Disc Golf and Shiner

Well, it's official. My son is now taller than I am. At 15 years of age, Aaron is 6'-1" Of course, I have him by a couple (or a hundred) pounds. *Sigh* Our little boy is growing up.

Oh. And he cut off that mop of hair of his:

I read in the paper yesterday about a guy who is 69 years old and is running the length of US Highway 69 this year. As of the article's writing, he had run 979 miles of the highway that runs from Port Arthur, TX to Albert Lea, MN. I saw the guy as I drove home after work between Slater highway and Huxley. He was riding a bike southbound. A little later I saw his VW vanagon parked at the side of the road. That answered a question I had about his logistics. The guy is doing this solo and runs in 6.9 mile increments. Apparently, he drives the van to a point 6.9 miles ahead, rides his bike to the starting point, locks up the bike, runs back to the van, then drives the van to pick up the bike again. Then he starts the whole process over again.

I had my digital camera with me in the car but I was running late so I couldn't get a photo of the guy. But here's one from the Des Moines Register, taken as he crossed I-235 downtown:

Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol' steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it's a mighty good food
It's a grade A meal when I'm in the mooood.

Cowpokes'll come from a near and far
When you throw a few rib-eyes on the fire
Roberto Duran ate two before a fight
'Cause it gave a lot of mighty men an awful lot of mighty might

Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol' steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it's a mighty good food
It's a grade A meal when I'm in the mooood.

Eat meat, eat meat, filet mignon
Eat meat, eat meat, eat it all day long
Eat a few T-bones till you get your fill
Eat a new york cut, hot off the grill

Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol' steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it's a mighty good food
It's a grade A meal when I'm in the mooood.

Eat a cow, eat a cow 'cuase it's good for you
Eat a cow, eat a cow it's the thing that goes "Mooooo"

Look at all the cows in the slaughterhouse yard
Gotta hit'em in the head, gotta hit'em real hard
First you gotta clean'em then the butcher cuts'em up
Throws it on a scale throws an eyeball in a cup

Saw a big Brangus Steer standing right over there
So I rustled up a fire cooked him medium rare
Bar-B-Q'ed his brisket, and roasted his rump
Fed my dog that ol' Brangus Steer's hump

Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol' steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it's a mighty good food
It's a grade A meal when I'm in the mooood.

I was taking my son home from Nevada where he was working some youth soccer games as a referee. The subject of the the battle of the bands that he missed the previous night came up. We were unable to get him to the thing because we were late getting back from my daughter's soccer tournament in Des Moines. "Besides", I told him, "there will be plenty of battles to go to. The war for rock supremacy still rages".

Aaron looked at me and said, "You're an idiot."

I was in the the zone yesterday. It started off right after I dropped Aaron at school. As I left the parking lot, I was driving down the street and noticed a high school-aged girl coming the opposite way. I just *knew* she was going to turn right in front of me into the parking lot and she delivered.

Then to close out the day, I was leaving the office, about to leave the office complex we're in when the van in front of me started to inch out into the street, had second thoughts about going right then and backed up. As she sat there, I could tell she forgot to shift back into Drive because her reverse lights were still on. I had a bad feeling about it, so I started backing up myself. Sure enough, she gunned it to get across traffic and ended up lurching back about 10 feet, which would have creamed me had I stayed where I was. Sometimes you just know.

There's a somewhat new accessory for your vehicle that you've probably seen hanging from the rear bumper of those big 4x4 pickups. It's those plastic ornaments that are shaped like big testicles. I suppose it's to let the rest of us know that their truck has "balls". Fine, redneck.

I thought I had seen it all until I saw this on the way to work the other day:

(Click to enlarge)

My friend at the rodneygardner.com blog mentions his disdain for other people's "vapor trail" of odor as they pass by you in the hall. Actually, there is a yin to that yang with especially attractive women that I happen to pass. You just know they are going to smell *nice*. I find myself slowing down to prolong the experience. It's another one of those little things that give me the will to live another day.

However, there is a thing I refer to as the "cloud". This is the volume of air that contains the odor from my son's soccer shoes after he's had a 2 hour practice. It's ridiculous. I'd stick them outside, but I like my neighbors too much. Plus, we'd like the lawn to stay green.

I saw a dead bird on the shoulder of the highway on the way to work this morning. It wasn't a wildbird. It was one of those bleached white birds you see on a farm, like a turkey or a chicken. I think this was a turkey as it was pretty huge to be a chicken. That got me thinking about how this bird came to his final resting place on the side of the road. It couldn't have escaped from a farm as there isn't a poultry farm for miles.

I suppose a likely scenario is he was on a truck on its way to the Butterball factory. Old Tom had a little jailbreak situation while the truck was barrelling down the highway at 70 mph. I imagine he enjoyed about 3 seconds of his freedom before he hit the pavement. His head probably made the sound of a flat tire, whap-whap-whapping the concrete as he rolled to a stop.

Poor, tasty bird.

They're in the news a lot lately. Remember when there was a stigma attached to being an illegal immigrant? Now there are parades held in their honor. I haven't looked at the proposal for tighter immigration laws, so I can't comment on that. However, I am in favor of, you know, actually having a border with our neighboring countries. While I understand people wanting to come here, I don't think it's in our best interest to let just anybody in. The statue says, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses", not "your drug smugglers, your infirm, your criminally insane."

The, for lack of a better title, "pro-immigrant" side seems to be making it more about immigrants in general, rather than the illegal aspect. I don't have a problem with immigrants. My ancestors were immigrants, after all. Hell, every single human being in this country descends from people who migrated from somewhere else. So-called "Native" Americans descend from people who migrated from Asia.

Of course, I don't swing so far as to say people can't be proud of their heritage and speak their native tongue. I've celebrated St. Patrick's Day and Oktoberfest myself. I don't have a problem with the singing of the National Anthem in Spanish or Swahili or Nyuk-nyuk. The point of the song is that they pledge their allegience to America. Fine with me any way they choose to express that. I do, however, support having English as an "official" language in the sense that any government dealings should be done in one single language and English is the most commonly used in the country. It's not unreasonable to expect people coming to live in this country to learn the language. It's what I'd be expected to do if I chose to live in Germany, France, Japan or Australia.