Workin' for the man! Part One

A couple days ago my mother wrote this post about her deep knowledge of fast food french fries, and the run in she had with a disgruntled french fry technician at McDonalds. After leaving my comment on the matter, I began to look back at not only my fast food career, but the myriad of jobs that I have had in general.

Here is something to give you a good idea of how many different jobs I have had. In 1997, I had 7 different W-2 forms that I had to file with. Also in that year I had a period of about 3 weeks where I was working 3 jobs at once. It was also the year where I started what I consider my first "real" job. The job that made me realize that there was more to life than working 14 hours a week at the information booth in the middle of the mall.

So let me take you back on a trip down employment memory lane. The lame times of working, the fun times of working, and the just plain "what were you thinking Sorenson!" times of working. We shall start in my early years.

I acquired a love of money at an early age. When I was around 10-11 years old, I would ride my bike to an Apricot tree that was next to the canal. I would pick them, and sell them in the little green plastic boxes that strawberries came in for a buck a piece. And that wasn't the only thing that I would sell. There was also a cherry tree in the backyard of a house that was vacant. I would sneak back there, pick cherries, and then sell them to the neighborhood kids. Two cherries, one penny. Or I would make paper airplanes and sell them for 10 cents each.

When I was way into baseball cards, I would take all of my doubles, put them in groups of 5, and sell grab bags for a quarter. I would always put a card worth at least a dollar in the bags, and tell the other kids in the neighborhood that they would have a chance to get a good card. And with incentive like that, the bags would be gone, and I would have 3 or 4 bucks in my pocket. I would then take that money up to Red Apple Market, (Which was called The Family Grocer back then) or to Nob Hill Market, and buy candy that I would sell to the kids at a marked up price. And there were other times when I was a little bit older when my mother would go buy candy at Costco, and my sister Heidi and I would sell it out of our house.

This is what I did for money until I was about 12 years old. That is when I started as an independent contractor for the Tri Citiy Herald. If I had my way, I would have been delivering several years earlier. When I was 9 or 10, this nice lady named Iva Julson drove into our neighborhood, and came up to a group of us boys riding our bikes on the BMX track we made. She asked if any boy would like to start a paper route. I of course raised my hand. I went with her to my house, where my mom said that I was too young for a route. So every year from that point on, Iva would call my house to see if I was old enough. When I turned 12, my Mom finally relented.

I delivered that route for four years. During that time I became very skilled in the art of folding papers. Even today when I get my paper in the morning, I critique the job that the carrier does. In fact, there has been times when I go out to get the paper, and upon discovering the job that he/she has done folding it, I have wanted to wake up early the next morning, and show them the better way to do it. But of course that would be treading on "grumpy old man" status, and I am not ready for that title.

I had some great adventures on my route. There was the time in either 1990 or 91 when there was a massive wind storm that blew through town. I have not seen a windstorm like it since then. It blew down trees, knocked out power to some places, and even delayed school. Heck, it even knocked my Dad's 1961 Buick LeSabre out of gear, and blew it down the driveway into the road. At least that is what I have heard. I slept through the whole thing.

When I awoke that morning, I had a hard time delivering papers. There was one road that was completely blocked off by a felled tree. Of course, I thought that it was the coolest thing in the world that I had to climb over it to deliver my final 4 papers. And to this day, when I drive down 8Th avenue, I look to that spot where the tree once stood.

Since this was an older part of town, I had a lot of seniors living on my route. I got to know all of them very well. I didn't really have a choice in the matter. After all, the only way they were going to pay me on collection day was if I went in and talked to them for a while. And I do not regret it at all spending the time in their homes. Besides all the goodies they would give me, I also received knowledge from them that I still dwell on today.

One of the "lessons" that I received from these wonderful people is something that I have been crusading for ever since I walked out of this person's house. The lesson came from a man who happened to be in my ward growing up. His name was Lee Rose. Now Lee, out of all the people on my paper route, had the most knowledge to impose on me. Every month he would have something new to talk about. And he wouldn't hand me the check until I listened to every last word. Most of it I cannot remember, but there is this one thing that I got from him. And it is about licorice.

Now right now, I bet you are asking yourself what could have been so important about licorice that to this very day I still rant and rave about. It started when I went to his house to collect. He had a bag of mixed pieces of licorice. He asked me if I would like some of said licorice. I said, "Oh yes, of course! I LOVE RED LICORICE!" But before I knew it, Lee had snapped the bag away from me. He had this look on his face like I had just egged his house. He told me to sit down, that he had something VERY important to tell me.

"You, Mister, will not be allowed to leave my house until you understand one thing. Licorice is not a COLOR! It is a FLAVOR!! That red stuff is crap! It was made for the wusses who thought real licorice didn't taste good. When I was a kid, there was none of that red crap around. Then one day they came out with the red stuff, and everyone thought that since it looked like licorice, that it was. But I am here to tell you, it ISN'T!"

He made me swear that from that day forward, I would correct anyone who would desecrate the good name of licorice. That I had to correct them. It was my duty. And since that fateful day, I have kept my word. I know that it is a losing battle, but it is one that I must fight till the end of days.

Now the worst thing that happened in that four years is when I went to throw a Sunday paper onto Mrs. Winslow's front porch. It was the middle of summer time, and this wonderful old lady (who me and my sister Heidi used to call "Grandma" when we were younger and lived next door to her.) only had a swamp cooler. So she had her front door open, and one of those box fans in front of the screen door to cool off the house. I was about 20 feet back, and made a perfect arching throw. I must say it was one of my best Sunday paper throws of my career. It hit the porch....and then disaster struck. The paper then took another bounce, straight through the single plate glass part of the screen door. Glass was knocked into the house. Oh ya, remember about that box fan? It made matters worse. It sprayed the glass all through her living room.

I just stood there, not sure what to do. Should I run away, and say I had a sub that day? Or should I go and apologize? Of course, I went up to the door to apologize. I didn't have a choice. My dad was driving me on my route that day, and saw the whole thing. Now Mrs. Winslow had every right to be pissed, but instead, she came to the door with a smile on her face, and said that everything would be OK. That didn't take away the feeling of upchuck arising from my belly though. I went in, and helped clean up the best that I could. And that was the last time I attempted a majestic 20 foot paper throw. At least with the Sunday paper that is.

Well, there were many other high jinks that went on on that route, but if I write about those right now, I will lose the 3 readers that are still with me right now. So I will put it to a close. That is, right after I talk about this.

In 1991, I was named one of the Paper carriers of the year. Maybe it was the climbing through fallen trees that got me the award. Or maybe it was almost doubling the size of my route through selling subscriptions. (After all, more customers, more $) Or maybe my name was drawn out of a hat. Here is a picture of me in the paper. In it you can see the beginnings of the mullet that I had started to grow.

So there you have it. My first 5 years of makin sweet moola. Tune in later this week for part 2 of my Workin' for the man! series: The Fast Food Years.

It's all good now!

There has been a problem that I have ran into since Lisa and I started to Blog a few months back, and I finally found a solution. When I seceded and started up my own blog, somehow our two blogs were still connected. The "about me" section of my blog still had her about me info. Then, whenever I wanted to leave a comment on someone else's page, it would show that Lisa left it. This led to nothing but confusion, as most of you can attest to.

So then I started to leave comments that just had my name at the bottom, along with my blog address so people would know who posted the comments. Unfortunately, this was not a fix all by any means, since there seems to be a number of bloggers who don't look kindly onto non signed in blogger people leaving them comments. So I would sign in, and once again be confused with my lovely wife. But yesterday the little light bulb (a real lightbulb, not those crappy swirly ones that take forever to light up) went off in my head, and I finally found the cure to my ills.

I must admit, I didn't come up with this all on my own. I have Mr. Dirty>South, a.k.a. Jared from 5 Minutes Wasted to thank. Yesterday he left me a comment about showing me his Wii Code, and in return me showing him mine. And since I know that he and his wife Mrs. Hai Karate, a.k.a Lindsay both write on the same blog, I was intrigued that the comment he left has his own little picture on the comment, and not Mister Miyagi's new student's pic. So I decided to dig into the options of the blogger, and see what I could come up with. And I found what I was looking for.

Now, I must say right now that I am pretty computer literate. I mean, I am not on a computer programmers' level, but there isn't much that I can't figure out. In fact, at work I have a lot of people that will come and get me instead of calling the help desk, because that way there is no annoying music to listen to while they wait. With that being said, I have no clue how I did not figure this out any sooner. I did look a few times to try and figure it out, but I could never pinpoint where I had to go. And then I found it, right in plain English. All I had to do was place another author on the blog, and I was in like Flynn.

So, I did it. I have now severed this blog completely away from Lisa's. I know have my own about me section, which is loaded with facts about me. I encourage you to check it out, you may learn a thing or two. I can also now leave comments on other people's page, and no longer will they have to put any thought into who the comment is from. I even found a great pic with two of my favorite things in it, palm trees and the beach.

I must say, I am pretty happy for myself. I can't wait to start commenting on everyone's blogs! So watch out blog world, I am coming to get ya. Well, that is about it for tonight. Hope your Wednesday was as good as mine. Even if I did lose the mikeymix.com 80's music mix contest. But on that subject, I have to give myself a pat on the back. I did finish in 2ND place, and for someone who was just a little kid through the 1980's, to know that many 80's tunes has to count for something in this world. Laters.



















Oh wait, I do have one more pressing announcement. My mother, the one who reared me, the one who put up with all of my crap that I dished out, (hehe, believe me, there was a lot of crap) the one who would let my Dad take me to the ER when I would do something stupid like slice my leg open with a shard of glass running through some bushes, or shoot myself in the hand with a BB gun, (If you are wondering about that, it was accidentally on purpose.) has started her own blog. You can check it out here. Or here. Or even here. Or if I didn't do those links correctly, try this one. I mean, one of these links has to work right? So check her out if you have a chance, she won't disappoint.

OK, now I am done. 11:06, and time to rest my weary head. Or watch Leno.

So many of you, so few of us

Well, I am about half way through with what I need to get accomplished this weekend. Yesterday I was able to get both the boat and the Explorer detailed. I woke up this morning, and my hands are sore from all the scrubbing and polishing. But that is OK. The reason why it is OK is because I made some good bread that can go to our trip. (For those of you not well versed in 70's jargon, bread means money. How do I know this? Cheech and Chong of course!)
And it felt like a very manly day, doing all that outside stuff. Which brings me to what this blog is about.

It is not hard to see that most of the people that write blogs that I read, and the people that read my blog are women. That is not a problem at all, so don't think I am trying to bag on any of you. I was just counting the number of other guys who have blogs that I know, and I can count them all on my left hand. There is of course my cousin Mitch, and my uncle Mike. And my friend Randy who used to live here in Kennewick. Other than that, there aren't any other blogs that I read on a regular basis authored by males.

With that being said, this blog is a tribute to the brave men of blogging. Last night I remembered one of my favorite Burger King Commercials. It is the one where they take the Subaru driving lesbian song, "I am Woman" and turn it into a man version. And of course, through the power of youtube, I am able to present the video to all of you, but especially the dudes.




I feel a little more manly each time I watch that clip. And while I was watching it, I came accross the full version of this manthem. You can download it by clicking here. So while I enjoy reading blogs, from both men and women alike, I would like to see more of the men out there start up a blog and join the party. And if you do, let me know, so I can add you to my favorite blog list.

OK, I am off to mow my last lawn of the weekend. And then I think I will go to Burger King, and turn my innie into an outie. I am hungry, I am incorrigible. I am MAN!!! Here's to a good weekend to all, both man and woman. Goodnight Now!

The Great Juggling Act...Starring...ME!

I think that I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew this weekend. If the weather works out, I think that I can get everything done. But that is looking like a big “if.”

First off, let’s start with the yards that I need to get done. I have the front and back yard to do at my house. My backyard I am not too concerned about if I don’t get it done, because no one sees it. But my front yard is my pride and joy. After all, I have a rep I need to keep up, so I better get it done. It is starting to look shaggy.

I also have 2 clients’ yards that need to get done. Well, OK, they are my only 2, but saying it that way makes it sound like I have some others built up. One of those yards will not take me any time at all to do. But when I get home from that house, I have to scrape and hose out the deck of my lawn mower, since I am essentially mowing her weeds and Bermuda grass. (Two things I DO NOT want in my yard. I already have to beat back my neighbor’s Bermuda every week.)

The other house is my boss at work. Her yard is bigger, and I have a lot of edging that I have to do there, but her grass is in tip top condish. So there is no need to clean my mower afterwards. But since it is my first time over there this year, it could take 1-2 hours to get it done. And since I am such a nice guy, I think I will bring my hose over and spray off her house. I mean, if I am going to make her yard look perfect, I might as well clean off her house too.

So that is what I have to get done for yard work, which brings me to the second set of jobs that I have planned out. If you have read this blog before, or my wife’s blog, you know that I love to wash cars. Before I was married, I would wash my car every other day, and wax it at least once a week. Yes, that is right, not just once a week, but at LEAST once a week. I was pretty anal about keeping a nice looking car. Sure, my friends would make fun of me, but I was trying whatever I thought I could do to get chicks. I mean, if you are in your early 20’s, and you take a girl out, wouldn’t you want to surprise her that she gets to sit in a clean car, and not one where she ends up sitting on used Slurpee cups and Twinkies wrappers?

With that being said, last year I started to detail cars for other people. I figured that I might as well start trying to make some money off of something I love to do. And since we have an upcoming trip to So Cal next month, I thought that if I could get a few cars in, I could cover our gas for the way down. And it might buy me an extra day at Disneyland. Or more In-n-Out.

So for this weekend I also have two details that I am going to do. One is for a co-worker, who owns a Ford Explorer that she wants to sell. And the other one is something that I haven’t done before, but I don’t think that it will be too much different. We have some friends who own a boat, and last night I got a call asking if I could detail the boat for them. Her husband has been saying for awhile that he was going to get out and clean it up, but since he is so busy, he never has a chance to. I am planning on getting the boat done on Friday morning, and doing the Explorer Friday afternoon.

As you can see, I have a lot planned for this weekend. And I thought that it wouldn’t be a problem. Then I saw the weather report for Saturday. As luck would have it, there is supposed to be rain. And since the two different types of tasks I have planned don’t work out to well in the rain, you can see why I am stuck. So here is what I am planning to do. Get my yard and one client’s yard done tonight. Do the details on Friday, and hope for the best on Saturday that it won’t be a downpour, and get the other yard done. Oh yes, and I am getting my lettuce trimmed on Saturday too. Wish me luck!

And everyone enjoy The Office tonight. Hopefully it will be better than last week. And hopefully Michael dumps Jan and her falsies.

Thoughts from a worker bee

Ah, April 15th, tax day. There are a few things on my mind, so I might as well get them out there. First off, I will jump into the whole tax thing. There was this bit that I heard Jim Rome do about 7 years ago, and every time at this year I think about it. He was talking about how his favorite thing to do is watch the local news interview people at the Post Office, who are waiting in line at 11:55, trying to get that return postmarked so they aren’t late. And that how you just know that about half of the people there will get the post mark at 12:01, and will have a penalty. Because after all, everyone knows how happy and willing post office workers are to help you when they are stuck at their jobs till midnight taking returns. They are just about as helpful as the guy who is behind the counter at the DMV.

Has anyone been watching baseball since the season started up a couple weeks back? I know I have, and it has been enjoyable so far. That is, except for one little thing. It just doesn’t seem right that some of these games are being played in football like conditions. Over the weekend I was watching highlights of a game played in Cleveland, and it was SNOWING! Are you kidding me? Once again, I need to call out Al Gore. I bet the good people of Cleveland are wishing that your bull crap was true, because I don’t think they like having to be dressed up in their Cleveland Browns best to go watch the Indians play. Even Seattle is affected by it. I was watching the shellacking that Kansas City (Which by the way, KC is sitting at 8-5 right now...isn’t it usually about mid May by the time they hit 8 wins?) was putting on the Mariners last night, and you could see the breath of all the players out on the field. I could have sworn that they were all taking a big smoke break.

So I want everyone across the nation to do their part to get the weather where it needs to be for baseball. Go buy some cows, and put those bad boys in your front yard. If Co2 is what makes us warm up, then the more cows the better. After all, they produce more Co2 than your Tahoe does. (Funny how you don’t hear the global warming nut jobs shouting from the rooftops that we need to kill all cows and become vegans. I guess they don’t want to give up the bliss that is a Porterhouse.)

OK, last but not least on today’s agenda…the Nintendo Wii. We have a Wii in the Sorenson household, and we love it. There are many things that you can do with it, and Nintendo is adding more all the time. Just last night I downloaded some classic NES games to play. It was nice playing Super Punch Out and Super Mario Brothers 3 again. I even have some PacMan action going on, if you want to go back even further. If you haven’t had the joy of playing one, give us a ring and come on over, we would love the company.

But for those of you out there who are lucky enough to own a Wii, I have a favor to ask you. The cool thing about the Wii is that you are able to become “friends” with other Wii owners. Every Wii has a code, and when that code is shared with other systems, the systems become friends. You can them trade Mii’s, and they are coming out with games that you can play against others online. Right now our Wii system only has one friend. I know that all the Mii’s that our girls have created are yearning to crawl out to other peoples’ systems, and to play in their games. So the favor I ask is this: Please send me your Wii code so we can become friends. And since it takes two to tango, here is my Wii code. 1585 0527 6165 6045.

So there you have it. A little pinch of politics, a dash of sports, and some game system talk. I must say this is a good all around post. Have a good Tuesday everyone. And stay tuned, I am trying to think up a contest that I can do to give away some World Famous DonSalsa. (Don’t worry Mike and Cindy, when you guys come over, I will make you some.) And don’t forget your taxes…millions of illegal immigrants and welfare cases are depending on you!

I waited for this day...and it looks like I will be waiting even longer now

I have had a blog writing block all week. Every time I sit down at the computer, and start to write something, I read it, and am not happy with it. In fact, at work on Friday I printed out a half written blog just so I could have the joy of tearing it up and throwing it away. A lot of the things that I could write about, Lisa has pretty well covered on her blog, and there is no reason to rehash what she has already put down. But something happened yesterday, and since I was the one that took the brunt of the verbal abuse that my daughter Alexandra spewed out, I feel that I get to claim this Sorenson family moment.

It all started early Saturday afternoon. I had just gotten back from laying down some fertilizer on somebodies yard for them. I was about to go in the house, when I noticed that I had a sprinkler head plugged. **SIDE NOTE: I am SO stoked that my irrigation is now flowing. No more watering the front yard by hand, and the back yard can start its recovery from Labrador wrestling, chewing, and digging. I give it about a month, and I will have it in tip top condition...OK, back to the story at hand.** I went and retrieved my handy dandy sprinkler fixing tool, and got the water flowing again.

While taking care of said sprinkler head, Alexandra and Lorelai came outside to play. Lex jumped on her princess bike, and Lor got on her red tricycle. Since it was the best day of the year by far, I was more than happy to stay outside and watch them ride. Even Lisa came out with Elisabeth.

So Lex rode around for about 5 minutes, and I noticed that her training wheel was loose again. This seems to happen every couple days. Of course, if she had never left her bike behind my car last year, I would have never ran over her training wheels. Which in turn would mean that I never had to go out and buy new training wheels, just to get home and realize that I needed the special princess training wheels, which I could not get because they were only sold with the princess bike. Which forced me to try and take the new wheels and stick them on the old metal brackets that matched the bike. Which didn't work too well, since the bolts that were meant to go with the new wheels were too big for the old brackets. Which meant that I had to try and scrape at the metal to make them fit. I don't know if this paragraph makes any sense at all to you, so I will boil it down for you. I was trying to be a good dad, and in the end, I was able to accomplish that feat.

There I was in the garage, about to tighten the wheels back up when I got the great idea to ask Alexandra if she was ready to learn how to ride her bike with no training wheels. She was very excited about this, so I took the T.Wheels off, and got ready to go to work teaching her.

I had it all planned out. I was going to teach her the way I taught my two brothers to ride. I would take her to the park, and have her ride down a slight hill so she could build up speed. Then all she would have to do was to pedal. Sure, she would wreck at the bottom, but it would help show her the balance that she would need. Sounds easy enough right? It sure did to me.

So I get Alexandra all ready to go. Helmet? Check. Knee pads? Uh...that dog chewed them, but you will be OK. Elbow pads? Hmm....They might be useful, but when I was a kid, only sissies wore elbow pads. (This is the part where I forget that I have girls, not boys.) But hey, at least she has a helmet. I tell her that I am going to give her a slight push, and that all she has to do is keep her feet on the pedals. The only problem was that I don't think I got through to her the importance of the feet on pedals thing.

Just before the first run, and last words of advice

5.4.3.2.1...we have launch. I give her the slight push, and the first 5-10 feet it looks beautiful. She is holding the handle bars straight, she is keeping her feet on the pedals, she is....uh oh, the feet are no longer on the pedals, they are up in the air. (I started to have flashbacks to my one and only motorcycle riding experience. If you don't know what I am talking about, read this old post. Unless you are my wife. I won't make you hear that story again.) Next thing I know, she is laying at the bottom of the hill, crying, and cursing out her old man. Kid was not happy at all. I went down and picked her up, and told her that we would try it another day. The only problem was that she didn't want to try it another day. This was the day. This was going to mark the first time she rode a bike by herself. I think she was planning on riding that bike back home.

Now, I don't know why I let a 5 year old girl, who at the time was saying how I let her crash, was saying that she hated my guts for making her try this bike riding thing, get me to let her give it another go. She was already a little tired from the excitement of having a meeting of her book club at our house, and was not in the best of moods. But there was a part of me that wanted her to get this down, so I agreed. I brought her back up the hill, but this time chose a spot that wasn't as steep. I tried drilling into her head the extreme importance of keeping her feet on the pedals, and that if she didn't, she would get hurt. Lex, through the tears, told me that she was ready, and again she was off.

When I say she was "off" I mean that literally. I don't know if she was struck by temporary amnesia, or had decided that she was going to show Daddy that all this pedal talk was nonsense. But she lifted those size 10's up again. And this time, the pedal scraped across her leg. This was followed by screaming, kicking, and frothing at the mouth. She was not very happy with me, to say the least. But once again, my stance is that if she would have kept the feet on, everything would be fine.

After the second wreck..and before the big bad

Daddy put the bike back in the van.

The best part of all of this, is that Lisa filmed it. So I can share it with all of you. The thing I find funny about this video is that the other two girls are perfectly happy, while the oldest sister is listing all the wrongs that her Dad committed against her that afternoon. Oh and the bike? I think that it will go up in the rafters until she is...um..lets say 8 or 9. That should be enough time for the trauma to subside. I hope.

Sing. Sing a song. Or two...or 20.

The date was March 28, 1998. I had just watched my beloved North Carolina Tar Heels lose to Michael Doleac, Andre Miller and the Utah Utes in the Final Four by a score of 65-59. (ha, funny how 10 years later, they were in the same place, but this time Kansas laid the hammer down.) I was broken hearted. I thought for sure that this was the year they would win a title. I was about to head downstairs, and figure out what to do for the rest of that Saturday night when the phone rang. It was my good friend Brad Butherus, and he had an idea.

He asked me if I wanted to go to the Pizza Barn out in Finley and sing some Karaoke. He had remembered how my rendition of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" had brought the house down at our Senior party two years earlier. And since I had nothing better to do, I agreed to go along. And that is when I discovered something that I loved. And that thing was Karaoke.

I remember that night well. I started off with "Brown Eyed Girl" and the people loved it. Then I did the Blues Traveler song "Hook." I love to get people going, and put on a show. When I karaoke I don't like to sit right in front of the screen and sing. I want to go up and down the aisle. I want to croon to ladies, young and old. But most of all I want everyone else in the room have fun watching the spectacle. And after those first two songs I had the crowd hooked.

While looking through the song book for my third song, I found one that I thought would be a blast to sing. So I wrote on the little sheet of paper these words: Just a Gigolo, David Lee Roth. I had heard this song several times, and had sang along in my car. I knew that once I got up there, memory would take over and I wouldn't need the teleprompter. Needless to say, brought the house down.

That Saturday night was the funnest night I had had in a very long time. Every week I would add a new song to my show. Others I enjoyed singing were Johnny Cash, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, The Animals, and Frank Sinatra. For the next 18 months or so, me and Brad went back to the Pizza Barn to sing. As soon as Brad turned 21, we started to go to other places to sing.

Fast forward 8 years to 2006. I was now happily married to Lisa, and preparing to go to my 10 year High School reunion. I was very exited, because I was one of the people who had helped plan the reunion when nobody else would. It was a good night, full of good food, and seeing old friends.

But something was missing. Sure, we had a dance floor set up, and one of the best DJ’s in the state, (None other than my Uncle Mike, C.E.O. of mikeymix industries.) but only a few people were getting up to dance. I all of a sudden had this urge to get up and sing a song. I went up and asked Mike to put on “Just a gigolo” so I could sing it. Since Lisa isn't too jazzed about me going to bars to sing, this was my first time in several years to give it a go.

When I first started out, I think that most people didn’t realize that I was the one singing. After about a minute, people started getting into it. Luckily, Lisa was there to film it with our digital camera. Keep in mind that it was dark in the room, and you can’t see me too well, but you can hear me sing. So without further ado, here is the only recording there is of me singing Karaoke.



So as you can see, I really get into the songs. I always tell people that I now that I am not the best of singers, but that I will put on the best of shows. If there is anyone else out there who likes to bust out with the microphone, please let me know, and maybe, just maybe, we can talk Lisa into going on a double date to someplace that has Karaoke so I can relive my "glory days."

Moron of the week...heck, even of the year!

I got this video via email at work last week, and have been meaning to share this with of you. I guess that this happened in South America. I know that whenever I need to see the level of fuel in a 5000 gallon fuel truck, the first thing that I do is whip out my trusty zippo, light it up, and give a little looky loo inside the tank.

Also, thanks to all of you who swamped my last post with comments. It was very flattering that every hour I would look, and there would be 2 or 3 more comments. Thanks to Lisa, for taking pity on me and directing people my way.

I had already decided a few weeks back to stay away from political posts, and after reading comments from people, I realized that I made a good move. After all, everyone needs to have a place to go to get away from the dregs of the day, and to have a good chuckle.

One more thing. I have been waiting for this weekend to come, because I had this great blog planned out for celebrating my North Carolina Tar Heels going to the 'ship. And then they went and lost yesterday. And an ugly loss it was. In fact, at one point they were down 40-12. If I hadn't been lying on the couch in pain from a minor surgery I had Friday, I would have been jumping up and down, screaming at the TV. Oh well, at least there is always next year.

Officially Spring is here, but unofficially...

....it's not. I have been seeing in the paper how at this time last year, the temps were already up in the mid 60's to low 70's, and this year we have been lucky to see a day above 60. But something tells me that it is about to change. No it is not that Al Gore is now coming out blabbing on about global warming, even though I find it funny you didn't hear from that crackpot all winter long. What was wrong Al, too busy trying to stay warm during one of the coldest winters in a long time? It was that today it stayed sunny for pretty much the whole day. And there was not wind. I almost forgot what it was like without a steady 15 mph breeze.

So me being the type of person that cannot just sit still, I got home from work and headed outside to do some yard work. Now I know that most people HATE mowing the lawn, but I LOVE doing it. So much so that I do a couple yards for people during the summertime. Sure the money that I get for said lawns is nice, but it is also nice being outside. And I just don't mow, I also edge. I take my edging very seriously. If you don't believe me, pay us a visit the day after I mow, and you will think that I have a ruler out there with my making sure my edging spacing stays equal. And for the record, I don't have a fancy edger that has a blade and does it perfect every time. Nope, not for me. I do it all free hand with my electric powered trimmer. I like the electric because it has just enough power. The gas ones can get pretty crazy. In fact I could probably write a whole post on weed whackers...maybe when I am hard up for material for this blog.

That is what was so great about today. When I did my yard a couple weeks ago, it was in very windy conditions, and I had to have on a sweatshirt and gloves to get it done. Today I was in my usual shirt and shorts, with my trusty ipod nano at my side. Alexandra and Lorelai were out riding their bikes, enjoying the nice weather along with me. Inside, Lisa was getting ready for her violin lesson that she was about to teach, and enjoying a nice little break without the girls in the house. It felt for the first time this year like a nice spring afternoon/evening, and I loved every minute of it.

And to top it all off, we went to Sonic tonight for dinner. It is so nice to pull up into one of those slots and take time to really study the menu. When you are in a drive thru line you always feel like you need to hurry and place your order. That is what I love about Sonic. Pull on in, and have a kid bring you out your food and drinks on roller skates. And then there is the carhop that skates around with the condiment tray, and he will stop in front of your car and ask you what you want. Tonight I tried their fry sauce with my tots, and I must say that it went very well together. I would rank Sonic as my number 2 fast food place. Of course for those who know me know that I rank In n Out first, but Sonic is a close second.

So there you have it. That was the Sorenson evening in a nutshell. This is such a great time of year, and now that Baseball has started, and the nice weather is starting to roll in, I can just about drop the "unofficial" off spring, and call it official.

Oh yes, by the way, I just wanted to give a shout out to my loyal readers...all 5 of you. Try as I might, but I can't seem to wrangle some of Lisa's readers to my blog. I was told that all I had to do was to comment on other peoples blogs. Maybe I need to up my commenting. Or I could bribe people with salsa. People seem to like my salsa. That is a lot of maybes, but just maybe, this shameless rant will get people my way. I will just have to wait and see.

Off to watch the rest of Fat Camp on NBC....errr I mean Biggest Loser. Late.