my average number of falls to three point nine nine wrecks per run.


I must admit that what is worse than the pain from all the sore
muscles and bruises is the headache of thirty people doing a group
photo in the lodge after a day on the slopes. It took seemingly
forever in my hot sweaty clothes for everyone to decide the where,
when, and um who of our group photo. We then all ran around like
chickens until everyone ended up in real clothes, in the right
vehicle, with mostly the right stuff, so we could drive for a couple
hours home. Overall, it was an incredibly, painful, epic, idiotic, and
awesomely crazy dudish fun day...



...and I wanna do it again...



...in a couple months...



...when all my bruises have faded...



...and I have some money...

The Bigger the Better

When asked about my job, I frequently inform folks that I'm a "Lawn Care Specialist." In other words, I mow, weedwhack, and do whatever else it takes to keep lawns looking good for those who would rather shell out $10 an hour to me than do it themselves. There are a surprising number of benefits to doing lawn care. These include the fact that you can listen to your mp3 player for hours on end while taking a beautiful and leisurely walk. This also means you get to listen to deafening engines for hours on end in a hundred ten degree weather, while shoving fifty pounds of scrap metal through somebody's woods.

There is one constant though in lawn care: "the bigger the engine the better." Here is the second most absolute law of lawn care: "The smaller the engine is, the more often it breaks." For example, take a pick up truck: You have a Dodge pick up truck to drive around your mower, weed whacker, gas cans, and other odd stuff. If it breaks down more than every three months, than you'll never buy a Dodge again. On the other hand take a weed whacker: You got a Weed Whacker brand, with all the bells and whistles. However it must take at least ten pulls per start, break down twice per hour, and leak gas, before you even consider that you might want to buy a STIHL instead. So my plan is that when I'm rich I'll buy a push mower with a V8 sitting on top, which might keep repairs down to once a month (not to mention keeping the neighbors from stealing it).

And by the way, the Most Absolute Law of Lawn Care is that every engine involved can and will break at every opportunity.

The Boring Post

I've been off doing fun stuff away from the farm for the last couple weeks, which makes it so there haven't been any posts lately. Anyways I'm putting up a not so exiting post right now, with much better stuff coming in the future. I'd like to point out a couple things on the right hand side of this page. Near the top there's this heading which says "my favorite sites" underneath is a list of...believe it or not...links to my favorite sites. First is a blog called Life, the Universe, and Everything, which is a more serious, but still somewhat sarcastic blog about...believe it or not...life, the universe, and everything. Second is Unhappyhipsters.com, a very entertaining and snarky take on modern architecture and modeling. Third is iamTedKing.com, the blog of a wonderfully snarky, food loving, and American cyclist by the name of...believe or not...Ted King. Fourth is Despair.com, the source of just about everything...believe it or not...disparaging and unmotivational. Fifth is ivman's blague one of my favorite places to steal great jokes and photos from...believe it or not...written by my sister's French professor. So please follow the links and check them out (there is a stipulation though that you must continue to read my blog even though you may like theirs so much better :)

Below that is a view of The Home Skooled's twitter feed. Please! someone who is on twitter follow me! Currently I have like 70 followers on Facebook, but no one has taken the daring leap and followed me on twitter. Moving along there is also a place where you can put in your email, so that instead of going to this blog everyday to check for a new post you can simply get the posts in your email (minus the photos and other media I might add, so the email can simply act as a notification to check out the real site if you want the full media experience) And below that there is this "Search" function, so you can find that post where I made that earth shaking-ly profound statement...or just a lame pun. So yeah...

Is Cooking Manly?

I figured since I'd been writing so much about it, I'd have to address something. "Is cooking really manly?" Obviously eating is manly, why else would we always say the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. But cooking the food isn't this epic thing like using a chainsaw or going out four wheeling with your F-350. Seriously, the most likely way to die is chopping off your finger with the chef knife and bleeding to death. More likely, you'll die from what your wife does to you, after finding out that you rinsed the blood off the lettuce and put it in the salad. Or so most men think...

What most men don't think about is that "cooking" has an important word inside it. Yep, it's "cook" and in order to cook stuff you've gotta get it hot. And when you get stuff hot, it smokes. And as Smoky Bear always says "where there's smoke, there's fire." And any guy knows that being a pyromaniac (somebody who plays with fire) is one of the most manly things on earth. Therefore, cooking is manly (Euclidean geometry has had a bad effect on my thinking, cause now I prove every point with a proof), so yeah.

Right now you've gotta be wondering why I'm using this phony logic on you to prove that I'm manly even though I cook. So now I'll give you a very non-phony story (it'll be internet-y instead): I was cooking dinner. I was making stir fry. To do this I boiled some pork for about twenty minutes to get it most of the way cooked. I chopped up veggies and a got a pan heating while the pork cooked. I was going to saute the pork and then add in the veggies. But like a good chef I knew I needed oil in the pan or else the food would burn. So I poured oil into the pan...and voile! I had a flaming pan like they do in all the casino ads on TV.

Only problem was this was a LOT of flames. Here's where the manliness part comes in. Instead of A. Screaming, B. Pouring baking soda on it and then screaming, cause the baking soda didn't work, or C. Calling 911 and screaming, like any properly programmed woman would do, I stood there and went "hmm." I then pulled the baking soda out and tried pouring on the pan; that really didn't work. So then I did the manly thing and grabbed the burning pan of oil and tossed in the oven where it would run out of oxygen to burn. *insert epically triumphant music* "Hmm,"it seems the pan fire got the oven fan thingy on fire. I briefly considered throwing the fan thing out the window, however insurance wouldn't cover enough of it to be worth while, so instead I ran and grabbed the fire extinguisher. As a side note I must mention this fire extinguisher had not been serviced since I was born. Proof positive those servicing guys are just fooling everyone into giving them money. So anyways I sprayed down the fan contraption and...um it was epic *insert really epic and triumphant music!*

So the lesson in all that is that cooking is a dangerous and epic task, only for the fittest, most agile, and quickest witted men...or your little sister.

These are in order from funny to funniest, kinda like your mom used to make you eat your dinner (or still does). So if you're smart you'll watch them in order, if not...then not.













So you might be wondering how I posted this day before yesterday and it wasn't on the blog until this morning. It's a called blogger wouldn't work yesterday, so I created the post today and did some awesome post dating work.

Pancakes

I haven't been writing on The Home Skooled much lately, cause I've been doing a lot of writing for actual skool work. Kinda ironic ain't it, especially that I've been writing on politicks. Your saying "excuses, excuses, excuses" and I'm like "yeah, if I do it in real life people will actually tell me to my face to quit whining, so I'll just do it on my blog." Anywho, something else I've been doing a lot lately has been thinking about food, maybe it has to do with not eating as much of it as I'd like to (there are downsides to being a cyclist). So I've been thinking about it so much I think I'll write about it. Today I'm gonna review my sister's home made tortilla recipe, when made by her and by me.

Made by her: I've always thought flour tortillas were pretty good, especially with a little (okay I mean a lot) of cinnamon, sugar, and butter on them. But these tortillas are too good to make tacos with. She has to make about thirty of them in order to have enough to use for tacos, cause I eat the first ten, and my dad eats the second ten, and then my ma and sister eat the next five, and we only have five left for tacos. Needless to say these tortillas are delicious. Best fresh out of the frying pan, they have a warm, soft flavor accented by a hint of butter (how's that for poetic). It's a light flavor, unlike a corn tortilla, so you don't want to ruin it with bold salsa. However these things really should be larger, cause I eat them in three bites.

Made by him: "Um, why are these things turning black?"
                     
                      "I put it on medium low just like you said."

                      "No, I put it on the U in medium, not the O in low.
                       What sorta crazy person would do that?"

                      "ouch, Ouch, OUCH, UUUNCCLEE!"

                      "I'll put on the O in low, now why is it thick like
                       a pancake?"

This was after I got myself completely tangled up in dough. Until you start to bake, you don't appreciate the skill it takes to keep dough from eating you alive like a scene from a horror film. I also just about broke the tortilla press. Seriously, why do they make a press, which can't even really press something flat? And then the fire alarm went off, which isn't anything to really worry about, except that my sister keeps claiming that I got something on fire. There's a major difference between a little smoke and fire. I don't care what the fireman said in that movie, if there's smoke that don't mean there's fire. Anyway to actually review it, they were like pancakes, except not fluffy. And you had to do flat bread tacos, cause for some reason they wouldn't bend like a pancake either. So I think I'll go back to making cookies out of the freezer...

Here's the recipe, which isn't to hard to make...as long as you like flat bread.

4 cups of WHITE flour (I don't care how many years it'll add to my life, tortillas were meant to be white)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of shortening (tortillas aren't good for future basketball players)
1 and 1/2 cups of warm water

...That's where the recipe card ends, so after this it's from my memory (contrary to my sister's opinion I do have one) so either you can do what I say or google how to do it...

You mix up the dry ingredients. Then you cut in the shortening with a fork or that cutter thing. The you mix in the water slowly. Get a frying pan on the stove and heat it to medium-low (experiment to find just the right temperature to brown them correctly). Divide up the dough into little balls, which you then press into the tortilla shape, with a small rolling pin or tortilla press. Make sure these things are really thin, otherwise you get pancakes. Then toss them in the pan with no oil or anything and cook 'em till they look done.

Politicks

Warning: this is gonna be a rant!

Give me any word and I can show you how it comes from the Greek. Take for example politics; poly is the word for many and ticks is obviously the word to describe the annoying little bugs or informally your boss. So based on it's Greek etymology, politicks is a bunch of little bugs. Only problem is that THEY RUN MY LIFE.

So I wanna get something to eat, so I walk into a store, find a carton of Tillamook ice cream, and eat it. Guess what, some little ticks in a big expensive building decided that they're gonna put me in jail for that.  No problem they're little bugs and I'm a farmboy, except for the fact that they pay some big dudes to take my money from me to pay them, the big dudes, and some idiots. They also pay these big dudes to put me in jail for them, so they don't get smushed by this medium size dude. Yeah, so politicks messes up my life.

What really messes up my life though is stuff like having to write on politicks. I REALLY, SERIOUSLY, KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT IT ALREADY! So I don't really like writing about how stupid of stuff people are doing and the smart thing which would fix their stupidity and know that nobody is going to do it. GRHH

So the truly smart, and terribly intimidating thing, which is totally not my thing to do is...act. That means actually go and tell those ticks what I think they should do and if that don't work try to steal their jobs from them. So that's why I don't like politicks A. They're a pain cause they mess up my life, by telling me what I can and can't do B. They mess up my life by somehow becoming the subject of my skool...particularly writing C. They mess up my life by trying to become my life. AHHH........

I'm way to tired and lazy to edit this right now so I might later. 



This is what makes up for politicks...

Redneck Sensitivity Training Part 2.

First off, if you're an English teacher or anyone else who cares about writing being orderly...get lost...I'm serious. All you've gotta do is read this post  and you'll probably get lost. Today I'm feeling inspiration to write, but have no inspiration for how to organize my writing. So I'm not.

The reason I'm writing this post is that rednecks cook, cyclists cook, and even fashion aficionados cook, not to mention home-skoolers. Rednecks cook cause they're hungry and ma went to town, so they whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies (nobody mentioned that you actually bake them). Cyclists cook for two reasons. They burn a lot of calories riding their bikes all day, which makes them eat so much nobody else wants to cook for them. Or, it's the off season and they're trying to keep their form, so they eat so little that they want it to taste really good. Thus, they make gourmet-ish food for themselves. And as for fashion aficionados, looking good will get you the girl, but cooking for her keeps her (if you're good that is). Home-skoolers cook cause, well if you do your skool at home there are certain things you learn pretty well. Suffice to say, I cook (part of this also has to do with two sisters who make you learn how to do it).

Some things I learned the hard way while cooking are. Don't mess with yeast. This sounds simple, however yeast sneaks up on you. You're doing your geometry homework and think to yourself, "I want something circular, like a donut." So you look through the cookbook and find a recipe for donuts. Got the ingredients? Check. Got the time? Check. Half an hour later you notice is says something about it taking an hour to rise. You take a closer look and sure enough not only is there yeast in the recipe, it also has to rise for an hour twice, and it hast to be refrigerated for four hours. Hmm,  I guess their estimated time only includes the time which they think you'll spend mixing stuff up.

Also, frozen bread heats a lot faster in a microwave than frozen vegetables. I needed to thaw out some dinner rolls and was like, "this much frozen corn would take about eight minutes to heat, so I'll give the rolls five minutes and see how they come out." At four minutes I saw smoke pouring out of the microwave, so I killed it. For weeks afterward anything you heated in that microwave had a "smoked" flavor.

People are lying when they say, "just do this" and then give you a set of directions for how to fix up some filet minion or something. What they mean is just do what I told you and about ten other things anybody, but a total idiot would know to do. What they are unaware of is...they're talking to that total idiot. Seriously why would you turn on the oven before you put the cookies in?=These cookies are well, um very doughy. When it said "punch the dough," I thought it actually meant for me to "punch the dough"=You could call this Chevy Bread it's "like a rock." You actually put flour on your hands, before working the dough?=Help! I can't get my hands out of this dough! You put butter in the pan before you fry the eggs?=I think you're gonna need to use the pan for you plate...and sorry about it being a little black.

For the record though: I have better than a 50% success rate for cooking projects, I have never caused food poisoning (unlike some people working in the kitchen at a camp I was at...), I absolutely love chocolate chip cookies (my birthday is on friday...and if you email me I'll send you my address...), I have made baked donuts, fried donuts, and pretzels (they all tasted good...and had yeast in them), and I don't really enjoy cooking.

Freak!

It's true! I'm an honest to goodness tech freak. This has been revealed to me through a plethora (big word for a lot) of experiences.

First, one thing I've noticed about the people I know who are techies is that they rant...like really rant...for up to an hour...about some minuscule little thing. Like who cares that 62% of people are using the lousy browser called Internet Explorer, cause they don't know any better (luckily I'm only offending 13% of the visitors to my blog by trashing the browser they are using). Seriously, I want to go and inflict physical harm on the idiots who decide to install that as the default browser, instead of some faster and more useful browser like Firefox or Chrome. If they simply installed Mozilla as the default browser they would save millions of hours of people's time.That could save the economy, if people had more hours to spend working instead of waiting for their web browser to open (I do admit though that if offices banned the use of the internet it would increase productivity more). If that was all a lot of Latin to you, I'm just freaking out over what program is pre-installed on computers.

Also, I talk gibberish. I think I'm having this great conversation with someone and then I look at their face, which says "um, um, okay." Because it seems they don't even have a fundemental understanding of Facebook, Twitter, Flock, Digsby, and Google, let alone understand the underlying principles of social media and networking.

Third, I hate people's HDTVs. Part of my problem is my 20/20 vision. The other part is I know that you aren't supposed to see the little blocks which make up the picture. Either you need a TV that is so Hi-Definition that the pixels (blocks of color the picture is made out of) are too small to be distinguished or you just should use an old one, which isn't pixel based.

On top of all that, I dream of the perfect computer set up. It involves three 27" monitors, 12 gb of RAM, quad core processors, 7200 RPM 2 TB hard drives, 20 USB ports, dual install of XP and 7 Ultimate, three DVD/Blu-ray/CD Rom read write drives, a floppy drive, four firewire ports, a couple of card readers, Bose surround sound, a projector, a MacPro on the side, along with a Macbook air, and a luxury HP laptop. And that's just the beginning...

As you might have noticed I've been spending some time on the social media end of things, creating a Facebook page and a Twitter account for The Home Skooled. Please "Follow" and "Fan" me, so you can get daily humor, along with knowing when I've updated the blog.

You know it's wet when...

Where I live there are two seasons. In most locations in the U.S. there are four distinct seasons: Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. They are easily distinguished by natives to the area by the change in flora (plants), fauna (animals), the decorations in the stores, the clothes people wear, and most of all by the weather. But alas, where I live there are simply two indistinct seasons (okay, if you walk into a store than you can easily tell what season the rest of the world thinks it is) these seasons are: The Rainy Season and The Rainier Season. In honor of it being The Rainier Season, I figured I'd put together a list of ways you know it's wet. As you've probably noticed I like lists, this indicates my incredible, natural amount of organization, however since I figure you might be getting bored with numbered lists I decided I'd use an eclectic variety of symbols instead (yeah, yeah, yeah I admit it's just that lists are easier and faster to write, not that I'm that organized). So you know it's wet when:

~You get back from a bike ride and weigh eight pounds more than when you left, because of all the water in your clothes.

%You'd rather do skool than check the mail box.

#Your chickens actually go in their coop.

*Your mom/wife actually tries to convince you to wear a coat.

!Your invincible quad get's stuck in the mud.

$You get shocked by the electric fence when the hay you are holding touches it.

+You actually wish you lived in California.

P.S. Feel free to add your own in the comment box.

Murphy's Law

Suffice to say...it's true. One of the best examples is a simple thing called a bike ride. Seriously, all ya gotta do is grab your bike, put on a helmet, and take off. Only problem is when your cycling kit (kit is cycle lingo for clothes) is sopping wet from your ride in a thunder storm yesterday and you can't find a way to get it dry. Okay, that's not the only problem. On top of that you just replaced your tires (because they are worn out and you got a flat yesterday during the thunder storm) and your back wheel doesn't want to stay on right any more.

With your desperate array of tools (I'm on vacation and all useful tools at the cabin seem to have disappeared) you tighten your wheel into place and ride off in your soggy kit. But low and behold your tire wasn't tight enough, so you return to the cabin and tighten it again. Now you're finally off...except that your front brake loosened up during all this fixing of stuff so you have to tighten it up. Yay, off we ride!

After a couple blocks, you come to the highway, which you've gotta cross with no stop light. Once it looks clear you start to ride a cross, then your bike stops rolling right in the middle of the road. Hmm, I think the back wheel came loose AGAIN! Time to practice your bike-a-hopping as you try to get out of the way of the log truck. Safely on the other side you attempt to tighten your wheel without any tools. Magically it works, no more wheel problems.

Now it's time for your twenty mile ride in a twenty five mile an hour wind. As I'm cruising along in my top gear at twenty five miles an hour, I analyze how I'm gonna ride back. If I put it in my lowest gear I should be able to grind home into the thirty mile an hour gusts. I enjoy the feeling of riding along in what feels like the eye of a hurricane.

After I've ridden about ten miles, I decide to turn around. *SNAP* my derailleur cable just broke (that's part of the thing-a-ma-jigger that shifts gears). On top of that, as I'm pulling off to the side of the road, I'm to focused on trying to figure out what just happened and miss that there's a three inch log on the shoulder. Let's just say I and my bike tipped over rather quickly. So after inspecting it I figure out that my bike will still work...in top gear. I had the pleasure of riding home in my top gear against that twenty five mile an hour wind. So to sum it all up, without Murphy's Law life just wouldn't thrust the epic upon us...


...in other words it would be perfect.