A new challenge...

The other day I was cutting up some pepperjack cheese, and I popped a piece in my mouth. It was a rather hot piece of cheese, and my brain immediately registered that "pepper" was indeed the key component to pepperjack cheese.

And it should therefore be expressed as such - PEPPERjack cheese.

For some reason that got me to thinking, there are probably other words that could be treated the same way. For example, dEVIL.

Now, far be it from me to claim to have created a new category of words like sniglets, palindromes or spoonerisms, but I wonder... what other words have these "hidden" elements in them. (Okay, they weren't exactly trying to hide "pepper" in pepperjack, but you get the idea.)

A couple of others to get the list started.

sOlUTionS
cELebrATED
mONologuE

Okay, smart people who peruse my blog... let's see some more.

My ass is not slippery

Today we took the kids to the waterpark. After my wife went down the kiddie slide with the 9-month-old a couple of times, it was my turn. I got to the top of the slide, sat down in the stream of water at the beginning of the flume that had to be piped in directly from the edge of a barely melting glacier, perched the kid in my lap, and shoved off.

Nothing.

I pushed, I shoved, I did the "butt wiggle" to work my way down the slide, but nothing doing. There was no slide to be had on my butt.

Thoroughly embarrassed, I stand up, walk back up the small bit of slide I'd gyrated down, and went back down to the bottom. Meanwhile, other kids and parents are going down the slide like someone had greased the slide and hand-waxed their ass with with astro-glide.

My wife then tried to tell me what I did wrong, despite my assurances that 40-some years of sliding down slides had given me plenty of experience. So, to prove her point, we went back up the slide together, kid in tow, and she gave me a demonstration, and I watched her slide nicely to the bottom and return to the top so I could give it another shot.

So I sat down in the frigid flow yet again, took said 9-month-old into my lap and off we went.

Not.

Once again, I was stuck in place. I pushed until veins popped out on my forehead. I did the scrunchy move like a dog trying to wipe his ass on the ground. Nothing. Like my butt and that slide were two pieces of complementary velcro.

Of course, my wife wouldn't accept that I had a butt with zero viscosity, so she starts to push from behind. The line is backing up behind us now, so she's really putting her all into it, but it accomplishes nothing more than giving me a spectacular wedgie that will almost certainly be featured on an upcoming episode of one of those Discovery Channel emergency medical shows.

In the end, she gives up, takes the kid and slides down the slide. I still have no idea why my ass refused to make the trip.

My buddy Charleston

Chuck Kallenbach makes me laugh.

I don't ever remember having a conversation with him that didn't elicit some sort of laugh, chuckle, grin or smile. Even when he was mad (even at me) he managed to say something that I could find humor in.

That's a great asset to have in a friend. Someone you always look forward to talking to, no matter the circumstances.

From the day he showed up in the office sitting at my desk with my new computer, to last night, when he advised me to call his real estate agent and schedule an appointment to look at his home for the sole purpose of "stealing" a piece of furniture he was going to give me anyway because he couldn't get the garbage man to take it away, I have been the benefactor of nearly nine years of Kallenbach humor.

Oddly enough, we are nothing alike. In politics, religion, sports and many other things, we are nowhere close to being aligned. But we didn't fight about those things, or really even talk about them that much. Most of the time we just talked about silly shit that two grown men probably shouldn't waste their time on.

And for that I shall be forever grateful.

At least he's just moving to Denver. Thank goodness for email :-)

These are a few of my favorite... lines

Those unfortunate enough to have to spend hours of time with me at work, on airplanes or driving know my habit of quoting lines from films and tv.

Maybe I'm just not smart enough to think of anything on my own.

Anyway, I thought I would share a couple of my favrites. Points to those who get them all without using a web search :-)

(these aren't that hard)

"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Saint Paul in his epistle to the Romans. Of course, St. Paul never had a disciple who got his neck broke by a slut from a Santa Fe whorehouse."

"We're gonna need a bigger boat."

"Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"

"With God as my witness, I thought Turkeys could fly."

"It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses." "Hit it."

"Rolls-Royce Phantom two. 4.3 litre, 30 horsepower, six cylinder engine, with Stromberg downdraft carburetor, can go from zero to 100 kilometres an hour in 12.5 seconds. And I even like the color."

Gotta post, gotta post

It's like exercise. You have to make yourself do it for the first few weeks, and then after that, you get mad if you don't do it.

Right?

Finally!

I got locked out of my blog account, and I finally cracked the Rosetta Stone and got back in. Grrrr. Oh well, at least I figured it out.

Oh, I'm not dead (again).

Another reason he's my hero

Reading all the Father's Day posts about guys missing their dads made me exceptionally glad I was able to spend the day with my dad Sunday. We went to a Tides' game and then he sat in the sun and watched his boy play soccer.

I'm 42 and he still goes to my games when he can. He' s setting the bar pretty high for me to follow in his footsteps.

One thing I got from some of the other posts is this. Always talk to your parents. Get them to tell you stories. You won't regret it. When we were at the baseball game, I found out my dad spent a summer playing as the only white player in a "black" baseball league. This during the '50s in rural North Carolina. It's very cool when you can be proud of your dad.

Whooda Thunk?

The Stanley Cup in North Carolina.

I'm not a big hockey fan, but I'm glad to see the "hometown" guys win. It's not that I dislike hockey, but not growing up watching it or playing it has kept me from developing a keen interest.

I was the same way about soccer until I started playing it. Now I luvs me some soccer. If I didn't have glass ankles (and a 40-something endoskeleton), maybe I'd give a hockey a shot at some point.

In any event, go 'Canes!