Who Needs a Spa?

I stole this video from Stephanie's Pointed Meanderings blog (Stephanie I hope you don't mind!).  I'm not usually a blog thief, but this video was too awesomely sexist to pass up.  Finally, someone has found the key to relaxation...making your husband the perfect cup of coffee.  Here I have been stressed over getting our house in order, finding a job, living in the city, anxiety about being able to make new friends, and most of all - hubby's impending year-long deployment - when all I really need is instant Folgers.

(By the way, instant Folgers tastes like feet.)

Too Hot to Blog

I know that's not a good excuse, but holy cow.  This summer is sucking my motivation faster than an egg can fry on the hood of my car.  I really hate being one of those people complaining about the weather, but I'd hoped against hope that our past weekend's slight reprieve from three-digit temps would be an indication that the heat and humidity was subsiding.  But the bright side - it is August, and the Bass Pro and Cabelas hunting catalogs in our mailbox remind me that cooler weather is that much closer. 

Instead of incessant griping, I'm posting this video of a dog who has the right idea.

It's Hot.

Last night during a phone conversation with my brother, he aptly described the absolutely insane heat and humidity blanketing the south:

"It's like being stuck in the Jolly Green Giant's armpit."

So True...

Mullets Alive!

Well, despite moronic politics, mullets still run free and wild.  My last phone was not conducive to capturing mullets, but with the acquisition of a new phone equipped with an awesome (and silent) camera, I'm back in the hunt.

These were all captured on our recent trip to South Alabama/North Florida - an area very rich in mullet habitat.  Mullets grow as thick as the peanut fields.  Here are three captures of notable specimens:

Fort Rucker Mullet:

This mullet was serenely gazing at static displays in the Ft. Rucker Aviation Museum, where Trent's graduation was held.  I had to feign interest in the display text I'd already read just to make sure it wasn't one of those deceptive hat-mullets, where a wig is actually attached to the hat.  I was able to personally verify the authenticity of this mullet. 

Navy Aviation Museum Mullet:

Mullets seem more at home in certain situations - such as truck pulls, Nascar races, and county fairs.  I'm going to go out on a limb and make a scientific claim based on my own observations - mullets are also attracted to static displays of military airplanes.  This femmullet was glorious, but safest when viewed at a distance.

Rockin' Biker Mullet

This is a classic biker mullet.  Rugged, tough, and windblown.

This next photo is obviously not a mullet, but was a sight that proved definitely photo worthy.  I would also guess it might be driven by a mullet.  Yes, it's a cat car.

Complete with a cat butt.  You have to give extra credit for anatomical correctness.

Just Call Me Stupid

Recently a reader questioned my avoidance of political posts.  I haven't been consciously avoiding commenting on politics - it's been more of a "head in the sand" attitude lately while we've been moving, redoing our house, selling a house, and dealing with all the stresses that come with it.  But, rest assured that many of the recent goings-on in politics has my head spinning, and should have every American's head rotating rapidly, whether your preferred animal is the elephant or the donkey. 

Unless, that is, you're a Progressive, Marxist, or Socialist...all of which seem to be (most disturbingly) gaining ground as an acceptable alternative to our current system that made America great in the first place.  It no longer seems to matter what the majority of Americans want - this administration has made clear that it is going to do what IT wants, when it wants, how it wants, with or without going through the proper channels as mandated by the Constitution.  President Obama ran on a platform of transparency and holding government accountable, and thus far he's run an administration behind closed doors, has out-and-out lied, and has put in place policies hidden in "reform" that allows government agencies to operate without accountability.  Many more of these policies, and we can officially kiss the idea of "Freedom" and determining our own destinies goodbye.

So many issues today just defy common sense.

The latest thing I just simply can't understand is all the hoopla and angst over the Arizona immigration law.  Call me stupid, but I just can't wrap my mind around why there are thousands marching to protest Arizona's attempt to hold the Federal government accountable for the law they're supposed to be upholding, but refuse. 

I'm not heartless, as liberals like to call conservatives.  I understand why people want to come to this country, and if I were on the Mexico side with a starving family to feed and work across the border, you bet I'd be risking my life to get to the other side.  And, I believe they should be able to legally immigrate.  Our immigration system definitely needs an overhaul - an overhaul where everyone wins.  Immigrants should be able to come and work if they so desire, but we should know who they are.  They should pay taxes, have a social security number, and everything that comes with being a U.S. citizen if immigrants expect to have the rights of a citizen, period.

But, what we have on the border is a hostile takeover - not just innocent families trying to make their way to a better life, but drug cartels, gangsters, and human traffickers, even snipers, all heavily armed, literally reclaiming American territory for Mexico.  Again, call me stupid, but shouldn't we be defending our territory?  Why is this concept so hard? 

Other questions I have - would anyone else reasonably expect to immigrate to another country and not be expected to go through certain channels, show documentation, and answer to authorities?  I would not in my wildest dreams travel to Australia, refuse to show documentation, and then not expect to be thrown in jail.  I would surely not expect to be given free healthcare and other benefits.  In other words - I would not in my wildest dreams expect to "fly under the radar" without repercussions in any other country.  Why is this expected of the United States?  How is this fair to those immigrants who DO go through the proper channels?

When you get pulled over by the police for just cause, do you show your driver's license?  That's proper documentation - why are illegals not required the same as legal citizens?  As it is now, illegal immigrants in the United States are afforded more rights and services than legal citizens.  Why is this even a debate?

If anyone has an answer - without crying "racist!" and "bigot!" - please let me know.

My New Running Shoes

Any long-term readers may remember my former quest to start running (again) and to get in shape.  That, of course, fell by the wayside....what with preparing to move, looking for a new house, actually moving, persistent back problems, and all the other stuff that's made my life into The Crazy Roller-Coaster of Stress ride over the past year.  Sounded like a good enough excuse, until I realized it was just that - an excuse.  So, here I go...again...with the running.

My biggest problem is that I HATE running.  HATE it.  I know there are other things to do to get into shape, but running is the quickest, and you don't need a bunch of equipment, or a pool, etc.  (I do wish I had access to a pool - I love swimming workouts).  Mountain Biking is a great cardio workout, but I do need a new bike, and a new bike (well, the one I want) is temporarily financially out of reach.  For running all you really need is just some shoes and a bit of motivation.

My brother and sister-in-law are bona-fide runners, and have been trying to inspire me to pound the pavement once again.  Recently they've approached running in a new/old way - barefoot.  Minimalist running has been in vogue for a long time, but seems to be getting a bigger following as of late, and after reading up on it I decided maybe that approach was worth a try.  I mean, it does make some sense.  Running shoes keep getting "better" and more complicated to reduce all kinds of pain running causes, which seems kind of silly when you consider we were already born with all we needed for running and walking - our bare feet.  For example - running shoes have all kinds of heel padding to minimize the shock of hard heel striking - when barefoot running eliminates the heel strike altogether.  The general consensus seems that during all of human history human feet were just fine, and in just the past 200 years or so we've really started messing them up, even changing their shape with shoes, which works against the way our feet were designed to function.

For me the biggest draw is the promise of "no shin splints", which have been the bane of my running attempts my entire life.  So, all scientific evidence and hoopla aside - if I can escape shin splints, I'm sold.

My brother and his wife don't actually run with bare feet, for obvious reasons - sharp rocks, glass, gum, bugs, dog poop, roadkill, and all the other stuff you may find on the road or trail.  Instead, they use slip-on footie shoes called Vibram FiveFingers.  (I still haven't gotten a good answer as to why they're not called "FiveToes.")  There are numerous minimalist shoes currently on the market, but the FiveFingers are supposed to be the closest thing to barefoot other than actual bare feet.  The individual toe slots - a feature unique to the FiveFinger - train your toes to spread apart, adding balance, stability, and strength.

First, when I strapped these puppies on, I thought, "No Way.  Not going to work."  Not only did they look stupid, I usually hate the feeling of things between my toes.  But, after a few minutes they started to feel pretty good.  After walking around for about ten minutes, they felt DARN good.  They felt freeing...I got the strong urge to flit and skip around the store with my arms in the air.  Instead I calmly walked to the register, handed over my debit card and purchased these:

I can sum up my first run in one word:  OUCH!!!  Holy Moly!  While it felt great running with just my toe-shoe footies on, the different foot-strike I naturally used caused me to heavily use muscles that have been lazy.  My calves in particular screamed for mercy.  It's essential to ease into minimalist running, especially when you consider most people have lived a majority of their lifetimes in shoes.  This really works for me, since I've been away from running so long I have to ease in, shoes or not.  So far I've been at it for a week, alternating running/walking short distances.  Even if I'm on a running workout off day, I still try to put on the FiveFingers to at least walk around the house.  Despite their idiotic looks, I'm liking the results.

If anyone else has tried this approach to running, I'd like to hear your two cents.

For a good article about the science behind minimalist running, click this:  LINK

Wussing Out

Today is officially day #2 of having no air conditioning.

I'm usually pretty tolerant of hot summers.  We're in the south.  Every summer is hot, some hotter than others, and I try to take them in stride and refuse to incessantly complain about the heat as some do.  The Minnesota/N. Illinois/Wisconsin immigrants that are so prevalent around Mountain Home complained about the weather loudly from May until October to anyone in earshot.  It was always hard not to respond with a suggestion to go jump in the lake.

Now, if I had a lake, I'd definitely be jumping in.  This summer is getting to me.  I'm not sure if it's the sustained heat with no breaks and very little rain, stress, or a combination, but I'm wussing out.  And, it's worse in a trailer - something like sitting in a metal breadbox in the middle of the Mojave.  I don't know how old-timers did it, but they were tougher than me!

Now, excuse me while I go put my head in the freezer.

Surrounded by Apaches

I think I'm sufficiently recovered from my the bash to my writing ego, so here goes:

Last week we took a short break from the never-ending grind of home improvement, and headed for south Alabama to attend my brother's graduation from Apache helicopter flight school.

As if it weren't cool enough to be a combat-decorated green beret, my brother had to go and start flying the coolest of the cool in fighter helicopters - the Apache.  With the other brother currently navigating a B-52 and fixing to go on to cooler things himself, my feelings of being the underachieving boob of a sibling have been greatly magnified.  I'm also green with envy - Fort Rucker's skies are an aeriel traffic jam of awesomeness in the form of all kinds of helicopters, and my brain was constantly occupied with trying to imagine how thrilling it would be to be able to at least ride in one, let alone PILOT one.  It's still hard to believe that the brother who was once the bane of my existence, who's favorite prank was to rub my toothbrush in soap, and who has the greatest count of stitches given to siblings (we all caused each other to get stitches, but Trent's count is highest), is so accomplished in the impossibly-hard, and is just generally a certified badass.  Yeah, despite my jealousy and feelings of inadequacy, I'm still very much a pretty proud big sis of both of the brothers.

Here are a few pics from graduation:

Hannah pinning on Trent's wings:

The Fam

As I mentioned, the skies at Fort Rucker were full of copters, and I never got tired of watching.  Even after the last few months of living on our own military post crawling with constantly active Blackhawks, I'm still fascinated enough to run outside like a kid to watch them fly over the house.  Perhaps I missed a calling.  Despite my fascination with helicopters, I did get very tired  of the Apaches buzzing our lakeside cabin at night every few minutes, low enough and loud enough to rattle the windows, cause items to vibrate off the nightstand, and to rocket you from sleep with the first instinct to dive for cover.  How my folks slept through that is a mystery to both me and Marden, but after two nights we were weary.  We later invaded Trent and Hannah's house for the remainder of our stay, where we were out of the flight path and the copters were merely a distant rumble.

Crappy Writing

I'm still reeling a bit from my writing analysis which compared me to Stephanie Meyer.  I know it's just a simple Internet analysis, and I don't have any illusions about being a great writer, but still.  And it's not that she's just AWFUL...while her writing kind of annoyed me, and some of her characters REALLY annoyed me, she could tell a good story and keep me interested enough to read all four Twilight books and see the movies.  If it's a good story, I can forgive some pretty bad writing.  I've read much worse from other authors making millions.  I just don't want to annoy people.  I also don't want to populate the world with any more crappy writing.

True, Stephanie Meyer is laughing all the way to the bank, despite her critics, but I tend to be a romantic idealist.  This might be different if I were pursuing a living as a writer, but I think I'd rather be critically acclaimed and broke rather than told over and over that my writing stinks, even if I made money off that stinky writing.  This is weird, because I'm the complete opposite with artwork.  I spent my college years being told by the majority of my snooty art instructors that my artwork was "baseless", "irrelevant", "boring couch art", and on one occasion told by my Advanced Figure Drawing instructor - in front of the whole class AND the nude model no less - "Just because you can draw better than anyone in this class doesn't mean you're an artist."  I kept my grade in mind and my mouth shut, but I wanted to ask if the person who'd just had a show in the student gallery could be called an "artist" because she built two columns, glued pieces of broken mirror to them, then sprinkled dead leaves around on the floor and called it "art."  With artwork, critique from the "experts" doesn't matter a lick to me, as long as I'm satisfied with my own work and the Average Joe or Jill likes it.  Maybe it all boils down to confidence.

I was joking about not blogging anymore - I'll still blog because I enjoy it.  But please, PLEASE someone tell me if, like Stephanie Meyer, I start using too many ridiculous metaphors, create an extremely annoying character, or begin to rave about handsome sparkly vampires with piercing amber eyes and snow-white marble skin, frosty as the arctic winter breeze...

I Write Like...Crap, Evidently

Having taken the "who do I write like" test posted on Stephanie's "Pointed Meanderings" blog, my bubble is totally burst.  I don't know whether to laugh or sob uncontrollably.  It may just be the end of this blog.

My results were Stephanie Meyer.

*sigh*

My New Mechanic

Amos will do a pretty good brake job for Friskies.

Tomato Jerks

Wasn't it just last week that we were griping about the bitter cold and unusual amount of snow?  It seems summer has brutally descended on us like a big, wet, wool blanket.  It occurred to me how ridiculous the temperatures have been when I looked at the long-range forecast and realized I was viewing temps in the lower 90's by the end of the week as "relief."

If the trend continues, we may be in for a long miserable summer.  I'm already missing being in close proximity to the lake.

Luckily my tomato plants don't seem to mind the excessive heat.  I was excited to see - despite some adversity in the form of an aggressive tomato hornworm invasion - a ripe tomato.  You might notice the lack of leaves on this Arkansas Traveler plant - a result of a nighttime munchdown from those voracious little green jerks.  They met their maker upon discovery the next morning.  At first I was squishing them (with a tiny bit of remorse - the moths they turn into are pretty cool), but then I decided to try chucking them out in the yard to the side of the house.  The fat caterpillars have enough mass to make a pretty long flight - right into the path of a mockingbird who just happens to have a nest in the vicinity.

All my tomato plants on the deck suffered significant damage, but this particular plant seems to have gotten the worst of it.  My two plants on the front porch remain untouched.  From what I've read and heard first-hand from other gardeners, hand-picking the worms off the plants is the most effective method of control.  The problem with that method is having to remain extra vigilant, and if you have to leave your plants for a day or two, just a couple of missed or newly-hatched worms can totally strip a plant of leaves and stems as well as tomatoes.  But, I seem to have caught them all for the moment, and the stricken plants are already putting on new leaves.

Tomato growers, be on the lookout:

House and Mouse Wars

Aaaaaaand....I'm back once again.  Despite any reports to the contrary, I am still alive, and despite my best efforts still somewhat sane.

So much blog fodder has floated by lately, but I've not gotten a whole lot of computer time or a whole lot of motivation to devote to the task.  I'm still mostly stuck in my own little personal bubble of battling this house, slowly plodding toward the big finish.  Marden has FINALLY finished the year+ long military class that's been keeping him so busy and driving me out of my mind, and now we're at last getting some good chunks of time together - a phenomenon which has happened way too little over the past year.  It's too bad it has to be spent on this house.  But, we'd be a whole lot farther from the finish if it weren't for the help of my parents - who are still coming to my rescue, despite the huge eye rolls and sighs from my brothers.

Mom spent last week here helping me while Marden was in New Jersey at the Army's beck and call, and we made some awesome headway - I painted two rooms and laid flooring with wild abandon while Mom cleaned, organized, put-away, and did an excellent job of painting doors and trim.  Not to mention she fixed all our meals - it's a great help when you don't have to stop what you're doing to make a salad or sandwich.  We're now down to finishing the flooring in the main part of the house, changing out the sliding patio door, laying vinyl floor and installing a new vanity in the small bathroom, and installing trim throughout the house.  Ok...when put that way, we still have a LOT to do....but it's still on the downhill side of what we've done.

One thing I discovered during Mom's stay - a mouse in the house can instantly turn two adult, self-sufficient, strong women into screaming little girls.  One night right after we went to our beds, exhausted from a long day, we both got up to investigate a big ruckus coming from one of the un-floored rooms.  Puck had cornered a mouse, but he didn't quite know what to do with it.  We didn't know what to do either, so Mom yelled, "Puck has a mouse!", and I yelled, "EW!"

Anyone should be able to tell pretty quick that I'm very much a critter-person.  I love animals, and have always had and likely will always have a menagerie of pets.  I don't get wigged out at bugs in the house (except roaches), and on several occasions I've gently removed spiders to the outdoors for my husband.  If it's not a brown recluse, it gets a free pass.  (Sorry brown recluses - you get a squish).  It used to greatly disturb hubby that I let those little black jumping spiders live in the house with us, but he's gotten used to my spider-tolerating  antics.  HOWEVER - I draw a big fat line at roaches and mice.  If I'm outdoors, a mouse can be my friend.  Indoors - it's war. 

Back to the mouse - Puck was alternating between catching the mouse and letting it go, while Mom and I danced around, following the battle in our pajamas and making noises like, "OH!" and "EEK!" and "GAH!"  During one of it's escape attempts, it ran into my bedroom and Mom saw fit to yell, "HAHA!  It's in YOUR bedroom now!", while I yelled, "NOOOOOO!" The mouse must've heard, because it immediately did a one-eighty for Mom's room, and I yelled, "HA!  Now it's in YOUR bedroom!"  Mom wasn't so smug then.  The mouse/Puck conflagration made it's way all over the house, pausing now and then for both combatants to rest, while Mom and I had short, frantic discussions on what to do, both of us being barefoot and unarmed.  It's difficult to keep an eye on a darting mouse while looking for a weapon, though at one point I did don a pair of flipflops and attempt what Mom could only describe as to Riverdance on the mouse.  The battle finally ended up as a cat-mouse standoff in a bedroom closet.  I could see Puck losing interest, and the mouse was terrified, looking to bolt, so I ended the chase with a whack from a piece of hastily grabbed laminate floor.  Anyone wanting to scream "animal abuse!" has never had a mouse skitter across their bare toes.  I suppose I'm a hypocrite for all of my "thou shalt not kill snakes" preaching while displaying extreme intolerance for mice, but I've never had a snake get in my cabinets, chew through stuff, sample my food, and leave little "presents" laying around.  To my knowledge there have never been mass snake infestations laying waste to crops and spreading diseases.  In fact, snakes are extremely important for keeping rodent populations in check.  And snakes can be pretty and don't have fleas.  So there.

Speaking of snakes - I offered the poor deceased to our pet corn snake, Orville, but he turned up his nose.  I guess when you're used to being served freshly thawed, sterile, white mice from the pet store, a freshly-killed wild brown mouse is below your standards.  I wonder if they're lower in cholesterol?  Orville evidently is not interested in health food.

Anyway - the house now seems a mouse-free zone, though I've set a few traps in cabinets just to be sure.  The former residents lived in such squalor we're probably lucky to have only seen one so far.  The adventures just never end.

Garden Update

Even though this year's garden dreams were utterly dashed by all of the house redoing, never ending packing, and epic moving, I did manage to plant a few of my heirloom tomato seeds.  To my great surprise they all sprouted, and (after thinning and culling) for the first time ever I was able to keep them all alive.  Most of the fragile baby plants survived the move and "hardening off" process, and I now have nine big strong heirloom plants grown from seed and planted in tubs.  (If you can't tell I'm quite proud of myself). 

I planted two Arkansas Traveler, Mule Team, Cherokee Purple, Mammoth Gold, and one Moonglow.  I'd have planted more but I ran out of containers and dirt - and believe me, dirt is hard to come by around here.

The most exciting thing is - I HAVE GREEN TOMATOES!!!  The rest have blooms, but no 'maters just yet.  Still, to have good-sized green tomatoes by June 1st is the best tomato luck I've ever had.

In other garden news, it took me hours and hours and buckets of sweat to re-plant my gooseberry bushes.  First, finding a halfway diggable, all-day sunny spot really narrowed down the options.  Second, "diggable" is saying way too much for this ground we now live on.  It took a pick, mega elbow-grease, and more patience than I thought I had to dig holes through rocks the size of my head.  Anything else I plant is going in a raised bed - this time not because I want to, but because without owning a backhoe it's going to be the only option.

Check out the ridiculousness of the rocks:

If You Give A Girl A Paintbrush...

Nearly everyone has to be familiar with the kid's book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie", the ingenious story where if you give the mouse a cookie he'll likely want a glass of milk to go with it, which progresses to the mouse cleaning the whole house (where can I get a mouse like that?).

I recently had a day like this, right in the middle of our EPIC MOVE.  Our realtor, who I must say has bolstered my spirits by being insanely upbeat and optimistic about being able to sell our house without losing our pants, did ask that I repaint our front door.  I admit that the door needed painting - BADLY.  It's been on my to-do list for two years now.  It wasn't a good paint job to begin with - the former owners of our house were inexcusably sloppy painters - but what really made it bad was that we'd changed out door handles and locks.  They are a completely different shape than the old ones that the former owners just painted around rather than removing.

So, while Mom continued to cram stuff into boxes, I sanded down and painted the front door, as well as the side window panels.  It looked so good that I decided to also paint the inside of the door with some leftover paint I'd found in a closet.  Then I decided to touch-up the white railings to the porches, which made the badly stained porches look all that much worse.  A trip to Sherwin-Williams had me supplied with deck stain.  A a whole day later I had all three porches spiffed up.

I must admit, it now looks darn good - everything is new, crisp, and clean.

In the process, I also discovered a new item to add to my "Best Things Ever" list:  Frogtape.  I'm not usually one for painting gimmicks that promise straight lines and "easy application", but for some reason I decided to give Frogtape a try.  Everyone who has panted anything and tried the blue tape knows it doesn't work...this stuff does.  It's kind of high-dollar, but worth every penny!

Tomorrow is the EPIC MOVE.  Anyone travelling along Hwy 65 beware.

Memorial Day is coming up - of course the first offical start to summer!  For my family it means *drumroll* gooseberries are ripe!  I know...nobody knows what a gooseberry is.  THESE are gooseberries (watch out for the stickers):

I had to jump the gun a few days on mine this year and pick them before Memorial Day so I could yank them out of the ground for transport.  Did you think I'd leave them???  Not a chance.  My scrawny bushes actually produced enough for a pie and a half this year (this was only halfway through picking):

They make a deliciously tart pie, and eaten fresh out of the oven covered in a good layer of half and half is pure perfection.  The only thing better is to mix half the gooseberries with blueberries and make a "blue goose" pie.  Also with half and half....nom nom nom...

Take THAT, Move

I've been in Mountain Home for the past few days packing up more stuff.  With no pets, no television, and sparse furnishings, it's not been the most fun times ever.  At least I have sympathy...a local radio DJ was talking about his own move, and how he and his wife are trying to improve the house they're moving into, thus drawing out the move into a long arduous process akin to "Japanese Water Torture."  If my cell phone worked worth a darn here, I'd have called to share pity parties.

But, we have decided we can no longer stand the torture and we must change tactics.  We're going to smack this move in the face with a roundhouse Chuck Norris kick by renting a U-Haul, and hiring some burly movers to move our approximately 5 bajillion ton safe and equally heavy Temperpedic bed - which is something like trying to wrestle with a massive jello jiggler.  We need to get our *$#! down the road and into storage until our new house is done so we can sell this house and absorb the financial kick in the pants with what dignity we can before the selling season passes us by. 

I can't wait for our beach vacation!  Looks like I'm going to have to settle for a shoebox of sand and a wading pool.  *sigh*  Did I just whine again?  Sorry.

Just to prove we are making progress, here's the floor in the bedroom/hobby room.  We were very proud to get the closet done:

Pick Axe Pete Revisited

While talking about Pick Axe Pete on my last blog entry, I got a little nostalgic and found this on youtube.  They even show Pete doing the jumping jacks.  I do have to correct a minor "oops" in my description of these games...it kind of came back to me after I saw this commercial.  Pick Axe Pete was actually more like Atari's Donkey Kong, while the Odyssey's "K.C. Munchkin" was the game very much like PacMan.  I'm sure all of you can sleep better now that that's cleared up.  Now, enjoy the nostalgia:

Ode to Squandered Youth

Happy Birthday PacMan!

As anyone knows from Google, today is PacMan's 30th birthday.  Wow I feel old.  While I never had an Atari, I spent many an hour playing PacMan at friend's houses who were lucky enough to have their own Atari's.

Don't get the idea that my brothers and I were unfairly deprived (though I'm not sure not having a video game really qualifies as deprivation), because we too had our own video game.  Unlike 99.9% of other people out there who had their own video games, we had an Odyssey.  What's an Odyssey?  It's what you have when you live in a tiny town and have a Grandpa who owns a furniture/hardware/carpet store that sells Philco TV sets.

As far as I know, the Magnavox Odyssey was pretty much obsolete before it even came out thanks to the awesomeness of Atari.  Still, we loved our Odyssey, and the games we played were suspiciously similar to Atari games.  Atari's signature game was of course PacMan.  Odyssey's signature game was Pick Axe Pete, which was very much the same concept.  Also a game I must say I was Queen of among all our family players.  While in PacMan the goal is to traverse a maze and eat all the little dots while evading Winky, Blinky, Inky, and Clyde (Surprised I can remember all those without looking them up?), the goal in Pick Axe Pete was to also traverse a maze and make it to the key to go through the "door" to the next level while evading boulders you could either smash with your pick (which quickly disappeared...I guess you wore it out smashing boulders) or just jump over them.  The highlight was when you jumped Pete, represented by a poor imitation of a stickman, into the door to the next level, he'd do full-screen jumping jacks.  We always guessed he was really happy to get to the next level, where the boulders came quicker and more frequently.

We loved Pick Axe Pete.  Every trip our family made through Webb City, MO took us past King Jack Park, which has a monument to area mining history and the lead and zinc miners who made the cities of Webb City and Joplin into boom towns.  To us it was simply a monument to our favorite video game, and we never passed the park without exclaiming, "Look!  It's Pick Axe Pete!"  If those poor miners only knew...