Back to basics...

Okay, so it has been a while since I actually sat down and put in some time on the old TundraTalk. I apologize. Not sure what has gotten into me but I guess I just have not been too keen on writing lately. My bad.

So I decided today I would just put a post up. Kind of back to basics post. Just me rambling on about something that really is not much, but I will make it a big deal. BUT before I go too far I am going to take care of some business first.

If you are interested the Peterson Family Christmas Letter is up on the internet. You can locate it HERE. If you want to see the Peterson Family Christmas Variety Show you can link to it HERE or just watch it below...


Peterson Family Christmas Variety Show 2008 from hamiltongbp on Vimeo.


NEXT: There now that that is out of the way....Lets get to today's rant.

Now, as most of the country knows, Canada is cold. Regina, on the usual, is around 10 degrees colder. Not sure why, but it is. North Dakota is a very similar climate. Cold enough that it is imparitive that when you go outside you must be dressed appropriately, or even smarter, just don't go outside. I am normally a guy who likes winter. Much better than summer. At least in winter if you are cold, you just put on another layer. Summer, if it is hot and you are sweating just sitting still, you can't do a damn thing about it except turn up the AC. Summer in all it's humid glory blows.

Now all you haters out there, close that email. Don't send me a hate filled diatribe about how great summer is, just shut your pie hole and listen. Don't hate the playa, hate the game. I like summer, not having to put on three layers to go outside is nice. I like sitting on my boat whether it be in the driveway or on the water. Summer is nice, but hot sweaty summer sucks.

Now, I know when I was attending the world famous (for what I don't know) Hazen High School, I was a bit of a dumb ass. Sometimes I would do dumbass things. We all do when we are in high school. Well, except for maybe Nick Chase. He was wound a bit tight. Like for example during the production of the fine WhiteHot Production Dakota Vice we decided it would be cool to stage a shoot out in front of the Red Owl grocery store on Main street. Complete with sound efects and really lifelike toy guns (compliments of the Rock Boys personal collection). Apparently the cops were called and at the end of the scene you can see a cruiser roll past to check it out.

Can you imagine if we tried to do that today? The Government Threat Level would be raised to "extreme red we all going to die" level we would all be put in jail, then have mental evaluations (most of us probably could use those), and then we would be sent off to Guantanamo, or maybe even be put on that plane to be waterboarded some where in a country that does not like us that much. Anyway, long story even longer, that was pretty dumb.

Or the time that I decided I wanted to see how fast my motorcycle could go. Not sure how far over a hundred I got but the front wheel lifted off the ground because I had a faring on it. That was Dumb.

Or the time I had an arguement with my dumbass sister and decided to leave the house. I went out to the car, pushed the garage door opener, started up the Escorche, cranked up Run DMC on the bottom of the line cheapest Alpine stereo (that only had fast forward) I could get, to 11, and then failed to look to see if the door opened. Yup, that was REAL dumb. Dad was not to happy that I installed a drive thru on the garage door.

Anyway, I did some dumb things. Which leads me to the reason for this rant. I know I am getting old, but I do not think I am that old. As I was driving thru these recent snowstorms on my way to work the past few days I have been marveling at how stupid high school kids are now. They think they are bullet proof. Case in point. This morning as I passed the first of two high schools I saw what I thought was just Mensa club worthy.

These boneheads park on the street in front of the school. On the road there are two lanes, in the summer. In the winter there is barely two lanes because of all the snow piled in the median. These Einstiens get out of their cars and walk down the middle of the right lane to get to school. They don't even hesitate when two lanes of cars are coming at them. They just keep on walking whilst the two lanes are scrambling to make one on the icy roads. Hey shit head, walk on the sidewalk. Oh sorry there is snow on the sidewalk so the open toed shoes you are wearing will get snow in them. My bad. I guess that is good logic to walk on the fu#king road.

Not to mention none of these idiots are wearing a toque. Put a freaking hat on. It is -50 and you think it is too important to not mess up your hair so you decide to not wear a cap. Brilliant. I know it was cold back in the day when I was travelling to school, but I don't think I was EVER that stupid. I want to keep my ears. Oh, maybe they have heated iPod headphones. Don't even get me started on the three girls I saw walking down the sidewalk all of them with their heads down texting. GET OFF YOUR PHONE AND TALK TO EACH OTHER.

Get this, the other day I was at the Co Op getting groceries and as I left the parking lot I saw this group of girls walking back to school from lunch. There is a McCrappy's in our neighbor hood so one of them had a bag of food with her. As she is walking out of the parking lot she just throws the bag on the ground, like that is what you are supposed to do with your left over McD's shit. "Someone else will pick it up, it is too much work to carry it to a trash can." So me being the nice guy I am I roll down the window and yell at her "Hey, you dropped something." Now she gets this panicked look on her face that she acually DID drop something, like her phone or iPod. The the realization comes over her that I am pointing out her stupidity right in front of all her friends.

She starts to walk over to pick it up but the other moron with her tells her not to. Seeing that this situation is about to degenerate, I decide to take it up a notch and I tell her to not be a moron and stop littering my neighborhood with her crap. At this point her friend starts to call me names and I of course respond in kind about how ignorant it is to be a litterer, all the while the bonehead in question still has not said a thing. I look at her and ask her if she speaks english because all she did was stand there and look confused. BAM it was like dropping a bomb. Her friends immediately draw the race card (she looked a bit Asian). I think she was a bit torn by the situation because she knew the right thing was to go and pick up the bag so the angry a-hole in the truck will shut up but she did not want to lose face with her girls.

At this point I call them all morons and roll up the window and drive away. You cannot win an argument where the race card has been drawn. No way no how. Especially since I am that white guy in a pick up truck. I'll tell ya, I would have said that to anyone. Black, white, yellow, purple, or green. The purple person would probably be a viqueen fan and really would NOT speak english.

Anyway, where was I going with this. Oh yeah, kids are stupid. I am sounding like an old man. I have caught myself on many occasion standing on my lawn yelling at guys driving by for going to fast. Pathetic. I may as well start telling the 'I walked to school 60 miles uphill against the wind stories already." Oh wait, I told McKenna that story yesterday. I also know my kids are sure going to do stupid things but I just hope I am able to correct them with out calling them Morons.

NEXT: I have some pics from the Trailer Park Boys show that I attended last week to show you and I will get them up here soon.

Have a great day. GET BACK TO WORK!!!

Have a Merry Christmas and see you in the new year...

Chewbacca Rocks

Hey all. Just a short note just before Christmas to wish all of you a great holiday and a happy New Year. Which I might add is my birthday. So have a happy my birthday everyone. We will be travelling to PHX for the holiday to see my parents. I wish I could tell you that it was 400 below up here and tons of snow, but it is not. It has been quite mild. Global warming does not exist, yeah right. Anyway, we are headed south and I hope to take in the Avalanche/Coyote game on my birthday. Should be fun. My Crazy Unlcle Ray will be there also to entertain me with his, well, he is funny looking.

Just one link for you to check out. I found this on Rocketboom.com. It is a holiday song. Chewbacca sings Silent Night. VERY FUNNY. Put it on at work and drive everyone crazy. Here is the LINK TO CHEWBACCA SINGS.

On the Star Wars tip, here is another link that is very funny. The author put Star Wars clips over the video of the Cheney Edwards debate. You will laugh for days. CLICK HERE for the link.

Remember the Peterson Family Christmas Letter is online this year. If you want to read it you need to CLICK HERE.

Again, have a great Christmas, and GET BACK TO WORK!!!1

Special Announcement about the Peterson Family Christmas Letter...

Sunshine Ski Angel Mountian Lift

Hello and long time no see. I know it is busy for everyone now and I am no exception. We just got back this weekend from my companies Christmas Party at Sunshine Villiage Ski area in Banff, Alberta. We had a great time and the weather was wonderful. McKenna kept saying she wanted to go 'skiing' so we took her up the hill on a chair lift. She loved it, Donna was not to thrilled. She sat still the whole way up and handled it like a trooper. She has been telling everyone today that she went skiing, well, as far as she knows she was.



So as I said I have an announcement to make about the world famous Peterson Family Christmas letter in it's twelfth big year. No, we have not folded up shop and shipped the jobs out to Indonesia like so many US and Canadian Corporations have. No way baby, this one will stay in North America(not Mexico). We have gone high tech. This year we will not be sending a paper copy of our letter out in the snail mail. We have put our letter up on that thing that Al Gore invented, the intranet. That's right, no paper trail. Now, I am one of those old school guys who wants to be able to feel and smell the letter, but the way postage rates have gone and how most all of you have a computer now, you can read it online. Plus with the intranet I can add things that I can't on paper, like video. So it is kinda like when a newspaper tries to get you to subscribe to their online edition so they can give you extras. Well with the Peterson Family Christmas Letter there is no subscription fee, except your friendship.

So if you think you are old school also we will be providing a copy in PDF form in an email. So all you need is Adobe Acrobat and you can open it and print it yourself. How's that sound? Cool? I hope so. We are doing this on a trial basis and if YOU the loyal reader of the Peterson Family Letter wish to go back to the old ways, let your voice be heard and we will consider it. Or just send you the letter so you can stop whining.

So here it is, CLICK HERE TO ENJOY THE PETERSON FAMILY CHIRSTMAS LETTER ONLINE.

If you are old school and want a PDF form of the letter SEND ME AN EMAIL.

If you are new to the Peterson Family Christmas Letter and want to see what all the hype is about, CLICK HERE to read all the old letters. I am in the process of putting the pictures up so right now most of them are just words, but isn't that what makes the letter the best in the business? Really? ENJOY!!



On a sad note...Farley is in his last days. Next week we are going to have to put him down. It has been a rough decision but it has to be done. He is suffering. His heart is enlarged, about 6 or 7 times too big and he has a hard time breathing. He sometimes blacks out when he is running or out on a walk. We have been giving him meds to help but they have made him a bit nutty plus he does not have control of all is functions all the time. The worst of it he has taken to biting McKenna, unprovoked. So we will be losing a member of the family this holiday season and we will all miss him. McKenna does not quite understand what is going to happen but we will help her get through this. Donna is taking this the hardest not being able to talk about him without shedding a few tears. Farley has been a great pet and will sorely be missed. The funniest thing he ever did was bite Robyn Young in the butt. I don't know why but he did, and we all laughed a lot. Hauser thought that was the funniest thing ever.




Anyway, Farley J Stipe, RIP.