Bob was born in 1967.  He’s married and has five children.  Bob loves his wife deeply and is appreciative of the fact that she seems to love him right back and to the same degree.  Bob loves his children unconditionally and hopes that someday they will understand what that means.

Bob tries to be funny a lot.  Sometimes he’s the only one who thinks he’s funny.  Luckily that doesn’t depress him because he even thinks that is funny.  He’s had his nose broken three times but only once because someone didn’t think he was funny.  The first two times were caused by large, heavy objects that had no emotions whatsoever.  The last time was by a person with no sense of humor but a keen sense of when and where to land a right-hook.

Bob can also be serious, such as right after the angry humorless guy landed that right-hook.  Lately the seriousness seems to come from contemplating the world in which his children will have to live and attempt to thrive.  Bob thinks the world has some awesome things going on but the totally unawesome things are so dangerous and destructive, it concerns him deeply.  With very little effort, these unawesome things stand out as obvious threats to happiness but few people put forth that little bit of effort and those that do, seem to make a conscious decision to disregard the obvious.

Bob’s hope is that those who have chosen to avoid the effort to recognize the obvious threats to happiness and those who have recognized them but decided they would rather ignore the obvious can still be coaxed back from Zombieville.  Yeah, he calls these people various forms of zombies.  Zombiemoms, Zombiedads, Zombieteens, etc… He thinks it is funny to call people names, but the zombies hate it.  But have you ever seen a zombie?  They move really slow and are absolutely incapable of landing a zinger of a right-hook.  Therefore, Bob feels fairly safe as long as he doesn’t get cornered because was we all know, zombies are persistent and when they corner you, they do stuff like tear off your limbs, eat your flesh and really awful stuff like that.

Okay, just so you know, Bob doesn’t believe in zombies.  All that zombie talk was just for humor.  Except the part where people seem to be oblivious to really harmful things out there as they mindlessly pursue what they perceive as the American dream.  This is where Bob tries to step in.  He sets out to discover the obvious and beat it like a dead horse.*

* The phrase, “beat it like a dead horse,” is attributed to many sources from the time before automobiles were the primary mode of private transportation.  People didn’t beat dead horses, but everyone had experience with horses and knew that if you swatted them with your hand or a crop or cracked a whip at them, they moved, moved faster or pulled harder.  They also knew that once a horse had passed on to the pasture in the sky, smacking it would not create any reaction whatsoever.  Any onlookers would just think you were stupid, crazy or worse.  We use cars, trucks and tractors to do most of the work that horses used to do, so today, the phrase is recognized as an idiom (not an idiot) that means the issue is decided, resolved or beyond any further illumination and that continued discussion is fruitless.  So, when it comes to problems in our culture today, Bob is likely to be the guy from 1756 who won a free horse.  The guy was walking in the Irish countryside one afternoon.  He peered out into a potato field and witnessed a group of people with their hands on their hips, looking down at a horse that had been pulling a plough.  He walked out into the field to find that the horse had died.  The ploughman and a few of the hired hands were discussing the unpleasant task of telling the farm owner that his best horse had just dropped dead.   “Have ya got yerself a dead one?”, asked the man.  “Dat I do”, said the ploughman in a somber voice.  So the man knelt down and put his hand on the horse’s neck to give it a gentle stroke.  “Ah, but what a magnificent animal he must have been”, he said, peering down.  “Oh, but he was”, replied the ploughman.  The man stood up, looked out on the field, caressing his chin and said, “I’ll charge ya no more than a shilling to take him off yer hands, and you can keep the harness and the plough”.  The group of onlookers chuckled and murmured as the ploughman frowned at the man.  “A shilling”, laughed the ploughman in critical amazement at the boldness of the man.  “A lad of your sort could feed his clan for a week off of a fine beast such as this.”  The man shook his head with a stern look and said, “I don’t intend to butcher him, I plan to ride him down to the pub.”  Then the man grew a smile and added, “I might even buy you a pint out of the shilling.”  The group burst out in laughter.  The ploughman also burst out in a loud guffaw and said, “fer ‘t love of Mary, if tis horse stands up and walks, you can have him and the first round is on me.”  With that the man knelt down and slowly unbuckled the harness.  He gently stroked the gelding behind his ear and then bent in closer to whispered quietly into the horse’s ear.  The group looked on, rolling their eyes at each other, snickering.  Then he gave the horse a loud swat on its haunch.  All of the sudden, the horse let out a loud snort and struggled to stand up.  The man stood quietly as the rest of the group let out shouts of fear.  The ploughman fell down as he scrambled to get out of the gelding’s way and two of the farmhands ran into each other, knocking each other out cold.  The man grabbed the thick mane of the horse and pulled himself high up onto the large gelding’s bare back.  He looked down at the stunned ploughman with a wide grin on his face.  “What’s his name?” he asked.  The ploughman just stared back for a moment and then realizing that he had been asked a question simply replied, “Lazarus”.  With that the man motioned to one of the farmhands to hand him the ropes dangling from Lazarus’ bit and with a nod and a “tanks”, pressed his heel into Lazarus’ right ribs and trotted off toward the nearest village.  As he rode off, the ploughman could hear the man say, “to the pub”.  No animals were mistreated, injured or killed in the crafting of this “about” section, nor do we advocate the striking, bludgeoning or kicking of dead things.  We would much rather carefully preserve the edible portions of dead plants and animals to keep them fit for consumption or use on the secondary market.  The moral of this story is that sometimes you may truly believe that a horse is dead, but things are not always as they seem.  If the right person comes along, you may see that you were wrong.  In all likelihood, I’m not the right person, but I may be able to provoke you to think about one little thing in a new way and that may lead you to that right person.