These Things. THESE THINGS!!!!

So this guy, this cyclist, goes whizzing between two lanes of cars today as I'm on my way to the doctor and it made me kind of mad  really pissed me off.  I wanted to yell, "You're the reason so many of us motorists hate cyclists!" but he was gone, and I'm trying to keep my fits of rage down to one a month, and there's still a whole half of August left. So I have decided to do a Grumpy Man Post and give you a Top Ten Some Things Currently Annoying Me. 
[On a positive note, I couldn't even come up with 10, so that's good, right?]

1. Cyclists who think that the road is for their sole use.  I have friends who bike and I understand their desire/need to have space on the road.  There have been countless biking tragedies, and I don't want that to happen to anyone else, but inevitably it will. I've written already about the thing cyclists do when they go through stop signs ("can't break our momentum!"), but then there's the move this ass did today: biking through two lanes of traffic.  Honestly, when they pass me on the right it kind of frustrates me because they're moving and I'm sitting still, but it really comes down to the school rule of "No Cutting!" Of course after this guy goes between the cars, and we're on Ponce de Leon heading toward Decatur by the way! After he goes between the cars he totally slows traffic down having to pedal up a hill.  The driver behind him was much more patient than many people would have been. Again, I will restate my claim that cyclists wearing their Cyclists Outfits are closer to Super Villains than Logo Sporting Bike Enthusiasts.

2. Imbecilic higher ups that are in charge of running things that are incapable of doing an even slightly good job because, well, because they're imbeciles. Gah! I'd go on about this, but I don't want to bring any trouble.

3. Puppy Pee & Poop.  We got a puppy recently. No, not Marley who made my good Top 10 list this Spring, but a puppy.  Padfoot is her name, and she is not on my bad list. Her waste; however, is.  Dammit, man, I don't like cleaning up pee and poop in the house and apparently this is going to go on for 9 more months.  9 MORE MONTHS!!!!!

4. These damn mosquitoes! I can't step outside with the puppy to keep number three from happening without coming away with three or more bites.  We pay a monthly service for our yard to be sprayed.  I can't imagine what it would be like if we weren't getting the yard sprayed.  Stinking blood sucking parasitic nuisances is what they are.

5. Presidential Election Politics.  Both parties are in the pockets of special interest groups that don't have the best interests of the Country. Regardless of your political bent, the presidential election typically brings out people's inner asshole, and quite frankly, it's an inner thing because it's not supposed to see the light of day.
Cartoon Credit

6. Dave FM changing its format from whatever it's classified as to a Sports Talk station. Great. Less options in the already crappy ATL radio market. Here's another plug for WMLB 1690 AM.  I wish the DJs would completely abandon their format and just spend their remaining time on the air playing what they want to hear, perhaps with a good healthy dose of listener requests.  I guess they can't because they want to make sure that another Corporate Radio Station hires them to be the mouthpiece for the crappy format that they take on.

7. That I'm thinking about going off Facebook for a time so that I can get some art done.  I think I've already mentioned my robot painting.  Well, it's still there with no new progress yet, and I can't think of another way, other than greatly reducing the amount of time I spend on FB.  Some people don't get why I'm on there as much as I am anyway, and that's all right. When it's On, it's really a whole bunch of fun, but when it's just Meh, then it's just a time sucker.  So, I'm annoyed on two counts: 1. That I'm going to have to limit myself to get something done that I should want to do. 2. That FB's been more Meh than On lately.

So, there you go.  These things are pissing me off recently. Now, on a scale of 1 - 10, none of them are really even a 10; although that cyclist came awfully close to scoring an 8.  What's eating you these days?

Water Dog!

This weekend we took Marley down to West Point Lake to see my brother's family and my parents. It was also a chance to see if he would be a water dog or not.  If you're not familiar with what a water dog is, it's just a dog that really likes to go in the water; swim, retrieve, jump, leap, etc.  It's a pretty awesome thing.


My old dog, Jimi, was a water dog.  He loved to fetch sticks from a lake. He'd do it as long as he had energy. Our other dog, Janis, was not a water dog.  She wanted to, but she had a very traumatic introduction to water as a puppy.


Living in Athens during college GQ and I had access to many different parks with different lakes.  We took Jimi and Janis to one of these when Janis was still a puppy.  As we were walking along the edge of the lake we saw a guy throwing a ball for his dog out into the lake on a dock.  We walked out onto the dock to watch and to our surprise Jimi took off after the ball and the other dog, leaping off the dock. Janis, being in awe of Jimi also took off.  She didn't really leap off the dock though.  She just fell in head first and sank pretty much immediately.  Luckily the water was really shallow, but the stage was set for Janis' relationship with water.


After that  scary experience she was understandably very wary of water.  From that day on Janis would approach lakes, streams, creeks, etc as a demon that could only be vanquished by biting the hell out of it. 


When Jimi was doing his water thing Janis would lie in wait for him to get to shore then POUNCE on him taking the stick and running triumphantly back to us to throw it again.  This scene would play out until Jimi got tired of getting the stick at which point he'd just go lay in the water while Janis would run back and forth looking for another stick within her reach.


So, it's been a while since we've had a water dog.  Marley definitely fits the bill.

We had to do a little bit of luring to get him in the water, but once he got in he was hooked.  He loves to fetch the ball anyway, so adding this variation to the usual was very exciting for him. Except for one part.


My brother's dog, Bandi, is also a water dog.  

You could even say an extreme water dog and it would not be hyperbolic.  Bandi will LEAP from the dock to retrieve her ball after hearing, "Ready? 1,2,3!"  She'll sit there looking back and forth between the ball and whoever threw it waiting. WAITING!!! If she's really impatient she'll take off once you get to "Ready?"  So poor Marley had to sit there and watch Bandi time and time again get the ball that HE REALLY WANTED. 


Unfortunately, Bandi wanted it more and was willing and able to go to the length of launching herself to get the ball while Marley would run back and forth on the dock barking his fool head off. So badly he wanted to be able to jump in and get that ball!  He was shaking with excitement and nervous energy. IT'S JUST SOOOO CLOSE, BUT I JUST CAN'T DOOOO IT!!!!! 


It's okay though because it's just his first time, and seriously, when you're competing against a flying dog there's only so much you can do.  By the end of the day we had two balls; one we'd throw out into the lake for Bandi and the other we'd throw close to the shore so Marley could run down the dock ramp to the muddy shore, swim out to the ball, then turn around and bring it back to us.  This worked fine unless we threw Bandi's ball farther than she was willing to go.  Then she'd go after Marley's ball, and poor guy, there wasn't much he could do then. We're looking forward to getting him so more time in and around the water this summer.

The other things we discovered about Marley are that when he's wet he looks REALLY skinny and his hair gets REALLY curly.


If you've never checked to see if your dog is a water dog then I highly recommend it.  The entertainment value of your dog goes up a good bit if it is.  Of course if they're like Janis (poor Janis) then the entertainment value is there too, but for an entirely different reason.

Current Top 10 Favorite Things

Okay, so I'm going to stop re-posting old things for now.  Here's what is currently making me happy.


10.  Sitting in My  Backyard - I like to sit in my pink plastic Adirondack chair in my backyard and watch the crows fly through the neighbors' yards. It's pretty cool to see them swoop from air to branch or just navigate their way through the trees.  Every once in a while I'll see a hawk do it, and that's triple cool, but the crows are pretty cool on their own. (don't tell GQ that I'm enjoying the crows.  She's convinced they're stalking her)

9. Marley - The newest addition to our family is proving to be quite a character. Whether he is jumping up on our bed while we're reading to the Girls, chasing his tail, or just chewing on one of his many toys (and an occasional Barbie) Marley is definitely keeping us entertained.

8. Victory Golden Monkey - A Belgian style beer that packs an impressive 9.5% avc into a 12 oz. bottle.  I've added it to my Gentlemint with the description, "It's the kind of beer that you drink during a long dinner with friends."  This bonus of course, is that you're basically getting 2 beers at one time - Economically Buzzworthy.

7. Shift Pale Lager - The folks at New Belgium Brewery (makers of Fat Tire and other good beers) recently released this new beer in not only a can (for pool consumption!!!) but also as a tall boy! 16 oz. of quality pale lager.

6. My iPad - I would have never gotten this on my own, but the principal at my school bought one for each of the teachers and paraprofessionals. I know, right?!? I have got to say, those people at Apple really know how to make the electronic crack.  This thing is a lot of fun and really handy in so many ways. I've got my Kindle books on there, games for the Girls to play, drawing apps, an app that lets me create and edit Word docs, and so much more.  It's ridiculous how much I am enjoying this.

5. Real Sugar in my Coffee - A while ago I switched to Splenda b/c I realized I was taking in too much sugar and it was making me kind of  grumpy.  I guess my body can't process it like it used to, and so I switched. I had switched to Coke Zero before this.  Not that Splenda wasn't good, but real sugar is just so much better. I'm watching my sugar intake because no one benefits from my over  indulgence.

4. Three Websites - The Art of Manliness - http://artofmanliness.com/, The Thing About Flying - http://thethingaboutflying.com/, and Casual Disagreement - http://casualdisagreement.com/. Each of these gives me regular entertaining, thought provoking articles to read on an almost daily basis.  I'm happy that I am actually going to some sites that aren't just pop-culture oriented (not that there's anything wrong with those. I still go on them too, they're just not on the top 10 right now).


3. The Popularity of The Avengers - Holy Record breaking Comic Book Super Hero Movie!!! American, and seemingly the world can't get enough of this movie.  I'm pretty sure that if all comic book movies were this good there might not be a need for many other types of movies - I'm looking at you, Nicholas Sparks fans.

2. My Madness Pandora Station - I have loved Madness since I first heard, "One Step Beyond" back when I was 10.  It was a bug that I caught and never shed. They make me happy in a way that music should make you happy.  The Pandora station has introduced me to songs of theirs I've never heard due to only being released in the UK as well as similar bands such as The Selectors and The Specials.  Madness is one of the only ones that is still around.  The English Beat is still touring, but it's just Dave Wakeling with a new group of musicians. Not to take anything away from them, because they put on a great show. I also get to hear The Toasters, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Aquabats, and more newer bands, as well as bands that influenced Madness like Toots Mayall and Desmond Dekker.

1. Summer Break - Hot diggity dog!  Two months off.  I know that a lot of us in our 40s and older like to think that we got all three months off for summer when we were kids, and it certainly felt like it, but I'm pretty sure it's very close to what kids (and teachers!!!!) are getting now. Of course, to some (GQ) it seems like 10 months of interrupted regularly scheduled days, to those of us that get it off, it's pretty freaking awesome.  Any teacher that tells you that summer break isn't one of the reasons they are in our profession is a liar; plain and simple. BTW, no picture can do summer break justice.


Well, that's what's making me happy right now.  GQ & The Girls aren't on this list because they're beyond List Worthy.  They make it all worthwhile.



Go check out some of these things and see if they make you happy too.  Happy Summer!