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My cousin’s illegal deer. A true Mead.

In this part of PA, a buck has to have at least 3 points on a side to kill it. As you may or may not be able to see in this picture, my cousin shot an illegal four point this afternoon. Consequently we had to drag it out of the woods in secret, and throw it in the basement of the barn while hoping that no one spotted us. As we speak my cousin is down at his step dad’s butchering the thing himself. Nice work.

As for me, I went back out this afternoon for a bit, but didn’t see anything until I got up to leave and spooked three more deer coming right at me. I didn’t get a good look at them as they were running away. So I’m off for Philadelphia this evening in hopes of getting home at a reasonable time so I can work on the house tomorrow. Hunting season is always fun. Hopefully I’ll be able to blog it again next year.

Lunchtime

Well, we’re back at the lodge for lunch now. I saw a total of eight deer this morning, which is pretty good, but no buck, which is bad. We thought my dad shot, but it was some other idiot 200 yards down the valley from him. Too bad. Now we’re going to partake of the traditional venison sloppy joes, which are always fantastic. I’m starving. After a nice lunch, I will head back into the woods to partake in my traditional deer season afternoon nap. Can’t wait.

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Seen six deer since last update. All doe unfortunately. Three of them came up from behind and scared the living piss out of me. Some hunter I am.

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Me in my treestand. Notice how dark it is.

First Day

Well, at the moment it’s about 5:45 AM on the first day of deer season. I got up about half an hour ago to get ready to get out in the woods. This is the time of day that everyone sits around eating breakfast and watching the weather channel. Watching the weather is pretty much the most important thing you can do leading up to deer season. It is watched constantly so we can see just how crappy it’s going to be out there. This year the forecast is calling for a warm, rainy day with extremely high winds. This is pretty much the worst thing you can ask for as a hunter–especially a hunter that’s going to be up in a tree all morning on a teetering tree stand.

I’m thinking I may end up taking an early exit from the woods to head home to Philly. This is of course assuming that I don’t fall out of the tree stand and go to the hospital first. No word yet on how conducive the tree stand will be to sleeping. My guess is not good when 30 mph winds come and start blowing me all over the place. I will update later.

Time for bed

Well, it’s Butter’s bedtime, kids. Have to be up by 5:15 tomorrow to get out in the woods. Fun stuff. Word has it that it’s going to rain. That is not fun hunting. I may update the blog with some random hunting pics in the morning. Goodnight, all!

Building a Blind

It’s important to hide from the deer. This is the little blind that my cousin Eric built for himself this afternoon. This is another one of those grey area legality issues that according to my uncle is legal “as long as you don’t get caught”. Great examples we have here. Hopefully this explains why I am the way I am to some extent.

Sighting In

The more guns the better!

Time to sight in the guns. Normally if we are able to hit anywhere on the target, we deem it “good ’nuff”.

The Great Outdoors

Cousin Paul mentally preparing to hunt. Any good hunter doesn’t go outside before he is really ready.

Ugliness

Well, it wasn’t pretty, but we somehow pulled out a win. Good teams do that. They win when things are bad. We outgained them by about 300 yards, held the ball for 10 more minutes, but only beat them by seven points. Why? Crappy special teams and turnovers. That’s how you lose a game like that. Whatever. We won, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Lots of action from huntin’ camp this morning already. My dad, who does everything about 10 times bigger than necessary, decided he wanted to put his tree stand up today. This is your ordinary, run of the mill tree stand. This thing is a two-person, 500 lb. capacity job that requires the help of four men to put up. So off we go, down the field and into the woods. My dad transported the thing in the bucket of this (again, way too enormous) tractor, and my uncle and cousin and I went on the ATV’s. An hour later, we had a tree stand up that “you can really see out of”, or so says dad.

I snuck in early for lunch because they spent about $500 on food for 7 people for two days. I figured I’d get an early start.

I may take some pics with the cell phone to post to the blog, so if you see some random pics up on here with no description, that’s what’s going on. Unfortunately I forgot the USB cable for my normal camera so we have to resort to this.

Big plans for the afternoon: we’re having a garbage fire. Always high entertainment here on the hill. Take care, all.

What the crap is going on?

At the moment, we are tied with freaking Stanford at halftime. What is going on? It seems like every time I watch a game at the farm, we play very crappily. Meanwhile I’m sitting here with my dad and uncle, who both went to Penn State. As the current BCS standings graphic came across the television, my dad said, “Hmm…Penn State is number three? Where’s Notre Dame? Oh, down there at number eight. That’s interesting.” Keep in mind that this is the same guy that couldn’t name three players on Penn State’s team. It’s infuriating.

Quinn looks absolutely horrific. I haven’t seen him play this badly in about two years. Let’s hope Weis is able to turn things around here in the second half. If not, you may hear about a crazy white kid that killed his dad and uncle over the weekend.

It’s huntin’ season!

Well, thanksgiving thankfully went off without a hitch. It was actually kind of fun to go to someone else’s house to see how things are done. Couple that with the fact taht my own family is quite insane, and it was a nice change of pace this year. The highlight was undoubtedly my first ever game of Mall Madness played with Kelly’s small, female cousins. Needless to say, I absolutely dominated the contest and the girls went home crying. Mission accomplished.

Friday was spent almost entirely in working on my bathroom. As a wedding gift, FMB’s parents decided to renovated our old, disgusting bathroom left to us by the previous owners (the Schaeffers). The Schaeffers lived in my house for the past 30 years, and changed very little in the house during that time. Our bathroom was a smorgessboard of neon green wallpaper, pea yellow tub and toilet, and general disgusting decor.

Thankfully for yours truly, FMB’s dad, Ed, is a plumber/handyman extraordinarre, in addition to being an all-around good guy. Watching him in that bathroom yesterday was like watching Charlie Weis call a football game. Pipes and fittings were flying all over the place, huge chunks of drywall were being removed, and much like Marcellus Wallace’s “pipe hittin’ niggas’”, a blow torch was prominately involved. In short, Ed went medieval on my bathroom.

After we got a lot of stuff done last night, I hopped in the car and drove up to my family’s farm since Monday is the first day of hunting season. My hippie former roommate always loved hearing about that. So for the next three days, my biggest decision will be which gun to take out in the woods with me. Always a good time. In fact, I may keep the blog real updated over the couple days, because crazy crap always goes down. This year I arrived to learn that my dad and uncle went out and bought tree stands for this year. The coversation went something like this:

Me: “Dad, isn’t hunting with a rifle from a tree stand illegal in PA?”

Dad: “Well, hunting from a tree stand gives you a lot of advantages. You can see a lot more and have a better chance of getting a deer.”

Me: “Dad, isn’t hunting with a rifle from a tree stand illegal in PA?”

You can see where this is going. Monday morning I will be driving my dad to the emergency room for tree stand-related falling wounds. I will update, hopefully with pictures, should this happen.

For those of you that have received my wedding save the date cards and insist on making fun of me, I have only one thing to say to you: go kill yourselves. Someday you will be in my shoes, and I will be there…watching as things comes crashing down all around you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This year will be my first ever not spending the day with the highly regarded Mead clan and searching for all the reasons that I am better than my cousins. Instead I’m here in chilly eastern Pennsylvania with the family of FMB. The best part of today will be at 2 o’clock when FMB goes to work and I have to stay here and try to awkwardly fit in with everyone. I will update as necessary…

Stuff

Here’s some random stuff I came across today in the office:

-Roger Federer has declared that he is “too sexy”. In a related announcement, Federer says he is taking over for Antonio Banderas as the host of “The How You Say? Ah, yes…Show.“

- Sotheby’s is selling Joe DiMaggio’s uniform from his rookie season in 1936. They say it could fetch upwards of $600,000. If anyone is interested, I still have my Stratham Green Team hat from my 1987 little league season. Experts say its value is nearly incalculable.

- A Japanese survey says money can partially buy happiness. In related news, accountants are the most miserable people on Earth.

- A Japanese stork has received a prosthetic beak after having the original tangled in wires. Butter wonders, “Why are there still one-legged people huffing it around in wheelchairs?”

- This just in: traffic causes a stress condition. Did we really need a study to tell us that? Couldn’t they have just ridden to work with me one day? I could have saved these idiots a lot of money.

- Costco has started selling arcades. This is freakin’ sweet. Now I can buy a 10 pound bag of rice, 5 gallons of Miracle Whip, and Space Invaders all at the same place.

- Some Miami football players apparently recorded a rap song that was degrading to women, causing the University to issue an official apology. Does anyone have that Harold Swanagan song that was floating around freshman year?

Frappr!

Guys, you have to check this out. Having nothing to do in the office affords me much time to surf the internet for the best and brightest ideas for improvements to Butter’s Podcast. Frappr! is the latest “it” thing to be doing on the net. Basically it’s a map generated from the Google Maps API that allows you to subscribe and post a little picture of yourself. Then you can see everyone who reads the site and where they live along with their picture and a little shout out! Pretty cool stuff! So go to http://www.frappr.com/butterspodcast and post your location. I also posted a link and clever little picture over the right. ALSO, if you check to the right you’ll see a photo slideshow of all photos that people post. So far there are only the two that I posted. I am an attractive man.

Weekend Update

- Jeez, right when I typed the title to this blog post I thought, “I really miss Norm McDonald.”

- The highlight of this weekend was without a doubt speaking on the phone with my Eastern European former roommate James Tully and learning of his recent engagement. Congratulations to the happy couple, and everyone say a little prayer for Amy.

- On a side note, I discovered that James and Amy spent their Friday night watching Jurassic Park on the Bravo network. Suddenly my life doesn’t look so bad.

- ND scored another victory against a typically undermatched Navy squad. In the process, Brady Quinn set about a dozen more Irish passing records. Our team going over to sing the Navy alma mater with the Midshipen after the game was a nice show of respect, especially right after Verteran’s Day.

- Speaking of Veteran’s Day, do you know what November 11th commemorates? That’s right! The end of World War I.

- My yard contains about 20 large-ish trees. When we bought the house in August, these trees provided both beauty and shade that helped seal the deal on the purchase. Now the provide about a foot of leaves to clean up. My big plan was to buy a 12×20 blue tarp, rake the leaves onto the tarp with my new rake, and drag the leaves behind a fence in my backyard. This process started Saturday morning when my third “sweep” of the rake resulted in my rake handle snapping in two like a toothpick. The process ended Sunday evening after a few trips to Lowe’s, about 15 tarp-fulls of leaves dragged out back, and one dead lawnmower battery resulting from “human error”. Who knew being a home owner could be so much fun.

- The basement on my house is finally done, replete with speaker wire running all over the place. FMB is annoyed beyond belief, but I am a pig in slop. Now I just need an HDTV and some larger speakers…

- If you want to test the mettle of your relationship with your significant other, try hanging a rather heavy dining room light fixture together right after you’ve woken up. That puts Temptation Island to shame, Taheed and Ytossie.

- Friday night is date night, or as I like to call it, “go to Lowe’s to return one broken rake, buy potpourri at Target, and leave restaurants because the wait is too long” night.

- Date night this week resulted in my house smelling like Vanilla Cinnamon, but like FMB says, “It smells better than the poo it used to smell like.” Good point.

- In case you haven’t noticed, today is kind of a slow day at the office. Nice for a change!

Jump on the Bandwagon!

Yo kids. My buddy Colin started his very own blog. It’s so nice to see some friends jumping on the bandwagon. He will now have a permanent link here on Butter’s Podcast.

“If you don’t go to Colin’s blog, I’ll effing body slam you.” - The Iron Sheik

1980’s Wrestler of the Day

Today’s 1980’s Wrestler of the Day is:

The Iron Sheik

The T.O. Issue

Ok, I suppose it’s time I comment on this whole T.O. situation. Being the only one of my friends from days of yore that lives in Philadelphia, I figure it’s my responsibility (thanks for pointing this out, Joe T).

To be honest with you, this whole thing is coming as a whirlwind. I was out of town between Friday and Sunday, so anything I heard about the situation came from ESPN. Because I was out of town, the details are still a bit hazy for me. Someone out there probably knows more than I do. Here’s what I do know:

1) T.O. is a huge douche bag
2) The Eagles suck this year
3) T.O. has been running his mouth all year about a myriad of stupid things
4) Hugh Douglas, who doesn’t even play for the team, apparently wanted to beat the crap out of T.O. and started some sort of fight with him in the training room.
5) Andy Reid stoically suspended him for the league maximum of four games without pay, and then said he will not be playing for the team for the rest of the year.

Here’s my opinion: the Eagles got what could be expected of T.O. He came in last year and made an instant impact. He was catching TD’s, playing to the crowd, flapping his arms like an Eagle, and generally making everyone here in Philly euphoric. He came back from injury to make a heroic Super Bowl appearance that almost won the city its first major championship in over 20 years. Throughout the whole process, he was his normal, brash, a-hole self that he has always been since entering the league. Everyone looked past that though, because it was cool to have a cocky a-hole on the team as long as he was taunting other suckers that the Eagles are beating up on.

Then the inevitable happened. After his tremendous season he turned into the proverbial albatross around the team’s neck. Spouting off to the media, holding out of training camp, doing stomach crunches for dopey reporters in his front lawn, completely screwing with Donovan McNabb (the city’s most beloved athlete outside of Sylvester Stallone), and everything else. Nothing changed, he was just being himself. He was just doing it on a struggling team. Now Philly fans have done what they always do — get pissed and start throwing things.

The city is in complete meltdown over this. Every radio station from classic rock to R&B is spending their entire morning shows rehashing all these issues. If there were this much outrage over Hurricane Katrina, people would be partying like crazy on Bourbon Street right now. The sad thing is, most people around here seem to think for whatever reason that the Eagles would win the Super Bowl this year with T.O. playing like he did last year. They’re completely disillusioned. No one seems to realize that they are a team on the ropes. They’ve got a quarterback who, while courageous, obviously needs surgery on several places on his body and has not played to the level of which he is capable. The run game is completely non-existent. Wake up, Philadelphia.

Obviously I can’t say any of this out loud at work. I would be crucified. Instead I speak my mind here on the internet in anonymity. I just wish everyone would shut up about it. I hate the freaking guy. Now that he’s gone for good, just put the issue to rest and hope that Todd Pinkston heals up quickly.

BCS Shakedown

I’m not a creator of content. I have no original ideas. I just send you to what intelligent people have to say. In that light, check out BGS for a rundown of ND’s BCS implications.

If you’re looking for insightful commentary about the Tennessee game, you’ve come to the wrong place. I was in rural northwestern PA on Saturday introducing my future in-laws to my current parents. In that area, DirecTV apparently cannot get a local NBC affiliate to agree to air their broadcasts via satellite. I did my best to take in the game by listening to most of the first half in my mom’s car via Sirius satellite radio, but was forced in to watch the Penn State game later as I was accused of being “antisocial”. What’s happening to me?

Other big news this weekend included the installation of new carpet in my basement that undoubtedly ties the room together. I’ve had a few requests for some pictures of my house since I “talk about it so much”, and I’ll do my best to upload those as soon as I can.

Unfortunately, the “amount of time Butter can continue to steal WiFi from his neighbors” ended last week when said neighbors moved out. Let’s hope my new neighbors invest in Wireless G.