animal, lincoln, valentine

I’m Back ….

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Now that Valentine’s Day and President’s Weekend are over, I can safely return to the web. You never can tell when an errant rose thorn will attack. {*grin*}

L was down from the mountains for the weekend. It was the first time a few years that we have been able to spend Valentine’s Day together. Being the uber romantic that I am, I took her to the Republican Lincoln Day dinner on Saturday. (What? You can’t picture a more romantic setting than listening to different misinterpretations of the remarks of others for a few hours? You have no sense of adventure and romance! {*grin*})

It looks like the primary for county sheriff will be the exciting race this year. The former incumbent who lost 3 years ago is back and running via petition to avoid the party entirely. The sitting incumbent who beat the him is re-running too. And just to make sure the pot is stirred a bit more, the former under-sheriff is running too. It was one of the nastiest and muddiest races in local history three years ago; this time around looks to be even worse. My opponent for county commissioner and I joked that the sheriff’s race looked like so much fun that maybe we should have stood up and announced we had decided not to run for commissioner, but were both going to enter the sheriff’s race instead. It would have been worth it just for the brouhaha it would have created.

L and I spent the remainder of the weekend taking walks with Mollie, watching the Olympics, and just hanging together. Even occasionally holding hands and other such things. Truly the most romantic way to spend the long weekend with your loved one. Monday night our mothers brought over the ingredients and we cooked dinner and had cake in honor of L and my upcoming birthdays. Mine is tomorrow and then five days later it is L’s turn. (Yup, I am perpetually the “older man” in L’s life – a whole whopping five days older. And you will notice I resisted disclosing my age since it would reveal L’s as well. Actually, I’m turning 24 since I started counting backwards a few years ago.)

Tomorrow looks to be busy. I am invited down to fill the air-waves at the radio station with my political hot-air stylings in the morning, then I have to get the precinct material ready to be sent out for the campaign, and then in the evening I have another installment of the webinar from hell to attend for my job. (Think home land security meets animal welfare during a disaster. 3 hours of material that can make FEMA certification courses look exciting.) At least there will only be another pair of webinars and then I will be certified.


mama kat, writer's challenge

Baby, It’s Cold Outside …

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Time once more for Mama Kat’s Writers Challenge. This week I like

2.) Describe your worst winter weather story.
(inspired by Alisha from A Day In The Life Of Okie Rednecks)
3.) Tell us about that scar.
(inspired by Katie from Rooftop Harmonies)

 as the prompts to follow in my writing for the nonce.

#2 – The worst weather story is a toss up because the prompt could be taken in several ways: the worst weather experienced in winter, the worst story involving winter weather in some way, or the worst story heard during winter weather. So after 3 microseconds of deliberation, I settled on this one:

Part of my research work when I was at Argonne National Laboratory involved giving academic seminars at universities. One fine February I was scheduled to give a Friday seminar at Iowa State University in Ames. What followed was a real nightmare.

I caught a flight out of O’Hare mid-day on Thursday. The weather called for snow later in the day at Ames, but it was not supposed to cause problems. Now at this point you need to know that I am one of those fortunate people who had two complete sets of wisdom teeth grow completely in. As the last pair rose to full height, I started not being able to close my jaw fully and so the extra teeth were scheduled for removal.

(Have you figure our where this is going?) Mid way to Ames, I hear a crack and suddenly have a mouth full of what feels like gravel. When I examine the detritus, I have a sneaking suspicion that one of my extra teeth had broken. A few cursive probes of the tongue quickly confirmed that I suddenly had a really jagged stump in the back of my jaw.

My first thought was the standard “How long before this bugger really starts to hurt?” That was followed by “What else could go wrong?” I should never have asked that second question. At that point the pilot comes on the intercom and explains that Ames is in the midst of a blizzard, but we may still be able to make it in. So we all are ordered to strap in and the pilot guns it to try and beat the closure of the airport.

We come barreling in for a landing, bobbing and weaving in the winds like a leaf in the autumn winds. It is snowing so hard I can’t even see the wing out the window to my right. The pilot comes on back on the intercom and announces that they have closed the airport just as our wheels touched down. We are the last plane that will make it in or out that day. But wait, there is further good news. The Ames airport is connected to the rest of civilization by a number of miles of isolated road. Guess what is also closed – you guessed it, the road to/from the airport.

So let us recap. I have a tooth that has shattered and which I deeply fear will begin to hurt shortly. I am trapped in a closed airport for an unknown length of time in a huge blizzard miles away from the nearest dentist. A few hours of stewing and pacing insures an increasing state of anxiety.

Finally, after eight hours of stewing and fretting and pacing and dreading, the snow plows finally got the road to/from the airport opened enough for a caravan from the airport to town to follow then. At about 1am I get to the hotel and collapse. I have decided that it the tooth hasn’t started hurting by now, it might not start until I can get back to Chicago. At least I sure hope so.

Bright and early I had breakfast with some of the faculty from ISU, with fewer in attendance than planned because guess what – there is a blizzard still blowing and snowing out there and they can’t make it to campus. Throughout the day several people asked me if I was distracted about something. If only they knew.

Scars? What scars? Just because I have scars from head to toe doesn’t mean they are special. I know where my scars are because I suffer from a condition where my scar tissue will not stop growing. When I have surgery, the scar usually has to be irradiated to stop the excess tissue growth.  So I’m going to talk about one of my non-surgical scars.

Many years ago when I was a pre-schooler, my brother and I shared a bedroom and set of bunk-beds. Being the older brother, I had the upper bunk. One day as I climbed the wooden ladder up to my bunk, the ladder broke. The sharp end of the bottom half of the ladder hit and skewered the side of my head, barely missing my eye.

A lot of crying and bleeding followed. There was enough blood that mom couldn’t see where the cut was at first. I knew it was serious because it was one of the few times I ever saw my mom even slightly rattled. A lot of wet cold towels and ice later it quit bleeding. A nurse friend of mom’s came over to look at it to see if we needed to journey the miles to the hospital. The nurse said that it might not hurt to get stitches, but that since the bleeding had stopped, etc. they’d just dress it and see how it was the next day.

That is how I got the scar to the side of my left eye. Yeah, the scar that becomes more and more obvious the older I get and the further my hairline sprints from it. That scar.

announcement, candidacy, press release

The Cat Is Out Of The Bag Now

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Today was the day. I issued the official announcement of my candidacy for {*gasp*} partisan office. So now the real fun of getting through the cacuses and the primary to the election begins.

The gist of the announcement went:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Sterling, Colorado. Dan Jones, a fourth generation Logan County resident and former Mayor of Sterling, has announced his candidacy for Commissioner of Logan County – District 3. The District 3 seat is being vacated at the end of the year by Jack McLavey who is term limited. Dan desires to bring transparency to the decision making process along with openness in budgeting to the commission. He hopes to serve the people of Logan County by focusing on fiscal responsibility, common sense in local government and a balanced approach to economic development that includes agriculture and industry.


Dan is currently serving as Executive Director of the Logan County Humane Society during construction of their new facility. He recently completed his third term (term limited) as Mayor of Sterling, Colorado. First elected in November 2003, he was re-elected without opposition in 2005 and 2007. As Mayor he led economic development initiatives such as Sterling Ethanol, Safe Auto and others which resulted in direct investment in the community of more than $100 million and the creation of 500 new jobs. Through a campaign to encourage citizens to “give back to the community”, private donations resulted in construction of parks, an outdoor pool and recreation facility, and expansion of the library. In addition, Sterling was named 2006 Best Small City of the Year by the Economic Development Council of Colorado.


Dan’s work experience includes 30 years of developing technologies and applications for the computer industry in the New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles areas. He has held senior scientist, technical, and management positions with Sykes Enterprises, Working Woman Network, Cyber Networks, Peripheral Systems, Affine Sciences, TRW Defense Systems, Argonne National Laboratory, and the University of California.


A staunch advocate of rural community economic development, he was recognized (along with his wife L) as the first recipient of the Logan County Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the Year Award in 1992 for their success in founding Jones Technologies. Returning “home” after almost two decades to raise their son, Dan and Laurie created a technology business that would utilize the under-employed, well-educated local work force in Logan County. In 1990, they created the first college/private industry training program in the U.S. for computer support technicians in partnership with Northeastern Junior College. These pioneering efforts were the focus of national media and research foundations as models for rural development. Jones Technologies was acquired by Sykes Enterprises and became Sykes’ entry into the customer support industry. Sykes first support center was built in Sterling and today employs 320. Sykes Enterprises is a worldwide leader in customer contact management services with 81 centers and 51,000 employees.


Dan’s other community service includes Vision 2020 Committee, Re-1 District Accountability Committee, Northeastern Junior College Foundation Board, Boy Scouts of America, founding board member Logan County Humane Society, Ivy League Mentor Program, and interviewing prospective students for Dartmouth College. He has been an invited speaker for professional conferences, community service clubs, and state legislative hearings.


Dr. Jones is a 1972 graduate of Sterling High School, 1975 graduate of Dartmouth College, and received his PhD. in Physics from the University of California, Davis in 1979.

The real question is whether you would vote for a floating head like this:

It will be interesting to see how the press mungs it.  At least I only look moderately insane in this picture versus some the papers have run of me in the past.

odd question of the day

Odd Question

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Do you ever come upon something so odd and unusual you wonder “What the heck was that?” Today I ended up on answers.yahoo.com and stumbled across this queston:

What should I say to my boyfriend as I shove my dirty gym sock in his mouth and break up with him?

Right off the bat I’m wondering what is going on. Is the poser the long lost mother of this baby?

I suspect the traditional break up procedure lacks a dirty gym sock to the mouth.

Fortunately, there was additional information given by the question poser:

Need something witty… he has a major sock fetish so I need something humiliating. He is going to be tied to a park bench


if you want to know why so cruel, i found out he has been cheating on me for 2 months with 3 girls

Of course, yahoo answers came up with a winner from someone named Brian:

Let’s see the girl you’ve been cheating on me with treat your fetish as well as I do!


-shoves sock in his mouth-

My question to you is twofold. First, is a sock to the mouth now a standard part of breaking up? Second, can you come up with a better answer to this inane question?

At least it wasn’t this sock:

game, Molly, walk

A Hard Days Night

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Molly had a busy day today. We went out for our walk early in the afternoon so that football could be watched with concentration later. About four miles into the walk, we ran into my friend Bill. Shortly thereafter, we started being followed by a Samoyed that had a collar but no tags. Bill got a catch halter while Molly and I  talked to the Samoyed until Bill could put the halter on. Then we  called one of the animal control officers (who work for me in my position with the Humane Society). As Bill and I figured, the animal control officer recognized the dog and knew where it belonged. It apparently has a habit of roaming on its own. So Molly got the excitement of meeting a new friend and someone to share the doggy equivalent of the masonic handshake – the butt sniff. That kind of excitement just doesn’t happen every day.

Molly and I finished our walk and then I got ready to go to the Super Bowl party. Along the way I talked to L in between interruptions by other calls. Molly decided to take a nap since I was ignoring her.  She was still napping when I got back after the game. Entertaining her new friend must have exhausted her.

As I was putting away the laundry, I noticed she was already sacked out in the master bedroom just waiting for me to come to bed. I hate to tell her it will be a while before that happens. What can you say to this:

Especially when Molly then flops down flat when I try to explain:

Guess she’ll just have to get over it. It’s either that or she was a Colts fan and can’t face the final outcome of the game.

Things Done Right