The 17 year guest...

Three or four weeks ago our little friends began their journey up out of the ground to party. Yes, I'm talking about the 17 year Cicada. I love these things! My first experience with them as a kid was a boy's dream come true. A billion cool bugs to play with. You could not walk on the sidewalk without reenacting a scene from Godzilla (me) and hundreds of puny Japanese citizens (the bugs)...Stomp, Stomp. I can't even tell you how many wings I pulled off to make my Cicada wing stain glassed window project (glued em to a paper plate). My favorite thing was to pick the up by the wings and hold them in my hand, shake them a bit and listen to the crazy unique buzzing chirp they make. Now you will be glad to know that is the only thing from my boyhood I still do.
When I was a kid a team from U of I came out to Western Springs to do bug counts on trees. We were in awe of these guys especially when it came time for lunch. They were pulling the white transitional Cicada from their shells and popping them in their mouths. HOW COOL IS THAT? I had four guys I ran with back then and we dug in our pockets to raise enough money to pay another kid to eat one. Steve Hoadley was his name, loved that guy, let me drive his car when I was only 15. Married and lives in Gurnee...I digress. Steve agrees to eat one for a buck fifty. We stood in a semi-circle as the U of I guys showed him how to do it. Slowly the bug comes out of the shell and Steve holds it by his mouth. The College guys advise him not to look at it so what does he do? Of course, he looks at it squirming around. He closed his eyes and popped it in. On the first chew the bug came out along with his breakfast, heck I think I even saw the Milkduds he ate the week before, I even saw the mythical undigested gum that lives in your stomach for seven years laying on the ground (y'all ever hear that one?) We gave him the money, well deserved. Even though he puked, he still has bragging rights to this day. My brother had a friend that pulled the heads off of at least fifty of the beetle stage Cicadas and threaded them on a string and made a necklace. the heads continued to move for several hours, how cool was that?
Every time I see and hear the drone of the mating call of the these little friendly guys, the flood of childhood memories comes back...

If you have them, get outside and play with these harmless creatures, be sure to check out the beauty of the wings...amazing

The Desert...

Every now and then you get a seed planted in your head and it sticks there. My old friend Mark lived in Sierra Vista AZ for quite a while. When we met in piano tuning school years ago, he told stories of where he lived, not far from Tombstone and the odd town that is Bisbee. Back in 82, my whole concept of geography was Chicago and the Mid-west. I would question Mark about the desert and AZ. You know things like "wait a minute, you mean you really have seen a tumble weed rolling down the street?" and "come on, does it really get that hot?" I had no clue. In my service to the evil health insurance empire, I was able to spend quite a bit of time in AZ, mainly Scottsdale and Tucson.
For 6 years I spent about 8 weeks a year out there. At one point during the peak of the hot monsoon season it would cool down to 100 by 10pm. So I guess that answers that question... IT GET'S FREAK'N HOT! The desert also smells like a wet dog when it rains. I was driving up in the mountains East of Phoenix and sure enough I saw a real live (well dead) tumbleweed. I was amazed, I wanted to get out and pick it up but the local I was with out of embarrassment wouldn't let me. A real cowboy tumbleweed and I couldn't pick it up, didn't seem fair to me but by the look of shock on my friend's face, I could tell I tipped my hat showing me to be a real tourist. I finally got out and walked around in the desert. Every plant out there...well can hurt you. I learned quickly not to touch or smell anything.
On one trip to Tucson, I decided to stay a couple of extra days and go see the areas that Mark talked about. My friend Brian flew out and joined me on my little adventure. We started off in Tombstone and did the touristy things, heck we even did the old fashioned picture thing.





Shush...









Now Mark did warn me about the tourist stuff so I was more anxious to get down to Bisbee. Bisbee was a mining town tucked into valley about 15 miles North of the Mexican border. Abandoned in the early 70's, the hippies and artists moved in and made it their own. I was exploring the town and saw an article in the local paper about how the performance art of hammering nails though your privates into a board at the community center was stretching the boundries of good taste even for Bisbee. The follow ups from the locals was "LET HIM DO IT!" Wacky town. We had a great meal at the Copper Queen hotel and went on our way. I was so drawn to the town I went back on my next trip and hung out for the day. I heard live music coming from a pub and went in...whoa, a band from Tucson was playing and there was an element of calm there that I couldn't put my finger on. The crowd was gracious and nice. I saw old, young, fat, short tall, good looking, not so good looking, and a few that were missing some teeth...
As a rock waltz was being played, I saw a HUGE biker guy dancing with an older woman in her 80's. It was so surreal to see this guy who could crush me with his pinkie finger, cradling the frail woman in a sweet and graceful dance. I felt like I was in "the Brick" the bar from Northern Exposure.
If you are near there stop by, worth the detour... It was late when I made my way back to Tucson and driving though the desert, I could see the lights of Sierra Vista off in the distance (I assumed according to my map) but the thing that blew me away was that I could see at least a gazzilion stars. I stopped to pee in the desert and looked up. I almost fell over. My whole knowledge of the night sky was based around the orange glow of Chicago's sodium vapor lights. You could actually see the milky way (kim told me later what I was looking at) A black sky with a band of starts which some would mistake as clouds...amazing.
I think I figured out how AZ got settled. Back in the early days the settlers were on their way through in January and ol' Zeke claimed it to be Paradise. They ate their horses and settled in. July hits an ol' Zeke was made to change his name to Idiot.

Thanks Mark for planting the seed!

Memorial Day

Here it is, Memorial day. I bought my poppy from a vet. I watched a John Wayne war movie. What next? Last night Kim, my friend Steve and I went to the Scnitzle Platz to see Dad play some German music with a few French tunes thrown in...
Over my right shoulder was a huge old smoker that wasn't in use anymore with a picture of the Bismark proudly hanging from it. The Chef has some connection to that battleship and loves to tell the story of how it was sunk... "The Allies didn't sink her, the crew scuttled it." OK, take pride but of all the places to hang the picture, on an oven? Am I the only one that finds that a wee bit unnerving? I watched my father perform and thought about all he's been through in his 83 years here. From my Grandmother dragging him and his accordion on the streetcars of Chicago to take lessons when he was a boy to his service in the navy. He played the club circuit from Iowa to Ohio, developing a 60 year reputation for music and comedy that is still going strong to this day.

Why do I say this? I took a trip with Dad to Washington DC so we could honor the war dead of his generation. It was surreal to be standing at the WWII memorial with one of the funniest men I know and have humor, one of Dad's greatest strengths, no where to be found. I listened to his stories and admired what he did as a 18 boy. Heck at 18 I still didn't have tying my shoes quite down yet.

In WWII alone the figure stands around 415,000 dead. To say "thank you" just isn't enough to say to all the war dead in America's military history. When you see a memorial don't just look at it as a statue. Honor the men and women and the stories it represents.

A true production story

I was out in Scottsdale teching a meeting for our new masters of acquisition, This company bought the outfit I work for back in January of 06. When they took over they fired all support people that run our meeting rooms. The hospital and doctor network group booked a meeting in our training theater in Scottsdale but what they didn't fully understand is that the FIRED everyone who runs these meetings. I get a last minute call to fly out here and help them out, no problem, that's what I do.

My day started out at 5:30am prepping the room, why? they FIRED...ok, enough already.
anyhoo....The room was fully running with last weeks presentations blazing on my system. No one shut it down, crap everywhere. I set the room and get ready to greet the participants. The first people arrive and start throwing presentations at me to start loading, cd's, floppy's,usb drives. Thank goodness for a laptop with a cd burner! So far 28 presentations with no order. People I don't even know are looking at me with a "where's mine?" look on their face. 8am until 5 pm non-stop blah blah blah... 6pm until 7 cocktail party, 7pm until 10 dinner in our banquet room on site. Issue, automated building control turning the air off after 6 pm. After several phone calls I realize these folks are going to be hot. Second issue since they FIRED everyone who takes care of events like this, The new guys never applied for a temp liquor license for the evening. Sweating exec's with no beer. Now we can carry in but the caterer can't. Solution The VP of Networks and I are over in the Bar of the hotel next door ordering cases of beer and bottles of wine. These poor people were just melting. Women were uh....glowing? ok, the sight of streaming makeup was not pretty. Fillet Mignon on the plates and me going from table to table with cardboard cases of beer. With sweat dripping off of my nose, I get an approving nod from the VP. Here's where it gets odd, well more odd... I get to a table of ladies that have just given up. They are yelling threats from a menopausal heat related nature. I quickly grabbed 2 cold beers and placed them on the neck of the most dangerous looking woman. She screamed with delight....soon I had all the ladies supplied with beer neck coolers. One pulled out a dollar and shoved it in my pants. I look up to see the same VP shaking his head....let's just say I walked away 4 dollars richer. Kim does know...lol.
I am so glad the fired me!

His genius...my horror.

I thought I'd share the events of an evening a while back with you other old married guys. It's no secret that your fair drummer has his share (heck our share too) of women hanging around him like Vultures hanging around fresh road kill. Matt and I caught up last night for a post holiday catch up dinner. After a fine dinner and a couple of Guinness's we walked over to Features just so Matt could see if there were any women there to ditch me for. We walk out after an unsuccessful hunt to be met by 3 girls in their mid 20's. Matt looks at me and says "Go with me" before I could ask "GO WHERE?" He breaks into a Scottish accent claiming he's from Glasgow and he's here for a few days and wanting to know if we could go with them... How lame, yet they reply.....SURE!!!! huh? you've got to be kidding me. It worked? We follow them to another bar with Matt and the girls walking in the parking lot and me 20ft away on the sidewalk scratching my head wondering how the heck he did that. They all sit at a table, order drinks and I excuse myself to the restroom. I come back to the 4 of them laughing and chatting....The one girl says "what part of Glasgow are you from?" to which Matt replies in perfect American "Washington State" AWWW they're are going to kill him now...."That was a great accent, you're too much" and all that other crap. If I tried that, I'd wind up with a face full of pepper spray, crying like a baby and wetting myself while they all laughed. In amazement I watched Matt work 2 of the girls for quite a while when the third girl looked at me and blurted...

"aww hunny, your head is just the wrong shape to pull off a ..1
(electric trimmier) haircut.."

huh? "and you should shave that thing off of your face, I'm a hair
stylist, you should let me fix you when your hair grows out."
Gee.....thanks? MATT!!! HELP!!!....nope, working, working, working. I was in the presence of a master. I lasted a few more minutes before I bailed leaving Matt and the ladies behind.

His genious......my horror...

A bad flight story...

On a recent flight I settled into my usual seat and prepped myself for a 4-hour flight out West. A mother gets onboard and has seat 1D, being a bulkhead there’s no room in front of her to store baby gear and such. The flight attendant asked if anyone would be willing to change seats with her. I obliged. I take my new seat, to the right of me was a man reading a model train magazine, to my left across the isle? A large man looking quite uncomfortable, grimacing with pain. 15 minutes into the flight the man on my right was reading his magazine and digging in his nose. I naturally started leaning to my left only to see the other man lifting a cheek and filling the pressurized tube we were all in with his flatus. This guy was grunting the whole flight and every time I looked, the guy on my right was buried in his nose up to his second knuckle. What the heck is wrong with people? The flight attendant saw the disgust on my face and motioned me to the galley. She asked what was wrong and I told her. Feeling sorry for putting me in that situation, she poured me double bourbon. As much as I enjoy bourbon, it didn’t make up for the behavior of the pigs on board. Is it too much to ask that people just not be gross?

Such is life...


I forgot. The same flight attendant informed me that she and her fellow crew mates call people who pass gas while flying......Crop dusters

Happy Mothers Day!

Ode to my incredible shrinking mother?