Bingo.

So my wife is out tonight. She finished up work this morning at eight, I just got home myself. She met this cool woman where she works, the lady invited her to go to a Vegas Bingo night. I sure hope she's having a good time, she really deserves it. She's been bustin' her you know what at this new job. She likes it. Every morning, after we take the younger one to school, she's been filling me in on the doin's at the plant. What a cast of characters. Sounds like a good bunch of people though, hard working people. A couple of jerks, you'll get that anywhere. It's just real cool that this other lady, one of only three on their shift including my wife, asked her to go do something.

Tomorrow our older daughter is going to have lunch at a little known, and way off the beaten path Mexican restaurant. She's going with a couple other kids from the school paper. They want to begin a series of articles about little known, and way off the beaten path type places. Tomorrow night she's going to see a play, extra credit points are involved, A.P. English class. It never ceases to amaze us, my wife and I, how smart our two girls are. They both do so well in school, they both have such good hearts. Even though they are seven years apart, they are so close. You just know they will be successful in life, no matter what life throws at them.

A couple of the young guys at work were talkin' about this guy they know, tonight at lunchtime. Anyway, he's been to Iraq. He did a one year tour there last year. So he comes home after his combat tour and gets married, his four year enlistment is up, he's ready to move on with his life. He just got called back to active duty, still has a reserve commitment for four more years. He said the army told him he could be over there for as long as two years this time. The guys at work, the two young guys who know him, they say he's not doing well. They say that whenever he drives anywhere, he's always looking up at the roof tops. They say he's been chewing his nails down to the bone since he heard he has to go back there. His new young wife, she's twenty-two and he's twenty-three, they say she's losin' it. They say that the newlywed couple wanted to start a family, he got a good job driving a beer truck. These two young guys at work, they have concert tickets that were hard to get, concert's tomorrow night. They decided to give the tickets away, instead they're going to get all their friends together. Wives and girlfriends, their whole crew, and throw a party for the newlywed couple to try to cheer them up. I told them that was real nice. They also said they're going to get everybody together for this party, cook lots of good food and ask everyone, their whole crew, to come up with a plan. They want to help their friend figure out a way to get out of having to go back to Iraq. I hope they come up with a plan, I hope it's a good one.

We have a tradition down at The Dock. Whenever something's damaged, a case or container or a truck or piece of equipment, we yell "BINGO"! That lets everyone know something has happened, first thing is to ensure that no one is injured. If no one is injured, and usually no one is, then we have to determine who was responsible for the bingo so that we can all properly bust his chops without mercy. It's a guy thing. So tonight I was moving a piece of equipment, a machine that had no brakes. I didn't know it had no brakes. It had brakes ten minutes before, but suddenly it had no brakes. "BINGO" as it caught the edge of a safety rail with a very loud bang. One of the young guys, one who's friends with the guy who has to go back to Iraq, he gets an idea. He says he knows how his friend can avoid having to go back over there. He says he'll just have his friend hang around with me for a little while and he's bound to get hurt. Very funny. Yeah he's a funny guy. Having dished out my share of bingo abuse in the past, well I had to shut my mouth and take it with a grin. The P.A. system barked, the foreman announced the bingo and identified me as the bingo-er. Kind of made for a long night. It's all good.

Hope my wife has a "BINGO" tonight. That Vegas Bingo has cash prizes up to one thousand dollars, that would be cool.

Yeah Tommy, it's a hard thing to do. This young guy has to leave his wife behind and go back over to that giant litterbox. Remember flyin' into that back in '90? Yeah, kind of blows your mind when you first see it..........No man, your'e right. Those people ain't never gonna change, not as long as we got people there...........That's right bro..........Yeah, it's about time, I agree..........Your'e right, a draft maybe is a good idea. Then all those people in charge can worry about their own kids........I really don't know Tommy, but I bet not too many Senators and Congressman have any family over there. Bet there ain't no big time CEO's with kids over there either.........Yeah, that's right. All too busy makin' money in this booming economy we got goin' on here......Yeah, I'm makin' like the same hourly rate I made working construction when I was a kid twenty-five years ago.......Yeah it is a joke Tommy. What's even funnier is that they all still expect us to buy into their bullshit.......Yeah bro.... Hey I gotta go man.....Yeah she just called, she's on her way home from droppin' her girlfriend off, said she won a little bit of money.....Yeah that is cool. Catch you later Tommy.