I just found out today that my hometown is tearing down a bunch of the schools I attended as a kid and replacing them with brand new ones. This is a good thing… mostly.
My family donated a tree to my elementary school about 22 years ago as a thank you for the great experience we had there. As of right now it appears that tree isn’t part of the new plans for the school, and that bums me out. I just wrote the following email to the school’s current principal in hopes of saving the tree. We’ll see how it goes.
Hello, Mr Housh.
I am a 1993 graduate of Wayne High School and attended Valley Forge K-6 from 1980 to 1986. I’ve lived in North Carolina since 1993 but still maintain close ties with many of the friends I made in the Huber Heights school system.
Just today I discovered the wonderful news about all the new schools HHCS will be building over the next few years. I’m particularly excited to see the plans for Valley Forge on the HHCS website. They look amazing. After campaigning hard during my high school years alongside fellow students and teachers for various levies that never passed, I’m thrilled that the children of Huber Heights will soon have access to such state-of-the-art facilities.
I’m writing you because I have a personal interest in the sycamore tree that currently stands in front of Valley Forge, and I’m curious as to what will happen to it when the new construction begins. I’ve attached a picture of the tree in question.
My mother, father, sister and I donated and planted that tree in 1988 as a token of our appreciation to the Valley Forge faculty and staff for the great education my sister (Wayne ‘95) and I received during our time there. Our Valley Forge experience was special to our whole family and we wanted to give the school a gift that represented the enduring impact it had on our lives.
When looking at the plans for the new school, it appears that the tree is potentially standing in what will become the front parking lot, and I’m concerned that it will not survive the construction process. It would be a terrible disappoint to me and my family if this were to happen.
I realize that you are likely not the person making decisions about the new construction. That said, I wanted to get in touch with you first because I know that you would understand how important community is to Valley Forge, why this tree means so much to my family, and why I hope it still means something to the school.
Would you help this message reach the right people within the school system so our concerns are heard? If there is any way to incorporate the tree into the new plans or somehow transplant it to a new location it would mean the world to us.
Thank you for your time and thank you for the work you and your staff do on behalf of our kids. It does not go unnoticed.
In the past 48 hours the following things have happened to me…
1.) The girl at the front desk at The Proximity hooked me up with a phat corner penthouse room for Ashley’s birthday without me even asking for anything special.
2.) Yesterday at the zoo the nice lady at the food court pizza counter gave me the biggest slice left in the pie even though she had to cut it out of the middle and there were like 7 other smaller slices she could have given me. Again, I didn’t ask for it. She just gave it to me.
3.) Later on at the zoo the Dippin’ Dots girl just gave me a free big tub of Cookies and Cream because I only had $3.00 cash on me and she didn’t want me to have to go to the other counter across the way so they could run my credit card. She just told me to take it and not worry about it.
4.) Finally, I went down to the hotel bar last night and ordered myself a Manhattan with some good-stuff whiskey that I knew would cost more than the regular kind. The cute female bartender only charged me for the regular kind, and when I protested she told me not to worry about it. After asking where I was from and why I was staying at the hotel, she then proceeded to tell me how sweet I was for treating my wife to a fun weekend for her birthday.
So at 34 maybe I’m not as thin as I used to be or as buff as I used to…. wait… I was never buff.
The point is that I’ve still got it. All I’m sayin’ is that if you ever need someone who can use his mack daddy charm to hold sway over a female hotel or zoo employee, just holla at your boy, mmmkay? I’ll get you that extra large slice of pepperoni before you can say “Dippin’ Dots”.
Now if I could just get Ashley a job at the zoo…..
What do John Ritter and Farrah Fawcett have in common? They are both famous people who not only tragically died before their time, but also had the misfortune of dying on days that people much more famous also died. Sucks for them.
John Ritter died the same day that Johnny Cash died, and by now we all know that Farrah has to share her posthumous news cycle with the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Who do you think is going to get more coverage? Sorry, Farrah.
All four deaths are obviously terribly sad, but to me the deaths of Ritter and Fawcett seem a bit extra cruel because of when they happened. Let’s face it: people become celebrities because they want to be famous and talked about, and sadly there are few days in your life where you’re talked about as much as the one on which you die.
So even if you die unexpectedly of a heart attack, as Ritter did, or if you succumb to a long battle with cancer, as Farrah did, the one, small piece of comfort you might have as a famous person while you’re waiting your turn at the pearly gates is that, “Hey, at least they’re talking about me down there one last time.”
Well, they are unless you die a few hours before someone a million times more famous than you are. Judging by the three full pages of my Facebook account where every update is about MJ – not to mention the fact that MTV has apparently lost it’s mind and is playing…. wait for it…. actual Michael Jackson videos – I’m guessing we won’t be seeing as many “Charlie’s Angels” clips on CNN tonight as we might have been, and that’s too bad.
So here’s to you, Farrah. The mainstream media might be giving your short shrift over the next 24 hours, but hopefully you’ll take some small solace in knowing that the online powerhouse that is the blizzog is pouring a little out for you this evening. We loved you on “Charlie’s Angels” when we were a kid and hated to see things end for you the way they did.
We hope you’re in a better place tonight. And if you happen to run into MJ, ask him why he couldn’t have waited a few days. Thoughts and prayers to you both. RIP.
Tonight after dinner AG and I stopped into Harris Teeter to pick up some carrots for Shorty, our guinea pig. I went in while Ashley waited in the car. Though this couldn’t sound more boring it turned out to be quite the event.
I was walking across the parking lot with another woman when we both heard the sound of a trumpet being played. We both stopped and turned around to find this little fat kid with a shopping cart in one hand and a trumpet in the other. He was taking the cart back to the little cart corral while playing quick warm-up scales at the same time.
He looked to be about 12 years old and my guess is that he’s getting ready for his first day of summer band tomorrow. As a big time former band nerd myself, I thought it was cool this little kid was so excited about his trumpeting that he was practicing every chance he could get. But at the same time, it was pretty funny too. After an awkward silence with the woman next to me, I said, “Well, you don’t see that every day,” and we both had a chuckle.
After scoring the carrots I came back to the car to find an animated AG waiting for me. As I got in the car she greeted me with a bemused look and said under her breath, “check out the guy in the van across from us without being obvious.”
Peering through my super stealth sunglasses, I saw a shorter Hispanic man in his 40s putting a case of Corona into the passenger seat of what looked like a utility van. After depositing the beer he shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side.
“I see him, ” I said. “What’s the big deal?”
“Just drive.”
So I took off and AG proceeds to tell me what happened after I left to go inside. Apparently this dude got to the van with his beer, set it by the back tire, staggered around for a minute, unzipped his pants, pulled his shirt up, walked to the back of the van – which was facing away from our car so AG couldn’t see – and opened the back van door.
Then she saw a trickle come from underneath the van that soon turned into a nice steady flow. This guy whipped it out and was pissing all over the Harris Teeter parking lot in broad daylight on a Sunday afternoon.
“Do you believe that?”, she asked.
My reply? “Well, you don’t see that every day.”
We didn’t get our weekly Sunday grocery shopping trip done because of Father’s Day, so I’m doing that tomorrow night after work. I wasn’t really looking forward to it but now I’m kinda excited. There’s no telling what I’ll see.
I’m posting from the Southland Inn in beautiful Sarasota this morning while AG gets ready. On the agenda for today we have slots, blackjack, and otherwise hanging out with chain-smoking degenerate gamblers at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa. Good times.
We’re here for our friend Melanie’s wedding to longtime boyfriend Scott. They’re getting married on the beach in Anna Maria Island on Sunday and we’re really looking forward to it.
Last night’s journey down here from Greensboro was pretty uneventful save the normal AG “fly scares the ever-loving crap out of me” shenanigans. The flight from GSO to the ATL was pretty bumpy due to some storms and apparently the Xanax AG has to take to fly wasn’t up to the task, as she was pretty shaken up by the time we got there.
So what better way to prepare for the next flight from the ATL on to Sarasota than to hit the On the Border bar in the airport? We sidled up to the bar and ordered two margaritas. I think the bartender must’ve liked us, because the margs were a.) stout, and b.) enormous. Of course, it could also be that they were $9.50 apiece and they basically had to actually give you some alcohol for all that money.
At the bar we ended up sitting by a really nice older guy and his daughter who were flying back home to Sarasota after visiting family in Akron, Ohio. I told him I was from Dayton and he told me he was born in West Carrollton and had lived in Dayton most of his life. Small world. We had a good time with them and then got on the plane.
Turns out that giant airport margaritas are better than Xanax for settling AG down for a flight, especially when you follow that with some Sutter Home chardonnay on the flight itself. The flight seemed to go by in no time for AG. How do I know that? She told me about 30 times between the time we took off and the time we landed, that’s how.
I’d originally reserved a car for us with Hertz but when we got off the plane and to the line it was crazy long and only had one guy working there. This was like 11 PM. After waiting for 20 minutes and getting nowhere, I decided to punt and see what else I could hook up. There was no one in line at the Avis desk so I got the dude there to hook me up with our fresh Hyundai Accent and we were out.
The Southland Inn isn’t that far from the airport but we – and by “we” I mean Ashley – were starving, so we tooled around a bit for a place to eat. We ended up finding a Subway of all places. I didn’t know Subway stayed open until midnight.
So who eats at a Subway near the Sarasota airport at midnight on a Thursday? Hookers, it turns out. We were in line behind two ladies who, um… well let’s just say that they probably weren’t getting their first $5 foot long of the night if you know what I’m saying.
With grubbage in hand, we got to our room at the Southland, which is really nice. As we chowed down and browsed the local TV lineup, we discovered that peeps down here like The Golden Girls… A LOT. I think there’s a Golden Girls channel even. I guess Sarasota TV is just catering to its older demographic. Watching TV down here is like watching the commercials during the Price is Right 24/7.
Okay, I’ll shut up for now. This hasn’t been the most interesting post, but I’m trying to get back in the swing of a little blizzog posting. More later as our adventures continue.
This is a test post to see if the new Wordbook plug-in I just installed on the blizzog is working or not.
A small part of the reason I haven’t been posting on the blizzog as much lately is that I’ve been sharing my pithy observations on life and times via Facebook status updates instead of back here in the motherland that is the blizzog.
This Wordbook installation will be a good test to see if I can help bridge the two worlds… kinda like seeing if you can get your significant other to be friends with your ex and it not be weird. Hopefully this will go better than that.
Let me know if you see this on Facebook and give me a shout over on the blizzog. We’ll get these two talking one way or another, even if we have to get them both drunk.
Have you seen the new DirecTV ad that uses tragically deceased child star Heather O’Rourke to hawk their product? When she died right before Poltergeist III came out, MGM went out of their way to be respectful in their marketing of the film. Apparently DirecTV doesn’t give a shit.
I’m not horribly offended or anything, but this is in poor taste, right?
After almost eight years, President Bush has finally done something that I agree with. His speech last night to the American people regarding the proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial industry was the kind of reassuring, plain-spoken explanation that this nation needed in order to understand the depth of this problem and help put us on the path to a solution.
Of course, I’m lying. His speech apparently messed up another ridiculous display of stupid David Blaine “magic”. How could I not approve of that? Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha, you suck, David Blaine.
The flight seemed to go by in no time for AG. How do I know that? She told me about 30 times between the time we took off and the time we landed, that’s how. 
