I Want My NZTV

A tasty treat for y’all on the long weekend – some video clips of my twin boys, set to the great Anders Parker song, “Under Wide Unbroken Skies.”

“under wide unbroken skies” (Anders Parker, 2006)

grace be with you and luck and speed
may all your roads be worth the ride
along the byways, forgotten places
under wide unbroken skies

peace be with you and all of yours
and may your dreams become fulfilled
i hope you find some joy and laughter
under wide unbroken skies

Inside The Mind Of A Sixth Grader

My sixth grade notebook continues to provide so much entertainment for me. It also gives me some easy blog posts. I can only assume the chart below came out of science class, when we were learning about astronomy. The moon, the stars and the planets never really interested me much in school. That pretty much remains true today, although I do love when the moon looks so big that it seems like you could reach out and touch it. That’s cool.

So the assumption here is that our science teacher (that would be Mrs. Garber for you locals, right?) taught us how to convert weight on Earth to weight on the moon and then asked us to write down a few people’s weights. Good times! So what ran through my mind, you ask? Well, see below.

(picture of Jeff's sixth grade notes for weights on the moon)

Not surprising, really – family, pro wrestlers and girls. I can’t help but laugh at that one. And I’m sure you always wanted to know Andre The Giant and King Kong Bundy’s moon weight, didn’t you? Of course you did. Interesting sidenote here: I’m not sure where the “random musings” line came from here, but it’s notable because I use that very phrase as a subject header for blog posts occasionally. Innaresting…..

FOLLOW UP: Today, being a little heavier than I was in 6th grade, my moon weight is 27.2 lbs. I found this through yet another cool Ask.com tool.

Your Home For Useless Knowledge

So last night I got a voice mail from my sister. She had a question about music. Lots of people do this to me – a song or a singer will pop into their head and they call me to ask what band it was or what the song is, etc etc. It’s one of few things I seem to be genuinely good at – I can remember lyrics, music and bands of all kinds, types and eras. Case in point: it must have been about 7th or 8th grade when my dad and I were on our way to hockey practice or a game or something and “When A Man Loves A Woman” came on the radio. Dad always had it on the oldies station. Anyway, I think he was trying to stump me or be clever, but when he knowingly asked me who it was and I immediately said “Percy Sledge,” well, he was dumbfounded. How do I remember these things? How do I remember these stories? I always thought that if I put that kind of effort into school as a youngster I’d already be retired and living on a beach. Another story for another time.

Anyway, back to my sister. She called me because she couldn’t remember The Firm, Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers band from the ’80s. Remember “Radioactive?” Oh, how I loved that band and that song. Of course, anything to do with Led Zeppelin at the time couldn’t possibly be bad. On a sidenote, Jimmy Page now looks like a California raisin.

OK, so I helped out my sister, all is good. We’re now (finally) getting to the point of today’s post. As I was talking to her, I remembered that I still had a notebook from 6th grade and I thought I remembered seeing a lot of doodling in it last time I looked at it a couple of years back. I made a mental note to check it out – and I found it. As a bonus, the notebook was in the exact place I thought it was, which is a rarity.

Anyway, this notebook is a trip. There are some doodlings, though not as many as I thought. There was a point in time – and I remember this clearly – where I was obsessed with drawing ALL of the logos of the 21 NHL teams in 1982-83. I wish I could find those drawings, because it was just pages and pages of hockey logos. I must have been really bored.

Anyway – back to this notebook. There’s some great school class notes, which are worth sharing at some point. Of course, there’s a bunch of music stuff, too, including this:

The Firm!

I saw this and I thought “hey, that’s not bad for a 6th grader!” There’s a couple more that I’ll share over the course of the next few days and weeks. I also came across a strange song/poem that I think I might have written. It’s called “An Ignorant Man” and it’s awfully crass for a 6th grader, so I’m not sure I wrote it or if I copied it. I kinda hope it’s just a song I copied from somewhere, because I’d sure be embarrassed to have written it as a 12 year old.

Anyway, this is gonna be fun.

Recurring Dream…..

I’m on my way to play in a hockey game. I’m running a little late, but nothing big – I might miss the first couple of minutes of the game. For some reason, though, things sidetrack me and I keep getting more and more late. Getting lost on the way to the rink. Breaking a skate lace. Missing equipment. Etc etc. It all adds up to me missing the whole game, despite actually being in the arena for most of it……

What’s it mean?

On Every Occasion….

Here in Maynard, we have what’s called “reverse 911.” That basically means the town has the ability to record a message and call each and every resident of the town to inform them if something is going on. For example, recently there was a water main break, so they left the message with everyone not to panic if their water was off or discolored. Not a bad town service. Well, last weekend we got reverse 911’d that a family in Maynard was going to be visited by the show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. You know the show – it’s the one that our wives all cry at just watching the commercials for it. A family has a certain hardship and the crew from the show come in, tear down their house and basically build them a new one in like ten minutes. My dad contends this show is fake. I’m not sure that’s accurate, but I think it’s funny when he gets on that tangent because my mother gets all hot about it when he says that!

Anyway, there is a family here in Maynard that does have a pretty tragic story. A guy in town was on his way home from visiting his wife in the hospital, who had just given birth to their third child. He and his two children were involved in a car accident and he’s been in a hospital now for about a year-and-a-half. He can’t walk yet, can barely speak and has severe head injuries, but he’s very very slowly improving. So the Extreme Makeover crew was here on Wednesday, but I didn’t know this: just because they come, it doesn’t mean you’ll be on the show. They scout the location. They want to see how many people in the town will show up to support it. Then they make the decision. So the town reverse 911’d us to get us to come out and support the family and the town. We didn’t go because I had to work and Steph had to take the twinkies somewhere, but I did see a lot of people walking down there. I wonder what will happen.

Yesterday I flew down to NY for a day-trip and business meeting. Now, I always turn my cell phone off for meetings, because if there’s anything I hate, it’s when someone’s phone shrills loudly during a meeting. Even worse – when they look to see who’s calling and actually take the call! This has happened! They get up and walk right out. Unreal. Anyway, yesterday I forgot to turn mine off for the first time ever. Hey, I just had twins.

So of course, my phone rings. Murphy’s Law. Luckily, we seem to have developed a decent rapor with the folks we were talking to, so there was a pause during the meeting, I apologized, and then one guy cleverly said “I wasn’t sure if I was going to heaven or something.” He was referring to my ring tone, which is, coincidentally, the first twelve seconds of Band of Horses “The Funeral,” a most beautiful rock song if there ever was one. That moment in the song at about 1:20 where it kicks in is…..epic. Listen here:

[audio:funeral.mp3]

Anyway, I thought it rather amusing that he associated a song he had never heard of about a funeral with going to heaven. Interesting.