Our Day At Church

Rock Solid, Travis Damn Quillen, Chad420, and myself headed off yesterday to Crocket Park to pay homage to both the weather gods and the disc golf gods.  At 10 in the morning, we hit the first tee.  What a gorgeous day it was.  Two different things happened that literally had me falling to the ground.  The first thing happened on the third tee, as we were discussing why one of our group was absent.  Travis Damn Quillen summed it up this way:

“Vamos a la iglesia hoy”.  I spit out my drink and fell to the ground laughing, though, I realize that if you don’t know the circumstances, that may not strike you as very funny.  C’est la vie.

Ok, well, as i said the weather was perfect.  Around 10:15, I was down to my Popeye t-shirt and still felt overdressed.  There was a bit of a breeze, but really not enough to alter your throwing style.  I had some monster drives.  Rock Solid, as is his way, quietly made enough pars to stay in the race.  Chad420 was in better form than I have ever seen.  But, Travis Damn Quillen owned the day.  Here is a picture that shows his disc actually stuck between two of the wires that make up the basket.  Seriously, if you do not think this is difficult, try it standing right next to the basket.  It is nearly impossible to fold your disc so that it will fit in that much space.  Well, the second thing that brought me to my knees was how this disc came to be there.  It was launched from a different zip code.  I watched the damn thing leave Travis Damn Quillen’s hand in a blur, then sail off, first gently banking right, then changing direction like a F14 and slamming itself into the basket at 200 mph.  It was a once-in-a-lifetime shot.

I really hate that guy.

Our Long Weekend

So much catching up to do here…

Well, we returned safely from our trip to Maryland.  It was a drive, to say the least.  The way out was through Knoxville, up along 81, then over to 70 east.  Finally got to see where the big race is held here in Tn.  Beautiful area.  Once there, we were treated like visiting royalty…we each had our own bedroom, the Primary Wife and I had the entire bottom floor of this immense house overlooking the Maryland hillsides, really quite breathtaking.  Our princess, Supermousey, had a big beautiful four poster bed in her room, and she spent her time there holding a wine glass filled with water or tea and walking around like she was born to it.  We drove into Baltimore and visited the National Aquarium, then walked around around the harbor and got to climb up on a couple of ships that were survivors of Pearl harbor, a Coast Guard light ship and a submarine that actually sank the last enemy ship during World War Two.

Then our hosts treated us to dinner at a modest steakhouse called, um, Ruth Chris’s.  There was food everywhere.  I accidentally wandered into the bar while looking for a restroom, and felt compelled to order a single malt scotch to cover up my mistake.  Then, I felt compelled to repeat the whole process.  The kids were quite taken by this place, so much so, that Supermousey took pictures of her dessert, (a raspberry sorbet) and The Nog kept running into the restroom to use the free mouthwash and hand lotion they provide.  Later, a handful of Ravens came in to celebrate their victory over the previously undefeated Broncos.  As is my habit, I got nose to nose with a drunk patron that bumped into me and gave me a “go to hell” look to boot.  As I was explaining to him that I welcomed a little post dinner exercise if he desired, his driver separated us diplomatically, and that was the end of it.  (turns out, the valet guys saw what was happening, and went and got the driver.  The drunk in question turned out to be a good friend of the owner and has a reputation for being obnoxious, unlike myself.  I guess my time chatting up the valet guys earlier in the evening was well spent.)

The next day, off to D.C.  We drove to Brunswick, caught the Marc-Train (I kid you not) which dropped us at Union Station.  From there, we bought tickets on a double decker tour bus and visited every single historical landmark you can name.  Washington D.C. is a gorgeous city in the Fall.  I could spend a week there just visiting the museums and sitting in the many parks surrounding the Capitol.  This picture sums up Nog’s mood that day:

The weather, btw, was perfect.  Cool, sunny, just a little windy crossing the Potomac.

As fate would have it, we happened to be in the right place at the right time, and we got to meet POTUS:

I think Mr. Obama has intimacy issues, since, even with a warm, caring, in fact, adoring supporter like me, he remained quite rigid and dare I say a tad distant.  Actually, I found him rather one dimensional.

Finally, we got to visit what I consider the crown jewel of the D.C. tourist attractions, the National Cathedral.  I was asked to speak briefly, and here is a pic the press pool snapped:

After speaking to a packed house, i had the cathedral cleared, turned, admonished the good Lord in Latin, ground my cigarette out on the marble floor, and muttered, “You get Hoynes.”

Ha.  Well.  We had a blast.  Perfect weather, perfect hosts, and I’ll be damned if the trains didn’t run on time.  Somehow, even the drive back, in which Supermousey upchucked in three different states, and at least two different timezones, was really pleasant, no traffic, few trucks.  We are glad to be home though.

I’m Not Mentioning That SuperMousey Hurled 3 Times.

Or, yakked, if you prefer. No, I won’t do that, because I have many other choices… If I want, I can entertain and indeed thrill my readers with tales from afar…seeing as we just returned from our trip to the Nation’s Capitol.  I could mention I literally ran into Norm Coleman around the corner from the White House.   Or, I could mention the 1400 mile journey through the Appalachians on our big loop of a drive.  I could point to a moment this weekend where my son and I stood on the last vessel to sink an enemy ship at Pearl harbor.  I could even talk about  beautiful suburban Maryland and that we stayed within walking distance of where the Blair Witch Project was filmed.  (The cemetery is quite small.)

But I won’t do any of those things.  Because, I found this,  and I love it more than life itself:

 

So, come by tomorrow and read about our trip.  Or don’t.

 

Roughing It

A gust of wind no stronger than a mouse fart managed to snap our power and phone lines this week.  The electric company was out in 30 minutes, we were hot in 90.  Great job.  The phone company needs three days, minimum.  ATT, you suck.  I’m out of touch for a bit, y’all.  back soon.

Stepping Up

I’m incredibly busy these days, who knew it would be so hard to spend 100k of someone else’s money?  I swear, its work.  More on that later.  I did, however, find the time to read this thoughtful and indeed necessary article.  I hope theres some follow-up.  Two spot on passages:

So, why are Christians so willing to believe unsubstantiated rumors? And more troubling, why are Christians, who should hold the highest standards of truth-telling, so eager to spread such rumors — and even downright libels?

“In general, we need to help Christians act like Christians in public life and not just in private life, and not to get sucked into the polarization, partisan idolatry and demonization so common now in media and government,”

H/T:  TPM

Prince Of Profit?

Made Me Laugh

Supermousey just came downstairs crying about “clearance puppy.”  Anybody know what thats about?

A Giant Leap Backwards

There was a movement 30 years ago within the law enforcement community to have police officers adhere to certain  standards and move toward becoming “professionals.”  For some Departments, that meant the minimum amount of education went from a High School diploma to a 2 yr associates degree.  It meant continued education after employment for others.  I remember thinking back then that the biggest obstacle to reaching professional status was the inability for police departments to police their own, particularly within the rank and file.  The bunker mentality is indeed pervasive, and dangerous.

I’m going to be watching how this gets handled:

There isn’t any mitigating evidence to be had.  Nothing sketchy about the facts.  Its indefensible. It is a stunning act of abuse by someone entrusted with authority over our younger citizens.  Incidents like this one are happening everywhere.  I read this on a thread and i think it identifies the core problem:

“As long as the police foster a culture of isolation among themselves (socially and professionally), exertion of dominance and power against virtually everyone with whom they have contact, and live a culture of violence and dishonesty within themselves, this sort of thing will continue. We have to face the fact that there is far too often little difference between those in charge of law enforcement and those whom they claim are the criminals. The line that divides them is thin and tenuous. The police have a basic cultural ethic that says the law doesn’t apply to them; only to everyone else. Even the basically honest cop or deputy DA’s eventually becomes corrupted by the “cop culture.” They are as dangerous as the people they are supposed to protect us from.”

If you don’t think this has any merit, go and find yourself some trade mags for the law enforcement industry.  Scary as hell.

Paid To Incite?

Damn.  It seems Mr. Kleinheider over at Post Politics has created quite the dust-up with this post. For me, there is a more troubling aspect to this than the argument over whether it was “insensitive”, overtly racist, or perfectly within bounds.  Anyone who reads his blog on a regular basis knows darn well that Adam loves him some snarky headlines.  He often editorializes with them, and, occasionally, he’ll strike comedy gold.  OK, not really, but I’ve seen some clever ones.

All too often I’ve come away from his place, (and, unfortunately, from Pith as well) with a bad taste in my mouth.  I really despise cruelty, and there is so much of it on blogs these days I’m convinced that it confirms what many already think about people who blog.  I, for one, would love to know what Adam’s job description is over at Post Politics.  Or, for that matter, Brantley Hargrove over at Pith.  Two local people who have paid blogging gigs, and it seems to me that the emphasis is traffic for traffic’s sake.  Is that it?  “Just drive people here, anyway you can.”

Almost everyone who comments regularly, (and some who do not) chimed in today to ask or demand that Adam change the headline on that post.  Now, one commenter suggested that doing so is really not in the best interests of the digital media, and that makes some sense to me, but, couldn’t he simply update the post and apologize for his insensitivity at least?  I’d gain a lot of respect for him were he to do so.  I can’t speak for the others that were offended, but it seems to me that saying “I’m sorry” would soothe much of the anger over this.

Can’t ya do that, ACK?

UPDATE:  Kleinheider issues a statement that looks like an apology, I suppose.

My Day

A little out of sorts, I was.  I’ve mowed all I care to mow for the week.  I told Dish Network to take a flying leap, I’ll spend that money elsewhere, thank you very much. But I needed some info on how to best wire the house for over-the-air reception, so I  decided to run my errands instead, and I made it a day chock full of encounters much like this one:

I believe I’m the only person in the world to be kicked out of Radio Shack.