Nuclear Family Warhead

Labor Day Barbecue at the pool this weekend for the Nuke Neighborhood.  We’re bringing the hot dogs and buns.  Let the Mathematics begin.  Oscar Mayer (no relation to John) packs their bread puppies in quantities of 10; the bread companies pack their tube steak holders in packs of 8 or 12.  And you thought you’d never use Algebra again.  The Nuke Family will be 5 people, Mr. & Mrs. AP is 3, The Irish Ten-or’s will be 5 or 6 and Klan Torgo accounts for 4.  That makes 17 or 18 hot dog eaters if everybody has 1, which will never happen because some will have more than 1 and some will have none.  Let’s call it 2.2 hot dogs per person.  That means I will need approximately 37.4 hot dogs.

Now; do I buy 30 and tell everybody who doesn’t get another one to make up the difference in hamburgers and potato salad; or, do I buy 40 and cook off the extra 2.6 hot dogs for the dogs (pets) and run the very real possibility of having to call the carpet cleaners?  Decisions, decisions.  I think I’ll go with the 30; there will be plenty of other things to eat and even though the carpet DOES need cleaning, some stains just don’t come out.  Like red dye #5 and dog vomit.  Alright, set on the hot dogs; now: buns.  I can buy 3 of the 12 packs and use the extra 6 for garlic bread.  Option 2; buy two 12 packs and one 8 pack; that leaves me only 2 extras.  Maybe I can use them for mini-tuna sandwiches.  Great.  Now I have to buy tuna fish also.  Option 3; buy two 12 packs and tell the last 6 diners to eat them like a Slim Jim.  Option 4; switch with Klan Torgo and bring the chips, sodas, plates and napkins instead.  I think I’m going with option 4.

I know, I know; 4 more years of the same thing, or the ultimate unknown?  McCain or Obama?  How about a 3rd option that isn’t Ralph Nader?  How about ME!  Yeah, you read it correctly!  Why not?  I think I have the ability to communicate with Democrats (I have 3 children) AND Republicans (I married a CPA).  Before you run off thinking it would be a wasted vote; look at my platform: 

ECONOMIC PLAN:

Abolish the income tax

Federal and state.  If the government wants your money then they can come to your house and do the yard or paint the house.  They’ll have to earn it like everyone else does.  Does your garage need cleaning? 

Drill here, drill now, drill everywhere!

Let me get this straight; we have enough shale oil in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to run the entire country for the next 100 years and no body’s doing anything with it?  1.5 TRILLION barrels.  Just sitting there.  My plan? 75% of all gas taxes collected by the Federal Government will go directly to shale oil production.  There.  I just saved a family of Antelope in ANWR.

EDUCATION PLAN:

Abolish “No Child Left Behind” Before They’re All Left Behind

Do you know what your children are learning in school?  They’re learning how to pass a test.  Teachers and Administrators are forced to be a “School of Distinction”, or some such nonsense to get their fair share of funding the next year, so guess what they’re teaching?  Meanwhile; your kids do absolutely nothing the last 2 weeks of school so that EVERY TEACHER can concentrate on tutoring the 1% of kids who didn’t pass it the first time.  My Plan?  Get all of that Lottery money that was “for the schools” out of the state’s general fund and in the hands of the educators.  If you go beyond 15% in administrative costs running your lottery, or put it in your state’s “General” fund, then you lose 25% of your Federal Highway Funding for the next year.  Do it again and I’ll make it 50%.

DEFENSE STRATEGY:

Veterans Benefits

If a brave American Man or Woman is willing to risk their life to protect my freedom and the freedom of my family, the least I can do is ensure their quality of life once they come home.  Henceforth; 50% of all community service hours served by misdemeanor offenders shall be spent painting and beautifying every VFW post in the United States.  The other 50% will continue to be used for roadside trash collection.  All Veterans will be allowed to choose any Doctor or Hospital at any time for any thing they need and/or want.  Funding will come from the 50% of the Welfare Department budget that I plan on reappropriating.  Still want your Welfare check?  Grab a gun, I’ve got a Nation that needs protecting.

There’s lots more, but I think you’re starting to get the idea.  It’s catching on, too.  Check out this report from the local news and see what you think.

Thanks, Serts! (and Stacey)

OK, so it took almost a week to unpack.  Not really, but with school getting ready to start, football practice and this being the last week the pool is open; I’ve had a pretty busy week.  The trip to Alabama was awesome.  The drive alone wasn’t bad at all.  NukeMom loves to drive.  She also likes to leave on trips at around 6am, so she gets to drive.  No argument from me, just give me a pillow.  Around lunch time I’ll take over and let her rest.  It all comes out in the wash. 

I forgot how beautiful the drive through the mountains is.  When we moved here we came the same way, I-40 through eastern Tennessee and Asheville, North Carolina.  If you’ve never been through that area, just know that there is a reason they call it “God’s Country”; every site could be on a postcard.  Well, except for the Stuckey’s, I don’t think God eats at Stuckey’s.  I’ve borrowed a picture from the Internet for the Smoky Mountains as I couldn’t operate the camera and be the steer-man for the luge at the same time.  It’s a beautiful drive, but it’s also the equivalent of a world record bobsled run.  The road climbs up to Asheville, so you have a third lane to allow all the semi’s that can only manage about 4 miles per hour a lane of their own.  Once you get to the top, your goal coming down the other side is to keep the trucks that made it to the top from ending up in your trunk.  If you’ve ever seen Steven Spielberg’s first movie called Duel, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Dennis Weaver would have a coronary on this road.

After I-40 we cut across Tennessee and drove through Chattanooga.  Talk about a beautiful place.  Big Tennessee river running through downtown, mountains all around and, oh yeah, SEE ROCK CITY!  In case you missed the 24,000 billboards along the way or the 14,000 barn roofs painted with the same slogan, there is a place called Rock City on Lookout Mountain.  Lookout Mountain is actually a plateau that runs through Northern Georgia and ends in Southern Tennessee right at the Tennessee river in Chattanooga.  This will be next summer’s vacation stop.  There are a ton of things to do there.  I won’t kill you with all of the details (too late?), but we are looking forward to next years vacation there.

What am I forgetting….Oh yeah!  There was a wedding!  We stayed at the brides home near Huntsville, Alabama.  She rents the house out now to her best friend and her kids and they GAVE UP their house for the whole week so we could stay there.  Talk about southern hospitality!  The kids got to “camp out” in a trailer that another friend brought over to the house.  The bride said; “It wouldn’t be an Alabama wedding without a trailer in there somewhere!”  Her house sits on farmland that has been in her family for generations.  Her Mother and Father live right next door; in fact, that’s where the wedding was held.  Her folks house sits on a bluff above a slow moving creek.  Slow moving, that is, until they get a good rain, and then it can overflow it’s banks and run halfway up the bluff.  Thanks to the ancestors for building on top of the bluff instead of next to the creek! 

Her folks do a Barbecue every month for family and friends; and her Dad has built his own BBQ pit right next to the creek.  I worked at a BBQ restaurant for years and I can tell you that they sure know how to do it here.  If you’ve ever been to a barbecue like this one, then you know that the cooking of the meat is the extravaganza; eating it is incidental.  The 8 to 10 hours it takes to get everything ready is just as much a party as the party itself.  I got to sit around and talk Texas BBQ vs. Alabama BBQ for a little while.  They even talked me into trying the “World Famous” Alabama White BBQ  sauce.  It was incredible.  I hate chicken, but I went back for seconds.  The White sauce helping me get over my aversion to poultry, if only for one day.

The wedding was short and sweet.  Wil and Nancy exchanged vows and the ceremony was over within minutes.  The Chaplain followed suit with the blessing; which lasted all of 19 words.  It wasn’t “Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat”, but it was close.  The BBQ started next, and the ribs, slaw, hash brown casserole and beer disappeared quickly.  The kids splashed around the creek and had a rolling contest down the side of the bluff.  One kid even said; ”Hey, ya’ll; watch this!” before tossing his carcass down the hill.  Those are dangerous words down south; HYWT is usually followed by a trip to the hospital for a maiming injury.  Thankfully the only injuries this night were to a few unfortunate swine who wandered too close to a wedding BBQ pit.     

Nancy’s Aunt Betty Jo had all of us over to her house for a brunch the day before the wedding.  She lives in a beautiful home in the hills overlooking Hunstville.  She is quite the host.  The brunch was fantastic, and hearing her stories amazed me.  I’m not sure how old she is, and a proper southern woman never tells anyway, but suffice it to say that she is at least 60.  She looks like she is in her 40’s.  She is in better shape than most people 1/3 her age.  SHE ROCK CLIMBS!  I don’t mean rock climb like; “let’s go hiking in the park tomorrow”, I mean like Tom Cruise-Mission: Impossible 2-hanging off of a sheer rock face 1,000 feet up rock climb.  Her garage was filled with rock climbing equipment.  She had finger-cups hanging from the ceiling for training.  One cup would hold 4 fingers, the next 3 fingers and the bottom only 2 fingers.  Your goal is to hang by your fingers and do pull ups.  My record?  I did 1/4 of a pull up with all 4 fingers.  Then I passed out.  She is truly an amazing woman.  Nancy’s whole family and extended group of friends treated us all like royalty.  I even got to play a round of golf with her sister and son.  Yes, this trip to Alabama was everything you hear about when people talk about the hospitality of southerners.  Best trivia facts brought home from this trip?  The Alabama Crimson Tide have won 12 National Championships in Football, and the first 3 Super Bowls were won by Alabama Quarterbacks (Bart Starr (I,II) and Joe Namath (III)).  Makes a Texas boy want to keep his mouth shut; and I did (mostly).

I think the folks at the Darwin Awards should just call it a year; the winner for 2008 has been found.  Tropical Storm (one time and possibly future Hurricane) Fay blew through the Florida Keys yesterday.  What would you do if you knew a hurricane was going to hit you?  Leave?  Board up the house?  Get the pets to higher ground?  All good options, not one of which was chosen by our hero; Mr. Hurricane Kiteboard flyer.  If you have some deep rooted desire to get your body slammed into a concrete wall by 80 mph winds while strapped to a kite, more power to ya; just don’t expect me to come running with my wallet open when it turns out that not only are you a crazy fool, you’re a crazy uninsured fool.  Something tells me that even if he has insurance, he may not for much longer once his agent sees this video.  I wonder if he had R. Kelly playing on his ipod.

It shouldn’t take long to unpack; it’s not like we went to Europe or anything.  While I’m getting everything back to normal, head on over to Scrivel.com and check out my latest contribution.  It’s a sordid tale of misplaced assumptions and prejudice; tonight, on a very special Blossom.  Once the laundry is done and the dogs are hosed off I’ll put up some pictures and tell you all about Alabama.  It was great.

When you see this post, I’ll already be in Alabama.  NukeMom’s brother is getting married this weekend.  The greatest part about the wedding invitation?  When I looked down bottom and read these two glorious words; “Picnic Casual”.  The thought of having to wear a suit or tux in the August heat of Alabama was like getting excited for a trip to the dentist to have my gums scrapped.  Thankfully, Wil and Nancy were thinking of everyone when they made the decision on the dress code. 

Nukegirl is excited to see her new Aunt Nancy again.  So excited, in fact, that she can’t get it out of her mouth fast enough.  Which is why to Nukegirl, Aunt Nancy is actually “Antsy”.  Works for her.  I wasn’t able to make the trip up when NukeMom and the Nukekids met Nancy for the first time, so I’m looking forward to meeting my new sister in law.  I don’t know much about Alabama other than I know it’s hot there in August.  It’s gotta be; it’s close enough to Arkansas, which is like a broken convection oven in August, so I kind of know what to expect.  I was in Arkansas once in August (yes, it was on purpose), it made me overly sweaty and I swore I would never do it again.  And now I’m getting ready to do it again, only this time, I’ll be picnic casual and carrying a really big jug of water. 

My knowledge of Alabama is limited to knowing that Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote a pretty good song about how Sweet of a Home it was, Forrest Gump is from Greenbow and Paul “Bear” Bryant once had a nice little football dynasty going down there.  I’ll be bringing plenty of new facts and stories home, so I’ll let you know all about it when we get back.

BWW returns after a 1 week sabbatical.  In recognition of the Olympics, we’ll feature some words that are influenced either by China or the Olympics.  Seemed like a simple enough plan, until I started looking for big words exclusive to the Olympics and China.  So, rather than big words, we’ll just give you some interesting words this week.  You know, Nixon went to China once.  The results of the trip?  We got a couple of Panda bears; they got missle technology and access to Wal-Mart’s shelves.  Oh, and Hong Kong; we gave them Hong Kong too.  Nixon forgot to tell the English about that part of the deal. 

Doesn’t seem fair all these years later, does it?  13 Trillion dollars in exportable consumer goods and a city in exchange for two sterile Panda bears.  So much for that zoo breeding program.  I still wonder how the Chinese are able to extract all that lead from their polluted air and put it in things like dog food and paint for children’s toys.  Maybe that was one of the things that Nixon gave them that the government never told us about; Lead technology.  Erstwhiles.

Our first word this week is Yangtze.  The Yangtze river is the third longest river in the world, but it is one of the deadliest.  Floods have claimed over half a million lives since 1911 alone.  To control flooding, the Chinese are building The Three Gorges Dam.  When they are done in 2009, it will be one and a quarter miles across and over 600 feet high, making it the largest dam in the world.  All the Chinese had to do to accomplish this is displace over 1.3 million people, submerge over 1,500 cities, towns and villages, and put between 20,000 and 30,000 men to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 15 years.  THAT is some serious overtime.  Oh, yeah, almost forgot; some say it will be the biggest environmental disaster ever.  Guess that’s not Inconvenient enough for Al Gore.  Wow.  I went all Robert Kennedy Jr. there for a minute, sorry.  Whether you are for it or against it, it is an amazing project; what the future holds is anyone’s guess.     

After searching for a good word related to the Olympics, I come up empty.  So I made one up.  Phelped will soon enter the lexicon as a verb meaning; to get beaten soundly; trounced; obliterated.  Seemed like a logical word to make up seeing how the only competition Michael Phelps has is dolphins and Cuban refugees.  Don’t send hate mail, I’m friends with some Cubans and they laughed when I tested it on them.  So there you have it; an unconventional BWW, but interesting still the same.  I’ll provide you with a link for Phelped once Urban Dictionary puts it up.  Provided; that is, that they accept it.  Check out the BWW Home Page for your Medal of vocabulary Gold.

So I kind of got a job.  Nukegirl starts school this year and the “Stay at Home” part of SAH Dad is about to fade out of my job title.  I had my first official event in my new job on Friday.  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  Going back to work, I mean.  The first client I met gave me a funny look when I asked him what his favorite Nicktoon was.  The second was even more perplexed when I mentioned that our product was filled with 8 essential vitamins and minerals; probably because our product has nothing to do with food.  At lunch, I was able to turn the conversation into a debate over who was cooler; Drake and Josh, or Zach and Cody.  I don’t know if my mind is ready for stimulation that isn’t aimed at the 5 to 12 year old demographic. 

It felt weird to actually be wearing pants again.  I haven’t worn anything other than shorts or sweat pants for the last 3 and a half years.  I had to leave myself a note to remember that I had to shave in the morning.  And put on a clean pair of underwear.  Not really, but it was close.  Re-inserting myself into the adult world is going to take a little time, I think.  It is a new experience for me.  It’s not restaurants (Thank God), and I’ll have a chance to be a part of something that has the potential to be big.  It involves Child safety and the market for it is almost un-tapped.  The thought of being able to move between full time parent and working professional is a godsend to my psyche.  I’ve loved being at home with the kids, but I’m ready for more adult interaction.  I’ll be working from home, so I’ll still have my Stay at Home Dad pants to fill, but after the kids have gone to school, I’ll be able to put on my career shorts and t-shirt pants. 

I’m trying to brush up on all that I’ve missed the past few years.  I’ve tried to stay in tune with the real world, but it’s hard sometimes when you have Spongebob assaulting your senses four hours a day.  Cable news and the Internet have kept me up on a lot of things but it’s different when you’re not able to get involved in the discussion “at work”.  Nukeboy1 hasn’t really been interested in hearing my take on the election and Nukegirl just looks at me with consternation when I mention gas prices and the domestic drilling debate. 

So, a new chapter begins in the book of NukeDad.  I hope the editor’s take a good hard look at it and tweak it into a best seller.  I’m ready for the challenge and can’t wait to see what the future holds.  If it turns out poorly, don’t expect to see any links back to this post in future ones.  If, however; it turns out to be a great turn of events, please feel free to tell me to shut the hell up when I go on and on and on about how great everything is.  A good slap upside the head is needed every once in a while.

I made a joke about during cartwheels in my underwear to celebrate my 100th post, and someone called me on it.  And then so did some other people.  So, here it is; the 100th post.  Big Whoop.  Enjoy.  Thanks to Eric Johnson for the music.  Also, I’m up again over at Scrivel.  Go check it out.  You’ll get to see how ugly my tux was on prom night.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I survived tax free weekend.  I didn’t go willingly, mind you, I just happened to be in the car when NukeMom announced that we were going to “pick up  a few things” for school.  First stop was Kohl’s.  They had a rack of t-shirts that had been picked through more than William Shatner’s girdle drawer.  All of the “folders” were on strike, apparently, so we just glanced and tossed like everybody else.  We managed to come away with 6 shirts, only one of them with skulls on it.  Not that skulls are a huge issue, but everything in the young men’s department looked like it came from Black Sabbath’s 70’s t-shirt storage warehouse.  Nukeboy1 already has an AC/DC Highway to Hell shirt, a Black Sabbath skull and bones shirt and a Kiss Debut Album shirt; the evil end of the clothing spectrum is pretty full.   

Next stop was the shoe section.  Nukeboy2 wears a size 2.  Guess what I found in boy’s shoes?  A stunning lack of size 2’s.  I realize that we weren’t there at 8am when the doors opened and that the crowds had been huge, but come on, if K-Mart can keep the toilet paper aisle stocked on Cinco de Mayo weekend, then I think Kohl’s should be able to do it on their number one shoe selling weekend.  He wanted Tony Hawk’s, but they didn’t have any (or so I thought), so he went with some Nike’s.  The NukeFamily has been cursed with extra wide feet and since Nike’s are made to fit the Kate Moss’s of the world, it was size 3 before he could even stand up in the shoes without falling over.  Thankfully Nukegirl spotted some Tony Hawk’s around the corner.  I perused the remaining boxes by size; his choice of style was irrelevant at this point.  We found a pair and put them on his feet.  The fit was great.  I guess skateboarders are known for having floppy feet also.  It was then that I noticed that the shoes had 2 pairs of laces.  The bottom 3 eyelets were laced with a black shoe lace, the top 3 with a white shoe lace.  We had about 5 feet of extra laces after tying them in a triple knot.  I looked at the poster they had hanging up and there was no sign of a knot anywhere.  The laces (both shades) were tucked inside the shoes.  Now I’m really confused.  Stupefied or not, they went into the basket, this endeavor had gone on long enough.  I’ll hit the website to figure out how to tie them.  Next stop: Wal-Mart.  Think about that as you go to the next paragraph.

Walking into a Wal-Mart on tax free weekend is akin to hiking in Denali National Park in salmon flavored boxer briefs; the bite in the ass is of your own doing.  We live in NASCAR country, so cart drafting was frowned upon and restrictor plates were in use.  We jockied for position and soon found ourselves in the blue box  nirvana of school supplies.  Glue sticks were only .22 cents for a packet of 2.  We bought 8 of them.  Hey!  They were tax free!   Report folders?  We got 22.  After we get the Nukekids set up for their classes I’ll take the extra 14 and put them on the book shelf next to the 12 extras from last year and the 10 extras from 2006.  Pencils?  We could donate 1 to every child in India and China.  Crayola’s?  Enough boxes to color every placard and banner at next years Gay Pride parade in San Francisco.  Loose leaf paper?  I’ll be making paper airplanes until I’m 84.  That’s after filling the 36 extra folders on the book shelf.  We’re set for school.  So are your kids; just send them by to pick up their supplies.