Your Choice

How come we choose from just two people for President and fifty for Miss America?

Zombies in D.C.

Not successful...no brains to be found!

Links are cheating...

...but Jon would have liked some of these:

21 Jokes That Are So Stupid, They're Actually Funny

Canoes

Let's Play Ball!

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger...and then it hit me!

Hare Raising Neighbors

This guy comes home from work one day to find his dog with the neighbor's pet rabbit in his mouth.  The rabbit is dead and the guy panics.  He thinks the neighbors are going to hate him forever, so he takes the dirty, chewed up rabbit into the house and gives it a bath, blow dries its fur and puts the rabbit back into the cage at the neighbor's house, hoping they will think it died of natural causes.  

A few days later, the neighbor is outside and asks the guy, "Did you hear that Fluffy died?"  The guy stumbles around and says, "Um… no.. .um…what happened?"  The neighbor replies, "We just found him dead in his cage one day, but the weird thing is that the day after we buried him we went outside and someone had dug him up, gave him a bath and put him back into the cage.  There must be some real sick people out there!"

Happy St Patrick's Day

An Irishman walks into a bar in Dublin, orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn.  When he finishes them, he comes back to the bar and orders three more.  

The bartender asks him, "You know, a pint goes flat after I draw it; it would taste better if you bought one at a time."  The Irishman replies, "Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in America, the other in Australia, and I'm here in Dublin. When we all left home, we promised that we'd drink this way to remember the days when we drank together."  The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there. 

The Irishman becomes a regular in the bar, and always drinks the same way:  He orders three pints and drinks them in turn. One day, he comes in and orders two pints. All the other regulars notice and fall silent. When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, "I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your great loss."  The Irishman looks confused for a moment, then a light dawns in his eye and he laughs. "Oh, no," he, says, "everyone's fine. I've just quit drinking."

Who knew that St Paul was soaked in memories of my Dad?

Many days when I leave work the thought of my Dad comes to me.  As I glance past the Dorothy Day Center toward  Joseph’s Hospital.  No, Dad wasn’t homeless (!), but he did spend some time at St Joe’s, including the last week of his life spent in a room recovering.  It’s also the workplace of his daughter in law and former workplace of his cousin. A place to help people, a place to try to make you whole.

Then there’s a pang of “no I can’t call him or chat with him next time I go out to visit.” Ouch.

A  scan of the horizon to the left and there’s United Hospital. Another place of healing, OR an opportunity for Dad to nearly break the record for number of stents put in at one time (9, for the record). Go big or go home.

A little further to the left and there is Cossetta’s. Nothing says Jon like Cossetta’s pizza. And that’s a warm feeling. But it’s still hard to believe I’m not going to meet him there for lunch someday.  It’s so odd. Death is so odd. It’s real, but it’s so unreal. The memory of him, or his personality is so vivid that it’s impossible to think of him as gone.

Today is a trip day. Work trip day. As I was pulling out of parking lot at work, on my way to the airport for a flight out of town, I thought of my Dad. His trips. How much I LOVED going to the airport when I was a kid. How when I got older I would sometimes go out to the airport and walk around. I loved the bustle, I loved the movement. I loved the thought of going somewhere exciting. So exotic.  Almost everywhere was exciting.  Funny. Particularly since I lived directly under the flight path of the MSP runway for the first 11 years of my life. Directly under the flight path = all conversations cease when the plane passes over. All auditory moments replaced by the sound of the mighty jet.  Funny what you’ll put up with. And yes, I betrayed my age by saying that I could go hang out at the airport without a boarding pass in hand. What a foreign concept.

As I left St Paul tonight I passed Cossetta’s. Dad, oh Dad. And I made my way to Shepard Road. That too, is a Dad memory. The road we’d take to Grandma and Grandpa’s. The road he took to work when we lived in Minneapolis (under the flight path).  Oh. Pang. I had the radiio on and up comes a song by Link Wray: Rawhide. It seemed fitting. It seemed like music Dad would have liked.  (Memory: Staying up on the Northshore at a townhome. Dad wakes us up by blasting (no exaggeration) Sea Cruise…over and over again). Vivacious, alive, in the moment.

 I love you dad and I miss you.

Happy Valentines Day!

*

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?**

*Googling for an image leads many directions; Dad liked Sophia Loren, so if you're looking for direction, do that.

**In the list of ponderables left by Dad/Jon, this entry shows up three times. I guess he really pondered that one ;)

Here, fishy, fishy

I became a professional fisherman, but discovered that I... couldn't live on my net income.

Baltes Shuh

Next was a job in a shoe factory; I tried but...I just didn't fit in.

I studied a long time to become a doctor, but I ...didn't have any patients

Can't carry a tune in a bucket...

I became a musician, but eventually they told me my performance.... was not noteworthy.

Not classy enough for the Grey Poupon

I attempted to be a deli worker, but ...any way I sliced it, I couldn't cut the mustard.

Not a Top Chef

Then I tried to be a chef but found ...I didn't have the thyme.

Next I tried working in a muffler factory but...that was to exhausting.

I apologize in advance

Right after that I took a job as a seamstress but .... I couldn't mend straight!

(He also couldn't cut it)

After that I tried to be a tailor...but I just wasn't suited for it. It was a so-so job anyway.

Think.....think...think...

I worked in an orange juice factory, but… I got canned because I couldn't concentrate.

Ouch

After leaving 3M I took a job in the Hayward Wisconsin area as a lumberjack but after just 3 days... they gave me the ax

Job History

Many people have asked me what I have been up to these past several years, some think that I left 3M back in 1997 because of the excellent severance package they were offering, truth be told, after 18 years working as a film and video editor I.... just couldn't cut it anymore.

When a clock is hungry it goes back for seconds.

I apologize in advance....

...but my dad would have laughed or at least chuckled.
Stolen from a Facebook post of a former pen pal who now lives in Italy....

Four Catholic men and a Catholic woman were having coffee in St. Peter's  Square.
The first Catholic man tells his friends, "My son is a priest. When he walks into a room, everyone calls him 'Father'."

The second Catholic man chirps, "My son is a Bishop. When he walks into a room people call him 'Your Grace'."

The third Catholic gent says, "My son is a Cardinal. When he enters a room everyone bows their head and says 'Your Eminence'."

The fourth Catholic man says very proudly, "My son is the Pope. When he walks into a room people call him 'Your Holiness'."

Since the lone Catholic woman was sipping her coffee in silence, the four men give her a subtle, "Well....?"

She proudly replied, "I have a daughter, SLIM, TALL, 38D BREASTS, 24" WAIST and 36" HIPS. When she walks into a room, people say,"Jesus Christ!"

"Piazza San Pietro (4226259274)" by Greg Willis from Denver, CO, usa - Piazza San PietroUploaded by russavia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piazza_San_Pietro_(4226259274).jpg#mediaviewer/File:Piazza_San_Pietro_(4226259274).jpg

Overheard in the back seat

Where does a lamb get it's hair cut?

At the baa baa shop.

(courtesy of Roman - they start young)

Two atoms are walking down the street and they run into each other. One says to the other, 

"Are you all right?"

"No, I lost an electron!" 

"Are you sure?" 

"Yeah, I'm positive!"