Here's Looking Like You, Kid

Today on the way to work I caught part of a radio bit while changing CDs. That is interesting since I almost NEVER listen to the radio and when I do, I am one of those who just bounces around for music, any music, rather than listening to the DJs talk. Well like I said, I heard part of a piece today about a webpage and I decided to check it out since it sounded mildly amusing. It is basically a site where you upload a photo and it uses facial recognition software to see what celebrities you most look like. I have been told a number of times over the years that I look like Steve Martin. So, maybe it is time to put that to the test. Of course, that would imply I had a picture of myself to use so instead I decided to use the one I have on my Facebook and MySpace profiles as a test.

Here are the results:



I am not sure what this says about Jodie Foster and (the lovely) Keira Knightley...

OK, FINE!!! I will do one. Stop hassling me!!!

I used an eight or nine year old picture (it was all I could find quickly) but no Steve Martin:



Of course, as a final test, I actually used a picture of Steve Martin, just to see what would happen:



Well, at least he 76% resembles himself, so that is probably a good thing. Maybe I will retry myself with a more recent photo in a future post, and one without a phone as I have a feeling that does NOT help the facial recognition to have a weird growth on the side of my cheek...

Asclepieion

While talking with Loretta recently, the topic of dreams came up. Some of the conversation led to what do you dream about? Does it make sense? How often do you dream? Do you remember them? What do they mean? Do you dream in first or third person? Well, all that is far outside the scope of anything I care to write about or more importantly, more than I can be bothered to research since it is pseudo-science anyway (though any readers who have some knowledge in this area, feel free to fill us all in). The summary that came out of the conversation is that I almost never dream and when I do I apparently don't remember them. However, I did learn/realize/recall/whatever by talking about them that I seem to have a few recurring themes that have popped up in quite a few over the years, though most did not occur to me until I was consciously trying to remember what I had dreamt:

I almost always dream in third person, meaning I am an observer even when it is "me" so I watch the action sort of like a tv show where I am a character. However, as I have gotten older I do recall a few instances where I was experiencing the situations by dreaming in first person.

I quite often dream parts of conversations that later happen. I don't usually realize it while it is happening but then I hear "the phrase" or whatever and it all comes rushing back to my mind. It is usually something overheard between two other people, not something involving me. Sometimes the gap between dreaming and experiencing is years.

There is a certain white house on a small hill at an intersection that I am often near or outside but don't ever recall having been inside. There is nothing particularly special or interesting about the house, just something I have dreamt about a number of times. To my knowledge, I have never seen this "real" house.

I run very slowly, to the point of running a race and always being passed by a senior citizen or some other non-runner and simply being unable to keep up with them.

I can levitate. ie, not fly, just float a foot or so off the surface.

However, I do have rather vivid flashes of memory from two dreams I had a very long time ago. My best guess is age 4 and age 6. What I mean is that I may not have tons of detail or remember a lot of specifics but there are some very prominent things I remember even to this day. They were not nightmare causing or life changing or anything, they just stuck in my head very well. After reading them, you may think I am more bizarre than you originally thought.

=====The Cow=====

The first dream I ever remember having was actually a very short dream from what I can recall; it only seems a minute or two in length even now. Initially, my perspective was from approximately south-southwest and elevated. I was looking down into a barnyard with dairy cows eating hay. There were a few normal looking cows except one of them happened to be a giant Holstein. When I say giant I don't mean big, I mean GIANT, like 3 stories tall. Here are a couple of pictures I found that might portray what I mean for size and relationship to humans:



The giant cow was aligned so it pointed west and was actually surrounded by barns on all four sides so could not ever go anywhere else. I guess you can blame the poor imagination of a kid but the giant cow was actually stuck in this barnyard where it would barely have room to lay down... Anyway, sitting at the west end of the barnyard and watching the cows were a few farmers. They were your stereotypical old men with coveralls chewing on pieces of straw. Now enter the kid, that would be me (well, I have to assume it was me at least). I wanted to cross the barnyard from north to south. The old men told me to be careful and to go around but I thought that would take too long so instead crossed the middle of the yard. With such a large cow there was a lot of very thick hay and I was having trouble plodding through it. The next thing I know, I was taken up along with a mouthful of hay by the giant cow.

Now my perspective is inside the cow's stomach (nevermind the fact they have four, I did not know that at the time obviously) again from the south-southwest. Inside the stomach were a few "baby" (ie, regular sized) Holsteins eating hay, one of which was me. I guess as part of being eaten, I also changed species?!? Sitting watch on a wooden bench at the north side of the chamber were a black pig, and sheep and a chicken.

That is all I remember...

=====Statler & Waldorf=====

The second dream I can remember seems longer and more involved but again not really anything complicated. I had more freedom in this one in that my perspective would change and I would zoom in/out. Essentially, it was like I was flying overhead watching myself and would move around from time to time.

Imagine a jungle setting with what would be best described as a neverending slow train ride at an amusement park where the cars have the design of two person roller coaster cars. By neverending I mean it had no beginning and end, it was just a big long train of cars running in a continual loop with no gaps of any sort. Each of the cars had two seats side by side and in every car were two people wearing all white, almost like labcoats. As the train wound through the jungle it eventually passed two giant, living heads shaped like Statler and Waldorf, those two old guys from the balcony on the Muppets (whose names I did not know until recently).

As with the cow dream, these were giant heads as in something tall like this:



















But more on the scale of this to get the proper proportions for the facial features :















Well, as the cars would pass, some sort of automatic arm/hand would pluck someone out of one of the cars and toss them into one of the two giant mouths. The Muppets had blood dripping from their mouths and those pretty white outfits the people were wearing kept getting stained as the cars went under the faces. But in spite of watching the person next to them being taken up and eaten, everyone seemed oblivious. After someone was removed from the train, it continued on (it never stopped for the plucking) and a new person was dropped into the empty seat, almost like an assembly line.

Apparently, I was the only person who realized what was going on so after my first trip by the "feeding contraption", I got up and started climbing backwards over cars and people to try and avoid going by the Muppets again. Once the heads realized I was "aware", they were trying to catch me, though since they could not move all they could do was watch me and wait until I came by them again. The problem was that the train, while slow, still moved faster than I could so I kept losing ground to the point where I would eventually turn and scramble forward to pass them as quickly as possible while dodging the arm thing. I remember making this circuit with the "scary crossing" a couple of times though never quite being captured. The entire time I was trying to convince others to wake up from their zombie-like state and flee. Alas, no one ever did. And no, I can't explain why I simply did not get off the train...



You will never look at them the same now, will you?

So what have we learned from these? Well, I guess simply that giant things like to try and eat me. Hmm... maybe these two memories explain why I don't remember dreams now?...

For more on the title, go here.

Here Fishie Fishie Fishie

Over the years I have set up and torn down numerous aquariums by scavenging stuff my dad's old 10 gallon one and buying whatever else I wanted to add. I don't claim to be good at it but I do find the fish relaxing and pretty to look at. I have a (not well used) season pass to the Georgia Aquarium and a (not used in a long time) PADI dive certification which I also like to use to look at fish. When in my preteen/teen years is when the aquarium fascination started and I still remember the morning ritual of racing the cat. At the time my tanks tended to consist of a couple plastic plants, fake wood and swordtails, black mollies, guppies and neon tetras. Well for whatever reason, swordtails seem to like to jump out. Many mornings I would hear the plastic "thump" where the fish had literally jumped up, lifted the lid on the way out and fell to the floor. That sound would cause both myself and the cat to make a beeline for the end of the hallway where the tank was located. Amazingly, I would usually win that race, scoop him up and drop him back into the tank. After so many years my memory is spotty on this but I think this was fairly common. I still have no idea WHY the stupid fish kept jumping out but it did. When in college I had a tank that I would drain almost dry and carry back and forth in the car at the end of the year. I am sure fish like roadtrips... Once I moved to Georgia, it was a number of years before I decided to set one up again but I decided to branch out. I decided I wanted to use live plants, which was a first, and go for a more natural setup with more background and fewer fish. That happened in fits and spurts since the plants simply did not survive in my tank due to my lack of maintenance and/or the poor quality of the light. I tried adding plant food and a "plant light" but never had a lot of luck and would end up pulling all the plants out every few months and replacing them. After growing tired of this routine, last fall I decided to upgrade my aquarium.

OK, to be honest, what I REALLY decided was that I wanted to install a reef tank, but after researching costs I decided to upgrade the planted aquarium instead while still buying things I could use later if I changed it over, such as high quality lighting and powerheads.

So last fall, I started working on it. I roughly followed a general guide I found online after getting a new bigger tank, light and filter as well as substrate, driftwood and plants. I think things turned out pretty good and here is the finished product.





Well, fast forward about 7-8 months. The freaking tank is a disaster. The algae is winning (sorry, no pictures before I actually started trying to clean it up). It is coating everything. It looks kinda cool actually with the plush green carpet but it is really a nasty film that I simply cannot stop. I cleaned it out and it grew back. I changed the light timers to give less light and it grew back. I changed the light timers to give more light and it grew back. I dramatically cut off all parts of the plants that had algae and it grew back. I removed all the plants and it grew back. I removed EVERYTHING but the fish and it grew back. I added algae killing chemicals and it grew back. I purchased a UV Sterilizer and it grew back. I removed the fish (don't worry, they are still living in a crappy temporary tank next to the tv) emptied the tank entirely scrubbed the driftwood and rebuilt it from scratch and it grew back. Essentially, no matter what I do it will slowly grow back over a couple weeks or less.

::sigh:: Well I have to assume that the only thing left to "eliminate" is sunlight. That confuses me since the old tank was in the same place for close to two years and never had this problem. Plus the new one made it a while (though it was fall/winter/spring) before this started happening in it. The problem I have is complicated.

The aquarium is in the basement so it gets limited light anyway however...

1. ...there are a lot of windows so it really COULD be getting too much light, especially in the morning hours when the sun is at the best angle to cause problems...
   
2. ...so I need to find someplace out of the light to put it that is...
   
3. ...out of reach of the cats and...
   
4. ...not able to be knocked over by the dogs on those rare occasions when they sneak down the stairs...
   
5. ...plus is not in my way and...
   
6. ...is near some power outlets.
   

Wish me luck. Step one is find a location and come up with a table/stand/etc to put it on. Maybe I should throw the old fake plants into the temporary tank since the fish may still be there for a while longer...

Anyone Home?

Hi, remember me? I am the guy who will sometimes be inspired to write something here. Well, recently I have not been inspired well enough. It is not that I did not have possible topics, just that I was doing other stuff so never bothered to write. One thing I have which might help is a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking that we were testing out at work. I am thinking that maybe if I can just talk to myself, which I have been known to do a lot anyway, I may blog more. The simple problem is that topics tend to hit me at random times, not necessarily when I am at the computer, and that makes it harder to actually run with the train of thought when it happens. I guess I need to finish configuring that software one of these days and start carrying my PDA which has a voice recorder... I suppose I could still record and transcribe stuff and have to take extra time cleaning/editing is all.

Another thing that has hurt is that since my last post about 6 weeks ago, I have been on short or long trips most every weekend which means that I could not write on the weekends and that I did not during the week since I was preparing for the trips (most trips involve letterboxing so require lots of prep work to get organized). After seeing Damien Rice in Nashville, I spent a long Saturday (and well into the night)at a couple of events south of ATL, made a long weekend driving trip to Ohio, a second long Saturday/night at a different event/location south of ATL, and just got back from a weekend in Charleston, SC. Now, I finally think I can stop and breathe and do some writing too hopefully. That or I will be distracted by other important things like pulling weeds and such...

DR Nash

One night in the summer of 2003 I was watching David Letterman (actually it was Tom Green, he was guest host when Dave was off having one of his heart surgeries or something) and the musical guest came out. I wasn't really paying close attention at first but about halfway through the song was watching and listening intently. I remember that it was a scruffy guy singing and playing a guitar, a girl with a haunting voice singing with him, another girl playing the cello (I LOVE classical strings in pop-ish songs), as well as a bass player and drummer, who, as expected, did not really stand out until right at the end when the guy, girl and drummer were all singing at the same time. The song was enchanting and definitely piqued my curiosity.

And then, in a very un-Letterman like move, Tom Green had him play AGAIN. The second song was just him, his guitar, and his voice. Wow. I was hooked. [For those who are curious or if the links ever get deleted, the first song was 'Volcano' and the second 'Cannonball'] I spent the rest of the evening researching who he was and downloading everything of his I could get my hands on. Welcome to my addiction: Damien Rice. As luck would have it, he was coming to Atlanta a couple of months after that and I immediately bought tickets and his CD. By the time of the show, I talked my friend Erica into going with me (I had bought two tickets). All I can say is that I came out of there feeling like I had been through a religious experience; the entire show just wowed me. I was hooked before, now I was, well, whatever the next step is after that, obsessed maybe?

Since that time, I still buy every CD I can get my hands on plus keep a close eye on his tour schedule to see when he will be returning to Atlanta. He did not return for a while unfortunately. He did a lot of touring, he just never made it back to Atlanta until spring 2007. And of course, as soon as I knew that I told Erica and we went again and had an amazing time. He was just finishing up an American tour and was going back to Europe for most of the summer but a short time after the show some fall US tour dates were released. I mentioned it to Erica in passing one day and she said "is he coming to Atlanta and if not, how close?" Well, let's just say Nashville, here we come...

Before going any further, I just have to mention that we (unbeknownst) followed Vyvienne, the cellist, down the alleyway beside the theatre as she was going back to the bus from somewhere. It kinda clicked who she was when she actually typed the code to get onto the bus but still not completely. However, we did get the keycode from watching her. LOL

I am going to save time and not bore the non-fans (though you will be soon I am sure)with things like set lists and such but I will say we had really good seats such as I could literally put my drink on the stage, if they would have let me. It was another great show and actually better than the one in Atlanta we had seen a few months earlier. At that one there had been some recent band shakeups/trauma so it seemed like the overall mood was just pissy but at the Nashville show it was much more upbeat. Interested in more? Check here, here and here for starters and let me know what you think. I can't wait for him to come back and may have to plan more road trips for the next time, though my real goal is to see him in Europe where his shows sell out months in advance.

Free Advertising? I don't think so

Why is it that companies think people WANT items covered with product names?

For instance, every vehicle on the road has an emblem on front and the back plus most also have a manufacturer name and model as well. Why do they do it? Do they think I care that this generic looking car is a Chevrolet Malibu while that generic looking car is a Ford Fusion and seeing the name will somehow inspire me to go buy one or the other? The way I see it, people who really do care about things like that don't need the additional information. And don't forget the inside where you will find the company logo on the dashboard, floor mats, steering wheel and any place they can think of putting it. Well, I am not much of a "car person" but still, to me this seems dumb. My favorite current example is that there is a model of pickup truck where the word 'Chevrolet' is across the back of the tailgate in what has to be at least twelve inch high letters and it spreads all the way across, almost always in a contrasting color so it "stands out" better for those who are following you to see. Well, all this tells me is that I don't want a vehicle with something so tacky on it and that means I should avoid Chevrolet since it is something they made.

Then add to the fact that every DEALER thinks they need to also add their information to the vehicle. Somehow this has become an accepted practice but I am sure it is simply a spin off of the manufacture doing it all over the place. When you buy a car they always seem to have a dorky dealer license plate border (that amazingly most people do NOT remove immediately; personally, I would leave it laying on their lot) as well as "Joe's Cars, Sometown, Somestate". Well sometimes this is OK because they put on a sticker which takes all of a minute to remove but what about the ones where they have actually riveted a piece of plastic to the back of the vehicle?!? I am appalled at this and as with the tacky twelve inch letters above, this is an anti-advertisement as far as I am concerned. Really, the dealer knocks a hole through the metal to hang their stupid logo? What moron first thought this was a good idea and that no one would care about the holes in the car?

What I have decided is that next time I buy a car I will get the final price haggled out and once they give it to me in writing, then I will discuss the cost for advertising for them. So what is a reasonable advertising price? $100/month? $50/month? $20/month? I mean, how much do they regularly spend on idiotic radio commercials? And is that more effective than letting every car on the road read their name on my vehicle? Anyway, take that amount and spread it over the life of 60 month loan (which is what most people seem to do). For the sake of conversation, say I was willing to take a pittance of $20/month. That means they either have to get that shit off the car before I leave the lot or take an additional $1200 off the price.

I won't even begin to discuss the (il)logic of putting 'Abercrombie' across the rear end of a pair of much too short shorts on a much to cute teenaged girl...

Give Me Some Darts

Do you want to know what irritates me? Well, actually, there are probably a lot of things that irritate me but I will try to focus my attention on just one for now. What irritates me (this morning) is drivers who will try to cut into a lane of traffic at the last minute rather than waiting their turn like all the cars in front of them. It is not like they accidently get into the wrong lane; they simply drive down the adjacent 'Only' lane and cut in at the last minute, expecting others to move for them. I see it almost every day and I just wonder what makes people think they are so damned special?

There is one spot on my morning commute where this is very common. Coming off the interstate there are three lanes; left, straight, right. Well, almost all traffic goes straight and invariably there is some dumbass who thinks they are too good for that big line of 10+ cars and will go down one side or the other full speed and cut into the straight lane. What sucks is that they can easily do it since those who actually have a basic concept of driving ettiquite and therefore are in the correct lane are at a stop behind the stoplight and will always be slower than the morons.

If you truly screwed up and got into the wrong lane, don't keep driving forward. What you should do is sit there with your signal on (in Georgia? yeah right!!!) and basically admit you messed up. If you do that, I will let you in almost every time. If you insist on being one of the idiots who tries to keep moving and cut in, I promise you I will be that annoying asshole who parallels you and won't let you over at all.

Now if I could only find a way to block both the left and right turn lanes coming off the interstate...

P.S. As for the title, read this.

A Black Day at the Office Part 3 (The End)

By now you have probably read both Part 1 and Part 2 of this much-too-amusing-to-me saga with the icing. Well, I have one short followup post on it then I am officially done with the topic. Tony mentioned something when taking the picture the other day and I was not sure what to make of it. I don't mean I did not believe him, but rather questioned the degree to which the effect he was describing really happened.

Apparently black icing, after a little time digesting, comes out as blue poop. This is where I doubted him until I made it a point to look for myself (not his, my own, not that it probably makes it less gross that way). I don't mean slightly blue, I mean it looks like someone dropped either food coloring or a blue toilet cleaner thing into the clear water. Very interesting for sure and had I not known to expect it, it may have really freaked me out since it never would have occurred to me what actually happened. And no, I did not take any pictures because even I have standards, as low as they may be. If you want to see, you will have to try it yourself.

Twiddling (Thumbs, not Rackets)

Last night my grandmother, mother (Pam), niece (Jill) and nephew (Drew) arrived for a weekend visit from Ohio. That necessitated the house being cleaned. We acquired the dogs in October and I am not sure the house has been cleaned at all SINCE October really, so it was quite a project. It is not that nothing has been done, just not a lot. For instance, the basement bathroom has taken approximately five 'restarts' when the shower has been cleaned, the toilet, then other stuff comes up and three weeks later when I get back to it, I have to redo the shower and the toilet rather than moving ahead with the sink, tub and floor. This seems to be the cycle around most of the house where a lot of half finished cleaning projects are underway. Actually, Diane has been painting the spare bedroom for close to two years now for the same reason.

Hmm... now that I am thinking about it, the garage has been half (well, maybe quarter) cleaned since April so the cars have to park in the driveway, the flower beds never actually had all the weeds pulled last year, nevermind this year but for the third time, I have the wheelbarrow out in the yard and there is a very nicely cleared section surrounded by a jungle. Then there are the potted plants on the deck that I bought three years ago and never did anything with (amazingly, most are alive and well in spite of the lack of care).

Yes, that was another tangent... family, visiting... Grandma is 92, Drew is 5, the temperature is 100° so what do you do to entertain them that does not involve going outside and is not going to completely bore one or the other extreme (or me, for that matter)? On previous trips they have been to most of the common touristy type places like the zoo, aquarium, botanical gardens, mall, baseball game, etc. but the issue I still have is, even if we went back to any of those, the heat is a killer and will make it not worth the effort. So now what? Well, mom did say jokingly "we could clean the garage" so maybe that will work.

God help me, the best answer I came up with so far was Chuck E. Cheese...

P.S. As for the title? Read this. Who says you can't learn things reading the crap I write?!?

A Black Day at the Office Part 2

As you may have read, we had black cake in the office yesterday but I had no camera. Well, as luck would have it, today there is leftover cake and I have my camera with me so ate a piece for breakfast. Please excuse the fuzzy picture, I just handed the camera to Tony but did not change the settings to Full Auto so it was not cooperating with him and I did not realize it until I looked at the images later.

The One That Got Away

I have been in a sad mood recently. Blame it on my [lack] of a special someone in my life. It has been that way for many, many years (ie, almost forever) but every so often I get depressed about it. I am funny like that; I am generally outgoing and flirtatious with everyone except those who truly catch my attention and/or interest. I suppose it is because I don't want them to think I am just playing around or being flighty or whatever. Anyway, on those times when I do feel my life is lacking something it makes me short tempered, tired and generally unpleasant. Yes, I know some of you may think 'and this is different how?'. Well let me say that I don't much care when others think I am as happy as a bear with its foot caught in a snare, I only care when it gets into my head and makes me quasi-dysfunctional, like now.

When I get this way, a lot of times I think about what might have been, mistakes I may have made (but really? who thinks I could have possibly made a mistake?!?), relationships I have screwed up, etc. You know, your basic self analysis/beat yourself up mentally for being a moron type stuff. So what do you do when you are really sad about your lot in life? I don't know about you, but I start typing names into google. Of come on now, don't act like you have never done that before... actually, it can be fun to do even when in a good mood just to see what you can find. Go ahead, do it right now, click that link three rows up, google yourself and see what links come up, I will wait...

...are you done yet?

So were they interesting or scary results?

Back to the story; when I do that, until _VERY_ recently, I got zero, zilch, zip results for my actual name. I would find my first and last name on pages, but never together and therefore, obviously, never pertaining to me. Well, there is actually one link out there now but I won't mention it specifically since I know a few people out there who may or may not read this some day, who might actually want to figure that one out on their own for a different reason.

Last night when doing that, I learned that the only woman I can honestly claim to ever have truly loved, got married. Before you think I have lost the love of my life, I will clarify and say we dated when we were in college together and that was ten years ago. ::note to self: you can stop waiting on her to realize her mistake now:: Anyway, it is not that I think about her often. In fact, I had not for 3-4 years after we broke up until my dad asked me one day "so, what ever happened to..." which of course prompted me to type her name in for the first time ever a couple years ago. Since then I probably have only done it 2-3 times, essentially about once a year. I suppose it is more curiosity than anything else with her; I always felt like things were never allowed to 'end' properly and since she was my first love, I suspect I will always care about what happens in her life, even vicariously, since she was such an important part of mine for a time.

So I wrote all of that to say this [not that she will ever see it]. Congratulations Laryssa, I really am happy for you and wish you the best in everything, as I always have and always will. For whatever it is worth (nothing, actually, but I will say it anyway) I remember your last poignant comments to me as being extremely difficult to both say and hear. And while it took me a long time to realize it, I appreciate your honesty and by the way, you were right. Of course, I dwelled on it for a few years; you may not even remember what you said anymore... ::grin::

Thank you for being one of the best highlights so far in this drama (or should I call it a comedy of errors?) of mine called "life".

Hotlanta

On the way home from work today at about 2:30, the thermometer in my car topped out at 111°. That is pretty freaking hot!!! And remember, the temperature in ATL usually is at its peak around 4pm so in theory, it will be even hotter. Heck with those people in places like Phoenix because unlike them, we _DO_ have humidity around here so it is just nasty.

The best example of how this heat works is the dogs. In the spring, they would literally go on at least 5-6 miles of walks per day which was usually broken down to 2 in the morning, 2 after work and 2 after dark and this still left them with excessive energy more often than not. Once summer got here the afternoon one was cut out since they had no interest in being outside at that time of day. What they do instead is go lay in the yard and maybe romp around a little bit but only for very short spurts. Over the past few weeks even the night walk is gone but they don't seem to mind. The realization that I have come to is that when they go out in the afternoon that heat totally drains them so they are probably sleeping better now than ever before and that is with almost no exercise. I don't know who came up with the phrase 'The Dog Days of Summer' but their dogs were like mine; a hard day involving a large amount of doing nothing followed up by nap. Come to think of it, it is early afternoon right now, really hot, and I could use a nap...

A Black Day at the Office

Today one of the ladies in the office turned 40 and we had our monthly birthday lunch. The lunch itself was not all that exciting; I mean, not that it was bad, just not worth mentioning here. Dessert, however, was fun!!! In honor of the evils of 40, we had a black icing cake from Publix and let me tell you, that was MUCH more entertaining than it should have been. Black icing turns your tongue and lips black and does not come off easily. That, of course, means that two of us were running around playing 'zombie', 'gum disease', 'dead guy', etc and cracking ourselves up. Antonio actually had a cool "black drool" thing going on which about killed me. I just wish I had a camera to share this with you...

Blog This aka Read at Your Own Risk

I was bored at work one day so got the bright idea to create a blog.

It was a little more elaborate than that, but that is the quick version. From time to time I will read blogs of a few people I know through letterboxing (by far my biggest hobby/interest) and I decided that I wanted to do one too since 1. I do a bit of travelling with it and will write up "trip reports" and such that people seem to like reading and 2. I was bored at work one day so got the bright idea to create a blog. But then I decided that such a focused topic would probably not interest most of the world [I can't say 'most of my friends' since there really are not a whole lot of those out there, and those that do exist are mostly letterboxers]. Besides, I do have many thoughts on a variety of topics which I am sure people would _LOVE_ to read about so instead of limiting myself, I decided to make one specialized blog for letterboxing and this one for "everything else".

So there you have it. I have no idea how often I will post, if I will include links or pictures or any of that other crap, but when the mood strikes me I will write. Call it therapy, call it mental diarrhea, call it experiencing the world through my psychosis, whatever you want. I don't have any idea what you might expect to find here so maybe we can all have fun exploring together. The posts here may be short, they may be long, they may be humorous, they may be irritating, they may be scary, they may be revealing, they may be light-hearted, they may be introspective, they may be offensive, they may be boring, they may ramble on, they may seem pointless, they may have spelling errors, they may be grammatically challenged, they may be kid friendly, they may be rated NC-17, they may be just about any old random thing that comes to mind that I feel compelled enough to mention. Read at your own risk.