Sign, Pole ... MAILBOX!!! - Revisited

Some of you may have noticed that my blogging has slowed down. Well, not really slowed down, but came to a screeching halt. My daughter would say a mugging halt, but I don't really know what that means. I love my blog and have no intention of stopping. However, after the A to Z Challenge in April, I felt that I needed a break. Plus, my graduate studies have kicked in harder.

I will start writing again soon, but in the meantime, I have picked up a lot of new followers and need to put up material. So, I will be posting some of my older posts starting today. The following was originally posted on September 20, 2012.

---

What to do? What to do?

School has been in session for a month and I have been broke for that entire time. The money issue has recently been resolved, but I still have this cloud floating over my head. Since summer is over, it's time to settle in and get serious about life for a while. I haven't really had much of a choice. Between both my daughter's school schedule and my own, plus not having any money, we haven't done much. This isn't truly a bad thing, but I think the awesome summer I just had and the abrupt halt to all the fun is bringing the winter doldrums on early. I'm getting a little stir crazy.

I've been reflecting on past trips and remembering several taken when the kids were younger. It used to be our tradition to take a small trip every Saturday. We usually kept it under a hundred mile radius, but it was something fun to do on a weekend. However, having small children was often a challenge on car trips. They traveled well, but sometimes I had to come up with something to busy their minds.

One car game that lasted for several years was born out of madness one morning. I married Christian's mother when he was three years old and it took him and I a little while to hit it off. You can read about our rocky relationship here and here. One day, I was driving into town and he was doing what he usually did when we were alone in the car. He crawled out of his car seat and was curled up in a ball on the passenger side floor.

He cried about being hungry.

He cried that we weren't going to see Grandpa.

He cried about forgetting his favorite toy at home.

He cried because his shoe fell off.

This was one of those days that I was trying not to pull out my hair and chuck him through the window. I was stressed and could feel the tension mounting more and more as he found new things to whine about. I was biting through my lip as his most recent wail reached a pitch that caused the dogs we passed to start howling. Suddenly, I had an epiphany. Small children are stupid.

It couldn't be too hard to distract him despite his thinking his life was in shambles. I looked around in desperation for an idea. Then, I saw it on the road ahead and started pointing. "Look, Christian, a mailbox."

Christian paused mid-sob as he raised his snot encrusted face. "What?"

"Right there, on the side of the road. There's a mailbox. We have one of those."

He popped up into the seat to see what had me so excited. Once he saw it, he forgot what he was upset about and smiled.

"Oh, Christian, look. There's another one"

He pointed at it and laughed. I innocently asked, "I wonder if there's more."

Who knew they were so much fun?

For the next twenty minutes, we pointed out all the mailboxes we saw. I made sure to let him find several of them first since it wasn't his fault I was smarter and more observant than him. Later, when his mom was in the car, he kept pointing out the mailboxes to us. She didn't question it.

This became our regular routine when in the car together. It kept him busy and more importantly kept him in a much better mood. However, mailboxes aren't always as plentiful as I would have liked them to be. If we hit a stretch of highway with no houses, he would revert back to his whiny ways, so I added telephone poles and eventually signs.

Any type of sign would work. Billboards, stop signs and mile markers were all fair game. So, trips in our car sounded like this: SIGN, SIGN, POLE, SIGN, MAILBOX, POLE, MAILBOX, SIGN, SIGN, SIGN, POLE, MAILBOX, POLE, SIGN!

As time went on, we began to apply rules to the game.

1. You could not identify a sign, pole or mailbox that someone had already pointed out.
2. Every 10 miles, someone was allowed to add something to the list (i.e. swimming pool, satellite dish, dog, etc.)
3. In the event of a disagreement, the loudest person would get the point
4. Kirsten was the only person allowed to identify water towers.

Once Kirsten was born and started playing this game that had been evolving for years, we gave water tower sightings to her. However, Christian loved to point them out as soon as he saw them (even when we weren't playing) and send Kirsten into crying fits. "Bubby took my tower. Those are mine!"

ME: "Christian, you know those belong to your sister. Give her back the tower."

CHRISTIAN: (pouting) "But I saw it first."

ME: "The mailboxes are yours. Her seat is not high enough to be able to see them. Give it back."

KIRSTEN: (throwing a toy at his face) "Yeah, Poopy Head. It's mine."

CHRISTIAN: "You can have it, Sissy."

KIRSTEN: (looking around) "Now I can't see it." (starts crying again)

Once getting that taken care of the game sounded like this:
(EVERYONE YELLING) SIGN, MAILBOX, POLE, POLE, THAT ONE'S MINE, SIGN, MAILBOX, SATELLITE, POLE, MAILBOX, DOG, SIGN, OH WAIT IT WAS TWO DOGS, SIGN, SIGN, MAILBOX, ANOTHER DOG, SATELLITE, DOG, NOPE THAT WAS A SMALL HORSE, MAILBOX, POLE, SIGN, POLE, CHIMNEY, THAT WAS LAST WEEK, NO CHIMNEYS, SIGN, POLE, SIGN, SIGN, MAILBOX, WATER TOWER

 CHRISTIAN, STOP IT!

A to Z Challenge is...OVER!!!

For all of April, I was participating in the A to Z Challenge, which involves posting every day of the month (except Sundays) with a letter of the alphabet as the theme for each day. (May 1=A, May 2=B, May 3=C, …) That was a total of 26 posts for the month.

Here is a link to every post. Click the letter to get the post for that day.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I have been a part of month-long daily writing challenges before, but this one was more difficult to finish. The addition of a theme added to the challenge. The morning I woke up and realized it was May 1 and I would not have to be posting for the challenge again was a very happy day. I was so happy to have this behind me. I am done with the A to Z Challenge. It was a good feeling.

I rushed right over to the site to get my well deserved badge of honor to display on my page.

Isn't it beautiful?

Just when you thought
he was dead.

Upon grabbing my award to proudly display on my site to show what a writing stud I am, I noticed that the minions at A to Z want a little bit more. Just when I thought I had this behind me, now they want a reflection post. I may never get away.

I enjoyed the challenge. It was challenging.  There were many days that I did not feel like writing. Luckily, I already had the topics planned out and a few of them written before the challenge started. In the midst of the challenge, I changed jobs (including a week when I was working at both of them). One of my graduate courses wrapped up last week, so there was all the final papers and testing to finish. It was a busy month even without the challenge.

Despite the hectic schedule, I will definitely be participating again next year. I picked up a little over 50 new followers and discovers a few dozens new blogs that I will be following now. Of the close to 2,000 participants, I personally visited the blogs of over 700 and left comments. This was the most difficult part of the challenge.

All my personal craziness started halfway through the month. At that point my visiting of other blogs came to a screeching halt. Trying to read other bloggers became too much. I even got over a week behind on replying to the comments being left on my blog. I do not blame the challenge for this. My life just got really busy. I should be able to do better next year.

Tips for future A to Z participants:

• Pre-write as many posts as you can. Since one of the big perks to the challenge is exposure, you want to have the time to visit as many other blogs as possible.
• Visit as many other blogs as possible (see above point) and always leave a meaningful comment. By 'meaningful comment', I mean a comment that shows you actually read the content and did not just jump down to leave a link to your blog. Be sure to include a link back to your blog in the comment. I received several comments from people that I had a difficult time tracking down. Especially if they have several blogs.
• Be sure to visit the blogs of everyone who left a comment on your blog. Do this in addition to making your way down the huge list yourself.
• Have fun.

"Z" is for Zoo

When my children were younger, (by younger I mean young enough that they still appreciated their father and hadn't learned how to talk back yet) we would take weekly road trips. I had a job where I worked long hours and didn't see the family much during the week, but I always had weekends off and we liked to spend it on the road. Every Saturday, we would load up the car, head to Huck's to grab some gas station road trip food (mini tacos, egg rolls, sodas, etc.) and hit the road.

Some days, we ended up in a state park. A few times we stumbled onto a small town festival. Other times, we would drive into a big city. Often, we didn't even have a destination in mind when we left the house. We would just pick a direction and start driving. I loved these trips.

One particular Saturday, we decided to head to the zoo. When it comes to zoo trips, we are really lucky. We live in southern Illinois and the St. Louis Zoo is less than 90 minutes away. This is the zoo I grew up going to and it spoiled me for other zoos. It is ranked as one of the best zoos in the entire country, so I always end up disappointed when I am visiting someone in another part of the country and we end up at a lesser zoo. Our zoo is awesome. Suck it, Cleveland.

I was particularly excited for this trip because my kids were at that magical age. Kirsten was two and Christian was six. They would think the animals were the coolest things in the world to get to see. Plus, it was spring time and we had been looking forward to getting out of the house after the long winter.

Once we got there, we headed to the exhibit I always insist that we visit first. THE PENGUINS! I love penguins. I always have. This practice of seeing the penguins as soon as we get there first started when I was a child and I still do it when I go back to visit. After I see the penguins, I don't care where we go. I am happy.

I couldn't wait to share these magnificent birds with the kids and hurried them into the penguin house. As soon as we got inside, I unstrapped Kirsten from her stroller, put her up on my shoulders and turned around to see this:

Chicka-Chicka-Wa-Waa

"OK, let's see what's happening on the other side of the enclosure."

We moved further down to get away from the happy couple and were met with another public penguin porn performance. However, this time it was more like a penguin orgy. There were at least half a dozen penguin couples getting an early jump on the day…and each other. As much as I love penguins, I decided that maybe we should come back later. I don't allow guests in my bedroom to watch without paying admission and since the St. Louis Zoo is free, this just didn't feel right. Plus, I had my kids with me.

We worked our way up the hill to Big Cat Country to take in the jungle cats. My kids lost interest in the leopard pretty quickly because it just sat there.  The panther couldn't be seen, but the tigers were much more playful.

In the very next enclosure, the lions were up to the same thing. My wife commented that the animals seem to be enjoying the spring time weather as much as we were.

About 20 minutes later, we learned that the monkey house was not the place to be right now either. I will spare you the pictures. They are much more graphic.

We left the zoo after being there less than two hours, but in that time we got to see elephants, buffalo, three different species of bear, antelopes and even snakes getting it on. We decided that in future years, we would wait until later in the season to visit the zoo.

---

Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, 1,656 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

YAY!!! I made it!!!

"Y" is for Yemen

I am fascinated with culture. I love visiting new places, eating new foods, and learning new languages. This is part of the reason I chose my college major of teaching English. I want to see the entire world.

I have a special love for Southeast Asia. I would love to get a job in that part of the world when I graduate. China, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, etc. I love that part of the world.

When I have gotten to travel, I've done my best to avoid the tourist areas. If possible, I like to stay with a local, eat what they eat and go to the places that they go. It's the way of life I am interested in more than the architecture and attractions.

Once I have my degree, whether I end up in Yemen (there's your 'Y'), Zaire, or Burkina Faso, I can't wait to see where I end up.

---

Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, over 1,600 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

"X" is for Xenoglossophobia

Xenoglossophobia
     noun - fear of foreign languages

Pictures don't do it justice

Several years ago, I took a trip to New York City with my daughter to see the Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. We arrived in town a few days early to take in the sites. We arrived at Times Square about midnight on a Thursday. The place was packed.

In addition to all the amazing billboards, I was fascinated by the number of languages I could hear spoken around us. Standing in one spot I heard German, Russian, Czech, French, Thai and something that I believe was Klingon, but I couldn't be sure.

I love language. (I am not scared of it as the title suggests, but you come of with a topic starting with 'X'.) I loved learning Spanish and trying to communicate when I lived in San Juan. I am even in school to be an English language teacher. I get excited talking to people from other countries, getting to know them and hearing their stories.

The college I went to has a foreign students night once a year. They encourage all students from other countries to cook something from their homeland and bring it to a big fellowship dinner. I have some neighbors from Thailand and Burma who decided to collaborate and make a dish both families enjoyed. I was helping them with this meal and found myself left out of their conversation as they all spoke their common language of Lisu. I had no idea what they were saying and did my best not to mess up the food. They spent so much time laughing at me, I am sure I did it wrong.

Once I get my Master's degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) next year, I don't know whether I will be leaving the country to teach English or will be teaching people who have just moved here. Either way, I will be surrounded by foreign language all day.

I can't wait.

---

Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, 1,663 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

"W" is for Week

It's less than a week until the A to Z Challenge is over. I am so ready for it to be over. I have enjoyed it, but with a job transition in the middle of it, it has proven to be quite a challenge.

HA!!!  Challenge...I guess that's where it gets the name.

I think I've put out a few quality posts. A few lame ones as well, but not so lame I am embarrassed.

Only three posts left. I'll have that survivor badge.

---

Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, close to 1,000 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

"V" is for Video Games

I love video games. Love them. However, I wouldn't call myself a gamer. Mainly because I never play.

I hear the hookers fight back in this one.

I made my own video games when I was in high school and always have the latest gaming console. I own dozens of games, but never play them. I just don't have the time. I even have the newest Grand Theft Auto on reserve for as soon as it is released.

Every now and then, I buy a new game while thinking about how much fun it will be. Half the time, it never even gets put in the system. When I actually do play a game, I will play for 2 or 3 days straight and then not play another game for months.

I must not love video games as much as I thought or I would be making time for them.

---

Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, close to 1,000 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

"U" is for Ultralux

A year after high school, I dropped out of college to move up north. There was a girl there I wanted to be closer to. She happens to be one of my readers, so I am not giving any details. I packed up my room to move out without telling my parents. I don't know why I did it that way, but I was young and stupid.

In order to move, I needed a job in my new town. It was over 100 miles away and I drove up there just to get a newspaper and start looking through the classified. I also went to see Tracie, but I needed the paper. I got hired by the first company I called, Electrolux^©. I became a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman.

I actually walked around Springfield, Illinois and knocked on doors to sell vacuum cleaners. Sometimes, I would offer a $10 carpet cleaning to get people to let me in the house. Other times, I would just start my sales pitch as soon as they answered.

I took this job, because I needed a job. I wasn't being too picky. I just needed something so I could be employed and make the move I wanted to make, but something happened I hadn't expected.

I was good at it.

It took me about a month to get the hang of it, but once I did, I was bringing home a paycheck over $1,000 almost every week. This was in 1990! Accounting for inflation, that's a little over eight hundred thousand today!

I was 19 years old and making more money than I knew what to do with. Unfortunately, being 19 also meant I could be obnoxious. Every time I spoke to my dad on the phone, I would ask, "So, how much money did you make today?" He took it in stride and never put me in my place like I deserved.

Soon, I was leading the training meetings and showing the other salesmen how to sell. I loved it, but there was one major problem. I never had time to enjoy the money I was making. Electrolux^© had a very demanding schedule. They were of the philosophy that in order for their salesmen to stay on top of their game, they needed to be selling all the time.

And by all the time, I mean ALL THE TIME.

I reported to work at 6 a.m Monday through Saturday and would work until 10 p.m. That is a 16 hour day six days a week. On Sundays, they gave us a break. We only worked 12 hours. Basically, if I was awake, I was selling vacuum cleaners.

Not only was the schedule demanding, but it defeated the entire purpose of me taking the job to begin with: to see my girlfriend. Not being happy, but definitely being exhausted, I quit that job to look for something else. I never regretted leaving, but haven't made that much money since.

The title "U" is for Ultralux refers to the most expensive, premium model vacuum cleaner carried by Electrolux. Despite my success with the company, I was never able to sell one. I sold the #2 model hundreds of times, but could never close the big one.

---

Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, 1,686 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

"T" is for Temp services

I just landed the first "job" job I've had in over a year. I have been a temp for a long time.

I have a long history with temp agencies. I have worked with six different agencies that I can remember. As a temp, I have done a lot of things.

• Built tires
• Worked as IT in a county courthhouse
• Quality Assurance in a grain silo factory
• Taken phone orders for cheeses and sausages at Christmas time
• Re-sod a golf course
• Janitorial work
• Filled orders for a pharmaceutical distribution center
• Built armrests for Lincoln Navigators
• Worked the assembly line in a cake factory
• Medical records department in major hospital
• Painted bumpers for Corvettes
• Security guard at a homeless shelter
• Worked the assembly line in a DVD/CD factory
• Dressed as Santa at the mall for children's pictures
• Was an emcee for Nintendo during a video game competition
• Worked in the laboratory for the Environmental Protection Agency

As can be seen by the above list, I have lots of experience as a temp. I've had real jobs also, but any time I found myself unemployed, the temp services can usually find me work quickly, so I have relied on them too heavily.

For places that actually hire through temp services, it is a great way to get into a company. They can watch your work ethic for a few months and them make a decision on you. However, many companies take advantage of the cheap labor and let every temp go within 90 days of them starting. Plus, most regular, hourly employees of the company a temp works at think very little of temps and do not treat them well.

Besides helping a person get their foot in the door, my favorite thing about the temp services, is the ability to leave quickly if you do find a permanent job somewhere. They generally have so many people on their roster, they can find a replacement for someone leaving within hours. Two weeks notice is not always required in these situations.

There are a lot of reasons to not be a temp. Number one being that you will never make any money, you are very disposable and replaced as easy as making a phone call, but when I have needed work, they never let me down.

---

Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, 1,690 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

"S" is for Snoopy

We had lots of pets growing up, but the one that has always stood out above the others was a beagle-rat
terrier mix named Snoopy. Snoopy was the runt of the litter from one of our neighbors' dogs. He never had any special training, but was the best dog we ever had.

Every young boy wants a dog that will play fetch. Snoopy played half a game of fetch. If one of us threw a stick, he would run after it and bring it back to set right at our feet. That's where the proper game of fetch ended. As soon as we would reach for it, he would grab it again and move it a few feet away, setting it down once again, just daring us to try for it. He would never let us have the stick again. The game continued until we got tired of chasing him.

During the winter months, he was allowed to stay in the house. However, like many animals, he wanted to eat food that was not for him. Cats will not gourge themselves the way that a dog will and often left food in their bowl. Obviously, Snoopy would get in trouble if he ate the cat's food, but it didn't keep him from trying.

Because the cat's food was on the hard floor of the kitchen, we could hear the dog when he walked across the floor. His nails would click on the linoleum. The living room was right next to the kitchen, so we would look in the kitchen when we heard his nails and would catch him headed toward their food. Soon, he figured out that it was the noise giving him away.

My mother walked into the kitchen once and caught Snoopy slowly walking across the floor, lifting each foot slowly and gently putting it back down. He lifted each foot extra high. It was the canine version of tip-toeing. We had to start putting the cat food up high enough that they could jump to it, but Snoopy could not reach it.

---

Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, 1,698 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.