Ask any school teacher about respect and they will all tell you the same thing, ( at least the half a dozen I know) that kids don’t show respect for their elders, they simply have no fear and feel free to say things like ” Fuck You” and call teachers Bitches. I hear about this weekly from my girlfriend who is a teacher. When I was a student that simply didn’t happen. There was a healthy respect for authorities. That has gone wayward. Today’s students don’t appear to think there are any repercussions for this behavior because frankly, there aren’t. Worst case they get sent home, and what kid wouldn’t want to sit at home over sitting in school.

That brings me to my son. He’s 15 and in the midst of massive Teenage angst. I think back to his childhood and when I spanked him. I stopped around the time he reached 11 because I decided he was getting too big. But, I remember a day when he was three and the baby sitter was watching him. I got a call that he had gone crazy and had to rush home.  20 minutes later I got home to find that he had thrown a candle and hit the babysitter in the head ( she was bleeding), he had pushed over a 32″ tube TV from the stand, he had knocked over several plants and spread dirt all over the floor and knocked over all his toy shelves.  It looked like someone had ransacked my house. I quite simply lost it. I remember spanking him hard about 8 times, that immediately stopped the tantrum and started a balling session. I regretted it, but do I think I did the right thing? If I had it to do again I would have done one half the spanks, but I would have done them. It had to be done to restore the universe and its order. Anyone who tells me differently can have my son come live with them for a few weeks.

That brings me to my son’s situation now. He’s 15 now and as big as me. He’s as wayward and as lost as a teen can be and nothing, and I mean nothing I say matters to him. He looks at me disgust and I feel like a broken record repeating my dooms day proposition of his future. He has no interest in school, life, his future or anything else worth while. He is only interested in girls and hedonism. The tragedy is his future is flipping burgers at minimum wage, yet he is smart and a talented writer/artist ( if only he would do it). Because of all of this consternation, we have had two physical scuffles where he challenges me.  They are over in a flash, but it makes me think why doesn’t he respect me? I don’t have an answer but I do think respect has to do with fear. I respected my dad and the gym coach because they had the paddle. We respect authority becuase they will throw us in the slammer.  It is just that simple.

I don’t know when society decided it was wrong to spank kids, but I simply don’t understand the logic. Kids need someone to show them the way, and while there are many role models, they often fall short. If no one steps up and says “this is profoundly wrong” and punishes them appropriately they learn they can get away with anything. I think this is what is happening with a lot of this generation’s kids. They feel entitled to everything, don’t have any desire to work for it, and have no  respect for their elders. We are going to live in a very different world in 50 years as a result. I’m not saying I have the answers, but I’m not sure the direction we are heading is workable.

A few more hours and we’re in Taos.  Giant wind farm near route 66.

1. The ole upperdecker in the toilet. A classic, I know, but shitting in someone’s toilet tank just tickles my funny bone. Listening to them bitch about it later is hilarious.  Tip: this works best with a low profile, one piece toilet.
2. Pube Shaving. Bring an electric razor and shave your pubes in the sink, leave the mess for the unsuspecting homeowner. Create more chaos by leaving their razor near by.
3. Move shit around. Paintings, family pictures, lamps, knick-knacks. Nothing funnier than people trying to figure out why nothing looks right and what is missing in their own home.
4. Nibbles. Take a bite out of everything in the fridge that you can. Spit it out in the trash. Leave no stone unturned if you can. Potatoes, tomatoes, bananas, uncooked sausage…
5. Darkness. Unscrew all the light bulbs you can get away with. Closets, bathrooms, hallways, fridge. Anywhere they won’t notice for a day or two.

This is also great to do to mother in laws, the older they are the better.

My family is originally from West Texas and we still have a small ranch outside of Dublin, Tx. So, I always enjoyed a sugar sweetened Dr. Pepper when I was visiting my grandmother and when I stayed at the family ranch. It was one of the treats from my childhood that I remember and think fondly of.  I can’t imagine it not being there.

That is where the lawsuit lies. Dublin Dr. Pepper has a certain folklore status in West Texas and as such labels their bottles “Dublin Dr. Pepper.” Well, this doesn’t sit well with the corporate suits in Plano that now run Dr. Pepper, who ever they are these days. Corporate is suing Dublin Dr. Pepper insisting that they remove the “Dublin” from the bottle, or else… they will lose their bottling license. Looks like a real dickhead move to me, so my response? I will not drink anymore Dr Pepper, 7up or Snapple related products until these morons give up this lawsuit and allow a small bottler that controls 1% of Dr. Pepper’s consumption to do what it has done for the past 120 years, sell Dr. Pepper in Texas.

4 lanes waiting to go through the drive through, notice the lince under the canopies waiting to go inside.

My son and I went to Guitar Center to get my son a new acoustic 12 string guitar today and decided afterwards we would hit In and Out Burger, since it is next door practically. The wait was about 25 minutes and the place is a zoo. Once you actually get off the police directed service road at IH75 and into In and Out’s parking lot you are shuttled into a 4 lane wide waiting area where they take your order and then release each lane to move to the regular drive through when they are ready. It was a lot of waiting for a burger, but not terrible.
My opinion, the burger is quite good. We both ordered a double double, animal style, and an order of fries. I put the burgers up there with Burger House’s burgers, the fries on the other hand were terrible. My son and I both thought they were dry and crunching. It may be because of the massive volume they had to deal with that quality suffered, I don’t know. Would I go through the wait again?  Not unless I was right next door. I’m going to venture a guess that the mob of cars and people you see in the pic below will fade in a few more weeks, this ain’t Bob’s Chophouse, after all.

Dont click on the impalement if you get squeamish.

which I changed to this:
var url = ‘https://www.google.com/adsense/report/overview’;
var loadUrl = ‘https://www.google.com/adsense/report/overview’;
This gets rid of the frame issue. I does not fix the login issue.

Our neighborhood worked hard in 2005 to have the area designated as historic and placed on the national registry. This has stopped the Mc mansion invasion from moving south into our area, unlike much of the M Streets which was gutted of its older homes in the late 90′s in favor of tacky, 3 story homes with little or no character.

All this hard work is finally paying dividends. This Old House has designated Junius Heights as the best family friendly neighborhood in Dallas for 2010.