A Troubling Experience

I had a troubling experience recently, so I need to ask advice about how I should have handled the situation: "What would you do if someone got right in your face, grabbed you by the nose, said something unintelligible and then laughed at you?"

I just smiled and said: "NOSE!" (since it was my 16-month-old grandson who did that to me).

A Question for Yu Darvish

So tell me, how do you abbreviate "Laugh Out Loud" in Japanese?  ROR, maybe?

Frustration

Joyce: How do I share this video?

Bob: Is there a "share" button somewhere?

Joyce: Yes.

Bob: Try clicking on it.

Joyce: It doesn't do anything. ... Oh wait, there's a dropdown thingy.

Bob: So choose "Facebook".

Joyce: No, I think I'll post it on Twitter. ... Darn, now it gave me a blank screen that says it can't connect to the server.

Bob: Try clicking on the "refresh" button.

Joyce: That's what I've been trying to tell you: Microsoft upgraded me to version nine without asking and there's no "refresh" button on the new version of Explorer.

Bob: What's that button next to the red "X"?

Joyce: That's just the circle-arrow thingy.

Bob: Oh, well then, I guess I can't help you.

It's in the Bible

At Bible class tonight we were reading from Second Samuel chapter three. The pastor paused for a moment at the end of verse fourteen: "And David sent messengers to Ishbosheth Saul's son, saying, 'Deliver [me] my wife Michal, which I espoused to me for an hundred foreskins...'"

Inga, a kindly 90-year-old widow, interrupted to ask a nagging question: "How long is a hundred foreskins?"

Seeing that Inga had mistakenly assumed that a foreskin was some ancient measure of time (like a fortnight or something), I jumped in to set her straight: "About five feet."

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Yesterday, while driving home from church, a burning question suddenly sprang into my head, so of course I had to pose it to my loving bride: "If the abbreviation for 'First Lady Of The United States' is FLOTUS, what does that make our current 'First Lady Against The United States'?" Joyce was duly impressed by my insightful question, but sadly she was unable to give me a satisfactory answer.

So I (being the incessantly inquisitive person I am) have been mentally gnawing on this bone ever since. Luckily, I'm not merely incessantly inquisitive, I'm also technically savvy -- savvy enough to know that ever since Al Gore invented his Information Super Highway (a.k.a., the Interweb), finding answers to such stuff is as easy as typing a word or two into "The Google". You wouldn't believe all the fascinating things you learn when you enter "FLATUS" into The Google.

For instance, check out this out-of-this-world story.

The Revolution to Come

A former colleague of mine emailed me this article with the comment: "I'm not sure what to say about this." But I did. So I wrote him back...

There are three categories of people:

1. Those who believe the government can provide all their needs,
2. Those who've previously placed their faith in government (but have come to realize that their man-made god is untrustworthy), and
3. Those who've always believed that government tends to attract ambitious, power-hungry scoundrels who abuse power to promote their utopian agendas. (Those in category 3 also tend to understand that most dangerous of these scoundrels are those who seek the "greater good", since their conscience is unbothered by the evil they do in their quest to "help the downtrodden".)

All those in category 1 are clueless, but will eventually end up in category 2.

Those in category 2 will join the French Revolution (a disorganized mob that riots in hopes of tearing down their disappointing idol and erecting a new more worthy god). If this revolution is successful, it will destroy society.

Those in category 3 will join the American Revolution (an organized citizenry that defies a government that presumes to have divine power). If this revolution is successful, it will restore the government to its proper limited role.

So the question isn't whether America is pre-revolutionary or not, but whether those who presently oppose our god-like government want a new god or a law-abiding government.

A Word to Congress

I have a proposal for the debt-limit crisis that ought to please both President Obama and everyone in Congress (except, of course, that crazy tea-party rabble). I propose: Rather than haggling over some incremental increase of a mere few hundred-billion dollars, why don't we just increase the Congressionally authorized national debt limit to one bazillion dollars?

As I see it, the figure of "one bazillion" has two great advantages:

1. Lawyers can endlessly quibble over the legal definition of the word "bazillion", and
2. The Obama Administration can spend virtually without limits between now and election day.

You see, regardless of whether a bazillion ends up being defined (decided in the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote) as what comes after a centillion (10³⁰⁶) or a centillion-centillion (10⁶⁰⁶), given that the best estimate for the number of atoms in the universe is a mere 10⁸⁰, it's a pretty safe bet that there aren't enough clunkers for the government to buy or enough banks & auto manufacturers to bail out for Obama to spend a bazillion dollars between now and the next election.

Of course, if the Democrats win control of both Houses and the Presidency in 2012, then all bets are off for 2016. But that's not an issue for now.

What I Learned from a Four-Year-Old

Today our granddaughter sang us a song:
The E-I-E-I-O ---
Yes, that's the book for me.
I stand alone on the Word of God,
The E-I-E-I-O.

And then she had this conversation with her mom:

Mommy: So Abby, what have you written here?

Abby: That's Rapunzel.

Mommy: So B-F-O-A-B-Y-R-S-G-I-D-A spells Rapunzel?

Abby: It's in Spanish.

Horsh-resh!

I know I'm a bit late in posting this, but if you can't make the festivities in Collinsville this year, be sure put it on your calendar for next year.





Be be forewarned: A banana split with a sprinkling of horseradish --- not the best.

Wifely Jealousy

Bob: Good dog, Tifa!

Joyce: Are you hugging Andy's dog?

Bob: She's leaning on me and I'm petting her.

Joyce: I saw you; you were hugging the dog! I am so jealous!

Bob: There's no need to be jealous, dear. C'mon -- group hug!

Greenberries

Joyce and I have three sons (Andy, James and Ben). If I hadn't been there myself, I'd never believe they were all drawn from the same womb. Their differences are best explained with a pithy story.

During the summer of 2000, we visited the farm (the home of Joyce's mother's family in central Illinois since the 1870s). One morning Ben (12 years old at that time) and I went for a bicycle ride down to the grain elevator, about a mile away. Once we'd absorbed all the wonders the Galesville elevator has to offer, Ben and I pedaled back to Grandpa's, where we found Andy (18) and James (13) in the front yard mystifyingly facing a large bush.

So Ben inquired, "Wucha doin?"

Andy matter-of-factly explained, "Pickin greenberries."

James innocently corrected, "No, we're picking the black ones!"

Ben eyeballed Andy and sarcastically intoned, "Nice try."

Premature Gesticulation

Today President Obama announced that Israel needs to immediately withdraw to its pre-1967 Auschwitz borders. But I think old Barry has jumped the gun a bit here. Since the Rapture isn't supposed to happen until this Saturday, the Antichrist really should have had the decency to wait until Sunday to reveal himself.

Obama Bin Who?

My son Andy noticed this news scroll and just knew I'd want to share it:


Thanks, Andy!

On Being Multicultural

Andrew Klavan offers some sound advice on the proper multicultural response to an Islamic massacre:

Customer Dis-Service

I work for a power utility company. In the deregulated Texas market, the local electric delivery company doesn't sell electricity; we only deliver electricity. It's kind of like how FedEx doesn't sell packages, it merely sells the delivery of packages. The analogy is imperfect because (unlike FedEx, which uses public roadways to convey packages to your doorstep) we own, maintain and have exclusive control of the pathway by which electrons make their way to your home's breaker panel. And no one expects FedEx to deliver sixty packages per second, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to over 3,000,000 homes.

Anyway, the point of all this is merely that reliable electrical service is the only focus of the company I work for. Obviously, there are times when the damage to our grid is so extensive that it takes more than a few minutes to restore service to that customer. But the fact is, whenever we learn that any customer's lights have gone out, we react immediately to restore power as quickly as possible.

So it came as a surprise to me when (after an AT&T construction crew inadvertently disconnected our DSL line and we called the AT&T service department to have AT&T repair the damage that AT&T had done) AT&T's reply was to promise a repairman within the next five days. That a utility company could treat its customers with such cavalier contempt was a revelation to me. In my frustration I may have spoken some less than Christian words to the hapless Hindu on the AT&T help desk, as I tried to explain in no uncertain terms that this was no way for a company to treat those who send it money regularly. I must confess that I did derive a modicum of satisfaction (though no effective results) from my rant.

But clearly my tirade was nowhere near as satisfying as the prank these guys pulled on the Belgian government-run telephone company. (Even though these guys are speaking Flemish, be sure to turn up the sound or you'll miss some of the humor.)

The Wisdom of Youth

Andy: Did you know that eating corn on the cob is good for your memory?

Dad: No, I didn't know that. Where did you hear that?

Andy: Nowhere, I figured it out myself.

Dad: Okay...?

Andy: Of course, corn on the cob helps improve your memory. It helps you remember what you ate yesterday, doesn't it?

Emergency

Around 5:00 AM yesterday morning, while on my morning walk, I saw a guy who had a "Go Obama" pin on his coat being mauled by a rottweiler.

Being a responsible citizen, I informed emergency services.

It's now 10:35 PM the next day and they still haven't responded!

I'm beginning to think I wasted a stamp!

A Letter From Grannie

Joyce and I came home from grocery shopping and found a message on our phone answering machine. It was our son Andy (a.k.a., "Daddy") calling from Alaska and reading Grannie's greeting card (stuffed with photos) to four-year-old Abby.

Daddy: "Dear Abby -- Here are some picture of Uncle James and Aunt Amber and your cousin, Baby James -- and Uncle Ben holding Baby James. Uncle Ben cut his hair short. Granddad and Grannie have been dog-sitting Aunt Amber's dog Brody."



Daddy: Remember Brody?

Abby: Yesss!

Daddy: "Granddad and Grannie have been dog-sitting Aunt Amber's dog Brody." (Andy then editorialized: "We do not sit on Brody.") "We watch him run in the back yard and jump. Does Tifa [pronounced TEE-Fah] jump?" [Tifa is Andy's dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback/Huskey cross,] (Andy again editorialized: "Oh yes! Tifa can jump the fence.")

Daddy: "Uncle Ben is coming to your house in a few weeks to visit. He has never been to Alaska. Uncle Ben loves cats, so he will enjoy seeing your Emma cat. -- Love, Grannie"

Daddy: That was a very nice letter from Grannie. So Abby, what kind of animal is in the picture on the front of Grannie's card?

Abby: Uuuuummmm ... a MOOSE!

A Word to the Wise

Whenever you come home from college for the weekend and log on to Facebook on your Mom's computer, remember that Mom and Dad wake up early, so be sure to log off before you go to bed.

Just sayin'...

Like Christmas Morning

James is home! Home is no longer our back bedroom where the Legos and toy trains were once stored. Home is now where his beloved wife Amber has been waiting so anxiously. And his arrival wasn't just a wonderful reunion, it was a huge relief. Ever since Amber's visit with her doctor three weeks ago (when she first heard the words "dilated" and "effaced"), she's had reason to be concerned about the baby's arriving before James returned. But now that James is home, the vigil's over. If the baby doesn't arrive sooner, the doctor will be inducing labor this Friday, a week before James's mid-deployment leave ends.

But simply saying that James is home in time for the birth of their first son doesn't tell the story. His plane landed at DFW Airport at 7:30 on Friday morning, a full hour ahead of schedule -- but more importantly, almost seven hours before his departing flight was scheduled to leave DFW. Long before James left Afghanistan, Joyce and I had offered free taxi service from DFW to Fort Sill, but he insisted that he'd prefer to fly into Lawton so he could also fly out of Lawton.

But when we met James at Terminal D, the first words from his lips were: "Can you give two of my buddies a lift to Fort Sill?" Well, of course we could. In fact, anticipating that James might just have a change of heart, Joyce and I had driven to the airport in separate cars. So I piled three soldiers and their gear into the Toyota and headed to the north airport exit, onward toward Oklahoma -- Joyce took the Plymouth and headed south, back to the house.

As the band of brothers and I pulled onto State Hwy 114, I handed James the cell phone and told him to have his guys call their wives and let them know I'd be dropping them off at their doorsteps two hours before their flight was even scheduled to leave DFW. I assured everyone that the prepaid phone had plenty of time left on it. What I hadn't anticipated was James's spending nearly the entire trip explaining to some brain-dead government bureaucrat that he and his two buddies would not be flying into Lawton that afternoon, but they would need to fly out of Lawton two weeks later.

As we were nearing Fort Sill I asked the guys where they lived. Just to make things interesting, PFC Smith volunteered that his wife and kids had moved on-post since he'd deployed, so he wasn't entirely sure where his house was. SGT Smith knew where PFC Smith's neighborhood was, so we at least had some idea that we should be headed to the housing area south of the hospital. James handed PFC Smith the cell phone with instructions to have his wife give us directions to the house. Just as Smith had said his obligatory I-love-you-and-can't-wait-to-see-yous and was on the verge of obtaining the operational instructions, Virgin Mobile decided we'd had just about all the conversation we needed, at least until we fed some more dimes into its corporate maw.

Luckily, we found Smith's street without making any wrong turns and within a minute of the phone's betrayal, we pulled into the driveway of a house with a picture window full of toddlers' hands and faces. The front door burst open and emitted a beaming blond who immediately attached herself to PFC Smith. We dropped a bag out of the back of the Swagger Wagon and by the time the happy couple were across the threshold, we remaining travelers were off again, bound for SGT Smith's abode.

The route to SGT Smith's took us past the grade school. As we drove by the school, James asked the sergeant, "How old are your kids?" SGT Smith replied, "I have two girls, ages six and three. The six-year-old is in first grade and the three-year-old is at home with my wife." As we passed the playground full of scurrying youngsters, SGT Smith added, "I'm gonna try to surprise my first-grader at school today." Two blocks farther on we came to his house with two SUVs in the driveway, but no other evidence of anyone at home. We unloaded SGT Smith's bags from the back of the car and I returned to the driver's side. Sergeant Smith set his bags down in the yard on the passenger side and walked around the front of the car to shake my hand and thank me for the ride. I was a bit taken aback that someone who has sacrificed so much would be thanking me for such a small gesture, and I told him so, "No, thank you for your service."

James and I both got in the car and, as I back out of the driveway, it occurred to me that SGT Smith had no key to the house and was apparently locked out. He was standing with the screen door open, knocking on the solid wood door. My mind was searching for the proper way to handle the situation (I sure didn't want to just drive away and leave him sitting in his front yard), when suddenly the front door swung inward and the good sergeant was nearly knocked backward by a woman who leaped into his arms.

As we pulled away, I told James, "Delivering soldiers to their wives is even better than watching kids opening presents on Christmas morning."

Then we drove over to James and Amber's house, where I can truthfully report I saved the best present for last.