No, unfortunately, yesterday wasn’t International Talk Like A Pirate Day. That’s Sept. 19. And, yes, it should be a national holiday. The reason for the post title is the mascot of East Carolina University, Pee Dee the Pirate.

Yeah, I know. I’ve got a thing for pirates. Leave me alone.

Anyway, dudes, Zippy the Monkey Boy and [...]]]> by Richard

No, unfortunately, yesterday wasn’t International Talk Like A Pirate Day. That’s Sept. 19. And, yes, it should be a national holiday. The reason for the post title is the mascot of East Carolina University, Pee Dee the Pirate.

Yeah, I know. I’ve got a thing for pirates. Leave me alone.

Anyway, dudes, Zippy the Monkey Boy and I went to East Carolina University in beautiful downtown Greenville, NC, for a very long tour of the campus. It was strange. To me, the campus felt like a small campus, everything within walking distance, lots of greenspace. All that.

The tour, however, lasted a lot longer than I thought it would.

Still, time isn’t that much of a problem. Like I said, this was a beautiful campus. Even better, it had electrical trees. Seriously. The dude giving the lecture before the tour said most of the campus had wireless computer coverage and, in a few of the open areas, there were electrical outlets around the base of some of the trees so you could plug in your laptop. Electrical trees. Awesome.

For Zippy, the place had an immediate downside in that it did not offer a bachelor of science in marine biology. There were numerous good science majors, biology, chemistry and such, and some good engineering majors, but he seems set on the marine biology degree going straight through.

In addition to the outside, the ECU campus also has a couple of nice amenities, including a very nice student athletic building with eight full-sized basketball courses, raquetball and handball.

All in all, it was a nice campus to visit. When we left, both Zippy the Monkey Boy and I blinked a couple of times. By the time we were done, we’d gone through downtown Greenville. Dude, that place is small. And when I say small, I’m talking molecular-sized small.

It was a nice-looking little town, in a Mayberry-done-up-in-spangles-after-a-night-out-with-Floyd sort of way. Lots of bars and fast-food places down the main strip, which is just what the college student ordered.

My favorite part of the tour was when the guide talked about how the most important part of doing well at the school would be forcing yourself to go to class when there wasn’t anyone breathing down your neck to get you out of bed. Zippy the Monkey Boy, who is quite familiar with my use of dynamite as a wake-up tool, wouldn’t even look at me. I just laughed.

Now we’re off to the College of Charleston down in South Carolina. But that’s a story for tomorrow.

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George of the Jungle hates his name. I mean he really hates his name. Which makes it so very hard for me not to call him that. I know. I’m a very bad person. Sigh.

See, the deal is this: George of the Jungle got his name because, just a few short months after he got [...]]]> by Richard

George of the Jungle hates his name. I mean he really hates his name. Which makes it so very hard for me not to call him that. I know. I’m a very bad person. Sigh.

See, the deal is this: George of the Jungle got his name because, just a few short months after he got his driver license, he got surprised by one of the nefarious moving trees of North Carolina. It just jumped out behind him and smashed into the rear end of his car. Watch out for that tree!

As he sees it, every time I call him that in the blog, I’m making fun of him. But that’s just not true. Well, okay. Maybe a little. Anyway, I’ve magnanimously agreed to change his name. The problem then became, change it to what? The answer to that wasn’t all that hard.

Over the last week or so, I managed to accidentally uncover a whole bunch of buttons I used to wear pinned to my shirts, backpack and other places. I wore these in high school and college when I was right around the same age as Formerly Known as George of the Jungle. I was looking over them, getting a chuckle at the seriously high level of sarcasm and cynicism displayed on their round surfaces when the not-so-little dude came around and immediately set about stealing them all.

These were buttons that said stuff like “I’m surrounded by idiots” “Eat well. Stay fit. But die anyway.” “Never underestimate the power of stupidity.” and “If all else fails, lower your standards.” Hey, I never said I was a well-adjusted young dude.

Anyway, after that little display, I figured first impulses were correct. So, from now on, welcome back the Once and Future Sarcasmo. He’s caustic. He’s sarcastic. And he’s here to stay.

Now I’ve got Speed Racer hanging on my shoulder, giving me grief about his name. Seems he’s got a problem with being named after a cartoon character known for hanging around with a little kid and a kinetic monkey. I’m feeling in a giving mood.

Speed Racer is no more. Because the little dude is a comic book geek (wonder where he got that from?) and he is who he is, we’ve worked together to come up with his new name. And remember this was mostly his idea. Welcome to Hyper Lad. Well, what did you expect? He’s 11. It goes with the territory.

I’m still Richard, Zippy the Monkey Boy is still Zippy the Monkey Boy and She Who Must Be. . . is still She Who Must Be. . . Most of the time.

I’ll be back tomorrow.

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So we had plans for the most perfect Christmas tree in existence. I mean, we had enough ornaments to decorate the world tree Yggdrasil and have some left over, maybe. All right. Probably not that many ornaments, but it sure isn’t a small number.

Anyway. We had the tree. We had the uber-stand, designed to prevent [...]]]> by Richard

So we had plans for the most perfect Christmas tree in existence. I mean, we had enough ornaments to decorate the world tree Yggdrasil and have some left over, maybe. All right. Probably not that many ornaments, but it sure isn’t a small number.

Anyway. We had the tree. We had the uber-stand, designed to prevent the . . . incidents . . . that have befallen our family for the last two years. Lord knows we don’t need any more trees hitting the ground, especially after they’ve been decorated. Dude, that is not a scene I want repeated.

So we had plans for this tree. We got a tree large enough that it wasn’t dwarfed by the oh-so-very-1980s great room, with two-story ceilings, and large enough that we had to rent a storage locker for the furniture for which we no longer have room. No, I haven’t heard of conspicuous consumption. What is that? Never mind. I don’t want to know.

The tree was up. The ornaments were attached. All was right with the world. Until our one tiny flaw was exposed.

His name was Buzz, the newest addition to the Jones family, a Labrador/pit bull mix we rescued from the pound in August. Buzz has a. . . healthy . . . interest in balls of all kinds. Sort of like the dogs in Up have for squirrels. See ball. Chase ball. Eat ball. Repeat. I think you can see where this is headed. Why we didn’t is a question for the ages.

When we had all the ornaments up and were sitting back and basking in the glow of a job well done, that’s when Buzz decided he had to see what all the fuss was about. Later on I figured out what happened. While we saw a heavily decorated Christmas tree, on which we’d done a lot of work, Buzz saw a cornucopia of shiny, round bits just begging to be batted with front paws, clenched between sharp teeth and just generally messed with.

Not really a recipe for calm, reasoned behavior.

My wife, known to many as She Who Must Not Be Trifled With, and I were in the kitchen, just puttering around. (I was showing her where the actual cooking took place. She was curious. It’d been so long since she’d done any actual cooking.) That’s when we heard the rapid series of plinks, chomps and thuds, followed by a resounding smash. We quickly ran to the great room and saw Buzz lying contentedly at the foot of the (thank goodness) still-standing tree and chewing on a wooden ornament he’d just brought down (along with a shower of less-durable ornaments).

So, fortunately, we didn’t kill the poor dog, but it was a near thing.

Rather than throwing the dog back, we decided instead to torture him. We’ve got him in a crate that faces the tree so he can always see it, but he can’t get to it. No, not really. We are, though, letting him out on a limited, supervised basis until he learns not to eat the ornaments. He still goes outside, but his movement inside is severely restricted.

He’s actually doing a good job of straightening out. I’ve found him casting forlorn glances at the stocking with Buzz written on it and having over the fireplace. I think he’s worried about getting on Santa’s bad side. Good. I’ll take that.

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