But the dryer has been a rock, but recently it’s been squeeking really loud and yesterday it just stopped drying clothes all together. We really needed the clothes that were in the dryer, and really need our dryer. I’m mean who can afford to go out and buy a dryer on a whim. So I thought well it’s broke what’s the worst that can happen if I take it apart and kick it a few times. After much cursing, retreiving bigger hammers, larger screw drivers and scratching of the head I realized I had broke it even more. It really didn’t work, so I decided to take it further apart. I then realized that it was a lost cause, so with the assistance of Patti we spent our much needed sleeping time putting it together, after all that I plugged it back in turned it on, and now it drys faster than before. And I only have one screw and plate thing left over.

What did I learn from this… Getting a bigger hammer really does fix things, and asking for your wife to help you gets things done faster!

The other day I was at Borders picking up some books with my handy gift card that I got as a gift, it happen to be the beginning of the Flood of ’10, after checking out it started to really pour, so while I waited I browsed the magazines to see if there was any photography mag’s I wanted to see, and happen across a magazine that had that guy from U2 on the front, it read “The top 100 front men”.  Naturally I was intrigued, because I have an opinion.  So I started reading the article, reading from 100 down to number 1, as I read through the list, there were people on the list that debunked who I thought would be number 1, John Lennon (10) Paul McCartney (9) Elvis, he was somewhere in the 30′s I believe, that shocked me simply because everybody seems to think he was amazing, I was surprised to see people like Iggy Pop on the list, Matt Ballamy, again surprised me, usually when reading these articals they leave out the people that are actually good, and list the legends or pop icons, like steven tyler, Mic Jagger etc. they’re all good and deserve the title legend, but I was just surprised.

Anyway what really shocked me was who was at number 1, Liam Gallagher that guy that always sings looking up at his mic.  Now here’s the deal, I’ve posted the top 20 underneath so you can look at them and have an opinion ( I would love to hear it), but I have only seen two of the listed below live, Bono and Matt Ballamy.  And I saw them from really… really far away, and most of the others were dead before I was born, so for me to say anything about this list would just be wasted air, I have seen most all of them in some form of live concert video.  Still, don’t have anything to say about it.  Just thought I would share what I found out, without an opinion, if you google this list you’ll find a bunch of mostly angry opinions about the list, I don’t know if these people have seen the whole list live, but it would be hard for me to say without seeing them.

1) Liam Gallagher
2) Bono
3) Freddie Mercury
4) Damon Albarn
5) Chris Martin
6) Matt Bellamy
7) Jim Morrison
Bob Marley
9) Paul McCartney
10) John Lennon
11) Robbie Williams
12) Debbie Harry
13) Mick Jagger
14) Morrissey
15) John Lydon
16) James Brown
17) Bruce Springsteen
18) Robert Plant
19) Tom Meighan
20) Joe Strummer

If you’re wondering about Bob Marley’s smiley face, it’s not because I really like his music (it’s good) it’s because I have no idea how to get rid of it, it just shows up.

The family that had the house before us painted most of the rooms in the house, we  really like the colors actually that they’ve already put on the walls, but one of the rooms, the one we’re planning on being the guest room, was a plum lavender looking color, just awful, well to me it was, it was on the list of things to do in the future but with a guest showing up shortly in the near future, it’s moved up on the list of things to do.  Which isn’t a bad thing,  with both Patti and I busy with work it’s a nice break from us being on the computers or working on “homework” projects that we bring home, doing something together that’s not watching tv is awesome!

The other thing taking up all of my home time, is the deleting of one of my iphoto’s, I hate being out of space on the eternal hard drives, but I will have to admit it was good timing because it’s that time of year when I start backing up some pic’s that are older, and then deleting them, what’s hard is, I take a lot of pictures for work for reference, I always try and take a picture of ever show I’ve done in some form or fashion, and it’s saved me a couple times having record of the show I’ve done, I’m always going back and checking what we did at a particular show or festival from the last time I did it.  Some times when you do as many shows I do, you forget what you may have done the year before, so I just take a look at the pictures, then I remember how far cable runs were etc. that and their my pictures from moments in my life, so I hate to get rid of them, so there’s the tiring task of making sure I have the picture backed up then deleting it  Now you wish you wouldn’t have read this whole post because it was pointless and you want the 4 minutes it took to read this back, I don’t blame you.

I always knew that my grandpa was in WWII, but never really knew what all he did, I’m still trying to discover what exactly he did during the war, I’ve even seen his dress uniform jacket, still in great shape, but tonight I’m even a little closer, my Aunt sent me this picture of his military graduation class, it’s just awesome seeing what I read about, watch movies about and see history channel shows about, my grandfather in the middle of it in uniform getting ready to head to Europe… or maybe the Pacific?  That’s the best part, I’m still learning, he past away when I was a kid, before I became really interested in WWII history, so I never got the opportunity to ask him what he did, or to see if he was willing to talk about it.  I’ve heard stories from my father, but nothing really giving me what unit he was in or regiment.  I’m am excited though, my same Aunt that sent this picture is sending me some more pictures of him in the military, I can’t wait to see them.

Recently I learned that a buddy from the road, his grandfather was in the WWII pacific theater, he wrote a book about his time in the pacific, (he’s also going to be one of the characters in the new “Band of Brothers” type HBO series called “Pacific“) the stories that I’ve heard about this guy from his grandson, he’s a pretty amazing person, I can’t wait till his book comes out.

I’m jealous that he has, one his grandfather still around, and two that his grandfather is willing to tell his story about his time in WWII, that generation is so intriguing.

If you get a chance check out the link for his book, it comes out at the beginning of March.

Things have been busy lately, the one thing that we’ve been noticing around the house is that we’re finally in the need for another car, or rather an old truck for me, I’ve tried to purchase one on Craigs list, which turned out pointless, the guy who was going to sell me the old truck was a jerk, rude on the phone and then wouldn’t return my phone calls, and hopes crushed!  So if any of you hear of an old anything that somebody wants to get rid of to help out the Culmer’s give me a halla!

So Christmas was good, Patti and I got some nice gifts, she got me a Golf bag organizer, and a video game, some other pretty cool stuff but I don’t want to brag, I got her some pretty cool stuff, I think?  My aunt sent us a gift box that had a couple family history items, the first we see when we opened the box is an ashtray from forever ago that has my Mom’s family trucking company logo on it.  I think this is pretty cool, there was and I’m sure still is a lot of these kindof things floating around, they use to employ a lot of people all over the States.  I’m not really sure exactly how old it is, but I enjoy the fact that I have this piece of family history.

The other was from my Dad’s side, My grandpa was on the city council for 22 years in the little town of Woolstock, IA. (If you click on the link you’ll see how big the town really is, the other cool part is, the building that my grandpa built for his electrical company is still there, it’s at the bottom mid/right just on the north side of the railroad tracks of the photo) It was the town my dad grew up in, it’s where we spent the first couple years of my life, the town only has like 200 people total, for the longest time it only had 1 stop sign, it’s claim to fame was because this guy was born there.  You just don’t hear of that any more, people don’t get involved in their community, or stay in the same community for more than a couple years, when we were buying our house everybody kept saying plan for 3 to 5 years then you’ll be on to another location in a different house.

I’ve never really understood that, is it because we’ve changed, the “iPod” generation, do we get bored that easily, or is the work environment turn over that much?  My wife’s grandma still lives in the house her and her husband bought in the 50′s, I mean that’s just unheard of.  I’m not saying that you have to live in the same house forever, my family never lived in the same spot for more than a couple years, and for half of my childhood I lived in a camper, we never spent more than a couple days in the same spot.  “Plan on moving in 3 years!  Seasons in life change that quick”  is what somebody said, and you know what that could be true, but does it have to be?

To change the subject;

Something else to leave you with at this ending of a week that went to fast, I saw a program on tv that’s pretty popular interview a government official tonight, and he said and I quote: “if you don’t take the H1N1 Flu Vaccine, you’ll die!”  I know this is serious but I mean to say that “your going to die” is a little much isn’t it?  I’ve seen (on tv) what the virus will do and it is serious but I just thought I would pass along the info, maybe help you get a conversation started, is this guy being a little like…”I’m on tv and I work for the government so I need to make the most of this, so I can look important” because not to long ago I remember our same govenment saying that we need to just becarefull and wash our hands and etc., and now their saying we’re going to Die if we don’t get the vaccine?  I don’t know… What do you think?