not playing nice

I keep up with the news in the towns we've moved away from. I guess I'm a busybody. Anyway, yesterday I read a story about how someone was robbed at gunpoint in the evening at a park that Sarah and I regularly took walks through in the evening. Comforting, I know. The victim, fortunately, was able to trick the bad guys into thinking he was an undercover cop, and they ran away. Ypsilanti is not known for a well-educated populace. Today I read a more tragic story about a 20-year-old kid that was shot at the local K-Mart just a few miles down the street.

I'm glad we live in a quiet neighborhood now.

the week in review

I'm always amazed when my air travel doesn't end in a fiery crash. So much so, in fact, that I regularly have bad dreams in which I'm on a plane that ends up crash landing somewhere. Sometimes I make it; sometimes I go straight to Hell. (That was an actual dream: my plane crashes; everything gets really dark; I'm under the assumption that I'm in Hell; I wake up moaning). Dreams are great.

Speaking of great things: we had a great time at Sarah's reunion. The hotel was really nice; the city was fun; and all of Sarah's classmates and their spouses were great company. It's too bad we don't live close to any of them. Actually, it's too bad we don't live close to anyone we are close with. I guess that's what we get for moving to a place where there are millions of people but no friends or relatives. Oops.

overexertion

When I was in 8th grade, we occasionally had basketball practice on Saturdays to compliment our normal weekday workouts. Just as now, I loved basketball back then, but there were two main problems with Saturday practice: 1) I was fat and hated to run the typical end-of-practice wind-sprints, and 2) I was lazy and hated to get up early, especially on my only real day of the week to sleep in. Saturday practices were the worst.

My usual routine was to roll out of bed as late as possible. I didn't eat. I didn't shower. I didn't comb my hair. Sometimes I'm not sure if I even put on pants. Now that I think about it, things haven't changed much. Except that now I always eat breakfast.

We went through our typical practice, and I went through my typical routine of trying to get my abnormally large body ("Look at that giant tween!!") to do something that might impress my coach (it didn't). I remember getting yelled at a lot, probably because I 'wasn't trying.' It's hard to move as fast as the other kids when you're fatter than they are. I mean, I could do it for a while, but I could only sustain that kind of pace for so long before I needed some sort of ice cream sandwich or frozen lemonade. Anyway, we got to the sprints at the end, and I ran as fast as could muster. As usual. I took last. As usual. We circled around the coach as he gave us some directions about something I didn't hear: because suddenly, my head was swimming. Fortunately, I was in the back of the circle, so when I turned around and barfed stomach bile all over the place, it didn't cause as huge a stir as it would have if I'd 'accidentally' ralphed all over my coach and teammates.

I was pretty happy when Coach wordlessly went to get sawdust and a mop to clean up the mess. I thought for sure he was going to yell at me some more. He instead waited until the next practice, by which time he'd thought of some snappy repartee with which he could publicly ridicule me in front of the rest of the team. After all, it was my fault because I was 'obviously didn't try hard enough at practice' and was in such 'terrible shape' as a result. Gee, sorry coach Gleason. I thought I threw up because (a) I'm in 8th grade and don't fully understand nutrition, and (b) I was trying SO HARD THAT I MADE MYSELF THROW UP. Oh by the way, how did you get your (literally) 450-pound body into those tiny pants?

Kids I didn't even know teased me at school for weeks. Long story short: now I eat breakfast every day.

Which brings me to the point: today the heat index is 105 degrees. I took Barney, as I usually do, for a run during the hottest part of the day. Before the run, I took him outside to run around and play fetch. He was pretty hot and tired when we got home, and for a while, he just stood over his water dish huffing and puffing like the little engine that couldn't cool down. After a few minutes, he went to stand on the couch for a while. I looked over a little later to see him barfing bile all over it. Perfect. Nice job coach.

While Sarah and I were cleaning it up, I was keeping an eye on him to make sure he was okay, and he got a funny look on his face. He looked pained and uncomfortable. And I'm not talking physically. I mean emotionally. It was like he was about to commit a morally despicable act but couldn't stop himself. I asked him if he wanted to go outside, and he practically ran me over on his way to the door. Once out there, he looked around for a good spot for about 3 seconds and then barfed again. This time the sponge pieces actually came out, so I think he should be fine.

Moral: eat breakfast, not sponges.

talking Carl

The "talking Carl" IPhone app repeats everything you say in a higher pitch. This video pits two Carls against each other.

what the frick

For the last few years, Sarah and I have adhered to a pretty stable sleeping schedule. We get up at the same time every day, and we go to bed at the same time every day. Precisely the same time. At first it was annoying. Now we really would never go back to the old way of doing things. Not long after we adopted the "schedule method", as I'm now calling it, we started having less trouble falling asleep, sleeping better at night, and feeling pretty well rested during the day.

Tonight I fell asleep in about 15 minutes. I was just starting to have a weird dream about something I can't really recall when we were awoken by a loud and aggressive banging on our bedroom window. Well, Sarah awoke to banging. I awoke to banging and Sarah hyperventilating while trying to wake up and scream about intruders at the same time.

I jumped out of bed and started swinging my arms wildly at shadows and kicking Barney awake and turning on all the lights in and outside house and assuring Sarah that it was nothing. Then I realized that it was just a local feral cat trying to get into our room from the outside. You know, incidentally, that you have a reputation for being nice people when the neighborhood pets resort to risking B & E charges just so they can live with you. Barney still hadn't woken up, and despite her screaming, I'm not entirely convinced Sarah had either, so I shut the lights off and tried to go back to sleep. I was, unfortunately, pretty amped up by that time, and also rested from my 'nap,' so a return to slumber was out of the question.

So I went out to the living room and ate some Cheetos and the rest of the 2 lbs of cherries we'd gotten earlier in the day. Long story short, I have stomach cramps, and it's 2:31 AM. I don't think there's a great chance that I'm going to feel rested when I wake up in a few hours. Then again, it's almost guaranteed that I'll sleep well tomorrow. How could I not? I'll be super tired, and my belly will super full from all the cat stew I'll have eaten.

think about the possibilities

Two things of note happened today. First, the federal government finally deposited our tax refund and housing credit into our bank account. And it was only 5 months after I filed our taxes--good work people! Group hug!! Second, I paid off yet another student loan, which brings the grand total of education-related expenses for my and Sarah's educations to... drumroll please... approximately the cost of a lower-end luxury car! Just think, if we would have gone through 1-year technical training programs, we could be commuting to work together in a BRAND NEW (used) Acura (or similar). Oh well. Next time we'll know.

In all seriousness, I'm hoping that this will be the last one, and I'm glad to have paid them all off. On a side note, if anyone happens to have $86,000 lying around, I'd love to pay off the remaining balance on our mortgage. Or maybe buy a Land Rover.

thought of the day

A true partypooper would probably end a party almost immediately.

we're baaaaack

Over Utah

Dim Sum or Dim Yum? Oh no I didn't. Oh yes I did.

Just how cold is the water?

As it turns out, it wasn't the cold we should have been worried about.

Accidental yoga. About 1 second after this picture, I learned my feet could touch my head.

And all it took was a monster sand burn and a 10 foot wave.

It's safer over here at Little Corona.

Or is it? Too many creepers here.

Walt 0, me 1

Thinking about Walt

LA from Griffith Park

I like milkshakes. They smell nice.

300 feet above Orange County