The Larson Family

The geese migrating over our house in the fall of 2009. A little honking musical tribute as they go over is always welcome.

A couple of years ago, we had a problem with the engine in our Jeep Grand Cherokee, and for a while we thought the old bucket had met it’s demise. So, we went car shopping. Rebecca wanted an SUV, and after very little shopping around, we settled for a nice 2003 Kia Sorento EX.

It’s a nice little two-tone black and gold SUV. Four wheel drive, foor door, mid-size SUV — just a touch bigger than a crossover. She likes it, so we’ve been happy with it.

For anybody who might be thinking of buying a Sorento, here’s the skinny. We’ve had no major problems with the vehicle in the couple of years we’ve owned it. But we have experienced some odd/recurring problems you should know about.

First, we had a problem with the engine overheating last winter. I was sure we needed a water pump, but it turned out to be a bizarre — and thankfully less expensive — seal problem on the bottom of the coolant overflow tank. But the stubborn problem that’s been aggravating me to no end is HEADLIGHTs!!!

The bulbs on Becky’s Sorento burn out every nine months. And of course at different times, so you go out and change the left, and three months later, you’re out there changing the right. I just changed the passenger side bulb about two months ago, and the driver side burned out yesterday. And this is easily the fifth or sixth light bulb replacement in the last two years.

I figured I should write it down so next time it happens, I’ll be able to go back and see when I did it last time.

I also ran across some online advice suggesting it may be a bad ground between the fusebox and the fender, so I’ll be checking that out to see if it makes any difference. Keep you posted.

Click Here to read a step-by-step guide to replacing a headlight on a Kia Sorento.

A little background on me. For the first five years of my life, I did not have a prominent father figure in my life. As a matter of fact, I was surrounded by women. My mom, my grandma, and my aunt. And even after my Mom got married, I was still surrounded by women since I soon became big brother to two little sisters. And being the voracious reader that I was, I read everything, including my Mom’s women’s magazines. Don’t get me wrong, my Dad’s stash of Playboys made it into my brain too… but that’s not really reading now, is it?

When I became an adult, I looked back on that and came to the conclusion that there are some advantages to being raised by women. I’ve always felt like I have a better understanding of women than some of my male friends. And I’ve come to discover that I have some skills which are rare in adult males because of it… like shopping.

I shop for my wife all the time. And I’m not talking trinkets and knick knacks, I mean clothes. Somehow, I have a knack for knowing her size — even though she occasionally gets on me for buying them a little too small (I like ‘em tight, what can I say) — and being able to pick out stuff that looks good on her. I’m not saying I never fail, but I do pretty good most of the time. I distinctly remember one time when one of Becky’s friends looked at her and said, “He buys you clothes?” with this look of jealousy. I like it. I’m proud of it.

But recently, I’ve run head-on into a new problem. Becky is eight years younger than me… a young-looking thirty two and she can rock the trendiest clothes and pull it off. But I’m forty, and I look it. Goatee is getting a little gray.

So, not too long ago, I went to a trendy little clothing shop in the mall. I picked out a few things for Becky and went to check out. As the cashier is ringing me up, we’re making small talk, and I gestured to one of the articles I picked out and mentioned how my wife has been wanting one of these. The cashier goes on ringing up my purchases and then she dropped the bomb.

She said, “God, I don’t think my dad has ever bought me clothes.” I stood there for a moment, thinking “What did she just say?” And then she said, “As a matter of fact, I know my dad wouldn’t be caught dead buying me clothes.”

Yep, I heard her right. She thought I was buying clothes for my daughter! Was she even listening when I told her these were for my wife?? I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. I was offended, but mildly amused too. I’m such a sensitive and considerate Dad.

So, she finished ringing up and bagging my purchases, and said, “Here you go. I hope she enjoys them.” And as I walked out the door I said, “Oh, I’m sure she will. She’s gonna look hot in these.”

That’ll teach her.

I would not be surprised to discover that ninety-nine percent of Americans know nothing about this. The Unites States Supreme Court is about to overturn a legal precedent which has stood for over a hundred years.

For some background, research Citizens United vs. FEC. The lawsuit concerns the ban on corporate dollars contributed to Federal elections. And the Supreme Court is expected to overturn the ban in December, effectively opening up future Federal elections — in other words, Presidential elections — to unlimited contributions from corporations.

Imagine the implications. Corporations will soon be able to contribute to any party or candidate with unlimited donations. Consider this… the ten largest companies in the world are as follows: one retailer (WalMart), one automaker (Toyota), one financial firm (ING), and seven oil companies. Let that sink in for a moment.

What effect on the last election — hell, any election — would it have had if oil companies had been able to contribute unlimited sums to the candidate or party of their choice? Which candidate do you think they would have supported? Which party is consistently friendly to corporate interests at the expense of the consumer? I don’t even need to say it.

So, when the next Federal election comes around, keep in mind the advertising messages you see in favor of, or in opposition to, the preferred candidates are subsidized by the corporations who want as much of your money as they can get.

You never know when you’re going to have an encounter with something (or someone) strange.

In 2004, Becky and I were leaving McDonalds in North Fargo. We were waiting for the traffic on University Drive to clear when we saw a guy go by us in a brown minivan. As he went by, he looked at Becky and pantomimed sticking his finger up his nose. She looked at me and said “Did you see that?”

After the traffic cleared, we pulled out onto University, and purely by chance, we caught up with him at a stoplight a couple blocks away. The light was red, and he was right in front of us. The light turned green, and he left the light extremely slow… half a block later he was still only going about fifteen miles per hour. So I casually pulled into the other lane to pass him, and just as I was moving into the other lane, he changed too, trying to stay in front of me.

So I pulled back into my original lane and stepped on it. Just as I was about half a car length behind him, I’ll be damned if he didn’t start coming back into our lane again. He was trying to run me off the road! I stepped on it, nearly clipped the curb trying to avoid getting sideswiped. I managed to clear his bumper by the time he came all the way back into my lane.

I pulled out my cell phone to dial 911. I help it out the window so he could see it — so he knew I was calling the cops. He immediately turned. I went around the block to get behind him and followed him for a couple blocks as I spoke to the operator and gave her the guy’s license plate number. She then had me pull over in a parking lot so I could meet up with an officer.

A few minutes later, an officer shows up, and he has this skeptical look on his face — like I’m some kind of road rager who somehow instigated this. He asked me what happened and I explained. He asked me what the guy looked like. I said, “He was kind of an overweight guy, brown hair, bald on the top but frizzy on the sides… like Bozo the Clown.” And then the cop said, “Oh! I think I know the guy you’re talking about. Kind of an eraserhead-type guy?” And I said, “Yes, that’s the guy.”

The officer said the guy lived a couple blocks away and asked us to wait a few minutes until he returned. So we waited. A few minutes later, the cop comes back and he says, “Yeah that’s the guy.”

He then went on to explain that this guy, Seely was his name, was well-known to the Fargo Police. He’s evidently mentally ill, schizophrenia or something. The cop explained that he has a problem with the color red, so he may have had a problem with our vehicle, a red Jeep Grand Cherokee, or maybe even Becky, since she’s a redhead. He said the guy lives across from a catholic school where all the kids wear red shirts, and he had a problem with that too. He seemed to think anybody associated with the color red was somehow evil or out to get him.

To make a long story short, the officer went to his house and issued him a ticket for reckless driving. He said if the guy pleads not guilty, you may have to testify. Well they never called us to testify, so he must have plead guilty. And that story was nearly forgotten until the other night — I went in the convenience store, and there he was, harrassing a cashier. After he left she told me, “When he’s not on his meds…” I assured her I knew all about Mr. Seely.

I guess the upside is, this encounter gave me a great idea for a screenplay. So if I ever make it as a screenwriter, I’ll owe a little inspiration to crazy Mr. Seely.

This is my recipe for Dakota Ribs with a Brown Sugar Rub.

Combine all of the following in a large bowl:

2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon pepper
1/4 cup garlic powder
2 Tbsp paprika
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp black pepper
1 Tsp dried basil
1 Tsp dried Thyme

Mix it all together until it’s a fine powder. Grab handfuls and rub it thoroughly over two racks of pork ribs, both front and back. Store extra rub in a dark container in a cool place.

Line a large cookie sheet with a single layer of tinfoil. Place ribs on cookie sheet. Bake ribs at 325 degrees for one hour and fifty minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool five minutes. Serve and enjoy!

Tim Mahoney onstage at the House of Rock in Fargo. Call me shallow and mainstream, but my favorite Tim Mahoney song is still “Theme Song.” Photo taken a couple years ago on God knows what kind of camera.

Here’s a photo I took back in 2003. I took a trip to South Dakota with my daughters and we saw this adolescent buffalo standing right on the side of the highway near Crazy Horse monument. I pulled to the side of the road and snapped a picture right out the window of the car. Photo was taken with a Kodak disposable camera.

This photo was taken on the corner of 14th Avenue North and 10th St in Fargo. It’s a time lapse with a Kodak Easyshare ten megapixel camera, the moon rising over our neighbor’s house, the taillights of passing cars creating streaks of orange and amber.

Enjoy.

I’ve been giving our Netflix a workout, preparing for a quickly approaching day when my wife no longer works at the Cable Company. Soon, our free cable will be disconnected and we’ll be back to watching a lot of movies.

So I recently decided to start ordering all the old movies I loved. I’m here to tell you, there’s a vast conspiracy going on in Hollywood right now. Someone is running around replacing all the great movies I loved as a teenager with weak facsimiles full of bad acting, hokie plots, and abrupt endings.

For example, The Last American Virgin. Remember this movie? A high school outcast, still a virgin, falls in love with the pretty girl. His friends make it their mission to get him some action, and yet somehow he always misses out. I remember this movie as being good. So who replaced it with this crappy B-movie?

You want another example? How about Hot Dog: The Movie? I remember the first time I saw Out Cold, I thought to myself, “Hot Dog: The Movie was much better.” I was wrong. More bad acting, weak action sequences… and the music… Oh God, the eighties synth music is maddening. Laughter inducing. Somehow, Rhonda Shear made these movies more tolerable on USA’s Up All Night. Either that, or someone has replaced all the original movies with these shoddy adaptations. I’m now scared to move Weekend at Bernies to the top of my rental queue.