The Queen: my story

Dear Bro,

As you are aware a movie came out last year about the English Royal family entitled The Queen. If you have not seen it yet I will not bore you with the details, but watch James Cromwell's portrayal of Prince Phillip, as he played the role in such a condescending manner that I was waiting the whole film to hear the words "Bloody Peasants" cascade from his lips.

But as you might not be aware, I too have a history with Queen Elizabeth. Back in 1978 when I was a mere freshman at ACS Wimbledon and you were at the Knightsbridge school we lived in West Sussex in the town of Horsham. It was a fairly quiet little village in the middle of nowhere, but it was fairly close to Dad's office at Gatwick Airport so home it was....

In fact, we had only been there for a few months when a big announcement came across the local news papers. The Queen was coming to town!!!

An article written years later best displayed the excitment this raised.

"Some of you will recall the great celebrations that took place in the town during the Queen’s last visit 25 years ago on Friday, March 10, 1978. Crowds with banners and flags lined the streets, schoolchildren were given a day off and thousands of people gave The Queen a rousing welcome as she visited the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee School and nearby Forest Boys School."

Now I might have had an American accent and still dressed like a Texas transplant, but the English in me said that this was something that I had to see. I even managed to convince Dad to let me take his Nikon camera to see if I could get a picture of the leader of the Commonwealth.

So I joined the crowds lining the streets of Horsham. The procession route went near the town centre so I staked out a spot with my camera to take the "picture of a lifetime". It was a partly cloudy day, and I remember that it was not particularly cold for that time of year. The biggest positive to the turnout was that it was not raining, thus the baby prams and OAP's (english term- Old Age Pensioners) were out in force to cheer on her majesty as she passed by.

After a short wait, a line of cars approached. The cheers went up as the royal car approached. Fortunately for me, the car had more glass then the local aquarium, so it made it very easy to take a picture as she passed by. Thus I lined up the Nikon as she smiled out of the window waving to the locals. I got excited as she drew closer, hoping that I did not blur the shot as the car passed. I lined up and moved the camera from left to right as I hit the shutter....



Only to find when I developed the picture later that she was the only thing in focus in the picture. The problem was that she turned the royal noggin in the other direction just as I hit the button!!! Thus, my picture of Queen Elizabeth II, note the nice black gloves and big fuzzy hat that you have a wonderful view of......

The Eulogy for Aunt Joan

Dear Bro, As you know Dad and I recently ventured over to England to say goodbye to Aunt Joan. Dad went the weekend before I did and managed to see her in the hospital in Canterbury before she passed. The service was held a week later at Margate Crematorium, and as part of the service our cousin James read the following words written by Dad.

Joan was a devoted wife, mother and grandmother who led a good Christian life. She was kind and considerate to everyone with whom she came into contact.

She began life in Chingford, Essex where she attended Pitman College. After school she worked as a shorthand typist for Gaumont British. On the outbreak of the second world war she volunteered as an ambulance driver, which she continued until the end of hostilities.

In 1946 she married Bill, who had spent much of the war as a POW in Japanese hands.
They were married for 61 years and had three children: Virginia, Denise, & Timothy. Unfortunately, Denise died as an infant.

Joan enjoyed active sports and was very successful at 10 pin bowling and outdoor bowls. She also enjoyed boating. She and Bill had a bout on th Stour River.

Serious leg problems caused her to give up active sports and she spent more time traveling. She visited many places in Europe and the United States enjoying them all, but her favorite vacation was in Norfolk.

She also was an excellent back seat driver, causing Bill to say on many occasions "Shut Up, Joan!", not that this ever had any effect. Joan's presence had a uplifting effect on on all her relations. Her 2 nephews Greg and Richard and niece Michelle adored her as did all her family.

She will be sorely missed by her immediate family Bill, Virginia and Tim, her grandchildren James and Mekaela, and her brother Terry and his family.

God Bless You Joan.....

Soccer Game May 5th 2007

Dear Bro,

Yeah, I know.... May 5th was a week ago and why does it take that long to blog a simple soccer game? To be honest, it had been so long ago since last season that I had in fact forgotten that I was blogging these games for you. So with no further stalling or excuses: the soccer game blog.

This blog would have started four weeks ago for the first game of the season, but it was raining cats, dogs, hyenas, and hamsters so the game was washed out. The next game went off without a hitch, but I was too busy holding either Syd or Brenners to attend, while the week after that the Connecticut & Maryland trips left me too tired to put on the cleats and play.

But last weekend I pretty much ran out of excuses. So when Saturday afternoon rolled around I threw my cleats & shin guards in my kitbag, changed into my soccer jersey & shorts, and hopped in the car to tootle over to Mason to engage in a titanic struggle with a team called Second Wind. And no, they are not a bunch of transplanted Toyota employees bent on soccer-pitch glory, but rather my old team from five years ago that was called High & Wide, only now they have really fancy jerseys and play at a full size indoor pitch call "Wall to Wall".

When I arrived I had to run the gauntlet of my teammates with the usual questions (as it was the forth game of the season)
"Who are you again?" "Rich, is that you? Where you been?" "Rich, man... you look grayer!"

Once this "break-in" period was completed, I proceeded to run out onto the artificial turf and start kicking a ball back and forth with a teammate. For reference, full size indoor fields are not that much different then outdoor fields, only if the ball hits the roof it is a throw-in for the other team and there are not massive divots or depressions in the turf as our normal pitch has, so any mis-kicks or bad shots are purely the fault of the kicker, a definite disadvantage for a player like myself.

Before the game started I was doing a short run across the field to get my heart rate up, when someone kicked a ball past a teammate and it went sailing into the corner. So since I am already running I say "what the heck!" and decide to chase it down. In performing this task I made two discoveries:
1. There is only about 3 feet between the endline of the pitch and the cement wall.
and
2. When you are running at full speed it is not humanly possible to come to a complete stop in that three foot span.
Needless to say, it is five minutes to game time and I have proceeded to scrap up my elbow and bash the dickens out of my hip. I then had to head to the restrooms as the other team would not have been too happy about the blood dripping down my forearm, so a quick wash and direct pressure too care of that issue.
Now, the team we played were quite skilled and usually beat us, but that we do not mind. What we do mind is they have two or three male players that tend to play "through the ball", which translates to if you happen to be loitering between them and the ball that you will end up being elbowed or just out & out run over. This is irritating for our male players but we tend to just brush it off and keep playing. The problems occur when they do it to the female players, because, as you know, there is an unwritten rule that "thy male players will not inflict physical harm on thy opponent's female players".

Our opponents tend to be alright for the first 20 minutes, and this was the case in last week's game. The problem with the physical play started due to one small issue: we scored a goal. Matt had the ball around the half line when he found himself undefended. Thus, an open invitation to drive to the goal and score... so he did.

After that, the fireworks started. One of their players decided to leave his feet to head a ball at midfield and was up ended by one of our players that he jumped into. He took offense to this even though our player (Jay) was facing the other direction and didn't even see him coming. After some muttering he did the famous "shoulder-bump" where he walked by Jay and made sure he made contact with Jay with his shoulder. Real classy move....

So we as a team braced ourselves for another rough and tumble game with this team, when another event occurred in almost the same spot. This time the player in question came in quickly on a tackle (aka - playing through the ball) and ended up falling on the ground. In our league when you are on the ground you are not allowed to attempt to play the ball, but this guy decided the rules don't apply to him. What happened next was unclear, but he ended up kicking Matt, and then jumped up and started getting in his face, including the obligatory shoulder bump. Matt just stood his ground and said nothing, so this rocket scientist decided to take a swing at Matt. Fortunately, two events happened here. First, he missed... and second, the referee saw the whole thing. Subsequently, for the first time I can remember in 14 years playing in the over 30 social league, a player was ejected from a game.

We went on to win 4-0 and the tone calmed down from that point, but kudos to my team (especially Matt) for keeping their cool in a tense situation.

Seven Habits

Dear Bro,

In 1989 Stephen Covey published the book "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" that was a huge success in the self help market. In short, it lists seven principles that, if established as habits, are supposed to help a person achieve true interdependent "effectiveness".

This is all well and good and I am sure Mr. Covey has helped many people, but lets face it... we are much more interested in talking about the really annoying things that people do rather than ways that they can better themselves to become better at corporate butt-kissing and whatnot...

So without further ado, my list of "Five Habits of Really Annoying People".

First habit – is the pacing cell phone driver. This is a recent phenomena of the last decade or so, but drivers all over the United States have taken to this status like a middle management Russian diplomat to a bottle of vodka. The pacing cell phone driver has no ability to properly drive a vehicle because they are so tied up in their conversation they are having about someone else's fashion faux-pas or the re-living of last night's Reds-Astros game. They are paying about as much attention to the road as the rest of America does to Katie Couric.

However, they all have one similar trait. When another car goes to overtake them on the highway they will start tagging along side the car, as this allows them to continue unabatedly in their enthralling conversation while ensuring that they are not required to pay attention to the road because they are assuming that you are. This species can be male or female and all it takes is a lack of common sense combined with a cell phone plan that is too liberal with monthly minutes.

Second habit – belongs to those in society who use the "self checkout" at supermarket without enough IQ points to operate it. Everyone is now familiar with the auto checkout stands that usually come in a cluster of four to allow a single store employee to stand watch to make sure you are not robbing the establishment blind while self-checking out.

If you enter the store during a busy time of day there is a high likelihood their will be a short line waiting to use the self checkout. This line will normally be composed of people giving each other exasperated looks or multitasking by checking their watch while tapping their right foot. Meanwhile, at the four express checkout lines are the following:

1. The individual who is trying to self checkout with a full cart, when the sign clearly says there is a 20 item limit. They are having trouble finishing because there is a scale in the bagging area that matches the weight of what you are bagging versus what you actually scanned and there is no room left in the bagging area for 1/2 the contents still in their cart.
2. An individual who cannot grasp the concept that the little UPC/barcode needs to face the glass plate for the sensor to be able to scan it.
3. The person who has produce and belatedly realizes that they have no idea how to scan something without a barcode and proceeds to start with mouth open at the monitor magically hoping the cantaloupe will somehow scan itself.
4. And my personal favorite, the individual who in seeing there is a lot of people waiting, enjoys their moment in the spotlight and commences to move in slow motion, almost in a slow motion like state with the only thing missing being the "da da da da da" sound effect in the background as they reenact the "Six Million Dollar Man" running scenes.

Third habit - People who treat retail employees like they are a lower form of life. Actually, there is already a special level of hell for these types. This is a large category, but can include everyone from the individuals who do not have the common courtesy to put down their cell phones while being assisted by a store employee to the ones who are just out-and-out nasty to someone who is being paid to assist them. We constantly hear about how poor customer service is. I think in some cases it is how poor the customer quality is....

Fourth habit - people ahead of you at the line in the bank who ask more questions than a border control agent to someone named Akeem Islam.

Lets face it, the line waiting for bank tellers takes a long time to get through as it is, however there always seems to be at least one or two individuals in the line ahead of you who are determined to perform a task other then either depositing a check or withdrawing cash. The probability of someone getting multiple cashier's checks, disputing charges on their bank statement, or attempting to refinance their house seems to increase tenfold if you are in a hurry or if there is more then two people in the line in front of you.

Fifth habit - people who express their opinion, and when you tell them your opposing view you can physically see their ears slam shut. This species is so prevelant that it probably includes relatives or even someone you consider a friend. The symptoms are quite easy to pick up on as this individual gives off many signals. When they are telling you their opinion the volume of their voice will increase, they will suddenly turn Italian and start using their hands, and they will stare you down like you stole their lunch money. When it is your turn to rebuke, you will notice that they are no longer making strong eye contact, most likely will interrupt you before you have completed the first sentence, and they are even louder in being dismissive of your stance. If very self-centered they will also use the tactic of changing the subject before you can complete your rebuttal.

American Idol nearly kills us all

Dear Bro,

On April 25th as you and your wife were concentrating on the two bundles of joy that entered your life earlier in the month, an event occurred that could have resulted in the end of humankind as we know it.

It was a normal spring day. The newspapers were all aghast over the pet food poisoning scandal, kids were coming out of their homes to play after a long winter, Regis was still recovering from his heart surgery, and the highest rated TV show in the US, "American Idol" was airing a fundraising show for a charity of their choice.

As part of this show, a well known Canadian singer named Celine Dion performed a "duet" of the song "If I Can Dream" with Elvis Presley. The show's host, Ryan Seacrest, announced it as follows: "Celine Dion is travelling back to the year she was born, 1968, to sing with the man who is and always will be the worlds Greatest Idol".

Now personally I was not aware that the producers of American Idol had managed to obtain the technology to permit time travel, but between you and me I could think of better uses of a time-space portal then sending an over-hyped Canadian vocalist to crank out a number with a adorn long dead American icon. Things like stopping Lee Harvey Oswald (or the guy behind the grassy knoll for the Oliver Stone crowd) or making some arrests at airport checkpoints on September 11th come to mind. Even forgoing the obvious there are greater consequences that these publicity hounds didn't think of...

For if you spend any amount of time listening to Ms. Dion's body of work, it will become quite apparent to the average listener that she is the closest thing to the "anti-Elvis" that exists on this planet. Mojo Nixon claimed that Michael J. Fox was the "anti-Elvis" in his song "Elvis is Everywhere", but that was only because Ms. Dion was not yet well known enough at that point to attract Mr. Nixon's attention.

Now, a quick browsal of Wikipedia provided the following information:

"In particle physics, antimatter extends the concept of the antiparticle to matter, whereby antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles. For example an antielectron (positron) and an antiproton could form an antihydrogen atom in the same way that an electron and a proton form a normal matter hydrogen atom. Furthermore, mixing of matter and antimatter would lead to the annihilation of both in the same way that mixing of antiparticles and particles does, thus giving rise to high-energy photons (gamma rays) or other particle–antiparticle pairs. The particles resulting from matter-antimatter annihilation are endowed with energy equal to the difference between the rest mass of the products of the annihilation and the rest mass of the original matter-antimatter pair, which is often quite large."


So, to put this in perspective, if Celine had made skin to skin contact with Elvis during this performance there is a theoretical possibility that a better part of the northern hemisphere of the planet would have been rendered into Dante's Inferno from the ensuing conversion of the "Elvis" - "Anti-Elvis" into pure energy. Not that the producers of American Idol would have cared. They could then claim to be the number one show of all time after emerging from the fortified bunker they must have been hiding in during the show, a claim that would have been true for a long time as we would in all likehood return to the stone age....

Hiatus Ends

Dear Bro,

Now that you are finished with leave and back in Iraq it is again time for me to turn on the random thought generator and start boring you once again. But first we must always take time to review the big highlight of what happened while you were on leave:

For those of you who have nothing better to do then read a boring blog entry to my brother in Iraq then allow me to introduce to you Brendan and Sydney, who were born to my sister-in-law Chris while my brother was in flight from Kuwait to Germany. The darn little rascals just couldn't wait until he got home....

Thus leave consisted of a cat nap, quickly followed by feedings, burping sessions after the foodfest is completed, soon to be followed by the obligatory diaper changing, all on a two hour cycle.

And now you are back in Iraq this task is left for your valiant wife Chris and her supportive family. Good thing you left it in their capable hands as if it were the other way around and your wife was going to Iraq and you taking care of the kids we would all be sleeping less and worried more!!!!

So a big congratulations and job well done!!!!!!