Author: Tom Kern

Festivus Celebration!


The Kern household never one to mock sacred traditions of old. I present to you now a very Kern Festivus celebration!

So to the left we have your blogger extradoinare truly, kicking off Festivus with the traditional metal pole adorned with nothing. We did splurge this year and get a rusted pipe.

And here we have lil brother just before his “Airing of Grievances”. It really wasn’t pretty once he let loose with the golf club.

To the left here we have my father “Big” Tom airing his grievances in the form of a black t-shirt.

Some days my father and I so alike it’s almost scary.


And now for the feats of strength… This was the most impressive one of the day.

And finally we have the traditional wrestling of the head of house hold. I am happy to say that I was able to pin my mother in under 30 seconds. I will say this she is very scrappy.

So there you have it folks a very very Festivus!!

This broken wheel is coming undone…

It’s the middle of December and I just realized it. What’s more it’s just over a week to X-mas. wow…

I always use December as a time to reflect on the last year… was it good? Did I accomplish anything? What did I do set the world ablaze?

Yes it was a good year, I accomplished the things I wanted to and few extra, did I set the world ablaze? Only in my pants…

Sorry…

Ok moving on. Happy Birthday to ye-blog. On December 1, 2000 I wrote the first entry in what became the “semi-journal” my orginal intent was just catalog what was going on in my life that last semester of college and my finding my way to be a “real adult” well 6 years later. College is becoming a more distant memory and I still haven’t found my way to being a real adult. But I gotta say I’m having fun 🙂

So what is in store for 2007? Probally more fun, and hopefully a few more stories that I can regail my friends with.

I’m trying to read your mind…

So the next time your in Missoula Montana you really need to pick up some “Moose Drool Beer” it’s a brown ale so those of you who aren’t into beers that aren’t bud, miller, or coors keep on walking. Or if your Nancy and don’t drink beer… well I can’t help that your Nancy. So for those of you who are not Nancy and aren’t afraid to be adventurous with your beer drinking then I highly suggest the Moose Drool. And if you don’t make it back to Canada Jr. that often just do what I do… Watch C/E’s cat and they bring your beer!

I’m simple really I am… beer and food and I’m a happy camper… that probally explains why certain friends can’t seem to get rid of me.

So with it being less then 2 weeks to Xmas 2006 (gentlemen start your engines!!!) I’m starting to receive Xmas cards. I always enjoy them simply because I look to see who actually address them to “Tom” or “You and your family” or some such plural thing. Pretty consistently the same 3 people send me a card addressed to “Tom” the rest do the plural thing….

Right now Kristi is wondering if she addressed the card to “Tom” or to a plural of people… Kristi I’m happy to report that you addressed the card correctly.

I’m keeping my eye on the rest of you.

Speaking of Xmas cards… every year at about December 20th I think I should really send out cards. However 2 things stop me from this every year.
1. I can’t find the card of Santa taking a shit down the chimney with a caption that says “How you know you’ve been really bad this year”. To much happiness needs to be tempered with some smart assness every now and again.

2. Everyone I would send a card to I actually see over the holidays except for like 2 people. And honestly I don’t think that they would care.

My toilet keeps filling… I just discovered two things…

1. The bleach tablet is getting in the way of the valve.

2. I have a big brick in there. (How did I not notice that beforehand?)

Now I know I live in a desert but I don’t think I’m conserving water if it takes me two sometimes three flushes to to get the toilet completely cleared.

Speaking of things in the toilet…

At some point on Friday the conversation with the file room girls, or as Eve (the woman not the game) calls them “file room wenches”, to my personal life and my lack of a s/o which to me is not a huge deal. When I started my tale the tall file room wench (Laura) “yes we know that you hate women and we’ve heard this story before”. Which tells me 2 things (damn what is it with the 2 thing tonight?)

1. I need to not tell that story any more.

2. How come after three years I still bring her up?

I mean honestly it’s been 3 damn years. Why she still comes up I don’t know. So from here on out I will not bring what’s her face up in conversation because according to Laura (the tall one) and Izzy (the hot one) of the file room wenchdom “yes we know you hate women”

I don’t hate women… they just never give me a chance to show them how much I can love them 😉

Plan 9 from Syracuse

Let me tell you a story, a story about a man driven to see his dream get full filled and setting out to do what most of us would consider to be insane or at the very least not our first choice of ways to achieve that dream.

His name is Ryan Dacko, his dream is to make a truly independent movie. The making the movie part he is still working on. Actually the part he is working on right now is getting to L.A. to meet with a producer (currently Mr. Mark Cuban). Now here is the interesting part that makes this whole thing blog worthy.

Ryan isn’t driving to L.A. in the hopes of meeting Mr. Cuban, Ryan is running across the U.S. from Syracuse New York to L.A. thats somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,950 miles.

Now that I have your attention. Ryan started running in August of this year. With no guarantees of even meeting a producer. And there are still no guarantees of a meeting.

So where do does your humble blogger Tom fit into all of this? I don’t really fit into any of it. Actually Cody fits into all of it. Cody knows Ryan from his days in the Coast Guard on the ship “Polar Star”. Now all I had heard from Cody before today about Ryan was how he wrote scripts for movies on the boat and worked on storyboards.

For three weeks in December Ryan has been running across Northern Arizona on I-40. Not a fun task to be sure. Somewhere in those three weeks Ryan would be running through Flagstaff and as we all know I’m never one to pass up a trip to Flagstaff.

So that is how I got involved with Ryan.

Just so that we are clear. I get winded on a tread mill… So there was no way in hell that I was going to run through Flagstaff with Ryan and Cody. I could however play support truck. So I with Ryan’s sister Delaine waited for Ryan and Cody at multiple points along a very cold and windy I-40 in and around Flagstaff. It was interesting talking to Delaine since we did have alot of time between Ryan and Cody visits.

I spent one afternoon working with Ryan and Delaine and found a ton of respect in just this one little dose. Ryan has been running across the country for 115 days now and Delaine has been with him for the last 55 days.

What can you do? You can start by “Digging” this story after that you head to Ryan’s myspace page and add your self as one of his friends. Finally don’t forget to write Mr. Cuban to tell him why Ryan should get funding to make his film.

As Cody says doing all of this is much easier then running 2,950+ miles across the country to achieve your dream.