Operation Market Garden

Day 2 of the Risk battle in the house just completed and I'm feeling more confident than I did a few hours ago. Going into todays battle, Katie had the obvious upper hand, but with a few fortuitous rolls on my part I gained strength in both Europe and the America's. She still holds more territories than I do, but most of the holds aren't strongholds and are ripe for the attacking.

I also employed my first tactical move of the game today! I could have turned my cards in on my turn and recieved 4 troops, but knowing her hand was forced and needed to turn in some on her next turn I passed - she took the 4 and I got 6 on my next go around. I'm not McArthur, but I'm not an idiot either.

You'll notice I labled this post "Operation Market Garden" and with good reason. As most of you are probably well aware, Operation Market Garden was a 9 day Allied operation against the Germans in WWII. Fought in the Netherlands and Germany, the crux of the operation centered on taking certain bridges. Most fell with few shots fired, but Nijmegen and Arnhem were considered faliures and the operation as a whole a faliure. The Allied did lose that battle but did win the war and I'm hoping that day one's loses and day two's victories for me play out the same.........

Ok, so none of you were probably aware of much of anything I said above and I'm not really that big of a history geek. It's just that I've watched about every single WWII movie and documentary and played every Playstation 2 game on WWII. All of the games feature Market Garden in them at some point...... yeah, maybe it makes me a geek.

Anyways, based off the "facts" from the game's, it's apparent that there were 80,000 Germans and 1 Allied trooper in the entire war. I could believe that if the soldiers name was Chuck Norris, but I've never found the button on my controller that delivers a roundhouse kick to the face, so I don't think it's Chuck. We could have ended that war a lot earlier if Chuck Norris would have been there.......... Chuck would have went in Walker, Texas Ranger style, karate chopped every German into submission, then put his arm around them in the end and we would have all learned a valuable lesson about being friends that we could all apply in our lives.

Faithfully submitted
This 30th day of January.
Douglas C. Niedermeyer
Sgt. At Arms

I'm burnin, I'm burnin, I'm burnin for you.

By popular request I've added an e-mail site feed notification to the blog thru siteburner.com and it seems to work fairly well. It's located in the upper right on the blog here, just type in your e-mail address, you'll get a notification with a link to follow in your e-mail and then everytime a post appears you'll get an e-mail notification. It was starting to seem like a normal RSS or Atom feeds wasn't cutting it since some readers don't use them much. People would come up and ask if I'd posted anything lately and then come to find out they hadn't checked the site in 2 weeks...... it's tough to follow a story when you're always playing catch up.

Anyways, let me know how it works for you.

I feel the Ukraine falling tonight Katie!!!

Risk...... the game of apartment domination

The winter's been cold and it seems to only be getting colder lately. We really don't have the desire to go out like a few months ago so it's mainly been TV til she zonks out and I play Playstation til I'm tired. There's always been a bit of a rivalry between us from the get go. Pool, bowling, miniature golf, etc. Actually you really can't call it a "rivalry" when one dominates the other all the time - not saying who's up in the total tally, but I will say that I don't remember what it feels like to lose anymore.

Recently, I saw the board game "Risk in the laundry room and thought, "hey, what better way to pass away the winter nights". Tonight was the start of the battle. I had to refresh my memory on the rules, which are fairly complicated and the setup takes forever, but we got nothing but time at this point. I took this picture so that I have something to compare when I get home tomorrow night. Not saying she would cheat, but my stronghold in East Africa is tenuous at best and I can't afford to have a troop missing tomorrow night.

I've never played 2 on 2 Risk before and it's a little different than multi person Risk. You draw cards to see which territories you occupy first. Essentially you're all over the board. Luckily I was able to draw Western Australia and we all know the Australian territories are the easiest to defend. I'm not saying what my strategy is, but as they put it in "Saving Private Ryan":

"You got to take Caen so you can take Saint Lo, You've got to take Saint Lo to take Valognes, Valognes you got Cherbourg, Cherbourg you got Paris, Paris you got Berlin........ And then the big boat home."

So far my stratgy has proved worthless and we're in the midst of regrouping. The rolls of the dice have been less than good to me and now I'm in a defensive position. I'm sure most of the day tomorrow will have me consternating on my next move. She's up first and I have no doubts she has her eyes set on Asia. Depending on how that battle turns out, we may have to flank her in Europe with a little Weakside Hammerhead.

Stay tuned. I'm sure you're already on the edge of your seats!!

Faithfully submitted
This 28th day of January.
Douglas C. Niedermeyer
Sgt. At Arms

Wall of fame

I'm not saying battle lines are drawn - Katie is fine with things. I am saying that I can feel the disdain from the rest of the female population. There has yet to be a woman in the apt. so far that hasn't thrown their gaze to the west wall and shuddered just a bit. As near as I can tell, women don't appreciate antler mounts, bird mounts or just general taxidermy. To me it's a form of art, you take an animal that you shot, put a Styrofoam form in them or cut off their antlers and hang them up. That's art to me.

I realize that isn't the female view per say. They tend to like to walk around Pier One, Target, TJ Maxx or some other store like that and spend $29.99 on a framed pic of wine bottle or a candle holder that hangs off the wall. Chances are what they buy will look nice, but they'll tire of it or it won't "fit the decor anymore" and be boxed up and put away in the attic, eventually to be sold for $3.50 at a garage sale. That's assuming the buyer isn't shrewd and talks them down to two and a quarter.

While my art might never grace a museum wall, all you ladies out there can't tell me you wouldn't like to have this gracing your living space!

The thing too, is that I can tell you exactly when and where each animal was taken. What the weather was like, how much or little I had to work to get it and chances are, 20 years from now I'll be able to tell you the same story. You'll probably still be sick of me telling it as well.

I realize that someday when we're in an actual house that my "art" will find a wall in the guys room. I'm sure me and my friends will be in that room looking at the mounts, discussing hunting and looking at guns while the women are out in the living room talking about how horrible their kids are sometimes. Except mine of course. I've already told you mine will be perfect.

Often times when writing on the blog I look up and gaze at this picture.

And to point, it is a form of female art. Katie did a really good job with it, It's thought provoking. Being a former bartender I've often tried to see if I can identify all of the libations. I think I have them all now. "I'll take 'What are girly drinks?' for $400 Alex".

Don't kid yourself. I have an eye for art and even through my colorblindness I can see that this would work much better in place of that Martini picture.

Anyways, over the years there will be some give and take on what belongs where and I'm sure that I'll be convinced to see things her way more often than not.

That being said, Katie, did I ever tell you about the fish that I caught about 4 years ago? Apparently the guy would did the taxidermy on it didn't completely forget about it........ SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!!!!!!

Boom goes the dynamite!!

I also found a clip of my brother-in-law Perry doing one of his sportscasts.....

A chink in the armour

Everyone has their faults. I suppose I have mine as well, although what those are I'm not sure of and they're probably fairly minor.

Now don't get me wrong, Katie is a hell of a cook, I just don't think her palate has developed fully yet. To me there are certain staple foods that work well in any dish - beans, onions and peppers to name a few. What is a pot of beans without the beans and what is liver without onions? Not much in my book. Katie for the most part refuses to eat some of these things and whats worse, she refuses to cook with them! Blasphemy!

Granted, I'm the type of guy that will eat anything thats put in front of him. The same guy, mind you, that once won a halftime contest at a Dakota Wizards game. The game was a ripoff of the TV show 'Fear Factor' and the challenge was to see who could eat a pickled pigs foot slathered in horseradish the quickest. You could have just as well put a gallon of Ben and Jerry's ice cream in front of Oprah because thats exactly my game. Not only did I finish mine in less than 15 seconds, I grabbed my competitors while he was dry heaving and polished that off to the delight of the crowd. Whoever the guy was that first though to pull that root out of the ground, grind it up and pickle it....... I'd like to shake his hand. Pure genius.

I'm not complaining or anything. If the fact that Katie doesn't like onions is our only difference, we're probably going to be ok. Although she is a Yankees fan. And a Celtics fan...... and a Steelers fan. I think she's a lay-fan on most of them tho. Her Steelers are going to the Super Bowl and she only seems mildly excited. If and when the Dolphins make the Super Bowl, I will lock myself in a room the week leading up to it and rewatch Dan Marino highlights. As far as the Celtics, she wasn't around "back in the day" when there were only 3 teams in the NBA - Celtics, Lakers and 76ers. Or at least thats how it seemed cuz we only got one game a week on TV and it was either the Lakers playing the Celtics or one of those two playing Dr. J and the Sixers. Kids my age loved the Lakers since they averaged about 237 points a game and the Celtics were just a bunch of white stiffs that played defense.

As far as the Yankees... I won't sway the kids thoughts one way or another. You can only hope that a young Jedi Warrior will turn away from the Dark Side and the Evil Empire that is the Yankees.

Follow me...... FOLLOW ME TO FREEDOM!!

I'm actually surprised at the number of site views and followers of the blog. Granted, most of the followers are family who probably feel like they have to add my blog to their favorites or follow list. Anywho...... good to know I'm not writing into thin air.

Light Reading

No, I'm not talking about fiber optics and light transmission..... that would have to do with my job and would bore all of us silly. I'm talking about magazines, a little light reading. To this point, the majority of my subscriptions or store bought magazines have encompassed, North American Whitetail, Field and Stream, Maxim, Sports Illustrated and any magzine that helps me lose at fantasy football more efficiently.

The other day at the house we got our first copy of 'Parents' magazine. Or maybe it was 'Parenthood', either way it was a magazine on parenting that I never in a million years thought I would have in my house. There are some good tidbits in there, dealing with colicky babies, terrible two's, etc. I don't imagine my child will be anything less than perfect. It will know when mom and dad need sleep and in turn sleep thru the night. When it breaks down crying in a store, he or she will quickly realize that the tantrum they are thowing is of no use, that the toy they want so badly isn't needed and frivilous and stop. Peas and broccoli will be a treat, better than ice cream and if they misbehave they'll quickly say "this is dumb of me, I shall be punished and must retire to my room for the rest of the eve."

One thing in an article that caught Katies attention - "making time for mom and dad". The article asked if you've went out for a romantic Sushi diner lately? Stop me if I'm wrong here, but is it a good idea for a pregnant lady to be eating a California Roll comprised of raw ahi tuna? I suppose if your mecury and lead levels are low you might want to do that, but I supposed she could just as well go to some old farmhouse and chew on a nice leadbased paint windowsill. Thats what I did as a child and look how I turned out!

Shaqtastical

Sorry, I wasn't going to be posting all kinds of youtube clips on here, but this one is too funny to not...........

Kenny Rogers Roaster

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Kenny Rogers puts one of his restaurants right outside Kramer's apt. with the bright red neon sign?

We have our own little roaster right outside the bedroom. Chuck, the apt. manager has a unit right across from our window that has this security light. It's not a motion one, but it wants to be one. Throughout the night it intermittently turns on and off so the shades have to remain closed at all times and even then you go from a glow in the room to total pitch black. Of course when I go to bed it's off so I stumble around in the dark, then as soon as I get in bed....... back on.

I imagine the day we move out of the apt., Chuck will come over to inspect the cleaning and say "oh, by the way, I got that light fixed yesterday." That just his modus operendi.

On a positive note, I scored some Karma points this morning. I was packing to get ready to fly out to Stevens Point Wisconsin and Katie saw this older lady trying to shovel out the snowbank in front of her garage. Being the good guy I am, I grabbed the shovel, which stays in the apt now so I can shovel off the sidewalk everytime Chucky doesn't, (which is all the time) and ran out to get the bank cleared so she could leave. Turns out she was a lady that had broken two ribs on the sidewalk that Chuck didn't shovel off and she was going to do volunteer home hospice care for a person that had cancer. Thats the feel good story for the day, cuz yesterday as I was leaving a guy got stuck leaving the parking lot. I couldn't figure it out, he had a big Dodge truck all jacked up.......... it was a two wheel drive with some kind of performance racing slick tires on it. 20 inch rims, the whole deal. I tried to push him for a minute and realized it was a worthless effort. Said "sorry man, that ain't comin out with those tires on it." Then I got in my truck and thanked Chevy for push button 4WD and Bridgestone for tires with traction on them and drove off.

What the hell is a Wookie?!?!

Lately, many of my posts haven't included a lot on the mommy to be, Katie. She's kind of shy so I didn't want to embarass her too much by writing on her. I did offer to put her as a contributor on the blog, but she declined the offer so you're going to be stuck reading my posts. Hopefully some day I can get the baby to bang on the keyboard and make a post. Anyways, for those of you that forgot what she looks like, here is a pic of us from a late Christmas at her parents house in Herreid. No, we didn't plan on wearing the same shirts.

One thing that I've learned in the month and a half that we've been living together is that there are certain cultural differences between a 23 year old female and a 36 year old male. Driving back from Herreid a week ago I made an off hand comment that the countryside looked like "the frozen planet of Hoth." She gave me a look like "are you smoking something?" C'mon! The frozen planet of Hoth, the stronghold of the rebel forces in The Empire Strikes Back!!!

Then I stopped and thought. "When that movie came out she was still 5 years away from being born." I was already rockin a Star Wars backpack on my way to school for a couple years at that point. I need to give her a pass on some of her lack of knowledge on cinematic classics.

So tonight as I was watching the NFC playoff game I was flippin channels and came across the Star Wars trilogy on Spike TV and thought I would pause to let her take in bits and pieces of what made me the weirdo I am. I'm not talking about those last three films George Lucas puked out...... Jar Jar Binks is dead to me. I'm talking New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the films that all other Sci-Fi is compared too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some Sci-Fi geek that lives and breathes Star Trek and all those others, my love of those wained considerably after 1983 and Return of the Jedi.

I'm getting off subject tho. As Katie was watching she made little snickers at the way the TonTon's stiffly ran. First off, yes, special effects weren't that far along in 1980 and second, how do you know thats not the way that TonTon's ran in real life!?!? Later on, she couldn't figure out why Luke Skywalker was once again in trouble in a swamp. Sigh........ It's the Dagobah system. Yoda lives there. Yoda is a Jedi master. Luke needs training to become a Jedi warrior, so he goes there to meet with Yoda, duh!!! I mean this isn't rocket science here.

Ok, I admit, the way I was flipping between the game and the movie, nobody could have followed the plot line. I've decided I'm not going to try to indoctrinate Katie into the Star Wars fan club, but I am going to make her sit and watch another of my favorites that was made even way before I was born - "The Bridge on the River Kwai".

Coincidentally, and I never realized this until I had just watched the River Kwai last night, but Sir Alec Guinness plays Colonel Nicholson in that movie and he plays Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. Great actor and my favorite beer is also named after him. That would be cool to have a beer named after you.

Visually speaking

For the non-farm crowd this was the Allis-Chalmers D21. Best for sleeping.


The IH 1086. Good for sleeping.

The Farmall "M". Horrible for sleeping and only good for, (with front bucket loader attached) walking around a field ALL DAY LONG and picking rock........

Any of you that say picking rock sucked because you had to ride in an air-conditioned cab all day driving around a field with a rock picker, try walking around the field and doing the picking with your hands.

The IH 1086 is a helluva tractor

The sister and sisters in law have been a fairly decent source of info. "Expect this with the baby, do that with the baby, etc.". Roxanne had a really good idea she shared with us over Christmas: when the baby is sleeping do you vaccuming, turn on the tv, radio, whatever. Apparently babies that hear noises learn to sleep through the noises.

Their son, "The Golden Child" Rhett is a perfect example. Here is a pic of Rhett:
He went out hunting with us one day and slept thru me and Bob shooting at pheasant, grouse and coyotes right outside the truck - never flinched. After about 2 hours of hunting we pulled into the driveway, he woke up, looked around and said, "We're home?........... That was fun". You're right Rhett, 2 hour naps are fun.

It got me thinking that I could sleep like nobody business when I was a kid too. We always took turns riding with dad in the tractor when he was cultivating or whatever. The tractor that I remember most was the IH 1086, which was nice because it had a foam platform behind the seat that you could pile coats on and sleep away. That was a good tractor. But the best for sleeping was still the Allis Chalmers D21 (Brian will correct me if I have the model number wrong). That tractor had spaces on the floor by the door you could stretch out on if you were under 4 feet tall. Again, pile up the coats and coveralls - out like a light. The thing was though, neither of these tractors were really built for noise reduction purposes so the diesel motor was rumbling about 3 feet from your ear all day long and you slept as well as if you were hermetically sealed in a chamber. There must be something to this noise/sleep thing.

Roxy - good call.

Katie - feel free to do all of your vaccuming, dishwashing and laundry at any point. Window cleaning can be loud as well, go ahead and do as much of that as you wish.

Scott - your going to get a shoe throwed at you when Katie reads this.

Off subject

My good friend Jason Horner has the Mandan High School boys basketball team playing like nobodys business right now. In fact they haven't played this well since bell bottoms were in style the first time. Coincidentally, Jason will also be a baby daddy around the same time I am in May, so this does kind of ties into the blog.

Even tho Jason has the Braves on a roll (30 point win over Minot last night) his sideline attire is somewhat lacking. He tried to rock a sweater vest last night. Not a fan. So being the blog fashion police, I have three options for you to create the "Jason Horner Style"

Option 1: Bring back the Whig Party style.

Option 2: The Seinfeld Puffy Shirt.

Option 3. Leisure suit. Who wouldn't be comfortable coaching in a suit with "leisure" in the name?

(AMC Pacer not included on the look)

Two, Four.... Two, Four. Possible Riot On Main Street

There are about 12 people in the world that will get the title reference and they were all walking out of the Sherwood City Park, July 4th, 1989. Those people are still laughing their a$$e$ off after reading it. For the rest of you, that was the year of a big all school reunion in Sherwood and the town of about 350 swelled in population to about 1200 on that night. Ross Carter, the city cop must have assumed the masses could revolt at any point so he enlisted a couple of rent-a-cops for the eve. One of them was Scott Gilbraith, the other I don't remember (could have been Todd "Tigger" Johnson not sure), but they were each issued a radio and if I'm not mistaken, a piece (gun). In retrospect, probably not a good idea since most everyone over the age of 21, including them and probably many others underage had been drinking since 10:00 a.m.

Anyways, as a group of us were walking out of the park after a spectacular fireworks display at about 11:30, back pockets full of bottle rockets to do our devilment elsewhere, the call came across one of the police radios of one of the rent-a-cops directing traffic out of the park. "Two, four...... two, four. Possible riot on main street". Sherwood in it's previous 85 years had never seen a riot and hasn't since then. It didn't see one that night either, which made the radio call all that more ridiculous. The closest there was too a riot that night was when the country band on the flatbed trailer in front of the bar fired up a polka for the dancers. We still have a good giggle over that almost 20 years later. Truthfully, none of us were even sure what "Two, four.... Two, Four" meant. Maybe it was the call sign to signal a possible riot, maybe one of them decided he was cop number 24? Any experienced lawman out there that can shed some light?

Later that eve we got into trouble for having the largest scale bottle rocket war Sherwood had ever seen. Bottle rocket wars were like paintball is now, only we divided up into teams and shot bottle rockets at each other, sans safety goggles and safety equipment. I preferred a wiffle ball bat with the top cut off to shoot mine since it offered accuracy, but did sacrifice reload speed. John "Chunk" Eide favored the melee attack, by stuffing as many as he could into a pop bottle, lighting one, which lit the others and then running full force into the opposing side spraying rocketry everywhere and sent people flying from their hiding spots. Effective and a good player to have on your team. He abandoned that method after he stuffed the bottle too full one time so that none could shoot out and it turned into a melting plastic bottle of whistles and bright white explosions.

Eventually we just decided to lay in the trees along main and shoot mini crab apples with our slingshots at passing cars hub caps to finish the night off.

Enough of my childhood memories tho. I think I may be starting a riot on this blog by the following statement. We may not find out the sex of the baby......... Friends and family, mostly women I'm sure, are going ballistic reading that.

At first we were like "Well, it'll be so much easier to know". Then we thought, "How does that make it easier?"

First off, I'm not buying a house or a condo until after the baby and I'm sure Chuck the Apt. Dude isn't going to let us decorate that baby room with paint and stuff. Secondly, there's plenty of neutral clothes and baby things that can be bought beforehand. Diapers are diapers and onesey thingy's are onesey thingy's. I kind of like surprises anyways. If Katie really wants to find out and we have another ultrasound then we probably will. Then again, we might just say "tell us when the baby is born."

Either way, consider this a bottle rocket warning shot that we might not find out!

Holla if ya hear me!

It's nice to read the comments that people leave on the blog, it gives me something to write off of from time to time. Kaylan is going to be a constant source of material. For those of you that don't know Kaylan, she is the twin sister of Katie, a coworker, cubemate and also soon to be Aunt to little one. To read her one of her comments click here.

Kaylan has wanted to be featured in the worst way for so long, "Skeet, when are you gonna write about the best Aunt baby is going to have?". I think she likes the attention, so here it is for you. Now all 3 people that actually come and check out this blog on occasion can feel like they know you personally. Pretty weird feeling huh? Fame has a price tho, scrutinization. If your not sure on the meaning of the word, check Merriam Webster online or just know that it is formed from the words "Scrutinize": too look closely or minutely at and "ation", which makes it a longer word.

The reason I tell you this is so that you know when constructing comments to not delve too deep into things because you leave yourself open for return fire. You listed 3 seperate topics on what you thought I should write on, I'll take the 3rd part 1st.

"3. how wonderful it is to be my neighboring cube mate because you get to listen to me ALL day long"

There was a reason I bought $100 noise cancelling or as I like to call them "Kaylan Cancelling" headphones.............

Then, this little nugget:

I’m sure I could go on… I still haven’t met your family yet, which worries me… 1. Because I’m afraid they are going to like me more than they like KT and 2. because you may be embarrassed by me… Don’t worry I will hold the vulgar language to a minimum! Ok that’s all for now!

I like your style, but.......

1. The continued
2. numbering of
3. bullet points
4. is making me
5. dizzy

Actually, I have no problems with you meeting the family because then they will see that I was lucky to get Katie.

Above is a nice little pic of Kaylan as a rookie of the annual Roger Zarfos softball tournament. I think she had too much koolaid earlier in the day.

Ok, enough Kaylan bashing. Yes, she will be a great Aunt who I will keep on speed dial for babysitting duty and if it's a girl you can buy it all of the Coach and Burke or Doonie and Gabana clothes you want! Yes, she is a good cube mate although you need to get a PEZ dispenser collection like Hertzy had. And also, if it wasn't for little Kaylan, Katie and I would have never met!

P.S. - Kaylan likes to talk right into Mommy's stomach everytime she see's Katie. I'm going to lay money that the first time she holds the baby that it pukes all over her.