Search “Liver Fluke” on YouTube.
Go ahead…I’ll wait.
See what I mean? It’s there. Right on your screen, in the privacy of your home, you can learn how to acquire, detect, identify, treat, and remove a liver fluke in yourself or one of the barnyard animals that look to you for sustenance.
How great is that?
I only ever started because of this blog.
I was a confirmed social media neverwannabe. Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, Vine, Tumblr, LookI’maweirdo.com—I had no interest in any of them. Too many people with too much time on their hands sharing details of their lives that nobody cares about. And pictures of cats.
Yeah, but then I started this blog. My mentor wanted me to commence tweeting and liking and posting and whatnot. When I told him I wasn’t interested, he asked an important question: Continue reading
My mother-in-law has cancer.
Sorry to start off with such a downer, but there it is. It’s pertinent to the rest of this story, so you kinda need to know. And now you do.
Anyway, she was diagnosed about two months ago, and underwent a series of tests to determine the scope of the problem and the best course of treatment. The doctors, concluding that surgery was not a viable option, introduced her to the mind-numbing world of radiation and chemotherapy. In essence, their plan is to bombard her person with all the radiation and unpronounceable chemicals that normal people struggle to avoid. They intend to cure her by making her body such a toxic environment that no self-respecting mutation would want to live there. Continue reading
My mom is coming to visit.
I spent the better portion of yesterday in the yard, weeding, hoeing, sweeping, and sweating. My goal was to let Mom see the place looking a little more like a garden and a little less like the Amazon rain forest. I filled five trash cans. Twice. Now, if Mom ventures into my back yard, I don’t have to call Search and Rescue to bring her out. Continue reading
Hey, you get to travel today!
I have been given the opportunity to write a guest post for Captain Dad, a hilarious cartoonist and blogger. Come check it out…
I don’t know why we spent so much time choosing names for our kids—we hardly ever use them.
As we waited for the twins to arrive, my wife Cathy and I went round and round considering names. If you have kids, you know what I’m talking about. For the boy, something that sounds intelligent, but won’t get him beat up on the playground. For the girl, something feminine, but with an undertone of black belt. No names that might have unpleasant associations—and since I’m a middle school teacher, that narrowed the field quite a bit.
Finally, we chose the perfect names for our little ones…Alec Daniel and Carissa Joy. Simple. Classy. With wonder and awe, I wrote their precious names carefully on the birth certificates and never used them again. Continue reading
I bought something that was supposed to be a refrigerator but isn’t.
It looks like a refrigerator. Quite an attractive refrigerator, at that. It’s gleaming white, oh so clean, and very spacious. It came from a refrigerator company and was delivered by certified refrigerator delivery people. It is in all ways a refrigerator, except for one annoying detail.
It does not refrigerate.
I plugged it into the appropriate wall receptacle, returned in the requisite four hours, and made an important discovery.
Are you ready? You might want to write this down. Continue reading
This morning I was thinking about an assignment I give my U.S. History students. Now, I know that in the past I have shared with you some of the less-than-stellar examples of my students’ efforts. This time, let me share something that worked out pretty well. It’s not as funny, but it may be worth thinking about as we celebrate our Freedom. Continue reading
It’s a powerful thing.
And like any powerful thing, tradition is full of potential benefits, but also fraught with danger.
Kinda like nuclear energy.
Or drone surveillance.
Maybe GMOs. Continue reading
I’m still hoping that I wasn’t scammed.
They looked like a family having hard times, but for all I know those “kids” may have been actors of very small stature.
All right, so maybe that’s a little cynical.
Maybe. Continue reading