"Oh this? I'm going hunting after work...

As is my practice, when it rains, it pours! I go a long time with nothing, then BAM! two posts. (I'm becoming the Emeril of blogdom) This post has none of the sentimentality and richness of the last post. Whereas the last post was a soothing ballad, this is a "Larry the Cable Guy" fart. How do I know this before writing anything? Well, my mind fills up with ideas much like a septic system fills up. After a while, it'll need emptied. With much of the same contents!

To those of you who know me well, know that I have been wearing overalls to work for over 25 years. It started as a way to keep all my jeans from getting indelible grease spots and fusee burns and became a way for a fat guy to be comfortable without having to wear a belt. I only wore striped ones when dad gave his to me when he retired. Otherwise, it was always blue denim. They're not cheap, costing between $25 and $50. Wal-Mart sells them for around $30 but the size I wore was bigger than the largest size they carry. I mention this because I have decided to quit wearing overalls to work for awhile. I'm wearing carpenter-type work jeans instead. The reasoning is simple. I have seven pairs of overalls at home that are too big on me. They range from 58X30 to 44X30. I've decided that until my weight has stabilized where I want it, I'll stick to the $15 jeans instead of the $45 overalls. How will I carry all the crap I'm required to without the extra pockets of overalls?

Simple, I bought one of those high-visibility vests at Wal-Mart for $8. Jeez, the way some of my co-workers reacted, you'ld think I slapped their kids or something! You see, there is one railroad, the Canadian National, that requires their train employees to wear these HI-VIZ vests. Employees of the other major roads are waiting for when they'll have to wear them also. The employees of Chicken-Shit-Xpress is no different. They think that if only one bozo (yours truly) voluntarily wore an orange vest, then everyone would be required to wear one tomorrow! Some even thought that the order was out to wear them already. Their questions (and the answers I SHOULD have give) ranged from "What are you wearing that #W$%^& thing for?" (It was on the top of the pile.) "Where did you get that?" (The vest fairy put it under my pillow.) and "I suppose we'll all have to wear that!" (Not you. You're too fat to fit in my vest!) Usually, after their initial stupid question, then a pleasant conversation about my reasoning ensued. I told them I chose HI-VIZ orange because the railroad used HI-VIZ yellow. I would've preferred a khaki vest but they are way too expensive for a poor conductor to afford. I usually say that I was looking for a pink vest because of breast cancer awareness because nobody is more aware of breasts than me! Also, I can wear my orange vest when I go mushroom hunting and maybe I won't get shot by a hunter who mistook me for a big, big bunny. Probably not. Hunters wear orange-camo clothes. How stupid is that? Stand by an orange bush and a deer will never notice you!

At work, alot of people lately tell me they didn't recognize me. (My plan is to diet myself into anonymity!) I usually say "Oh." to get them to explain. You see, I want to know if it has to do with my recent weight loss or the fact that they have never seen me before with regular clothes on. It usually turns out that they didn't recognize me with my eyes open!

HELLO! My name is: max

Note: I wrote this on June 25th and never got around to posting it. I'm posting it now because: A) This is the first time I've opened my journal in a month. B) I like it, and C) Becky, who goes by Rebecca, has become my Facebook friend. I may be Mr. Procrastination, but I am firmly rooted in the belief of fate and coincidences. As an aside to an avid fan, "Sorry Fuzzy. No meat here!"

Usually when I blog about a particular subject, I tell a small story about something I saw or something that happened to me and segue into whatever I'm ranting about that day. A little while ago I wrote an entry in my journal about how patience has evolved out of the American culture and it ended up as a rant about the greedy and corrupt Republicans. I had been trying to write that story for months but I couldn't come up with an opening story that linked me with impatience. It seems that I am the epitome of patient understanding. I finally made up a story but a blog entry based on a falsehood is doomed to fail. Yeah, I could've entered it and you all would've nodded and said "You tell 'em fat boy!" when you finished it.

Like most people, my attention span collapsed like that bridge in Minneapolis. My engineer mentioned that one of my old buddies lives down the road from him up by Waterloo. I thought all my friends had more class than to live near Waterloo but one must've slipped through the cracks. The guy he was talking about is Tom Thrush. I haven't seen Tom in years. Tom's wife, Becky was also one of my classmates and when I think of Becky I think of "class" and "style", two words that have never come up when you Google Tom's name. The reason that I'm mentioning Tom and giving him his 15 seconds of blog fame is that, as I get older, I am more interested in what happened to the people I knew when I was younger. The last time I saw Tom, for instance, was in the barbershop about 10 years ago. Him and Becky never go to class reunions and even Stan Pence probably doesn't have their e-mail addresses. The great thing about blogs and Facebook pages is you see how life has treated those you knew years ago. You have a chance to see pictures of their families, learn what matters. I'd like to learn more about those who populated my youth. My daughter, Shannon, has created the web page for the Garrett High School Alumnae Association and they have a feature where you can update where your life has taken you and tell what you are doing. You can include pictures too. Jenny has updated hers. Not one person in my class has done it.

Think of the stigma it would cast on everyone else if I were the first person in the Class of '71 to enter personal information. Me. Mr. Procrastination. The shame they would feel would be palpable. I'll try not to cause them any distress. Every class reunion brings someone you haven't seen in ages that is a pleasant surprise. Eight years ago it was Pam Cutler and the last one was Marston Greenawalt. Not having seen Marston in 30 years, I had to get his name off his name tag. Like all of us, he wasn't remarkable, just interesting. You look at me and you see someone you knew a long time ago. No big whoop, you say. But take a look at a picture of my wife, kids and their families and you see the pride of my life. You know that I work on the railroad and you think that I've probably coasted through life but look at my family and you see a life that has been lived with a purpose, with meaning, with pride.

I would like to see that of my classmates. Maybe by the next reunion, we could come up with a collection of family pictures, with everyone labelled and identified. It would bring a new dimension to those 12 years we spent together nearly 40 years ago.

The cat ate my journal!!

While I was relaxing in the motel in Chicago the other night before I went to bed, I was watching a self-help program on PBS. The guy was telling us how we can become the perfect person. How we could go through life, accomplishing everything, forgetting or postponing nothing and being hyper-successful. He listed the sixteen excuses people make and gave counter arguments to each excuse. He was trying to create a world with... (gasp)... no excuses!

Sounds Communistic to me! No excuses? That's anti-American. Our whole culture is based on excuses! "Don't blame Joey. His great-aunt was a bed-wetter!" or "Little Amanda isn't at fault. She lived next door to a hillbilly as a child!" Our Constitution promises me "Life, liberty and the pursuit of excuses!"

If I didn't have excuses, my quality of life would be seriously impaired. Clean out the garage, sorting out and pricing all the garage sale stuff? Yes, dear. Repaint the whole upstairs pink and orange? Right away, sweetheart! Get gas for the grill, check the attic for birds, redo the Star Wars room... and no excuses? Oh, my aching back. Wait, was that an excuse? If you could see the journal I'm writing in, you would see tear marks.

I realize that I'm in my pre-retirement self-improvement phase and boy-o-boy was there room for improvement. I can honestly say that I've made some serious strides towards improving myself in many ways. I am extremely happy with my life and envision that by the time I retire, all my health issues will be "healthy lifestyled" into oblivion. I am more active and less sedentary. The last time I checked my e-mail, I had messages backed up for over a week. I haven't written in my blog for almost a month and last week I didn't even have time to weigh in at Weight Watchers. Every time I went to the Y to work out, I got called by the railroad before I got home. The railroad seems to have laid off all but a couple of guys and are working us to death. I've been getting all the important things done like mowing the lawn, taking out the garbage, giving Jenny a pedicure and polishing her wine glasses with $100 bills. I know that there's obvious room for improvement but all at once? If I transform myself into the perfect man this year, what's there to accomplish next year?

Also, women like flawed men. I'm sure that Jenny would hate a world without an occasional belch or fart. I'm not talking about cranking out colon bombs that would make a buzzard barf but an occasional puffer or two. And I didn't mean I would burp the Star Spangled Banner in pig-latin but just a slip now and then. You see, having a couple character flaws can prove beneficial to one's spouse. Jenny doesn't have to ask me what I had for lunch. She just has to look on my shirt. Now I admit to being flawed. I'm not perfect. Yeah, I may be far from ideal, but I'm far from the other end of the spectrum also.

I know people who consider washing their work jacket or brushing their teeth to be spring cleaning chores. Or those who think parking an old car or dead lawn mower in the yard qualifies as landscaping. They're the ones with pet hair in their potluck dishes. They wear tight wife-beater shirts to formal parties and put out cigarettes in the ice bucket. They have an "If the truck's a rockin', don't come a knockin'" sticker on the pick-up with a window sticker of a brat kid peeing on something.

Yeah, I'm not perfect, yet. There's some room for improvement. I'm working on it. I won't have to get the "Get 'er Done" tattoo or the 4X t-shirts. I look forward to a nice long walk or a workout at the Y. My house won't make "Architectural Digest", but it won't make "New Jersey Living" either.

So, as for Dr. Wayne Dwyer, the flack on PBS the other night, who thought I should be perfect and shouldn't have any excuses, if he doesn't like what he sees, he can call my emergency complaint line and complain. The number is 1-800-EAT CRAP.

It was Clem, from Gary!

The yearly monsoon season has arrived in full force to the Fort Wayne area. Soon the flood stage of the local rivers will lead off all the newscasts. The TV stations will have cute shots of baby ducks swimming in a ditch somewhere and the newest reporters will be interviewing people who have been flooded out for the tenth straight year. The city of Fort Wayne is probably scouting out locations to dump the sand that will be used to fill the sandbags.

This year, flooding concerns me more than it usually does. Look at the horrendous weather that accompanied the Great Depression. Mother Nature is famous for kicking people when they're down. That's why tornadoes usually hit trailer parks. Dump on the people without a pot to piss in!

Also, I saw something that shook me to my core. Coming home from Chicago the other day I saw two deer standing together! Then I saw two raccoons standing along side the road when I was driving to Fort Wayne. Also, on my walk last night, I saw two pigeons who seemed to be together and everyone who walked by me in the other direction were paired up! Are you getting my point? The first time I see a geezer with a long gray beard pulling a boat behind his truck, I'll be freaking out.

If a latter day Noah shows up, what's next? Locusts? Sodom and Auburn? Wandering in the mall for sixty days and sixty nights?

If you ask me, anytime you get a flooding rain, its triggered by a seemingly unrelated event. Some people will probably blame me for it. Ever since I planted grass seed on a couple places where we had trees cut down, its rained and rained. I doubt that the almighty is sending all this rain because he enjoys watching grass seed wash away. My money is on some devil worshipping farmer who's trying to plant his fields. Isn't it always the farmers who are screwing us over?

As we go through Gary, Indiana, on the train, the sun is shining without a cloud in the sky. I can put away the rain gear that kept me dry during the deluge at Garrett. If getting puked on by Mother Nature is dependent on how just the local people are then Gary ought to be experiencing a plague of rabid saber-tooth tigers or such! Of course, with my mental acuity, I've figured out why Gary is being spared. The only thing they grow up here is pot and all those "farmers" are in jail. You'll have to wait until the next batch graduates from Purdue before fire, brimstone and rain will fall on Gary.

Personally, I think this bad weather for bad behavior is all a load of crap. The wife gets just as affected by the tornado as the wife-beater. Whenever you see people interviewed after a major disaster, the women seem tragically sweet and vulnerable. They don't have horns and breathe fire. All of those women taught me in elementary school!!

Now, I don't want anyone (Shannon) to think that I'm complaining about the weather. I see rainstorms as God's way of getting that slob next door a second bath this week. My only plea is "Enough already! He's clean!"

Halvey Birthday Jen!!!

Yesterday was Jenny's birthday. For those who are unaware, Jenny is my lovely wife. You may know her as Gramma J or Shannon and Shane's mom or Mrs. Bisque-It. She celebrated her 21st birthday, again, for the umpteenth time. Anyone who knows her or me knows that she is, absolutely and unequivocally the best thing that ever happened to me. So, once again, with sincerity and love I say "Happy Birthday, Sweetie!!"

The only bummer about Jen's birthday is its close proximity to Mother's Day. People have a tendency to give one gift for both occasions and the birthday celebrant gets shorted. The only fair thing to do, and Jenny is the definition of fairness, would be to celebrate her 1/2 birthdays, complete with cake and ice cream, party hats and maybe a clown. Then November 13th would be an official Teders holiday. If I remember (Highly Unlikely) then we'll do it up right in November. I'm sure that Grandma Pat is more willing to share her birthday month than Shane is.

"It's beginning to look alot like..."

In a previous entry, I talked about taking the snow shovels and ice chipper out to the garage. Of course, when someone does such a brave thing, he opens himself up to a snow storm. As you can see, I'm done the tough work. Now this may seem a little ridiculous but as soon as I took these back to the garage, the temperature dropped 15 degrees! If it snows, I'll blog the snowman I make.

Also, on the same entry, I talk about how much nicer the lawn looked when I mowed with a Lawn Boy push mower. Being a hard charger, I started mowing the yard with the Lawn Boy today and on the second pass over the yard the handle broke in two. I must have put too much stress on it with my no-holds-barred mowing style. Luckily I have a back-up push mower.

Little Jaden is staying at our house tonight. Shannon and Mike don't necessarily have any special plans for tonight. They are just thoughtful enough to realize that Gramma and Grampa sometimes need a little more Jaden in our lives. Here she is, trying to put on a pretty necklace she found in her kitchen cupboard.

... and here she is after she got it on. What a cutie!

Her and Gramma J always have a lot of fun when they're together. Here Jaden is having fun jumping on Gramma.

Yeah, Miss J is such a blast to have around. Makes me anxious as all get out for when Little Taylor arrives. Having two little girls in the house? Simply heaven.

"Hail of a nice hotel!"

I'm sitting here at the motel in Chicago, waiting for them to call me for a train back to Garrett. Luckily, I got my walk in earlier, because now its raining like a cow pissin' on a flat rock. Since the motel's TV is hooked up to a dish, all the cable channels went off. Now I'm relegated to watching the Antique Roadshow on PBS. Jenny probably wonders how I can watch it since no one is dancing, singing, fighting for immunity or running for an airport! You see, as the television watching options shrink, my blogging creativity increases. Exciting TV and I have writer's block. Crappy TV and suddenly I'm Mark Twain!

Earlier tonight, I survived a tornado warning IN MY MOTEL ROOM! It was while I was showering. I had all this cold air coming from the air conditioner (I had it set on "large cubes") and the steam was streaming from my long and luxurious shower. As you all know, tornadoes are formed when cold fronts (AC) collide with warm fronts (shower steam). These two fronts met over the bed. I put up with it hoping for hail because I needed ice for my cooler. Needless to say, my calculations were a bit off and I didn't get any hail or tornadoes. Maybe that's for the best.

I have to admit to a fact of life that men of all walks of life hate to admit. This pains me because some guys will see me as a traitor for admitting it. My only excuse is my internal pursuit of truth and integrity. The fact is lawns that are push mowed look much better than lawns that are rider mowed. I have a Lawn Boy push mower that I got tuned up this spring. Its not even self-propelled but is a nice little mower. I felt that the Lord knows I could use the exercise, so I have been push mowing my yard. Its a pretty good sized lawn, so it takes me awhile. It also works out my arms and shoulders. While I was mowing last week, my neighbor came over, asked if my rider was busted and offered his rider if I needed it. I told him that my rider was okay, but I was just walking because I needed the exercise. He looked at me like I was yodelling nude. But as I was saying and it pains me to say so but the lawn looks nice.

The weather seems to have stabilized. I still have the snow shovels and ice chipper on the front porch in case of a snow storm. When I get home, I guess I'll throw caution to the wind and take them out to the garage. I know that as soon as I do it, a snow storm will begin forming over the Rockies an start heading this way. I believe that its finally warm enough to change to snow to rain before it gets to Garrett. If I'm wrong and we do get snow, then I'll have to carry that responsibility with me to my grave. If my actions brought snow to town then I would be on Shannon's s-list. She has proclaimed it to be warm weather and far be it for me to mess with that. So, maybe I'll wait until it breaks 80 before I put the shovels away. No reason to risk my relationship with Shannon just because little kids are pointing at my porch and laughing. Maybe I'll stake a pit bull out front to keep those little whelps out of my yard. What does a smart assed kindergartner know about snow anyway?