A Lot to Catch Up On

Our Internet has been on the blink for much of the year but really bad for the past three weeks. I finally had enough on Tuesday and called our ISP and found out that our modem doesn't work well with the company's new equipment.

They told me they would give me a new one if I would pick it up. An hour later I had it and PRESTO, we were back to the 21st century.

I will be catching up on everything I wanted to say in the next few days so come back and check it out.

Half-Priced Dinners

The running joke here in DirtmanLand is that I love to kid SissIggy that she is older than me (in reality, I am exactly six months older). I also kid her when she gets mail from the Social Security Administration and AARP.

A third running gag is she will soon qualify for senior citizen discounts - especially at restaurants - and that I will buy her the things she really wants and need, when I can use the savings from said discounts.

It all came back to bite me one day last week when Sis and I were dining with my parents at the local IHOP on senior citizen night. IHOP, by the way, has good food at regular prices but on those special Mondays, seniors over age 55 get a 50 percent savings and a cup of ice cream too.

The bill came and I forwarded cash to my mother for Sis' and my part of the ticket. She went to pay and commented afterwards that she wasn't charged the right amount. The total bill was around $49 and she had been charged $28 and change.

As mom is always apt to do, she marched right up to the manager and told him he needed to take more of her money. As there was a steady stream of other customers wanting and needing to pay so they could get home in time to watch Big Joe's Polka (on RFDTV).

The manager explained the clerk had rung up the ticket wrong, giving four senior discounts instead of two. So now it seems Sis will get a new pair of slippers 3-1/2 years sooner than I thought.

VT 20, Cincinnatti 7

To the chagrin of the Heirs I can say with confidence, "We did it".

They, of course, will say that I didn't play a single down but who cares. Virginia Tech finally won a BCS Bowl for the first time in four tries and the team now has won 10 or more games, five years in a row. Only two other BCS teams can say that: Texas and USC, which puts our program in some pretty good company.

The Bearcats entered the game as favorites and that played into the Hokies working-man mentality.

Congrats to coach Beamer and Company and especially to coach Stinespring who may have finally gotten the monkey off his back from alumni unhappy about our offense this season. A big kudo to coach Foster for another outstanding defensive effort.

With any kind of luck, Tech might finish in the top 15 this season and we (there I go again) should be a bonified pre-season Top-10 team next August.

Congrats again, Hokies.

Happy New Year

Hats off to Google for another nice piece of artwork celebrating the first holiday of 2009. And while I post this on the coldest (19 degrees Fahrenheit), windiest (WNW 24 mph) and first night of the new year, I wish it to be safe and prosperous for everyone who frequents this blog.

What a Way to End the Year

Yesterday I had the honor of working. And what made it specially nice was I got to work with both Heirs.

That may not seem like much to many of you but it's a known fact business has been slow in the construction industry for some time now. The job was in the woods in the middle of nowhere and was one I originally started back in July.

Since then, I've been waiting for the survey plat, which finally arrived early last week -- when the rains came in deluge form.

Finally, yesterday, the soil was dry enough so we could perform saturated hydraulic conductivity evaluations (Ksats) on two of the proposed onsite sewage disposal system sites I had found this past summer.

That's right. We waited for the soil to dry so we could make it wet again.

The Heirs loaded I's truck with all the equipment and, after traveling to the site, the Heirs carried all the equipment into the woods. Heir I's an old pro at running Ksats having worked for me one summer. He says the Ksats are the best job in the world as he only has to work about 10 seconds every five minutes and can spend the rest of the time playing a mobile video game.

He set up his station and I showed Heir II how to set up the second. My job was to auger the eight borings to the proper depth and watch the Heirs watch the water saturate the soil and make sure everything went smoothly.

It was a long day but as I stated earlier, it was one of the best days I've ever had as I was able to be with my two wonderful sons.

Picking NFL games not as easy as it seems

In another life I worked part-time as a newspaper sports reporter. Each fall, the staff made predictions on the various high school, local colleges and NFL games. And it seemed, each year I would end up in last place.

One August, Heir II told the sports editor he thought he could do better than me. And that year, Heir II's photo was in my place on the sports page every Friday along with his predictions. Not so surprisingly, when the season was over Heir II found himself in the middle of the pack.

This fall, I decided to come out of retirement and try my hand at predictions of the NFL games with a group of eight men and one woman who frequent a message board run by a guy from Wisconsin.

Once again I started slow and even won a week or two but after the regular season concluded Sunday I found myself in familiar turf -- near the bottom of the pack.

We still have the playoffs to go but at this stage my fight will be with the board's moderator and the nice lady from the midwest who, after a very poor week, found herself dropping three spots to last.

Wish me luck as I try to move up the NFL pick ladder.

Wanna Co-Own a Team Light Forest?

Just read West Ham is for sale.

Cheap too.

It seems the current owner - Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, the former chairman and a large shareholder in Iceleand's second largest back - Landsbanki saw the firm seized in October as the worst of the credit crisis tore through the island nation. The failure wiped out his $1.1 billion fortune.

He has since had to put his holding company, Hansa, into voluntary liquidation and the result is the West Ham club is for sale.

It would be the perfect venture for Light Forest and me.

I can do the marketing and he can be the General Manager, head concessionaire and coach.

What a life.

West Ham is a Premier League team, which is exciting in itself but we'd have to relocate to England -- Upton Park in the London suburbs to be more exact. We'd get a few extra amenities though. West Ham has a beautiful stadium, playing at Boleyn Ground and even owns it's own hotel, so SisIggy and Pastry Chef could manage that concern.
We might even be able to put a casino in a back room to satisfy John Boy.

The only downside as I see is we'd have to learn to spell all over again.

So whatda you say Light Forest? Are you interested?