Some Pig.

My wife called me in a panic yesterday morning. You see, she's a little afraid of spiders. And by that I mean she will wake up in the middle of the night and flip on the light and point to a tiny black speck on the ceiling 20 feet away and yell, "SPIDER! SPIDER! THERE'S A SPIDER ON THE CEILING!" while frantically poking me in the back with her other hand. It's like some sort of spider-sense, but not the good kind that warns her that The Green Goblin is about to take off her head with a glider wing. This is the bad kind that wakes me up in the middle of the night and makes me kill things.

Generally, I'll get up and kill it, and she'll sit there in her guard tower with her pointing finger locked and loaded, making sure that nobody escapes the yard. God help me if I miss the spider and it makes it over the wall, because that means the alarm sirens go off, the search parties are formed, the hounds are released and nobody is getting any sleep at all until the spider is found.

If I'm not home, the story goes a little differently. What happens then is that I walk in the door and see some sort of container upside down on the floor. Most of the time it's a drinking glass. There's no note or anything -- just some kind of bug with his face pressed up against the glass, looking at me forlornly.

In these cases, most of the time I scoop up the spider or whatever and take it outside, and when she asks me what I did with it (she always asks me what I did with it) I tell her I killed it. That's to address the argument that "if it's still alive, it might try to come back in." Now, I know that's true of mice, but I don't think spiders have the innate navigational skills to find their way back from a good fling across the lawn. So I fake-kill them. Trust me. It's just easier. Plus, spiders are one of the good insects because they eat deer flies, and anyone or anything that lowers the deer fly population in my back yard is OK by me. Unless they look really fast, in which case I might actually kill them. It's not really a karma thing with me. It's more about less deer flies and a peaceful night's sleep.

So back to the phone call. It turns out that she walked out onto the deck and got a spider web across her face. She looked up and the spider was hanging directly over her head. I'm not sure if she thought the spider was going to lasso her with webbing and pull her up into the web or what, but she freaked out and ran back inside and immediately called me at work. I was informed, in no uncertain terms, that the spider had to go. I'm pretty sure she would have preferred that I drive home right that instant and take care of it, but I work about an hour away and the spider was outside so I was granted a little grace period.

When I got home, I saw this sign on the sliding glass door:

That's just so I wouldn't forget.

I walked out to the garage and got a can of insect spray. The label says it's supposed to kill spiders and ants and just about anything else that crawls, and I've used it on the ants in the garage before and it's pretty quick acting stuff.

I found the spider pretty quickly, and sprayed the hell out of it. It laughed at me, and dropped down on a strand of webbing. It landed on the deck and started running toward me. I sprayed it again. It kept coming. I hit it again. I sprayed it so much it looked like it was covered in shaving cream.

The spray had no effect. It walked out of the foam pile without even changing direction. This thing was like the Terminator. It just kept walking toward me and I just kept spraying the shit out of it and backing up. I thought about just stomping on it, but it looked pretty juicy and I didn't want that shit on my shoes.

I sprayed it again. It was starting to slow down a little but it was still walking purposefully, like it had a bone to pick with me. It walked like it had a plan -- like it was thinking "OK, first I'm going to deal with this douche bag with the fucking spray can, and then I'm going out for some sushi."

A few seconds later, it started drunk-walking. Then it slowed down, and finally stopped. I swear I could almost see the red lights in its eyes fade out.

It was dead. It didn't really look dead, since it didn't do that curl-up-and-die thing, but I was pretty sure it was. I poked it a little with my boot, just to make sure. I know that's a bonehead move (I've seen all the movies), but I did it anyway.

Normally, I laugh at my wife's fear of spiders, however, in this particular case having this particular spider almost drop on her head might have actually justified a little hysteria. Bugs don't bother me unless they are actually on me, but this thing even freaked me out a little.

Here's a picture I took after it was safely in spider heaven (click to make it bigger if you're a glutton for punishment):



Jesus, just look at the spikey legs and that body. It looks like Shelob for chrissakes. And you know how when you get a spider web across the face it just sort of tickles? Well, this web was so tough it just stretched. It had actual resistance, like a rubber band.

So I went back in the house, and when she got home I told her the spider was dead.

What I didn't tell her was that after I killed the giant spider, I looked up toward the web.

Apparently, mama's egg sac hatched and there were about a dozen smaller versions of this spider stationed about every 3 feet under the eaves. Smaller versions that the spray wouldn't reach.

So I won the battle, but I'm a little worried about the war. I mean, they watched me kill their mother, and that had to piss them off, right? I think they're just biding their time.

Watching. Growing. Planning. It's been nice knowing you all.

**********

PS - on a completely unrelated note -- if anyone reading this has ever been to Daddy O's restaurant on Long Beach Island, NJ and liked it, please send me an e-mail (address in profile). I have a small favor to ask.

Lastly, if you want to read some really weird shit, click on that new ad over on my banner that points to buttelf.com.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Stand by me.

This is a first. I now have a tree stand on my property.

Normally, our land is posted against trespassing, hunting, walking, breathing, etc., but a friend of mine -- let's call him Tank -- asked me if he could put up a tree stand and hunt on our land. Since I figured a few less deer won't hurt, I said sure. I assumed this would mean he would come over, walk into the woods, set his shit up and then when hunting season came around I'd hear a few deer carcasses hitting the ground, a dragging sound, then a car door slamming and that would be that.

I had no idea that I would actually be involved in the tree stand setting up process. And it was a process. I knew things weren't going to go as I had planned in my imagination when he showed up towing a trailer. On this trailer was a steel ladder-looking thing with a double tiered basket on top, which I assumed is where you sit and wait. It looked almost exactly like this, except much taller.

There were some differences, however. The biggest difference is that the one in the picture is actually standing upright, and the one on the trailer definitely was not. There were other things too -- like how the one in the picture is in a tree that you could probably drive up to in a Range Rover, whereas the tree he wanted to put his stand in was buried deep in my woods, surrounded by scrub brush and small saplings and mud.

"So you think you can help me set this up?" he asked, "Shouldn't take too long." And thus began the three and a half hour odyssey.

Since Tank is 6' 5" and I'm only 5' 6" -- and since it was his tree stand -- I figured I'd let him tackle the heavy end. So I grabbed onto the ladder end, and I immediately noticed something was wrong, because it felt like I had grabbed the outside of a sticky honey jar.

"Uh, why is this sticky?" I asked, looking down at my newly blackened hands.

"I painted it almost 2 hours ago, and all I had was flat black paint for barbecue grills. It's not dry yet? Weird. It must be too humid out."

Great. We lifted the stand off the trailer and headed into the woods on the most humid, non-paint-drying, buggy day of the year so far. Or rather, tried to head into the woods.

This thing did not want to go in the woods. In fact, it did not want to go anywhere. It was 16 feet long and not really optimally designed to weave in and out of closely growing trees. It was also heavier than it looked. To top it all off, there was an extra four foot section of extension ladder just sort of resting on top, and it was almost impossible to keep it from sliding around. After almost killing ourselves, we managed to get it through the bramble and into a thinner area of large pine trees that didn't let enough light through to allow scrub to grow. We were both soaked with sweat and surrounded by bugs. We found the tree he wanted to set it up against, and then the real fun began.

"OK, now what?" I asked Tank, having never put up a tree stand before.

"Now we just lean it up against the tree, throw this zip tie around it, put the brace up in the middle, fasten the whole thing with the straps, and we're done."

I wasn't going to point out that I thought it would be impossible to get this top-heavy piece of shit to lean up against a tree without probably killing one or both of us, but I assumed he knew that, and had a good technique to get it up there. And he did, sort of. First, he tried to hammer the extra four foot section of ladder on the bottom, and since the part we needed to hammer it into was packed with clay that had the consistency of bunker cement, this did not go well. He spent another ten minutes digging at it with a screwdriver while I looked on and swatted mosquitoes. Finally he banged it in, and it went about halfway home and he called it good enough. It actually wasn't good enough, but we'll get to that bit later.

We got it sort of lined up where we wanted it, and he lifted it up and started walking underneath it, pushing it higher and higher as he walked toward the tree. My job was to stand on the ladder end to keep it from moving, so he could get it vertical. After a few seconds it was completely vertical and then it just sort of fell toward the tree. Unfortunately he had judged the position of the ladder wrong so it wasn't set up with enough of an angle, and it was also at the wrong angle to the tree and started listing to the right.

"OK, you hold the ladder while I climb up and use this zip tie to strap it to the tree," he said.

I wasn't sure I was cool with that. It was leaning at a crazy angle, he weighs about three times what I do and if this thing decided to go, it was taking him, me, and probably the tree with it. I wasn't sure what else to do, so I volunteered.

"Uh, maybe I can climb up there and strap it down," I said, doubtfully. "I weigh a lot less than you."

"OK," he agreed reluctantly, knowing I didn't know my ass from my elbow when it came to setting up a tree stand. "I'll hold it steady."

So I climbed up, and the first thing I realized was that the zip tie was way too short for a tree of this size. I looked around and saw the main support strap hanging there, so I grabbed it in my right hand, tossed it around the tree, caught it in my left hand and cinched it tight, then climbed back down. Problem solved.

Almost.

We backed away a few feet and looked at it. The angle was still off, and it wasn't quite close enough to the tree to hold the center support up. The steel center support swings up from a ladder connection and has to rest against the tree. When the stand is strapped tightly to the tree, it holds the center support in place. So we put the center support where it needed to go, and then it was time to get the other straps on. Tank got under the ladder to kind of pull it toward the tree, which would hold the center support in place and also hold it so I could climb up the front.

I put one foot on the bottom of the ladder to start to climb it, and the ladder shifted, causing the center support to immediately crash down on Tank's head, forcing him to let go of the ladder and stagger around. I jumped off and the whole thing twisted sideways and just sort of hung there.

As you can see, this was going extremely well. Next, we tried to twist the stand in the opposite direction and when we did that the extra four foot section of ladder fell off the bottom. Then the whole stand slid down the tree about two feet and got stuck.

So here's where we stood: The stand was securely fastened to the tree and wouldn't come down. It also wouldn't go back up. That meant we couldn't get the four foot section of ladder back underneath it.

"OK, fuck that section." Tank said. "I'll hold it while you climb up and release the strap so it'll come down. It'll only be 16 feet in the air instead of 20, but that's fine."

Tank grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder and affected a stance that was half-way between "Look at me! I'm a sumo wrestler!" and "Don't look at me! I'm taking a standing shit!" and said "OK, go for it."

I clambered over him and onto the ladder, and started climbing.

When I reached the top, I half stood and half crouched on the platform, and got my hand on the spring release for the strap. I realized that when I released the strap there would be nothing holding the stand to the tree, but I didn't really think it through. Tank's a big guy, but there is no way he was going to curl 145 pounds of me, along with another hundred pounds of stand. Instead of realizing this out loud, I realized it in my head which did nobody any good at all.

When I released the strap, the entire weight of the stand was suddenly resting on Tank's arms and thighs. It immediately fell another foot and Tank said through clenched teeth, "You better come down. I'm not sure how much longer I can hold it."

I heard something like panic in his voice. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I had instant visions of crashing to the ground in a pile of twisted metal and shredded Tank meat. So I did the only thing I could think of -- I lunged for a nearby sapling with my right hand and simultaneously leapt into space, hoping to put as much distance between me and the falling stand as I could.

Luckily for me, I've had previous experience with this, although Tank didn't know that. All he saw was me leap to my death in an apparent panic.

What actually happened was this: The sapling bent and slowly lowered me to the ground like Mary Poppins. Tank saw me float by him, and started laughing so hard he dropped the stand and fell on the ground. His laughing started me laughing and pretty soon we were both so hysterical we were almost crying.

When we could see again, we straightened out the stand once and for all and strapped it into place. Looking at the results of our three and a half hour's worth of handiwork, Tank said, "When I put my one-man stand up, I'll make that one the twenty footer."

I am thinking I should probably arrange to be somewhere else for that installation.

No funny here. Nothing to see. Move along.

Once again, mama wood thrush decided to build her nest in our hanging plant. Four eggs this time, instead of three. I took this picture a few days before they took off:

I like how the one in the back is all, "Eff you, man. You're not my real mom." And then two seconds later he's like, "OK, maybe you have some food."

And since I've had a few requests for sword pictures, here's a bumch of pics of the last sword my friend Paul and I did together. Hard to believe it started out as black sand from a lakeshore. (click for larger pics):

Also, I wanted to mention that my buddy Brennin's new CD is now available. Jeff Juliano (John Mayer, Lifehouse, Dave Matthews and Jason Mraz) even offered to mix it after he heard the rough cuts. It's good stuff.

You can listen to it (and buy it, if you're so inclined) here.

That's it for now, I'll be back this weekend with something funny.

OK, I caved. I'm a twit.

People have asked me if I was on Twitter. "No," I would say, "I barely have time to blog let alone twit, or tweet, or twat, or whatever the kids are calling it these days."

But ... as you can see over there on the right, I've finally caved. I only have 9 followers so far, so yeah, it's a pretty exclusive club.

I have no idea how it even works or how long I'll be using it before I decide I've had enough, but if you feel like it, join up or sign up or follow me around or whatever you call it. I am asking you this mostly because I don't know if I can keep thinking shit up for 9 people, no matter how awesome and ahead of the curve they are.

Tell your friends. Originally I was thinking your real, live friends and not your Facebook friends, but OK, you can tell your Facebook friends, too.

As the banner up there says, "Don't Expect Too Much."

I'll try to deliver at least that. Thanks!

Pink and Grey Butterflies.

Since I haven't had time to write a proper blog entry what with all the roofing woes I'm having, I decided to let Site Meter have at it. I will apologize in advance for the subject matter, but I am not the one who is frantically clicking on random sites for answers to perverted questions. That you know of. That being said, here's another edition of :

Fantastic Google Searches That Somehow Led People To My Site

do porn stars eject stuff into their penis to make it bigger? - I assume you meant inject stuff, because really, ejecting stuff has the completely opposite effect. To answer your intended question instead of the one you actually asked, in this age of anus and scrotum bleaching, I wouldn't doubt it, but I am guessing probably not. I think most of them are simply born with huge cranks and decide the porn industry is their ticket to ride. And ride and ride and ride.

They always give me too much time to get undressed at the doctor's office. I can't decide if that means my doctor is just slow or if I'm a slut - I figure this line is from someone's stand-up routine, but I thought it was funny enough to include in its own right. You slut.

spraying piss all over the place when I go to the bathroom - I have two suggestions for you, depending upon your situation. One, try to remember to take your thumb off the end. If that doesn't do it, I suggest you go get it checked out by a doctor because that shit ain't right, and I don't want you pissing in/on/behind/in front of my urinal.

sweaty pussy vs. sweaty balls - This just sounds like a cage-match waiting to happen. I can see the event poster now. I'm really not sure what the fight would be about, because generally they both end up in that condition if you're doing it correctly. Maybe if there were a large purse involved and some decent odds, I'd place my bet on the SP, but really it could go either way.

my driveway look like a parking lot i got the bitch riding my dick with no shocks keep talkin and ima make the soda pop we always strapped when we hit the club - I actually checked this one to see why someone would click on a link to my blog based on the results. Turns out, my blog is the number one result for this search:



In fact, I'd go so far as to say that what Google displayed could be used as the second verse. Great. Now I have visions of Xzibit making millions by typing random strings of words into Google and cruising the search results slapping together dope rhymes. Yeah, I know. I'm way too white to say things like "dope rhymes." And "Xzibit.*"

homosexual rectum - I know you keep trying to change its ways. You beg, you plead, you make threats -- all to no avail. You're straight, but your rectum isn't. My advice to you would be to take baby steps -- start by keeping your rectum away from penises, and work your way up from there.

my butt feels sticky - see aforementioned advice.

booze cruise clothing optional - Wait. Aren't all booze cruises clothing optional if there is enough booze? It always seemed that way to me. Maybe that's why I'm not allowed on them anymore.

zombies triathlon backpacks - What a great idea! Come to think of it, those fast zombies in the 28 Days movies could really have used backpacks. They would have come in handy for all the spare entrails and what not. I'm not sure about the triathlon bit, however. I doubt you could pull it together since Zombies seem pretty disorganized as a general rule.

due sex pee pee online - I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're looking for, my friend. I do not believe the great and all-seeing Google knows either, since it sent you to my humble blog. Either someone owes someone else a virtual golden shower, or you are confusing your homonyms. Good luck and godspeed. I hope you get your due/do.

why does my cat's butt squirt out nasty stuff? - I think most of your problem stems from the fact that butts and nasty stuff go together like chocolate and, no wait - bad example. They go together. Let's just leave it at that. As for the "squirting" part -- I would check to see what you are putting in the other end of the cat and maybe modify it. Garbage in, garbage out and all that.

what happened to the dust floating on the water when the drop of soap was added - Welcome to my blog, you lazy piece. Here's an idea -- stop looking up your homework assignments on the internet and oh, I don't know....maybe just do them. Even though the world wide web can seem like the Cliff Notes of the Universe, sometimes you just have to do shit for yourself to really appreciate and understand it. Like sex, for example. It's the same idea, except the dust won't be disappointed with your little drop of soap and eventually tell you that it might be time to see other experiments.

what does it mean if a girl put a pink and grey butterfly on her door for a guy - You got me on this one. However, I am clearly no expert. Here is the total list of things I've had a girl put on her door for me:

(1) A different lock.





*which sounds like a card game Captain Kirk made up.

CYC.

Ever since the big Swine Flu media blitz, these signs have been popping up all over work (click to make larger):

Yes, you are correct. They are badly drawn posters that tell you how to sneeze and cough like a civilized human being instead of like...oh, I don't know...a farm animal, perhaps.

The pictures (which I assume some ad agency was paid big bucks to create) are comically bad, and the subject matter ridiculous. I also tend to think that the sort of people they are aimed at are exactly the sort of people least likely to read them. That's because they are too busy cleaning their ears with a car key, or scratching their sweaty nuts while standing at the urinal and then borrowing your favorite pen during a meeting.

I've decided to create my own equally ridiculous version. If I replaced one of the posters at work with this one, I wonder how long it would take for anyone to notice?

I'm betting the answer would be "Never."

My breakfast was glad to see me.

Procrastination.

I just realized I owe a bunch of people a Brennin Hunt CD from this post. The winners of the CDs were:

6th place: Anhara
5th place: Deanna
4th place: Christina
3rd place: Tricialynn
2nd place: Melodie

I have addresses for Tricia and Melodie, but nobody else. If you haven't (or even if you have) already sent your address to me via my profile e-mail, please do. I have the CDs packaged up and I'll get them out next week.

Carry on!

PS - I have one extra, so whoever would like it and posts the first comment gets it.

Boot Camp.

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I've been looking for some new hiking boots. I don't think my foot size has really changed since I was in high school. I took a 9.5 then and I take a 9.5 now.

I have very stringent boot requirements. They have to give me great ankle support (old snowboarding yard sale injury), they can't be made in China (I modified that requirement - at first I tried "they have to be made in the U.S." but I discovered that we don't make anything here anymore), they have to be comfortable, have almost no heel lift and be made with Norwegian welt construction. A tall order, I know.

The one boot that fits all those requirements is the Merrell Wilderness. Made in Italy, tough enough for some light climbing, comfortable enough for long hikes -- I've had a few pairs of those and they've been great. They can be re-soled, and they aren't too difficult to break in. Lastly, they always fit. The one thing they are not, however, is waterproof.

Oh, they'll say they're waterproof, and they may even be waterproof right out of the box, but they are not waterproof for very long. Even when properly treated, a rainy, messy hike will mean your feet will get soaked.

I wanted another pair to wear when when the weather looked suspect. Something that included that magical material called Gore-Tex. I knew I'd have to give up the Norwegian welt, but I figured it would be a fair trade-off.

As you may already know, I hate shopping. I hate going to stores, I hate being waited on, I hate standing in line to check out, I hate just about everything involved in the entire miserable experience. That being said, you'd be correct in thinking that I am a big fan of ordering stuff online.

Boots, however can be an iffy proposition, because unless you're buying something you've purchased before, you have nothing to go on except for the reviews of others. So began my boot buying odyssey, which has not yet, in fact, ended. Right now there are boots in a box on my kitchen table, waiting to go back from whence they came.

Let me tell you why.

I know you probably don't give a shit, but I'm going to get this off my chest anyway, so what else do you have to do? I suppose you could go watch reruns of old American Idol episodes, but even if I just typed nothing but the word "moist" over and over and over for an hour and then made you read it out loud, it would probably be less annoying than doing that.

Anyway, after reading hundreds of reviews, I decided that these boots might be the ones for me. They had the Gore-tex, they had good reviews, and they were made in Germany. Sure, there were a few discrepancies in the reviews -- some people said they ran big, other people said they ran true to size -- you never know who to believe. I figured worst case, I'd take a shot, order my normal size and hope it worked out.

Here's how I pictured this happening:

1. Order boots.
2. Receive boots.
3. Wear boots.

Simple, right?

To make sure things happened as I wanted them to, I decided I needed to figure out exactly what my shoe size is. I always knew I was a size 9.5, but I never really knew my width. A? B? C? D? E? EE? EEEE? F? G? I had no idea.

"How hard can it be?" I thought to myself. "There are probably hundreds of sites out there with the info I need." The first site I went to told me to trace my feet, then click the "shoe size conversion chart" link. Since I always do what the internet tells me to, I traced my feet onto two pieces of paper, measured toe to heel and side to side, and then clicked on the link. It was dead.

So I had learned three things. One, I have duck feet:



Narrow in the back -- wide in the front, flat on the bottom. They are like triangular paddles on the end of my legs. Two, my right foot is a full half-inch shorter than my left. Three, static web pages suck.

Armed with that knowledge, I headed off to Wikipedia, the knower of all things, and looked up "shoe size."

That's when I started to get confused. It seems that along with religion and politics, nobody in the world can agree upon the best way to size a shoe. It seems that the US, Canada, Europe, Asia and the military all use different systems. Oh, and women's and children's sizes -- also different.

WTF.

I continue to read. It wasn't all bad. The first thing I saw was that there were three common sizing systems. The first one is used by NATO and other military groups. It's called "Mondopoint." There are length units, and width units. At least that makes sense, right? In a perfect world, you'd walk into a shoe store and if your foot is 10.5" long and 4" wide, you'd say "give me that shoe in a ten-five by four" and you're on your way. But no.

Because Mondopoint is in millimeters and I live in the U.S., I can't convert that into actual inches without a calculator and a lot of time. So it wasn't ideal. Also, I am not in the military, and since nobody else uses it, it was dead to me.

I looked at the U.S. information next.

The calculation for a male shoe size in the USA or Canada is:

male shoe size = 3 x last length in inches -24

Then I had to look up "last length." Apparently, the "last" is the foot-shaped template over which the shoe is manufactured.

Wikipedia told me that the traditional US system is similar to English sizes but "starts counting at one rather than zero, so equivalent sizes are one greater." So one number higher than English shoes. OK. I'm good enough at math to figure that one out.

I started reading about the sizing methods used in the UK. "Shoe size in the UK (English size) is based on the length of the last..."

So far, so good. I mean, I now knew what a "last" was.

"... measured in barleycorn starting from the smallest practical size, which is size zero. It is not formally standardised."

Jesus Christ. Barleycorn? Where was I going to get my hands on a barleycorn at 11:30 pm on a Thursday? I don't know about you, but I don't have a barleycorn farmer on speed dial. Plus, it's not even standardized. What would happen if I inadvertently got my hands on some bigass barleycorns?

So it turns out that the barleycorn is a "basic Anglo-Saxon unit, literally the length of a corn of barley."

Wikipedia says that it "goes back to 1066, as the base unit from which the inch was nominally defined. Three barleycorns comprising 1 inch was the legal definition of the inch in many mediæval laws, both of England and Wales, from the 10th century Laws of Hywel Dda to the 1324 definition of the inch enacted by Edward II. Used in current UK shoe measurement."

Used in current UK shoe measurement. Did I just read that?

So apparently the English are currently using a unit of measure from 1066 to size shoes. Currently, as in Today. Right now. Exactly at this second, there's some UK bastard out there lining up his fucking barleycorns.

Then I remembered these boots are made in Germany. I immediately canceled my barleycorn order, and started looking at the Continental European system -- which is used in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

In this system, the shoe size is the length of the last, "expressed in Paris points."

Seriously? Paris points? Son of a bitch.

So it turns out that a Paris point is ⅔ of a centimetre and it has been agreed upon in Germany that the last is the length of the foot plus two centimetres, so to figure out my shoe size, the simple formula is:



At this point, I was done. I just opened the Cabela's website in my browser, ordered my boots in a size 9.5, EE and called it a night. A few days later, they showed up.

I put them on, and they were too big. I'd say by at least three, maybe four barleycorns. I had to crank the laces down, and I still got heel lift.

So I did what I should have done to begin with. I got on the phone with the sales guy at Cabela's, and told him they were a little too big and I was getting some major heel lift.

"Yeah, they do run a little big," he said. "You ordered the wide boot -- the EE width -- is that what you wanted? Most people with normal feet go with D width. If I were you, I'd get the 9 D's. They'll probably fit you perfectly."

So now I need to send the other ones back, and in another week, I'll have a pair that will supposedly fit me like they should.

But I've been saving my poppy seeds, just in case. It turns out that according to modern-day UK math, they go four to a barleycorn, and they're much easier to get.

They're a real pain in the ass to line up, though.

Sometimes I get mail.

At least a few times a week, I get mail from people or companies looking for free advertising. They always pitch it as "Hey, I've got a funny idea for a blog post!" or "Here's a funny site!"

Just to show you the sort of high class companies that my blog attracts, I am going to share one of these e-mails with you.

To: me@verizon.net
Subject: funny idea for your blog!

Hey Johnny,

We have been enjoying your blog and thought you might be interested in our hilarious new product: the assbrella. It is the world's only umbrella featuring a huge picture of an ass! Check out our site at assbrellas.com for some pics and more info. Feel free to pass it along to your readers!

Thanks,

The Assbrellas Team

Problems I have with this e-mail in no particular order:

1. It's an ass. On an umbrella. And the top of the handle pokes out of the bunghole.
2. Asses look pretty damn creepy when there is nothing else attached to them.
3. They are lying their giant umbrella asses off when they say they've "been enjoying my blog."
4. They wouldn't give me one for free.
5. They have a team. Dedicated to the assbrella.

Picture this conversation:

Dad: "So, you want to marry my daughter? That's great, that's great. What business did you say you are in?"

ABGuy: "I'm a member of the Assbrellas team."

Dad: "Sounds impressive. I think I've heard of him. He's that Italian formula one race car driver, right? Antonio Aiezbrellas?

ABGuy: "No. I am a member of a sales team that sells cheap chinese umbrellas. With pictures of hairy asses on them. You know. Assbrellas."

Dad: "Get the fuck out of my house."

So there you go. Order yours today.

More good times.

Due to a recent reorg, my boss got a new boss. He seems like a nice guy, but I don't really know him. Since my boss was out of the office today, I had my very first Instant Messaging interaction with my boss's boss. It went about as well as could be expected:

Big Boss: How's everything in the world of messaging today?

Me: So far so good

Big Boss: Are you on point for the disaster recovery test?

Me: No, not this time. I believe it's going to be Jim

Big Boss: ok. I'll check in with him on that. I hope it all stays quiet

Me: Yeah, so do I

Big Boss: OK, page me if anything comes up. Have a good one

Me: Will do, you too1

Me: too! I meant too!

[end chat]

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Good times.

I still have to post my followup, but I don't have time tonight. Instead, I'll share this small part of my day.

I was waiting in the grill line at the cafeteria today when I got a text message from my buddy Yort.

"Lunchin?" it said.

I had seen him sitting in a conference room on my way down to the chow line so I figured he was working through lunch.

"Waiting in line right now." I replied.

A few seconds later, I got another message. "Dammit!" it said.

So I bailed on the line and walked back to the conference room. He was gone. I walked back to his desk. Not there. I walked back toward the cafeteria just in case I had missed him somehow.

I sent him another message. "Where r u?"

While I was waiting, I decided to hit the bathroom down the hall. Just before I walked in the door, another message came in. It just said, "Baffroom."

I realized the implications of my friend texting me from a stall, but I walked in to take a leak anyway. I immediately saw his sneakers under the handicapper stall door. More room for texting, I guess.

I did my business, and as I was washing up, I yelled over to him. "Hey! Pinch it off and get out of there. I don't have all day!"

He flushed, opened the stall door, and walked out.

It was some dude I had never seen before.

Fucking New Balance.

There and back again.

So this is my 2nd and last night in beautiful downtown......Brooklyn, I think?

Brooklyn, Ohio. Yeah, I think that sounds right. As far as I can tell, it consists of a Friday's restaurant, a business park and a Hampton Inn. The latter location is where I am currently fighting with the heating/cooling unit and listening to the train rumble past, roughly 3 feet from my window.

Other than that, I have very few problems with my room. It's superficially clean, which is about all you can realistically hope for, the water pressure in the shower is decent, and while there was a very suspect half-inch brown smear on the front edge of the toilet seat, the rest of the bathroom is spotless. I cleaned the smear off with a washcloth and tossed it into the garbage can.

I'm sitting here listening to Wilco and wondering what to write about. I'm working on about combined seven hours of sleep over the last two days, so if none of this makes sense, I apologize in advance. I think I'll just tell you a little about my trip.

The toilet issue above makes me think that so far, this trip seems germier than most. Maybe my germaphobic tendencies are getting worse, or maybe people are just becoming more disgusting over time, but this trip seems worse than normal for some reason. Some of it was even self-inflicted, but I'll get to that in a bit.

It all started with the button on the ticket machine at the long-term airport parking garage. I pulled my car up, rolled my window down and reached out to push the button when I realized that there was something blobby and kind of red smeared on it. I'm not sure what it was. I am sure I don't ever want to know. For my sanity, I am calling it strawberry jelly. It helps me sleep better at night. I pushed the bare edge of the button and took my ticket with a shudder. After I parked the car, I walked to the terminal and picked up my boarding pass.

My next airport run-in was with the licky lady. She was stationed at the security check, sitting up on her little stool, looking over the top of her cats-eye glasses that were perched precariously on the tip of her nose. "Boarding pass and ID, please," she said, holding out one latex glove-covered hand. I handed her both the boarding pass and my driver's license.

If you've ever picked up your boarding pass via one of the kiosks, you know they dispense them on thermal paper, which is very, very thin. Apparently, too thin to separate from the folder easily. You know what makes it easier? Giving a good, solid lick to your filthy, rubber-clad finger with your knobbly old tongue first.

She wrote something on my boarding pass with her pen and then held up my license for inspection.

"Second row on the left," she said, handing me back my license and boarding pass. I could still see the little glistening spitspots drying on my license. I wrapped it in the boarding pass and tried to forget about it as I bent to take off my shoes.

I tossed them into one of the buckets, grabbed another one for my laptop and pulled all the crap out of my pockets. The guy in front of me was doing the same. I tossed my backpack on the conveyor belt.

"Do you have any gels, liquids or creams?" the security guard working the X-ray machine asked the guy in front of me.

"Yes, just the normal shampoo and toothpaste-type stuff," he answered.

"Can you remove it from your bag, please?" the security guard asked.

The man pulled a clear ziplock bag from his duffle. The security guard poked at it, and then spotted something.

He rooted around in the guy's bag for a second, then pulled out an extra-large tube of Preparation H with a 3-inch nozzle.

"The limit on tubes and bottles is 3.4 ounces," he said, holding it up. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate this."

The guy didn't argue. I think he just wanted to toss himself into the gears of the x-ray machine and call it a day. At least his ass wouldn't hurt any more. The rest of the ziploc bag passed through the machine without incident. The guy was so flustered, he left his laptop in the bucket and I had to point it out to him.

I was next.

"Do you have any gels, liquids or creams?"

"Uh, yes," I said. "Just the normal, uh, you know, toiletries and whatnot."

 Toiletries and whatnot? Where the fuck did that come from? Who am I? The Queen of England?

"Take them out for me, please."

I took them out of my backpack, nervous, yet smug in the knowledge that the time I spent transferring shampoo and conditioner and toothpaste into small 3-ounce bottles was not wasted.

As I put the bag on the conveyor belt, I noticed something. My ziploc bag was vibrating. The guard noticed it too. He looked up at me and arched an eyebrow, clearly waiting for me to explain what he was seeing.

"Electric Toothbrush," I said sheepishly, opening the bag and holding it up for all to see, just to dispel any confusion. I clicked it off and shoved it back in.

After I made it through the security check, I survived a momentary gross out when I realized that while I was packing my computer and my "toiletries and what-not" into my backpack, I held my boarding pass and driver's license pursed between my lips. Is it any wonder we are all going to die of swine flu? No, it is not.

(As an aside, is it just me, or does everyone else feel like they are about to get called out for smuggling drugs or explosives or something when they go through these checkpoints? I'm always expecting someone to walk up to the head guy, whisper something, point directly at me, and the next thing I know I'll be on the ground with some TSA agent's foot on my neck while another one cuffs me. )

After that, I went to grab a cup of coffee at starbucks, and the woman making it coughed directly into her hand and then used it to press the lid on my coffee. I brought it over to the sugar/cream stand, and then promptly dropped the lid on the floor. I picked it up, thought fuck it, and put it back on. I was already dead.

My last gross out on the way here was, as you've probably surmised, bathroom related. Right before boarding, I decided I'd make a quick run to the men's room to get rid of some of that coffee I had ingested. As I was standing there doing my business, I realized I was standing in a puddle of piss. Nothing out of the ordinary there, I guess. I rotated to the outside of my feet to keep as much of my shoe off the ground as possible, but the damage was done. I walked out just in time for our flight to board. As I was stuffing my backpack under my seat, I realized something. The only place to put my newly contaminated piss feet was right on top of my bag.

Man, I hate traveling.

It's late and I have an early shuttle to catch to the airport in the morning, so I'll have to tell you about the rest of the trip tomorrow. I'll give you a hint: It involves heavy drinking, other peoples' dirty balls and socks of unknown origin.

You can't go wrong with that combo.

Flower Power.

You may remember my awesome neighbors. I've written about their "interesting" taste before, in this post about their bedazzled mailbox. As predicted, chunks:



Granted, it took longer than I expected, and most of it is still hanging in there like a persistent rash, but that's OK because the wrought iron baby buggy, robot cat and dog, and reflector posts took a lot of the focus away from the mailbox:

The best was yet to come. A little while ago, a wrought iron bird cage (with two fake canaries), a section of picket fence with a yellow ribbon on it, and a pair of wicker chairs made the scene. It was getting a little crowded out there.

Hey, to each his own, right? We get a kick out of it when we drive by, but sometimes we can't help but wish they stuck to the chainsaw-carved bear they started with.

Their latest addition takes the proverbial cake, however:

Yep. Giant, fake, pink flowers in a milk jug. Totally awesome, right? Every time we drive by, it reminds me of this. I cannot figure out what they are thinking. It's like they are a couple of stoners instead of retirees.

I never claimed to have great taste, but here's what I built in our garden today:



I might add some giant pink satin flowers.

One more completely unrelated thing -- if anyone has one of these they want to sell, please let me know. Thanks.

2 more things I will never need.

The other day I was surfing the web looking for new hiking boots that aren't made in China, and while I was at it, I figured I'd pick up a nice three-wolf moon t-shirt. As I was reading the reviews to make sure this was the three-wolf shirt for me, (you have to read the reviews) I stumbled on the answer to my prayers in an adjacent ad:

Well, maybe it would be more accurate to describe it as a book about the answer to my prayers.

Prayers that were, unfortunately, duly ignored.

So really, stumbling on this book is probably more of a cruel cosmic joke than anything else. I like to think of it as just another well-placed brick in the wall of my agnosticism.

On the other hand, if the person who wrote book this is actually making money on it, I salute him for his brilliant idea. Seriously, it could be blank inside and I'm sure he'd still sell quite a few of them as jokes.

The funniest part for me wasn't actually inside the book though. It was this:

This hurts my head. Who out there is thinking, "You know what would go perfect with this book about how to live with my giant crank? A terra cotta Obama with a green afro."

I would have guessed the answer would be "nobody," but I would have been wrong.

Apparently, there are enough people out there who want a Chia Obama that they sell them in two poses -- which are labeled "determined" and "happy."

When I look at them, I see something entirely different:

Happy Memorial Day Weekend, everyone. Please remember our fallen troops.

Total Recall.

In an ongoing effort to make my blog both fun AND useful, I've decided to keep you up to date on current consumer product recalls. Not all of them, of course --just the ones that made me laugh for some reason. That's another way of saying if the grill you bought explodes, you're on your own. Unless, of course, said grill is made of gold and goes over your teeth, in which case you totally would have read about it here first.

With that introduction out of the way, here are some recent recalls I think my readers should be aware of.

This first one I'd like to file under the category of "Unfortunate Company Names":

Children's Hooded Sweatshirts with Drawstrings Recalled Due to Strangulation Hazard

Name of product: Hooded Fleece Sweatshirts
Units: About 450
Distributor: Dysfunctional Clothing LLC, of Irvine, Calif.

Hazard: The jackets have a drawstring through the hood which can pose a strangulation hazard.

Apparently, I am not the only one who can't really understand how you could kill yourself with your own sweatshirt. There are a ton of clothes companies who just got fined for "failure to report drawstrings" on their sweatshirts. So while the topic of strangulation isn't funny, I still laugh when I think of the company president of Dysfunctional Clothing, LLC sitting in his office thinking, "Why? I'm an idiot, that's why! What made me think that name was a good idea?"

[edited: Jess, Marbles --holy crap, I had no idea little kids getting killed by drawstrings was that common. How did we ever survive the 70's? No helmets, strap-on rollerskates with metal wheels, drawstrings on our clothes ... ]

This next one goes in the file folder marked "Irony."

Skull-And-Crossbones Necklaces Recalled By Spencer Gifts Due to Risk of Lead Exposure

Name of Product: Skull-And-Crossbones Necklaces

Units: About 8,400

Importer: Spencer Gifts LLC, of Egg Harbor Township, N.J.

Hazard: The skull and metal clasp of the necklace contain high levels of lead.

Let me get this straight: They sold 8,400 of these things? What sort of lead product were these people sucking on before? I mean, something had to make them think a skull and crossbones necklace was a good idea to begin with, right?

This next one I file under the heading of, "Things that make me simultaneously cross my legs, bend at the waist and cover my crotch with both hands while breathing in sharply between clenched teeth."

Under Armour Recalls Athletic Cups Due To Injury Hazard

Name of Product: Under Armour Athletic Cups
Units: About 211,000
Importer: Under Armour Inc, of Baltimore, Maryland

Hazard: The cups can break if hit, posing a risk of serious injury hazard to athletes.

Incidents/Injuries: Under Armour has received five reports of cups breaking/splintering, including an injury involving cuts and bruising.

Yeah, that's what I want covering my junk. A futuristic codpiece that explodes into razor-sharp shards when it's hit with something. It's safe to assume that they did no product testing on this at all. It looks like kevlar/carbon fiber body armor (or maybe a super villian mask), but apparently it's made of untempered glass.

I don't even know where to file this last one. Under "Things that make you go "Ewww," maybe.

Target Recalls Dive Sticks Due to Impalement Hazard

Name of Product: Dive Sticks
Units: About 365,000
Importer: Target, of Minneapolis, Minn.

Hazard: The recalled dive sticks could remain in an upright position, posing an impalement hazard to young children.

So they're telling me that kids are actually getting impaled on these things? They throw them in the pool and then jump on them, and because they're sticking up in the water they get impaled? I find that hard to believe. OK, maybe once, but what are the odds? I feel bad for the manufacturer on this one. It's not like they have jagged edges like that cup up there. They're round and smooth, for god's sake. What they should do is recall them, jack the price up to ten times what it was, re-label them as "Sexx Stixx: Sensual hot-tub fun for everyone." and sell them exclusively through Adam & Eve.

See, Dad? My marketing and advertising degree didn't go to waste, regardless of what you're always telling me.

So until next time, beware of any street corner cup deals that look too good to be true. I mean, usually you're fine buying that sort of thing out of the trunk of someone's car, but you can't be too careful these days.

They say 24% of California's air pollution comes from overseas.

A friend of mine sent me this article today. It's a story from India, so needless to say, it's very effed up. Also, I have questions.

Indian dad avoids washing for 35 years

NEW DELHI (AFP) - - An Indian man who fathered seven daughters has not washed for 35 years in an apparent attempt to ensure his next child is a boy, newspapers reported.

Kailash "Kalau" Singh replaces bathing and brushing his teeth with a "fire bath" every evening when he stands on one leg beside a bonfire, smokes marijuana and says prayers to Lord Shiva, according to the Hindustan Times.

"It's just like using water to take a bath," Kalau was reported as saying. "A fire bath helps kill germs and infection in the body."

Kalau, 63, from a village outside the holy city of Varanasi, outraged his family by refusing to take a ritual dip in the river Ganges even after his brother died five years ago.

"I still don't remember how it all began," he said in Saturday's edition of the paper. "I just know it started about 35 years ago."

Kalau's hygiene regime has taken its toll on his professional life.

The grocery store that he used to own closed when customers stopped shopping there due to his "unhealthy personality" and he now tills fields near Varanasi airport.

Kalau, who wears two pullovers all through the Indian summer, said his pledge not to wash was a commitment to the "national interest."

"I'll end this vow only when all problems confronting the nation end," he said.

But his neighbours in the village of Chatav said there was another reason for Kalau's washing boycott.

"A seer once told Kalau that if he does not take a bath, he would be blessed with a male child," a man called Madhusudan told the paper.

Most Indians prefer sons, who are typically regarded as breadwinners, while girls are seen as a burden because of the matrimonial dowry demanded by a groom's family and the fact that their earnings go to their husband's family.

Where to begin? The first sentence is probably a good place. Not washing for 35 years is supposed to guarantee him a male child? First off, I think that for the last 34 years, 11 months he has not been able to get within yelling distance of another living thing, let alone an actual woman. I am guessing that does little to help the whole procreation process. Also, I feel bad for his daughters. Can you imagine? I thought my dad was embarassing to me when I was a kid.

"It's just like using water to take a bath." No, it is not just like using water to take a bath. In fact, it's just about the direct opposite of using water to take a bath. One, it's not a bath, unless stewing in your own sweat counts, which it does not. Two, how exactly do you brush your teeth with a bonfire? That's like saying you can comb your hair with a car. Three, while I can understand you smoking weed in an attempt to dull your senses to the point where your own putrefaction doesn't make you vomit, wtf does standing on one foot have to do with anything?

And here's a news flash -- people didn't stop shopping at your store because of your unhealthy "personality." They stopped shopping at your store because you sell food and also have small chitenous creatures living off your body. They probably couldn't bring themselves to breathe in the same air you just exhaled. If you're going to do this kind of thing, move to Bombay. The air smells like raw sewage there most of the time anyway.

And as for ending your stank-ass protest when "all the problems confronting the nation end" -- know this:

You, my crusty, malodorous friend, ARE one of your nation's problems.

And Shiva? I am betting he is glad he has those extra arms. That way he can cover his eyes, plug his nose, and still have two hands left over to smack the shit out of you. I would also bet my paycheck that your neighbors and your family are also wishing for some extra arms right now.

Here's some unsolicited advice. Take a fucking shower and find a new seer. After 35 years, I think it's safe to assume that the old one isn't working out for you. Or for anyone else.

Open (Closet) Door.

I might as well grab the bull by the horns and tell you a story about Paul's memorial service/wake.

It was incredibly hard to be there. There was a slideshow video running through all these pictures of Paul growing up, us backpacking in college and sitting in his parent's finished basement when we were teens. I didn't know she was going to do it, but his sister had enlarged my blog post and it was sitting on an easel next to the table that held his urn. The post and the picture from it were surrounded by other pictures of Paul with his friends. One of our finished swords was sitting on a sword stand next to the urn.

It was a hard thing to see, but I'm glad she did it. If there's one thing I'm not, it's a public speaker, and there was no way I was going to get up there and say anything in front of a crowd.

The deal was that from 5-6pm it was just friends and family, then from 6-8pm it was open for the general public to pay their respects. We had arrived at around 4:30 to help get everything set up.

Earlier in the week Paul's wife had asked me to put together a CD of a song or two that he had liked, so I did. I made a CD of 4 songs, and I figured they'd be playing them in the background during the wake or something. Turns out, that wasn't the case.

Instead, she had asked all of his friends to bring a song that was special to him. After the minister gave his sermon, he invited us one by one to get up and speak if we wanted to, and after each person was finished speaking, the funeral home employee manning the CD player would announce the title of their song, then play it. Apparently, since I had provided a CD, the minister had assumed that I wanted it played even though I wasn't speaking.

Unfortunately, my CD wasn't clearly marked by song. I had just quickly scribbled "Paul" on it with a sharpie right before I left the house. There were four songs on it, as I mentioned. When the minister said, "Here's a CD from JV entitled 'Paul,'" I quickly decided the song I wanted them to play was the 4th song -- "Rivendell" by Rush. Paul was a huge Tolkien fan and a serious scholar of Middle Earth, so the song seemed fitting.

I looked at Paul's wife across the room, who I assumed was sort of managing the song thing, and held up 4 fingers to indicate the fourth song. I found out later she took that to mean there were 4 songs on the CD. Instead of the song I wanted, the CD player guy queued up the first song. It just so happened that it was a song called "Open Door" by Genesis. Here are the lyrics:

There's the morning light
Shining in your hair, and in your eyes
And just a little way behind that smile of yours
I see another one, oh so far away
If only for one second, I could hold you close to me
When the Master calls for me again
There's nothing I can say, or I can do

Goodbye, my love
Time has come to say farewell
I hear the call again
Goodbye to the world
I've sheltered for so long
Oh there's so much my love, that I can never say

And in a little while, in a little while
There's nothing left to see

As the years go by and I have not returned
And the night has come, falling all around
Ooh, if you count the stars you'll know
How many have gone out

And when the Master calls for me again
There's nothing that I can say Or I can do

Stand in the sun
Shut your eyes and feel the world
It's changing every day

Goodbye my love
Each day will seem so long
Ooh there's so much I feel, that I can never say

I can't see you
I can't feel you anymore
I've just a memory of that open door

So while it's a hauntingly beautiful song that both Paul and I loved, it wasn't quite what I had in mind.

The song ended.

The room was totally silent.

I sat there for about 5 seconds, then applied the JP rule of humor which states that if something is at least twice as funny as it is inappropriate, then you are morally obligated to go for it.

I took a deep breath and announced:

"I'M NOT GAY.*"

Most people thought it was funny, although think I may have pissed off a relative here or there. It doesn't matter though, because I know Paul would have laughed his ass off.

As for the ghost story, here it is. Keep in mind that I've never had any supernatural experiences in my life. I've never seen a ghost, I've never seen a UFO, I've never witnessed anything weird first-hand that couldn't be explained away by logic. I consider myself more or less an agnostic. I don't *not* believe in a creator, or an afterlife -- I just figure I don't have enough facts either way to make an informed decision. Paul and I used to joke around and say that whichever of us went first had to come back and let the other know if there was anything after.

On the dresser in our bedroom, there's a cast resin candle holder that looks like a round castle. It's been up there for maybe twelve years, (I know, I should clean) but it was an early gift from my wife when we first got married so it just sort of moved with us from place to place, and I never had the heart to toss it or store it away. It also happens to have a music box mechanism in it that plays Camelot. Since Paul died, there's been a picture of him leaning against it.

Two days ago, early in the morning, it played very slowly for about 5 seconds.

Here's the thing: It hasn't been wound up for at least ten years.


*not that there's anything wrong with that.

Look at all the dust in this dump.

Thanks for your comments, everyone. This one really hit hard, and continues to. Even though I expect that hurt to last a very long time, one thing I know for sure is that Paul wouldn't want me to be sad, so I'm doing my best not to be.

Toward that end, I'm going to pick up this place a little and get back into the groove. Not tonight, but perhaps this weekend. I'm just trying to figure out exactly how to proceed.

Oddly, things are starting to look a little brighter, and I guess it's in my nature to find humor in things, even when there might not be much to laugh at. Paul was the same way, and one big reason we were such good friends.

I may start with a ghost story. I'm not sure yet.

Anyway, thanks for waiting, and thanks for the words of sympathy, encouragement and kindness.

See you soon.

Rivendell awaits.

My best friend died yesterday.

I type those words, and I simply cannot believe they're true. Even though I stood in a room at the hospital for hours, his body on a gurney three feet in front of me, it still doesn't seem real. I feel like I could pick up the phone right now and call him, and in 15 minutes we'd be drinking coffee together and talking about our latest shop projects -- his of forged steel and mine of wood. He was a swordsmith, and his swords were functional works of art -- my lacquered wooden scabbards simply trying to keep up. I know he probably could have found a professional to make them, but he wanted them to be ours. That he is no longer in this world, and no longer in my life is inconceivable to me.

I'm not sure how you sum up in a few paragraphs a friendship that spanned 33 years. It's just not possible. When you meet by chance in 7th grade, you are friends of circumstance more than anything else. Something as simple as seating students in alphabetic order, picking the teams in gym class, or even the random assignment of adjoining lockers can determine who your friends are in high school. If you are lucky, at least one friendship will take root and last throughout your high school years, and you will have someone who can join you in a united front against your own burgeoning adolescence. You have each other's backs, and somehow you make sense of it together. That single friendship can shape you in your formative years, and to a large extent it can determine the kind of person you will become.

For that friendship of circumstance to take hold, blossom and then strengthen over the course of three decades is a rare thing indeed, and I know how lucky I am. It's a true gift, and one that I will never take for granted.

A friendship like that is one of firsts -- first girlfriends, first cars, first breakups, first jobs and first marriages. We were there for each other through all of those things, and many, many more. We were closer than brothers, and I truly couldn't have asked for a better friend. He had the heart and soul of a warrior, and a fierce loyalty to those he loved.

At a little after 7:00 am Saturday morning, he responded to an e-mail I had sent him the night before, referencing a Bill Whittle essay. We were supposed to get together for coffee later that morning, as we had on countless weekends past. He had picked out a particular quote from the essay and sent it back to me. The quote was this:

"From this transformational experience I learned something new and re-learned something old: first, a dream becomes a goal once you make a viable plan and stick to it, and second, the single most important thing you do in life is choose your friends."

Two hours later, he was gone. I didn't get his e-mail until later that morning, after it was too late to reply. Too late to tell him what a great friend he was, and how much he meant to me. Too late to say goodbye.

He had so much left to do. We had so much left to do together.

I will miss him every day for the rest of my life.

I'm going to take a break for a while. I'll see you guys on the flip side.

My next recurring nightmare. Shrubmonks.

They might not look that scary in this daytime picture, but try walking past them on a foggy, moonlit night at about 2 am when the only sounds you hear are the rustling of their filthy cloaks and the echo of your own footsteps.

They will reach out their shrubby arms and pull you inside them, where you will meet The Things That Live In The Branches.

Sleep well.

Wow. I'm a little verklempt.

Thank you all for your amazing comments.

I don't know what else to say, so I'll leave it at that. You guys are great.

(and one more picture, sorry.)



We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Losing a friend.

Where to begin?

First, I had a 3-day training class from hell last week, complete with an impossible test at the end that I am pretty sure I failed.

Second, my best friend since 7th grade had a heart attack. (Thankfully, full recovery expected.)

Third, Our cat JD died, and as a result, our house has been filled with sadness. He was a special kitty, and a beautiful boy. He was my wife's best friend and my faithful writing companion. He slept in the crook of my arm almost every night, and his unconditional love and his trusting personality made him better than most people.

If you'll indulge me, I'd like to tell you a little bit about him. This post is probably more for me than for you, so there won't be any funny this time around. If you are here for a laugh, check back later, or see this previous post about JD. This was, to put it mildly, a bitch of a week.

About eight years ago, we were driving home on a back country road during a rainstorm, when my wife said, "What was that? I think I saw kittens! Stop!" so I reluctantly pulled over, having seen nothing myself. It turned out she was right -- she did see kittens. They were lost, abandoned and scared, but when my wife got out of the car and called to them, they came running. She scooped them up and tossed them in the back seat, and suddenly we were the owners of two kittens who smelled like cow crap and looked like drowned rats. When we got them home, we put them in my shop, gave them some food and water, and turned on the heat so they'd dry off. They ate like they hadn't had a meal in three days, which may have been the case.

I hope there's a special place in Hell for people who abandon their pets on the side of the road.

The next morning, we went out to see what we had found and clean them up, but they had apparently spent the entire night cleaning each other because they were dry and totally clean. I got a friend to adopt one, we adopted the other, named him JD, and our adventure began. We took him to the vet, had him checked for worms and feline leukemia, got him his shots, and had his little man-bits removed.

We already had two other cats. I didn't really feel like we needed another one, but there was something about him. I'm not sure if it was his bright blue eyes, or the fact that he acted more like a dog than a cat, but he quickly wormed his way into our hearts. Our other cats are nice enough, but they're not the same. I don't know how to explain why he was different, or why we became so fond of him so quickly, but we did. Maybe it was because we rescued him from an almost certain death, and he acted as if knew that. Or maybe it was because he bonded to us both so completely. I'm not sure.

He never begged and never made a pain the ass of himself, which is rare for a cat. He'd sit and wait patiently for his food while the other two zig-zagged between my wife's legs and pawed at the counter and meowed like they never ate before. He'd follow my wife around the house, and he always wanted to be a part of whatever she was doing. He came running when she called his name, and he'd search the house for her when he noticed she was missing. He developed routines; we developed routines -- and he trained us well. To be honest, we spoiled the hell out of him.

He loved the summer and the warm weather, and would look forward to keeping my wife company as she gardened, or as she sat on the porch with her latest crocheting or knitting project. All winter -- on the sunny days especially -- he would run to the front door and wait to be let on to the porch, expecting it to be warm. It was always such a disappointment to him when it wasn't, and he'd turn around and march back into the house like it was somehow our fault.

After about 4 years, he started getting sick. We thought it was hairballs, or maybe he was eating too fast. To be on the safe side, we took him to the vet, and the vet gave us some sad news: An ultrasound confirmed that JD had small, malformed kidneys, and as a result they were only functioning at roughly 20%. He also had some stomach problems, and she suspected pancreatitis. Toxins were building up in his bloodstream, and that's why he wasn't eating. The treatment for this was to inject 150ml of saline solution under his skin every three days, to ease the strain on his kidneys, which I learned to do. She gave us two other drugs, one to help with his appetite when his stomach was off and he didn't feel like eating, the other to help with his stomach ulcer issues. This seemed to stabilize him, and he remained a happy cat for quite a few years, although he would go in cycles where he'd have a stretch of a few good weeks, then a bad week, then a few more good weeks, etc.

Every few nights, he'd sit on my wife's lap and patiently allow me to stab him with an IV needle, and he never complained other than a low-pitched moan here or there. He never scratched or tried to bite. He trusted us, and even though what we were doing to him must have hurt, he forgave us each and every time. He'd run away and hide, and in twenty minutes he'd be back to see what we were doing.

Because we had to give him so much daily medication, it was difficult to leave him behind when we went camping or visited friends for the weekend. We'd have to board him at the vet's office, and that wasn't inexpensive, or very pleasant for either of us. That's when we started taking him with us when we went places. He got used to a harness fairly quickly, and he loved going on canoe trips and camping in the Adirondacks, and having him there with us was actually pretty fun. I know our canoe trips this year won't be the same without him.

During one of his visits to the vet last year, we got some more bad news -- our vet heard a pretty significant heart murmur, and she suggested we take him to a cardiologist. Yes, believe it or not, cats have their own cardiologists. The cardiologist did another ultrasound, and it turned out that JD had an enlarged heart and high blood pressure, most likely as side effects of his failing kidneys. We agreed that we'd treat him as long as he didn't realize he was sick, and that's what we did. His life became a routine of pill-popping morning and night -- two types of beta blockers, plus antacids -- interspersed with squirts of liquid medicine down his throat, in addition to the subcutaneous fluids every couple of days. Still, he was spunky and happy, and other than a bad few days here and there, he was still loving life and being with us. His blood pressure was down, his enlarged heart started shrinking back to normal, and we thought the worst was behind us, at least for a while. His murmur seemed to have improved slightly as well.

Sometimes when you're lucky enough to find a good pet -- one of those animals that transcends the ordinary owner/pet relationship and seems to know more about your feelings than you do -- there is a kind of wistful sadness built into every interaction. I think it's because on some level, you know your time together is short, and even with a healthy pet, you realize the day is coming when you will have done all you could for them -- when there's really nothing left to do except to let them go, and hope they know they were loved.

For us, that day came early last week. On Saturday, JD and I sat together on the porch, soaking up the sun and waiting for my wife to get home from work. When she pulled up, he ran down the stairs and greeted her half way. That night, everything was normal -- he sauntered up the stairs, jumped on the bed and poked at me until I pulled my arm out from under the covers. I knew if I didn't, he'd walk around and start sniffing my eyebrows until I did. Then he curled up under my arm and I fell asleep to his big purrs and the small ball of warmth at my side. The next morning, everything seemed fine, and my wife and I both had the day off. We were looking forward to just hanging out in the sunshine and enjoying the day.

After breakfast, my wife noticed that JD was breathing a little funny, and looked like he couldn't get comfortable. He was moving a little slowly, and we thought maybe he just had one of his routine stomach aches, since he had suddenly stopped eating earlier. He walked over to me, gave my leg a little head butt, then plopped down on the floor. I petted him for a few seconds, and then he got up and went upstairs to find my wife.

As soon as she saw him, she knew it was something besides his normal stomach issues, so we immediately jumped in the car to bring him to the emergency vet. It was 30 minutes away, and I drove like a maniac. My wife was holding him in a blanket and about half-way there, his breathing became extremely labored, and he started crying and trying to breathe through his mouth.

He kept reaching one paw over and touching my arm as if he was asking me to fix what was hurting him. It was heartwrenching, and I could barely keep my eyes on the road. We finally got to the vet's office and they quickly put him in an oxygen tent, but it didn't do much good. The vet said they were going to give him a sedative and take a chest X-ray to see if they could determine what the problem was. We waited.

When the vet finally came to the waiting room a half-hour later, I could tell by her face the news wasn't good. She told us the prognosis was poor -- heart failure and pleural edema. She told us that that even if they could treat him and he made it through the night, the treatment would be extremely rough on his kidneys, and he would probably go back to being sick and uncomfortable all the time, and the chances were that the same thing would happen again.

We always said that we'd treat him to the best of our ability for as long as he maintained his quality of life. The walk to the clinic's operating room was surreal, and I felt like I was watching it through someone else's eyes. JD was lying on a soft, folded towel placed on an operating table, with the vet's assistant holding an oxygen mask to his face. The vet unwrapped a syringe, and placed it on the table next to him. We petted him and talked to him and told him how much he meant to both of us, and how sorry we were. The vet picked up the syringe, and I almost told her to stop. But then JD looked at me, and I knew it was the right thing to do. We couldn't put him through any more. Putting him down was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. It wasn't the first time I've had to do this, but it was the first time I've had to do it to a pet that I truly loved.

I'm alternately sad and angry, and I know that such a sweet cat deserved more than the life that was handed to him. Most of all, I wish we could have given him one last summer.

I'm so glad we got to be with him for 8 years, and I'll never regret the lengths we went to in order to treat his illnesses. I hope he knew, on some cat-level, how important a part of our lives he was.

Rest in peace, buddy. We'll never forget you.


Adirondack Canoe Trip - Autumn, 2008


My favorite picture of him.