My Two Cents....

2007-09-26T04:40:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics of my girls! Audrey is doing a great job with Gracie, she loves giving her hugs and kisses. The only problem is that sometimes they're a little rough. She'll learn!

2007-09-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

Here is a much better picture of Gracie taken this morning at 9:00 am. I still think she looks quit a bit like Audrey.

2007-09-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

BABY!!!!

Gracie Katherine Fletcher
19.5 inches
6 lbs 10 oz
12:32 pm cst
9-18-07 AD

Very good delivery. I had no problems at all. In fact, I feel great.

Natalie is plotting my demise even as I speak.

YAY BABIES!

2007-09-18T03:15:00.000-07:00

LONG TIME NO SEE BABY!

Actually today I will see baby!

Gracie Katherine will be joining us on this Earth sometime later today.

But as of right now, at 5:16 am CST, it's just Natalie and I, me in my lucky Baseball Hall of Fame t-shirt and she in her lucky (and beautiful) hospital gown.

I'd post a picture of the suite where we must stay all day, but I'm too exhausted from spending what seems like the last 23 minutes plugging in all of our equipment. Cellphone...check. Laptop...check.Camera...check. Video Camera.....check.

RIght now, if there is a nationwide brownout, it will be because of us plugging everything.

Not much to do right now except wait for the process to begin with the epidural, etc.....bored.
I should get to work on some college homework.

Think I'll check fantasy football instead.

Check back later!!!!

UPDATE: 6:49 am:

I'm watching Natalie get an epidural right now. OW.....big old needle jabbed in her back. Looks totally unpleasant. But as long as it numbs the pain....not hers.....but mine.

:)

GO BABY!

UPDATE: 7:37 am

So disappointed. They do not have Diet Dr. Pepper in the cafeteria. Only Coke Zero. That is unforgivable. I'm going into Route 44 Sonic Diet Dr. Pepper with Diet Cherry Syrup withdrawal.

Other thoughts: Nat's contractions are, in the words of the nurse, "GREAT."

We're predicting a 10:30 arrival. Actually, I think it will about 12:44 pm CST.

More later!

UPDATE: 8:49 am

Just hangin' out. Nat is munching on ice chips right now as I'm downloading Halo 3 video clips. Gracie's heartrate went down a little bit so Nat had to use some oxygen and switch sides. But right now everything looks fine.....they seriously predict a 10:45 arrival, but at this point still I'm not optimistic about that. I'm running into lots of people I know....Mrs. Lacen (first name?).....a friend Andra's.....it's a small world.

Natalie is BORED. I don't have a deck of cards like we did with Audrey. I stink.

More in a while.

UPDATE: 10:55 am.

NO baby yet. Everybody's estimation was way off. I fell asleep- Nat's mom and dad are here. I have a book to read for college class tomorrow night......Natalie is SO READY to be done. I took a picture of her so I could put it here, but she threatened me with public and embarassing beating, so I opted out. So instead here is a joke:

Knock Knock.

Who's there.

HAVE THE BABY!

2007-05-24T05:43:00.000-07:00

Buddy and I on the senior trip. It was fun. More later.

2007-04-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

These pictures are of us at Easter, Natalie and Audrey after Audrey's bath (DO YOU THINK THEY ARE CLONES OR WHAT?), Audrey getting ready for a walk with daddy, and the colossal mess Audrey made of the office with the files I borrowed from Buddy. I owe ya some file folders, man.

PEACE!

2007-03-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken after I took Audrey on a LONG walk around the neighborhood a few hours before her party. She is so sweet.....she fell asleep and I just had to have this picture taken.

Audrey's First Birthday party!

Heh heh.....what a blast. She is amazing. Check out these photos of when she got to eat her little private birthday cake made by our good friend Monica Bay. Also, she got enough loud, irritating toys to drive me insane, which I guess is only fitting because we gave all our friends loud annoying toys when their kids were little.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.....tis very cold in spaccccccccccccceeeeee.

Any of you Star Trek nerds recognize that line?

2007-03-03T04:31:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who has left comments lately. It was nice hearing from you. But I stupidly switched to the new "Google Blogger" and it simply won't let me leave comments on blogs, even my own, for some reason! ARGH!

So Jordan, Cale, Erin, it was nice to hear from you. I hope things are going well for each of you. Anything new with you guys?

Well, I have something new for me!

Baby Audrey is going to have a baby sister or brother in September!

SURPRISE!

And I mean that, seriously...SURPRISE!

But what a great blessing! Sure, we'll have two rugrats in diapers at the same time, and the amount of sleep I get right now will decrease by half, but that is okay!

With Audrey, the night we found out we were having a baby I had a dream it was going to be a baby girl. This time, I had a dream that (I am NOT making this up) cast members of the show Grey's Anatomy were giving me, Natalie, and Audrey flying lessons in a little Cessna plane over the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Alongside us in a childseat (why we would have a baby in a plane is BEYOND me) was a little dark haired baby....that for some reason I named Brendan. So I assume it was a boy. I don't have that same certain feeling I did with Audrey, but I kinda think it will be a boy.

People ask me what I want, and I just say, "Something healthy." Our daily prayer at supper ALWAYS ends with me asking to keep Natalie, Audrey, and McBaby safe and healthy.

Oh yeah, McBaby is the name of #2. At his point. It fits perfect. As much McDonald's as my wife eats, it is PERFECT.

See you later, gators!

2007-02-20T17:51:00.000-08:00

2007-02-17T14:02:00.000-08:00

First, let me apologize in advance to anybody that has ever worked for, currently works for, or ever aspires to work for the fast food chain, SONIC:

They are morons.

I am sick at home right now suffering from Influenza Type A. Goody for me, right?

WRONG.

First, I've not slept well, I've had the chills, a horrible headache, and I'm popping more pills than Robert Downey Junior.

But yesterday I had to go Freeman Urgentcare. (Once again I was angry because the Elvis impersonator who does the music on their radio commercials, yeah that guy, he was not there AGAIN. One of these days when I have to visit Freeman Urgentcare he will be there, and when I see him, I will kick him squarely in the nuts.)

I stopped at Sonic first. I ordered a Route 44 Diet Sprite. A DRINK.

The girl brought it out. By itself. I paid for it. And as I rolled up my window, she quickly stepped forward and asked me, and I'm not making this up:

"Do you need any ketchup with that?"

Seriously.

Ketchup.

For my Diet Sprite.

I just stared at her for a moment, my brain racing through countless smart-hiney comments. I started to say, "Yeah, baby. Load me up with ketchup. Nothing goes better with Diet Sprite than fifteen packets of Heinz Ketchup. Num-freakin'-num!"

But I resisted the urge and merely responded: "No."

She smiled and carried on, oblivious to the fact that just by talking to her my IQ had dropped another 4 points. I can't afford to lost anymore.

Peace, my children!

2007-02-13T06:20:00.000-08:00

Man I'm getting old....last night at the church league basketball league I hurt back BAD. I had blocked out to get the backside rebound on a horribly errant shot by my buddy Matt. I skied up (and by skied up I mean actually left the ground) and grabbed the ball......but as I leapt I got undercut by a little bitty point guard. He slipped and fell, and as I was in the air directly above him I had the choice of falling down directly on him with my knee square in the small of his back or falling off to the side. I nobly chose the latter and when I did I landed with my legs at an angle that pulled a back muscle on the right side of the small of my back. It HURT. I pulled myself out of the game, went home and popped three Advil. I DID NOT want to get out of bed this morning.

But the lesson of the evening I learned the most: you cannot beat a man to man defense if the point guard never leaves the top of the key. It doesn't matter HOW much movement the rest of us do.

Amen.

2007-02-07T11:55:00.001-08:00

Ever been stuck in a presentation so boring that you would SERIOUSLY rather gouge your eyes out than continue to suffer in?

Well, I'm in it right now. Seriously, this sucks.

2007-02-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

Ever been stuck in a presentation so boring that you would SERIOUSLY rather gouge your eyes out than continue to suffer in?

Well, I'm in it right now. Seriously, this sucks.

2007-01-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make.

Friday I about committed mass homicide. I'm pretty sure my lesson plans involving the death penalty would be far more interesting had I actually murdered someone, but now students will just have to deal with my hypothetical scenario, a "What-if" that could/should/would have occured if my wife and my daughter weren't with me.

You see, yesterday I nearly killed about twenty "Blue-Hairs."

What is a Blue Hair you may ask?

A Blue Hair is a person who is so old that their hair no longer fits into mainstream categories of silver, gray, black, or any other natural color. Instead, their hair is a mottled collection of various colors that render their hair, for lack of a better term, blue as a Smurf's hiney.

Let me set the premise for this near tragedy. This entire week we have been out of school because of the tremendous ice storm that struck the entire region last weekend. Normally I curse Mother Nature for not providing us with any snow days, but this is our second 4 day snow-induced break of the Winter Season. And quite honestly, being stuck at home for that many days in a row had already set my nerves on edge. Combining that with the prospect of another couple of snow-induced days at home with the forecast of more snow this weekend, I was ready to pop.

I love my wife. I love my daughter. We have spent a lot of quality time together. But I needed OUT.

So like a fool I thought Wal-Mart would be a good place to go. We needed to pick up some food for Audrey, and some food for ourselves.

Too bad the entire free world was shopping at the Webb City Supercenter at the same time I was.

Oh wait, let me clarify that statement. Every BLUEHAIR in the free world was shopping at the Webb City Supercenter at the same time I was.

Here is the moment in time where my life could have dramatically changed:

Aisle 13. The tomato sauce/soup/mexican/chinese/ethnic food aisle. My wife and I wanted some fajita mix. Every single blue hair in the world was trying to get into that particular aisle at the same time. The traffic was overwhelming, as 1.4 million Blue Hairs, each with that carts filled with Depends and Ensure Energy Drinks, trudged along at a staggeringly slow .5 mph. Natalie and Audrey went first- Nat's daring dash across the double aisle left my heart in my throat, but she made it just fine until she hit traffic. She looked back at me and waited for me to come....but I was trapped. No way could I cross without getting hit.

There were just too many Blue Hairs, all of them trying to go in the same little spot at the same time. Natalie and Audrey got swept up in the tide, struggling in a futile effort to fight their way back to me with about as much chance for success as a salmon swimming UP Niagara Falls.

"Chad!" She called out to me, her fingers outstretched to me in a panic. I could hear Audrey howl as a group of Blue-Hairs brushed against her little face....the Blue-Hairs seemingly moved as one...a silent wrinkled tide....all of them heading for the same cans of Tomato sauce, ravenously scooping them up as though Saturday's predicted snowstorm would be the end of all life on this earth.

I had had enough. In my mind, I quickly imagined my best chance of reaching them....I had to act fast...they were being pushed further and further away from me...and what's worse, they had passed the fajita sauce....which was the entire purpose of their dangerous journey down that aisle!

I could not let their sacrifice be in vain!

Thoughts of grabbing a frozen turkey and clubbing these geezers out of my way danced across my mind, but I dismissed that idea when I saw how much hairspray some of these women used in their blue-beehive hair-dos. Frozen poultry would be rendered ineffective against their dos.

I also imagined grabbing a box of corn dogs and stabbing them in their tiny, ancient, withered hearts, but that would have been too slow.

So instead I did the best thing possible.

I back tracked about twenty feet, trusting Natalie's strong survival instinct to keep them long enough for my plan to work.

I ran to the nearest price checking computer and grabbed the microphone marked "employees only." I cleared my throat and calmly said over the speakers

"Attention all Senior Citizens. There is a 40 percent sale on all diet, sugar free, fat free Metamucil in aisle 443."

Fiber. Laxatives.

YES!

As one, the blue-hair zombies turned and silently left the fajita aisle. Natalie and Audrey were saved, and just in the nick of time, too.....a particularly ancient old geezer, Oldy McCorpse was his name, I believe, had mistaken Audrey's sippy cup for his denture jar and had placed his false teeth on top of Audrey's cup.

I hurdled across the frozen burrito case and scooped up my two girls in my arms. A disaster had been averted thanks to my quick thinking, Natalie's bravery, and my unyielding belief in the thought that no matter how old a person becomes, they can't turn down a big savings on fiber laxatives.

Proudly my family and I marched to the fajita mix and grabbed not one but TWO packets. We didn't really need to, but screw it.

It was our day.

PS I completely made up about 90 percent of this story. The names of the principle actors have been changed to protect the innocent.

2007-01-08T07:03:00.000-08:00

Boy, the Chiefs were horrible on Saturday. Just horrible. But think how horrible Dallas Cowboy fans feel! (I'm talking to YOU, Uncle Lennie!)

OUCH. Tony Romo choked the game away BIG time in that affair. Wow-ee. That was simply devastating. I mean, the Chiefs were bombed from the start. But the Cowboys had their fans believing that they were going to the next round, only to literally bobble it away!

The National Championship game is tonight. Hoop-tee-dang-doo. I just can't get that worked up over Division I football. The BCS is a joke. Once a team loses, every other game they play for the rest of the season is meaningless. They are just expensive exhibitions. Give me a playoff system, baby!

As of right now, I'm going into a sports hibernation. I really don't have a college basketball team that I'm really jacked up about this year. I'll continue to root for my Oklahoma Sooners, but this is the Mother of All Rebuilding Seasons down in Norman. So Yikes! Not looking good right now.

Here are the teams that I'm willing to follow this season:

1. OU
2. Oklahoma State: They've always been my second favorite Big 12 team, and this year they are playing pretty doggone good.
3. Wichita State: They have already lost 3 conference games after an absolutely GREAT non-conference schedule. Either they were over-rated to begin with, OR (more likely) they thought they were going to trounce the MVC OR (even more likely) the Missouri Valley Conference is just that good.
4. Missouri State: Just Because
5. KU. I hate KU. But I like to watch them play in the off-chance that they'll lose. You know why I hate them? Two words: Danny Manning. 1988, Kemper Arena, Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas 83, Oklahoma 79. I will always hate KU for those two reasons.

In other news, I sold my projector to the school. I'm replacing it with a nother one, but I have to wait until I get paid at the end of the month. So that means no Xbox 360, no HD College Basketball, no HD DVD movies........argh. I'm going to start having the shakes by the 20th, I think.

In still other news, Audrey is crawling all over the place .Last night we had to drop a load of money on a baby fence system that can taken apart, broken into little pieces, and placed around important things that we don't want her to get into. Right now, Audrey is just fascinated with our vents and, of all things, our magazines. But that is ending soon. Last night she pulled her self up to the couch and let go. She stood for nearly 10 seconds all by herself. It is so amazing to watch each new thing she can do on her own! Makes me smile each time I think about it.

Tomorrow night I'm taking her to her first ever basketball game. The CUHS Titans play at Carl Junction tomorrow night, literally across the street from my house. So I'm gonna try to make home-made hushpuppies (Natalie LOVES them) and then going to the game. Hope we win both the boys and the girls! Go Titans!

Finally, I have some sad news to report. (Always love ending a post on a downer.)

Church Basketball starts again tonight.

Another season of futility. We are older, slower, and yet again, we have not gotten any infusion of new talent whatsoever. I went jogging and ran the stars some last week, and my legs are just now beginning to recover from the sheer agony I put them through. Now that I have my legs finally starting to gel, it's time to work on the lungs.

Here's to cardiovascular fitness!

I'll post a photograph of tonight's action in a post sometime this week.

PEACe, homies!

2007-01-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

Finally, I'm back! Woo Hoo!

I've had several opportunities to blog over Christmas Break, but everytime I sat down at the keyboard I simply stared at my blank screen and never typed a thing.

This post is essentially just an attempt to put something down on "paper" (as it were).

Five months until Summer Break!

:)

2006-12-21T06:26:00.000-08:00

Is there anything more evil that a parent can do to their baby than to take her to see Santa Claus? Think about it. Taking a kid who's already ticked off that you dolled her up in a foo-foo dress and sticking her directly into the face of an EXTREMELY HAIRY man who looks like NOTHING you've ever seen before.....

that doesn't make for a happy baby.

The following picture was taken in between Audrey's howls of terrified horror.

We tried every thing to get her to smile or be calm.....I even took her up there and sat by Santa. That was fine as long as Audrey was looking at me. The second Audrey looked at Santa......

IT WAS DONE!

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-18T04:55:00.000-08:00

I'm glad to be going back to work today.

Seriously.

After watching the Chiefs' offensive ineptitude last night, I was just sick to my stomach.

My next post will be my favorite movie moments of all time.

And no, my favorite is not, "Luke, I am your father."

It's a little ditty from a flick called "Jaws."

2006-12-08T17:26:00.000-08:00

Hey you all! To help usher in the Christmas Holiday season, here is a really sweet deal I made with my precious daughter as a dancing elf! It is so funny! Thanks to Buddy Derfelt for showing me!

Audrey as an Elf!!!

2006-12-04T14:51:00.000-08:00

Another snow day....

This will make four in a row. I'm going stir crazy. On the other hand, I'm getting in more good Audrey time than I've had in a while. And it's good. But I've changed more dirty and wet diapers in the last six days than I had the previous 30.

I'm all caught up on "JERICHO." I've watched THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and I'm halfway through THE TWO TOWERS, both of them the extended editions. They are my favorite movies of all time now, having replaced Star Wars.

I have no books to read since they're all at the High School, and I'm not gonna drive all that way just for books.

Have a nice night.

2006-12-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

2006-12-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

Well, after 3 long years, Mother Nature got off her butt and gave us some frickin' snow. Heh heh.

Seriously, aside from watching my beloved Kansas City Chiefs CHOKE today against the stinking, awful, wretched Cleveland Browns, this was the best four day stretch in recent history. 2 snow days spent at home with Natalie and Audrey. It was simply wonderful.

I cooked like crazy- French toast, biscuits and eggs, spaghetti, grilled cheese a la Fletcher, homemade chocolate chip cookies from scratch, mmmmm.......

It was just wonderful. Every morning I'd get up and play with Audrey...feed her breakfast, snuggle with her....greatness! I got to play alittle Tiger Woods golf with Natalie. She is better than me. I hate that!

Friday afternoon we took Audrey outside just so she could see her first snow. It was so bright she would hardly open her eyes. We didn't keep her out very long at all, just long enough for some pictures of her playing with her hands in the snow. But the little toot simply wouldn't let us put her nice mittens on her- I guess she is too much of a free spirit to have her hands restricted in anyway. So instead Natalie distracted her and I put socks on her hands! So look carefully at the photo and you'll see that she is wearing socks.

Saturday I got to go the Mineral Water Bowl and watch Germaine Race become the leading rusher in D2 football history. It was great. Our defense is still dreadful, but at least we have something to look forward to next year with the return of QB Mark Smith and HOPEFULLY an improved defensive line that doesn't resemble hobbits. Wouldn't that be a treat?

My pictures today are first of Audrey and Natalie in the snow. Second is one of my favorites....Audrey, the little darling, does NOT like to be put into her crib for naps during the day. Plus, she has learned how to sit up. So when she cries in the crib, she sits there, wailing her fool head off. But I guess yesterday she fell asleep with Slobbers the Zebra. The funny thing is how she fell asleep sitting in half like that. It kills me every single time I look at it.

I also managed to get most of my college homework done. There are only two class meetings left (this and next Wednesday), and they postponed the huge presentation we have as well. I worked for HOURS on my field experience journal. I bet I wrote about 30 double spaced pages worth of material. It's been since my first MA in History that I've written that much.

So for those of you interested, here is what I want for Christmas this year:

Superman Returns on HD DVD.
Cash for my new digital projector I want.
The Absolute Kingdom Come Hardcover by Alex Ross. That is sheer genius, and it's over 10 years old.

The Ultimate Infinite Crisis hardcover graphic novel.

Oh.....my two favorite football teams could both use some Defensive Tackles who don't suck. Just get those for those teams in my name and we'll all be happy.

See you later!

2006-11-26T18:33:00.000-08:00

FOR SALE:

I'm selling my Benq 6100 digital DLP home theater projector and the 100 inch movie screen that comes with it. The lamp has 487 hours on it, it will last for 3000 hours. I've had it for three years, and I just don't get as much out of it as I used to. I'm wanting to change to a wider screen, not necessarily bigger.

For anyone who has seen it in action, it is INCREDIBLY SWEET! HD football and basketball games are amazing.

Ever play HALO on a 100 inch screen? Xbox 360 looks incredible! Tiger Woods is 3 feet tall when I play the golf game!

I'm asking $1000 for the pair....but I will negotiate!

Why pay $1000 for a 50 inch LCD or Plasma screen that will burn out in three years when you can have a 100 inch screen (85 inches in HDTV mode) for the same price?

You have to set aside some wall space, but it actually takes up a LOT less room, especially if you mount it over head!

This is a heck of a good deal. Call me at 417 438 7541, or email me at capamerica26@hotmail.com or cfletcher@usd493.com!

2006-11-25T15:14:00.000-08:00

Well, here is a picture of my daughter that was taken about an hour ago. This was after we'd spent the whole day whipping her with chains and starving her to death!

AT LEAST THAT WOULD BE WHAT YOU THOUGHT IF YOU WALKED BY OUR HOUSE THIS AFTERNOON!

Audrey didn't take any sort of nap all day....and the longer the day went, the crankier she got. Nothing pleased her. Natalie and I were trying to decorate the house, Audrey wanted no part of it, we tried putting her to sleep with a bottle in the rocker....no dice.

So we put her into her crib.

After one of the great screaming tantrums of all time, she finally passed out, and ended up like this, hugging her Zebra Slobbers.

I was becoming frustrated with our Christmas tree (having had to take it back to Wal-Mart- I bought a Pre-lit tree that didn't LIT).

Natalie got me and took me back to Audrey's room. When I saw her, my tension disappeared, my anger was gone, and my heart melted.

Lord I love her.

2006-11-24T16:22:00.000-08:00

What I'm thankful for:

1. My wife and my daughter. Spent 30 years without them in my life. Now I can't imagine life without them. Amazing. (also included in this is the rest of my family.)

2. Friends. I have some friends who ARE family. I don't know why some people can't see that.

3. A great job. Everyone complains about their jobs, even me. Heck, expecially me. But every single day is different, and I have 80 different kids I see every couple of days. In a way, they get to be my extended family. I rejoice in their successes and grieve in their losses and failures. I'm blessed to be in a good district at a good job with a great faculty and staff. I will never make the $$ that some folks do.....but at least I won't ever do anything as soulless as staring at financial records all day or work on the line.

4. My home. Perfect location. Perfect for my growing family. Our cat Sydney gets to poop on school property. Heh heh.

5. My Xbox 360 and my home theater projection screen. Seriously. I love them.

6. The Kansas City Chiefs. Because even though it costs a lot of money, season tickets allow Natalie and I to do OUR THING together.....and trust me, unmarried guys, you need to find that thing with your wife.

7. The Pittsburg State Gorillas. I am a fan of many different sports, but I truly ADORE, with great PASSION, the Pittsburg State Gorilla football team.

8. Living in the USA where I can worship how I choose, say what I want, and live freely. I'm thankful for the people fighting overseas to ensure that possibility, following orders even when they don't agree with them. They deserve our thanks.

9. Comic books. I will always love them, and I will NEVER apologize for it. NEVER. People make fun of them....but how many different high-grossing moves are the result of comics? TONS.

10. The creators of South Park, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the Family Guy, LOST, and Smallville. Visual cocaine, man. I can't get enough of them. Most of them are rude and crude.....but in the end, I end up agreeing with about 90% of what they are saying. Plus, Master Shake and Eric Cartman are my heroes. They are morally and ethically bankrupt, but they are able to say what they truly think, and that is something I wish I could do sometimes. And even though they are the most selfish characters in television history, they are both victims of HORRIBLE upbringing, and I can't help but wonder what they'd be like in different surroundings.

Finally, let me say this about the movie BORAT:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Oh man, I laughed until I about threw up.

What most people (kids) who watched this movie and thought it was stupid did not realize was the fact that the people he was talking to were all caught completely unawares and the 99 percent of the flick was unscripted. Yes it was disgusting, vile, sexist, and racist, but that was the point Sash Cohen was trying to make. He is Jewish, and anti-semitism still runs rampant in the world today. People are sexist, racist, and horribly caught up in their images and pre-conceived, ethnocentric notions of what is right and what is wrong. The old guy at the rodeo, the crowd of rodeo who applauded at Borat's hideously offensive and bloodthirsty statement of what should happen in Iraq.....the group of frat guys saying that slavery is good while they were completely drunk......wow. They are now suing him because "that's not really how they are."

BULLCRAP.

Michael Richards and his N-word rant at an LA Comedy Club last week. Mel Gibson's "The Jews are the Cause of all the Wars in the World" drunken performance for an audience of his arresting officers back in August. The frat guys here. All of them claiming that what they said "wasn't really them." I tend to think the opposite. How a person behaves in calm, when all is going well can be a front. When people are scared, frightened, placed in great stress, angered, or intoxicated, that reveals the true THEM.

You go, BORAT. Asking the question why is female nudity okay but male nudity not? (not that I'm condoning nudity in films- it's not needed 99% of the time.) Why do we believe the way we do? The film didn't answer those questions, but it sure did make me think. I would not recommend this movie to anyone who is easily offended or is younger than 17/18. Seriously.

But then again, maybe they are the ones who need to see it the most.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! And Happy Holidays!

I'll make up my Christmas list for you all to plan my gifts soon!

2006-11-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm alive. What follows is a shell of it's original form. I'm SO TICKED. I wrote a 1400 word post in about 40 minutes. Somehow the computer lost it and what remains below is all that is left. So enjoy. I'm too ticked to re-do it.

I have just been so extremely busy...torn between school, Scholar's Bowl, my wife and daughter, and finally, my college class. Wow, do I have a lot of homework. And this is just a six hour class! We meet every Wednesday night from 5 until 9....and we stay for every single minute of it. We have a massive group presentation due on December 6.....and I am pretty worried about it. Not because it will be hard to present- I got over my nerves of being in front of people YEARS ago- but because we don't know what we're going to talk about at this point. Even though I gripe about being in this class, I really enjoy it while I'm there, and oddly enough, I'm in a better mood afterward than I am before. I guess it is the comraderie of people sharing a tough experience. Groups of people in extreme situations tend to bond together, like the survivors of 9/11, or military platoons from wars and battles and what-not. It's ridiculous to compare Dr. Lipka and Dr. LeTendre's class to anything so dreadful or noble, but after you've handed in a structured abstract paper on a 40 page empirical research journal article for the fifth time and it STILL ISN'T RIGHT, you still appreciate the struggle. We all have to go through it, and we all breathe a collective sigh when papers get handed back with the beloved "Meets Expectations" stamped on the cover. Once this class is over, you can bet your bottom dollar that we'll be throwing a party....a BIG party. Everyone is invited.

Except members of the Denver Broncos.

I hate those guys.

Which brings me to my next point- Thursday night is the first ever Thanksgiving game to be hosted by the Kansas City Chiefs. I am very excited to be going- I always thought a Thanksgiving game with a national audience would be an amazing atmosphere- though cold and loud, amazing......and I'm sure it will be. But I have to question why some people think that because they have tickets to a game they have the right to be drunk, foulmouthed buttholes? There is a darkheaded guy two rows above u

2006-10-08T18:59:00.000-07:00

In a genuinely hilarious moment at my house today, I learned a valuable lesson: Don't watch the Kansas City Chiefs with two cranky babies in the room. And my daughter Audrey taught me this lesson.

Our cousins Dustin and Kelsey came over with their daughter Olivia, who was born 9 days after Audrey. Neither of them were particularly happy, although Olivia had FINALLY managed to fall asleep. Audrey wanted no part of a nap, and was making us pay for having the AUDACITY to try to make her sleep.

It was during the fourth quarter of the Chiefs-Cardinals game. The Chiefs were backed up deep inside their own territory with a third and 8 and just over 2 minutes to go. Natalie was holding Audrey on her lap, letting her play with the remote control to the television. Big mistake.

The pivotal play in the entire game was the screen pass from Damon Huard to Larry Johnson. As LJ caught the ball and started to race down the sidelines, Audrey picked THAT EXACT MOMENT to hit the channel button. The screen switched to static just as we were all getting excited. We all yelled "HEY!" at the same time, which scared Audrey and caused her to jack herself in the face with the remote control, hurting her pretty bad. She dropped the remote as the combined cacophony of loud television static, Audrey's ear-piercing scream, and me frantically hollering for Natalie to fix the remote. She just thrust it in my face as Audrey howled in pain. I fixed the remote and clicked the channel back in time for the camera to show LJ's motionless body laying facefirst on the 10 yard line.

Dustin said, "I think he's dead."

Little did we know that he had been viciously face-masked by Antrelle Rolle. Butthead.

Oh well. From now on, no more Audrey-remote control during CHiefs games. I will update this with pics from the day, including pics of the two girls BEFORE they got all cranky.

PEACE!

2006-10-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

Audrey in her Chiefs outfit!
Audrey is the spitting image little clone of Natalie! My folks call her "Little Natalie."

2006-09-29T09:24:00.000-07:00

2006-09-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

Here are the latest and greatest of me, Little Britches, and Natalie.

We took her to her first ever football game and had her picture taken with the Titan! We also had a little cool outfit on her. PLUS, I love the photo that we took while she was eating her new favorite food, sweet potatoes. Man they are NASTY.

2006-09-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

What a dork I am!

My two favorite girls!

2006-09-02T17:51:00.000-07:00

All is well in the house of Fletcher!

Except for this last week when I was at our second golf tournament (which we won), and I just got DRILLED by a shanked 7 iron shot by my own cousin Paige in the side of the head. I dropped like a sack of rocks. But I am okay, and a little wiser for the wear!

PEACE!

2006-08-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest from our visit to KC to see Natalie's side of the family.

2006-08-21T04:19:00.000-07:00

Fantasy Football is back, baby!

I hosted the 2006 edition of the Groin Pull Classic League at my house yesterday afternoon. 12 of the 14 team members showed up. It was a good time. After a few squabbles about scoring, the drafting began.

I ended up with a solid team. I really don't have any holes. I'm weak at QB everyone started picking QB's extremely early. However, I did land Reggie Bush in the second round, amazingly enough, and that alone made my draft for me. It's a keeper league, and I get to keep 3 players. I already know who I'm keeping for next season- Ronnie Brown, Reggie Bush, and Antonio Gates.

We'll see what happens.....as every Sunday I'll be checking the stats for updates to see how my team is doing. And you, the lucky readers, will be able to read how I do.

NOTE: Days win I lose, the posts will be much happier and upbeat then when my evil players let me down!

2006-08-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

Twas a sad morning.......we had to take Audrey to the babysitter all day for the first time since Natalie and I both reported to our respective school districts for the first day of school. School actually starts Wednesday, but we have two Inservice days (the equivalent of 2 eight-hour prostate exams.)

Anyway, Natalie had a rough go of this morning. I did okay, but only because I know she's in good hands with Peggy (the babysitter) and I'll get to see her again this evening. We were really blessed this summer- we got to spend a LOT of time with her. We saw every new change- each new development. Like last week she first started to kinda-laugh. I'm not sure what that means, but now when you act like you're gonna bite her belly when she's on her back she gives a high pitched shriek that kinda sounds like a laugh. Hence, the kinda-laugh.

Well, I'm off to make some lesson plans.

Go Titans!

And Gorillas!

And Sooners!

And Chiefs!

2006-07-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

I finally won!

After buying approximately 342347328954 Route 44 Diet Dr. Peppers with Diet Cherry syrup in them, I won a yellow-striped straw in Sonic's "Luck of the Straw" game. That gets me a $10 gift card that I will receive in 4-6 weeks, by which time I will have forgotten about it.

Stupid games. I get addicted to them, like when McDonald's runs their Monopoly game. I never got enough pieces to challenge, and I still have NEVER met anyone who actually won. Natalie thinks they are all a scam, and I was inclined to agree with her until this morning when I opened my lucky straw. I beat the odds, baby!

(The odds of winning, according to the official rules, are 1 in 383.)

Bite me, Odds Gods!

2006-07-16T09:11:00.000-07:00

Well here are the latest and greatest of everybody's favorite girl- Audrey!

She loves the new swimming pool and is slowly learning how to make splashes, as you can see above! She loves looking at herself in the mirror! Also she just got to see her Great-Great-Grandma Sylvia. How many kids can say they still have 2 great-great grandparents, 4 great grandmas, 1 great grandpa, 3 grandpas, and both grandmas!

But the sad thing is that My grandfather, my mom's dad, Larry McCay, is facing the end of a struggle with Alzheimer's. A crueler disease will never be found. We all love you very much, Grandpa. You will never read this, but you know that everyone is with you in person, thoughts, and prayers. I never got to get a picture of Audrey with Grandpa Larry. But this I know- she would have loved you too. AND I know that it won't be long until you are playing with all your animals in Heaven. You won't be weak anymore. YOu'll be strong again.

And THAT I'm thankful for.

2006-07-07T17:16:00.000-07:00

2006-07-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

Prettiest Baby EVER!!!!!!!

2006-06-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

Something just happened to me that REALLY ticked me off, and it shouldn't have, because it really wasn't that important. I just ordered two drinks at Sonic for my wife and me. The total was $3.18, I gave the greaseball (does he not wash his hair?) $3.20. He just said, "Have a nice day," and took off.

He stiffed me two cents! TWO CENTS! Since the title of my blog is My Two Cents, that irked me! He just assumed that I was giving him two cents! What made him assume I wanted to give him anything?

Most of you will read this and say, "What a cheapskate."

Yeah, maybe so.

But doggone it, that made me mad.

I normally don't tip at Sonic. What is the point? They grab my bag inside, walk it twenty feet to me outside, take my money, and go back inside. Whoop-tee-darn-doo. I used to pump heads (that means pumping out the chemical toilets, you perverts) on large boats at the Yacht club in Michigan, and that was so disgusting I about gagged, and guess how often I got tipped by the multi-millionaires whose poop I was hosing out?

Very little. So I am not going to weep for the Sonic-onians.

I will make allowances on certain occasions. If it is REALLY hot or cold outside and they're extremely busy, or if they're having to walk in the pouring rain or sleet to bring me my food, I'll throw in a little something extra. In my more intemperate youth, I am ashamed to admit, we'd often go to Sonic in a pouring storm and park at the FURTHEST out parking spot just to make a couple girls we hated have to get soaked bringing it to us. That was cruel, I know. But that was a long time ago.

Anyway, if I'm going to sue Sonic on North Main Street in Joplin for two cents. I'm going to have to find a VERY cheap lawyer.

2006-06-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

Long time no post!

Hope everyone had a great Father's Day! I did....my wife gave me great news.

We're gonna have another baby!

Okay, just kidding. I would have had a stroke if it were true, and instead of you reading this ridiculous post, instead you'd be reading my obituary in the newspaper. I love my daughter very much, she is truly an amazing being God has put into my life, but I still am trying to figure her out, and I cannot imagine having another little one so close to Audrey in age! I'd do NOTHING but change poopy diapers!

Speaking of which, Audrey gave me a great Father's Day present.....I was feeding her Sunday morning before church and she spit up all over my shirt. THEN while I was changing her poopy diaper she kicked her legs and got poop all over me....THEN while I was cleaning that up I had her little hiney up in the air and she projectile peed on me too!

WOO HOO!

She loves me.

But here is cool news- we're getting a swimming pool! A 27 foot above ground pool in our backyard....we're also putting in a privacy fence so I don't scare the neighbors with my incredible farmer's tan and bloated body! If they see me laying outside on a chair they might mistake me for a beached beluga and they might start throwing salt water on me and bringing in a helicopter to airlift me out. That would be highly embarassing, like the time Homer Simpson went sliding down the funnel slide at a water park and got stuck in the tunnel...heh heh, they had to disassemble the entire thing to unwedge him!

We won't have the pool for a few weeks yet, but I look forward to doing what I did when I grew up- summers sitting by the pool, reading great novels, grilling burgers, and studying for class (I'm taking 6 hours in July. I might not survive!)

Later, peeps. Hopefully I will be a little darker come school time!

2006-06-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

Guess who went swimming Saturday night????

Also, we had no clear cut winner in the first ever annual Fletcher-McCay Butt Races last Wednesday evening between my uncle Lennie and my brother. I would have entered the race, but had to pull out at the last second because of a strained left glute. My trainer says I'll be on the shelf for at least a month, but I should be back in top (or should I say "bottom") form by the Heinie Five Hundred.

Finally, get well Papa Larry. We all love you!

2006-06-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

Ain't I cool???? says Audrey.

2006-05-22T04:28:00.000-07:00

Congratulations graduates of 2006. It has been a fun two years with you. I'll miss you!

Here's a poem that reminds me of graduation:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue
Why won't they turn the stinking volume up on the
microphones for the band and music at Graduation?

I wrote it myself. Pretty sweet, huh.

2006-05-14T16:34:00.000-07:00

Just saw the most interesting thing - or sad and embarassing, I should say, that is a total indictment on the whole redneck white-trash sub-culture of America.

I live next door to Carl Junction High SChool. Today was their graduation ceremony, and right after the ceremony, in the big field that doubles as a parking lot during big school events, a massive fight broke out between two yokels who obviously had been there to see their cousin/brother/sister/dad (whatever, their family trees obviously don't branch), just beating the tar out of each other next to a Mercedes Benz. Nice.

A large man tried to break it up, but was then assaulted by two people who were yelling for him to back the $#$#$ up, because they should "Settle it." Right.

Turns out these people were one of the boys' PARENTS.

Then a couple of other morons came running up and threw a couple of punches before FINALLY the cops showed up and the crowd dispersed.

So much for higher education.

2006-05-11T07:18:00.000-07:00

Well I got a major surprise in class yesterday during third block! Brooke Crismas, Heather Loyd, and Erin Jameson got a new podium for me made by Brooke's dad, who is a woodworker.

Check it out! I am very proud of it, and was left totally speechless when they brought it in to replace my totally HOOPTY podium.

You know, every now and then I go through my usual "Why am I doing this?" routine, and this....this helps to validate what I do.

Thank you girls, and I'll miss you in class.

2006-05-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

Last night I put our cat Sydney outside when I got home from the golf tournament. I forgot to bring him inside before the storms started. At 5:30 am I got up to make Audrey a bottle when I happened to glance out the back door. There was Sydney, standing on his back two legs, pawing at the glass as though he were on fire escaping a pack of wild wolves. I opened the door and he practically fell inside, mewling like crazy and sprinting to his room to eat and drink.

As soon as I stopped laughing at his pitiful state, I felt bad.

Heh heh.

2006-05-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more relaxing than stepping in your daughter's room to watch her sleep before heading to bed yourself.

I love her.

2006-05-05T04:52:00.000-07:00

The TRUTH shall set you free.

This year's senior speeches had the theme "The Search for Truth."

The end result: A whole lot of truth and tears (even from me.)

More later. Have to make a bottle.

2006-05-02T19:55:00.000-07:00

Just saw United 93. Extremely powerful film, and honestly, I'm not ready to review it yet. I am ready to comment that I had a great time with the seniors viewing this film- we had 27 people show up to eat at Cafe Del Rio on North Rangeline before the flick, and we had, at last count, 63 of the over 70 seniors at the 7:25 showing at the Hollywood Northstar 15 in Joplin. A special thanks to them for giving us $5.00 tickets instead of the usual $7.75. Helps in a tight budget time!

However, there were a couple of snafus. First, the manager had to come in and tell the kids to quit throwing popcorn. It was only a few doing it, but even after the manager left, they continued to do so until my wife told them to respect the manager's wishes. I take my movie watching very seriously, as I used to manage a theater and nothing is worse than dealing with complaints from angry customers about kids or people behaving rudely. So only a few idiots were being loud and obnoxious. A lot of that has to do with the environment- here they are, school kids, outside of school, where normal rules don't apply. And I have to remember that a lot of the kids in question simply have NO IDEA how to behave in public. Their parents didn't teach them, and probably have never really TAKEN them into public. Not to excuse stupidity, but maybe to enlighten a little bit.

I'm not going to spoil the end of the movie- you all know the plane crashes and everyone dies, but the ending leaves you pretty much breathless. It is extremely intense. The theater was silent, no one said a word.

That was until several morons from my group did their "slow clap" routine ripped out of NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE. Real mature, losers. Several of the other seniors were rightfully embarassed by the behavior.

However, rather than chalking it up to a sheer case of just being a butthead, I think it partially has more to do with the inability of some people to show feelings or vulnerability in any way. These kids who did the "slow clap" are also the same ones who frequently bash and make fun of the kids who, in their senior presentations, lost their composure and cried. Showing feelings in front of your friends is simply unacceptable in their barren little world. It is something they will grow out of- I remember I was in the same boat. If you feel something, ANYTHING, you get emotional, and in order to hide those emotions you automatically strike out with something sarcastic or witty, all in the name of deflecting the attention from your discomfort.

So despite the actions of a few morons, it was a great success, and once the movie actually rolled everyone was very quiet.

I'll review the movie later when I've had a chance to process it. Later, peeps.

2006-04-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

Observations:

1. Burping a baby at 3:00 in the morning is no treat. Plus, formula burps STINK so bad.

2. At 3:00 in the morning, there is nothing on TV. EVEN ON SATELLITE. All that is on is infomercials and advertisements for Girls Gone Wild. Even Disney was a paid advertisement. Didn't we pay a chunk of money to actually have something to watch when we got the dish this weekend?

3. Here is my Audrey Moment of Zen:

2006-04-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

Can somebody give me some stinking good news?

All morning I've been inundated with horrible news- kids getting shot, poor health diagnoses, kids losing files and papers.....ENOUGH! Give me something good!

So I need people to leave comments that ONLY contain good news in them.

NOW!

2006-04-26T07:20:00.002-07:00

Yesterday I finally remembered how to play golf. On the coldest, windiest nastiest day of the year, I finally put it together. Made me look like I actually knew what I was doing. Ahhh.......

Natalie kept little britches for me last night and I slept from 9:30 straight through to Dawn! It was awesome! YEE HA! I forgot what 8 hours of sleep felt like!

In other news, all of you need to keep in your hearts and minds the Kansas City Chiefs Organization. Saturday is the draft. They need a Wide Receiver, a cornerback, and a stud defensive End. Please pray that they meet these goals, because I cannot stand to watch them have another horrible defensive season.

Amen.

2006-04-26T07:20:00.001-07:00

2006-04-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

2006-04-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

There will be showers of blessing......

RAIN!!! YEEE HAW! FINALLY!

In other news, yesterday was a day of great joy and great frustration. First, the bad news. Last night was the first night that Audrey, our NOW 4 week old daughter (already going so fast) just flat out cried for no apparent reason. Actually, we're pretty sure she just had gas pains, which is a pretty big source of irritation for little ones. But she flat out WAILED last night...not so much during the late night hours, but during that critical 5 to 8 window that I like to use to wind down. No matter how I held her, what I sang to her, how I rocked her, walked her, whatever, she wouldn't stop crying. Even Natalie had a hard time getting her to quiet down. She cried the entire time between feedings, and then finally at 7:00 she settled down on Nat's chest and laid there for nearly 4 hours. Natalie was afraid to move and wake her up.

Plus I sat up with her as she was WIDE AWAKE from 12:00 until 2:30 am.

But here is the good news.

For the first time in a LONG time, we had something to watch!

Yes, we had satellite installed. Dishnetwork HD! HD!! HD!!!! I watched a few innings of the Cubs-Marlins game in HD, about a third of the Heat- Bulls NBA game in HD, even a little NASCAR roundup in HD. (I hate NASCAR AND THE NBA). But the kicker was that at 1:30 in the morning I watched...shudder....spanish major league soccer in HD.

Watching HD is like looking through a picture window into reality as it happens. I cannot WAIT to see how great football looks. Heck, I think I'd watch Celebrity nose picking if it was in HD. Paint drying in HD. I have 20 something channels of HD. Marty Stuart was playing in concert in HD. I hate Marty Stuart. I watched it anyway.

Of course, my eyes were crossing and I was teetering on the verge of falling out of my chair, but I watched until baby girl finally crashed out.

Then I woke up again at 3:30 when she woke up again, howling. It was Natalie's turn then, and I stayed the heck in bed. On red days I have to wake up at 6:00 to get everything done for class. 6:00 came VERY early. VERY early indeed.

Tonight....I get to watch SUMO wrestling in HD! I can't wait to see their big sweaty diapers clear as a bell! HD fat guys!

2006-04-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

There will be showers of blessing!

Looks like we finally will get some rain.....oh man how we need it. The more the better- keep on pouring, baby!

In other news, we figured out something great this weekend about Audrey. She is a belly-sleeper. We were having major battles every time we'd try to put her down- she simply HATES lying on her back unless she's being held. But we finally tried just putting her close to sleep on our chests, then laying her down on her belly in her crib. Viola! Sleeping Audrey! Woo-Hoo! Now it's only a 30 minute process instead of a 2 hour apocalyptic battle to put her down! Of course, we don't leave her like that, since we were practically threatened with being flayed alive if we let the baby sleep on her belly because of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), despite the fact that ever since we had her every one who's ever had a baby has told us that they put THEIR kids down on their bellies, because newborns naturally prefer to sleep in that position.

But we'll do whatever is the safest for her, although I suspect that the belly-sleeping is frowned upon because a lot of parents try to make their kids TOO comfortable and litter their cribs with blankets, pillows, stuffed toys, etc. They don't need all that stuff. Kids (Audrey especially) could sleep in a dump truck driving through a rock concert being held at a nitro glycerine plant.

OUT!

2006-04-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

Fletcher's tidbits:

My daughter is destined to be an opera star. The girl has a set of lungs on her that could fill the Rose Bowl. Boy can that girl get loud!

Senior-itis has set in BIG time for this year's graduating class. And with the weather like it was yesterday and today, who can blame them? Baxter's Golf Coach, Glen Crotts, suggested that from April until the end of the school year class should dismiss at noon. I think we should at least have elective classes in the afternoon like "Napping in Hammock 101" or "Fishing" or "Napping While Fishing."

It's coming to the annual time of year where my buddies and I geek out and go to a midnight screening. Last year it was Star Wars III, the year before that it was Spider-Man 2, the year before that it was X-men 2, the year before that, Spider-Man, ahh........good memories. This year it will be X-men 3 the night before school gets out, at 12:01 am Friday May 26. Bwahahahaha! Dorks of the world unite!

I played the worst golf in my life yesterday. I might as well have been swinging a wiffle bat instead of a golf club. I went home to my "driving range"- the practice soccer field by Carl Junction High School's baseball field and football stadium- and relaxed. I did much better.

My yard is out of control. I have two firm beliefs in my life- 1) There is a God, and I'm not him, and 2) mowing sucks. I have never mowed a yard in my life. Never have, never will. My father in law does it for us. We don't even have a lawn mower. My neighbors' boy is going to mow it for us. But right now, our yard resembles the Amazon Rain Forest. Last night I'm pretty sure I saw a band of gorillas nesting behind my back porch.

Speaking of Gorillas, I went to the PSU Spring Football game last Saturday with Juice and T-Ho. Good times. Ate at Bob's Grill. VERY good times.

Finally, at our Easter Service at church last Sunday, we did a Living Lord's Supper, in which 13 men take the role of one of the disciples and Jesus as portrayed by Leonardo Da Vinci. I was Andrew, the bearded fellow on the end holding his hands up like he was being mugged. Let's just say that for 21 minutes we all had to remain perfectly still, which is much more difficult than it sounds. Plus, I was the last disciple to get to pick out an outfit. There was nothing left at all except for scraps and random bits of clothing. So Disciple Andrew looked like a Hurricane Katrina refugee. I was SCRAGGY, man. SCRAGGY. I wore the same outfit Quasimodo wore in the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rumor has it that we all looked good- I haven't seen the tape yet or any pictures. I look forward to it. St. Andrew the Tall and SCRAGGY!

2006-04-17T06:45:00.000-07:00

Sydney Kong

I was looking on my computer at a review of the new "King Kong" DVD that came out two weeks ago, and my cat was sitting in my lap staring at the screen with much interest. I think the picture of Kong standing astride the Empire State Building, desperately swinging at attacking airplanes, has inspired my cat Sydney to imitate Kong.

Guess what his new hobby is?

The darn cat has been using the railing on our back porch to leap on the house. I've caught him up there 3 different times. The first time he was scared to jump down on his own and I had to reach up and pull him down. Got a few scratches for that adventure. Now he's overcome his fear of heights and he just jumps down on his own.

I better not be around when I watch The Lion King. Next Thing I know he'll be wandering off to the woods, and instead of bringing home a warthog and a Meerkat, he'll bring home a groundhog and a chipmunk, then they'll attack me.

2006-04-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

This is the beginning of a post that will explain why golf is one of the greatest games on earth and one of the dumbest at the same time.

Reasons why golf is great:

1. It is hard. So hard that when you make a good shot, you really feel like you accomplished something.

Why golf is stupid:

1. It is hard. So hard that unless you spend an inordinate amount of time and money playing the game, you will never get better. There are very, very few natural golf players, primarily because the tools they give you to accomplish a relatively inane task (putting a ball into a hole) are vastly inappropriate for the job.

Why golf is great:

1. It is quiet. A well played round of golf is a nice, relaxing way to spend the afternoon (or all day). There is no loud Rap music meant to "hype" me up to play golf, no screaming crowds unless you make a nice hit and are a PGA tour member, and whistles or coaches screaming at you.

Why golf is stupid:

1. It is quiet. There has never been a grimmer, more somber game ever invented (except maybe for chess, in which ultra-nerdy announcers commentating on a game will wet themselves over a seeminly innocuous move such as "He moved his knight's pawn to Bishop rank file 3! That is a grievous error, and the crowd looks for Yuri Oskori to hang himself after such a dunder-headed mistake!") There is no cheering. You must not talk. You must not breathe, no matter how far away from the "action" you may be. Tiger Woods got all poopy at the Masters the other day when someone on a tee box 100 yards away happened to drive the ball at the same time he did. The other player's PING-sound messed Tiger up, he said, and that was the excuse he used for shanking a 300 yard drive into the next county. Boo-fricking-hoo.

Why golf is great:

1. It is slow. It forces you to concentrate. Every shot counts. If you walk the course, you have time to clear your mind and focus on the task at hand.

Why golf is stupid:

1. It is SLOW. Watching paint dry can be more exciting to the outsider. Watching some players play (high school and up) is like watching a 40 hour documentary on the mating ritual of the three toed sloth. They get behind the ball, look at the hole, take three practice swings, pull out another club, take three more practice swings, then adress the ball. Aim. Take a practice swing. Re-aim. Reach down and pluck the leave ten inches in front of the ball that could not in ANY WAY affect their shot from the earth. Bend over, settle into their stance. Bend their knees. Re-aim. Finally, they swing. The ball goes three feet because they topped it, and the process starts all over again. No sport should take 6 hours to perform an average of 90 swings of the club. No way. I have ADHD when it comes to golf, because honestly after 9 holes, I'm bored and ready to do something else. A nice round of golf for me should take 3 hours, possible less. But not golfers. Nope.

Why golf is great:

1. It is a great game to play with friends. Even friends who are terrible golfers. Several hours on the golf course is a great way to catch up on news (gossip), to reminesce, and to just play in a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere.

Why golf is stupid:

1. It is a terrible game to play with strangers. Put a random group of people together on the golf course, especially men, (this rule does not apply to women, who can have fun no matter where they are doing no matter what), and they will immediately go stone silent and puff their chests out. It is time to go to work. It is time to be serious. Golf amongst strangers, especially rivals, is a bloodthirsty, cutthroat affair. Now to be honest, this rule doesn't apply ALL the time, but a great deal of the time, at least as it comes to SEK League coaches. For some people a round of golf is a test of manhood, as silly as that may sound. To me a more logical test of manhood would be to wrestle a bear, or engage a band of ninjas in hand to hand combat or to climb a sheer-rock faced mountain with out any rappelling gear. Nope, to these guys your validation as a man depends on how far you hit a little white ball. Every guy on the first tee takes about a million practice swings, gets up, and swings as hard as they possibly can to see who can outdrive each other. There are some big hitters in the league, there are some finesse players, and then there is me. So when these pissing contests (my blog, I'll say it if I want to, because that is what it is) begin, career golfers tend to frown upon beginners, forgetting that they too were newbies at one time.

Why golf is great:

1. The clubs, man! The clubs! All different colors, shapes, sizes.....you could literally spend ten hours a day reading about new clubs, new technologies which allow the creation of golf balls which, if hit properly, could reach orbit, deposit an independent satellite manned with three astronauts and a monkey named Otto, then return for a soft two bounce landing on the green AFTER it stops to pose for a photo with Tiger Woods at Augusta National. I only have a cheap set of clubs, because Natalie said I can't buy new ones until I can hit the crappy ones I have. Besides, as Kyle Anderson told me, he could hit the tar out of his $19 Wal-Mart Driver, but when he bought a $400 Cobra, he couldn't keep it in the fairway. (That's a phrase I like to think sounds dirty but isn't. "Keeping it in the fairway." Heh heh.) Newer expensive clubs can mask some problems with more forgiving sweet-spots, but they can also make your mistakes catastrophic.

Why golf is stupid:

1A. The clubs, man! The clubs! I did an ebay search for golf clubs for sale this morning, and the search results generated 6,626 items for sale. I looked at a few of them- you know, honestly, to the average golfer, one club is just as good as another. But it's not about the club- it's about the STATUS, man, the STATUS. Just as a guy pulling into our school parking lot in a new 2006 Mustang GT Convertible is sure to get some oohs and ahhs, a guy with a new Titleist 100000 cc Mega-Death Howitzer Fairway Raper driver is sure to have people flocking to him, begging to touch the club, hold the club, take practice swings with the club, and, if it is his birthday, bar mitzvah, or a national holiday, actually HIT A BALL with the club. Instant 15 minutes of fame. When I'm with the other coaches swinging sets of clubs that are far more valuable than my car, I always feel a little inadequate pulling out my set of "CrapMasters." I shouldn't, because when I hit my clubs well I hit them just as well as those fancy-pants guys.

1B. The balls, man, the balls. There are more brands of golf balls than you can choke a whale with. The differences in the balls vary, including weight, dimple distribution, 2 piece and 3 piece constuction, soft feel, hard feel, long, hi spin, lo-spin, side-spin, blah blah blah. Now, to really good golfers, this really can make a difference. Absolutely it can. But I just nearly die of laughter when I see some of our high school golfers ramble on about the attributes of each ball and then proceed to whack the ball all over the course. It doesn't matter a single lick at this level. Not a lick.

1C. The clothes, man, the clothes. Why in the world are you required to dress up to play a game? That is retarded. You could argue, I guess, that it is no different than baseball uniforms, but the requirement most courses have that all shirts have collars is simply ridiculous. WHO CARES if there are collars on a shirt? Not this man. I could play in over-alls, hiking boots, and a wifebeater T-shirt if it wouldn't set off the fashion alarm of every sensible dresser in the county.

Why golf is great:

1. It is exclusive. It is kinda nice to know that when you go out to play golf you will only be joined by people who WANT to play golf. No crying babies, no screaming old people, no REALLY drunk folks (some regular drunks, but generally no obnoxious drunks wanting to start fights).....no mall rats, etc......kinda nice.

Why golf is stupid:

1. It is exclusive. Golf is (and let's face it) a middle to upper class white guy's sport. In a financially depressed area like we live, your average lower income guy or gal is not going to drop the $20 on greens fees to spend an afternoon playing golf when they can instead grab their pole, dig some worms, buy a six pack of the beverage of their choice, and spend several hours by a pit, creek, pond, river, or fish hatchery. The only way I get to play golf in the off season is to make an EFFORT to save my pennies and pony up for the greens fees. The golfing community is a tight knit yet welcoming one; however, it is still less than inclusive.

I really like the game- don't get me wrong about that. But there are lots of things I DO NOT like about it, like golf tournaments (at least the ultra competitive ones- but that is my view on everything- once you get ultra-competitive, it loses the fun.) Most golf tournaments I've coached and witnessed, you have 54 VERY GRIM and angry boys moping around the course in a constant sour mood. They may be happy when it's over, but is 10 minutes of happiness worth five and a half hours of grimacing? I don't think so. Other sports have moments of celebration, yelling, a way to let off steam after you make a particularly great play. In golf, unless you are willing to risk a disqualification, you must pretty much remain near-silent as you play. There's a reason golf claps are quiet people. Hard to get excited with golf claps.

Oh well. Time to get ready for a golf tournament!

2006-04-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

My sister's truck exploded Sunday during Church.

I am not making this up.

Well, okay, maybe I'm making a LITTLE bit of it up. The truck didn't actually explode, but it did catch fire, burst into massive flames, and melt the entire aluminum engine into the pavement of the Baxter Springs High School Parking Lot, which is where our church currently meets until we finish our own building north of Baxter Springs.

A little kid noticed it was aflame and called 911. Good thing the truck wasn't parked near anything else. That could have been bad.

In other news, Audrey was awake nearly ALL night. She wasn't crying or being overly fussy, she just has her nights and days completely turned around. She is asleep all night and awake all day. I took the 8 to 10 shift before I finally had enough. Natalie took over after that since I had to get up for work and she is still on maternity leave. Little girl was still awake, despite the fact that Natalie normally nearly gets her to sleep automatically every single time within a few minutes. Normally when I hold her of an evening time, in her mind it automatically means "PLAYTIME."

So I told her the first story in a multi-part series called "Jedidiah Fletcher: Indian Killer." Very un-PC, but still good because he is the Indian killer who doesn't actually kill Indians. He is their friend, and his name in Cherokee means "Flying Buzzard" because of his non-handsome looks and his immense size. Last night's adventure was called "Jedidiah Fletcher and the Silver Canyon." I made it up on the spot, and if I must say, it was pretty doggone good.

I get the inspiration for these stories because they are the tales that my dad used to tell us kids on long trips to make us shut up. My favorite story by my dad though was "The Chicken With the Shiny Hiney." It was about a little chicken who got his rear stuck in a feather plucker and ran all over the place with a shiney hiney.

Hey, when you're 7, you'll laugh at anything.

I love my dad.

2006-04-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what day it is right now.

In fact, I'm not even sure who I am right now.

People told me this would happen, but I didn't really believe them. After all, who would forget ME?

Well, as of two weeks ago today, my name is no longer Chad Fletcher. My new legal name (just finished the paperwork last night) is Audrey's Dad.

But that sits fine with me!

I have TONS of things to write about, I simply have not had the time to write them. From Friday night's Golf Tournament that Wouldn't End, to the Tornado that narrowly missed us Thursday, to Prom (in which I wore tights....tights!), to the nearly endless waves of people and visitors to see Audrey.....I am pooped.

But back to the grindstone!

2006-04-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

This morning I left my baby girl at home to come to work for the first time.

It was so HARD!

I rocked her this morning, savoring each second, staring at her little fingers, her toes, watching with amazement as her little face showed each emotion in vast library of feelings- and then, at 6:55, I walked her to the bedroom, placed her in the pack and play, kissed my wife goodbye, and silently tip-toed out the door. I took a second as I sat in my car and said a little prayer for them both.

Then my car was dead and I had to jump start it for like the 10000000th time. Stupid car.

2006-04-01T23:09:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah...it was April Fool's. Ha ha. I'm still just as poor as ever!

Right now there is a MASSIVE storm outside. It's 2:05 am. THere is no way I can sleep. None at all. Not with the thunder....and the lightning.....each one makes me wince, because I'm scared Audrey will be scared and wake up.

I go back to school on Monday- is it over already? Sniff, sniff. Oh well, I get to show more pictures off, PLUS I get to set my new favorite picture frame up at school!

2006-04-01T03:41:00.000-08:00

The UNTHINKABLE HAS HAPPENED!

Last night on a whim I bought a lottery ticket to play the Powerball, figuring that is was my lucky WEEK with Audrey being born!

Guess who is a MILLIONAIRE!

331.3 million dollars!

HA HAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHHAH

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

2006-03-31T07:18:00.000-08:00

So sleepy.......Audrey did NOT want to go to sleep last night....can barely keep my eyes open.....must stay awake....fjkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

2006-03-30T17:30:00.000-08:00

As I'm sitting here typing this, my heart is absolutely bursting with love for the two girls sleeping in my bedroom. Audrey, sleeping peacefully after a nice feeding, blissfully listening to some light tunes emanating from her bassinet. Natalie, catching a well deserved nap, hurting physically in ways I cannot even understand, bravely facing the challenges that lie ahead. I'm so proud, so amazed, so awestruck.

It's nothing that literally billions of other parents haven't gone through, but here is a difference. I'm 32. Here in the midwest, that pretty much makes me ELDERLY when it comes to the age to start having babies. Many of my friends already have kids older than mine, and even though I understood that they had kids, I didn't understand exactly what that MEANT. The pain, the anguish. My younger sister and brother both had kids go straight into the NCU unit (neo-natal care). At the time, I knew they were scared, but I didn't UNDERSTAND how deep they were scared, how frightened they were.

Now, I do.

Right now, I'm scared to death for my child. She is perfectly safe right now in my house, but I'm still scared to death.

As a teacher, I often gripe about how stupid I think some parents are, naively turning a blind eye to their child's transgressions or short comings. I've gotten furious with some parents who thought their child was the new messiah-on-earth.

Now, I understand it. I don't always agree with it, but now I realize how a parent can feel that way. Right now, my baby girl is perfect. She's not, but to me, she is.

I hope I can keep that in mind when I deal with parents in the future.

2006-03-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

The single most amazing thing happened Monday- we had a baby girl!

Audrey Elizabeth
1:43 pm
21 inches long
6 lbs 7.6 oz

A head full of dark hair...and here's the kicker....

we have the same wierd pinky toe on her left foot! When the nurse took her footprints, only four toes showed up, same as what happens with me!

THE MISSING TOE!

I'll write more later, but needless to say, NOTHING can prepare you for that rush of emotions....tears, joy, IMMENSE pride.....when she came out I just wept, she was so beautiful. The doctor's first words after announcing that she was a baby girl (we already knew, but sometimes accidents happen!) were "She has no butt!"

She is so skinny! But perfect!

We just brought home about an hour and a half ago, and after Natalie nursed her, she's asleep in her crib. Just beautiful.

Sydney, our cat, doesn't seem to be taking it very well. He's completely wigged out, but he's pretty much left her alone.

Natalie is very sore because of some labor complications, but other than that she is a beautiful mother doing her best to take care of this child, who definitely knows how to wail!

I love Natalie so much, and I'm so proud of what she went through to have this baby. Every image of Monday is imprinted in stone on my mind....and nothing, NOTHING, will ever take it away. Here are some photos of Audrey! (the nurses took these, who by the way were outstanding, including Carrie Casey (Emmetts mom) and Deann Kellogg (Zane's mom) and lots of others, including Nancy, who helped guide us through the birth process....good grief, how do they do it?

Daddy and Daughter!

2006-03-27T02:51:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is. The biggest day of my married life. Baby day!

It's 4:45 am, I've been wide awake laying in bed for what seems like FOREVER. Nat is taking a shower, and she popped right out of bed when the alarm went. So you KNOW she's excited.

I'm so excited it hurts to even think about it.

I'm gonna be a dad!

I won't be able to update this after it happens until we get home from the hospital, which could be Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll try, though.

For my students reading this, have a good time at school. Seniors, you're almost done. Congratulations, now make it down the home stretch in a good manner. I'm proud of you all.

PEACE!

2006-03-26T06:06:00.000-08:00

Baby Watch, day 7.

Didn't get a chance to post yesterday because of the funeral and the fact that I slept in later than normal. It was my last chance FOREVER.

Audrey isn't here yet. She comes tomorrow. Hard to believe, the moment is here. I will probably obsess about it all day today, and I'm sure sleep will be at a premium tonight. I'll probably lie awake all night waiting for the 4:30 alarm to hit.

I can't wait!

In other news, there are only 4 people who can win any money in our pick 'em pool. 4 of us are tied with 40 points. I am guaranteed money if Villanova loses. (or Connecticut wins). If Nova wins, I'm out of luck. Of course, if Boston College knew how to defend inbounds plays I would have already sewn up first place in this pick'em and rolled out with $110. Stupid Eagles.

I won't post again until Audrey is here, and I'll have some pictures to help tell the story!

Say a prayer for us, and for Natalie, and especially little Audrey. Thanks.

2006-03-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

Baby Watch, Day 5.

No baby yet. In fact, Natalie is doing so well you'd swear she wasn't 9 months pregnant at all. The plan is still Monday. I'm thinking of putting Natalie on a high impact aerobics schedule for the next day or so.

Yeah, she'll go for that.

In other news, I can't pick NCAA teams. I can barely pick my nose.

Last night I watched as 3 of the four teams I needed to win BLEW IT. West Virginia forgot how to play 3 point defense. Duke forgot that they were Duke and were SUPPOSED TO WIN. Bradley just got outclassed. So tonight, to have any prayer of winning the money, I need Boston College, Florida, and Connecticut to win. UConn is almost a given, and in fact, if they lose, doesn't hurt me at all because EVERYONE predicted them to make the final four. But Boston College is a MUST for me. Simply a MUST-HAVE.

I'm tied for first in both pick'em pools I'm in. However, I'm running out of chances to make points. Only 2 of my Final Four teams remain alive.

But you know what? Even if I don't win, it was nice to see KU LOSE in the first round AGAIN.

2006-03-23T06:37:00.000-08:00

Baby Watch, Day 4

No baby yet. But we DID go to the doctor yesterday, and officially set the date for Audrey's arrival for Monday. We have to go to the hospital at 6 am. They will induce labor shortly thereafter if she hasn't come by then. So that is good to know. Natalie is still doing fine, I reckon- and she looks better than ever. I have a beautiful wife, who will make a beautiful mom.

Sydney came back as well. He's sitting on my lap right now as I type this. He was out all night and then came back yesterday morning as we were leaving. He hasn't moved from the sofa or his supper dish yet, except to sit on my lap. Silly kitty.

My uncle Fred died this morning after a long bout with cancer. I was thankful to see him go- he went out the way he wanted to, surrounded by friends and family in his sleep. He was a former state representative who served his country well. He used to be roommates with former Kansas Governor and Director of the National Archives John Carlin, whom I met in DC several years ago. What a treat that was. I wasn't that close to Uncle Fred, but my dad was, and he's pretty broken up about it.

ENough downer stuff. Let me talk to you about something that amazes me.

CAN THEY POSSIBLY MAKE KIDS' STUFF ANY HARDER TO PUT TOGETHER? It took both Natalie AND me to install our base in the car to Audrey's car seat. Incredible. Simply incredible. It was tougher than building a nuclear weapon.

LOST- I'm on episode 18 of season One. I'm hooked- incredibly hooked. I'm also 2/3 of the way through GRAY'S ANATOMY Season One. I actually like that show, except for the lead character, who is an emotional cripple who is VERY UNFIT to be a doctor. She has the knowledge, but the has the people skills of the Unabomber.

Hope you kids are enjoying Winter Break!

2006-03-22T06:12:00.000-08:00

Baby Watch, Day 3

No baby yet. However, we go to the doc's at 9:45 this morning. We'll learn more then. Natalie is still feeling really good, she's just very stopped up with a cold she caught at school. She didn't get it from me!

Also, my cat went outside yesterday afternoon and still hasn't come back. He's never been outside that long, and since it was cold outside, I'm really worried. I can't find him anywhere.

Funny how a cat that I didn't want and didn't like at first can make me so upset. Stupid cat. I hope he comes back. I miss him.

On the plus side, I saw V for Vendetta. It was good. More on that later in class.

2006-03-21T09:34:00.001-08:00

Baby Watch, Day 2.

Natalie is hanging in there with the grace of a true champion. I made her a BIG breakfast this morning of pancakes, eggs, and hash browns. No baby yet.

She's asleep right now- she's gotten to sleep in the last couple of days.

I should be soaking up all the sleep I can muster, but right now it is hard. I keep thinking about everything that will have to be done- everything that I need to plan, the people I need to call......wow.

Oh yeah, how about the weather?

Mid 80s all through February, and then now on our week off, as I write this, it is 36 degrees outside.

Remember my previous comments about Mother Nature?

Double that.

2006-03-21T09:34:00.000-08:00

2006-03-20T07:21:00.000-08:00

The Baby Watch is On.

We haven't gone to the hospital yet.....AND Natalie hasn't started the urge to clean or "nest" yet....but she's coming. I feel it. I know it. We're off to take back the last of the remaning double-gifts (diaper genie, etc.) Wal-Mart is our friend today- I will be there for a very long time!

She'll be here soon!

I did have a dream last night that a guy I used to hang out with was having a son....but the person carrying his baby was a MAN. He was pregnant with boobs and everything. That was odd.

Oh, By the way, who does KU play this weekend?

Oh that's right.

NO ONE!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

ps. Yes, I know OU lost....but OU fans knew we weren't going to make any noise in the Big Dance. So don't come taunting me with the same "OU lost too!" nonsense.

2006-03-18T04:35:00.000-08:00

ROCK.........

CHOKE........

JAYHAWK.......

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Bradley?

BRADLEY?!???

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

KU chokes away another one.....oh boy....

hahahahah.....

Bill Self should have his name changed to Bill Shelf, because
that is where his team is going to be for a whole nother year
after choking on the NCAA Stage again.

I hate KU.

How about some lame excuses why they lost?

Kansas coach Bill Self blamed his team's slow start in part on the late (9:40 p.m. EST) start time, the same broadacast window in which the Jayhawks lost to Bucknell in last year's tourney. "It's better if you can get out there early and get it over with," said Self. "But I guess CBS didn't think that would be great for their ratings." - cnnsi.com

WAAHHHH!!! WAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Crybaby Self whining about what time they had to play? Didn't Bradley have to play at the same time? WAAHHHHH!!!

What an embarassment.

2006-03-13T04:47:00.000-08:00

Long time, no post!

Been a busy two weeks, lots of stuff on my mind and on my plate as we prepare for Audrey's due date. Just two weeks from tomorrow....and things are already happening! Woo hoo!

Last night something peculiar happened, and I can laugh about it now. At the time though, I was not happy at all.

At 1:10 in the morning Nat and I were awakened by a loud banging noise that was coming from our living room. I heard it once, and just thought the cat had knocked something over (he likes to do that.) But I heard it again, and then a few seconds later, again.

We thought someone was in our house.

I don't have a gun in the house- no real ethical reason, I just don't have one. I only own a shotgun that I keep at my dad's house because the only time it gets fired is when I go out with him. But I do have a kukuri- a Nepalese assassin's blade that was crafted by the Royal bladesmith of Nepal- and it is huge.

I don't know how to actually use the thing- but it sure as heck would scare anyone I ran into with it- very Crocodile Dundee-ish.

I told Natalie to stay in bed- she didn't- and I opened our bedroom door and flipped on the hall light. What was odd is that the noises stopped when I turned on the light. I moved down the hallway and Sydney came running out like he was scared to death. I held my breath, and heard another set of crashing. Things started going through my mind- was the thief trying to rip out my cabling system from all my home theater electronic stuff? Was he trying to get to the projector mounted high on the wall?

I shouted "Whoever's in here has three seconds to get out of my house!" (I actually said some non-school appropriate things here.)

It was silent. And then, wham, the sounds happened again, this time for like five seconds.

Suddenly, my brain awoke from its slumber and put two and two together.

A large mylar-metallic helium-filled baloon had gotten loose and been drawn into the ceiling fan and was getting beaten all about.

Whew.

Scared the tar out of me. Seriously scared me. Bad.

So there went my sleep for the rest of the night- my mind began racing with scenarios of what would happen if it were a real intruder? I have a wife and a child on the way- what will I do then? I know one thing I'll do- keep my freaking cell phone in the bed room, because we had no way of calling for help at that moment had the situation been real.

But here is what got me the most- at the moment that I honestly felt someone was in the house- my ONLY concern was to get them out because Natalie was in danger. The ONLY thing. I've never felt that complete sense of a lack of self-concern- I was perfectly willing to lay down my life at that moment, to let everything go to protect someone else.

It wasn't real, and I pray to God that nothing like that ever really does happen. I also hope that if that situation ever does arise for real, I'll have the courage to protect my loved ones.

"No greater deed does a man do than to lay down his life for a friend."

2006-03-01T04:35:00.000-08:00

My back hurts.

It really, really hurts.

But sometimes you just have to take one for the team, I guess.

You see, last night I slept in the recliner in the living room, something I'd never done before.

No, I didn't get kicked out, ding dongs.

I went to bed at 10:30 only to find my wife, Natalie, who is 8 months pregnant, sprawled out all over my bed, so much so that I had nowhere to lie down and even if I did, I'd wake her up. She hasn't been sleeping well lately and had gone to bed earlier than normal last night. I don't know how a 5'6" woman can fill up an entire king sized bed. But she did.

So rather than wake her, I gathered up several blankets and slept in the recliner.

That was, until my cat Sydney deemed it necessary to do a sprawling leap from the sofa onto my crotch.

Ow.

But it was worth it. I didn't wake Natalie, and despite one cat that I sent flying across the living room at near-lightspeed, I kinda slept as well.

2006-02-22T04:45:00.000-08:00

Last night my wife and I watched the birthing video at our final baby class, replete with placenta, fluids, and baby.

My one word reaction:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHhhh!!!!!!!!!!"

2006-02-19T19:32:00.000-08:00

Well, now I'm a collegiate athlete, 15 years too late. My church team, Crossroads Christian, who I've written about before, played Messenger Christian College Friday night. The game was official- Messenger's final opponent, St. Louis Something or Another, had some major illness or something like that or tragedy or something, so we ended up on Messenger's schedule as a replacement.

Those of you who know me know that I am NOT a great athlete. I'm decent- which means that I can play every game out there well enough to look like I am a good athlete- baseball, softball, basketball, football (TOUCH- I'm made of tinfoil), bowling, tennis, lawn darts, curling, Scottish Log Tossing, the Luge, Ice Hockey, Field Hockey, Soccer, the Pole Vault, Thoroughbred Racing, Stock Car Driving, Crew Team (Rowing), Yachting, Arm Wrestling, Thumb Wrestling, Greco-Roman Wrestling, Sumo Wrestling, Professional Wrestling (ring-name: Ferret of Doom), Kung Fu, Figure Skating, Gymnastics, Rock Climbing, Paintball, Pinball, Tetherball, Raquetball, Volleyball, Rugby, mountain biking, hiking, jogging, running, speedwalking, rock-paper-scissors, and Cage fighting.

But I was never even remotely able to consider a college career in anything- I was a pretty good ballplayer my freshman year, but between my 9th and 10th grade basketball seasons, I grew six inches from 5'10" to 6'4", and I never recovered. I completely lost the ability to walk in a straight line, much less run up and down a court. It took me six years until my junior year in college to have any co-ordination, by which time I'd gained 35 pounds and lost any interest in competing.

So when the opportunity came to play in my first ever collegiate game, we jumped at the chance. Not a single player on our team played collegiate ball of any kind, although Jacob had numerous offers to play football.

Messenger, as a team, is roughly on par in terms of talent and skill level as an average 4A basketball team with no aspirations to win state. They're a bunch of non-scholarship kids playing ball as they learn their field- in most cases, ministry and missionary training. They play a tough schedule of larger universities like Avila College (who gave Pitt State a TOUGH game earlier in the year) and they hadn't had much success. So even though they're not a GREAT college team, they're still half our age; in shape, faster, and they actually had a defense and offensive scheme.

It was a full 40 minute game, replete with the shot-clock, 3 collegiate officials (including my uncle Warren Turner, who is MSSU's baseball coach), 30 second timeouts, full time outs, announcers, black-out lights, musical introductions, cheerleaders, PAID admission, the whole nine yards. It was AWESOME. It was the first time I'd even been introduced in the starting lineup for anything. I loved it.

We got the scat knocked out of us, 69-37.

We played them tight, down 13 at the half after Messenger hit 2 three-pointers in the last 30 seconds of the first half. As we trudged our way to our locker room (WE HAD A LOCKER ROOM! WITH ONE FUNCTIONING URINAL! WOO HOO!), I paused to look up into the stands at my wife Natalie. She was just grinning at me, either because she was proud of me, or because she knew I was on the verge of having an embolism. Either way, I winked at her as I knocked back about five puffs of my inhaler and plopped down on my seat.

We talked strategy, plans, schemes, and ideas. It didn't matter, we might as well have been drawing cartoon characters on the board. We were going to lose and we knew it, we just wanted to have fun and represent ourselves, our church, and our families well. And we did. We just didn't have the legs. We'd get a rebound, but we'd have spent all our energy going up for it. So when we went to jump again, we just kinda hovered an inch above the ground. It was ugly.

Messenger's inside game was non-existent- but they just smoked us from 3 point land and fast break point. If you read my blogs earlier this year about our team, my main concern was the fact that we have ZERO guardplay. None. Nobody can handle the ball at all. So they came out in a relatively agressive 1-3-1 trap zone, which of course, we could do nothing against, so we just took turns turning the ball over and failing to hustle back on defense to guard against the fast break. When they saw we couldn't handle pressure, they really tightened the screws and came out in a half court man, which stifled us unless we were able to score on penetration (which I did twice) or firing up off-balance shots and cleaning up the boards (which Jacob and Chad Bay did.) We simply were too slow to keep them from launching the three, they ended up with 8 for the game. Argh.

Our legs finally gave out with about six minutes remaining on the clock- a 16 point lead for them became 30 in a span of just over 3 minutes as we turned it over about 10000 times in a row, which they converted on.

I spent the last three minutes on the bench after I went to jump for an entry pass from Tracy Rowe, our minister, but I never left the ground. My knee buckled and I hurt my back on the same play, so I sat down. It was okay- I was exhausted and thrilled at the same time.

Messenger got a nice win to end their season with- the student body that was there had fun cheering, and the paid attendance of 104 got their money's worth, and we got a nice dinner at Cracker Barrel following the slaughter- er, game. When I got home, I took a 45 minute bath in the jacuzzi and popped 3 Advils to ease my pain.

Saturday morning, I rushed to the Conoco and bought a Joplin Globe. There, I got to see something I never thought I would see- my name in a box score under COLLEGE BASKETBALL. Chad Fletcher, 4 points. I also had about 10 rebounds and 4 assists, and I nearly killed a kid (seriously- he was out of control coming down the lane and as he passed the ball, I put my arms up to defend myself- I guess I pushed a little DOWN on him and he fell headfirst onto the court. He laid there for nearly a minute, groaning.)

We told them we'd play them again for an exhibition game next year- they don't lose a single player for next season, and now we know their game (heh,heh). We'd also like to challenge KU. And the San Antonio Spurs.

Because by golly, we're college athletes.

2006-02-14T07:28:00.000-08:00

Last night my wife and I attended the "Relaxation and Breathing (LaMaze)" Class at St. John's Hospital in Joplin. This was the fifth in a series of six classes that my wife and I are attending. Natalie's been to all of them, I missed the first one because of movie night here at school. But last night was the one that I was most looking forward to, primarily because of all things I've heard about it. Bill Cosby's classic standup routine about it still makes me laugh just thinking about it.

The lady who taught the class is probably a resident of the 1960s.....she reminds me of a bird, just casually flapping her wings against the wind, moving just enough to stay afloat on the air. She really started just quietly, smoothly going on and on about breathing and the benefits of relaxation......she had me until she told us the story of a couple who were delivering a child long after their two other kids had grown up- an "oops" child, if you catch my meaning. She said she had seen this couple practicing relaxing breathing, and then BAM- she lost me. She told about how 6 months later she ran into the same couple again at the store and the man told her about how just a while before, he had an industrial auger fall on him and completely crush his pelvis, and the only thing that got him through it was the relaxation breathing techniques.

1. Bull.
2. If an industrial auger completely crushed your pelvis, you sure as HECK aren't up and about talking about how great breathing and relaxing is. Those things are huge.

But on to the breathing. The entire key to relaxation and breathing is slow, controlled breaths that should serve the primary function of slowing down your pulse, releasing tension, and reducing panic-like symptoms.

Last night all it succeeded in doing was making me and every other guy in the room feel stupid.

She used simulated contractions for us to practice our breathing.......in throught the nose (hee's) and out through the mouth (hoo's). She would do it slowly, but when pain gets bad (as we were supposed to pretend was happening) we were supposed to go "Hee hee Hoo"- twice in, once out. Well......here is what happened.

Lady: Okay....the contractions are getting tougher...
Me: Hee Hee Hoo
Lady: Now they're really getting tough.....lots of pain, but breathe....
Me: Hee HEE HOO
Lady: Still lots of pain...holding steady, like some contractions do.....this is the Hiroshima of abdominal pain....
Me: HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HOO
Lady: You're gonna die.
Me: HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE (Whump)
Lady: What happened?
Natalie (my wife): He forgot to HOO.

After I woke up, we started again. I was careful not to make eye contact with the other guys because we would start laughing.....

Lady: Okay, the contractions are coming again....you hate your husband.....he did this to you.....
Me: HEE HEE HOO
Lady: Okay, Ha ha Hoo..
Me: What? What's this "ha" crap? I just now got the Hee's and the Hoo's down...and you throw a "ha" my way? Are you serious?
(Natalie punches me in the arm)

Now I'm not downplaying this at all or making fun of it. Because the women in the video we watched all looked supremely miserable, especially the EXTREMELY LARGE one who was using a relaxation technique called "Vocalization," in which the woman in labor would utter low sounds. I call it the "Moose Calling for Mate" technique instead, because if I were to go in the woods and play this videotape on full volume, I would have a buttload of horny mooses (Meese? Mooses?) stampeding down my back looking for some nice Moose Action.

But we don't really need it, in my humble opinion, as Natalie is opting for the method of "Receiving an epidural before we even get to the hospital, preferably a month early." Natalie is a tough gal- she has a very high pain tolerance. She MUST if she is married to me. However, she is not taking any chances. I am happy with this too, because there are only a few things that make me cry- and Natalie being in pain is one of them. Guys, you'll understand one day, you really will.

I hope you all have a great day of HEE-ing, just don't forget to HOO.

2006-02-12T18:17:00.000-08:00

Help! I'm "Lost!"

I am completely hooked on the tv series, "Lost." Completely and totally hooked, worse than the biggest cokehead....I love it. I got the DVD set of season 1 of the hit show for my birthday two weeks ago, and I've found the time to watch seven episodes. It is my new addiction.

For those of you who live in a bubble and have not heard of the show, it is a story of 47 (at least to this point- remember, I'm virtually clueless as to spoilers for the show) survivors of a plane crash who are stranded on a mysterious island. That in itself is a neat scenario, IMO, since I am a huge fan of William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" and the Tom Hanks film "Castaway." I even loved "Swiss Family Robinson" when I was a kid, and my brother and I used to draw up blueprints for the largest treehouse in the world like they had in the movie. The only problem was we had no money, no wood, and no trees capable of supporting our dream mansion.

The real appeal for "Lost" to me is the oddities that surround their crash- big mysterious creatures roaming the island, scrapes with wild boars and polar bears (yes, polar bears on a tropical island), strange repeating messages over 16 years old spoken by a French woman who speaks of "The Others" being all dead.....it is crazy.

The characters are great- each of their stories are told via flashback...the mythology of this show is incredible. No wonder its ratings are unbelievably high. It has a massive following that makes it truly one of this decade's biggest television phenomena.

The writing is superb- JJ Abrams is brilliant, Damon Lindelof (who is now writing the extremely cool WOLVERINE vs HULK comic series), and Paul Dini (who wrote the entire BATMAN animated series) have crafted a tale of vast complexity that leaves me begging for more at the end of each episode.

Therein lies the problem. This show is SO Big that people are talking about it EVERYWHERE- except, typically enough, at the high school where I teach, where the fuel gauge of pop culture awareness is bouncing on 'E.' I can't listen to anything on the radio on Thursdays without radio hosts giving away spoilers for the show. I had to scream at the top of my lungs and turn the channel 10 times during the Super Bowl because of the "Lost" ads, and even on ESPN they made a reference to a con that Sawyer pulled. But I didn't know about the con that Sawyer pulled, I don't WANT to know about the con that Sawyer pulled, and if any of you tell me what con that Sawyer pulled was, I will drive to your house, beat down your door, tie you up, and make you watch "The Dukes of Hazzard" ten times in a row. Now that movie is crap. But that's for another rant.

I know a little bit about how the first season ends, but please don't tell me anything else. Or...well, see the preceding sentences for the punishment.

By the way, aren't DVD sets of our favorite shows wonderful? I don't have cable or a satellite- it's $45 a month that I haven't been able to convince my wife Natalie to spend, though she may be weakening (right, sweetie?) But thanks to DVD's I've been able to watch shows like Deadwood, Smallville (seasons 1-4), That 70s Show, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Babylon 5......and many others, on my own watch. And with baby Audrey on the way, the ability to watch shows when I want instead of randomly (some would say angrily) chosen times has really made me happy.

By the way, if I was ever stranded on a tropical island with giant monsters, polar bears, and wild boars, I'd find a volleyball, name it "Mortimer," and put on a one man rendition of "The Dukes of Hazzard."

2006-02-08T04:48:00.000-08:00

Long time, no blog.....

This has been a nightmarishly busy week. I am up to my armpits in research papers, some of which are pretty good, many of which are average, some of which are atrocious. But isn't that the way it always is?

Speaking of atrocious, how bad was the officiating in the Super BOwl? That phantom offensive pass interference call really hosed the Seahawks after Darrell Jackson's TD catch was waved off by the back Judge. But that didn't cost the Seahawks the game. Their inability to make field goals and Jeremy Stevens dropping 1000 passes made them lose the game.

So officials don't decide games.

But they sure influence the outcome.

See OU versus KU on Sunday.

OU had a 16 point lead with roughly 7 minutes to go. Safe lead, right? Nope. OU got complacent, just passing the ball around the perimeter and launching ill-timed shots. KU roared back into the game.

WHat I'm angry about is the fact that the referees CHOKED on their whistles the last two minutes. Every time Taj Gray and Kevin Bookout got the ball down low they got HAMMERED and the refs never blew this whistle. Not once.

YOu know why? Because it is KU. The Big 12 is not happy unless KU atop the standings. For years they've feasted on an imbalanced scheduling system that has allowed them to feast on the crappy Northern teams each year while only having to play the southern teams once. Do you honestly think KU would have won the regular season if they had to play Texas, OU, OSU, and Texas Tech twice a year?
KU is the team that brings in the prize recruits like BRandon RUsh. So when Rush fouls someone, Big 12 officials tend to look the other way- after all, he's the big moneymaker for KU, who is the big moneymaker for the Big 12, so we can't have him fouling out of games or make HIM look bad, can we?
Nope.

2006-01-31T04:33:00.000-08:00

MY BIRTHDAY BOOTY

Well, I didn't get everything I wanted.....sniff, sniff....the new car, the new truck, and the other new car will have to wait until another day.....but here is what my booty was:

Not that kind of booty, you perverts.

I got Stephen King's new novel, "Cell", which is his version of a zombie tale.

I got DVDs of War of the Worlds, The Aviator, and The Polar Express.

I got some sweet Pitt State Gorillas Sandals.

My mom, who knows I absolutely HATE KU Basketball, got me a KU Basketball Bobblehead as a gag gift. If it were from anyone else I think I'd burn it in effigy before Sunday's OU-KU basketball game. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

I got Season one of "LOST." More on that later this week.

This weekend I get to go buy some golf shoes.

I also got (and this is the coolest) some special dresses for Audrey, including one that says "Daddy's Special Sweetie." As soon as I saw that my face splintered from the grin and all my whiny gloominess of the past week vanished in a heartbeat. How can I feel grumpy when I get to see my baby girl in that?

Ahhhhh......(grin).

2006-01-30T04:44:00.000-08:00

Here's my birthday present list of stuff I want. Any of you who want to, please feel free to fight amongst yourselves for who gets to get me what present:

1. Custom made OU golf bag.
2. A golf cart.
3. A swimming pool.
4. A new car.
5. A new truck.
6. Another new car.
7. Lifetime subscriptions to the following magazines: Smithsonian, ESPN, Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Premiere, Wizard, InQuest, National Geographic, Creative Screenwriting, Writers Illustrated, Time, Newsweek, Money, Forbes, Kiplingers, CarWeek, GolfWeek, Golf Digest, Golf Illustrated, Mad, Cracked, US News and World Report, Civil War Illustrated. Just to start.
8. A new XGA 1028 x 720 Benq 6210 Digital Projector.
9. A new E-120 Center Channel Speaker
10. 2 more wireless controllers for my XBox 360, with attached Plug-n-Plays.
11. A new Trek 1000 roadbike
12. PSU biking jersey.
13. Less gray hair.
14. And a partridge in a pear tree.

PEACE!

2006-01-27T04:47:00.000-08:00

Is it a sin to be in a crappy mood on a Friday?

I can't put my finger on it.

Is it because I turn 32 on Monday?

Is it because this "winter" has been yet another colossal disappointment for me?

Is it because the Chiefs aren't in the Super Bowl, when I fully believe that they could beat both the Seahawks AND the Steelers?

Is it because I seem to get angrier over little meaningless things now more than ever? (Halo)

Am I feeling underappreciated? Underloved? Everyone needs their ego stroked every now and then. How selfish is that?

Is this all just a case of the Winter Blues (I almost typed Whiner instead. Maybe that is more appropo.)

Is this my annual self-questioning of "Why am I a teacher?"

My mother said the best way to get over feeling blue or sorry for yourself is to do something nice for someone.

So that is my goal.

2006-01-25T07:16:00.000-08:00

Why I love my cat:

He is my morning buddy. I eat my bowl of cereal and he sits on the edge of the computer desk and patiently waits for me to finish my cereal. Then I give him the bowl and let him lick the milk out of the bottom. Every day.

He ALWAYS greets me when I come home. He stands on the edge of the bar by the door that comes in from the garage. He never misses. Ever.

He also runs to the window and watches us leave every morning, (probably because he can't wait for us to leave so he can turn on the TV, watch some soaps, and sleep all day in his kitty underwear. Oh wait, that's me.)

When I watch a movie on my mega-theater, he is always there, sitting on the leg rest between my feet, curled up in a ball or attentively watching the big screen. He is partial to Xbox and That 70s Show.

He is a beautiful cat. All cat owners say that, but this cat honestly is one of the prettier ones I've seen.

He always jumps up on our bed and does this strange little "Scratch and Roll" routine. It is truly bizarre. But I love it.

We have a game we play in the morning. He crouches on the end of the sofa in the dark waiting on me to come by. As I pass, he springs into action, leaping up the sofa onto the back and takes a playful bat at my arm as I pass. He never uses his claws, at least here. THe rest of the time, watch out.

WHY I HATE MY CAT:

He tears up my loaves of bread and sandwiches. Each time I make a sandwich, if I don't immediately hide it or eat it, Sydney quickly pounces on it and destroys it. He doesn't eat it- that doesn't interest in him. He's just a little food nihilist who greatly enjoys seeing me suffer in hunger.

He eats ALL THE FRIGGING TIME. He is a hog, not a cat. And I spend TONS on food. Way too freaking much.

His poop is toxic. I mean, awful. We keep his litter box in the laundry room, and when he goes, the entire house reeks of cat-poop. Nauseating, pungent, and so rank that I cry when I have to change it. That is my job- I am the cat poop changer. Natalie, since she is pregnant, cannot mess with the litter, so that leaves me to do it all the time. The funny part is that when we got Sydney, she swore that SHE would do the litter. She PROMISED. So who does it? Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.

Sydney has broken a fundamental law of physics: Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only altered. This cat produces more poop than the food he eats.

Normal cat:
1 food=1 poop
2 food= 2 poop

My cat
1 food=2 poops
2 food=4 poops
And so on, exponentially increasing each time. I'm afraid if I ever left the food bag open he'd get into it and the entire city of Carl Junction would be covered in poop. Sometimes his litter box looks like the Himalayas, massive green mountains protruding up from the desert below.

Finally, the massive wads of puke. He loves to eat rubber bands. Then he loves even more to throw them up.

ALL OVER THE FLOOR.

And even worse, ALL OVER MY CUHS BASKETBALL PULLOVER this morning.

It was awful. Simply.....awful.

People laugh and tell me it is training for having a baby.

If my baby girl leaps onto the counter, pukes all over my jacket, poops enough to choke a blue whale, and sheds her hair all over my sandwich, I'm gonna scream.

But I wouldn't trade him for anything.

Except a TIVO.

2006-01-22T18:17:00.000-08:00

The "Infant"-try.

I have just figured out the best way to hunt down Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and end the War on Terror.

And the answer came to my house in a big cardboard box Thursday night.

My father-in-law, Brian, who lives in New York about an hour outside the BIG city, bought for us our coming baby's stroller.

Immediately upon my return from a Scholar's Bowl trip to Iola (go team!), I was greeted with a massive box and an excited hug from my wife Natalie, who had managed to lug the crate into the entryway. She smiled and ordered me: "Put it together!"

So I tried.

After LOTS of swearing and a pulled muscle, I was able to pry the beast from its box and assemble it in a relatively short time.

Now back to my plan:

In order to win the war on terror, we need to load up about 400 of these Graco baby strollers, hire midgets to act as babies, and air-drop the SOB's directly into the Khyber Pass.

I FREAKING DARE Al Qaeda to attack these baby (midget) strollers.

They are heavy, tough, and as far as I know, bullet-proof. They are overkill in the baby safety market- I think they could stand getting plowed by a fully-loaded semi, much less an angry mall-walking blue-hair at Northpark Mall.

If you are a midget and are interested in testing my theory, please contact me in the comments section of this blog. We'll get together and do some field tests, which include:

1. Pushing you in the stroller off the neighboring Carl Junction High School building to simulate LZ conditions.

2. Backing into repeatedly with my own tank, the 1989 Buick Park Avenue.

3. Shooting you with my 12 gauge shotgun.

4. Drag you behind my car over rocky terrain to simulate the minefield.

5. Do a field-dress test on how quickly you can change a busted tire.

U.S.A!!! U.S.A.!!!!

And Graco Baby Strollers!

2006-01-20T17:45:00.000-08:00

Our prayers were answered today when my father was suddenly released from the hospital much to everyone's surprise. They were really happy with the progress he had made battling the infection in his colon, and God be Praised, he is at home now. He's probably still really hungry after not eating for 3 days, but boy oh boy, I'm glad he's at home. He'll be off work through the middle of next week, PLUS he'll be resting and lounging around the house for the next few days, but that sure beats staying in the hospital. Yuck!

So those of you who prayed for him, awesome. Thanks.

Now, back to me, because after all, this is my blog, and it's all about me, right?

I want some ice cream.

2006-01-19T04:42:00.000-08:00

Been a rough couple of days. My dad is in the hospital with Diverticulitis, an infection in the colon that, if left untreated, could perforate the colon and spread toxins into the rest of the body. He is on intense anti-biotics to stop the infection. His fever has gone down, but we have no word as of yet as to the status of the infection. If the infection is not gotten rid of, we may have to operate, which means my dad could lose some of his colon, which is never a pleasant thing and is scary as all get out.

I love my dad very much, and if you're a praying person, throw him a heavenly shout out, will ya?

2006-01-16T04:54:00.000-08:00

Getting into Shape: The Fletcher Way

It involves pain, pulled muscles, and not much else.

Actually, my horrific performance in the basketball game last Monday made me realize that I am WOEFULLY out shape. I've put on fifteen pounds since last year when I played. I am relatively inert. And I eat like a hog, and for that I place the blame on my coming baby. That's right, when little Audrey comes out and says Hello, I'm going to have a long talk with her about her making me fat.

Because she made her mommy hungry all the time. And daddy was the one who had to get mommy all the food. And daddy would ALWAYS eat mommy's leftovers or eat right along with her, because let's face it, eating alone is no fun. So I did it to keep mommy company. It was nice, and eating is quite fun. But eating ALL THE TIME can be quite the scale buster.

So here is my goal: To get back into my 34 waist slacks and jeans. Right now I'm teetering on the brink of permanently being a 36/38. I'm 6'4", which allows me to hide some weight pretty well. But I don't WANT to hide my weight.

If I am not in a 34 waist by the time my daughter arrives, a random senior student who is passing my class will receive $60 in cash from me.

Seriously. And I don't mean I fit into the 34 waist so snugly that I lose the ability to ever have children again. They have to be comfortable. Because my mom bought me some 34 waist camoflauge pants, sweetly thinking that they were still my size. By MOM, I will fit into those again!

Call this the $50 Challenge.

2006-01-13T07:26:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a short, short summary of our season opening blowout loss in the Church League last Monday night, because I don't have the heart to write anything longer. My pride and ego were shattered Monday.

The game was close with 1:30 to go in the first half, after I hit a running jumper (by jumper I in no way mean to imply that I was actually jumping. I was moving at a slow speed to the basket when I released the shot.) That made the score 24-20. I was fouled on the play, and I had a chance for a three point play.

It didn't happen, and the wheels fell off shortly thereafter.

Before I tell you the final score and the way it happened, let me remind you to read my pre-season summary in the prior post.

Well, we did receive 3 more players on our team, including a bruising former K-State football walk-on who is capable of pummeling mountains.

But we don't need any more of those. We need guards.

Our guards for the most part of the game were Adam, who had never played ball in his life, and a high school kid named Marcus who doesn't play actual high school basketball, and my friend Terry, who is NOT a guard by any stretch of the imagination, he just got stuck playign guard because the rest of us were getting down the floor.

None of these guys have the dribbling ability of a rock.

And the team we were playing was absolutely STOCKED with good , quick guards, former high school superstars who are reliving their glory days. They're the guys with the mouthpieces, the knee wraps, fifteen sweatbands on each arm, and they had given each other "cool" nicknames like "Cruiser," "Deadeye," and "Godzilla." These guys are not that good, it's just that we're that bad at that position.

Keep in mind that it is a church league, the purpose of which is an outreach to those we're trying to bring into the church. Sportsmanship is coveted above all else, though the team we played Monday night has ZERO of (my biggest pet peeve: the ball goes out of bounds. They race to the ball and just chuck it down the floor to their cherry picking guard. That is not allowed in real basketball. After the second time they did it, I complained to the worthless referee. After the third time, I grabbed the ball first and held it until my guys were in place. Keep in mind we're slow as crap, so that took a while. Then they tried it again, at which point I grabbed the ball and rolled the opposite way. They whined and said I should get a technical foul. The ref just stood there. Cretins.)

Anyway, we're technically not there to win, we're there to have fun. So if a player who is not very good should not be chastised, or embarassed, or really benched at all. Everybody plays. And we don't have the heart to say, "Please sit down. Never pick up a ball again. In fact, never WATCH people play again."
But when the people are not very good are simply wretched, it kinda makes your stomach ache.

Remember, we're playing against a team that has ZERO sportsmanship. They know the kids we have playing guard are awful. So what do they do?

FULL court man to man press.

It is 24-20. I miss my free throw, They score two quick three pointers at the end of the half thanks to two consecutive bad passes directly to their best player in the last fifteen seconds of the half. We're losing 30-20.

We decide at the half that we're going to go big, with Kyle, Dustin, Jacob, Myself, and T-ho on the floor. Still not a good lineup, but it's the best we have.

But Kyle isn't back from the restroom by the time the half starts, and my shoes have come untied and stuck in a horrible triple knot that I can't get undone.

So we start Dustin, T-Ho, Adam, Marcus, and Jacob.

What ensues is a slaughter of immense proportions. They immediately go on a 14 point run in less than 2 minutes as they turn up the pressure on our crappy guards. I sub in for Dustin, who needs a break, and Kyle still isn't back from the restroom. He msut have died in there. We call time out.

Jacob and I do what every big man is supposed to do- get to halfcourt to give our guards an option. It doesn't matter. Our "guards" can't get it to us. Jacob finally snags a desperation heave down the floor by T-Ho and puts in a lay up to make the score 44-22. They go down and score after a desperate fight for a rebound with six of us, in which we scrapped and fought for the ball, 46-22.

We then turn it over six consecutive times against this press, during which Jacob and I essentially gave up and just stood there and watched as T-Ho, so slow that he never got past the free throw line, was subjected to playing on the losing end of 3 on 1 and 2 on 1 fast breaks over and over. I was laughing so hard I nearly quit breathing, because it was obscene to watch.

59-22.

Oh wow! Kyle returns from the restroom, suffering from the poopies. He's out.

I have to take a breather because I'm so tired of running to half court to receive a pass which is invariably picked off.

65-22. We call timeout again.

They KEEP PRESSING until the end against our crappy guards, because at this point we don't care.

Final score: 75-24.

They finished the game on a 51-4 run.

One of our players had over 20 turnovers BY HIMSELF. But he was young, and it's a church game, and it doesn't mean anything.....

Oh well. WE'll play again Saturday.

And we'll lose.

Peace out.

2006-01-11T15:47:00.000-08:00

A NURSERY RHYME ABOUT MY CAR:
Lovingly written by Chad Fletcher

"Hoopty Doopty"

Hoopty Doopty was NOT a great car.
She didn't go fast; She wouldn't go far.
All the grease monkeys and the mechanical men
Couldn't make Hoopty Doopty worth a crap again.

Ahem. That will bring a tear to your eye, yes?

Anyone who spends any appreciable amount of time with me knows that I loathe cars. No...perhaps loathe is too weak of a term.

I DESPISE THEM WITH THE FIERY HATRED OF A MILLION BURNING SUNS.

I've never liked them. They've always been a necessary evil in life. Nothing, not even the most high-maintenance girlfiend I ever had, ever sucked up as much money as my cars. Fuel, tires, oil changes, spare parts, new parts, Parts unknown.....$$$$$$$$ gone. Wasted.

I get zero enjoyment out of cars. Some of my friends are car maniacs- guys who have intense, passionate relationships with their cars (far more passionate than the relationships they have with their WIVES in fact!) They paw them, clean them incessantly, talk about them, keep pictures of them in their wallet ON TOP OF THEIR WIVES and CHILDREN, for crying out loud!

But me? I hate them. It doesn't matter to me if I'm riding a battle wagon or a station wagon. The only thing I care about is not spending a lot of money on them.

My students make fun of my ride all the time. Oh how they live for the day when they can go buy their first truck- they're all stoked about getting a loan and making payments....well, let me tell you something. PAYMENTS SUCK! That $400+ a months you're doling out right now is fine, but in three years you'll get sick of it. I haven't had a car payment of my own in three years, and by golly, it feels nice. My wife Natalie and I made $800 a month payments on her car since last May, and we paid it off two days before Christmas.

Ahhh.... freedom.

Not having a car payment allows me to spend money on things that I really like, like Chiefs season tickets, my incredible home theater, games and gadgets, books, etc.

I don't really hold a grudge to people who buy big fancy cars, because that is what they love. I just don't like being made fun of because I DO NOT like to buy big fancy cars. That is quite the double standard.

But back to the original point of this post: My car. It died again this morning on the way to school at the four way stop on Maple and High School, right catty-corner from the High School. Oh, the embarassment as I pushed it by myself through the intersection. Luckily no one was there to watch as I strained and nearly gave myself a stroke moving the darn thing. It had stopped right in that little groove that made it nearly impossible to push. But after a lot of swearing, sweating, and shoving, I finally got the thing over to the side of the street.

Square in a no parking zone.

I had no choice but to leave it. To make matters much, much worse, two Columbus officers come strolling into my classroom during our 30 minute Homeroom period that starts each day. I hadn't felt that nervous since the first time I got pulled over on my Joplin when I was 16 for having a headlight out, a tail light out, and failing to stop at a stop sign. Ooops.

I reassured the officers that the car would be move post-haste, which it subsequently was.

I hate cars. I hate my car now. It is a valiant car with 256,000 miles on it, and honestly, it has earned the right to be put out to pasture, or better yet, put out to stud, which is kinda gross if you think about it. She's slow, she's leakier than Karl Rove, but you know what?

She's paid for, and she's mine.

2006-01-10T04:15:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED AGAIN! THE WEATHERMEN ARE RETARDED! ALL OF THEM!

For two years I've speculated on the invisible wall that exists as the Cherokee county line where snow stops and turns to rain....guess what happened last night? THE SAME THING AGAIN!

ARRRGGGHHHHHHHH.

The only blessing is that we got a little moisture on the ground for the farmers and fire difficulties.

See you at school in 2 hours!

2006-01-09T13:53:00.000-08:00

Alright, snow gods! The gauntlet has been thrown down! The early forecast for SE Kansas is 5 to 8 inches of snow! WE NEED IT! WE WANT IT! GOTTA HAVE IT! You can't take a poop on us again!!!

In all seriousness, we need precipitation of any kind at all, and we'd be grateful for it. That it might come in the form of snow is icing on the cake. We haven't had snow since January of 2004.

So if you're at home, or still at school, or still at work, do your snow dance!

See you soon!

2006-01-08T19:35:00.000-08:00

Well, it's that time of year again.

And boy, am I not ready for it a single bit.

It's church basketball season, 2006 style, baby!

I attend the newly re-christened Crossroads Christian Church in Baxter Springs. We were formally known as Southside CC until an unfortunate problem with the building forced us to relocate north of town off hiway 400, where the name SOUTHside would make little sense. Ergo, the name change.

So we have a new name, new uniforms....but unfortunately, we still have one problem:

We suck.

Bad.

We are a church completely devoid of younger athletic talent. If we were to get together with the other churches and have a church spelling bee, musical/singing contest, and/or video game contest (I'd smite them in Halo in the name of the Lord), we'd rule them down.

But when it comes to sports, we gladly and happily take our beatings from the various churches in the area. Last season, we finished in 3rd place out of 5 teams because of our 2-2 performance in the double elimination tournament, during which the final game consisted of myself, my buddy T-Ho, my friend Dustin, a girl who plays for Baxter Springs High School, and 9th grader who I STILL don't know where he came from exactly.

This year we have gotten a year older, a year slower, and a year creakier. Matching up with the churches brimming with collegiate athletic talent will be very difficult, especially in a league where the officiating is impartial, incompetent, and strictly volunteer. I hope the ref is merciful on us, because let me go over our line-up with you:

Kyle: 6'4". Plays the point guard position because he NEVER goes inside despite being biggest guy on team. Has congenital back problems. Will shoot from either end of the court many, many times. Doesn't care if we win or lose.
Me: 6'4". Plays center. Has given up any pretense of being a ball handler. Slow. Can't shoot outside 10 feet. Can't jump. Not too big on rebounding. Defense? Nah. Likes to criticize. Asthmatic. Good for a few trips up and down the floor before faking injury just to stop the clock.
Matt: 5'10" Plays the 2. Former lineman with lineman hands. Gets lost in the trees. Has exceptional receding hairline, which doesn't benefit us but makes him more aerodynamic. Best move is 3 point hook shot that only goes in when he hums the ending song from the Robert Redford movie, "The Natural."
Terry: 5'10": Plays Power Forward. Round Mound of Rebound. Impossible to move out of the lane. 2 inch vertical leap. Makes 1 three pointer a game. Only cares about fouling me, and I'm on his team. Dreams of being a point guard despite the fact that he can't dribble.
Dustin: 5'10": Best position is the 3. Doesn't know what that means. Plays basketball once a year. Never speaks. We think he is a deaf/mute. Youngest player on the team at 25. Best athlete on team. That is sad.
Adam: 5'9": Has not, to this point in his life, ever played basketball.

If I were to grade our team, this what I would give us:

Speed: F. We're so slow, we were watching our game film last year when someone came in and thought we had hit PAUSE.
Rebounding: C- We always beat the opposing team to the blocks because we never LEAVE them. As far as we know, Terry has been on the blocks since last March blocking out.
Shooting: F+. More bricks than the Great Wall of China.
Defense: D-. Softer than a down pillow on Dolly Parton's chest.
Passing: N/A. We don't believe in it. Our philosophy is, if you get it, launch it. Even if it is at the other team's basket. Let 'er fly.
Stamina:F-. We are the only team in history to burn all our timeouts during pre-game.
Tempo of Play: Inert.

Season outlook: Injuries. Lots of them. Good thing Matt is an athletic trainer. Was first team all league last season in injury wrapping. He will be busy. (Hope he knows to the wrap a stroke.) We will have to keep ourselves in foul trouble. We like fouling because it stops the action and, in our league, the clock keeps running until the final 2 minutes of play.

This season we will be experimenting with a new offense that I call "Static." Each player that has successfully made it past half-court goes to the penetration line and tries to avoid passing out. Whoever has the ball, if they have not already had it stolen or thrown it out of bounds, will then heave it to the basket, even if he is covered by a trio of seven foot tall Nigerians. The other players will, upon the shot, turn around and begin the long process of running down to our side of the court, despite the fact that the other team will have passed us LONG before we get there. The player who took the shot will then complain that he was fouled as loudly as possible in an attempt to sway the referee's future decisions.

Right now we don't even know who we play tomorrow night at 8 p.m., but we do know that for us to win will take an act of Congress. I predict

THEM: 80
US: 17

I also predict that I will not be able to walk on Tuesday.

A full game report plus stats will be posted tomorrow night for the 3 of you who care.

2006-01-06T04:41:00.000-08:00

Something that really ticks me off:

SUVS.

I hate them. They are huge, monstrous, overwhelming, space-consuming fuel sucking bohemoths. If you get behind one, you cannot see anything in front of them, which makes you miss exits, which makes you late, which makes you angry, which makes you speed, which makes you get pulled over, which makes you get a ticket, which gets you dragged out of the car by the policeman because you mouthed off, who then beats you when you resist arrest, which causes you to get thrown in jail, which causes strange men with few teeth to look at you in a very uncomfortable manner, which causes you to scream like a little girl as he lumbers after you in the jail yard as you try to defend your.....stuff.

But, I have to admit, SUVS ride very nice. It's kinda like your own jetliner on wheels.

PS None of the above ever happened to me. But I've read the newspapers, and that kind of thing can happen if you are not careful.

PPS Okay, I have no idea if that could actually happen. I just made it up. But at least I spelled everything correctly.

2006-01-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

How about a nice little completely irrelevant post?

My favorite snack food is breakfast cereal. I could eat it all the time, no matter what I've been doing. Just woke up? Gimme some cereal. Been to the track? Gimme some cereal. Just lost my house betting on the Chiefs to cover the spread on the road against a banged up Giants team with no line to speak of? Gimme LOTS of cereal.

Just kidding. I don't bet.

Here are my top ten breakfast cereals:

10. Fruity Pebbles - I like the cereal. However, this is the only cereal that I won't drink the leftover milk out of bottom of the bowl. I'm such a kid.
9. Cinnamon Toast Crunch- But not as a cereal, more as a dry snack.
8. Fruit Loops- same as Cinnamon Toast crunch- I hate the stuff in milk, it turns it a wierd blueish pinkish color. But then again, I AM color blind! What do I know?
7. Frosted Wheat Bites- Or whatever they'll called, different cereal companies call them different things. For some reason I adore them.
6. New Strawberry Blast Honeycomb. I am a fruit-milk hypocrite, because normally I hate the fruity stuff in milk. This is a rare exception for me.
5. Super Sugar Golden Crisp- It's got the crunch with the punch!
4. Frosted Flakes- Man, I ate the TAR out of those things when I was little. I don't like them as much now, but this is a sentimental pick.
3. Frosted Cheerios- Never really liked them until I ate them at my father-in-law's in New York. Now I dig them.
2. Captain Crunch! Aye aye, matey, because the Cap'n is all aboard!
1. Colossal Crunch- It's Cap'n Crunch made by Malt-O-Meal instead! IT's cheaper, tastes just as good, and comes in 1000 pound bags!

Cereals that suck:

1. Mueslix. Never eat. Unless you like sitting on the toilet for hours.
2. Trix. "Trix are for Kids" My butt.
3. Regular Cheerios. BOOORRRINNNGGG.
4. Lucky Charms. Those are not marshmallows. They are rocks with food coloring sprayed on them.
5. FrankenBerry, Count Chocula, and BooBerry. Find the Cereal Exorcist and banish these cereal demons to hell, because their cereal sucks.

Have a great day!

2006-01-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Everybody!

Well.....today was a nice Spring Day. Or at least it felt like it, at any rate. Good grief! 74 degrees? That is insane, and by FAR the warmest New Year's Day I've ever witnessed. I went walking at 6:20 tonight in shorts and a T-shirt (replete with Black socks and crappy tennis shoes- more on that later.) This winter so far is shaping up to be a dud as usual. I know there are many of my friends, family, and students, who hate the snow. I love it. I've said as much countless times on this site. But we've received nothing so far, and most of the forecasts I've read for the coming months do nothing to assuage my concern. Oh well. Who needs Snow Days any way?

Me.

Okay, back to the weekend.

Natalie and I went to Kansas City for an Anniversary/New Year's Celebration. We left on Friday and came back on Saturday. It was a nice little trip. Friday night we met my parents (who were in KC as well for the Chiefs game- more on that later) at Harrah's Casino. We ate at Toby Keith's 'I Love This Bar and Grill' restaurant. I was completely underwhelmed by the food. The atmosphere was cool, so long as you like Toby Keith videos played over and over (and, for some strange reason, lots of Tim McGraw songs as well. Could there be a joint financial stake here that we don't know about?) The prices weren't TOO bad, and we didn't have to pay a dime because my mom had a $60 food voucher coupon. I'm glad we got there when we did, because the Friday night crowd was monstrous....the line for the buffet was literally fifty yards long, and as of this evening, the family of Koreans in the back STILL haven't been seated. We didn't do any gambling because if you've ever been to a casino, you know that

A. they are no fun if you have no money to gamble with and
B. Everyone who enters seemingly is required to smoke 40 cigarettes before they leave. My mother met us outside to use her Harrah's perks to get us some free valet parking (pretty sweet), and when she greeted us she smelled like Santa Claus after he'd been stuck in a 1930's era coalfactor smokestack. She hadn't even been IN to the casino yet! Natalie is pregnant, so we opted to avoid the smoke and instead head back to our hotel for some swimming.

Saturday I spent most of the day driving around KC looking for a Barnes and Noble. Boy do I feel stupid knowing now, after having consulted an atlas and actually deciding to LOOK IN A PHONE BOOK, that I had driven RIGHT by one at least three times already. Duh. And by the time we found one, it was 5:30, and they closed at 6:00 because of the holiday. Great timing!

So Saturday we went to Babies R Us, which is approximately 400 acres of baby stuff spread out all over the place like a World War One battlefield. Admittedly, there were a lot of cute things in there, so I can't say it was ALL bad. I did have fun imagining what little Audrey would look like in some of those outfits. However, I eventually got overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. I simply was astounded that there could be so many variations of diapers, baby furniture, room decorations, and cloths. Did you know that according to the Babies R Us guide for registering for baby gifts, a newborn child requires roughly two thousand different cloths PER WEEK? What would a BABY use that many cloths for? To create an escape rope from their nursery if they live in a particularly tall tower? There are receiving cloths, burp cloths, changing cloths, washcloths, hoodiecloths, snugglecloths, terry cloth, dishcloths, cheesecloth, Three toed Cloths, wipecloths, sanitary cloths, Santa Cloths, wipeecloths, and my favorite, "Cloth the Door! I'm Peeing!"

We spend a moderate amount of money on decorations for the baby's room, which actually I'm very excited about. We've chosen an animal jungle/savannah/African theme. I hope I'm not subliminally encouraging Audrey to move to Africa to work with Lions or anything like that, because I'll be darned if I'm going to fly to Kenya to celebrate Arbor Day.

Anyway, we saw two flicks- "Munich" and "the Producers."

I liked Munich.

I think.

Actually, I'm not sure, because it was so depressing. It was very long.....and depressing. Yeah, I think I liked it......maybe. Yeah. I'm sure of it.

That's all you're going to get out of me because I haven't the energy or inclination to waste anymore time with a wittier, more verbose description of the movie's flaws and strengths. I will say this: when Eric Bana's Character Avener comes under fire from PLO terrorists, I half expected him to turn green and start whooping butt. If you don't catch that reference, you are not very sharp.

As for the Producers, I really found it hilarious because I'd never seen the 1968 original and despite my desperate pleas during our last trip to New York City this past summer, the Broadway show had eluded my grasp as well.

I thought it was great. However, it would be a better musical on the stage than on the screen.

Nuff said.

The best part of the trip was seeing Dick Vermeil's final game as an NFL head coach as the Chiefs obliterated the Cincinatti Bengals 37-3 in a game that really wasn't even THAT close. Larry Johnson cemented his claim to the starting running back position in 2006 by rushing for 201 yards and 3 scores, including an amazing cut-back run from 20 yards out late in the second quarter to give the Chiefs a commanding 20-3 halftime lead. It was a good season. Too bad the inept Detroit Lions couldn't beat the Steelers. Oh well. There's always next year. (Here's to better seats!)

Now the worst part.

I drive, in a word, a piece of crap. It isn't so bad on the outside, and actually it runs quite well. Honestly, I shouldn't be badmouthing it because I've never had engine problems or anything else with it except for the battery. There is an electrical drain SOMEWHERE in the car's system that makes the car impossible to start if I haven't driven it at least once every single day. We've never found it- I've had it in several mechanics and they all say they've fixed it when I know they haven't....... but anyway, My car hadn't been driven for 8 days. It was dead as a doornail. No dome lights, nothing. So I jumped it with Natalie's car (which we paid off December 20!!!) I drove it to Subway about 1 mile away, and turned it off. Big mistake. After ordering our subs to go, we came out and I turned the ignition. Nothing. Natalie just gave a big sigh and I tried it again. Zilch.

Luckily a guy next standing out smoking with his girlfriend was parked nearby and gave us a jump. This part I don't have a problem with, because we have had to jump my car all the time. My car's been jumped more than a country club boy walking down Prospect in Kansas City. The problem was that we looked like the ultimate trailer trash couple EVER. My wife, pregnant and showing, resplendent in her pajama pants, heavy coat and T-shirt that was WAY too big.....me, in the crappy tennis shoes with the hole in the front left toe, the black socks (one of which was hiked up to my calf), running shorts that are too small, and a stained red T-shirt and Hat-head. Plus I hadn't shaved in a few days, so let's just say that I was REALLY attractive at the moment.

Somewhere, in the distance, a banjo was plucked and a toothless man looked at his sister in an impure manner.

Thus saieth the Chad.