mindsquirt

Hello.

I don't know about you folks, but when I write out lists, I find it impossible to not include a comical entry just for S&Gs.

for instance, a shopping list might include:

butter
sugar
bread
onions
celery
horse-meat

or a hardware-store list:

tape
screws
wood
drill bits for human skulls

I am silly with it, i tells ya. Sometimes I will include them even if the list is only 2-3 things. I was reminded of this when I was going through some old documents and saw an invitation to a bunch of my wife's friends to come to our summer house to celebrate her graduating from nursing school. It follows in red below...

It actually is not much at all like the lists above, but it still reminds me of the fact that I can't be serious for any reason. I sure hope everyone is okay with that. I was also showing off in front of my wife's friends, which I recommend to husbands everywhere.

1) Rough River is in a dry county. Running out of booze is the worst disaster that could happen that weekend. Corydon, (our state’s old capital), is the last good place to buy booze. You will pass a Wal-mart after leaving I-64 on the way to Rough River. If you forgot to buy alcohol before you left, please go there.

2) Please bring double the amount of booze you would drink. If you plan to drink a six pack of Sam Adams, bring two. If you buy a 5^th of Captain’s, bring another. In true socialist fashion, we’ll put the other amount in a kitty for the greater good. Also, if you think you are buying too much, see rule #1.

3) The only near by (15 miles) grocery store is an IGA, which mostly only sells bologna, grape drink, and other redneck nourishment. Consider packing food or going to the Wal-Mart in Corydon before arriving (Corydon is about 45 min from Rough River)

4) With as many people as I envision coming, refrigerator space will be limited. Please bring a cooler with ice for your adult/child beverages. Or, eat/drink before you come and after you leave.

5) I am not going to be in charge of food. I have tried to dole out responsibility to certain people to cook certain meals and it is often not worth the trouble. I encourage people to band together and work out meals if they wish. I personally plan to eat what you guys drop on the ground.

6) There is a grease-ball restaurant down the road that has good sausage sandwiches for breakfast and fried chicken at night for cheap monies. Me, Brad, and Mike’s philosophy is to eat there as much as possible, in order to maximize time on the water and having fun. If you want to spend time cooking, please do so. Make me some.

7) we have a grill and might make an open fire for weenie roasting. We also have other cooking accouterments, but nothing too fancy.

Activities

Here is an idea of what we usually do at Rough River:

Swimming

Boating (tubing, skiing, face-planting)

Jetsking

Sleeping

Enjoying nature (walking, looking at stars at night)

Ping pong

Drinking (see #2 above)

Cards and board games

Walking up and down the hill to get to the lake

Bring

Food for yourself

2x the alcohol you think you would drink (see #2 above)

Swimming attire

Life jackets (if you have them, we have some)

TOWELS

Swimmies

Kids

sunscreen

board games

outdoor games

your sense of merriment and gayety

bathing cap

thing that holds your nose closed when you swim

folding chairs or lounge chairs

floats/rafts

Don’t Bring:

Firearms

Danger

Winter hat

hitchhikers

Price of admission:

Any gas we consume in boating

Community booze (see #2 above)

I guess that is the end. Please leave some silly lists, you silly bitches.

HEY! Is this blog still here? I expected that it had been taken over by brigands by now.

Sorry about the infrequent blogs. Things at work are quite wacky. I started out being so bored that I feel asleep some and now I have at least 5 projects and my mitts in some other issues. I figure, the more projects the better! Right? Spreading yourself thin is how to get ahead in the workplace, right?

I should take on a project a week from now on and pass them off to interns and temps when things look dicey. But if they are looking good, I'll continue to work on them and get all the credit. I'll let you know what happens. The way I see it, one of three things will happen: I'll get fired, promoted, or nothing will happen.

It is quite a change from my old job which occupied a generous 10 hours of the workweek. A great deal of time at my old job was writing this blog! You might say I blogged for a living.

I should ask my current boss if I can get a blog project. The way I see it, one of three things will happen: he'll say yes, no, or nothing will happen.

I sure like it there though. I have found in my professional life, one of the most important things about it is the way I am "allowed" to talk to people. When I was a teacher, I couldn't have a normal conversation with anyone and had to be hyper-professional all the time. And I could never cuss. If you have spoken to me for more than 10 seconds you would know that I use spicy language. 99% of the people I talked to at school were akward teenagers that were also shitheads. I had to act like a teacher, and everyone knows teachers suck.

When I was in research (4 months ago), my only work buddies were research scientists. Let me say this, any verbiage I used was well-thought-out ahead of time. Any thinking-out-loud, dumbed-down statements, or inaccuracies got me an intellectual dressing-down the likes of which you have never seen. Generally speaking, scientists and professors hate it when you can't talk gooder than them. Socializing at work was painful as well. I mostly just avoided everyone at work and any outside of work socializing was a non-issue.

At my current workplace, I am as sassy as I want to be. I said the f-word probably 5 times yesterday to a co-worker. I said it in a meeting and it was even on the powerpoint I was presenting. I even say borderline inappropriate innuendoes and use flamboyant hand gestures for accentuation. The bottom line is I finally work with normal people so I can talk like a normal person again.

so that is kinda awesome.

The wife and I started a diet on Monday. I bought some fat pants last winter and now even they are getting tight. I have been a size 34 since 8th grade up until a few months ago so I decided I should try to be less fat. please wish me luck in this endeavor, which might last well until mid-next week. The way I see it, one of three things will happen: I'll lose weight, gain weight, or nothing will happen.

I am constantly hungry and often times kinda sleepy. I had a very vivid dream last night that I was on a cruise and you could not walk in any direction and not have a piece of cheesecake within reach. There were multiple racks of cheesecake everywhere! I didn't make that part up. Then I woke up and walked to the bathroom and ran into the wall. When my lips touched the corner of the drywall I thought it was a cheesecake and I started chewing on it. Sometimes I do things like that when I am partially asleep, walking, on a diet, and have my lips on the wall.

I guess this is a good stopping point. See you in a few months. This long-distance thing is hard! We might need to consider seeing other people.

Since we had our daughter (who is now about 20 months old) we have been watching an awfuly lot of Sesame Street.


Big Bird and Elmo aside, it is a pretty good show. Now that I am older I can appreciate it on a completely different level and laugh at some of the absurdity and rock-out to the groovy songs. Here are some classic Sesame Street Clips from my era (and before).



enjoy!

Ladybug’s picnic
classic. I sing this song all the time to Alex and sometimes Cooper.



Jelly man Kelly
make sure to pay attention to James Taylor's wacky facial expressions.



Yip Yips
Your standard alien nonsense





Alligator King
This is a fun song! It is catchy, and also teaches children to check to see whether fruit might be precious gemstones before eating them.




Layin' eggs around the clock
the best part is watching the farmer wife while the farmer is singing. and the end.




Dance Myself to Sleep (Bert and Ernie)
This is another time you can watch what the puppets in the background are doing and it is much more funny. Instead of watching Ernie, watch Bert.
Man! What a terrible roomate!