Author Archives: Patrick Lamb

My wife received a letter last week from a law firm claiming to be from Toronto, Canada, saying it had discovered an unclaimed $9.87 million life insurance policy. And guess what, my wife might be entitled to it since she has a long-lost relative named Adrianna Lamb who “died in an accident” in Montreal. NeverContinue reading “Just send numbers for your bank account, credit card and Social Security and they’ll split the $9.87 million with you…”

So I walked into a business last week with my wife and immediately felt out of place. I guess it was sort of a sexist response, but I would have expected to feel that way at other locations where I’ve accompanied my wife. No, it wasn’t the women’s intimate apparel section of Victoria’s Secret. No,Continue reading “A fish out of water…”

You may have seen the meme about “Florida Man,” which has been floating around the internet since 2013. It’s usually a story about some deranged person living in Florida doing something incredibly stupid. The following are some actual headlines: “Florida man arrested for practicing karate by kicking swans in the head.” “Florida man changed withContinue reading ““Florida Man” can’t compete with “Loving Man…””

Imagine that you’re planning a driving trip to the West Coast and want to leave right after midnight so you can avoid traffic congestion in Phoenix and Los Angeles along the route you’ve chosen. You’ve loaded up the car with your luggage and other items the evening before so it will be a quick exitContinue reading “But what if I need someone to fix a flat tire at 1 a.m.???”

I know all of you are busy getting ready for a big Thanksgiving feast, so I’ll keep this short. For several years, Thanksgiving became a bad luck day for me. This mostly happened when I was much younger and I think the stigma has gone away. For example, one year I was playing in someContinue reading “It’s a great day if you’re not a turkey — or me…”

Police in Albuquerque are searching for two armed robbers who came into a Halloween store before the holiday and forgot something essential for someone contemplating such a crime. A mask. The store was probably full of them, but the armed robbers apparently were clueless about security cameras in place and allowed their faces to beContinue reading “Another Halloween tale…”

A befuddled bicycle rider recently wrote to the Albuquerque Journal concerning the sudden appearance of spiders painted on bike lanes in the city. “Riding my bicycle throughout the city, I have spotted stenciled spiders in various colors in the bike lanes,” the note to the Journal said. “I was thinking they were some kind ofContinue reading “A little late for Halloween…”

More than 50 years after I graduated from college, I still have occasional dreams about not finishing a final assignment in class, missing too many classes, flunking a final exam and not being able to graduate. I’m told that this is a fairly common phenomenon, probably because for the first time in our young livesContinue reading “Some things never change…”

—Mark Twain on a speaking tour of England in 1897 I’ve written two earlier blogs about people who were reported dead, even though they were very much alive. One involved our good friend Cheryl who discovered on her Ancestry family tree that she had been listed as dead since 2011. She is still very muchContinue reading ““The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated…””

I’ve completed my first week as a clerk in an early voting polling place at the Mesilla Town Hall. Everything has run smoothly, except for a couple of hiccups I created when registering people to vote. My fat fingers on a tiny keyboard didn’t help and some misunderstanding on birth dates and name spelling byContinue reading “Emilio Naranjo would be rolling in his grave…”

At my temporary job as an election clerk for the November general election, I’ve been tasked with doing same day voter registrations. We don’t expect many of them — at least at my polling site — but we do have to follow specific procedures in order to register someone on the same day. One ofContinue reading “This probably won’t work…”

During the next couple of weeks, my posts may be a bit sporadic — if at all. I decided earlier this year to answer the call for people to serve as election clerks in Dona Ana County and I’ve been assigned to do an early voting job in Mesilla starting Saturday, Oct. 22. By theContinue reading “The black widow spider voting conspiracy…”

Last weekend, I attended a reunion of the New Mexico State University rugby team, which I coached for many years starting in the early 1980s. I think I was coach for more than 10 years. During that time, I had one team which finished third in the national championships, several teams which won regional championshipsContinue reading “On being a coach…”

I read with amusement in last week’s Albuquerque Journal about some skullduggery by two contestants in an Ohio walleye fishing tournament. The two claimed to have won the tournament by catching fish that weighed more than those of any of the other contestants. After some eyebrows were raised because the winning fish seemed to beContinue reading “Big fish, no weights…”