Pick up, it's for you

My son has a toy phone, and when you push the various buttons, different recorded messages or sound effects play.

You'll hear things like "let's call Daddy," or "let's call Grandma." But on most of them, you just get a sound effect.

Most of the sound effects are as heard through the earpiece of a phone, like the sound of a phone ringing on the other end of the line. But the sounds that make me smile are the ones I know Grayson will never hear during the practical use of a real telephone. Things like a dial tone, or a busy signal.

I wonder why they even put those effects ON a phone these days. When he pushes those buttons, I always wax a little nostalgic.

So what is a child to make of one of THESE?

When I was a child, we were on a party line. Ever experienced one of those? You literally share your line with neighbors, so when you pick up the phone to make a call, it's possible that, instead of a dial tone, you'll hear their conversation. So you have to hang up and wait.

And wait.

Yeah, that Lela Plumlee was a talker.

And you are... ?

It's been so long I thought about shutting the blog down permanently. It's sort of like when you haven't talked to a friend for a long time, and you think, MAN, I need to get in touch with so-and-so, but I'm pretty embarrassed I haven't made contact in such a long time. So you just decide to not call them.

But I've decided I'm keeping it going for now. We've come this far together, we might as well stick it out.

Speaking of sticking it out... Regis was nearly ready to leave us about two weeks ago, but the vet decided we should give him half a treatment of chemo as a last-ditch effort, and WOW. His lymph nodes are completely normal, he's back to his old chipper self again and it looks like we'll have him around for at least a while longer. Thanks, Regis, for pulling through!

I gave in to temptation and bought a watch today. Actually I had some old jewelry lying around so I traded it in (and the jeweler gave me an almost 50 percent discount off the price) on a new Seiko Velatura, kenetic energy watch. Self-winding, it's actually a rechargable battery-powered watch that has a little generator inside that recharges it when you move your wrist.

Great timepiece, it's my second favorite to the Breitling, and it brings my collection to 13.

Gray Sky Morning

I just dropped my buddy off at the groomer and he was really lethargic and struggling for breath. His medication doesn't seem to be helping much but I remain optimistic. It's just hard watching him deteriorate.

Over the weekend I learned of the death of one of the greats in the voice over industry, Brian James. I also learned if the passing of an old friend, Doc Camden. Both were men I admired.

Friends are struggling with job losses or at least the impending possibility.

I learned that doctors are calling the cold I have the "100 day cough." I'm only about 45 days into it.

And it's Monday. And cloudy.

I just need some good news to help me break out of the funk. Anyone? Beuller?

(on the positive side Grayson just suddenly started walking like a champ! So there's that.)

The Long Goodbye to My Best Friend

While petting Regis last night, I noticed a sizeable lump on his neck, and his yelp indicated it was clearly sore.

The vet confirmed my worst suspicion this morning, lymphoma. We won't be 100 percent certain until the pathology report comes back, but he's seen it a million times and there is little doubt in his mind.

I had pets as a kid, but have never bonded with them the way I have with Regis. He doesn't even seem like a dog to me, he seems like a full blown member of the family.

As usual, he's at my feet right now and those big, brown eyes are looking up at me. It's clear he's frustrated by the pain. I would do anything to take it away, but canine lymphoma never ends positively.

I expected that he and Grayson would be good buddies and do everything together. The first word Gray learned in sign language was "puppy." At dinnertime, Grayson sneaks bites of his food off the edge of the table for Regis to pick up. And to think he isn't even old enough to keep our "puppy" in his memory.

It's likely we have only three to six months left. You can bet we'll make the best of it, and be thankful for the seven great years he was here.

I miss him already.

A new favorite quote

Jonathan Winters:

"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it."

I love this for a couple of reasons. Jonathan Winters was one of my favorites, a comedy genius and incredibly intelligent. (former radio personality too)

But mostly for the message. Opportunity must be created. People get wrapped up in the wait, an incredible waste of time.

Another way we're totally screwing up our kids

On Valentine's Day when you were a kid, how did you celebrate?

For me, each child brought a "Balumtimes" card for every other child in our classroom. They had those tiny envelopes, and we scribbled our classmates' names on the outside in red ink. Some were hand-made, others were pre-packaged Scooby, Barbie or pirate themed cards. But if there were thirty kids in the class, you had to bring thirty cards.

This is wrong for a number of reasons. First, and most obvious, we're using school time to perpetuate something ill-conceived and greed-motivated. I've never gotten V-D off, so it's not a real holiday. The Hallmark company, restaurants and florists make a killing! So much so, we contacted a florist Monday to set up a meeting to discuss our wedding floral needs and they told us to call back after V-D was over. They refused to even set up an appointment because love birds are clogging the system.

Needless to say, Mexico Road Florist can kiss my ass.

The second way we're failing our kids is, you're supposed to have one Valentine... not every kid in your class. One special person! We should teach our children to pick their favorite classmate and present them with a card. Sure, invariably, one or two of the kids will be left out. Good for them. No amount of book learning can equal what that kind of pain and humiliation teaches you.

So Happy Valentine's Day! Thanks Em, I love the gift you gave me. It's really very special.

And it's nice you didn't give one to every person "in the class."

Musical heaven...

Tonight, between the drive home from the restaurant and taking the babysitter home, I enjoyed an approximately 50 mile trip with my iPod. Now and then, a sequence of songs fits together so perfectly, you actually file it away in your memory.

Tonight's completely random playlist:

• Phil Collins - If Leavin' Me Was Easy
• The Hollies - He Ain't Heavy
• Clint Black - Better Man
• Matchbox Twenty - Busted
• 10cc - I'm Not In Love
• The Fray - Vienna
• Melissa - Allman Brothers
• Billy Joel - And So It Goes
• Cross Canadian Ragweed - Sick & Tired
• Dan Fogelberg - Same Auld Lang Syne
• Steve Miller - The Joker
• Eagles - Last Resort
• The Decemberists - Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect
• Bob Marley - Jammin'
• Warren Zevon - Exciteable Boy
• Waylon/Willie - Luckenbach, Texas
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer - From The Beginning
• Korgi's - Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime
• Billy Paul - Me And Mrs. Jones

Every time I thumb through my 4,000+ song library, I think I should start a streaming radio station.

Ten minutes of hilarious television

This proves Letterman is still the master, and Joaquin Phoenix is a total drug user.

The nine-month-old "chip off the old block"

Grayson is getting more and more handsome every day. Good thing he takes after Mommy!

These are a few shots from his 9-month photo session.

Pay me to let you pay me

Hidden service fees chap my ass.

At the travel agency last week, I was exploring travel insurance options. They quoted me a figure for coverage, and below the quote, in small print, it said "plus $8 processing fee per policy."

Processing fee??? No, thanks. If you're going to charge me extra to deliver the service you're quoting, you are a thief.

The outdoor ampitheater in St. Louis used to charge for parking. To me, that's a similarly offensive practice. Raise ticket prices if you must, but stop forcing customers to pay extra to be a customer.

Most companies charge you to pay your bill by phone or online. They have a healthy profit built in to those fees, yet it costs them less than classic invoicing via US mail.

In short, those who charge service fees are engaging in douchebaggery. Let them know, next time you have an opportunity.

Waterworks

I'm not really a crier, but there are a few things that I just can't handle. Taps, for one. I don't have to know the person, the circumstances of their death... anything. Just hearing Taps makes me well up. I think it's probably because it was when they played Taps that I realized my Grandfather was really gone.

The 21-gun salute has a similar effect. Stories of selflessness can get to me. Watching my children sleep does it sometimes.

And the movie Field of Dreams.

What about you?

The secret to longevity? Apparently hyperbole.

The Jack LaLaine Power Juicer infomercial somehow made it on my monitor in the studio this morning, and for a nanosecond I turned up the sound.

A perfectly healthy, beautiful woman came on and said "I couldn't live without my juicer."

Couldn't. Live.

He's saving lives with juice! Could I live without one? I can't imagine.

Presented without commentary

A real blogger's blogger

The guy who unwittingly swept me into blogging hysteria a few years ago* put a fine point on what it means to be a good blogger during his trip to Washington D.C. for the Obama inauguration.

He not only blogged, but Twittered as well. Check out Steve's work at Smays.com.

Today's 'everywhere' connectivity has inspired me to revise an age-old bathroom-stall limerick:

Here I sit upon the shitter,
Tried to blog but only Twittered.


*I have yet to do Steve proud. As the title says, he's a REAL blogger, I just flail my arms wildly hoping to hit something.

The Kroc genius

In a cuisine world full of audacious, delectible and irresistible foods... there is still absolutely nothing like the taste of a fresh-from-the-fryer hot order of McDonalds french fries and a large, icy Coke.

The soda sold at McDonalds seems crisper and more carbonated. It tingles on the way down, causing an involuntary hiccup. And those fries...

Wow. Just sayin'.

Timing is everything

On the way to the NYEPBWHNLPYC, the New Year's Eve Party for Boring "We Have No Life" Parents of Young Children, (for which, ironically, everyone ended up getting a sitter) we came as near to hitting a deer as I ever have. (aside from an incident one night when I was in a bar with Blitzen and he was firing hard on this married doe.)

We were driving on a dark, two-lane country highway (MO-79 north of 70, for you locals) and were about to meet an oncoming car, when a 12-point buck lept from the right side of the road, passed within 5-10 feet of our bumper and collided with the left-front side of the oncoming car exactly at the moment we were passing. (at this point, I was braking hard and hitting the shoulder)
There was a sickening noise, a cross between a thump and a crack, and the deer flew off the side of the other car, spinning wildly through the air, missing the left-rear of our van by inches before making a landing in the center of our lane right behind the van, just in time to be run completely over by the pickup behind us. I can imagine the damage was extensive to both of the other vehicles, while ours was left untouched.

Had we left the house one second earlier, we'd have hit the deer with the front of the van. One second later and the deer would have slammed into the side of our van.

We were in a perfect one-second window of safety. I can only imagine it's because I have a tremendously keen sense of timing. Ask anyone. Dave time is different than the rest of the world.

Incidentally, the next morning we were headed to the store and a two-car accident happened about 15 feet behind our van as we were passing. What the... ?

Pointless thoughts

I've recently become a functional member of Facebook and it's actually pretty cool! Some folks I would NEVER expect to be on there ARE, and they are quite active.

I've heard it said technology keeps us from being the close friends we COULD be. I say it helps us be closer friends than we WOULD be.

If that makes sense...

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I've noticed that when you have a child, you stop trying to find parking spaces near the front door, and start looking for spaces near the shopping cart corrals.

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It's a short one today. Life's pretty busy and Grayson has a lung infection so he's not sleeping the best. Ah, parenthood! I need a beer.

One last longhorn...

Technology is a take-no-prisoners juggernaut, leaving the destruction of Americana in its wake.

I love my HDTV, I am writing this on a new laptop while sipping coffee from an automatic grind, drip coffee maker. Technology and modern convenience are necessary evils in this forward-thinking, evolving world. I get it.

But sometimes I mourn the loss of the Cowboy. Not the kind that melted down in the run-up to the NFL playoffs. The real Cowboy.

The guy that didn't need a GPS to know where to poke the cows. He knew instinctively where to go and what perils lie ahead. We don't have instincts like that anymore.

The real cowboy knew the forecast by gut and by watching the horizon... not The Weather Channel, which was still 180 years in the future. Honestly, his forecast might have been more accurate.

Everything he needed was in his saddlebag. Rope, soap, beans and bacon, jerky, a kettle, flint rock, ammunition, coffee, cigarettes, salt, a good sharp knife, maybe a Bible, and certainly a flask of whiskey. The essentials. No shampoo, no Blackberry, no 16 year old scotch, no pager.

He spent his time alone with his cattle. There was always enough time (and quiet) to think. His true love was likely the memory of a woman. His commitment was to his herd and the horizon.

His idea of luxury was a hot bath in the next town, which might be two weeks away. His best friends were ranch folks and the occasional friendly Indian. His idea of mass transportation was a stagecoach, and his only communication was a telegraph wire. No cell phone, no text messages.

Just a man, his horse and the great outdoors.

There are cowboys today, but they're not the same. Real Cowboys are as extinct as purple sage and unowned land. They died when barbed wire and highways appeared.

Ironically, to those who enjoy today's advanced technology, it's popular to call those simpler times. I would argue they were infinitely more complex and difficult.

Back in the day, it was common to find an occasional feral horse, saddle still on. That usually meant that somewhere, a cowboy had thrown his last rope and gone to meet his maker.

What I wouldn't give to have him back.

Aiden Bo Baiden

The list of "most popular baby names" came out for 2008, and the boy names seem a little monotonous to me:

1. Aiden


2. Jayden


3. Ethan


4. Jacob


5. Caden


6. Jackson


7. Noah


8. Jack


9. Logan


10. Matthew

Aiden, Jayden and Caden? What about Baden, Faiden, Laden and Maiden? Ethan is my favorite on that list, but I might be a little biased, since I have a new nephew by that name.

For the girls, the most popular names were:

1. Emma


2. Sophia


3. Madison


4. Isabella


5. Olivia


6. Ava


7. Madeline


8. Addison


9. Hailey


10. Lily

Where's Emily, Jennifer and Susan ferchrissake? How could those just fall out of vogue?

I'm a rebel, I'm more likely to look at the list of popular names and choose something completely different.

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Big shopping day! Although this is one of the worst holiday shopping seasons in recent history, I have a feeling it isn't over. I might head out and see what kind of bargains are available today... which is being billed Black Friday, The Sequel.

I hope your Christmas was as great as mine was!

How the mighty have fallen...

A few friends and I threw together an impromptu Boys Night Out tonight. We all have kids, so it's hard to go out and cut loose often.

Right after our kids' bedtime, we decided to rendezvous at a local dive called Ethyl's. It was crowded with a couple of Christmas parties, the music was really loud and it was entirely too smokey to enjoy.

There was also a hint of a possibility of sobriety checkpoints near Ethyl's, so we did the only sane thing - went to a place closer to home.

A bowling alley.

We hung out in the lounge* right under the wall of plaques commemorating members of the '300 club.' Ironically, we were poking fun at the names on the plaques while we WERE IN A BOWLING ALLEY DRINKING ON A FRIDAY NIGHT.

After a pitcher or three, it was nearing two of the guys' strict midnight curfew, so at 11:55 we were out the door.

And I'm all like "wow, you guys are pussies to have to be home so early." Like saying this somehow made me feel superior.

Yes, this is what it's come to. A bunch of 40-somethings trying to find a place where the music isn't quite so loud, the smoke not so thick, where we could stay out of trouble and avoid the cops.

And be home in time to keep the peace.

By the way, we still had fun, even though it didn't conclude as per normal - dining at 4 am at the Casa de Waffle.


*doesn't "bowling alley lounge" invoke an interesting mental picture? Can you almost smell the cigarette smoke, stale beer, Tombstone pizza and rental shoes?