A special little place...

I'm a dad.

Being a DAD is a special thing. It's not the same thing as these numb-skulls that get women [and girls] pregnant and just roll out and treat their kids like lost socks... things you don't go back for.

Dad's do the damn thing!

Dad's worry about their kids; Dad's feel all of their kids pain 100 times more than the kids themselves; Dad's hear the sneezes and the coughs in the middle of the night and we go pull the covers up on our babies; Dad's protect and place nothing at a higher premium than the safety of our children. While very few of us will say we deserve it, there IS a special little place in heaven for real Dads.

But there is another little "special place" I hope, for fathers like Lam Luong.

Lam Luong is the guy that threw his four babies off of an 80 foot bridge in Bayou LaBatre, Alabama last week.

I hope that there is a special little place in hell for fathers like him.

Things effect me very deeply, usually to my detriment - the night after I heard about this insane and senseless quadruple homicide I barely slept. I tossed and turned and tried to keep my eyes closed for more than a few minutes at a time, but it didn't work. I sat on the edge of my bed for a long time around 2:30AM. I just keep thinking about how confused and terrified those children felt as the man that was supposed to be Dad, was murdering them. I just couldn't get the feel of drowning babies out of my head. I wonder if they understood that they didn't do anything wrong. I couldn't understand how this could happen. I found myself praying that God snatched these babies souls before they hit that water and they never felt a thing. (This is what I usually hope and pray when people die, especially from violence.)

I found myself wishing that I could have just two minutes alone with Lam Luong. Two minutes to reach into some of the darker places in my primal being and two minutes to show him the terror and pain his dying children felt. But I knew that that wasn't right. He had broken the rules of our fraternity, not me, and there was no reason that should corrupt my soul because of his ill deeds. So I could only hope that there was a special little place in hell for fathers that murder their babies.

How was I to get to sleep? After a long bout with my own rage and anger, I wandered down the hall to my kids room and watched them sleep. MY KIDS. MY SONS. MY ANGELS. I went over and sat on the bottom bunk bed, where my youngest sleeps. After a few minutes, I laid down and pulled the covers up over myself and drifted off into a peaceful sleep next to him. Maybe I was the one who needed protecting that night.

TTBM

Pardon the interruption...

Today, I did something very rude. It was incredibly thoughtless of me and I want to apologize. And, the worst part is - I do this very often, and I never seem to learn. But today, I felt compelled to blog my concerns and MY APOLOGY.

Let me tell you what happened.

I went to buy a couple of dress shirts. I picked up three different colors and took about 20 minutes to match them up with appropriate ties. I looked at cuff links and then made my way to the register. This was in a place where everybody lines up in one aisle right in the middle of the store and the line feeds perpendicular into a row of 6 cash registers.

When I got ready to pay, no one was in front of me, so I stood at the point where the sign reads "line starts here". There were two women standing at registers directly in front of me and they were talking. One was in her 20's and one was in her 40's. The younger one glanced at me and then went on talking. There was third woman working her register to my left and ringing-up a customer. To my right was a young man ringing up a couple of people. The ladies in front of me were still chatting and I assume almost a minute had gone by.

Now I'm wondering if maybe I was standing in the right place. I checked and sure'nuff I was in the right place. Both women glanced back at me, they knew I was still standing there! I'm pretty hard to miss! The young one looked annoyed with my lingering presence and finally asked me, "Can I help you?" I looked at her astonished and said, "Yeah, that's why I'm here." She rang me up, folded my ties and tossed everything in a bag and moved on to the guy behind me.

On my way out to my truck it dawned on me. I was very rude to that woman.

I mean, when you think about it... I left MY house to come to HER job. I decided that I wanted to spend some of MY money at HER place of business. Honestly, how rude of ME was it to pick up shirts and ties that are sold at HER job and expect HER to take MY money for them? Really... what a complete jerk I was to wait so quietly and so patiently while she finished talking and didn't even want to be disturbed and do her job of taking MY money.

I've learned my lesson.

I'm a rude dude.

So, to the young lady at the cash register at that men's store that I like so much - I apologize for interrupting your conversation. It was thoughtless, foolish and rude of me to expect you to be working while you were at your job. I'll try to do better next time by not expecting anything of you.

TTBM

We're smarter than THAT! Aren't we?

Okay, Hillary took New Hampshire. Nice job, Hill.

It wasn't a blowout over Barack, but at this level of a campaign, and in a contest of this magnitude, a win is a win and every vote pushes you closer to your party's nomination for President.

Today, I couldn't help but hear all of the laughable pundits claiming that Hillary's shaky voiced emotional comments from this past weekend were the reason she scored so well in Tuesday's primary. All of these expert, genius windbags were saying that voters saw Hillary's emotional side as a winning trait and suddenly the so-called Ice Queen had thawed. I couldn't help but say to myself, "Good Lord! Please let us [as American voters] be smarter than that!"

Now, granted, George Bush won the last election and he is quite possibly the worst President in the history of the world - so we Americans HAVE done some stupid stuff. But, voting for a person because SHE ALMOST CRIED!!! Please God let us be smarter than that!

For the record - I don't think of Hillary as an Ice Queen. Personally, I think Hillary's broken voice spoke her true and honest feelings, but the looks and the sounds were as staged as a Broadway musical and about as real as a seven dollar bill. Hillary and her handlers went fishing - they tossed a line to the media and the weaker minded voters and tried to see who they could catch. In my heart, I'd like to think she didn't really catch many people. I'd like to think that the people of New Hampshire voted on real issues and real concerns like the people of Iowa did when they voted for my man Barack.

I can only hope and pray that American voters can't be bought or swayed by some well acted blinking and some misty eyes. If that is all it takes, then maybe I should be running for President - as bad as George Bush has ruined our country, I find myself trembling with emotion damn near every day.

TTBM

Damn... I think.

Damn.

I haven't posted in a while, so happy New Year to all of my fellow bloggers and those wonderful folks who peek in on my ramblings from time to time. I hope you all have a great year and I truly wish you the very best!

Back to uh, uh, oh yeah - Damn!

Everybody that knows me, knows that I'm a Redskins fan. I love football and I love my burgundy and gold.

As I type this, the curtain has closed on the 2007 season for us. Seattle just beat us 35 to 14. Ah, there is the wonderful number 21 yet again. The same number worn by our fallen favorite son, Sean Taylor. Damn.

Actually, I am far from disappointed in my Wildcard Skins. We lost a lot of games this year that we should have won; We missed a lot of catches we should have caught; We threw a lot of passes we shouldn't have; We called a lot of plays that we should have thought through. But, when all was said and done, we ended up where we wanted to be all along - in the post season. Damn.

We flew to Seattle and we got beat by a better team. It was their day and it was in front of their fans. So, these things happen. We didn't play bad, we just didn't play as good as we should have. I would love to be able to point a finger at someone. I'd love to blame our veteran rookie quarterback Todd Collins, but he has had an impressive 5 games. I'd love to blame Clinton Portis, but he's put down over 1200 yards this year, impressive. I'd love to blame the defense, but hell - I love all of those guys!!! Damn.

So, I'll just let my images of beating Dallas in round two of the playoffs fade from view. Training camp starts in seven months and I'll just make due with the NFL network until then.

Hold your heads up fellow Skins fans, the loyal followers of 20 other teams were green with envy at us before our game today and even now, we've had quite a season - lets be proud!