Its that time of year again people. The snow is glistening on the trees, you can hear carolers in the distance and Punxsutawney Phil went and seen his shadow. That or he was just hungover from the Super Bowl. Thats right people its the season of mattress sales and half priced appliances. Presidents Day has arrived!

You see I didn't always believe in Presidents Day. No I put it up there with holidays like Flag Day and Grandparent's Day. That was until I was visited by the ghost of Presidents past. President Taft showed me what Presidents Day would be like if there was no half off appliance sales. Then he went and ate all my food out of the fridge and broke my favorite chair. Then I was visited by ghost of President present, President Obama. He showed me what it would be like if the banks were open today. 10 of them would be bailed out by noon. Last but not least I was visited by ghost of President future, Sarah Palin. She showed me what President's Day would be like without mattresses. If you know what I'm cooking...and I think you do.


Yes, Virginia, there is a Abe Lincoln. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. So I hope you all awoke this morning to presents under your President's Day tree, you left cookies out for Abe and put trigger locks on your guns.
Abe and guns just don't mix.


So when you and yours are gathered around the table today for your President's Day dinner, singing Dreaming of a white President's Day.(SNOW PEOPLE!) remember what the season is all about.

Oh and I heard Mattress Warehouse is having a hell of a President's Day sale.

I want to talk about the Amish or more specifically Amish Friendship Cake today. I'm not sure if you know what that is, it might be a Pennsylvania thing or a northeast thing...who knows. The concept of the cake is at some point someone started the recipe and they let the recipe 'ferment' in a bag on their counter for 10 days, adding stuff occasionally. Then after 10 days they make their cake and give so many starters from the fermented mixture to friends and so on and so on. In other words its like a chain letter or spam mail or at least thats the way I see. My mom is doing this now and it has gotten down to where she has done it several times as of late. Well she has got to the point where shes calling everyone trying to get rid of the starts. In other words it has become spam mail..people are afraid to answer their phones, open their doors and they hide their faces in public.

I'm not even sure if its safe to eat anything thats been fermenting on the counter for 10 days..let alone for however long the first start has been fermenting. Plus do the Amish really make the cake. I bet if you asked them they would totally deny it saying "hell no we aren't eating that shit" I don't buy into the whole Amish wholesome, no electricity bullshit. I think Zebidiah is kicked back in his recliner watching his 50 inch plasma while Rebecca is in the hot tub doing Jello shots and its all a farce.

Barn raising my ass! Theres a reason they don't want the "English" around. You just know theres a stripper pole in the middle of those barns. You walk in one of those barns any Saturday night and you'll see Mary Beth sliding down the pole upside down with dollar bills hanging out her garter...slots on left...Zeke, Samuel and Tyrone(there could be an Amish named Tyrone) on the right playing in their band called Carriage Clams.

See the Amish slipped up with that Rumspringa thing. Where when you turn 16 you can party, drink and have orgies and then decide if you want to come back to the Amish way of life. Why you think they always come back??? Because the Amish know how to party behind those barn walls.

I need to make a trip to the Amish country...I just need to grow a beard first...

You guys hear the BIG humanitarian news? Tony Romo helped a homeless man. Its big headline news...they are talking Nobel Prize and everything.

You ask "what did he do?" Buy him a meal, put him up in a room for the night, buy him a house..maybe let him have a turn at his talented girlfriend?

Even better my friends..he bought him a matinee movie ticket to see the critically acclaimed one star rated, Role Models. The guy was going to hand out fliers for a local store, but instead got to watch a movie. I smell Nobel Prize and Man of the Year here. Instead of making a days wages and having money to buy Mad Dog and Vienna sausages for dinner, he ended up in the negative and had to hear Romo whine about his pinkie finger during the entire movie.

Don't even get me started on the NFL reinstating a 13 time criminal in Pacman Jones. They are fining players left and right for legal hits, making the NFL into a flag football league..but they reinstate a habitual criminal. He was a thug and criminal during his days here in Morgantown and he always will be.

Maybe Romo should buy Pacman a ticket to Twilight.

Jen the Unlicensed Stripper


This will be the only "political" blog you will see from me. I know you guys are all tired of political blogs, political armchair quarterbacks, political dumbasses spewing their political hatered and mud slinging, but this blog is different.

This blog is about the moronic campaigns calling you non-stop from morning to night..filling your voicemail up with recorded messages from ex-presidents, ex-professional ball players, ex-strippers, reformed transvestites and so on.

Ok I understand their motive. I have a political science degree and have even been a Senate intern, but seriously does that shit really work? No seriously does it?? Because the chances are I missed that class in college. It was probably a morning class and I was hungover and well you know the drill.

I can see it now. Jen the stripper...who is an unlicensed stripper at that and undecided to boot is sitting down to breakfast after a long night of pole dancing when the phone rings. They do their little recorded spill and she goes "you know what I was undecided till you interrupted my breakfast of Special K..I'm voting for you"

No this doesn't work, because more than likely you are done pissed off because this is the tenth time they have called you and you now hate this candidate with a passion that you are not even going to vote for him. You don't care if a penguin is running against him..you are voting for the penguin. I'm not talking about the presidential candidates. I yet to receive a call from them, well except the one the other day where they asked who I was voting for and when I hit the button it spewed a bunch of reasons why you SHOULDN'T vote for that candidate. Damn I hit the wrong button.

I don't care what ex-Steeler calls me or what Senator, whos larynx sounds like it was stomped on, calls, by this point I made up my mind..so quit calling!

Don't forget to vote tomorrow people. No matter who it is..unless its one of the dumbasses that calls you more than your stalker does.

Trout of Yesteryear....

My fingers, cold from the brisk March morning, fumbled to get my bait on the hook that morning. It was the first time I got to go with my older brother and his friends for the first day of Pennsylvania trout season. My nine year old body shivered from the early spring cold as I hurriedly tried to bait my hook, anxious for the 8 o'clock start of the season to start and the tangled lines of chaos to begin. Me against the fish, eager to prove to my older accompaniants that I was as good as a fisherman as they were.

While I'd been fishing since I was able to handle a fishing pole this was the first time I got to camp out the night before along the trout stream that meandered its way among the hills of southwestern Pennsylvania. We laid claim to our campsite the afternoon before trying to beat the rush of fellow fisherman doing the same. If you didn't lay claim to your fishing spot the night before, you would be lucky to find a spot the next day.



During the night I wandered from campsite to campsite along the stream listening to stories of fishing trips past and hunting trips to come, stopping to gorge myself on roasted marshmellows , waking in the morning cold, tired and smelling of campfire smoke, but excited for what the day had in store.

Steam was rising from the stream as 8 o'clock came. I flipped my line out, letting the helgermite,wiggling on the end of my hook, bounce, off the opposite bank as the current swept it done stream. The rainbow trout hit hard as I simultainously set the hook, reeling him amongst the lines of other poles dotting the banks that morning. That would the first of five trout that day. I still fish, I still camp, but that day lives in the front row of my memories amongst the other outdoor firsts.

Beer from Strangers




I had an interesting Memorial Day weekend experience today(Sunday) that made me think as well as gave me a chance to do my part to give back to the veterans.

I went for my usual run, on the ridge that I like to run, this morning before I headed to the lake for a day of jet skiing and rum runners. It was an awesome morning for a run. Not a cloud in the sky and the temperature already in the 70's and my buddy that accompanies me, a hawk, flying above me. I get worried if he doesn't show up, but he always does. I reach the halfway point of my run and turn to return towards my car when a red Jeep passes me from behind and stops at one of the cemetery entrances about 75 yards in front of me. An older gentlemen in his 60's gets out of the Jeep, sees me and says "How are you?" I return pleasantries as I continue to run and he asks "You want some water" and I reply "No thanks" and he says "How about a beer?". Hello! I say "sure" and head back to his Jeep. I notice as he hands me a diet beer(Bud Light) that he has a U.S.M.C tat on the under part of his forearm along with some numbers under it. I see bundles and bundles of flags in his Jeep and tells me that hes putting flags on the graves and that he does 12 of the cemeteries in the area. So he puts a flag on the entrance of the cemetery and the gate is locked and mentions he has a bad hip and that hes not going to walk to the top of the hill to put flags on. So I take some flags run to the top of the hill, place flags on the graves marked military and run back down to finish my beer before it gets warm.

We talk for awhile mostly about his Jeep and how it was his wifes retirement gift. He unzips the windows and tell him he should take the top off and he says it hasn't been off since it was new. Typical small talk, he tells me his name and I don't bring up the tat or tell him my dad was in the Marines. I crush the beer can in my hand, signaling I'm finished and hand it to him more because I didn't want to litter, but thinking he looked like the type that saved the cans. He asks if I want a ride and I tell him no I want to finish my run, but I would meet him at the next cemetery up the road and help him out with placing the flags. He drives away and I continue my run up heart attack hill burning off the alcohol I just consumed.


As I approach the next cemetery hes parked in the only shade on the ridge, waiting for me. I get there and we bullshit a little more, place the flags, fix a couple broken military markers and continue talking. We are parked by a grave marked with a Vietnam marker and I happened to mention that and he comes forward that he was in Vietnam. Coming across Vietnam vets in the past as well as knowing some I knew a lot of them didn't like talking about it. Korean war vets talk about their experiences, World War II vets LOVE to talk about theres, but Vietnam vets not so much and I didn't want to push the issue. He told me some stuff and thats between him and I, We talked about his experiences, his injuries and him and my father both being in the Marines and related some of my dad's stories.

As we leave to go to the next cemetery, which from another blog, you should know is where I park my car, he asks if I want a ride or am I going to run. I tell him I'll run and meet him there. So off we go again. I meet him at the next cemetery and the caregiver is there and they know each other and we bullshit and have another beer before proceeding to place flags. As we are leaving someone pulls about and its someone he knows again. We bullshit...mostly its me listening to them tell me about their war stories and their younger years. He'd cough uncontrollably at times from years of cigarette smoking, could barely walk and his hair was white as snow and it was the least I could do to take that hour or so out of my day to honor the men like him that served our country.

Have a good Memorial Day everyone.

Milwaukee we are watching you....drink

The City of Milwaukee is set to debate an ordinance requiring all bars in the city to have cameras. Bars could be required to install cameras inside their bars. Doesn't anyone else see entrapment here? Nevermind the cost to the bar owner...what about keeping tabs on the amount of alcohol one consumes. I don't know about Milwaukee, but in West Virginia, police can't come into a bar without permission, kind of like vampires. Whats the difference between a police officer and a camera watching 24 hours a day?

Secret Service question girl over Myspace threat.

Ok I can see taking the threat on the president serious and the girl was in the wrong, but this was taken a little too far. To pull her out of class and question over a photo, not an actually threat is a little overboard. I'm not defending the girl. What she did was wrong and to many immature, but come on this isn't 1940 Germany.