My friend Jay, and his wife, Naomi are in the process of adopting children from Ethiopia. They have cleared the first set of major hurdles towards realizing their dream of having a family. First off I would like to thank everyone who has already helped contribute towards their cause. You can only imagine how much your help means to them.
They now have some last steps to complete while awaiting their referral for their future children. For a basic breakdown in how you can help click this link: http://burnsadoption.blogspot.com/2009/12/dossier-completed.html
As it mentions in the link, you can donate via Paypal by clicking on the PayPal link on their page, or if you do not have PayPal you can send any and all donations directly to the address: 822 Jonathon Rd. Powell, WY 82435
Please make any checks payable to "Ethiopia Hope Fund". All donations are tax deductible, as they are run through Harvest Church.
Every little bit helps out Jay and Naomi, as they scrape together their own funds as well to make their dream of having a family come true. They thank you very much for any help you can provide!
Showing posts with label Jay Burns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jay Burns. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
My Buddy Jay- ENEMY #98273482
My buddy, Jay, is the reason I came to blog here. It gave me a slightly more mature forum than say, Myspace, as well as a way that we could sort of keep up with each others' busy lives, without having to do that thing women who want to keep in touch do: use the phone.
Well, my buddy Jay and his wife are currently in the process of adopting a couple of little girls from Ethiopia. For more information on that, and how you can help out go HERE. No REALLY, go there and check it out. If you don't go, you can't read the rest of this blog. I mean it. Go now and come back when you're done.
Okay, now that you've done what you were told to do (you better hope you did, I am a rent-a-cop after all and I will hit you with my flashlight if you lied and skipped right to here), we'll get to the meat of the issue.
Recently, part of the process of this adoption is for Jay and his wife to get their passports so they can go overseas. Jay posted the stories Part 1 and Part 2.
To summarize part 1, providing the exact same documents, Jay's wife received her passport, however Jay himself did not. Jay has gone to great lengths to get his passport, which are explained in part 2, making some statements which I have decided to take issue with.
Instance #1: Jay says, "As you may know, I am completely reasonable and patient person when dealing with inept government agencies."
For those of you who don't know Jay, let me assure you, I've known him since he was in diapers, which was approximately right after I got out of diapers. And not getting out of them by merely ripping them off, but by actually being a big boy and wearing pull-ups. Soon, I fear, I may be back in diapers again as I have a teeny tiny bladder. ANYWAYS....Jay is the furthest from being a reasonable and patient person in general, never mind dealing with inept government agencies.
Example 1- (generalities) Growing up Jay persistently stole Christmas lights off a retired teacher's tree on a nightly basis around Christmastime. This is entirely unreasonable to begin with. The timeline also shows how impatient he really was to get back to doing it again...every night those lights were up, for years, he engaged in such juvenile criminal activity. Now, he will tell you that I did this stuff, which (for full disclosure reasons) I did, but only because he was doing it first, and as his boy, I was required by the Bro Code, not only to have his back, but to engage in guilty acts so as to prove my trustworthiness to him.
Example 2- (dealing with authority figures) When I was 16, I decided to take an unauthorized trip (read: runaway) to the Twin Cities. I did not take my buddy Jay with me, nor did I inform him of my plans. This was for his physical well-being, and to avoid rumors that we were off to engage ourselves with gay-marriage somewhere that it might be legal. For the record, we're both hetero, and happily married, to women. But the people in our small town could get pretty imaginative when it comes to cooking up the next set of rumors to spread. Well, after it was determined by my parents that I was in fact "missing" (this is untrue, I knew where I was at all times- even if I was unsure how to get out of a particular Minneapolis neighborhood at one point), the search parties were sent out, and my dad and his dad grilled Jay as to my whereabouts. When asked, Jay stated he had no idea where I was (which was true, and a reasonable response), but then for added artistic style points (which failed miserably..the judges from Belarus totally ripped him off and only gave him a 6.3 out of 10) made mention to the effect that "even if I did know, I probably wouldn't tell you." While sticking with the Bro Code here (which was honorable), given the child abuse history of our dads (they must've beaten us within an inch of our lives a million times!), this was probably an unreasonable elaboration that should have been omitted from his reply.
Example 3- (dealing with government institutions) There was the infamous DMV incident of 1997. Jay decided not to study for his written driver's test to get his license. He failed...miserably. Before the station attendant was able to tell him he'd have an opportunity to retake the test, Jay stormed out of the station letting fly with some unsavory words and something about a holocaust, or genocide, or dead baby seal pups...I don't fully remember the exact words, but it was filthier than roadside motel that rents by the hour if you know what I mean. After having gone back home, we watched a re-run episode of Macguyver (which by the way, my kids are addicted to!), and then went back down to the DMV in the middle of the night (after stealing Christmas lights from that retired teacher's house...for the 2nd time that night). I of course had to go because Jay called the Bro Code on me, plus it was too cold to walk, and I had a car to drive him there. Well we thought we had the whole Macguyver thing figured out, but Jay tried to substitute a strip of aluminum foil for a piece of wax paper (our moms had used all our wax paper up for Christmas cookies and hadn't bought anymore), and we somehow ended up almost 3 towns away with my car landing almost right on top of us. We had to walk back to another town and call his mom for a ride back home. I told my dad a rod went out in my car. He was pissed because he specifically told me NOT to go out of town with that car, but I'm sure he would've been even more pissed had we succeeded with the DMV.
Okay, so that last thing wasn't entirely true...we did steal lights and my car did throw a rod out of town, but the rest...total baloney. But it sounded good, right? (would someone keep an eye out to see if that story gets Jay and I on the Terror Watch List please, and let us know?)
Instance #2: Jay says, "I was worried there for a bit, but as it turns out, I am not a terrorist. This according to the United States government who has now seen fit to give me a passport. Or at least that is what the passport confirmation website tells me. It should be in the mail now."
The way I see it, the government may have decided to give him a passport afterall. However, the whole part about him not being a terrorist...don't buy that for a minute, because I don't. I'm sure someone in the GOP put the pressure on some passport issuer to give it to him anyways. After all, Jay has been a very loyal gun-toting, bible-thumping, hatemonger for years now, so whether or not he's a terrorist is just a moot point in their eyes, at least as long as he continues to vote a straight Republican ticket every election anyways.
Well, my buddy Jay and his wife are currently in the process of adopting a couple of little girls from Ethiopia. For more information on that, and how you can help out go HERE. No REALLY, go there and check it out. If you don't go, you can't read the rest of this blog. I mean it. Go now and come back when you're done.
Okay, now that you've done what you were told to do (you better hope you did, I am a rent-a-cop after all and I will hit you with my flashlight if you lied and skipped right to here), we'll get to the meat of the issue.
Recently, part of the process of this adoption is for Jay and his wife to get their passports so they can go overseas. Jay posted the stories Part 1 and Part 2.
To summarize part 1, providing the exact same documents, Jay's wife received her passport, however Jay himself did not. Jay has gone to great lengths to get his passport, which are explained in part 2, making some statements which I have decided to take issue with.
Instance #1: Jay says, "As you may know, I am completely reasonable and patient person when dealing with inept government agencies."
For those of you who don't know Jay, let me assure you, I've known him since he was in diapers, which was approximately right after I got out of diapers. And not getting out of them by merely ripping them off, but by actually being a big boy and wearing pull-ups. Soon, I fear, I may be back in diapers again as I have a teeny tiny bladder. ANYWAYS....Jay is the furthest from being a reasonable and patient person in general, never mind dealing with inept government agencies.
Example 1- (generalities) Growing up Jay persistently stole Christmas lights off a retired teacher's tree on a nightly basis around Christmastime. This is entirely unreasonable to begin with. The timeline also shows how impatient he really was to get back to doing it again...every night those lights were up, for years, he engaged in such juvenile criminal activity. Now, he will tell you that I did this stuff, which (for full disclosure reasons) I did, but only because he was doing it first, and as his boy, I was required by the Bro Code, not only to have his back, but to engage in guilty acts so as to prove my trustworthiness to him.
Example 2- (dealing with authority figures) When I was 16, I decided to take an unauthorized trip (read: runaway) to the Twin Cities. I did not take my buddy Jay with me, nor did I inform him of my plans. This was for his physical well-being, and to avoid rumors that we were off to engage ourselves with gay-marriage somewhere that it might be legal. For the record, we're both hetero, and happily married, to women. But the people in our small town could get pretty imaginative when it comes to cooking up the next set of rumors to spread. Well, after it was determined by my parents that I was in fact "missing" (this is untrue, I knew where I was at all times- even if I was unsure how to get out of a particular Minneapolis neighborhood at one point), the search parties were sent out, and my dad and his dad grilled Jay as to my whereabouts. When asked, Jay stated he had no idea where I was (which was true, and a reasonable response), but then for added artistic style points (which failed miserably..the judges from Belarus totally ripped him off and only gave him a 6.3 out of 10) made mention to the effect that "even if I did know, I probably wouldn't tell you." While sticking with the Bro Code here (which was honorable), given the child abuse history of our dads (they must've beaten us within an inch of our lives a million times!), this was probably an unreasonable elaboration that should have been omitted from his reply.
Example 3- (dealing with government institutions) There was the infamous DMV incident of 1997. Jay decided not to study for his written driver's test to get his license. He failed...miserably. Before the station attendant was able to tell him he'd have an opportunity to retake the test, Jay stormed out of the station letting fly with some unsavory words and something about a holocaust, or genocide, or dead baby seal pups...I don't fully remember the exact words, but it was filthier than roadside motel that rents by the hour if you know what I mean. After having gone back home, we watched a re-run episode of Macguyver (which by the way, my kids are addicted to!), and then went back down to the DMV in the middle of the night (after stealing Christmas lights from that retired teacher's house...for the 2nd time that night). I of course had to go because Jay called the Bro Code on me, plus it was too cold to walk, and I had a car to drive him there. Well we thought we had the whole Macguyver thing figured out, but Jay tried to substitute a strip of aluminum foil for a piece of wax paper (our moms had used all our wax paper up for Christmas cookies and hadn't bought anymore), and we somehow ended up almost 3 towns away with my car landing almost right on top of us. We had to walk back to another town and call his mom for a ride back home. I told my dad a rod went out in my car. He was pissed because he specifically told me NOT to go out of town with that car, but I'm sure he would've been even more pissed had we succeeded with the DMV.
Okay, so that last thing wasn't entirely true...we did steal lights and my car did throw a rod out of town, but the rest...total baloney. But it sounded good, right? (would someone keep an eye out to see if that story gets Jay and I on the Terror Watch List please, and let us know?)
Instance #2: Jay says, "I was worried there for a bit, but as it turns out, I am not a terrorist. This according to the United States government who has now seen fit to give me a passport. Or at least that is what the passport confirmation website tells me. It should be in the mail now."
The way I see it, the government may have decided to give him a passport afterall. However, the whole part about him not being a terrorist...don't buy that for a minute, because I don't. I'm sure someone in the GOP put the pressure on some passport issuer to give it to him anyways. After all, Jay has been a very loyal gun-toting, bible-thumping, hatemonger for years now, so whether or not he's a terrorist is just a moot point in their eyes, at least as long as he continues to vote a straight Republican ticket every election anyways.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Fearing the Emerging Threats of Headless Chicken Attacks
When I was about 12, I had a kid I grew up with, Cole Long, scare the hell out of me twice in one day. First we traded bikes, and we made our way fom my house down the infamous Platt Hill. For those of you who have grown up in Sac City, you know how stepp Platt Hill can be. It starts off going down at about a 45-50 degree angle, and then about halfway down it gets worse. For a kid going down it for the first time on a bicycle, one would think it was a straight drop. Well, as we hit the hill, Cole informs me that his bike doesn't have breaks. Rather than being sensible and getting the bike to a full stop and walking it down, I attempted to slalom down first, ten found myself taking the ride of my life. As I near the bottom, I see the school bus coming up on the intersection with the cross street. I was too young to have my life flash before my eyes, so my mind played the reel of me plastering up against the side of the bus while the bike got crsuhed underneath the big old bus' wheels. At the last second, I make an amazing 90 degree turn and stop on a dime. As the bus passed by safely, and probably obliviously (it was a blind corner for the bus to look up the hill), I took a moment to check my pants and make sure I wasn't going to need a new change of superhero underwear. I came pretty close to beating the crap out of my cackling friend who stopped next to me.
Once everything checked out okay, we proceed over to his place. They had some animals on their property, including a penned up turkey. My experience with turkeys at this point was Thanksgiving dinner. Cole decided we would go inside the pen, as he "had to feed the turkey." My job was to just usher it to the back of the pen. Being the big tough boy that I am, I thought this was a legitimate responsibility that I could handle. I step through the gate, and then, it closes behind me. I hear first laughter, and then experience fright as I hear and see a demon turkey coming after me in this tightly confined pen within a small shack. After 11 thanksgivings of me partaking of the turkey portions, I guess this was karmic revenge. This turley was going to carve me up and have me for dinner. No doubt he would've spoken in Satanistic tongues as he gave thanks to the Dark Lord of the Poultry Underworld. After being let out, I again almost beat the crap out my friend.
Fast forward about 12 years from the Day of the Turkey, and I am working a security gig at an office building in West Des Moines. Geese had begun nesting in the tree islands of the park lot. While I was patrolling the building, apparently one of the workers leaving the office thought that getting an up close and personal look at the geese would be a good idea. Then she got too close to one that was nesting. Out of nowhere the Gander swoops in and goes chest to chest with this lady, flaps its wings once, and the lady was on her backside. And this was no stick of a woman. She was short and a bit shall we say, on the thick side of things, with a nice low center of gravity. It wasn't until that day that I realized both the level of protectiveness and strength in geese. But let me tell you, the footage from the security cameras was played over and over that night as I and my partner had a good old time laughing at replay after replay of this gander absolutely owning this lady! When I left work that night, under the cover of darkness in my big old black Cutlass Supreme, I decided to venture towards the nest with my car, safely tucked inside the 2000 lbs of American built steel. Once I got close, out of nowhere again this gander comes to his maiden's rescue. This damn bird was ready, willing and did go toe to toe with my tank of a car. Once he realized that he might get run over, he shifted from a full frontal attack to beating the crap out of the front quarter panel with his wings, as he ran into the car repeatedly. I decided for the safety of my aging vehicle that I would bow out of this competition, before it did any more damage than me or my buddy Jay had already done to the vehicle over the years.
Not exactly, Alfred Hitchcock's redition of The Birds playing out in real life, but quite clearly I have shown the active and aggressive prejudice that birds have against people.
So last night before we went to sleep, my wife was telling me about some instances in life when she was growing up on a farm. Well, okay let me backtrack just a bit. The other night I was hungry and I was felling liek having some chicken for dinner. Well, for a few bucks you can get a nicely prepared Rotisserie Chicken from the grocery store. I threw on my shoes and a jacket and grabbed the car keys. My wife asked me where I was going. I told her I was going to pick up a chicken. She looked at me as though I was stupid. "WHAT?!?!"
"I'm going out to pick up a chicken," I stated pretty matter of factly.
"We don't have room for a chicken," she replied.
"What do you mean we don't have room for a chicken? I'm getting a rotisserie chicken from the store to EAT!"
"Oh...I thought you meant-"
"NO honey, I'm not the kind of guy who would bring a chicken to our apartment as a pet," I said. What is it about men and women trying to communicate cross-species like this. I'm hungry, she assumes I'm just following up on a crazy thought in my head. For the record, I generally don't follow up on crazy ideas. I just blog them here, so that you people can keep a good eye on me and my insanity. Anyways, back to last night...
One of the chores out on the farm for my wife and here family was the eventual evisceration of the walking poultry I prefer to call White Meat or Dark Meat (and throw in some mashed potatoes and gravy on the side). She explained the (cool to observe) phenomena of chickens who had just recently lost their heads. Apparently the saying "running around like a chicken with it's head cutoff" is based on reality. They just run round and round for a while. My wife told me that once, even as she ran in a zigzag pattern attempting to evade one headless chicken, it just kept right on her tail chasing her wherever she went. Radar equipped chickens can be scary business. "Goose, I've got lock...too close for missiles, I'm switching to guns."
She also told me about how the heads will just lay there on the ground for a bit, eyes blinking and the beak opening and shutting, until the chickens biological systems finally give out. Now I know how the chicken chased her. It's head was still able to see a little blonde girl who had just whacked his head off with a machete, and was using its last moments to hone its remote guidance system and direct the body after the chicken killer, hoping for revenge before the lights went out for good.
And now, I have an idea to get rich. I'm going to petition the government for research funds. The idea is to see if the chicken is still capable of getting scared, if I pick up its severed head and scream in its face. I figure abpout $10 million in grants should be good enough. I'l whack some chickens, pick up their heads, scream at them...and then declare the stucy inconclusive, and walk away rich. My only worry is that the chicken will scream back at me when it sees my ugly face up close, and the study will be conclusive that I do scare chickens, but not nearly as much as they scare me. I'll be forever known as the scared little chicken boy, but I'll have my money!
Then strange ideas kept creeping into my head as Dani was telling me these stories. Yeah yeah yeah, I know, big surprise right? Strangely they were all movie based.
I answered the phone, and on the other end of the voice was Golden Plump, played by Anthony Hopkins. "Hello Mookie...have the chickens stopped screaming yet?"
Or,
A troop of headless chickens trapping me in the castle, chanting (or rather wheezing like a retarded manatee like they apparently do) carrying their big fancy spears as the Wicked Chicken of the Midwest comes to snuff me out before I can get to to wonderful wizard in the Land of Oz, and go back home.
Or, in honor of my watching westerns:
Traveling in my Conestoga Wagon heading west, when all of a sudden the entire Foster Farms Nation came showing up on the ridge line. Headless chickens, everyone of them savage beasts, began to bear down on our little prairie party. As they approached, I prayed for God to breakout a thunderstorm and have these headless mongrels get dstracted by it and drown.
Or the zombie side of life:
We can't go outside just yet. We're safe here. We've got enough food to survive until help can come, and these old shotguns to defend ourselves should the zombie chickens attack. Just remember, body shots won't help. You have to separate their heads from their bodies, just like you learn in any good zombie flick.
"But Bob...They have no heads!"
"Well Sam, I guess that means we're just %$^&ed" Bloody gore ensues, part from the people being murdered by headless chickens...part from the blood coming up out of the headless chickens necks.
Or, a more happy story...
If You Build It They Will Come!!! Having toiled long and hard on a brand new state of the art chicken coop, I looked over yonder to the field of corn about 20 meters away. And then suddenly, headless chickens emerged from the cornfield. Strange that they had baseball gloves on their wings, and the ball caps kind of sat funny atop their necks. But the voices were right, I had built it and here they were Of course, I won't spoil the ending here, but lets say it has something to do with Chuck Norris jumping down from a nearby tree wielding a machete in each hand...I'll spare you the graphics and let you see the movie when it comes out.
Peacelovers everywhere would like to assume headless chickens are just misunderstood, and that we should all just get along. But when it comes to headless chickens, once I get over the laughter so hard that makes me giggle incesantly like a third grade girl for about 15 or 20 minutes before I can get ahold of myself, I am a hatemonger. I recognize those little bastards for what they are: Sadistic human-hating, feathered warmongers, plotting there revenge.
Mark my words, it will happen. You'll be outside enjoying the weather, maybe with your kids playing off in the distance. And then suddenly you'll get the feeling someone is watching you. You'l glance over and see a chicken head laying on the ground nearby, just blinking. You'll be distracted by this, and then, when you realize what's happened, it's too late. Your kids are gone. Out of the tree line, they come fast, neck skins flapping all over the place as headless chickens in a full sprint come to put you out of your miserable existence. People will look to the farmers as the one group of people capable of stopping this new scourge, but don't realize that the farmers were already taken out. Murdered in their sleep by vengeful Dark Meat Special Ops teams. And, these are powerful headless chickens. Raised up by Dr. Chickenstein himself, they thirst for one thing, well three things. They want you dead, some hot to trot hens, and a sasparilla. Because everyone knows that headless chickens can't deny themselves the tasty treat on a hot day of a Sioux City Sasparilla.
Once everything checked out okay, we proceed over to his place. They had some animals on their property, including a penned up turkey. My experience with turkeys at this point was Thanksgiving dinner. Cole decided we would go inside the pen, as he "had to feed the turkey." My job was to just usher it to the back of the pen. Being the big tough boy that I am, I thought this was a legitimate responsibility that I could handle. I step through the gate, and then, it closes behind me. I hear first laughter, and then experience fright as I hear and see a demon turkey coming after me in this tightly confined pen within a small shack. After 11 thanksgivings of me partaking of the turkey portions, I guess this was karmic revenge. This turley was going to carve me up and have me for dinner. No doubt he would've spoken in Satanistic tongues as he gave thanks to the Dark Lord of the Poultry Underworld. After being let out, I again almost beat the crap out my friend.
Fast forward about 12 years from the Day of the Turkey, and I am working a security gig at an office building in West Des Moines. Geese had begun nesting in the tree islands of the park lot. While I was patrolling the building, apparently one of the workers leaving the office thought that getting an up close and personal look at the geese would be a good idea. Then she got too close to one that was nesting. Out of nowhere the Gander swoops in and goes chest to chest with this lady, flaps its wings once, and the lady was on her backside. And this was no stick of a woman. She was short and a bit shall we say, on the thick side of things, with a nice low center of gravity. It wasn't until that day that I realized both the level of protectiveness and strength in geese. But let me tell you, the footage from the security cameras was played over and over that night as I and my partner had a good old time laughing at replay after replay of this gander absolutely owning this lady! When I left work that night, under the cover of darkness in my big old black Cutlass Supreme, I decided to venture towards the nest with my car, safely tucked inside the 2000 lbs of American built steel. Once I got close, out of nowhere again this gander comes to his maiden's rescue. This damn bird was ready, willing and did go toe to toe with my tank of a car. Once he realized that he might get run over, he shifted from a full frontal attack to beating the crap out of the front quarter panel with his wings, as he ran into the car repeatedly. I decided for the safety of my aging vehicle that I would bow out of this competition, before it did any more damage than me or my buddy Jay had already done to the vehicle over the years.
Not exactly, Alfred Hitchcock's redition of The Birds playing out in real life, but quite clearly I have shown the active and aggressive prejudice that birds have against people.
So last night before we went to sleep, my wife was telling me about some instances in life when she was growing up on a farm. Well, okay let me backtrack just a bit. The other night I was hungry and I was felling liek having some chicken for dinner. Well, for a few bucks you can get a nicely prepared Rotisserie Chicken from the grocery store. I threw on my shoes and a jacket and grabbed the car keys. My wife asked me where I was going. I told her I was going to pick up a chicken. She looked at me as though I was stupid. "WHAT?!?!"
"I'm going out to pick up a chicken," I stated pretty matter of factly.
"We don't have room for a chicken," she replied.
"What do you mean we don't have room for a chicken? I'm getting a rotisserie chicken from the store to EAT!"
"Oh...I thought you meant-"
"NO honey, I'm not the kind of guy who would bring a chicken to our apartment as a pet," I said. What is it about men and women trying to communicate cross-species like this. I'm hungry, she assumes I'm just following up on a crazy thought in my head. For the record, I generally don't follow up on crazy ideas. I just blog them here, so that you people can keep a good eye on me and my insanity. Anyways, back to last night...
One of the chores out on the farm for my wife and here family was the eventual evisceration of the walking poultry I prefer to call White Meat or Dark Meat (and throw in some mashed potatoes and gravy on the side). She explained the (cool to observe) phenomena of chickens who had just recently lost their heads. Apparently the saying "running around like a chicken with it's head cutoff" is based on reality. They just run round and round for a while. My wife told me that once, even as she ran in a zigzag pattern attempting to evade one headless chicken, it just kept right on her tail chasing her wherever she went. Radar equipped chickens can be scary business. "Goose, I've got lock...too close for missiles, I'm switching to guns."
She also told me about how the heads will just lay there on the ground for a bit, eyes blinking and the beak opening and shutting, until the chickens biological systems finally give out. Now I know how the chicken chased her. It's head was still able to see a little blonde girl who had just whacked his head off with a machete, and was using its last moments to hone its remote guidance system and direct the body after the chicken killer, hoping for revenge before the lights went out for good.
And now, I have an idea to get rich. I'm going to petition the government for research funds. The idea is to see if the chicken is still capable of getting scared, if I pick up its severed head and scream in its face. I figure abpout $10 million in grants should be good enough. I'l whack some chickens, pick up their heads, scream at them...and then declare the stucy inconclusive, and walk away rich. My only worry is that the chicken will scream back at me when it sees my ugly face up close, and the study will be conclusive that I do scare chickens, but not nearly as much as they scare me. I'll be forever known as the scared little chicken boy, but I'll have my money!
Then strange ideas kept creeping into my head as Dani was telling me these stories. Yeah yeah yeah, I know, big surprise right? Strangely they were all movie based.
I answered the phone, and on the other end of the voice was Golden Plump, played by Anthony Hopkins. "Hello Mookie...have the chickens stopped screaming yet?"
Or,
A troop of headless chickens trapping me in the castle, chanting (or rather wheezing like a retarded manatee like they apparently do) carrying their big fancy spears as the Wicked Chicken of the Midwest comes to snuff me out before I can get to to wonderful wizard in the Land of Oz, and go back home.
Or, in honor of my watching westerns:
Traveling in my Conestoga Wagon heading west, when all of a sudden the entire Foster Farms Nation came showing up on the ridge line. Headless chickens, everyone of them savage beasts, began to bear down on our little prairie party. As they approached, I prayed for God to breakout a thunderstorm and have these headless mongrels get dstracted by it and drown.
Or the zombie side of life:
We can't go outside just yet. We're safe here. We've got enough food to survive until help can come, and these old shotguns to defend ourselves should the zombie chickens attack. Just remember, body shots won't help. You have to separate their heads from their bodies, just like you learn in any good zombie flick.
"But Bob...They have no heads!"
"Well Sam, I guess that means we're just %$^&ed" Bloody gore ensues, part from the people being murdered by headless chickens...part from the blood coming up out of the headless chickens necks.
Or, a more happy story...
If You Build It They Will Come!!! Having toiled long and hard on a brand new state of the art chicken coop, I looked over yonder to the field of corn about 20 meters away. And then suddenly, headless chickens emerged from the cornfield. Strange that they had baseball gloves on their wings, and the ball caps kind of sat funny atop their necks. But the voices were right, I had built it and here they were Of course, I won't spoil the ending here, but lets say it has something to do with Chuck Norris jumping down from a nearby tree wielding a machete in each hand...I'll spare you the graphics and let you see the movie when it comes out.
Peacelovers everywhere would like to assume headless chickens are just misunderstood, and that we should all just get along. But when it comes to headless chickens, once I get over the laughter so hard that makes me giggle incesantly like a third grade girl for about 15 or 20 minutes before I can get ahold of myself, I am a hatemonger. I recognize those little bastards for what they are: Sadistic human-hating, feathered warmongers, plotting there revenge.
Mark my words, it will happen. You'll be outside enjoying the weather, maybe with your kids playing off in the distance. And then suddenly you'll get the feeling someone is watching you. You'l glance over and see a chicken head laying on the ground nearby, just blinking. You'll be distracted by this, and then, when you realize what's happened, it's too late. Your kids are gone. Out of the tree line, they come fast, neck skins flapping all over the place as headless chickens in a full sprint come to put you out of your miserable existence. People will look to the farmers as the one group of people capable of stopping this new scourge, but don't realize that the farmers were already taken out. Murdered in their sleep by vengeful Dark Meat Special Ops teams. And, these are powerful headless chickens. Raised up by Dr. Chickenstein himself, they thirst for one thing, well three things. They want you dead, some hot to trot hens, and a sasparilla. Because everyone knows that headless chickens can't deny themselves the tasty treat on a hot day of a Sioux City Sasparilla.
Friday, October 16, 2009
If you could help out and/or pass along...
My friends, Jay and Naomi Burns, are currently in the process of adopting two adorable girls from Ethiopia. As with any adoption, in order to ensure children make it into a good, quality home environment with responsible parents; many forms, policies and processes are involved, and can make the cost of adoption rather expensive. Despite this fact, they are determined to keep on course to start their family. And my family is currently helping out where we can, including facilitating more channels where ever possible to help them out along this wonderful journey.
So if you can, read the following excerpt which I have copied from their adoption blog http://burnsadoption.blogspot.com/ . If you can find it in your heart to help out with their latest fundraiser, I know they'd really appreciate it, and so would I. You can also reprint this and pass it along to others, as a way that they can help, or even show ideas of how anyone you know who might be looking into adoption can work towards their goals.
Please Read Below, and Thank You:
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It will be official tomorrow. We are accepting our placement. As mentioned below, Ethiopia does not allow us to publicly post photos, but we will have a picture with us and close to our hearts. We can send a personal e-mail of a photo. If you would like this, please let us know and give us your e-mail account.
Here's how you can help. Our next fundraiser starts tonight! We have purchased a 500 piece puzzle (below). We will put the puzzle together and hang it in the girls' room. You can adopt a puzzle piece(s) for $5 each. Simply click the pay pal link on the right and make a donation. When you adopt a piece, your name will be written on the back.
If you would like to go above and beyond purchasing a piece, forward our blog and info to your friends. Post it on your facebook, tweet it...etc. We appreciate all of the help that we can get. We need to raise $15k in the next 4 month. This is one of four fundraisers planned.
40 of 500 pieces have been sold so far! Thank you for your donations! If you have not purchased your piece, click on the PayPal link on the right to donate. You DO NOT need a PayPal account to donate, just a debit or credit card. If you would rather send a check in the mail, make it out to:
Ethiopian Hope Adoptions
822 Jonathon Road
Powell, WY 82435
This goes through Harvest Church in Billings, MT (www.harvestweb.net) and these checks are tax deductible. Donations made through PayPal are not tax deductible. If you are mailing us a check, please write on a separate sheet of paper the name(s) you would like to have written on the puzzle for your donation. Again, THANK YOU for all of your help!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All payment methods and links for PayPal can be found on Jay and Naomi's Adoption blog here and not on this blog. Again, Thank You very much.
So if you can, read the following excerpt which I have copied from their adoption blog http://burnsadoption.blogspot.com/ . If you can find it in your heart to help out with their latest fundraiser, I know they'd really appreciate it, and so would I. You can also reprint this and pass it along to others, as a way that they can help, or even show ideas of how anyone you know who might be looking into adoption can work towards their goals.
Please Read Below, and Thank You:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It will be official tomorrow. We are accepting our placement. As mentioned below, Ethiopia does not allow us to publicly post photos, but we will have a picture with us and close to our hearts. We can send a personal e-mail of a photo. If you would like this, please let us know and give us your e-mail account.
Here's how you can help. Our next fundraiser starts tonight! We have purchased a 500 piece puzzle (below). We will put the puzzle together and hang it in the girls' room. You can adopt a puzzle piece(s) for $5 each. Simply click the pay pal link on the right and make a donation. When you adopt a piece, your name will be written on the back.
If you would like to go above and beyond purchasing a piece, forward our blog and info to your friends. Post it on your facebook, tweet it...etc. We appreciate all of the help that we can get. We need to raise $15k in the next 4 month. This is one of four fundraisers planned.
40 of 500 pieces have been sold so far! Thank you for your donations! If you have not purchased your piece, click on the PayPal link on the right to donate. You DO NOT need a PayPal account to donate, just a debit or credit card. If you would rather send a check in the mail, make it out to:
Ethiopian Hope Adoptions
822 Jonathon Road
Powell, WY 82435
This goes through Harvest Church in Billings, MT (www.harvestweb.net) and these checks are tax deductible. Donations made through PayPal are not tax deductible. If you are mailing us a check, please write on a separate sheet of paper the name(s) you would like to have written on the puzzle for your donation. Again, THANK YOU for all of your help!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All payment methods and links for PayPal can be found on Jay and Naomi's Adoption blog here and not on this blog. Again, Thank You very much.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Comments from the Bug
Okay, so my five year old, Corwyn aka Buggy, has had some interesting insights over the past few weeks. I've decided to share a few examples.
1. During suppertime, or rather after for him, Buggy announces that his stomach hurts, so he must have to go poopie. He is in there awhile, and announces that his mission was unsuccessful. His solution: "I need to lay down on the couch for a bit until my belly melts the food into poop."
2. "Hey, I'm 5. I KNOW!" (apparently intellect comes merely with age)
3. "Hey! I'm SEERious!" (His greatest and last argument for telling uncle Jay that he needs to ride in the bed of the pickup- he lost)
4. After a serious debate with his brother about Devil's Tower being where the devil lives (or something similar. I sort of zoned out of it all), we hike the trail around the base of the tower. While going around, Bug falls behinds, and I slow down so as not to lose him. He decides he wants to pose on one of the rocks he climbed all by himself for a picture. But I do not have the camera, so he just looks at me, holds both hands up giving the peace sign (only his palms faced toward him, instead of out at me) and says in a sinister voice "The Devvvvilllll"
5. Both my kids enjoyed the rock climbing while on vacation. It turns out my oldest son, Josh, (who can trip over his own feet on a flat surface, and has a tendency to walk sideways if he gets distracted) is like a mountain goat on the rocks. It's really pretty impressive. Corwyn on the other hand, who has oftentimes found himself to small and short to participate in some activities, has developed a chip on his shoulder to prove to the world that he can do pretty much anything he wants. Jay Burns, myself, and my two boys are climbing rock outcroppings, while my wife is off somewhere taking photographs. We go up one outcropping just to find another that will take us higher. Jay and I are watching to make sure the boys dont take any undue risks, like accidental freefall canyon jumping or something equally as dangerous. We reach one rock fack that goes pretty much straight up. Bug begins to climb onto some footholds in an attempt to get ahead of his older brother. Well, it doesn't look all that safe to me. (from the same dad who has suggested that the kids should be playing on the freeway at least once, and threatened his own mother with the same ideas when he was younger and more agile) Looking over about 10 meters to our left, we see an easier way to get to the top. Buggy is having none of it. "I'm DOING IT...BY MYSELF...don't need your help"
And do it he did. Of course, not to be out-manly manned by a 5 year old, Jay and I were forced to make the same climb. With some of our hand and footholds, we found that they supported a 40 lb-er pretty easy, but acted as though they didn't want to have anything to do with us heavier, older guys. I can see it now, me and Jay crumpled in a heap at the bottom from falling when a rock gave way, and Buggy standing at the top with an evil grin, flashing his fingers and saying "The Devvilll!"
Friday, July 24, 2009
Camping in the heart of Bear Country
Well, for your entertainment, you lucky few who got in on the ground floor of this blog....HEre I am, decked out in high fashion with Doggles. Yes, I said Doggles...when your dog rides on the back of your 4 wheeler, and he needs to keep all that dust and dirt out of his eyes, turn to Doggles, the optimum product for Canine recreation optical protection. With state of the art plastic lenses, some straps and a few other things made from aritificial materials, how can you go wrong? Doggles....available where ever they are sold. And now, back to Bob Barker with a message about spaying and neutering your pets...Jay's mom and stepdad came out to the campsite for supper, along with a couple other friends of theirs. Oh yes...I was surrounded by America loving hatemongers. It really was such a horrible experience, having to surrounded by essentially like minded people. And then there was Jay's mom, Linda. Oh yes, the woman who was my 2nd mom, and had tanned my hide on more than just one occasion after getting caught messing up with her boys. (I swear, trouble found us and wouldn't leave us alone..but did SHE believe us...noooooo, its always, "you boy's are gonna knock this stuff off RIGHT now"...suuuure mom! we'll get right on that.) Besides my parents, Jay's parents also suffered from enjoying child abuse just a bit too much. Clearly we were innocent victims of their mental illness. Didn't clean your room... beating. Peed on your little brother or sister for fun and then got ratted out...beating. Ratted out little brother for peeing on you...called a tattle tale, and then beaten. Didn't eat all the stuff on your plate, or skipped the 'nasty stuff' to get to dessert...beating. Oh YES, dear Mama Linda apparently being a grandmother cures that abusive nature.
You see, Linda was sitting across the table from Buggy during supper that night. I noticed conspiracy goings-on from there section of our camp (all good hatemongers develop the ability to see conspiracies at every turn you know). I couldnt figure it out, but there was a long time between Buggy starting his hot dog and finishing it. I clearly spelled it out for him that he ate the HotDog, then Fran's famous pork and beans (now made without gas!), and then he could have the chips on his plate. Linda was looking pretty suspicious and guilty everytime I looked over at her. I didn't know what was going on, but something was definitely going on. LAter on, with my super detective skills (also read lucky happenstance), Linda confessed to the crime of feeding Cheetos to Buggy under the table. It really was almost hypocritic treason. This was the same lady who threatened no dessert if we didnt finish our plates, and here she is, 20some years later feeding snack food to my youngest, on demand. I really couldn't believe this, and as I instructed Buggy as to the nature of getting his food eaten, Linda looks right at me and tells me to stay out of it. WHAAAAAT? Just as I felt I was losing the parental battle of wills to the child and his surrogate grandmother, a hero comes to my rescue. Chad, Linda's husband immediately looked Linda dead int he eyes and says "exactly". He had told her to follow her own advice and did so without coming off overbearing or nasty about it. But the message was clear. When in the outdoors, MEN run this world! Thanks Chad!
And the rest of these are views from our camping area. Pretty nice area around Deer Creek. But dont let that fool you...we were clearly warned that we were in the heart of bear country, and were reminded of that by the big metal box in the middle of our campsite that was specifically for placing our stuff into for protection from any bears that might be dumb enough to wander into our campsite. Not that it matters, WE'd just wake up Josh and Buggy, and send them out armed with sticks and rocks to teach that dumb bear a lesson. If that didn't work, well, us adults would clearly have a head start on the kids...(I'M JUST KIDDING...now I know I'll be getting a phone call from my mother telling me just how 'not funny' that is..oh well).You'll see, being rich elitists like we are, we got the mansion of all tents....yep, plenty of room, including a 'closet' and a little connected entry mat....I thought about taking some paint and painting "Welcome" on it, but then I realized I had a mental lapse in how the social order of things go, and that I hate people, especially those in the lower socio-economic levels, like my buddy Jay, who could only afford this little dinky tent, emblazoned with Hillary's political propoganda. But, I still associate with him, after all, he did save my life back in the Great Ravine Wars, so he squeezes through. Other than that, only rich country clubbers fit into my social circle. And of course even they don't get to just drop in unannounced. They have to call my secretary and schedule an appointment prior to even thinking about coming over. That includes during emergencies as well. Hell, I make my wife schedule her personal time with me, thats how important I am!
Now, to assure my manliness, let me tell you what happened that night. I was awoken my my keen sense of manliness which told me that I had to pee, and doing so inside the tent was probably not the best way to go. I may have come out to Wyoming to poke a bear, but irritating a wife by peeing on her is probably going to bring about a much worse fate. No matter how manly a guy is, this is a stupid idea, and any false sense of manliness would be exposed So I unzipped the entry and proceeded outside. WE had already been pestered by this random cat who spent most of the night yowling all over the place, looking for someone to pay attention to him or her. However, as I was outside watering a couple plants, I heard no cat, but many sticks snapping. My mind was messing with me hardcore. Had a bear come down out of the hills to see what's going to be his late night snack? I spent time divided convincing myself it was nothing, and wondering if I wasn't an idiot for dismissing the posssibility of a bear coming up behind me. Then the oddest thought came to my head. I have the canister of Bear Mace tucked under one arm while doing my business. Now, as any guy will attest, once we start, we like to finish uninterrupted. Cutting off the stream can be painful and is to be avoided at all costs. But what if a bear did show up behind me. Would I sacrifice my sense of relief watering-wise and turn on this bear with the mace? Would I use just one hand to mace the bear while finishing my business? Or would I turn around, drop the mace can and just pee on the bear? And would either of these options workout for the best?
Sure this seems like an awful lot of thinking to have been performed while merely taking a leak, but I assure you, I had been hydrating myself pretty well as of late. So, now that you have clear visions of me urinating while wearing Doggles, have a GREAT DAY!
Monday, June 29, 2009
My Sister Is Trying To Upstage ME!!
So, after months of reading my worthwhile and very, very intellectual material on this great little page of mine. My sister, Becky, has decided to use a lot of her free time at home in a manner that makes her seem more productive than she really is. Yep, she's blogging too.
Apparently, her pregnancy and being a stay at home wife (soon to be stay at home mom) left her in a rather odd predicament. While her husband slaves away at his cool, but VERY DEMANDING job at NASA, she fools around online looking at meaningless websites..well besides mine of course..and she eats weird combinations of food. Well, finally she got a crisis of conscience. She realizes that her home does not look like your average made for TV home of neat and tidy. So the dilemma presented itself....in the true fashion of our family, she asked herself, "What can I do to avoid actually doing housework?"
So yes, she started a blog. All to avoid housework that lays there waiting to be done all day long while she does. What is it that she does? Oh yeah, nothing!
You can find it in my blogs of note on the left hand side of this page under Becky's Blog of Randomness
There you will find a blog about her gender-mentality crisis, her explanantion of why she is blogging (if i remember correctly she takes a shot at me in this one), and a new recipe she and her husband tried out the other night.
So yeah, go check it out..and if you don't like it blame Jay. He got me started, and I got my sister going (she's even wondering if she'll ever have any readers besides me), ergo Jay made Becky blog....he's an evil monkey like that.
Apparently, her pregnancy and being a stay at home wife (soon to be stay at home mom) left her in a rather odd predicament. While her husband slaves away at his cool, but VERY DEMANDING job at NASA, she fools around online looking at meaningless websites..well besides mine of course..and she eats weird combinations of food. Well, finally she got a crisis of conscience. She realizes that her home does not look like your average made for TV home of neat and tidy. So the dilemma presented itself....in the true fashion of our family, she asked herself, "What can I do to avoid actually doing housework?"
So yes, she started a blog. All to avoid housework that lays there waiting to be done all day long while she does. What is it that she does? Oh yeah, nothing!
You can find it in my blogs of note on the left hand side of this page under Becky's Blog of Randomness
There you will find a blog about her gender-mentality crisis, her explanantion of why she is blogging (if i remember correctly she takes a shot at me in this one), and a new recipe she and her husband tried out the other night.
So yeah, go check it out..and if you don't like it blame Jay. He got me started, and I got my sister going (she's even wondering if she'll ever have any readers besides me), ergo Jay made Becky blog....he's an evil monkey like that.
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