On Two-Years Rest . . . again

I haven't been much for blogging the last few days, so I'm going with the ultimate cop-out - a re-post. (is that a word?) In the spirit of self-deprecation (the opposite of what we here from our humble presidential candidates) I give you this post from Dec 8, 2006:

So a few days ago I went and tried, stressing that word, to play full-court basketball for the first time in a long while. Going in there with almost two year's rest I assumed I'd totally dominate. Actually, I set the bar a little lower - being able to walk again within 3-4 days would be a stunning success, but I was content with survival. I stretched and jogged around a little bit before we started - this part went marvelously. I even made a few shots in the warm up. Then we began . . . Now let me say in all fairness, I can do 3-4 miles on the treadmill without much struggle, it's not like I'm totally hopeless or anything. But after roughly 2 minutes of play, all of my cells, except for 3 or 4 of 'em, were on fire. I was huffing and puffing so hard I was afraid I was gonna do structural damage to the building. At one point the guy I was guarding got an outlet pass and went flying down the court towards his goal. Now I knew exactly what I needed to do, I just needed to run him down and get in front of him. He had a little head start, but I knew I could catch him . . . At least my mind knew it. With literally no one around me I took two quick steps towards him . . . I was off to the races, or so I thought. Then, like some kind of drunk panda bear, the top half of my body kept moving in the direction I wanted it to, but the feet were quite content to be stationary. I fell flat on my face at midcourt, skidded to an ugly halt, and my guy scored. A thing of beauty. It's rough to spontaneously fall down on your face, all alone, for no apparent reason. All the guys were good enough to not say anything to me about it, but there was no need - any semblance of pride in my hoops prowess is gone. I'll keep going back though. The moral of the story: I should've probably stretched more or at least have worn protective gear with an oxygen mask.

Tribute to Gertrude

A few posts ago I kicked off a little contest. This was mostly to see if people were actually reading the blog. A few of you took the bait, and I was impressed with the responses, particularly Aubri's "uhhhh..." So, I tip my fedora to Becca, Alida, and Julianna for at least playing along and especially Becca for coming up with "dweeb". But the prize of a tribute post goes to Krista. (I just noticed that all the responders have names that end in the letter "a"... don't know if that's interesting or not.)I'm going to write about her even though the kids helped out so much. It's much easier to write about my sister-in-law than a group of nieces and nephews. Hopefully they will enjoy reading about their mommy though. By the time the rest of you read this, you're likely going to be pleased that you didn't win:

You see Krista is someone everyone should know. She was born Gertrude Caseopia Lahti, so you can see why they called her Krista. Life couldn't have been easy, what with having to live in an igloo in Anchorage eating mooseburgers and speaking eskimo. (English is her second language as you'll learn when you talk with her) At age 5 she was a successful kindergardner with pig tails, and one thing led to another and today she's a terrific mother of 5. Krista isn't like some mothers you know, she knows everything about her kids, including their names and birthdays, but this isn't the only thing that makes her a great mother. She's been known to spend hours playing games with them, but letting the little people win is out of the question. She compassionately teaches the kids to be good losers. Here are a few other great "facts" which may or may not be true about Krista:

- She is perhaps the most competitive non-male I know. (and I know "competitive" having played years of church basketball)
- Krista has lived in exotic places such as Guam, Idaho and of course, her current island paradise of St. Louis.
- She's always up to date on current events, but she doesn't have cable so the source of all of her knowledges comes from the always-accurate internet.
- She's an excellent blog author, but I can't link to her blog because she keeps it super-secret (invite-only) . . . yeah, it's that good!
- At this moment she's hosting my wife and our 4 kids at her house, so if you're doing the math, there are like 14 kids there now. She handles it amazingly well. (It's Uncle Mike you should feel for . . . I've been in those shoes . . .)

So I pay homage to my sister-in-law for all that she manages and is. Because not only does she do all that stuff I told you about, she takes time everyday to humor me by reading HTF.

Thanks for all that, Gertrude.

Economists and Plumbers are suddenly rock stars!

I should be snoozin' right now, but I can't help but opine about a couple news items from what was a pretty eventful day:

(in no particular, you know, order)

1. Stocks crashed for like the 11th time in the past 9 trading days. Economists, who have never been more popular, are saying that this "recession" will be "deep." When pressed for details they used penetrating words like "bad" and "long." Seriously, is there a big different between an enconomist and a psychic?
Psychic: "I sense that somebody in the audience will have an experience, a bad one . . . in the future."
I guess the difference is that when economists open their mouths bad things actually happen (see first sentence).

2. Tonight was the final of the 439 presidential debates in an election that began in the the spring of 1992 and is quickly coming to a close. I was lucky enough to only catch the last 30 minutes. Something struck me while I was watching it - there is absolutely no chance that these guys can possibly be telling the entire truth here - and they HAVE to know it. Still they must have reason to think that we're not bright enough to figure out who is stretching the truth the most. In the immortal words of Charlie Young (The West Wing Season 2) - "Everyone gets treated like they're stupid in an election year." That's probably truer than we'd like to admit.
At one point Mccain accused Obama of inventing cancer and Barak let us all know that John had been Hitler's campaign manager way back when. I'm pretty sure people don't like hearing these intriguing allegations because when they were mentioned the "hypnotic tracking signal" that CNN shows had both gender lines go off the bottom of the screen.

But the oddest thing was that some guy named Joe the Plumber had a staring role in the debate. He was mentioned twice by Barry and NINE TIMES by JohnyMac. He kept coming up regardless of the topic Bob threw at them. Pretty sure he's gonna be in somebody's cabinet.

So here's to all of you economists and plumbers out there - we've apparently never needed you more!

Deputy Downer

Warning - my unstated goal with 90+% of posts is to leave you chuckling and sending the blog post to all of your friends, family, neighbors, and even those people you don't know who are your "friends" on Facebook. Granted, I typically fail at my goal, but a guy can dream. This is not one of those funny posts.

Is it just me, or is everyone, and I mean everyone, a little more down and/or on edge? Seriously, I get this sense that all the really-nasty economic stuff going on, coupled with an increasingly-annoying election is starting to drag us all down at least a bit. Seems like folks are thinking a lot more cup-half-empty about the future, and who can blame 'em? There's not much eminating from the news channels to life our spirits (but isn't that almost always the case). It really does feel like the end of life as we know it, for now at least. These guys running for president are doing nothing to make me feel better, in fact, I was gonna vote for JohnyMac, who I've never really been a fan of, and as of today I'm squarely on the fence. (I know that'll shock a lot of you since I've never voted for a donkey-party candidate - this may be the first time) The solutions to the financial problems coming from politicians involves throwing ungodly piles of money at things. We're over a TRILLION DOLLARS if you're keeping score at home. Imagine if we could've used that money to fundamentally reform education and/or make ourselves energy independent (or we could've built a road from Seattle to Hawaii so I'd have another place to visit on weekends).

I'm a bright-side guy usually. Big problems are typically somebody else's problems - if you know what I mean. And I have almost nothing to complain about. Yet here I sit in an apartment in Kirkland, WA - alone. My family, who I miss so badly that it hurts is 3,000 miles away and the only thing that's keeping us apart is that we need to sell our house - at the worse possible time in my lifetime to be selling a house. Our realtor let us know, in a kind way, that like nobody is crazy enough to buy houses right now unless they're gonna steal 'em from people. So yeah, I guess this financial crisis is suddenly feeling real, at least more real than the "on-paper" loses that I cringe at in the 401K and IRAs. We'll deal though and things will work out one way or another. We are incredibly blessed and have so much to be thankful for. Still I ask you, is my little view of how people are thinking/feeling just shaped by my family's own little trials or is it more pervasive than that? Let me know.

As for me, well, I need to laugh. It's just a lot harder to do that alone.

HTF (aka "Deputy Downer" .... sorry about that)

Utensils and Best-Selling Novels

Books are great. I've even been known to read one or two over the years. Even a few without pictures that required the use of an actual bookmark. I don't really keep track of what books are popular aside from I guess Harry Potter and the 976 versions of the Bible that seem to always be for sale at the Sam's Club. It is however, tough to escape the popularity of the "Twilight" series by J.K. Rowling or Stephanie Meyer, . . . it's one of those two. Not that long ago I got my first introduction to the series which is INCREDIBLY popular among women of all ages.

I literally thought my wife was playing an amazingly creative joke on me. She described a tale about a 17-year-old-girl named Bella who moves to Forks, (yes, I said forks) Washington and falls for a boy named Eddie or something who just happens to be a . . . (wait for it) . . .CANADIAN . . .!! Actually he and his family are real-life, fictional, VAMPIRES. But not to worry because, as wikipedia points out, this is not that big of a deal because his family has shunned drinking human blood and sticks with meals of animal blood instead.

So my wife, along with 86.7% of other litterate females, is suddenly a HUGE fans of vampire books. There are four of them (the books, not the females), but you can ask the lady of your choice for the rest of the plot. And there's another one called The Host that's about aliens possesing people's bodies and taking over the world. (I'm not making that up) Suddenly my wife is into vampires and sci-fi novels?!!!

All that I know is that once the Mrs. HTF picks up one of these books she ceases to, you know, exist in this world. She tunes the rest of us out completely. Here's proof. Also, unless you're living under a rock and/or you're a guy, you'll know that there's also some movies based on the books coming out that will be like an estrogen convention I'm guessing. (not that there's anything wrong with that)

I was recently given an even better reason to be a Stephanie Meyer fan - two females, (my wife and alert-blog-reader, JJ) pointed out - at the end of Mrs. Meyer's last best-selling novel, the Mormon, BYU grad pointed out that she was inspired in her writing by my brother's rock band, Spoon. (if you're paying attention, that's the second utensil reference in this post, and I wasn't even trying!) So maybe, just maybe, I should put down my books about politics, current events, or business management and join the ladies in reading about blood-sucking, alien, body-snatchers who woo teenage girls in logging country.

Or maybe I'll just wait for the movie.

That's A Lot of Zeros

After my post on the subject, a few of you have sent in questions about Congress's bailout, rescue, nonsensical, $700B "package." I have lots to say on the subject, but to answer the most common question, here is a chart that even the US Congress can understand:



Hope I don't come across as too jaded, but this chart looks pretty accurate to HTF . . .

Keep sending in your questions/comment/jokes/rants to henrythefrog@gmail.com.

What You Need To Know Before You Vote!!

Today, we go to the mailbag for a timely question from another alert reader who is clearly a political junkie in need of a fix:

Dear HTF,

Another Presidential debate is coming up this week. What is the one question that you would ask each candidate?

Signed,
"I'm so glad someone else came up with the answer to the three questions because I'm still stuck on, "Uhhh . . . "

P.S. Because you wanted more audience participation & a full mailbox makes everyone feel great, I decided to throw in a PS for you. My questions would be:

--Barry, there are a lot of Big Poppa fans (like ahem, me!) out there. Why did you choose Ole Crazy Joe over him as your running mate?
and
--Grandpa, some people (ahem, me again!) think that Republicans are horrible dancers. Defend your party, Gramps!!

Did you just call the junior senator from Illinois, "Barry?!"

Sweet.

Those are strong suggestions. I've spent several days (by which I mean I haven't spent more than 3 seconds) now researching and formulating vital questions that the American public needs answers to in the upcoming debate. Here are a few that Captain Tommy should sling at the odd couple on stage this week:

- "Senator Obama, of the endangered species out there, which one deserves our greatest attention and which one should go hunting with Dick Cheney?"

- "Senator McCain, if you had to give Britney Spears a cabinet post which one would it be and why?"

- "Senator Big-Foam-Columns, you're against capital punishment, but what do you propose we do with that mosquito sucking blood from your forehead right now?"

- "Senator Lots-of-Houses, would you support a proposal requiring supreme court justices to wear Bono-sunglasses and JT Fedoras whenever they don their robes?"

Thanks for the question, alert reader. I could go on and on, but let's open it up to the 3 of you who actually read the blog. Click "comment" and enlighten us on what you'd like to hear.

Do you want me to write a tribute about YOU?

We're gonna try something a little different tonight/today. You see I've been trying to get a little more reader interaction on the blog. So for a little fun I'm going to ask you 3 questions. You can answer by commenting on the blog. Whoever is the first to answer correctly - I will pen a powerful, semi-sincere, partially-accurate tribute to you here on the blog. Here's the kicker - you can't use the world wide web, information superhighway, or interweb to search for the answers. I'm sure of your integrity and I'm pretty sure this isn't worth cheating on. I also invite you (whether you try to answer the questions or not) to congratulate the "winner" by commenting and/or giving me one thing you think I should address in the "tribute." For example, "tell us about the winner's first date" or "tell us about his/her worst job" or "tell us why he/she deserves to be shot by a child with a wooden arrow funded by the bailout." So here are the three questions:

1. Name one fruit with its seeds on the outside instead of the inside

2. There are 14 punctuation marks in standard English language – name them

3. There are three words that begin with the letters “dw” – list them

So let the games begin. If you have access to the first season DVDs of The West Wing, you'll have an easier time answering them. Hope you'll all play along.

Saving The Planet With Wooden Arrows, Rum, and Sheep Hair

I'm told there's a financial crisis sweeping the world and that it involves words like "distressed assets" and "mortgage-backed-securities" and "collateralized-debt-obligations" and my favorite, "unclog." Suddenly our elected officials and the omniscient ones talking to us on our television are experts in all of these words. I'm pretty sure the only one they understand is the last one. I've been meaning to write about this and you'll hear more in the coming days, (now that the US Congress is on the job I'm sure the crisis is in our read view mirrors) but I wanted to address a question sent in by another alert reader:

Dear HTF:

Why are there wooden arrows designed for use by children? This sounds dangerous and really should be addressed in the bailout plan. What do you think?

CM

CM, you should run for congress, cuz you're obviously able to "think" the way they "think." (air-quotes intended) What you're referring to are the several NECESSARY MEASURES that were included in the bailout-rescue-Save-the-World bill that passed today. Here are a few items that were key to the passage of the bill, and I am not making this up:

Wooden arrows: This tax break, backed by Oregon's two senators, would benefit an Oregon manufacturer of wooden arrows for children by $2 million over 10 years.

Racetracks: Earmark would allow auto racetrack owners to depreciate their facilities over seven years, saving the industry $100 million over two years. (cuz we ALL need to watch people turning left)

Rum: Offers rum producers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a rebate on excise taxes worth $192 million over two years. (did we really need to bailout rum producers?!)

Wool: Reduces tariffs for U.S. makers of wool fabric that use imported yarn, worth $148 million over five years. The measure was pushed by Reps. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., and Melissa Bean, D-Ill. (I guess the US Sheep lobby isn't what it used to be)

Hollywood: Extends a tax break for film and TV companies that keep their production in the United States, worth $478 million over 10 years. The provision was originally pushed by Rep. Diane Watson, D-Los Angeles. (if we're gonna have a depression, we need entertainment more than ever!)

And it's a wonder that EVERYONE I talk to thinks the Congress is run by do-do birds (and that's me being nice to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi). Both parties are equally do-do-ish on this one, "W" signed the thing this afternoon. Its $700 Billion, so I guess they thought they could sneak these by us out of sheer size. I wish they'd have thrown by mortgage in there. Or at least we could've bought Canada or something.

Anyway, back to your original question -

"Why do children need wooden arrows?"

To shoot at the "adults" running this country.

(click on the image below - also provided by CM, titled "October Madness")

Pretty Much Everything I Know About The Northwest

Today we're taking a peek into a recent note that hit the mailbag. Here it is:

Henry the Frog,

Now that you’ve spent a few days in the Northwest, what is it that you like? And what do you miss (or will miss) about living in Kansas?

TMP

Just as I spoke authoritatively for all Alaskans a couple weeks ago, I'm totally ready to tell everyone exactly what's great about the Northwest having spent quite a few consecutive hours here now. Here are some things that I like:

- It absolutely never rains here, despite what you all said to me several billion times before I moved here. I haven't seen a drop in ALL of my days (all 4 of them), so from that it's clear that you all lied to me.
- The Prius to SUV ratio here is like 102.7 to one. I remember when the hyper-popular-hybrids (a good name for a rock band) were an anomaly. Well here in Seattle they seem to be more ubiquitous than trees.
- In spite of some pretty gnarly traffic, things here are pretty easy to get to. Definitely not one of the more urban-spralish cities I've seen. In non-rush hour I'm like 20 minutes from most anywhere I wanna go . . . except Kansas City.

And now, what do I miss about KC (this is excluding people, I miss you all, and because you're reading my blog, I miss you more than all of the non-readers)?:

- There were no trees to block the view.
- In KC, "traffic" meant you could only go like 50 MPH
- The Chiefs BEAT DENVER last week - I remember how people were always noticeably happier on Mondays after a win, particularly a shocking one like that one.
- I didn't need a GPS to drive to work in KC
- I know I'm gonna miss the violent thunder-storms in the midwest. I think we may install a "tornado siren" in our new house here that I'll turn on periodically just for the rush of diving for cover in the basement (which we probably won't even have).

I'm sure I'll have some actual insights if you check back in with me in a few weeks.

Thanks for the question, TMP!

Please keep commenting and send in your questions/comments to henrythefrog@gmail.com.

As for me, I'm gonna go throw away my umbrella now . . .