Email Sweetness

Coffee in hand, ready for a productive day of work this morning, I opened this email from my 11 year old daughter A and a good morning quickly became an awesome one...


From: A
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009
To: digitalrich
Subject: happy thanksgiving!

Happy thanksgiving..........late thanksgiving. i just want to thank you for everything you have done for me. you have no idea how much you have impacted my life. you are very special to me.....thanks!

and my reply...

From: digitalrich (aka Daddy)
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 7:21 AM
To: A
Subject: RE: happy thanksgiving!

Thank you sweet heart. You have no idea- until you have children of your own- how deeply mommy and I love you and your sisters. Bigger than the whole universe.

Love always, Daddy.

Feeling Like An Outsider In Your Hometown

This morning I made the 5 minute journey to Hillsboro Elementary and Middle School for the annual thanksgiving lunch for parents and their kids.

For a mere $5.00 you get a Styrofoam plate with scoops of turkey, stuffing and gravy, green beans, a roll, chocolate milk and a mini-pumpkin pie. And each year I take one bite and throw the rest away. At least you get to spend a few minutes with your kids during the school day.

Like most schools, we have to sign in as visitors when visiting and get a little VISITOR sticker so we don’t get stopped by the school police officer (who has actually busted my wife once for forgetting the sticker and sent her back to the office).

After lunch, I stopped by Puckett’s for some lunch. The kind I could actually eat. It’s halfway between the school and home and is a frequent stop for a bite to eat, some groceries, or a fill-up at the gas pumps out front.

I took the chance to have a nice draft beer with my meat and two (brats with onions and peppers, mashed potatoes, green beans) since I work out of my home and my company policy, which I wrote, does not address consuming alcohol during the work day or on company property.

When I finished I stood up to throw away the trash and couldn’t spot the large garbage can that usually sits between the dining area and grocery store at Puckett’s (If your ever in the Nashville area, make the trip to Leiper’s Fork or Franklin for a burger or pork BBQ platter at Puckett's - it’s worth the trip for the food and ambiance). I stood there for a second looking for what had become of the garbage can when the gent sitting next to me offered some kind help:

“The garbage is right over there next to the drink station.”

And then the truly perplexing question this nice guy asked:

“Do you need directions anywhere?”

Hmm. I answered no, and headed out to the car. I was confused for a second as to why I was asked this question but quickly forgot about it. As I pulled into my garage a few minutes later and unbuckled my seatbelt, I noticed the sticker still on my shirt. Visitor.

Halloween Is Lame

I’ve tried. Over the years I have tried to make Halloween work.

Even as a kid I remember struggling with the stupidity of Halloween. So, you dress up in a costume, and you walk around your neighborhood knocking on doors and observe strange people you don’t know, or maybe you do know them and they freak you out a bit because they have a mean dog or their kid is a bully, drop candy in your bag or bucket. You stand there at their door with a mask on and mumble some magic words. Candy materializes.

Then you go to the next house and do it all over again until all the front porch lights in the neighborhood start to flicker off signaling the merciful end to this weird “holiday.”

And all of this celebration centered on death, demons, witches, ghosts and various dark things.

How fun and happy.

Of course, the amount of candy you collect is roughly equal in volume to the candy you (or your parents if you’re young) hand out at your house.

This all seems pointless to me. There is no redeeming element to Halloween. No feast, no gathering of friends and family (unless of course its at a Halloween party with alcohol and the resulting drunk driving), no message of hope or love or kindness.

I don’t get it.

A Stray Shot

The Fourth of July was a blast. Our annual tradition of fireworks at home went off without a hitch, even though we were worried the lack of rain would provide ample fuel for a wildfire. We had a fire extinguisher at the ready and figured we could handle any small blazes that popped up from falling cinders.

Ron and Joy and their two kids were staying with us all week, and my parents came over for the celebration. Playing in the pool until dinner, Hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, tons of side items, and then the fireworks.

I guess there was on hitch I will mention. Ron and I handled the fireworks duty, and all was going well until I came up with the idea of shooting off two artillery shells at the same time. I set up the launch tubes, and Ron and I stood ready to light them off simultaneously. It went wrong.

I must have lit mine a second before Ron did, and when my shot went off the thrust of the it knocked over the other launch tube. When it went off it launched horizontally (we had our launch tubes set up on a table about 4 feet of the ground in the middle of the back yard) right towards where we all were standing. Including the kids.

For a second I thought about how beautiful it was, and how amazing the explosion looked so close to the ground. Then my brain went into gear and I realized if the tube landed a few inches to the left on the table one of our kids could have taken a shot to the gut. I also realized that where the shot landed at the edge of the treeline there are mounds of old grass clippings- a fire was sure to follow. Ron grabbed the fire extinguisher and did fire watch duty by the trees while I continued the show. A bit more cautiously than before.






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We’re Planning To Murder The Easter Bunny

The modern day attempt to remove Christ from Christmas has largely succeeded due to the ‘logic’ of the story of St. Nicholas. You can almost make sense of it all. A kindly man, loves children, celebrates the birth of the Messiah by giving gifts to children. After all, Jesus himself said “Let the little children come to me.”

The whole thing falls apart of course when you have to explain three giant leaps in the religion of Santa:

He is somehow still alive and lives in one of the most inhospitable places on the earth.

He has an army of elves that somehow have the money and resources to build toys and gifts for more than 5 billion people.

He has a sleigh and a gift bag that will hold all those gifts, 8 reindeer (9 if you are of the denomination that believes in Rudolf) that can not only fly, but support the weight of all those gifts AND fly at an amazing speed to get Santa to all the homes in the world.

When children reach the age of understanding, and either figure out Santa is not real or the parents get around to telling them, at least one can fall back on this: St. Nicholas was a real person, he followed Christ, and he celebrated his birth with gifts to others, and today that tradition of giving gifts continues as we mark the birth of the Savior.

Easter on the other hand is out of control.

The Easter Bunny is supposed to visit our homes, bring a basket of candy and gifts for each child and hide eggs for the kids to hunt. I hope he at least wears a cross around his neck while doing all this. I’m sure there are stories out there that somehow, in someway, can connect this rabbit to the crucifixion and resurrection, but I haven’t heard them.

So he’s a giant rabbit that walks on his hind legs, and somehow has been gifted with an opposable thumb on his paw allowing his to carry and handle things. He has no elves that I’m aware of, so I guess by himself he manufactures vast amounts of candy and gifts. No one knows where he lives, but goofball logic would assume he lives in the South Pole, right? Either there or perhaps Keokuk Iowa. He somehow carries billions of Easter baskets and eggs- perhaps in his mouth? And when children reach the age where the logic of the Easter Bunny’s existence can not be sustained, we tell them what? How do we connect Mr. Rabbit to Jesus?

Perhaps there was a rabbit that was to be served for the last supper, but it was decided to spare him and instead eat bread and wine. And today, that rabbit is so thankful that he travels the world giving baskets of …I give up.

Michelle and I have always enjoyed keeping Santa Clause alive with our young kids, though the two eldest have moved on. We are sure to focus the majority of our energy on the true meaning of Christmas. As for Easter, we have fallen into the trap and half-heartedly kept Mr. Rabbit alive too, though we keep mentions of him to a strict minimum.

We are ready for him to die. It’s just too hard to have the story of the Easter bunny co-exist with the real meaning of Easter. The Easter Bunny is like a giant furry sponge that soaks up the glory of the day, whereas at least Santa provides an example that allows an easy transition to the real Christmas story.

We haven’t decided 100% yet, but I think Michelle and I will be knocking off the bunny this year. I’ve got my BB gun ready.






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The Best Laid Schemes Of Mice And Men

This morning I was ready for the normal Monday holiday routine- Get up late, make coffee, write a stunningly deep and thought provoking post for DigitalRichDaily, do the bills, and enjoy the free day.

This morning I knew something had gone awry when I made the coffee and went to get the half-and-half from the refrigerator to tone down the extra-strong espresso I prepared. As I approached the refrigerator I caught a strange smell- almost like rotting food.

When I opened the refrigerator door, a blast of summer heat hit me, as well as the putrid stench of food gone bad. The refrigerator hadn’t just stopped working- it actually turned into an oven. The temperature report looked like a thermometer in Phoenix, in the shade- a lovely spring day of 106 degrees. The freezer was fine at leat- a still icy 0 degrees.

There went the morning. Michelle spent the next couple hours dumping hundreds of dollars of food in the trash, mopping up pools of butter, scraping off pounds of biscuit dough that had exploded out of canisters, while I burned up the hours researching what in the world could cause a refrigerator to go 70 degrees in the wrong direction. GE service man will be here tomorrow between 9AM and 5PM. Should be a nice $200-300 worth of parts and labor I’m sure.

Have a happy President's Day.






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The Burning Of The Christmas Tree 2007

A few weeks before the Christmas of 1989, Michelle and my first Christmas together as a married couple, my parents gave us a nice fake tree that they said would last us for years. It did. We used it for fourteen years straight, and it always looked wonderful.

In 2003 we made the switch to a real tree and we won’t go back. After the holidays, realizing that we no longer lived in the city limits of Franklin (we moved in the spring of that year) and left behind city garbage collection and Christmas tree removal, a new family tradition was born, and was practiced yet again today, January 13th, 2007:

The Burning Of The Christmas Tree

I know what you're probably thinking right about now- "It's the 13th! What took you so long! Christmas was 19 days ago for Christmas' sake."

Well, to successfully and safely execute “The Burning Of The Christmas Tree” you must have certain conditions present: No rain, relatively dry ground/fire pit, no wind, and time available to pull it all off. Over the last three weeks we just haven’t had all those things line up for us. Today they did- just barely.

We were just an hour or two from yet another rainstorm. It has been raining constantly here for weeks with just a few days off between storms. You can see from this radar image taken right about the time we lit up the tree that another storm was approaching. The red arrow is where our house is, and the yellow arrow is where K is- she is at camp this weekend, and missed the family tradition this year.

So, the tradition entails making sure all the decorations are off (Michelle did this the day after Christmas), the water is out of the tree stand reservoir (done this morning), and a clear walkway out the front door is made. We drop the tree onto a tarp, and haul it out the front door and place it on a small trailer hooked up to my mower.

Then off it goes to the fire pit at the back of our property.

I then dig a small hole in the middle of the pit for the tree trunk, and drop it in. You can burn a Christmas tree on its side, but you lose the towering inferno look I always look for in a burning Christmas tree.

Once positioned, it’s as simple as lighting the tiniest little branch sticking out from the bottom, and getting away. You have no doubt heard of the saying "Lit up like a Christmas tree." That old saying has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas lights strung carefully around a tree. No- its all about the nuclear fusion that takes place about 10 seconds after the tree really catches- 20 seconds, and everything is over.

Here is a photo montage of this years action. You can see the small flame that caught with the very first attempt...

Here we are at about T plus 5 seconds...

Now at T plus 10 seconds...

And finally a full 20 seconds after the first flame licked the bottom of the tree, it’s over.

The tradition is fun for the whole family- we all get out there and watch it burn up. One year we did it at night and it lit up the whole back yard.

Oh- this is the fire extinguisher my wife insists we bring out to “The Burning Of The Christmas Tree.” Ever since the fire I started in the yard a couple summers ago she just doesn’t trust me. More on that another day.

The tradition is fun, but there is something also sad about it. The Burning Of The Christmas Tree is the "period" to our family's annual sentence "Christmas is over."

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Almost Heaven- Legal Fireworks

In most of the places I grew up private fireworks ownership was illegal. You could always go to the city fireworks show for the 4th of July, but to actually acquire your own significant supply of fireworks, especially as a kid, was a fantasy almost beyond imagining.

Occasionally some new guy moved into the neighborhood and was able to secretly import contraband firecrackers, bottle-rockets, or (fingers-crossed) M-80s. Those that did quickly realized they could start a business selling the illegal goods for around 25 cents per firecracker, 50 cents per bottle-rocket, and up to a buck for the biggies. They realized this of course because a few friends and I immediately offered cold hard cash when we learned they had them.

Sunday night I bought 4,000 firecrackers (that would be about $1,000 in 1976 DigitalRich money) for about $30, and of course the Goliath Artillery Shell collection with 35 shots including double and triple shells (with 56 assorted effects!).

Here I am at 40, and whenever I pass by a fireworks stand during the holidays, or the 24/7 fireworks stores near the state borders in the south, I revert to being a 10 year old that somehow has a significant amount of financial resources at his disposal. My wife has to closely monitor my spending.

For New Years Eve the six DigitalRich crew members went to my folk’s house, along with my sister and her husband and baby, my sister-in-law, my aunt and uncle, and my great uncle Raymond. It was a packed house and a fun night of food and games. My brain was only half there though…the other half ticking down the minutes until FIREWORKS…I mean, New Years.
At about 11:40PM we all went out to the front yard. For 20 minutes we shot exploding shells high into the air, and blew off the roll of 4,000 firecrackers right at midnight (they continued to pop and crack for a full 5 minutes). Here is a picture of great Uncle Raymond moments before we irritated every neighbor within a 5 mile radius:


God bless the South and their liberal fireworks laws.






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Top 10 Things I Am Thankful For

1. While boxes of Splenda are expensive at the grocery store, they are free for the taking at McDonalds.
2. I didn't get a 3rd speeding ticket this year! Woohoo!
3. A few people have driven off the embankment in front of my house, and some got hurt, but no one has hit or damaged my fence.
4. The IRS only audits a small percentage of tax payers.
5. None of my friends or family asked me to help them move this year.
6. My past life has yet to be discovered.
7. I didn't have to bail any friends out of jail this year.
8. I kept bounced checks due to stupid online banking mistakes to under 5 in 2006. Actually, I think it was 5 exactly.
9. I didn’t have to complete any performance reviews for staff this year. YES!
10. I don't think there were any witnesses when I backed my truck into a red BMW convertible at the mall last week.

Well- there you go. It's been a good year. I have much to be thankful for.

I of course am kidding. At least about #1, 4, 6 and 10.