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We stopped at McDonald’s the other night on the way to church and like most of the high-end Mickey D’s, they have a self-serve beverage bar. There is a sign hanging on the wall next to the lids and straws. Here’s what the McSign says:

“For your safety, please cap all drinks before leaving the beverage bar.”

If you’ve been frequenting McDonald’s for a while, you may not even have noticed that the sign was written in a foreign language - McDanish. Here’s the actual translation of the McSign:

“Would you put a lid on your drink so you don’t spill it all over the floor and make me have to get out from behind the McFryer and clean up after you? Come on people!!!”

I speak a few other languages too, so if you find yourself in need of some sign translation, just let me know.

J

My friend Bryan tagged me with this, so here it is:

Four Jobs You’ve Had

- Miniature Golf Course - Spent 7 years there
- Target - Needed Christmas money when the Golf Course closed for the winter
- Lawn Service - Needed a job after college graduation
- Uncle Sam’s Service

Four Places You’ve Lived

- Biloxi, MS
- Wichita Falls, TX
- Charleston, SC
- Dayton, OH

Four Vacations You’ve Taken

- Montego Bay, Jamaica
- Niagara Falls, NY
- Macinac Island, MI
- Europe (pre kids)

Four Vehicles You’ve Owned
- Datsun Pickup. Great truck…drove it til the wheels fell off. Kissed my wife for the first time in this car. She drooled down my arm while sleeping on our first road trip. Drove away from the wedding in this truck. Lots of memories.
- Nissan Pickup. Needed a replacement to the first truck once wheels fell off.
- Ford SuperCrew Pickup. Nice ride. Plenty of room. My first American car - and it still runs.
- Jeep Wrangler. The beach car. I just put a 2″ lift and bigger tires on it. If it would ever stop raining here, I will put the new bikini top on and hit the road.

Four Blogs You Visit & Want to Tag

Well, I will Tag Colby, since he hasn’t responded to his previous tagging.
I will also tag the lighter side of the Ohio Guy
…as he promised a posting at his other site. We shall see.

OK - a little rant here. I’m tired of going through the “self-check” line at the store to find that the 10 people in front of me are not smart enough to be “self-checkers.” On more than one occasion, I’m waiting in a single line for 1 of 4 checkout stations. One line seems to be moving so-so, but the other 3 usually have two or three people staring confusedly at the machine waiting for an intervention by a professional. Maybe you’ve experienced this and know what I’m talking about. I think these people just feel they missed their calling as a supermarket checker or something, and they have something to prove to themselves.

Here are a few ideas to help this epidemic:
- There should be some sort of mandatory training that is required. At the end, you would get a card (much like your driver’s license) that would allow you to operate in the self-check line.
- If you have produce or some other item that requires entering some type of code, choose another line (with human interaction). If you can’t scan a bar code for EVERY item, go somewhere else.
- If you require the professional that’s overseeing all 4 lanes to come over every time you attempt to scan an item, this ain’t the lane for you.
- There should be a minimum IQ required to enter the “self-check” area. I’m not sure what the cutoff is, but just take the average IQ of the 10 people that were in front of me. For that matter, you should probably add the IQs of these 10 people…that will probably get us in the ballpark.

OK - I’m done now.

J

When we moved in, our side yard was completely dead. This was very convenient, since it’s where I needed to put up the kids’ fort. After several months of empty promises that our yard would get “hydroseed,” they finally told us that they didn’t have any money to do it and we should plant grass seed. That information would have been nice to know about 4 months ago, but here we are.

So, we raked the yard, got out most of the big rocks and I bought about 9 bags of topsoil to help out. I planted a 15 pound bag of quick-grow rye grass and also mixed it with bermuda for the sunny area and some other shade grass under the tree. This would not be my first choice for a house I actually owned, but I need grass quickly and in a bad way. We kept it watered every day and achieved amazing results. The top picture shows the “dead” version with some grass seed already scattered out. The next picture is the yard after only ONE Week! Amazing. The blades are still pretty thin, but there is amazing coverage. Hopefully, we’ll be able to have the “Grand Re-opening” of the backyard for the neighborhood children in a couple of weeks.

J

I went to see my first PGA event yesterday - The Sony Open. Golf crowds are just a little more laid back than most sports. Many times I found myself standing just feet away from the pros. A couple of times I had to move over so that they could walk past me to the tee box. There’s just an inherent respect of personal space that you wouldn’t find at a pro football or baseball game.

Everyone has their favorite player. I got to see a lot of guys that I’ve watched over the years. That was pretty cool. There were two ladies that really liked Paul Azinger. He was on the #10 tee waiting to go. He took a couple of practice swings towards us and the ladies started clapping and looking at each other like they had just spoken to a rock star. He chuckled and continued his warm up.

The recovery of the day was when David Duval yanked his tee shot into the trees about 200 yards down the left side. It was kind of comforting to see that I’m not the only one that does that. Anyway, he got a great kick off the tree (the cash bounce) and put him about 10 yards back into the fairway. He hits his second shot about 4 feet from the tee and knocks it in for Birdie.

On the next tee box, things were a little stacked up, so Brad Faxon took a few minutes to help his daughter fix her iPod. I wonder if it distracted him since he 3-putted the hole.

I closed my day by watching Michelle Wie tee off. The crowd was very enthusiastic as she stepped up on the #1 tee box. Amidst the cheers for the home-town legend, some guy next to us gives the “cat call” “whoot-whoo” whistle. OK - so forget my attempts at elevating the class level of the golf crowd over the football/baseball crowd for a moment. Maybe he was just trying to symbolize the novelty of a woman playing in an all-male tournament. I don’t know. Anyway, right after that, some dude about 10 yards behind us says in a laid-back surfer voice, “Dude….she’s 16.” Maybe you had to be there, but it was funny.

Well, that about wraps up my coverage of the 2005 Sony Open. Stay tuned for a word from our sponsors.

J

Sad but true…today I tried to call the wife’s cell phone. I have her on speed dial (#2-no idea who #1 is). She didn’t answer, so I tried to call her at the house. Halfway through dialing, I realized I couldn’t remember the rest of my phone number. I had to look it up on our office phone directory. Very sad…

J