Why am I sad.

This truck has been more of a hassle then it ever was a help. It has been hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Months of just sitting in the driveway with either a power problem or a clutch problem. It was loud and always smelled of gas. It was an awful vehicle.

So why now that I'm finally getting rid of it am I sad. Maybe its cause of the good times we've had. Like catching a nap in a rest area when i decided it would be a good idea to take a long drive on no sleep. Or the pride I had the first time I fired it up and moved it after I had the transmission pulled out and spent early 2 months of Saturdays working on it. Maybe its just one of the last things I have that reminds me of my father. It was during his final days that my brother took me out and showed me how to drive the stick shift as a distraction from what was going on in the hospital. Maybe its cause that now it is totally dead I'm just sad it doesn't get a better fate then a junkyard.

Either way now that it is leaving I feel bad that I will never see this little pickup again. When really the thing has been nothing but trouble.

The Long Pause

While surfing the web tonight I came across a video that pretty much wraps up the way my life has been for the past couple of weeks.

While my life hasnt been that boring there hasn't really been anything more exciting to write about except the crazy weather. Which has been very crazy, even for Missouri.

I'm the type of person that is relaxed in a truly wicked thunderstorm. While conditions have been perfect for the past couple of weeks. Every storm that has crossed the Midwest have been spectacular, but always just miss my hometown. I am all ready this year too. Installing programs into my computer that access the NEXRAD radar coming out of Springfield and set alerts to warn me when severe weather is in the area.

So far nothing.

Short Trackin'!

Well a little about me. This weekend I took a tip on down to the West Plains Motor Speedway. I love this track. I have never found a dirt track that throws more intense racing action in your face anywhere.

Anyway it was the third night of the 8th Annual Dirt Works Justin Stanfill Memorial modified event. I was excited all week long about going. Talked to several of the teams as they passed through Rolla on their way to the track. While it was warm and in the upper 50's all week, I woke up to snow in Rolla.

I bundled up as warm as I could to survive, cause I knew the only think keeping me from the track was them canceling it. Weather be damned.

Its always nice to be able to hear those engines roar to life for the first time in a season, smell the fumes and keep the dust off the track out of your eyes. All to see a hundred or more of the bravest drivers in the Midwest go door to door for only 25 spots in the nights main event.

We showed up at the track around seven o'clock and racing didn't end till midnight. While we froze out butts off we couldn't have seen a better show.

Congrats to Jeremy Payne for winning the nights feature and Eric Turner for winning the overall point battle of the weekend.

What did the general say to his troops?

Well I haven't written in a while, not due to lack of time mind you, just a lack of inspiration. Today I am inspired for it is my birthday and despite the slightly depressing fact that I am now one year closer to my inevitable but gloriously heroic death, I find little ways to celebrate.

All the normal things I enjoy, like messages from family and friends. People who you never talk to calling you up and just saying hello. While those things are pleasant its the weird things about a day like this that I enjoy

Like checking your email and getting tons of messages from forum administrators wishing to congratulate you on not getting killed for another year. All using automated systems to send out generic messages of good tides. You sift though each one as you look for one genouine email. Finding long gone forums and websites annual greetings still being sent out even though the site no longer exists. Finding messages from places you have long since quit visiting either due to lack of interest or the fact that third graders were taking over pretending to be twenty year old women. It really is a small part of my birthday I do enjoy.

Another of my favorite rituals of my birthday is not a cake, candles or spankings, but the one time a year I really indulge my carnal desire to eat meat. Going out and buying the biggest steak I can or can afford and savoring its every last bite with a room full of friends doing the same.

And last but not least is the period after the festivities are over where I watch the clock like a hawk till midnight trying to find ways to recapture my younger days and find ways to make this birthday feel like all those I had as a child. Checking the clock every five minutes and thinking only four more hours of my birthday left. Knowing that in four hours it will go from my birthday to Monday. And I will have to wait an entire year to perform the ritual again.

How many more days?

A while ago I came up with a theory that looked deep in the heart and soul of human beings. It was an idea so perspective shattering it that is works on a vast majority of the people its tried on. The rest just don't realize consciously they are doing it.

The epiphany was that everyone was counting down the days to something. It can be anything, something as simple as Friday, or bigger like graduation.

People are always looking forward the the next event in their lives. It is what drives and motivates us all. We would not work if there weren't something to look forward to in the end.

As I have observed when people are asked, "So, how many more days?" They usually reply, "To what?" Don't give them a goal and the person will give you one, one they usually have the answer down to the exact day.

So tell me, "How many more days?"

The Big Game

I must admit I have not been this excited about the big game since Denver played Green Bay several years ago. I think the main reason I'm looking forward to the game is I know its going to be close, and both teams I really like.

The main thing about this game is that it reminds me of a game played around the same time 21 years ago. Starring one of the team playing this weekend. That game was one of the first big games I can remember watching as a child. We didn't have a big party. I had my own chair in front of the TV and we had homemade pizza. Plus, I was able to watch one of my childhood heroes battle it out on TV.

I had everything William Perry. I had books, movies, jerseys and posters. He was one of the rocks of the sport for many years. One of the main reasons I was a young fan was because he was a defensive player. Every year we hear about quarterback and wide receivers and their record breaking stats but no defensive player is ever raised to the status of some quarterbacks. Except William Perry.

Why this relates to today is because its happening again. Nothing against Chicago's offensive players nowadays, but the biggest name on that team is a defensive player. Brian Urlacher is channeling the "Monsters of the Midway" attitude that Chicago had back in '85. He is the symbol of the Chicago team in papers and media across the country.

I'm glad to see both teams in the big game I know both teams deserve to win it. If they could leave tied I would be just as excited for both.

Wondering were 15 minute famers are now? I am.

Back about a decade or more ago ABC came up with a wonderful comedy show akin to todays internet videos. They came up with a show allowing people to submit their videos and have them do battle with the other videos to see who had the video supremacy.

Well, I was having a conversation with a friend when she said, "I don't know how anyone can stay in a bad mood after seeing children in AFV clips." I began to think, there has to be someone who doesn't find children humiliating themselves on TV positively mood altering. My mind wandered, I began thinking of people who wouldn't like AFV videos. My mind wandered till I thought of the child, the one who stared in said video. The child who way back when was on the show. The child now has to be at least 16-20 living a life of constant humiliation as each night reruns show the clip of them covered in chocolate or whatever normal childhood act is caught on tape.

It was about the best case I could think of for a person that doesn't get into a good mood over children on AFV. I really do wonder where those people are now, and I feel for you.