Do you know Frank? (the answer is no)

You don't know Frank. If you think that you that you know Frank than your probably wrong because I don't think you do. Unlike you, I do know Frank. Frank is 82 years old (as he pointed out he is the opposite age of me 28). I know Frank from estate auctions. I've been going to auctions for 10 years and he has been going for, well, a lot longer than that. Frank and I talk a lot at auctions. 99% of the stuff sold is of no interest to either of us. Here is the story that he told me today.

"After the war I stayed in Japan for a while rebuilding stuff. I was in charge of 50 men. Every morning I would got to the Japaneses prison camp and pick 50 guys. They would all come out and stand in perfect lines and I would pick the ones I wanted. We had guards but we didn't even really need them. These were trustworthy guys. Some of them were just kids. You know the Japanese had kids fighting for them? They always wanted me to pick them for my group. You know why? Because they knew that I went fishin. Yep, every night I would steal a duck. You know what a duck is? It's one of those vehicles that can go on land or water. I don't know how they didn't hear me stealing that thing every night. It was huge, and loud. They had to have known. Anyhow, I would always take a few of the prisoners with me. We would take that thing out on the lake and throw in a stick of dynamite. Then, the guys would all jump out and get the fish. The dynamite usually killed the fish and they would float to the top. If their bladder bursts they start to sink so you have to be quick. We started off just using one stick but after a while we got up to using a whole case every night. We got a lot of fish that way. Those guys would be throwing fish up in the boat left and right. It was good fish."

Cultural Differences

After talking to a couple of Brazilian girls I have discovered a few things. Here are my findings.

- In Brazil they speak Portuguese, not Brazilian or Spanish. In fact, there's no such language as Brazilian. (Portuguese is very close to Spanish though)
- Men do not get Brazilian waxing done, not even in Brazil. Well, perhaps gay men do but not straight men.
- In Brazil all of the women are beautiful. That's great for the guys who live there but not so great for the girls.
- Brazilian men are not to be trusted. American men are, well, no real difference there.
- In America everyone farts and belches whenever they like and all they have to do is say excuse me. In Brazil if you fart in public you will turn red and apologize. No one farts in public in Brazil.
- In Brazil a guy can live in his parents house is entire life and no one thinks that's strange. In America if a guy does that people think that there must be something wrong with him. (side note: My parents would not do well living in Brazil.)
- In Brazil people don't get married until their early 30s. In America your considered an old maid at 24. (This has led me to believe that I am in fact of Brazilian decent and not German like I had previously thought)

Vai chover?

Your Doing it Wrong!

Have you ever discovered that your doing something wrong? If you said no your lying. (either that or your God, a big shout out to God if he is reading my blog) I regress, have you ever discovered that your doing something incorrectly that you've been doing for a long period of time, like say your entire life? A few days ago I came to the realization that I may be walking incorrectly. I'm using both feet and I'm not dragging my knuckles so that part is correct. I do however have a tenancy to walk more on the sole of my foot and put almost no weight on the ball. When I'm standing still, more often than not, I stand only on the front part of my foot. It's almost like I'm always standing on my toes to get a better look at life. Its quite strange. So, I've been attempting to retrain myself to stand like a normal human being. Will it work? We shall see.

Why Do I Doubt?

It's very strange. I pray for things to happen and when they do my mind turns towards the physical and denies the supernatural. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, there's a logical explanation. I can always think of a logical explanation. The situation that comes to mind happened yesterday. For those of you who are unfamiliar with graphic design, let me give you a little bit of context for this miracle. In Photoshop you work with layers. Think of a bunch of transparencies with a different drawing on each one. When you put them all together you get a complete picture. Now, if you flatten an image in Photoshop you combine all of those layers into just one layer. Once you save that file your layers are lost forever. I flattened my image and I saved it and then realized that I needed to edit a layer. This is a terrible thing. I prayed that God would unflatten my image and wallah it was unflattened. I don't know how this happened but it did. So why is it that I try to explain this away? Why not just accept it at face value. It's a computer age miracle. God healed my file. Thanks God.

Even More Random Thoghts

- How come the fairy god mother in Cinderella turned the mice into horses and the horse into a man? Why not just leave the horse as a horse? Wouldn't that have saved a step?

- Speaking of Cinderella, why did the talking, dancing, clothes wearing mice get turned into non-talking, naked, horses that can only walk in a straight line? That's a demotion if you ask me.

- I saw a license plate the other day that said "Tax." Having a license plate like that is a good way to get your head lights busted out and your car keyed.

- If you drink two pints of water in a water drinking contest with your sister and then take a 30 minute trip in your car, you will be in a tremendous amount of pain and you will pray to God for the sweat taste of death.

- If all girls are princesses than that's not really much of a title now is it?

- Did I mention that my new stupid goal is to drink an entire pitcher of water without taking a breath in less than 30 seconds.

- At work the other day we had a customer that was really rude to our CSR. The next time he came in we discovered that he was a pastor and I found myself uttering the words, "What kind of Christian is he?" The lesson here, Christians shouldn't act like jerks.

- In Cincinnati pigs fly, in Ohio Swine flue. (Clever huh?)

- I heard the list of things to do in order to prevent getting the swine flue.
1) Wash your hands.
2) Cover your mouth when you sneeze
3) Don't go to work if your sick
4) Don't kiss Mexican pigs

- Have you ever closed your eyes and then wondered which direction your eyeballs were facing? That's kept me awake before. I just can't stand the thought of my eyes rolled back in my head while I'm sleeping.

You can't eat Sandals

I had the following conversation with a 3 and a 4 year old on our way home from church today. I can't remember who said what but it went something like this.

Me: Do you girls want to go to Biggs and get some free samples.
Little Girl: Yea, I like sandals.
Me: No not sandals, samples.
Little Girl: I have sandals at home.
Me: No not sandals, samples. Samples are small pieces of food.
Little Girl: Do they have straps on the back of them like these?
Me: No, they aren't shoes. Samples, little pieces of food like cheese or meat.
Little Girl: I want some free sandals.
Me: No, not sandals, saaaaamples. They are food not shoes.
Little Girl: Sandals?
Me: Saaaaaaamples
Little Girl: Samples? Oh ok, yea is it nasty food or good.
Me: Um, both.

Ok, so it seemed that all three of us were on the same page at this point. That is until after we left the store and the three year old looked at me with a disappointed look on her face and said, "We didn't get any sandals." Oh boy, here we go again.

Zip Code: 90210

I enjoy meeting new people. Waiting in line at the post office has, in the past, proven to be a great spot for that. If, however, I don't happen to converse with a stranger eavesdropping on their conversation is the next best thing. The other day I was behind a couple of good ol' boys. Both of them spoke with a bit of a country twang, "You know, you would think they would have pens to use at a post office." The one began. You know, it's amazing to watch a conversation evolve from pens into, tvs, whats made in America, motorcycles, death, music, and then finally the cds that he was at the post office to mail. "Look at this, I'm mailing these cds to my daughter in 90210. Isn't that somethin else? When she was a kid taking dance lessons we never gave it much thought."

Let's pause here for just a second. Hearing the zip code 90210 conjures up images from that terrible 90's tv show by the same name. I couldn't help but to think, "Are there any cheap houses in that zip code?" I saw the mans envelope and sure enough, it said Beverly Hills, 90210.

Now, back to the story. "Yea, my daughter called me the other day and said hey why don't ya put the bike in storage and I'll fly you out to LA. I told her I'm takin the bike. I'll see ya in 3 days." And then, it was that fellows turn to mail his envelope. It was like a cliff hanger. Who is this mans daughter. As he was leaving he turned around, as if he just realized what I was thinking and said, "Yea, my daughter is Carmen Electra."

Easter Weekend - Chainsaw Editon

Ok, here is the weekend rundown. Kids, Skyline, Church, Breakfast, Kids, More Kids, Family, Dinner, Chainsaw, Money. In short, I loved Easter weekend.

It all started with a car full of kids (6) and free Skyline chili at the church. How awesome is that? And if you think that's fantastic, I woke up the next morning, got some more kids, and ate free breakfast at church. Bacon, they had bacon people, free bacon. Leading kids church was amazing. I love leading kids church every week no matter how many kids there are. This week though the room was packed and the kids were extra excited. There were so many new faces. I hope and pray that all of those kids get to come back. Kid's aren't just the future, kids are important right now. I believe that with everything in me. I know there had to have been a couple hundred kids there this weekend. Those kids can change the world. Sorry, let me get off of my soapbox.

After church I went to my parents house and spent Easter with my family. Food, theological debate, scrabble (I won, no wait I lost), ham, jokes (I told them my improved Mary goes to heaven joke), candy, ham, dumb conversations that sound like they are off of a TV sitcom (these dumb Seinfeldesk conversations are commonplace with my family), ham and a chainsaw. Ah, so you want to know about the chainsaw? My dad convinced me to climb a 30 foot extension ladder with a chainsaw and cut off some branches. Oh, and by brother and me made a huge sale on eBay. Anyhow, good times folks, good times.

Mary Mother of Jesus Goes to Heaven - A JOKE

Ok, I wrote this joke yesterday. If your not Catholic or don't have some basic knowledge of Catholic doctrine than this probably won't be funny. I've included a link that you can click on if you don't get the joke.

Mary, mother of Jesus, goes to heaven and finds hereself standing at the Pearly Gates waiting to get in.
St. Peter: Name please.
Mary: Mary, mother of Jesus
St. Peter: Hmmmm, I'm sorry, I can't let you in. According to this list your not dead yet. Tell you what, if you can tell me how you got here without dieing, I'll let you in anyways.
Mary: Um, you know, I'm not sure. My guess is that I just kind of floated up here.
St. Peter: Wow, that's quite an Assumption. Come on in.

Squeezing Money Out of Turnips

They say that you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip. That may be true but I bet my brother could find someone to buy the turnips and then you could use that money to buy some blood. Why is it that you want blood again? Sorry, I regress. Over the years I have observed my brothers uncanny ability to find and create money making opportunities.

His first large scale venture that, I can remember, was the shoes, expensive shoes, Jordans. My brother Phil had systematically eliminated the middlemen in his quest to get cheaper and cheaper base prices on "custom made Jordans." Every drug dealer and pimp in Cincinnati was giving us wads of Benjamins to get their hands on our shoes. We were the exclusive dealer in Cincinnati. We even had a kid at Westhigh slinging for us. After making a good amount of money we decided to call it quits. US customs seized one of our shipments so we took that as a sign that it was time to move on.

Our online sales ventures started even earlier when our mother made the mistake of taking us to the Goodwill surplus auction. I'm pretty sure that selling vintage video game equipment on eBay was another one of his ideas. I'm still not sure how he got an eBay account though being that he wasn't yet 18. He had his ways. As we bought and sold we learned and as we learned we made more money. Over the years we have made tens of thousands of dollars from eBay sales alone.

If you are his friend on Facebook you get to see some of his schemes forming as his status changes. An example being "Philip Richard Thoms Just picked up 582 packs of stride. Off to the dry cleaners and office depot!" Two out of three of those activities are money making schemes. Rather he's buying a thousand packs of gum, trading on craigslist, buying industrial equipment online, or recycling, you can be guaranteed of one thing, he's making money at it. My brother is recession proof.

Todays Adventure

I live in a house down by the river. Up until today though, I had never gone down to the river. I've walked the tracks a few times but to get to the river you have to climb down another rather tall wall. Today I climbed the wall and walked the banks of the Ohio. Let me just say, its no Miami beach, there is quite a bit of trash down there and the smell is questionable at best. I quite enjoyed my little adventure though. There are some awesome pieces of drift wood down there, some of which I shall drag home at a later date. The coolest thing was the giant sewer pile that I found. I know your not supposed to wonder into strange, dark places but hey, that's what I do. I also found an old ladder that at one time was attached to the side of a train car. It's 5ft tall and weighs a ton. Ok, not a ton but my postal scale says it weights 40lbs. I took it home. Walking half a mile on the tracks with a 40lb ladder do is quite exhilarating. Ha ha, I lie, my neck is killing me. It's not exhilarating at all. I put the ladder to good use though. Now I have an easy way to climb on top of my shed. Its a lovely place to just lie there and stair at the stars.

St. Patrick's Day Blog

Have you ever overheard a conversation that just made you say, "huh." Yesterday, while doing my Monday shopping at the Colerain St. Vincent De'Paul thrift shop I had a real huh moment. There were 3 teenage boys, all friends, shopping the clothes racks. One of the kids was around 6 foot tall, the other 5'11 and the third 4'11. The big fellows were apparently shopping for the little fellow. They wanted to buy him a green suit jacket. That's right folks, they wanted to dress him up as a leprechaun for St. Patrick's Day. Or, as the one fellow put it, "a St. Patrick's Day midget." They were envisioning this little guy doing "little jigs" in the hallways of their school dressed like a leprechaun. That doesn't sound politically correct. That leaves me with only one thing to say, "Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone."