Baby Waiting

Looks like Lil' Miss does not want to come out yet. Today is the due date. We are ready though!

Local High School Football

On Friday Night, Aimee and I attended a local football game between last year's Maryland 4A and 3A State Champions. Quince Orchard barreled through Damascus 38-3.

It seems High School Football never changes. There are the parents, younger children not paying attention to the game, giggly girls and high school boys trying to look tough.




Plus, they have Italian Ice....

Hurrican Ike's Strange Effect on Animals

Evidently, a Chicken Mutated into a Super Beast and hitched a ride to a live CNN Shoot:



Next, A bear gets lost and wanders towards the Texas Coast during the hurricane.

The Last Baby Class

Last night, Aimee and I attended our last baby class. I am now certified in the art of wiping someone else's butt.

Little Stella should join us soon...

The Wrong Advice

So I read this article in the Washington Post last weekend:

--Surviving the Storm. Downsizing. Buyouts. Layoffs. In some fields the job market is getting nasty. It's time to adopt a few strategies to avoid getting cut -- or bounce back quickly if you do.-- (if you need a username/pw, go to www.bugmenot.com)

I intentionally refrain from derogatory commentary about anyone and anything on this blog because

a.) It's not good form

b.) Anything you write on the Internets is basically public record. You don't want to write something with emotion only to regret it later.

c.) Judgements/criticism imply weakness. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill didn't become how they are know by saying stuff like "Who he think he is! He ain't all that!"

Anyway, I was surprised to read this article. There was a lot of common sense, I mean good advice, in it but there was one published writer quoted who threw me back a bit.

.....But that's just the beginning of your labors, said Stephen Viscusi, author of the new book, "Bulletproof Your Job: 4 Simple Strategies to Ride Out the Rough Times and Come Out on Top at Work." (Collins Business, $19.95). You need to make sure you are the employee the boss most wants to keep.

In sometimes crude terms, his book spells out the particulars of effective ingratiation. "It's all about creating the illusion of working hard and getting along with your boss, and a little old-fashioned ass-kissing or brown-nosing," he said.

His four-part strategy (be visible, be easy, be useful, be ready) is equal parts mom and Machiavelli. It's not always what you want to hear."

Now, I have no problems with brown-nosing, but "creating the illusion of working hard?" Sorry Mr. Stephen Viscusi, but you are encouraging the slackers. I don't know about you, but most people can spot an "illusionist" a mile away.

I was speaking with my friend Vincent who's sister-in-law lived in Japan. Evidently, it is a source of pride to be the first one into work at like 6:00 a.m. First one in, and last to leave. She also said that these same people open up the newspaper and read it until 8:30 am. When I started working after college, there was a gentleman in my office who 'worked' like 12 hours a day but did maybe three hours of actual work. I think he spent the remaining nine hours telling people how busy he was.

Anyway, enough of the criticism. I wanna know who I think I is.

Buster The Beer Drinking Pig

My brother Tim is on Facebook. I noticed that he previously had as is default profile photo, Buster The Beer Drinking Pig (or one of his descendants). Now, he has graduated to other pigs..



Who is Buster The Beer Drinking Pig you ask? In the middle of the Jungle near Tim's home, St. Croix, there is a bar named The Domino Club. The bar is famous for it's beer drinking pigs. In 1991, I went to visit Tim and saw for myself. You pull up a driveway and you actually feel like you are approaching someone's house (in the jungle) rather than a bar. The bar is tiny and there are dogs and cats wandering about.

The attraction is "Buster the Beer Drinking Pig." You order a beer, then give it to Buster. Buster takes the beer (can) from you, hoists it up, pokes a hole through it with his huge tusk and swigs it down. When I visited Buster, it was two pm in the afternoon. All I saw in the cage was about 200 empty beer cans and a one-thousand pound pig, laying down in the corner, passed out. Stone drunk. Evidently for Buster, every hour was cocktail hour.

Since then, Buster is now downing beers in heaven and his descendants are the star attraction. Since it is no longer politically correct to promote alcoholism in pigs, they are now served non-alcoholic beer (ODouls).

Here's to you Buster!