perkonis

A new year seemed like a good time for an upgrade, new theme, and - wait for it - actual content. It’s been sparse around here for a while. Trust me, there’s been a good reason for that. Since that’s all over now, I’m going to try to post more regularly and try to have some semblence of focus.

I’m going to try to have more racing coverage throughout the year. Notice there’s a new page up top where I intend to post schedules of various series both major and minor. I know it’s blank right now - I just put it up 20 minutes ago - but check back as I keep adding to it. If there’s some series or special event that you think ought to go there, drop me a line and I’ll add it. That should be easy enough since I finally put a “Contact Me” page up there as well. Yeah, I finally entered the 90s. You’ll also find links up there to where I’m at on the net when I’m not here.

Overall, I think 2008 is going to be an interesting year to see where this blog heads. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm though.

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That’s not the reaction I was going for.

It seems like I learn something new every year around the holidays. This year was no exception. In fact, I learned quite a bit this year.

• There are precisely 22 trips involved in dragging out my Christmas decorations.
• There are 22 trips involved in putting them away.
• Lights that were carefully wrapped up and stored in January will come out of the box in knots.
• They won’t work.
• While trying to make them work, it is possible to put the wrong light in the socket.
• When the strand starts working, that light will glow with the intensity of a small nova.
• A small nova produces enough heat to burn a hole in the carpet.
• Melting carpet will activate the smoke detector.
• Hours spent decorating the tree to perfection can be undone by a single cat in under 5 minutes.
• The dog does not destroy the tree.
• Dogs > cats.
• 10 inches of snow followed by 60 degrees and rain makes the ground soggy.
• Soggy ground and high winds are not conducive to keeping yard decorations.
• The neighbors don’t seem to mind stray inflatable decorations in their yard.
• Dragging decorations back across the street in 40 mph winds sucks.
• It is possible to maintain an itinerary that involves over 1000 miles and 16 stops with 100% accuracy.
• It involves very little sleep.
• And even less beer.
• And lots of gas.
• Gas is expensive.
• No one at the last stop minds if you fall asleep on the couch.
• Sleep is good.
• Being the permanently designated driver is not fun.
• Watching 2 brothers who haven’t seen each other in a year and a half reunited on Christmas morning makes the rest of this crap seem pretty pointless.

I got tricked into a chick flick last night. It was an honest mistake (honest). As I flipped past one of the movie channels I saw a large dog - a mastiff I believe - wearing roller skates. Now, if you ask a guy if he wants to watch a large dog on skates, one of two things will happen: he will respond “Oh hell yeah!” or he will lie. So, naturally, when that voice in my head asked if I wanted to watch that I thought “Oh hell Yeah!”

I was disappointed to discover that roller skating dogs was most definitely not a major theme to the movie. This was like the TV equivalent of being Rick Rolled. I sat down to watch something cool and, instead, saw a lot of shopping, crying, and rain. I’d been tricked. I am hard pressed to think of a movie that involves those three elements that isn’t a chick flick. Come to think of it, I’m hard pressed to think of a flick that does prominently feature skating mastiffs. I could almost feel the TV sapping the testosterone from my body, so I told the wife she was on her own and bailed.

So, of course, I promptly went searching for videos of skating dogs.

I got lucky the other day. I was out in the yard with the kids and I happened on a little toad. This thing was about the size of my thumbnail and I just happened to see it hopping through the grass. So I reached down and picked it up and went back to show it to the kids.

They were thrilled to see a froggie up close and personal (I gave up trying to explain that it was a toad). We made a make-shift terrarium for it and they watched that thing and played with it for a couple of hours before we turned it loose again. Imagine that. Hours of entertainment just because I was actually looking where I was going for a change.

I was Da Man!

I just wish everything in life was that simple.

Even Gmail has noticed

Funny, though, my attachments don’t feel any bigger.

Yesterday I had the strangest thing happen. I was happily reading Slashdot while trying to look busy at work. No, that’s not the strange part. I do that all the time. I had just read a comment that pointed out that the backhoe was the natural enemy of an ISP. Just as I read this, I heard yelling from the office next to me that his email wasn’t working. That’s still not the strange part, that’s pretty much how someone initiates a “trouble ticket.”
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I think I may have conditioned my son with a Pavlonian response. He’s almost two and he loves to watch 2 Stupid Dogs. I can’t blame him; I’m almost 38 and I love to watch 2 Stupid Dogs. The problem is that it’s on after his bed time. So I found the clips on YouTube and let him watch a couple on my laptop.

Now every time I open the lid he comes running yelling Doggie On! He doesn’t even have to see me, if he hears me typing, he comes running to see the doggies. Well, I guess it is better than drooling at a bell.