You want to know what really frustrates me? LEAF BLOWERS!

Bugger those things are like bringing the joyful noise of the vacuum to the great outdoors! Tell me this, with all the air flow they are doing wouldn't it be more practical to actually be sucking up those leaves and bagging them? What says unproductive more clearly than blowing leaves slowly into a pile only so they the wind can later redistribute them for you? Forgive me my Luddite tendencies when I want to yell at people "Get a rake!"

AND also...

Can someone explain to me this Atari version of a football player. How was the mastermind/artist behind this not laughed out of the room when they presented their vision of what Traverse should put as a design on their football stadium? No one in the planning stages of this gorgeous tile mosaic thought, "Hey this thing looks like a giant peanut with legs"?

Try Optimism

John-

I am suddenly feeling so peaceful. Currently I have read some pretty frustrated posts and am having trouble channeling my inner anger to the degree that some have reached here.

That is not to say that I haven't been angry, but, oh what is the saying... I've been making lemonade with lemons.

2 Examples:
1.Roommate gives angry psychopathic ex our cell phone number. He starts leaving messages everyday. Fills our inbox -DAILY. With screaming ranting epithets of curse words insulting her, us, our mothers. He can leave 40 in a row. One a minute. Why on a phone that can take my picture, and record my voice, can it NOT block calls?

He has his own ringtone now, which used to drive us nuts but is now the equivilent of our favorite tv show theme song. We suddenly get excited because we know what's coming...Bingo.
Yep, the game.

We made swear word bingo cards with all the words and threats he usually uses. Now it's a competition to see who can guess which variation of the F-bomb he'll drop next. The fun part: explaing to our 91 year old friend that we play bingo with a friend of ours who is the caller.

Ex. 2:
Not getting our whole security deposit back from our previous landlord.
Ouch.

BUT, even though we were robbed (while he was changing the locks), and had raw sewage backflow into our washer and flood our basement -twice, we are calmly going to explain to him that we feel he has wronged us and give him the opportunity to end this right now before we take him to court.

This took some time to get settled about. Jesus helped out with that. Now both Justin and I can be at a place where we can pray for him and realize any justice he gets on earth would be preferable to God's justice in the herafter. And then leave it all in God's hands.

No servant is greater than his master. And my master was crucified. How can I expect better? Truly we need no more evidence that humanity is unjust when the hands that created it have nail holes through them.

Simple Life Lessons to help with Frustration

Life's 5 Most Important Lessons
By Paula Spencer

Top five life lessons shared by people ages 65 to 104 are:

The simple things matter most.
Humor and time cure most pains.
There's more satisfaction in giving than getting. Service to others is the most satisfying activity.
Choose your spouse carefully. It will be your most important decision.
Work hard and in a field or role that you enjoy.

Eric is this you or dad calling the cable company?

where do i start?

no seriously how do i post on here? a week ago i spent 35 minutes trying to post something, thinking i was signed up, but i wasn't. it said my old aim account would work but i learned i needed a google account. signing up was easy but it took 6 trys to spell the blurred word verification. i ddn't ''FORQUINGMA'' was a word

-id say at least once every 2 weeks we (gerald or myself) call charter communications. either the internet or cable is not working properly or my father got billed for something we've never heard of. usually pretty helpful after the 10 or 15 minutes of trying to get past the computerized operator

-shin splints: im rested, im hydrated, im motivated, ive got my ipod, im stretching, im limping..

-coworker that was just the laziest pile of sh*t who didn't lift a finger. would have easily been fired if they weren't sleeping with the boss

golf: enough said. its just a coin toss out there every shot. practice is pointless. kevin costner' shovel seems pretty practical

-being surrounded by drunk people.........sober

-people yelling something obscene at you while your jogging....most likely their world class athletes though so....

-4 way stops

-getting chirped by drunk tommy tough guy who conviniently outnumbers you

-"oh you didn't feel like starting today car?''

..........this is fun im sure ill be back..good luck john i love you

I have found the perfect YouTube clip for what I was feeling below

My computer is a piece of shit.

I am not writing this on my computer because it is a piece of shit.

I am so proud of myself this last week for not smashing my laptop to pieces. I have pictured myself numerous times this week grabbing the screen with 2 hands and smashing the keyboard down on the kitchen table until it folds the wrong way, hopefully having the effect of me breaking it into 2 parts. I even rationalized the consequences for these actions and if it was worth the elation I would no doubt feel from the act. I was weighing the cons: my wife being pissed at me, me feeling like a jackass shortly after, the cost of a new laptop which we don't have money for, I could possibly get hurt having pieces flying, there would be a big gouge or a large mark on the table and could maybe ruin something else in the house with flying debris. With the pros: It...would...feel...so...damn...good. So for now I have decided not to. I cannot say the same for my mouse, that has taken some abuse and does not work properly anymore. For some reason my computer just stopped working. I have reinstalled everything and wiped the computer clean 5 times now to no avail. Vista can go to hell and take Billy Gates with him for ever letting this operating system go to market. I may become a Mac guy. I have fought it tooth and nail, but my next computer may be a Mac. Now I have to see if my computer is still under warranty and if I can get a new one. Not to mention reinstalling all the programs and files that were on the thing.

Why I don't have it so bad (but it still feels good to rant):
We are fortunate enough that my wife has a fully functional laptop that I can use until I get mine fixed, I know some people are not lucky enough to have one computer. Also, I had my files backed up to an external hard drive so I did not lose anything vital.