I consider myself blessed beyond belief. I have a Beautiful Girlfriend who actually allowed me to marry her. We have two Beautiful Children. We have a Beautiful Son In Law. We have Beautiful Friends Who Are Basically Family. And I Also Have A Strong Propensity To Capitalize Words That Don’t Need To Be Capitalized.

I also have a brand new, 2001 Minivan that we were able to buy when our older, stinkier, 2001 “MuttMobile” Minivan died suddenly a little over month ago. The brand new 2001 Minivan is in very nice shape. So nice, in fact that my Beautiful Girlfriend asked, “are you sure you want to let the dog in here??” You see, the older, stinkier Minivan was dubbed the “MuttMobile” because it was the only vehicle in which Musky Da Husky was allowed to travel. Musky sheds his fur via great quantities of fluff bombs, and this was very evident inside the MuttMobile. And of course, if a dog travels in a car long enough, the car and dog begin to smell very much the same.

The old MuttMobile died on the highway, and we had it towed home. Fortunately, the tow truck driver was looking for a parts car; and he bought our old dead Muttmobile!! Now we are spoiled rotten Americans, with a brand new, used MuttMobile. Very nice shape… it was extremely well maintained. All the items one usually has to fix after buying a used car were repaired before we bought the car. This of course brought the price a bit higher than “blue book,” but I’m convinced it was well worth it.

So there I was, minding my own business, driving the car home from the dealership in Holland. All seemed very alright with the car, everything actually worked. But events of the following day would send a chill down my spine, however. The radio was not working very well. FM reception was fair to partly cloudy, but AM only pulled in TWO STATIONS!!! This, I cried aloud to my Beautiful Girlfriend, was unacceptable.

I’m a pretty simple guy. And although my job as a computer flunky (computer support guy) shoves me into some rather high-tech situations, I really could care less about techno-toys. That is, of course, unless you’re talking about radio or TV receivers. Those items are basically considered archaeological artifacts in these times of streaming media and so forth. But this boy loves to play with the radio, and also loves the fact that our TV reception is from an antenna; which is free.

Off I went on a journey to remedy the situation. I cried a bit to the dealer, but I distinctly remembered the “As-Is, No Warranty” disclaimer when I bought the car. So I really didn’t expect them to help much. Then I ran off to e-bay and found several replacement radios for between $35 and $50. Then off to YouTube to see how hard it was to replace the radio. Then, came the big giant epiphany into my silly head bone. “I wonder what the tow truck guy is gonna do with the radio in the old MuttMobile??”

So, I texted him. He said, “no plans for the radio, you can have it.” “How much do you want for it,” I replied. “Nothing,” he texted back. So I went to YouTube again, memorized the removal instructions, and headed to his house. Armed with my Swiss Army Knife and a Phillips head screwdriver, I had the radio out in about 5 minutes. Reversed the process when I got home, and HOLY MOLY!! IT WORKED PERFECTLY!! BOTH FM, AND AM!! I was very grateful. Did I mention I’m a spoiled rotten American?

I told this story to all my friends, and many said, “AM?? What’s on AM??” “These kids don’t know what they’re missing,” I thought to myself. I explained that there are lots of stations within a few hundred miles that are fun. Here in Beautiful West Michigan there are broadcasts from as far as Detroit that come in very clearly, as well as Chicago and Milwaukee. At night the AM radio band comes alive; and stations from many hundreds and even thousands of miles can be heard. See for yourself; click on this link thingy for a listing of all kinds of AM stations—> http://www.am-dx.com/fcclist.htm

Anywho, the car radio AM important to me; and now the new MuttMobile is ready to rock. AM I a lucky guy or what??

So, what’s so special about AM?? Well, among other things, some stations are still broadcasting what are now called “old time radio programs.” Here’s a clip from The George Allen and Gracie Allen Show, which like many shows of its day, made the transition from radio to television. You can literally enjoy the radio audience experience by closing your eyes while listening during the clip. Hope you like!

But who’s counting?

I confess, I done did it.  Several months ago actually.  I put a countdown timer on my work computer.  Yes I did.  Then I set the timer for March 1, 2020 and stared at it for several weeks.

OK, maybe not.

But I do kick it off every now and then, just to allow myself a little hope amidst the madness that is industry.  For those who are unaware, if I make it to that date, I’ll be 66 and will finally be on the Retirement Bandwagon.  I say “if” because if there’s one thing I’ve learned thus far during my stay on this planet; it’s that there’s no such thing as a sure thing.  I feel pretty good about my chances though.  We try to eat right, I exercise pretty regularly, and I’m pretty healthy if I must say so myself.

Friends who know I installed the countdown timer have said, “are you trying to drive yourself nuts?  That would make me crazy.”  “No,” I reply, “it gives me hope, but also reminds me of how much I need to do between now and then.”  And of course I do love to remind my coworkers of my countdown; especially the younger ones.  We have this instant messaging program you see; and we can communicate between sites with the flick of a few typings.  So just for fun, I copy and paste the read out of the countdown clock and send it in a message.  The youngsters tell me they’re jealous, and then I remind them that I’ve already suffered for many years; so I deserve it, darn it anyway!!

Woulda – shoulda – coulda still creeps up on me every now and again however.  Oh, and not to forget the ‘fonlies (pronounced “fone-lees”).  You know, if I woulda saved more money like I shoulda, I coulda retired years ago.  And hey, ‘fonly I hadn’t wasted so much money on all that “fun,” I coulda had a lot more in the bank by now.

Well instead of all that, I’m just working on staying grateful.  I have a Beautiful Girlfriend who actually allowed me to marry her some years ago.  We have a nice home, beautiful children, awesome grandchildren.  We even have pets who love us unconditionally… although maybe they are just hooked on the situation of being well fed and having a warm place to sleep during the Michigan winter.  I am basically a spoiled rotten human… very blessed indeed.

I try to stay grateful for my job; and that works most of the time.  Sure, I’m human so I still whine from time to time.  I boast to my coworkers that I’m a “computer flunky,” very happy to be at the bottom of the chain of command in the salary ranks.  In other words, when the doody rolls downhill, I’m at the bottom; and that’s very OK with me.  Very grateful I have skills that translate into decent pay; but technology is more of a necessary evil than a source of wonder these days.  “I hate computers,” I mumble as I’m trying to noodle out a problem at work.  My friends laugh when they hear this; but I assure them that I’m not really kidding.  Then they tell me how smart I must be to do this kind of work; at which time I emphatically state “I’m just a trained monkey.”

Give me a hoe or a spading fork over a pile of hard drives or memory sticks any day.  My heart is in the soil; I love to grow food organically.  But that doesn’t bring in money as quickly as the job does, so if possible I hope to do that until the mortgage is finally gone.  Never know, they might give me the boot when I least expect it.  No such thing as a sure thing.

So now that you’ve heard my yearning for retirement, please e-mail me large amounts of cash and precious metals so I can quit my job and finish out my years with financial independence.  If every person who reads this were to send me just 10 cents, well sheesh, I’d probably have like 32 cents!!  Did you know there are three types of people in this world?  That’s right:  those who can count, and those who can’t.

Count me in.  For retirement I mean.  Well OK, in 5 years, 1 day and 9 minutes.

And now for something I really like, and I hope you will too.

Uh Oh… he’s at it again.  Fried chicken for dinner (that’s it… just fried chicken), chocolate for dessert.  Tomorrow it’s some smoked sausages with leftover potatoes and greens.  Maybe some potato chips, just for the heck of it.

Hmmm… let’s see what’s on the ROKU… old monster movies with very bad make up and “special effects.”  “The Wolf Monster Ate My Vampire Godmother’s Demon Fangs,” or something like that.  Who knows… just some weirdos in very bad costumes and women screaming.  Something to be on in the background while I write this silly blog thing.

Tomorrow I’m going to do something really self indulgent and go hang out with some friends, maybe even take Musky Da Husky to the Dog Star Ranch.  Would be a perfect time to do it; the forecast calls for a balmy 29 degrees tomorrow.  Then come home and do some terribly naughty stuff like stack some firewood or maybe shell some popcorn.

Where the heck is that new corn sheller I got for Christmas??  Anyway??

I may not know until Sunday when my Beautiful Girlfriend comes back from the Women’s Retreat.  Not sure what all they do there… but I do know that for one whole weekend a year I am left all alone with two geriatrics and a young adult.  High maintenance situation.

Never Anne is the oldest of the geriatrics.  If she hangs in until April, she’ll be 21… so old enough to buy and consume alcohol.  I doubt she’ll be doing any of that though, she’s a calico cat.

Next on the hit parade is Musky Da Husky.   Self explanatory name I guess, right?  If he makes it to June, he’ll be 14.  That’s pretty old for a dog.  Due to his not so wonderful childhood  (the neighbors “raised him” outside… all year long), he had cataracts when he came to our house at the ripe old age of one year.  The vet said poor nutrition was likely to blame for the cataracts.  We suspect the first year of a very stressful childhood may be also to blame for the COPD he has now.  Never met a dog with emphysema before… but we have one now.  He coughs often, and sometimes a little “surprise” flies out of his throat and onto the floor.  That in addition to the occasional “whoopsie” that Never Anne leaves for us (stinking outside the box?) has prompted me never to go barefoot in our home anymore.

Last but not least is Freddy the Freeloader.  He’s our 14 pound cat who adopted us a few years ago.  Well it was easy for him to adopt us, he was feral, and my Beautiful Girlfriend saw him slinking about and decided he needed a bowl of food.  We figure he was not quite a year old at the time; and had to be rushed to the vet due to an inner ear infection that made him nearly unable to stand.  We nursed him back to health in the house, and after letting him out for the first time he actually came back and made it very plain that hewanted to be inside    Since then he’s been our friend who still loves to go outside and play but very much enjoys a warm bed.   The rest as they say, is history.  He likes to test the strength of my knees in the middle of the night by plopping his  body across them as I lay sleeping.  Gotta love that guy.

So as  you all can see, I’m partying down here in Bear Swamp while my Lovely Bride is gone for the weekend.  OK!!  Time for chocolate!!

And now for a party cartoon thing… I have to admit, I still love Betty Boop…

Dearly Beloved Human Persons,

I know the Holidays are on the horizon, and before they get here I’d like to remind all of you who might be reading this that I very much appreciate all of your vital organs and other body parts that help you stay here on Earth with me. I’m grateful that you take the time to read my silly soliloquies; and I hope that you don’t get embarrassed by my saying that the love we all share together is definitely more satisfying than any material wealth; although money can purchase delicious items and can even be used to enjoy other things like keeping your house warm, freshening your lint brush, and even making water come out of pipes for either drinking or squirting the cat while you eat pie at the breakfast table and try to figure out why a person would write run-on sentences in the first place.

Perhaps you are scratching your elbows right now because you can’t figure out what to get me for Santa Time. Perhaps I’m completely full of beans, and you intend to get me the same thing as last year and the year before (nothing). I’m very much OK with that because I didn’t get you anything again this year, but if you are willing to pay enough I will be happy to cross the border into Indiana and buy you some used highway signs. If you happen to travel through Indiana after December 32^nd, try to ignore the many naked highway sign posts. I have absolutely no idea what that’s all about.

However, if you are bell-hent on dashing to the Almost New and Almost Real Variety store with the intent of buying a present for me, here are some suggestions you may want to consider before I place all your shingles for sale on e-Bay. Oh, and yes I have also been known to intimidate even the strongest smelling rock lobsters by telling their darkest secrets to that zinc plated sewer drain over there.

So here are my 2104 Holiday Gift Requirements; all of which had better be at my doorstep by June 17^th or the whole “let’s raise a bean plant together” thing will become a distant memory of things that never got off the ground because “someone” was “too lazy” to “quit using quotation marks excessively”:

1) What the HECK are all these remote controls?? I have like 17 in the bedroom and 30 in the living room. All I want to do is make Kool-Aid before the sun goes down in the east. Can you please do something with this leaky potato sack?

N) I need to have my computer keyboard re-varnished. All the mustard from my entry in the “Giant Chili Dog Contest” seems to have settled under the Triblet Membrane and now when I press the * key something strikes me in the leg.

p7) Musky da Husky is getting old and coughing quite a bit these days. Please bring him some filet mignon and lobster tails and we promise we will cook them for him some time soon after you’re gone from our house. We’ll make sure you’re not around to see how that all works out; but I’m sure he will appreciate it.

9-) I’ve often wondered what it would be like to drive a car through a time portal. Don’t you think it would be cool to freak out the ancient Egyptians with some Bangles music being blasted out of the windows while cruising Cairo around 1230 BC? Oh wow… if you had an electric car you could sneak up from behind and lay on the horn when you find a nice crowd. Please get to work on all that. My wife would truly be zapulated if this could be ready before spring.

Well I suppose that’s enough for now. Let me know what your ideas are. Or even better, just send me some artificial sandwich fixin’s and I’ll make my own.

But seriously, I hope all is well with you. Thank you again for being you, because if you were someone else that would be confusing. Know that The Great Spirit and All Their Friends love you, even when you cannot love yourself. You are a beautiful person; and I can comfortably say this even if I have no idea who you are.

How can I say this? Well I can say it because I truly believe that God does not make junk. All of us are Children of the Universe; and we all have a right to be here. We all deserve to love and to be loved.

So get out there and do that. Love and be loved. Please. This time of year can be joyous, but it can also be very stressful for some folks. Try to help someone smile if you can.

In my professional opinion, that’s why we are here.

Forget about all that “stuff” I asked for earlier. This is what I REALLY want for Christmas…

Even though it was colder than h-e-double-hockey-sticks outside today, our grandsons Ollie and Gabe and our dear young friend Fern made out like little bandits. We only went around a couple blocks, and the kids got their plastic jack o’lantern candy buckets pretty much filled up. In preparation, of course, we grownups sampled the trick-or-treat bowl before (and OK, after) the annual march for free candy began.

The youngsters were already pumped up before we went trick-or-treating. They dashed about from house to house with seemingly endless energy. They even remembered to say “thank you” a few times without being reminded!! Many times they were reminded, but who cares. It’s Hallowe’en for crying out loud. Very exciting stuff.

Fern lives in a nice, quiet neighborhood. Reminded me of when we were kids; nothing to be afraid of, all the trick-or-treaters were courteous, everyone had a great time. This year saw fewer kids because of the weather… although it wasn’t raining or snowing, holy MOLY it was cold and windy!! But the candy bowl we grownups filled back at Fern’s house got emptied out rather nicely.

Can’t help but think back to our childhoods while going door to door… my wife and I both hailed from fairly populous, suburban neighborhoods; very similar to the one we trekked through tonight. I reminisced aloud, “I remember when I was a kid, we’d fill a whole pillow case full of candy. Then we’d go home and dump it out, and go out for more.”

Ah, the good old days of tooth decay…

Now that I’m a “big person,” sometimes I like some “adult candy.” And no, I don’t mean candy that is X-rated!! Rather, I’m referring to what my Beautiful Girlfriend and I call “zoomer beans.” These are more commonly known as chocolate covered espresso beans; and if you eat several of them, they give you some pep in your step. If you eat many; you’ll probably enjoy a persistent wiggling of the eyebrows while speaking very quickly about random topics while pacing about. Or not… suffice it to say that you probably won’t sleep well if you have zoomer beans before bed. So please, don’t do that.

Any parent knows that Hallowe’en candy has a very similar effect on kids. As I mentioned earlier, they were already excited just because it was trick-or-treating time. Add that to a few large handfuls of candy consumed in a very short time; and you very energetic children on your hands. All three of our little zoomer kids were racing around and shrieking with glee; right up till it was time to go home. Then of course when the parents are ready to go, the zoomer kids aren’t exactly using their listening skills. “Get your coat on please,” says Mom. “Get your COAT on PLEASE!! HEY!! I SAID GET YOUR COAT ON!!!”

Fern’s Grandma put it very nicely: we all enjoyed another year of a new Hallowe’en tradition. Dinner with very dear friends, then off we go with children out to play ghosts and goblins (or in this case, Darth Vader, Yoda, and Princess Leia). And of course we mustn’t forget the 137 metric tons of sugary treats they collect while canvassing the neighborhood.

Just like the old days when we were the zoomer kids!

So tonight we saw a soldier, some Star Wars characters, a girl dressed as a box of candy, but no monsters!! Monsters were a big deal when I was a kid… well here’s a dog monster that would have been fun to see.

Happy Friday!!! is both early and short this week because my Beautiful Girlfriend and I are celebrating our 41^st wedding anniversary. We’re both in disbelief that time flew so quickly; but we are very grateful that the marriage we’ve worked so hard to keep is getting better with every day.

I’m in love with my best friend!! Can’t ask for much more than that. We can’t help but reminisce about times gone by, and a local business establishment helps us “get in the groove;” just like when we were kids. I’m talking about the Getty 4 Drive In, one of the country’s few remaining drive in movie theaters. We just got home from there; and had a very enjoyable evening. The culturally significant film we watched was “Expendables 3.”

It was great fun.

Tomorrow, we head for Aurora, Illinois to see The Turtles. When I told some my young friends (younger than me) about how excited we are, some would give a puzzled look and say, “is that some kind of marine exhibit?” Then I said, “you know, the old rock group. There’s only Flo and Eddie left (the founding members), but they’re still rockin’.” The puzzled looks continued until I broke into song…

“I can’t see me lovin’ nobody but you,

for all my life.

When you’re with me, baby the skies will be blue

for all my life….”

Then they’d nod and say, “ohhh sure… I’ve heard that one.” Then I continue describing the rest of the “Happy Together Tour,” Chuck Negron from Three Dog Night, Mark Farner from Grand Funk Railroad, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, and Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. By then I’ve basically lost them, but what the hey.

We got on YouTube and watched some “then and now” videos of these guys. A friend of mine gets a little disgruntled when the old rockers practice their craft on the Grammys or whatever. But we give them great credit for getting up there and kickin’ it out. Even though these geezers are up there in age, they can still rock. We’ve come to the conclusion that we’re gonna have a very nice time.

So I leave you now with a moldy oldie video of The Turtles singing what’s come to be their signature song.

Peace and Love,

Kenny