There's got to be a Mon... er, Tuesday after...

So, it's the Tuesday after Labor Day.  Nice relaxing weekend.  A surprise party for Laurie's Bro-in-law Sunday, of which the highlight was his daughter singing us a song she'd written.  Hopefully I'll be able to share it with you someday, after it is protected from all the internet vultures out there.

Monday KC came over for the day.  The highlight there was that earlier in the week we decided to make picks on all the college football games, and when the game last night started we were both 60-17 with me having VA Tech and him taking the Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech.  It wasn't a bitter contest- I told KC that I'd rather see GT win anyway, so it was a wash for me.  The game goes to OT, and my team won.  Which was funny after all the "You're the pro expert, I'm the college expert" I heard this weekend.  So of course we had to pick next week's as well.

Today Scrappy and I actually went for the morning walk.  It wasn't pleasant this weekend to do so- four days of Isaac's humidity and all we've gotten is a half inch sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning and maybe an eighth before that.  Neither one of us have the breath for a long walk.

So what do you see on a walk the day after a holiday weekend?  Big Mac boxes.  Microwave holders for hot pockets.  A dirty diaper.  A condom wrapper.  The case for a porn dvd.  And, believe it or not, an empty box of macaroni shells.  Top it off with the relentless humidity trapping a stale funk in the air that can only be described as akin to used deep-fryer oil.  When the most pleasant thing about a walk is picking up your dog's doo-doo...

So I look around for inspiration.  Try to log on to a job staffing outfit's page to start an account, and it won't let me submit because every time I hit submit, it erases my answer in a drop-down that asks which branch of the business I want.  (Last week, another one wanted the last four of my SS#, but always removed the zero that begins it and said I was short a number.)

I looked around at the news.  Here in Ft Wayne, one of our big events is the Johnny Appleseed festival.  Tons of food, native American stuff, frontier music, a grand time.  This year, PETA wrote the organizers and claimed that since Johnny Appleseed was a vegetarian (Which he may have been; he was a local pioneer known for planting apple orchards in the newly-opening wilderness), that the festival should go vegan.  I'm sure that when the laughing died down, the organizers politely said, "Thank you, no."  PETA then said they'd pass out flyers.  Thus, I know what I'll be tramping over this year.  But here's the thing, and it applies to ANY group trying to make a difference out there.  If the organizers had said what a great idea, let's remove the buffalo burgers, pulled pork sandwiches, turkey legs, tenderloins, etc., that are being grilled all over the festival grounds, the attendance would drop from a quarter-million over 2 days to about 10,000 people, half of which would leave soon after finding out what the deal was.  So, yes, let's kill the event to make a point.   ORRRRRR... how about just getting a permit to set up a vegan booth in the festival?  Still makes your point, and you'd probably get a lot more customers.  Jesus never got up on the stage of the 1st Galilean Church in Jerusalem and healed people en masse.  He went to them, and made a difference one person at a time.  PETA should try that.  At least then I might actually look at their flyer while I'm in line for a buffalo burger.

We are about a half-hour away from the Russian hockey league KHL making their season opener between Avangard Omsk and Dinamo Moscow.  Lokomotiv Yaroslavl returns to the league after the entire team was killed in a plane crash one year ago.  Relax, I'm not going to do a story on every game this year like I did last when their reborn team played half a minor league season.  But I probably will do a once-a-week with the Fantasy Football report so that those who don't appreciate it can ignore everything in one shot. Oh, and a tip of the hat to the Melbourne Ice (15-6) who beat the Newcastle North Stars 4-3 a week ago Sunday to win the Aussie league hockey championship for the third straight year!

I am thinking about serializing one of my favorite longer stories I wrote onto the blog somehow.  Where The Train took 12 pages of a notebook longhand, this story is much more complicated and fills the better part of three notebooks.  Still trying to figure a way how, or if, this should be accomplished.  If you've an idea, or just want to shout "Please, NO!", feel free to comment me.

OH, and I'm going to let you know that the passing of song lyrisist extrordinaire Hal David this weekend has not went without notice.  Be prepared for a very special Time Machine this week, either a stand alone before Friday or totally disrupting the regular Friday episode.  Fans of music from the 50's to the 80's will not want to miss it.

Okay, that about covers it.  Now, off to find some inspiration for MYSELF...