Life in the Mind of a Modest Genius

New Year Randomness

The very first post of the year so how should I kick things off?  Well it's going to set the pace for the rest of the year so there's no better way to do that than by going completely random.

Remember that you get many new beginnings in life but only one ending.  - Paraphrased from Dad.

I'm having an ongoing battle with the ice outside my front door.  It's just thick enough that the door will only partially open and you can't get out.  So far it's a losing battle.

This was the second year in a row that I fell asleep before New Year's arrived.  I made it all the way to about 11:45.  At least I think that's what time I nodded off.

Shout-outs to everyone that celebrated the New Year's at home.  It's pretty hard to get hit by a stray bullet there.  Well...depending on where you live.

Major props go out to my alma mater the Iowa State Cyclones.  They are the 2009 Insight Bowl Champions after beating the Minnesota Gophers 14-13.

I may even pull for the Hawks in their bowl game coming up since my boy Erik was pulling for the Clones. 

Maybe.

January is going to be a VERY busy month at work.  I have to travel two weeks back to back which isn't going to do my workload any favors.

I was watching BET's Notarized show where they counted down the top songs of 2009 and I realized I forgot to include "Blame It" by Jamie Foxx on my countdown.  I wouldn't have had it at #1 like they did,  but it was probably in the top 15 of the year.

They also hipped me to the Keyshia Cole & Monica song "Trust".  And I've had Keyshia's cd downloaded from Zune Pass for quite a while now.  I really need to get better about listening to the stuff I download.

We need to retire the word "swag" forever.  If I never hear that word ever again it wont' be soon enough for me.

I wonder what  Deltas think about everybody taking their sign?  First Jay-Z and now Oregon fans. 

"The man said ta da".

'Nuff said. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL!!!

Happy Festivus!

How did I miss this last year??  I would have messed around and missed it this year too if it wasn't for the morning news that reminded me that was today.  Yes...our news is so slow here in Des Moines that they have to resort to doing a fluff piece of Festivus.

My folks probably aren't going to like the fact that I acknowledge this "holiday" since it stems from "Seinfeld".  They're not fans at all thanks to Michael Kramer's racist rant a few years ago.  It's really too bad because Kramer was my favorite character from the show.  However, it was really Jerry Stiller as Frank Costanza that stole the Festivus episode so we're all good.

In the spirit of Festivus, it's time to get some things off my chest.  This would otherwise be known as some randomness if it was posted on any other day.  On this special holiday, it's the airing of grievances...

How come all the ladies jock Robin Thicke's cd but when Frankie had the same style out years before, he couldn't get any love?  You say you don't know who Frankie is?  My point exactly.

I can deal with snow on Christmas.  It definitely adds to the holiday atmosphere.  Now crappy weather complete with ice storms, blizzards and no sun on Christmas Day is NOT the business.

I can't feel any sympathy for some cat (Richie Brown) who shoots himself because his carjacking and bank robbery attempt was foiled by the police.  I don't care how nice he supposedly was.

It sucks having to fight thru last minute Christmas shoppers at Wal-Mart just so I can get some groceries.  Y'all should have had that shopping done by now!

These folks in Words With Friends need to move more frequently than once an hour. 

Mediacom may lose our local Fox affiliate because the two can't come to terms on an agreement.  The two of them need to stop acting like a couple of you-know-whats at the expense of us customers. 

A recent poll shows Tiger Woods' popularity has plummeted.  Did they really have to waste money on a poll for that?

I recently tasted the worst Christmas cookie EVER.  I thought for the longest time that it was impossible to screw up sugar cookies.  Guess I was wrong.

Just read the story about the Florida teen who was burned by a group of teenagers and how he's finally getting out of the hospital.  The story starts off saying he was "allegedly" set on fire by a group of teens.  I STILL want to pimp slap everyone I see using that word when it's OBVIOUS the criminal(s) committed the act.

It makes no sense that the iPhone charger I bought at Wally's is holding up better than the one that came with the phone.  Step your game up, Apple.

People are getting out of hand with the body art tattoos.  Please let it go.

'Nuff said.

Have a great Festivus!  Now get out there and air some grievances of your own!

Gave Thanks

This is only about five days late.  For really no good reason either.  If I applied myself, I probably could have churned this one out sometime over this past weekend to at least get closer to the Thanksgiving holiday.  I figured it wouldn't be the end of the world if it didn't get out in a reasonable amount of time though so it's all good.

My actual Thanksgiving started off with a nice half day at work last Wednesday.  Another great thing about that place is we get paid to get "early outs" on the days before major holidays.  I was able to spend my early time off picking up the Dark Knight from the shop.  It wasn't all the way completed, but was done enough to be ready for the holiday trip.  I tried not to let it bother me that it had been there for over a week and wasn't yet finished.

Thanksgiving day and dinner was spent in Ames.  That's what the picture you see here is.  It had been a LONG time since I've had some scalloped potatoes and was able to get my wish for Thanksgiving dinner.  Outside of Popeye's cajun mashed potatoes and gravy, scalloped potatoes are my favorite type of potatoes.  The only thing that would have made that dinner even better would have been some greens.  Unfortunately, all the stores were out of the collard greens that I prefer.  No biggie though...it was still an amazing dinner.

The plan was to get up early Friday morning and hit the road for Bloomington for the weekend.  When I say early, I'm talking about 4am.  I could have rescheduled the alarm clock on my iPhone for that time as opposed to the weekly 6am time it's normally set for.  I just didn't feel like going thru the hassle of having to switch it back.  Instead, I decided to use this alarm clock app I found at the Apps store.  It would have been a great plan if I would have remembered to have the app activated before I went to bed. 

My natural alarm clock woke me at 5am since I failed to set the iPhone one correctly.  That put me on the road an hour later than what I had planned on.  That one hour ended up making a difference.  By the time we arrived at Mom and Dad's, everyone was up and eating breakfast.  We had just missed out on a fresh batch of Mom's world famous sweet rice.  No worries though.  We were able to get our share of it over the next couple of days.

I had the added surprise of being able to see Mariah during the Thanksgiving holiday.  Mom and Dad had flown her in Wednesday night so she was in Bloomington for the weekend as well.  It always warms my heart to see her smiling face.  Even moreso when it gets to be in the presence of Mom and Dad who rarely get to visit with her as it is.  I still look at her and continue to be in awe about the fact that my little girl is actually a woman.

Our Friday arrival meant we missed out on the big feast from the night before.  Fortunately, there were plenty of leftovers.  Including the chocolate cake that didn't make it thru the night.  My personal favorite though was the cornbread.  It tasted entirely too good and too fresh to be leftovers.  I could have made a meal off just that and still been content.

My favorite moment of the weekend was the ride with Dad to O'Hare Airport to drop off Mariah for her flight back to Kansas City.  Mariah enlightened Dad and I on some of the nuances of "New Moon" that we didn't know since we haven't read the books.  It still didn't make me appreciate the movie anymore, but it was interesting nonetheless.  On the way back, I was able to spend some quality time with Dad talking about any and everything in what seemed like the shortest two hours ever.

The road trip naturally provided more opps which translated into another photo album: Thanksgiving 2009.  Although I was able to capture some good moments, the best one was deleted from the camera.  I caught Teandra in a picture perfect moment after she had just spilled a huge cup of hot chocolate on the counter.  I should have thought to hide the memory card so she couldn't delete it.  I'll know better next time. 

Doing Too Much

YES!  Finally someone made a commercial that says it best.  For all of y'all that like to do it big for Christmas, keep this in mind...

An Early Thanksgiving

Last year this time, the Boys and Girls Club hosted their early Thanksgiving dinner.  Except that was the one in Des Moines.  And for some reason, they chose to have it much earlier.  How many people did they really think were going to be off work by 4pm? So it almost seemed like that Boys and Girls Club was doing it more for the benefit of the kids.  Nothing wrong with that, but it just would have been nice if it was better timed so the parents could be involved.

The Ames location wisely chose for their dinner to commence at 6pm.  That was plenty of time for parents to get off work and get there without having to rush.  They even had ample parking for everyone thanks to an empty field adjacent to their tiny parking lot.  It's just a good thing it was a decent fall day.  That would not have been a pretty sight watching cars navigate a muddied field if it had rained and/or sleeted.

They had converted half of their gym into a makeshift banquet hall.  It reminded me of "Revenge of the Nerds" when the nerd freshmen got relocated to the gym as their new dorm.  Instead of beds, there were tables with white plastic for table cloths.  The chairs were a hodge podge assortment that looked like they raided garage sales.  It was the spirit of the moment that counted though.

There was a contingent of guys from the local Iowa State chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha (Pikes) serving the food to everyone in the buffet style set-up.  I was trying to figure out if they were pledges and maybe it was part of their service project or if it was the fraternity just trying to do a good deed.  Either way, they were all very respectable.  One of them even offered to carry G's cup of juice to the table where we were sitting when he saw our hands were full.

G recognized the "Alpha" on some of the t-shirts and automatically made a connection...

"Hey...they're Alpha just like you."

I laughed, "No...not just like me.  That's a different fraternity."

"So do you go against them?"

Another smile, "It's not that we go against them.  We aren't two teams playing a game.  We're just two different organizations."

"What did you have to do to be an Alpha anyway?"

"I had to go thru a process.  Once I was done with the process, I became an Alpha."

"Oh..." he took another bite of his turkey, "Do you like our gym?"

I love how he can just switch gears like that.  I thought for a minute there that I was going to have to find a tactful way to explain the "process" to him.  He was content with that answer so I was good.  Plus, I enjoy it more when he talks about himself.  Or even his theories.  How else would I have known that he hypothesized that the scoreboard in the gym isn't run by anyone?  Apparently, it just senses when someone scores and it changes the score accordingly.  That one really cracked me up.

I didn't think I'd get full from such small servings, but I really did.  Not that it had anything to do with the dinner.  A troop of Brownies (which I think are the first step before Girl Scouts?) were walking around the gym with platters containing various cookies.  When I saw my favorite type of sugar cookies, it was all over.  AND they had homemade rice krispie treats.  It's like they knew I was coming.

I Am Veteran

For the longest time, I never considered myself one.  It didn't matter that I served in the Iowa Air National Guard for 6 years.  Well...technically 5 1/2 since I got credit for 6 months deferred.  Still, I was never deployed for any of our skirmishes back then so I figured I was never a veteran.  Then I came across a news story about Darva Conger that had me re-evaluating my own status.

The name probably doesn't ring a bell to many of you.  She was the gal who was caught up in that "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire" scandal.  She had been in the military and claimed to be a veteran because she was in the Gulf War.  After doing some additional checking on her background, they discovered she was never deployed.  She was just on active duty during the Gulf War.  Her rationale was that qualifies because by definition, that makes her a veteran.  Well hold your horses...

I was on winter break in January 1991 when the Gulf War started.  In fact, I happened to be serving my two weeks of required active duty by working at the Air National Guard base attached to the Des Moines airport.  I can still recall sitting in the warehouse watching the official announcement that the aerial assault had commenced and the Gulf War conflict had officially began.  So using the literal definition of "veteran" that would make me one. 

The funny thing about that situation is I recall the conversation that me and my supervisor were having at the time.  He even brought up the fact that if our unit was called up, I would have to report to.  I practically laughed in his face.  In fact, I think I may have actually done it.  That was during my rebellious years.  I flat out told him that if they tried to get me to go over there, I wasn't going.  I was two years from graduating and wouldn't be leaving school for that madness. 

 He wasn't appreciating my defiant behavior AT. ALL.  He told me if I didn't report then they would send the MPs up to the Iowa State campus to get me.  I laughed again and told him good luck in trying to find me.  Thanks to the personalities that we had in my area at the time, I was able to get away with speaking like that.  I was half joking but also half serious.  The guys in that area were joking all the time so my supervisor couldn't be totally sure if I was to be taken at my word or not.  Was I just joking around like the rest of the fellas always did?  I'm fairly certain he knew that I was more serious than not.

The truth of the matter is even if I may be a veteran by the technical definition, I'm nowhere near the vet that the ones before me have been.  The ones like Dad who fought in the Vietnam War.  Doing it at a time where they had to deal with an entirely different atmosphere than the Armed Forces of today have to face.  Dad and those soldiers had to deal with hostilities in Vietnam and then come home to face hostility here from the very people they had enlisted to protect.  I could never fathom what type of courage that had to take.  All the more reason that Veteran's Day is special.

Lost Sailor Day

I saw a retweet on Twitter that summed up today perfectly: 

"In honor of Columbus Day I'm going to get lost on my way to work, kill whoever is there and take up residence." 

Yes, it's dark humor just like I enjoy.  Then I came across this short clip which is so much more appropriate.  There are some points brought up that I've already expressed before, but there is one in particular that I never thought of that I REALLY like.  Instead of Columbus Day, there should be a National Indigenous Peoples Day.  Although I'm not sure of the official name that should be given to it, it is clearly a much better substitute than honoring a violent criminal...

Juneteenth

I had almost forgotten Juneteenth was going on this past weekend.  Just like I nearly forgot to do the entry about it.  I just happened to be perusing the FB updates Saturday morning and came across a local friend mentioning he would be going there in a couple of hours.  Just the free entertainment I was looking for.  And since I wouldn't be working one of the volunteer booths, I could get there late enough in the afternoon so that the heat would have subsided a bit.

Before you ask, yes, our Juneteenth was held on the 20th.  Which technically means we missed the entire "teen" part of the month that is meant to coincide with the celebration.  Although you could look at it as though it was keeping in spirit with the holiday.  Afterall, this was a holiday that was created based on the fact that news was discovered late. 

The moment I got there, I realized how uneventful the day was going to be.  There is never anything to do at Juneteenth but walk around and eat.  I suppose you could also take time to listen to the performances they have, but it was entirely TOO hot to stand (no chairs available) in front of the the main stage where there was no shade whatsoever to listen to whomever was up there.  As hot as it was when I arrived, I can just imagine how it was for those folks that had been there since the beginning.

Some quick observations from the day...

• It has now become obvious to me that Juneteenth is really just a big neighborhood party.  Because of the park in which it's held, hoodrats and wannabe playas from all across the city came out in throngs.  I could have sat there all day and taken pictures of some of the most questionable outfits you can possibly imagine.
• I would have hated to have been Qwest's mascot that day.  He/she HAD to be burning up in that hot dog costume.  Still, they probably should have made sure the outfit was complete from head to toe.  Dude just didn't look right in a dog costume with some K-Mart kicks.
• I think I'm in the clear with sorors now.  Andrea accosted me soon as I got there and gave me an earful about not making it to their White Party that was the same day as our frat meeting and bowling outing.  So I guess I'm going to thee Black Party in October as amends.
• Principhell was noticeably absent from all of the major organizations that were there with booths.  They really must be tight on money.  Especially since it only cost about $20 to rent one of the tables at Juneteenth

Check out the latest addition to the sidebar, appropriately named Juneteenth 2009.  It's not much of a photo album compared to some of my others, but it's better than nothing.  Maybe next time, I'll sit back and do nothing but take pictures of all the comedy around me.  That alone could have used up a memory card or two.

A Marvel / DC Father's Day