This morning, as I went out the front door for my groundpound, I noticed that there was a bit of frost on the grass. I had already changed my morning wardrobe to include sweat pants and a long-sleeved top under my nylon shell, but today was the first day where the autumn snap in the air was more than evident.

As I was walking, I began to cogitate about yet another impending winter, and I got to thinking about maybe writing later about the things that really stink about winter. So, that’s what I’m doing. Off the top of my cruller, here they are:

1. Bone-shattering cold: Groundpounding in the cold weather can be invigorating, particularly after one gets moving and the blood circulating, but once the temperatures head into the single digits and the hawk appears in full force, groundpounding requires several layers and takes some serious grit.

2. Snow: Yes, it is beautiful when it first falls and covers the ground with an undulating sheet of white, but all that ends when you have to drive in, shovel, pile, or snow blow that crap. During a snowstorm, I’ve marveled at peeps from Florida who have never seen the stuff spread their arms out with joy and do a slow circle dance with their tongues out to catch some flakes. WTF?? I suppose it isn’t much different than how we Northerners look to Floridians when we venture to the Sunshine State to break our asses giving ourselves second-degree burns in the summer sun.

3. Cabin Fever: The winter often limits one’s outdoor time to running to and from the car to attend to necessary things like working, shopping or trips to the doc. The rest of the time is spent squirreled up in the house, which, after a while, can make a person a bit nuts. Alcohol and a nearby friendly saloon help.

4. Dark: It is really depressing when it becomes dark at 4:30 in the afternoon. I cannot imagine what it must be like to live in a place like farookin’ Greenland where it is dark for months at a time.

5. Ice: Most of us can drive pretty well in the snow, having driven in it from Day One, but ice is something else. You could be Tony Stewart, but when the car hits a big patch of ice, all bets are off, and your four-wheel drive is useless. Ice also makes groundpounding all but impossible, particularly when the ice is not readily visible. It can keep me inside (see above), rather than risking breaking my ass on a frozen sidewalk. Oh, then there is the joy of scraping ice off the windshield and windows of the car in the morning and evening. Hell, Florida peeps don’t even own an “ice scraper,” while most of us have several of them, including the fancy ones with a broom on the other end of the scraper.

6. The hustle and bustle of the “Holidays”: “Hustle and bustle” my ass. The run-up to Christmas the Holidays is pure chaos and commercial lunacy. Many of the local stores have already dragged out the Christmas Holiday stuff. I sometimes with I could just sleep through it all.

7. Christmas “Holiday” commercials: They are endless and positively sickening. “The Ajax Extension Cord! It makes a wonderful Holiday gift! Get one for dad.”

That is all.

He gets an “A” for determination.

Swiped it from Denny.

My daughter went online to buy me the CD pictured above. What makes this CD special is that a record we made in 1966 is on it. I have written about the record here and here (unfortunately, or fortunately – depending on your point of view, the uploads are no longer available). You can go here (at least for now) and check it out. Scroll a bit to the listing of songs and click to enlarge.

Yep, there we are; we made the cut at number 30. Amazing how someone not only found the record, but actually included it in an album. As I have mentioned before, the real kicker is that a group comprised of three Asians and only two white guys found its way to an album entitled, “The White Group Sound.”

I can’t wait to listen to the 29 other gems.

Update: Two of the links pointed to the same place. I fixed it, thanks to the keen proofreading eye of the Wiseass Jooette.

Yes, it’s that time of year once again.

I’m getting to be of the age when if you were to light a candle for each year I’ve been on the planet, the first one would burn out before you could light the last one. In order to keep a birthday cake from looking like a Baghdad display of “shock and awe,” I’m now one of those “one candle for each decade” guys.

Denny, my guitar playin’, kazoo tootin’ friend, likes to remind everyone that I am the “elder half of the Elderly Brothers,” but I would remind him that in a scant few days he will be as old as I am today. I figure that next year we should commence our “Soft Food Tour” in earnest. We’ll only need a repertoire of two songs, because by the time we finish playing the second song, the audience will have forgotten the first one. Besides, we can’t remember more than two songs.

I really am too tired to think about writing anything.

That is all.

1. I don’t know about you, but I damned near shit a pickle when I learned that the Senate Finance Committee (Yes, that would be the United States Senate) voted to pass “legislation” that was presented to them, not as a proposed federal statute, but rather in the form of a conceptual CliffsNotes summary, written by Christ Knows Who. Peeps, you can change one word or even a comma in a statute and change everything. The “legislation” they voted on would result in the control of more than twenty percent of the economy. The saddest thing is that lawyers and judges regularly and earnestly speak of “congressional wisdom” when analyzing the minutia of any given federal statute. It seems that every morning brings yet a brand new WTF moment.

2. In the New Jersey Governor’s race, the democrats have released negative ads focusing on Republican challenger’s Chris Christie’s weight. This tactic was apparently based upon a focus group that determined that when “average” New Jersey voters were asked what one word comes to mind when they hear the name “Chris Christie,” they responded, “Fat.” Of course, this speaks ill of the New Jersey Democrat Party, but, in my view, it says more about the quantity of working grey matter of the “average” the New Jersey voter. And we wonder why the people in this state continue to elect such loathsome septic tank sludge.

3. Speaking of sludge, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann come to mind.

4. A few good things: Diet Dr. Pepper, Coke Zero, Mythbusters, Teflon, progressive lenses, orthotics and peeps who pick up after their dogs.

5. A few bad things: Red Bull (bleccch!), head cheese (double bleccch!), alligators, clowns, New York drivers on New Jersey highways, telemarketers, credit card offers, things stuffed into magazines that screw up turning the pages, and low-density cholesterol.

6. I wonder if the first asshole who decided to wear his baseball cap sideways realizes that he is emulating Rootie Kazootie.

7. I wonder why any sane person would take up blogging.

That is all.

Life 101 kept me from giving a minute’s worth of thought about what I might write about. I read a shitload of emails and blogs and still … no inspiration. Maybe I’m just tired. I may as well blame Bush. It’s the rage in Washington.

That is all.

This past weekend, we (Ken, my bodyguard, and da Chef a da Future – with ladies) had dinner and then proceeded to a local VFW for a couple cocktails. This particular VFW has a bar that is stocked as well as any fancy-schmancy bar I’ve ever visited (and I’ve visited a few). That’s a good thing and a bad thing. The good part is that it’s like being a kid in a candy store. The bad part is that it’s like being a kid in a candy store.

Ultimately, after taking drinking time into account, I decided that straight booze (even on ice) was a bit dangerous, so I opted for something mixed. I settled in on Three Olives Orange Vodka, with club soda and a piece of lemon. (Here is the main Three Olives Site, where you have to enter a birth date to check out the full line of bevs.) I highly recommend the drink. I believe that Three Olives makes the best flavored vodkas, and the orange flavor is most excellent. The slice of lemon finishes the drink off in spades. Be warned. They go down real easy.

I noticed that, despite being well-stocked, there was no Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka behind the bar. I chatted with the bartender about it, so I figure it’s just a matter of time.

Of course, drinking in a Veterans’ Post Bar provides the bonus of being surrounded with peeps who, having served in the military, have a special appreciation of what it means to be an American. That’s a quality all too often lacking in Jersey.

No, really.

You can’t make this shit up.

Wanna know why?

Are you sure?

It’s not interesting.

OK, you twisted my arm.

Ultra short version: No blogging, because between me and the computer was a stretch of freshly sanded floor covered with wet polyurethane.

I told you it wasn’t interesting.