“Getting hit by a Dodge is ironic.”

… I was looking through some boxes of old papers in the basement and came across the copy of my birth certificate I got when we went on the family cruise back in 2003.  On it was listed the address where my parents were living at the time, the house I spent my first 3 years in.  The house where my brother and I (5 and 3 yrs old at the time) “cleaned” our new-born sisters diapers for my mom.  We cleaned them by wiping the mess off of them onto the wall paper.  Back when wallpaper was paper, not the easily cleanable vinyl it is now.  Yeah, mom & dad were pretty happy with us.

… So I decided to look up the old place on Google Maps.  As soon as I saw the picture from above, I knew it was the right place. Not exactly sure why, but I had a vague feeling that I remembered the curve at the end of the street and the woods down there.  I’m also pretty sure that big building across the street wasn’t there, I remember crossing the street to visit a really old lady (probably in her 50’s) ‘cause she had the best candy, out in the open, on her coffee table.  I remember being told years later that she was a Holocaust survivor.

… It amazes me the images and feelings that these pictures brought back after some 40+ years.  Of course I’ll never be sure how much of them are things that I was told later in life, and how much I actually remember, but I have pictures in my head of that candy dish, with the rectangular brown candies in it, sitting on the coffee table.  And I remember wanting to go down the street and climb through the wrought iron fence to play in the woods.  And that I was Steve, and the other Steve in the neighborhood was “Steve-down-the-block”.  Which was ironic because in the neighborhood I moved into when I was 4 (to 14), there was “Big Steve” (older than me), “Little Steve”  (younger than me) and, once again, I was just “Steve”.

Thanks to jmpnmark for this one.

I just want to thank all of you for your educational e-mails over the past year. I am totally screwed up now and have little chance of recovery. 

I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel or have them put lemon slices in my ice water without worrying about the bacteria on the lemon peel. 
I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking ones nose (although cell phone usage may be taking the number one spot).
Eating a little snack sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of Trans fats I have consumed over the years. 
I can't touch any woman's purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom. 
I MUST SEND MY SPECIAL THANKS to whoever sent me the one about poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing. 
I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time. 
I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program. 
I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's Novena has granted my every wish. 
I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers. 
I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day. 
THANKS TO YOU I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.
BECAUSE OF YOUR CONCERN, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains. 
I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas. 
I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put 'Under God' on their cans. 
AND THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face... Disfiguring me for life. 
I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.
I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me. 
I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise. 
I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army. 
THANKS TO YOU I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt. 
AND THANKS TO YOUR GREAT ADVICE I can't ever pick up $5.00 dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg. 
I can't do any gardening because I'm afraid I'll get bitten by the brown recluse and my hand will fall off.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 p..m. tomorrow afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician . . .

Oh, by the way..... a German scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse.
Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late.

… Thanksgiving.  What a great day.  Spent it with the family, ate a lot of good food, had a couple really good heart-to-heart conversations with the next generation, watched “Uncle Buck” and played Clue.  Both my brothers were there, my sister, almost all the nieces and nephews and their kids. 

… At one point my older brother was downstairs playing with all the kids, and somehow a little soccer ball, a little bit smaller than a pool ball, got lost inside the pool table.  The first any of us upstairs heard of it, my older brother had my younger brother’s 8 year old completely inside the table, crawling around looking for the soccer ball.  My 6 year old grand-nephew was trying to climb in the other side of the table to help.  It was hilarious.  I don’t think they ever got the ball,  but at least nobody got stuck in there.

… All in all an excellent day, as any time with my family is.  I love you guys, wouldn’t trade any of you for anything.

… You know what 78.3% of all American blogs are going to say, at some point, today.  So I’m not.  Instead I’m going to wish you a happy Algeria Accords Day (from the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome & Principe) and a happy Proclamation Day (from Mongolia).
… So:

Some kid says to me:

“Do you kiss your mom with that mathematical mouth?”

… I got out of the professional development day today.  I actually wanted to hear Judge Valdez speak about juvenile delinquents.  The rest of the stuff on the agenda wasn’t so exciting, but getting out of it wasn’t so much fun either.

… I don’t know what it was that I ate last night, but it weren’t good.  Spent the night fighting a real bad case of acid reflux, got up in the morning and drank 2 liters of water in the first 5 minutes, had two rounds with the toilet before leaving for work, two rounds at school before the meetings even started.  Went in to tell the principal that if I jump up in the middle of a meeting and run out that it wouldn’t be because of something she said.  She asked if I needed to take a sick day, I said, nah, I’m feeling ok now.  20 minutes later the nausea started up and I went over to her and said maybe I really should take a sick day.  She said ‘So long, and thanks for all the fish’. Actually she said bye and feel better.  Which, as you can tell I am, now.  My stomach still hurts a bit, my guts feel a little weird, but I haven’t made a bathroom run since noon.  Think I’ll go back to bed for a while, though.

“You’ve got 2 ears and only one mouth for a reason. 

It’s God’s way of telling you to listen twice and talk once.”

Judge Judy

… Front page of the UTAH section of the Salt Lake Tribune today: “Buttars an ally for gays?”

… The first thing I did was get on my knees and start out with “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”

… Then I read the article and thought “Hmm, Buttars is a lot smarter than I thought he was.” He says that he will probably help sponsor a bill that will allow other cities to pass ordinances protecting rights regarding housing and employment, but will, as the article said “forbid them from going any further on gay rights.” 

… As hard as it is to admit, Chris Buttars actually is smart enough to see the writing on the wall, and especially after the LDS Church came out in support of the SLC ordinance, realized the firestorm that trying to overturn the city ordinance would cause.  (The Utah State Legislature had threatened to pass state law to invalidate the city ordinance.)  Personally, I don’t think he had any change of heart from when he said gay activism is “probably the greatest threat to America”, he just realized a no-win situation.

… So what does that say about the brain power of Gayle Ruzicka, who said she couldn’t believe that “her long time ally would run a bill authorizing other cities to pass ordinances that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”  Not a whole lot.  Even a mosquito knows it’s time to leave when the body is dead.

I love prop-a-ganda. Especially when it winds up in my email box, forwarded from who knows where originally.

I got this in an email from a coworker, but not the ex-coworker I usually get this kind of stuff from.

The title was “HIROSHIMA - 64 YEARS LATER”, and claims

THE AFTER PICTURES ARE VISUALLY EXTRAORDINARY HIROSHIMA  64 YRS LATER...

The tag line reads “Who the hell won the war!”

Here are the pictures that they included:

First they showed you the bomb:

Then the aftermath

Then “The colorful city, NOW:”

    Then they show you Detroit now, with the line:

DETROIT - 64 YEARS AFTER HIROSHIMA

Welcome to Detroit ...next 2 Exits - Drugs- Ammo

And it all ends with the tag line I mentioned before
“Who the hell won the war?”

The first thing that struck me was that all the Hiroshima ‘now’ pictures were taken  from above, at night.  I wondered what one might see if they searched the city down at street level, looking for the slums.

I didn’t even Google Hiroshima, but instead went the other way and spent about 5 minutes doing a image search for Detroit.  This is what I found:

Doesn’t matter whether or not you agree with the sentiment of the email, whether you find the bombing atrocious or whether you feel it was necessary, whether you agree or disagree with the rebuilding of Japan after the war.

Propaganda is propaganda is propaganda, and I sure wish people would stop sending me this crap in my emails.

Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of an ice cream cone to prevent ice cream drips

  Just suck the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone, for Pete's sake! You are probably lying on the couch with your feet up eating it anyway!

To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.

Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix. Keeps in the pantry for up to a year.

When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake.

Go to the bakery! Hell, they'll even decorate it for you!

If you accidentally over-salt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a peeled potato and it will absorb the excess salt for an instant 'fix-me-up.'

If you over-salt a dish while you are cooking, that's too bad. Please recite with me the real woman's motto: 'I made it, you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes!'

Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks.

Celery? Never heard of it!

Cure for headaches: take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.

Take a lime, mix it with tequila, chill and drink! All your pains go away!

Don't throw out all that leftover wine. Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.

Leftover wine??????????? HELLO!!!!!!!

Lastly, if you don't forward this to 1 of your friends within the next 5 minutes your belly button will unscrew and your butt will fall off.

… Right around the corner from my brother’s house (The Gearheads) an LTD has sat for a couple of years.  Just recently the homeowner mentioned that he was going to have it towed to a junkyard, it’s just taking up room and they don’t use it anymore.  My brother and his wife didn’t want to see it turned into scrap, so they decided to rescue it and made the guy an offer.  Then they mentioned it to me.

… Well, they had already returned the truck to me, because they didn’t have the room for it, so when I showed some interest in it they decided that as long as it wasn’t going to the scrap heap, they were happy.  So they said I could add it to my stable.

… Which is perfect, because it’s a 2-door hardtop and fits perfectly into my plan. It’s not in as good shape as the other ones I picked up, it has a little rust at the back on the trunk, a dent in the front passenger fender and it needs a new battery and exhaust system.  It also needs a good cleaning, as you can see by the pictures.  There may be some other issues, we won’t know until we get it started when we pick it up on Saturday, but for the price I just couldn’t turn it down. $200.  I can even afford that.

… So, here’s to #55 and the cementing of my obsession.

 … Henry Ford Clinic, here I come.  Again.

… Kid says, not really to me but more towards me, on his way out of class today:

… “I know I’m Special, but why do they call me Ed?”

… As I’m headed from church to the Chevron, I get to the 13th East exit just to find out it’s closed (eastbound not the westbound one that has been closed for a month now).  Which is a pain since the Chevron is 2 blocks from the exit.  But I’m not too annoyed, since I’ve had to get off at the 7th East exit on my way home from school anyways.  So I blow right past 13th and get in the right lane to exit at 7th.  Yeah.  Right. The 7th East exit is closed too.  Now I’m a little annoyed, because this means I’ll have to go all the way down to State Street, and backtrack up 21st South, about 4 miles out of my way.  Fortunately, the State Street exit was actually open, even though it looked like it was closed until I was right on it.  Now that would have really upset me, I would have had to go all the way to the 4th West exit by the Home Depot on 21st and 3rd.  Thankfully I still made it to work on time.

… Then, after work, The Gearheads call me up to help them load a rear quarter panel for their Cougar that came in on a Greyhound Bus.  We get down to the bus station and have to check in at the ticket counter, where I see their arrivals and departures.  Not usually noteworthy, but look at the second place listed.  My guess is that this refers to Butte, Montana, but that’s only a guess.  I found another interesting sign when I went to relieve myself.  I wasn’t sure I was allowed to use this restroom, since I was neither headless nor in a wheelchair with a bite taken out of my head.  But I went anyway, ‘cause it was either that or use the bushes.

  … So I had my convertible and my 4-door in a car show to benefit the Boys & Girls Club here in Sugarhouse.  I did it just for fun, not even expecting to win anything, and it was fun.  Hanging out with a bunch of car people, talking about my cars to people who are looking.  It was fun.

… And it was the perfect day for it.  Sunny, cool enough that you needed an extra shirt on, or a jacket, but not cold.  5 degrees warmer would have been nice, but anything more than that would have made it hot standing in a parking lot with a bunch of cars.  So winning stuff wasn’t even on my mind.

… But I bought a few raffle tickets anyway.  After all it was a fundraiser and the money was going to the Boys & Girls Club, good cause.  So I was pretty surprised when I won the raffle grand prize, a 22” flat screen TV.  Niiice.  And then Old Blue won 3rd place in the 4-Door division.  That was actually even nicer than the TV. 

The Gearheads ‘69 Cougar took first place  in the Under Construction category, which came with a month of time at The Wrench-It Center.

One of the first digital dashes – out of this car:

Which is one of my favorite body styles of the Nissan Z cars.

A ‘72 Datsun 510 wagon, that just reminded me way too much of my first car, a ‘72 Dodge Cold wagon, which was also green.  I voted for this car for Best In Show, which won.

A few fire trucks and a an ambulance showed up to show off their vehicles.  I was amazed at how well the driver in the back of this ladder engine maneuvered his truck while backing up, right in front of my cars.  I’d have sworn he was going to take out both of them, but he knew what he was doing.

The Heavy Rescue Team is specifically designed for things like collapsed building and other heavy structure situations.

They let the kids play with some of their equipment.  Here my nephew aims a water hose at me.

According to one of the fire guys, this water cannon was invented by a firefighter right here in Salt Lake City

Just looking down a line of cars.

And finally:

My take for the day.  1 trophy, 1 TV and 2 T-shirts.

Not a bad day at all.

… Student came into 3rd period today and said to me:

… “You’re looking like Grissom today.”

… I’m going to start ending my 2B class like this:

… With the Dating Game goodbye kiss.  ‘Cause I swear, I’m running the Schmeisenhower dating game class. 

… In the last two weeks I confiscated the two notes at the end of this post.  Both were different guys asking out different girls in the class.  The first one is an I want to go out with you but my best friend thought you were going to ask her and I don’t want to make her mad type of conversation.  The second one makes me kind of sad.  She is trying real hard to say NO as nicely as possible, and he’s not getting the hint at all.  I’ve eliminated any names, but go ahead and read them if you want to take a trip back to junior high.

… And if this keeps up, I’m going to start charging Matchmaker fees.

… Click on them to see full sized version.

  … Yup.  I forgot to set my clocks back last night.  Good thing is it happened in the fall, rather than the spring.  At least I was an hour early for work rather than an hour late.  Of course my co-workers at Chevron still made fun of me.