6.23.2019

Tidbits

In my life, I’ve been told I have a few famous look-alikes. In no particular order, I have been compared to Billy Corgan, an older Mark Hamill, Drew Carey, and the Pillsbury Doughboy.


This week, a coworker discovered another celebrity twin for me. Unfortunately, she couldn’t remember his name.

“I saw your doppelgänger this weekend.” She told me. “He was on TV and I thought, wow, he looks just like Nic Casey, but without a mowhawk.”

Note, I don’t have a mowhawk. It’s a fauxhawk. Semantics.

She confirmed it was an actor on TV, but not any of those I listed above. She couldn’t recall what show he was in, just that he looked like me if I had a normal haircut. So I’m clueless. If you know who it might be, let me know.



“Dad,” it was Chloe. She had a question. “You know the Shawn Mendes song If I Can’t Have You?”
“Yeah.”
“The line, where he says he can’t drink without thinking about you, how does he know drinking alcohol makes him think of someone if he’s not old enough to drink?”
“Um, because he’s old enough.”
“No he’s not, he’s 20.”
I did a quick Google search to verify Mendes is indeed 20 years old.
“How do you know Shawn Mendez’s age.”
“Because I know things, Dad.”
“Well, he’s old enough to drink in Canada, maybe he’s from Canada.” Another Google search confirmed the singer is from Toronto.


Phew, saved by geography and Canadian law.



Summertime is rodeo season. And baseball season. As a result, we’re a busy household.

The girls competed in two different rodeos this weekend, one in Davenport, and a second in Spokane. We’re hosting a graduation party for Annie’s nephew tomorrow and Josiah’s first baseball game is on Tuesday followed by team pictures on Wednesday.

In addition to all this activity, we both have full time jobs, a farm to maintain, and a house to keep clean. We live at a frenetic pace. While lamenting the hectic schedule ahead of us, Annie asked if we were ever going to get a chance to breathe. I gave her the most accurate answer I could imagine.




Did you know cows can jump? And not just a little hop, but jump over barriers higher than the top of their head?

Yeah, neither did I.

We had a bit of an adventure this morning. A total of five cows escaped from two adjoining properties in the neighborhood. Christian and I were on our way to the store when we encountered a blockade on our street. A few local cowboys in a couple of trucks and at least one quad were blocking driveways and partially obstructing the road while a half dozen men were running around with lassos and ropes. I followed their gaze to the target of their attention; a trio of bulls were running free and causing chaos in the yard a couple properties south of our house.

Then I saw an unimaginable sight, one of the bulls jumped the fence. It wasn’t graceful in any form. It nearly tangled itself in the electric wire. I don’t know if the fencing was hot, if it was the bull didn’t care. He progressed across our neighbor’s yard straight toward our fence line. I parked the van and hopped out in hopes to help contain the beast so the owners could retrieve it. The fence between us and our neighbor is chain link and the fence is taller than the bull, so I thought it was adequately trapped with no way out.


This is him, in the corner of our neighbor’s property, moments before he jumped into our front yard. I didn’t think it was possible. Even after witnessing the bovine acrobatics in person, my brain wants to deny it ever happened – as if it would be more believable for the cow to have phased through solid matter as if the fence didn’t exist, than it would be for the bull to leap over the top like a high jump event in the Cattle Olympics.

I drove into the back pasture with a whip, thinking I could corral it back toward our front gate, onto the road, and into the ropes of his pursuers. Instead, he slipped through the electric wires at the back of our land, a stretch of fencing we just completed a couple months ago. Then it happily pranced away out of view and away from our pasture. While there, I talked to the owner of two of the five escapees. She filled me in on the full story: the location of the three bulls where known, but a heifer and calf where missing. The five animals busted out together but had separated. They had been running loose for about an hour by the time I got involved and I have no idea how much longer before all were contained and returned to their own fields.

On my second attempt at grocery shopping, I pulled along the side of a truck parked in the middle of our road. The driver was an older farmer with an exasperated expression. I asked if he was a part of the crew looking for the cows and he nodded. I wished him luck to which he responded, “It’s not the first time they got out, and it won’t be the last.”

Wait.

Not the first time? So this has happened before?

6.11.2019

The Bugler

Imaging being smart enough to understand the intricacies of the second amendment and self defense laws. Imagine possessing the intelligence required to admit to killing others, covering up their deaths, disposing of evidence, and getting away with murder. Imagine for a moment you’re a prodigious genius patriot superhero of your own domain warding off home invaders and petty thieves who thrive in your crime ridden corner of suburbia.

Then imagine being so brilliant and yet you’re incapable of spelling the word burglar.

found on twitter

Disclaimer: I am not a masterful speller. As a kid, I flunked a majority of my elementary school spelling tests. I was the kid who disqualified himself in the first round of every spelling bee. Spell check exists for people like me.

Throughout my formal education, English classes were my worst subjects. These classes routinely garnered the lowest grade on every report card. My 10th grade American Literature teacher would be horrified to learn I’m a writer today.

I am not a grammar nazi either. The first draft of everything I write is ugly enough to make the most chill member of the grammar police cringe. This is why I submit my work through a couple rounds of revision and editing before it faces public consumption.

While I am rarely one to point out flaws in other individuals’ use of the English language, there are some errors that are too good to ignore. There are misspellings so divinely perfect it satisfies my appreciation of schadenfreude. Bugler is one of those fine examples. Even with my limited mastery of syntax and my fragile ability to spell, I still know the correct spelling is burglar.

But bugler? Sounds like how you would describe someone who is obsessed with insects but lacks any basic understanding of entomology.

Does mocking the individual who designed these decals and used them to decorate the entrance to his home make me a hypocrite? Yes. Does assuming the homeowner in question is a male make me sexist? Probably. Do I care? No. Any would-be burglar thinking of robbing this abode is probably smart enough to see the fool’s error. And they’re probably laughing at his folly too.