Does This Make My Dog A Zombie?

In the hallway, the work has begun.

Chuck Norris has lost most of his brains to the giant canine beast.

Stuffing is scattered all over the house like little clouds on the ground.  Simpsonian in their nature, the polyester fluff is scattered broadly on the Florida Tiles.

Flashing his bright eyes at you, he glares when interrupted. 

Brains.   Pulled from their skull every chance he gets.  First it was the teddy bear.  Purple trending to Pink due to it's being washed weekly.  The stitching in the back has been replaced more than once, eyes ripped out of their sockets to expose the sweet, sweet brains behind them.   Stuffing gets pulled out in an eyeblink.

Then onto Chuck Norris.  The eye holes are large enough to stuff your thumb into.  Forget that one, the result of a few minutes of entertainment show up scattered all over the house.

The Frog has special dispensation.  Being his favorite "child" the Frog gets carried into the Bedroom at

night, left in shoes, and dropped into the crate.  Gently played with as a prized possession, this green animal goes everywhere.

At least he's not tearing into the furniture.   Rack has been extremely well behaved when it comes to "our" stuff.   Kitchen counters and couches are offlimits, and the beds are becoming so with the help of the bells.

But the first toy to "die" is Chuck.  Always.  I just wave a magic wand over him and bring him back to life for more de-braining later.

Bonus Blossom - Picture

A cold snap drew me out to the back yard.  Against the shed is a line of irrigation that I keep four separate orchids on.  Under each plant are some "starter pots" of cuttings.  It's my little hydroponic drip feed garden. 

Fancy talk for pretty plants that entertain me.

The orchids are all from those "baby" plants you see in the big box stores, save one that my friends Kathie and Larry had given me as a present in a tiny little pot.  

Those babies are usually bought when you're a snowbird, taken up to what ever cold and dry climate you live in and are presented as a challenge.   I was never quite up to that particular challenge, so one of the first things that I had done when I moved to Florida was see if I could get some to grow.

If you are a local and are patient, you can have some amazing plants.  All you need to do is wait.

This maroon beauty is a Bonus Blossom.  It is the first year that it had ever bloomed twice, this being the second complete set of flowers. 

Plants bloom where they are planted, but only when they are happy.  I've given them a home under the eaves of my little shed, water them with the ground water from my irrigation system, and pretty much ignore them until they show their true colors and gain my attention.   When that happens, the wheels start turning and I consider putting more out there.  

After all, who doesn't like a little more color in their life?

Bikini Babes in the F-ing Bar

Living in a resort town, and this is definitely a resort town, you get to see some rather amusing escapades.  No matter what, if you have a chance, come on down for a visit, it can be fun to watch the tourists have their own little slice of heaven.

Sometimes you just want those tourists to go home, back over the river and off the island.  Other times you just want them to chill out.

You'll see what I mean here.

You see last night on our evening dog walk, we took a long lap around town.  We walked past Hagen Park and as we neared the Wilton Towers, we saw a commotion.  Then the commotion fell out of the building and saw us.

It was one of those laugh out loud then grab the pepper spray moments you sometimes see when someone's not exactly having a good time managing reality.

Falling out of the main doors of the Wilton Towers was a rather pretty young thing.  A brown haired babe, beautiful woman with long hair in a tropical floral style bikini.

Now, if you were out last night with us on the dog walk you'd have thought why is this beautiful woman stumbling out of a tower block of apartments into the cold February chill?   This being Wilton Manors, Florida, "cold" is a relative thing, but I think even those in Anchorage Alaska will admit that 64F or so is too cold to be outside on a breezy night with the wind off the ocean.

Nudging Mrs Dog onwards we were entertained.  I laughed and that was when her ire was directed at us.

You see, this particular woman, beautiful though she may be, was an unhappy wench.   She was most likely "impaired" as she was stumbling around on the darkened street in bare feet screaming more F Bombs than the Germans had dropped on London during the Blitz.

Naughty girl then looked at us and said loud enough so we could hear even if we were a block and a half away "F" You Too!.   I mean she was LOUD.  Who knew that such a little thing could make that much noise.

Well, she was someone's baby once, and now she's all grown up and learning how to party like the big girls.

Wilton Towers is rather close to the South end of Wilton Drive.  Between her and traffic was only the laundromat.  She's stumbling her way forward and shrieking F Bombs at everyone, telling them that they can F themselves, and having a great deal of trouble remaining upright.  Whatever she was on, it wasn't alcohol since her F's were perfectly unslurred.



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I turn to Kevin and laugh and say she's heading for the drive, I hope she doesn't end up a hood ornament when she disappears around the corner and in front of the Tropics bar.

Thanks to distance, the F's got quieter so we knew she was still alive.   Looking for her we rounded the corner.  After all, being entertained by a little babe throwing Fs is one thing, having her come at you, your partner, or your 11 year old dog was entirely another.

When we rounded the corner we were able to see her bikini bottom just disappear into the outside bar of Tropics.  Apparently this Floor Show was going to entertain the older gentlemen there.

We took the time to wander up past her and into the City Hall Police Desk and fill in the woman at the desk about our entertainment for the night.

I don't know how it all ended up, but the person at the desk agreed with a laugh and wrote down the particulars and handled it professionally.

I wonder what kind of fun we'll see tonight?  It's a Tuesday night so it should be a quiet one, but living in a resort town means that quiet can be a very different thing.

Dog Vs Mustang

Last week I got a new toy.

Rarely, when I can win one, I get a box of "random crap" from a website.  You pay $8 and they toss in whatever they think they want to get rid of.  You wait about 3 weeks and the box arrives.  It's a little like your birthday.  Sometimes you get socks, other times you get something that you need but never knew you wanted.

I've always gotten a lot more than the $8 so that is why I try for them.  Money is tight but I've always been able to give away more than the $8 that I paid for simply by getting rid of the extra stuff I didn't want.

Last time I got a car.  Not a big one, one of those silly battery powered toys that eat up batteries.  This one takes 7 AA batteries.  Luckily I have that many rechargeable batteries in the house.  It took me a while to find enough batteries that would take the charge and power this beast of a yellow car, but once they were charged, I had to try it out.

So lets see.  Aging Mc Nab Dog being curious what Dad is doing.  Dad is a big kid.  Floor is clear of wires and other obstacles but the furniture is still in the room.   Car is about as long as your forearm.

Dog is still curious.

Power on car.
Power on controller.

Dog sniffs car.

Pull back gently on controller.
Nothing happens.

Pull back a little more.

Hilarity ensues.

First it turns out that this toy has no middle speed.   When the so-called engineer made this thing, they didn't realize that two speeds, on and off, weren't exactly useful.

Oh sure, it has on and off and backwards and forwards, but that means it basically had all the control of the real thing ... on ice.

Secondly that dog.   She's older, at 11, and slowing down, but she had a Good Day.

Pull back the lever on the control gingerly and all the sudden the contact inside the controller fired off.

The car ripped tire, then started to move loudly.

So did the dog.

Luckily for the car, it was too large for her to grip as it shot out from under her.   Turning the steering wheel made for another realization.  It turned all the way to the side or not at all.

Turning that steering wheel meant the car, now going at a fast running pace, whipped around crazily, knocked over the recycling bin, pulled under the dog.   The dog taking this as a personal affront decided to try to herd the yellow beast and barked at it while giving it the McNab Dog Stare.

Yellow electric cars having no care for a dog's sense of order continued to spin around in tight circles under the dogs feet until she jumped straight up into the air to around her height all the while barking and knocking the junk from the display shelves in the room divider.

That noise meant that yours truly turned around to see what fell, nothing broke, and then back to the dog in an eye blink.   The steering wheel at the mean time had been released and the car broke from its tight circles to wedge itself under the coffee table.   Mind you, the coffee table is elevated so it had to do some sort of Dukes of Hazard trick to jump into the air two inches off the ground.

The dog was still angry at the evil yellow beast, and tried to catch the car.

By this time, I had slipped my finger off of the car's speed "control" and the car stopped resting on top of the laptop that had been closed there.

I could see that this would not be an ideal place to play with an electric car that the dog did not like.

There is a term called "Fitness of Purpose".  It's an old concept that says when you buy something, it should do what is advertised.   The car did, the human was a bit confused as to what that exactly was meant to be so it was time to have a change of plans.

Outdoors.

That same car that careened madly over the "slightly" cluttered floor was much better suited for being brought outside.  Outside was the driveway and the street in front of the house.  One difference.  Even on it's best day, a street is nowhere near as smooth as a floor with wall to wall Florida Tiles.  The car drove over pebbles as if they were boulders, cracks were as potholes, dimples filled with a drop of water became lakes.

Sure, once it got to the street, it could be controlled better but the dog still didn't like it.  She was chasing after it again and finally decided to sit down next to me and give it the stink-eye.  It didn't move all that quickly across the street since the 1/12th scale pebbles were slowing it down and it drove more like my Jeep does over a washboarded dirt road.

It decided that it had had enough of driving around when it's "generous" 10 meter range was reached.  It stopped dead in the middle of the street, and a truck was approaching.

My inner 12 year old child decided at this time, it was best to take this yellow thing back into the house before the big red "whistle truck" turned it into a crunched pile of yellow plastic.   That would please the dog but disappoint the moose that owned the thing.

All in all, well worth the $8 price of admission.

Electric Razors and the Disposable Society

Admittedly I am an odd character.

This society has moved so firmly away from "Mend and Make Do" as the British were told during the Second World War and the Austerity years thereafter, that here it is a rare person who knows how to fix something.

Getting my start as a toddler repairing my father's 8-track player (remember those?), broken things became my playground.  If it was broken, a repair would be attempted since, after all, it's already broken isn't it?

Years of fixing radios, TVs and oddball household appliances earned me the curiosity that eventually worked its way into Computer Programming and Project Management.  If there was a piece of software, it could be fixed as well as enhanced.

Sitting here in the living room on a Poang Chair that had it's upholstery replaced, listening to SiriusXM radio on an iPhone 3 that had a broken screen and worn out battery that were replaced, next to the dog who was a rescue from a no-kill shelter, there really is no reason to stop fixing things.

It is probably more accurate to say that the dog rescued me.  After all, she was fine, we were the ones who have benefitted from having her.

This morning, going through the ritual of clicking on and rejecting inappropriate job interview requests in strange places far from home, it was found.  A new electric razor.  The market price for this particular model is $35 in the South Florida Area so it was a good price at $25.

The curious thing was that instead of being able to get the blades themselves at a price cheaper than the whole razor, the razor is cheaper.   Coming with a new blade, the economic choice was to pull out the credit card, go deeper in debt by $25 and change, and get a new razor.   Never mind that the NiCd batteries in these razors will last for the life of three blades before getting annoyingly short.  Never mind that you can shock a NiCD battery back to life with "high current at a high voltage".   The blades cost more than the entire item.

Replacement blades are around the same quality as the razor itself, so why buy those when the whole unit costs as much.

Basically it goes against my "mend and make do" mindset and there was a pang of Green Guilt as the Checkout button was clicked on that razor.  Shouldn't be that way, but it is.  One more step further into the Disposable Society. 

There's a nice collection of these razors in the bathroom vanity.  They have become surplus and diseconomic.  At some point, a visit will be paid to the local flea market with the number for the blades in the back of the mind.   Hopefully there will be someone with a cache of those blades at a more reasonable price. 

In the mean time, the radio in the kitchen still works.  That was repaired after someone tossed it out, batteries still in its compartment and the batteries are still good.  It sits next to the Glider Rocker and the matching Ottoman that were recently cleaned to make them acceptable for someone since they were replaced by a perfectly good second Poang chair and matching Ottoman.

Need one?  What do you have to trade?  We're so very wasteful these days...

How Did You Celebrate Good Riddance Day?

On December 28, 2010, in Times Square, New York City, People were able to celebrate Good Riddance Day.

Good riddance day is a day where you were to gather up your old mementos and take them down to the big shredder truck and have them mulched into oblivion.   Nothing like a little bit of revisionist history to salve the soul, right?

It's not a bad idea.  Cintas was there with a big truck that you could dump old pictures and have them shredded as well as old love letters and other paper objects.  The idea is that you put all those bad old memories into the box and they come out ready to be recycled. 

I remember seeing this sort of thing in a sitcom years ago.  The female lead had just broken up with the boyfriend and instead of cutting his face out of all of the pictures, or using wite-out to blot him out, she gathered up all of the bits and pieces like pictures and letters as well as a teddybear or two and put them into a trash can.  If I remember the story right, she set the can in the middle of the room, tossed in a match and of course the fire got out of control.

This being a sitcom, the woman hooked up with the fireman who came to put out the fire.

Repeat after me... Awwww how cute.

That moment of "squee" aside, its not a terrible idea if it helps you to move on to purge the physical echos of a bad memory.  While you're at it, it is also a good idea to grab those old bank receipts from the 1900s and shred those.  Anything older than 8 years is of questionable worth anyway other than Deeds or Titles.  You certainly don't want to shred your mortgage paperwork until the debt has been cleared, but the Charge bills from your trip to the Beach back in 2001 is not really needed.

I just had this mental thought of hundreds of jilted New York women standing in line with big boxes of papers commiserating over their old relationships and vowing to start fresh in 2011.

Like many people, I've said good riddance to the last few years.  Between world politics, local politics, and other disappointments, things in general have gone with the economy on the broad view.  That is to say, not very well. 

But hopefully we can all just say Good Riddance to it all and 2011 will be the beginning of the next great boom in the economy.  

Sure, and we'll finally be able to come up with a fair progressive tax policy in the US and the world will be full of butterflies and teddybears.

Ok, the butterflies are plentiful in this part of the world at least.   Just yesterday I was out inspecting the flowers and saw another Monarch Caterpillar on the Mexican Milkweed and ...

Going away? Don't be obvious online!

Since Facebook has become the fad of the decade, the CB Radio of the new Millennium, everyone has jumped on here.   I've been fortunate to be able to keep in contact with my family up North, and my friends here in town, as well as those who have moved away.

Social Media is a great way to stay in touch and let those who you care about be involved with your daily life and life's milestones.

There is a problem with that.  Some folks aren't quite so honest.

There is a trend with criminals to watch Facebook, MySpace, Tagged and many other social media for those who are and who will be out of town.  Once you say "Hey, I'm going on Vacation", you may as well put up a sign on the front door saying "Out of town, Help Yourself!".

Lately there have been a spate of robberies of homes by people saying that they've taken the dream vacation.  The vacation was wonderful, we all were entertained with your pictures, but when you got home, we also shared in your loss of your household items.

Being a bit of a security nut, I do not respond to party announcements online openly.   E-Invites are a great way to send out invitations to a lot of your friends, however they fall into the same bucket.  When 150 people know that you are out of the house from 7pm to Midnight for the New Years Party, someone in that list may be considering that the invitation to your new 46 inch flat screen may be just a bit too tempting.

Ok, maybe I am a bit too careful, but these stories are hitting the press a bit too frequently.  Today, there was a write up in the BBC about this happening in the UK.  I have read about this in the local papers in the US as well. 

Unfortunately you can only see the story in the BBC if you are in the UK or have a proxy pointing you there, but here is the link anyway.

Modern life is complex enough, hopefully it won't get any worse by your coming back from vacation and finding your keepsakes gone. 

Halloween Spooktacular

Celeste was right.  She knows what I'll enjoy.

In this case I was with the Wilton Manors Rec Volunteers helping out at this year's Halloween Spooktacular.

This was an event that was primarily for the kids.  In some cases, the kids were well into their 50s and 60s but that didn't matter.  

I got to watch the City Wilton Manors Leisure Services Director, Patrick Cann in a Pirate Outfit act as an Emcee for the Halloween costume contest.  I will say that he looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself, without an "Arrrr!" in sight!  There were costume classes for different age groups from the Adults down to the Kids and everyone did seem to be having a good time.

Celeste introduced me to the rest of the Rec Volunteer board and we sat about displaying the prizes for the later Cake Walk... a contest that takes a fair amount of description on it's own.  The prizes for the Cake Walk were on the order of 86 boxes of cakes, cookies, pies, fudge and other assorted sweet gifts.  This being the main event, the wares were on display for the entire evening until the Cake Walk begun.

Since I arrived at 7pm, and the Cake Walk was not scheduled to begin until 8:30pm, I had some time to explore the grounds at Wilton Manors Elementary School.   I had forgotten just how big the place was since usually I'm driving past it on the way to or from somewhere.   It fills a city block and the athletic grounds were a large enough size that I had a feeling that is a rare one in Urbanized South Florida - I felt exposed.  Usually there are so many trees, plantings and homes when you're in any given town here that everything feels close and intimate.   The grounds were our own little version of Montana Big Sky country where you were away from the trees, away from the buildings and you could see the thunderstorms off in the distance west of I-95 that night.  

The grounds themselves were covered with two Bounce Houses, an inflatable slide, some small bleachers and the basketball court but they didn't give the impression of being crowded.   Add to it the four large orange parking cones to square off the Cake Walk grounds and you have the scene.

For a little bit more than two hours, I enjoyed the hospitality of Celeste Ellich and the ladies of the Rec Volunteers, as well as running into my friends on the Wilton Manors City Commission and some of the electoral hopefuls.  Knowing all of them I had no problem finding something to do or someone to talk to. 

Rounding out the group was the Taste of the Island sponsored snack stand where grilled Burgers and Hot Dogs as well as some bags of chips and soda could be had.  No dogs were grilled to make the hot dogs.

As time went on, people would buy a ticket for a chance at the Cake Walk and stop over to eye the prizes.  I caught myself eying the perfect little white cakes with a single rose or the yellow iced round layer cakes.  So did a lot of people, and the kids weren't shy about wanting one.   There was one particular lady that wanted the German Chocolate Cake and asked us to pray for her to win the cake.  Divine intervention was not to be found because someone else eventually got the cake in the first round of the Cake Walk.

The rules of the Cake Walk were simple, but logistically complex.  The grounds were covered with hundreds of hopefuls.  Everyone was lined up on that big square and they had their tickets.   Each ticket you bought was worth one try at a prize.  The music would play and everyone would shuffle around the square and when the music stopped so did you.   A number and a direction was called and then the officials would count the number of people from the cone you stood in the proper direction.   Left 10 meant the person on this leg of the square that was left of the cone that was 10 people away would get a Winner's ticket and get to choose a prize.   If you had bought another ticket you could get back in line.   Each time the music stopped, four more people got to choose a prize.

Simple right?   Not completely.  Americans being an independent lot tended to bend the rules somewhat, one particular woman didn't show for her prize immediately.  she walked up to the prizes, gave it a look and wandered back into the line.   We didn't know what she was up to so I went to ask - she wanted her kid to look.  While she dawdled waiting for the kid, 200 or more people were left scratching their heads.   I managed to get her back to the prizes and she dawdled some more.  Thanks to some diplomacy from the Treasurer of the Rec Volunteers, she got motivated so we could go back to giving more prizes.

Thankfully that one person didn't win again, but others did win more than once.   The Divine Intervention prize went to a woman dressed as a Nun who won a prize for the costume plus an early cake.   She got selected a third time and came back for some cookies.  

I spotted one very large and tall man with a stack of tickets who must have had the whole block in line - and as such, he ended up winning at least six of the prize treats because at the end of the evening he was walking out with a stack of boxes held up and wedged under his chin.  He didn't drop any but I had to wonder if he made it to the car.

That was at the end of the night, and the field was deserted in another 15 minutes.   I didn't spot too many toddlers who were overwhelmed, although there are one or two in every crowd.  According to the Omaha World-Herald newspaper, the kids under 3 have a problem discriminating between real and make believe so the sight of so many scary monsters and spooky people could have overwhelmed them.  Get past 3 years old and all is well and the wonders of a child's imagination takes hold.

Go Big Red!

All in all, it was a fun and diverse crowd, lots of people in costume, lots of fun and food.  Great night out!

Where do you see yourself in five years

Why do HR People insist on asking that question?

I have a friend who I run into infrequently.  She has a little dog that she walks sometimes near the house and she's going through an interview cycle.  I've been through enough interviews myself to know how dreadful the process is, but she asked that question of me. 

I do know that every single move within an interview is important.  Every Freudian Slip, every gesture, every comment you make will be listened to and analyzed by someone who is trained to do exactly that.  If someone gives a flippant answer to that or any other question, the interview may roll to a stop.   Make a bizarre comment and you may not even roll to a stop, it could end right there. 

Personally I have always thought that it was one of those "What did you do on your summer vacation" questions.   There are no right answers but degrees of wrongness.  Not knowing just exactly what the person is truly asking in this dance that you're doing with one or more strangers is all part of it. 

At my level in Information Technology, there are many paths that I can take.  I can wear many hats.  The problem is that when you're not sitting at a desk banging away at software every day, you end up taking them all at once.  Maybe not specifically "all" of them at once, but multitasking is a very important part of the job.  Ask anyone you know who does any sort of supervisory or managerial position and they will say the same thing. 

After I left my friend I found that question rattling around my empty skull while heading back to the house to park under the ceiling fan with the first mug of coffee.  I would say that at my level longevity and successive progression is the true answer.  I may not be right but that is the answer I give.  If you are in a position like Senior Business Analyst or Project Manager or any of the other ten titles I could easily give myself, learning the company is as important as learning the mechanics of submitting work.  These processes are called the Business Rules and are the official and unofficial way that things happen. 

Sometimes the unofficial ways a company performs its business are much more important than the official.  Think of the golf game that upper management sometimes disappears to play on a Wednesday afternoon.  Maybe that is why I am not an upper manager, I just can't see why hitting a little white ball into a hole down a grassy field is exciting!  It isn't the destination, it is the journey.  I used to work for a School District where I would go with my boss, my boss' boss,  their boss, and various other computer programmers and analysts to a bar for lunch on a Friday Afternoon.   The roster was never the same, some folks came when they could, others were there every week.  The result was an unofficial meeting that would last more than the official lunch hour and usually get twice as much business done over a Hot Roast Pork Sandwich and Guinness than could have ever happened in an official meeting in an enclosed conference room.

The bottom line is, what the State of Connecticut used to use as their speed limits before the first Oil Shock in 73, Reasonable and Proper is more effective than Rigid Rules at making sure that things get done.

So where do I see myself in five years?   Lets see...

Learning to become a better skimmer in the Info Age

You know, this stuff keeps coming back again and again.

People have been actively surfing since the the mid 90s.   Now they're starting to realize that it is adding to the "Short Attention Span Theatre" that we've all come to live with.

First MTV came a long with their flickery treatment on Music Videos.  Everything had to be the Radio Mix, no such thing as the 12 inch or Disco Mix, and people ate it up.   Educational Programming for kids predated that with the Sesame Street treatment of short bursts designed to program the mind for learning.  As a result there seems to be an impatience with the long form of things that started growing. 

I have to wonder if Tolstoy could get War and Peace published today as a result.

Then the web browsers came along with this internet thingy.  People realized that as long as they were connected, one really doesn't need to know just how many isotopes there are of Carbon or just how far north you can grow Durian Fruit. 

You can consult Wikipedia very easily for that sort of thing, and I have included links for that above.

I'm quite guilty of this sort of "knowledge" myself.   I am an IT Manager.  I recommend purchases, software, hardware, and staffing.  I have been asked in the course of one particular day to recommend the purchase of Network Switches, Internet Providers, Collaboration Software, PC Hardware and Software, Security Cameras, Security Camera Recorders, Cable both Network and Video and so on.  

That is also done on two major operating system families as well as their server variants and workstations.

How on Earth do you keep all that in your head?  You don't... or rather you don't particularly need to thanks to the web.  While someone of a generation before me would think that is sloppy, after all you do really need to figure out how to do Calculus in your head and paper in daily life, Don't You?, I've come to realize that it is more important to know how to get the answer not the process.  

That is why you have the Web, Superiors, Peers, and Subordinates in the Workplace, and Blogs as well as other things.

I guess I'll just go with the flow and try to be more flexible.   How about you?

Now where was I going with this... I'll start launching Firefox now....

Olympic Sports or Olympic Entertainment

Hey, I'm with the latter I'm afraid.

Yes, I am the guy who looks at it all and shrugs.  Ok, the pagentry can be fun.  The particular sports men and women are amazing and at the top of their game. 

But the reality is that the act of watching it is merely entertainment to me.  I'm fortunate enough to have been and am a long distance inline skater, even now when the sport has "died".  If you still skate you either are someone who has kids and wants to "bond" with them or you're serious about getting a workout.  I do the latter.  I've skated 21,000 miles to date, and that is a lot of time.  I have actually made some beer money training people to inline skate and have had a phone job interview while on skates doing so.  

Couple that with my volunteer work with the City of Wilton Manors and my Regular Job as IT Manager for a Mall Holding Company, and I just don't have time to watch someone else run around a track or throw a javelin.  Nice, but it doesn't give me anything back but entertainment, and frankly I'd rather watch a movie or something a bit more educational.

I understand that I march to a different drummer.  I was that kid down the block who would rather listen to shortwave radio when everyone else was tuned into the local top 40 station.  I could quote facts on European Parliamentary procedures when many kids could only tell you about Parliament Funkadelic.  I'd listen to P-Funk in the car or when I'm doing something on the PC ... like now.  When I was a pre-teen I had to begin to get into sports and finally got into a good group of friends in High School that taught me the benefits of being active were.  I got very good at bike riding well before distance biking took off as a sport. Later, I eventually took up the weight lifting that I wanted to do when I was in Jr High as well as running.  

Cardio is fun, but I digress...

The point is that not everyone watched the Superbowl or the World Series or now the Olympics.   I prefer my fireworks more close to home and not half way around the world.   If I am going to watch sports I will want to get something out of it that I can apply to my own sport or I'll do so waiting for My Turn To Go In Coach.  Sports Bars are an interesting phenomenon, but definitely not my scene.  Amusing after a beer or three but I'm not a heavy drinker.

I know, its just my opinion, and I do understand that I'm not the only one around that feels that way.  I've always been "Non Herd Mentality" and I probably won't change.  On the other hand I really do enjoy a good tailgate party so if you are having one, have me over and try to teach me why I'm wrong.   I may just come a little closer to the fold, but for now....

Meh!