Once in a great while I would occassionally “reward” myself in the morning with a Hostess Cup Cake, or a Twinkee or a HoHo.  Then they suddenely disappeared from my life as we all know. As a kid it was very rare that I would ever get to taste one of these morsels. I always craved them. I had been disappointed by the downsizing of their products also, compared to the size they were when we were kids! I know many companies have done this with their products to help with profitability but it really left a bad taste in our mouth shall we say.

So as we all have been waiting their return I kept asking my “pusher” aka my local gas station when they would be arriving since they had already arrived on the big box stores shelves. Finally last week there they were….”come to poppa”! I needed my fix of Hostess!

What happened was not what I expected. I ran to my car… opened up the required Chocolate milk and took a swig to compliment the anticipated taste to come. Kind of like paring a fine wine with your meal is what I would call it. First the Twinkee, they felt smaller, then the bite, where was the creame filling? It was barely there. I kept biting hoping to find a pocket of that rich cream. It never came, I took a few more swigs to drown my sorrows and reached for the cup cakes. I wish I hadn’t done that. I would rather have kept the old memory of what they use to be like than this dry terrible taste in my mouth. I couldn’t believe it, after all the hype for their return it was so disappointing.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but I actually preferred the taste of a “Little Debbie” snack over my Hostess snack. My world just isn’t right. I even had the guts to try the next day my old Hostess “Cherry Pie.” It seems like they doubled the thickness of the crust and put less cherries in. I had always been careful not to let the cherry filling spill out on my shirt or tie. This time I didn’t have to worry about it.

Yes, I know this stuff isn’t good for us and I’m supposed to be eating more healthy but once in a great while you want to cheat a little and Hostess was my friend. I wish it wasn’t this way I wish people would learn their lesson about “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it”!

Oh well as we all know in life things change and things will never be the same!

I swear I’m going to invent a new tool for myself. The tool allows you to send a signal to another car and talk to the driver in what ever vehicle you choose. I travel on a two lane highway and the speed limit is 70 miles an hour. I’m sorry, but going 50 mph just doesn’t cut it. You would think they saw the speed limit sign but for some reason no, and not being able to speak to them and express my personal thoughts to them directly is very frustrating. I could understand if it is an older person like 80 years old and they probably can’t read the sign and they are a lot more cautious. I can forgive them. But, someone in their twenties shouldn’t have a problem with driving the posted speed limit!

I just want to suddenly come into their car through the radio with my deep radio announcers voice. I could take this two different ways. I could be all soft and mellow and say something like “this is an automated message from the state highway department. Your vehicle has been identified as not maintaining a proper speed limit, please pull into the right lane and permit other vehicles to pass at your earliest possible convenience.”

That would be the right way to go about it. But you know, deep down I want to do my Sam Kinison impression. “WHAT IN THE F_ _ _K ARE YOU DOING! ARE YOU BLIND! WHO THE HELL TAUGHT YOU HOW TO DRIVE ARE YOU SERIOUS! GET THE HELL OFF THE ROAD AND LEAVE THE DRIVING TO US  YOU DIMWITTED IDIOT! GO GO GO.

I know you all know I use this blog to vent! But please forgive my outburst. I’m done. But wouldn’t that be a cool tool. I also want to talk to cool dogs I see in other cars. That would freak people out I’m sure. You know how you raise your tone of your voice when you talk to babies and dogs! You want to be their friend and you want to play with them.

Or how about, your at the gas station and you see these young men with their pants hanging down showing off their colored underwear. So you follow them in your car and you aim your new tool and out of their speakers come you singing that song “Pants on the ground, pants on the ground looking like a fool with your pants on the ground”! God that would be a great tool! I swear I’d sell a million of them. I know the technology exists but of course it would be illegal. I don’t need the millions I just want one and I promise not to go overboard….not!

Anybody else want to order one?

It’s getting to the point that I don’t even want to look at my Facebook page or watch the news. To me it’s getting worse than ever before. We have become so “connected” around the world that we hear almost everything. Everyday I look at Facebook and there is another story about a cancer victim, or how this child got hurt, or this family is losing their house. It never stops. I don’t want to be sitting here at work or at home and be crying all day! Some of these stories just rip your heart out.

I can’t put myself in a bubble and close out the world. I could, but I know that wouldn’t do me any good. It’s so lopsided the bad vs. the good in the news.  What can I do? I’m only one man. I know that one person can make a difference. I’ve seen people make a difference in certain situations. I’ve seen people band together to try and right a wrong. Do I do my part and speak up about the atrocities and further perpetuate this bombardment of bad news?

As they say, “one step at a time.” So I act on one thing, then I act on another. But acting on one thing could take me in one direction. What I’m afraid of is getting trapped on one thing and not being able to come back to all the other issues that need help. So once again I get frozen in, “what is the right decision?” Maybe it’s not making a decision at all, I should just act on it and not question anything. Just accept where the road takes me without question.

Ok folks, I’m going to be stuck here for a while as I will keep going around and around in a loop in my mind. I’ll get back to you when I decide.

During my lifetime I have had the opportunity to meet thousands of people. I occasionally go to different conferences and sometimes I stand all day at an exhibit show and greet people as they come by my booth or shall I say drag them in as they come walking by. I’ve also had to give speeches before large groups and I’ve taught marketing and business classes at a local university. I’ve even use to have a monthly publication which went out to 10,000 people every month and met many of them on a regular basis at Chamber functions and different events. Then theirs all the guests that have stayed in my hotels over the years.

With absolute confidence I can say that I have seen people in almost every type of circumstance. There aren’t very many of them but once in a while you meet someone that seem to be one of the happiest people you have ever met. They exude happiness through every pore in their body. I think everyone that meets them has got to be saying how do they do it? You could be in a meeting with them discussing something serious and they are just smiling away at you and the positivity coming forth really makes you take a step back and wonder if this person is for real.

I have discovered in life that if I do enter into situations with a smile and a positive attitude I generally seem to get further. But to do this consistently seems unimaginable. They must have super powers that we don’t know exist. Thinking positively versus acting positively are tremendously different.

When I’m driving down the highway and you suddenly have a tailgater and he really wants to just push you out of the way run you off the road seemingly to have no regard for your safety or others nearby can set me off like nothing else. My positive attitude gets very positive about what I want to do to this person! I decided I needed to curb my reaction because at some point in time my reaction may have inappropriate responses endangering myself and others as bad as the tailgaters. Several people have suggested that I ask for assistance each day of my “Guardian Angels.”

So to the surprise of many of my friends I’m sure I have done just that. Unfortunately, I have to ask repeated times throughout the day for assistance from my guardian angels. You see I have a thick skull and to penetrate it takes a bit of time I’m sure. It seems to be working during the drive time. When I do it and I seem to communicate with the “angels” I get the feeling of being at peace with myself and a calmness comes over me. Reminding me of those “happy” people I have met over the years. They must be feeling this peace this calmness because nothing seems to phase them. I guess you could also call it a “letting go” of all the anger that has built up inside of me.

So one step at a time to learn about this inner peace and how I can become one of the “happy ones.” Has anyone else been dealing with this let me know!

Once again it begins, the race, the competition, neighbor against neighbor! Every year it happens and every year were all sucked into the race. Well this year I struck the first blow. I started the garden tractor up and mowed my lawn yesterday. The steady rain over the last week had made our grass shoot up like crazy. If I had waited any longer I would of had to rake the whole lawn after cutting it.

This action on my part of course was not to go unnoticed by my neighbors. I had now made them look bad! They wouldn’t say anything to me. Its more of an unspoken look of disgust as they now have to keep up with me. Their long grass against my manicured grass is what everyone sees so I would bet that within two days they will do theirs also.  Its not so much about the quality of the grass, like who’s is greenest or thickest its more just keeping up with the length.

My neighbors have an edge over me in that their commute to work is about ten minutes where as my commute is anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half so I get home much later at night so by the time I get the tractor out I have to try and cut the lawn with the tractors head lights on. My straight lines look like a Picasso painting in the morning when we view my handy work from the night before. We each have almost a whole acre to cut so it takes a bit of time. Then there is the property line issue. Since both of my neighbors are new they each asked me where the line was so I told them to just watch where I cut they could see the edge that I left . What I didn’t tell them was I gave them each an additional twelve to 18 inches to include all the utility companies equipment sticking out at the corners of my property so they nicely trim it for me with their weed-wackers. I am getting smart in my old age.

Having an acre of land it just doesn’t make sense to me to try and replicate having the beautiful golf course grass. You know really thick deep green color and edged to perfection. The cost to keep it up would feed a small third world nation! Not to mention all the animals, insects and worms I would kill with all the poison chemicals I’d be dumping on the grass. I’ve got to wonder  if any of it gets down to our well that supplies our water? Maybe that’s why I’m growing an extra limb?