Wednesday, 5/9

I’ve given some serious thought recently to waxing my legs.

Oh, laugh you may, but the thoughts have indeed been serious. Because of the ever-lingering cold weather, I haven’t been able to wear shorts much yet (which I try to do every day it’s over, say, 32 degrees). Since I’m not wearing shorts, my pants stay on. And since one usually wears socks with pants; well, let’s just say that the fur on my legs gets awfully itchy by the time my day is done and my socks get removed. Loraine laughs at me on a nightly basis as I sit on the bed and scratch my legs, which leads me to think that, if only to stop both her laughing and the itching, I should get rid of the hair on my legs.

Right now, I imagine every woman reading this is chuckling hysterically. After all, guys have it SOOOOO much easier than women when it comes to the physical maintenance part of being an adult; I know some men who just sniff their pits and, if they don’t pass out, think they’re set for the day. Women, however, endure the application of makeup, the fixing the hair on the head, the removal of hair on the rest of their body, and so much more. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it is.

Now, because the majority of my friends are women, and because some of them treat me as a close girlfriend, I’ve been subjected to horror stories regarding hair removal, and I know that I’m WAAAAAY too wimpy to have hot wax poured on my legs, much less then endure the pain of having the fur on my legs ripped off. I mean, maybe my calves and shins; I scrape those up enough exercising so that I’m thinking they’re toughened up a bit. But my thighs?

OUCH!!!

I have a low pain threshold as it is, and I can’t imagine what THAT particular ripping process feels like, especially as you get further up the thigh. That’s tender skin up there!

Well, now that I’ve written this and made myself all squeamish, I guess I’m just gonna have to keep scratching every night. Well, that, and hope the weather gets and stays warmer soon so I can start wearing nothing but shorts for four or five months. After all, that hasta happen sometime soon. . .

Right?

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 5/8

I'm glad they were able to pay him a visit.

Some of you may know about the Marquette Senior High School “We The People” team, a group of students who just went to Washington DC to take part in a national scholastic competition. They didn't win, but they did have the time of their lives there, including an unexpected—but highly appreciated—visit to a grave.

Let me explain—I received a call last week from Fred Cole, who teaches A.P. Government at the High School and who is the coach of the team. Fred & I used to live next to each other, where we would spend hours on certain winter mornings shoveling out our adjoining driveways and sidewalks. Anyway, the “We The People” team had ordered a wreath that they had planned on placing at the Vietnam Memorial but the wreath was delivered a day late. Knowing of Loraine's research, he wondered if there was someone from Marquette buried at Arlington National Cemetery, which was one of their stops the next day. He figured that if there was someone from Marquette buried there the kids could place the wreath at that person's grave.

As it turns out, there is. Alfred “Jo Jo” Clement was one of two men from Marquette killed in early September, 1944, trying to cross the Moselle River near the small town of Dornot, France. The body of the other, Sam DePetro, was recovered after the war and sent back to Marquette, while Clement's body wasn't found until almost 60 years later, when a French group called “Thanks, G.I.s”, a group that specialized in trying to recover missing servicemen from French soil, discovered remains near the battle site. DNA tests showed it was Clement, and he was returned to the U.S., eventually being buried at Arlington amongst people who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. So when Fred called, I knew where the kids could go.

And they did--

(picture courtesy of the MSHS AP Gov Facebook page)

I think it's nice that during a whirlwind trip to the national's capital, a trip that included not only a scholastic competition but also as much sightseeing as they could cram into the few days they were there, that the kids paid their respects to someone who died 55 years before they were born. Whenever we visit military cemeteries overseas we always stop and pay our respects to the people from “home” who are buried there. I think it's cool that the “We The People” team did the same.

I'm sure Alfred Clement would appreciate it.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 5/7

This is gonna be a fun week, he says sarcastically.

Actually, I should drop the last part of that sentence. It IS gonna be a fun week. I just have to figure out how to get everything done. For, you see, I get to spend Tuesday afternoon at the circus, and I get to spend Friday driving downstate for a long weekend at Loraine's parents. Put that together with all the work I have to do ahead of time to be able to take a four-day weekend off, and THAT'S why I may have been overly sarcastic.

Even though it actually WILL be a lot of fun.

When we did our circus contest last year I went along to do a live broadcast and to take pictures, and I'll let you know that the winners and the kids did have the time of their lives. I'm hoping that happens again this year. And then it'll be nice to spend Mother's Day weekend down with Loraine's family. It's been a couple of years since we've visited—in fact, the last time was three years ago for a funeral—and if nothing else, it'll provide a nice road trip for Loraine's brand new car, which has had a total of, uhm, 9 miles put on it since she picked it up ten days ago. Not only that, but I'll get to hang out with Loraine's teenage nephew Jeremy, who's perhaps a bigger “Star Wars” dork than I am. We'll get to have fun while the “adults” are doing “adult” things.

That'll be a blast.

So all I have to do is make sure everything's set to go before we leave. As you may recall, I usually have to work ahead almost a full day for every day we're gone somewhere. We're only gonna be gone two 'work” days this time, so hopefully I'll be able to fit it all in, despite the fact that I'm spending part of Tuesday at the circus. If nothing else, it'll be good practice for getting ready for our German expedition in a few months.

You know, make sure I work out all the kinks, and the like.

I promise not to whine, complain, or otherwise foist any negative emotions on you for the rest of the week. After all, I'm going to the circus, and heading out on a road trip. That's not too bad of a way to spend a week in early May, is it?

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 5/4

Three cars, a motor home, and a bulldozer. For not owning any of those five items, I seem to have developed a talent for selling them.

Who knew?

We've now sold Loraine's “old” car, that five year old vehicle with 9,000 miles on. Didn't take very long, either; four days after the first person looked at it that person walked away with the keys and the title. So that's one less thing we have to worry about. And that started me thinking, which, as we all know, can be a dangerous thing--

In the past seven years I've listed six things for sale on Craigslist (), and five of those things have sold with no problem whatsoever. I mean, technically, I didn't actually own any of those things I sold, but that's not TOO big of a deal, is it?

I've sold Loraine's “old” car, and the two cars she owned before that—the dark green one and the blue one (showing, of course, how much I know about cars, that's how they're referred to). I've also helped my parents sell a motor home, and a bulldozer they had lying around (what—your parents don't have pieces of construction equipment sitting around?). So through the site I've sold five big pieces of metal (pieces of metal I didn't own) with a minimal amount of effort.

Then why does no one want to buy a bike we have listed?

I personally think it's kind of funny. I've been able to sell five big “toys”, stuff that I wouldn't be caught dead with. Yet the one thing I WOULD be proud to say I owned—Loraine's classic Trek mountain bike—hasn't had so much as a nibble. Cars, motor homes, and bulldozers, no problems. But a bike? The official vehicle of the city of Marquette?

Nope.

Admittedly, I tried selling the bike in the middle of winter, probably not the best time to sell a bike, even in Marquette. And admittedly, a new bike costs a lot less than a new car, a new motor home, or a new bulldozer, so people might not be in the market for a used one. But still, it's a classic Trek mountain bike. You'd think someone would want it, even if just to use as the “beater” version of a bike, the same way people have “beater” cars.

But nope. So far, no one's taken the bait.

So if you know anyone's who's looking for a classic Trek mountain bike, send 'em my way. It doesn't cost a lot; we just wanna get rid of it. And, if it also extends my streak of perfect sales on Craigslist, so much the better.

After all, if I can get a bulldozer I didn't own sold, a bike (in Marquette) should be a piece of cake, right?

8-)

Have a great weekend...

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 5/3

If you're one of the two people I yelled at at the top of my lungs yesterday, I'm sorry. It wasn't personal.

Let me explain. I did not, in fact, yell at anyone to their face. I did not get mad, I did not fly off the handle, and I did not hurt anyone's feelings. Yet I still feel a little bad at what I did.

My “Pop Culture” question yesterday had to do with what the letters “NBC” stand for. I thought it was a fairly straight-forward question; after all, NBC was the country's first broadcast network, on the air for 92 years now, so I figured everyone would know what those three letters stand for.

I was wrong. Just not in the way I figured.

The first answers I received mirrored each other. Each of the callers had the first two letters correctly identified. They knew that the “N” stands for “National”, and that the “B” stands for “Broadcasting”. It's what happened after that that blew my mind. Some callers said “Corporation” or “Channel”, but two people said that the “C”in NBC stands for either “System” or “Service”. And that's a good guess, expect for the fact that if either of those were the correct answer, the company's initials would be “NBS”, and not “NBC”.

And that's when I had my little meltdown.

Well, it wasn't really a meltdown. It was mostly me yelling at the top of my lungs “Doesn't anyone know how to spell any more?” loud enough to travel through a supposedly soundproof wall. I know it was loud enough because another contest winner, standing on the other side of the supposedly soundproof wall waiting to pick up a prize, looked at me like I was losing my mind.

Oops. My bad.

Thankfully someone did get the answer right (the “C” stands for “Company”, if you're curious), restoring my faith in humanity. And maybe I can kind of understand the confusion; after all, the “S” in CBS stands for “System”, not that anyone would know that. So maybe those callers just mixed their metaphors, in a way. Maybe it was an innocent mistake on the part of the callers.

Maybe.

So if you were one of those callers, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you, even of I was just yelling to myself.

It's just one of those things...

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 5/2

I have no idea how I woke up in London.

Don’t worry; I’m not in England at the moment. I didn’t flip out because the warm weather is now gone and all of a sudden felt the need to fly over 5,000 miles for absolutely no reason. Nope. . .I just had what may be the strangest dream in a life of some very strange ones. To wit--

The dream started fairly realistically, with me getting a phone call that something wasn’t going right at work. On occasion, I guess, my dreams become a little too literal, but that’s just part of the price I pay for being me. Anyway, in my dream, I start to head down to the station to see what’s going on, and I all of a sudden find myself on stage, singing with what I later find out is Argentina’s number one Steve Miller cover band (because I’m sure there’s more than one, right?) Anyway, after performing a rather wicked version of “Jet Airliner”, which is kinda funny because I can’t sing worth a darn, I get off-stage and go to my hotel room somewhere in the California desert. I can’t get the door unlocked, which doesn’t bother me too much because, as we all know, the desert can be quite warm during the day, and I like heat. However, when it starts to snow, I fiddle with the door lock a little more, finally getting into the room and going to sleep, only to be awoken by the sounds of Big Ben going off outside my window.

That’s when I woke up in London, and then my dream ended, allowing me once again to wake up, this time in Marquette.

The strange thing is this--those are the only parts of the dream I can actually remember. I have this nagging feeling that a few more things happened during this strange adventure, some of which involved other people and part of which, I do believe, involved some sort of. . .something underground that I wasn’t supposed to see, and I have a feeling that the “something” may have been responsible for my waking up in London. I don’t think, though, that it was responsible for my getting to Argentina in the first place.

I think I did that on my own.

And how did I end up in Argentina and in London? I’ve never been to South America, and while I’ve been in England a bunch of times, it was always just to spend a lovely four hours in the seething pit of humanity that’s known as the Heathrow International Airport waiting lounge. While I’d like to some day, I’ve never been into London, and I’ve certainly never visited Big Ben, although I’ve seen it in so many movies and TV shows that I feel like I know it. My subconscious apparently knows it, and knows it quite well!

Now, as far as I can tell, I didn’t eat anything out of the ordinary, read anything strange, or watch anything bizarre before doing to sleep last night. I had a “normal” day at work There was nothing freaky and/or bizarre about the time leading up to the dream, although as I write this, I’m starting to wonder if maybe that was itself the cause of the dream. I had a “normal” day, and since I don’t often seem to have “normal” days, maybe my psyche was making up for the fact that there wasn’t anything usual to challenge it while I was awake.

Maybe my subconscious was getting back at me for not giving it a new toy to play with that day.

No matter what, though, I’m glad I woke up in Marquette and not in London. Because while it would be nice to wake up one morning in London, especially after hitting the stage with Argentina’s number one Steve Milerl cover band, I’m guessing the commute to work that day would be a killer.

And I don’t know if I’d want to go through that. I like walking three blocks instead of flying 5,000 miles.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 5/1

I LOVED yesterday.

What made me love yesterday? All it took was a 15-minute span around 1pm, when I went outside and took a walk around downtown Marquette, a downtown Marquette filled with sun and a temperature approaching 75 degrees.

It‘s been a long time since I was able to do that, to just go out and enjoy the sun and the “heat”. Actually, it was the first time since October when the temperatures hit 70 here. Now, I realize that compared to, say, July, this was nothing, but after those six long months (not to mention very low seasonal sun angles since that fateful October day) it was nice to get out and “feel” the first taste of the summer to come.

And I know I wasn’t the only one enjoying it, The people I passed on the street all had an extra spring in their steps, and I noticed things I haven’t seen in months, like the young lady with neon orange hair sitting on the steps of old City Hall, the young couple walking down the street, hand-in-hand and oblivious to everything but love, and the guy running up Front Street hill without a shirt, but wearing a hat & gloves.

Spring fever affects different people in different ways, I guess.

I thought about grabbing some food and eating lunch down at Lower Harbor Park, but the ice sheet is still sitting on the other side of the breakwater, and that would’ve blocked out some of the magic the day seemed to have. Besides, there will be other days to do that, days when the temperature’s even warmer and the sun is even brighter.

Sadly, while those days do include today (when it's supposed to be even warmer) they won't include the rest of the week, when temps will be 20 or 30 degrees colder and the sky will be filled with rain, and not sun. But those “other days” are not far away, and after an atypical Upper Michigan winter, it’s something to which we can ALL look forward.

(jim@wmqt.com)