And the moral of the story is.

Andrea and I went and saw the movie "cars" tonight. It was the only thing playing at our lovely Ardmore cinemark. So lovely that the bathrooms don't even have stalls. Who steals a stall? Honestly?

"Cars" was actually our third attempt to find a movie, first we went to see CLICK and walked out in the first 10 minutes. 10 minutes of my life I will never get back. Our second choice was Nacho Libre, can you really blame us for leaving that theater in 10 minutes.

Our third option was cars and at this point I was getting sick of going to movies I never wanted to see in the first place.

This was a movie they tried to tie way too many morals and values into that was ultimately shut down by the fact it was a cartoon about nascar.

I guess it was also proving that I-40 has officially made little towns extinct along route 66. Quick...name three towns on route 66 in Oklahoma.....ummm what's that one I stop at to go pee off of 44??? With the Subway?

The movie also proved you can't win a Piston Cup with out a pit crew.

That fame and money doesn't get you anywhere.

Anyway, I lost track of all the morals when I went speeding down Commerce to get away from the movie theater. Going 25 miles per hour over. I was promptly pulled over by Ardmore PD.

They recognized me from TV and let me off the hook.

Question Mark Age

Dustin Hoffman was on "Inside the Actor's Studio" tonight. The last line of his commentary to his class was about being in your 20's and not knowing what you are going to do with the rest of your life. He called it the question mark age.

"You have the luxury of not knowing and you will never have that again. And not knowing is a luxury. You can PLAY. You MUST do that. You must. It's your only way not to go crazy. Because if you are going to wait for the job then you will DIE."
-Dustin Hoffman on "Inside the Actor's Studio"

Drive Thru Syndrome

I have Drive Thru Syndrome.

I get really really nervous in the drive thru. Make sense of this one for me. I have been on TV countless times, done interviews, been live, made nerve racking calls but when I get to the drive thru I'm as nervous at Katie Couric attempting to do primetime.

I feel like I have to be prepared with an order. Like there is a window of opportunity there and if you miss it you are wasting their time and everyone else behind you. I get nervous, really nervous.

My friend told me last night, why can't you just say "can you give me a second?"

Why do I need a second? Did I not already consciously decide that I wanted Taco Bueno. (I know it was toss up between Bell) I already had a food item in mind or I would not have gone there in the first place. It was the fiesta rice. Anyway, It's not like I sit there and say to myself "ahhhhhh Pollo Loco...never been there, Let's go sample something off of their drive thru menu."

NO we go through drive thrus because we already know what we want! And, I think I have drive thru syndrome because I don't know what I want. EVER. I'm just going through life guessing.

At the drive thru last night, I ordered a combination platter, chicken with no chips and extra rice.

the attendant responded, "DR PEPPER With NO ICE?"

"No" I said, " No chips and extra rice"

"Is that all" he said.

"um".... I said with clammy palms.

"PLEASE PULL AROUND."

As I pulled away from the final window I notice I had extra chips and no rice.

Life Challenged

So, in this fabulous reporter world of job searching, technologically challenged people cannot exist. I know I do not come from the prehistoric world of actually just sending someone a resume on paper in the mail. Nope, I grew up in the information age in which everything is digital and employees are available at the click of a mouse. I HATE IT!!

I was talking to my friend mike on the phone he was trying to help me with my digital problems where I am life challenged. He kept saying you have to bring your self down to the machines level. Ummmm...doesn't he mean up to its level.

If you want a reporting job you have to make a tape, a reel of your work per say that a news director would look at and say ewwww this looks pretty. Well this involves an extensive knowledge of acronyms of which I am relatively unfamiliar...like MPEG DVCAM BETA DVCPRO VHS DVD+R DVD-R DVD+-RW CDR these all mean things related to my tape but are sooooooo different. If something is in one of these I have to put it in the other. To make a long story short I have successfully put all of my lives work separately on to one of all of these. And it is really fun to try and figure out how to get it on to a VHS for a news director.

I called mike because I had hooked up a TV in the back bed room with 2 VCR's connected to it. Easy enough, I want to copy one VHS to another VHS. Not that simple. All of the plugs in the room were geniously installed by an electrician who conveniently made only the bottom plug hot. So I have the TV in one Outlet and and one VCR in another and another VCR in another. all simultaneously hooked up to each other. It looked like a lifesize game of mousetrap from 1984.

I couldn't get anything to record to anything. I'm not cut out for this. I said to mike asking a reporter to take a DVCPRO tape and digitally copy their tape to a PC edit it burn it to a DVD and then put it back in VHS format, just to get a job, is like asking an IT Tech to do a song and dance in their interview.

Happy Father's Day

Wow, am I frustrated right now or what??

I think I could throw my computer through this glass window. I’m so pissed I can barely type.

I created a slide show video for my dad, for father’s day. I must say it looks excellent, but my apologizes --- no one will ever see it.

It will not burn to a disk, or send, or convert to an MPEG, or post online or even effin play on MY computer.

That’s how special it is.

Well I spent all day on it and all I have to show for it is this damn post explaining why he can’t see it.

Am I surprised?

Are YOU surprised? Wait, don’t answer that.

Through this frustration I have decided what I should do with the rest of my life which should make dad proud. I’m perfect for it:

I need to work for an I.T. troubleshooting department, where, I do not fix things…I break them. My slogan can be “There’s nothing I can’t break.”

I think this would be ideal and people all around the world would pay BIG money to figure out what all their problems COULD be.

I’m so unlucky when it comes to those things. I’ve also been thinking I could be a professional gambler except I would always bet against myself.

Like in sports you could bet on me to bet the losing horse or the golfer who didn’t make the cut (ie. I bet Tiger would win the Open)

Which brings me to another point; somebody asked me the other day, why I knew so much about sports, as I relayed lap by lap the final seconds of the Indy.

I answered, I had watched a lot of sports growing up with my father.

Sundays weren’t Sundays unless golf was on the television.

Bowl week wasn’t bowl week unless we tivoed every game and were surprised by every ending.
Summer Saturday mornings weren’t summer Saturday mornings unless they were accompanied by French onion dip and tennis.

Fall Monday nights weren’t fall Monday nights unless we heard the loud phrase screaming through the den “are you ready for some football.”

Then I reflected in my mind the last week in sports I had watched. I’ve been watching the NBA finals. I watched the Sox/Yankees, a bit of the Stanley cup, the French open and several of the world cup games.

But upon my reflection I noticed there was something missing every time.

It wasn’t the dip or the tivo, the nail biters or the sound of the lawn mower running. It wasn’t the lack of the Sooners or Tiger.

It was my father.

I miss him.

So, I guess since I cannot show him this slide show. I will tell everyone about it.

It was a slide show of the last six months or so, where everything got crazy. I wanted to show my dad how life has changed and how he has still remained a perfect father.

I graduated, His daughter had a baby, his mother beat cancer, I moved to ….Oklahoma, and Lori had her eleventh kid (I can’t keep count).

Ann came to the rescue, Kay moved out of her house, my parents settled into their house, I got a job, I got fired.

My parents had a new baby “the formula,” my dad found a new fishing hole, he moved an old friend to his part of town.

Tivo’s stock went up when my father bought seventeen life-time memberships, actually forcing them to stop selling them.

Allison got engaged, Karis got married, Hailey started eating cereal.

….. and Marco Andretti almost won the Indy 500, a fact I never would have known without …my dad.

Come fathers day I miss him even more.

Dad, enjoy the US Open and know that I am there in spirit and hoping to catch the next game, the match, the race with you again another day.

I love you, I miss you and I thank you for everything,

Happy Fathers Day.

Things I should have done sooner

Started a blog
Made some life goals
discovered how to make iced coffee (you actually just ice the coffee)