"It's a mattress" he said matter of factly...

So, today it's raining. It's raining so much that a raging river is flowing through the parking lot of our office. If this keeps up we'll have own miniature canyon carved through the asphalt. The water that becomes a cat 3 rapid river during a heavy downpour has to travel through several obstacle before flowing by here. These obstacle include: A furniture store that seems to just throw stuff anywhere, a small area of dense forest that serves as a campground for vagrants, hobos, transients and any other synonym for a person of limited means wandering about the area. The back alley behind our office and the stores that we are attached to. Back there...It's a frightening display of 'out of sight, out of mind'. I'm not sure how often the sanitation department comes around to empty the dumpster, but I do know that it is not often enough. The back alley looks like A.....It looks like...well...it smells like hot garbage. Because that's what is back there. And most of it is on the ground. Not in the trash receptacles. There are also palates, old tires, big pieces of styrofoam(which is what usually floats down this way during a rain storm) and an assortment of other crap that no one sees until it rains. The rain causes flooding, which causes a river, which allows us to see what is behind the building. I don't like to go back there, so the river always brings surprises for me.

Today the river of crap was in rare form, for it delivered to us, this mattress:


The matress was last seen circling a sewer drain. It was too big to fit throught the grate, so it just stayed by the drain, spinning. Once the rain stops and the water has a chance to drain, there will be a wet mattress that smells like a homeless bingo parlor covering the drain. It will not be picked up by sanitation when they don't show up to empty the dumpsters and will serve as a drain plug when we have another torential downpour later this week.

This place is comedy gold and never ceases to entertain me. I don't even go to movies or local events anymore, I just hang out and wait somewhere. Something will happen. And it will be funny.

Situational Awareness

Today I witnesed two examples of a person's lack of situational awareness...both events took place inside of three minutes of each other.

The first happened while I was in a Publix grocery store about 30 minutes ago. I had gone to pick up some sodas for the refrigerator in our office, while there I decided to get a sandwhich(samwich) from the deli. I now have two items to pay for before leaving the store. According to all rational thought and reasoning, having two items makes me a perfect candidate for the 'Express lane - 10 Items or less' line. I find the express lane and get behind two other people in the line, both of whom also only have two items each. But! in front of us is a lady with the only shopping cart in the express lane. The cart is full. Full like she only goes to the grocery store once a month full. Noticing the overflowing shopping cart I look above the line and see the very large sign that hangs over the express lane that staes: Express lane - 10 Items or less. In front of the conveyor belt I see another sign that says the same thing. And suspended over the tabloid rack is a light up sign that also designates this lane for shoppers with 10 or fewer items. Now, normally I keep my mouth shut about stuff, but for some reason, watching the lady load down the conveyor belt with more groceries than the thing moves in a week, and looking behind me and seeing the line growing steadily longer with people who have a 1/2 gallon of milk, or one green pepper, or any assortment of groceries that don't need a shopping cart to make it from the aisle to the checkout line, I tell her about the large hanging sign the light up sign and the small sign in front of the conveyor...Apparently my mouth made this decision without first consulting my brain. The response she gives me is 'So?'...Again, mouth starts froming sentence before brain gets involved. I politely tell her that since this is an express lane it is reserved for shoppers who only need a few things and aren't planning to spend the day at the grocery store. She tells me to mind my own business, but the cashier says 'He's right ma'am, this line is for people with 10 items or less' . Thank goodness the cashier got involved, because I had no idea what Iwas going to do next. Now the lady looks angry and asks the cashier very loudly 'Well, what do you want me to do? put all this stuff back in the cart and go get in a different line?' This question was answered by several other people in the line with a big 'YES!'. So, she started putting stuff back in the cart, I then said, and probably shouldn't have, that I was only telling her for future referece...you know...as a common courtesy. She then gave me on of those looks, the kind that says 'Why don't you shut your big fat stupid mouth' or 'I'll be waiting for you in the parking lot...with a tire iron' or something else threatening. She backed out of the express lane and got into a different line. All of us express laners were then out of the store in short order. The guy behind me told me he was glad I said something.

The second happened right after I left Publix. I was driving back to my office when I came up to an accident in the right lane, there were three police cars at the scene. One of the cars was stopped in the right lane in front of the accident, blue lights flashing away. Very noticeable. There was a policeman up adhead standing next to the two cars that had collided waving people around. I came to a stop about 5 car lengths in front of the police car stopped in the right lane in front of the accident. The driver behind me apparently made a decision to employ the techniques they learned in stunt driving school. The driver whipped around me into the left lane causing the person they cut off to slam on their brakes and lay on the horn. After the whipping manuever the driver slung their car back into the right lane successfully going around my stopped jeep. They then continued at the same speed, which was probably around 25 mph, to drive their car straight into the parked police car ahead of me. Which was the reason for my stopping in the lane. I don't know, or care if they saw me in their rear view mirror pointing and laughing. I had just taken a drink from my coke too, so I laughed that onto the steering wheel and dashboard. The police officer heard the sound of the impact, and came swaggering over to his police car and the car and driver that had parked in his trunk. I was able to get ahold of myself and stop laughing. A courteous driver stopped in the left lane so I could get over and go around the accident. They probably thought that I was nervous to megre over, they had no idea I was still sitting there because I didn't think I should start moving again while I had tears from laughter in my eyes.

So there it is. Keep your eyes open out there, there's lots to see. If you are situationally aware, you will be treated to the shenanigans of people who aren't.

Nothing to see here today

I made an avatar in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 that looks like Carl...well, see you later, I gotta go get Carl's stats up so he can beat Jack Nicklaus.

...That's My Mom's Favorite Piece!

My Wife and I recently took a trip to New York City. We saw some shows, saw some sights, went to some bars...visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

At that museum, in the midst of all that culture, history, and artistic genius we came across this statue. I immediately took a picture of it, because all I could think of was Mikey, Mouth, Data, Chunk, Brand, Andy, Steff and the Fratellis. Oh yes and we can't forget Sloth. Baby Ruth?

So there we are in this hallway of greek sculpture, Rodin's and other marvels of historical stone and brass work, and all I can do is stifle laughter at the memories of 'The Goonies' this statue is conjuring in my mind. After graduating with a bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with a minor in art history, 'The Goonies' is all I can come up with in response to the sight of this statue of David.

Do the Truffle Shuffle.

Do it.

This will affect my backswing horribly

It took me a few days to decide to go see a doctor after putting up with constant pain in my right arm. Now it's in a soft splint, turns out it was just a sprained wrist and not actually a fracture. I still feel like a cat with masking tape on its front paws. Typing with one hand is slow, so I'll end this post with a list of stuff I am temporarily unable to do.

1. Play my guitar
2. Laundry
3. Play golf
4. Type accuratlelky anb quiuckly
5. Eat while I drive
6. Mow the lawn
7. And since I have trouble typing, I would most likely have very limited succes fending off an invading robot army...even if they are only three feet tall and made of plastic. Hopefully the zombies will attack instead.

Bet I'd get what I'm asking if it was an Autobot

I have a 2003 Nissan Frontier that I am trying to sell...I've been trying to sell it since January. It's got low mileage (34900), it's in really good shape and it's bright freakin' red. This thing should be selling itself. On the down side, it's a base model truck. It didn't even have a rear bmper when I bought it. It has power nothing. The windows, door locks and transmission are manual. I am trying to sell it for almost $2000 under it's blue book value, yet the only 'serious' offer I have received was for $7000....I asked him how long he wanted to wait for the title, since I would still owe on it, and would continue to make payments until the title was clear.

I bet if it jumped up and transformed I would get $8900 for it easy.