A new year is starting in few minutes and here I am spending yet another holiday at work blogging when I should be out getting hammered (or here actually working). Resolutions are lame so I'll spare you. I'm looking forward to the new year.

I will finally pay off my credit card this coming year. Whew it's going to be nice to be back in black. It's been about 7 years since I haven't had to send Visa money. Just the thought of being in the green brings relief to my shoulders.

I have a chance to win a seat in the WSOP. My wife has so much faith in my poker skills that she wants to try to raise the money for me to play even if I don't win the seat. If I go, I figure I have a 1 in 8000 chance of being a millionaire. It doesn't sound like very good odds but it's a hell of a lot better than the lottery. Plus there is actual skill involved not just blind luck.

I feel that my luck is going to change for the better this year. There have been some serious career problems I've had to deal with the past three years. The best analogy I can give for what happened is this... Imagine your in school and you take a final exam. You know your stuff and ace the test. You proudly march up to your teacher and turn in your work and wait for the A+ to come back. When it comes time to see your grade the teacher tells you that you have failed the test as well as the class. You ask to see the teacher to show you the test and he says he has thrown the results away. Now just insert "boss" where you see "teacher" and "job" where you see "class" and you get what happened. The good news is that it isn't over yet. If everything works out my way, it will be almost as good as winning the WSOP.

Happy New Year! I hope you have as much to look forward to as I do.

Pick up line? Or just stupid rambling?

It has been a debate for centuries. Relationships have been tested to the very breaking point over the conflict because there are only two types of people in the world. You are either a cat person or a dog person. Sure one can argue they have no preference but, given a pet requirement by law or spouse (sometimes one and the same), say you had to choose. Which one? Can you tell a cat person from a dog person just by meeting them? Is it the answer to societies dating woes? Can you form a solid relationship based on the cat/dog issue alone? I propose that it can be a good starting point, and maybe a decent bar pick up line. Just walk up to your partner of choice and blurt out the cat/dog argument and you have a safe (maybe a little goofy) ice breaker that could spark a truly deep and meaningful conversation. I wish I would have thought of this when I was still single. If it actually works, I could have saved myself tons of wasted dates trying to break though the masks all dating people put on. We all do it when we're dating. We put up that front in an attempt to hide either our flaws or our true nature to impress a suitor. It's always best to let your mate know, from the beginning, what lies down the road. I've found that it's the little things that drive people mad in relationships. Maybe the cat/dog debate can save you some effort (LOL...Like anyone is actually reading this nonsense). If you attempt this line, let me know if it worked or if I'm a babbling idiot.

My take on the two types.

Cat people - sometimes quiet, reserved, proud, intelligent, independent, neat

Dog people - loving, loyal, boisterous, social, playful, protective

I love my cats.

"The crizzy"

It's a drug. I love it. I must have it daily. When I get my fix, I feel great. I consume so much that it seems like I might OD. I'm not the only one. I call it "The crizzy" because it is liquid crack to me. It's coffee and I love it. The U.S. average consumption is three cups per person per day. If that's the case, there are at least 2.5 people out there who aren't drinking coffee at all. Since I love it so much, I'm sure it will be illegal soon. I will enjoy it while I can!

Mmmmm

Must have Cafe Mocha.

I should take up smoking again. It's cheaper than my daily latte.

Merry Christmas

It's 12:45 Christmas morning here at work. Shift work sucks but at least I have the next two days off. I have no good blog material other than to say, Merry Christmas to all you folks in blogland. Joy and peace to you and yours.

Grow up people

"The definition of maturity is that ability to accept responsibility for your actions or inactions." I don't remember the teachers name, but I learned that definition in the ninth grade. For some crazy reason those words were burned into my grey matter. I think most of my generation and those that follow could take theses words to heart. There aren't enough people in the world who take responsibility for what happens to them in their lives. I don't know where it started, but people these days have lost their common sense. I was a book store the other day rummaging through the comedy section where I came across a book of actual warning labels and I think this sums what I'm getting at quite well. On a super hero suit with a cape and the whole nine there was a product warning that went something like this...

This product does not enable the wearer to fly.

WTF?!? Is this what our society is coming to? Do we really need labels on our coffee that say "Caution Hot"? Where the hell do we draw the line? Why are we protecting idiots when we can just let nature take its course and they will eventually eliminate themselves from the gene pool? As a general rule I don't like to point fingers but...FUCKING LAWYERS!!! Get a life you blood sucking leaches!!! Some one does something stupid that may or may not be their fault and the lawyers see fucking dollar signs. I remember watching the news the other night when the plane rolled off the runway in Chicago. I imagined that I was an ambulance chaser watching the same broadcast. I came up with something like 14 different groups to sue on behalf of the family who lost their son. It's tragic the poor boy died. Honestly though, how often does something that bazaar happen? No one gets in their car and thinks about a plane falling from the sky and killing them. The sad thing is, now airports are going to have some sort of warning labels on them.

Caution! Planes landing here might overshoot the runway once every forty years.

Too often we're worried about placing blame rather than accepting the fact that shit happens and no matter how many warning labels you put on it shit still stinks.

It should be a four letter word

Procrastination.

My worst enemy. There are those in the world that seem to have some sort of drive, determination, or motivation. Is this a learned trait or is it genetic? I would really prefer to believe that it's learned. If it's genetic...I just don't have it and I'm never going to get it. I don't consider myself lazy. I'm not afraid of work. Accomplishing things gives me satisfaction. The biggest problem I have is starting the work. Once I've started, the project will get done.

I've always loved air cooled VWs since my dad drove me around an old bus when was a rug rat. My older brother had a bug in high school and just finished restoring his second bug. This last year I started my first major project. In my garage sits the chassis of a 1968 VW bug. I bought this car in the hopes of restoring it to its original basic transportation glory. About a year ago, I was driving it to work (it was my only transportation at the time) and the clutch started slipping. I nursed it home and that was the last time the car has moved under its own power. I decided, since I needed to pull then engine and trany to fix the clutch, the restoration time had arrived. As I pulled the car apart I realized that the body was in much worse shape than appeared on the surface. I could've attempted to repair all the rusty panels and other nonsense to bring the body back to life but the thought of missing some rust and little bubbles appearing in my restored car was unfathomable. I decided that I was going to convert the car to fiberglass dune buggy. I found a guy that was selling his body on the internet. Miraculously he wanted to trade for 68 bug parts. I made an even swap for his body. All the transaction cost me was the gas to go pick the thing up. I've done a ton of work trying go make myself a car out of the mishmash of parts in my garage. Part of building a dune buggy requires you to shorten the frame of the bug 14 1/2 inches. You literally have to cut the car in half and weld it back together. I had never done this type of thing before but had heard that most old VW shops could for a few hundred bucks. I tried desperately, in my area of the woods, to find someone who would do the work. No one would go for it. They all used liability reasons for not doing the job (damn lawyers are gonna be a future rant). I eventually went to Home Depot and bought a friggin welder and did the job myself. The welds aren't beautiful but they are strong.

By now you're asking yourself "What the hell does this guy doing all this work have to do with procrastination?" I was proud of all I had accomplished. I stood back and beat my chest and let out a couple Tim Taylor grunts at all I had done. That was about 2 months ago. I haven't been motivated since. My dune buggy represents the first project in a long time that I remember starting but not finishing. I have every intention of building my own plane at some point in my life. Not a little model mind you, but a full sized flying machine that my wife and I can hop in and go gallivanting around the country in (see the link on the side of the page). I consider the dune buggy my test (partly because VW is an engine option for the plane). If I can't build this car, I have no business spending thirteen thousand dollars on a box of aluminum. So if any of you reading this (I have no readers I'm aware of so far) have any ideas on how to stay motivated I would like to hear them.

Sometimes it's nice to be stupid

This whole blog thing is new to me. Like poker, however, it has also become somewhat of an addiction. I find myself reading more and more blogs just for entertainment. Some of them, like www.shoottheduck.blogspot.com , are fantastic. I feel like I should be paying them for the hours of entertainment they have given me lately. But after reading some of the posts of the truly gifted, my little crap box of a blog falls short. I have found, what seems to me, an advantage to being on a lower wrung of the intelligence ladder. It appears that I'm a more content human being than those that I perceive with an intellect higher than mine. Smart people seem to have more relationship issues and are tortured more by the stupidity of the world around them. They aren't willing to settle for just good enough when, somewhere in the back of their heads they KNOW they can do better. So in the quest for inner peace, I feel there is an advantage to being a little slower than some of my fellow humans. I now have a new found respect for those barn yard animals staring blankly at me from the other side of the fence.

Crap!!!

I can't even seem to explain my point without sounding like an idiot. I give up. I need more sleep.

What ever happened to Merry Christmas?

The political correctness in this country is getting out of friggin hand. People are too damn sensitive to everything. Now people at major retailers are required to say happy holidays instead of merry Christmas. It's fucking ridiculous when retailers are censoring their employees so they won't offend those customers who aren't Christian. Especially when these people are the major source of revenue for their businesses this time of year. One of the greatest rights we have as Americans is to say what we want to whoever we feel like saying it whenever we feel like saying it. PC is turning into censorship. Don't let these assholes who think you should tiptoe around them get away with this shit. The greatest activists in the history of this country were offensive to a vast majority in their times. So you're not a believer in Jesus? Me either. Just wish them a happy (insert what ever you believe in here) and move the fuck on with your life.

Keep fighting the good fight Howard Stern! I've never heard any of your shows, but I hope you can beat these assholes in the long run.

What is it with women?

After getting my butt handed to me in the first round of poker I found myself talking to my favorite bartender Lisa. Before you get the wrong idea, she's my favorite because she's good at her job (really good). She just finished telling me that she hasn't been laid in three months. I can't see any reason why she has to ever go without getting some if she wants it. She is an attractive woman and I'm sure she gets hit on at least forty times a night as a bartender. When I asked her why she hasn't hooked up recently her reply was she needs to "really know" who she's sleeping with. My question back was "Why?"

Aren't women just as capable of using men as vice versa? Do we ever "really know" someone unless we've been with them for several years? I know you women out there pretend that you don't like sex as much as we do, but some of us men actually know better. Some of us know when you meet one that rocks your world in the sack you become little sex fiends. You justify 150 reasons to stay with the wrong person even though the relationship portion died months ago. I've known too many couples that had nothing in common but good sex. You know the types I'm talking about. They always have the most volatile relationships. They are the couples that are smacking the shit out of each other one minute and dry humping on your couch the next. You see them and ask yourself "Why the hell are these two idiots hanging out with each other?" Then you notice they just came out of the same bathroom together.

For crying out loud ladies! Once you get beyond a certain age, ohhhh say 23 or so, the bullshit games need to end and you need to start looking out for number 1. If you can use a guy for a booty call, and you're not interfering with another relationship, go for it! I bet not one guy who reads this will disagree to being used as a sex toy once or twice. The key is to let him know, before the deed, your exact intentions. Who knows, maybe a relationship will grow from the sexual starting point. Lets get real ladies. YOU are animals too. Every relationship has to be sexually compatible. Trying to force yourself to like someone, sexually (just because they're super nice), never works.

The Clone Theory

My wife L and I are blessed with an ability to get along that few possess. We have been told by many friends and strangers alike that we get along too well for people that have been together for ten years. Most of our sickening of other couples is based on a solid foundation. We enjoy the same music, movies, hobbies, and political views. Sometimes I find it to be the little things that drive other couples crazy. This is one of the places that L and I have been lucky. Things like being the same temperature. When she is cold, I'm cold. Also, we seem to have the same taste in food at the same time. Just yesterday, L and I were sitting at a restaurant looking at the menus and we both locked in on the same menu item. We ended up splitting the same dish. Now this seems like a basic thing to some, but there have been several times I have heard other couples fighting over where to eat because one or the other doesn't like a particular type of food. If you like seafood and your mate doesn't, things can get touchy for a really simple reason. Don't get me wrong people, it hasn't been all fun and games in the geek household. We have fought and had some real doozies over the years but I attribute that to my clone theory.

It is my belief that a lot of relationships fail because people don' t take the time to understand each other. One day, I was sitting reflecting on how well L and I get along and came up with an epiphany that eventually I just started calling the clone theory. I was thinking of the person that I would most get along with in the world if I didn't have L. The answer...Me! I have everything in common with me. No one understands me better than me! I'm an easy person to get along with. I would never have fights with myself. Then my brain switched to practicality mode. If I cloned myself, my other self would be a new person from that day on. The other me would have to get a job and do all the other things people do. Then it occurred to me that there would be instances where I wouldn't get along with myself. For example, I imagined myself going to work and having a terrific day. I come home, make myself a little snack, and sit on the couch and read or turn on the evil black box until the other me comes home and I can tell him what a wonderful day I had. I imagined the other me having a miserable day, one of those days where Murphy seems to be at your every turn. My clone enters the house just wanting some peace and quiet but I want to hang out and tell him what a great day I had. Just the fact that I'm in a good mood pisses off my clone even more. He is already at his wits end and loses his cool with me. Now you know how it is when you're having a good time and someone spoils the fun. It can piss you off tremendously.

The point I'm trying to make with my theory is, no matter how well you get along with someone, there will always be friction at times. There is no happily ever after. There is just happily 95% of the time after if you're lucky like me. The key is to not let the five percent overshadow the 95.

Fair Weather Friend

One of my buddies has fallen from my graces recently. I'm not one of those people who has so many friends that I can't keep up with them all. When I send out Christmas cards, I never spend much on stamps. So when you get in the inner circle of Glenn, you're usually there for good. Anyway, My friend Steve has recently been demoted to acquaintance status for me. He has been dating this woman, on and off, for about two years and despite all my, and his other "friends" efforts, he has managed to stay with Psycho-Bitch-From-Hell (PBFH). He's admitted to me several times that he doesn't love PBFH but he keeps going back to her. The problem for me is that he ceases to be my friend when he is with her which makes me feel like he is only using me to keep him entertained during those periods he is broken up with PBFH. Comments? Suggestions?