Avery, Unsavory and other Turkey Stories

Okay Okay - I know I used moving as an excuse in October but now we're moving into our new house and that too has taken an enourmous amount of time along with my day job, my school work and a nice vacation in Bermuda. The last part I really enjoyed. Upon my return a number of issues have cropped up that I'd like to talk about in no particular order.

Sean Avery is a professional hockey player who this week managed to once again cast a dark cloud over a sport which I truly love to watch. Despite its rap for being a mindlessly brutal sport by some or a hopelessly boring sport by others, I would suggest, in my humble opinion, it is by far the most althletically difficult sport of all the professional sports available. It offers the speed of sprint, the physical aggression of football (not soccer), the thoughtful detail of baseball and the sheer excitement of cliff diving (when you're doing it yourself). To have this bafoon expose the general public to his ridiculous behaviour on an ongoing basis defeats all efforts made by the real gentlemen who've played this sport before and who will play this sport in years to come. When teammates speak out against you in the aftermath of such a truly insidious public spectacle then you know you have crossed beyond the line of redemption. I would plead with the league, the NHLPA, the management of the Stars and his team to lock arms and tell him he isn't wanted anymore. I wonder as a father how he would react to someone speaking of his daughter (God forbid that should ever hold true) in the manner he chose. Shame on him and anyone like him.

Speaking of unsavory - I noted that Carl Rove is now out rewriting history for the masses. Apparently, now he indicates that if they had had different intelligence they would not have gone to war. Hold on there fella - that is the biggest crock of horse patties I've heard. You went to war, you knowingly lied to everyone about it, and you did it because you wanted to. You bought it, you own and you are not dropping the trash off in someone else's dumpster. And by the way - no one wins a war - you either lose lots or you lose more!!!

On a happy note Christmas is fast approaching and I've been dreaming of my turkey dinner. I had a great turkey dinner in Bermuda but I realized that the reason we so look forward to turkey is because it goes on and on for days afterwards so by having enjoyed it in a restaurant, you are denied the week long romance to disgust that typically follows these long drwan feasts. So those combine my turkey thoughts for the season. Ho ho ho!!!!

Whew - now I feel better.

The Great Curse of Costco

Last year I went shopping at COSCO and was hit by the COSCO curse. You know it, perhaps not by name, but it is very familiar to you. The errand was a simple one. My wife Jane, asked me to pick up four steaks for dinner. No problem. Heck I’ve done it a hundred times before. I mean how difficult can it be, right! So I set off with my brother-in-law and all the confidence of a rooster in a hen house.
 
I arrived and flashed my membership card. It carries that lovely picture that makes you look like it was lifted from the  FBI most wanted. Anyway I flashed the card and strutted right on through those doors like I owned the place. I’m aware the meat section is all the way to the back and so I don’t even take a cart because I only need four steaks remember.
 
On my way to the back I first wonder through the TV section because I’m a man and the eleventh commandment states that every man must never pass an electronic section without at least contemplating the purchase of the 93” 1080 p with HD ready flat screen with no less than 4 HDMI i/o... and then I snap out of it. I start my way down to the meat section and then call my wife to see if she needs a new IPOD because I only need four steaks and so I can carry one extra item and she was thinking about replacing hers.
 
Well after a conversation with her I set out once again to the meat section and run right past that new juicer that I’ve thought about buying before  but realized I probably didn’t need it and besides I don’t have a cart and only need four steaks. So I set off again and almost make it to the back but I’m interrupted first by the BOOK/DVD/CD table, the new BBQ section and finally halted by the wine and beer section. I wasn’t diverted by the Woodbridge, nor did the Brunello di Montelciano win me but the Sterling Cabernet Sauvignon cinched it.
 
I headed back to the front to get a cart and on my way back I stopped and picked up the juicer, and knowing I was buying some wine I decided to surprise Jane and replace those ugly wine glasses I bought last year with a new set of Crystal MIKASA’s. Then made it to the wine section, picked up 6 bottles of assorted deals and then proceeded to pick up two filets, two racks of lamb, two chickens, a pound of shrimp, enough asparagus, lettuce, mushrooms and water to feed and then sink the navy and finally bagels for the entire east coast.
 
When I got outside and tallied up the damage it was then that I realized I never did get those four steaks.

Alive and Well

Well its been 21 days since my last writing and one would have to imagine that it is impossible to be so busy that you can't take a few moments to write a small blog at least once in that time span. Well think what you will but we have been busy.

My wife and I just finished our move from NJ to Vermont. This is now our 6th move in 24 years of marriage. If you'd like to test your marriage (and I'm not sure why anyone would like to test their marriage), try moving. What's that you say. Having kids is harder; poppycock (I always wanted to write that) having kids was fun - raising them was a little more trying but moving is compressed pressure. Now, I have to admit, if my wife and I were telling this story together she would be injectung things like (what did you do?) etc. as I tell this story. Now you know why I blog. If she would like to tell it from her perspective let her write her own blog.

Imagine trying to sell your house in a market when both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are gasping for air like an asthma patient in a dust storm. You have to be nuts. Meet Mr. and Mrs. Cashew. In any event we put our house on the market and it sold in 4 days. Isn't that a stupid expression!!! It didn't sell in 4 days. We had an offer within 4 days which we accepted. Then all hell broke loose. The banks started crumbling like ancient Greek columns in an apocalyptic earth quake. The stock market dropped like bombs during the London air raid. With every passing day my stomach would flip thinking that the kids had found a way to override the worlds computers in an effort to prevent us from ever selling this house while belly dancing and tangoing (is that a word) their way through university.

The inspection happened and we had been told that it went very well. Well is very relative. We should have had an inkling of things to come when the radon inspection took longer than the creation of heaven and earth. Now I realize god is God but from now on I'm calling god for a radon inspection. The inspection came in with the normal riders like your house is falling down because I saw a crack in the downstairs window but we muddled our way through those issues. Then it was suggested that the buyers needed to obtain a chiminey inspection. This advise was offered up by the law firm of Dewey, Cheatum & Howe. Lo and behold, this law firm also happens to refer chiminey inspectors called Just Inspect. Let the cavity search begin. Just Inspect unlike what the name suggests also happens to perform the repairs of whatever work is found and even has the audacity to suggest that if the report of their findings is helpful in a real estate transaction that they be considered for the work. (I am shocked, shocked that their is gambling in this casino). You guessed it. Our chiminey's needed work. Lots and lots of work. In fact the suggested repairs would equal that of the Icelandic national debt (prior to bankruptcy).

Pass the Tums and my checkbook.

Let that not be the end of the story, because our lawyer (his paralegal) decided to just ballpark the figure and reduce our monies due by $15,000. and just when you'd think everything was done the Dewey lawyer called to say that there was garbage on the front lawn. Can you imagine that on garbage day there would be garbage outside the house. Oh yeah and leaves in a leaf bag in October - its an outrage!!! And these people have the vote. ughhhhhhhhhh!!!!

The Strap!!

When we were kids our family was fairly unusual in that both my parents worked and therefore punishment was meted out by both adults without degree of offense or time of day. They were full ranging and could be merely an assignment of all duties on the "duty chart" (that will be another story), through the bevy of increasingly more action to the ultimate strap.

The strap was used as the ultimate weapon and was feared much more than the wooden spoon or clip in the back of the head. The strap was my fathers belt and would be dispensed in measured increments evenly to both hands. If you were the offending party you were usually warned by the "don't make me get up" or "do it again" provocation which always seemed to me to be an order so I was always surprised that you got a licking when you did it again.

In any event, one of the most serious infractions in our childhood was playing on the street. Now, I don't care what anybody says, but there wasn't any place to play but on the street or in the stairwell, or in the electric shed or all of the other places which were named to be off limits. Nevertheless, these were the rules.

Now my borther Mike had been given a second hand bike which at the time was probably 10 years old and was fine but needed work, so one day we spent the morning and afternoon working on the thing tuning it up and getting everything in perfect working order. We pieced it all back together and Mike was going to take it for a ride. Each time we'd role it out we'd find one more thing wrong with it and would re-double our efforts. Finally, it was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon and Mike settled on the seat and shoved off using the sidewalk for momentum and scooted out on the street. The bike was running like a charm and I was so excited I started runnning after him jumping and laughing and yelling at him to go faster. I was so excited that I paid no attention to anything else until Mike scooted around a car which I came face to face with staring right over the hood ornament into my father's very annoyed eyes. That look accompanied the strap. No look - no strap. It was that simple. He merely pointed up towards the apartment and I knew immediately what it meant.

I headed up the flight of stairs with the understanding that with each step I was dead man walking. When I finally got to our apartment I marched straight to our room as would be expected but that's when I got to thinking. I was going to get it anyway so why not make it hard on everybody concerned. So I opened our closet door and hoisted myself onto the shelf. I gathered all of the clothes and boxes around me so it wasn't evident and lay very still.

When my Dad finally came into the apartment I could hear him taking his time knowing that with each passing moment I'd be ever more apprehensive about the coming consequence. Finally I heard our bedroom door open and silence for a moment. TED!!! came the voice. I shifted slightly but was resolute in my course. I could hear the footsteps as he looked under the bunkbeds. TED!! it came again with just a slight amount of annoyance. He opened the cupboard door but I wasn't there. JESUS MURPHY!! came the exclamantion as he proceeded to search the rest of the apartment. He came back to the room a second time and opened the closet again and as he searched there were more suggestions that I was only making it worse on myself. The annoyance was growing more and more and vesuvius was about to errupt. Now when I get really nervous I start to laugh. Sometimes uncontrollably but it always starts with just a giggle so when he opened the closet door for the third time it was unintended.

My Dad reached up and grabbed me from the shelf and I was jerked off and stood on the floor in the center of the room. He did this while spitting out that now I had done it. Now I was finally going to get a damn good tanning. All this while fumbling to pull of his belt. He told me to hold out my hand which I did while we wound up from the bleachers for the first swing. At the last minute I pulled my hand away and the belt caught him right across his own leg. I burst out laughing (that is a really bad reaction sometimes). LET THE BEATINGS BEGIN.

In the end my hands did recover and he was annoyed at me for quite a while. So it didn't make him feel any better either and let that be a lesson for you....

OLDS '98

My Dad had a 1956 Olds 98 when I was a kid and to this day that car affects my life in ways I would have never guessed. We had 6 kids in the family and so he needed one of those big ass cars in the pre SUV era. To the naked eye this car was sweet. It was a royal blue with white paneling. It had those big tail fins which were very popular amongst the car makers in those days (remember that the memory plays tricks so if the details of the car are sketchy, they belong to a kid who was about 7 and lived in his own little world and are now being recalled by a 53 year old man).

Our family used to love to sing, play guitar and learn proper harmonies in order to perform to friends, family and anyone who might wish to listen whenever the mood took them. The car was a perfect adjunct to that hobby. I had already indicated that the car looked fine but the inner workings offered some fairly critical flaws. The floor boards in the car were riddled with holes and apparently so were the tailpipes and in consequence the exhaust would seep up into the cabin of the car. Now one could imagine that that could be problematic for people of any age so in order to ensure that the affects of carbon monoxide would be minimal we'd drive around with the windows opened. Now during the summer time that was fine and downright enjoyable, but winter in the northeast offered a wholly different perspective. So to try and keep us warm and alive my dad insisted that we sing every where we went. It didn't matter the time of day or indeed night. There would be the entire LeBlanc clan driving around singing at the top of our lungs. "Dinah won't you blow, Dinah won't you blow......" Now as a kid you'd find yourself often looking to nap but if that even looked like a remote possibility in the car my Dad would turn around and start shaking you like the San Andreas fault misbehaving. Simultaneously, he yell "sing god dammit... sing!!!!" You could be delirious from lack of sleep but by god you were going to sing "Row, row, row your boat gently down the SING GOD DAMMIT SING....Merrily, Merrily, Merrily ...."

So when you see me driving down the street to this day I'm singing at the top of my lungs. But worse yet, every time I doze off anywhere I jolt wide awake thinking SING GOD DAMMIT, SING

FRECKELO

Like super hero’s, we all have an arch nemesis or arch rival which offer us the mirror into our souls and determine the human being we will be. Superman had Lex Luther, Batman had several but the Joker was the best and I had Freckelo.

Freckelo lived on 24th Avenue in a duplex which was directly en-route to our school. I never did learn his real name but suffice it to say that it was unimportant to the story. He was probably a year or two my senior, had carrot red hair and, as his name suggests, was one of those kids covered in freckles. I don’t know what made him so miserable but clearly someone beat him with a nasty stick early on. I had encountered him early on in my first year of elementary school when we were all called upon to make our own way to school. It didn’t matter that you had brothers and sisters because they wouldn’t be caught dead walking with you nor you with them for that matter.

The bullying began simply enough with the typical shove or blocked path but escalated at a fairly rapid pace to a point where Gregory Clark and I would try alternate routes, running, mingling or anything else to try and avoid the advances of this maniac and his clan of crazed cohorts but in many cases to no avail. He and his gang must have attended night school at the age of eight because they never seemed pressed to go anywhere or be afraid of anyone.

This bullying went on for several years and the gang seemed to get bigger and meaner with each passing month and year. Finally, Greg ended up being caught by them one day when I was left at home suffering from some childhood illness. I guess the fact that we always traveled together must have been a deterrent to their more diabolical violence because on this occasion they pulled the lid off a manhole and threw Greg down breaking his leg. I received a call from Gregory’s mother informing me that he wouldn’t be going to school for a few days and could I bring home his homework. The news sickened me and it was at that moment that the early designs of revenge began to hatch.

The following Saturday morning I woke early (my parents were still in bed and my dad used to wake the roosters so it must have been very early) and got dressed quickly and headed over towards 24th Avenue. I don’t know what gave me the courage because I was completely alone but I remember being quite certain that Freckelo would be too. I hung around his house waiting for him to show his spotted face and soon enough he did. I walked up to him and in my best sign language (Freckelo didn’t speak English) made signs that I wanted to be friends. He seemed taken aback by my audacity and amenable to the come on.

I invited him back to my apartment building on the premise that we would could get a couple of gloves and ball and play catch. Now we lived on the 3rd floor in a 3 bedroom apartment. The building was typical of those built back in the 50’s and had a gap between the window which ran the height of the building providing light to the stair well and each of the half landings leading to the summit. This gap was approximately two feet deep and so one could look down from the top floor all the way to the first floor with an unobstructed view of the front door of the building. In typical kids fashion we often would climb the space rather than use the stairs and while it seemed dangerous to the onlooker it was completely deadly to the novice unless one paid close attention to the path of sure footedness. I quickly hoisted myself up the gap and began to scale the path upwards with the skill of a Himalayan chirpa scaling Everest. Freckelo being my senior could do nothing else but follow my lead and scale the gap. Each half landing had a rail which allowed one to peer down to the level below. It also offered the staging for the next level just like in Super Mario. I was quickly beyond the first floor, onto the second and lifting up to the third and could see down and with each move Freckelo became more apprehensive but determined to keep up with the runt.

I reached the top floor and hoisted myself over the rail and looked back down just in time to see Freckelo beginning his climb from the second to third floor. He was very apprehensive and slowed by the strain of the unpracticed hand. He scaled up to the half landing and grabbed the rail as his feet slid off the ledge of the window so he was slightly swinging in mid air holding on for dear life to the lower rail mount. He began to scream and clearly feared for his life as well he should. Time slowed to a crawl as I looked down on him and he tried to see me through the outstretched arms as his swing arced back towards the window frame. He was unable to swing his feet back and his grip was desperate and straining. I waited for that moment where our eyes could make contact and when it did he knew exactly what I was thinking. The fear was obvious and heartfelt. He probably could sympathize with Greg right at that moment.

I finally ran to the apartment and called to my dad to come right away ‘cause Freckelo would fall. The beat of my fathers’ footsteps on the floor could be heard all over the building as he donned his pants and ran to the noise which was now reverberating throughout the early morning quiet. He reached over the rail and grabbed the kid by the scruff of his neck and began to shake him like a wet rag. The tears were flying everywhere as the Freckelo went from bully to sissy in a heartbeat. Once the tirade slowed my dad put him down and yelled that he better not come back again lifting his foot to give him a swift kick just to accentuate the notion.

My dad looked at me and knew deep down that I was absolutely involved and showed little remorse for the near catastrophic incident. He asked me who the kid was and I told him I thought he might live over on 24th Avenue because I’d seen him from time to time on my way to school.My dad for whatever reason probably thought it was prudent to leave the questioning and we never spoke of it again.

Freckelo never did bully us again and in fact he often turned and walked the other way when we passed his house. It’s funny because I never did feel all that good about what happened but was satisfied with the result.

Life and Honesty

Have you ever noticed that lessons in life are taught to you in so many different ways and some have the most lasting effects. The lesson of honesty was like that for me and to this day I still think back to it and blush with the same degree of shame I did all those forty some years ago.

The story began in a north east city captured in the midst of a horrid winter day. The streets were caked with the awful slush which always plagued the main arteries a day or two after a fairly significant snow fall. Cars would race by and lather anyone not adept enough to dodge the oncoming torrent. I was in the fourth grade and a fairly good student. I always vyed with my best friend Greg Clark (known to his mother as Junior) and Carol Dentremont to get the “first in class” medal. It was also an extremely good year for me, because it was the year I loved my teacher. I think we’ve all had a year like that when you first feel the pangs of puppy love and you would do anything, anything at all for that teacher. Well that year for me was the year of Mrs. Gendracs.

I can still picture her with her early 60’s glasses and red lipstick always dressed to nines with a smile that would bring light to the dark side of the moon. She always had a smirk on her face which suggested she enjoyed the activity in the class but also evoked a sense that there was an inside joke to which we weren’t privy.

In any event I had set out for school that day and for some reason had forgotten to do my math homework. It was extremely unusual for me at the time (later in high school it would be the norm). I walked along the school route that we all took everyday to get there (avoiding encounters with the likes of FRECKELO but that is another blog) and it suddenly dawned on me I hadn’t completed the math assignment given for the night before. I felt awful about it and realized that I would be terribly embarrassed especially because it was Mrs. Genracs that would give witness to this quantum failure. It was just a fleeting moments thought but one which I acted upon immediately and so I took my math copy book and threw it onto the boulevard. I naively believed I was covered because I could legitimately claim I had lost it. So after dispensing of the book I made my way to class and took my rightful seat in the first row, feeling somewhat guilty about what I had done but resolved to stay the course. I hadn’t noticed that Gregory wasn’t in class yet but even if I had, it wouldn’t have altered my chosen story line.

Mrs. Gendracs walked into the classroom and asked that everyone take out their homework so she could collect the books. When she arrived at my desk I blurted out that I had done all my homework (not sure why I had to go that far) but I had lost the copy book on my way to school. I had no sooner completed my entire tail of woe when Gregory burst into the classroom out of breath but waving my copy book in the air yelling Ted, Ted I found your copy book in the middle of the street. It was completely wet and looked awful but not nearly as bad as I did. I looked like a kid with a mouthful of day old beets. Mrs. Gendracs looked at me and she could tell my story was crumbling like a stack of cards in a wind storm. She held out her hand to Gregory for the copy book as I blurted out my entire fabrication. All eyes in the class bore in on me while I sheepishly tried to find a floor tile I could crawl under.

Now this may be a figment of my imagination, but I do believe that Mrs. Gendracs lost a good deal of respect for me that day and it could be a faulty recollection but I don’t believe I made first in class for the rest of that year. Whenever I have an inkling that I should lie about a situation I think back to that day and become the most brutally honest person you’d care to meet but now you know why.

The Origins of Tedle

I worked as a liner accountant for a shipping agency early in my career and basically did the accounting for the various carriers we represented when the vessels would call any of the ports within our area. They would run up husbandry costs, dunnage costs, wharfage, towing and any number of shipping specific items which always required a good deal of paper work and hence accounting. One of the carriers which I worked on was a Steamship Company in India. They were represented by a general agent in NY to cover the North American market.

The job required a good deal of communication and authorization for the various charges and each vessel required its own accounting report in order for the owners to determine the cost of each vessel voyage which would ultimately determine the profitability or lack thereof of each sailing. With each vessels departure we were therefore often called upon to communicate with the general agents to determine the allocation of some of the more general costs which were attributable to the operation rather than a specific vessel. 

In this case, my communications were conducted with a wonderful man by the name of Prat Patel who was the traffic manager for the carrier in New York and pretty much directed all of the affairs of the carrier in North America. On my first occasion to call him I quickly introduced myself (Ted Le Blanc) and told him I was the new hire and would be tending to the accounting. In his most pleasant voice and with a heavy accent said “I’m sorry but I failed to hear your name”. So I repeated “Ted Le Blanc”. 

“What a pleasure to make your acquaintance Tedle” was the reply. 

I could barely keep myself from breaking out in a howl but also didn’t have the heart to correct him so from that day forward for the several years I performed the accounting duties for the carrier I was Tedle whenever speaking with Mr. Patel and so commenced “Tedle” often misunderstood but its worth the laugh. 

Chatham LeBlanc

Several years back my youngest brother was living in Fairfield, Conn. and we in Chatham, NJ. Though not terribly far apart, with young kids we found it difficult to get together on a regular basis so we had to plan our opportunities. 

On one such occasion we decided to meet in Manhattan at the Tribeca Grill and make a great night of the time we had. We both arranged to take the train into the city and meet for drinks first, then head over for dinner. We both arranged for cars to take us back home so that we were completely free to indulge in a couple of good bottles of wine and even an after dinner drink.  We had a most enjoyable time and shared many laughs and good discussion as is always the case with my siblings and our spouses. 

When the end of the evening arrived, we walked out of the restaurant (I believe we closed the place) and lo and behold both our cars were waiting to shuttle us home. Its truly fun pretending your rich even for just an evening. I was the first to walk out and pointed at one of the drivers and said "Chatham" and he said back to me "LeBlanc". I responded quite simply "Yes".  Everyone gave one more hug and hand shakes etc and we both got into the corresponding cars.

Our driver immediately whisked us out of the Soho area and down to the West Side Highway which seemed really odd to me as we really should have been heading into the tunnel and across to New Jersey. I looked at my wife with a fair amount of puzzlement and then said to the driver "Where are we going". He looked at me like "oh good, another drunk who doesn't remember where he lives and says simply "Fairfield".  I said to him, but we're going to Chatham, NJ. He looked at me strangely and said "I thought your name was Chatham". Just then my phone rang and it was my brother laughing hysterically. We did contemplate just continuing on the journey and surprising the kids in the morning, but they would have thought that a testament to the amount of alcohol consumed and not simply a funny circumstance. We decided on a convenient location and performed a very quick exchange while laughing all the while. It does occur to me that neither of the drivers were as amused as we were but then again perhaps it was just the hour of the day.

In any event I've often thought that if I ever won the mega millions one of the things I'd do is change my name to Chatham. It sounds absolutely pretentious doesn't it?

In My Empire (Revisited)

I’ve decided to start my own Empire and here are some of the things which would apply:

 

In My Empire II

 

- An election process could only last 4 weeks.

- Money would be no object. The object would be having something to say and the ability to do it.

- Platforms would be read by radio announcers and you would only find out whether the candidate was a man or   woman, black, white, red, yellow, gay or straight after the election took place.

- Airports would cater to passengers

- So would the airlines

- You could keep on the electronic devices and shut off the pilot and attendants.

- Junk mail would be illegal

- Spammers would clean toilets for a living

- You could only offer comment on things which you know something about

- There’d be national healthcare

- You couldn’t own a Hummer of any sort

- Everyone would play an instrument

- Everyone would have to serve in a community service function for one year

- You'd have the right to "bare" arms. Recommended in warm climates.

- You could only provide input on rearing children if you could prove you were a child

- Everyone would be pro choice. You wouldn't have a choice.

- Athletes would be required to sign autographs for kids for 2 hours per day otherwise they couldn’t have the job.

- Mats Sundin would have had to have made a decision by July 1, 2008

- Tickets for sporting events would have to go on sale to kids first at a price they could afford

- Movie stars would have to be told they’re only movie stars

- You could not be on Access Hollywood without committing to 40 hours of community service for each 30 sec segment in which you appear.

- Every religion would have one common day of celebration recognizing the other religions. You couldn’t practice your religion until you participated in this holiday

- One day a year would be given to agnostics (I swear to God)

- Students would get to choose their reading material

- Reality TV could only be shown on the Fiction Channel

- Moms and Dads could get free baby sitting whenever they wanted

- The most money you could make in a year would be 10,000,000. dollars

- There would be no such thing as stale cookies

- Cigarettes would be healthy

- Doctors and Nurses would make the same

- Firefighters, Policeman and Healthcare workers would be the highest paid civil servants. Politicians would be the lowest paid and could only serve until they found a real job.

- If someone in your family was President that would be it for your lineage.

Please Protect Your ID and Password

Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I recently enrolled myself in some con ed courses at the local university. The reasons are many but first and foremost it is important to make sure you know exactly how much you've forgotten at any given point in your life and at my age the list is longer than the great wall of China. In any event one of the courses I signed up for is a basic web design class. Now we all know the importance of protecting our identity and in keeping with those practices the university has gone to great length to have you pick separate id's for your e-mail, accounting and student access info. 

I thought, wow these folks are serious about this stuff, then I attended my first class. I sat in the class waiting on the professor and about 10 minutes after the class was scheduled to start the door bolts open and a young man walks to the front of the class. He states that Bob (I imagine the professor) is ill and won't be attending the class but he has been instructed to provide the user id's and passwords for each of the students in order to log onto the systems in the lab and complete homework assignments. He reaches into his knapsack, picks out an envelope and hands the stack to the front row student. "Please find your user id and password and pass them on." he says and begins to show us where the course syllabus is located on the web. An anonymous student from the back row asks "Are the user id's and passwords all the same?" "No" came the reply as if that was the stupidest question on the face of the earth. "They're each unique to your own account so please make sure you change your password" he says matter-of-factly. 

HUH? SAY WHAT!! I was astonished and not alone in my state of shock. So you now have about 50 students all rifling through the stack of id's and passwords in order to select there own singular account information. Isn't that sort of like a banker throwing everyones bank book in the air (I think I just dated myself) and telling people to identify which one is theirs. Better yet, how about the social security office dispensing the SSN cards that way. 

It turned out my info  wasn't among the lot so I was protected by omission but I can't wait for this leader in waiting to be put in charge of the IRS. I'll see you in line for the refunds on our tax returns. 

Online Dad

This weekend my wife and I sent two of our three kids off to their respective universties and the third will depart tomorrow. In an effort to assist them while they're away and to ensure that they have 24 hour access to my fatherly advise without necessarily having to wake me at three in the morning (unlike Hillary I wish not to be distrubed), I have listed all of the cautions, comments, rants and raves so they need only insert them in to any particluar situation they feel most appropriately applies to the given circumstance:

1 No
2 Ask your mother
3 No!
4 Do you want to poke your eye out?
5 Do you want to break your neck?
6 Do you want me to break your neck?
7 Don't even think about it!
8 I don't care if your friends are going?
9 Have you done your studies?
10 What happened to the rest of the marks?
11 I just sent you money!
12 I just sent them lots of money!!
13 Who is he/she anyway?
14 What do her/his parents do that she/he needs to freeload off me?
15 Yes you may borrow your parents car as soon as the adoption has gone through.
16 Please change your underwear - its a new month.
17 Please change your underwear - its a new year.
18 Get out of bed ya bum!!!
19 You've had all semester to work on that (essay, paper, assignment, project, homework) but now you need help two hours before its due?
20 Oh for crying out loud!
21 Don't make me come down there!
21 What did your professor say?
22 What did your counselor say?
23 What did the police say?
24 What did the lawyer say?
and last but not least
25 Do you really think having another is a good idea?

There you are kids - call me when there's a situation that doesn't fit.