A small announcement about a new “look” that I have been sporting this week. Many of you will be used to my old “look”; the rough and rugged “Construction Dan.” No more, though... Many of you may have heard of the “Metro-sexual”, men who are heterosexual, but care greatly about their appearances, and are very interested in the grooming of one’s self. I took a few radical steps in that direction this last weekend. Allow me to describe the new me:
I got a new hairdo, one that is considerably shorter in front. I also had the eyebrows “sculpted” and even my eyelashes, and yes, also my beard. I had a facial treatment done, from my collar up, to darken my appearance. Directly after my treatment, my eyeglasses were “smoked” so dark that I could barely see through them. And yes, I am sure that you all are asking yourselves if I treated myself to that ultimate luxury of self-pampering; the manicure. Of course, I did; I got the very latest in manicure fashion, one that makes your fingernails appear whitish-yellow without actually applying fingernail polish, and has the added benefit of making your first three fingers and thumb red and look like bratwurst over the grill about to pop. And to crown the new me, I topped it off with a favorite scent: the Odour de la Singed Hair.
You might be asking your self “how can a busy guy like Dan, business owner, husband, father of four, active church member, maintainer of 20 acre Farmlet manage to still find the time to pamper himself?” Easy! Let me introduce my new self care beauty treatment product: “Flash Make-Over”. It’s perfect for every busy person looking for a quick spruce-up. Included in every kit comes 2 small kegs of gunpowder to pour out and light on your driveway, one slow burning to give you confidence, and then one that Flashes instantly when lit, turning your complexion into a lovely charcoal-gray tone, and trims your hair, including beard, mustache, nose, head, and ear hair! Tired of meticulous hair trimming? Let “Flash Make-Over” do it! It takes less than a second! Also has been known to produce charming pit-marks in your glasses to add individual personality to your new look! Don’t forget that with this purchase comes the instant mani-cure, (one hand only) that turns your fingers into delicious looking bratwursts! Guaranteed that pus wont start oozing from blisters for at least 48 hours. Where else can you find all this beauty treatment in low priced kit?!
Remember, result may vary and past performance is no indicator of future results.
2 16 oz. kegs of gunpowder: $19.95
1 Lighter : $ .79
Medicated burn ointment: $4.98
Having your new employees mock you because your "sausage fingers" won't let you squeeze together a set of 'snips at work?: Priceless!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Ditch drivers
So I've been catching flack from friends and family about the "used car salesman" posting lately. Apparently, some people are upset about me not describing how I tore the guy's head off and spit down the hole. I am unsure if I should apologize for that or not, but I personally took it as growth on my own part that I didn't unload on him, but point taken; it doesn't make a very good blog posting. Ironic, though, one friend just came up to me and named the place of business without even asking, he knew very well how they do business.
So anyway, today I decided to put the old '49 International truck back into storage, which is a bit of an ordeal, when you have to start out by jumping it, then driving it 30 miles to Abbyville with out even so much as sniff of any kind of brakes, in the rain; without windshield wipers. As I was driving there and my wife following me, I was thinking how some people would frown at me for putting my children at risk by having them in such a vehicle with me, but I thought of my own childhood and realized how much safer my kids were riding in this truck rather some of the trucks we rode around in. My truck may not have brakes or windshield wipers but it did have the advantage of other luxuries, like say; a clutch, and even frivolous accessories such as doors: they even latch! I am not exaggerating when I say that the truck I learned how to drive in was a wheat truck, and I was five years old. The training course was short and the instructor was brief. My dad put it in gear, opened the door, and said: "just drive it around the field in circles while I kick the hay out the back", and jumped out. It wasn't very long later that I suddenly realized that he must have been talking to me, as there wasn't anyone else in the truck anymore, and that if I didn’t move over and start steering, I would end up going through a fence, so I did. That didn't stop me from still going through a fence later, though, but he wasn't even too upset about the truck getting all scratched up. Now that I am a father, I can see the value in having higher expectations than what is typically thought OK. If you tell a child that "you probably won't be able to do this, but try anyway" they most likely won't be able to.
So, anyway we get to Abbyville in one piece and decide to surprise my mom with a family of six for lunch and see if she will rise to the occasion of feeding us out of the blue; she of course does. Our lunch is cut short by a phone call from a hunter from Wichita that frequents all the ditches in the neighborhood, saying that once again, he was stuck. Mom informs me that she or dad has pulled him out no less than at least 10 times before, and that he called last night from Wichita to ask how the roads were. Dad had informed him that they were really bad, and under NO circumstances should he go down this certain one, that he WOULD get stuck if he did. Guess where he was calling from? You got it... the one stretch of road that he was warned away from. I had to ask; what point is there in calling about the condition of the roads if you don't heed any warnings? He must just love the ditches, I guess. But what advantage do the ditches around here have over the ones in Wichita? They had more rain than we did even; why drive 60 miles to get stuck when you can do it in your own back yard? I've known for a long time the fascination that Wichita citizens have with ditches, anytime that there is any little bit of ice on the roads, you'll notice that nearly every one apparently decides that they would rather drive in the ditch. I'm not real sure of the logic behind this, but apparently it works for them.
So I grabbed a couple of nephews and jumped into the 1086 tractor and went to pull him out. After backing up to his pickup, he tied a little sissy knot in the rope attached to it and after I stared at it dubiously for a while, then at him, then at the knot again, I decided to give it a try. It of course just slipped out instantly. My nephews said in harmony, "he should have tied a bow-line". To his credit, he was very ashamed of his horrible attempt at a knot and I really wondered how anyone could make it to manhood without learning one real knot. I wish now that I would have just told one of the nephews to go show the city-slicker how to tie a decent knot, but didn't. We got him out easily enough, and I am very sorry to say to the more morbid of you all that enjoy hearing about me yelling at people that there was none of that. But I did think about how to prevent further episodes such as this. Since he did at least show some shame, I think the best way of treating him is if this ever happens again, I would just say; "Grace, go down and pull that grown man out of the ditch". After all, she IS seven... But I suppose that part of the novelty of driving in ditches is the stories you get to tell when you finally make it back into the City, (“I got soooo stuck yesterday!!!”) so getting pulled out by a seven year old girl rustic would only draw a whole flood of ditch-drivers from Wichita.
So anyway, today I decided to put the old '49 International truck back into storage, which is a bit of an ordeal, when you have to start out by jumping it, then driving it 30 miles to Abbyville with out even so much as sniff of any kind of brakes, in the rain; without windshield wipers. As I was driving there and my wife following me, I was thinking how some people would frown at me for putting my children at risk by having them in such a vehicle with me, but I thought of my own childhood and realized how much safer my kids were riding in this truck rather some of the trucks we rode around in. My truck may not have brakes or windshield wipers but it did have the advantage of other luxuries, like say; a clutch, and even frivolous accessories such as doors: they even latch! I am not exaggerating when I say that the truck I learned how to drive in was a wheat truck, and I was five years old. The training course was short and the instructor was brief. My dad put it in gear, opened the door, and said: "just drive it around the field in circles while I kick the hay out the back", and jumped out. It wasn't very long later that I suddenly realized that he must have been talking to me, as there wasn't anyone else in the truck anymore, and that if I didn’t move over and start steering, I would end up going through a fence, so I did. That didn't stop me from still going through a fence later, though, but he wasn't even too upset about the truck getting all scratched up. Now that I am a father, I can see the value in having higher expectations than what is typically thought OK. If you tell a child that "you probably won't be able to do this, but try anyway" they most likely won't be able to.
So, anyway we get to Abbyville in one piece and decide to surprise my mom with a family of six for lunch and see if she will rise to the occasion of feeding us out of the blue; she of course does. Our lunch is cut short by a phone call from a hunter from Wichita that frequents all the ditches in the neighborhood, saying that once again, he was stuck. Mom informs me that she or dad has pulled him out no less than at least 10 times before, and that he called last night from Wichita to ask how the roads were. Dad had informed him that they were really bad, and under NO circumstances should he go down this certain one, that he WOULD get stuck if he did. Guess where he was calling from? You got it... the one stretch of road that he was warned away from. I had to ask; what point is there in calling about the condition of the roads if you don't heed any warnings? He must just love the ditches, I guess. But what advantage do the ditches around here have over the ones in Wichita? They had more rain than we did even; why drive 60 miles to get stuck when you can do it in your own back yard? I've known for a long time the fascination that Wichita citizens have with ditches, anytime that there is any little bit of ice on the roads, you'll notice that nearly every one apparently decides that they would rather drive in the ditch. I'm not real sure of the logic behind this, but apparently it works for them.
So I grabbed a couple of nephews and jumped into the 1086 tractor and went to pull him out. After backing up to his pickup, he tied a little sissy knot in the rope attached to it and after I stared at it dubiously for a while, then at him, then at the knot again, I decided to give it a try. It of course just slipped out instantly. My nephews said in harmony, "he should have tied a bow-line". To his credit, he was very ashamed of his horrible attempt at a knot and I really wondered how anyone could make it to manhood without learning one real knot. I wish now that I would have just told one of the nephews to go show the city-slicker how to tie a decent knot, but didn't. We got him out easily enough, and I am very sorry to say to the more morbid of you all that enjoy hearing about me yelling at people that there was none of that. But I did think about how to prevent further episodes such as this. Since he did at least show some shame, I think the best way of treating him is if this ever happens again, I would just say; "Grace, go down and pull that grown man out of the ditch". After all, she IS seven... But I suppose that part of the novelty of driving in ditches is the stories you get to tell when you finally make it back into the City, (“I got soooo stuck yesterday!!!”) so getting pulled out by a seven year old girl rustic would only draw a whole flood of ditch-drivers from Wichita.
Friday, September 5, 2008
eternal perspective
Let’s see if I can put my thoughts into something that resembles logic. Last weekend we did something wild and spontaneous (which I am told is about 180 degrees away from my normal) and went to Village Inn for breakfast. It was as is to be expected, the usual food, the usual white trash help (people whom I usually relate to) in maroon shirts with polo collars that fail to hide the prison tats serving gray-haired customers that studiously try to avoid noticing the “ink” and, in this case, the 2 girls with green streaked hair, and the one girl with bright neon red bangs bussing tables.
So anyway, it struck me going in that there was this nice big clean table for our family of six, just sitting there empty and waiting for us to claim it. I did feel a little intrusive to the people directly next to our empty table, though, because they had a sort of “prior right” to that space, which was previously unoccupied. As we settled in and the people who were there before us finished their meals and started to leave, I began to feel more as if I were the one who belonged. Then after the people who were sitting in the table next to us left, and the very efficient green haired bus-girl swept away dirty dishes and wiped the table off, the hostess led in a new small family to it. We were just sitting there waiting for Isaiah to finish eating his “pam-pake” as he calls it when I recognized something in the customers coming to sit next to us.
First, I noticed the expression of small joy that “here is an empty clean table just waiting for us,” as if it were they that invented it. Then as they approached it, I saw them looking at us, sort of wondering if they were going to be an annoyance to us with their little family. I gave the dad the old one sided half-smile “don’t you worry about that, I’ve got a mess-o-kids me own self look” to reassure him he wasn’t infringing on any territorial rights. That’s when I realized how we as humans develop what I would call a “proprietary” feeling around the things we are comfortable with. How trivial it is that we cling tightly to things that are not even really ours, and that we are only briefly using; sometimes just an hour or less.
So, of course, I think the Lord moved me to look into my own life as a flash in the pan, a brief moment in the scope of eternity, or maybe as a short breakfast at V.I., to look for the things that I cling to. Funny how important it seems that my grass is kept short, that my fence is painted, that my front porch gable gets siding installed, when things that are eternal, like people, are left behind for things just as silly as feeling possessive about certain square footage around a borrowed table. Just like today, I felt temporarily proud of myself for being able to “duck” out of conversation with a talkative gentleman that I knew has been going through an extremely tough time in his life, including the loss of several loved ones in a matter of weeks. And to what purpose? To go back to my shop and get back to what seemed very important at the time. A good opportunity to help someone, passed up, like many others. Lord, give me wisdom to glean what is eternal from what is temporal, and to act accordingly. And while you are at it Lord, teach me to express my thoughts in a short, concise manner, so as not to bore everyone to tears.
So anyway, it struck me going in that there was this nice big clean table for our family of six, just sitting there empty and waiting for us to claim it. I did feel a little intrusive to the people directly next to our empty table, though, because they had a sort of “prior right” to that space, which was previously unoccupied. As we settled in and the people who were there before us finished their meals and started to leave, I began to feel more as if I were the one who belonged. Then after the people who were sitting in the table next to us left, and the very efficient green haired bus-girl swept away dirty dishes and wiped the table off, the hostess led in a new small family to it. We were just sitting there waiting for Isaiah to finish eating his “pam-pake” as he calls it when I recognized something in the customers coming to sit next to us.
First, I noticed the expression of small joy that “here is an empty clean table just waiting for us,” as if it were they that invented it. Then as they approached it, I saw them looking at us, sort of wondering if they were going to be an annoyance to us with their little family. I gave the dad the old one sided half-smile “don’t you worry about that, I’ve got a mess-o-kids me own self look” to reassure him he wasn’t infringing on any territorial rights. That’s when I realized how we as humans develop what I would call a “proprietary” feeling around the things we are comfortable with. How trivial it is that we cling tightly to things that are not even really ours, and that we are only briefly using; sometimes just an hour or less.
So, of course, I think the Lord moved me to look into my own life as a flash in the pan, a brief moment in the scope of eternity, or maybe as a short breakfast at V.I., to look for the things that I cling to. Funny how important it seems that my grass is kept short, that my fence is painted, that my front porch gable gets siding installed, when things that are eternal, like people, are left behind for things just as silly as feeling possessive about certain square footage around a borrowed table. Just like today, I felt temporarily proud of myself for being able to “duck” out of conversation with a talkative gentleman that I knew has been going through an extremely tough time in his life, including the loss of several loved ones in a matter of weeks. And to what purpose? To go back to my shop and get back to what seemed very important at the time. A good opportunity to help someone, passed up, like many others. Lord, give me wisdom to glean what is eternal from what is temporal, and to act accordingly. And while you are at it Lord, teach me to express my thoughts in a short, concise manner, so as not to bore everyone to tears.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)