The Ballad of Casey Franklin

I decided to write a blog about mi amigo Casey Franklin. For those of you who don't habla espanol "mi amigo" is spanish for "my amigo." Casey is the first follower of my blog and I told him that I would write a blog about him earlier this year.


Casey works as a wildlife biologist on commercial fishing boats in the Bering Sea of Alaska. Yeah ladies thats right, he loves animals, he has more hair on his face than I have on my entire body, and FYI the average salary of wildlife biologists in Alaska is 140k (in Alaskan dollars).


I met Casey when we played little league baseball for the North Park Cardinals back in 5th grade. Casey was by far our best player and by player I mean he knew how to work the ladies in the crowd. He was a catcher, and I'm pretty sure he specifically requested that position in order to give a visual present each pitch to the ladies behind the backstop.


I lost touch with Casey during high school, but we reaquainted late one summer night in 1999. I fell asleep at the orphanage I volunteer at while watching a Doogie Howser marathon, and I accidentally left the top ramen cooking on the oven. I awoke to flames, screams and Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser) coming out of the closet (not figuratively...he was one of the orphans and he slept in the closet.) I started to panic but then I looked up and saw this image which will forever be etched in my mind.

This "savior" dragged each and every one of the orphans along with myself out of the building one by one until we were all safe. I said "Thank you so much Mr. Firefighter Sir!" and Casey revealed his glorious face from under his helmet and said "I'm not a firefighter, I just keep the equipment in the back of my Range Rover...and...you're welcome."

Casey and I immediately proceeded to one of my friends weddings in which Casey introduced me to his 4 dates. We danced all night long we caught up on old times and I bought him an alcoholic beverage for saving my life.

(Brandon Pyle, Me, and Casey)

In conclusion Casey Franklin is an amazing human being. And if I'm not mistaken he is single. He will be returning from Alaska periodically this year. Any and all ladies interested need to apply online on his blog: http://caseyfranklin.blogspot.com You may also want to prepare for your interview by researching Casey further, and corresponding with him frequently because it can be lonely out there on the Bering Sea.

*Disclaimer- Roughly 18% of this story is true...Facts: Casey is awesome.

Groundhog Week

The following story is entirely false, the pictures are real, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent. (Basically I took a bunch of pictures this week and wanted to show them to you, but that is boring, so I created the following fable).

Monday was Groundhog Day. A great day, but a better movie. During my travels I stumbled upon Terrance the Groundhog. Terrance looks suspiciously like a prarie dog, but he will have to work for the purposes of this story. Anyone who complains about the species of Terrance will be punched in the neck.

Terrance, (pictured above) came out of his hole on Monday to determine whether or not he could see his shadow. At first Terrance did not see his shadow and was about to condemn the Northwest to more horrific weather. But upon further inspection Terrance saw a shadow, the shadow was moving across the ground towards T-bone (Terrance) at an incredible rate. T-bone was overjoyed by seeing the shadow because he is planning a spring break trip in Cabo with some fellow lady rodents. His little heart started beating faster with excitement until it was pierced by the talons of Wilson the Bald Eagle.

Wilson had just returned from a trip to the U.S. Treasury Department in which he just signed a HUGE new endorsement with the Government who apparently plans to put his picture on 900 billion U.S. dollars that will be distributed to irresponsible financial institutions across the country. After the long trip Wilson was hungry and decided to bring some food home to the nest.

When Wilson arrived home, he realized that someone had been sleeping in his nest and suspected the notorious Goldilocks who had been accused of this weeks earlier. Wilson immediately dialed Gary the Grizzly bear who dealt with Goldilocks back in '02 and just so happens to be on Wilsons T-Mobile Fave 5, along with Charles Barkley and Dwayne Wade.

Gary picked up a blackberry and ate it (because Gary enjoys eating berrys of the black variety)...then he picked up his Blackberry mobile device and plotted the heinus murder of Goldilocks who apparently is quite permiscuous and keeps sleeping around in peoples beds. They decided to chain her to the train tracks down the road and let the humans deal with her.

The story ends here. Gary and Wilson have remained close friends and play in a weekly bowling league, Goldilocks doesn't exist anymore...not because she got ran over by a train, but because she never did (it was just a stupid story that our kindergarden teachers told us to make us afraid of bears and sleeping around), and it looks like we are going to have 6 more weeks of winter because Terrance the Groundhog is having a real hard time seeing his shadow inside of Wilson's stomach.

Blessing in Disguise

Today I went out to take pictures of life...the wild variety. I got a bit overzealous and tried to drive up a mountain that has not been visited by a vehicle since I kissed a girl (decades). I proceeded to get my 4runner stuck deep in the snow, after about an hour of shoveling myself out I decided to read my car manual to deactivate the traction control on my car so I could get out.

I realized that this was the first time I have read my car manual, and upon my emergency browsing session I found out that my car has a built in car alarm that I was unaware of. This pleased me for 2 reasons:

A) I can feel confident that the bars of gold I keep in my glove box will be safe at night.
B) I am now getting cheaper car insurance because my vehicle has a newly discovered anti-theft device!

I eventually got "unstuck" and continued my Sunday photo session. I also realized how fortunate my driving mishap was because I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by reading my manual (not switching to Geico).