Terrorist Acts By Bats!!!

As most of you know by now, I'm your average run of the mill rentacop. I drive around, mostly looking pretty, and check to make sure clients' businesses and homes are secure all night. One of my other duties is to respond to alarms at these places. I get the call, go to the alarm, make sure everything is good, or if a bad guy shows up, do something about it...like call the actual cops. Real Hero stuff, and all for $9.50 per hour!!!

Well, the other day, I am walking around a client's house. She moved to another part of town, and left this house in a rather affluent neighborhood which is up for sale. We used to just drive into the driveway and that was it. One day the realtor left the front door open after a showing, and some kids decided to take advantage of the new party spot, henceforth we do full walk arounds every shift now. Anyways, I'm walking around this house, and as I check the front door, I notice something on the board trim above the door and underneath the overhang. I shine my flashlight up there to see what it is, and RIGHT FOR MY NOSE, this bat does some aerial ninja stuff off the ledge, scares the hell out of me, and after backing me off disappears into the trees. Okay, no big deal...

Then came last night. I am sent on a non-identifiable motion alarm to the Hoyt Sherman Foundation house. This place was built by a Civil War General way back when. There are stories, but only word of mouth (I checked for stories online, but came up with nothing), about it being considered possibly haunted-worthy. Mostly centered around a supposed illegitimate boy, affectionately named Chicken Boy, between General Sherman and his daughter. Anyways... this place has a theatre section (which I've attended functions at before) as well as the house, which included an art displaying addition. The place freaks me out, because it does indeed look as haunted worthy as almost any other place I've seen. It's big, with lots of rooms, lots of passageways from random spots in the building, and really friggin dark inside.

Well, my supervisor shows up and decides to escort me through the place. My manly macho attitude goes right out the window here, and more than welcomes the company. We check the outside, and verify that the theatre section is not in alarm. So we enter the house and check out rooms. The alarm pad says the mirror room is the point of alarm (why the security monitoring company can't figure this out is beyond me), but that helps about as much as the security monitor's ineptness. We find a door that leads up to a previously existing belltower. The tower was removed, and the roof resealed (albeit probably not all that well) at a lower level, but the door to it is still there. I open it up, and inside is a bat swooping around acting as a sentry. I quickly shut the door trapping the bat away from us. We check soem more rooms and are in the main upper hallway next to the stairwell, when it happens. A big freaking 747 divebombs us, swoops out and around and continues to make runs at our head. Apparently this was a training exercise and the airborne intruder is not armed to the hilt, otherwise we surely would have been strafed to our deaths.
This is one big friggin bat. I thought at first maybe Batman was real, but then realized Batman doesnt attack rentacops, and we hadn't activated the Bat Signal yet anyways. Then of course I thought that if Chicken Boy had truly disappeared, that this bat had been feasting on him to get that big. I mean seriously, the thing was THIS (stretching my hands out) big!

My supervisor, Casey, attempted to fend off the bat with his mag-lite. Yeah, that only pisses bats off apparently. You just don't antagonize a bat. That big bastard ended up chasing us downstairs and continuing the constant harrassment. Casey beat feet right past me and out into the kitchen, which is apparently out of bounds for the bat, which left me at the bottom of the staircase, crouched low, and stretching with everything I had to hit the lightswitch to the off position. I clicked the switch, and ran underneath the swooping bat into the kitchen myself. Apparently bored with us quitters, the bat disappeared up the stairwell and into the darkness. THANK GOD! We got permission from the keyholder to arm the perimeter, rather than chase down the bat and evict him just to set up the entire alarm system. Again..THANK GOD. That bat surely would've eaten us, or given us rabies.

I'm not so sure I signed up for this stuff, at least not without being allowed to carry around some anti-aircraft guns!

Guilt Wars: Revenge of the Men

The other day Jay Burns wrote of an experience he had involving an ATV rollover accident that injured his wife. After she realized that this was an unsuccessful assassination attempt, she quickly resorted to tactics straight out of the Women's Handbook For Embattled Marriages. As most of you are aware, all women have a complete education on how to be a lady, as well as how to handle her husband in all situations, and other odd know-hows. I'm pretty sure this all sprung up during the heated days of the Feminist Movement, but since they don't copyright these things, we can never truly be sure.

And of course, guys, we don't need a book to tell us how to handle things. We're naturally equipped with common sense with a little bit of random advice from those guys we call Dad and Grandpa. We're pretty sure some lady once overheard this advice being given out, wrote it down and commenced authoring the future counter-offensives to be used on our particular generation of men. But I digress...

As Jay writes in the final paragraph of his article:

However, not wanting a good crisis to go to waste my wife is getting some really good "guilt mileage" out of the incident. Examples include; waking in the middle of the night, then waking me, pointing at the barely scratched elbow, making a pout face, and saying oh so sweetly, "will YOU get me a drink of water, It hurts too bad to get up."

For us guys being the more logical and less emotional gender, women sure have a way of projecting guilt into our souls. I can't quite figure out how they do it, but they do it, and WELL!

Well, as any good Star Wars movie will tell you, even though one side wins in the first movie, the other side will come back with a vengeance. And this last Friday, it happened. The kids spent the week at my folks place, I was sleeping prior to my overnight work shift that starts at midnight. So, my wife decides this will be a great opportunity to go visit some friends of hers. I wake up at 11pm and find the house quiet. I also find a note saying where she went and that she will be back in time to feed me (like all good wives should do for their husbands) before I go to work. Okay, things are good, she'll be home any minute to make me supper. Earlier that morning she asked me what I wanted for supper, so I'm expecting some rice dish with some meat, as requested. Well 11:30 rolls around, and no wife. I give her a call, and she informs me that she is on her way home, and also inquires if I'm mad at her for being late. "Just a little bit." We hang up, and I continue getting dressed, sure that she will stop at a fast food joint and pick me up some supper for the road so that I might eat and still be to work on time. She arrives home, and *GASP* No food!!!!! She has a sad look on her face, and I have a very undisguised look of being pissed off on mine. I leave without much to say, and not hiding my irritation. Her last look is of total dejection, as I didn't even give her a goodnight kiss before leaving. Probably a no-no on my part, but I was mad and didn't care.

I come home the next morning from work, after stopping off to change the oil in the car, so we can go up to my folks to get the kids. On the way out of town we gas up, grab some drinks, and I had to rush into the gas station to make sure I was actually going to get something to eat. She had procured herself a sandwich, but I saw nothing on the counter for me. I grabbed a donut. From noon on Friday to 1030am on Saturday, all I was eating was a donut? Something is wrong here. We talk some more. She tells me how she didn't sleep well the night before. I asked as to the reason, which she didn't know. I suggested that maybe she was racked with guilt. She assented that guilt may have played a part in it.

Eventually I went ahead and forgave her. But I didn't hesitate to jab with it a bit from time to time. She said since I forgave her and she accepted it, there was no guilt. But oh, my dear, dear readers, there is still vestiges of guilt trailing behind in the subconscious. The next time she goes out with friends and I'm left sleeping, unknowing of her adventures, she will think about it and remember to make sure it doesn't happen again. Oh yes, the guilt will remain whether she admits/likes it or not!!!

So Jay, I dedicate this guilt wars victory in your honor. Love it, appreciate it, and most of all, don't tell your wife, otherwise we may be in for yet another sequel that doesn't work in our favor!

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!"

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!

More from Yellowstone

We conducted a participant survey while in Yellowstone. It turns out that 5 out 5 Ground Squirrels prefer Nacho Cheese Doritos over the leading brands. I had one come up and sniff my leg and begin to beg for a handout. But then the people who's truck was parked next to Jay's showed up and scared the little bugger off. Obviously they are nature haters, and against interspecies diplomacy. Damn hatemongers!
After a few days, you can see that Jay was clearly tired of me being around and proceeded to kick me off a canyon cliff. He told me it was nothing personal but he "likes the wife and kids much better."
You ever wonder how a 5 year old manages to have total energy after a long day of traveling about??? Well, my kid has learned to flash his grill and take full advantage of his aunt and uncle (although in this one its me actually toting the little scheister around) and get them to give him rides everywhere we have to go on foot. At least as long as there isn't rocks to be climbed, or animal poop to be thrown.



And here we have Nomi and Jay standing outside enjoying the scenery I'm sure they take for granted now. Of course Jay has his morning coffee, otherwise he would have been the first bear I would have had to poke. And I would've been kicked off the cliff a lot quicker.

Visit to Yellowstone

Here you will fidn the most modern of abodes where we spent the night during our entire trip, our friend Naomi's place. Her hubby, my buddy Jay also gets the privilege of living here. I'd say he definitely got the good end of the deal here...a beautiful wife and a nice place she allows him to stay in!! They were gracious enough to open up their house to us while we were in the area for a few days, and take us everywhere. Talk about good gas mileage. Sitting in the driveway for 4 days really makes the travel cheap! When we weren't out exploring, we played a new game to me called Cardbles (at least I think that's how you spell it). The first night, Jed and I thought we were pretty cool, defeating our wive's soundly. Our last night there, the wive's returned the favor. I'm pretty sure they cheated, as they took our color of marbles this time around, as well as other un-provable ways to cheat. So we stand at 2 wins and 2 losses. Now I have to go back so we can hash this out and find a clear victor.

Here you will find that the normally wide awake and on the go Buggy even found that 6am can be just a bit to early sometimes. Apparently full days of hiking and climbing on rocks to throw stones off took its toll on his body. His older brother on the otherhand, seemed rather ecstatic about being in the front seat of the truck with us men.

Well it took us about 12 hours of going all over Yellowstone, but it finally happened. While I was fully prepared to write a scathing letter to the Wyoming Board of Tourism and their role in hiding all the bears from me, we finally found one. Thanks to the keen eye of my buddy Jay, he spotted this grizzly about 100 yards up a wooded draw, digging in the ground for grubs. It was a dream come true for my vacation out here. As promised, I poked a bear! Not to be outdone, both my sons saddled up and rode the bears. SHOWOFFS!


Of course we saw Old Faithful. This was well before the "bear incident". At first we had to wait about an hour, then they started getting sketchy on the +/- ratio of when it might happen. Then it began, sputtered, and disappeared...repeatedly. Naomi looked over at me, and sympathetically apologized to me, as there had been no bears and now Old Faithful was appearing to be broken during my first ever visit. Clearly the State of Wyoming was conspiring against me. But, eventually Old Faithful erupted. I guess the valve release operator (come on, we all know the 'natural' process being so timely is one of many government funded conspiracies) took a little longer on his smoke break than initially anticipated. Maybe his buffalo burger was a bit undercooked and he was dealing with certain lower GI issues? I don't know for sure, but he finally cracked open the valve and we got to see the eruption.
We sawe a bunch of people parked alongside the road, and found out there were a couple elk hanging out underneath a couple trees on the hillside. My wife got a great picture of one of them here. They still have the felt on their antlers. Pretty cool. And colorful steampots are okay, but the smell....woof! You'll also see a picture of some buffalos roaming around some steampots on the opposite side of the river. Two things you wont see in this picture are somewhat amusing and disturbing at the same time. We had 3 buffalos downstream from us, and eventually they attempted to outflank us and trap us from escape to the truck, and keep us between them and the river. Buffalos, being about the size of a tank had apparently been doing some battlefield reading in their downtime. Rommel, you magnificent sonofabitch! I read your book!
And the other incident unphotoed of course was Buggy, who chucked a big rock into the stream. What he didn't realize was that 'big rock' was actually a nice pie left by the buffalo at an earlier time. YUCK!

Wyoming- Part II

SO most of these pictures came from a daytrip my buddy Jay took us on our first day at his place. This monument stone, while unreadable here, denotes this place as Dead Indian Summit. Apparently during the Nez Perce march away from Union soldiers, one had been injured and left at this summit, where he was found dead by the soldiers. And thus came its name. It is along the St Joseph Scenic Byway.
And here is one picture of a cactus and its rosebloom, one of many dotting the landscape in this particular area.
A look over the river canyon. As usual, us boys just need some good rocks to be out on, and Buggy of course is quite content chucking rocks into the river. Ahhh, to be a 5 year od again, when the biggest decision of life is "Which rock should I throw over the edge first?"

And finally a nice look over the mountain ranges lying in the Yellowstone National Park area ahead of us.