Have I done something wrong? I don’t think I have, but some people might think I have. Ok, I’m just going to say it. I’ve already started watching Christmas shows on TV! I’ve even started playing Christmas songs on my ipod!  Ok, I know what you’re thinking. It’s too early. You should wait at least another month, maybe even longer. At least hear me out and please let me know what you think.

Yesterday I was sitting in the living room, waiting for Debbie to come home from work. I was channel surfing and noticed that the movie Fred Claus was on and I watched the whole movie. I liked it. I don’t feel really comfortable telling you this, but during the part when Fred Claus was driving Santa’s sleigh through Santa’s village,  I got a little teary eyed. I couldn’t help it! The sight of Santa’s brother Fred, driving Santa’s sleigh for Santa because Santa hurt his back, knowing all those kids were going to get their presents for Christmas this year, it just got to me.

Truth be known, I’ve already watched three Christmas shows, since September. I have a rule about watching Christmas shows. I think it’s cool to watch them if you’re watching them in a month that ends in “ber”. December ends in “ber”, therefore any month that ends in “ber” is a Christmas season month. You don’t have to jump right into watching Christmas shows.  Maybe in September, you can start with just one Christmas show. October, maybe two and so on. Work your way into it gradually. Even Hallmark has already started selling their Christmas decorations!  C’mon,  it’s not like I’m wearing my Darth Vader Christmas tie anywhere. That doesn’t start until the day after Halloween.

Randy

My fifteen minutes of fame has arrived! Well, it’s more like three seconds. As for the fame part, it’s not me, it’s my lunch! Let me explain.

For years now, my family and I have been going to Jimmy’s Restaurant in Santee. We love it there! It’s a great family restaurant with good food. We were there the other day for lunch and Cindy, one of the waitresses there, told me that she posted a video on You Tube about Jimmy’s. It’s a montage of dishes they serve there with some shots of customers and people that work there, set to music. I think she did a great job putting it together. If you watch the video, about 57 seconds into it, you’ll see a carne asada plate. That’s not just any carne asada plate. It’s my carne asada plate! Cindy told me that she thought the cook did such a great job putting that meal together, that she wanted to use it in her Jimmy’s video!

I feel like a proud father. I can only imagine how the cook feels! I’ve been showing all my friends the video, like a proud father showing his friends pictures of his children. For any well wishers that would like to send gifts to the proud parents, we’re registered at Sur La Table.

Randy

P.S. Here is a link to the video
Jimmy’s Restaurant, Santee

Since I’ve entered into married life, there are certain things I do more often than I did before getting married. Grocery shopping is one of them. I HATE GROCERY SHOPPING!!! I would rather shovel the elephant exhibit at the Wild Animal Park with a teaspoon than have to go through some sick scavenger hunt in a grocery store, trying to find a list of things that I’d be lucky to find half of!

This last weekend, Debbie’s sisters came over to take care of our dogs, Bella and Moose and our cat Raja. She wanted to have dinner ready for them before we left, so we needed to pick up some groceries. We did this in two trips. The first trip we went to Costco together and had no trouble finding what we needed. That’s one of the great things about Costco, you never have any trouble finding what you’re looking for there. We took the groceries from Costco home and then I went to our local grocery store down the street to get the rest of what we needed. That’s when my own little private H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS started.

First, I needed some brie cheese. I went to the cheese section of the store, (a logical plan I thought), only to discover that brie cheese qualifies as special cheese and is not located in the cheese section, but the special cheese section! Then, I needed some arugula. First off, I don’t even know what arugula is or what it looks like. Once I found the arugula, which took several trips to the produce section and help from two different employees,  I couldn’t get that arugula because it had to be baby arugula! BABY ARUGULA? If you want baby arugula, how about buying adult arugula, cut it into small pieces and there you have it, baby arugula! (I think I just broke a record. Nobody has ever typed the word arugula this much in one blog, if ever)! When I was a kid, cheese was in the cheese section, not in the special cheese section and arugula was a small town in Portugal!

If you happen to be at a certain grocery store in San Elijo Hills and you see a guy with a dazed look in his eyes and arugula stains on his shirt, grab a carrot from the special carrot section, not the regular carrot section and stab me with it!!!

Randy

Debbie and I have lived in San Elijo Hills for over two years now. We love it! Everyone that lives here is very nice. People we don’t even know will say hello to us or wave to us as we drive by.  In fact, the first day we moved in here, one of our neighbors brought us a homemade cake as a way to welcome us to the neighborhood.

You would think I’d found my little corner of shangri la. My own little Mayberry, North Carolina. Any minute now, Deputy Barney Fife and Thelma Lou are going to knock on my door and ask if Debbie and I want to go on a double date with them to the diner for the blue plate special! (For those of you who watch The Andy Griffith Show, what I just said made perfect sense. If you don’t watch that show, well, let’s just pretend that Deputy Barney Fife and Thelma Lou are my next door neighbors and the one’s that brought over that homemade cake I mentioned earlier).

Alas, in my idyllic neighborhood, I’m an outcast, the odd man out. I am absolutely convinced that everybody in San Elijo Hills surfs, except me! When I drive down the street, I see a lot of wet suits hanging on my neighbor’s fences or surfboards in their garages. I swear, the other day I saw a hawaiian lei hanging in my neighbor’s garage! Even the people that lived in our house before us had a surfboard hanging on the wall! I’m a stranger in a strange land!

Is there anyone out there that knows of a neighborhood for a guy that has never surfed a day in his life, doesn’t like to wear shorts and was the only guy in history that went to an OTL tournament wearing pants and still got the worst sunburn of his life?! I’m just waiting for some big muscular guy to walk up to me, kick sand in my face and knock over my sandcastle!

Randy

The other day I went to get our mail and found something interesting. Two issues of Popular Science magazine. I’ve never subscribed to this magazine and have no plans to in the future. Of course, the first thing I do when I get something unexpected in the mail, I check to see who it was sent to. Maybe it was sent to me instead of a neighbor. That’s happened to me several times since I’ve lived here. As I looked down at the mailing label of the magazine, it did have my address on it, but not my name. The name on the label was Steve Jobs!

Is Steve Jobs trying to buy our home? Did he already buy it and we just don’t know about it. Maybe he’s going to turn our place into an Apple Store, although given the size of our place, it would be more of an app than an Apple Store!

While I appreciate getting the magazines, they are a little too cerebral for me. Comic books and video game magazines are more my speed. I’m hoping he’ll start sending me some MacBooks and iphones next. Who knows, maybe I’ll start getting mail from George Lucas next! Just think of the stuff I could get from him!!!

Randy

For those who know me, I really love video games. My taste for video games is really quite simple, point and shoot. Hit the start button and just start shooting zombies!

My latest obsession has zombies in it – big surprise, right? The game is called Left For Dead for the Xbox 360. I should say right off that this game carries a parental advisory (lots of blood, gore, and violence), so I don’t recommend it for kids. That being said, I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!! It’s so much fun!

I found out about the game from my brother. He and I pretty much share the same taste in video games. Aside from the zombie theme of the game, what I really love most about this video game is that I can play with my brother online. We play almost every night and spend most of the time laughing.

I know this sounds kind of funny, but I think this video game that you can play online is a great way to keep in touch with family and friends and have fun at the same time.  The other night, I played online with my brother and his son, plus with his daughter and her husband who both live in Oregon. I know there is a little invention called a telephone, but this game is a lot more fun!

Bottom line is this, Left for Dead is a fun game, especially if you play with your family and friends online!  Plus if heaven forbid the world is overrun with flesh-eating zombies, my brother and I are ready!!!

Randy

I have a question.

As you can imagine, I’ve had some extra time on my hands lately. As a result of this extra time, I’ve been watching a lot more TV.  I was watching a commercial for a local TV news station the other morning and one of the news reporters said something that I just can’t figure out. What the heck does “traffic on the six’s” mean?! Do they offer traffic every six minutes, or is it traffic in every minute that ends in six? How about traffic every six seconds?

This question pops in my head like a song that just won’t go away. You know, a song that plays in your head over and over and over and over again. Maybe a song that starts like this, (I came back, to let you know just how I feel)! Sorry Tommy, it took a month to get that song purged from my head, but that’s another story, or blog perhaps.

If someone reading this could help me solve this sick puzzle, I’d really appreciate it. Please feel free to answer this question anytime, not just on the six’s!!!

Randy

Today’s the day! On this day, two years ago, my wife Debbie and I became homeowners! Wow, two years have gone by so quickly. It feels more like a few months ago to us.

Right now, as I’m typing this blog, I’m sitting at our dining room table, our TV is on in the background and I’m cooking a Hot Pocket in our microwave oven. I think that’s pretty darn cool! Ok, I could be doing something a little more exciting than cooking a Hot Pocket in my microwave, but give me time. Who knows, maybe by the time another year goes by, I might be vacuuming in just my boxer shorts!

Really, the only problem we have as homeowners right now is that somebody in our neighborhood is throwing toys in our backyard. It started out with just a small plastic ball. Now there is a soccer ball, a baseball, a bucket, a shovel, a plastic frog and a toy elephant. All in all there are about fifteen toys in our backyard right now. At this rate, I’ll have enough toys to fill my garage in a couple of months.  I’m not worried though, if nobody claims them by Christmas, I’m going to dress up like Santa Claus, get my nephew’s little red wagon, fill it with the toys from my backyard, have our dogs Bella and Moose pull the little red wagon as I deliver those toys to all the little children of San Elijo Hills!!! HO HO HO!!!

Randy-(aka Santa’s Helper)

Hi Ya Kids! TA-DA! Here’s our brand new website!!!

I was in Best Buy the day before yesterday. I really like that store. Like Fry’s Electronics, I can spend hours in there just browsing through the DVD section. On this particular visit, I was there to buy a video game I wanted. I had been in the video game section about 30 seconds when all of a sudden a kid came up to me. He looked about 12 or 13 years old. I had just picked up the video game I was looking for and this kid asked me the following question, that I can still hear in my head as I’m typing this blog, “Sir,” (ok, I’m bummed already. He called me Sir! He might as well have said, Hey Grandpa), “would you pretend to be my Dad so I can get this video game?” I noticed that the video game he wanted had a parental advisory on it and of course I immediately said “no”. He then turned around and walked away. Do I look that old? I still have all my teeth. I don’t wear short pants with dark socks and black leather shoes!

Ok, it’s official, I’m old! It won’t be long now. I’m going to have this uncontrollable urge to watch The Lawrence Welk Show and wear Hush Puppies! Oh no, I’m having a mid-life crisis! Guess I’ll hop into my bright yellow corvette, put on my driving gloves, (you know, the one’s without the fingers), wear my driving beret and play the theme from Miami Vice, so loud it’ll make your ears bleed!

Randy

One thing I’ve discovered in my life, is that from time to time, little life lessons pop up. They don’t have to be great big lessons that knock you off your feet when they come to you. Most times, it seems it’s the little ones that make the most impact.

Since we’ve moved to San Elijo Hills, Debbie and I have discovered certain places we like to go to on a regular basis. We have a certain theater we go to for movies and a few restaurants we go to often. One of those restaurants is In and Out Burger. I’d say on average, we go there once a week. In fact, you guessed it, we were there this last Saturday. You really get a lot of food for your money there. Debbie and I can have lunch and walk out of there full for $7.91. (That should tell you how often we go there if I know the exact amount it cost us for lunch).

Now for the little life lesson. After Debbie and I had finished our massive, yet economically sound $7.91 lunch, Debbie looked up at me and said, “you have something that’s about ready to go into your eye”. (Now I bet your saying to yourself that I must eat like a pig, spraying hamburger shrapnel all over my face and that the object on the verge of going into my eye was a piece of pickle or something. No, I have really good table manners and I hate pickles on my hamburgers)! Several futile attempts later, I couldn’t get rid of whatever it was on my face! So Debbie reached into her purse and pulled out a little, light purple compact mirror. You know, those little mirrors women use to apply there makeup. I took the compact mirror, held it up to my face and immediately got rid of whatever it was about to go into my eye. Right after that, I looked up and I swear every guy was looking right at me! At that moment, I lost my man card! I should have just gone to the men’s room, (or in my case, the unisex bathroom), and gotten rid of it in there. It doesn’t matter if you’re a construction worker or Randy “Macho Man” Savage, the second a guy holds a compact mirror up to your face, kiss your man card goodbye!!!

Thus endeth the little life lesson….

P.S. If anyone needs to get a hold of me, I’ll be in my garage hammering some nails into a piece of wood, while chewing some tobacco, wearing my 10 gallon cowboy hat!

Randy