Misc.
--When I was a kid and the topic of oxymorons came up, friends and I would always laugh as we recited them. I would always throw in "jumbo shrimp," because I love that one. Others would get said and we'd laugh (boneless ribs! pretty ugly! freezer burn!). And then inevitably someone would toss out "military intelligence" and everyone would laugh - everyone except for me.

I genuinely never understood why people laughed at that one. Seriously, I just didn't get it - why was that funny? It wasn't until years later (yeah, I'm slow) that I realized it was because many people view those in the military as dumb. Of course I never thought that because my dad was in the Air Force, and he's one of the smartest (if not the smartest) people I know. All of the military friends of his that we knew were also very smart people.

I guess these folks who laughed had just grown up in an atmosphere with either no military folks around them, or maybe the wrong kind. Who knows?

It's just funny as I look back on it now and see how different lives can really give you different perspectives.

That all sounded better in my head. Hmm. I hope you all understand what I'm getting at, why I find it interesting to look back upon.

--In other news, Amy and I were out on our front porch the other evening enjoying the perfect weather. It was a beautiful situation really - we were eating ice cream, there was a nice breeze, it was just after dark, families were out playing - so on and so forth. We smiled and noted that....right as I looked down to see a rat sitting in our front yard. He was just hanging out and then he ran into the bushes by our porch. Amy ran inside. Seriously, she just jumped up and ran inside as I ran screaming toward the bush hoping to scare the rat away.

When she came back out empty-handed, I asked why she escaped indoors.

"I went to get the baseball bat."

That's my pastor of a wife for you. I told her I would've rather had a golf club, then you can kill it while also sending it elsewhere. A bat will just kill it and then you have to deal with it.

About that time the rat came back out from the bush and ran down the neighbor's front steps and under our car.

"Oh no you don't you bastard!" I yelled as I ran toward the car. "You will not destroy this car's wires, too! I hate you!" And then I kept yelling and clapping my hands and bouncing the car up and down. I gave up after a bit because I didn't know where it had gone.

I returned to our porch and sat again. Then Amy pointed out that the rat had followed me. There he was, coming up our steps. Bold little bastard. We yelled and screamed again and he ran off into the neighbor's yard. And right at that time she opened her front door to find out what the commotion was.

"There's a rat in your front yard now. We were trying to scare it away."

"Oh," she said, peeking out from behind the door. "Well then, you won't be mad if I go back inside then, huh?"

"Nope."

Ah, Baltimore.