Category: Humor

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Picture from 6th Grade…

A couple of days ago was Valentine’s Day which got me thinking about one etched in my mind from when I was in 6th grade.   Digging around I found a picture taken that day during our class party celebrating the event.  I had given a card to every kid in the class – seemed like the nicest thing to do.  I did not have to use even one finger to count the number of Valentine Day cards I received.  Twas not a good day, and one that was burned in my memory.   Perhaps this was the impetus starting me down my curmudgeonly path.

And so it went.

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Clint Eastwood Saves the Day

Today I was doing some honey-dos in the guest bedroom.  While I was busy in there I decided I wanted to watch the final round of this week’s PGA golf tournament. Thing is we have not had a house guest since before the pandemic lock down so it has been that long since that TV had been used.  First I had to load our current streaming service onto this TV, then I discovered the Roku menu was not working.  I diagnosed the problem quickly – for me – as the batteries being dead in the remote controller.  Opening the back of the device I discovered I needed two AA batteries.  Problem was we had used up the last of the package a while back.

Remembering the oft repeated line Continue reading “Clint Eastwood Saves the Day”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #572

yeah I know you did not ask!

I spent part of yesterday afternoon giving all three bathrooms a very thorough cleaning.  Now I do not want to utilize any of them as I do not want to encroach on their perfection. I am afraid, however, if I sidle up to a tree in the backyard one of the neighbors will place a call to Chesterfield’s finest.  Well, there is always the BP on the corner of Olive and Chesterfield Parkway.  Their bathrooms are generally clean, but not perfect.  I wonder if I could sneak into the YMCA down by the St. Louis County Library and get a quick shower…

And so it goes.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #500

yeah I know you did not ask!

I am currently watching a Great Courses series (we have a streaming subscription) called: Maya to Aztec: Ancient Mesoamerica Revealed. I was utterly fascinated by the unit on Mayan math. They used a based 20 system and only needed 3 symbols to represent all the possible numbers.  It was a positional system like our decimal system and unlike Roman numerals. The professor said the joke was that they counted on their fingers and their toes.  He then reinforced that it was a joke and went on to say that no one was quite sure why they came up with a base 20 system.

Obviously we all work with base 10, more or less daily. As a programmer I worked extensively with a base 16 system of math and symbology.  I occasionally also worked directly in base 8 and base 2.

All which started me thinking about an Okie I once knew who invented a base 21 system.  Of course, he was skinny dipping at the time he had this brain storm.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #9,163

yeah I know you did not ask!

Señora and I were together in my pick-em-up truck this chilly morning, running errands. I’m not sure how it got started, but we got into a playful contest trying to out “smart-ass” each other.  After a few minutes of this Señora threw her hands in the air  towards the headliner of my vehicle mirthfully conceding, “you win, you are king of smart-asses.”

All of which got me to wondering, does that make me the better smart-ass or the worse smart-ass?

Inquiring minds want to know, and me too.

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So When May I?

I just finished watching a documentary, Bill Cunningham: New York. Bill was a fashion photographer for the New York Times. While he shot photos at runways in New York and Paris, he was most famous for his street photos of fashion on the New York streets, especially around Manhattan.  He did this for decades and was a fixture in the New York fashion industry and at the New York Times.

His photography was of some interest to me, but what engaged me most in this short film was the photographer and his exceedingly quirky personality.  He had one function in life, Continue reading “So When May I?”

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It is a wonder…

It is a wonder that I have kept any job.

In 2001 I took a programming job with Saks at their Information Technology center in Jackson, Mississippi.  It is a long story how it came to be there, I will not bore you. At that time Saks was the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, and three other department store chains.

The week I started the departmental secretary sent me an email requesting that I write a short blurb about myself.  She was going to put my “bio” and the photograph from my ID badge on the departmental bulletin board to introduce me to everyone.  I did so, she did so, but she failed to read  my expository remarks, simply cutting and pasting my profundities into her document.

Click to see bigger

A few days later she came to me all excited asking about what I had written, insistent that I “correct” it.  Unfortunately not every one gets my sublime sense of humor.  It might also be the reason that a year or so later when I asked her out, she was very adamant about having to wash her hair seven nights a week.

Just in case you cannot read the verbiage in the image here is what I wrote:

“David joined SAKS in February of this year. He came from American Electric Power in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is working as a Senior Programmer with Greg Kinsley’s IT Logistics Team. David has two kids and a granddaughter. They reside just outside Ft. Smith, AR. David resides in the Reservoir area.  His interests include golf, photography, fishing and backpacking. He volunteers part-time with the Frankenstein Laboratory of Experimental Humanity.”

And so it goes.

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I don’t mean to be a Grinch…

A while back I enrolled on an app for neighborhoods, Nextdoor, as I had the need to sell some items.

Left turn Clyde… if you ever have a need to fill up a nut house, just put something vaguely of value on Craigslist for free.  I guarantee that within 24 hours your institution will be overflowing.

Another left turn Clyde… I suppose nut house is not political correct these days, perhaps I should have said, “abode for the sanity challenged.” Oops, cannot use that name, Congress has already taken full possession of it.

Back to the main road Clyde… I’m not a big fan of Nextdoor.  It seems to be a lot of Millennials and a few Gen Xers whining about nearly anything. We live in a neighborhood with reasonable sized lots, lots of trees and a huge, miles long greenbelt with a small stream running the length of it.  Lots of wildlife to be seen at times, mainly deer, coyotes, raccoons, squirrels, hawks, but no lion, tigers or bears, oh my.  Almost daily someone on Nextdoor is warning about one or the other.  A while back someone was upset because their male neighbor was mowing his lawn with his shirt off.  Complaining of speeders is another recurring theme, even though CPD makes its budget with speed traps on major ingressing streets for this neighborhood.

I have my notices from Nextdoor going to an email address I use for sites I believe will spam me, and I only check it sporadically.  So when I saw this notification of a posting with just the first few words in the email, I thought, “well another Millennial aspiring to be a Curmudgeon!”  Wanting to verify my impression I opened up the posting:

“I don’t mean to be a Grinch however………. to those of you who are placing Christmas lights/ decorations in your yard, would you please avoid anything that has red and blue lights flashing together. Every time I come around the corner, I think it’s the police and I have a panic attack. I have to brake hard, toss my margarita out the window, fasten my seat belt, throw my phone on the floor, turn my radio down, and all while trying to drive. It’s just too much drama, even for Christmas.”

Cracked me up, and it does capture the spirit of Nextdoor.

And so it goes.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #9,902

yeah I know you did not ask!

I want to see the job description at MoDOT for this position, or at least the want ad for the job,

I was headed to St. Charles, driving north on MO 141.  I passed one then a second of these those big yellow MoDOT trucks sporting the brightly lighted signs declaring “MEN WORKING AHEAD”.   Both were driving extremely slow as there was a work party afoot moving very slowly too.  Both were equipped with big, striped crash barriers at the rear of the trucks.  I sometimes see 3 or 4 of these vehicles stacked up for a moving work zone.

Wanted:  Must have CDL. Need a person capable of driving extremely slow. Potential for accidents is higher than average. Harried, cell-phone-using commuters might miss bright yellow truck with brightly lighted sign warning of danger.  No worries, trucks are equipped with state of the art crash barriers, and  Health and Life Insurance will be available at reasonable cost to you.

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Please, not in public…

Señora and I were running around the other day, remembering I needed a charging cable for my phone, we stopped by Wally World.  On the way out we passed a Christmas display causing me to “sing” out loud, somewhat sarcastically, “Fra la la la – la la la.”

Señora’s almost immediate reaction was to say, “You really should not do that in public.”

I disingenuously asked, “What?”

“You really should not sing in public,” she elaborated.

“I thought you liked it when I made a ‘joyful’ noise?”

“I do, at the house, not in public.”

“Well,” I said in a huff, “that is one of the meaner things you have said to me.”

“I am just trying to protect you,” she went on.

“Protect me from what?”

“I would not want to see you pelted with rotten tomatoes. It makes doing the laundry tough.”

“It will be a while before you hear me sing again,” I heard the pouting me say.

Was that a long sigh of contentment I just heard coming from Señora’s direction?