Are We There Yet?

Thought up:  4.29.02 – 11:41am

Written: 4.30.02 – 1:27pm

#6

When I was young my family used to go on vacations.  We didn’t have a lot of money, so our vacations would usually include one or more of the following:

1.)     Sleeping in the car as opposed to a hotel or campground.

2.)     Not really going anywhere, but more just driving around for 2 days, and stopping at rest areas and monuments and such.

3.)     “Vacationing” to gramma’s house.

4.)     Eating the 45 Shasta-smashed-bologna sandwiches packed in a hand me down green cooler in the trunk of our beautiful, spacious, stealthy 1989 LTD Crown Victoria.  (By “stealthy” I mean stealthy like a hippopotamus on fire.)

5.)     Me getting beat up by my parents for beating up my sister because I couldn’t beat up my brother, who had just beaten me up… yea, I got beat up a lot.  It was a lose-lose situation, but I guess I never quite figured that one out.

When you’re a kid, you always want to be able to know where you are, when you’re getting to where you’re going, and when you could just stop and get out of the car.  Well, for years, as every kid does, we’d ask, “Are we there yet?”  And for years, my dad would always use the reply,

“Almost, just a few more miles.”

Isn’t that what he’s supposed to say?  That’s what they always say, but we’d always just come back 5 minutes later,

“Are we there yet?”

Until apparently one day my old man got to thinking about it, he was ready for us to ask the inevitable question.

“Are we there yet?”

He looked back in that rearview mirror, raised up one eyebrow, smiled to show all of his off-white teeth, (kinda like that Grinch, when he finally realizes he could steal Christmas away from all the Whos in Whoville, and he starts to rub his hands in a circle, like when one dries their hands under one of those automatic dryers in McDonalds…) and said, much to our disbelief,
”Yup.  We’re just looking for a parking place.”

Uhhhhh, what does a kid say to that?  Because technically we ARE there, because he said so.  And in our family, for all we knew, the vacation COULD lead to this very location on the highway.  So for at least the next 3 or 4 trips, we had no clue how to respond to that one.  We’d just gaze out the window and look for something that we might stop at, never really knowing where we’d stop.  Boy, kids sure are dumb.  I hope I never become one…

Speed Checked by Radar
Thought up:  4.23.02 – 1:36am
Written: 4.27.02 – 9:27am
#5

I’m gonna take some time to analyze the sign we see on the roads ALL over every state:  “Speed Checked by Radar.”  As opposed to…?  How else would you track the speed of a car?  What kind of idiot decided to make this sign?  What a splendid way to waste money in state government!  I’ve thought of a couple of other ways to combat this “Speed Checked by Radar” (SCBR) dilemma.  I propose, for the sake of taking down all those signs across the nation, to have speed checked by other means.

Option 1:  There could be like 326 or 471 frozen goat heads randomly placed in the middle of highways and interstates.  These heads will be set on 3-foot tall glass shafts.  The SCBR signs will be replaced by Speed Checked by Flying Goatheads (SCBFG) signs.  When the car runs into this goat head, (these goat heads will be very well camouflaged to dissuade people from missing them on purpose) it gets whacked a certain distance.  And that’s where the state workers come in.  State workers will be placed at 300-foot intervals along every major highway and interstate where the goat heads on glass shafts are erected.  (Don’t worry, they don’t have REAL work to do anyway, might as well have them do something useful.)  So when the goat head gets hit, a state worker will run out and see how far the goat head flew thus calculating the speed the driver must have been driving to hit it that far.  Anyway, put like a good 357+ of them around various locales where these goat signs reside.  When a perpetrator flies by the sign and thinks to himself/herself,
Himself/Herself:  “Gee Self, my speed is being checked by radar.  Should I slow down?  (2 second pause to think about it.)  Hell no!  Radars only live on police cars, and there are no police cars within sight, so that sign is a waste of everyone’s money!  Boy, I’m sure showing those radar-sign-making people a thing or two.”

And before they know it, WHAM, a goat head is splatted onto their car.  And then I bet they’ll be the ones feeling sheepish…  Get it, sheepish - wink, wink, nudge nudge.

Option 2:  This might make animal activists a little angrier, but it would provide a different means of checking speeds on major roadways.  We’re going to need a snail, a turtle, a boa constrictor, a mouse, a duck, a 3-legged cat, a dog that just got spun around like 15 or 16 times, an elephant, and a cheetah (might be hard to get a cheetah, so maybe a track with a toy train on it that can go 80 mph.  I could make a suit that looks like a cheetah, or I guess a person could just ride the train with my cheetah costume I wore for Halloween).
Anyway, we’d line these animals up at random locations along the highway and as a car would shoot by, a race would begin.  The animals would start running when the car passes them, and they’d race for 100 yards.  Wherever this car finishes in the 100-yard race in comparison to the animals would give a relatively close estimate as to the speed of the car.  True, the animals may become tired, but it’s all for the sake of sign preservation.  And besides, who wouldn’t want to be driving along a highway, and look out their window and see a boa constrictor racing against them…

New Age Ice Treats
Thought up:  4.22.02 – 7:23pm
Written: 4.24.02 – 3:17pm
#4
These days, everyone is really into “New Age” diets.  All these health nuts are not eating anything that is remotely tasty, but instead they are eating fancy expensive health foods.  So why not prey on these poor souls that don’t enjoy a hearty ½-pound of cow with 4 strips of dead pig.  Now that’s what I was raised on, and to this day, I still rate at the top of my list.  Now I don’t care if they like to eat what they like to eat.  I have no problem with that, but I just figure, why not take it a step further?

Why not give them something to really rant and rave about?  Modern diets are heavily laden with fruits and vegetables, and I personally don’t care for veggies, and I am sure many people agree.  So why don’t we find a way to cash in on it?  I think it would be a splendid idea to take all the veggies that you don’t eat, and put them in a big box.  Every time you can’t eat a vegetable, save them for however long you want, until the box is full I guess, and I’ll start up a website like Ihateveggiesandwanttodonatethemtoagoodcauseandsoshouldyousoputtheminaboxandsendthemtoandy.com and you can all send me your veggies because I just got this new food blender.  I’d take them suckers and whip them up into a creamy batch of yuck.  I’d then get some old corndog sticks, (don’t tell the vegetarians, the corndog sticks might still have hotdog on them) and put some sugar in the puree so that they stick to the sticks, and freeze the delightful treats.  It doesn’t even matter if you refrigerate your box of bad tasting stuff.  Mold is a spore, not a veggie, but I don’t suppose hippies would notice.

could make a killing on these treats!  People love that crap nowadays.  Well, some people I guess.  I can just see the commercial for it…

Unshaven hippy-type man:  Ah yes, after a nice day of work at the nudist colony, I always like to take a leisurely jog in the park with my dog.  Then I come home to a nice, cold, tasty, BlendoGrode*.  BlendoGrode is a delicious mix of random vegetables and possible mold on a used corndog stick.  Yum…

*BlendoGrode has not been approved by the FDA.  We gave it to some lab rats and their wieners fell off, so you’re on your own.  If symptoms persist for longer than 3 years, consult a doctor but don’t mention BlendoGrode.  Thank you.

Take Pride In Your Work?
Thought up:  4.17.02 – 1:43pm
Written: 4.19.02 – 1:27am
#3

In the summer of ’99, I worked 8 hours a day installing sprinklers in Montana.  I worked through rain, sleet, snow (Snow?  In summer?  Yup, after all, it is Montana) and even blistering heat to give people the pleasure of not having to put out one of those nasty green hoses attached to a rusty old yellow sprinkler head that spits out four drops of water in random directions (one of which is always the sidewalk no matter where you set the sprinkler).  Anyway, I did them a favor by digging/picking through granite on mountainsides, and clay in the valleys to give them green beauty.

I took pride in what I did - I made sure each and every sprinkler head (usually the 1804-F series, 4″ pop-up sprinklers by Rain-bird, for those of you keeping track at home) made a complete 360 degree turn in most yards, and just cutting off a few degrees for those tricky devils in the corners.  It made me feel really good when I’d get done with a job and look it over to see that the entire property would be getting healthy and watered because of me.

ne time I started the watering and didn’t notice that the old lady, whom I was building the system for, was coming out to bring me a frosty lemonade for my hard work and dedication to her yard.  Well, before I knew it, water was blanketing her backyard with a beautiful mist, and she was the tallest piece of grass…  She dropped the lemonade and ran into the house afraid that she set off the sprinklers.  I went in and apologized and had myself a fresh glass of lemonade, but that’s beside the point, this story is about taking pride in one’s work.

What I’m getting at is whenever I finish a job, I’d look back and say, “Boy, that sure is a nice looking yard.  I’m glad I did such a nice job for them, I bet they’re happy.”  But not out loud, of course, especially if I’m the only one around, because that would make me look like I’ve gone mad.  In my current job, I drive all over the state by myself and I have a lot of time to think about stuff.  I look at other things and wonder if people are really happy with what they’ve accomplished - the buildings, the fence posts, the road I’m driving on, the car ahead of me.  I think about the craftsmanship that went into each detail of this car - the windshield, the blinkers, the engine itself.  Then I look at the license plate, and I think to myself, “Man, I wonder if that prison guy really cares that he made this car licensed to drive on the road.  Without him, this car would have to be impounded, and the driver would have to go to jail probably.  Or maybe the driver would just get a different license plate.”

got to thinking again about my sprinkler job, and how I took pride in it, but there is a good chance that the jailbird would never get to see his work, let alone spray an old lady with water and get free lemonade.  He should be lucky to get an extra carton of smokes I decided…

Pennies From Somewhere
Thought up:  4.6.02 – 1:04pm
Written: 4.9.02 – 11:23am
#2

I awoke from a terrible nights sleep at 7:13 a.m. on Friday, April 05, 2002.  I hopped straight into the shower — wait, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself…

Last night I fell asleep after talking to a friend on the phone, and I took off my pants after maybe 5 minutes in my bed, because they were big and bulky and probably full of dirt that I didn’t want in my bed anyway.  So I was just lying there in my work shirt and socks, no underwear talking to my friend.  I got off the phone at about 11:06 p.m. and proceeded to brush my teeth and test my septic tank out to see if it was still working, if you know what I mean, and back to bed by maybe, 11:34 p.m.

Well, I tossed this way and tossed that way, remembering back to the days when I lived on Saipan.  I just got an email that night from one of my friends that is still there.  She is a Chinese girl that speaks fluent English, Chinese, and decent Japanese.  Anyway, we always used to say, “ii oshiri” meaning, “nice butt” and we’d always bend down in front of each other, on purpose, and for 4 months straight, every time we’d see each other, “ii oshiri!” would be soon to follow.

aybe I was a bit perturbed that I wasn’t still on that tropical island, instead of being stuck here in the cold Montana weather, but that’s beside my point.  The point here is that I tossed and turned all night long until my alarm interrupted my attempt to sleep at 7:04 a.m.  (Why do I set my alarm to 7:04 a.m. and not just like 7?  I dunno, maybe it’s because I was too lazy to switch ALL the way back, you know how those clock radios are, once you pass the number you want to set it to, you HAVE to go ALL the way back through EVERY number to get to yours.  I just say screw it…)

Anyway, at 7:04 I hit the snooze button.  Why?  It’s not like I’m sleeping or anything, maybe it’s just because that’s the most annoying sound one can possibly hear, and that’s why the clock people made it that sound, must have taken a poll or something.  Anyway, for nine more minutes I lay there just trying to figure out why I didn’t sleep very well, to no avail.  Lots of random thoughts roll through my head, most of my best ideas come in the morning, but back to the start:
I awoke from a terrible nights sleep at 7:13 a.m. on Friday, April 05, 2002.  I hopped straight into the shower and proceeded to bathe myself with a soapy lather, and shampoo, repeating if desired, and maybe 2 minutes into the shower whilst I wash my genitalia, a penny falls from somewhere.  Not in the direction that it would fall if I was washing my frontside, but my backside it falls from, out of nowhere!  It’s not like I knocked it free or something from my frontside, where I was washing, because that’s not from where it fell.

I turned around to examine the “lost treasure” to realize that it was a 2002 penny, so it couldn’t have been there for too long, and it smelled fine - (Of course, I was in the shower, and stuff is hard to smell in there, mostly it smells like soap and lathering utilities.)  Anyway, I took that penny out with me from the shower and placed it on my shelf to be admired.  I came to work and told my friends Shelly and Judy, and Judy said,
“I’ve heard of pennies from Heaven, but this is ridiculous!”
And we all had a good laugh.  I remember seeing on T.V. one time where some lady cried diamonds out of her eyes, and that would be worth a pretty penny, I thought to myself, but for my pretty pennies to be worth anything like diamonds, I figured I’d have to have these “Pennies from Heaven” fall at a bit more frequent pace…

Jahmba
Thought up: 5.2.01 – 4:04am
Written: 10.16.03 - 3:49 pm
#23
Long ago (2 ½ years), in a land far far away (Walla Walla, WA), 4 geniuses (well, 3 and ½ at least) sat in deep thought in a bubbling tub of water, searching for a solution to time travel. Multiverses, universes, and parallel dimensions were discussed at length; as well as wormholes, space/time continuum, and flux capacitors. Everyone agreed that, indeed, multiverses existed, and that every action made in life gave way to an infinite amount of possibilities therein. But what started as a simple in-depth discussion on time travel, turned into the single most important discovery in human/alien history! Jahmba. Yes, Jahmba.

Jahmba: The number that will reside in between the current numbers of 7 and 8. It will look and smell just like all its other numerical counterparts, but it will be different in the fact that it looks like a work of art instead of just a stupid number. All Jahmba and Jahmba related paraphernalia would ALWAYS be in the color of blue; everything except for the yellow and red eyes of the goat-like character that will be in the middle of the numbers design. This goat will be eating approximately 4 other numbers and 3 letters. These numbers are yet to be decided because I’m not sure which of those remaining alphanumeric characters I hate the most. For sure 56, and 278 will be two (2) of the numbers in the goat’s mouth; and likely the letters “C” and “H”, which are, coincidentally, the worst letters in any language, EVER! It’s also very possible that “threeve” will be one of the alphanumeric digits.

The presence of threeve is mostly to confuse inventors of a better number than jahmba, who will falter due to lack of knowledge of “threeve”. The image of the goat will also have debris scattered about the ground with numbers and letters representing leftover goat food, once again showing supremacy over these “weaker” and more “inferior” traditional character values. All of this will be tactfully and tastefully done, by blatantly displaying these emblems of dominance to the alphanumeric world directly AS the number Jahmba. At no time should anyone build any building higher than Jahmbaty-four-thousand and ninety-jahmba feet, out of pure respect for the number. Similarly, at no time should anyone set the snooze button on an alarm clock to ANYTHING with Jahmba in it (once clocks with Jahmba are invented, of course).

We’re not talking about some fireside chat amongst political advisors or 3rd world countries here! This is real life, genuinely homemade, 120% raw American brainpower at work! Jahmba was invented to not only make money, but to make the number system a LOT harder, and more difficult to teach. Every person in the world would again have to learn to count! Schools would be revamped, rulers remade, computer programs rewritten. Every piece of literature that had ever been printed would have to be burned; or at least scribbled out and re-written with Jahmba in mind. People that wore larger than a size 7 shoe would have to go and buy new shoes, because they would no longer wear a size 10. That SAME size 10 from before would really be a size 11 now! A size 11 shoe on a size 10 person would result in bunions and sores on feet, profiting the foot doctors of the world, who would clearly pay a royalty fee to Jahmba, Inc. for the detriment to the world’s shoe wearing peoples. Also paying royalties would be:

1. Buildings larger than seven (7) feet.
2. Aluminum can companies who’d immediately be in violation of faultily advertising several twelve (12) ounce drinking products.
3. Ninjas for the simple reason that they’d probably find some sly, slick, or stealthy way to get out of paying.
4. Any person who has, or will ever be older than seven (7) from this point forward, at some point, in the next 15 years.
5. Dewey Decimal. IF that is his REAL name!
6. The next Wonder of the Modern World.
7. Whoever reads the next line of this list.
8. You.
9. This list, as it does not have the number jahmba listed in it – resulting in a fee of jahmba-thousand dollars.

It’s kind of like when Da Vinci invented a flying machine. Nobody really believed him, or thought that his invention would work (granted, it probably didn’t work very well, because everyone knows that he didn’t invent jet fuel, so it was very difficult to get it off the ground), but he had confidence in himself, and in America! Or wherever he was from - likely bets include:

1. Chile
2. Denmark
3. Mother Russia
4. Detroit (Yes, Amityville will be acceptable)
5. Three Forks, Montana
6. 100-Acre Woods

Da Vinci’s idea was cast by the wayside, ne’er to be heard from for another few centuries! What was the reason for this? It was obviously a malfeasance by his advertising campaign coordinator. How much better would the flying machine have sold with this ad:

Education in metallurgy and craftsmanship for 3 years: $0.19
Un-synthetic silk, reeds, and shafts for wings: $.1.30
Snail milk, eye-of-toad, 4 ladybugs: $0.38
Watching one of your million inventions crash into the ground and not catching fire because we haven’t invented gasoline yet? Priceless.

It would have sold like hotcakes, I’m sure. But I can’t blame it all on his advertising team. He could have taken the initiative himself and posted his idea up with billboard ads and 30 second clips in between halves of Super Bowl –MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMCXVIX. Yea, he was certainly at a disadvantage. Today his idea might have been easier to sell with technology as it is. Nowadays, new information can be passed from culture to culture, in most part, via the Internet and homing pigeons.

Now, I may be going out on a limb, but I’m sure I won’t be the only one once Jahmba starts to receive national recognition, in saying that I am of firm belief that, with timely implementation, and well thought out budget plans, Jahmba could run for President in the 2008 election. Jahmba would have the voice of every American citizen. Each and every person could say with pride and dignity that Jahmba is working for the people, by the people, and through the people! How would a simple “number” be able to do this? Well, it’s obvious really. Jahmba would proudly exhibit, on the bottom-left portion of the number, near the patented copyright disclaimer, every single country’s flag in the world! Who could argue with that? Representation equals inauguration!
Jahmba was discovered to bring peace to the modern world through mathematics. Now, I know what you’re saying to yourself. You’re saying,

“Jahmba guy, weapons of mass destruction, in some way, use mathematics don’t they?”

And my reply to that would be,

“Well sure they do, but they use it in an “evil” way! A way so evil that Jahmba Inc., has signed documents disallowing anything that is dubbed, by myself, to be “bad” OR “evil”, as the case may be, to be in any way incorporated with Jahmba Inc. or it’s affiliates. Likewise, and oppositely, things that make people happy like flower vases, music, gum, not being at work, and nacho cheese containers are 100% endorsed by Jahmba Inc.”

You see, people from all walks of life can incorporate Jahmba into their every day activities! I’m sure it will be a smooth process into the next stage of human evolution. Granted, things will be a bit different, but certainly for the better. Everyone will be able to walk a little taller, live a little longer, and know that it all wouldn’t be possible without the fine efforts of 3 ½ lethargic hot tub philosophers…

Thought up: 3.24.02 – 6:24pm
Written: 3.24.02 - 11:45 pm

So yesterday I was driving along in between White Sulphur and Harlowton, Montana, and I saw this cow standing OUTSIDE one of the many cattle guards, and I got to thinking, “did she just JUMP over that cattle guard to get to that green grass on the other side?” Cause many times that is the greener stuff. And if she did, why didn’t she teach all those other stupid cows that are still eating all that grass on the regular side that they poop in all day to jump it?

Or maybe she’s the Michael Jordan of cows or some such, and maybe I should call up the owner of this cow and tell him that maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea to butcher this cow. She has some real talent, but she probably wouldn’t perform in front of people, just like trick animals never do, like that cartoon I remember when I was little where a man found a singing frog, but the frog would only sing when nobody was watching, and the man spent his life savings on this frog to promote him, and all the frog did in front of people was croak.

Boy, I bet he felt sheepish in front of people, and that’s not what I’d want the cow owner to feel, so maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to tell the cow owner about his magnificent cow. Perhaps though the cow owner would appreciate me scaring the cow back over to the other side of the inept cattle guard, but then I got to thinking again, “What if that cow got her leg stuck in the guard THIS time? And the cow’s leg got injured really badly, and the man had to kill the cow anyway. Boy, Mr. Badluck would be getting 2 birds with one stone cause not only would he be getting rid of that Michael Jordan cow, but Badluck would also have it that I’d have to pay the man cause I tried to save his splendid cow.

Quite frankly, I didn’t think it was worth it, but for that 30 seconds, I really thought hard about it. Good thing I talked some sense into myself. Stupid cattle guards…