joshkelahan.com

I want to tell you a story about something that happened on December 23rd.  That would be Christmas Eve Eve, for those keeping track.  This is the first chance I have had to tell you now that I’m back at work, after the ever so short Christmas holiday.

It was a Sunday that started out pretty much like any other.  I was bored.  I had planned on going to see a movie, but I knew I would want something to do on Christmas Eve, so I decided to wait.  I was cleaning up the house a little bit, just trying to get everything in order for the big day.  I was in the basement moving some of my computer crap around, when I heard a large vehicle come and stop close to the house.  I couldn’t see it out of any of the basement windows.  I went upstairs and looked out, and saw what I thought to be a fire engine and an ambulance.  What I thought was interesting, was that they generally run sirens to get to house on fire right? I dismissed this, clearly there was a fire truck on my street.

As the day wore on, I got more and more bored (the internet really is a small place), so I decided to go to my Grandma’s house for dinner.  I hopped in my car and drove down the street.  As I came up to and passed the “fire truck”,  I realized that it wasn’t a fire truck, but a mobile command center.  In addition, part of the street was completely blocked off, they weren’t letting anyone down there.  I really didn’t think anything of it, a lot of older people (I call them “mountain men”) live down that street.

Dinner at my grandma’s was uneventful.  I told her all about how the street was blocked off, but didn’t really think anything more of it.  I left her house around 9pm, and headed home.  So I guess that would put me back in my neighborhood around 9:30pm.  As I came down the street, I noticed an abundance of cars.  Usually there is only one or two, but today there were 10ish.  As I continued, I realized all the cars were stopped for some reason, and the local Fox news affiliate was broadcasting live.  I saw a cop car a little ways down, they were blocking this street too now, and they were not letting any one to their homes.  So I turned around and went to the store.  While I was at the store, I called my mom, to see if she knew what was going on.

Apparently, some yahoo was held up in his house with a gun, threating to kill himself.  The police were trying to talk him down.  Apparently this had been going on since 9am.  So the police had been at it for more than twelve hours.   Now I am all for trying to save a guy’s live, but after five or six hours, it strikes me that you would call SWAT out of St. Louis, and pull the bastard out, not block off a whole neighborhood and keep a bunch of families from going home, especially so close to the holidays.

So yeah, I went to the grocery store, picked up some ice cream, some alch-key-hol for the holiday, and some random other crap.  Then I went over to Borders, I figured that if they had been at it for twelve hours already, there was no way they were done in just one more hour.  I stayed at borders until they closed, and then drove home.  As I was coming down the street there was a squad car there, and a police officer came out and asked me where I was going.  I said I lived down the street, and she told me she could call the local police, and have them send a car to escort me to my house, but I would be trapped in my house until the situation was resolved.  WHAT!?!

So I declined her offer, went over to the new Drury Inn in Shiloh, and stayed there.  The next day, I saw National Treasure 2, the search for Curly’s gold (or something like that).  It was a lot like the first movie, but I still liked it.  They set it up for a third movie, we will see if they actually make one.  For it being Christmas Eve, I expected a lot of people to be in the theater, but there were only maybe ten people there.  After the movie I was able to get back to my house finally.  Wheeeeee!

Christmas and I have a bit of a love hate relationship.  I guess that is a funny thing to say about a holiday, but its true.  Over the past few years I have come to realize that the part of the holiday I like the most is picking out what gifts I want to give people, and the anticipation of actually giving those gifts on Christmas.  As I get older, I find that I care less and less about what others might get for me.  My family says that I am hard to shop for, and maybe thats why I don’t really care what people get me.

A number of years ago, my siblings and I started putting our Christmas lists on Amazon.  Amazon is a huge store, so even if you can’t find some specific thing you really have to have, you can at least put stuff there that you want or need.  Now I purchased things for my siblings from Amazon this year, but my mom and sister threw me for a loop.  They said that they didn’t like to get me things from Amazon, because then I would know what I was getting.  Somehow, they wanted me to make a list of things I want, tell them, but not actually know what is on the list that I made.  I don’t get it either.

With all the anticipation of Christmas morning, I really hate that it only lasts thirty minutes.  It took me weeks to plan out what I was getting my family and friends, and in less then an hour it was all done.  Sometimes I wonder if the Jewish have the right idea.  Wouldn’t it be nice if your gifts were spread out over a few days?  I’m not saying it has to be eight days, I’m just saying that Christmas should last a little longer.

I guess that everyone’s Christmas traditions are a little different, but I think ours are pretty normal.  Christmas morning we open gifts with the immediate family, and Christmas evening we open gifts with the extended family.  My mom has another tradition, you see she spends everyday of they year making a mess.  Whether that mess be made from the 8 billion pages she unnecessarily prints off the internet, or mail, or just junk, she piles it up all over the house all year long.  She has piles in the living room, the dining room, and especially the kitchen.  Most people have a kitchen table, we have a pile of crap.  Anyway, for the few short hours between opening gifts and when the extended family arrives, my mom yells and screams at people to help her clean up the house, because the place is a freakin’ sty.  A lot of years my sister (whom I don’t really get along with) likes to get involved.  So this year, after the presents I had two people bitching at me about how I should be cleaning this or cleaning that, and of course my mom doesn’t want to throw away anything.  One day this house will explode with crap.  I have no doubt.  Sometimes, and today was no different, there is just a limit to what I can take.  When it came time for lunch, I had to leave.  I picked up a pizza for my dad and I.  Casey’s pizza is really good (and cheap), and is probably about the only thing open on Christmas (yes that gas station).  I know we have done Casey’s pizza on Christmas before…maybe is will become a tradition.

What I got after the break…

(more…)

So I go to turn out of my neighborhood this morning and there is a line of cars as far as I can see.  What could possibly be going on at 6:30am I wonder to myself.  Then these large truck things start coming up the hill, and as they drive by I read on the side something about Illinois tactile squad.  There was four of those followed by a whole gang-load of police cars.  I quickly turn the radio over to KMOX to see if I can find out whats going on.  After a few minutes, I was able to squeeze into traffic.  By the time I get to Illinois-157, I can’t see any police, or the trucks.  Oh well, I think to myself, and I go get on the highway.

Traffic driving into St. Louis, from Illinois is always the same, its decent until you get to the place where Interstates 64, 55, & 70 merge and they drop you from having 3 lanes on each of those highways to a combined 4 lanes in a half mile span.  So as I am coming up on the merge, there is the Toyota Corolla that flies by on the shoulder.  I think to myself, ‘buddy, there isn’t even much traffic, how much of a hurry are you in that you have to drive on the shoulder?’  Then I look in the mirror, and I see, following this guy 6 to 10 police cars, running full lights and sirens.  ‘Holy Crap,’ I think to myself, ‘I get to see a car chase on the way to work! sweet!’  Meanwhile, the dude on KMOX is still talking about the economy or housing markets or something.  Just as a little aside, I have notice through the years that KMOX, a news radio station, will generally skip the current, important to its market area listeners, and report national news, which in my opinion is rather stupid.

Anyway, the perp, zig-zags through traffic, and up onto the King Bridge.  In my opinion, this was a mistake.  The King Bridge doesn’t really go anywhere, it just dumps everyone out there by the dome.  I suppose you could use it to get onto 70, but with the amount of cars right there, in a car chase, that wouldn’t be the direction I would go.

Now I generally take the King Bridge in the morning, but I thought for a moment today I would take the poplar, but I figured with as fast as they were going, they should be over the bridge before I even got there.  So I got on the King Bridge, and before I even got to the actual bridge portion, before I even got to the gravel pit area, about 20 cop cars come over the bridge.  I must say, that if nothing else, today was a good day for a car chase, because there was so little traffic on the bridge.  It was right about now that KMOX finally got to the traffic.  The dude was going on and on about how they are re-stripping 44, and the lines are washing away becase MODOT sucks, and how the poplar is backed up, and then finally, the dude says that if you are on the King Bridge, look out, because there is a police chase going on.  That was it, that was all the coverage KMOX could provide.  WEAK!  They next went on to talk about the economy in North Bangla-pak-ubeck-astralia.

Anyway, it was an interesting drive to work, if nothing else.

Dear Amazon,

You are really stressing me out.  I placed an order from your store on December 11th (2 weeks before x-mas).  And you haven’t shipped my order yet.  I choose the shipping method that you said would guarantee my packages arrive before Christmas, but YOU HAVEN’T SHIPPED THEM YET.  I have to have Christmas gifts for my friends and family, I don’t get to see these people very often.  If I have to pay to have the gifts fed-ex’ed to them because you couldn’t commit to your guarantee, I will be very displeased.

Yours,

Josh

 So its that time of the year again when I like to have oatmeal for breakfast.  Its cold outside you know.  A nice warm breakfast is good right when you get to work.  I always eat breakfast after I get to work, it seems to help the day better than if I eat at home.  Here are some things I have learned so far this week:

• You should actually read the instructions on the back of the oatmeal canister.
•  If you want a banana with your oatmeal, you should wait until after you microwave your oatmeal, otherwise your banana will turn to slime.

Okay so Monday morning I come in, sit down at my actual desk, (I generally am not at my desk) and grab the canister to make my oatmeal.  The oatmeal canister has a nice little chart on the back so you don’t have to put in that much effort to make your breakfast.  So I glance at it slightly  (but didn’t actually read it).  The first thing on the list is 1.5 cups.  That must be the oatmeal I think to myself.  So I put in 1.5 cups of oatmeal.  Second thing on the list is .75 cups, that must be water.  So I take my concoction out to the front.  I don’t know why we don’t have a microwave in the back…maybe we should ask Santa for one.  Oh well.  So three minutes later I take what should have been oatmeal out of the microwave, but it is closer to the consistency of concrete.  WTF?  I had reversed the amounts that go into the bowl.  Its 1.5 cups water and .75 cups oatmeal.  I ended up putting the juice from a can of peaches in there, plus some water, but it never really made it to oatmeal consistency.

Today when I came in, I actually followed the directions.  And once I had the water and oatmeal in the bowl, in the proper proportions, I thought, hmmm….a banana would be good with this.  So I chopped up a banana, and tossed it in.  3 minutes later I had really runny oatmeal.  I couldn’t understand it at first, I put in the right amount of water.  Where did all of this runnyness come from?  So I went for a banana chunk, and as I picked it up with some of the surrounding oatmeal it melted!  So every time I take a bite of this, the consistency in my mouth is something like: oaty, oaty, oaty, slime, oaty, oaty, slime.

It’s only Tuesday, I’m a little afraid to what the rest of the week will bring.