It seems that I need to comment on my last post.

A few weeks ago I wrote that I would try to some different things here.  That I was going to try to write what popped into head. That’s what happened.

A few people read that and decided that there must be some sort of problem.

Let me explain the process.

The other night I was supposed to have a few people come over and play poker.  A few of them no showed on me, and this is typical of the people in question.  A few others could not make for various other reasons.  The result, however, was that even though I had tried vary hard to set something up, no one was going to show up.

I sat at my computer and stewed about this.  My phone rang and I jumped up to get to it before it went to voicemail.  In the process, I knocked my microphone/headphones off the desk and stepped on them.  They were completely broken.  I answered the phone and it was some telemarketer begging for my money.  I gave them a few choice words and hung up on them.

I was angry.  Angry as hell.  I felt emotions in me that reminded me of some the deepest and darkest depressions I had known.

When I calmed down, 10 or 15 minutes later, I started to think about how easily those emotions came back.  I sat down and wrote about it.  

The point is this:  The last post seemed very dark, but really there was nothing more than a hint of an emotion from a decade ago.

I enjoy writing, but I grow bored with the format of this blog.  I want to be able to write a little more creatively.  Do me a favor; don’t read into what I write.  If you think that this site is a good barometer for how I’m doing, you couldn’t be more wrong.  I choose to write what I write and it may or may not reflect how I am feeling.

I don’t really know what else to say about but…

At least I’m not A Daddy Blogger.

Sometimes the darkness still comes.  Sometimes it comes so strong that force of it surprises me.  

Most of the time, I believe that other people can relate to me.  But when the darkness comes, I realize that I am only kidding myself.

The others do not know.  They cannot know.  They cannot understand.  They do not see,  They will not see.  They cannot understand the pain within.  

They have never stared at a wall and watched it waver.  Watched Reality shimmer in front of them.  Watched and waited to see if it would all blow away like a sheet hung outside to dry.

I’ve worked so hard and for so long, yet this darkness follows me.  Waiting.  It has more patience than I ever could.  We are linked.

Everything Changes.

But, of course, Nothing Changes.  The worst cliches are always true.

I am alone.

I could keep promoting myself for Best Blogger Who Happens to Be A Daddy, but really who are we kidding?  I am not a good blogger.  I don’t even do memes.  I don’t go out and leave comments to drive people to my site.  I don’t even use the other much more popular site to promote this one.  But the good news is, I don’t give a shit about that stuff.  

As I’ve stated, more times than it’s worth reading, this site is dumping ground for my thoughts.  What category does that go in?  Who Cares?  If you get a kick out of this award nonsense, go here and nominate away.  If not, I understand.

So how about some content?

Here goes:

Last Monday as a settled in to suffer through yet another Ravens Game, I decided to treat myself to some chicken wings.  There is a new Wings place in town, and I had recently tried some of their wings.  Pretty good, really.  I hadn’t, however, tried their Flaming Wings.   I love spicy.  The Hotter, the Better.  So I went out and got 50 Wings.  Half Flaming, Half Mild.  

The Game Started and Two Surprising things happened.  First, the Ravens looked like they came to play and jumped out to an Early Lead.  The other was that these wings were HOT.  I mean, everyone claims to have really spicy stuff, but its never that how.  Not by my standards.  These Wings were HOT.  Very HOT, even by my standards.

So, of course, I dug in.  I ate a dozen and a half (or so.)  My lips and the skin on my face near my lips were red and raw from the spice.  My nose was running, I was sweating and my eyes were watering.  It was great.

The Ravens Won in the most lopsided victory ever on Monday Night Football, and that should be the end of the story.  But that wouldn’t really be that interesting, would it?

The next morning, I took my morning… umm… err… let’s call it a constitutional.  And let’s say that I could tell that I’d been eating food that was hard on the GI Tract.  But none of this would be worth mentioning, except for the fact that I could barely wipe, because my ass was on fire.  From the spice.  

I have joked about things being so spicy that they burned on the way out.  But never, ever had there been anything like this.  But, what the hell, I ate it and I had to live with out it.

I went to work and sucked down water all day.  I was incredibly dehydrated.  (And I drank nothing but soda and water with the wings.)  I skipped lunch because my get was still pissed about the abuse.  After work I found that I dinner didn’t sound very appealing either.  I turned on the TV and fell asleep in front of it.  I woke covered in sweat.  I was running a fever.  I took some Advil, and turned in early.  It wasn’t till Thursday that I really started t feel like myself again.

I’ve heard that if you can eat a dozen of the Flaming Wings in Six Minutes with no water or other food, they will give you a tee shirt and put you picture on the wall.  I may have to do that, but I’ll need to give my body a week or two to recover.

So you must be talking to me…

And you called me…

A Daddy Blogger…

I should ignore it.  It’s my own fault anyhow.  I typed those very words in my own blog.  I guess I invited this…

You may be asking yourselves what I am talking about.  

It seems that there is this award thing… It’s called BoB (Best of Blogs… isn’t that clever.)

They have about a Dozen and A Half Categories.  I looked over them when the first announced the Awards for this year.   None of the categories really summed this space up.  Best Weight Loss Blog?  Or perhaps Best LGBT Blog? Maybe Snarkiest Blog?  I don’t even know what snarky means.  Furthermore I don’t Care.  But I am fairly certain that snarky is not me.  

So If I am going to compete in a stupid contest… Why Not as a Daddy Blogger?  I have kids.  I Blog.  I think those Awards guys will be disappointed.  Luckily, I don’t care what they think.  I might’ve ignored the whole thing… but then someone floated the notion that it might be fun to play along. And I had to agree.

So if you think that Blog Awards are Stupid… You should go here and leave a comment to nominate me.

Yes you read that correctly…  

Come on…  What better way to screw up the stupid awards than to have me be in serious contention.

And if you think awards are great…  well I guess you can nominate me too.

Oh and maybe I should talk about my kids… That always riveting.

Hmmm…

Well… Maybe Next Time.

At the risk of being called a daddy blogger, I am going to write about my family for a moment.  I usually don’t.  Most of it is not what I care to write about.  But sometimes something happens and it is just too good to keep to myself.

I was having dinner with the family.  My four year old son was explaining something to us.  We didn’t know what he explaining, but he was explaining it for all he was worth.  I was feeling like an attentive father so I gave him my full attention.

“We should get her [his babysitter] a present.
“Something that does everything.
“Like a little robot.
“Not a dog robot.  But a guy.
“About this big. You know?
“Mommy, You know.”

Mommy has a blank look on her face.

“You know, mommy.  At the store.  That store with the thing.  The store where you asked the guy, ‘Do you have any more iPods?’ That store.”

Mommy laid her head down on the table and refused to speak.

I did my best not to smirk.

Occasionally, people will ask me why I celebrate Christmas.  They know that I am an atheist.  What use do I have for Christmas?  The short answer is, I do it for the kids.  No reason to deprive them of all the things that go with Christmas, just because of my ideological hang ups.

But I have a confession.  Just between you and me.

I like Christmas.

Sort of.

On my terms anyhow.

The Christian Celebration of the birth of Christ… I can take it or leave it.

The modern secular celebration that extends from Thanksgiving to New Years, on the other hand, I can get in to.

There are a lot of things I like about Christmas Time, or maybe I should call it Xmas.  First of all, there is an emphasis on family and caring that is nice.  The gift buying is great for the economy, and getting a few nice gifts, makes me happy too.

But I think the thing that really makes me happy is the lights.  This is the darkest time of year.  The shortest day of the year is coming.  What better way to deal with this than to light every thing up.  Extra lights hung on the streets.  On Houses.  On Trees.  Lights everywhere.

It makes me feel good.  Xmas is great.  

A time when instead of going to work, I can stay home with my family.   What a great idea.  I think everyone can get behind that.

The more I think about it.  The American Celebration of Xmas is very secular.  And Commercial.  Santa Claus, as we picture him, has everything to do with the Coca Cola Corporation.  This doesn’t bother me at all.  It fits into our culture perfectly.

And when I see the occasional sign that says, “Don’t Forget The Reason for The Season.”  I smile to myself.  I think, maybe I have my own reasons…. and they aren’t half bad.

New Order - Republic I’ve got so many things bothering me right now; I don’t know which one to write about.

I guess I’ll start with the Scouts.

My son joined the Boy Scouts last spring.

Good for him. Of course, I have to go to the Meetings and hang out. I hate them.

A little background is probably in order. I was a Boy Scout when I was a kid. I loved it. It is one of the things from my childhood that I look back on and am happy with. It was great. We went camping. A lot. And when we did, the leaders let us kids be in charge of ourselves.

By that, I don’t mean that they let us do whatever we wanted to. Quite the opposite. They taught us what we supposed to do and how to do it. Then they expected us to take care of.

We camp with our patrols. The Patrols usually consist of 6 or so kids. One of those kids is designated as the Patrol Leader. The Patrol Leader would work with a patrol to come up with a menu and itinerary for the patrol that worked with the guidelines he had been given. He delegated responsibilities to the members of the patrol.

Everyone knew what he had to do and everyone did it because that was what had to happen. Not perfectly, not all the time, but the leaders guided us on how to work through the rough spots.

This is what turned me on to camping and backpacking. It was the first time in my life that I had been truly independent. Sometimes I think that it still is. It is quite an accomplishment for a group of teenage boys to go out in to the woods and manage to take care of themselves. It was a lot of work, but it was fun and we felt pride in our accomplishments.

When I was 15 we moved. The Troop in the area I had moved to was awful. When we went camping, the grown ups cooked our meals for us. They told us what to do and when to do it. We had a lot of time for goofing off. And I hated it. It wasn’t real camping. I knew how to take care of myself, maybe, in terms of camping, more than some of these leaders. I lost interest and stopped going to the meetings and working on merit badges. I was very close to Eagle, but I did not care. It did not seem like it would mean much to be an Eagle Scout from a Boy Scout Troop that actually cancelled a camping trip because of rain.

Anyhow. My son’s Troop.

The meetings have been disorganized. The kids are supposed to be in charge, but they obviously don’t know what they are supposed to be doing. I hate it. But I keep my mouth shut. They have more parent participation than any Troop I’ve ever heard of.

In time, the leaders of my son’s Troop figured out that I have a Scouting background. And that I go backpacking all the time. And they want me to be involved. At first, I resisted. It seemed like to much work. I didn’t want to help them run the Troop the way it is running now and I didn’t want to tell them that they had to change what they were doing.

As it turns out, not all of the parents are happy with the way things are going. They recruited me to be on ‘their’ side. They may regret it. Anyone who reads the shit I’ve written knows that I have strong opinions. My opinions on how a Scout Troop should work are very strong. It is going to be a mess.

This past weekend, I went on a campout with this Troop. The adults took care of everything. The Scouts threw snowballs at each other.

Jeckles, I told myself, you have to give them a chance. You can influence them. In time you can teach the leaders how to teach the kids.

So I stayed out of the way. I let things happen the way that they happen.

On Sunday, as it got close to time to go, I saw the adults working very hard to get everything stowed and put away. I saw Scout throwing snowballs. Then I noticed one Scout working on putting away some gear, it looked like he could use a hand. I went to the Scouts throwing snowballs and asked if a few of them could help the kid out.

They refused. And went back to throwing snowballs. I raised my voice, and used the inflection that I think of as my Dad voice. And demanded that they help. At that point, a few of them begrudgingly went to help. I was furious.

The Scouts have a Law. It states that a Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, and so on and so forth. And these Scouts refused to help. But I wasn’t mad at the kids so much as I was mad at the Troop. The kids reaction made it very clear to me that these kids had never been asked to help with anything during a campout.

I do not know how many trips like that I can go on.

What’s the point?

I’m tired and cranky.

I am cranky more often than not recently.

I try to play it of as a joke, hell it’s pretty much my whole shtick on SBRadio.  But it’s real.  I don’t know if it’s lack of sleep or Seasonal Affected Disorder.  Or Maybe, I’m just a jerk.

I don’t have anything to contribute, really.

Tomorrow, I’ll try to find it in me to tell you about my weekend.  But now, I’m going to try to get a good night’s sleep and see if I can shake this shitty attitude.