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Second lesson learned from Fargo today.
Don't f&%# with semi-professional bridge players.
Can confirm this, as my history teacher was one.
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We are being unfunny and unimaginative and TL is punishing us! He no longer likes us!!!
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Tacticslion actually isn't on here as much during summer.
Something about two kids and a super busy schedule.
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We are being unfunny and unimaginative and TL is punishing us! He no longer likes us!!!
Speak for yourself, I've been bringing my D game, at least, occasionally.
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Yay! It's Friday!!
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Second lesson learned from Fargo today.
Don't f&~! with semi-professional bridge players.
Growing up, my brothers, father, and I played bridge on all our family trips. (Cards are big when you're backpacking, you've got camp set up, and it's 2-3 hours before you go to sleep.)
When someone misbid or played out of suit, we'd joke that, "At a real bridge game, you'd be shot."
Then I actually played with two people from a bridge club when I was chaperoning a trip, got lucky and crushed them (you don't have to be skillful when you get a 27-point hand), and they refused to speak to me for the rest of the trip.
Serious bridge players are... serious!
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WOOOT!! I have finally graduated from my alternative college-thing. It was a tough 2 years, but everyone in my class managed to pull through to the end. (a rare occurrence at the school in question, only happening about 1-2 other times in it's approximately 20 year history.)
It feels great. I leave the campus Monday, after which I may give more details, as it is unwise to give such details about oneself on the internet before it is completely over. I plan to take the weekend to relax, maybe go biking, and just have a bit of time to unwind.
Well... I'm finally settled in enough to give some more details...
I attended a school known as the West Virginia School of Preaching or WVSOP as we affectionately refer to it as. It was tough, intense, but also probably some of the greatest two years of my life. We had the second largest graduating class, of seven guys, the largest being ten. After graduating I left to go start an internship with a congregation in north eastern Ohio. It was tough, and the humor on these message boards helped me pull through, and certainly was some downtime well spent. Thanks to all of you.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ah, Ashland! Our (now bi)annual trip that has been historically so hilariously awful that it's like a little slice of Captain Yesterday's life! Or at least his birthdays!
This year if I get left alone with the kids, I'm just taking my kids and leaving. The oldest of their lot is now 12, and I figure a 12-year-old can dial 911. Especially if I encourage him to do so.
Absolutely no effort whatsoever to socialize with us, or even acknowledge our presence (other than as useful babysitters).
So I'm pretty much treating it as a vacation with the kids and Uncle Steve. The rest of the family? I don't expect to see much of them...
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For the record, I never told you to do that. I would certainly never leave someone else's kids with a twelve year old.
Are you sure we're not related, because that is almost exactly like my family trips.
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Congrats on your graduation GH!
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WOOOT!! I have finally graduated from my alternative college-thing. It was a tough 2 years, but everyone in my class managed to pull through to the end. (a rare occurrence at the school in question, only happening about 1-2 other times in it's approximately 20 year history.)
It feels great. I leave the campus Monday, after which I may give more details, as it is unwise to give such details about oneself on the internet before it is completely over. I plan to take the weekend to relax, maybe go biking, and just have a bit of time to unwind.Well... I'm finally settled in enough to give some more details...
I attended a school known as the West Virginia School of Preaching or WVSOP as we affectionately refer to it as. It was tough, intense, but also probably some of the greatest two years of my life. We had the second largest graduating class, of seven guys, the largest being ten. After graduating I left to go start an internship with a congregation in north eastern Ohio. It was tough, and the humor on these message boards helped me pull through, and certainly was some downtime well spent. Thanks to all of you.
I highly recommend watching Preacher to prepare you for how people are in Ohio (except for the accents that is).
Congratulations!
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Ah, Ashland! Our (now bi)annual trip that has been historically so hilariously awful that it's like a little slice of Captain Yesterday's life! Or at least his birthdays!
** spoiler omitted **...
Okay, I had no idea it was that bad.
Seriously, why are you still going?| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ah, Ashland! Our (now bi)annual trip that has been historically so hilariously awful that it's like a little slice of Captain Yesterday's life! Or at least his birthdays!
** spoiler omitted **...Okay, I had no idea it was that bad.
Seriously, why are you still going?
Because my father disowned his family when I was a kid, and I'm still hurt that I don't know any of my cousins, aunts, or whatnot on that side of the family. My mother never bothered to let us to get to know one of our two uncles on her side. NobodysWife's mother has pretty much disowned her brothers.
So, Uncle Steve is awesome. Uncle Randall is great when sister-in-law isn't around. And let's be blunt: My mother turns 86 in 2 days and isn't going to be around much longer. So I take the hit so that my kids can know their family.
If they decide they're a bunch of jerks, then they'll have made the decision and I'll happily stop going. But yet again this year they're really excited to go. I think it's getting to spend a huge amount of time with me doing whatever they feel like doing. And they have started having a LOT of fun with their cousins. But for me, it's bonding with my own kids and ensuring I'm not cutting ties that my kids might want later.
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Congrats on your graduation GH!
Thanks!
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We don't have an uncle Randall but we have a cool uncle Steve (who is a comedian). :-)
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WOOOT!! I have finally graduated from my alternative college-thing. It was a tough 2 years, but everyone in my class managed to pull through to the end. (a rare occurrence at the school in question, only happening about 1-2 other times in it's approximately 20 year history.)
It feels great. I leave the campus Monday, after which I may give more details, as it is unwise to give such details about oneself on the internet before it is completely over. I plan to take the weekend to relax, maybe go biking, and just have a bit of time to unwind.Well... I'm finally settled in enough to give some more details...
I attended a school known as the West Virginia School of Preaching or WVSOP as we affectionately refer to it as. It was tough, intense, but also probably some of the greatest two years of my life. We had the second largest graduating class, of seven guys, the largest being ten. After graduating I left to go start an internship with a congregation in north eastern Ohio. It was tough, and the humor on these message boards helped me pull through, and certainly was some downtime well spent. Thanks to all of you.I highly recommend watching Preacher to prepare you for how people are in Ohio (except for the accents that is).
Congratulations!
Fortunately my dad was also a preacher, and I lived in Ohio for 10-12 years, so I'm familiar with some of the oddities of Ohio.
Like the fact that nobody there actually knows what "out in the country" is, having lived all their lives pretty much 10-45 minutes from a farm, most of them, excepting the ones who live in an obvious city (Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, for the most part.), think they live "out in the country" when it is quite clearly suburban. Even Columbus has farmland all the way up to it!
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I was going to go with what the General calls my "evil Captain Yesterday*" look, to accentuate my new evil mastermind scar but I just can't have hair above my upper lip in the summer.
Maybe for Christmas. :-)
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For a couple of years, the other families, knowing that I have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, just left their kids (ages 3-10) alone in the house with me, without so much as a "by your leave". I'd just be sitting there with my kids, reading or playing board games or whatnot, and the other kids would wander in and start asking for stuff. I'd go to check with their parents, and find out that I was alone. Not even a, "We're going out for a couple of hours, NobodysHome. We're leaving the kids with you." When I complained the parents said, "Oh, it's OK! They can take care of themselves."
This year if I get left alone with the kids, I'm just taking my kids and leaving. The oldest of their lot is now 12, and I figure a 12-year-old can dial 911. Especially if I encourage him to do so.
Teach them to play Magic The Gathering. The parents will be sorry you hadn't introduced them to drugs instead...
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I am not sure why you even bother with them anymore...
Though I don't keep in touch with family other than my parents and an occasional e-mail to my brother at all.
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It's always amazing to me how much you as a parent influence the way your kids think just by talking about stuff with your friends and spouse.
I was doing the "pre-trip debrief" with the kids during my lunch break (Hello? Obsessive-Compulsive! Of COURSE I have a pre-trip debrief), and when I mentioned that NobodysWife isn't going, Impus Minor said, "Do I have to go, or can I stay home with Mom?"
Curious, I drilled in. He admitted that he "hated ALL those people, especially grandma"!
I was flabbergasted -- I thought NobodysWife and I were the only ones with a deep-seated loathing for grandma! So I asked him, "Why do you hate grandma?"
And his response spoke volumes: "Because she raised the rent so much on our tenants, and she's mean, and she's making them lose their house! And she's just a mean old lady!"
Up until 2 months ago, he continually forgot that we even HAD tenants. Now he "hates" grandma for throwing them out.
He's only 13. I think NobodysWife and my conversations about the issue had far more impact than any real empathy he had for our tenants. Though he is a very sweet boy. Maybe he really is incensed at my family for pulling that stuff.
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With my family the issue is mostly I'm quite a bit different.
They like to eat out, for every meal if possible, and they assume that if they leave big tips they can be as obnoxious or critical to the wait staff as they want.
Myself, having worked in restaurants for over a decade don't like to do that.
They also like to go see terrible movies so they can complain about them the rest of the weekend.
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I know heat exhaustion! You're doing a great job!
I always wondered why those places are so hot.
You must be getting the storms I see building to the southwest.
Oh my gosh! The first thing that any one should think about when opening a martial arts school is a very, very good air conditioning system. Because you get a bunch of people in a small room and have them training so hard they're literally drenched in sweat ....what did they think was gonna happen??? It's like a sauna in there. In the waiting room too. And we're not even gonna start to talk about the smell....*shudder*
What we've learned from this experience is that he needs to take off the gi jacket as soon as class is over and we might need to bring a towel or something that he can wet down and put on his neck on the ride home. Also that I need to get him a bigger water bottle. The one he has is pretty big, but not enough for summer conditions. :)
ah memories....
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They also like to go see terrible movies so they can complain about them the rest of the weekend.
Shiro's player likes to go see terrible movies so he can take friends to see them and watch them suffer.
I'll never forget:
Shiro: Oh, I'd love to see Prometheus with you!
Us: That was TERRIBLE!
Shiro: I know! It's SO fun taking people to see it and then watching their faces as they realize just how bad it is...
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They also like to go see terrible movies so they can complain about them the rest of the weekend.Shiro's player likes to go see terrible movies so he can take friends to see them and watch them suffer.
I'll never forget:
Shiro: Oh, I'd love to see Prometheus with you!
Us: That was TERRIBLE!
Shiro: I know! It's SO fun taking people to see it and then watching their faces as they realize just how bad it is...
don't fall for the whedon batgirl movie trick.
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Oh no, they like to delude themselves beforehand "This movie sounds good, USA Today called it "fun and entertaining!"
Afterwards
"I am shocked! Shocked I say that a Planet Of The Apes remake starring Mark Wahlberg would be that terrible!"
While not an exact quote that's the last time I went to see a movie with them.
Unless you count the American revolution movie where Mel Gibson plants a flag in some dude's chest (which I called from the very beginning).
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OK. I'm honestly going to join the list: Does anyone know whether TL is OK? I've been around for a few years, and I haven't seen him vanish for this long before...
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I have! (When you have as many posts favorite'd by Tacticslion you notice patterns).
Pretty much every summer about this time. :-)
If course I'll feel like quite the a$~&$$* if everything isn't fine, but I'm hopeful he is okay and just really, really busy. :-)
I also know what kind of posts DON'T get favorite'd by Tacticslion but I'm not telling what they are. :-)
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They also like to go see terrible movies so they can complain about them the rest of the weekend.Shiro's player likes to go see terrible movies so he can take friends to see them and watch them suffer.
I'll never forget:
Shiro: Oh, I'd love to see Prometheus with you!
Us: That was TERRIBLE!
Shiro: I know! It's SO fun taking people to see it and then watching their faces as they realize just how bad it is...
Someday I need to make him watch my sister's movie, but I think it's too awful even for Shiro.
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Peter O'Toole was very good in Troy.
Also, my Mum liked seeing Brad Pitt in a little leather kilt.
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Today is a better day. Thunderstorms have moved on, the high is in the low eighties, which is still hot, but a lot better, and the humidity has dropped considerably. Still ungodly hot at the jujitsu school though. Through the magic of Amazon, I found some replacement earring backs. I spent an hour treating my new leather bag with mink oil and it's much nicer now. I was really upset yesterday when it arrived and it was both very stinky and felt like pleather. But airing out overnight took care of the first, and the terrible texture was thankfully reparable. Still not thrilled that the straps are made out of seatbelt material, but straps are fairly easily replaced. And I got in some work on my sewing backlog. I got the black linen capris cut out. Should have them all made by the end of the weekend I think. After that I have to make a pair of wide legged blue linen trousers, a grey linen skirt, and some pillow covers. Anything beyond that requires additional trips to the fabric store. :)
Oh, and best of all, I was finally able to take off the thumb brace I've been wearing for the last several weeks. It's so much easier to do things when I can properly move my hand, although I do still have to be careful of my thumb so I don't dislocate it again and have to start the whole process over from the beginning.
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...They like to eat out, for every meal if possible, and they assume that if they leave big tips they can be as obnoxious or critical to the wait staff as they want.
Myself, having worked in restaurants for over a decade don't like to do that...
I would out and out ask them, "Do you have a whipping boy, and do you encourage your kids to misbehave so you can beat him?"
That's not just, "I've never worked a restaurant job," that's, "I can be a sadist if I have the money to pay for it."
Maybe it's because we always go out of our way to be nice to our waitstaff, but this one just has my hackles up.
And the weirdest thing is, I think a lot of waitstaff develop a "6th sense" about it. The number of places we've walked in, Shiro's player in his crappy jeans and worn-out T-shirt and me in my chefwear, and watched the staff bend over backwards to seat us somewhere "nice" as opposed to "hide these losers in the back" is just uncanny.
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So, now I'm curious -- are there many other current or former waitstaff on FaWtL? Is there really a "6th sense" about what groups are going to be "good" customers?
In some cases it's obvious -- we wandered into Morton's 'The Steakhouse' in San Jose looking like crap, told them, "Oh, we don't have reservations but we were just at the convention and we were looking around for a place to eat and decided to come here."
Considering the number of cheapo restaurants that were much closer to the Con, it was easy for them to spot a "good" table.
But sometimes we're just walking up Solano, looking in all the windows, we see a place and say, "Oh, that place looks neat! Let's try it!"
Maybe it's because we never look at the menu -- we just walk in, are friendly and cheerful, and tell them we'll sit wherever.
But we always seem to get posh seats and nice staff.
It's uncanny enough I suspect a conspiracy...
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I can usually tell.
If you're nice and pleasant I'll put in a full effort finding what you're looking for, even going so far as to check the truck manifest and looking on the website (especially for young parents, kids and elderly people).
If you're dismissive, demanding, can't be bothered to get off your phone, or look around for yourself I'll work in barely hidden meows and play dumb, and my personal favorite "I'll go look in the back!" super cheerful, of course, then go in back and go out on the other side of the store. If you're stealthy it'll give you good five minutes at least of wasting their ever so precious time.
Like Justin Timberlake. :-)
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Speaking of terrible movies, I watched Assassin's Creed on our flight last month, and holy frack what a bad plot. I know it's just an action flick based on an action flick console game, but c'mon, "Nothing is true, everything is permitted*" is not a creed, it's a teenage fantasy! Not to mention the whole genetic memory thing, and the 'born free and violent into a world of conspiracy theory oppressive caring' theme. Granted, that's a common theme with action flicks, but it combines with everything else in a cringeworthy way. Oh and the apple of eve that contains the genetic secret of human violence? No matter what your religion or non-religion, I don't even.
*Spoilered for politics:
I usually turn off bad movies after the first couple scenes, but I have a soft spot for action flicks, and I was on a looong flight.
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I never worked restaurants, but I could always tell if some riders who came to a stable I worked at where going to make their guide mad. Though... I always could tell when my parents were going to be lazy and order pizza or take us out to eat, some times hours before they knew, so I already had a sense for that kind of stuff.