One more of my favorites, just couldn't resist...

Observation #20 - Spring Time

Spring is without a doubt the most frustrating season of all, if a season can be frustrating. Here, it's 70 degrees one day and 4 inches of snow the next. One day I'm driving one of the old Vettes and the next day I'm driving the Jeep with the hubs locked. I think that Spring should be like an on/off switch, one day its Winter and the next day its Spring. Wish I knew how to do that, must be a way, after all I'm not asking for much, I just want to control the weather. OK, sounds a little more difficult when I say it that way.

My parents live in Phoenix and will tell you it's a perfect climate. We also lived there for 9 years so I have some experience in the subject. Yes, the Winters are a delight, shorts, golf and driving Corvettes, what more can you want? But Spring is not so kind, you get 100 degree days in April and they don't end until September. Who wants to play golf or drive a Corvette with the top off when it's 118 degrees outside, you'll get your brain baked. Come to think of it, most people say my ideas are half baked, maybe that's why, got my brain baked in Phoenix.

I think I'll go with that, sounds like a good excuse.........

Another of my favorites just for grins.......

Observation #19 - Drums

OK, maybe it's part of my mid life crisis, but I took up playing the drums again a few years ago. Had not played since high school, never was much good but I like being loud, just ask my wife, I'm about as loud a guy can be in most everything I do so the drums kind of fit for me. Drums can be the perfect instrument for someone that likes music but not seriously enough to take the time to be good at it, you just got to be loud.

I took it one step further, I play digital drums meaning that they are computerized basically. They set up like the real thing but instead of skins they have triggers that pick up the beat each time a head is struck and sends a signal to the controller to make whatever sound is assigned to that particular drum head, pretty cool eh? I am a musically inclined techno geek. Another nice feature about these types of drums is that depending on your controller you can feed your CD or DVD player through it and scrub the drum track out so you're playing it yourself along to the CD or DVD. As a result I have played for some of the true greats, the Eagles, Mellencamp, Bob Seger, Jimmy Buffett, Heart, Aerosmith, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, Queen (hate to admit that, it doesn't mean a thing), Pink Floyd, Joe Cocker and Neil Diamond. I know Neil Diamond, how does that fit? Hard to say, a childhood favorite I guess although it is very difficult to go from Van Halen to Neil Diamond.

I have also played all the great locations, The Hollywood Bowl, Royal Albert Auditorium, Red Rocks Amphitheater and Wembley Stadium, I am living vicariously through my DVDs, which is kind of sad in itself. However, in my mind I am a celebrity of sorts, a real music mogul to be held in awe by all those around me, at least until the DVD ends.

Another great thing about playing the drums this way is again, you don't need to be good, just loud. If you screw up, just do it loud and it sounds like it belongs. It's also great for taking out aggression, annoying your wife and ticking off your neighbors, although my wife likes me to play the drums for her. I still can't tell if it's a case of her using reverse psychology on me, it's all very confusing. Overall, really no down side from my point of view..........

Observation #18 - Knight Rider

OK, this is a bit of an indulgence, not for me but for my daughter. See, she liked the old show Knight Rider, personally I never understood the big deal about a talking car. If I wanted to hear someone tell me how to drive I would take my wife, don't need the car telling me what to do. Anywho, I went to a car show and they had the old and new Kitt cars there so I took a picture for my daughter. Erica, this one's for you

Observation #18 - LOL

LOL, I hate that and it goes for the rest of them too. If I hear LOL once more I won't BRB and you won't be my BFF anymore. Holy cow, start expanding your vocabulary not shrinking it. How about this one; dykhsys? It means "do you know how stupid you sound?". Or this one; guaslaa or grow up and speak like an adult.

And that goes for faces made of keystrokes, enough already. :) this is not a sideways smiley face, it's a colon and a parenthesis. These things are annoying. If you insist on using smiley faces at least use some of the ones you can get on line like:



At least these leave me ROFL..............

Observation #17 - Emergency Rooms

If there is one place where a middle aged guy may have an advantage it may just be an emergency room. Let me preface this by saying, how do I put this, I'm not exactly petite. Not ready for the Big & Tall Department, but still a big guy. One evening a few years back when I was the tender age of 47, I felt a little pain in my chest. Now don't anyone panic, the ticker is good, turned out to be a bad gallbladder, yanked it out and life is good again, but that's not relevant to the story. Anywho, I told my wife that we may want to go get the chest pain checked out to be safe. We arrived at Overland Park Regional Medical Center to a fairly packed waiting room. That's where the advantage kicks in, see all you have to do is show up as a non-petite middle age man and say those two magic words "chest pain" and you go directly to the head of the line, no registration or anything, just wham bam and into a room with more medical professionals than you'll know what to do with. I have never felt more welcome anywhere.

That's where the downside is and reality kicks you between the eyes... doctors. These ER doctors don't have much patience (a little pun there) with overweight middle aged guys having chest pain once they've ruled out heart trouble. After about an hour of being treated like a king with dignity and respect, the doctor came in to tell me my heart was fine, he could have stopped right there but it was time to put the fear of God in me. He asked a few questions; "do you know what your cholesterol is?" I said no, he asked do you know what your blood pressure is?" I said no. His next question was a little less compassionate when he asked "are you stupid", I didn't answer but my ever supporting wife was quick to fill the silence and answered for me saying "why yes he is". Well long story short, those two no's cost me a night in the hospital so they could run every test known to mankind to let me know my heart was fine. I was poked, prodded, drained, filled, put to sleep and woken back up. If I ever was sick I think the hospital would be the last place I would go for comfort. It was the ER doc's way of punishing me for being stupid, had it coming I suppose. Anyways it worked, lost a bunch of weight, still a ways to go but getting there and got my numbers under control.

Next time I'll just tell them my knee hurts and then work into the chest pain slowly.........

One of my favorites just for fun...........

Observation #16 - Music

Why is it that all music today sounds the same, whether it's pop, country or contemporary, it all sounds the same to me, it sound like it's being sung by depressed adolescent people on Prozac. Very rarely do I hear anything up-tempo or well just happy. I can't tell one song from another, they all sound the same, same words, same melody, same voice and same reaction, makes me depressed. Even country music has a overall tone of depression, some body's been cheated on, had their truck stolen or been hit by a train, not too uplifting now is it?

Back in the days when it was a luxury to have an FM radio in your car and you could break a finger pushing the preset buttons on your AM dial, the music had some personality, some style. You could listen to Bob Seger or Donna Summers, both would be totally different experiences. There was a selection process involved, you had to choose between John Denver or Heart based on what you were in the mood for. Now it doesn't matter what you're in the mood for, you're going to get teen age depression.

Thank goodness for CD players.........

Observation # 15 - Headaches

I have a headache, seemed like a good thing to blog about. I was sitting here trying to decide on a subject and thinking so much gave me a headache so it sounded logical. When I was younger it took quite a bit to give me a headache, hours of slaving away in the yard under a hot sun and presto, headache. Not so much anymore. I got a headache last week tying my shoes, that's pretty pathetic. I think headaches are your body's way of telling you to "shut 'er down" when you over do it. If that's true, then I over did it tying my shoes last week, that does not bode well for me in the upcoming years. What's next, am I going to throw my back out opening a Diet Coke? If I can't open a Diet Coke I'll literally die of thirst, seriously I will die of thirst as my body is 95% Diet Coke. If I had to take a drug test today the nurse would take one look at my sample and say "very funny, how did you smuggle in the Diet Coke?". What's scary is what if I had to open a Diet Coke AND make a sandwich, I might have a stroke..............that would not look good in an obituary "died opening a Diet Coke AND making a sandwich, all at the same time. He was a brave soul."

Observation #14 - Road Construction

Here in SLC there are some roads that seem to have been under construction since I left town in 1982 until I returned this year. How long do some of these projects take? They were problems in 1982 and are still problems in 2009. Sometimes as I sit in the perpetual traffic backups, I imagine myself sitting in my 1965 Impala SS on my way to classes at the University of Utah. I listen to oldies stations, many of us oldies do, and it just makes the experience feel more realistic. I feel like I did as youth, dating my soon to be wife, going to pick her up at her Dad's place and heading out for dinner at the Sizzler before we go see Donna Summers in concert. Then some soccer mom in a Range Rover honks because you didn't have that split second reaction she expects to pull up those next three feet and you snap out of it and realize you're in a Ford Taurus on the way to the airport to rush and catch a flight to Denver for business.

Sometimes road construction can make you remember what you miss..............

Observation #13 - Humor

I love a good joke, I also love when some one with a quicker wit than me says someting that makes me pause before I fully understand the humor involved. For example, if you want to see that "dear in the headlight look", next time you go grocery store and you go to check out, you will eventually be asked if you want your milk in a bag. I was with an uncle of mine, one of the quickest wits I have every been around, when he was aked that question. He responded by saying "Geez no, leave it in the bottle, last time you put it in a bag it spilled all over the trunk of my car before I got home". Wait for it, you'll get it in a moment ot two.

The best part is the response of the bagger, for a moment they think they said something wrong and you get a great blank stare, it's priceless.

Observation #12 - Hybrid Cars

I want to be clear up front, if you drive a hybrid car I really don't care. Have you ever heard of a hybrid anything being a good thing? If you were going in for a heart transplant would you want a hybrid replacement heart, I wouldn't. I am not impressed so you don't have to put all kinds of emblems, initials and logos on your car telling me it's a hybrid, again don't care.

I saw a Honda Civic today that said NGV on the side on the car. I was told that it meant Natural Gas Vehicle..... Well Woo Freakin' Hoo. I'm going to put FFGG on the side of my Vette and make sure everyone with a hybrid car knows it means Fossil Fuel Gas Guzzler. I'm using my share of Fossil fuels now, let the next generation worry about what they're going to power their cars with, I'll be dead and on my way to becoming a Fossil fuel myself so I won't care.

It was once pointed out to me while fueling my Vette by the driver of a Toyota Prius that I was being hard on our Fossil fuels. Last time I checked Fossils were all dead, they don't care what I drive. Let's look at the basics, electric hybrid cars need to be recharged with electricity. 75% of our electricity is made by coal fired power plants. Coal is what, a Fossil fuel so get off your high horse.

One last thing, why can't they build a decent looking electric hybrid, they all look like eggs and who wants to drive an egg?

Observation # 11 - Spoons

I can prove that women lose things more than men with the cunning use of spoons. First I need to make a disclaimer, your home must be a proper control group meaning you can't have kids as they will eventually lose everything at least once.

We men tend to use the larger spoon, I would call it by it's proper name but as a man I only know kitchen utensils by description, hence the big spoons. Women tend to use the small spoons by nature. Why is obvious, men have big mouths and women want to believe they don't.

Go ahead an look in your silverware drawer and I bet you'll find more big spoons than small spoons, therefore we can deduce that women loose them as they use them by nature meaning that women lose things more often.

I hope everyone appreciates my clearing this up..............

Observation # 10 - Salads

I have trained myself to order salads when I go out with my wife. It took years to discard the lifetime habit of burgers, ribs and other fatty, but great tasting food. Here I thought I was doing a good thing and now I read that some of my favorite restaurant salads are through the roof at some of my favorite places. Geez, what's a guy to do? Some of these salads have over 1,500 calories, any idea how many burgers I could snarf down for that? It would certainly be a much more enjoyable experience.

I think they should put a disclaimer on these salads like they do cigarettes. Something like "eating this salad can be hazardous to your health not to mention your taste buds". The irony of this is that now instead being hooked on burgers, ribs and other great fatty things, I'm hooked on these artery blocking salads.

I wonder how many calories and how much fat is in carrot cake?

Observation # 9 - Carrots

I admit it, I hate carrots. I hate their color, taste, smell and overall appearance. I see no redeeming value in carrots. I don't like them raw, cooked, shredded or diced. I even hated listening to Bugs Bunny chomp those orange gag-cycles on cartoons as a child. I just hate carrots. One exception, I like carrot cake, goes to show you that a person can wrap anything with cake and smear it with cream cheese frosting and make it edible.

My wife does not share this hatred of carrots with me, she actually likes them. In fact, she puts them in everything, soups, stews, casseroles and she probably even puts them in her cereal in the morning. Everything I eat at home has those horrible orange eyes staring up at me. I'm not sure, but I think forcing your children to eat carrots constitutes child abuse.......... don't think I better turn her in, I'll just end up eating more carrots when she gets out.

Observation # 8 - Clocks

OK, it's a couple weeks past daylight savings time and I have clocks that will still be wrong when we fall back in October. Some clocks are not meant to be changed. Watches, easy, dial clocks with wheels on the back, very easy. Digital clocks, not so much. There are some clocks not meant to be changed;

VCR's; forget it, just not possible so it's not worth discussing.

Cars; some cars are not too bad. My Taurus has it right, big buttons that say HOUR & MINUTE, push them and the time changes, life is good. However, some cars require an owner's manual to set. Usually something like "push the tuning knob and the power knob at the same time and turn the tuning knob clockwise until the proper time shows on the display and press set". Are you kidding me, how many fingers do they think I have? Also, they don't do that many things at the same time. Then there are those car clocks that have little tiny holes which require the insertion of a little tiny probe to change the time. What sick and twisted individual came up with that?

Digital Alarm Clocks in Hotels; I swear, there's an employee at the hotels who's specific job is to find the most difficult thermostats and alarm clocks on the market. These things have more buttons and settings than the normal clock, it's like someone designed it to confuse weary middle aged men trying to make their meetings on time. Most likely to go after their jobs once they get fired so they can get out of their miserable jobs at the hotels.

I have an atomic clock in my office at home. All I have to do is put batteries in it and it stays correct, now that's effective engineering! An interesting note, my father sent it to me, kind of like he knew what I was going to be suffering through, as if he lived it himself. Well done father, I'll be giving one to my son when he gets to be older. My daughter won't need one, she can set a clock like her mother, they just never let me in on the secret. I think there is a rite of passage thing between women, a "setting of the clock ritual" that men are not privy to.

I hate the guy that came up with daylight savings time............

Observation # 7 - Patio Furniture

So we have a nice suburban front porch with a view of the mountains and it's a great place to sit and watch the world go by. On this front porch we had a pair of nice cast iron chairs with puffy cushions and they were extremely comfortable, I could sit there for hours given the opportunity. Of all the issues we have in our lives, those two chairs were very low on my priority list. I would have assumed the same was the case for my wife, I guess I was wrong.

Yesterday, my lovely wife declared it was time to replace the chairs on the front porch. OK, no big deal and in all actuality a small decision - I can let her make the call. I mean, how could this go bad for me, they're just chairs, right? She brought back two rocking chairs. Rocking chairs, people! I now have two beautiful white rocking chairs in plain view on the front porch of my house. OK, I know I'm getting up there in years but rocking chairs? These things make a statement to everyone that drives by, kind of like the house your grandparents live in. Then there's the confusion issue, two things that just don't go together, Corvette in the driveway and rocking chairs on the front porch. Of course I have a handicap tag for the Vette due to some knee work, but I never put the two things together before. That used to confuse people but now with the rocking chairs on the porch it kind of makes sense. The most disturbing thing of all about these chairs (that I am having a major breakdown over) is that, well.... these things are kind of comfortable. What does that mean?

Observation #6 - Decisions

I am an upper level executive for one of the country's greatest companies, and as such I am a decision making wonder. I can make operational decisions, people decisions, money decisions and still be able to decide between soup or salad at lunch without working up a sweat. No decision flusters me, if I'm right I'm a hero, if I'm wrong then it's a great learning experience not to be repeated. I take a totally pragmatic approach and am generally sucessful, a decision making guru if you will.

At home, not so much. When my wife and I were married we agreed she could make all the small decisions about our life and we would make the big ones together. This has worked out very well for us. I believe this is because, so far, all the decisions must have been small ones as I've not had to be involved in a single decision in 31 years.

Observation # 5 - Pharmacies

Pharmacies are interesting places. The employees there have powers that I find amazing, or maybe I'm just too trusting, I don’t know which. I dropped a couple of new prescriptions off today and couldn’t help but notice that on my best day with x-ray vision and the wisdom of Noah Webster himself, I could never read what the doctor wrote as it was illegible beyond recognition.

As I was leaving, I couldn’t help but wonder how the perky little minimum wage clerk that keyed it into her computer behind the counter was able to read it. For all I know I’m on birth control.

Observation # 4 - Mid Life Crisis

Middle aged men will almost all go through a mid life crisis at some point, depending on when they feel they've hit mid life I suppose. I've seen the extremes, from one guy spending thousands on his golf game for equipment and lessons to the loner that sells everything he owns and becomes a sheep Herder in Montana. We all justify it the same way, we earned it........ nice try but not true. We do it in order to hang onto that last shred of our youth. We need to feel we can still compete with our younger brethren on some level. The golfer wants to be able to say he beat a younger man on the golf course before he spends the rest of the day recovering from the workout of being his own caddy, after all it's says more about the man that can carry his own clubs over an 18 hole course at the expense of every joint in his body. The sheep herder want s to prove............... OK, I can't explain the sheep herder, that's just weird, but you get the point.

For me, my mid life crisis manifested itself in the more common way, owning the car you lusted over as a youth. I bought my dream car, a red classic Corvette, the car that made me weak in the knees as a young man just getting his start in the real world. Good enough, not hardly. I then had to buy a second newer model in black because I was afraid to drive the red one, I know it makes no sense but it works for me. Have you ever looked around while driving, you will almost never see a woman or a young man in a Corvette because these cars are small, noisy, hot, uncomfortable, have no payload capacity and can't be driven in bad weather at the real risk of death. Women and young men don't want these things, they are too practical for Corvettes. These vehicles are primarily driven by middle aged men living vicariously through their cars. There's just something about taking the top off and letting the wind blow through your hair, if you still have any. If it gets too windy some of us will put our hair in the passenger seat to keep it safe. It works for a while, but at some point you just become a very old man in a very nice car, not really fooling anyone at that point.

For me it's about small victories. When I'm in that black Corvette and have my right foot on the accelerator, I know that in a competition with any 3o year old man in his Honda, I can get to Wal-Mart first. Of course I won't be able to buy anything bigger than a pair of shoes when I get there as anything larger won't fit inside. I guess it's kind of a shallow victory, but at least I can show up for my prostate exam in a Vette.

Observation #3 - Doctors

Doctors take a keen interest to a guy's body when you turn 50. When you're younger and you go to see a Doctor it was more of a listen to your heart & lungs, check your eyes, ears, nose , throat and turn your head and cough kind of thing. But when you turn 50 it's like the doctors have a manual that says "we must now look at other organs that we have never been interested in before."

Problem is, these organs are not located where they can readily be seen and they must not make noise because he can't listen to them either. To make things worse, some can't even be seen by x-ray and need to be "felt and not seen". On a side note to all the men reading this, if your doctor says you have an enlarged prostate, don't thank him for the compliment.

Also at 50, there are places they would like to put a camera that should never get that kind of exposure. These pictures will never make you famous so don't post them on the Internet and they're not anything you want to show your friends at your next dinner party.

Unfortunately these are necessary evils, but I don't have to like it. In fact I'm fairly confident and very hopeful that my mind will do it's job and block these memories and I will never speak of them again...... until my next physical, oh crap.

Observation #2 - Pants

What happened? Did I miss a meeting, did I not get the memo? When did buying pants become such a chore? When I was a younger man it was much easier, just walk into any store selling Levi's, pick up a couple pairs of 501 button fly size 36 X 36 and I was good to go. Ah, the simpler times, reminds me of the Bob Seger song "Like a Rock", I'm still built like a rock, just not in the good sense of the word, more like the roundish, curvy and misshapen kind of rock people put in their front yard to stop erosion.

So what do I wear? Is it classic fit, original fit, comfort fit or relaxed fit? What exactly is the difference between comfort and relaxed fit anyways. Are comfort fit jeans just more comfortable and relaxed fit jeans just a little more laid back with a better attitude towards life in general, I just don't know.

Here's a suggestion for those executive types that manage retail stores that sell pants. You already have a Boy's department, Men's department and a Big & Tall department. How about adding a Middle Aged & Confused department. Another thing, don't staff it with Barbie's daughter. I don't need last year's prom queen taking my measurements and trying to develop a fashion statement for me. Just hire another middle aged guy that can just look at me and point to the shelf, I can deal with that and will be your customer for life.

Observation #1 - Toy Poodles

If you're a middle aged man ( I really hate that term, although I like thinking I'm going to live to be 102), you're probably married to a middle aged woman, unless of course you are wealthy or look like a young Adonis. When you reach middle age, sometimes your kids are married off and gone. There is a down side, whereas men look at "Empty Nest Syndrome" as a good thing, most women don't. When our kids left my wife wanted something to fill the void, something she could nurture, protect, care for and spoil and I wasn't it. So we got a toy poodle and since toy poodles are like potato chips, we got a second one. Now let it be known that I love my poodles, but in all reality they are balls of yarn with legs, very,very,very noisy balls of yarn.

The problem with toy poodles is that it is very hard to look manly walking a pair of toy poodles. I remember once we took them with us to visit my son at basic training with the Air Force at Sheppard AFB in Texas. Walking my poodles among all these armed military type men in uniform being trained to defend our great nation was not the biggest ego boost I'll ever have, think my son may feel the same way. I wouldn't be surprised if every time he runs into one of his training buddies they remember me, the guy with the two yapping balls of yarn and not the good times they had.

Another thing about toy poodles, let's face it, they're not going to provide much protection from your neighbor's cat let alone his pit bull. About the only thing I feel protected from are old squirrels that are not feeling particularly well at the moment. Having said that, it could be worse, we could have cats.

Intro

My name is Tony and I'm 51 years old, not 50 but 51. It took a year to get over the shock before I could effectively convey my thoughts about the subject. Turning 30, no problem, 40, no sweat but 50, well things started to hurt and I'm afraid things will start falling off when I hit 60. So I thought I would pass along some of my observations as I head down the road to the inevitable, becoming an old man in a hat driving an excessively large car blocking the fast lane of life.

A couple of disclaimers first, for any women that read this, I know you have your own set of issues to deal with when you age. Please keep in mind I had nothing to do with that whole menopause thing, I didn't write the software, I didn't vote for it and I didn't advise God to bring the affliction down on you, I AM an innocent bystander so please accept my apologies for anything that may offend, I'm a man and as such I don't know how what I said was insensitive, or so I've been told. Also, to all you men that have your act together and are better prepared to age gracefully, I couldn't give a crap.

So, on to my first observation..................