Surfin USA

The last time I went surfing it was over 10 years and 100 lbs. ago. Needless to say I don't have the perfect surfer's body or the balance anymore to be a great surfer. So Tuesday morning I work up before dawn and drove to meet my oldest friend. I borrowed one of his surfboards and went to it. Surfing was exactly as I remembered it. Painful. Painful because I was never a good surfer to begin with, and to my complete and total shock I haven't gotten better in the ten years away from surfing. Ideally I would need a bigger surfboard, and the waves could have been bigger. I did manage to catch some waves and it was quite fun. I also managed to catch my forehead on the surfboard when I was going down and I skinned one of my knees on the sand. All in all it reaffirms my belief that the whole reason I was a bad surfer is that I didn't have long hair.

This afternoon Bambi's mom followed us around the golf course. I've never seen such a brave deer, especially considering all the loud golf swings, golf carts, and cursing that was making noise. But it was nice to have an animal companion follow us at her own pace. I wish her all the best.

Beach Bumming it:Day 3

Today was filled with excitement and adventure of the highest order. First up on my day was a sunrise bike ride. It was quite nice biking by the ocean, wind in my hair, taking some jumps off of sand dunes. Then I worked out for an hour or so. By the time I was done and showered it was 8 AM and it would still be two and a half hours that I had to kill till the lazy bums staying with me woke up. So I decided to read...and I continued to read all day. 8 hours of reading. I didn't get to go go to the beach because I'm all red. Also I got to hear some of the most ridiculously racist comments I've ever heard today, all by black analysts, all on ESPN. I've never gotten so angry watching television. I had to change the channel to children's cartoons several times.

Now I have set my mind to finishing the devil's jigsaw puzzle. An evil little Disney puzzle that I have set up on a table that is the same color of the background as the puzzle, and a lack of light. I'm going to need some rum, and some Sunny Delight. Wait, I have both. Ok Lucifer, it's time to take on the seven dwarfs.

Vacation Day 2

I'm shocked at how much Virgina Beach has changed and yet stayed the same since the last time I lived here. The Jungle themed miniature golf course on the corner of 22nd and Pacific is still there, but there are now different clubs and bars around it. Traffic is much much worse, and the number of surfer beach bums has declined, which is a shame.
Last night I went to one of these new bars to watch the UFC fight. It was nice except for the fact that they charged a $10 cover...and they served Yuengling in a plastic cup and charged me $7 for it...Speaking of which it was a tremendous night for fights, especially since I was trying to introduce someone to the sport. I must admit, I'm in love with Roger Huerta. Not only is he one of the best looking dudes around, but he's charming and a very good sport...also flexible. Randy Couture at 44 years of age is what I fail to even accomplish now. He's in unbelievable shape, he makes going bald look good, and he's beating up on dudes 30 pounds larger then him. Remarkable. When I'm that age I'll likely be rotting in the ground, Randy is fighting as a professional athlete.
Right now I am attempting to make shrimp stir fry. I've decided to temper my restless nature by eating well and exercising a bunch. Also we found out that my suntan lotion is not as water proof as I thought. Based on the color of my shoulders and Forrest's back...mmm lobster red.

Vacation!?!??

Ahh yes, finally I've decided to go on vacation for really the first time in about 6 years. The last time I went was the summer before my freshman year in college when I went up and spent time in Canada on a great lake for a family reunion. Needless to say after this first day I have no idea what to do with myself. Forrest and myself rented a beach house down in Virginia Beach. The house is far to large for us and although it is very nice it is also taking a large chunk out of my wallet because so many people backed out. So I have my pick of 4 bedrooms 3 with queen sized beds and a 4th with two sets of bunk beds. Naturally I chose to sleep in the bunkbed room and I got top bunk. When Forrest gets here he'll be sleeping underneath me, just like in college.
I started the day by waking up and diligently packing my bags at 5am. I had no idea what to pack to relax on my beach vacation so I packed two bags of stuff I won't wear/use and I'm sure I'll use one pair of shorts 2-3 shirts and my swim trunks. After packing and putting my bike on the back of my car I sped over to Forrest's house to pick up his little sister Cassidy, who will be joining us for part of the week. After retrieving her I set off at high speed for Sandbridge Virginia. I was afraid that I might be late for my relaxing weekend at the beach. Once we got here in record time, I diligently donned my bathing suit and set forth to the beach. First thing I noticed, was that I'm absolutely terrible at relaxing.
I had to go swimming, I couldn't sit still in my chair or on the blanket. I needed to read and constantly check the time because who knows what I'm missing while I'm relaxing at the beach! I should check my e-mail, jee maybe I should call someone. I'm sure it was driving Cassidy nuts. Time seemed to flow so slowly and just being at the beach was taking an eternity. I even went for a long swim to the pier and back and a lifeguard blew his whistle at me for getting too close to the pier. But I had the last laugh when I flicked him off under the water...yeah that will teach him to be concerned for my safety. I need to practice chilling out.
I had forgotten how wonderful the salt water treats your skin. A cut on my shoulder felt instantly better, and now has healed. The callouses on my hands that have been hurting lately from all the working out suddenly felt soothed. I reminded me of the time before senior year of highschool that I went to the beach a couple days after eating pavement face first when my bike's chain broke. I had road burn all over my face and hand and shoulder, it was really disgusting and unsightly. The salt water cleansed those wounds and made some of the coolest scars I have! And let's be fair, body surfing was hella fun. Also, a bunch of overweight people came to the beach at the same time (they all kicked sand on my blanket as they went by) for a baptism in the ocean.
I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do for this week. I may go surfing for the first time in almost 10 years. I plan to run on the beach in the morning and bike in the afternoon and maybe even play some golf. I would go sailing but I'm afraid my knowledge is less then adequate to rent a boat (since I'm obviously not smart enough to rent a boat much less make it use wind power). Either way I'm going to conquer this relaxing week with a strict workmanlike schedule and plenty of hard work and elbow grease.

Wonderbread and propane tanks

As I was helping some friends clean out their kitchen the other day, we stumbled upon a 3/4 loaf of Wonderbread (tm). Unsure as to whether the bread was bad or not my friend John looked at the package and it had a warning, "Best if used by date printed on bag." Naturally he spent 20 seconds looking over the bag of bread for the date. Andy and I, wondering what the hell he was doing walked over from loading the dishwasher and began to assist looking for the date on the bag. This was 3 college educated young men with decent jobs looking for this printed date, refusing to just open the bag and take out a piece of bread. We spent about 5 minutes looking for the date, after which we resigned to the fact that there was no printed date on the bag of bread and we just threw it out. Obviously the bag was indicating one of three things; the bag was not stamped with a date, the bag was stamped with the date and it meant to tell us that this loaf of bread would be good till the end of time, or we were just so dumb that we managed to not see the date with three people looking at it. I personally like the infinity bread theory.

This lead to think about some things about my life. I don't keep much perishable food besides fresh fruit and vegetables. I have no bread in my house because I don't consume bread fast enough to warrant having it, same thing with milk. Faced with needing a glass of milk I am far more likely to steal it from a roommate then going to the store to buy a 1/2 gallon of milk. Even if I went to the store, I wouldn't purchase a 1/2 gallon, I would purchase a full gallon of milk figuring I would use it later and then 75% of it would go bad. This lead me to wish that I could purchase a 1/4 loaf of bread. Maybe such a commodity is out there, I haven't really looked. I know that I consume bread at a very slow rate and that buying a full loaf of bread is likely to result in most of it going to waste. Here's the problem, I can buy milk in smaller quantities and yet I never do, instead if I buy milk I let the majority of a gallon go to waste. So if I was given the option to buy a smaller quantity of bread, would I do the same thing...

Which brings me to my next point (wonderful transition). I was sitting outside a 7-11 waiting for some people the other day when I noticed a large sign on the front of the store. It read in big red letters, "No Propane Tanks Allowed in the Store!" The 7-11 didn't sell propane tanks, there was not a propane storage place within eyesight of the 7-11, and yet here was this very prominent sign forbidding the entrance of propane tanks. I would have thought that it went without saying that you shouldn't just bring a propane tank into a store with you, apparently that is not the case. One has to wonder exactly what kind of incident occurred, where the manager felt the need to insist that people keep their propane outside. Is the manager racist against propane users? Preferring the comfort of charcoal? Was the manager bitten by a propane tank as a young child? Or is there something far more tragic and sinister regarding 7-11 and it's relationship to propane tanks?

It makes me wish I owned my own store, so that I could post signs that forbid unlikely things. "No paperclips shall be worn above the shoulders." "Raccoons must be kept on a barbed leash at all times." "All red bricks must show valid I.D. before purchasing baked goods." I would keep putting up new signs just to keep people guessing. Either that or I could be like that guy in prison who files frivilous law suits...

My observations on nuns

I walked into a restaurant the other day with a friend for lunch and was being seated by the hostess when I spotted an elderly woman in a nun's habit at a table. In my mind all I could think was, "Please don't seat us next to the nun, not next to the nun, please please please..." Naturally we were seated directly adjacent to the nun's table. This forced me to have to moderate some of my normal lunchtime language that doesn't usually sit well with nun's, as apparently taking the lord's name in vain is a sin or something like that. In my experience nuns don't have any problem sticking their nose in other people's conversations, and I didn't need to be lectured by some penguin about what I was saying. So better to just tailor my diction in a way that was not so offensive to the ear.

This nun, like many others that I have come into contact was wearing a wedding ring (which is as good an indication as any that the Christian god supports polygamy by the way, I mean think how many brides he has! This is not an indictment of Christian principles by the way...) and sitting with perfect table manners as befitted a person of her reverence. She was sipping an ice tea and reading a book that upon first glance looked like science fiction. Upon closer inspection, she was reading a book that had what appeared to be burning crosses on the front and was named something like, "Understanding the Evil" or "The path of Darkness" or "Darkness and you: the path of evil!" Needless to say it was refreshing to see a nun reading something that appeared to appeal to her secular side.

The whole incident made me recall some of my fond memories and dealings with nuns as well as some of the generalities that a nun exhibits. I will list some of those generalities now:
1) The oftentimes wear wedding rings.

2) They collect things, usually things of little or no monetary value. And they are pack rats. I have found this to be universally true. I once knew a nun who collected all manner of poems, oftentimes recorded on small sheets of paper. The accumulation of which filled her entire nun dorm room, both in boxes and sprawled out about the floor. This made moving her stuff to the new nunnery very tedious and difficult, which brings me to my next point...

3) Donning an habit apparently makes you unable to pack your own things. I know this because I've had to move 4-5 nuns in my time. All of which failed to pack their things even though they knew weeks ahead of time that they were moving.

2a) One of the things that all nuns seem to collect are crosses. If you are ever invited into the dwelling of a nun you will most likely be asked to peruse her cross collection. You will hear some things you may have heard from collectors before, "I got this one from the head missionary in some impoverished nation in Africa!" or "This is from the '94 Franciscan line, a bit too posh for my tastes but I just had to have it. I can't wait for the new Dominican line, it's being shown in Paris next week!" If you are polite you will feign interest, in fact if you know you are going to visit a nun, you may wish to prepare some questions ahead of time to ask her about her crosses. This will gain you extra nun points, which are redeemable for absolutely nothing.

4) The older a nun is the more hilarious she is. If you've ever paid to see a good stand-up comedian, I'm telling you that you could have saved yourself some money and just made friends with an aging nun. Every joke that was ever written/told that starts with, "A priest, a rabbi, and [insert stereotype here] walk into a bar..." was written by a nun of over 75 years of age. They also wrote like 90% of the all time hit comedies.

5) The difference between a house of nuns, and a sorority house is negligible. Do you like cliques? Nuns have them. Like catty fights between women that live under the same roof? Check. Frivolous projects that involve poster board and 2nd grade arts and crafts skills? Check. Fighting and resentment over who has better stuff (read: shoes or crosses or whatever? Check. The only difference that I can tell is that nuns probably talk about fornication less, although not much. And they probably participate in late night rendezvous with gentlemen callers less, although from what I've heard not much.

6) All of them know how to make you feel guilty without trying. A handy skill when you need something done.

7) All nuns possess supernatural nun strength. When it comes to lifting objects they will pretend that they are too frail to do anything. If you say something you shouldn't around a nun, watch out because she's probably going to suplex you. Then take your lunch money...

So there I was...

Apparently I lack outlets for my creative energy, at least that's what one of my misogynist racquetball fellows says. I'm not sure his opinion was the turning point in deciding to write publically again, but it is also not the first time I've heard it. Thus I decided to start a blog that nobody will read, as opposed to a book nobody will read...or a book review that nobody will read...or a college football column that nobody will read. My plan is to maintain a healthy level of self deprecation, incorrect use of big words (oh no! I forgot to study for my S.A.T's eight years ago!), and nonsense. Nothing like a healthy dose of nonsense.

Speaking of nonsense. I had a dream last night that reminded me of "Top Secret!", a movie with Val Kilmer which is highly underappreciated. Anyway in that movie there is a torture scene in which the person being tortured passes out. While passed out he has a dream that he had just missed/was late to an exam at college. Every college students worse dream (although I think a dream where you get assaulted by Raccoons bent on taking your neckties is worse but hey)! He wakes up in the torture room and breathes a sigh of relief, "Phew, I thought I was really in trouble for a second" Anyway, I had a dream like that last night, not that specific dream, just very similar in message. Situational comedy if you will. I'm not going to expound on what the dream was about.

Wow...my first post and somehow I managed to work in an irrelevant movie from 1984 that barely anyone my age has seen. Great work there Jenkins.