Lucky Socks

Cari's birthday is in just a few days. She got some presents from her mom and sister today in the mail. One of the items was a pair of socks that said, "my socks" accross the bottom. As Cari was modeling them for me, I noticed that each sock had a little charm hanging, near the ankle. "Is that going to make it through the wash?", I asked.
"probably not."
"I don't get it, why have it there."
"I won't wash them.", she told me, proudly. It's a good thing these are labeled very clearly, "my socks". Certainly, nobody else is going to go near them after some use. BUT, the charm will still be there, and isn't that cute? She continued, as she smiled at her socks, "They are my lucky socks!". What do lucky socks do, except stink? How do smelly feet help you become more lucky or successful? Can't she just keep a shiny penny in her pocket or something. If that's what it takes to make your socks lucky, I'll pass.

*I'll get in trouble for this one.*

Tomorrow, more on the magic of TIVO.

snow. . . ha!

Duck said there was snow yesterday. That guy is hella crazy! It was more like a heavy frost. Seeing everyone run out to play in it, should have been an episode of, "Come inside you are embarrassing your family... err.. talkin' hand." I mean, come on, are you guys going to believe a guy who drools on his desk? I could have dumped a snow cone on the driveway and had more snow than what they were giggling about.

Talkin' Hand. . .OUT!

Meow!

This picture is from Cari's great-grandfather.
It is a school picture, and you will have to click to enlarge it for full effect.

Had another shopping spree yesterday! Weee!
First of all, I never understood the hype behind the ipod. Isn't it just a fancy walkman?
Well, I finaly played with a demo unit at BestBuy. I did not buy one, just played with the demo. The little wheel that everyone is fussing about. Yeah, it's VERY cool. I couldn't spend over $400 on a walkman, but the thing was very cool. I now understand the fuss.

What did I buy? TIVO!

Tivo rocks. I have direcTV. Tivo is built into the new box, with two tuners. So, now I can record tv, while watching something else. I can start watching a movie 1/2 an hour late, and it will record the rest of it, while I'm starting from the begining. I can pause TV, I can hit replay, watch TV in slow motion. OH! I love TIVO. I've only had the thing about twelve hours. But the posobilities! I stayed up until 3 am calling direct TV and getting the thing hooked up.

Then I got a wake up from the family at 7:30 this morning, to tell me that it is snowing. I'm a little grumpy today. Give me the remote.

SNOW!

It's not as much snow, as it is pellets of ice. It does not feel good, hitting you in the face. But it is still a lot of fun to play in. I will have to post a few pictures up here later.

I even took the wheels off my skateboard and went down the hill in the front yard for a while. The road is starting to cover over in ice. I'm sure glad I didn't have to work today. Well, back to TIVO.

I have arrived!

I'm talkin hand! I have taken this blog as my own! Let me tell you what happened to me yesterday. I went to the grocery store, and they had one stinkin' cashier in the whole place. It's going to blizzard out tomorrow, and they got one cashier! The bread aisle is wiped out, the milk. . .let me tell you, I sure hope you like chunky milk, because that's all that was left. The shortest line, was a self checkout line. OH, yeah! Self checkout. I check myself out all the time, and I . . . am . . . looking . . . cool. As I'm checking my grocery, I noticed that something was not right. I was missing out on something. It was the conversation with the half educated cashier. I fixed that problem real quick. I started talking to myself. I asked myself all the relevant questions about ten cent coupons, etc. I even started a little banter, "oh! those bannanas look good."
I kinda got angry about this dumb cashier.
"Would you please just ring up my groceries and let me get out of here."
"I'm just saying those bannanas are looking good."
"PLEASE!"
"I'm going on break soon and I was. . ."
"you can NOT have a bannana!" This will be the last time I use self checkout. This talkin hand is freaking me out!
Meanwhile, the half educated 14 year old, is standing at a booth, watching over four of these self checkouts. At this point, she was staring at me. I guess it is because I'm looking so hella cool!
Maybe it was just that I started shouting at myself about bannanas.
Til next time, losers!

Talkin' Hand . . . OUT!

This may be about YOU!

Have you ever woken up to the glare of a computer screen only inches from your head?
Have you ever wiped drool off of your desk?

I'm so stubborn sometimes. I just want to keep going. Sleep seems like such a waste of time. I'll work all day. Then I'll stay up at night, while the family is asleep. I'll read about all the freaks around the world on the drudgereport. I'll read about the death that CNN reports about. I'll read about half a dozen blogs. I'll pull out the racing wheel and race at some random NASCAR track. I'll laugh while I read HomeStarRunner.

I also have TV built into the video card. Jimmie Kimmel loves to talk to me while I read on the internet. But he comes and goes before I know it. Then it hits me. I'm asleep. No. I did not mean to put my head down and fall asleep. I don't realize I have done it until the glare of the screen penetrates my closed eyes. When I do wake up at 3am, do I go to bed? Sometimes. Sometimes I just HAVE to finish reading whatever crap was on the screen when my body shut itself off. It's like when the vaccum overheats and shuts down. When it starts to cool, you can get it started again, but only until it overheats again.

Well, it's still early, only 1:25 am. I'm good at least until. . .

Something is different

Jeff Gordon is on Regis and Kelly Wednesday and Thursday morning. As Cari and I watched a bit this morning, something was different about Jeff. "Did he change his hair?", I asked.
"Nope. Don't think so."
"Maybe it's the jeans. Something is definitely different about Jeff today."
"Yeah, he's not drinking a Pepsi on camera, and he has no decals or corporate logos on him."
She was right. It's a rare thing to see these guys on TV, not pushing product. Jeff did point out that he is the fastest co-host on the show.

A deer?

I was just driving home from work tonight, coming up the hill to the quarry. That's when I saw a deer standing on the side of the road. How cool. I have not seen one of these out in the wild around here yet. As I got closer, I lowered the volume on the radio, and rolled the window down. There were about ten of them! BUT, they were not deer, they were goats. There is not a farm or a house for several blocks of this spot. Somehow a herd of goats was munching on grass at the gate to the quarry. It's not too far from my house, and I thought about going back to get a picture for you. I changed my mind when I thought about how tired and hungry I am. Also, what if the flash sets them suckers off? They might rush my car.

Too much time

I don't normaly post so many news stories here, but this one got me tonight. Another story straight from home town, Florida. The link is the full story, including the video from NBC
LINK
Here's what's up. I lived in LEE county.

Lee County was named after Robert E. Lee on May 13, 1887 when the county separated from Monroe County. Lee's portrait hangs proudly on the second floor of the old Lee County Courthouse.

Anthony Thomas, a member of the Black Advisory Board, believes Lee doesn't deserve the recognition.

This is friggin' insane!!! I know! Let's change South Carolina to "Carolina". The South reminds me of all the slave owners in Charleston. It's just wrong. We shouldn't recognize that S.C. is in the South. They shouldn't get that honor. We'll have North Carolina, and slightly lower (not using South), we'll have Carolina Jr. It sounds like such a damn cute state!

Some people have too much time on their hands.

Princess

The big picture

Nascar has this story about Ryan Newman and Rusty Wallace fighting.
These guys are team mates. They can't seem to get along. In the story, Ryan blames the fact that Rusty owns part of his (Ryan's) car. He says this is a conflict of interest.

Guess what. The best, most effective team in all of Nascar is probably the 24, 48 pair. Jeff Gordon owns the car Jimmie Johnson drives. These guys work side by side, they finished side by side in the points (2nd and 3rd) last year. They also compete to win against eachother every week.

I think Ryan is missing what is really going on here. I have never heard Jimmie say that Jeff is a problem.

BIG numbers

This is one of the main reasons we left Lee County, Florida

LEE COUNTY GAINS 25,000 new residents

LEE COUNTY— The Economic Development Office announced a record number of people moved into Lee County last year, the largest number of new residents in one year in the past 20 years.

Read the whole thing here or watch the video report on the same link.

Local News

I now understand why Floyd's Barber Shop was the best hangout in the Andy Griffith Show.

Living in a small southern town, I have learned that going to the barber shop is the best source of local news. The barber knows a lot of things about a lot of people. He's not shy about sharing this information. The best time to get good gossip is a weekday morning. That's when all the old men go in there.
During my latest visit the other morning I heard some good stuff. Turns out the barber is arguing with the mayor about parking in downtown. Downtown is one street, one block in length. The barber went on to tell us how his nephew is a local cop, and asked his uncle to just drop the issue. That won't be happening. While I was getting my hair cut, a guy that works at the morg came in. The old men started asking, "how did so-and-so die?" That would lead in to a discussion about so-and-so. The barber was able to give a lot of info on every so-and-so mentioned.

Want to know what's going on in town? Head to the barber shop. Maybe I'll bring my checker board with me next time.

Nutrition Lesson

Cari went out shopping, leaving me with the children. When it came time for lunch, I was not sure what to make. Certainly, anything I make is not going to be complex. It should take no longer than ten minutes to assemble.

I got the kids to the table and started taking suggestions. The three of us decided chocolate chip cookies would be great. I grabbed some cookies and brought them to the table. "Would mom give you cookies for lunch? Do you think they are healthy?"
They both looked at me, laughing, "yeah. I think mom would like us to have cookies!"
I gave them each a cookie. They couldn't believe it. They were both laughing so hard. Neither one of them ate a bite. Randy finaly asked, "can I eat it?"
"You better eat it, it's your lunch."
For the record I did make some sandwiches, that they did eat. But we started with cookies.

As soon as Cari got home, Meredith ran to the door. "Dad gave me cookies for lunch!"
Randy chimed in, "He made us eat them. We asked for healthy food!"
"Why you little. . .!"

They haven't learned yet, that not only are they getting me in trouble, but they are eliminating the chances of future cookie lunches.

Shocking News!

My car is going to kill me. Everytime I get out of it lately, I'm scared to close the door. The weather has been cold, high in the low 30's, for the past few days. This makes my car even more painfull to deal with.

Everytime I get out of the car and shut the door, I get a static shock. This is not a, take off your sweater and your hair stands on end, type of static. I'm talking about, knock you to the ground, static. When I got to work today, I turned to slam the car door, and a tear came to my eye. Oh, the pain I am about to feel. It probably wouldn't be so bad, if it was a surprise shock once in a great while. Because then you wouldn't expect it, and it's over before you know it. When you expect it, you sit and worry about it.

I even think of strategy around it, while I'm driving to work. Picture that for a second, I'm trying to outsmart static electricty. There must be something more important to be thinking about! One thing that seems to help, is to hold the top of the car with my left hand, before I step out of the car. I will keep that hand in contact with the metal roof until I'm pushing the door closed with the other hand. So far, this has helped. I don't always remember to do that, until I'm standing outside of the car. . .wiping a tear from my eye.

My dog can eat your dog

This is my brother's dog:

This little dog thinks he is so tough. Even wanders around the house wearing a parachute harness. He is like the action hero of dogs. He can do so many cool things. Things like, pee on the floor faster than you can push him out the door.
My dog could eat this dog for lunch. She would then probably eat grass for an hour and throw up on the front porch. Yeah, my dog does tricks too.

My Sunday

I had to venture under the house again today. The water heater had a burned out element. This is a straight foward job. Turn off the water. Turn off the power (critical step). Drain some water, switch the element, electric and water back on. I can be back laying on the couch in thirty minutes.

This job turned out much more like an episode of the 3 Stooges.

It went something like this:

A trip to Lowe's for supplies. Got home and realized I needed one more thing. Cari ran back to the store for me. Ok. You all should know how I feel about being under the house by now.
Well, I shut off the water at the meter. Turned on the bath tub and waited ten minutes.
I don't have a lot of paitence. I am part of the generation that wants everything NOW. The age of fast food and sound bites. If something takes longer than 10 minutes, it isn't important.
I started to unscrew the old element. Water started shooting out onto me, it was gushing down the side of the water heater, soaking the clay under my feet. It took a good thirty seconds for me to figure out that screwing it back in would stop the flow.

I quickly pulled the old one out and shove the new one in there. Tightened it down, and saw the rubber seal popping out from under it. Dang! Looking over the old element, I realize the old seal stayed in the hole. Now the two seals are twisting each other out of shape. I went out to the meter to turn the water on, then check for leaks at the heater. The water was never fully shut off! The tank would NEVER have emptied. Sure enough, the element leaked.
Water back off, and me back under the house. I waited a good half hour while it drained slowly through a hose. Finaly went back and finished repairing the seals.

I'm wet. It's 50 degrees, and windy. We're having fun now!
Got everything put back together and it all works great. . .more than three hours after starting.

Looking for answers

Cari reads trashy romance novels. I'm not sure if I was allowed to reveal that. It's done now. That's one of the things about writing a blog. I am my own censor. I can write about any topic, in any way, at any time. Yeah, it might upset people along the way, but I am my own censor. I'm not a very good censor for my blog. Sometimes things get put up here that maybe should not have been. I write this blog as Duck Hunter, and maybe I feel that gives me a certain amount of anonymity. I post pictures and use real names, but I still feel that if a guy from work stumbled on this, he would not be able to pin it on me.

So, Cari likes to read books by Nora Roberts. I sit down on the couch last night, and on the side table sits a book. "Nora Roberts", it says accross the top. Then a bit smaller, "writing as". Then in a huge font, "J.D. Robb". What's the point in writing under a different name if you are going to tell people who you really are on the same page? The J.D. Robb books are a little different. I think they are a bit more murder mystery, then the trashy sex Nora normally writes. Maybe she wants to seperate herself from murder mystery. I really doubt that, her name is almost as big as J.D. Robb on the cover. Maybe she has been using J.D. Robb for a while now, without her name, and it's time to reveal it. That's not it either, this book says, "first time in print". If having her real name on the cover wasn't enough, flip the book over. The ENTIRE back cover is a giant picture of this woman.

It doesn't seem she was very creative in coming up with a pen name. Robb is obviously a play on Roberts. I'll tell you this, my real name is nothing like Duck, or Hunter. In fact, I'm not even a duck hunter. Pretty tricky, huh? Maybe Nora wishes she is cool enough to be a blog writer.

Nora Roberts
writing as
DUCK HUNTER
Duck Notes

She just doesn't get it. Maybe she could add some cool points if her books by Nora Roberts were written by J.D. Robb, and her J.D. Robb books were written by Nora Roberts. Makes me dizzy just thinking about it.

Learn something new

I'm a little farther behind my updates than I had hoped to be. Work has been busy since I got back.

So we were out to dinner for grandpa's birthday. Looking over the menu, I was hungry for shrimp. There were two dinners that had shrimp. Shrimp on a skewer, and shrimp scampi.
There was a problem. I don't eat a large variety of foods. I don't normaly try new things. The few times I do go out to eat, I almost always choose something I have had before.

What the hell is scampi?!!?

I asked my brother. He used to cook at this restaurant. . .for several years. "what's shrimp scampi?"
Would you believe he replied, "i don't know." Then he kind of gave a weird grin and chuckled. If the friggin' cook doesn't know what it is, then why would I want it? I was still curious. I have had shrimps on a skewer plenty of times before. I would just have to stick to the safe order.

What the hell is scampi?!!?

I searched around my table to find an answer. Leaning over to Cari on my right, "what is scampi?"
Shrugged shoulders came from my beautiful wife. She doesn't like seafood, I didn't really expect her to know.

Maybe scampi means they dump the bucket of shrimp on the floor. The ones that start to scamper away get their heads cut off, their body dumped on your plate with some lemon.

What the hell is scampi?!!?

The waitress would return soon for our orders. I sipped my water and looked for more help. AH! Grandpa (not the birthday boy) on my left would certainly know this. "Grandpa, what does it mean when they scampi the shrimp?"
Grandpa is a smart guy. I guess that's why he leaned over to check his answer for approval from grandma. He leaned back my way and told me that scampi is just the way they cook it, the sauce they use on it. Thanks, grandpa!
The waitress came moments later for our orders. I ordered the shrimp scampi. Oh!, something new, this should be fun.

What the hell is scampi?!!? Let me tell you. Grandpa was right. You know what shrimp scampi tastes like? It tasted exactly like shrimp skewers without the skewers. Mystery solved. It makes you feel like you are getting a higher class meal, because it doesn't come served on a stick.

You should try to learn something new everyday. This is a bigger challenge for some, for others, it comes easy.

Muscles

He was so excited. He was outside without a shirt on. We didn't want him to get his shirt dirty outside, so I asked him to take it off. At first he wasn't sure about it. Then, when he realized he was half naked outside, he started to go crazy.

BACK from vacation

Well, sitting in a car with two young children for a full day is nothing but fun.

We did have a good trip to Florida and back.

I'll have plenty of pictures to put up and talk about soon. We took 248 pictures, so there should be a few to post.

I also have a few interesting stories to put up here also, so should be some pretty frequent updates for the next few nights.

You can see some pretty cool stuff driving down the interstate. For instance. A man, standing on the side of the road, holding a sign. This sign was not, "Florida or Bust", or any other crappy slogan. This man was holding an Australian flag. I am no expert in geography, but I know that my car will not make it to Australia. I also know that standing on the interstate in Georgia is not the place to be asking for such a ride. He's probably still standing there tonight.

It's nice to be home.

vacation

going on vacation. Leaving in about...5 minutes, um... 2 minutes.
Check back for updates next week.

morning odds and ends

My favorite radio station has been playing non-stop Christmas music since Thanksgiving. I like Christmas music. I don't want to hear Christmas music all day. I don't always want to hear it as I drive to and from work. I stopped listening to my favorite station, and had to switch over to a less than favorite. Now it's all over, and things are getting back to normal. I have returned to that station, and no longer have to put up with 2nd best.

There are nursury rhymes that talk about empty cupboards. Well, let me tell you. Our cupboards are overflowing. I went to get a snack last night, and I could hardly close the cabinet door. Food was just pouring out! I did not take the time to evaluate the quality of the food. Things such as, how much of these items contain Splenda. So even if they look full, the edible portion may be small. Thus, it is an optical illusion.

Top 20 wacky court stories on courtTV.com

New Years in NYC. The ball drop is a great tradition. I think I heard it was 100 years of celebrating in Times Square this past year. I have always liked watching Dick Clark on TV, and seeing the ball drop. This year, after the ball dropped, they were showing video of celebrations in Australia, London, and a few other places. These other places, Australia and London especially, make the ball drop look like the 100 year tradition that it is. The fireworks they have are awsome. The ferris wheel in London all lit up looks great. Maybe it's time to blow the dust off that stupid crystal ball, and get something a little more visually exciting.

Now that I got all that out of my head, I can go on with my day.

Sneak Attack

she never saw it coming.

Keep working

No time for a break, we have a lot of leaves.

Fall snowgirl

This is the fall version of a snowgirl

Heath food

The boy is learning about food at school. What is healthy and what is not. This means I'm either constantly being asked how healthy a particular food is, or I'm being told how healthy something I'm eating is.

Randy was wanting more carrots last night after eating a fistfull of them. The logic was that they are very healthy and he can eat an infinate amount of them for that reason.

Healthy food makes you grow. This morning Randy was really wanting some chocolate for breakfast. Even on my scale (which is different than the mom scale), chocolate is not a good breakfast. At least, not on its own. Randy produced some logic for me to consider.

"I'm tired of growing, that's why I keep asking for chocolate."
Randy, age 5