How To Give A Great Man To Man Hug

Thanks to Miss Shannon, a longtime FCN reader, for sending us this video. We found its instruction both germane and profound. We'll be praying for you as you embark on the next big adventure in your life. And hopefully you will be able to access FCN from your perch overseas.

Close Call

The other day I was driving the roughly twelve mile stretch between school and work. It was shortly after 12:30 and the lunch hour traffic was lighter than usual. I was singing along with Jason Aldean on a freshly burned disk of assorted country music and generally trying to look cool, calm and collected as I bobbed my head to the tune and adjusted my sunglasses. The road seemed to come to me and I really didn't notice much other than the white lines to my left and the base boosted sound from the speaker on my right.

I didn't care too much about my speed, but was going about five miles per hour above the speed of traffic (roughly sixty) and, if my memory serves me correctly, the zone was listed for 45. The town where I go to school has a large police presence and the road I was traveling is such a transit artery that regular patrolling is a guarantee. Still, I thought little of the authorities when I noticed a gap in the traffic ahead of me and accelerated to pass a car and settle in.

Never glancing at my speedometer, I grinned as I heard the first notes of a new Josh Turner single and started singing along with Firecracker.

Ahead of me was an intersection that is arguably the largest and most traveled in all town. It's on a road between two large higher education institutions and the cross street is a major east west route (Pacific and March, for those of you in the know). When I was no closer than three hundred feet from the light, it switched from green to yellow.

I calculated quickly and determined I could make it. Then I down-shifted and gunned the engine, leaping forward with less caution than the yellow light demanded. To my left, I noticed a red Isuzu Rodeo, making a similar attempt.

(I've always wondered about the wisdom of naming a car "Rodeo;" it doesn't speak much to the smoothness of the ride).

Just before crossing the white line and entering the large square of the intersection, I happened to glance at my speed and noticed I was almost thirty over the limit. I'd started out a tad fast, speed up to pass a car and then severely violated the applicable traffic laws during my approach to the light.

But as fast as I was going, the Rodeo was going faster. Without a radar gun, I can't be entirely accurate as it its speed, but I would wager an honest nickel that it was going on the high side of 85. Maybe even 90.

As we breezed through the intersection, two geese on a flight south, I noticed the distinctive white and black markings of a CHP officer out of the corner of my right eye. You know the type: reinforced bumper, light rack and overweight driver. I instinctively engaged the clutch and tapped the breaks to slow down, but the officer's lights were blinking and he had pulled out of his perch before I could slow below the posted limit.

Embarrassment and disappointment are the only two emotions I remember as I carefully pulled my car to the side of the road and engaged my emergency blinkers.

My first ticket.

I had been driving - seriously driving - nine months and now I would have a point on my license, my insurance costs would skyrocket and I would have to sit through a class on traffic safety - as if I didn't know all the rules I'd violated. I sighed and leaned back, waiting for the prefect to come to my door.

But the officer never came. In fact, the cop car chased down the Rodeo and a uniformed officer was knocking at the door of the red SUV when I drove by a fraction of a minute later.

I don't know how much weight I lost in those few moments when I thought I was going to be ticketed, but it must have been measurable. My heart was beating like I'd just drunk three Red Bulls while watching Mission Impossible and my palms were sweatier than T.D. Jakes after a hard sermon. As if to reinforce my feelings, my stereo was playing Keith Urban's Stupid Boy.

The rest of my ride to General Mills was about as slow as I can remember. I don't believe I ever came within five miles of the speed limit and I spent the entire time in the slow lane.

I'm Sorry*

There was a bit of a ruckus here at FCN headquarters yesterday evening. Contributor C, Contributor N, Mommy G, Uncle Wally, Saint Nicholas, and Elvis (I know - crazy, huh) made a very dramatic entrance through the front door and dragged me, kicking and screaming, away from the keyboard.

We had a long talk, which was punctuated by utensils found in Mommy G's kitchen. I was determined not to cave in to my former colleague's persuasions, and my resolve held firm for about thirty seconds. When C and N broke out the corkscrew and juicer, I caved. In other news, a recent online test indicates that I am ill-suited for clandestine operations.

I told them everything, as if they didn't already know. They made me apologize, which was humiliating. Then I had to stay up very late with Uncle Wally putting FCN back the way it was, which was no easy task, let me tell you, especially when you're not allowed to seek aid from caffeine. Finally, I was made to write this post, and publicly apologize for doing what any one of you would have done under similar circumstances. So here goes.

People of the world, please forgive me for the way I somehow wronged you by foisting my own ideas on you through the perfectly legal and ethical means of writing on my own blog, as I was asked to do by the people who are now forcing me to write this. I realize now that the new FCN is vastly inferior to the old one for reasons that are completely beyond my comprehension and gladly embrace the tried-and-true formula which has proven to be such a miserable failure in the past. I am filled with remorse for the way I deceived you and the rest of the FCN team. Apparently, deceiving means pouring my soul out on a public website, and for some reason, my fellow contributors feel they have the moral authority to chastise me for lying. I am so, so sorry from the bottom of my heart and beg your forgiveness, also from the bottom of my heart, which is where I keep my most sincere sentiments.*

So that's said. As of now, all the old ways and rules of FCN are back in state and you will never hear me complain about it again. I've had my say. Now I'm going to go sit as far as possible from Mommy G and cry for a little while.

------
* not!

Out of Order, Please Use Next Stall

Loyal readers: FCN is currently out of order while we deal with certain technical and staffing difficulties. We hope to resolve this issue soon. Please check back later.

Thanks.

- The entire FCN Team

Everything that was bad about the old FCN.

It's time to get a few things off my chest.

I love FCN. I think it's awesome. That's why I'm in it. And that's why I love it. There's nothing better than putting your own words on a dot com and knowing that people all over the galaxy are reading it. The actual number of people might be ridiculously tiny, but hey. Theoretically, my ideas are being hung out to dry. Anyone could read it.

That said, there were some things about FCN (the old FCN) that really got to me. Here's a top 10 countdown, in non-alphabetical order.

1) That boring gray scheme. Few colors are less interesting than 60% gray. I mean, it's blander than bland. It hurts to look at. I know white is plain, but it's an interesting color. It has all the other colors mixed in. If you look closely, you can see them all. White is cool. Gray isn't. Gray is lame. Drop dead gray!

2) Low readership. We have 10 readers! Come on people! Doesn't anyone realize that the growth on this blog is just not healthy? We're dead in the water! That's going to change now that I don't have those two dead weights slowing me down.

3) People who aren't me. This blog has gotten nowhere since inception, probably because it ran for months with only Dan to help it along. The addition of Cody didn't really pick things up either. It was my occasional guest contributions that gave FCN its name. It was my visionary leadership that brought us to BlogSpot; my visionary leadership that inspired every great franchise that made us funny; my visionary leadership that kept this blog from swirling down into the hopeless mire of lameness that is a mark of every other student blog on the web, with the exceptions of all the blogs that link to FCN. The non-me contributors were Class A balls and chains. Now that they're gone, FCN can fly free.

4) 200 by 800 banners. It seems like every post these days started with a generic banner that was photoshopped using really bone-headed filters on a copyrighted picture. Boring, lame, and probably illegal. The new FCN has full-size graphics. Nothing scrunchy for me, no sir! Buh-bye forever, 200 by 800. Besides, the old banners were often totally unrelated to the actual posts.

5) LLFCN. The Least Likely (to succeed) Fan Club N was founded in our second ever post here on BlogSpot; an omen of lameness to come. Since day 1, we've been waiving the registration fee "today only." There aren't any benefits to being in the club and it's not very easy to join. And what's with that acronym? Why couldn't we just call it the FCN Fan Club like everyone else?

6) The same tired jokes over and over again. I'll give you an example. Every time we got a new reader, we just HAD to go make another post about it saying pretty much the same thing! No wonder we only have 10 readers. Everyone else's intelligence is insulted. The jokes get old. It takes creativity to run a humor blog, not cut and paste. I mean, the first time - when we got the TOLF - that was fine. But after that? Puh-lease.

7) Life Tips. Why didn't we just put a hotlink to Reuter's Oddly Enough in our sidebar and be done with it? Did anyone really think those were clever? "Don't stick yourself in the eye with a pencil. If you must stick yourself in the eye with a pencil, don't eat a pound of salt immediately afterwards. If you must stick yourself in the eye with a pencil and then eat a pound of salt, don't cheat on your final exams." What an embarrassment.

8) A million and one labels. Every post just HAD to have a bunch labels assigned to it that often had nothing whatsoever to do with the posts and were useless to a reader looking for anything. Everyone just used the search counter in the top left anyway. If I weren't so lazy, I'd go back and delete them all. But I'm lazy, so I won't. Besides, it's a weekend.

9) FCN Classics. We've been online for what? A year maybe? And we're already posting classics? How much more egotistically self-engrossed can you get? Maybe in 15 years or so we'll have classics. But not now. No way. Classics are lame excuses for not having anything better to post. Besides, almost none of the classics were written by me.

10) FCN Gear. What a cheap publicity stunt. You want to know how much money we've made on those shirts and bumper stickers? Not enough to cover shipping the check, that's how much. We spent hours designing them. We have dozens of unfinished designs waiting to be "unveiled." Waiting for what? A hurricane, or a dose of inspiration? What a waste.

So those are the old FCN's top ten problems. Wow that felt good. I had a great weekend already. Of course, if you have any other nasty things you'd like to say about the old FCN (provided they don't involve me) please feel free to unload on a very sympathetic ear. But don't you dare bash the new FCN. I know where you live. Okay, I don't, but I can at least run over to my neighbor's and kick their lawn statues over. Or I can at least delete your comment. Or I can at least go "Oh, come on!" when I read it.

So fire away.