Memo to some parents on my block this 4th of July...

I realize that it's July 4th and that boys like to shoot off fireworks. I, myself, blew up my fair share of them when I was a kid continuing through my teenage years. Hell, I even blew off over 80 dollars worth last night when me, my father-in-law and a relative pitched in, so I'm not against it.

What bothers me is that today, as I was driving down the street to get home, I encountered four of your kids standing in the middle of the road and lighting off fireworks. Never mind that the middle of the street was so littered with firecrackers and assorted fireworks that you could barely see the road. What did bother me was that instead of looking to see if a care was coming, your boys proceeded to light off a cone firework.

I figured that once they saw me in the road that they'd move aside or at the very least, one of you would yell at them to get the hell out of the way! They finally saw me and walked rather slowly to the middle of the road. That's right, they barely moved and I was forced to swerve around them.

If this was me and my Dad was watching, he would have yelled at me good. So my advice is simple: Tell them to get the frak out of the way if a car is coming! It's not that hard....

My 40th Birthday party playlist songs 61-70

61. Save It For Later by The English Beat


62. Heat of the Moment by Asia


63. Destination Unknown by Missing Persons


64. Run Run Away by Slade


65. One Thing Leads to Another by The Fixx


66. Peace Sells by Megadeth


67. Space Truckin' by Deep Purple


68. Pressure by Billy Joel


69. Here Comes Your Man by The Pixies


70. Since You're Gone by The Cars

My 40th Birthday party playlist songs 51-60

51. Legal Tender by the B-52s


52. You've Got Another Thing Coming by Judas Priest


53. Hyperactive! by Thomas Dolby


54. Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap by AC/DC


55. Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood


56. The New Style by The Beastie Boys


57. Keep Feeling Fascination by The Human League


58. Genius of Love by Tom Tom Club


59. Let's Go Crazy by Prince


60. Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie

My 40th Birthday party playlist songs 41-50

41. My Philosophy by Boogie Down Productions


42. Games People Play by Alan Parsons Project


43. Love Missile F-11 by Sigue Sigue Sputnik


44. Close to the Edit by Art of Noise


45. Finest Worksong by REM


46. Homosapien by Pete Shelley


47. Up the Creek by Cheap Trick


48. Super Cool Wagon by Sons of Freedom


49. Can't Hardly Wait by The Replacements


50. Freedom of Choice by Devo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGINIsLnqU

My 40th Birthday party playlist songs 31-40

31. Fall on Me by REM


32. Rock the Casbah by The Clash


33. Pop Muzik by M


34. Life in a Northern Town by The Dream Academy


35. My Ever Changing Moods by The Style Council


36. Behind the Wall of Sleep by The Smithereens


37. Shock the Monkey by Peter Gabriel


38. Nothing Bad Ever Happens by Oingo Boingo


39. Abracadabra by Steve Miller


40. Rock Box by Run DMC

My 40th Birthday playlist songs 21-30

21. It's My Life by Talk Talk

22. Big Beat by Billy Squier

23. Boom Boom by Trio

24. Don't Bring Me Down by Electric Light Orchestra

25. Bicycle Race by Queen

26. All That I Wanted by Belfegore

27. In My Dreams by Dokken

28. Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes

29. Crybaby by Utopia

30. Good Times by INXS

40th Birthday Party playlist songs 11-20

11. Words by Missing Persons



12. House of Fun by Madness



13. New Song by Howard Jones



14. Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant



15. Pump Up the Volume by MARRS



16. Turning Japanese by The Vapors



17. Renegade by Styx



18. Is There Something I Should Know by Duran Duran



19. Turn to Stone by Electric Light Orchestra



20. I'll Be You by The Replacements

40th Birthday Party playlist songs 1-10

At my party, I created a playlist with songs picked by Bill and I that were a few of our favorite songs growing up. The playlist was shuffled. Here's the order that they played.

1. Saved by Zero by The Fixx



2. Ah! Leah! by Donnie Iris



3. Dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo



4. Atomic Boms by Kix



5. Put the Message in the Box by World Party



6. Der Komimisar by After the Fire



7. Bring on the Dancing Horses by Echo and the Bunnymen



8. Big Time by Peter Gabriel



9. Say What You Will by Fastway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpUCznIaFlw

10. In a Big Country by Big Country

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vhebiuuLqU

Watched Paranormal Activity 2 or as I like to call it...

Parasnoremore Activity 2.

Laura and I saw the first one in the theater. For me, it was okay. For Laura, she was freaked out by it. Admittedly, it was a little creepy sometimes, but I think that was more the effect of seeing it in a theater full of people. Laura grabbed at me several times when something would go bang, so she was interested in seeing the sequel.

We rented it and watched it this afternoon.

If you haven't seen either Paranormal Activities, the story goes like this. Both movies are presented as if they are found footage of real events, but actually actors portray the real people. The first movie centered around Katie and Micah (pronounced Mee-cah), who were being disturbed by some sort of ghost in their house. Micah is, of course, skeptical, but he buys a video camera and sets it up in the bedroom to film themselves sleeping. You see time lapsed videos of some weird stuff going on, like Katie getting up and standing by the bed for over two hours.

Spoiler Alert....

The first movie ends with Micah getting killed by a possessed Katie. In the second film, the action takes place a little bit before the first movie's events. Katie's sister, Kristi, who has a one-year-old boy, along with a husband and a step daughter, is being bothered by some strange events in her house.

It's a pretty expensive house with a pool so when someone breaks in and trashes the house, but only takes Kristi's necklace that her sister gave her, the Dad does what any rational person does, he has a whole house DVR surveillance system installed. Logic would tell you that a normal person would probably get a surveillance system that is only tripped by movement, but these babies film 24 hours a day!

So things start to get a little weird, but my God does it take a long time to get there! You see multiple shots every night of the front yard, the pool area, the living room and the upstairs baby room.

Every night goes like this:

(Cue quiet noises of the house and outside)

The front yard camera (nothing happens)

The back yard camera (nothing happens)

The kitchen camera (nothing happens)

The living room camera (nothing happens)

The baby's room camera (nothing happens at first)

Then something weird will happen like the baby stands up and looks at something that isn't there, or a door will open, or the dog will bark at something that isn't there.

After a while of this, I almost fell asleep with all the soothing sounds of night.

The movie has a "script", but you could tell a lot of the dialogue was improvised. I mean, some of the Dad's dialogue is awful. He's told about some weird stuff going on, but he doesn't believe it. He always says things like "That's the last I want to hear on the subject!"

Their live-in nanny, a Hispanic old lady who can understand English, but doesn't speak it for reason, senses some bad spirits in the house, so she starts praying and making signs. The Dad is not down with her burning some strong incense to keep spirits out of the house, so he fires her.

All the while, weird stuff is going on and I'm practically yelling at the screen, "Why in the hell did you install that whole house DVD if you're not going to use it!?"

Finally, the teenage daughter shows her Dad some of the footage of weird stuff happening, but even after that, the family checks the DVR sporadically. If this was my house and weird things were afoot, I would be checking that puppy every freaking day!

At one point, the daughter shows her Dad some of the weird stuff. She asks him, "Now do you believe me?" Even after this, they still miss a lot of the weird stuff. The plot takes a rather odd turn when one of the members of the house gets possessed and there is something about a deal with the devil that would mean that the first born son would be taken. Even after these details, no one things to call in some paranormal investigators.

All in all, it was an okay movie with about 2 whole minutes of some freaky stuff. I don't think that's worth the 90 minutes of improvised dialogue.

Playing Video Games With Dad Builds Better Daughters

Here's an article about how girls that played video games, especial with their Dads, were better behaved, felt more connected to their families, felt less aggressive, and demonstrated decreased levels of internalizing, which can lead to depression. Granted, the study was for girls ages 11 to 16 and Julia's been playing for two years now, but it's time well spent!

Playing Video Games With Dad Builds Better Daughters

I can understand that, but...

I’ve had a lot of jobs in my day. I’ve been a dishwasher, cook, delivery driver, maintenance worker, welder, sports reporter, video game tester, book warehouse worker, book buyer and probably a few other ones I’m forgetting, but the worst job that I’ve ever had was my telemarketing job.

My stint as a telemarketer only lasted five weeks, but it was five of the worst weeks of my life.

It all started one day when Bill and I were working at the Captain’s Table in the kitchen, which is now the Garden Cafe. It was discussed that him and our friend, Brian, would be applying for this job at a new company in Grand Island. I had no idea what the job involved, but when I heard that it paid 6 something an hour, I was intrigued. Since I was earning around minimum wage at the time, I immediately took notice.

Bill and Brian had already landed their jobs, but I didn’t want to get left out, so I headed down to the telemarketing place and applied. I was taken in to talk with the manager, who was the mother of a classmate of ours, but whose name eludes me. She talked to me about the job. It would involve calling people and offering them a service let’s call Traveler’s Rebate, which is basically the extent of the service. TR would give you a five percent rebate on all you travel expenses if you sent them in to them. Our job was to sell the service.

I had never had a sales job before, but it didn’t seem like it was hard. We ran through a script where I pitched TR. Then we went through a part of the script where the interviewer acted like she had doubts, so then I read a rebuttal that started with “I can understand that, ma’am, but...” followed by another pitch to convince her to take our glorious product. She said, “Great.” and I had the job!

When my brother, Bill, told our Dad that he had taken a job at the telemarketing company, my Dad said that he was fine with it, “As long as you don’t call me.”

I told my boss at the Captain’s Table that I was quitting. He told me that he could keep my position open because “I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

I insisted that I probably would like it. It had to be better than getting all sweaty and greasy in the kitchen, right?

I probably should have listened to him. He was right about that and another thing in my life. I once told him that “I’ll be listening to heavy metal until the day I die!”

He said, “I don’t know. I think your tastes will change. You’ll be listening to something else.”

“No way!” I said.

Of course, he was right, but he was wrong about other things like when he told me that punk music would rot my brain, which it didn’t, although some people that know me may disagree.

So back to job. Here’s what I thought the job would entail.

I thought I would be wearing a nice shirt and tie. I’d be shown to my office where I would sit behind a desk and make some calls to people that were already interested in the TR service I was offering them. I pictured them saying “yes” to my sales pitches followed by big pay checks that I already had money spent. I pictured steady, calming work free of stress.

What I got was far from that. Like all the way in BFE far way.

Bill, Brian and I started on the same day. We went through several days of training in a nice office conference room where we talked about the job, went through scripts and discussed how to be successful in telemarketing. I honestly don’t remember what any of those tips were, though. The only thing I remember about that week was that I got paid, it wasn’t stressful and we got to watch a video of Geraldo Rivera getting smashed in the face with a chair.

Out of the blue, our trainer asks us if we’d seen it. He then showed it to us. It was a pretty good video that you can find easily on you tube if you haven’t seen it.

That was the highlight of the week that is still etched in my brain. Otherwise, I’ve pushed it all out.

Then on the last day of the week, we were ushered into the call room, or what is often referred to as a boiler room, which is a room full of salespeople on the phone trying to sell questionable goods or services.

There’s a good movie called The Boiler Room that does a good job showing this. There’s also a documentary called Anvil The Story of Anvil where the lead singer of this band, Anvil, takes a telemarketing job to earn some extra money. The guy who hires him is a fan of the band, and his company sells sunglasses over the phone. I cringed at that scene because he felt like I felt.

It wasn’t like I had pictured it at all. There were sectioned desks that each had a phone in them. It looked like a long table with mini walls to block the person from the left and right of you. We sat down in one and shadowed a person in the fine art of the script we were given. After a while, we switched and then I had to do it.

To say I was nervous was an understatement. I was really nervous. I hate talking to people I don’t know as it is, even when I’m calling them to have them help me for something. But it suddenly dawned on me that I would be calling total strangers from across the country.

Up to that point, I had never experienced telemarketing. My Dad usually answered the phone when it was a telemarketer. You could always tell when they called. He’d answer the phone with a loud, “HELL-O!” Then he’d just stand there and listen. Quickly, he’d get a irritated look on his face. I’d soon be facing people like my Dad.

I don’t remember the exact script we used, but it went something like this.

“Hello, my name is Bob, and I am calling about Traveler’s Rebate. May I please speak with So and So?”

(Wait for affirmative)

“Hello, Mr or Mrs. So and So, I wanted to talk to you tonight about Traveler’s Rebate. It’s a service that gives you five percent off of all your expenses when you travel.”

(Right here, there would be some more information describing the service and its “benefits” and then)

“So now that I’ve told you about the TR service, I’m offering you a 30-day trial to TR during which time, you’ll pay nothing and you’ll be able to use the service for all your travel expenses. If at the end of the 30 days you decide you don’t want it, all you have to do is call us and we’ll cancel it for you. Should I sign you up for Traveler’s Rebate today?”

(I waited for a response here. If Yes, we’d go to the part of the script where I turned on a tape recorder and got the mailing address for the sucker, I mean, customer.)

(If No, I asked the following question: “May I ask why?” then I used the following rebuttals)

“I Can’t Afford It”

“I can understand that you are concerned about the cost, but it’s 30 days free to try. After that it’s only (some amount) a month. So can I sign you up for the 30-day free trial?”

“I don’t travel much”

I can understand that you don’t travel much, but...

“I’m not interested”

I can understand that, but I would hate for you to miss out on this opportunity.

And there were other rebuttals for anything the customer would argue against.

From the start, I knew that I probably wasn’t going to like this job. I stumbled through my first attempt at the script while impatient people, who I had interrupted during their supper or TV time, were waiting on the other end.

I don’t think I sold any that night. You could chalk it up to nerves or you could chalk it up to that fact that I just didn’t have what it takes to be a telemarketer. Very quickly, I started to notice the qualities that one needed to succeed.

1. A great phone voice.

I don’t have a great phone voice at all. It’s not bad, but not great. If you were to call me, you might accuse me of sounding aloof or disinterested. Maybe you’d think that I sound bored. Other times, I’ve been accused of sounding rude. You might be right on all counts. What was so very frustrating about this liability was that a lot of fat people around me (not really exaggerating) were hauling in the sales night after night. I firmly believe it’s because of their phone voice.

Every night, the company would put up some prize to those who sold the most that night. I shouldn’t have even bothered to keep track of my paltry totals because I got no where near to competing for the prizes. I’d be stuck at 2 sales after 2 hours and a lady at the end with a great voice would be sitting at 16 sales! 16! I think the most I ever got in one night was about 5. That’s it!

2. No fear

It’s very true that showing fear is a sign of weakness that all forms of life can detect. If you are petrified that the people you are calling will answer the phone, that’s another sign that you shouldn’t be a telemarketer. Every number I would dial would be like a shot to my self esteem. The phone would ring, and I would dread the inevitable pick up. Not getting an answer was nice because you didn’t have to speak to anyone. The bad news was that the less people I talked to, the less likely it would be for me to have a good sales night.

The best nights were when they’d hand me sheets of people they couldn’t get to answer the phone. Most of the calls would go unanswered with me having a great night with very few people yelling at me.

We had a process that we could go through if the caller not only didn’t want the product, but had been called before and now TR wouldn’t leave them alone. If they asked to not be called again, we could take them off our lists and they’d be put on a Do Not Call list. Usually, people would ask us. Or if you were like me, you would pitch it to them.

Usually, those calls would go like this:

Me: “Hello Mr. So and So, I’m called on behalf of TR and... (insert sales pitch here).

Customer: “I know about the TR service. I’ve told them several times that I don’t want it. I just wish you guys would stop calling me!”

Me: “Well (with a huge sound of relief) I can help you with that! I can take you off of our calling list if you’d like!”

Customer: (Sounding much friendlier) “Oh yes! Could you!”

Then we’d have a nice 5 minute chat of verifying information followed by thanks galore by the grateful customer. This felt great! Then I hung up. This was followed by the crushing realization that I would have to start the whole process over again as I looked at the next number on my sheet and proceeded to dial.

3. Personality

Some people have natural personality on the phone. I do not. I tried and tried to sound cheerful and confident, but failed at every attempt.

I was fairly miserable in this realization until a classmate named Joel got a job there. He was confident and cheerful. Plus, he had the balls to stray from the script. We’d sit there and hear him yucking it up with a customer with phrases like “What I’m going to do is send out this packet to you. You can take it, look it over and if you think to yourself, ‘Hey! this isn’t what I want!’, then you can just call us up and we’ll cancel it for you. No problem!”

This was similar to the script, but it in no way was close to the script’s cold delivery. We were always told to stick to the script, so I reminded Joel of that.

“We’re supposed to stick to the script!”

I was always a little anal retentive. Besides, if I was miserable, he should be miserable, too!

4. No shame.

It’s hard to be a salesperson when you have shame. If you feel bad when you call someone, that should be a very good sign that this may not be the job for you.

As I was reading my pitch, I would think to myself that if there was no way I would ever pay for something like this service, then how would I expect another person to buy it?

I would start my script and try to sound cheerful, but I couldn’t keep it up. I knew they’d probably say “No” and I knew that it was a crappy product. So I was resigned that they would say no and then die slowly inside when I’d have to flip to the rebuttal section and try to change the customer’s mind when I didn’t have the heart to get them to change it.

I think it would be different if it was a service that I believed in or was easier to sell. I remember running into a guy who was a telemarketer in college. He loved his job, which was getting people to sign up for a credit card. He said people just jumped at the opportunity to get the card. Must have been nice!

The people we called ran the whole spectrum of customers. Some were nice. Some a little angry. A few were really angry. Some would just hang up. Some would just set the phone down and then walk away. Others would tell you that the person in question was “not home right now” and “could you call back later”? I’m sure that a lot of these were just people that didn’t want to talk, but we were just going to keep calling them back at another time. Why not just tell us not to call?

Besides the customers, what made the job even more stressful were our managers. I’m sure they were under pressure to get more sales from us, so they would often listen in to our calls. You could always tell when they’d start listening because the line would suddenly have an echo and a delay on it. You’d start talking and hear “I-I-I can-can-can understand-understand...” in your ear, which made trying to make the sale even harder.

As one of the least productive employees there, I had to talk to the managers a few times to work on my sales technique. If they offered anything instructive, it obviously didn’t stick because I don’t remember any advice except for when I told them that I sometimes affected a southern drawl when calling people in the South.

You’d get these sheets of names, addresses, and phone numbers every night. Usually, you’d stay in the same area all night. I noticed that a lot of times, I’d be stuck in the South where I’d hear a definite Southern drawl. After a while, I started to talk with a slight drawl to fit in. When I told the manager this, his response was “Well I hope you’re not making that too obvious.”

At that point, I really didn’t care what they thought.

I mentioned the “Nice” people I sometimes got. In almost every case, they were nice because they didn’t want the service, didn’t need the service or couldn’t afford the service.

I talked for what seemed like 15 minutes to a nice Southern elderly black man who sounded interested in the service, but he already took bus tours. I tried and tried to get him to see my way, but he’d argue back to me about how great a deal he was already getting. He would make his point and argue, “You can’t get better than that, can you?” I finally had to concede that his deal sounded better. He should have been selling these deals.

Then there were the people that liked the service, but didn’t need it. I pitched to a man that sounded pretty interested, so interested that I started to lean forward to hit the record button on my tape recorder so I could record the sale. He said, “That sounds great!” I leaned forward even farther to hit the record button. “But I’m a student and I don’t travel!”

Rats...

Then there were the people that didn’t need it at all.

You’d pitch and hear, “I’m unemployed.” Sorry...

“I’m in a hospital bed and can’t travel.” Oops...

“We’re dealing with a death in the family right now.” Ouch...

I’m not making those up. They all were responses to me.

My brother, Bill, was actually one of the better sales people, but he hated it. He told me that he lost ten pounds while working there because he wasn’t hungry and his stomach always rumbled with acid at the thought of calling people.

Bill averaged about 5 sales a night, which was good enough for a promotion of sorts. This didn’t involve any pay, though. He was recruited to start selling a new product that didn’t involve the traveler rebate program. He doesn’t remember the full extent of it, but he said it was similar to Amway where you’d have to order your goods through a catalog, but you had to pay a fee to have the right to order through the catalog.

It was much harder to sell this service.

Bill said that after several nights of not selling anything, he called a woman that clearly didn’t want the service. When he asked, “May I ask why, Ma’am?”

She said, “Because I don’t want it. It’s Christmas and I’m trying to watch a Christmas special, and I can’t because you’re interrupting me!”

At this point, Bill said he felt his stomach gurgling with stomach acid from nerves.

Bill quit a day or two after that. Our friend, Brian, quit almost at the same time. Surprisingly, I was the last man standing, but I quit a day or two after Bill left. The paychecks were nice, but the stress was just too much to handle.

A friend of ours in college told us he worked a summer at a telemarketing place. He really hated it, but instead of quiting, he just reached a point where he started messing with the customers. If they gave him more than one excuse, he’d go through the rebuttal script for each excuse until it got to the point where people were screaming at him. You’d think people would hang up at this point, but some people just don’t like to hang up on someone, even if it’s a total stranger that you will never meet.

You would think that I would have sympathy towards telemarketers because I’ve been there and done that, but the opposite is true. It’s because I had this experience that I have no patience for them. I know when I get a pitch, that I’m going to get a rebuttal if I try to give excuses, which kind of irritates me. I know that they are just doing their job, but I know it’s something they probably don’t believe in. I have trouble pitching things people actually want, like Julia’s Girl Scout cookies. I sometimes feel bad when people give me money and they actually want the cookies!

I’ve just resorted to “I don’t want it” and hanging up if they try to give me more than one rebuttal.

Years ago, I was pitched AOL, which I didn’t need because we got free Internet from our apartment building. After getting a few “I understand that, but...” lines, I finally said, “Look I HATE AOL ok?” That finally did it.

I don’t think I’ll ever get a job involving a phone again unless it’s a job where people call YOU and want YOU to do something for them. That I can handle. I was so scarred by my telemarketing experiences that I put off learning how to answer phones at Pizza Hut when I worked there in college until finally a manager forced me to answer the phone. It’s amazing what a difference you get in attitude when the “customer” actually wants to talk to you.

New story to come soon...

I'm putting the finishing touches on a story that Laura may indeed call long winded and rambling, but I hope you'll like it. It's about my stint as a telemarketer when I was in high school.

I had been working on it for many weeks. I was looking through my old archives and didn't think that my writings were as good as I remembered them. So I'm attempting to take my time and write something that has more depth and takes more time.

I would have finished this earlier, but this past week has been brutal with travel, car problems and other headaches.

The car problem occurred when Laura decided to take my car to work since it does better in ice and snow that her Mazda 3. I got into her car and the damned thing wouldn't start. So I convinced a neighbor of mine to use her husband's tow tether rope to pull the car to the auto shop, which was only 1.5 miles away.

After a few missteps on tethering the car to her SUV, we finally got going. I told her to go 15 to 20 on the street. She went at least 25 to 30 miles an hour. Considering the car didn't have power brakes at this time and the tether was insanely short, all I could think was that she was going to hit the brakes too hard and I was going to slam into the back of her SUV. That stretch was the scariest 60 seconds of my life as I white knuckled the steering wheel and rode the brake for all it was worth. Thankfully, we got to the intersection, which was also thankfully on a slight hill. And in another stroke of good luck, the light was red. I opened my door and yelled at her, "Please slow down!!!! Only go 10 miles an hour!!! I don't have power brakes!!!"

We turned the corner and she indeed only went 10 miles an hour down the next street. The ride ended shortly after that and I heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Hopalong...

I’ve written about my childhood before, and it’s caused some tension in the family. Some have accused me of highlighting the bad stuff to make it look like I didn’t have any fun when I was a kid. I did have fun, but as anyone that has older siblings can verify, you are sometimes subjected to things that border on cruel and unusual punishment.

I can laugh about these things now, but at the time, they didn’t seem so funny. So when I write about these things, I’m not trying to throw a pity party, I am merely conveying how bad I had it when I was beaten on by my older siblings. I mean, I am just trying to say that I may have been subjected to some bad things, but it doesn’t mean that I want sympathy now or that I hold it against the people involved.

With that said, here’s a story about how my oldest brother almost crippled me for life... :)

My older brothers weren’t the most predictable siblings to get along with. For 10 good times with them, there were the times that weren’t so good.

For example, you’d just be standing there and then, for no good reason, they would slug you in the shoulder. Hard. It would sometimes get to the point where they wouldn’t even hit you. They would slug you as if they were going to hit, but hold it back so that you’d flinch. I think that was more enjoyable for them.

You never knew when the next hit was going to occur, but it would inevitably come. I’ve written before about how my older brother, Paul, asked me to put my nose to the screen door. When I said no because he’d hit me, he said he’d pay me five dollars if he did. So I put my nose to the screen door and was promptly punched. Some blood and crying (both from me) later, I was five dollars richer after my Mom made him pay me.

Another incident occurred the summer of 1980 I believe, and I was just a innocent young boy when I was injured by my brother, Joe.

Every weekend of the summer, we would pile into the van and head to Clarks, Nebraska for a weekend at a place called Bucktail Lake. It was right next to the Platte River. We had a trailer that was yards away from the river, so we had some nice scenery and access to the river. The river access was nice when it was low because you could go out and explore. When it was high, you stuck to the lake in front of our trailer, which was Bucktail.

There were about 40 trailers at the time. My Uncle Bill had a trailer about a dozen trailers down from us. We would walk over there to see what our cousins were up to. Or we’d just swim there for something different to do. Like a lot of trailers there, Uncle Bill had a dock in front sitting in the water. Docks were nice because you could jump off of them when you were swimming.
I was standing on my Uncle Bill’s dock one day that summer when my brother Joe came up behind me. Without a word, he picked me up and threw me off of the dock. I don’t know why he did it and if you asked him now, he’d say that he doesn’t remember doing this, but I remember.
I hit the water and felt a pain. I swam towards the shore, but something felt wrong. When I kicked, it didn’t feel right. I got to the shore and started to walk up. I gasped, fell down and screamed. My left foot was on fire.

Joe, being the helpful brother that he was at the time, tried to pull me out of the water, but I screamed again when my foot hit the ground. I sat down on the shore and held it.

He said, “You’re okay!” in that tone that parents say when their kid is exaggerating a trauma. As a parent, I’ve found myself saying this to my daughter on more than one occasion.

I cried, “I broke my foot!”

I have never broken a bone in my body, but I’d seen enough kids with casts on at school to know what it means to break a foot. Clearly, my foot didn’t feel the greatest. I looked at the evidence, although at the time, probably not this rationally. My foot hurt. It hurt even more to stand on it. I couldn’t walk on it. Plus, it seemed to be growing in size as I was looking at it. It was no longer slender. It had grown a big lump across the top. It throbbed.

Joe still tried to insist that it was fine, but I protested that it was not fine. To his credit, he could have left me there, but he believed me and carried me all the way back to our trailer.
I was taken to the hospital by my Mom once it was determined that my foot was possibly broken. The Homan family and some of the residents of Bucktail Lake have had a few visits to the hospital. There was the time when my brother Joe injured his leg trying to jump all the way down a sand hill and into the water. He only made it to the shore. Then there was the time when my brother Paul burned his arm by picking up a homemade M80, which blew up right before he picked it up.

A quick story about that. Bill and I had heard about making an M80 by combining a ladyfinger firecracker and another firework. Bill and I had tried it by lighting it in our driveway. Sure enough, it was a ear-splitting explosion. We told Paul about it. He lit it. Nothing happened. I was on my way to go pick it up to see if it had maybe gone out, but Paul stopped me. He then went over himself to pick it up. So on one hand, he was smart to stop me from doing something stupid, but then proceeded to do the stupid thing himself.

Now that I think about it, it’s a wonder that we didn’t injure ourselves more at Bucktail Lake. We would often run around with just shorts and no shoes on 3-wheeled ATVs or Motorcycles, which resulted in more burns on hot exhaust than I’d like to remember. Or we’d swim in the very deep lake with just a life belt to keep us afloat. Nowadays, 3-wheeled ATVs are banned because they were dangerous and kids are practically required to wear life jackets when swimming.

But back to my injury...

When we got to the hospital, the doctor of course pushed and poked at it with me wincing all the time. The x-ray had some bad news for me, though. It wasn’t broken. The problem was that the bones in my left foot had separated, so they rolled some tape around my foot, told me to stay off of it for three weeks and sent me on my way.

I protested this.

“Do I get crutches?” I asked.

I had seen kids at school who had broken a leg with crutches. Surely I could get some crutches, too? If I can’t walk, how would I get around?

It was explained to me that they thought that I might hurt myself more by giving me crutches if I was to slip and fall. It was true that I was and still am uncoordinated, but I wasn’t sure how they knew that.

It was suggested that I either crawl or hop on the other foot.

I did both, but it wasn’t without a lot of mocking on the part of my older brothers.

I even had a nickname, Crip, which was short for cripple.

“Hey Crip,” my brother, Paul, would say to me all the time.

If I had to get anywhere in the house I’d have to put one arm on a wall to guide me and just hop along. Getting upstairs was an adventure at first, but I got quite good at hopping upstairs one stair at a time without stopping.

One good and bad thing was that I was allowed to rest for three weeks. The good news was that I could sit around and watch television or read all day long, which I did. The bad news was that I had to sit around and watch television or read all day long.

I remember watching the movie with Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees, Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. This movie was someone’s bright idea to have the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, both the biggest artists at the time, to do a whole movie based on songs from the Beatles. I loved the movie. In my defense, I was a kid and now that I have one of my own, I can confirm that kid’s have lousy tastes in movies.

After a few days of seeing it every time it came on HBO, I got kind of tired of it.

I loved going to the library, but seeing as how I couldn’t walk, that was out the window.

I started to worry that I was never going to leave the house again.

On top of that, showering and bathing became a huge hassle. Seeing as how I had bandages around my foot, either I had to take a bath with my foot hanging over the side or I could take the tape off and try to retape it every time. Showering was out because I couldn’t exactly stand on one foot in a slippery shower.

I didn’t think my foot was ever going to heal, but finally I was able to put pressure on it. The only lasting effects is that my left foot has a slightly pronounced hump to it, so when I tie my shoes, the left one bulges out slightly.

Even with incidents like this, I look back fondly at the days at Bucktail Lake. Granted, there were bad things about it like no cable tv, no shelter from storms, sweating at night in the trailer when it was hot or shivering in the trailer when it was cold, sunburns from being in the sun all day, rashes from crawling on inner tubes, stepping on stickers, getting pierced by fish fins, getting hooked by fish hooks, bitten by fish, sleepless nights when it was storming, bad dreams about storms and various other things.

Although getting injured does tarnish good memories, it was nice to have a place to be able to explore, to swim, to ride ATVs and to just have fun.

Got bored and watched Species II...

So I was bored the other night and was flipping through the cable guide when I noticed that Species was on the new Epix channel we have.

I first saw Species in the theater. I was working at Pizza Hut at the time and I kind of oversold certain aspects of the movie. I was amused at the amount of nudity in the film by star Nastasha Henstridge. She spends an good amount of time in the film in a bra or topless.

I noticed that after Species was its sequel, Species II. Both films star Marg Helgenberger of CSI fame and Michael Madsen of a lot of violent movies fame. Nastasha Henstridge also stars as Eve, a clone of the original Sil.

The movie was released in theaters, but has the look and feel of a direct-to-video movie. Helgenberger is fairly solid as Dr. Laura Baker, but Madsen, whom I read thinks the movie stinks, looks like he's in pain most of the time as Press Lennox. I don't blame him.

Species II has a lot of nudity, too, but it didn't help the box office. The movie bombed when it was released, yet has spawned two more Direct to DVD sequels.

The movie starts with a mission to Mars. One astronaut goes to the surface to collect soil samples and apparently that's all, because after traveling months to get to Mars, all NASA is interested in is a 2-hour Mars walk to get 3 tubes of soil samples. Why spend more time there studying the planet? Time is money people!

So they are ready to leave after storing the soil samples. One tube warms up and a gray ooze falls out to the ground, which appears to infect the crew. No communication is available for 7 minutes, but then everything appears fine. So the crew makes it back to Earth, given a quick check over and sent on their merry way while being reminded that they are "quarantined" and NOT to engage in sexual activity for a few more days.

I have a question here... Wouldn't you keep the astronauts there for a few days while evaluating them? They just spent almost a year in space, which can affect your bone density for one thing. Wouldn't you run through a lot of tests?

So one of the astronauts, Patrick, the one who walked on the surface, starts to have all sorts of unprotected sex. In one scene, he sleeps with two women in a hotel room one after the other, which apparently was in those new sound proof hotels that can muffle the sound of two women screaming at the same time because after Patrick has sex, the women he impregnates each immediately give birth in a rather grisly fashion to a kid the size of a four-year-old.

Soon Patrick is amassing a large brood of alien creepy kid offspring in his father's shed at an old summer home as he has continued to sleep with women of all sorts. Dr. Baker explains that soon, the offspring will go into cocoons and transform into adult aliens so time is running short to find them.

Meanwhile, Eve offers to help find Patrick. She's given radiation to awaken her alien mind (of course) to link to Patrick. While linked to Patrick, Press Lennox and the other uninfected astronaut, Dennis, race to stop Patrick from impregnating another woman that he's kidnapped in the grocery store they've just entered.

I say "race" loosely here because it's more like a casual stroll. They hear a scream and are told which way Patrick has dragged a woman and stroll that direction as if they are checking out an art museum walking tour. He's gaining ground while they casually stroll into the back of the store, glide down some stairs, meander through the basement and lope up the shipping driveway to the parking lot where Patrick has forced the woman into a van and is attempting to procreate. Meanwhile Press and Patrick walk even slower past the van to a van that's already rocking, which turns out to be some teens. They tell them to buzz off and then still show no signs of haste to find the alien, which we've established has just kidnapped a woman and is in the process of trying to make another creepy alien!

Patrick gives himself up when he senses Eve's existence. He's taken to the same lab where Eve is. They make hot glass faces at each other. He escapes again while they try to keep him away from Eve. Eve then breaks out to go and have some sex with Patrick.

The movie is filled with a lot of stiff and eye rolling dialogue. A good example of this is when Eve escapes, she steals an Army hummer and drives away with it.

Someone asks, "I thought she didn't know how to drive."

Dr. Baker says, "Her favorite show is the Dukes of Hazard!"

I watched that a ton when I was a kid, but I didn't really have a sense on how to drive. Besides, she didn't jump across the hood and slide into the door through the window. She also didn't jump a gorge, but I'm sure if it was there, she might have attempted it.

They follow Eve to the location of Patrick's brood of kids. While she runs off to have weird alien sex upstairs, they spray the cocoons with a mixture of Dennis's blood, which they figure out will kill the alien because Dennis has the sickle cell gene and the aliens won't mate unless the host is disease free.

In the end, the aliens are killed, even the brood of creepy kids. The ending predictably sets up a sequel, but good luck getting me to watch it.

It was an okay movie though. I'll probably never watch it again, unless the Riff Trax guys make a commentary track for it.

We used to communicate so well...

We used to communicate so well...

It goes without saying that as a twin, Bill and I are on a higher plain than everyone else around. Because we spent so much time together growing up, there is a bond between us that was pretty strong. We could have conversations in half sentences, and we wouldn’t be the wiser.
Growing up, my Dad told us at an early age that we were going to have to start talking right because no one could understand us. I never really noticed it until, once when we were in college, Bill and I were engrossed in a conversation when our roommate stopped by to listen in. He started to chuckle and said, "Are you guys talking in your secret twin language?"
While talking to other people, we don’t exactly finish each other’s sentences like you often expect thanks to television and movies. Rather, it’s a fight over who can tell a story the best.
It’d usually go something like this.
One of us starts to tell a story, but start to falter or the other twin doesn’t feel he is telling it right.
"But..." the other twin interjects.
The one telling the story waves a hand away.
"Don’t forget the part..." interjects again.
"Oh. Just let me tell it!" the other twin finally yells in exasperation.
Lately, it seems like Bill and I are starting to lose a bit of our communication skills with each other.
For example, I was telling Bill about an article in the Onion’s AV Club that listed shows that had characters that stopped the show’s plot to a halt. That is, an annoying or bland character that the writers of a particular don’t know what to do with anymore. An example of this would be Dwight Schrute from The Office. The article reasoned, and I agree, that for the first few seasons of The Office, Dwight didn’t get act like a control-freak jerk just for the hell of it. In later seasons, it seems like they make Dwight be Dwight just to give him something to do.
I told Bill about one episode that I watched where Michael Scott, the boss, had a suspicion that his girlfriend was cheating on him. So he had Dwight go and spy on her. Dwight proceeds to go to the gym where she’s working out and rather than dress like he belongs there, he works out in his suit pants and undershirt while getting way too up close and personal to her. I felt it was too exaggerated and was an example of just using Dwight Shrute because they could, not because it made any sense.
While telling this story to Bill, he misunderstood a key part of the description. Instead of cheating on him, he thought I had said, "Michael Scott thought that his girlfriend was peeing on him, so he has Dwight spy on her to find out.
Bill said "Why would he need Dwight to tell if she was peeing on him? Wouldn’t that be easy to figure out?"
I thought Bill said "cheating" so I asked how that was easy.
"Cheating? Oh! I thought you said that she was 'peeing' on him!" Bill exclaimed.
"What?" I asked laughing. "That wouldn't make any sense!"
"I know!" Bill said. "I was thinking that would have been hard to talk about on network television."
A week or so later, and Bill and I are talking about shows that we’ve watched, which is a thing we do often. We'll call each other up and ask if we've seen a certain show or movie yet. If the answer is 'Yes' then we'll talk about our favorite parts and favorite lines in what we watched. Laura calls it "reminiscing". I sometimes try to "reminisce" with her, but she usually shuts me down before I can start as she says, "I'm not Bill."
So that night I mentioned to Bill that while Laura was out exercising, I had turned to How I Met Your Mother, which is a show she can’t stand. Mainly, she hates main character, Ted, who she says is a giant douche. She feels that it’s hard to root for him to find love when he’s so unlikable.
Also, Laura doesn’t like me watching the show because of the character of Barney, played by Neil Patrick Harris. Barney is a walking libido that lives to get women to sleep with him. Because of this trait, Laura doesn’t think Julia should watch the show. Julia has seen a few episodes and loves Barney, but the shows she watched were tame in the sex talk, so she doesn’t understand why we won’t let her watch all the time.
So that night, I turned on How I Met Your Mother.
Julia said, "Daddy, I don’t think I should be watching this."
I said, "It’s okay, Julia."
Julia said, "I really don’t think I should be watching this."
I assured her that it was fine by saying directly, "It’s fine."
I held up a hand to accentuate this point.
The episode was one I hadn’t seen before. It was about the gang crashing a high-class party where everyone is bored except for Ted, who is douching it up with academic big wigs.
The next day, I tell Bill that I watched the show. I mentioned that Laura doesn’t like Julia watching it.
"But she likes to watch Barney" I said.
"Why doesn’t Laura let Julia watch," Bill asked.
"Because Barney always tries to sleep with women."
"What?" Bill asked.
"You know," I said. "He’s always talking about sex."
"What are you talking about?" Bill asked.
"What do you mean 'What am I talking about?' You know. Barney likes to have sex and talk about sex."
I was taken aback. I didn't understand what was so confusing. We were talking about the show, How I Met Your Mother, which has a character named Barney. Barney is a single guy that lives to sleep with as many women as possible. What was so confusing?
"What?! Are we talking about the same thing?" Bill exclaimed while laughing.
"I’m talking about How I Met Your Mother. What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Ohhh!" Bill exclaimed while laughing harder. "I thought you were talking about Barney the dinosaur."
"How did you get on Barney the dinosaur?" I asked. "We were talking about How I Met Your Mother." I retorted.
He laughed again.
"Well you had said 'Julia likes to watch Barney' and I thought you were talking about Barney the Dinosaur," he said.
"No," I said. "I wasn't talking about Barney the Dinosaur. I don't think there has ever been a Barney the dinosaur show where he talks about sex and sleeping with women. That'd be a really weird show."
"That's what I was thinking!" Bill laughed.

More basic, the routine begins...

After the fiasco of my opening night jitters of Basic Training where I sighed at the Drill Sergeant, we were all ushered towards our Drill Sergeant’s office, which was conveniently located near my bunk! There he outlined his expectations and what to expect. I was still uneasy, but it wasn’t the constant yelling that I had seen in movies about Basic.

He knew that we were all from Nebraska. We were all to write our names, age, and leadership experience, if any.

The other Drill Sergeant, Knight, said not to write as he put it “Stupid shit.”

The first few days involved getting used to the routine. If called somewhere, we were to get there as fast as we can. You were to ‘move with a purpose’, which was not walking to at a leisurely stroll. Believe it or not, this would happen. We’d all be in our formation and someone or some people would stroll from upstairs towards the formation. This would quickly result in them getting “dropped” for push ups. Other times, we all were dropped as punishment.

In another surprise, the first week of Basic wasn’t the hardest. It was some of the easiest. We were taught the basics, which was marching, or Drill and Ceremony. We learned to line up in four columns next to one of our four squad leaders, who were chosen the first night. For several days, we marched to various hard surfaces to learn the ins and outs of Drill and Ceremony.

The routine went like this.

We woke up at 4:45 in the morning. Wake up wasn’t really until 0500 because the line up for PT (fitness training) was at 0530. That first night of Basic after squad leaders were picked, it was decided that we would wake up early so we could have enough time to get showered, shaved, the floor swept, the bathrooms cleaned and our beds made before we left for PT so we’d have plenty of time to get it done before we had to leave for the day.

That first morning, we were already up when our Drill Cadet from West Point was walking through the door banging a metal trash can and a lid together to wake us up. He grinned when he saw us already up. I think he was a little disappointed that he didn't get to scare us out of bed.

Most every morning, we would march down to the PT fields, which was a giant track with a wood chip field in the middle of it. We would run around the track and the switch to push ups, sit ups, jumping jacks and various other physical exercises.

After that first week, things took a turn as we went to different training every day for our basic soldier’s training. Plus, we would run in formation on the street and only go to the PT fields every other day. It was during this time that Drill Sergeant Remington discovered that Bill and I were not as fit as he'd liked. Within a few days, Bill and I were given the most sacred duty of the running formation, we were given the road guard uniforms. This meant that Bill and I had to run in front or behind the formation and then when an intersection came up, we'd have to run up to the intersection and block it while the formation ran by. Then we'd have to run back to the front of the formation, or behind it, until the next intersection came up.

The different training days were meant that we'd have to hurry up to be on time to leave for class and then wait for a while until the trucks came to take us to the class. If it was close enough, we'd fast walk on the side of the road to the class. Depending on the Drill Sergeant leading the march, it could be just as brutal as the PT runs.

One day, we started out at a fast walk, then we were jogging. Then we were literally running. Picture a bunch of us running with equipment on the side of the road for miles. I had know idea why we were running, but was not about to question it. It turns out, the Drill Sergeant leading the march had such a large stride that it became almost impossible for those behind him to march. They had to jog to keep up. Those of us in back not expecting it ended up running.

Georgia is pretty humid, so when we got there, we were all soaking wet with sweat. A fellow soldier who had sprained his ankle rode with the equipment and when he saw us he asked if it had rained.

I had mentioned that we were part of the Nebraska "Buddy Platoon", which was that we were all from Nebraska. Well so many kids signed up for the "Buddy Platoon" that they had 1 and 1/2 platoons full of Nebraskans. First platoon, which I was in, was all Nebraska. The second platoon was half Nebraskans and half every body else.

At first the familiarity of everybody being from Nebraska was nice, but then it quickly grew tedious.

Bill and I knew each other and that was it. Everybody else knew at least five other people that they went to school with or were in a unit together. Because of this, it didn't take long for favorites to emerge. Need someone to do a chore? Grab someone you don't know, like me. Need someone for KP (kitchen duty)? Have someone else do it. We had figured it out. You weren't supposed to have KP more than four or five times during Basic because there were enough people to do it. Some of us, like me, had to do it at least 8 times. Some guys had it over ten times. Why was this? Because some of the guys who were friend with the squad leaders didn't have to do it once.

I'm not saying Nebraskans are annoying. I was born and raised here after all. I'm just saying that it might have been nice to have met some people from around the country. There were a few in other platoons that we met that were nice and had some interesting stories. Instead, we were treated with the comings and goings of party life in small town Nebraska. You've heard one story about a skank that someone had sex with then you'd heard them all.

Maybe I just don't like people.

That might be it. I just don't like other people that much. When it's other people, you tend to get annoyed fast. Like the kid that sang the Army Life song that was in a MASH episode. He'd always sing "Gee Mom, I want to go home." almost every night while he was at his bunk. Thankfully, it was close to mine!

Then there was the guy across from me who couldn't stop bragging about his girlfriend and how much sex he'd had with her. She sent him his walkman tape player one day with their song in it, "Feel Like Making Love" by Bad Company.

I didn't care for that song before Basic, but now I really freaking hate it.

He was homesick for his girlfriend, so he'd sit there and listen to the song over and over. Wait... Did I say "listen"? I meant that he sang it out loud in a mumbling cadence. Did I mention that this was at night when we were trying to sleep? Yes. It WAS at NIGHT when we were trying to sleep. After what seemed like hours, but was probably 15 minutes, I asked (maybe asked/yelled) for him to please not do that.

I was met with a "Shut the fuck up!"

But now that I think about it, most of the guys were all right. Now one is going to get along with everyone.

Ironically enough, I ran into Bill and I's squad leader at a Walgreens a couple of months ago. I mentioned this to Bill who said, "Oh yeah. I remember him. He said that I had a bad attitude and was going to report me to the Drill Sergeant."

"And I did," he added quickly with a laugh.

Yeah, Bill had a rougher time in Basic than I did, but that's another story.

Sometimes, it had its benefits. Because we were all going to go into college, we were a platoon of pretty smart guys. We won a few of the competitions, like the map reading/navigating skills one, and came pretty close to getting the Honor Platoon award, but a few failed inspections (lost because the same kid kept forgetting to lock his locker 5 times) and not as many points in the PT competition (because we were the youngest and got weighted less than the older guys in another platoon) did us in.

Another benefit were the care packages. At first, these packages were a nice treat for us as someone's parent sent a box filled with cookies and candy to share with the rest of the platoon. The soldier would get handed the box and we'd line up to get some of the box. After a few weeks of handing out two or three care packages a day, the Drill Sergeants got really tired of it and just shoved the boxes at you and walked away. Most people kept these stashes in their lockers. Bill and I had our music sent to us around this time. Thank God for walkman tape players to drown out our fellow Nebraskans!

At training sessions, the Sergeants in charge of that day's training will make small talk while there was a lull, like if it was raining and we were waiting under the bleachers. Frequently, we'd be sitting there if there was a heat advisory.

One Sergeant asked one of us, "Where are you from?"

Nebraska was the response.

He asked another one with the same response.

After a few more times of this, he finally asked, "Are you all from Nebraska?"

"Yes, Sergeant!" we yelled.

"No shit?!" he exclaimed.

"No shit, Sergeant!" we yelled back.

More Basic stories to come. The next one should be the time Bill and I switched places for a while.

Sighing is never a good thing to do in Basic Training...

Seeing my nephew, Taylor, graduating from Army Basic Training in Fort Benning, Georgia reminded me of my time in Fort Benning.

It was the spring of 1989 when Bill and I signed up for the Army National Guard. My Mom kept suggesting it, but Bill and I were resistant. I guess it was because we knew it would suck and we tend to not like to do things if they suck. Besides, the thought of spending the summer of our senior year before heading to college in combat fatigues didn't really sound like a pleasant thing.

Long story short, we signed on the dotted line for the Army National Guard. We were stationed in Beatrice, Nebraska. Being from Grand Island, it was thought strange that we would join the Beatrice unit. We had never been to Beatrice in our life, but how we got recruited there is another story.

The running in joke in our Beatrice unit was that as soon as our enlistment became official, we turned to the head guy and asked, "When do we get out?"

Bill and I were part of the promotion to increase the National Guard's numbers, which was to be in the 'Buddy Platoon', which is to have a whole platoon of kids from Nebraska to be in the same platoon. I think they thought that since Basic Training was a scary place for most kids coming out of high school, it made sense that you could endure all the yelling and push ups with someone you knew. This was all well and good in theory, but since I only knew Bill, and he only knew me, it didn't really work out to our benefit, but that's another story.

The day to go to Basic Training came. We ended up on a chartered flight from Omaha to Fort Benning, Georgia. I fully expected to get off the plane and be yelled at from day one, but that didn't happen at all. We got off the plane and waited and waited and waited for a few hours until finally, we were picked up and taken to the reception area where we were to be given shots, given a hair cut, given orientation talks and given our equipment and clothing.

The clothing part was interesting to me. You see, I have a rather large head. I think if I was to have a hat size, it would be 8 1/4. We were given a duffle bag and walked down an assembly line of clothes where we were given our socks, underwear, t-shirts, and the rest of the fatigues. When it came time for the hat fitting, you had to stand in front of a man with some hats. He'd look at you, slap a hat on your head and pull it down your forehead to make sure it fight right. When it came to be my turn, he slapped the hat on me and pulled. Then he pulled some more. He started to chuckle. He grabbed another hat and tried to pull it down my forehead. He couldn't even reach the forehead. This resulted in a lot of people being shown by humongous cranium with the resulting laughter. Finally, I was fitted with two custom fit hats.

All in all, those few days there weren't bad at all. It was pretty boring for the most part. Then the day came to be tested to see if we were physically active enough to go on to Basic. I had done push ups at home, but when it came time for me to do the push ups, I faltered. My arms wobbled and felt like jelly. I don't remember how many of the 13 push ups I was supposed to do, but when I landed on the mat after the last one, all I remember was the words 'F. T. U.' being uttered by the drill sergeant testing us.

He then informed me that I was to report to the Fitness Training Unit to get in shape for Basic Training.

I said, "Thank you, Drill Sergeant" even though I was shaking.

"Never thank a Drill Sergeant", the Drill Sergeant said.

I was freaking out about being assigned to FTU. We were on a tight schedule as it was. We were supposed to start Basic on a certain day and finish up the Friday before college was starting. If I had to go to the FTU, it would delay my return and I would start college late. Plus, I would be without my brother, Bill, beside me.

I was really down. So were some of the other guys who failed. It was then that we were told the secret of getting out of the FTU. The advice given to us by a Sergeant was that when the man came to take us to the FTU, he would ask who was supposed to go to FTU. When that happens, we just don't stand up.

I was dumbfounded. That was it? Surely, there was more to it than that?

I asked, "Don't they have my name on a list?"

"No." is what I was told.

I asked more questions about this 'avoiding the FTU' strategy until finally the Sergeant said, "Will you shut up. You're starting to really piss me off." which I took as a signal that I should shut up.

The next day, I was supposed to ship off to FTU while the rest went to Basic. Sure enough, a man came and called out for people that were assigned to FTU. I instinctively started to stand up. We had all been sitting on our duffle bags. As I started to rise, some of the guys I had met whispered urgently not to stand up. So I slumped forward as if I was tying my boot. The man who called for FTU assignees went away.

I couldn't and still don't believe to this day that it was that easy. The fact that they didn't have a roster of names baffles me. Maybe they've tightened up the process since then.

In case you were wondering, I did get stronger and I did manage to pass Basic Training by passing the push up part of the fitness test.

So it was off to Basic Training...

We waited a little more. Then semi trucks pulled up hauling cattle cars. We all piled into the trucks. I was sweating already because I had mistakenly put on the winter set of uniforms. Plus I was worried that I had committed a court martial by avoiding the fitness training unit. I tried not to worry about it and settled in for a long ride.

In what seemed like barely a minute later, the truck stopped, the door opened and a not unkind voice said, "Good morning, welcome to Fort Benning, Georgia."

"YOU HAVE EXACTLY 10 SECONDS TO GET OFF OF THIS TRUCK!"

Guys started piling off the truck.

"10!"

I tried to move towards the front.

"9!"

The swell of panicking people all around me was literally taking me off of my feet.

"8! 7! 6!"

I was almost to the door!

"5! 4! Screw it! EVERYONE OFF OF THIS TRUCK RIGHT NOW!"

I hustled with my duffle bags as I hit the ground. I did not want to mess this up. I knew that all you had to do was to do something wrong or say something wrong to get in trouble in Basic. I had seen Full Metal Jacket and was using it as a reference in my head as I lumbered into position.

We were told to get into rows, which I did. It was then that we stood at attention while the drill sergeants walked up and down the rows yelling their heads off at people. They were asking where we worked before this and where we were from.

I almost burst out laughing when a kid was asked where he worked before this.

He yelled, "Hinky Dinky, Drill Sergeant."

To which the Drill Sergeant responded with "Hinky Dinky! Hinky Dinky! What in the hell is a Hinky Dinky!"

Suddenly, I had a Drill Sergeant in my face. He yelled where was I from.

I yelled, "Grand Island, Nebraska, Drill Sergeant!"

He replied, "What in the hell is in Grand Island, Nebraska!?"

I yelled, "I don't know, Drill Sergeant!"

It was all I could come up with. Thankfully, it worked. The Drill Sergeant walked away.

Finally, after what seemed like a lot of war faces, screaming, yelling and some crying, we were separated into platoons. We were to rush upstairs and wait by the locker they told us.

I got upstairs and waited.

Our Drill Sergeants came up. I was still in the 'Don't mess up' mode.

We were issued all sorts of instructions like empty our bags and then repack them. I'm a little foggy on the details, myself.

The head Drill Sergeant, which I believe was Remington, came by my bunk. He asked me a question that as of now I don't remember. I think he was asking me about my duffle bag and why all my stuff was dumped out of it. I was just thinking that I had been asked to dump it out, but didn't remember if they told me to put it all back.

Out of frustration, I sighed.

Drill Sergeant Remington paused for a second.

Then he sighed. And sighed again. And sighed a few more times.

Then he yelled, "Get down!"

I got down.

"Get up!"

I got up.

"Get down!"

Down.

"Get up!"

Up.

"Get down!"

Down

"Get up!"

A few more times of this and I'm standing at attention. Drill Sergeant Remington leaned in close to my face and instructed me to get my shit together, which I did from that moment on.

I think I sighed because I was just frustrated with how the whole experience had gone so far. I had tried to get through the day without causing trouble and had failed. I had failed my fitness test. I was wearing winter uniforms, which were causing me to sweat buckets. I had finished that up by sighing at the Drill Sergeant.

Thankfully, I got through that night and Drill Sergeant Remington and I got along well from that day on. He could have held out a grudge on me, but I think having Bill along helped. Seeing as he had twins in his platoon, he'd often grab us and introduce us to friends of his in other parts of the complex. Whenever he'd do his morning inspections of us, whenever he'd get to me or Bill, he'd turn with a stern look on his face, but he'd always break into a grin because we'd be smiling back at him, which isn't someone Full Metal Jacket recommends, but it worked for us.

Apparently, you can't knock on your daughter's window without scaring the living crap out of her...

Thursday night, I had just said good night to Julia and turned off the light. I decided that I would walk to the corner and get our mail from the community mail box tower thing there.

I grabbed the mail key, unlocked the deadbolt of the front door, opened the door and pulled the door knob. As I was pulling the door shut, I noticed that the knob wasn't turning, which meant that while the dead bolt was locked, the knob was locked, but not latched. In my haste to shut the door behind me, I didn't have time to register that the knob wasn't unlocked.

So locked outside, I thought I could either get the mail and then try to get back inside or just start knocking now since I had literally had left just a minute earlier. Surely Julia would let me in

I started knocking. First I knocked lightly. Then I knocked persistently.

No action inside.

I started knocking again. This time, I tried to vary my knocks so it sounded like a code.

Knock! (long knock) Knock-Knock! (two short knocks)

I tried this for a bit. Still no action inside letting me in.

I walked over to Julia's window through the shrubbery and knocked. I tried knocking a few times. Then I walked over to the front door and knocked some more. Still no action inside!

Finally, I started to ring the doorbell.

Nothing...

I rang the doorbell yet again several times.

At last, I saw Laura appear in the doorway of the master bedroom. Finally! She'll let me in.

"Bob!" she yelled. "Answer the door!"

I rang the doorbell again more persistently.

"Bob!" she yelled again while walking forward. At this point, I tried waving my arms.

"Bob! Answer the door!" she kept yelling.

This was getting ridiculous. Surely someone inside would realize that the only person who would be knocking and ringing so persistently when it was this late in the evening would have to be the world's worse burglar or a family member who had locked himself outside. It seems they were thinking it was the burglar.

Finally, Laura walked over to the front door and answered it.

"What in the hell are you doing?!"

"I was locked outside," I said.

I looked over to the staircase to downstairs and noticed Julia creeping up the stairs looking nervous.

"Are you insane knocking on her bedroom window?" Laura asked with some force. "You scared her half to death! She ran to our room yelling, 'Someone's knocking on my window!'"

"I thought she would know that it's me since I just went outside."

"Well, you thought wrong!"

"How else was I supposed to get back inside?" I asked.

"I don't know," Laura said. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you locked yourself outside."

"If I had thought about it," I said. "I wouldn't have locked myself outside."

I tried explaining how I locked myself outside, but she cut me off.

"I don't want to hear it. Your daughter is scared half to death. It's your fault so you put her to bed."

Julia chimed in with, "You really freaked me out, man!" sounding like Tommy Chong.

I put Julia back in bed. I apologized for scaring her and told her it wouldn't happen again. If I was to lock myself outside again we devised a few strategies.

1. Knock on Laura's window.
2. Ring the doorbell
3. Use a secret knock. I tapped out a knock that would be my knock.

If I ever lock myself outside again and I use the secret knock, I just have to hope that Julia still remembers what my knock was.

The next day, Laura took joy in telling people at work what an idiot her husband was for not only locking himself out of the house, but scaring our daughter by knocking on her window. I'll admit it. It was pretty stupid, but as I protested. Even when someone stupidly locks themselves out of the house, there has to be a way of getting back inside.

Audiobook: Breathers: A Zombie's Lament by S. G. Brown

I just got done with this audiobook called 'Breathers: A Zombie's Lament' by S. G. Brown.

It's my first attempt at zombie fiction and it was pretty good for the most part. The story centers around a zombie named Andy, who woke up after a horrific car accident killed him and his wife to find that he's now one of the members of the the undead. In S. G. Brown's version of zombies, the undead are shunned members of society while the living, referred to as breathers, retain all rights as citizens.

Andy lives in his parents wine cellar doing nothing all day but watching cable TV and drinking expensive wine that gives him no pleasure. He spends his nights at the local zombie support group run by a recently deceased therapist. Andy can't talk because his mouth was sewn shut. One arm is near useless. Also, his ankle is broken so he's slow moving.

Getting to and from the meetings is dangerous as breathers take sport in pelting zombies with food, ripping off zombie appendages or just killing them for sport. His zombie friends of Jerry, a 'dude' speaking guy and Rita, a beautiful woman who's constantly applying makeup walk with him to and from the meetings.

I almost gave up on this book because it got long winded. Andy is constantly whining about how he doesn't understand why he can't just walk down the street without being yelled at or vandalized or why he can't sit in front of a fire without fear of being thrown into it.

The book picks up steam when Andy and his friends meet Ray, a zombie who they initially mistake for a breather. He introduces them to a treat of venison he calls 'Ray's Resplendent Rapture'. The meat is beyond delicious. Soon Andy starts to feel rebellious and is arrested by Animal Control, who polices the zombies, for trying to protest for zombie rights. Then he notices that he's starting to heal. Andy and his friends start to realize that Ray's meat may not be venison after all.

The book goes unconventional for a long time, but then kicks into zombie movie territory near the end of the book, which almost ruins it for me.

Overall, I liked it. The narrator's lamentable delivery (call back to the subtitle) means that when the jokes come every now and then (like the one where Andy is offered a finger and he says that he never liked finger food), that I was groaning a lot at the corny jokes.

Saw Toy Story 3 - Laura cried

Laura sometimes has some trouble with Pixar movies. For the longest time, she wouldn't watch Toy Story 2 because of the scene were Jessie the Cowgirl is telling her story of being loved and abandoned by a little girl who grew up.

As a parent, it's hard to sit through those kind of things and not think about the inevitable day when your kid will grow up and shun the very things that they used to love. It's sometimes welcome and sometimes sad.

When Julia was just two or three years old, we watched Monsters Inc. on DVD. At some point in the movie near the end, which may have been the time when Sully says goodbye
to Boo, the girl from the human world, I looked over at Laura to see her bawling like a baby.

I laughed and asked, "What's wrong?"

She said through tears, "This is why I hate Pixar movies. They just SUCK you right in and make you cry!"

Laura eventually got over those two movies's sadder moments and now can watch them with no problem.

However, Laura knew Toy Story 3 was going to be a problem when a co-worker who had seen it mentioned to Laura that it was a great movie and that it was sad.

"Am I going to cry?" she asked.

"Yes."

So Laura was going into the movie expecting it to be sad and expecting to cry.

The movie starts off the bat with a downer of a premise. The toys are in the toy box and have been there for years it seems. They are all that's left of all of Andy's toys throughout the years. They even mention losing some toys, like Bo Peep, who was voiced by Annie Potts in the first two movies, to yard sales. Funny!

Then it's discussed that Andy is going away to college. His Mom is giving away his room to his little sister, so he has to decide what to do with his stuff: take to college, put in storage or trash. He puts Woody in the college stuff and puts the toys in with the attic stuff, but when the toys accidentally get put on the curb with the trash, Woody acts to save them. In the confusion, they end up in the daycare donation stuff.

When they get to the daycare, it looks like all their troubles are solved. They are told by Lotso, the purple bear that leads the daycare, that they'll have a never ending stream of toys to play with, but then things quickly turn for the worse when they are locked in the wing for toddlers, who are much rougher on the toys in the bigger kids room. The toys then have to break out of the day care, which is run like a prison at night.

Eventually, it all culminates with Andy having to say goodbye to his toys as he's leaving for college.

I looked over at Laura while this was happening and she was wiping her eyes. She knew I was going to be looking over at her and she laughed while crying and muttered, "Stupid Pixar."

All in all, it was a pretty good Toy Story movie. I wouldn't call it my favorite. It was pretty funny, but the scenes near the end were rather bleak. Maybe repeated viewings will spruce it up. It still ranks up there with the other ones though. It has a lot of great performances from Lotso to Ken, who spends a lot of time insisting that he's not a girl's toy while trying on tons of outfits.