Category Archives: Just Plain Fun

Mouth to Mouth on a Venus Fly Trap

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Don’t ever do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a Venus Fly Trap. That is, unless it is still in the plastic protective planter that you buy at the store.

I’m 51 years old, and I’ve never owned a Venus Fly trap. It’s not like our Amish neighbors raised acres and acres of Venus Fly Traps on their neighboring farms in Indiana. Rather, we had the smell of cows, pigs, turkeys, and horses coming from the neighbors. The kind of critters that attract flies

So I’m in the grocery store with two of my young sons. The flower lady gives a cool demonstration of how the fly traps work. My sons are in awe, and I’m drooling on the plants at the thought of hundreds of flies dying in these quiet little death traps. I can just imagine a Venus Fly Trap with about 80 flies in its stomach, looking like a fat, green Santa Claus. So we bought a plant.

At 8500 ft. elevation, and 10 percent humidity, these Fly Traps really take it in the shorts. They die quickly, and when they are alive, they open slowly-real slowly. The instructions on the outside of the plastic cover say, 65-85 degrees Fahrenheit, and 50% humidity…hence the idea to give the plants mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I mean, come on, your breath is way warmer than 60 degrees, and the humidity from your lungs has got to be more than 10%. So I decided to give the little suckers a few puffs, sort of like when you do on Recussa Annie, the CPR mannequin.

I don’t think the American Red Cross would approve of mouth-to-mouth on a Venus Fly Trap, but I could write the manual on it.

Don’t think for a minute that I put my lips on those hairy little guys. I simply blew into the can through the holes on the top of the lid. And I blew. And I huffed, and I puffed. I was getting kind of lightheaded. I wanted the empty plants to open up so I could watch the live fly go waltzing in and get creamed. I was on my knees on the floor, with my lips on the lid when my 8 year old son walked into the room.

“What are you doing, Dad?”

“Giving mouth-to-mouth to the Fly Traps,” I replied, not missing a beat, and giving the recommended 12 breaths per minute.

He just walked out of the room without a reply.

I sat up and thought to myself, “This would look pretty strange to the average person, but apparently not to my family.”

Did the Venus Fly Trap mouth-to-mouth resuscitation work? I don’t think so. Maybe it’s because their little tummies are full, and they know when to push away from the table.

Hack Attack

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Hackers are trying to weasel their way into my website. How do I know? My webmaster pulls up info and shows it to me all the time. Up to this point, we’ve had seven hacking attempts, and they’ve all failed.

“How do you keep them out?” I can hear you saying. It’s easy: If you look at my spinning globe on the homepage of www.jerrybegly.com , you will see a character holding a sign which says something. The character came from Camp Pinetar, a comic strip that I drew several years ago. His name is “Hacker”, and he was way ahead of his time. (He hooked up a fax machine to his 3-D computer program and was faxing camp meatloaf to Africa. The natives at the other end thought that the fax machine was spitting out bricks for their new hospital.)

If you can catch it, the sign has a cryptic “anti hacker” message on it. One free t-shirt (no kidding) will be given to the first person who emails me and explains WHAT the sign says, and HOW it is used!

Bonus round: One free t-shirt (no kidding) will be given to the person who can email me and tell me what was used to make the squeaking sound on the globe. You must be specific. You haven’t heard the squeaking sound, or oiled the globe? What’s wrong with your computer?

Anyway, hacking is not encouraged in our society, but I can tell you the name of one major company in our area that is completely vulnerable to hackers. They are a multi-million dollar entity, and they must have a two-bit IT department. Shame. Maybe someday, you’ll see a spinning “Hacker” globe on their home page…

20,000 Hits Below the Belt

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We launched “www.jerrybegly.com” on April 1, 2009. That was no mistake. Yesterday we totaled over 20,000 hits. Wow.

It humbles me to know that more than 10 people enjoy reading my blog. Hopefully, it’s because you can relate a little bit to what’s going on in my posts. Or maybe you are transported to a time or place that you’ve not experienced, and that intrigues you. That’s what writing is supposed to be about.

This site is all about “hitting below the belt.” Here, we get to make up the journalistic rules. I get to call ’em like I see ’em, and I won’t have an editor throw me out of his office like happened at the Aspen Daily News one time. (cartoons that poke fun at gays aren’t tolerated in Aspen).

In sappy dweeb language, I would have to say that Caleb, my Webmaster, and you the reader/subscriber are the last two legs of my three-legged stool of blogdom. Thank you. If you really like a post, send it to a friend and share the irreverence. One of my favorites is “Bugs Bunny and the Mexicans.”

Now let’s get on with the show…

Bruce Springsteen Rides the Rails

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It was late August 1991, and the Turks were still celebrating Ramadan. Giles, a French chef and mountain climber, was traveling with me westward on a multi-day train ride through Turkey. We had just aborted a climbing/archaeological expedition on Mt. Ararat to look for Noah’s Ark. Yes, that Noah’s ark.

Former astronaut James Irwin, of Apollo 15, had put this expedition together, as he had done several other times. He invited me to join the search since I had mountain guiding experience, and had been part of the 1989 Huston Explorers Club group. It was in 1989 that I had met Jim in Houston.

Giles and I were riding first class at the back of the train. Being explorers, we began to wander around the train on day 2. Giles said, “Let’s see how far we can go to the front of the train before they stop us.” It seemed like a good thing to do at the time. So we walked forward in the train wearing tank tops, shorts, flip flops, and only carrying our cameras around our necks.

One of the first cars we came to was the dining car. Turks stared at a Frenchman, and an American in a World Gym tank top, as they wandered through the car. Giles kept pointing to me saying “Bruce Springsteen!” in a thick French accent. I kept on telling them, “I’m not Bruce Springsteen!” The Turks were not impressed.

It is interesting to note, that in Turkey, you can get away with murder as long as you have a camera around your neck, and are taking pictures. Turks are egomaniacs, and will stop and pose for you, as if they are some wannabe politician or young movie star. So we moved forward through the train, smiling, and taking pictures. Point a camera at a Turk, and they are your friend for life. Additionally, they will scribble down their name and address in some ancient cuneiform, expecting a photo in the mail.

My companion and I kept moving forward through the train, smiling and taking photos. Finally, we opened a door to see the two conductors in a box car, with bunk beds and a table. One conductor was standing, looking over the shoulder of a sitting conductor. They glared at us. Quickly, Giles said, “Photos. Photos!” The frowns turned to smiles, and the conductors stood at attention while we snapped away. They beckoned me over to them, put a conductor’s hat on me and stood by me like we had gone to school together for 12 years.

The train was coming to a stop, and Giles pointed to the door at the front of the car. “Can we go through this one?” He asked. The conductors didn’t speak English, but instead, opened the big boxcar door, jumped out, and gave us a stool to get down.

“Let’s take a picture of the front of the train,” Giles said. So we walked to the front of the train, turned around, and got ready to take a picture of the Locomotives. As I’m looking through the camera lens, I yelled, “Giles! The train is moving!” Sure enough, they took off without us.

Have you ever been in central Turkey with no passport, money, or luggage? I have. However, being the survivor that I am, I wasn’t going to let it last for long. I started running beside the train engine, ready to grab the ladder. Giles, being a smart Frenchman, did the same. I climbed the front ladder on the second locomotive, Giles climbed the rear ladder on the first locomotive. Then Giles jumped from the first locomotive to the second, where I was. We were on the train! Woo Hoo!

The engineer opened the front door on the locomotive that we were on, and started screaming to us in Turkish. He was waving his hand wildly, beckoning us to come into the cab. We complied. I guess we went as far to the front as we could.

When we got into the locomotive, the two engineers were yelling at us like Marine Drill Sergeants. Then Giles calmly said “Photos. Photos.” The yelling stopped abruptly, and we began taking photos. I have photos of the men. I have photos of the engine cab. I have a photo of Giles driving the train with his hand on the throttle.

We were in that cab for what must have been an hour. We passed over several bridges, drove through rough canyons, and past mountains, plains, and sheepherders. The engineers wanted Giles camera, and tried bartering cigarettes for it. “No” was Giles only reply.

“We’d better get out of here,” I said, “They could take your camera, throw us off of the train on a high bridge, and everybody would know that those two stupid tourists climbed onto the train while it was taking off, and fell off of the engines into a deep canyon." We could become victims of the perfect crime.

So when the train finally came to a stop at a station, we smiled, said “Thank you!” and ran for the back of the train. The conductor met us as we boarded. He was pulling his hair out. Giles looked at him, smiled, and said, “Photos! Photos!” The conductor glowered at us, pointed to the back car of the train where we were supposed to be riding, and shouted, "NO PHOTOS!”

The Mad Ripper of Marble

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He struck again. This time his rage was directed toward a poster from another town. It was torn off, stepped on, crumpled up, and (gasp!) REPINNED to the plywood door on the Fed Ex box using only ONE PIN! What could it mean? What message is he trying to send us?

For the last several months, someone, or someTHING has been taking down posters, banners, fliers, and notices that people staple at the multi mailbox area at the bottom of our road. Ironically, there seems to be some type of pattern, so we hired a private detective from England. He came up with several interesting clues:

  1. Fliers containing missing animals are “safe”.

  2. Multiple fliers will always be attacked, unless they contain the words “private”, “campfires”, or “neighborhood”.

  3. The word “Woody” scores bonus points, and assures immunity from the Mad Ripper (we ALL love Woody and his wife. They brought food to our town.).

     

    In order to be allowed placement on the “open to the public” flier area, potential pieces of paper must be submitted for review to an unknown entity at an unknown address, and meet unknown criteria. This is easy enough.

Some suggestions have been bandied about how we can have fun at the expense of the Mad Ripper. We could put up a note like this one:

Dear Fellow Neighbors,

I’m tearing down every piece of paper that I don’t want to see on this space. You people don’t understand the unwritten rules for posting things here.

Signed,

The Mad Ripper

When the Mad Ripper tears down the “note” that we put up, we can replace it with another one like this:

Dear Fellow Control Freaks,

Some impostor is pretending to be me. I am the original Mad Ripper. Notice how I rip down the posters, and fliers around here. There is no one as good at it as me. Just because some poser smart Alec doesn’t like what I do gives them no right to imitate me.

Sincerely,

The REAL Mad Ripper

Then we will rip down most of the above letter, leaving the phrase “mart Alec” and “ad Ripper” on it.

After a few days, we will tear that note off, and replace it with 50 fliers stapled up which read,

Lost Woody

Somewhere in our neighborhood, there is a private animal.

If found, please build a campfire.

Then we will tear off all of those fliers, and staple them upside down. After a week, we will take all of them down. Then we will take a plain 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper with no writing on it. We will staple it to the Fed Ex box with 500 staples, and no comment.

This is going to be fun.