Dear Young Tim,

Hello, handsome young lad. This is me – that is to say, you, writing to you from the future. It’s now 2012 and a lot has happened to us since I was your age. I wanted to talk about some of the things you’re planning to do over the next fifty years. First, don’t worry so much. You always were a bit of a worrywart. There will be some minor hiccups along your way – and a few doozies – but in the end, you’ll stumble through with more than a quarter of your dignity intact. Here’s some advice to make your journey to the year 2012 a little less bumpy. You’ll thank me later.

When you’re three years old, our mom and dad are going to dress you up as a Little Bo Peep for Halloween – complete with the curly-haired wig. Don’t let them. This humiliation will cause you to question your sexual orientation and sour you on barnyard animals for years. Insist on going as a tiger or maybe a ladybug. Just say No to Bo!

On the last day of school in fourth grade, the neighborhood troublemaker Hank O’Connor is going to try to convince you to jump on your skateboard and hold onto a rope attached to his banana bike as he veers all over the street – that’s right, just like water skiing – only on rock-hard asphalt. This is not going to end well, I’m afraid. Your next stop will be the ER of Albany Medical to repair two broken bones. Your cast won’t come off until two days before school begins next fall. My advice: Be polite. Offer to let Hank go skateboarding first. That hooligan has no summer plans anyway.

Read More…

It is a miracle I am alive right now. I could have been a statistic but thankfully, my life was spared. I live in Seattle, which recently experienced a devastating snow storm that shut the city down for five days.  The powerful storm became the top story on national newscasts until another nasty storm front with heavy wind(bag)s blew into South Carolina in the form of a Presidential Debate.

Forecasters, predicting the worst storm in four decades, called for 12 to 18 inches of snow in the Puget Sound region. When the last flakes finally stopped, almost six inches of snow covered some areas, proving once again that it is impossible to forecast the weather in the Pacific Northwest. What made it treacherous, however, was that the snow turned to freezing rain, coating roads, trees and power lines with a half inch of ice. This caused hundreds of cars (including mine) to get stuck and thousands of tree branches and hundreds of power lines to collapse. That’s when my terrifying near-death experience began.

At about 5am on Day 1 of Seattle’s Snow-mageddon, our house lost power – lights, heat, phone and internet. Venturing out by car into the blizzard was a foolhardy suicide mission. According to my best estimates, Seattle has exactly three snow plows – four if you count my neighbor Fred’s snow blower. There we were – without power, without heat, without hope, and barely a month’s supply of non-perishable food and beverages. Someone had to venture out for food. That someone would be me.

Read More…

I consider myself an expert handyman. If there is something broken, stuck, loose or making a sound it’s not supposed to be making, I possess an innate ability to quickly identify the problem – and within minutes make that problem significantly worse than it was before I began fiddling with it. There are three things every homeowner should instinctively know:

• #1: The location of your main circuit breaker box: In most homes, this is conveniently located in the garage behind a clearly displayed grey metal panel. In our house, it’s conveniently located behind three boxes of stuffed animals, four crates of ancient photo albums, and nine cans of 14-year old dried house paint. Our circuit breaker was last seen in spring, 2003.

• #2: The location of your main water shut-off valve: This could save you thousands of dollars if ever your pipes burst. This valve is typically found somewhere inside the house on the first floor, either in your laundry room or front hall closet. In our case, it’s conveniently located nine feet up our fireplace. Apparently I must have pissed off some plumber as our house was being built.

• #3: Righty-Tighty, Lefty-Loosy. That little lesson sure could have come in handy had I known about it before my gas grill’s propane tank gas leak and subsequent explosion during the surprise party we threw in the kitchen of our former friend, Agnes Turlington in 1995.

Read More…

The staff and management of View from the Bleachers want to take this opportunity to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons  – with the notable exception of those heartless people who decided to unsubscribe from my humor blog, in which case, may Santa’s reindeer do irreparable damage to your roof and ruin your lawn. (I’m talking to you, Roger Ledbetter of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, you miserable SOB.)

Traditionally, this time each year, I write a long Year-In-Review letter to all my friends – which list notably no longer includes Roger Ledbetter of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. But this year, in the interest of being eco-friendly – and not at all because I was too cheap to buy cards and stamps – I’ve decided to send out my annual letter via this blog, thus killing two calling birds with one stone.

To bring everybody up to speed, my wife’s name is Michele. She is an amazingly talented portrait artist whose only apparent failing is her shockingly poor judgment in choosing a spouse. Then there are our two daughters, Rachel and Emily, who, because my wife hates it when I reveal their true identities in this blog, shall henceforth be referred to as Rachaela and Emma, to safeguard their anonymity. After all, we would not want anyone to know that my two daughters are actually related to ME. Think of what it would do to their reputations.

Oh sure, I could boast about all our achievements, like Tim’s recent promotion at work, Rachel’s – I mean Rachaela’s acceptance into Stanford, Emma’s earning a spot on the U.S. National Junior Olympic gymnastics team, and the recent unveiling of Michele’s official portrait of Pope Benedict XVI, but then let’s face it. Who would believe for a second that Tim got a promotion?

Read More…

It started out innocently enough. My wife asked me to go to Costco because we were low on shampoo. Perhaps I should not have gone on Black Friday, when Costco had everything on sale.

The second I breached the entrance of Costco, I was immediately confronted by a bank of alluring gigantic flat screen HDTVs showing exotic tropical waterfalls. Wow! Some in 3-D. Hey, look. If you buy the home theatre sound system package, you can get a 55” flat screen HDTV for only $1,449.99 (big savings today only). What a bargain. So I added an LG 55″ Class 3D 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV with 4 Pairs of 3D Glasses to my flatbed cart.

As I was lugging my cart towards the shampoo aisle, I couldn’t help but notice the festive Christmas tree display. An 8-ft Pre-Lit Clear Mixed Country Artificial Pine ChristmasTree complete with 800 Clear Dura-Lit Mini-lights for $20 off! Wow! It looks so real. By buying it, I’d be doing my part to save the world’s endangered commercial tree farms. So I added the artificial tree with mini-lights to the cart.

On to the shampoo aisle. After all, that is why I came here today. Just before I reached the shampoo section, I noticed this really cool 3-speed nail gun in the hardware aisle. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted one of those. It’s just $79.99 (regularly $99.99). So I added it to my cart. And if you’re going to buy a nail gun, you might as well make sure you have an electric drill – oh, and the accompanying Black & Decker 300-piece Ultimate Super Drill Bit Set for just $69.99 more. Oh sure, the last time I used a high-speed drill was in 1987 when I tried unsuccessfully to build shelving for our garage. But you never know when you may need to build a jungle gym for your darling grandchildren (whom I hope to have within the next 15 years).

Read More…

After months of grueling, often intractable debates – at times marred by heated name calling on both sides – the two leading members of the Jones household budget Super Committee appear to have reached an eleventh hour compromise that will keep the family budget funded, at least for a few more months.

As the deadline for a solution to the budget crisis approached, both sides became further entrenched in their positions. On the brink of failure, the leadership on both sides blamed each other for their selfish intransigence and caving to special interest lobbyists.

The leading liberal on the super committee, Michele Jones, argued vociferously, “We have to raise revenues. I know the other side enjoys writing its humor blog week after week, but we will never be able to pay for college on a blogger’s income. It’s time to wake up and smell the Skinny Double Tall Latte.” Meanwhile, the leading fiscal conservative on the committee, Tim Jones (coincidentally Ms. Jones’ husband), argued, “In this economic climate, near term job creation is simply not a viable option. The only feasible solution is drastic budget cuts and serious entitlement reform – starting with the kids’ cell phone $40/month unlimited texting plans.”

Mr. Jones has pushed for a variety of drastic budget cuts to some very popular entitlement programs, including scrapping plans for the upcoming Hawaiian family vacation in February and next summer’s student exchange program in Italy for their younger daughter.

Read More…

When you think of Google, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? In my case, it’s the fact that I’m still kicking myself for not listening to my day trader buddy Rocco, who told me back in 2004 to buy 500 shares at $45.

But the second thing that comes to mind when I think of Google is this: innovation.

Among Google’s most impressive innovations is Google Translate, which lets you translate a phrase from one language into any of more than sixty other languages – even Latin – which comes in really handy if you’re considering becoming say, the Archbishop of Kent.

Imagine you’re in France on a business trip and you’re hungry. Google Translate will take this English expression:I am very hungry. Let’s go to McDonalds so I can order a Happy Meal.

And turn it into this perfect French translation: Je suis très faim. Allons au McDonalds pour que je puisse commander un Happy Meal. Je déteste ces odieux, arrogants bâtards Américains.

Read More…

Now that school’s back in session, high school seniors are scrambling to pull together college applications. It’s an anxious time for parents like me. Some parents may be sweating more than others. Take my over-achieving Microsoft senior executive next door neighbors, David and Judy Wong (recent immigrants from Shanghai). They’re frantically hoping their little first violinist, chess champion daughter Vivian gets into Harvard or Yale.

Even with her staggering 6.8 GPA (I have no idea how either), in this competitive environment, Vivian might have to settle for her safety school, Oxford.  In our family’s case, we’re just hoping we don’t have to fall back on our daughter’s safety school, the Louisiana Truck Driving Academy for Asian Drivers.

Here at VFTB, our expert staff of college planning advisors and part-time Wal-Mart greeters has assembled a strategy guaranteed to get your child into the Ivy* League college campus of their choice (* we’re talking of course about Ivy Tech Community College with 30 campuses throughout Indiana).

Read More…

It was not too long ago that I held a deep-seated prejudice. No, I am not talking about my longstanding hatred of Hungarians, nor my antipathy towards vegetarians, nor even my heated disdain for anyone who earns more money than I do. I’m, of course, talking about my bigotry towards the elderly. Until quite recently, I lived under the misguided belief that old people tended to be poorer drivers and should have their driver’s licenses revoked once they turned 80.

In fairness, I have some supporting data to back up my bias. My grandfather did not stop driving until he was 86. In his later years he rarely used his turn signal, usually opting to indicate his intentions with his windshield wiper lever instead. He thought STOP signs were for pedestrians.  My mother, now age 90, only turned over the car keys at age 85 when she attempted to park her car in her own garage. That wouldn’t have been a problem except for her small oversight of forgetting to raise the garage door before entering the garage.

So imagine my surprise when I read about a new study this week that shows that grandparents are far safer drivers than parents when kids are in the car. In fact, the study conducted by State Farm Insurance involving claims for collisions between 2003 and 2007 concluded that kids are 50% less likely to become involved in an accident involving injuries when a grandparent is driving than when a parent is behind the wheel.

Read More…

As I look back upon my life thus far, I realize just how blessed I am. Two wonderful daughters, a talented portrait artist wife, living in a gorgeous city (Seattle). But you know, it wasn’t always this way. My life story has been fraught with challenging and perilous obstacles at almost every turn.

Much like Jesus, I had a very humble origin. Like baby Jesus, I too was born in a little town called Bethlehem (just outside of Albany, NY). My childhood home, while not quite a manger, was rustic in its own way. While we did not have sheep like baby Jesus, we did have a sheepdog, at our 3,700 sq. ft. suburban split level five-bedroom house. I missed out on the simple joys of attending a public school. Instead I had to be bussed 20 minutes away to an all boys’ prep school for grades 1 through 12. I rarely got a window seat on the bus. But it made me stronger.

I was forbidden to wear colorful shorts, fun t-shirts or high top sneakers to school. Every day I had to wear the same dull grey uniform with a black tie. It was a military college prep school. Every year, I had to march in the Veteran’s Day Parade while the public school kids all had the day off so they could come to the parade to mock me. But I never complained about the injustice of it all. I reminded myself about all the kids in Africa, Bangladesh and New Jersey who had even less than I had.

Read More…