To everything there is a season: a time to rant and a time to really steam away

So...I apologize...this particular blog will not necessarily be so much about what is going on in the lives of the Eau Claire extension of the Nigh family so much as it will be a major rant about my latest frustrations with the government...or I guess I should more specifically say my frustrations with democrats.

First of all...going green. Going green, going green, going green. Green in the face is what I think. That has been everything I hear lately. I get so tired of going in to work and hearing if not seeing the people on NBC Today talking about the latest way to be environmentally friendly in the way I eat, dress, clean or travel. What the heck does anyone really care? Are we supposed to start breaking out the good old covered wagons again? I'm all for fuel economy. I love that my scooter gets 100 miles to the gallon and that while he doesn't get quite the same gas mileage, Big Papa still gets some decent bang with each unit of fuel. But, I'm not about to go out and spend half of my paycheck to fill up with ethanol. I'm sorry, but, I am a CORN FED American guy and I am puzzled as to why we would use corn for anything other than food. Furthermore, I am not about to try to sign up for monthly payments on a hybrid vehicle, either. I'm making payments on a scooter as is.

Stop making organic foods. Just stop it. I've been consuming cows and cow related things (i.e. butter, milk, ice cream) that have been injected with things that make for more milk, better tasting meat, etc. and I am a healthy person. I've not gotten cancer I haven't grown any extra appendages or anything. The only pollution that I see is from the idiots in the congress and senate that see fit to stick their dirty little hands into my food so they can regulate it and charge me more for it. Hands off of my insecticide covered cabbage! You can go get yourself some worm ridden bunch of vegetables and your milk from one of the few cows that survived despite lack of vaccinations, I will take my "inorganic" food any day of the week because it's cheaper and NEWSFLASH: it's the same stuff!

Another word on the high cost of gasoline. We have oil. There are capped wells all over the place and geologically tested ground that would yield a healthy supply of oil including some potentially overflowing abundance that could be obtained by drilling off the coast. But, no...these dumbocrats want to stand up in the congress and senate and thump their chests and talk about how we need to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil and they wag their fingers at the naughty oil companies for ripping off the American people...all the while making money left and right by taxing the fossils right out of our fuel. What a facade! What an infuriating charade! All of this smoke and mirrors act to make us all feel as though we should blame the oil companies while their policies keep us going to Ahmadinejad who apparently thinks that the price of oil isn't high enough: "How else am I going to be able to afford nuclear arms?"

An old article...but, given that it is nearly a year old, it proves somewhat prophetic:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/Story?id=3290259&page=1

Well...enough ranting for one day. Life is good. Work is good. Time to go.

I'll be back

Well...time for another update on the Nigh life. Today's accompanying picture is a little bit ironic because I feel like anything but an unrelenting machine. More to follow on that. So, when we last left our heroes, they had just purchased a brand new dryer. Well, life hasn't been quite so exciting since then. Monday, I worked in Master Control...which was disastrouswhich I suppose is exciting, but not the kind that one usually likes. I forgot to change over the satellite feed to pick up the network promos for the rest of Monday and any other times that we needed them. I rolled a break two minutes late during the today show. I rolled the full break and didn't cut back to network until that full two minutes had rolled straight into HotaKotb and Kathy Lee's interview with Martin Short. Oh well. The good news is, I have it on good authority that I will not be in master control for the next two weeks...oh, except for this Saturday. But, after that...all broadcasters in New York can rest easy. I won't be cutting out parts of your show here in Eau Claire.

The days following Monday have been tough in terms of feeling well rested. Getting up at 3 is much harder after you've been getting up at 6. I have yet to recover. Thursday and Friday were both master control days, Saturday and Sunday I didn't have work and then Monday was master control again. So...it has been a little tough.

Last night was young men's. I had to go in for a meeting at 6 which culminated with yet another excruciating Boy Scout meeting. Thankfully, I've learned that if I allow myself to drift off into my own world but remember to smile and nod or grumble with sounds of approval that the meetings go just a tiny bit smoother and faster. Yet another reason why I would never make a good politician.

So...after the meeting, we had a combined young men/young women's activity..."combined" being sort of a loose term here. We played ultimate frisbee, which was an absolute blast! However...after playing for no more than three minutes, some of the young men stated their concern that they were going to run someone over and that there should be a division between those who wished to play "competitively" and those who did not. "Competitively" can very easily be replaced by the word "testosterone". So, there was a combined activity only in the sense that there were young women and young men playing the same game...but, on different fields. Anyway...so I gallivanted about running around making my lungs hurt and my muscles sore. I played well, though. After all was said and done, my team had won. If nobody had kept score, I wouldn't have known it, though. I was just playing...when my lungs were able to catch up.

When we adjourned, I let one of the young men drive my scooter. He is only 13, so I sat on back and did the lion's share of the steering. But, all of the observing cub scouts and girls of the equivalent age thought that the H4 was just the coolest thing ever. They all wanted rides and I knew there wasn't enough gas and that Lisa would not have the patience for me to come home late enough to have provided a ride for every kid that wanted one. But, I told them that they could race me as I left the church parking lot. That seemed to be an acceptable trade off. So, off I went and all of the kids just thought that was a riot. So, I am now the champion of the tweenies.

So...here is where everything culminates to explain my lack of Terminator-ness. Since Tuesday night, I have accumulated a rather persistent cold. Not one that is debilitating in any way...but, just like carrying a backpack full of bricks that I can't take off...it is slowing me down. So...after playing ultimate frisbee like I'm still a 16-year-old while my body is battling a cold and while I am loosing sleep like I'm still a single college kid (or an engaged college kid, for that matter), my body is ready to put in for a full weekends worth of unconciousness...too bad I will be in master control. Bring on the overtime!

Short

Well, I don't have scads of time to blog my brains out...but I'm going to try.

I guess the most outstanding news is that Lisa and I are the proud new parents of a bouncing new...dryer. Anti-climatic, I know. But, I can tell you that we are both thrilled at our new arrival. Actually, it isn't home yet. Best Buy is holding onto him until they can clear his health and then they will throw him on a truck and bring him home and install him for us. We're so excited! This is the only arrival we will have for a long time that will actually do chores without back-talking their mother. We also don't have to feed it, change its diapers or be woken up in the middle of the night by it. But, it probably won't bring as much joy, either.

Mom, Dad and Becky came and visited on Saturday. It was splendid, albeit short. We had a lovely lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings and played some Apples to Apples at our apartment. Lisa was "sick" and unable to go to work, so it wasn't just me and my family all day, which would have been fun for me...but, Lisa would not have been able to see them.

That's about all I can squeeze in with the time I have. Hopefully this week will be a little less bedlam than last and we will be able to make it to the library a little more often. Take care, everyone.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

I'd like to thank Dave Barry for my title today. It is in congruence with the picture that I have included. It is a little photoshopped wonder from my friend and coworker, Dewey. He is quite skilled at photoshop and has taught me a thing or two...but, I still have yet to attain his level of mastery of the program.

So...this has been a fairly eventful week and I may even say that it has been further proof of the reality of the statement that the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a-gley. On Monday, Lisa and I had plans to head over to Gold's Gym and sign up for our free membership through NBC. Well, it turned out that I had a mandatory meeting at the station shortly after Lisa finished work. Well...it ended up being alright because Lisa was invited to come along, I got to clock in and there was pizza there (which is the reason that Lisa was invited, not because she would enjoy the meeting.) But, we certainly didn't go to Gold's that night. Not to mention that I had ridden the H4 in to work and while I was there it started snowing to beat the band and I ended up getting a ride home from Tom and leaving the H4 there overnight.

So, now we come to Tuesday. Yet another day where things went a little crazy. I woke up at about 4:40, which was actually early since I was supposed to be working a master control shift starting at 7. Well, I got up and decided to go and get a drink of water. As I was walking down the hallway and heard the familiar buzzing of my vibrating phone from the office where our phones charge during the night. I went in and saw a (715) number and knew it was probably my boss, Tom, calling for me to come in early. Well...after searching around our apartment for a signal I was finally able to connect and Tom told me they really needed me to come in to do audio for the Sunrise show. I said I could and proceeded to get Lisa out of bed and get myself ready to go. This was, of course, April fool's day and the thought occurred to me that this might be a ruse. But, my caller ID showed that the same number had called something like eight times since 3:00, so I determined that this wasn't the case. I got there right as the show started and was able to run audio. It was a decent day even though I was quite tired. It warmed up significantly and I was able to ride the H4 home. Lisa and I finally made our long awaited trip over to Gold's. We just signed up...we weren't dressed for a workout. So, we went home and I crashed. I was able to pull off only one April Fool's Day prank out of three. I put some wadded up toilet paper in the neck of Lisa's bottle of body wash, I unscrewed the lightbulb on the lamp next to the bed that Lisa always turns on to read before we go to bed, and I shortsheated the bed. Well, somehow the bulb got tightened again before Lisa got to it and it turned on just fine and when she went to get in bed, she pulled the spread back far enough to see my little trick...so, oh well. There's always next year.

Yesterday was a little more normal...sort of. I went to work at the expected time, but it was at work that the unexpected things happened. I planned on going to pick up my helmet which was supposed to be at a local Postal Carrier annex. I was going to do that during my break since the place was only about 5 minutes away. But, as I was sitting there I felt a pop on my glasses and the vision of my right eye became quite blurry. Well, the little plastic string that held the lens on had just snapped. So, my plans changed. I ended up paying Lisa a visit while I waited for my glasses to be repaired at the Target optical center. I went and got my helmet after work. I managed a quick stop at home before going to the plasma center. Then, after dinner, it was off to young men's. We went to a driving range. It was fun, albeit a little chilly.

That pretty well brings us up to speed. I will say that I am awfully glad that I have a helmet now. It makes riding the scooter a little bit warmer and a less intimidating proposition. It is a marvelous machine, though. Roughly figured, we will end up spending about one fifth the amount of money on gas for the same mileage we get on a full tank with the Buick. Wow! I've told Lisa that I want her to learn how to drive the scooter so that when gas is really bad, she can take the scooter to work and I can just ride my bike. The car will be for grocery runs, going to church and longer road trips. Aside from that, we will stick to the H4 for our primary means of transportation.

Anyway...hope nobody got tired while reading this. You can take a nap now.