Preaching Billy Graham.....

I remember as a kid, every Sunday morning my Dad would have on CBS's Sunday Morning News Show. Always equating it with being old, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee. So guess what Jen and I have been doing now for well over a year...yep every Sunday morning.

Only this Sunday morning they did a story on Bill Graham, not the preacher but rather the Promoter...Concert that is. He had been a concert promoter for the likes of the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Hendrix, Cream, U2, Van Halen, Pearl Jam....Yeah for like forever right?

Well he died in '91 in a helicopter crash...I believe it was the one in Alpine Valley near Milwaukee with Stevie Ray Vaughn. Well his promotion company has been sold and resold and even resold again until a guy by the name of Bill Sagon took it off the hands of the current owners for like $5 million or something (off the top of my head).

Anyway, apparently the old owners never went to the basement because Graham was a pack rat...He saved everything!!!! He saved posters, contracts, tickets, t-shirts, live video recordings, studio recordings, photography (Yep little sis even photography). Bottom line is that in the basement alone there must be worth 50-100-150 million worth of music paraphenalia.

So when you get a chance check out "I want everything on this site", site.

I so want this to happen to me...Not only find something of this worth by accident but maybe the coolest find of all time

Thunder and Snow?

Yeah you betcha, we have got a storm a brewin'. I left for work today and we had all of two inches out there, then guess what? Yeah we got blasted and at this time are still getting blasted and at midnight tonight it might think about settling down a tad but more than likely will get blasted with more snow, but by that time it will just be the 30 mph winds and the single didgit temps that will get yea.

If you read Jen's blog today please read her comments because there are just two things that should never be together, that would be snow and thunder. Yeah it was coming down so hard that it was thundering and lightning outside....Crap the end of the world is coming!

As I looked outside while at work I hear crack of thunder and while trying to process this in my mind lightning follows like 20 seconds later....I am going to go and huddle in the corner for a while thank you very much, please let me know when it is over.

Humble beginnings

associated press....It has been announced today that a new sports league is forming under the constant demand for a pro franchise in this area....

Let me introduce you to the newly created NWA, which stands for the National Weightloss Association. Led by the Plarge Panthers. Starting at point guard is Grant Veggies...yes this is his birth name...who woulda knew. He runs the floor and needs to touch the ball more often if this team has any chance to compete for a championship. At the two guard (or shooting guard) is Afruitious Sugar, Shug for short. Shug leads the league in three point shooting, great from the long distance and can put a dagger in another team quickly and merciouslly. At power forward we have Frank Protein, yeah I know his name isn't nearly as much fun but work with me here. Frank is a veteran in this sport and has been in instrumental in making this transition. If you need a score Frank is your man, great guy to go to out of a time out or even in transition as he runs the floor well. At your three guard or small forward you have Gene Grains, he makes sure that everything runs rights throughout the day. And lastly, at center is Don Dairy. He runs the floor well along with rebounding and getting the ball out to Shug to start the fast break.

Other teams in this league are the phoenix Fats, Seattle Sugars, Cleveland cholesterol, and the San Antonio Heart Attacks.

Last night was the first ever game in the NWA, pitting the Plarge Panthers against the Seattle Sugars. Plarge lead most of the game with Green taking over the game for most of the first half. Seattle made a late charge though, getting a spark off the bench by Coco Cherries, who Seattle just signed earlier in the day coming off a stint with the Chicago Creme's. In trouble in the second half the Panthers held off the Sugars with the inspired play of Frankie P.

Final score: Plarge winning by 1 267 to 268

The Sky is Falling

A while back, like 18 months ago, we had a little mishap with the bathtub and certain people forgetting to turn off the running water. The water had to go somewhere and it decided to head for the kitchen ceiling.

For 18 months there was a hole by the kitchen light where the plaster, yes plaster, had been warped by the water. Last week I decided it was time to replace and fix the plaster, much to the amazement of my wife that I could actually fix something around the house instead of breaking stuff, oh and I have to say it looks pretty good for a novice. Put it this way if your a professional I am a hack at this, just like someone that can change their oil, to a professional your a little more than a complete wanna be but to the untrained eye your great with cars. To the untrained eye I am actually a hands on home owner, to my wife.....Well I am just the guy that breaks stuff better than he can fix it...But the ceiling looks good.

Honestly, You Should Do More Research

The Superbowl was last night and although I said that I wanted to see Holmgren lose, which he did, it was unsatisfying....I guess such is vengeance.

But, the real competition is in the commercials. Although the last few years they have been a little on the lack side, jumping the shark back in '99 or '00 but that doesn't mean there weren't a few good ones.

Couple that I really liked: the Careerbuilder.com commercials where the guy is working with the monkeys and the new one with the gal working with the donkeys a.k.a "jackass's", umm yeah giggled I think.

But the best one of the evening was the Fedex caveman commercial. If you haven't seen it yet check it out.

Gotta love caveman humor, don't you? I mean how can you go wrong? The Gieco caveman commercials are also classic commercials, love those.

So out of the whole evening those were the only two that really stuck out. Thought the Pepsi commercials with "Ditty" or "P. Ditty" or "Poopy Do Do" or what ever he is calling himself now were stupid. Budweiser has got good ones but they lack real creative effort.

So did I miss any?

So What is Normal Anyway?

Dominic had his teacher conferences this week and for the first time in 3 years I wasn't able to go due to working. Jen filled me in though. Apparently Dominic is about as normal as can be. He received high marks in reading and writing, writing especially due to his choice of vocabulary which is advanced the teacher says. They are surprised with his descriptive abilities, in fact he is so descriptive they sometimes force him to finish up his projects due to time constraint's.

Both Jen and I have noticed that he enjoys school much more this year than in the past, not like we have ever had a problem but for the most part I think it is finally becoming challenging enough for him to enjoy.

I never remember liking school much, mainly due to the fact that the more I tried the more disappointed I got with the results. So why try so hard and get the same thing was my thought. I always had a sneaking suspicion that I was dyslexic, or at least learned differently than everyone else. Dominic does not seem to have that although I watch Tommy and he seems to possess some of my traits. There are times where he will write his name backwards which makes me wonder.

I remember the first time that I didn't fit in with the other kids, as far as learning goes, which was in the second grade. In fact most of my horrible thoughts about school started back in the second grade. I can't even remember the name of the teacher, other than she had a beehive for a hair style, miserable old bag she was. There are two moments that year that forever etched in my brain, the first was the butterfly project. In fact I might have written about this a while back, but apparently both wings of the butterfly need to be identical and I made mine different and she chastised me for it. Then to top it off we had to place them all on the wall for all the parents to see in teacher conferences, I just remember how embarrassed I was for my mom to see that butterfly. She loved it of course, which is what parents are suppose to do but it didn't make it any better. Was I the only one that made his wings different, because that is how I felt.

The second is when I got in trouble with learning the past tense form for words that end in "e", in which your suppose to drop the "e" and replace it with "ed". As an example the word "trouble", drop the "e" so you have "troubl", you then add a "ed" to make it past tense. So you will end up with troubl"ed"....Get it (I wish I was a English major because I am sure that I didn't describe it right, maybe Steve can help with this one). The argument ensued as follows:
Why do you need to drop the "e" when your just going to replace it?
Because that is the rule Paul
Yeah but that doesn't make any sense
but Paul what would you do with a word that doesn't end in "e"
I would add "ed"
well why wouldn't you do the same thing with a word that ends in "e"
because the "e" is already there, so I would just add a "d"
but then there are two rules Paul
No it is the same rule just adapted according to the word
Paul it is two rules and you will drop the "e" and add "ed"
Well that is just stupid
Paul your staying in for lunch
crap!

After this point I just accepted that I wasn't as smart as the rest of the class and from then on I struggled.

I guess I never fully believed that I was less smart than the rest of the world because I never quit, I just figured that if I kept doing what I was doing long enough I would somehow figure it out...And figure it out I did.

So too my second grade teacher, F@#k you I did it myself.