Sunday Paper

A small dip into the way back machine today. "I'm getting too old for this" reason #143, I miss the Sunday paper; the pre-Internet version. The one that could also be used as a door stop in a hurricane it was so big. I was like a Pavlovian dog back in high school hearing that paper delivery person drive by early on Sunday morning. I could be in a cold sleep and pop up to hurry down and grab the paper before my dad claimed dibs. We sometimes would literally have a full out 40 yard sprint to the box to grab it. Being the awesome dad that he was, he usually let me have the sports section first as that was all I wanted anyway. The sports section was a novel itself with every aspect of the high school/college/pro athletic world having it's own couple of pages.  What amazed the hell out of me was there were never any grammatical/typo errors that we see today in the "news now" world we live in. 

"hou" sounds right...

I took a journalism class in college and they did a mock press conference where you had four hours (two hours?) to turn in your paper/story of what occurred. This was the pre-laptop/spell check era where 90% of the students were using typewriters. I must have read and re-read my final copy a hundred times but was too stupid to have a second person look it over. Needless to say, the paper I thought was spotless in terms of errors had so much red ink on it when I got it back from the teacher (I hated the 'professor' label), you would think they had to get a second pen as the first one ran out of ink.

Trail Head

Hip Squared

The local tire store had a special, buy one hip, get one free with every set of whitewall tires. Who could turn down that deal so I got a match for my right side a few weeks back. Looking forward to extra groping at the airport...

Trail Head

Happy 2nd to Headbanger Bird

A belated 2nd birthday to my best friend, "Headbanger" Bird. She has earned the moniker as when I first got her and she banged her head, I was the concerned parent worried about the poor puppy's melon. The poor puppy is now 100+ pounds with a melon so hard, the many collisions with said head are now a just a brush against the table.

Trail Head

Ladies First

Two things no one wants to hear you talk about, your fantasy league team and how your NCAA tournament hoops bracket is doing. I'm not in any fantasy leagues and I'm not talking about my bracket either but have the life long quandary of how ladies seem to always dominate the process of picking NCAA basketball tournament winners. Case in point with the attached picture from my work pool (yes, my employer does one for company SWAG). The top six in the standings are ladies. I always made the joke that ladies can pick based on other matters like school locations, have they visited the state before, the color of the uniforms and the mascot. Guys overanalyze the crap out of every game, and eventually lose. I asked one of the leading ladies of her secret and she said she picked whomever the computer said was favored. That is no fun but I'm in 65th place so....

Trail Head

Gator Pedal

The tour fled south last Sunday morning just before Storm-a-geddon 2026 arrived in these parts. This is not a weather report entry but for those curious, Frankfort got a shit load of snow but nothing comparable to the more inland areas. The high winds kicked out the power for a bit the locals tell me but for how wet the snow was, more wind equal less roofs collapsing via stagnant, wet snow. The glass half full.

Back to the south retreat, the destination was Lakeland, Florida for a mix of mountain biking (yes, there are trails in Lakeland) and a taste of Tiger baseball in spring training. The last time I was in Lakeland for a Tiger game was 1985 with a posse of three others on Spring break with an eventual final destination of Daytona Beach. I can't recall where we stayed for the game but the town definitely has grown since that time. I recall we went to a night game, got a white blanket from one of the housekeeping carts at the hotel, somehow got a marker from the front desk and made a sign. I doubt we made it on television that day but had fun with the effort. No home run balls caught this year (final score was 1-1 tie) as I more or less took in the game from various angles with some enjoyable $15 adult beverages. The walk back to the hotel was interesting as I walked over a creek, looked down and said attached gator was hanging, and I started to walk a bit faster.

As far as the mountain biking, just south of town is a resurrected mine area with some man made ponds (yes, with more alligators). Florida is not a hilly region so some creativity on trail creation is needed and a great trail they have created. The local bike shop advised the gators probably would be laying low due to the heat but I SWEAR I crossed a gator back while riding along the water; and I pedaled a little faster at that point. A short clip is attached below. 

Trail Head

love the creativity of the mountain bike trails

Verlander looked in form

big head in the house

Yes....it's me

I've had to jump a few hurdles in the ID validation world that we live in these days. I applaud the efforts of companies working to protect identities of it's customers but recently got a bit irritated at said efforts.

Case in point below with the idiot-phone Face ID technology. I have never utilized the technology until getting a new phone last year. Heads up if you are having a bad morning letting the dog go chase deer in the yard at 3 AM or had too many Jamos the night before but have been flagged for 'bad face' a few times. Instead of a "Face Not Recognized" message, they should prompt a "bro, what happened to you last night?"

Case #2 hits home a bit but was trying to cancel a life insurance policy my dad (an insurance agent) took out for me when I was probably 10 years old. A small policy that I no longer needed, I made the call in January to cancel it. They advised a form would be sent to formally sign off on the cancellation. The form was received, I signed and mailed it back. A few weeks later, I got the below letter advising that the signatures on the policy and my current signature didn't match and that additional documentation would be needed to formally cancel. Have you ever seen your signature at 10 years old? I am thinking everyone's signature might just be a little different 50 years later but what do I know. I asked if I could just stop paying to cancel it and was advised the balance of the policy would be forfeited if I go that angle; even though I am telling them my intentions verbally from the phone number they have on file. I'll give in eventually in supplying what is needed but yes, I did write a letter via snail mail asking one more time in not so many words if the son of the person who wrote the policy could please cancel said policy. 

using my undergraduate degree for something

As the title states, today is the day I get to finally utilize my undergraduate degree in Advertising as I haven't used it to since receiving my diploma in the mail back in '89 (no, I didn't don the cap and gown for college). I tried for about a year to get my foot in the door of the dog-eat-dog world of either buying ads or coming up with the next "Where's the beef?" slogan. All for pretty much working for free (i.e. internship) in the first couple of years. It was not to be, thankfully. Fast forward 37 years later, it was a blessing I believe as I would have been quite miserable fighting with others in a meeting room over a slogan/campaign.

Speaking of slogans/campaigns, that brings me to today's topic as I had some enjoyable, unhealthy treats last weekend and got a chuckle at the print on the boxes.

First we have White Castle with the "enlarged to show deliciousness" caption below a burger that will quickly pass through the person's body consuming it. I am guessing they had to come up with that slogan after someone sued because they opened the box and the burgers weren't that big (and the person suing is educationally challenged).

Next we go to another healthy choice as who could pass up "your daily dose of delight" (along with a daily dose of chest pains a few years later). They were a delight, however.