Tulsarama!

"On June 15, 1957, a new gold and white 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe was buried in a time capsule in downtown Tulsa, OK. The time capsule was part of Golden Jubilee Week: Tulsa's celebration of Oklahoma's semi-centennial. The car is buried under the sidewalk in front of the Tulsa County Courthouse, approximately 100 feet north of the intersection of Sixth Street and Denver Avenue. " -www.buriedcar.com

On June 15th (two weeks from now for those of you who are challenged), this car will be dug up and removed from it's vault after 50 years underground, and all of the contents of the enclosed time capsule will be opened also.

This absolutely facinates me for two reasons:
1) Time capsules are cool ways to show how we live and who we are (we put one in the cornerstone of our church, which included a two pack of Hostess Ho-Ho's)
2) The fact that we over-estimate how far the world will move on in the future, but it actually doesn't that much (they put a can full of gasoline with this car assuming that we wouldn't use gas or cars in the future)

We Have A Yard Now.

After toiling for years now, our front yard actually has turf. Thick enough to lay down in without getting dirt all over your heinie. I have some paver work to do, some gravel to place along the edge of the house, but for the most part the effect is there already.
Last summer we decided to do it right. Since the house was built on a slope, we had to build a retaining wall along the front of the yard. Then we wheelbarrowed up to a foot and a half deep of fill sand in place. Six inches of black dirt got raked out, seeded, then thatched with hay. Finally this spring, the perenial grass has come back, to which we overseeded again. After fertilizing, liming, and watering, it is growing like mad.
Notice the added touches: bird bath, tiki torches, and solar lights. I feel so suburbia.

No Sh&*, this is real.

1,051 pound boar.
9'-4" from snout to rump
Shot by an 11 year old, with a pistol.
in Alabama.
with more balls than I'll ever have.

My Citizenship Test

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 9 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

Once again...

Once again, I am done with school, almost. Once again I graduate. This is just another bachelors, I don't know if I could've handled grad school. Classes are done, graduation is Saturday, and my finals are on Monday. DONE. Tuesday begins full time for me again at work. No driving back and forth between Menomonie, Hudson, and home every day. (BTW, it's 126 miles 'round the loop) DONE.
This seemed so far away a year and a half ago. Even last week, it felt like it was a long way off, especially after UW-Stout lost my graduation packet that contained all my forms and signed substitution sheets. I had to fill them all out again, have them all signed, but this time I took them personally to registration and records and waited while the lady keypunched everything in.
I have met a bunch of real wonderful teachers who give a %$#& about their students and they are excited about their job. It rubs off on you and it makes you take interest in what you are learning if the teacher has slightly more than a pulse. My teachers in general do not share my view points on "the truth", but I have made known where I stand, and have been bluntly shown where they stand. I think it facinates some of them to see someone who has been through the college mill and still thinks in terms of creationism. Shame on me.

Technical Writing. Or not.

So, yesterday I sent a material certification to a customer. Basically, a cert tells them that you did what they wanted to the material. Around 4pm yesterday, the customer called with a group of their stuffed shirts on conference call. They were concerned about a portion of the cert that said:
"etc..."
That's right. They were worried about the letters "etc". They wanted to know what etc stood for or what it's metallurgical meaning was.
I couldn't wait. I interupted "et cetera". The phone call went silent.
It was then that they realized that not everything is all that complicated in life.

Stop, relax, and focus.

Brian's summertime iced latte

I have experimented for a long time with espresso drinks. I don't always drink espresso concoctions, nor do I know what the hell a mochafrappucino is. Nor do I care if it's grande size (pronounced grand-day, which you will be corrected by the snooty Starbuck's dork that it's not a medium, who will also let you know many other things that you don't know about coffee, but I digress because it irritates me).
I do know how to make good iced latte's and cappacinos.

My summertime iced latte:
(try anything, anytime, in any amount if you like)

Dump the following into a 1½ - 2 quart heat resistant pitcher in this order

4 to 6 measures of very hot espresso (get to know how much a measure is)
1 - 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk
2 cups of hot steamed skim milk
Fill pitcher to the top with ice. Stir. Enjoy over more ice.

For those of you who have read the nutitional label on a can of sweetened condensed milk, you realize why eating the stuff could clog your arteries, make you fat, and give you a stroke from just one serving. Therefore, I have created the "light" version, which I think is just as wonderful:

4 to 6 measures of very hot espresso
5 cups of hot steamed skim milk
Sweeten to taste with clover honey, or you could even try maple syrup (I know where to get some)
Fill pitcher to the top with ice. Stir. Enjoy over more ice.

I know it's not complicated, or very top secret to those of you who know how to make coffee drinks, so what's your point?

Oh Sh&*$%!

The picture is almost self-explainatory.

So, I'll explain anyway. Just before leaving work to head to class, I sat down at my office desk. The fibers of denim in my jeans decided to part ways, for good. My quick thinking, intellect, and intuition at a moment like that was just about useless. All I could do was stretch my polo shirt downward...really far down. (I am amazed at how far a polo shirt will travel south). I then left work, heading to the convenient Fleet Farm next door to my plant in Hudson in search of a pair of Wranglers. Don't make fun of Wranglers by the way, I haven't had any of them do this to me yet...
"Here comes Wrangler and he's one tough customer, and he knows what he likes when he sees it....WRANGLER!"
I apologize to the cashier at Fleet Farm who was subjected to embarassing emotional scars left upon her cerebrum that day. The therapy might help her.

Desensitized

After the horrific murders at Virginia Tech, I thought the next day might be different. I thought that students that sit around me in class would be mournful, sad, concerned, angry, maybe even bitter, but they weren't. A few mentioned "that sucks" in passing, which only sounded like what you say right before you try to get out of a crappy boring conversation.
One of my professors (that I really look up to) asked that we spend the first 10 minutes of class talking about the Virginia Tech shootings. One of the guys said "what happened in Virginia?", to which I thought of how someone who stares at his laptop connected to the internet through entire class periods could not know! Two others claimed they heard about a shooting, but said they didn't know much about it. A few more had read the online updates and knew how many people were dead, and even the order of events, but still they were talking about it as if it was just another news story.
I was baffled and wondered if I was the only person in there who really knew the extent of what happened by it's effect on me. Then it dawned on me (and this is only my theory, I'm not a sociologist), this era of students have never known a world without regular school shootings, post office massacres, and the like. To them, the world works like that. And that's how it is. And they can't change that. If they could, they won't.