A RECOVERING RAGERS CREED

1. I will practice self-restraint as a top priority today.

2. When angry, I will act the opposite of how I feel.

3. If I feel like my anger is about to erupt I will QUIETLY leave the situation.

4. I will find truth in all criticisms directed towards me today, especially from my partner.

5. I will say “You are right” in a sincere meaningful way when criticized.

6. I will give an example of how the person who criticized me is right.

7. I will repeat this to myself “I am better off being wrong, because when I’m right, I’m a real jerk”

8. I will avoid trying to explain myself.

9. I will listen to my partner when they tell me about their day. I’ll make eye contact, and turn off the TV.

10. I will avoid giving unsolicited advice to anyone, especially my partner and children.

11. I will avoid blaming people for things today, especially if it was their fault.

12. I will avoid trying to make people “understand”.

13. I will look for opportunity to praise everyone today, even the cat.

14. I will humbly commit to removing my angry behaviors today as my contribution towards a more peaceful world.

Paraphrased from Newton Hightowers "Anger Busting 101"

THE CARDIFF GIANT

Back in 1850, a guy named George Hull had a 10 foot giant carved of gypsum in Iowa, and shipped to his farm in Cardiff New York. He buried the carving in his yard, and a year later hired two well diggers to “discover” the petrified man. He was called “The Cardiff Giant”, and Hull charged 25 cents a person to see the giant under a tent he had erected. He made, in today's money, roughly 400,000 dollars.

PT Barnum came to see the giant and tried to buy it. Hull refused to sell. Barnum had a giant of his own made, declared Hull’s giant “Fake”and advertised his as “The True Cardiff Giant”.

Hull sold his giant to a guy named Hannum. Hannum accused Barnam of having a fake giant, saying “There is a sucker born every minute” (wrongly attributed over time to Barnum himself) and sued Barnum for calling his giant a fake.

A wise  judge asked Hannum to have his giant "swear under oath" he was indeed the real one. Hannum confessed his giant was a fake.

The court ruled both giants were obviously fakes, and that Barnum could not be sued for calling a fake giant a fake.
A big giant fake, just like our president.

DAVE DREAMING

"We are going through a phase where its less if you can have, have, and more if you can have, have quickly"

I don't know if Dave posted this, or if he said it, but last night I dreamed he did.

DEADHEADING

When I flew back from NYC last fall, I sat next to a stewardess that was “Deadheading” back from France. That’s where they fly out to there working, and then fly back as a passenger.  She had headphones on, but I motioned to her to take them off, and I started talking to her.

“I was in NYC when I was a kid 50 years ago. I cant tell how much its changed since then, if it has” I started “I was down on company business, and I wanted to go to see the Tower, but I was in a company truck, and driving down that highway at night, traffic everywhere, and then it hit, that wall of lights that is Manhattan, I could almost hear it buzz and I still hadn’t even crossed over the river, and I got to the Brooklyn bridge, and I chickened out. I didn’t cross over. I was nervous, in that company truck and all that traffic, and not knowing where I was going”
She smiled at me and said “You did the right thing” and started to put her headphones back on.
I was relieved that someone agreed that I paid attention to my gut feeling.
 I said “You know its funny. I’m scared to death of heights. I cant hardly pass over a bridge without freaking out a little. I don’t even like parking in a two story garage. Going into a 100 story building that had windows, I don’t think I could do that without some kind of safety harness on in case something sucked me out the window. But flying in a plane, and looking out the window, it doesn’t bother me at all”
The stewardess lady, she excused herself, and was gone a while, and when she came back she brought me a little blanket, and some headphones of my own, and showed me how to plug them into the TV so I could watch TV!
She was just really nice, wasn’t she?

DONALD TRUMP HAS TWO PROBLEMS

                  1) Appearances

                  2) Reality

LANGUAGE RULES

"“Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.”

From a cool article here.

OUR HIGHLY SKILLED AND INTELLIGENT STAFF ARE EAGERLY WAITING TO SERVE YOU

Once or twice a month when I’m driving my 6 minute commute to work I think about a conversation I had with a superior at HDQ five years ago.

We had a new program, and I was complaining about it.
All these mouse clicks. Box after box of redundant information. More redundant information, more mouse clicks leading to more redundant information, redundant information that also happened to be SUPERFLUOUS in my expert opinion.

My superior listened patiently as a blew off a bunch of steam.

I’m not sure what it takes to light a fire under this guy, but he is always so calm it makes me wonder what they are giving him.

Whatever it is, I don’t want it. I need my mania, my angst. I keeps me sharp. Keeps me on edge.

He said he would take a look at it all. Nothing really came from it. I think they removed one box that I no longer have to check off.

So like I said , I think about that conversation every now and then driving in to work.

And what it really boils down to is just one question:
“Do you want this job or not, Steve?”

Because for half the pay, instead of doing needless mouse clicks, I could be digging a ditch somewhere.

My Dad, far left and the team at Hobbs Trailers Fort Worth Branch, 1963