August 2006 Archives

I am becoming quickly enamored with The Ditty Bops (please, not to be confused with the kids' group The Doodlebops).

The Ditties, as I like to call them, not only write and perform eclecticly beautiful melodies coupled with hilariously ironic lyrics, and aren't so bad to look at, either, but they supported their latest album by launching a bicycle tour from LA to New York this summer. Talented women after my own heart, I tell you. If my heart wasn't already taken, I'd be pedaling as fast as I could to join them. Alas, their tour is nearly complete. Maybe they need a ride back to LA?

To sum up ...

Long ago, I used to think it was totally hot to see a woman driving a pickup truck (maybe it's a Texas thing). It's even hotter when a woman can change the oil in her pickup truck. Even better than that? A woman who's not afraid to eat.

Now, I'm not saying I scoured the prairie until I could find a "sturdy" woman who could hold her own at the buffet. I'm just saying back in the day, when I was single, it was a total turnoff to be on a date and the gal orders a twig from the appetizer menu and stares at you big-eyed when you're chomping down on a three-patty thunderburger with a side of fries. People, we need food to survive. It's best to pick foods that are healthful and can fuel you through the day. By golly, we all need to eat.

For the record, my Petite Filet isn't afraid to eat, but that's not the only reason I married her (she's driving a pickup truck now, so hott!).

Had lunch with two women from a major regional hospital system yesterday. Both were in good physical shape and young, so I figured they'd pick a place that overcharged for dainty tea sandwiches and girlie crystal pitchers of iced tea. But no, they wanted barbecue. One of them is pregnant, so I expected she'd load up a brisket platter with two heaping sides (she did). The other, about to be married, tall and thin and sophisticated-looking, ordered a sausage platter and got two fried sides. And a soda!

Be still my heart, that was cool. They almost made me feel overly healthy for picking green beans for my own plate.

Note to single guys: the girls who can eat are the girls who can cook.
Note to single women: eat something!
Note to me: stop eating so many thunderburgers!

Thanks for your comments below! Your input will be incorporated into my new and improved blog roll coming to a Texas T-bone blog near you.

We went to a friend's birthday party the other night at a local Mexican chain restaurant, and it reminded me just how gross little girls are. Two of them there decided it was hilarious to mix their rice and beans together and then add strange ingredients, challenging one another to eat their new creations. An 11-year-old boy used his post-meal time to practice belching his name and the alphabet. My son and his 2-year-old friend (who is much bigger than my nearly 4-year-old) played with toy trains at the table.

This was, of course, an occasion to celebrate an adult's birthday. But like anytime you try to gather 17 or so people in a restaurant, it's hard to converse with the whole group. Somehow, the Petite Filet and I wound up babysitting the youngest in our group. That's OK, I guess, but it was a bit annoying. Our other friends there are ones we see briefly every week or so, but it's been a long time since we all got together.

Making things worse was the fact that these were church friends (Baptist church friends) and two are recovered alcohols. I bet a margarita or three would have made babysitting a whole lot funnier. But then I don't drink anymore these days, anyway.

Aside from the party, we've learned the effectiveness of using the egg timer to get our spawn to get moving. This weekend we stretched the limits of its uses with splendid results.

There's some blog "spring cleaning" I need to do, particularly in my list of favorites (see "innards" at left). Not only are some of those links long-inactive, but I never added the sites of some of the wonderful people who often stop by. The whole point (other than serving as an outlet to write a bunch of nonsense) is to build a little community here. That's why as long as I have a blog it will be really easy to comment (for spammers, too), and a lot of times I'll respond to comments via e-mail. We are people! Let us be friends, virtual friends or maybe just virtually friendly. Whuh-tevah.

So, in the tradition of "De-Lurking Days" across blogdom, I ask that you leave some kind of comment here, just so I know who you are. If you've got a blog, please include the URL. I usually recip-ro-link, mainly so it's easy for me to find your site when I'm in reading mode. I know my traffic is down here from the Salad Days of having a boring job and practically blogging all day. But it's never been about quantity, it's quality. And I'm always pleased that such great people take a few moments from the day to leave a nugget of wisdom or criticism.

Happy "Leave a Comment for T-bone Day." Here's a few topics if you need a nudge: how did you find Texas T-bone? Why did you start blogging? When's the last time you went to the circus?

When a smalltown newspaper connects with its readers, it seems more accessible. This is a good and bad thing for an editor, let me tell you, because it often means any aspiring writer wants to stake out their own claim to fame in those pages to talk about how funny their poodle is or what their friends do on the weekends. Dear Internet reader, you know this mundane sort of thing is what you expect to find here and on other personal blogs. The cost of newsprint is too high and space is at too much of a premium to lease it out to any wannabe. We reserve our news hole (*snicker*) for actual news.

The following e-mail sent to me, however, struck a chord because it's the kind of stab in the dark I would have taken at a young age. In fact, one time I even sent some of my cartoons to Boys Life in the hopes of making it big. I was 11 or 12 at the time, and got a nice hand-written response from one of the editors. Fast forward to now, and I did my best to reply via e-mail in a heartfelt and meaningful way. The letter and my response follows:

Dear editor,
My name is (YoungWriter) and I am 11 years old. I am very interested in writing, especially creative writing about things I see and do every day. I would like to write a story for your newspaper and send it to you. Could you read it and maybe put it in the newspaper? Thanks for your time.

(A. YoungWriter)

And here's what I wrote:

For those of you who don't have cars, or for those who have cars but don't drive them, I guess you're excused from the proceedings. I'm figuring that the teeter-totter peace in the Mideast won't last, some other gasoline-supply problem will surface (leaky pipeline in Alaska, anyone?) and at some point it's gonna cost me $500 a week to put gas in my Subaru. The only real way we can affect change is to use less gasoline, although it isn't easy and excuses abound.

We've been rearranging various rooms of our house lately, kind of a budget self-Trading Spaces type of thing. Our kitchen is revamped (thanks to that Ikea cabinet purchase), the Cutlet's room is renewed (he told us he didn't like his room anymore, but now he loves it), we moved our bedroom around (and now the computer fits in there) and more is on the way. Our former home office will become the guest room, our former guest room will eventually house Tater Tot No. 2 and I'm continuing to make our upstairs room a playroom. After a garage sale (I hate garage sales), we'll be able to park a second car in the garage (after we replace our truck, of course).

With a wife who's 5 months pregnant, it also means I'm the one doing the heavy lifting. Our wood floors make the sliding fairly easy, though. It's also my pregnant wife who is also sick of the 30 100-degree days (that's an accurate number, people) this summer. It's not typical for us to be that hot for that freakin' long.

So she says something about wanting to move to someplace that has seasons. That could happen someday, but I'll be taking her to a cold spot in the dead of winter to see how she really likes it. She grew up in Oklahoma, lived in Arkansas briefly and has been in Texas ever since. The girl doesn't know what winter is. For those of you who have the pleasure of cooler temps, and actual seasons, help me by telling me what it's really like. I lived in Virginia for 10 years; I know winter but it's been more than 20 years since I lived it.

Which would you have, oppressive heat or oppresive cold, and why?

Now that I've got a new laptop (which continues to be awesome), I need something to carry it around in. I've been using a backpack with built-in laptop sleeve that my mother-in-law got from a business convention. It is nice, but for day-to-day, I need something that says "professional" rather than screams "broke college student" (which I am currently neither broke nor in college). The bag (probably messenger-style) needs also not shout "potential terrorist" in case I've got to travel with it for any future jobs. Last, but in equal importance, my laptop bag should in no way whisper "man purse." Although I'm sure that's exactly what it will become.

I've found a few I like – reasonably priced when you consider how much we paid for the computer itself – but I figured I'd toss questions at fellow laptop owners. What do you transport yours in? Do you use it every day? What do you like about it? Where'd you get it? What's it made out of? How often have you dropped it and wondered if your computer was OK? What do you wish it did that it doesn't do? Lots of questions for a Thursday, I know, but answer none or any that you've got something to say about. It is, as always, most appreciated.

Happy Thursday!

Sorry about the title of this entry, folks. Some loopy dude who is also hooked oh phonics (or fonicks) rote et 4 mee.

So, walking the dog at night has started to give me the heebie jeebies. It's not the random teen-age skaterpunks who roll out from behind fluffy shrubs. It's not the nightwalkers trying to get in exercise in the cool of dusk. It's not that weird Boo Radley guy who wears an orange vest and talks on his phone using a headset although because it's dark it seems like he's talking to himself. Hey, it's not even the fellow inconsiderate dogwalkers who decide it's OK for their dogs to crap in the street so I can step on it. No ... I'm chicken to run across a little fluffy black-and-white animal whose odiferous sensibilities do not match my own. I've already seen a bunch of skunks in the 'hood this year. The old golf course adjacent to my 'burb doesn't help. Hoping to avoid that whole bath-in-tomato-juice thing, especially because it would be me and the dog in the tub, possibly at the same time.

In other news, I have a burning question that only you Internet experts can answer. Do each color of Froot Loops taste like a different flavor, or is it all the same sugary goodness? Discuss.

If there's anything about shoes that divides men and women (well, at least divides my wife and I), it's that I will only buy comfortable shoes. It makes no sense to cram my feet into something itchy, sweaty, rubby, etc., because if my feet aren't happy, none of me is happy. Ladies, you can talk all you want about how "The Man" and "Society" calls for you to have a certain type of footwear. It's all bunk. You can choose what to wear, at least in your normal daily life.

Enter the Crocs. This may sound like an endorsement (believe me, they ain't paying me anything), but it's something men and women can agree on. First, they are butt ugly, no matter the style or color. Second, they are extremely comfortable. Kind of like a minivan ... you don't know the benefits until you slip inside.

Granted, usually I don't buy ugly shoes, either. With men's footwear beauty and comfy are not mutually exclusive. But I proudly shod my dogs with these ugs whenever I get the chance. I would wear them to work if I could. Or in the shower.

And I still don't like minivans.

So, this is how it starts. You buy a computer with a built-in movie camera and you get all kinds of ideas about the wacky, offbeat (lame) little desktop movies you want to make for YouTube. Or maybe you want to be vain to a smaller audience and send little pre-recorded video chats to everyone in your e-mail address book.

Whatever it is, it must be stopped!

As an early birthday present, the Petite Filet let me order a special case for my iPod. It's a little over the top, but it means my little Shuffle will be protected in the case of severe flooding, or if I decide to wash the car while using it.

Yesterday, as an early Christmas present (for the next two or three years), she and I bought a new computer, which I will use most often for work and side business ventures, with a little personal stuff thrown in. Of course, I had plans to buy the cheaper one (we went with the mid-range model with the 2.0 GHz processor) and leave. But we left after buying a wireless Airport Extreme base so we could keep our other Mac wired and allow the Petite Filet to to use her work-issued craptop at home. And a little bit of software to get me going.

So far, everything works as promised and it is awesome awesome awesome. The real test will be using at work next week, but there have been dozens of times last week I wished I'd had it. Add a cell phone and quiet place to work and it's like having a mobile newsroom ... no desk can tie me down. Just watch your latte; the computer ain't waterproof.

Hey, I forgot to tell you I'm the newest member on my city's Parks and Recreation Board. I know, it's an astounding achievement. Thankyouvermuch.

I went to my first official meeting on Tuesday, and it's going to be pretty neat. The city, firmly entrenched in the Crumbling Suburbs, doesn't have a big-dollar budget or a lot of hope for new business development in the future. It's a sleepy bedroom community with mostly older homes (like mine) and older residents (like my neighbors). But that's no reason to throw in the towel. Every place has the potential to offer its residents something special. I'm hoping my bubble isn't burst too soon, or that the buffet of public volunteerism is serving only bitter reality sandwiches.

Now I have an official forum with which to push my twisted bicycle-lane agenda, my belief that city parks should be made completely out of chocolate and that recreation can be what brings a disjointed and diverse community together.

Wish me luck, party people!

The Petite Filet has come up with a preliminary list of names for our second child. I don't know how serious she is about any of them, really, because she said she built the list while bored at work. Here it goes:

• Alex
• Derek
• Isaac
• Jacob
• Jared
• Jeffery
• Joshua
• Nicholas
• Patrick
• Ryan
• Riley
• Spencer
• Wes

She put the list on the refrigerator. Not to be outdone, I came up with my own list, which I wrote next to hers:

Potty training, as mentioned here before, is on our minds at Casa del T-bone. Because it's not on yours, however, I will not rehash the proceedings here. Instead, I'll focus on one aspect that affects us all: toilet-flushing volume (as in, noise).

I don't know about yours, but my life has been marked with a successive number of ever-louder potties. My first experience was with a big beige porcelain jobby that would shake when the handle was moved. When my family moved to Texas, we gained a third bathroom that only got used when we had guests or in emergencies. If the shower next to it went un-unsed for a period of time, the air in the pipes would make it sound like a motorcycle was coming at you through the drain.

With our house here, gravity has taken its toll on our now 42-year-old abode. That means the typical "gravity toilet" (you flush it and the force of gravity on the water jettisons your pee and poo) just didn't cut it anymore. Enter the American Standard "Champion" toilet, which pressurizes the water in the tank to make haste with your waste (and it talks a big game, too). Even that wasn't enough to overcome our stalagtite pipes, though. Drumroll please ... enter the power-assisted potty. Not only does it flush, but it lets the neighbors know about it.

Toilet noise, at least in my mind, is measured not in decibels, but deci-bowls. Our current toilet would be off the decibowl scale. But we can live with noise if we don't have to live with, well, you know. The problem is you can wake sleeping toddlers (or spouses) (or extended family in another state) if you flush it in the middle of the night, so you have the whole "lettin' it mellow/flush it down" delimma on another level.

So this is just one, but an important aspect of all our lives. Without indoor plumbing, we'd be no better than bears with furniture.