A Shining Light

I could never get my parents to buy a pumpkin for Halloween. They just made me stand in the window.
It wasn’t too bad until the candle started to burn the roof of my mouth.

The worst thing about retirement, is having to drink coffee on your own time.

Damned dyslexia! I just found that I sold my soul to Santa.

What is an alarm clock?
A small mechanical device to wake up people who have no children.

It’s not a cheaper car that people want – it’s an expensive car that costs less.

“What business are you interested in?”
“Everybody’s”

My cat can talk. I asked him how much was two minus two, and he said nothing.

Don’t complain about the traffic. If there were fewer cars on the road, it would be even harder to find a parking spot.

A man walked into a military surplus store and asked if they had camouflage pants.
“Yes,” the clerk replied, “But we can’t find them.”

My girlfriend admitted that she was once a Christian, so I broke up with her.
It may seem judgmental, but I’ve only known her since she was Christine.

I am so good at home repairs, that they have a special VIP section for me at the Emergency ward.

I ordered a bed from IKEA, and they sent me a tree trunk and a saw.

Everybody’s a tough guy – until they have to use a screwdriver overhead for two minutes.

The trouble with trends – In 15 years, people on HGTV will be saying, “All those white cupboards look terrible, and we have to put up some walls between the kitchen, dining room and living room.”

My girlfriend wants me to stain the new wooden fence in her back yard, so I’m going to eat spaghetti over it for a couple of weeks.

So, here I am, watching Property Brothers, and the lady’s “profession” is dog manager, and their budget is $750,000! What did I do wrong with my life?

Please don’t come to my garage sale if you’ve ever let me borrow something.

Movies show people kissing in the rain, but I’d just like to see a guy who’ll run out and get the cushions off the porch chairs when the weather starts kicking up.

Am I the only one watching HGTV who’s hoping that the house will exact some horrifying vengeance on those people inside?

***

Repeat Performance

Roger, 85, married Jenny, a lovely 25 year old.

Since her new husband is so old, Jenny decides that after their wedding she and Roger should have separate bedrooms, because she is concerned that her new but aged husband may over-exert himself if they spend the entire night together.

After the wedding festivities Jenny prepares herself for bed and the expected knock on the door.

Sure enough the knock comes, the door opens and there is Roger, her 85 year old groom, ready for action. They unite as one.
All goes well, Roger takes leave of his bride, and she prepares to go to sleep.
After a few minutes, Jenny hears another knock on her bedroom door, and it’s Roger,
Again he is ready for more ‘action’. Somewhat surprised, Jenny consents for more coupling.
When the newlyweds are done, Roger kisses his bride, bids her a fond good night and leaves.
She is set to go to sleep again, but, aha, you guessed it – Roger is back again, rapping on the door and is as fresh as a 25-year-old, ready for more ‘action’.
And, once more they enjoy each other.
But as Roger gets set to leave again, his young bride says to him, ‘I am thoroughly impressed that at your age you can perform so well and so often. I have been with guys less than a third of your age who were only good once. You are truly a great lover, Roger.’
Roger, somewhat embarrassed, turns to Jenny and says: ‘You mean I was here already?’

’19 A To Z Challenge – P

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Down here at Honest Archon’s Amusement Academy, we’re overstocked with humor. We have a

PLETHORA

of jokes. We have to clear this place to the bare walls.   Today only, for the first fifty people who read this blog-post, we are giving away, absolutely free, 1 refurbished Blonde joke, and 2 brand-new Knock-Knock jokes. Here’s a partial catalog of our jokes. Come get ‘em while they’re hot.

***

There’s a fine line between a numerator, and a denominator.
Only a fraction of people will get that joke.
I’m divided on it.

***

Friend; I heard a great joke the other day, but I don’t know whether I told you.
Me; Is it really funny?
Friend; Yes.
Me; Then you haven’t

***

When I was young, people told me that if I drank 5 glasses of milk, I’d grow up strong and be able to move walls.
Now that I’m older, I can drink 10 pints of beer, and the walls move all by themselves

***

I’ve reached that age where my brain goes from, “You probably shouldn’t say that.” to, “What the Hell, let’s see what happens.”

***

Yes, I walked away mid-conversation. You were boring me to death, and my survival instinct kicked in.

***

There is no “We” in fries!

***

I wanted to be some hot chick’s sugar daddy, but I can only afford to be an artificial sweetener daddy.

***

Be the reason someone smiles today.
Or the reason they drink.
Whatever works.

***

When someone says, “Expect the unexpected” slap them and say, “You didn’t expect that, did you?”

***

AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY ONE-LINE

My wife is still hot….
….It just comes in flashes now

November 1^st….
….National Eat Your Kids’ Halloween Candy after they’ve gone to bed day

It’s all fun and games….
….till Santa checks the naughty list

The first step is admitting you’re a problem

I used to suffer from soap addiction….
….but I’m clean now

Butterflies….
….are not what they used to be

For every action….
….there’s an over-reaction

Where there’s a will….
….there’s a won’t

What do you call a belt made of watches?….
….A waist of time

She only made whiskey….
….but I loved her still

Electricians have to strip….
….to make ends meet.

In search of fresh vegetable puns….
….Lettuce know

My internet was down yesterday so I chatted with my wife for a change….
….I was surprised to learn that she didn’t work for Woolworths anymore.

A proverb walks into a bar, and then leaves almost immediately….
….The bartender mutters, “It goes without saying.”

A probability walks into a bar….
….and the bartender wonders, “What are the chances?”

A déjà-vu walks into a bar and sits down….
….The guy beside her says, “Haven’t I seen you somewhere?”

What do I have up my sleeve for the letter Q?? Stop back later to find out. 😀

 

Halloween In A Graveyard

I once got the chance to patrol a graveyard on a Halloween night.  I know, I know!  The excitement!  The prestige!  Where do I go to apply for a keen job like that?  Sadly, the unemployment office.

When an unethical manager had pulled the cube-drone carpet out from underneath me, I had found temporary employment with a security-guard company.  They had placed me at a St. Joseph’s Hospital as a glorified ‘Lollipop Lady’ crossing guard.  I didn’t even get to wear an orange, don’t-run-me-down vest.

The hospital had two, parallel, one-way driveways down one side.  Traffic came in on one, swung around past Receiving and the kitchens, and exited on the other.  Work on water mains had them alternatively dug up for about a week.

We stationed a guard at the front and the back, with portable radios.  If a vehicle came in, the guard at the back held any outgoing traffic until the single lane was clear, and vice versa.  Out of sight of any street traffic, the guard at the back could rest in a lawn chair until called.  We alternated every hour….until the Mother Superior looked out the window, and decided that that wasn’t fair, and decreed that no-one could rest.

It was especially busy late in the morning, because they had a Meals On Wheels program.  Civilian volunteers picked up a few meals each and delivered them.  We wouldn’t want them smashing into each other, and spilling all that delicious hospital food.

As Halloween approached, and I still hadn’t found suitable employment, the scheduler asked me if I would consider patrolling a graveyard, from 6PM till 2AM that night to prevent any vandalism or skullduggery.

The hospital sat in the middle of a long stretch of main road that didn’t have any cross-streets.  The Catholic cemetery behind the hospital (where the doctors buried their mistakes) extended back to the next road.  Two pedestrian-access walkways converged through it in a V, toward the hospital.

Another guard and I followed each other around the block-long legs of the triangle.  It never occurred to us to patrol in opposite directions, to stop and talk, and compare notes occasionally.  All went well for the first couple of hours – until the sun set.

That’s when we discovered that there were no street lights on the adjoining road, no light-posts within the cemetery, and no lights between the hospital and the cemetery.  It was a typical cloudy Halloween night…. it was pitch-black DARK back there, and nobody thought to give us flashlights.

At about 9:30, I had emerged from one of the exits, and was walking toward the other, when I saw three 15/16-year-old males enter ahead of me.  While it was light, I had found a two-foot piece of 1½ inch PVC electrical conduit on the path – a tripping hazard, especially in the dark, so I picked it up, and was carrying it, just in case.

I could hear them walking, and conversing, a hundred feet ahead of me in the Stygian gloom, although I couldn’t make out the words.  Then it got quiet.  Often, that’s not a good thing.  Suddenly, something smacked into the gravestone beside me.  Something whizzed past my ear.  Something struck the grass beside me!  Holy Crap, those little f**kers are throwing things at me.

I ducked behind a nearby gravestone, and the barrage continued.  Something bounced off the gravestone beside me.  I felt around in the dark, and found a pulped crab apple.  CLANG!  That wasn’t a crab apple that hit my cover.  More crab apples, splat, whiz, then, another CLANG off the tombstone next to me.  The moon, through a slight rift in the clouds, revealed a sharp stone, as big as a golf ball.

What in Hell am I going to do??!  We don’t have our traffic-directing radios, and if this keeps up, my fellow-guard is going to walk around the corner any moment, right into the middle of this.

“It’s okay, Bobby.  You can come out now.  We won’t throw anything else at you.”  I’m not Bobby!  “Who the hell are you?”  I’m the security guard who’s supposed to keep you from damaging anything.  Are you idiots??!  Throwing crab apples is dangerous enough, but throwing rocks at someone you can’t see, or identify – in the dark….  You could blind or kill someone!  “Sorry, we didn’t think.”  Said every teenage boy ever, just before he qualified for the Darwin Award.

Patrolling a graveyard on Halloween is an…. interesting task.  Ghosts and ghouls don’t exist, so they’re no problem.  It’s the live ones who cause all the troubles.  😯

Happy Halloween!  Trick or Treat.  😀

Purls Of Wisdom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A highway patrolman pulled alongside a speeding car on the freeway. Glancing at the car, he was astounded to see that the blonde behind the wheel was knitting!

Realizing that she was oblivious to his flashing lights and siren, the trooper cranked down his window, turned on his bullhorn and yelled, “PULL OVER!”

 

“NO,” the blonde yelled back, “IT’S A SCARF!”

 

****

Paul Mitchell, 29, was walking home from a friend’s Halloween party earlier this year when he found himself next to his neighbor’s pumpkin field.  He had always joked in his mind about how the inside of pumpkins are soft, mushy, and warm (in Texas). So he took out his knife, cut a hole in his choice pumpkin, and began fucking it.

An officer of the City Police Dept. saw Mitchell and stopped to see what was going on. “I expected Mitchell to be urinating in the field and possibly be intoxicated,” said the Officer. Mitchell didn’t hear or see the Officer as she approached, due to his newfound hobby. She shined her flashlight on Paul and said, “Sir, do you realize that you are screwing a pumpkin?”

Mitchell replied almost instantly, “Is it midnight already?”

****

The local vicar is having a bath, and he’s a little bored, so he decides to, ‘pleasure’ himself. He’s quite happily tugging away, reaches the old moment of bliss, and opens his eyes only to see, at the window, the window cleaner, jaw agape at what he’s just seen.

A couple of minutes later, the doorbell rings, it’s the window cleaner.  The vicar is understandably embarrassed, and asks the man how much he owes him.  “50 quid” comes the reply.  “50 quid ?!?” says the vicar, startled.  “Yep, fifty quid or I tell the whole parish about what I saw, you perv.”

So the vicar hands over the cash, and the cleaner gets on his way.

The following week, the bishop’s ’round for his supper and is having a wander ’round the vicar’s house, admiring his lovely home.  He says to the vicar, “Lovely clean windows you’ve got there vicar, who does them for you?”

“Oh, a guy from the village does them for me, he does a great job,” replies the vicar.

“Oh, yes. How much does he charge you, then?”

“Well,” replies the vicar, “fifty quid, actually”

“Fifty quid?!? Blimey!” says the bishop.  “He must have seen you coming!”

****

The history teacher announced that the students who could tell her the source of the following famous quotes would be allowed to go home early.

“The first quote is: ‘Four score and seven years ago…'”

Cathy raised her and answered “Abe Lincoln”.

“Very good Cathy, you may go home,” said the teacher. “The next quote is ‘Give me liberty or give me…”

Jane raised her hand and blurted out “Patrick Henry.”

“Very good Jane, you may also leave.”

Meanwhile a boy had his hand up in the back of the room the whole time and the teacher never acknowledged him, and she said that would be all for the day. She proceeded to write something on the board when the boy said “Stupid Bitches, if it weren’t for them none of this ever would’ve happened”

The teacher turned around and said, “Who said that?”

The boy blurted out “Bill Clinton, now can I go home!”

****

Did you hear about the accident at the army base?

A jeep ran over a box of popcorn & killed 2 kernels

 

Protection From Demons

Oops, sorry!  That title should read Protection, From Demons.  When the glaciers marched into and out of this region ages ago, they dug up and left behind a lot of stone.  This is one of the most geologically varied areas in the world.  When we moved here, I hired a separate van to move 3000 pounds of rocks that we’d obtained over the years, to be used for landscaping and garden accents, quartz, marble, sandstone, agate and shale, often with fossils in it.

Over the years, we have also purchased a variety of garden figures.  Not silly little gnomes, these guys have some character, like the characters who own them.

       Igor

This is Igor.  He came to us blind, because he had one eye closed, and the other one missing.  We provided him with a blood-red marble to see with.  He spent years beneath the wife’s magnolia bush, which didn’t do well in sandy soil near the river, when we lived on the other side of town, but has grown and branched and bloomed in the clay-ey soil here.

The first photo shows the small, but blooming plant 15 years ago, before we moved.

The next shot is the same shrub, transplanted, after we moved, 12 years ago.  Not much more than a stick, we didn’t hold much hope for it.  You can see a couple of the accent stones we brought along.

 

The blooming shot is from five years ago.  It blooms in the spring before it leafs out.  The last pic is from the same spot as shot number 2, giving some idea of how it continues to grow.  It’s a shrub magnolia, not the tree variety, but 14/15 feet tall.  We get some re-blooming, especially on the sunny top, mid-July/Aug.

 

Igor bade goodbye to years of Halloween trick-or-treaters.  He’s an anorexic 7.5 pounds of fibreglass and resin, easily talked into walking down the street with a teenager, like a three-pound pottery angel which disappeared off a flower table on the front porch.  Or maybe she was just embarrassed by the company she was forced to keep, and flew away.

Goliath

When we had the chance to adopt Goliath, we gave him a Moonstone evil-eye – and Igor’s spot under the magnolia.  Goliath is 75 pounds of pure concrete, promising a hernia or broken foot to any potential thief.  Igor moved to the back deck.

Go Away

Back on the deck, he moved in with “Go Away”, my personal mascot.  I was going to use his photo as my gravatar, but decided on something a little more welcoming.  There are (un)welcome mats which also read Go Away, but it’s cheaper just to ignore the doorbell.  Back beside Go Away, is the wife’s final word to her flowers, “Grow Dammit”.  Seems to be working.

They are watched over by Winged Victory, who can’t fly off the fencepost because of a six-inch spike up his little fiberglass ass.  He was the painted display model and the last of his discontinued line that we brought home from a Mediaeval Faire.  He is a grotesque, because only waterspouts are correctly named gargoyles.

Winged Victory

Continuing in the son’s hear-no-evil, etc. theme, are the matched set of concrete goblins which he purchased.  I managed to set them out in the correct order.  The child whose head is full of even more useless trivia than mine, says their Japanese names are Mizaru, Mazaru, and Mikazaru.  Some sets include, “Do No Evil”, with the hands over his crotch.  As well, there’s the vertical, resin, green and white frog-set version.  He has others, indoors.

 

Back around at the front, keeping intruders out of the washroom window are two of three concrete goblin-lions.  They’ve been out there 24/7/365 since we bought them.  Sadly, the third must have had a crack, and this spring, freezing split it into three unequal pieces.  For backup, they hang out with a demented Sesame Street-like character the grandson formed in pottery class in grade eight.

                         

If anyone manages to get through the window, without upsetting the goblins, or our cats, they are not welcomed inside by Hellboy’s younger brother, Redboy.

Lurking near the door, waiting to trip up unsuspecting Jehovah’s Witnesses, kids selling school chocolate, and other ne’er-do-wells, is The Thinker, looking like he just climbed down off an Aztec sacrificial pyramid after ingesting a bit too much peyote, and thinking about who he’ll have for lunch.

Thinker

Providing a stumbling block in front of a three-tier brass plant-stand and the aforementioned plant table, at the end of the porch, is Todd The Toad.  While not much for rending undesirables limb from limb, after the rest of the Wrecking Crew do their number, he eats up any incriminating DNA evidence.  He hopped home with us all the way from the three-ended bridge in Zanesville, Ohio.

Toad

Having written about a Yankee transplant in Kentucky whose God-fearing neighbors wanted him burned at the stake for having two little concrete demons out at the end of his driveway, it occurred to me to wonder what the neighbors thought of our unusual “pets.”  One weekend, when the neighbor-lady’s father was visiting from Buffalo, I asked if they were offended or worried in any way.

Logical thinkers, they had no problems.  The dad asked, though, “Shouldn’t they be facing outwards?”  He don’t know us very well, do he?  On the wall, just inside the front door, is a small parchment which reads, “Remember, as far as anyone knows, we’re just a nice normal family.”  They’re there to protect the rest of the neighborhood from us!

A Comedy Of Errors

A man hired by a construction company, was asked to fill out the details of an accident that put him in the hospital, after less than an hour on the job.  His task was simply to carry an excess of bricks from the top of a two-storey house, down to the ground.  This is his meticulous report

“Thinking that I could save time, I rigged a beam with a pulley to the top of the house, with a rope leading to the ground.  I tied an empty barrel on one end of the rope, pulled it to the top of the house, and then fastened the other end of the rope to a tree.

Going up to the top of the house, I filled the barrel with bricks.  Then I went back down, and unfastened the rope to let the barrel down.  Unfortunately, the barrel of bricks was now heavier than I, and before I knew what was happening, the barrel jerked me up in the air.

I hung onto the rope, and, halfway up, I met the barrel coming down, receiving a sharp blow to my left shoulder. I then continued on up to the top. Banging my head on the beam and jamming my fingers in the pulley.

When the barrel hit the ground, the bottom burst, spilling all the bricks.  As I was now heavier than the barrel, I started down at high speed.  Halfway down, I met the empty barrel, coming up, receiving severe lacerations to my shins.

When I hit the ground, I landed on the bricks, receiving several cuts and contusions from the sharp edges of the bricks.  At this point I must have become confused, because I let go of the rope.  The barrel came down, striking me on the head, and I woke up in the hospital.

I respectfully request sick leave.”

Dancing In The Dark

A couple were invited to a real swanky Halloween party, so the wife went out and bought costumes for them.  On the night of the party, she developed a terrific headache, and told her husband to go on without her.  He protested, but she said all she was going to do was take a couple of aspirins and go to bed, and that there was no need of his good time being wasted, by not attending.  So he got into his costume, and off he went.

The wife, after sleeping soundly for an hour, woke without a trace of pain, and a little after nine, she decided to go to the party.  Since her husband didn’t know what costume she was wearing, she thought it might be fun to slip into the party, and see how he acted when she wasn’t around.

As soon as she got to the party, the first person she saw was her husband, cavorting around the dance floor, dancing with all the chicks and copping a little feel here and there.  So the wife sidled up to him and, being a rather sexy-looking thing herself, he quickly left his partner to devote his attention to the new stuff that had just joined the party.  She let him go as far as he wanted, (naturally) and finally he whispered a proposition in her ear.  This she agreed to, and they went out to one of the parked cars nearby, etc., etc., etc.

Just before unmasking at midnight, she slipped away, went home, and went to bed, wondering what her husband would say about the party when he came home.

He arrived home about 1:30, and came straight to the bedroom to ask her how she was.  She was sitting up in bed, reading, and asked how he enjoyed the party.  He said, “Oh, the same old thing.  You know I never have a good time when you’re not there.”  Then she asked if he had danced much.  He said, “Well, I’ll tell you, I never even danced one dance.  When I got there, Peter Jones, Bill Brown, and a couple of the guys were stag, too, so we just sat in the den and played poker all night.  But I’ll tell you one thing, the fellow I loaned my costume to sure had one hell of a good time!”

 

Triviana T’ree

Please keep hands and feet inside the blog.  Do not attempt to exit until the post has come to a complete stop.  The following are a few thoughts which whirl through my head, there not being much between my ears to slow them down.

I was at a supermarket with the wife today.  At the end of one row, there was a plastic box with a sign saying “Seasonal Recipes, Try One.”  I took one of the sheets, and, sure enough, there was a great recipe for Barbecued Snow, another for Sweet and Sour Snowballs, and instructions for Baked Icicles, promising that they’ll come out soft and juicy.  For anyone needing basic ingredients, we’ll be happy to ship them to you.  I have a distribution system stretching from KayJai, in the east, to NotesToPonder in the west.

We had a couple of severe wind storms come through the Region recently.  Several trees in LadyRyl’s compound, and others in the neighborhood, lost large branches, or were toppled.  City and private crews have been cleaning up.  Smaller limbs go through a chipper, and larger stuff is cut and piled.  Free mulch and firewood!  All you can haul away.  One tree, about a block from Ryl’s, left a stump beside the road, almost three feet across, and six feet high.  Slowly but surely, someone has been turning it into the bottom of a Totem pole, a most handsome-looking Eagle.  I’ll grab a photo, and add to a post later.

In an ongoing contest to prove which one of us is dumber, I asked MapQuest.CA to find me a place near SightNBytes, in Newfoundland, Canada.  I was presented with Newfoundland, Tenn., U.S. bloody A!  It’s about three miles down the road from a maximum-security Federal prison.  “Do not stop!  Do not pick up hitchhikers!”

I’ve written about being (almost) smarter than the old, wooden, two-legged clothes pins.  I met their Mensa relatives recently.  Made from the heavy, recycled plastic that is used to produce some patio/lawn furniture, these things are claimed indestructible, and cheap at 39 cents each.  I guess everything old is new again, as more women (and men?) hang laundry on clotheslines.

Did you drink cherry Coke when you were younger??  Does anybody besides me still drink it?  My favorite fire-water is actually Pepsi, but, it’s like “Kleenex.”  It’s all Kleenex unless someone specifies otherwise.

I was introduced to cherry-cola at about the age of 15, back when restaurants had soda-fountains.  You could pay a little extra for a shot of the cherry soda syrup in your “glass” glass of draft (draught, for Canadians, especially KayJai) cola.  For at least 20 years, as supermarket choices expanded, I’ve been buying bottles of cherry syrup, and adding it to many of my glasses of Pepsi.

Coke sells Cherry-Coke in cans.  I’m not sure that Pepsi does.  Pepsi does sell cans with a touch of lime, that son, Shimoniac, likes occasionally.  Partly to control my weight, I often don’t want 12 ounces, and custom-mix a small glass, from a 2-liter bottle.

A little over a year ago, BrainRants mentioned Sriracha sauce on his blog.  I’d never seen or heard of it.  Less than a month later it showed up at my supermarket.  At first, it was expensive, and rare, $6.99 a bottle – liters – to satisfy Canadian packing requirements.  Soon, most stores carried it, and the price went down.

Suddenly, it was as common as water, and less expensive.  My store had a giant, end-of-aisle display, hundreds (perhaps thousands) of bottles in an 8-foot-high pile, clearing at 99 ¢/ea.  I first saw a small store in Charleston, SC, which sold nothing but a wide range of hot sauces.  We recently got the first in our area, at the Farmers’ Market.  The wife treated me to an order of poutine today.  (All questions about What The Hell Is Poutine??! faithfully answered)  I drizzled some Sriracha on it.

I went to put in the ¢ sign above, and realized that electronic keyboards no longer have them.  They have the dollar sign, but not the cents.  This happened long before Canada decided to eliminate the penny.  The wife threatened offered to teach me how to add it to my text, but I feared it would be cheaper and easier just to hire a performance artist to go to each of your houses and put it in.  Silly me, it’s not hard at all.  Two different ways, press alt 0162, or control, slash, c.  Now I gotta write more about cents.

In my continuing acquisition of interesting names, I met a knife-maker at the Detroit show named Bobby L. Toole, not O’Toole, merely Toole.  I haven’t researched just how rare the name is, but I’ve never heard or read of another.  While the name may be white-bread, Irish, the holder definitely isn’t.  Being politically correct, I will not mention the joke about him being a Masai-man, so black you could melt him down to make hockey pucks from.

Another maker with a name almost as handsome as his knives, was Doun T. Rose II, whose father had as much ego and as little imagination as Efrem Zimbalist Senior.  I gotta kick my standard transmissioned research up into second gear, to find out about him and Bobby.  He claimed that Doun is a Scottish name, and it’s always interesting to see what my skirt-wearing ancestors were up to.  You know why Scotsmen wear kilts??!  So the sheep don’t hear the zipper.

I put this post together Saturday, August 24^th.  I don’t mind (much) that they’re playing football.  I’m not surprised to get back
from Canadian Tire, where Halloween costumes are available for sale, but Saturday’s paper had the first picture of someone playing hockey.  Summer, oh Summer, where hast thou gone?  Probably hiding behind my snow shovel, bah, humbug!