How to be a Fist Pumping, High Fiving, Son of a B.

The title doesn't have anything to do with this blog, I just really want someone to come up to me one day and call me that. You Fist Pumping, High Fiving, Son of a B. It'd make me feel classy. Well Christmas is upon us. That time of year when people will have already purchased their Christmas gifts because they start advertising in September, and they will break out their lights and do death defying maneuvers from ladders to place them in a hap hazard way across their roofs. That time when children get out of school and a large part of the government takes off for the holiday and those left to commute on the road give in to their deepest desire to pretend that the DC Beltway is instead the Autobahn where they drive well over a hundred miles an hour in a desperate attempt to get their car on two wheels while cutting another two minutes off their commute. That time of year when people hope and pray for snow but sit outside enjoying their choice of either A) bright sunshine and a lot of very confused insects b)rain c)frigid cold with no snow d)fog (no idea why this is the case) or e)more rain. This is that time of year when people try to determine that one thing their life cannot continue without, that one item that would take their lives from being a droll miscreant prowling the night streets to one of glory and highfives all around, only to be rewarded, as every year, with a gift card to a place you may or may not have access too.

I must say, I love slash viciously loath the idea of gift cards. I mean, a gift is supposed to give someone something they didn't know they wanted or needed, but is spot on none the less. But now, in our age of technology and online shopping people believe that if you can't give perfect, let them get it themselves. Which has, consequently, boiled down to just "let them get it themselves". I mean, no one ever opens up a giftwrapped package to find a gift card and thinks "yes! this is exactly what I wanted! Not money! Not a gift! But money and gift in-Potentia rolled into one! Huzza I say inside my head, Huzza!" I mean, offering people gift cards is like the worlds cop out. It says "I remembered you enough to send you something that didn't break the bank, but not enough about you to have ANY IDEA what to get you. PS. I don't send money in the mail." It is a shame.

And building on that, 99% of the fun of the holidays is wrapping paper. It has gotten to the point where everyone gets themselves their own gifts, so that essentially I buy you a gift card so you buy a gift, and you give me a gift card so I buy myself a gift, but wouldn't it make sense to just go buy myself whatever I wanted in the first place and save time? Is it a game to see who can get more money out of the deal? I think the eventual evolution of the White Elephant party (where everyone brings a gift to trade and steal and trade) is that everyone brings an Amazon gift card. But how can you tear into the wrapping paper of a gift card. How do you even disguise that?! Oh Gee, I wonder what THIS is. Maybe you just buy them a book where it is the bookmark inside. But no, wait, its okay cause we make the Gift Cards festive with snow flakes and reindeer pictures and crap on them. No, no that doesn't work. Its still a gift card. I'll grant you if you gave someone a giftcard in a big box that might be a pretty sweet gift. Like if you put a 200$ gift card in a refrigerator box so they tear into that shit all confused and excited like a boy on prom night, and then they get through the wrapping and box only to see the card, then they are disappointed, again like a boy on prom night, and then the open up the wrapping on the card (like a second mini present for unwrapping) and see it is 200$ and back to being excited. That I could respect, but you'd only get to do it once, unless someone wasn't very bright or had a short memory then you could do it for all major holidays saving that you had a strangely large supply of refrigerator boxes.

I'll tell you the one thing I AM looking forward to is the Christmas music. No, not the jolly Carolers or the Religious tunes coming from the Churches. I'm looking forward to the craptastic Christmas remix songs on the radio. You know the ones. They have a strange beat to them with a synth voice undulating about something sexual while referencing Christmas items. Something with lyrics like "Candy Cane... something something...Santa Clause.... something something.... sex under the Christmas Tree" all to a thumping Bass beat. Yea. I love those songs cause its like a musical comedy show plus a train wreck for my ears. I have to wonder if there are people out there who specialize in those songs. It would be like the people who have to edit pornography, or people who do voice overs for Japanese Sex Cartoons. Bottom of the barrel jobs that someone has to do, and it creates a product that just makes me raise an eyebrow in subtle confusion at the outcome. I actually thought that has to be the single worst job EVER being a Hentai (Japanese Sex Cartoon) voice over actor. I mean, really, what do you put on your resume?? How in the world do you word that so it comes across as something you could improve upon? I feel like that is even a step below being a voice over actor for European Porn, which also must be an absolutely terrible job. I mean if there is ever a job where a translation has to go seriously wrong, or be very very confusing as a direct translation it has to be those two. I mean, what if something translates to "slap the tiger and eat the balloon doll"? Just a tangent thought on that. How did I get there from Christmas Music again? Oh yea, Christmas remix music is slutty. Ha!

But anyway, Christmas is within the month and I am excited, and I intend to not die on a ladder putting up Christmas lights, and will enjoy when everyone in the neighborhood puts up those creepy inflatable Santas and snowmen, because, you know, that's what Christmas is all about. Inflatable snow men over real snow men.

This is a link for something I find very cool:
http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/
and if you don't like it then too bad.

PS. I hope to give this to my Nephews for Christmas. Why? Cause it 1)Takes up a lot of room, a true sign of an awesome gift, 2)You can get INSIDE it, and 3)Because it is a Friggin SPACE SHIP. Seriously! It even comes with Water for while you are in SPACE! Woooo!

Halloween Shenanigans

Oh Halloween. The greatest holiday of the season, though I have to express my extreme disappointment that I didn't dress up this year. Well, I sort of dressed up ON Halloween. The wife and I got all gussied up for the trick-o-treaters, and I put out the decorations and we had the big basket of candy. We even Dressed up the DOG. Yes, the DOG had a costume. We spent a good 10 minutes before the fun started haggling with each other about how much candy to give each kid so that we wouldn't run out. Turns out the correct answer would have been HALF THE CANDY. That is right, we had TWO kids come to our door. FAIL FAIRFAX! FAIL!

What the crap, do kids not trick or treat anymore?! As I later found out, it appears that your modern texting-phone picture taking-video game playin-pop culture obsessed kids NOW trick or treat at.... are you ready for it? The MALL. They Trick Or Treat and the F-ING MALL! What, do they go door to door getting small articles of clothing, coupons, and possibly the odd but slightly relevant gift like Bananas from the Banana Republic?? What the CRAP. Yea, I know it is "Safer" and stuff, but Halloween is all about being scared shitless, even if it is by your creepy neighbors trying to give you suspect candy. That is why you have PARENTS who go through your candy to pull out all the razor-blades, nails and used condoms. The riveting door to door salesmanship of it is what makes trick or treating so exciting and dare devilish. I blame the parents, the lazy lazy parents who just want to go turn their kids loose in a MALL! and not have to worry about them.



I miss the good old days where kids would spend the day BEFORE Halloween trying to find the biggest portable container possible so that they could collect the crap out of candy. You'd see some kid towing a 32 gallon trashcan down the street door to door filling it with candy, and you'd think "why didn't I think of that, all I have is Pillow Case for a Body Pillow that i'm dragging around, and it doesn't even have convenient wheels like that kid's trashcan does". Yes, THAT is how it used to be, now kids are walking around a MALL, probably texting each other while service people at each store who don't want to be there drop a pre-requisite amount of mall stock candy into each glitter coated Hannah Montana Halloween Bag using some sort of candy distribution equivalent of a Wine Tasting spout. Sadness.

And people used to make their own costumes too. I wander through Party City and yea, all the adults can look like sluts, wooo yea and all that crap, BUT all the KIDS look like SLUTS TOO! Each and every dirty whore costume for the adults has an equally slutty and utterly baffling equivalent in the kids section. You want a scanky little miss Muffet or Strawberry Shortcake? How about an scandalously inappropriate Native American Indian? I know, lets go with the super low cut dress of a prison inmate! (You know, just like real prison!) Makes me understand why everyone goes to the mall cause all the Pedophiles out there would LOSE THEIR MIND. But it IS disturbing! Back in the day those costumes were just grouped under one category, prostitute. And kids weren't allowed to wear it. Oh modern society, you have taken Halloween, made it un-scary and full of fun for kids of all ages, and then you took away the fun, and made it scary again but in a very weird slutty way.

Anyway! I had a good/devastating Halloween. I went with some friends and the wife down to Williamsburg for Bush Garden's "Scare-o-Thon" or whatever it was called. Now let me describe a few things to you (also, this was why I didn't really dress up this Halloween cause I spent the entirety of it in an amusement park). Now the amusement park up till about 6:00 was your run of the mill place with people riding rides and crap like that. One hurdle with this is that it was raining a bit (nothing much, and basically ignored) but other hurdle was that they closed some of the rides cause it was "Too Cold". That's a thing?? They can be like "Sorry, it is too cold outside right now for this ride to run" which makes no sense cause I don't think science comes into play anywhere, the ride should still work. Maybe the person with the brake has slowed reactions and they worry about that? I dunno. So we rode the "Loch-Ness-Monster" ride about 8 times, and fun was had.

The other slightly odd thing was that we went to this one food hall for lunch and watched (now keep in mind this is an Amusement Park. For KIDS

and on a day for KIDS. And everyone in the lunch hall was a KID) and we watched a "Naughty Nurse Show". Now... read that again. We watched.... a Naughty Nurse... show. Now I don't know what medical degree these fine ladies have, but aside from the fact that I wish I had attended their Alma Mater this show was more akin to a Burlesque show than something appropriate for CHILDREN. About halfway through (why it took till halfway, especially with the title "Naughty Nurse Show" most of the parents had taken their kids away. And then after the show the nurses in classy nurse fashion, handed out syringes full of Jello Shots for about a million dollars a pop. The one amusing aspect of this was that my one friend kept trying to another friend to get a nurse to let him take a jello shot as a body shot, and the lack of feasible physics behind this and the ensuing discussion as to the legitimacy of this request was quite enlightening as to aspects and uses of anatomy that I had hitherto been unawares.

Anyway, so we leave there and start walking around. Now the park after 6 does 3 things. 1) It opens up a bunch of "Haunted Houses" which are essentially the back areas of the park re-done to be scary and shit. 2) Certain areas you have to walk through in the park to get from the "You are here sign" to the "You will be here" sign, got turned into "Horror Gauntlets" where they would pump out a shit ton of fog and make it upber scary. And 3) people in ridiculous costumes started jumping out at you EVERYWHERE. There were probably about 500 mannequins throughout the park and about a fifth of them were people just waiting for the right moment to grab you. One area we walked through had 5 guys in a staggered fashion jump out with Chainsaws and scare the shit out of this one guy whom they chased for a good 10 minutes. With CHAINSAWS. He screamed alot. And like I said before, there were ALOT of people with their INFANT CHILDREN AND TODDLERS. The logic behind this aspect alludes me.

But remember earlier when I said I had a good/devastating Halloween? This is where it got devastating. Situation: I was 1) Kind of Drunk, 2) Had eaten something sketchy earlier in the day (I think you all know where this is going) and 3) Was in a park where the only objective of everyone working in the park was to scare the SHIT out of me. Little did they realize how attainable a prize that was likely to be. It was taking ALL of my concentration, and it was NOT easy when we kept going into haunted houses and through Horror Gauntlets where little unsuspecting me would walk past a poorly constructed scare-crow only to find out that it was in fact, not a scare crow but a man with a chainsaw and a fecal wish. Or walking through haunted houses where you would be walking through dark rooms only to have people either A) Jump out at you (surprise) or B) tickle you with a feather on a stick (little weird there. Just a bit).

All in all it was a fun experience minus the obvious difficulties, but no impossibly embarrassing moments were encountered so that was okay then. Hooray Halloween. I will dress up better next year and watch what I eat.

Short but Sweet

So there I was walking into the coffee shop. It was crowded with about 10 men trying to not make eye contact and keep out of each others way in the tiny concession store when "Let's Go All The Way Tonight" comes onto the radio. Now I hate this song cause in addition to it sucking dick, it talks all about sucking dick, and appears to be geared towards high schoolers with lines like "We may be teens but put it in my poo-nan-er" (creative recreation). So it was feeling a little more awkward. But I manage to get my coffee and turn towards the condiments section with creamers and sugar. Now, for a bit of back story, I used to be a sugar toothed glutton and would put 2, yes TWO whole packets of Splenda in my coffee, but have since cut back to one. Cause, you know, I'm watching my weight with imaginary sugar. Any who, so I turn to get my sugar and creamer and stand there, slightly in awe, slightly in horror at the sight before my eyes. With the music pumping the lyrics "Lets go all the way tonight" this guy is putting Splenda packet after Spelnda packet into his coffee, opening each one and dumping it in time with the music. I sat there and counted in the vicinity of 15 packets of sweetener he placed in his coffee, at which point he shuffled a bit out of the way so I could jump in and grab a creamer. Then once I capped my coffee and turned around I spotted him a little way down the work area putting still MORE sweetener packets in his coffee, all the while the music is blaring in the uncomfortable background. I started to wonder if he has OCD or something. And all I could think was, "He is going all the way. Stay strong man, stay strong. Don't ever let anyone tell you that's too much Splenda for your coffee, cause they're just wrong." F-ing ridiculous. I have never actually thought the phrase "Would you like some coffee with your sugar" and meant it before, but that was just ridiculous. And so now I sit here enjoying my one Splenda packet and wondering if somewhere out there, that guy is having his well earned heart attack slash Diabetic Coma. Stay strong sir, stay strong.

Hurricanes, EarthQuakes and Bears Oh My!

Well I see that everyone survived the Earthquake/Hurricane nature combo without much ado. I love seeing people panic before a storm. As though buying bread and water will somehow save them. I just once want to see some guy who has stemmed the flow of flood waters into his home with a wall of bread loafs. To that I would say bravo. I like to confuse people when preparing for a storm. Go into the grocery store and buy all the items that just require you to "just add water". Actually that sounds rather logical, scratch that.

I was very excited about the hurricane though cause of all the hubbub. I was fully expecting some torrential downpour that I would have to essentially ride my dining room table to safety. But no such luck. My only real preparation for the storm was cleaning the gutters *hooray!*. But not really. Cleaning gutters sucks, there is a reason people pay other people to clean their gutters. But I got all snuggled up waiting for the storm, Meg asked me if I had brought the lawn furniture in to which I replied "Hell no." cause it is too stable, and frankly I didn't think we'd get much wind. So there I am all snuggled up, waiting for the storm. My goal was to make it to midnight. Nothing fancy, but I figured the fireworks would start by that point. But since NOTHING was happening I decided to go get a pizza which I promptly ate and fell asleep on top of.

So I wake up the next day and come downstairs like it's Christmas and I'm expecting presents (though I don't know why). But I get to the family room where I can look into the back yard or out to the road. Now remember that lawn furniture I didn't want to bother with?



The flipping Hurricane TIDIED IT UP!

So I'm sitting there laughing about this when I turn and see this out the other window.



That sissy rainstorm actually took down half my tree and dropped it square on the spot I park my jeep.
.... or WOULD have parked it. Remember how I went and got Pizza at midnight for shits and giggles? Papa Johns done saved my Jeep cause I parked it about 10 feet forward of where I usually do and it missed it by about a foot.
Swing and a miss nature, swing and a miss.



So needless to say I wasn't too impressed with the weather shenanigans overall, but I LOVED the idiotic way the media handles it. Aside from the picture of people who looked like they were lunging at the cameraman screaming during the earthquake (which I still don't understand how they got cause the Earthquake lasted all of 10 seconds. The person must have bolted for their camera apparently. I call shenanigans!) the best I saw was while I was watching the TV at the gym on mute some news lady, in a creepily dramatic way, pantomiming an earthquake using a Jenga Puzzle as her focus point. Now it might be me but here are some observations 1) Jenga puzzles, unlike buildings, are SUPPOSED to fall over. 2) The earthquake didn't start taking pieces out of buildings in a challenging way, and 3) You don't play Jenga by slapping it to knock it over, we call that cheating or just plain being a moron. I have to wonder what king of budget they gave her. Were they like "you can either have the Jenga Puzzle or the monopoly board" cause apparently all activities in our nations capital can be symbolized using board games.

Oh DC Weather how you do not impress me.

06/24/2011: Da Jeep

Man I wished I got paid for this blog cause people keep telling me to update it. To be fair I've been busy, I mean do you grasp how long it takes to make a perfectly person shaped dent in a couch? Or the sheer commitment required to see how many times a refrigerator door can be opened and closed in a day? And I do NOT need to tell you that the world will be a much better place when my extensive research on the effects of alcohol on video game playing capability is complete. But I digress, busy or not, here we go.

The last few months have been rather entertaining I must admit. Last I had blogged I believe I was slugging along for the most part, work, sleep, eat and so forth. Kind of a rut, which I feel has to one degree or another been broken by a rather unexpected event. My not-birthday. Now I say it like this for a reason which will be revealed in my riveting rendition of what occur ed and the back story required with it.

Well wife Meg had gotten a part time job working for a real estate agent so that she could be considered to be working "in Alexandria" for a scholarship application. I know, we're sneaky AND classy at the same time. Needless to say the informs me that she has to go in for a follow up interview for the job, and wants to take my car instead of hers cause she's gonna hit up a yard sale on the way. Me thinking nothing of it shrug it off and give her my keys. Now things started to raise a few flags when she gives me the old "Ugh, you're car is so dirty lets get it detailed. i don't wanna give a bad impression at this interview." Now this seems reasonably legit, though why everyone would leave the interview to oggle my car I have no idea, but hey, what do I know about selling real estate. So she leaves and I do my thing, and research partner Joe comes over to help me with my alcohol and video game research when Meg gets home. And she is all like "There is this crazy thing outside". So I'm like "Cool, what is it?". Meg: "I can't really explain it, you need to come outside." Me: "Um, how about you try to explain it cause I'm busy bettering the world right now." Meg: "No, seriously, I can't explain it, there are like no words. You will be impressed and agree." Me: "No, seriously I don't think I can stand up right now. I'm a six pack deep on research right now and even if it is impressive whatever it is I will probably see two" Meg: " Get up and come outside" Me: "Fine!" *Falls over*
Needless to say we make it outside and she wanders me and Joe over to the gym which is behind a big fence, where there is a big Yellow Jeep with a big red bow on it and balloons. She then starts blowing one of those noise maker things and saying happy birthday. It is about this time that I think my wife has fallen off the wagon cause A) My birthday is 6 months away, so she is either doing something really weird or really needs to start using a calendar, and B) where the hell is my car.
But as it turns out, woman done stole my car, sold it, and bought me a Jeep. Bravo Meg. (Side Story, Meg and I have something of an unofficial competition going on to see who can surprise the other the most for their birthday (side side note: I don't think she knows this, this is kind of what I think though)) so we have each done the surprise birthday party thing for each other but now she holds the title for not only getting me a car (everyone should get a car with a bow on it at some point) but also giving it to me 6 months away from my birthday. I think next year I'm gonna need to up my game and chloroform her so she wakes up in Spain. If we continue like this by her 33 birthday I'm gonna have drugged her for 9 months so she wakes up with a baby. We're classy people, what can I say.
But it is amazing getting this car, cause I'm the kind of person who was raised to never really get anything for themselves. The mentality I was given is "If you have a functional *insert thing here* (that's what she said) then you don't need a new one" Which is rather a terrible way to live one's life. I would NEVER have gotten this for myself. You should always factor that personal happiness has its own monetary value. In short, does saving the money not buying version 2.1 of whatever it is you only have version 1 of make up for the lack of happiness you feel? It also helps that a couple of our Friends work at the dealership so it worked out very well without breaking the bank.
So now I have a yellow jeep, and where before I would drive down the road and people would honk, and cut me off, and be generally insane and lower my sense of awesome, now I just smile, and stare up at the sky with the top down on the Jeep and wave at all the other jeeps I see. Note: I'm not weird and creepy, Jeep Wrangler people do this. It's sort of like a wave saying "Go you, you also got a Jeep. Have a great day!" Kind of a nice pick me up. Except about day 2 I had the jeep I passed a Jeep convention that was just letting our and waived at about 50 people. My arms were tired. ....(That's what she said). Man I overuse that ....(That's what... okay I'm done now.)

Funny Patents:
This one just looks a bit wrong:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=vJ_HAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

Cause sometimes you're in the shower and just need to blow your nose. This defies the laws of science!
http://www.google.com/patents?id=ri2DAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

This is the best one I have seen in a LOOOONG time. It is exactly what the title says it is, and look through the pictures to see it in action.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=v8OYAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

Back from outa town

Well I must admit I suck a little bit for not blogging on Sundays as was my intent, but in my defence I was out of the country where my only option for Internet cost about a trillion dollars! So, more on that later. But needless to say I am pleased that I kept up my aspect of firsts, though I have discovered interesting new things both about myself, those around me, and about the aspect of doing firsts as well.

I actually keep track of all these firsts on my phone, taking notes about my day in addition to the first accomplished that day. It is kind of interesting really cause I am actually keeping a sort of journal. And even more interesting than that is I don't really do much worth writing down. FAIL.

Onward:

Monday: Feb 28: I bought capri sun today. Now I have drunk capri sun before in their little packets, but I have never bought myself some. Kind of like a trip down memory lane. Interestingly too it says on the container that the picture is trademarked. Now co-worker Brett and I sat down and discussed this cause I do not believe you can trademark a crappy drawing on a capri sun container, only copyright it. But that is neither here nor there. That and it tasted a bit like crap when you got to the bottom of the container. Its like a half cup of liquid blue. I miss old school flavors that you could both understand and were Delicious. Like Apple. I Flipping miss Apple flavor. Or strawberry. Or if you want to really break the mold you could get Kiwi Apple. Big surprise what goes in there. The one I got was Blue Crush. What the hell is that?? I think it is what you get when you squeeze water. And for all those scientists out there the answer is Annoyed!

Tuesday: March 1: Went to dogfish head and had their aprihop beer. It was their release party for this beer so that was fun, but what was more interesting was that they had this thing where they would send your beer through like an old school tube distiller with the intent that it would be cooled by ice and mix with additional hoppy herbsy goodness. Quite nice. Definitely better than Blue Crush *YAK*

Wed: March 2: I actively planned part of an overseas vacation. Now this vacation has been in the planning for awhile, but, sad to say, I never helped. Kinda lazy. But I helped pick out the excursions which was interesting cause it made me realize how little I know about over there, and how little I know about setting up events out of country. I think in the back of my mind I always thought "I got this shit" with regards to submerging into a different culture, but the actual answer I was forced to realize was "I don't know shit". This turned out to be rather true when I got over there, though in my defence I think I handled myself rather well in the midst of travel confusion.

Thurs: March 3: Today I juggled my lunch. I had a bag of carrots and two pears and juggled them while I microwaved my meatballs. I lasted about a minute and a half and only dropped my pear on the floor once early on. I still ate it. Go me.

Fri: I flew on US Airways overseas today. I have one word for this experience. ..... Actually I tried to think of a word that meant seats built for small asians and food designed for bolemics, but I couldn't come up with one. I think the distance between my ass and my knee was greater than the distance between the seats. At one point my brother in front of me reclined his chair and I nearly passed out from it crushing my knee. Also lots of babies makin noise. But go me, I brought shotgun earmuffs. What did I learn? Babies, Louder than Shotguns. 9 hours, I think my legs might have atrophied.

Sat: I left on a Cruise. Never been on a Cruise. Very optimistic. Odd thing is though, it is an Italian Cruise, this means I am one of about 20 Americans on board. Fun Fun.

Sun: Today I visited a ghetto castle. Yes. A ghetto castle, not a castle IN the ghetto, though that is also true. It was like walking around DC and someone hauled off and spray painted the Washington Monument and everyone was like... meh. Was kinda cool though that you could touch everything. It was like, "Hey look at this crazy stuff, it is nearly a thousand years old! Wanna touch it?" Uh... YES! Flippin love touching oldy stuff. It was like, "Look at this, if you were royalty back then you would have been killed if you sat in this here chair. Wanna sit in it?" .... "Can I stand on it so I can reach other old stuff to touch?" "Absolutely!" Friggin love European museums.

Monday: Had an Italian conolly today. It was.... Awesome. There are few things I would accurately use the word awesome to describe, and this would be one of them. This conoly left me in literal awe. My taste buds refuse to taste anything after that. The world is now bland and everytihing tastes like bland sand, not even flavorful sand. So sad. Also today, while not a first... well actually it is, but I don't want to list it as a first, we went to one of the "boat shows" and it was.... unique. They proceeded to do musical performances of songs from movies, as though it were a musical number from a musical. With such rousing classics such as Top Gun, The Adams Family, Wild Wild West, and yes.... Ghost. Wow. And the Wild Wild West number featured 16 girls, half in gogo outfits, and the other half in...yes... Assless Chaps. There was ALOT of ass on the stage. And then, if that wasn't enough, they proceeded to, as my brother coined it, give each other "Air BJ's" It is about what you would imagine. There were only old people and children in the audience. I could not stop laughin and am now probably going to hell.

Tues.: Today, and I'm rather proud of this one, I rode on a boat .... on a lake.... UNDERGROUND. Now you know how you have those big underground lakes at like Luray Cavers and such? This one had that, and they had boats going along playing symphony music. Super neat. Minus the crying baby, BUT they then gave us all a free boat ride. Again this falls under the "Welcome to our country please touch EVERYTHING" policy of which I am so fond. The rest of this day had fun stuff too aside from underground boat extravaganza. During Dinner my bro had to run up to the room to get something and as soon as he left it was like the party bus arrived. For some reason everyone started twirling their napkins around and hooting and the lights began flashing and music began pumping and the waiters started dancing with all the ladies, and then they started line dancing. It would Flipping out of control. I nearly peed when my bro managed to get back to the table at the back of a conga line as though he had been swept up when he returned with a look that just said "What the hell is going on?!?" Those crazy Europeans. On a side note, as I am reading my notes while writing, Urinals there....very small. I cannot actually fit into the space between separators at any urinal in Europe. I would actually shuffle in sideways and either "shoot from the hip" or try to turn sharply and wedge myself into the stall and be damned the consequences. Europeans... very small.

Wed: Today we went to a Spanish Vineyard and drank Cava (essentially Champagne except not from France and not allowed to be called Champagne cause the French are very silly). Additionally went to this mountaintop monastery which was uber cool. Listened to the oldest boys choir that exists (not that they were old, it wasn't like a bunch of wierd old men, just the choir had been in existence for along time) Today (this is the first) I actually used a coin flip (which I actually honored) to make a decision. I've flipped coins to make decisions before but I always renig on them, this one I actually honored. It was to decide which path to explore around the monastery, was pretty cool. Took us up and around, lots of spectacular views. Good job coin. Other interesting things of the day: the cruise performance was a circus dude who juggled a lot, including juggling ping pong balls by spitting them consecutively in the air (wonder what HIS last job was) and he ended the show with a rousing shadow puppet show. Oh cruise performance! Another interesting this I noticed was this. The beggars over seas are actually quite humble. They only beg with very small dixy cups and are always prostrate with them. Over here when you see someone begging with a cup they are usually yelling at you, drinking a Starbucks and waving a big gulp cup at you like they expect you to donate your first born to their not so needy cause. Fail American beggars, you are too greedy.

Thurs: Had real pasta carbonara today. Always thought I had had it before, turns out I was wrong, cause Americans have too many food standards. Over here pasta carbonara means you slap a fried egg on some spaghetti. Over there it means you get a raw egg on super heated noodles and mix it in to cook the damn thing. Very cool VERY hot. Good.

Fri: Went to Monaco today. Very cool, a true cliffside city. Extremely picturesque, but a bit too rich for my blood. The grand prix is done there though. Something tells me you are doing something right it you can drive over a hundred miles an hour on the road everyone commutes on. Good engineering. The first for today was that I participated in a cruise wide evacuation. Drill actually. And let me tell you, they take that women and children first thing serious. If this ship goes down I am f-ed. That and I had a tall dude in front of me and the emergency instructions were given in Italian. Essentially I'm already dead in the water.

Sat: We went to the Colosseum today, well more like ran to the Colosseum in Italy. My brother and his Gf are to head out of the country the following day so they wanted to get in as much sightseeing as possible, so essentially that mean running. Today's first was I took the liner out of my coat. Nothing special, but I had never done that, and it makes me look swanky instead of a thug. Oooh, also ate whole artichokes, which are basically a big green flower. They are actually a Roman/Jewish speciality, and were very very good.

I will go ahead and post this list as a Blog and then put the rest of the Vacation on the next blog this coming Sunday. That way it breaks it up Nicely. All in all a fantastic cruise, though the food left a bit to be desired on the ship. It was fun, and ate a lot, but am probably going to regret some of the things I ate for awhile. The excursions were a hoot though for some reason the cruise kept canceling ours. I think it was because we were the minorities on the boat and they wanted to funnel all the americans into a single group every time, so we ended up being friends with people from Washington State. Best part though was we figured out how to jerry rig the separating walls between our balconies to open so we created a "super" balcony. Very good for drinking and yelling at seagulls. Win!

6550294 : Figure 1; Dunno, just makes me laugh.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=oOUMAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

That Was Interesting

Well the first week of my firsts is over. It went rather well. So, to recap, Monday I took my dog on a 5 mile walk around Burke Lake. She enjoyed it, I enjoyed it, much fun was had.

Now, onto the firsts of the week, but a I feel a bit of explanation is required. Now a few people I have told the idea of firsts to seem skeptical about my motivation, and additionally find it to be a bit overambitious to do one new thing every day. But I must explain it like this. It is a shotgun approach where you do so many new things that unexpected awesomeness occurs from some. Kinda like picking someone up at a bar. If you try hard enough you'll find someone skinny enough that your flabby arms can lift them up off the ground. Ba-zing! Any who, I think it will reveal a bit more as I write.

Monday: Dog Walk of awesome distance.

Tuesday: A peary awkward moment. (Get it, its a PUN)
On Tuesday I was sitting at work and was musing over what I should do as my "first" for the day. It might have been fate or just my bad luck that I had a pear in my hand while considering this. So, deciding that one idea is as good as the next (which it turns out was WRONG) I decided to give into spontaneous curiosity and see if I could fit a whole pear in my mouth. Not I have tried to fit my fist in my mouth but I have big hands to that has never really gotten past a general fist gumming, but I figured I have a big mouth so a pear should be within my realm of possibility. And that is when things went horribly wrong. The short story is, no, I cannot fit an entire pear in my mouth. The long story is more like this. I have to say I was very glad my office mate was out of the office so no one was around to see this (and on retrospect this also meant no one was there so save me). But needless to say when I tried to fit the pear in my mouth it was a tight fit and could not get past my teeth. But I figured I had nothing better to do (yes I was at work while doing this) and decided to wiggle it and try and force it in. What this in reality started to do, was cause my teeth to cut into the pear, essentially acting like a proverbial fish hook barb, so that when it came time to give in and concede that this was not going to work, I could then no retract the pear because my teeth were stuck. Well to wrap this up I spent altogether too much time unwedging my jaw from the pear and had a strained face for the rest of the day. But, well, I learned something new.

Wednesday: Now Wed. was Meg's birthday so I figured I'd take her out to a nice steak dinner. So while we are there perusing the menu I decide to order outside my normal ordering criteria. Now this will require a small bit of backstory. My friend Nick has talked to me about steaks and which cuts yield better taste etc, and what this boils down to is that a Ribeye has the most marbling in a steak selection and is thus one of the best cuts for flavor. So I order the ribeye thinking to be amazed and astounded by the fatless high grade cut of meat. This was a bit of yes and a bit of no. The steak I got ended up have a lot of fat on it, and so I start surgically separating out the meat and find my taste buds unassailed. So I think that the ribeye was a bust. But now, this is where the idea of firsts and their goal is more presented. As I eat the steak I start to realize that bits of the fat are on the pieces I eat and are contributing HUGELY to the flavor, so I toss out the surgical approach and essentially go to town and it turns out to be an astoundingly well flavored experience. So 1) I learned what marbling ACTUALLY means, and how it exists in steak, and how it will actually come across in flavor. And 2) It make me think back to how my dad used to make steaks when I was a kid and how he used to like the fatty steaks and give the lean ones to everyone else, which I always thought was him being generous or just not being picky, but now I wonder if he actually is something of a steak hobbiest and was enjoying those steaks on a different level than the rest of us. I'll need to call him and ask him, cause it now makes me wonder if there is a facet of my dad's personality that I had never been aware of before.
Shotgun approach, interesting results.

Thursday: I bought something from the Dollar Store
Now this may not seem like much but I had never actually bought something from the dollar store before. It was an interesting experience. First off calling it the dollar store is an F-ing LIE. There was not ONE THING in that store for a dollar. Most of it was like five or ten bucks, and not some sort of pack of ten crap, like a three dollar spatula. Same dollar store crap. Not a dollar. And people who shop there are kind of odd. One lady pulled out a SERIOUS roll of bills. At the DOLLAR store. I think that the dollar store is just some weird ironic hole in the universe. But I bought my stuff and left, only to find a guy outside asking for change. Now this I was impressed by, I mean people are shopping at the dollar store so they are likely to have cash on hand, being the dollar store. Good placement there poor guy, nice strategy, except for me cause I use credit at the dollar store mwahaha! Another interesting thing too, was that when I talked to Meg about it she went off on this interesting story about how her parents took her and her brother to the dollar store to teach them financing and fiscal responsibility. Like here is ten bucks, go nuts, and then the would learn money without a big budget hit like some college freshman who thinks a credit card is a ticket to everlasting happiness that doesn't have to be paid back. But I must say sending your kids into the dollar store to learn about money and finance seems a bit suspicious cause I feel like all they would come out of there with is a warped perspective of the cost of things and the knowledge that crap worth a dollar can be sold for more than a dollar because the people at the dollar store apparently can't COUNT. But this first taught me more about my wife. Shotgun and shit can fall like dominoes. This is actually the analogy I came up with when talking to a friend, doing a new thing every day is like taking a shotgun to a stack of dominoes: SOMETHING will happen, but you can't really be sure what.

Friday: This was another simple one. I got dunkin doghnuts coffee instead of Starbucks coffee as I usually do at the little sell everything store at work. Result: Ain't havin it. That coffee for some reason just wasn't good. Friend Brett keeps trying to get me to switch to black coffee (to go with my soul) but I'm not having it. I hate the way my mediocre coffee tastes now, I can't even imagine how it will fry my tastebuds black.

Sat: On Saturday I threw Meg a party. A Muppet Themed Party! If you are reading this and for some reason did not get the evite I apologize, I think the evite didn't make it to everyone and I'm not sure why, but you are invited retroactively. So if you manage to get ahold of a time machine I'll see you there yesterday. But it was super fun. The idea was that everyone would dress as different Muppet's to avoid doubles, and it was glorious. Most people tended to wear costumes they either made or bought but there were a couple zingers. My friends Brett and Joe went as the two old men from the Muppet's tonight show and the component of their costume that made if amazing was that they had a full balcony they toted around with them the entire night to stand behind. So good. We had Muppet's from all walks, we had a fraggle we had muppets from sesame street, we had muppets from the Muppet's tonight show and we even had one from the movie labyrinth. Bravo to everyone who dressed up. I must stay though I think Meg's costume was my favorite. She made an all out Animal Costume which was just spot on, huge and amazing. And was running around rather in character all night. One thing I found out today (and nearly peed when I did) was that one of Megs friends, (I tip my hat to you for showing up) apparently has a puppet phobia. That's right, scared of puppets and came to a muppet themed party. Welcome to Hell. But all in all it was a great party. We had a pinata where I made up the rules that you drew the item with which you were to strike the pinata with, out of a hat. So we had one guy strike the pinata with a sword, another a table leg, another used another PERSON'S leg, yet another used their FACE, and one had to use a straw. Like a drinking straw. Surprisingly he actually managed to knock a singly piece of candy out using the straw. Bravo! Cake was good, though I think I would recommend against using sparkler candles (candles that are like fourth of July sparklers) You can't blow them out and they burn for like 10 minutes if you can ever get them lit. Had to use like a blowtorch to get those suckers going. The one bit of craziness that occurred was the dog escaping....twice. So please envision four or five people, correction, four or five muppets, running through the neighborhood screaming. Puppet phobia, not all that uncommon.

Left to right: Sweetums; Sir Didymus (Labyrinth); Big Bird; Bert; Animal! ; Beaker; Ms Piggy; Waldorf-and-Statler (Old Men) ; Kermit; Janice; Red (Fraggle Rock); Dr. Teeth; Cookie Monster (Actually ate cookies through the whole party. Good Commitment to the part!)



Sunday: Today is another lame one, I've been working on installing my new laptop battery all day. Very much a lame first, but I have never had to do this before. I didn't know installing a BATTERY was such a pain in the ASS. You apparently need to let it charge all the way up, then run all the way down, then charge all the way up yada yada yada the aristocrats. But you get the idea, cause doing this four or five time "sinks" the laptop and the battery, whatever the crap that means. But I assume it is necessary because while I am doing this my laptop keeps freaking out, giving me a big angry face where my battery icon should be, and tends to shut down at awkward moments. Oh laptop, you crazy thing you.

Well it has been a full week, but I am intrigued to see what next week brings. I'm thinking of seeing if I can get the dog to go nuts tomorrow by staring at the closet door and growling at it in a menacing way. Woot!

Patent of the Week: Now I'm not really sure what this is supposed to accomplish but I'm fairly certain Figures 4, 9, and 12 just guaranteed me nightmares later.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=W5TVAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

Something New

Well this weekend was entertaining. Got to go up to a house near Deep Creek ski resort and hang out with the in laws doing hikes and snowshoeing for good times to be had. Interesting thing, the hiking path had been trod on so much that all the snow had turned to ice, making it the most DANGEROUS HIKE EVER. Now let me set the stage. So a bunch of fun go-getters are out for a hike, and they see the ground has all turned to ice. All of it. So half put on snow shoes because the steel grips will keep them on the ground, one even puts on a modified boot with spurs to keep his footing, but the rest, including the dogs, go balls to the wall. It was .... interesting. There were also many stairs to lead you down to the water. And by water I mean icy slope of DEATH. And by water I mean Watery Rapids of DEATH. Well, on the up side no one died, or ever, surprisingly, fell in the water. We slipped a few times and fell a few times. I think my personal low/awesome moment was when I tried to run up an icy slope to the top. I almost made it.... almost. I started to slide back downhill and sideways towards the rapids and had to rely on the benevolent rescue of my brother in law to pull me back from what would have loosely been described as, an embarrassing moment. Probably to some EMTs at a later time.
All in all fun though, and it did get me thinking. A thought that had occurred to me before again occurred to me that I don't do much with my time, and that makes me feel like I don't grow as a person. It is my belief that people grow as people when they have new experiences. Now these don't need to be drastic new experiences but can just be small ones, but I believe they should be sought out. I have tried to do this on my own in the past, to do things I have never done before. Mainly just because, but also because I feel like it in some way makes a difference. Some rousing "First Time Experiences" have been *Peeing on one foot (while standing on one foot, not ... the other way you could interpret that). *Peeing while drinking something (Yes several of these have occurred while in the bathroom. It is a very cognitive place.) Sleeping upside down in my bed (not like on my face, I don't roll that way (hyuck hyuck) but facing the opposite way (surprisingly restful), and various other "firsts". But needless to say I was thinking, as I do, that I would like to achieve a "first" every day, seek it out intentionally if necessary, and then every Sunday, blog about it. I figure it will be a good way if nothing else, for me to keep track of these "firsts".
Well, so let us see. Today's "first", I took my dog around Burke Lake. Now Burke Lake is a pretty kick ass lake that has a path running the full length around it at about 5 miles. So the girl and I took the puppy (Honey Bun) on a walk around the lake to get some outdoorsy activity in today. Now nothing too fancy happened, though I had worried the walk might be too much for the puppy. Other times we had taken her on long walks when she was much younger had yielded her giving up and laying down to be dragged on the ground (Meg doesn't turn around much when she is power walking) and on another occasion getting puppy blisters (Super cute, Super Sad). But nothing too much this time, though I did learn one interesting fact. Honey Bun (my dog) can scream like a murder victim and has wicked separation anxiety. We stopped to use the public restroom and when Meg wandered off she thought she was getting abandoned (apparently she forgot I was there, not very good peripheral vision my dog) and proceeded to squeal like a squealing thing of some sort. And when some other lady came out of the restroom before Meg the dogs eyes proceeded to follow this new person (thinking it was Meg because aside from Separation Anxiety she apparently has a terminally short memory) and once this new person began to walk away she began to go nuts again because she was being abandoned again! (Again no peripheral vision). Finally Meg came out and Honey Bun nearly pooed herself in happiness, or maybe just because she is a dog and that is what she does. But I must say my heart felt warmed when I went to the restroom and she proceeded to lose her shit when I was walking away. I thought it was just separation anxiety with Meg, but it is good to know that I fill a special (able to feed me when I'm hungry) hole in Honey Bun's heart.

Thankfully when we got home she passed the crap out from all the exertion. I wanted too also but Meg dragged me back out to be active some more. Personal fail, but I did get my new activity in for the day. So it was a success.

Patent 7861900 : It's for drinking soda....honest....just soda....
http://www.google.com/patents?id=3KTwAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false