# THERE'S A PROBLEM WITH THAT THING

"There's a problem with that thing."

"No there isn't."

"Yes there is. That thing is happening all the time. We could fix the problem. It would take a lot of work, but..."

"No. There isn't a problem. I do not see a problem."

"But what about X, Y, and Z? We need to fix this stuff. Something needs to change."

"Those are isolated incidents. They are not connected in any way. All circumstances and events exist in a vacuum."

"They are a trend. They are a symptom of a bigger issue."

"No they aren't. Can you give me a specific example?"

"A couple, but there are so many..."

"If you can't give me twenty specific examples, right now, off the top of your head, there isn't a problem. If you give me twenty examples, I'll ask for twenty-one examples."

"This Thing is a problem. It's complicated and involves..."

"I don't see it. It isn't affecting me, so it isn't a problem..."

"It's a problem."

"Do you have a specific solution, that you can describe completely, right now? Is it foolproof and perfect, as all plans are foolproof and perfect?"

"Well no..."

"See? Then there is no problem, and even if there was a problem, which there isn't, it can't be fixed because there is no perfect solution that is easy, and involves no sacrifice. No problem."

"But..."

"Nope. End of discussion. I have to go do things now. Also, booze now. I do not have time for this. Things are going well for me, so there is no problem. Booze now, and sports. Booze now?"

"Yes, booze I suppose."

~~~  LATER ~~~

"Can you believe that thing that happened on the news!? It is awful and terrible! This will briefly make me somewhat sad, for a few days, or hours!!"

"Yes. I can believe it. I don't see why you are surprised. It is part of the thing we were talking about the other day, these things are connected."

"No. There is no problem. That is not a real problem. We don't need to fix it, it isn't a problem."

"You don't see how that led to this?"

"No. It is another isolated incident. I have to go do things now that are important to me. Work stuff now. Booze later, and also, sports."

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

"In the seventh inning fans all get up and sing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game,' and they're already there. It's really a stupid thing to say and I don't know who made 'em sing it. Why would somebody that's there get up and sing take me out to the ball game? The first person to do it must have been a moron." - Pitcher Larry Anderson

160 miles of awesomeness

Yesterday I dug a rotten old tree root out of the ground with an axe. I burned an old wooden swing-set the girls outgrew last year. I drank Coronas and sat in the sun. I worked on a short story I'm going to send out. I played World of Warcraft. I puttered around the house.

Today I had SIX stops. I spread technological goodness all over the city, from Grand Haven on Ada to Kalamazoo Avenue to Rockford. 160 miles of awesomeness without even leaving "town".

The van had a flat tire, had to take the tire in for repairs. My internet connection was off and on all day.

I ran 4 miles.

All in all, a pretty sweet day. And the basketball tourney final is tonight. woot I say. woot.

Sunday: The day of Easter Bla Bla

The sky is clear, but the air is cold. And that cold air busted me up when I tried to run today. Friggin' winter, go away already. It hangs around like a visitor that has overstayed its welcome. Deb was in Flint Friday and Saturday. We held the fort down reasonably well. Today she got home. It's Easter, so we went out to eat at Johnny Carino's. I had spaghetti.

I finished reading On Writing, by Stephen King. Damn good book. It gave clear advice from a guy who has made a boat-load of money writing books.

I bought a new machine for work. I'm starting to get SATA drives, and my 400MHZ Gateway with the IDE controllers can't cut the mustard. I have a converter that works half the time but the transfer rate is for shit and it takes forever to rescue a client's first season of "Desperate Housewives" iTunes files. So I got a new machine.

My March Madness bracket is in the can already, but as of this writing, Brian is on top by three points.

I keep telling myself, spring warm-up is just around the corner, but I'm starting to have my doubts.

I'm still working on my newest bestseller. I'm 90 typewritten pages in and counting.

Rush's "The Fountain of Lamneth" from "Caress of Steel" is a mere 19:58 minutes of geeky fantasy-rock goofiness, but it is still pretty good. I got the iTunes on shuffle.

Well, if you've read this far, I've got to give you credit for hanging in there. This is a hefty blog post, and I appreciate you reading this last sentence.

Oh yeah, Billy Thorp's "Children of the Sun" just came on. I must stop typing now and commence air-guitar. There is nothing more pathetic than a 41 year old man doing air-guitar in his tiny office.

Baseball and Performance Enhancing Drugs

Congress is wasting our tax dollars grilling Roger Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee on which one of them are lying about Performance Enhancing Drugs. I don't care and neither should you and I. If rich guys who get paid to hit a ball and run around in a circle want to take PED.s (is that an acronym?) let them.

Clemens: "Let me be clear, I have never taken steroids or HGH."

McNamee: "Make no mistake, when I told Sen. Mitchell I had injected Roger Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs, I told the truth."

In fact, all professional athletes should be REQUIRED to take PEDs. Then we could get on with our lives and sleep peacefully, knowing that a bunch of rich dudes are playing their sports on an even playing field.

Could we please, please waste our tax dollars on more important things, like useless wars and pork-barrel spending?

17-14: Awesome

The Giants beat the Patriots. There's probably enough written about it on the Internets. What an fantastic win. I actually jumped off the couch when the Giants made that last touchdown. Fantastic. Mannings rule the Superbowl! Ha ha ha Patriots! Yay.

The Cris Collinsworth School of Classical Music Appreciation.

Cris Collinsworth is so annoying my daughters mentioned the annoying man talking over the football game, so we were forced to mute the television and put on classical music during the Patriots/Giants game instead of listening to that blowhard Cris Collinsworth ruin another football game. We enjoyed Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", Prokofiev's "Montagues and Capulets", Pachelbel's "Canon" and a host of other classics. My thanks goes out to Cris Collinsworth for an enjoyable evening with my family listening to classics so we wouldn't have to listen to you for 4+ hours being stupid.

(Contrats Pats)

I woke up at 5:00 this morning and cleaned my desk. I sent out 4 short stories, and through the miracle of electronic mail messages, or "email" as the kids like to call it, I got a reject letter the SAME DAY! A first. I re-wrote the ending to one story.

Savannah drew the most amazing bird sketches. They are suitable for framing.

Alex found 6 state quarters for our state quarters collection book.

Spoke to Barry for about an hour. Sat in front of the fire and read a book and wrote while Deb and the Girls went to baby Savannah's 2nd birthday party.

I had a root canal yesterday. Today I have vicodin :)

the 15 lateral play explained

No, Barry Bonds never took steroids:

From the book Game of Shadows:

"Since joining the Giants, Bonds had gone from a size 42 to a size 52 jersey; from size 10 ½ to size 13 cleats; and from a size 7 1/8 to size 7 ¼ cap, even though he had taken to shaving his head.."

Full grown men don't do that. At least they're not supposed to.

http://www.marathonminute.com/

Hey everybody,

Check out Don's new podcast, Marathon Minute. He's on the radio and everything. Inspirational messages, even if you don't run. http://www.marathonminute.com/

I STILL WON'T WATCH SOCCER

I have tried. I understand that the rest of the world loves soccer. I’ve made an honest effort to watch soccer. I even watched the world cup. David Beckham has joined some team in LA, and everyone is speculating that it will make Americans watch soccer. I don’t think so. I once watched the movie “Bend it Like Beckham,” because I thought my daughters might like it, but it was boring, and when I rented it, I had no idea who David Beckham was. At least Keira Knightley was in the movie, she’s smoking hot.

Even if Keira Knightley, and a bunch of other equally hot girls formed a soccer league and played in bikinis, I’d probably only watch a couple of times. . . no wait, I might tune in to that program more than once, but that’s about the only way I’d watch soccer. And then only if at the end, they mud-wrestled.

Because soccer is boring. I know that we Americans should join in the international sport, so that a global sense of fellowship and some kind of common spirit would traverse the globe, eventually resulting in international peace and goodwill.

But really, the only time soccer is interesting is when there is a big drunken riot, and then only when the good parts of the riots are condensed into a four minute montage on one of those “Shocking Video” shows you see on the spike channel.

And oh yeah, when that one dude head-butted that other dude. That was cool.

So, I know the LA Whatchamacallits are banking on Beckham drawing a crowd to American soccer. I understand that he’s the Michael Jordan of soccer and all that, but the coolest thing about him, to me at least, is that he’s tagging Posh Spice. That means he’s cool. That fact that he’s good at soccer? Meh, whatever.

So good luck American Soccer people. When Beckham shows up on “The Surreal Life” with a pot-belly and a drinking problem with Lance Armstrong and Maria Sharapova, then we’ll know he’s really made it.