day 42

Man, I screwed this one up bad! Ran out of my regular paper and at the last minute used this paper I found in a stack of old supplies from the 80's. The minute I started to erase, everything smeared and it's way too late to start over tonight, so! I took the Boy fishing today and noticed how much stuff is involved in fishing now! I remembered my grandmother taking me fishing in the summers when I was his age and we did it on the cheap, caught more and had twice the fun!

I got up early to fix the wife's lunch and though I would fix this cartoon also. This one is composed better and has no smear lines!
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day 41

Got too hot today mowing the yard and almost didn't post tonight! It was the Madeline show last night at the graduation! She got a ton of awards and seemed to be up on stage every five minutes! The boy got a little jealous and showed out some! We survived. Different style tonight, loose pen work, mainly due to running out of time, but I will deny that if cornered!

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day 40

Our daughter graduates the sixth grade tonight (and they said she would never go far,,,,well, maybe I said she would never go far!). She is a beautiful and bright girl and will go far in this world if she can successfully walk the minefield that is the teenage years! So far she has shown good taste in friends and activities which we survivors know is half the battle. Last night the Boy got the dogs all stirred up late. I told him not to do it, but, does he listen? No! So, at eleven last night we can still hear the dogs fighting/playing and the Boy screaming "Shut up, you stupid dogs!" I just smiled and rolled over.....such is life!

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day 39

We went last night with no AC, the units were froze up! We go through this about once a year, small leak somewhere in one of the units. Apparently, who ever installed our heat pump was a world class dumb-ass! The guy who works on our units told me that they don't make the coolant we use anymore and it's only getting harder to find and more expensive. The new approved stuff will actually explode if put in contact with the old stuff we got in now, lucky us! Well, it's cool in here now and it'll probably last till next year. Such is life......

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day 38

 Got on the bike today and rode the Greenway in town, got me a new bike computer and I know the distance was 14.45 miles with an avg speed of 9.6 mph!  Not too bad for an old man in hot weather!  As we crossed this footbridge over the Stones River, these rednecks were jumping 30 feet off the top of the bridge into water that was recently 30 feet over flood stage, no telling what new stumps or rocks had been moved into the area?  But what are the eternal last words of a true redneck?  "Hey y'all, watch this!"

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day 37

Ok, I came close to blowing off today, it's 1015 at night, I'm tired and almost just went to bed. The three beers in me are not helping either! We won the last soccer game!!! That's over, but it was a great team and more fun than I ever would have expected! The wife took me shopping afterwards cause she got a gift card to Victoria Secret. That turned into an hour long ordeal. I can handle shopping OK, but I'm not a "let me hold your purse" kind of guy. I don't mind getting out every once in a while. It took forever for her to find the right bra and then get the girls to quit chatting and help her! Guess that's why I'm not in the underwear business! Me and the other two guys in there were doing our best not to stare, but the posters up in that place look right outta' Penthouse or something!! Some woman took her 6th grade boy in there and he was so bug-eyed I thought he was gonna' explode! All in all a good day!

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day 36

We turned in Madeline's oboe yesterday, she tried to play it, really! We told her it was a hard instrument to learn, but she didn't listen. I'm glad to be rid of it, it was un-goddly expensive and it sounded like a flock of chickens getting molested! Now the boy wants a bugle or trumpet but that can wait till the 6th grade. Madeline hates it when I go in music stores with her and ask to play stuff, she thinks I'm beyond uncool and a total embarrassment! But then, haven't I always been?



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day 35

School is almost out, we're down to one last soccer game and the dance recital is on the horizon, then I'm in full bore summer trouble!  I gotta keep the monkeys occupied and myself sane at the same time, I guess it's gonna be a lottsa' trips to the YMCA pool!  We got the new volleyball/badminton set out the other day and it took me an hour to set up by  ( with their help,,,3 hrs!).  The kids are a tad challenged with the games to say the least but they are catch on, myself, I would be happy with a beer and the Bocce set!



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day 34

All is well here, the weather is good, the soccer team played a good team  last night to a tie and we feel great about that! Bruce is getting around better after his surgery and I was thinking about what dogs must  think about the whole "getting fixed" process....

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day 33

I said I would only do new work here, but a long lost poster just surfaced that I had forgotten about from back in the day when I ran the Cafe' and I had to run it here! Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife, whom I love now more than the day I married her. Bruce is recovering well and getting around better, but still giving me the stink eye!! As you can tell from the poster and the splash panel to the blog, I love this Renoir painting, "The Luncheon of the Boating Party" and have done at least a dozen different version of it, this was, I think the first one back in 88.



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day 32

We had the dog fixed today. I know it was the right thing to do, Bob Barker tells me so!  Still, getting the old stones chopped off is not something a self respecting dude does without forethought! He seems ok, a little pissed off, but ok. Today is the one year anniversary of my father's death, that was not one of my best days on the planet, but we survive and hopefully thrive....such is life!



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day 31

Well, I did it, I made a month!!! This daily cartooning is harder than I thought it would be, but overall, I am happy with some of the work coming out. It has been an education to say the least. We went to the ballpark last night and saw the local minor league team, the Sounds beat Portland. It was fun and the weather held until we left, then the bottom fell out! The boy wanted a foul ball soooo bad, but we had good seats behind home plate and none came our way. Tomorrow, Bruce goes to get fixed, film at eleven!



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day 30

We won today big time, 7-1! Had team pictures the other day and not all the guys made it, so, I thought I would do a team caricature instead! Bad weather tonight, might not make the Sounds game, which would blow! Fingers crossed!



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dAY 29

Going to be a busy weekend, In-laws in town, soccer game in the morning and a Sounds Baseball game tomorrow night. Spent the day at the school helping with the end of the year fun day activities. Stood at the start of a blow-up castle thing and kept the kids from walking all over each other.



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day 28

Haven't had the time to cartoon yet due to my serious housecleaning duties! No, really, got family coming in this weekend and need the house to look like at least Cro-Magnon people live here! As a treat, I thought I would throw out a bone to you readers and let you see what the "Hounds from Heck" really look like, cartoon to follow later....hopefully!


L to R: Zoe, Bruce and Minnie Pearl



I talked the 5th grade class about the oil disaster in the Gulf while Sub'ing the other day and explained what I remembered about drilling and well control. All those years in the Gulf on the rigs and that degree in Geology weren't a total waste. The kids really got into it and calmed down, listened and asked some very interesting questions! The more we hear about what happened, the more it looks like shortcuts and stupid decisions were made. The subsea engineers I worked with would never let a BOP go down with dead batteries and faulty Ram's in place. More is coming out daily, I just hope they do not take a business as usual attitude and think outside the box to shut the well down and get this mess cleaned up before it finishes off one of the most beautiful parts of this country!

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day 27

I am beat, had to sub again today and this time got a whole fifth grade class all to myself.  The day finished up OK, just wore me down.  Now I promised you a cartoon everyday.  I did not promise a funny or even a quality one!!! If you have been following the blog by now you may have noticed that I will go back and tweak old cartoons to make them funnier or correct glaring mistakes in spelling or composition. Today's cartoon was drawn a week ago. Never came up with a good line, still haven't! But, in the need for continuity, I will post, but be warned, I think this puppy will be worked on plenty in the next few days!  The gag revolves around Bruce's first trip in our backyard.  He looked around and immediately jumped in the Koi pond and was drug out a  green furball from the algae!



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day 26

Well, I went out and bought a new fridge yesterday and it's coming today about 11 am.  The funny thing is this morning I opened the old one and low and behold the damn thing was working!! We are thinking about putting it in the garage for drinks and stuff, but I'm not sure I  trust it, it let me down and that spark is just not there, it's out of my circle of trust!  Another rainy day here, won't be able to ride the bike (and my new gel seat cover is on that sucker, so hopefully my ass won't fall asleep on the trail again).  I need to clean anyway, got in-laws coming in this weekend and want this "house-bitch" to prove he's on the job!!).  



 
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day 25

What a morning already, woke up, went into the kitchen and noticed water on the floor, never a good sign.  Ruled out the dogs, who were looking very innocent by the way in a nonchalant manner, then noticed that it was coming from the freezer section of the fridge!  The damn thing is only 7 yrs old and had already been fixed once before, the original warranty and the extension we got with the last repair were both expired explained the Sears girl on the phone ( after a 20 min wait!).   And they can be out bright and early on Thursday!,,,Thursday?  screw that, I'm off fridge hunting this morning and whoever get on here the fastest makes the sale.  Other than that, Mother's Day was a big success!  She liked her stuff and the kids were not total monsters.  Well, off to mop the floor, again!

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day 24

Normally by this time of the year, my son and I have gone camping at least once. This year we are in soccer hell and unable to get out, that and the horrible weather. My biggest problem with him in the woods is his fear of bugs! Not a great trait for an outdoorsman, but he loves to get out to fish and camp, just maybe in an antiseptic jar somewhere! Happy Mother's day to all you moms out there, you know who you are! Today was kind of a rush job, our Happy Mom needs the computer to finish her paper. 

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day 23

Today, I am a zombie, no way around it. Yesterday in Nashville, all that flood debris got my allergies going and I had to do it......I took a benadryl! They work, but they knock me for a loop! We lost today at soccer, the kids had missed 3 games and no practice last week and they were running around like a bunch of zombies too! I stole this joke from a friend on facebook (thanks Jeff!). Now, off to yard work, or maybe a nap! yeah, nap sounds goood!


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day 22

I am tired! Spent the day helping friends clean out their homes that had about 5 ft of water in them. They lost it all, even the cars in the garage, all the photos, the computers, TV's, clothes, the works. The whole area looked like a damn bomb had gone off, the whole thing really sucked! The people there were very upbeat, they knew they were still safe and had dodged a bullet. I know we are lucky! Such is life....



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day 21

We have a sick one in the house this morning and he will require a trip to the pediatrician. Andrew woke me about 3 am with a seal bark that would wake the dead and a bad sore throat, so it's off we go! Todays cartoon is true, the boy will not eat anything with flavor, which drives me crazy! And no food can be touching so we found some cheap plastic school cafeteria style plates and he loves them! (the only exception and this one is a puzzler is sushi! and I mean exotic stuff that I only tried a few years ago, Dragon rolls with eel and tuna and avocado???) Yesterday, I got on the bike again and this time I rode that sucker all the way down the town's expansive greenway system and back, wanted to see how the flooding effected this area. Not so bad, but my butt still hurts today! Tomorrow the wife and I are going to a big civic luncheon honoring area 6-8 grade artists (which happens to include our own Madeline!). She won second place mixed media and never mentioned it until we got the invitation in the mail! I hear the sick one barking in the distance and I'm sure the Young Master is ready for his tea.....


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day 20

Another day of blessed sunshine and drying! The scene in Nashville is still pretty bad and the national news is finally getting it that something major went down here while they were concentrating on a Pakistani too stupid to figure out how to get gasoline to explode in the back of a closed car!! They say the damage to the trucking industry and the interstate infrastructure alone could be in the countless millions. We are still dry and reasonably unaffected but many of our friends living in Nashville are homeless or living in damaged homes. So with that, enjoy a funny cartoon about dogs.....


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day 19

The flood waters are still up and downtown Nashville is still under water, even the Titan's football field has water on it. They caught the guy trying to bomb downtown New York this morning and from the first reports I've seen, he doesn't look like the sharpest knife to ever come out of Pakistan! Eventually, we may get one over here who knows what he's doing and I pray that day never comes...I don't consider myself a political cartoonist, but this one wrote itself.



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day 18

What a weekend! Over 13 inches of rain fell this weekend, whole neighborhoods flooded out, interstates shut down indefinitely, houses floating down the road and other than the weather channel, almost no national news coverage!! Is this a Katrina-like disaster? Time will tell. The big story the talking heads were going on about all weekend was the Time Square potential bombing. Didn't those idiots know that anyone with a 3rd grade reading level in English, Internet access and the ability to find a Home Depot could make a jury-rigged explosive large enough to take out the average American high school gym? The only really shocking thing is that it hasn't happened before!
Crap, I'm up on my soap-box now! Have a good day and stay dry.....such is life.


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day 17

The flooding is getting out of control around here this weekend! There were actually houses floating down I-24 yesterday, We are OK for now and seem to be in the best high ground in this area, pray it stops!


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day 16

More horrible weather today, Andrew's 3rd game in a row was canceled due to rain and heavy storms! He's a little bummed, Mom is home today and freakin' out pretty bad! The kids have already been stashed in the under-stairs closet twice and the potential for them to go back in there is high! We just heard that the interstate is closing due to flooding! And I thought Louisiana had bad weather till we moved here! Least we low on the "skeeter" scale!!


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