Pancakes with Peanut Butter and Honey...

... and other guilty pleasures, like fresh ground single-estate coffee. Or cuddling up with someone on a Saturday morning and listening to the rain on the roof, knowing that for once in a long time, you have absolutely NOTHING planned.

Speaking of peanut butter, following the latest scare, the supply of peanut butter at the local grocery store is looking very slim. I actually happened to have one of the jars with the code that was part of the recall, so I had to go get a new jar. I tried something new: Scudder's All-Natural, Old-Fashioned Peanut Butter. It reminded me of the peanut butter that the government used to give to needy families, having to stir it every time you used it because the peanut oil would rise to the top.

Remembering that peanut butter brought back memories.

My mom would volunteer for that program, helping with the distribution of those government handouts, and would occasionally bring home some of the leftovers. The cheese that everyone would rave about but I hated (American cheese, bleagh... cheese should not be sweet, give me extra sharp cheddar any day), the peanut butter, rice, beans, the canned beef and pork that, mixed with barbecue sauce in a skillet, made a decent quick and easy barbecue sandwich, and, of course, the real butter.

That was my first introduction to real butter. Up till then, we always had margarine and just called it butter. It's almost like finding out that what you've been calling mayonnaise is really Miracle Whip.

Which is one reason that you won't find margarine OR Miracle Whip in my refrigerator...

The Week and Weekend from Hell

This week, and particularly this weekend, has been... well, just wow!!!

Not to say I didn't have fun and enjoy everything that went on, but anytime you HAVE to sleep for fourteen hours solid just to recover and then take a nap in the afternoon because you are still tired... well, I think that says it all.

Something tells me the name "the Hell Hole" has more to it than meets the eye.

Sadistic Homosexual Ex-Convicts

This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending Extrication Fest 2007 at Texas Motor Speedway. I learned quite a bit about extrication, especially stabilization methods, that I didn't already know. On top of that, I got to spend three nights in Denton, where I had lived for eight years, re-visiting old haunts and dining spots that I hadn't seen in three years.

But about the title...

I'm sure that's what all of you have been waiting for anyway.

I stayed at the LaQuinta in Denton and it was a nice motel. Except for the bathroom. Particularly the shower.

First off, the control to turn the water on and off and adjust the temperature is decidely phallic in appearance. On top of this, for an average height male, this decidely phallic-appearing device is mounted about six inches below waist level. Yes, at THAT height.

Then, to top it off, the shower floor has a very marked slant, enough to cause one to lose their balance should they bend over after having dropped the soap.

What then ensues comes from someone's prison rape nightmare.

Thank God I am slightly SHORTER than the average male...

Never believe someone when they say...

Yesterday, my brother the fire chief has me take the engine and the tanker to the radio shop, telling me it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.

He couldn't have been more wrong...

We arrive a little after 8:30 and finally leave a little after 18:00. Needless to say, that is slightly longer than two hours. To make matters worse, the radio that was installed in the engine did not work as advertised.

But I did get to talk to someone I'd never really had the chance to talk with, so it wasn't a completely wasted day.

Someone please stop the madness

At first it was e-mail. The insanity-inducing "Forward to seven of your closest friends..." e-mails that cluttered my inbox and illicited an immediate click of the delete button.

Or the jokes that would be forwarded to me from one person, when a quick look at recipients from a prior forward would show THAT I'D ALREADY GOTTEN IT!!!!

Now it is pic and text messages on my cellphone. Suddenly the whole frackin' world seems to think that I have nothing better to do than to read asinine text and or pic messages.

Please stop, NOW!!! I'm getting two and three pic messages a frackin' day, all at $0.50 a pop. In the space of a week I'm being charged enough for these unwanted messages that I could go buy a six-pack of beer, which would do a heck of a lot more to brighten my mood than the messages ever could.

This public service message has been brought to you buy PRICK.... People Rejecting In-box Cluttering Krap.

And God said, "Let there be light..." (Deja Vu, anyone?)

... and there was light. Light beer that is.

In an effort to try and play along with the local coven of Weight Witches, I've decided to show support by switching to light beer.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Most light beer, to paraphrase Terry Gilliam, tastes like nearly-frozen gnat's urine. Luckily, Sam Adam's Light is readily available at the local grocery store.

Is it a great beer?

No, it will never be mistaken for a regular Sam Adam's or a Leinenkugel's. It doesn't compare to the wonderful stuff that comes out of the Ram Brewery or from the little town in south Texas.

But at least it isn't nearly-frozen gnat's urine...

My fifteen minutes...

Last night the FD is toned to an unknown-type fire. I arrive on location to find it is actually a structure fire that is in the decay stages. The engine arrives and the guys go about doing what firefighters do best (next to police officer's wives, hee hee), put the wet stuff on the red stuff.

Fifteen minutes later one of the guys comes up to me, we have a problem... there's a body in the trailer. Turns out it is a relative of someone who is relatively famous.

So I've spent a good bit of today fielding questions from various media sources and even had to do a video interview. Isn't it great to be the PIO? I actually jokingly asked last night if I could resign. After today I wish I hadn't been joking...

Things I have learned this week

1. The average teenager has less manners than the average five-year old.

2. An ant is smarter than most teenagers.

3. The average metal office desk is a lot tougher than the average big toe, even when wearing tactical duty boots.

4. Fires love to occur during your lunch break.

5. The average person doesn't think that just because it is dry and windy that there is any reason that they shouldn't burn leaves, etc.

6. The average firefighter thinks the average person is an idiot because of this.

7. If what you say can be interpreted two different ways, and one is bad, that is the way it will be interpreted.

8. No matter what, someone will mis-interpret what you say.

9. The ability to sue someone is FAR too easy in this country.

10. Just threatening to sue someone for an asinine reason should be considered a death-penalty offense.

Oh wait, I already knew all of those. I guess this week just offered me a glaring reminder of the painfully obvious.

Goodbye Miss Manners

Growing up, I was taught, nearly had it beaten in to me, that as a child you were to stay quiet while an adult was speaking. God forbid that I would interrupt one of my parents or another adult while they were talking. I would have been picking myself up off the floor.

Somehow between my childhood days and today, that lesson has clearly been forgotten. I lose count of how many times a day that I, as a teacher, have to stop my lecture and tell the students to be quiet.

So who is to blame? Is it parents, elementary school teachers, or society as a whole? I have my theory, but no one is going to like it. It's difficult knowing that the cause of the problems that vex society lies squarely with the person staring back from the mirror.