Samantha’s first snow Dec 2nd 2007. This is also a test post for Viddler.

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I have to share the adventure my daughter and I had at Home Depot. We were in search of some sand paper for a little project. After about 45 minutes of showing Samantha all of the cool Bosch power tools and Stanley hand tools, we paid the $2.99 for a pack of sand paper and started to the car. We were about to reach the car when this guy said, “pardon me sir” (red flag). No one in a Home Depot parking lot says, “pardon me sir.” It’s more like “hey dude” or “hey man.” You know, stuff guys say to guys they don’t know in a parking lot without sounding too gay. He stated he needed my help, and then he stopped and said “what beautiful baby you have” (red flag). He continued with “I’m on my way to see my new born baby girl and my car had a flat. I would like to see if you could help me with a few dollars to get it fixed.”

As I’m trying to get my baby into the back seat, I check this dude out. He’s in a big black parka with a stocking cap. Not too out of place for Minnesota in January but today it’s near 50 degrees and it’s been -15 or so for weeks. Today feels like June. Everyone is wearing t-shirts and jeans. He’s holding a large set of keys with a lot of key rings on it, something a twelve-year-old girl would have. Must be a prop for his story (red flag). Seeing that I’m not falling for this line of crap, he starts with a different angle to this classic story. “Anything will help. You see sir, I left my house so fast to pick up my wife and my four-day-old baby girl, I forgot to bring my wallet (red flag). I have no credentials on me but if you give me your home address I will promise to mail out a check to you today.” Do I look that stupid that I would give this guy money let alone my home address? And what’s up using the word credentials (red flag yet again)?

By this time I now have Samantha in the back seat and the door close. She is now safe. I look around for any other scammers, they never work alone, and see none. I now place the stroller in the back. Seeing I am about to get in my car he tries again. “Sir, I met this guy down the street that has a tire to sell me for $32. I have my wife and four-day-old baby girl in the car right over there.” He points over there. Good try dude, I say to myself. Now it’s time to say something to him. “Sorry man, my wife gives me no money and my only card just got maxed out.” So I told him a little white lie. He looks around and just walks away. I watch as he walks off and gets into a car two rows away, not to his wife and four-day-old baby in that car over there with the flat tire, but in a car with three other dudes in parkas. As I’m leaving the lot I see the same dude doing the same scam to some other guy and it looks like he’s striking out again.

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I came upon this blog/religion as I was reading marialanger.com. It’s nice to see that I am not all alone in my thinking when it comes to ID and pasta. Mmmmm… Pasta… with a little basil, garlic and extra virgin olive oil, now that’s a religion baby! Below is a little blurb that came from The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s blog. Enjoy.

About: The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, while having existed in secrecy for hundreds of years, only recently came into the mainstream when this letter was published in May 2005.

With millions, if not thousands, of devout worshippers, the Church of the FSM is widely considered a legitimate religion, even by its opponents - mostly fundamentalist Christians, who have accepted that our God has larger balls than theirs.

Some claim that the church is purely a thought experiment, satire, illustrating that Intelligent Design is not science, but rather a pseudoscience manufactured by Christians to push Creationism into public schools. These people are mistaken. The Church of FSM is real, totally legit, and backed by hard science. Anything that comes across as humor or satire is purely coincidental.

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Some quotes from a few firefighter web sites and fire forums. If you have any good quotes fire related or not, just post them as a comment. My all time favorite has to be The HazMat green monkey quote. If I’m at a Fire scene or anywhere, and see anything Green, Glowing and running the other way, I plan to be one step behind it. Well, enjoy you TurkeyHeads!!!

• “You need only two tools: WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn’t move and it should, use WD-40. If it moves and shouldn’t, use the duct tape.”

• “We protect the public from themselves.”

• “It is easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”- Adm. Grace Murray Hopper

• “Never argue with an Idiot. They drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experience!”

• “I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize what you heard is not what I meant.”

• “For all the life of me, I can’t see a firefighter going to hell. At least not for very long. We would end up putting out all the fires and annoying the devil too much.”

• “Success is when Skill meets Opportunity - Failure is when Fantasy meets Reality”

• “Mmm… The more I learn the less I seem to know!”

• “No one ever called the Fire Department for doing something smart…”

• “There are two types of people in the world, the quick and the dead.”

• “Pardon me Chief… but I believe the fire is over here!

• “If my basic HazMat training has taught me nothing else, it’s that if you see a glowing green monkey running away from something, follow that monkey!”

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It’s Thursday Jan 17th 2008 at 20:30hrs central time and it’s very cold outside and it’s going to get F#@*ing cold this weekend. Glad I’m staying inside… wait, I’m a Firefighter and I have shifts Friday and Sunday. Shit!!! Is it too late to call in sick? Can’t! ‘Cause we don’t get sick day’s. Maybe we’ll get a house fire or better yet a strip mall fire. That would keep us warm. Never will happen, we can’t even get a car fire here.

This is what I wrote on Thursday. The above photo is the house fire we went to on Friday. Well it’s a Trailer Home on fire and It’s not our fire. Lake Johanna had the fire and we were mutual aid for them. We were 2nd due to a Trailer Home fire. COOL! We stayed warm for a little while. My crew did a Great job. I got stuck at the hydrant then I went to RIT (Rapid Intervention Team). I stayed in the cold. Does anyone care?

Sunday Jan 20th 2008 04:30 hrs the tones go off for a fire at a chemical waste treatment plant. The temp was -14 with the wind chill at -26. The fire was small but being a possible HazMat site, everything went slow. At 07:30 hrs everyone started returning back to the station. The first due Engine was frozen; it took the rest of the day to thaw out. The rest of the day was busy with busted pipe calls and false alarms, add in 5 or so medical runs and you start to dream of summer in the Keys’ or winter in the Keys’. It should be in the 20’s by Friday. Everyone will be in shorts by then. This is Minnesota in January, donch know.

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Look how many Google weather icons I found. Cool. Remember I’m a TurkeyHead!

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It’s Thursday Jan 17th 2008 at 20:30hrs central time and it’s very cold outside and it’s going to get F#@*ing cold this weekend. Glad I’m staying inside… wait, I’m a Firefighter and I have shifts Friday and Sunday. Shit!!! Is it too late to call in sick? Can’t! ‘Cause we don’t get sick day’s. Maybe we’ll get a house fire or better yet a strip mall fire. That would keep us warm. Never will happen, we can’t even get a car fire here.

I just came back from filling the cars with gas. The weatherman said if you have less than 1/2 tank of gas in the car the fuel line can freeze. Sounds scary. Wonder if he gets kickbacks from the Oil companies? The Weathermen did it in Florida. Every time a Hurricane would start to come near South Florida, the News stations would start showing the thing on radar and the Weathermen and Weatherwomen (South Florida has a lot of Healthy Weatherwomen) would scare the Hell out of you. Everyone runs to Publix (Grocery store), Home Depot and the gas stations and buys everything in sight. The newspapers did a story on them and found out some were getting kickbacks from all of the business. See, I’m a Florida boy that moved to Minnesota three years ago. Why you ask, well… that’s a story for another post. Right now I’m just glad my cars have gas.

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Nine Bowl games vs SEC teams and nine losses. Maybe next year. Maybe with Georgia? A TurkeyHead from down south e-mailed this to me the other day. GO LSU!!! GO SEC!!!

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Plenty to be learned from bowl season

David Fox
Rivals.com College Football Staff Writer

Most impressive conference: SEC
Not only did the SEC claim the national title among its two BCS bowl wins, it won only one fewer bowl game than the Big Ten, Big East and ACC combined. The SEC’s only losses came to Orange Bowl-snub Missouri (ranked fourth to finish the season) and Michigan (ranked 18th). The most convincing wins for the SEC came in the BCS, when LSU and Georgia beat one-loss Ohio State and undefeated Hawaii, respectively, by a combined 45 points.

Conference bowl records

1. SEC 7-2, 2-0 BCS
2. Big 12 5-3, 1-1 BCS
3. Mountain West 4-1
4. Pac-10 4-2, 1-0 BCS
5. Big East 3-2, 1-0 BCS
6. Conference USA 3-2
7. Big Ten 3-5, 0-2 BCS
8. Sun Belt 1-0
9. WAC 1-3, 0-1 BCS
10. Independents 0-1
11. MAC 0-3

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Notice how bullets bounce off superman’s chests, but the moment the villain throws the empty revolver, this same invincible superman ducks. Shouldn’t the revolver bounce off his chest too?

When statistics claim that the sum of all the stars in the sky are about four billion, people believe it. But, when someone sees a sign on a park bench or board stating “wet paint”, they must verify this?

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