Ok everyone… I need to make this quick because I really should be asleep. But this is important so read on:

There’s a very VERY VERY cute kitten here that needs a good home.

Our neighbor rescued the little feline about a week ago and I have to admit it may be one of the cutest darned things on the planet.

We’ve named the little tyke Stogie but if you adopt feel free to change it.

Poor little Stogie doesn’t know it’s own name yet anyway.

(cute but apparently not going to do so well on the ISTEPs)

We’ve also thought about the name “Onyx” because Stogie is mostly black and we wanted a name that would compliment “Sterling”.

(our dog for those of you not paying attention)

Yup mostly black except for little white feet and white tips of the ears.

So cute!

I’ll try to get some pictures up sometime but please consider poor little Stogie if you have an opening for a loveable sidekick in your life.

Stogie has plenty of experience being both lovable and cuddly. Exploration and cuteness are also key skill sets on this feline’s resume.

If you know of anyone that may be able to help, or at least be able to spread the word please send them this link:

http://www.dougmeade.com/template.php?cid=1#42

Again I’ll try to get some pictures soon but let’s not let that slow us down from helping out this furry little bundle of joy.

Today’s guest Blogger: Kevin Hicks - HFO

I’ve always had a strict rule against blogging about work on my website. When deciding what I wanted to write about on DougMeade.com, I figured, it wasn’t my website, so I could blog about anything and it would be okay. The only thing worth blogging about right now is work, so I’ll do that. However, to prevent the obvious bad karma that could come my way, I’ll change the names of everyone and everything to protect the innocent. I’ll be using different ways to explain my problems, some may confuse you, and some might register. But here is my story….

About 4 years ago, I was hired to be a street sweeper at Disney Land, I enjoyed my job, and learned fast at how to sweep streets. After a year, I was contacted by “Mickey” at Disney World, the mother ship. Mickey said that they had an opening for a “ride technician” at Disney World, and so I took that step up and got to run my own ride. After six months as the ride technician, I realized that Mickey and I weren’t seeing eye to eye. I was hoping that this Mickey, who had been Mickey for several years, would step down and give his Mickey costume to someone else. My dream came true. A new Mickey was fitted after about 8 months of me being a Ride Technician. This Mickey was much much better. He taught me alot about what being a Ride Technician is all about, and he taught me about the type of character I want to be.

Being the type of person that this Mickey was, he knew alot about reading people, and how to get the most out of them, while still keeping them happy. He was a godsend in my eyes. After two years, Mickey realized that my potential was not being maximized as a Ride Technician, and my true calling in life was to be “Goofy”. He felt that being Goofy more fit my personality and once we found my replacement for ride technician, I would move into the Goofy role, and begin right away. He would train me on being Goofy, and I would be the best. This was very exciting to me and my family.

Right around the time that we were flourishing in “Frontier Land”, we were given a jolt when the head person who overseas Frontier Land was replaced by the person who oversaw “Fantasy Land”. We didn’t think that it was that big a deal, until we realized that Mickey and the Manager of Fantasy Land, (we’ll call him Captain Hook) didn’t get along. Captain Hook decided that he was going to change Mickey into the type of Mickey he thought Mickey should be. Well Mickey was having none of that, and last Monday decided to call it quits.

I still haven’t moved into the role of Goofy yet, even though I’ve been told a million times, that my time was coming. It was all Mickey’s idea to move me into the Goofy role, but now he’s gone, and I have to prove to Captain Hook, that I should be Goofy. Last week he told me that he intends on moving me into the Goofy position, but right now, he needs me to operate my ride with less costs, and maximum benefit to the patrons. He keeps informing me, in a threatening tone, that I need to concentrate on my ride, and not worry about being goofy

I think that I will be Goofy better than any Goofy to ever work at Frontierland. There is another Goofy there, and he’s good, but he’s been Goofy for 8 years, and is getting burnt out.

I’ll admit that my financial numbers as the Ride Technician are not the best, but my ride technician assistant injured his back on the job, and milked us for all the time he could. This affected my attitude and financial goals negatively. I’m not going to make any excuses for myself, I had a poor year in terms of meeting my numbers, but I tried hard.

Don’t you think that if Disney is in the market for making dreams come true, and everyone thinks I’ll be a better Goofy than Ride Technician, wouldn’t they move me into that position. We have a staff meeting this week to introduce the new Mickey, I just hope he sees that I’m Goofy.

I’ll keep you up to date

Ok…so I don’t have a Jack Ass of the Week like HFO .. but if I DID…

This guy would get it.

Kevin Hicks.

The man that was supposed to keep DOUGMEADE.com hoppin’ while I was gone this past week.

Like I did for him while he was on vacation.

While he was away I entered a mood on HFO everyday.. made sure the Blogs were fresh… and kept things running so well that he ran out of bandwidth!

But while I was out Kevin didn’t post one Blog here at DougMeade.com.

Not ONE.

I did from Charleston, SC but Kevin didn’t.

In fact he didn’t even bother to comment on the Blog I was able to post!!

And neither did anyone else.

But did my temporary Admin change things up when it was clear no one cared about commenting on my Blog?

NOOOOOoooo.

I’m sure he has all sorts of fancy shmancy excuses like work, family, and health but that doesn’t get him out being the DOUGMEADE.com slacker of the week.

Kevin I sentence you to two cigars, 3 “Hail Marry”s, and my God have mercy on your soul.

So here I am in Charleston, SC.

It’s been a hectic few days so far, but enjoyable too.

• We’re staying in an excellent hotel
• Charleston is an interesting town with lots of history and some really neat old buildings.
• Every other store front here is either a homemade candy shop, art gallery, or antique store.
• There’s an old city market with venders of all sorts.
• Good food, and so far no Hurricane.
• I got to enjoy a nice cigar last night.
• The night before I enjoyed a live blues/dixie band.

That’s not to say that everything’s been great… there have been a few things I could have done without.

• The other night I had a headache so bad I got ZERO sleep. None.
• The same night an alarm as loud as the voice of GOD himself went off at 3:00 am
• An impressively sized rat darted across our path while walking back to the hotel.
• Our dinner party starred horrified at a huge roach crawling the restaurant wall.

The waiter came by and said “So where are you all from?”

He could tell we were tourist from our reaction.

“It’s a Palmetto bug they’re all over here. We’re below sea level so when it rains they come out. Nothin’ you can do. They don’t hurt anything”

My coworker said “So it’s not a roach?”

The waiter replied: “Well.. no .. .they are similar though”

Yeah right dude.. we’re tourist not dummies.

You call it what you want to ease the minds of your disgusted patrons… that was a roach!

(at least we weren’t eating there… we were just drinking)

All for now…

So it’s September already.

The breeze is slightly cooler, dried up leaves lay tangled in previously undetectable spider webs, and Purdue has already played.

Truly summer has gone.

Fall is here and has taken the reins of the world for next few months.

It’s a bitter sweet thing for me. Saying good bye to sunny humid days that make weekend afternoons go on forever is always a bit of a sad thing.

No more boating all afternoon.

No more taking the dog out at 4:00 AM in shorts and a tank top.

But fall isn’t so bad.

The temperature drops enough to turn the leaves colors, and as long as you have a light jacket the season offers some of the best walks all year.

Horseback riding is all the better in the fall, and lets not forget football season!

It’s a season of family & food boasting two legit holidays, thanksgiving and Halloween.

A time when kids dress up as pumpkins, extended family gets together again, and everyone gains the 10 pounds they’ll spend the next year trying to shed.

And just as everything start so calm down “It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas” airs right before “A Christmas Story” and that clay-mation cartoon of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer.

A good season indeed.

Let’s hope it keeps the reins a bit longer than usual. Winter, with all it’s virtues, is rarely so kind with the temperature.

Welcome to Fall everyone.

I’ll be off for the coming week as I am traveling for work.

Kevin will make sure everything stays running here, and I’ll try to check in once or twice.

Wish me luck as Hurricane Ivan may turn the weather down right nasty in Charleston, SC before I fly home on the 18th.

Well there’s a bunch to Blog about… but since I’m only going to post one Blog at a time, and I’m about as busy as I’ve ever been we’d better get started.

As most of you probably know this past weekend was Labor Day, and the 2nd poker tourney hosted at my place by Jana, Kevin, and I.

It was a lot of fun. I only had one rule this time… play smart, don’t be the first one out.

For those of you that haven’t been brought up to speed about the last poker tourney you can see the highlights here.

I’m proud to say I wasn’t the first one kicked out.. I was third or fourth.

Ugh.

Here’s how it went down.

Bob was to my right, and the eventual winner was on my left.

I folded the hand and it was down to Bob and our champ. Bob had three Aces, and lost to a full boat.

THE VERY NEXT HAND I had three aces.

I did as much raising as I could but it didn’t amount to much. If I checked he checked if I bet big he thought forever and called.

I put him on an Ace but not the boat.

Since I wasn’t able to push him out I was feeling as good as I could about my hand. I also had an ace but figured I had him out-kicked.

Then the river.

A nine.

I bet big … like every other round.

He came back over the top to put me all in.

I knew he had it.

The bastard had ace - nice and made his full house. He did it again.

The voice of Phil Gordon and Mike Sexton rang in my head.

“Throw it away Doug he’s got you!”

“He made his hand Doug.. get out!”

But I couldn’t walk away from three Aces.

I just couldn’t.

The stupid side of me silenced the more logical voices.

“Oh come on … what are the odds he did it again… he didn’t make it.. he wants me to THINK he made it.”

I called all-in even though I knew deep down it was the wrong thing to do.

He made the boat with the river nine and took me out.

Bastard.

And yup you guessed it… our winner was Ken Jansing… AGAIN.

This guys’ unstoppable. He got some serious cards this time though and coupled with his no expression, never show ‘em card play he was quite a competitor.

Not even the $20 bounty we put on his head was enough to knock him out.

Now the champion bounty is up to $40 and the next time we play he may not be so lucky.

This tourney was an epic battle of stamina and will.

It lasted from 1:40 PM until nearly 11:00.

The final two players Ken, and Ryan slugged it out head to head for hours on end. Giving the lead back and forth many times.

And once again Jana played very well.

She made it to the final table and finished third. Which means she took home $60, ten more than her entry fee.

She played smart poker and made me proud.

Kevin has given Ken a knew poker name “Reaper”.

Fitting. He knocked out nearly half the field.

In the end Ken took our money again, and a good time was had by all.

Can’t wait for another shot at Ken “The Reaper” Jansing though.

Especially since he made it a point to tell us at the beginning of the day that he was buying his entry to the tournament with the money he took from us last time.

On the upside… I turned $18 into $156.30 at the horse track the day after the Purdue game… so at least I made my entry fee back.

Ok everyone I’m sorry I’ve not Blogged in awhile.

I’ve been really really busy but that’s no excuse.

Especially when there’s such exciting news!!

Taylor & Liz are parents!

Yup it’s still hard to believe that Taylor, my Fraternity brother, Friend, and fellow member of the Penthouse… has a son! I remember when the biggest worries on Taylors mind were calculating the correct trajectory for a water balloon launch, and beating my best score on the “Deer Hunter” computer game.

Fortunately Liz has always pretty much had her act together so hopefully the kid will take after her.

Well for the record:

Nicklaus Reily Anderson was born on Friday, August 20th and is the cutest darned thing I’ve ever seen.

I mean seriously look at that wittle teeny face.

Ooooh and da wittle guy has some teeny weeny wittle mittens don’t he…

yes he does.. yes he does!

… sorry.

Anyway Congratulations guys we’re all VERY happy for you.

We know you’ll make wonderful parents (yes both of you) and can’t wait to see the little guy in person!