#90. or, The Kreativ Blogger Award

 I seem to be falling more and more behind on my posting lately. I know that i've apologized for that in the past but really, it still bothers me. I'm spread a little thin these days. (occupationally, not physically)

  Something that i've been anxious to take care of, is that my friend Carrie at Hammock in the Honeysuckle, has graciously bestowed another blogger award on me. That's 2 this month and it couldn't please me more to be recognized by fellow bloggers. Thank you Carrie!

  I can now proudly say that i am the recipient of the Kreativ Blogger Award!

  However, to actually claim this award as your own, there are a few rules that must be  kept. (otherwise, by the spelling of Kreativ, i think the Russian mafia will come to your house, tie you to the bed and tickle the bottoms of your feet with a feather until you pee!......*shudder!*)

  THE RULES:

1. Thank and link back to the awarding blog.
2. Answer seven questions.
3. Provide 10 random factoids about yourself.
4. Hand the award on to 7 deserving others.

   Alrighty then, with number one out of the way, it's on to the seven questions:

#1. What is your favorite song?

  I've been thinking about this a while and i can't name just one favorite song. I like music so much and my mood and tastes change so wildly from day to day, it almost depends on the minute that you ask me. I have everything from instrumental to rap and everything in between on my ipod. But i have to add a song here, so i think i will add a song that goes along with the "in the tractor" theme.

#2.  What's your favorite desert?
 Sex in a pan.........because i like to say, "sex in a pan!"


#3. What do you do when you are upset?
 I put a lot of effort into not getting really upset. Most of the time, i bury it. I know that's not all that healthy for a person. Occasionally though, i will do some yelling but i don't like, "yelling me" all that much.

#4. Which is your favorite pet?
 I love dogs. In particular, our Lab dogs. If i had to choose one of them, it would have to be our Yellow Lab, Tuke......he's my boy.

WTF?

#5. Which do you prefer, White or Whole Wheat?
I grew up eating white bread, i thought it was the best there was. My wife introduced me to whole wheat bread and now, if i have a white bread sandwich, it just tastes awful.

#6. What is your your biggest fear?
To fail.

#7. What is your attitude mostly?
i think i'm pretty laid back?  Sometimes i'm down and sometimes i'm up. If i can keep it somewhere in the middle, i'm happy.

OK, 10 RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME!


About 20 years ago, i had a mullet.  (business in the front, party in the back!)

I've been in the hospital because i threw my back out so badly, i had to be carried there.

I can draw a little bit.

I have never, that i'm aware of, broken a bone in my body.

The first time i was ever drunk was at my high school graduation, I was 17.

My first vehicle was a 69 Ford pick-up that took me 2 years to rebuild.

Once, my wife left me in a camp shelter at the town park, because i was so drunk, she was worried that i was going to hurl in our neighbor's van.

The first time i held my wife's hand, was on a beach. (to be clear, it was well before she was my wife.)

The only team sport that i was ever a member of was on a men's curling team.

The first time i ever saw a birth, was a calf being born and i was most likely younger that 5 years old.

.....AND TO PASS THE AWARD ON TO 7 DESERVED PARTICIPANTS.
 *** there is so many wonderful blogs out there that choosing these cause me a great deal of concern. In the end, i tried to go with the smaller ones that as far as i can tell, are not showing the Kreativ Blogger badge yet. Also, as a new and small blogger myself, the reward of being noticed for these type of things help to confirm that people out there are actually taking an interest in your stuff. **


Lady in Red at a bozzo's abbazzo
HeatherL at Stretching my Wings
Holly at A Holly with Follies
Red at Doesn't Speak Klingon
Cynthia at The Squirrel and His Nuts
Reanna at Rock the Single Life
Robin at Thoughts and Reflection

............and so, i dub thee, the grand title of, KREATIV BLOGGERS! Now go.....go unto the world and spread the joy!  :)

# 89. or, Time to Seed

 So, when i started this whole thing, something that i thought might be cool, would be to write and send a post to my blog entirely from my phone while in the tractor. Because, after all, if you're going to call yourself, ken-inatractor, it's only going to lend to your credibility.

   For better or worse, here's that effort.

  It's seeding time for me. It's a time of year that i get to spend endless hours and days on end sitting in the seat of a tractor. Really, it's not that bad. It's one of the few times a year when i'm alone and can spend time with my thoughts. (although, that could also be a scary thing too.)

  A lot of other farmers in the area have been seeding for about a week or more now, some are done. That puts me a little behind everyone else. I try to be in the field sometime the week after mothers day. I don't really have a good explanation for that. Farmers that have more acres to get in than i do, have no choice but to get going early. It's still cold here in the mornings and can still freeze. I spend a lot of money on some of this seed and can't see the benefit to having tiny new plants pop out their heads, only to freeze to death and die. But that's just me.

  There's a bit of pride to be taken in seeding. Maybe a little less than there was before everybody had GPS in their tractor. I can remember my dad and others talking about how some farmer's rows were so straight, you could shoot a bullet down them without hitting any plants. Now everybody"s rows are that straight.

  One of the farm-isms that's out there is, as soon as the leaves start to pop out, it's time to get your wheat in the ground. Another one, from an "old-timer" i know always says, when you can drop your pants and sit comfortably in the dirt without getting cold, the ground is warm enough to plant. How many days do you have to sit your pale, bare ass in the dirt before you say "today's the day!" Obviously, that saying was invented by someone who didn't have a major highway next to their land.

  That got me thinking about things that i've learned about seeding. If you ever find yourself in a tractor planting a crop sometime, maybe this will be useful to you.

  1. If you check the tank and think you MIGHT have enough seed to do the small piece, WAY in the back corner, you probably don't and will end up having to come all the way back across the field to get enough to finish.

  2. If you are going to have any major screw-ups happen during seeding, that become embarrassingly evident as the crop starts to grow, revealing large unseeded portions of land, it will ALWAYS be along a major highway or roadside.

  3. You will only ever get stuck in places where nobody is around and you have no cell service.

  4. If there is a major rain cloud bearing down on you and you have less than an acre left to seed before you are finished for the year, you will either break down or run out of seed.

  5. EVERY time the truck that delivers seed and fertilizer runs low and requires shoveling to empty out, will be when the grain cart you are filling is almost full. This will require frequent trips from shoveling in the truck, out and up the ladder to check the cart, then back down the ladder and into the truck to shovel some more, then back again.

  6. When you have land along the highway, you need to try to seed those pieces first. Otherwise, you will end up being the topic of conversation at the coffee shop as to what's taking you so long to get your crop in.

  7. No matter what stage of completion you are during seeding, someone is always going to say " I've been done for 2 weeks now. " As much as you want to, you probably shouldn't smack him.

  8. Someone else is always going to have a bigger unit than yours.

  9. Occasionally, when you least expect it, your GPS will wander off just to screw with you.

 10. This isn't really seeding related but as cool as that new cap looks, it's not going fit exactly right until just before it's time to throw it away.

 ........... I hope at least a few of those are useful. Not counting bad weather, I should be done in 12-15 days. I'm not the last though, i expect to be done about 2 weeks before that one neighbor of mine even starts. :)


 .............it turns out i can't do all the steps from my phone. I had to do the editing on the computer at home. But i did write this post on my phone and transfer it into my blogger profile, so that's at least something?

#88. or, The UPDATED Pish Posh Fitness Final

  IF you've followed the link on Pish"s blog here and it looks surprisingly  like a post that i did last Monday, you'd be right. It's the same one. The challenge is over. But not quite. There's a couple things left to be said.

  Thing is, some of the stuff she asked us to talk about, i jumped the gun and talked about before the challenge was officially over. Now i just feel silly. You can skim through the part that you've already read if you'd like, i'm going to add an amended part to the end to talk about something Pish Posh asked us to talk about. You can go there now, You'll know when you get there.  

  Twelve weeks ago or so I stumbled across this blog, by this crazy, funny, smart gal calling herself Pish Posh. I liked what she had to say, so I bookmarked her page so I could come back later.

  About that time, she introduced her Get Fit Challenge. The Pish Posh Get Fit Challenge. I thought about joining this, but at the time, I didn't talk to any other bloggers. Over the past weeks I've got to know her a bit and she's turned out to be a pretty darned good blogging friend. (even if I can't convince her that Clamato juice is awesome.)

  Anyways, the challenge ends next week. The impetus to start it, was when I hit 190 pounds and discovered I no longer fit into the cool suit I bought a couple years back After about 3 weeks, officially in, I weighed 184 pounds, Friday morning. I'm trying to stretch more but it's harder during seeding time for me. Am I done? No, the reason I'm in this was to fit into my "suit of awesome" and I'm still a bit off from that. I've got to the end of June and I still plan to be able to get those pants buttoned up by then.

  But the challenge wasn't only a weight loss program. It's also about shedding fears and inhibitions and at that, i think, with her help, I've made steps in a positive direction. I've made new friends through blog commenting and even started a little challenge of my own with Brett Minor to lose about 13 pounds by that end of June deadline. That would put me at 177 pounds. I hope he's still in.

  So although I haven't been in all the way from the beginning, i think i'm headed in the right direction. And I will fit back into that awesome suit, i promise.

  ..........now if she couldn't only be as successful in getting a few pounds off her overweight, 3-legged cat, that smells like cookies, she'd indeed be a miracle worker.

  THE AMENDED PART!!


  You lose some you win some!

  I think we've all lost at least a little weight through this challenge. Granted, some more than others. Some of us were on our way, well before the Pish Posh Get Fit! Challenge even started, like the Lady in Red. To them, it was a place to come and be around others with similar goals. Maybe you worked your ass off and the scale didn't reflect it. If that's the case, don't be discouraged, if you feel better, that's a step in the right direction. Lose some weight, lose some bad habits, lose the desire to sit on the couch and eat uncooked, peanut butter cookie dough from a bowl with a spoon. You will feel better for it.

  I need to say a little more about friends. Or rather, i want to say a little more about friends. That's the winning part. I've made some really good friends here. Pish, Lady in Red, Brett, and Workingdan. It seems that i look forward to talking to these people almost everyday now. And new friends i'm just getting to know through this, like Cindy and Robin. Or Rachel and Reanna whose blogs, i've only just checked in on in the last couple days. This whole little support group, working together to make sure no one gets left behind. I know there's more and i feel guilty that i haven't had the time to stop by your site yet. Sorry.

  Pish Posh asked that we choose a person to carry this challenge on with to help us reach our goals. I'm still in my mini-challenge with Brett Minor, The Transformed Non-Conformist. That's going to the end of June. It seems though,  that the Lady in Red has chosen me to be her partner, so i will happily accept her offer and return the favour. It's pretty tough to go wrong teaming up with someone committed enough to lose 70 pounds over the last year, i think that i'm getting the better end of the deal in this arrangement!

  Anyways. i hope that we can all continue to reach the goals we set for ourselves. Maybe the Pish Posh GET FIT! Challenge is over. I'm just happy that she invited us all along for the ride. :)

#87. or, my pathetic retaining wall

  About a month back, as the snow slowly melted from our yard, my retaining wall project, once again reared it's ugly head. I thought, "i should do a post on this retaining wall"

  As things work for me, i began to weave a story in my head. A story about how, over the last three years, i had been collecting flat rocks from fence lines and rock piles to build my retaining wall. It was going to be a grand project. A three level flower bed with a Koi pond, ambient lighting, and a waterfall. Neighbors even saved and brought me flat rocks whenever they came  across them in the field. But after three years, my grand retaining wall looks like this.

Not much to show for a 3 year project.

  I'm probably not going to tell you that story.


  I won't tell you how, as a kid, the very worst job IN THE WORLD was picking rocks. How we would get some other kids together and spend days, walking along side a wagon picking and tossing rocks into it, to clear the field before seeding. How it was dusty and hot and your shoes filled with dirt, so much that when you took off your sock, it went "POOF" and a little dust cloud billowed out of that sock. Or how your feet got so dirty, they looked as if you still had those socks on after you took them off.

  I won't get into how, you couldn't really wear gloves to pick rocks because your hands get all sweaty and then dust and dirt gets into your gloves and makes a mess. Or how at the end of the day, you had a hard time to straighten out because your back hurt so much from stooping over to hoist the rocks off the ground.

  I'm certainly not going to mention, how picking rocks seemed to be the job my dad always chose to do the day after the night before, when i stayed out a little too late, drinking enough that i didn't feel so well the next morning.

  You won't hear me tell you that even though i hate picking rocks so much, i decided to pick rocks for fun to construct my measly retaining wall. How i hunted and dug through piles of rocks to find ones that had just the right shape to be able to stack and turn into a wall. Some of the same piles i had thrown off that miserable wagon as a kid. Or how i had discovered a rock so large and wonderful in a neighbors fence line, that would have been perfect to incorporate into my retaining wall, except for the fact that my loader wouldn't lift it because it weighed too much.

  Why am i not going to tell you all about this?

  Because about a week or so ago, i read a blog about a retaining wall built by Queen Holly The Magnificent. Her wall, is a wall that would laugh at my wall. Her wall would eat my wall up and spit it out like a mouthful of lumpy milk.

 After seeing her retaining wall, i'm a little embarrassed to tell you about mine. Her wall looks like this.

NOW THAT'S A FRICKEN RETAINING WALL!

  She owned that wall! Packed in rocks until she had exhausted her supply then found more and packed them in one at a time across ground that threatened to open up and swallow her whole. And what did she do after she put the last rock into place? Promptly got drunk! That's what! I am in awe of you Holly. I bow before the greatness of you and your wall.

  So now, because i like picking rocks so much, I've decided that i'm going to take down my retaining wall. I'm going to put all those flat rocks into a wagon and move them, one by one, from the front yard to the back to build this.

 ......or maybe this.

  ............i should say, i'm going to try to build something like that. I'm probably lacking the skills to actually build something like that, My stone masonry leaves a little bit to be desired. That and my ambition is a little lacking too. I'm thinking this might be a new three year project.

#86. or, surprise surprise

 So, a few things here that i need to tell you guys.

  First, i'm getting increasingly busy here. I hope to be in the field seeding later this week. I'm working on equipment and trying to get things ready. Not to mention, there's still baby calves coming and i'm trying to get up a little earlier to get in at least a little bit of exercise and stretching. Anyways, i seem to be running out of hours in the day to get everything squeezed in.

  I'm having some trouble keeping up the blogging pace that i had a month or two ago. I'm going to try to not get below two posts a week but i apologize if you come looking and there's nothing new here.

  Second, to all my new bloggy friends, i'm sorry if i've fallen behind on the commenting. For the same reasons as in the first point, i'm having a bit of a time trying to keep up on all the new posts. I can usually try to squeeze in a minute or two to read the new posts on my phone but i like to put some thought into them before i leave a comment. Sometimes, i've forgotten to get back to leave a comment. I haven't forgotten about you, it's just the time thing again. I'm trying to catch up and keep in touch with you guys.

  Then there's this.

  

i've been given an award!

 My friend Pish Posh has bestowed upon me the most prestigious honor of a Liebster Award! Well, i'm not certain that it's actually prestigious but i think it's AMAZING AND AWESOME! I've been running about the house singing, "i've won an award, i've won an award!" (i had to wait until everyone was gone so i didn't look like a complete fool.) So what may you ask is a Liebster Award? It's this:

  Liebster in German, means Dearest, Beloved, or favorite, and it's for bloggers with under 200 followers. Near as i can tell, these are the rules to follow when you receive one.

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who awarded you.
3. Copy & paste the blog award on your blog.
4. Reveal your 5 picks.
5. Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

  The first order of business is for me to tell you that you really should follow this link and check out my friend Pish Posh. If it wasn't for her, there would probably still be very few comments on my blog. She's very engaging and makes me want to write better. She believes there's still abs under all my 44 year old flab and she's trying to get me along with a lot of her other followers, into better shape. She's always funny and smart and often, i need to read through her post twice because i've probably missed some gem of knowledge she's hidden in there. Plus, she'd like a well paying job in the teaching profession in California so she can be closer to take care of her mother. If she messes up her interview, overlook that, you would be a fool not to hire her.

  Now who shall i pass this award on to? I'd like to give one to everyone that i read! You are all so talented. But the rule says five, so, for my five, i decided to try to pick people who hadn't previously won. At least they aren't displaying the Liebster Award Button so i'm assuming they haven't been awarded yet. (Truthfully, i'm not really sure how to do that myself but rest assured., as soon as i figure it out, that sucker is getting a place of honor on my side bar.) Also, this is because i know how much getting this means to me and i want you all to share in the excitement. In no particular order, these are my five.

  A Bozzo's Abbozzo  I don't even know her name or what to call her. Sometimes she's Bozzo, sometimes she's Lady in Red. Occasionally she's even been Froggy. No matter what you call her, you should take some time to check out her blog. She lives in India but her family is in the States and is always interesting. Every time i come across a new blog to read, she's usually been there and already left a comment. She's always positive (except when she's hiding from lightning) and supportive of other bloggers and i think she deserves this.

Hammock in the honeysuckle or The slow Dripped Life  I came across this blog sometime early in April during the A-Z Challenge. I bookmarked it because there was something about it that caught my attention. Over time, i found i was coming back to it again and again. Turns out, it was because it was comfortable and laid back there. From her music to her fridge magnet poetry, there's always something interesting going on. Her name is Carrie, and someday i'd like to have a cup of coffee with her.

 Two Shoes in Texas  Jossie is quite the interesting lady. She seems to be a bit of a contradiction because although she's a bit of a free spirit, she likes to spend part of her time squeezing off rounds on her handgun. Her, One Question Wednesday has given me something to think about on the few occasions that i've played along. Also, even though it's called, One Question Wednesday, she has a knack for stretching one into about five questions. She's a straight shooter, and i like her for that.

  Workingdan Dan is a cigarette smoking, beer drinking, grilling mastermind who will shamelessly promote other bloggers through his artwork. He's recently just added a video rant to his blog which i hope becomes a permanent fixture there. He lives with his lovely wife Mrs.Workingdan, and kids, none of which who seem to bring him a cold beer so he has to do that for himself. If i ever have the chance to visit the Workingdan's home, i have to remember not to wander around just off the deck. Seems he's always peeing off of it.

  J is for Joelle  If it wasn't for Joelle, there's a pretty good chance there would be no ken-inatractor.  She is the first blogger that i followed and i spent a great deal of time reading through her stuff and looking at her page to decide if i could do this or not. She's a single mother who's successfully parlayed her blog into a radio  show, co-host gig. She's a strong independent woman and the only other blogger that i've actually met. ( i brought her some cookies at the radio station.) She's been quite supportive of me and has even on occasion, mentioned my meagre blog on her radio show. She's certainly worth checking out.

  So there's my five. Truthfully, i would give awards to everyone that i read if it were my choice. You are all wonderful and i'm so happy to share this little part of your life. Thanks for that.  :)

#85. or, do i have something in my eye?

  Sometimes, over the course of doing what i do, things get broken. Often when that happens, it requires a simple fix like welding one broken piece back to another. Occasionally, i have to do some grinding with an electric grinder to make pieces fit together better to be welded, or maybe, it requires a bit of grinding the clean up the weld a little before it can be painted again. When you do any grinding, you should ALWAYS wear safety glasses!

  I've had bits of metal in my eye from a grinder on two occasions where i needed to go to the hospital to have it removed.

  The first time, I though that if i would just tough it out, it would eventually work it's way out on it's own. Metal on your eyeball doesn't work it's way out on it's own. Because it came off the grinder as a red hot spark, it sort of sears itself onto the surface of your eye. Then it starts to rust. By the time i finally decided that i required medical  attention to fix this, it was a bit of a mess. (actually, it was my wife who said, "get your ass to the hospital before you go blind!") The first thing that the doctor does, is give you a tube of sticky, gooey, stuff. Because i don't know the medical term for it, i'm going to call it opti-gook. You're supposed to squeeze the opti-gook into your eye and let it grab a hold of the foreign object. It doesn't really work, or it has never worked for me. It's sort of like pouring honey into your eye, and trying to blink. I would use the opti-gook overnight, then go to the hospital where the doctor would try to scrape the metal off of my eye. I did that for about three days before a nurse took me aside and told me to request a specialist before that quack ruined my eyeball. (which was rather nice of her) The specialist got it out but i have a permanent smudge on my pupil from that one.

  The second time i knew right away i needed to see the doctor when my wife couldn't scrape it off with a pin. Because it was quite short notice, the only doctor on call that day was about 115 years old. They put drops into my eye that freeze the surface. They don't really like to do that though because apparently, when your eyeball is frozen, you could repeatedly stab yourself in it with a pencil or some other blunt object without ever realizing it. Anyways, after it's frozen, they use a tiny spoon affair to scrape the metal off your eye. It's required of you, throughout this procedure, to keep your eye wide open. This gets to be a little freaky when your 115 year old doctor is bearing down on your eyeball with a spoon in his hand that's shaking like a crack addict in rehab. In the end, he got it out and i still have all of my eyeball to boot.

  Now, the reason i'm giving you all this background information, is because yesterday, i had an appointment  scheduled for me to get an MRI on my shoulder. I've been having some trouble with it and they think it's the next step in the process. What's that got to do with eyeballs? Well, to have a MRI, you need to pass a checklist of not having any foreign metal in your body. I was going through the list just fine until  they asked if i had ever had any metal in my eyes. Apparently, the MRI machine will suck any metal you may have left, right out of your eyeball! Which might seem like a good thing but rather unpleasant at the same time.

  Now, i have to get something called an orbital X-ray of my head before i'm cleared for the MRI. I'm hoping that i pass that test because it was the only thing that i failed on the checklist and even though i didn't study, it would be nice to get 100%. If i don't, i wonder if i have to wear lead goggles or something resistant to magnetism. Just in case, i think i'm going to do some squinting exercises to make sure i have the strength to keep my eyeball in my head on the off chance they miss something.

 ..............i think i might be OK though, i just tried to stick a fridge magnet to my eyeball and nothing happened. I probably don't have anything to worry about.

#84. or, side tracked by the weekend

  So, how's my diet going you ask? A little disappointing to say the least, i mean, i started off so well. When i decided to join  the Pish Posh Get Fit Challenge, i weighed 190 pounds. At the end of the first week i was 187 pounds. I was quite surprised with that. A three pound loss over a week is pretty phenomenal  weight loss. This weekend, it all went to hell in a hand basket.

  I've been trying to cut out the beers during weekdays. That's certainly not unreasonable. The trouble with that is the weather just took a turn for the fantastic here. So much so, that i've begun to consider breaking out my shorts. Because, well, i look damned hot in shorts and work boots. (actually, no one looks good in shorts and work boots) Anyways, i've been trying to resist the urge to have a beer out on the deck except i've been waiting all winter to put that deck to good use and it is really calling to me. The deck, probably more than the beer.

  Over the weekend, we went to celebrate a friends birthday. It wasn't a big affair but the fact that we hadn't gotten together with these people for a while inspired me to have not one, not two, but three Caesars. That wasn't the best decision. It wasn't the best decision, but it wasn't the worst thing for my diet that i put into my mouth Friday night. My buddy made deep fried chocolate bars. I had two. And yes, they were awesome.

....and carny food shall be your undoing

 What do you get when you have three Caesars and two deep fried chocolate bars over the course of one evening? Back to 189 pounds, that's what. Not to mention the fact that i am currently in a bit of a friendly competition with Brett Minor over at The Transformed Non-Conformist to try to lose 13 pounds before the end of June. Eating like that isn't going to get me there. OK, it's not really a competition, more of a mutual support thing but he just informed me that he's ready to start hitting the gym now and me, on the verge of spending 14 hours a day sitting in a tractor isn't doing me any favors. If i have any plans of getting into my suit of awesome before the end of June, diet is the one thing i need to get a better grip on. I'm about 2 weeks into this and i've lost one pound......yesh!


  Now, i realize that i'm in my mid forties. The chance of me actually having any discernible abs, without spending hours a day in the gym is not really a reality. I'd just like to look a little better and hopefully, feel a little better about myself in turn.

  If i could do that, i might even consider wearing THIS, over the course of the summer.

this goes way better with work boots than shorts!

  ............because you can't help but be awesome if you are wearing a work kilt!

#83. or, Busy doing things

  It's been a pretty busy week for me. Aside from looking after calves, i've been dealing with a couple tractor companies on getting some of the pieces we bought ready to go. It's getting close to seeding time here and two of the things that i really need to do that are still in the shop. That's one of the reasons i tried to get on replacing some of the stuff we lost early, to avoid this. I've been making regular trips into town to put the pressure on them but i don't really know if that helps or not. On the bright side, i think our sprayer is pretty much ready to go, so i hope i might be able to pick that up today. That being said, when it gets home, i'm sure there will be things that i have to do on it here to get it ready for me. Sometimes putting my mark on a piece of equipment means a little bit more than peeing on the tire.

  Over the last couple weeks i got to do a few things with my kid. Actually, the first thing was with two of my kids. Our middle boy is graduating this year and it was his final year on the basketball team. As a wrap up for the season, i drove the bus into the city for them to watch the Harlem Globetrotter's. That was pretty fun.  Our youngest, who i brought along as well, did quite a lot of laughing. After the game, we went down to the court and got autographs from some of the team, on the ball we got for him there. Truthfully, we could have gotten more signatures. It's not like there was any danger of missing the bus. The keys were in my pocket.

  A few days later, we took our youngest into the city to watch a hockey game. He's sports crazy but he loves hockey. It's the Western Hockey League playoffs. They play in the same building as the NHL, Edmonton Oilers play in. My nephew Curtis, is the trainer on the bench for the opposing team, so we got to cheer for both sides.

so close you can smell the excitement

 We sat in the 2nd row but for the second and third period the seats in front of us were empty, i let our son move up to the 1st row. There was a lot of hits right there and when they crashed into the boards, they rattled and banged loudly. I think my son thought they were coming right through the glass the first time they had a hit right there. For a while, there was a big sweat or spit smudge across the glass. My son loved it.

  A couple days after that, i drove one of the buses that took our son and all the grade 6's into the city to the Alberta Aviation Museum. This is him in an old fighter jet. I got to tag along with his group and help them to answer all the questions in their work book.

  I have quite a good time driving the bus on field trips. I wish that i would have gotten my bus licence sooner. I would have enjoyed doing some of these trips when my older boys were in the lower grades.

 I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for air planes. My dad was a recreational pilot. That was a long time ago, so long that i can hardly remember it. He sold his plane to buy our farm.

       Long before i was ever ken-inatractor, i was just ken-standinginfrontofaplane.

 
              .......and right around that time, i was also, ken-hunterofmoose.

   Later this month i'll be driving the bus again for the grade 6's into the city to the University. There, they'll be doing some climbing wall activities as well as something in the pool. I think it's some type of water polo in inner tubes. Although, i'm pretty sure that they don't want the bus drivers in the pool.

  Last night, we went into the city to have the after tax season supper with all the people from my wife's office. We had Thai food. I had never had it before but i liked it. The experience was a little different as we ordered plates of food that everybody got to take some from if they wished. It's nice to try different things like that but it may have completely ruined anything i had done on my diet over the course of the week. I hope that i can at least stay on par and not gain anything back. I weigh on Sunday.

 .............while out last night i tried Chinese beer that was brewed in a German brewery.....or it might have been German beer brewed in a Chinese brewery. I can't remember exactly as right about the time they were telling that story i was dealing with fire mouth from eating a pickled jalapeno. The beer was pretty good though.

#82. or, what's romantic (one question Wednesday)

  I was working on something for yesterday but it just looked so bad to me and i couldn't make it seem right that i got discouraged and walked away from it. Last night, i had my wife give it a look and she didn't think it was so bad so you may see it later in the week. It still needs some work though and it's definately not a masterpiece. Sometimes i need her help on these things.
 
 One thing i did do was leave a question over at Josie 2 Shoes site for One Question Wednesday and in return, she supplied me with this one.

  You are planning some down time with your wife in the near future, if expense was not an issue, what would be her idea of the most romantic getaway possible, what would be yours, and which one would you go with?

 Immediately on reading this question, my brain said to me, staying in one of those hut on stilt things in Bora Bora would be the most romantic thing ever!



hot weather + less clothes = more romantic

  I asked my wife what she thought was her idea of a romantic holiday. She immediatley said, "i have something but it's not what you're going to like." I asked her what she was thinking, and she said that romantic isn't necessarily a place as it is so much a state of mind. Romantic could be in a cabin in the mountains by ourselves with a cozy fire and a warm blanket to cuddle under. Romantic could be alone together at the beach on a remote tropicial island with the waves crashing on the shore. Romantic might even be sitting alone together on our deck on a quiet night with the stars shinning above our heads.

  That got me thinking way back to when we were a week or so from getting married. We were going for a walk in the evening, just as it was getting dark. Suddenly out of nowhere, the woods beside us was filled with fire flies. I had lived here all my life and that was the first time i had ever seen them. It was a romantic moment.

  She's right of course, romantic isn't a place or holiday destination. We try to make them that and it's always nice if you can do it. In Mexico last winter, laying in bed together in the morning listening to the waves rolling onto the beach was pretty darned romantic but without her there it would have just been a nice place.

  ..............she's smart that way, that's why i love her.........but i'm still pulling for Bora Bora.  :)