SHERMAN SWAT

So I got to the office really early this morning and as I pulled up into the parking lot it became apparent that I was the first one there. I usually work from home and when I do go to the office I'm for sure never the first one there. So when we had a security system installed several months ago I didn't pay much attention because I figured I'd never have to use it. So today was the day I had to face the security system. I remembered my pass code but wondered if there were other buttons that had to be pressed in addition to the pass code. You see once you open the door you only have a certain amount of time to disarm the system. When that time is up you had better cover your ears because it's going to get loud. I sat in my car for a few minutes listening to the radio, hoping someone else would pull up, but no one showed. So finally I got out, unlocked the door, went in, and heard the system beeping. I go to the key pad and punch in my code. When I do this the beeping stops so I think to myself, "hmmm, that must have disarmed it." Before I could complete that thought the thing started going off. Alarms are not quiet my friends. They hurt your ears. So on top of my ears hurting I was expecting the SWAT team to come flying through the windows at any moment to take me away to jail. I called my boss to tell her what I had done and she laughed at me a lot. I'm glad she thought it was funny though. I've had plenty of bosses who would not have been as amused. She arrived minutes later and sure enough the police showed up just after she did. I was acquitted of any wrongdoing and set free, but not without more laughs from my boss. Everytime someone new came in the office she would laugh and say, "hey, Craig set off the alarm this morning." It made me laugh and was a pretty sweet start to the day.

MY STATE OF DEPRESSION

I think the title sums up my past couple of days in regards to what happened to our great basketball team here in Dallas. We lost ... I'm depressed ... it's okay, I'll get over it sometime before next season. That's all I want to say regarding this and will now move on to some of the other thoughts flying through my head lately. In bulleted form of course. Enjoy!

-I'm not a fan of soccer. I played as a kid and enjoyed that but as an adult I just can't get into it. I get the fanfare and I think that is cool. But we already have that here. It's called college football. I just heard that the U.S. got beat and is now out of the World Cup. Thank goodness. I'm tired of hearing about it on Sportscenter. Everyone said our team was going to be pretty good and should have easily made the next round. I think the Iraq war was only supposed to last a few months and then our guys would come home to a ticker tape parade. I think the Greeks (the ancient ones) called it hubris.

-I got some new Converse All-Stars this past weekend.

-I sometimes equate hotdogs to Krispy Kreme doughnuts. At the time you feel like you can eat 4 or 5 comfortably, but then later your body reminds you it is only cut out for about 3. It was $1 hotdog night at the Rangers game lastnight. Enough said.

-In regards to the previous point, it's sad when you can buy 6 hotdogs for the same price as one watered down beer.

-I have a couple of new ... and by new I mean this has happened within the past 6-8 months ... places to eat. As a child I was not a fan of the Chinese food. And although I'm sure this would be considered the farthest thing from actual Chinese food I've still become a huge fan of Pei Wei and Panda Express. I prefer Panda while it's light outside and Pei Wei when it's dark. I don't know why.

-We're in a stage 3 drought here in North Texas and in McKinney you can only water your yard on your trash day and only before 10:00 a.m. or after 6:00 p.m. So now when people ask what I'm doing on Wednesday night I say I'm staying home to water the yard. I'm such an old man. But if I don't get it done I have to wait an entire week to water my already dried up excuse for a lawn.

-Does anyone know if you can die from Tetanus? And if you get it do the symptoms get progressively worse or just sort of stay the same while quietly eating away at the inside of your body? The reason I ask is because last weekend I got a small cut on my hand from an old tape measure. The tape was broken at one point and it cut me. I didn't think much about it but the next morning my left jaw was kind of sore and hard to open. It's been this way all week and I'm wondering if I have lockjaw. It hasn't gotten worse but it hasn't gotten better. Any doctors out there? I think I probably had a tetanus shot a few years ago but I'm not 100% sure. I would just go to the doctor but apparently my insurance I get through work isn't as good as I thought. I thought I was supposed to have like a $25 copay for doctors visits. I just got a bill in the mail from my doctor for $53. The total bill was only $75. Nice to know I'm being taken care of.

-In a related story, I was telling Allison that I think I might have tetanus and she kept accidentally referring to it as tetris. I hope you don't have tetris .... damn it ... I mean tetris ... crap I did it again. TET ... AAA ... NUS.

-Speaking of Tetris ... I remember in college how my roomates/friends and I got really addicted to that stuff. Whoever was sitting at the computer usually played for hours on end. It got so bad that when I would lay down to go to sleep at night I would close my eyes and instinctively start to visualize tetris pieces falling into place. I asked around and apparently I wasn't the only person that happened to. I think Tetris is one of the greatest games ever. Along with Super Mario Bros. of course ... and maybe Halo .... and Donkey Kong. Not Mortal Combat though.

-The Rangers won today. Woohoo!

ANYONE SPOT THE FOUL?

TRYING NOT TO ACT LIKE A SPURS FAN

I can't remember a time recently that I've been this pissed. I hate to make excuses and I for sure hate the complain about the officiating in a basketball game but give me a freakin' break. The Heat shooting close to 4 times more free throws than the Mavericks in game 5 is ludacris. I understand that one team may be attacking the basket more than the other team but there just can't be this type of discrepancy. And then to call a foul with 1.9 seconds for a guy putting his hand on the shooters back is insane. You cannot let the game be decided from the free throw line like that unless it is a totally obvious foul. All that coupled with the Stackhouse suspension which adds fuel to an already furious fire has really gotten me worked up tonight. Now for a little less biased talk. First of all, Dwayne (or however he spells it) Wade is awesome. He has a lot of that Jordan look about him when he gets the ball in his hands. You can bring your best defense but if he's on his game there is little you can do to stop him. Shaq is a joke from the free throw line. Dirk is one of my favorite Mavs players of all time so it kills me that he is really choking on this stage. I know he is playing against tougher defense in Haslem than he has been used to during most of the finals, but if he is going to be the superstar that people claim he is or can be then he has to find a way to get his game on track. He has missed so many open jump shots. And the free throw misses when it was clutch time are inexcusable. Jet Terry has been amazing and I think almost single handedly kept us in this series. If we win the series I think he has to be a serious MVP candidate ... at least based on his performance thus far. I would like to give a huge middle finger to the Dallas media. All I've heard from them up until a few days ago was how the Mavs were going to sweep the series and the Heat didn't have a chance. Were these people not around 2 years ago when the Lakers went up 2-0 on the Pistons only to lose the next 4 games? So guys, give me a break and have a little perspective. Read your classics so you'll understand that hubris is not a good thing for anyone to display after only getting half way to the championship. And all that talk about the parade doesn't help either. So let's welcome our team back to Dallas, rally around them and get the job done on Tuesday night. Until then ...

MIDDLE FINGERS TO THE HIGHLAND PARK POLICE DEPT

So here are my thoughts on state inspection stickers. You pay 39.50 to get that little sticker on your car. After a year if you don't pay another 39.50 you are subject to receiving a citation from a police officer. Usually if you get a ticket you can get the inspection done in 10 business days or less and have it dismissed. So let's say I go 4 months past the expiration before I get a ticket and have to cough up another 39.50. That means that I have now reduced the cost of the previous year from 39.50 to (hold on while I get a calculator) 29.62. The longer I'm able to go without getting a ticket, the less I pay per year for the inspection. You follow? Once my inspection sticker has expired I try to be a little more cautious and aware of cops around me.

So last week I was going over to Allison's apartment to watch LOST when the following string of events occurred. First of all I usually drive down her alley in order to come around to the front of the apartment and park without having to turn around in the street as you can only park on one side of the street. There was a car blocking the entrance so I went to the front. There is a weird intersection just past her apartment where I turned left. I could have sworn I stopped here but as I was unaware of my impending run in with the lawdogs so I forgot to make a mental note. I turn lefta and go on about my business. I couldn't find a parking spot so I make a u-turn back to the same intersection. This time I notice a cop sitting at the intersection so I make it a point to stop. I turn right and pull in front of the apartment building. Immediately this guy is behind me with lights flashing. Long story even longer, I got two tickets. One for my inspection sticker being out of date (no problem) and one for running the stop sign. I am almost positive I didn't run it but I figured if I tried to question or fight this he would end up having it on video and I didn't need that waste of time or pride. So on the ticket it actually states that I rolled through the stop sign at 3 mph. That's right people. 3 mph. Where I come from that is more than a stop. You know what you get for rolling through a stop sign at 3 mph? You get to pay the city of Highland Park $188. What the hell? I try to have a healthy appreciate for law enforcement but this jackass makes it very hard. Someone was probably knocking over a liquor store while he was writing me a ticket for rolling through a stop sign.

So I salute the men and women of the Highland Park police dept. And I do so with two birds raised high and pointed in your direction.

Reflections from Wisconsin

So this past weekend I went to Marshfield, WI (don't ask me to point it out on a map because I can't) for the wedding of my friend Shane. Below you will find the highs, lows and a few points from somewhere in between.

-Midwest Airlines is my new favorite airline. If you ask, "is it the Southwest of the midwest?" I would say, "yes." I studied this company in college but have never flown with them before. The entire plane is first class style ... i.e. 2 seats on each side instead of 3, big leather chairs with a console in between, footrests, etc. Everyone in the company was extremely helpful and nice and to top it all off when you walk down the jetway you catch the smell of freshly baking chocolate chip cookies. That's right, they bake them on board and serve them hot and chewy. Delicious.

-Midwest Connect is now my least favorite airline. This is the little tiny puddle jumping prop plane I took from Milwaukee to Mosinee, WI. It was an hour long flight and the first 30 minutes were fine. The final 30 minutes were like riding the Texas Giant rollercoaster for a half hour at 15,000 feet. I almost lost the delicious cookies from the earlier flight. At one point the butts of all 20 passengers (that's right, 20 passengers and the flight was full) came out of their seats. Everyone's hands were flung up over their heads and audible gasps were heard from everyone. Several times I wondered if the pilot really knew how to fly. He would speak on the intercom but the plane was so loud no one could hear him. At one point I wondered if he was saying, "ladies and gentlemen please prepare for a crash landing." That wouldn't have surprised me that much.

-I made some great new friends this weekend. It's cool how people from totally different parts of the country can mesh so well and have such a great time. You can meet some of them on my myspace page if you're so inclined.

-You know how at a reception in Texas you have a glass of water and then usually your only other option (other than alcohol) is iced tea? Well if you're in Marshfield, WI and it's the middle of DairyFest then your other option is milk. I saw a waitress with a tray full of milks and thought it must be for some poor kids whose mom makes them drink milk at dinner. But then I saw tray after tray of milk going out to the tables. I only drink milk if it accompanies chocolate chip cookies, oreo cookies or a peanut butter sandwich so I refrained. But I thought it was cool.

-Stretch limos can't make it over the same types of humps that regular cars can go over.

-I think the open bar is one of the greatest inventions of all time. Seriously. Name something more genius than that.

-Apparently at a reception if everyone starts hitting their glasses with a spoon that means the bride and groom have to make out. I had never seen this before but apparently it's pretty common. Seems kind of annoying to me. But then again, I wasn't the one getting to make out.

-This was one of the top 5 weddings of which I've been involved. The reception lasted almost 7 hours. That's right. 7 hours. We had dinner at 6:00 and then ordered a lot of pizzas around 10:00. How cool is that? 11 piece swing band for the entertainment. And all the rail drinks you could consume.

-Apparently in Texas we call them wells and not rails (see above point)

-So I'm standing at the front of the church (I was a groomsman and that's usually what groomsmen do) during the wedding and they start to play the first song. As the intro goes on I'm thinking, "what in the world is this song?" And then as the lyrics starts it hits me. I then think, "please tell me you're not playing a Rascal Flats song in the middle of your wedding." It was true. I would be really pissed if someone tried to play that song in my house so I can only imagine how God must have felt.

-On the plane ride home I sat next to a 10 year old kid that was wearing one of those cheese head hats. I don't think he was wearing it out of pride for his state or their football team. I guess he either thought it would keep the sun out of his eyes, or he thought everyone was wearing them. Regardless, it made me laugh.

-Wisconsin was wonderful and I'd go back anytime but it was so great to step off the plane into 95 degree weather and go straight to the home of some friends for a dinner of Frito chili pie and Shiner Bock. Thanks so much friends for the welcome back.