The stench of the RKA!

So I had my birthday this past weekend and I'm to a point in my life where I'm really not sure if I'm supposed to look forward to it anymore, enjoy it or try to forget it! I don't really feel all that old, but when I deeply ponder things, I realize I'm responsible for a lot of crap. A lot!

I'm not really sure how this happens. I still feel like this 18 year old kid who just graduated from high school without a clue about....well anything! I know that's not true, but makes things so much easier. When you are young, you can't wait to grow up. As a matter of fact, I think a good portion of your childhood is spent looking at people older than you and thinking, I can't wait to be old enough to do that.

It's like when my youngest is in the bathroom and I'm shaving. He acts like he is lathering up, picks up his tooth brush and pretends like its a razor and makes the same motions over his face that I do. There's a part of me that is absolutely glowing inside saying, "That's my boy!", but then there's another side that wants to say, "Shaving sucks! I never really have time to do it and after you've done it three or four....ah....hundred times, you wish there was some weird male facial hair baldness that would set in!" Of course not, only on my head.

I could think of countless examples of things I couldn't wait to do, that I now wish I never had to do. So, comes the responsibility of getting older where at times you wish that you could get younger. When you turn 18 or thereabouts, you realize that YOUR LIFE is going to begin. Up until this point, it's really your parents lives that you've been a part of. You've got the stench of irresponsibility all over you and you don't care because in your mind, nobody else matters, but ME!

So, you set your life on cruise control for a while, you're just coasting. There are bumps in the road, some larger than others, but in the end those bumps are the greatest stories that you will tell (and it's amazing how over the years they get to be more unbelievable). Eventually though, something happens. Someone, for whatever reason, decides that you are responsible. Unfortunately, they don't come right out and say it (because than you could say NO and get back to cruising). Instead, they trick you and feed the responsibility Kool-Aid to you a little at a time, like from a shot glass.

The responsibility Kool-Aid (RKA) is more than likely given to you by one of three people: parents, cute girls or you're boss.

Parents generally try to get you to drink the RKA when they are tired of you mooching all of their stuff and they want you to move out! As a parent, when your children have reached a certain age, preferably between 20-24, they want you to move to somewhere else! Hell, it could be next door so long as it's not in your house. But, parents always screw up the RKA formula! They always dilute it with too much water and there's really no flavor and your back to square one.

Cute girls have the best RKA and it's potent. I think that instead of adding sugar to the RKA, they add crack. Once you've done a few shots, you're ready to move up the to the 32 ounce glass. You can't get enough! Next thing you know, you're an RKA addict and in hopes of securing the RKA, you get married! Now the RKA is the same diluted RKA that your parents were giving you. Damn cute girl RKA!

The last is the boss RKA. This RKA is probably like the office coffee (I'm not 100% sure because I don't drink coffee). Depending on who's making it will determine whether or not you decide to drink it. Some boss RKA is really good. It's given to you in doses that you can handle and if done correctly, you could work up to the espresso version of the boss RKA. Eventually with time you could one day be making the boss RKA. But, as most of us know, most boss RKA is made with a whole lot of BS. Sometimes, like the coffee, it's good, but most of the time you wouldn't give the boss RKA he's serving to your worst enemy.

Anyway, the point is that over time that "stench of irresponsibility" turns into the stench of responsibility and you are no longer in it for just YOU! At some point others become involved and what used to be a lot of meaningless decisions start to really mean something. Congratulations, you've been poisoned by the RKA!

So, here I am at another birthday, waiting for the stench to start to smell like roses. I imagine that won't start to happen until I'm almost dead. But for now, I'll just keep on doing what I've been doing and take my dose of RKA each day!

Flip-Flop Friday, 'The Mower Scam'

I noticed in a lot of other blogs that it is fairly common to take a day of the week, think of some catchy name for it and post some common theme on that day each week. Not to be outdone (not really, I could care less, but I think the idea of it is pretty cool), I have created Flip-Flop Fridays where I will post something that I find 'irksome' in this world.

Today's flip-flop has to do with my marriage. Don't get me wrong, I'm a happily married man, but there are things about marriage that are total scams. One of the greatest of these scams is the 'Mower Scam'. I'm a pretty hard working individual, I enjoy physical labor and find it rewarding. I find mowing the lawn to provide the right amount of physical challenge and also an opportunity to think amid the sounds of the engine and whatever toy that's been left out on the lawn by my kids getting chopped to bits.

When we moved into our current home, we took on a larger lawn with a challenging hill in the back yard. A major 'physical' challenge if you will. It doesn't help that I'm cheap, so our mower was your basic push mower (motor, four wheels, blade, no self propelled). And no, I'm not so cheap that I have the manual mower that takes twenty passes to just mow one area of grass all the way!

Cheap, but not this Cheap

After mowing the lawn the first few times, my wife seeing that it was a lot of work from inside the air conditioned house, says to me, "If you buy a self propelled mower, I will help to mow the lawn."

Inside, foolishly, I was jumping for joy thinking this was a great idea. The mower that we had was getting old anyway, so this would be a good time to buy a new one. I didn't go crazy with the cost, but dropped a pretty penny on a new self propelled mower. I brought that baby home, put her together and couldn't wait for the extra time I would have to do other things in the yard and around the house.

To this day, I think that I can count on one hand the number of times that my wife has helped mow the yard! And there you have it, 'The Mower Scam'. Just another reason for me to quietly mumble to myself, "Stupid stupid man!"

Why is it so hard to get up in the winter?

When is it going to be spring? Getting up and going on early winter mornings sucks! You would think it would be just like any other morning in any other season, but for some reason it isn't. My wife would disagree, but it's not like the house is cold and I need to stay under the covers for fear of frost bite. The worst is when I know I need to get going, but I just lay there dreading the inevitable. Maybe it's the knowing that it's cold outside and lets face it, who really likes to sit down in a cold car seat to go to work.

Maybe it's because it is still dark outside even though we are slowly gaining daylight back each day. Maybe it's the sinking feeling that I'm going to get up in the dark, go to work during the best parts of the day and come home....in the dark! After all, who really likes the dark, besides evil doers and well, Batman? OK, I like it when I want to sleep or watch a good movie, but other than that I really prefer for it to be light.

This has been a long winter and doesn't seem to be showing any signs of letting up. We are only half way through January and have our worst month still to come, February! For now, I'll just have to keep telling myself that it will be over eventually, the snow will melt and signs of life will return to the snowy bluegrass that I call home.

I'm watching the NCAA Championship Game between Oregon and Auburn. It has been a good game thus far. I didn't see most of the first half, I had an indoor soccer game tonight. I play in the 30+ Coed League and love it. My glory days are definitely over, and I can't stand guys in the league who think were still playing in the Premier League. You just want to grab these guys and say, "Dial it down about 15 notches, there are no contracts on the line and I want to go home in one piece!" But, it doesn't matter, these jackholes tear around like we're playing for the World Cup. I digress.

Anyway, if you didn't go to a school in the SEC or didn't grow up in SEC, I think it is hard to completely understand the love that SEC fans have for their teams and normally if their team isn't playing, most guys pull for other SEC teams. There just aren't the number of pro teams in the south, like there are on the east and west coast. And before you say, "What about the state of Florida?", well Florida doesn't count and if you've spent any time in Florida, you know what I'm talking about!

Key of the game so far has been the big goal line stand by Auburn in the 3rd quarter. Auburn really needed to score again, but they just aren't moving the ball well enough and the late 4th quarter fumble by Newton has proved very costly as Oregon has taken advantage and scored. Then a pivotal 2 point conversion has tied the game. This is Cam Newton's opportunity to cement his legacy in college football. Will he go down hero or chump?

Crazy first down play by Auburn, Dyer rolls over the defender isn't ruled down and the play goes for 37 yards! Auburn is well inside their football kickers distance, but NO it's not needed, Dyer takes the ball in for a touchdown! But, the play is being reviewed. The ball will be placed on the half yard line. Auburn is going to go for the field goal! Just punch it in for crying out loud! Time out Oregon, trying to ice the kicker. Change in plans, Auburn is going to go for it! Don't FUMBLE!!! Two seconds left and everything rides on the kicker, Byrum (All time points leader at Auburn). GAME OVER, Auburn is your new National Champions!!!!

Go SEC! Five years in a row, LSU will make it six! Auburn's defense won this game.

2010 Annual Winter Hike, Day 2, December 28

Our first night on the trail was a cold one, but we survived and had fun listening to 'Techno Mouse'. It's amazing what the sun can do to the down spirits of young people on a hiking trip. This isn't the first hiking trip that I've been on where after a rough first day, there are murmurings about going home from the young participants. One time, I told the boys that I didn't have the keys to the car with me, that when they picked us up they would bring the keys. Totally bogus, but they didn't know and had a great hike.

We must have been really tired because we slept in and didn't get out onto the trail until probably 9:30 or 10 o'clock. That's a late start on a winter hike. We had a tough 7.5 miles ahead of us, including a climb to the top of Wayah Bald. It was an absolutely gorgeous day with a lot of good views. We continued to break trail in the snow and some pretty big drifts on the ridges over the trail.

Hiking past Siler Bald

Because we were behind and had such a rough finish to our first day, I decided that we would take the road up to Wayah Bald. It was a longer route, but a truck had been up the road and had packed the snow down, which made for a better climb. We found the truck that had helped pack the snow about 1/4 of a mile from the top. It had gotten stuck in a particularly deep snow drift and I'm not sure what happened to the driver. It was difficult to tell where he/she had gone, but they weren't frozen in the cab.

What a relief it was for all of us to get to the top of Wayah! There were bathrooms with no toilet paper and trash cans. It's always nice to deposit your trash that you've been carrying. There's a fire tower at the top of Wayah that we all climbed up into and had a good rest and snack. The views were spectacular and I think all of the boys appreciated the accomplishment.

Looking out at Wayah

Leaving Wayah Fire Tower

We left Wayah and started our trek to Wayah Shelter. It is a relatively new shelter and wasn't on my map, so I wasn't exactly sure how far we had to go. Thank goodness it was only about a mile down the trail to the shelter. We still had 2-3 hours of daylight left, so we had plenty of time to gather firewood (not easy in snow), get water and get a good fire going. Without a small fire when it's cold, all you can think about is crawling into your sleeping bag! When you do that at 7-8 p.m., it makes it very difficult to sleep through the whole night and you spend a lot of time just laying there. Our small fire extended the night to almost 10 o'clock. What a great way to end the day!

Wayah Shelter

Random thoughts Jan. 8, 2011

I got up this morning early to travel into Lexington for an all day staff training for our upcoming Wood Badge Course (BSA), to be held this spring. We've had an unusual amount of cold and snow already this winter. This was what my drive in looked like.

Northbound I-75

I love driving in the snow, I hate driving with all the other people out there who turn into freaks! It's not that difficult to drive in the snow. A vehicle actually gets fairly good traction in the snow, just don't make any sudden movements. It's not necessary to slow down to the speed of snail! I drove by this one lady who looked like she was going to rip her steering wheel off! My guess is that most these folks could call someone and say, "Hey, I'm not coming" or "Hey, I'm going to be late, I'm like a 2 year old trying to learn how to ride a tricycle when it snows".

One thing I especially like about driving in the snow, is when it is coming straight at you and it looks like your making the jump to hyper space!

Not Northbound I-75

If only that were the case, it would have made my trip a lot shorter.

I watched the Cotton Bowl last night and the second half dismantling of Texas A&M. Let me be one of the first to say, if LSU is able to retain all of its players, they will be very very good! In fact, they will be contenders for the National Title. I really like Les Miles, he seems to really love the game of football and his players. I don't think that all coaches have that kind of relationship with their team. He does have a tendency to make really stupid decisions late in close games.

Lastly, the NCAA could be the most crooked and corrupt organization on the face of this planet. Yesterday they ruled that Enes Kanter will be permanently ineligible to play college basketball at the University of Kentucky. This decision is absolutely criminal. Young Enes grew up playing basketball in Turkey. For those of you not familiar with youth basketball overseas, it's not like in the U.S. where we have an extensive program that provides opportunities to young men like Enes.

Enes Kanter

Through the process of providing a program and opportunity for Enes to grow in a very limited basketball environment,he played on a professional team for very limited compensation. The NCAA ruled that he received approximately $33,000 more than what was needed from the team. The minimum salary for an NBA rookie is $473,604 (Kanter is a projected 1st round NBA pick). So, playing professional ball in Turkey under amateur status, Kanter received 7% of the 'minimum rookie salary'. Being a first round pick, he would make no less than $2.5 million a season.

From NCAA.org, the sites states,

THE NCAA's CORE PURPOSE IS TO govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount.

Huh! Are you kidding me! I can't believe that there is no mention of money and lining their pockets anywhere in that statement. "Educational experience" being included in that makes it an even bigger joke. If that was true, Kanter, who is enrolled at Kentucky, is a good student, is trying to better himself and who had absolutely no control over the circumstances in his past is being denied by the NCAA an opportunity to reach his full potential.

On the other hand, if it will make money for the NCAA, the rules and regulations somehow don't really apply. I've stated in a prior post that I'm an SEC guy through and through, but Cam Newton probably has no business playing in the National Championship game on Monday night. Neither did five from Ohio State, including Terrelle Pryor, that played in the Sugar Bowl, who broke NCAA rules and got caught. But, what do you know, the Sugar Bowl, a BCS game and potentially large money maker for the NCAA, was played with all five players.

Maybe, Coach Calipari should have lined the NCAAs pockets!! Where's the justice!

Winter Hikes Flashback: 2003 - Present

I thought that it might be interesting to take a quick look back over the years of our winter hike.  We first went in 2003 and have gone every year since.  It has been amazing to see some of these young men grow up.

Dec. 2003, AT at Goshen Prong Trail, Great Smoky Mountains NP

Dec. 2004, Mollies Ridge Shelter, Great Smoky Mountains NP

Dec. 2005, Mount Collins Shelter, Great Smoky Mountains NP

Dec. 2006, Alum Cave Trail Head, GSMNP

Dec. 2007, Clingmans Dome, GSMNP

Dec. 2008, Peck's Corner Shelter, GSMNP

Dec. 2009, Fontana Shelter, Fontana Dam, NC

Dec. 2010, Wesser Bald Fire Tower, NC