Good job, Grandma

When Avery was two, she was a real handful. Grandma was watching her one day and nature was calling. Rather than leave Avery out to destroy the house in the two minutes it might take her to run in and out she took Avery into the bathroom with her so she could keep an eye on her.

Avery stood there waiting for Grandma to complete her business.

Avery watched intently and when Grandma was finished she blurted out, "Good job, Grandma!" This was followed by Avery giving her a high five!

Stacy later explained to mom that this was the exact same positive reinforcement she had been giving Avery when she was successful with the potty. Avery was impressed Grandma could do it and she shared her positive reinforcement with her.

Good job, Grandma!!!

Uncle Bryon and Calvin

A few months after Calvin infected everyone with whooping cough, I was back in Arkansas visiting the family. Calvin had moved from his old bedroom to the bedroom above the garage. He no longer had the bunk beds, so we had a mattress on the floor for him as I took his bed while I was visiting.

One morning, I woke up as Calvin woke up about the same time. He stood looking at me and being a gross person, I ripped an enormous fart under the covers and said, "Good morning, buddy!".

He walked out of the room, I figured because he was grossed out by what I did.

Stacy later said he walked into her bedroom and said, "Mom. Uncle Bryon farted. IN MY BED!"

He was MAD!

I just busted out laughing when she told me the story. I'm a guy. Fart stories are just funny.

Happy Birthday!

Don't you hate it when a perfectly good joke goes awry? Especially when the person does not get the joke or fails to connect the dots?

I came across a page while cleaning out one of my boxes Sunday night in preparing to move. I spent 20 minutes trying to come up with the right thing to say on a birthday card I got someone once and the final copy was what I came across on this paper the other night.

~ A few years earlier ~

A few years ago, I was working with this woman and I asked her out. She was a nice, friendly person. I liked her. She seemed friendly enough to me.

She declined, saying she had just gotten out of a really bad relationship and she was not ready to get into a new one. I'm not saying it's not a legitimate reason, but I really didn't care either way. She said no, so I did not ask her again.

As it was, I knew when her birthday was about four months later. I got her a birthday card and after much deliberation, I wrote the following note in it:

I thought giving you a card might be a little risky. For all I know you may have just read a really bad birthday card and you may not be ready to try reading a really great card that you might enjoy, but you wouldn't know it until you read it.

I thought it was hilarious.

She never spoke to me again, but that was not a huge loss.

I distinctly remember Scott S. thought it was extremely hilarious, but then again, he and I think alike on some things. I remember his reaction as I read the first few words and he already knew where I was going with it. "The word 'genius,'" he said, "is so often overused..."

I am the first to say Scott may not be the best to judge. It might've been a little obnoxious, but I got a huge laugh out of it.

A lot of women, but not all, seemed to think it sounded creepy or stalkerish. Must be a gender thing, I guess. How can they not see the humor in it?

Painting FAQ

Last June I painted three rooms in the house and wrote down my "Best Practices" for anyone who is thinking of painting.

1. When painting a ceiling (please refrain from the obvious joke) always go with ceiling paint. This is a specific type of off white that splatters a lot less than regular interior paint. When rolling this paint on, use the thicker rollers to apply.

2. Use a new roller for the final coat. My walls took two coats and the second coat was nicer when I used a new roller. It's worth the cost of the extra roller.

3. If painting a wall an accenting color, use a paint at least two shades darker on the palette otherwise it may be difficult to really notice the paint is darker and not simply a shadow.

4. Don't leave paint trays on a ladder. Check which step you are on (mom) before stepping down. You may be on the second rung, but think you are on the bottom rung.

5. This goes with #4, but Resolve is a fantastic carpet cleaner. Thankfully, when the tray fell off the ladder, it was empty, but it took only 10 minutes to clean it up with the Resolve carpet cleaner. No one could pick the spot where the tray landed wet side down.

6. Have 3x the number of paint stirrers as you have paint cans. 6 paint cans = 18 stirrers.

7. Using tape on the carpet around the baseboards is ABSOLUTELY worth the set up time. It works great.

8. Tape actually saved me time in the long run. Tape around the windows, around painted trim, etc. means you don't need to go back and touch up AGAIN after the paint dries. Get at least 1 inch wide tape.

9. There are more than 70 shades of white. This is useless for a man who only needs one white or one off white to paint trim.

10. Don't mock the help when they have a wet paint roller in their hand.

11. Cheap vinyl shower liners ($2.85 at Walmart) make great drop clothes. Don't spend $20 or more on a drop cloth.

12. Aluminum foil will wrap nicely around a wet brush and keep it wet if you want to take a break from painting and go back later after the break. It works well around a roller as well.

13. Have 1 tapered brush and 2 regular brushes per person. This can allow you to wait until the end of the day to clean up and not periodically cleaning as the day goes.

14. Plastic 16 ounce cups are ideal for holding paint when using a brush. They also pour easily back into the can and are easily disposable.

My Sister's Haunted Crack House, Part II

I was home at Christmas this past year and after the Harrison Christmas party, the ex-girlfriend and I were up until 1:00 AM talking with Tammy, my dad's second wife. Somehow the story of my sister's haunted crack house got brought up, most likely by me and my dad's second wife had a story I had not heard.

During their separation, my dad had injured his back. Tammy went over to the house and he was laying out on the couch in the family room. She gave him his medicine and he decided he would stay out there, so Tammy was going to go sleep in the bedroom.

"Uh-huh," was all my dad said to her.

She went in, shut the door and jumped into bed. When she shut the door, it latched.

Right as she was getting ready to doze off, she heard the door unlatch and it fell open about an inch. She wasn't asleep yet and thought perhaps my dad was coming in for something in the room, but the door never fully opened.

Suddenly the door slammed shut loudly and she sat straight up in bed as it scared the crap out of her.

She got up and pulled the door and it was definitely latched in the door jam. She opened it and was able to look through both open doors and see my dad was still on the couch.

She shut the door and tried to pull it open again, but it was latched in the door jam.

She laid back down and about 10 minutes later, the door unlatched itself again, swinging open about an inch. Then without warning, it slammed itself shut again.

She grabbed the pillow and blanket off the bed and walked out to the couch where my dad was still awake.

"Does that door do that all the time."

"Yep," my dad answered. Turns out that reoccurring event was why he slept on the couch in that house by then. It was not the furnace kicking on causing it, the door did this by itself at night.

"I'm going to sleep in here with you," she said.

***

The next time Tammy visited the house, my dad had moved out and Brandon and Laura had moved in with their new baby.

Tammy had gone over to help her one night with Cole, completely forgetting about the events of her first night in that house taking care of my dad.

As Tammy and Laura were standing in what was Calvin's room, Cole was whimpering as he tried to sleep and Lora was gently touching him. The door that led to the family room unlatched and swung open and suddenly Tammy remembered what happened the first time she was there with the other bedroom door.

Two minutes later, Tammy was standing there when the door then swung back closed and latched. Lora was oblivious to this. Tammy asked her, "Does that door always swing open and shut?"

Laura, not the brightest crayon in the box, said, "Brandon says that when the furnace kicks on, the door swings open and when the furnace kicks off, the door swings shut."

Tammy was standing there and never heard the furnace kick on. We think Brandon told her that so she would not freak out. Tammy could not explain why Lora would believe this story except that she's really gullible.

You could easily hear that furnace kick on in that house when it did. Tammy was momentarily charged up though from witnessing the same thing I had actually witnessed once as I had told Stacy and my dad that night in my mom's kitchen.

Tammy did not return to the haunted crack house after that.

Season 1 of TV's "Roommates" - Now available on DVD!

Now available on DVD, it's Season 1 of "Roommates," the show that examines the lives of an average person in Ohio and his new roommate, The Pope.

***

Episode #1 - "Whine and Cheese"

Bryon throws a wine and cheese party to impress a girl, but the Pope refuses to help his roommate save money by turning water into wine.

Episode #2 - "Holy mess"

Neat-freak Bryon can't stand the way the Pope leaves his Pope robes and hats lying all around the house.

Episode #3 - "Papal Knows Best"

Bryon comes up with a business model to sell Pope Bobbleheads, but The Pontiff smites him down.

Episode #4 - "The Dark Ages"

Hilarity ensues as Bryon helps the Pope overcome his fear of the dark, allowing the Pontiff to sit in the booth for Confession.

Episode #5 - "Treats me like her Brother"

Bryon falls for the Pope's sister who also happens to be a nun (guest starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.) Meanwhile, the Pope is in charge of the Saturday morning pancake breakfast at St. Bernard.

Episode #6 - "Blinded by the Light"

Bryon greatly disappoints the Pope when he runs off to St. Louis to catch a Bruce Springsteen concert after promising to help out at the soup kitchen.

Episode #7 - "Leaping Lepers"

Bryon's big date comes to a screeching halt when he and Beth return to his house and find the Pope tending to lepers.

Episode #8 - SWOT

Bryon uses SWOT analysis to decide it Emily is the right one and the Pope disapproves.

Episode #9 - "Mouse in the House"

Bryon has the weekend to write a 25 page Intopia paper, but the Pope keeps interrupting as he tries to catch a rascally mouse that is loose in the house.

Episode #10 - "The Christmas Special"

Bryon helps The Pope save Christmas for a group of orphans with special guests Willie Nelson, Jessica Simpson and Elvis Costello.

Episode #11 - "Baseball Fatima, Catch It"

Bryon takes the Pope to a Dime-a-Dog night at a Grapefruit league game and The Pope doesn't know whether to cheer for the Angels or the Cardinals.

Episode #12 - "Dyslexic God"

The Pope comes across an injured dog bleeding in an alley. He adopts him and names him Stigmata. Meanwhile, Bryon helps a friend realize she's not dyslexic, she's just stupid.

Episode #13 - "March Madness"

The Pope wants to skip Easter festivities so he can watch Notre Dame in the Sweet Sixteen, so Bryon helps him devise a plan to try to be in two places at once.

Today's late tournament game is actually Xavier!

I am surprised, in a good way, that Columbus will actually get Xavier and Pittsburgh as the local game today.

There's a shift the past few years, channel 10 is actually looking at geography rather than blind allegiance to the Big Ten.

History has shown during my 17 years here that WBNS is blinded by the Big Ten and I fully expected to see Purdue despite both Cincinnati and Pittsburgh being closer in geography than West Lafayette.

WBNS does not have a history of logic when deciding what games to show. Something has definitely changed their mind after years of frustration, trying to talk logic to people who didn't seem open to logic at all. This yearly action was the sole reason I refused to watch 10 TV news for over 15 years after I moved here. I'd watch now except the damage is done and I am loyal to another channel's news show now.

The origins of this aggravation began after I moved to Columbus in 1993.

For years, every time there was a nationally televised Kentucky game on channel 10, it meant we would not get to see it.

The years of complaints must have finally gotten through to someone. Gone are the days of them preempting nationally televised Kentucky games in favor of games like Iowa versus Minnesota (seriously!)

Because of this, I boycotted WBNS 10 TV news. I also urged other UK fans not to watch their news and I can only hope it had some effect in costing them revenue over the years with lower ratings than they should have had. And, yes, they were the #1 news cast for several years locally, but they could have had a larger margin.

Complaints to Doug Parker (Mr. White's predecessor) and to Mr. White (wish I could remember his first name) seemed to fall on deaf ears as they hid behind a lie of claiming there was a contract that forced them to show two teams located 13+ hours away that maybe 100 people in Columbus cared about over a team that was 3 hours South in Lexington, KY that had over 5000 alumni living here.

I still remember complaining quite loudly when the brain dead decision came just a few years ago that we would see UCONN against Indiana locally over #1 North Carolina versus #2 Kentucky. It was because Indiana was in the Big Ten. This was a Mike Davis coached Indiana team that sucked harder than a tornado through a trailer park.

When I spoke with the manager that year (Mr. White,) he actually confessed on the phone to me that they blew it by going with the Indiana game. As I pointed out to him, UCONN and Indiana would be the worst beating since "The Passion of the Christ."

I was actually wrong as the Tar Holes throttled Kentucky, but still, it's like the station never considered the financial impact of the large UK fan base in Columbus and the lost opportunity for commercial revenues through higher ratings by alienating the UK fan base.

It's like they never considered that the Kentucky state line is only two hours South of Columbus or that Columbus has the second largest UK alumni base outside of the state in the US (behind Atlanta.)

These actions had gone on for years and happened the two or three times Kentucky played on CBS. In 1995 or 1996, it wasn't even like the game they wanted us to see was going to have an effect on the Buckeyes being last in the Big Ten that year under Randy Ayers. That year was so bad, they started showing Ohio University games instead of Ohio State on local TV. I think parents felt the violence was too much for children to watch.

And now this recently seems to have stopped. The only time a CBS nationally televised Kentucky game the past few years in Columbus was preempted was for the Buckeyes and I am fine with that since they are the local team.

And it means we get to see an Ohio college today instead of a Big Ten team! Consider just a few years back, we were treated to a Big Team instead of the Dayton Flyers in the tournament.

I am awaiting word from the Vatican to see if this constitutes a miracle.