George Carlin

It was a shocker when George Carling died last month. I expected that old codger to be around for years, hobbling around on a gnarled up walking stick and waving his arms around while he grumped and fussed. He has been a comedy fixture my whole life. I listened to some of his comedy routines when I was a kid and watched most of his HBO specials.

He came to town a few years ago and did a standup routine for about an hour. I got great seats because of connections at the radio station. But to be honest, he came off as a bitter, twisted old man who wasn’t funny anymore. I was terribly disappointed in the entire show and wondered if it was me not being in the right frame of mind that night? Or has he lost his funny touch?

I read the other day that he had just done another show with new material and that his children are releasing it on DVD to try to milk a few more dollars out of their old man’s estate. I sure hope the show was funny this time. I really did like the guy and am sorry that he’s gone.

How Many Candles?

The problem with being this old is that there’s just too many darn candles burning on top of your birthday cake. I mean, there’s enough to set off the fire alarms in the office conference room already! But some brave soul decided to risk the fire alarm and bought me a birthday cake, which we gathered in the conference room to share this afternoon. That was really cool.

They also gave me a birthday card that someone had passed around the office - behind my back - and had everyone sign it.

Our office manager is a big fan of birthday cards and cards for other special occasions, like employment anniversaries, Christmas, and personal events like new babies, promotions, etc. I think people really like the mystery of passing around a card in secret and writing a short greeting to the special person. And I’m sure almost everyone likes to receive a card with a lot of signatures and personalized greetings.

And with all the commercialization of Christmas, I think a lot of people still do notice who send them a Christmas card and who doesn’t. For a while I stopped sending Christmas cards out, but last year I sent out about 30 and they have all paid me dividends in loyalty and quality leads, so they were well worth the effort.

Happy Birthday America!

I love the Fourth of July. It’s a great time of year for a holiday and it is all about good things and fun celebrations.

We used to go to parades at the beach every year, swim the rest of the afternoon, picnic on the beach and then watch the fireworks get shot off the pier as soon as it was dark enough. It never did rain on us - the weather was always perfect. And it all was free.

We especially love to watch fireworks. The best shows last for at least 30 minutes and are a combination of displays up high, some loud bangs here and there, and a ground display of spinning and shooting sparks.

Happy Birthday America!

Dog Costumes for the Bark in the Park

Each year we have a huge gathering for dogs and their “parents” at the main downtown park, called the “Bark in the Park.” It is a huge event, with thousands of dogs in attendance. There are dozens of vendor tents and tables, selling everything from collars that glow in the dark to special shampoos. They also hold a huge, fun parade with dogs in costumes and lots of prizes for different categories, such as funniest, scariest, etc.

Last year when we went to th Bark in the Park we took our oldest female, as she is the most social. We didn’t enter her in the parade, as we didn’t know how she was going to react to being around all those other dogs and all those people, but she did great and I think she had as much fun as we did. So this year when we go back we want to find a great costume for her and dress her up to be in the parade.

The wife found a great site on the internet called “Costume Cauldron” that has hundreds of Halloween Costumes, including a great selection of pet costumes. This one is my favorite, the “watch dog”:

But the wife says it is too corney and she wants something a little more unusual. At the moment she is favoring the hula girl costume, as our dog loves to dance around on her back legs and we are thinking that would be a great gimmick for when we get in front of the judges stand, to play some hula or limbo music on a little boom box and get her to dance in her hula skirt outfit.

To add to the theme, the wife wants to get a hula costume from the same site for herself and a flower lei. That sounds like great fun and we’ll order them both now so we have them in plenty of time for the parade. The wife found a secret backdoor that gives people who know about it a great discount on costume orders. all you have to do is go to the website’s homepage, and look halfway down on the right side to click on the brown comma in the line that reads “Our store now has over 8,000 masquerade items . . .”

A Nice Stink

The wife has a funny saying that pops out every once in a while. When she smells something good that she really likes, she’ll announce, “That’s a nice stink!”

The first time I heard it I thought she was very weird. Well, maybe she is, but I love her anyways. But the story behind that saying is: when she was a very little girl and trying to learn the English language with all the subtle differences between similar words, she had heard her granny say on a Sunday drive that the smell of a dead skunk that they passed in the road was a “bad stink.” Then later that day, when they passed some honeysuckle on the side of the road, the wife (she must have been only 4 or 5 years old back then) announced that the fragrance from the honeysuckle was a “nice stink.” Of course, the whole car burst out in laughter at her mis-use of the word stink. And from then on it became a family joke and she still says it once in a while, bless her heart.