Elam, no longer Number One

Jason Elam Broncos Kicker
Jason Elam, long time kicker for the Denver Broncos, has left the building. A four year, $9 million offer from the Atlanta Falcons was just too good to pass up. At 38, I can’t really blame him.

Personally, the thing I will miss most about Elam isn’t his great kicking. What I will miss is his number. My sister and I have a long standing joke, I always tease her about being “Number One” and threaten to get her an Elam Jersey.

They are probably on discount now, maybe I’ll do a little early birthday shopping.

ET Video Game

All those great 70s and 80s toys I had as a kid have come back into fashion. Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots, Hungry Hungry Hippos, stunt motorcycles (of course mine was an Evel Kneivel, Head Banger football kicker, seems like everything we had as kids is on the Wal-Mart shelves today.

Growing up, I had a lot of toys, but not as many as some kids. When my brother-in-law and I are out looking at toys for my nephew, it seems like he had two or three of every toy on the shelf. One thing we did have, not too long after it came out, was an original Atari 2600. I still remember the Christmas morning when we got the Atari. My mother, sweet as she is, loves Christmas. She had wrapped the console and the games separately. She instructed me to not open the console, but forgot to mention the games. About the second package I opened was an original Pac-Man game. Of course, this took away some of the mystery, but I was extremely excited to open the remaining games and the console itself.

That console ended up being incredibly popular in our house. We played incessantly. One of the games we played was the infamous Atari ET game. Until recently, I wasn’t really aware that this game was one of the worst video games of all time. I played it a TON as a kid, and although I found it somewhat irritating, but didn’t think it was the worst game ever. In fact, it had a bit of an appeal.

The Atari is now dead and gone, I have no desire to go back and play ET for nostalgia, but I do remember the game fondly. It’s just another memory of my blissful youth.

R.I.P – #3

Today is the seventh anniversary of the tragic fatal accident that took the life of one of the most amazing men, and one of my very few heros, Dale Earnhardt Sr.

Dale Earnhardt 1994

I remember that day vividly. I had been at my sister’s house, and we didn’t even watch the Daytona. We turned on the TV and it was all over the news. His passing struck me very deeply, and still, as I write this, I feel a definite sadness for a life cut short.

Growing up as a farm kid, car nut and chevy guy, it’s just natural that I would have great respect for Dale. I remember many races in the early 90s, when he earned the name “The Intimidator”, where he just dominated the sport. One race in particular was the 1991 Busch Clash. The race was run in two 10 lap segments, the field was inverted after the first race. Dale won the first segment handily, and had to start at the rear of the field for the second segment. The first lap of the second segment he passed four cars, in the second lap he dropped the car to the apron and passed the remaining nine cars. It was one of my personally most memorable NASCAR memories.

Dale wasn’t the best man who ever lived. He had his share of problems when it came to family and his personal life, but one thing always struck me about him. No matter how famous he became or how much money he made, he never forgot his roots. At the time of his death I remember a number of interviews with local North Carolina residents remarking on his generosity and kindness. On the track he was all business and would spare nothing to win, off the track he was undoubtedly a man of character who is still greatly missed.

#3 Forever

Bath Lifts

My grandparents are getting up in years. Both their late 80s now, and they live alone ( but within a mile of my parents ). While they are both in reasonably good health, they do have some difficulty getting around. My grandfather broke his ankle many years ago, and it’s never been quite right since. He got along OK when he was younger, but not it’s catching up with him. As a result for compensating for a bad ankle, he now has bad knees to go with it. Unfortunately, when you are pushing 90, knee replacement isn’t much of an option.

While they normally don’t have too much trouble, one challenge is getting in and out of the bath tub. My grandfather has difficulty with this, and has had to be rescued from the tub at least once. At Christmas, my grandmother asked me to do a little research into bath lifts.

I did some looking, and there are a number of very cool products on the market. Transfer benches, mechanical lifts, hydro lifts and battery powered electric lifts are all available. Problem is I can’t find one product review for any of them. Personally I think this is one of the great downfalls of the internet as we know it. There are zillions of products out there, and if you are looking for the latest gadget, phone, TV or game console, there are tons of reviews. On the downside, if you are looking for something that’s not a techy item, reviews are much more difficult to come by. I suppose 90 year old people aren’t much for writing reviews, and physical therapists are afraid putting this kind of information on line will probably devalue their overall expertise, but it’s still a problem.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but I would encourage everyone out there, if you purchase a product, not matter what it is, write a review and post it somewhere. Oh, and if you know anything about bath lifts be sure to leave a comment. I would be interested to hear what you have to say.

Living in a Tower

For years, my father has had a dream. He wants to live in a tower.

Concrete Grain Silo

More specifically, he wants to live in a concrete tower si Get Back With My Ex Boyfriend lo. Appearantly, sometime during the middle of the 20th century, farmers could order kits for these concrete silos. Concrete blocks and cables to hold them together would be shipped to your location for a fairly reasonable sum. Today, of course, we have all kinds of ridiculous things like weight limits from UPS and building codes. Building a concrete silo is no longer as trivial as it once was.

My father’s idea is to take one of these old silos and build an internal structure with a staircase and an observation deck at the top. I’m fairly confident that if we had an ocean nearby he’d want a lighthouse too.

The point of all this is, that I’ve found my Dad’s kindred spirit with this water tower conversion in the Netherlands.

Contact us for more info about promotional items school fundraisers .

Get Back With My Ex Boyfriend

Stop with the previews already!

Chuck
It’s not like the state of TV isn’t dismal enough with the writer’s strike and the resulting possible end of Battlestar Galactica, stopping of the Office, possible delay of 24 and a shortened season for Heroes.

To top it all off, our friends at NBC have nothing better to do than run a 30 second preview of one of my new favorite shows, Chuck, that gives away most of tomorrow’s episode. Not only do they have major episode spoilers, but they air them during tonight’s NFL game, so I can’t really ignore them. If I didn’t like the show so much I would NOT watch it because of the commercial…