So, I was repacking the truck this afternoon for the drive from dad’s down to Ft. Belvoir and happened to overhear a call go out on the scanner in the garage for a police response for a “10 year old out of control, breaking stuff up in the residence.” Now I have to ask… WTF? I have a vague recollection of having once been a 10 year old. Let’s just say that my parent’s response to my being out of control and breaking stuff up would not have been to call the police. Seriously, people, are there not earlier signs that your kid might be headed for trouble than needing to call the police? I’m really at a loss as to what a 10 year old kid could be doing that any adult human couldn’t step in and stop without ending up on next week’s episode of Cops. Just another example of why civilization is doomed.
Category Archives: Life
Sick, but not so much tired…
So I’ve been sick for the last two days. It’s your standard issue coughing, wheezing, sore throat, Fall seasonal cold, but I’ll be glad to be rid of it. I guess it could be the continuation of what I was fighting last week or something left for me by the lovely little boy who sat next to me from Atlanta to Memphis and sneezed every 6 minutes. In either case, I’m glad it held off so I could enjoy last weekend and until I could be miserable in the privacy of my own home.
Weekend Recap…
I’ve been in Williamsburg, VA all weekend for the wedding of one of my dear friends and his beautiful bride. At the moment, I’m feeling rather rum-soaked from the reception and suspect it could take two or three days to make a full recovery. I had the great good fortune to spend much of the reception in the company of a delightfully charming and quite elegant redhead from Alexandria. Despite the lingering haze of last night, I remain quite captivated and hopeful that our paths might cross again under less intoxicated circumstances.
Damned crazy Chinaman…
I’m not exactly known for my track record for running out and trying new things and I suppose there’s a good reason for that. Having been talked into a quick massage at the mall yesterday, one of the features was a reflexology treatment. Now, I have issues with feet to begin with (that’s definitely another story) and mine in are already banged up from the heel spur. The message itself was good enough, but I thought I was going to have to kick this poor guy in the head when he grabbed a hold of my foot and started yanking it around. I don’t know what a reflexology session is supposed to feel like, but I was under the impression that it shouldn’t leave you hobbled for the rest of the day. There are two basic morals to this story: 1) New things are bad and 2) Never trust some damned crazy Chinaman to make your feet feel better. From here on out, I’ll be back in the camp of getting my medical advice from actual doctors.
It’s a simple matter of motivation…
Now that we’re starting into the time of year when the outdoor temperature isn’t approaching that of the surface of the sun, there are at least half a dozen major or semi-major projects I’ve convinced myself I would start once the weather broke. Wanna know how many of those I started on this rainy morning? None. Zero. Nada. I feel like I’m lucky to run the vacuum and keep the grass cut… and fertilized… and trimmed. Ok, so I’m probably a little more obsessive about the grass than anything else around here. The truth is, I just don’t have any motivation to do those things at the moment.
I don’t want to go find paint chips. I don’t want to start a materiel list for getting a floor down in the upstairs bedroom. I haven’t called a single contractor to get an estimate on having the patio covered. Logically I know I have about 5 hours between when I get home and the time my eyelids start getting to heavy to focus on much of anything and I feel this overwhelming compulsion to fill those hours with something productive but not the motivation to actually get much of anything started.
I think maybe the problem is that I’m not a fan of multi-stage projects. I like things that I can start and finish in a one or two day blitz… and none of the things I want to do is one of those kinds of projects. Of course all of this may be irrelevant if someone keeps dragging me around Shelby Farms on Saturday mornings, because I’ll never be able to walk up the stairs anyway.
Gas Lines…
Coming home from the office this afternoon, I swung into the Costco parking lot so I could feed my 5.8 liter beast. The first sign of something being not quite right was the guy standing in the middle of the lane waiving people away from the pumps. No problem, I think, I’ll just go around and come at the pumps from the other side of the lot. No dice there, either… another guy in a orange safety waiving traffic around. Stopping to ask what the hell the issue was, all he did was point to the 30-40 car deep line waiting to even pull up to the pumps.
All I can say is what the hell are people thinking? I know there’s a hurricane and that refineries in the Houston area are going to be shut down for a few days. I also know that prices are going to spike by 30-45 cents because of that… But waiting in line for 40 minutes to get gas $.30 a gallon cheaper than it will be tomorrow just seems silly to me. I mean, just do the math… for me: 30 gallon tank x $3.45/gallon = $103.50. Same 30 gallon tank x $3.75/gallon = $112.50. Sorry gang, but my 40 minutes on a Friday afternoon are worth a damned sight more than $9.00. I’m just sayin’.
Grounds…
Few things in life are as rewarding as that first cup of coffee on a cool summer morning. It doesn’t have to even be good coffee, really. Even cheap coffee well made will do the job. But with good beans and a quality machine, it’s almost a religious experience. That’s what makes it so traumatic when a good machine goes bad. My beloved Krups super-machine has broken with the one true faith and begun dumping grounds into the pot. That’s got to be like taking a leak in the holy water, right? Right.
Ok so maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but I’ve been limping along with a machine that makes the bottom half of the pot undrinkable for a couple of weeks now. It’s time to put the old girl out to pasture… and right it off as a disappointing $100 investment. Is it bad that I really want to get one of those industrial-sized machines that they have in convenience stores?
Law of Unintended Consequences or: Why Gasoline Should Be Expensive…
So anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the last six months has either watched the increasing cost of gas or at least seen it’s continuing coverage as a “news” event. The minute-by-minute tracking of the price of gas is about as useful to most people as the minute-by-minute stock ticker. It’s kind of interesting to know, but there’s not much that you can do about it.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have noticed one interesting thing, though: My afternoon commute, once a spot on 40-minute trip is now down to a svelte 34-minutes from door to door. Though not scientific in any way, I’m taking this to mean that at least in my little part of the world, the afternoon “rush” (such that it is in West Tennessee) is not quite as busy as it was a few short months ago.
Could it be that there are actually fewer cars on the road? Just released Federal Highway Administration data shows a decrease if almost 10 billion miles driven in May, so maybe this is the beginning of a trend. For those of you thinking this is the beginning of my new life as a tree-hugging, sandal-wearing, granola-eating hippy, fear not… As far as I’m concerned, this is great news because it means more room on the highway for me, less time committed to the daily drive, and gas that’s down a few pennies from it’s highs at the pump. It’s the law of unintended consequences at work and the reason I don’t bitch too much when the price of gas goes up a bit.
I don’t know…
I stumbled into a five sided conversation about baseball this morning and realized very early into it that the best thing I could do was keep my mouth shut, nod at appropriate intervals, and try to escape without being cornered for an actual opinion. I know that sports are what men talk about when they are in a group, but outside of the basic rules, I don’t know a damned thing about them. I don’t know who’s leading the National League or what teams are likely to be in the playoffs.
What’s more, I don’t really care about knowing these things, either. I’ve tried to pay attention, mainly because I like to have something to add to polite conversations, but God, do I find it all so dull. I can talk at length on topics from Ancient Greece, to politics, to pop culture but when it comes to sports, I’m a babe in the wood. It’s not so much that I don’t like sports as much as I just don’t care about them.
Yeah, I just admitted it on the internet. Hopefully they don’t come pull my credentials as a guy.
Discovery…
So, I’ve discovered that without the pain in the ass that was my old job, I really have very little to complain about. Sure, that’s good for me, but it’s completely fouling up my ability to post a blog on a semi-regular basis. I guess some people write about their day to day interactions with people out in the world, but we all know how much I hate being out in the world and being forced to interact with the populace, so that’s not exactly fertile ground for me. You might ask what I’ve been up to now that I don’t spend hours seething about the blundering incompetence at work. I’ve rediscovered actually reading books, which is something I still don’t get to do enough of. I’ve managed to spend a little more quality time killing zombies, so that’s good. Even Winston benefits as I have more time to roll around on the floor with him. Of course all of that makes for perfectly bland blogging, so I’ve spared you the details.
At the instigation of one of my oldest and dearest friends, I’ve even taken my first tentative steps into the world of Facebook. Thanks a lot, Sandi… Another social networking addiction is just what I need. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be as labor intensive as MySpace, so hopefully it won’t be too distracting. It also currently has the benefit of not being blocked by our network administrators… yet. So, if you’re on Facebook, look me up.
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