Longhorn in Paradise

Good morning to all my blog aids spread across the universe! Since I last attempted to quantify the number of regular readers, it has come to my attention that I was being VERY conservative...I had listed a number of states and foreign countries that were represented and I have been made aware that I forgot a couple...a big welcome to the states of Oklahoma and Illinois!! I guess some of our peeps in Tulsa and OK City have been keeping up with the goings on here as well as my adoring cousin in Chicago. Big shout out to Lisa and her gorgeous daughter Olivia. I believe that Olivia and Hagen are the same age difference as Lisa and I...Lisa is 2 months older than me. And she always treated me like that little brother she never had...teasing me, beating up on me and making me eat things that humans should not eat. haha Not really...well, some of it is true. I'm sure the years of therapy will someday make me whole again. :-)

So, Goodwill Hunting...what the hell does that mean? Why would this joker make that the subject of his post and then spout off about how popular his blog is in the smallest states in the Union? What gives? I thought I was going to get a review of that madcap comedy from the 90s starring Matt Damon as a math wiz....and I get this self-aggrandizing bs!!! Well, my faithful readers, if you would just show a little bit of patience, I am getting to that. And, NO, this is not a review of the movie...that would be Good Will Hunting. So, get over it. I'm talking about the search for the closest place to dump all the junk...er give away your cherished possessions to those less fortunate. As Kat and I like to do periodically, we purged some of the items in our lives that are not essential to our happiness, put them in shopping bags, loaded them into the Jeep and headed down to the Goodwill Center. As Kat likes to say, this process always makes her feel "lighter". It is a good feeling. But, as the Goodwill Receiving Clerk was taking our worldlies, something occurred to me...the power of this individual is probably least proportionate to his job perception than any other. Does that make sense? I mean, this person has the ability to tell you "we can't accept that." Bill and I dealt with that after the yard sale...with skis and a wheel barrow. So, we are all excited about making some space by getting rid of this junk...we load it up...drive all the way down there..and this guy crushes our hopes and dreams with nary a thought about it. And there is no challenge to this guy's authority. And, in general, I would say that if you thought of the jobs that people dream about having, this is one that has got to be close to, if not at, the bottom of this list. SO, I am issuing a challenge to all of you...can you think of another instance where the perception of the job is so low, yet the power so great.

Israels response to Hezbollah's kidnapping of two soldiers is so far out of line that I won't give it more than a sentence here. Unfreakin' believable. It was nice to hear that our president was once again caught cussing into a microphone he didn't realize was on. He just makes me so proud to be an american I want to scream.

But, I digress. What I really wanted to do today is tell you about my son. Hagen has morphed into some sort out of control party animal who doesn't want to sleep at all. Between Kat and I, I think we got a couple hours sleep last night combined. The little bugger would not go to sleep! It was like he was wired on coffee, but Kat did not drink any coffee yesterday!! Aack! I am so going to hit the wall hard today...probably in the next couple hours.

OK. I should get to work now. I will mention that I got a personal thank you from Jenny Regan for the shout out she got on an earlier post...I think that deserves another shout out...and, yes, Jenny, I will be coming down to visit you and Tim and Graham sometime in the near future....I promise. :-)

OK...I hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready to have a wonderful week. I must say that this is the best July 17th I have experienced year to date. :-)