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Jay to the World January 2019

Welcome to 2019 everyone! I’m not sure how we could possibly top 2018 for sheer craziness, but I must admit I’m really looking forward to seeing what this next year has in store for us. Just think…one year from now I will be welcoming all of you to the year 2020. Didn’t 2020 seem like forever away when we were getting ourselves ready for the big Y2K meltdown that never materialized?? To think that we are 365 days away from that is crazy, but first we must all survive 2019, which according to the Chinese horoscope will be known as the Year of the Pig. I’m not really sure what that actually means, but it’s got to be a metaphor for something.

I know it’s been almost a month, but I wouldn’t feel right putting out a newsletter without mentioning former president George H.W. Bush. I know I’ve said this before, but I didn’t have a political bone in my body back in the late 1980’s so I paid very little attention to Mr. Bush as a person. As the tributes rolled in, I realized what a truly good man he was and how much he loved his country. I know it’s not a requirement, but I always look at any political person differently if they’ve actually gone to war and fought to defend our freedom. Even today, the men and women who are fighting or who have fought for this country have a level of ownership in the United States that I can’t possibly duplicate. I love this country, but I haven’t sacrificed anything to live here. The men and women of our armed forces, past and present, are the true owners of this land. I’m just a renter.

As you all know I’m a huge Creighton basketball fan, but I want to take a little time to plug the Drake University men’s team and head coach Darian DeVries. I was fortunate enough to get to know Coach DeVries quite well over the last several years (his nickname is D-Rock and he’s coaching at D-Rake…it’s a match made in nickname heaven) and after watching them win a tournament in Las Vegas recently I can already tell that he’s going to be incredibly successful there. He’s a great coach, he’s from Iowa, and his temperament is perfectly suited for the type of smart players he will be able to recruit to Des Moines. I’m not an expert or anything, but his team looks eerily similar to the Loyola team that made the Final Four last year, with lots of upperclassmen who can flat out shoot. Watch out if they make the Big Dance in March!

I usually don’t like to pat myself on the back, but December 21st was my wedding anniversary and this year I really outdid myself by giving my wife a floral bouquet of our official wedding flower, the Calla Lilly. I can’t lie, she was pretty impressed and I think I was on the verge of getting a back massage until I spoiled the mood by asking “we had an official wedding flower?” I just bought them because they were on sale…who knew??

Ben Tams’ joke of the day (overheard at an Omaha bar): A guy recently purchased a new BBQ smoker but had to stop using the comic section of the newspaper to start the fire because it made the food taste funny. Apparently you had to be there….

On Christmas Eve I was doing dishes and in the midst of doing a pivot from the stove to the sink I managed to thwack Beau up the side of the head with a pan. After the tears subsided and ice packs were deployed, he stated that it was a good thing we didn’t have to go the E A R…at which time Emersyn chimed in with “or the (EAR)R…at ages 7 and 11 it’s the effort that counts…I couldn’t be prouder.

Footnote to the aforementioned ‘pan’demic: Two nights later Beau was playing and hit his head on Emersyn’s gymnastics beam that spans most of our living room. I asked him if he was ok and he said “yes, it doesn’t hurt as bad as when you hit me in the head with the pan.” So the positive takeaway from all of this is we have been able to create an entirely new pain threshold scale in our house, whereas the next time Beau gets hurt I can simply say “Ok Beau, how badly are you hurt on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being slight discomfort and 10 being getting whacked up the side of your head with a pan?”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently stated that she wants to be remembered as being transparent and honest during her time as the White House Press Secretary. In a related story, I’m hoping to be remembered for my sincerity and ability to make a point without lowering myself to petty sarcasm. Ok, I’m a work in progress.

From the “I assume Kevin Bacon will play this role in the movie” category: A 9-year old boy recently convinced the city council of Severance, CO to lift a 100-year old law that made throwing snowballs illegal within the city limits. So really for the past 100 years the proper response to anything creating doubt in our minds should have been “well that doesn’t stand a snowballs chance in Severance.”

Quote of the month: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” – Satchel Paige

I always like to start the beginning of each year with something new for you, my loyal reader, so this year I’ve decided to start a new tradition where I will try to predict, using my 1000-watt Uni-Vac crystal ball, major events over the next 365 days. Keep in mind, I’m not a trained psychic (like anybody really is), so don’t bet the house on any of these prognostications. Here you go:

1. Iowa State will petition to join the Big 10 conference for one game only just so Cyclone players can “accidentally” run over the referee crew that cost them the Alamo Bowl…
2. The Iowa Department of Roads will finally fix the 1-mile stretch of Highway 34 near Hastings that resembles the moon’s surface after enough car and truck parts were left scattered on the side of the road to actually build an entire car.
3. Nebraska football will win 10 games in 2019 but will again miss out on a bowl game after it’s discovered that they broke NCAA rules by playing the Hawkeyes while wearing Larry the Cable Guy-endorsed sleeveless flannel jerseys.
4. I will be forced to abandon my 2020 presidential hopes when voters realize that my campaign slogan of “Time to hop on the Jay Train” was actually my bar pickup line in college…and finally…
5. I will continue to lie awake at night in complete amazement that I’m lucky enough to have the coolest banking customers in the world, who month after month let me live out my dream of being a writer looking for a cheap laugh. You are truly the best!!!!

Until Next time, have a terrific start to 2019 and if you’re over 50, get a colonoscopy!!

Jay

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