Pondering Santa

When it comes to Santa, there have always been several big questions that, when viewed with a critical eye, can call into question his entire existence. The most obvious one is: How on earth is he able to make all of those deliveries in a single night? I mean, sure, maybe he takes Mrs. Claus along so he can use the sleigh pool lane, but how much time would that actually buy him, anyway?

Another big question is how much does it cost to run his entire operation in a location as remote as the North Pole? Heating alone must be murder! How can he possibly afford it, considering he has no known source of income? Did he at some point win Powerball? Or does he just cook the books with devious accounting tricks that would make a crooked politician blush? Or does he supplement his income by occasionally going through Dad’s wallet once he’s finished dropping off presents?

Now, while these big questions are fun to think about, if you look beyond them and start getting into more of the nitty-gritty details, things get equally as interesting.

For example, Santa works one day a year. During the other 364, does he fly around in his sleigh just to keep in practice? Or does he spend the first quarter of his delivery run knocking off the rust, during which time he’s constantly slamming on the brakes, tailgating geese, drifting between lanes as he fiddles with the radio, accidentally peeling out on roofs, and even causing property damage. (“Hey! Who put that chimney there?”)

I also wonder about his bathroom breaks on Christmas Eve. Does he ever use the facilities at any of the houses he’s delivering presents to? (“Honey, are you in the bathroom?” “No.” “Then who’s saying ‘ho, ho, ho’ in there?”) It would seem tacky to do so, but time is of the essence in his profession, and perhaps certain liberties must be taken. Or maybe he uses public restrooms, which means that he could conceivably be the guy at Citgo who hands the bathroom key off to you? (“Oh great, I have to go in after him!?”) Or does he just risk getting arrested when nature calls and finds the nearest clump of trees?

All right, enough potty humor. On to more important things! Santa has a lot of deliveries to make, and judging by the U.S. Postal Service, this isn’t a business where you can expect flawless execution. (Come to think of it, maybe Santa’s fiscal model is taken directly from the USPS.) Anyway, does St. Nick ever screw up? Has he ever switched packages by mistake and given say, long underwear to a boy in Florida, while an old man in northern Minnesota gets action figures? (“Hey! I already have the Green Ranger!”) Or perhaps little Susie once received a pipe for Christmas? (“Yay! Now I can pretend I’m Grandpa!”) I mean, Santa’s getting old. He can’t be flawless, can he?

The list goes on:

Is naughty and nice measured on an absolute scale? Or is it relative to each person being considered? (“He still gave a lot of wedgies this year, but nowhere near as many as last. We’ll upgrade him to Nice!”)

How often does Santa rotate the runners on his sleigh? Does he carry extras in case he has a blowout on Christmas Eve? Or does he have AAA?

Is Mrs. Claus annoyed that Santa refuses to retire? (“Why do we still have to live up here? It’s impossible to get a tan!”)

Does Santa watch movies that include depictions of him, such as “The Santa Claus” or “Miracle on 34^th Street”? Does he ever mutter things such as, “Outrageous! I act nothing like this bozo!” Has he ever sued for defamation? Maybe that’s where he gets his money from…

“He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake…” Wait, does Santa work for the NSA? Or vice-versa? Now I’m creeped out.

On Current Meteorological Conditions And Macho Posturing

As anybody who lives in the Twin Cities will attest to, recently the weather’s been cold.

On second thought, the word “cold” doesn’t really accurately describe the magnitude of the plummet the temperature has taken. No, what’s really needed is truckload of compound adjectives, so let’s try it again:

As anybody who lives in the Twin Cities will attest to, recently the weather’s been bone-chilling, gas-line-freezing, shoulder-hunching, black-ice-forming, teeth-chattering, nose-running, eye-watering, huddle-by-a-fire-if-you-have-one-and-if-you-don’t-then-just-set-any-old-thing-ablaze-and-huddle-by-that cold.

Ah, much better.

Anyway, now that we’ve firmly established the meteorological conditions of the past few weeks, it’s time to move on to an anecdote.

I was at a Kwik Trip pumping gas when I noticed that one of my fellow patrons had elected to sit inside of her car while her tank was filling. This struck me as a good idea, mainly because I was pretty certain that my eyebrows were going to freeze and fall off at any moment. However, one thing stood in my way: I’m a guy, and in the unwritten guy rulebook it’s stated that you have to stand outside and tough out the weather when you’re pumping gas, lest you admit to the entire world that you’re a huge weenie – albeit one who would probably be a lot warmer and have full functionality of his fingers.

And so, fully ready to sacrifice my eyebrows, I toughed it out.

Fast-forward to the next occasion when I had to get gas. This time it was even colder. After stepping out of my car and basically turning into an instant Klondike bar, I decided that I had no problem admitting to the world that I was a huge weenie. Yup, I was going to wait in the car as my tank was filling, guy rulebook be darned. But then I saw a guy pumping gas a stall over, and he was standing outside tall and proud, completely toughing it out. He wasn’t even bundled up, and he didn’t even seem to be showing any signs of discomfort.

Feeling ashamed, I abandoned my plan to turn into a giant weenie. An unspoken challenge had been placed before me by the other guy, and I couldn’t just ignore it. If he could tough it out, then so could I! Plus, if I were to give up and wait in my warm car, he would then have every right to come over, steal my lunch money, and give me a noogie, and he'd be totally justified in doing so.

And so, I toughed it out yet again.

That’s just how guys operate. At least the stupid ones.

It reminds me of the time I was training for a half-marathon. The schedule called for a relatively short run of two miles or so. However, as soon as I began, a guy got on the treadmill next to me and also began to run. I watched him out of the corner of my eyes suspiciously.

When I hit two miles, I didn’t stop. This was because the guy next to me was still running. We’d started at just about the same time, and I wasn’t going to let him win! So I kept running, throwing the training schedule to the wind. Whether the guy next to me knew it or not, he was in for a battle! I was going to outlast him or get thrown off that treadmill trying!

And so, scoring major points for stupidity and competitions that may not actually be competitions, I outlasted him and emerged victorious.

Am I proud of myself? Not really.

But do I regret my decisions? Also, not really.

The unwritten guy rulebook is a very powerful thing, and sometimes I’m simply torn between logic and macho posturing. Maybe someday, something will tip it one way or the other. Perhaps it will hinge on if my eyebrows ever grow back.

Traffic Report

After much careful consideration and rational deliberation - which may or may not have included charts and graphs - I’ve come to the conclusion that the Twin Cities traffic report is a bunch of hogwash. (That’s a technical term for malarkey.) I think I always sort of knew, but this week it became abundantly clear in light of the snowstorm that blew into town.

But let me back up. Ever since I’ve moved to the Twin Cities, the traffic report has never once changed. The exact same four or five bad stretches are noted, with no variation, to the point where I wonder if they’re always replaying the same report from 1983, just to see how long they can go before somebody catches on.

Now, how helpful is that? Every day I’m told that 94 is jammed going into the Lowry Hill tunnel. Well, duh. Everybody who’s ever driven that stretch at rush hour knows it’s going to happen, so why even report it in the first place? Shouldn’t the traffic report tell you something that’s out of the ordinary? (“Miraculously, nobody is driving in the left lane ten miles an hour below the speed limit! It's like somebody Photoshopped real life!”)

In addition, I'm always told what highways are bad, but never how to avoid them. That’s sort of like telling somebody they’re on fire and refusing to dump water on them. I can see when I’m stuck in traffic! I know it because that’s when I’m driving two miles an hour, cursing like a sailor, and wishing that the country music played on the radio wasn’t so horrible these days. I don’t need any help with that! What I want is a way out, like the secret tunnel Homer got to use when he was a Stonecutter. But does the traffic report help me out? Nope!

That leads up to this week, when a storm dumped a fairly large amount of snow on the area, which basically paralyzed all traffic to the point where it was about as productive as Congress. That afternoon, as I was sitting on the freeway, a sea of brake lights stretched out in front of me, the traffic report came on. Aha! I though. This should finally be different!

But it wasn’t. It was exactly the same as usual.

Now how does that work? Not one car in entire metro is going over twenty-five, and the traffic report still doesn’t change? It they wanted to be honest, they should have just said: “Don’t even bother getting into your car. It will be faster to walk. Or crawl. Or wait for an earthquake to displace you.”

So I’ve given up on traffic reports. But that’s just fine, because there are traffic apps that can be used instead, which boast the added bonus of making you an even worse driver, since you’ll be too preoccupied checking on an accident to watch the road, which is when you’ll discover that the accident is actually you, since you were too busy playing on your phone to notice that you rear-ended a semi.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I need to start working from home. Or become a Stonecutter. Suggestion on how I can accomplish either would be appreciated.

On Socks and Small Stuff

Don’t sweat the small stuff.

Buying apples notwithstanding, those seem to be good words to live by, since there will always be more than enough of the big stuff to worry about. (“We’re having a child? Huh! I’m sure the expenses involved with such an endeavor will be trivial!”*)

One area of small-stuff-non-sweatiness that I excel at, ironically, has to do with socks. (Are sweaty feet jokes funny? Or just plain gross? I’m leaning towards the latter…) You see, I own quite a few pair of Hanes socks, and this collection is divided evenly between socks that have a thin red line and “Hanes” printed on them, and socks that have a slightly thicker red line and “Hanes” printed on them in bold. Thus, it’s not a rare occurrence when I’ll look down and notice that I’m wearing mismatched socks.

This is where not sweating the small stuff comes in. I mean, they’re just socks! Who would notice that anyway? (“He’s perfect for the job…except his socks don’t match! Release the hounds!”) I figure if mismatched socks are the biggest thing I have to worry about, then I’m doing pretty good.

Just as long as it doesn’t spread. For example, as of right now I’m pretty good at making sure I wear matching shoes out in public. However, how much of a stretch is it for mismatching socks to turn into mismatching shoes? Or, even worse, wearing brown shoes with a black belt? Or, even worster, wearing socks and sandals? Or, even most worster, teasing one of my eyebrows slightly more than the other?

Uh-oh. Looks like I’ve gone and scared the bejeebers out of myself. Remember all of that stuff I said earlier about not sweating the small stuff? That wasn’t even close to being accurate! My devil-may-care attitude towards mismatched socks is going to come back and bite me in a big way, I just know it! But maybe there’s still time! Maybe I can change my reckless ways! So, if you’ll excuse me, I have a sock drawer to organize! **

*No, I’m not having a child. This was for illustrative purposes only. I can’t believe you thought that!

** This post is brought to you by me not having any ideas when I sat down to write this entry.

Apples, Not Applesauce!

I like to think of myself as low-maintenance. For example, it takes me exactly zero seconds to do my hair in the morning. Also, I can wear the same pants for weeks on end without a second thought, although others have been known to hold their nose as they walk past.

However, there is one facet of life where I am extremely picky: apples. Any apple that I eat must be almost perfect, and by that I mean it must be crisp and crunchy, with minimal-to-no imperfections.

Half of my grocery shopping time is allotted to picking out apples. I hunch over the bin, crowding everybody else out, and examine my options with an intensity usually reserved for a trained professional diffusing an explosive device that is ticking down to 0:00. Any sort of bruise or blemish immediately disqualifies a candidate. Size also matters. There’s no point in buying a small apple, and giant ones scare me. (What happened? Is it mutated?) It has to be perfectly medium.

When I finally find one that meets my standards, I gently place it the requisite plastic bag, being careful not to bump it against any others that have already made the cut. Once I’ve got my desired amount, I then finish my shopping, protecting my apple bag like a mother does a newborn.

But eventually I get to the checkout and everything falls apart. Cashiers have no concept of gentleness when it comes to apples. They grab the bag, slam it down on the scale, then unceremoniously toss it onto the conveyer belt, rendering all of my previous efforts pointless. By the time I have them again in my possession, they look like mob goons have been working them over for information for several hours in a dark, deserted warehouse.

Sometimes, I make a big show of gently placing my apples down amidst the rest of my purchases, in hopes the cashier might see it and realize that I’d appreciate it if they were to handle them delicately. It never happens. Instead, they ask me if I have any coupons as they happily turn my apples into applesauce. I respond by glaring at them and wishing I was the type of person who isn’t afraid to make a scene in a public place.

I do have another option, and that is the self-checkout lines. However, I refuse to use them. I mean, I’ve already walked all over the store gathering my food and putting up with oblivious customers who park in the middle of the aisles and talk on their phones. By the time I get to the checkout, I’m exhausted. Why should I have to check myself out? Heck, doing so might not leave me with enough energy to drive home! What do they think I am, some sort of robot!

And so I’m forced to eat imperfect apples and whine about it in this very blog. But it was either that or make up a poem about not having anything to write about. (“I try to think, but my mind is blank, I’ve got no ideas, as a writer I stank”)

I think I made the right decision.

Maybe.

Probably not. That seems like that would have been a really good poem.

Tricks, Treats, and Dropkicks

I was nervous, and justifiably so. I was going to be giving out candy on Halloween for the first time, and I didn’t want to screw it up.

I had visions of several ways that I could make a complete fool out of myself. These included me panicking and saying “Trick or Treat” instead of the kids, and me freaking out at the ghost at my door and dropkicking it across the lawn. Talk about stressful!

It felt similar to when I was about to interview somebody in a professional setting for the first time. If anybody should have been nervous, it was the applicant, and not me, but I’m a worst-case-scenario kind of guy, and I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d say if I was asked, “How can this be a good company when they’ve hired somebody so clearly incapable as you?” I mean, how do you reply to that?

There were several worse-case scenarios for Halloween. Did I have enough candy? Or did I have too much? Not having enough would make me look ridiculous after I ran out and had to resort to cooking omelets for anybody else who dropped by. Having too much would likewise be disastrous, as I would inevitably come out of the following weekend about ten pounds heavier and covered in chocolate. Streeesssssssful!

But I wanted to face my fears, so I turned on my front light and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, a few children showed up, and I’m proud to say that I somehow managed to keep from embarrassing myself! Perhaps the universe is lulling me into a false sense of security so it can crush me later, when I’m least expecting it, but I’m not going to worry about that now. Instead, it’s time to celebrate!

But before the Mountain Dew begins to flow, I did make an observation regarding the different genders and Halloween that I’d like to share. All of the little girls were adorable and polite and dressed up like cats and princesses. Only one boy showed up at my door, and he was dressed as a serial killer, with a hockey mask and a sword. Make what you want of it.

The only bad news was that I didn’t use up all of my candy, and I’m really hoping to not go on a weekend chocolate bender. So anybody who wants a few Three Musketeers or Reese’s peanut butter cups, feel free to drop by. Just don’t dress up as a ghost. You don’t want to tempt fate.

Four Years Of Nonsense

Four years ago, disregarding the added workload of having to remember a user name and password for yet another website, I started a blog and my life was changed forever, by which I mean I now occasionally take the drivel floating around in my head and post it for all of the world to ignore.

It’s the “four years” portion of the above statement that I’d like to focus on. Yup, it’s that time of year again: my blogiversary! (Actually, I’m a little late, but close enough.)

Before we look to the future, let’s look back at the past year of FromTheDeskOfCurly, shall we? The previous twelve months have been an exciting time for this blog, at least as long as “exciting” means that there were numerous occasions when I couldn’t think of anything interesting to post and just bagged the whole thing and rummaged through the refrigerator instead, hoping to find chocolate milk.

However, there were still a few big events, such as:

The Book
In a shameless attempt to get rich, I self-published a book on Amazon.com that contained, among other things, a few columns from this blog. This failed to make me independently wealthy, however, mainly because I was too shy to promote it, although its questionable quality may have played a role. The book was released in February, and sales quickly flat-lined after I bought a single copy from myself. Still, it was fun, and putting it together killed a rather dreary January.

Twitter
Joining the modern world, this blog signed up for Twitter. The rationale behind this decision was that all I needed was one celebrity to retweet something of mine and suddenly I’d have millions of followers, all of whom would want to buy my book and make me rich. To date, this hasn’t happened, which is quite disappointing since it’s essentially my entire retirement plan. Come on Jim Gaffigan, I’m looking at you here!!!

Looking ahead, what’s next for FromTheDeskOfCurly? Will it miraculously get better? Or will it instead jump the shark? Will the author take a well-deserved sabbatical that nobody will even notice? Maybe there'll be another book published containing previously released material?

That’s a lot of questions, most of which I have no answers for. I can, however, respond to the last one: No more books. I’ve already made my artistic point with the first one. (“Look, I have an awful lot of free time on my hands!”)

Beyond that, I have no idea what’s coming up. Planning ahead is not my strong suit, so I’m going to just keep making things up as I go along. Unless, of course, Jim Gaffigan retweets me and I get rich. Then I’ll dump this blog faster than you could ever imagine!!

DeskOfCurly Readers Blogiversary Bonus:
As a thank you to all of my readers, I’m running a free promotion on my book this month on Amazon.com. It will be available free of charge for three days, beginning on Friday the 25^th all the way through Sunday the 27th. You can get it here. Reviews are always welcome, unless they include the phrases, “worse than I’d ever imagined,” or “like lava was pouring in my eyes.”

And for any of you who’ve already spent your hard earned money on it, I have only one thing to say: A fool and his money are – Whoops!! Looks like I’m out of space for now!! See you next time!!

Putting My Foot Down

Change is inevitable, sort of like nose hair. One must do their best to accept it, lest they be left behind in this fast-paced world of ours. However, sometimes you just have to put your foot down.

I had a system. It was a good system. It was an easy system. But change has destroyed this system, and I don’t know where to turn.

You see, Target used to sell cheap white cross-trainers. They weren’t necessarily the most durable shoes out there, hence the low price, but they were low-key, simple, and most importantly, at least based on my tastes, normal. They weren’t “hip”. They weren’t “cool”. The only statement they made was this: "These shoes are bland and uninteresting, but at least they aren’t trying too hard." That’s sort of the motto I live my life by, and my shoes need to reflect it.

My system was simple. Every year I’d buy a new pair of these shoes from Target to take over the role of Main Shoes. The pair I’d been wearing, my current Main Shoes, would be relegated to Backup Shoes, used for emergencies and dirty jobs, such as playing football or splashing in puddles. My current Backup Shoes, which had been my Main Shoes the previous cycle, would be thrown out, after a brief ceremony acknowledging their two fine years of service.

As I said, it was a good system.

But then Target quit selling these shoes. At first I didn’t believe it. (Or I didn’t want to believe it.) I figured they’d show up on the shelves eventually, and I returned several times, but they never did. Only trendy, popular shoes, which I hate with a passion, were available. I even checked a different Target, but no dice. They were gone.

And so, my system is broken and the clock's running. My current Main Shoes should have become my Backup Shoes months ago, but they’ve been forced to stay in their current role. This is bad. They’re dirty and wearing thin. Just last week one of the laces began to fray. My Backup Shoes, which should be in a dumpster, are basically dissolving, and I’m pretty much afraid to wear them anywhere, since there’s a good chance they’d leave me stranded in my stocking feet.

You’re probably saying, “So go to a different store!” I hear you. It makes sense. However, I just don’t want to. I like my system. It took me about a half minute to find new shoes. If I abandoned the system, I’d have to find a different shoe store, go into it, look around, try to find the closest thing possible to what I’ve been buying, try them on, test them out, and finally purchase them. Ugh. That’s a lot of work. Even worse, that’s only a best case scenario! I might have to try on multiple pairs of shoes before I found what I like! Just thinking about it makes we want to curl up into a ball and cry.

I’ve adapted to change many times in my life, and I’ll continue to do so for the rest of my life. But I can’t give in every time. I can’t be a pushover. I can’t let change hold me in an iron grip of conformity, and so I’m putting my poorly shod foot down. I’m not going to do it! I’m buying my shoes from Target, and nowhere else!

Unfortunately, I have a feeling this isn’t going to end well. Most likely, Target will never sell these shoes again, and I’ll be eventually faced with a decision: I’ll have to go barefoot for the rest of my life, or I’ll have to give in, abandon my principles, and let change win. I see no other alternative. Unless the duct tape shoes I’ve been working on pan out

Bear Jam

Okay, so there’s been a lot of talk lately around here about Bear Jams, and I think it’s high time that I addressed it. Granted, the entirety of this talk has been done by me, for the sake of garnishing cheap attention, but I’d like to think that it may, at the very least, yield a kernel of entertainment and/or educational value to my faithful reader(s).

The first thing to talk about is whether it’s possible for me to write an entire entry on Bear Jams without making a joke about four grizzlies in a garage band. At this point, my best guess is no, but we’ll just have to see how it all plays out. Keep your fingers crossed.

So what is a Bear Jam, anyway? Well, it’s something that occurs in Glacier National Park, when a bear is seen on the side of the road and all human activity comes to an instant halt so people can stare at it in disbelief, like it’s either an alien creature or a democrat and a republican getting along.

During Bear Jams, people will stop their cars in the middle of the road to watch, which backs up traffic and generally makes a mess out of an already precarious situation. (There are about two roads total in Glacier, so having traffic come to a halt on any of them is never a good thing.)

Park rangers must hate Bear Jams, because they have to come out and unsnarl them. This means they have to politely-but-authoritatively lecture everybody parking in the middle of the road and get them moving again. However, for everybody they succeed in activating, some other genius quickly takes their place. This goes on until the bear lumbers away or the ranger quits and decides on get a job at the DMV so they can be the one tormenting some poor helpless soul.

My best guess is that any given ranger would rather help empty pit toilets than face a Bear Jam, and also that it's the most junior ranger who always gets stuck handling them:

“Well, Simmons, looks like there’s a doozy of a Bear Jam just down the road. You’d better get on it.”

“Noooooooooo!!!!!!! I’ve handled the last twelve! I can’t do it anymore! I just can’t! It’s the nightmares! They won’t go away!”

“Then you’d better hope we hire somebody new real quick.”

I got to witness a small Bear Jam on my recent trip to Glacier, where a bear had decided to take a nap on a hillside just off of the road. As we drove by, we saw a gaggle of old men standing in a parking lot, staring up into the brush. (I’m not sure if “gaggle” is the correct term for a gathering of old men, but it’s definitely the most fun-sounding.) Intrigued, we pulled into the parking lot and hurried over.

This was when I realized that these old men must basically stake out the roads all day long, waiting for bears to come by. This is because they all had gigantic, state-of-the-art cameras that looked more like futuristic alien weaponry than photography equipment. I’m quite certain that most of them had a powerful enough zoom to get a picture of a bear somewhere in Vermont. (The cameras, not the old men.) Anyway, it was obvious that these cameras weren’t used during hikes. They were set up on the side of the road and sat there all day, only to be used if a bear were to wander by.

As for all of the guys owning an expensive camera, I’m pretty certain it’s a male pride thing. One old guy buys an expensive camera and begins to brag about it to the others. Another guy, annoyed after only several minutes of listening to the incessant prattle, goes out and buys an even more expensive one, so he can simultaneously shut the other guy up and also be the one who now gets to brag. This continues until the entire gaggle of old men are broke and own nothing but cameras, which is why they spend all of their time on the side of the road taking pictures, hoping to later sell them for food.

Anyway, everybody was staring up at the hill, claiming a bear was there. Personally, I saw nothing but an ordinary hill. Finally, somebody pointed out a stand of brush to me and said that the bear was somewhere behind it, taking a nap. As proof, he showed me a picture he’d taken earlier, which was of the bear entering the brush, which had been taken from a rear perspective.

That’s right, he proudly showed me a picture of the bear’s enormous butt. You just can’t ever have enough zoom or megapixels for a picture like that.

By this point the crowd was growing fast, which is what led to the Bear Jam. Cars would drive by and slow down, and the drivers would crane their necks to try to figure out what everybody was looking at. Some rolled down their windows and asked. Soon, cars were beginning to stop. There wasn’t enough room on the shoulder for them to fit, so they’d just park where they were, with eighty percent of the vehicle still firmly located on the road.

Soon a ranger showed up. He drove from car to car, telling them they had to park somewhere less idiotic. The drivers would nod their heads and take off. Soon after, another car would take its place.

Meanwhile, the bear, if there really was one, hadn’t moved and still wasn't visible.

Eventually, we grew sick of looking at the brush where the bear was supposed to be and left. From that point on, we didn’t take part in any more Bear Jams. They were more annoying than anything else. I mean, unless the bears were doing something cool, like playing in a garage band, it just wasn’t worth the hassle. (Dang! Almost made it!)

A Conversation

“So there’s this blog that I sometimes read.”

“Really? People still write blogs?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. Imagine that.”

“Anyway, this one is normally updated weekly, but it’s been about two weeks since the last posting.”

“Good heavens! Do you think it’s a government conspiracy?”

“Hilarious, but no. I’m just wondering what happened? It feels like I’ve been sort of abandoned. I mean, this author was like clockwork.”

“You mean always posting, like he was desperately crying out for any attention he could get?”

“You could say that.”

“You sound very attached to this blog. Is it funny?”

"Well, the author thinks he’s funny, and that's sort of amusing.”

“And now your life has been shattered by the lack of updates?”

“Kind of.”

“Well, maybe he has a good excuse for not updating it.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe he realized he wasn’t funny.”

“I don’t think that’ll ever happen.”

“Then maybe he got a cold.”

“A cold?”

“Yeah, a cold. You know how it is: You get a cold but you still go to work because it’s not worth taking any time off. Then you spend several days in your cubicle coughing up a lung all over your keyboard and generally annoying everybody within a fifty foot radius, all while accomplishing very little in terms of actual work. When you get home at night, you basically collapse into a heap without the energy to do anything except watch reruns of Cheers on Netflix.”

“Oh yeah! And then your voice drops several octaves until you can really nail the ‘Giddyup, oom poppa, oom poppa, mow mow’ part of the song Elvira!”

“Yup. That’s what I’m talking about.”

“You’re right! Maybe that’s what happened to that blogger! And maybe now he’s finally starting to feel better and is desperately trying to come up with something to post!”

“Maybe.”

“Wow! I feel much better! I was worried he fell down an open manhole or something.”

“I guess it’s still a possibility.”

“I’d better go check for an update! He said he was going to write about Bear Jams!”

“Bear Jams?”

“Yup.”

“There’s no way that could be any good.”

“Deep down, I think I know that.”

Glacier Highlights

I have returned from Glacier National Park! Rather than bore you with the gritty details, which I’m much too lazy to write about, I’m going to instead compile a short list of the trip’s highlights, which will be determined using the rigorous scientific selection method of writing down whatever pops into my mind over the next few minutes. Sounds good? Then here we go…

The Day of Eighty Wardrobe Changes: The second hike of the trip was during a windy, rainy day. The rain was intermittent, to the point where it was basically toying with us. It would start to rain, and the rain gear would come out. It would stop raining, and the rain gear would be packed away, since it’s so hot and heavy. Repeat several dozen times or so until you’re pretty certain that somewhere along the line you did something to really tick off Mother Nature.

Going to the Sun Road: It was a wonderful drive, assuming you love sitting in construction and you don’t mind the majestic view of thick, impenetrable fog.

The Sunburn: After several cloudy days, the sun finally came out in full force. I neglected to consider this important meteorological change and went into the next hike wearing a bandana and no sunscreen. The result was that at the end of day, my head resembled a mismatched plastic Easter egg; its cover white and the rest deep red. And no, I did not take any pictures of this.

The Jim Leyland Lookalike: We were hiking the Highline Trail, moving along at a pretty good clip, when out of nowhere this old guy caught up to us. He was eerily reminiscent of Jim Leyland, complete with the sunglasses and moustache, except he seemed much less likely to keep putting Ryan Rayburn into the starting lineup, in the hopes that he might “run into one,” and much more likely to hike along the continental divide for several weeks at a time, wrestling mountain goats into submission for the sheer sport of it. Yup, he was a tough old coot, giving hope to anybody over the age of fifty-five who wants to enjoy an active lifestyle. After chatting with us briefly, he sped off and left us behind in a cloud of dust. This is the only picture I got of him. Somehow, it seems appropriate.

Johnson’s of St. Mary: If you’re ever in St. Mary, located on the eastern side of the park, and you need a place to eat, then stop at Johnson’s. They play nothing but old school country music. They have phenomenal homemade bread. They display customer sign in/comment sheets from the 70’s up until the present at the tables. They have excellent soup. They sell something called Ice Cream Pie, which weighs about fifty pounds and is as big as a mature pumpkin. It’s worth going there just to see the eyes of somebody when it’s placed down in front of them at their table. Their expression is basically one of I-think-I'm-in-heaven-even-though-there’s-no-way-I’m-eating-all-of-this-without-getting-a-stomach-ache-that’ll-last-for-roughly-a-week-and-possibly-dying.

Huckleberry Everything: Huckleberries are pushed everywhere in the park: huckleberry soda, huckleberry jelly beans, huckleberry stuffed French toast, huckleberry ice cream, huckleberry t-bone steak, etc.

Bear Jams: More on that later, assuming I remember to write it.

The Polite Bighorn Sheep: It was patiently waiting for a turn at the outhouse:

"Hey, I'm next in line, buddy!"



Learning that bear bells have an approximate operating radius of three feet: This was done through a scientific process consisting of us constantly not hearing other hikers’ bear bells until they were right up in our proverbial grills. So as long as you don’t mind a bear not being able to hear you until you’re basically sitting on its dinner plate, bear bells are a wise purchase. In addition, they are also incredibly annoying, making it sound like Santa Claus is perpetually coming to town. Even if they were effective, I’d rather be eaten by a bear than hike in a group with somebody wearing them.

This sign:

This Realization: No matter how good the trail mix tastes for the first three-quarters of the trip, there still comes a time when you instantly begin to hate it and simply can’t eat another bite.

The official group photo for the trip:

 

Oh right, and some OK scenery:

Minimalist Planning

Preparation for any vacation adventure is key. Too much preparation, however, may be worse than none at all. An adventure where every single minute is planned out and packed for seems to me to be less of an adventure and more of a transfer of life’s daily grind over to one of the few occasions where it isn’t needed.

What you need to do is minimalist planning, which is just enough to get you by, and more than enough to keep things interesting. ("Money! I should have planned to bring money!")

For example, I’m about to head to Glacier National Park for a week or so. I know how and when I’ll get there, and how and when I’ll leave. I’ve even got places to sleep lined up, which might even be going a bit too far on the planning front. Beyond that, however, it’s kind of all up in the air. That’s minimalist planning. Anything less, such as not picking an actual destination, could be a bit of a problem. Any more would be too constricting. (“Yeegads, it’s already 8:47! We’re supposed to be done with breakfast by now! Code Red! Code Red! The day’s in shambles! Our only hope is to bump our average traveling speed up to 62 miles per hour and skip Bathroom Break Number Three! Nobody drink anything! It’s time to exercise contingency plan Bladder Control! Now let’s get moving!! I've got charts and graphs to update!!”)

Additionally, a non-minimalist would have purchased a book on the park and read it cover to cover. I bought a book, but I’ve barely looked at it. It has lots of pages and seems kind of boring, at least more boring that the alternative of reading about Jack Reacher as he dispenses his own brand of vigilante justice on those who deserve it most.

A non-minimalist would also have purchased a detailed map of the park and scoured every detail of it, picking out the best looking hiking trails and planning routes. I bought a map but I haven’t been inspired to study it very much. There’ll be plenty of time for that on the plane, assuming I’m not listening to Gunsmoke on my iPod.

A non-minimalist would have initiated an exercise and nutritional program months ago to get into shape so that the sudden immersion into Hike Uphill All Day Mode won’t destroy them. I found my hiking boots and made sure they still fit.

A non-minimalist would have created various lists to help with packing, and they would have started that task weeks ago, making certain that almost every contingency is planned for. My packing will consist of the Fixed Volume Approach. I have one piece of luggage and a carry on. The day before I leave, I’ll start filling them up with the items I consider to be the most important, based solely on my priorities at that very moment. When I run out of room, I’m done. Will underwear make the cut? Will I bring nothing but peanut butter because I was hungry during packing? We’ll just have to see…

Once I get there, how will I fill my time? Well, that’ll all work itself out soon enough. I assume there will be lots of hiking up to high places, admiring the view for a while, hiking back, and then celebrating with a meal. What more planning could possibly be needed?

Do I have any specific goals for this trip? I dunno…to not get caught in a stampede of mountain goats would be one, assuming that mountain goats actually stampede on occasion. Beyond that, though, not really. A goal seems like a metric, and a metric seems like something you can get evaluated on, and something you can get evaluated on seems like work, and work seems like something I’d rather not do while trying to embark on an adventure.

I could go on, but I think I’ll cut this short, which is to say I never planned on how to end this entry in a smooth fashion.

Washing Machines and Country Music

My favorite line in the girl-leaves-guy-but-then-realizes-the-grass-isn’t-necessarily-greener-on-the-other-side-and-then-comes-back-to-the-guy-who-may-or-may-not-have-noticed-she-was-missing-in-the-first-place song “She Couldn’t Change Me” by Montgomery Gentry is as follows: “She changed her tune to some hip hop mess.”

This is in reference to one of the things the girl does upon leaving the guy, which also includes changing her hair color. Later on in the song, when she sees the error of her ways and returns to the guy, who apparently spent the whole time sitting on his front porch in his overalls, we get the bookend line: “She changed her tune, it’s all Haggard and Jones.”

This allegory to country music being superior to hip hop is not in the least bit subtle, and while to each their own, I tend to agree, to the point where I’m comfortable saying that hip hop sounds like the contents of a toolkit being run through a washing machine, except with less understandable lyrics.

So, it is of great concern to me that the “hip hop mess” now seems to be infiltrating country music, not to mention the fact that it seems to be being embraced by its listeners. The way I see it, for a country song to be a hit these days it must have:

• Loud guitars that drown out all of the traditional country instruments
• (Not that any traditional country instruments are even being played)
• At least 35 percent of the lyrics rapped
• The words or phrases “girl”, “jeans”, “truck”, “out here”, “dirt road”, “backwoods”, “beer”, and “theoretical particle physics” included at least twice. I’m kidding about one of these
• Lyrics with roughly the same emotional depth as the weather report
• An alternate version of the song that features a hip hop artist such as T-Payne-Dizzle-Dawg-Yo*

Here in the Twin Cities, on my way to work each morning I always scan through the country stations, just to cringe and survey the damage. Besides Bob FM – whom I’m giving an enthusiastic shout-out to – these stations all rotate through about ten songs each day, all of which sound exactly the same, since they follow the above-stated parameters. An example playlist is as follows:

• Florida Georgia Line: “Round Here” – This song is pretty much indistinguishable from all of their previous singles, by which I mean it’s a continuous dull roar of noise.
• Luke Bryan: “That’s My Kind Of Night” – This song reminds me of “Another One Bites The Dust” at the beginning. It gets worse from there.
• Florida Georgia Line: “Cruise – (hip hop remix)” – Or maybe it’s “Round Here” again. Or "Get Your Shine On." Who can even tell with these guys?
• Luke Bryan: “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)” – Just as I recover from “That’s My Kind Of Night.”
• Jake Owen: “Days of Gold” – See Florida Georgia Line.
• Jason Aldean: “1994” – Joe Diffie actually tried to capitalize on this by coming out with his own hip hop country song afterwards. Seriously. It’s called “Girl Ridin’ Shotgun.” He sings with somebody by the name of D-Thrash. Honestly. Look it up. You won’t regret it. Although you might.
• Florida Georgia Line: “Round Here” – Better spin it again, since it’s been 20 whole minutes since the last time.
• Blake Shelton: “Boys ‘Round Here” – Blake once lamented in “Same Old Song” that everything sounds the same in country music and there’s no originality in it. Huh. Pot meet kettle. At least he went with the original lyrics “chew tobacco, chew tobacco, chew tobacco spit” in this one.
• Lee Brice: “Parking Lot Party” – See Jake Owen.
• George Strait: “Amarillo By Morning”

I’m kidding about one of these. Unfortunately.

Needless to say, after trying to slog through to a lineup like this, I soon find myself looking forward to listening to the commercials. (“How do you spell Zerorez again? I need to know!”)

I realize that I’m probably sounding like an old-of-touch, stuck-in-the-past, blathering old man here, and I suppose that I sort of am. But it’s a free country, and I’m allowed to whine and complain all I want! So there!

Luckily, music seems to act like a pendulum, swinging from one extreme back to the other, which means that there will inevitably be short periods of actual good contemporary music being made. So with any luck, it’ll swing back to sound like 90’s country sometime before I die. If not, then I guess I can always listen to the washing machine.

* Not an actual hip hop artist. As far as I know.

To Paint, Perchance to Spill

I had a room to paint, and that scared me.

Painting has never been my forte. Instead, it’s my anti-forte. (If that isn’t a word, it should be. Also, for the record, breakfast for dinner is my forte.) Anyway, painting is my anti-forte because I’m a naturally messy person when it comes to accomplishing chores. Spills, drips, crashes, bangs, slips, slops, drops, leaks, and small fires seem to follow me around, and that’s just when I’m trying to make cereal for breakfast. It gets worse during the rest of the day. So, arming me with a brush and a gallon of paint is one of the last things anybody, including myself, would ever want to do.

But I had a room to paint.

And as if my penchant for messiness wasn't enough, I was also out of practice. I hadn’t done any real painting since back in my college days, where over about a three-year stretch I did quite a bit of it. I painted everything from walls to doors to lockers to the backs of unwary co-worker’s shirts. Even back then, my messiness was in full swing, so needless to say, by the end of college every single one of my work shirts looked like a rainbow had melted directly onto it.

My favorite college mishap was when I was painting the metal frame of a hockey net. To do parts of this, I had to squat inside of said net. I’d just finished painting the underside of the crossbar and decided to stand up to stretch. Unfortunately, I forgot a very critical step in this process, which was to make sure I’d gotten myself completely clear of the net before doing so. Because of this slight oversight, I ran into the crossbar on the way up, resulting in a thick bar of bright red paint transferring over to the back of my shirt. Talk about your Red Badge of D’oh!

But, despite my dismal college track record, I still had a room to paint, and there was no getting around it.

So I got to work.

The key to painting is to tape everything off correctly. To do this, you need to get the highest quality tape and spend several presidential administrations wiping down and carefully taping off everything that needs it, including baseboards, windows, outlets, passing household pets, etc. While not exciting, and potentially a cure for insomnia, this job is still well worth it in the end.

Not that it will make the quality of your paint job any better, mind you. No matter how much time you spend taping, paint will still leak underneath. It’s a basic rule of nature, much like geese spending ninety percent of their time wandering through busy intersections looking confused. However, if you can honestly say that you gave a maximum effort during your taping job, then you’re justified in moaning and complaining about how taping never works when painting, despite what the internet tells you. This is a must for anybody who’s just finished painting a room and needs to come up with a good excuse for the numerous drips and runs left behind on the baseboards and windows.

When everything is taped off you next have to "cut in" with a brush in several key areas, including the corners, where the wall meets the ceiling, where the wall meets the baseboards, around the doors and windows, and around any furniture you were too lazy to move because it looked kind of heavy. This is the most mind-numbing job ever, beating out even United States Congressperson, and you will absolutely hate it after roughly thirty seconds. After sixty seconds, you’ll probably wish that you were still taping things off. But persevere through, because soon you’ll get to use a roller!

Rolling the walls is the most fun. It’s a payoff for all of your prior hard work taping and cutting. Now this is where you can really get some color going fast! The key is to apply consistent pressure throughout, in order to apply a uniform coat of paint. If you can’t keep consistent pressure, however, don’t worry. Nobody will notice anyway, because your roller will soon begin to shed little pieces of nap, which will get caught up in the paint and transferred over to your wall, ultimately making it look like you rolled over several cats in your hurry to get the room painted. A non-uniform coat of paint will be the least of your worries.

That's basically how my painting session went. However, I was actually halfway pleased with the result, as it could have gone much worse. For example, I could have stepped directly into the paint bucket, a la just about any Archie Andrews comic, or I could have been painting a hockey net.

In addition, ever since I did the painting and noticed all of the tiny imperfections afterwards, I’ve begun to look at the paint jobs in other houses, and I’ve realized that they all have basically the same problem as mine!

This has led me to a very important conclusion: Painting perfectly is all but impossible and everybody eventually settles, and so should you. This means that you need to subscribe to the “I’m Sick Of This, Let’s Be Done And Get Some Dinner” school of thought. If you don’t, you’ll just drive yourself crazy trying to make everything perfect. Remember, even if one of your visitors were to notice a few drops, runs, or streaks, there's a good chance they wouldn't even care, because their house probably looks exactly the same.

Plus, they're most likely wondering about the massive colony of bacteria growing in your bathroom, taking guesses as to how often it is you actually clean in there, and debating whether or not you'll need a flame flower the next time you get around to it.

The Things I Do For My Craft

Sometimes it seems like I’ve run out of things to write about. This feels especially true if nothing interesting has happened to me lately in the checkout line at the grocery store, where it seems that half of my entries originate. (Not that I’m embarrassed by the amount of time I spend in checkout lines. It’s just an observation.)

So, in order to keep my idea pool from drying up, I took it upon myself to do something drastic, something that would virtually guarantee me a never-ending supply of anecdotes and talking points for this blog.

I bought a house.

Well, a townhome, really, since lawnmowers hate me and always seem to want to attack me, which is why I decided to remove them from the equation completely. And don’t even get me started on hedge clippers. I still have nightmares.

Despite the lack of outdoor responsibilities, a townhome still holds a vast potential for interesting blog fodder, and here I’m thinking of do-it-yourself projects that will inevitably go horribly awry, much like what happens in the storylines of numerous Three Stooges shorts. For example, I plan to do some painting. That in itself should be a gold mine that translates into multiple entries, such as:

• How to chose from a near-infinite number of paint colors with snooty names like Golden Wheatfield Dancing In The Wind or Midnight Mulberry, when choosing a lunchmeat for a sandwich can sometimes take you upwards of a quarter hour.
• How to stock up on equipment at the nearest Home Depot, which costs almost as much as your mortgage but is much harder to haul to your car.
• Why accidentally backing up into a freshly painted wall is both a bad thing and slightly amusing.
• Questioning how paint got in the fridge, even though you were working on a bedroom on an entirely separate level.
• How to position furniture in a room to cover up all of the paint puddles that somehow found their way around and under the drop cloths.
• Determining how you managed to get paint on virtually every square inch of your skin, including your belly button.

And that’s just painting, which is a relatively harmless activity. Just think of when I get into plumbing! It’s going to be great! I’m thinking tidal waves here! I’ll probably have to invest in a pair of hip waders!

So, if you thought this blog was getting boring, you’d better prepare yourself. Things are just getting started!

Or maybe finished. For some reason, I can’t help but envision paint getting into the hard drive of my computer in the near future.

I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.

Me-Haul?

When I moved away from Wisconsin, it was the right thing to do. I’d begun to cultivate what some may consider to be an unnatural disposition for cheese, I was referring to pop as “soda,” and the very thought of the Green Bay Packers wasn’t nearly as revolting as it had been in years prior. Cleary, it was time for me to move on. Not that I disliked the people there, mind there, it was just time.

The only downside to moving to the Twin Cities was the actual act of moving to the Twin Cities. This was because I did it in a small UHaul, during which time I realized that I had the potential to be, if I put my mind to it, the worst commercial truck driver in the history of the world.

I hated driving that UHaul. I was constantly looking over my left shoulder to check my blind spot, despite the fact that the UHaul had no back windows that I could use to accomplish said task. It took several hundred failed attempts before I began to get used to this phenomenon. At that point, I began to try and use the extra mirror equipped on the truck, which allowed me to see my blind spot, but which also warped the reflection so badly that I couldn’t tell if the cars behind me were a mere few feet away, or perhaps in Michigan.

So I sort of just guessed. When I needed to change lanes, I’d put on my signal, wait for about ten seconds to let everybody get out of my way, and then slowly merge over, all while praying to various deities, some of which I'd made up on the spot, to keep me safe.

And that was just in Wisconsin. When I hit rush hour in St. Paul and Minneapolis, it got much, much worse. I’ve pretty much blanked the entire experience out. I believe that I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and shrieked my way through the entire ordeal. (Sort of like how I got through college.)

The sad thing is, the UHaul was pretty tiny, for truck standards. Any big rig driver would just roll their eyes if they heard my petty complaints. However, in my defense, I was used to driving Stratuses and Accords and Escorts, where if you looked over your shoulder you were pretty much staring into the trunk.

Anyway, somehow I survived and made it to the Twin Cities, and after kissing the ground several times, I vowed to never again drive a UHaul, even if it was the only means of transportation available to spirit me away from a horde of marauding zombies or – even worse – marauding lawyers.

Flash forward to just recently, where I again found myself moving, this time within the Twin Cities area. Despite my previous experience with the UHaul three years earlier, and the adamant vows I’d made after miraculously emerging from it unscathed, I’d foolishly rented another one and was standing in a parking lot in Crystal, Minnestoa, staring it down.

“So,” I said, as I began to realize the full ramifications of the Pandora’s Box I’d just opened, “we meet again.”

Honestly, I said that.

I wondered if this was somehow the same UHaul I’d driven before, and if it was now doing its best to keep a straight face, knowing that it had a first class ticket to some major entertainment in the near future, namely me freaking out as I drove it into a lake or a Wendy’s.

And here’s the best part: This was a ten-foot UHaul, like I’d driven from Wisconsin, and it was sandwiched between two much bigger trucks, making it look like their child, or perhaps their pet wiener dog. Despite the fact that I didn’t even want to drive the 10-footer, a small part of me, driven entirely by male pride, was embarrassed that I was renting something so small. “You should have gotten a bigger truck,” that part of me said. “If anybody sees you in this wimpy piece of junk, you’ll never hear the end of it!”

I calmed my male pride by promising that I’d drive wearing a fake moustache and a fedora as a disguise.

Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for everybody who wants to read a disaster story along the same lines as Sharknado, here’s where the story falls flat: After all of this dramatic buildup, the move actually went fine. I didn’t drive into lake. I didn’t create a new entrance into a grocery store. I didn’t somehow find myself airborne, as if I was participating in a scene right out of the Dukes of Hazzard. Instead, I survived by driving like an eighty-year old man – which isn’t that far of a stretch for me anyway. I hugged the right lane of the freeway, kept to minimal speeds, and watched as cars streamed by me on the left, all while mostly keeping up with the occasional tortoise on my right.

When I dropped the UHaul off, having aged about a decade in several hours, I vowed again that this would be the last time. I would never move again! And if it I did, I’d sell all of my stuff and start over from scratch! I’d be like Jack Reacher, traveling around with a toothbrush and an ATM card, and buying my clothes on the fly! (Although I’d probably be the one always getting beaten up.)

I meant it this time! Seriously!

Which means it’s just about guaranteed that I’m going to get transferred to Iowa any day now.

Confrontation Avoidance

Right or wrong, I’m a person who typically avoids confrontations. For example, if somebody were to walk up to me and slap me upside the head, my response would most likely be: “My bad, my head got in the way of your hand. Sorry ‘bout that. Hey, you wanna help me look for my ear?”

Not that I’m a complete pushover, mind you. Every man has his limit. For example, after twenty or so slaps, I might just have to do something about it. So beware.

Still, in general I tend to take the path of least resistance. For example, I was recently checking out at the grocery store, and the cashier asked me, “Did you find everything you were looking for?” Automatically, I told her that I had. However, that wasn’t the case. They were out of the lunch meat that I usually buy.

So, why didn’t I tell the cashier this? She’d asked me explicitly if I’d found everything I was looking for, and I, in fact, hadn’t. It was my right, nay my duty, to inform her of the item I hadn’t been able to find.

But instead I chose to say nothing, to keep this potentially vital piece of information to myself. Why? I guess because I knew that if I said everything was okay, then life would go on as normal. However, if I said that I didn’t find what I was looking for, I’d be entering into unknown territory, and I wouldn't know what would happen then. I can, however, picture several scenarios:

Scenario One: They note the missing item and do their best to restock it quickly.

Scenario Two: They respond politely and promise to do their best to not let it happen again, even though as soon as I leave, they disregard all that I said, all while complaining of how arrogant I was to actually have the nerve to criticize their operation.

Scenario Three: They ban me from the store, sending me on my way with a hearty, “If you don’t like it, then shop somewhere else, you ungrateful buffoon!”

Scenario Four: A secret button under the register is pressed. Two burly men, both named Hugo, materialize on the scene and drag me to a dingy back room. There they rough me up (or, in technical terms, give me the business) until I suddenly remember that there was never a problem, that the store has everything I could possibly ever need, that my complaint was a result of a major lapse of judgment on my part, and that I love the store and will frequent it until the day I die, all while making certain that any offspring of mine will be taught from birth that shopping there is the only viable option in terms of obtaining foodstuffs to sustain oneself.

Talk about fear of the unknown! I don’t know about you, but Scenario Three scares me! I mean, then where would I get my groceries?

The point is, I purposely avoided a confrontation that, despite my paranoia, was such a minor issue it’d be almost foolish to even consider a confrontation.

And that is why I’ll never not like any gift I’ll ever receive, even if it’s dirt or used gym socks, I’ll agree that every song anybody ever plays for me is “pretty good”, and I’ll always swear on my life that Santa Claus is a real person who’s diligently running his workshop at the North Pole, albeit the fact that he's most likely currently looking into outsourcing his labor to China.

This begs the following question: Should I become more assertive? Should I not shy away from confrontations, and instead even welcome them? My first instinct is to say ‘no’. I am who I am, and I’m too far into my life to change now. But if you think different, I can probably change my mind. I mean, there’s no use in getting into a thing over it.

To Kick A Rock

There are times when I feel like I’ve lost touch with my inner child, completely taken over by maturity. Sure, maturity is good for some things, like owning a car, or being able to tell kids to stay off your lawn or you’ll slap them with one humdinger of a lawsuit, but in general, it just seems to make things more complicated.

Luckily, there are times when I flash back to being a kid, and when I do, I find it to be incredibly refreshing.

Take today for example, during my usual noontime walk.

I go for a walk every day at lunch not for the exercise, but to escape my cubicle for a short while, since we don’t get along very well. It seems to tolerate me, and I tolerate it, but there’s still some serious tension between us. This is probably because I don’t want to be there, and it’d rather be alone. Sometimes, I think it’s plotting against me, trying to determine, for example, the best time to collapse on top of me.

Anyway, I was walking along the side of the road when I saw a rock. This wasn’t just any rock, however, it was a perfect kicking rock. It was big enough to make a good target, but not so big that it’d hurt your toe. It was also slightly rectangular, which would make it easier to hit squarely with good power, which is a very fulfilling endeavor.

Unsurprisingly, moments later I was completely absorbed in kicking the rock down the street.

The key to rock kicking is timing. After you kick the rock, you then have to try to measure your steps correctly, so that when you catch up to it, your kicking foot is already at its furthest point back, ready to be unleashed. If you do it right, you can kick the rock without breaking stride, which makes you feel very smooth and cool. If you don’t, you end up having to awkwardly stutter-step to set yourself up, which is very embarrassing.

Unfortunately, my timing was a little rusty. It’d been a long time since I’d rock-kicked.

Anybody watching me out of an office window would have seen a guy staring intently at the street in front of him, meandering back and forth, not paying very much attention to his surroundings, and all-too-often stutter-stepping violently for no apparent reason. If it wasn’t known that I was rock-kicking, the most obvious conclusion would have been complete inebriation.

At one point, I wandered out into the middle of the road to chase down an errant kick. Luckily, this was a side street, and the traffic was light.

Eventually, I had to turn a corner. As I did, I tried to kick with my opposite foot – as the rock was lined up better for that – and I whiffed completely. Feeling my face turning red with failure, I kept on going, leaving the rock behind.

However, for a glorious minute or two, I'd been a kid again, without a care in the world, my biggest priority seeing just how long I could kick a rock down the street. Ahhhhhh. You just need that every once in a while.

Then I got back to the office, and I wasn’t a kid any longer.

But I suppose it’s for the best. A kid wouldn’t know how to deal with a cubicle that seems to be plotting his ultimate demise.

Expanding The Empire

Having not yet recouped the operating expenses from the self-publishing of my book earlier this year, along with having this blog, which boasts upwards of six or seven hits per day, I’ve decided that the next logical thing for me to do with the FromTheDeskOfCurly brand is expand it into Twitter, in order to grow the number of media outlets in which it’s currently irrelevant.

You heard me right, Twitter – the microblogging site that I’ve made fun of in previous postings, stating that its only use is to watch celebrities self-destruct via tweets that would have gotten caught in the brain-filters of most sane people who don’t believe the world revolves around them.

But before you call my a hypocrite – even though I’ll admit that I am one – hear me out: How better to make fun of Twitter than from deep within the belly of the beast? It’s like going undercover to take down a shady organization from the inside, just like you see in movies, except with less bad CGI.

I’ll also admit that there are a few advantages to tweeting over blogging. For example, when you blog, you need an actual idea, which you then need to flesh out and turn into multiple paragraphs that flow together coherently and justify the main theme. These paragraphs, then, need to be examined for spelling and grammar mistakes, less you look like a fool with barely a third-grade education after you spell the word “nincompoop” incorrectly.

With Twitter, however, that’s all out the window! You don’t need anything to wield it effectively, not even a thought! You can just blather nonsensically! It’s the new American way!

In addition, blogging can be somewhat time-consuming. With Twitter, it’s a much more efficient way for me to waste my waking hours.

Not that I’m done blogging, mind you. It has been, and always will be, the best median for me to express myself. In fact, I strongly suspect that this foray into Twitter won’t last very long. However, one never knows where the tides of fate will take them, so I’m just going to keep an open mind and see how it all plays out.

Now, on the off-chance that Twitter begins to consume most of my writing time due to unexplained massive popularity, I may be forced to hire a ghostwriter to continue the work on this blog. This would be a great way for an aspiring writer to get some real-world experience – on an unpaid basis, of course. If it ever comes to that, I’ll hire the writer through a detailed application process, most likely announced via Twitter, provided, of course, that I’m not currently too busy embroiled in a bitter tweeting feud with some celebrity.

From The Desk Of Curly on Twitter

Solo Road Trip

I recently got to do a road trip solo, and it was well overdue.

You see, while there are many reasons to have passengers with you on a road trip – such as always having somebody available to push the car if it conks out because you haven’t changed the oil in about twenty-thousand miles – there are also multiple benefits to doing one solo. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

1.)    You can depart at any time, without having to wait for any riders to finish packing because they can’t determine just how many extra pairs of underwear to bring with them.

2.)    When your surefire shortcut adds three hours to your trip, nobody’s the wiser to your failings as a navigator.

3.)    If an eighty-seven year old lady passes you on the freeway, the incident will stay exclusively between you and her.

4.)    You can listen to whatever you want on the radio, even guilty pleasures such as John Denver or static.

5.)    You can stop for as many bathroom breaks as you see fit, which also allows you the freedom to consume as much coffee as you want.

6.)    You won’t feel as guilty if the seat next to you eventually fills up with the discarded wrappers of candy bars, fast food, chips, Little Debbies, and antacids.

7.)    You can sing out loud to the radio.

For the road trip that I just took, item #7 on the list was what I really took advantage of. You see, I live in the Twin Cities, where the average people-per-square-foot-of-land ratio sits roughly at 8. (This square foot is also shared with approximately eight-million mosquitoes, but that’s another story.) With such a dense population, it’s hard for me to find good times to sing in the car, since I always find myself surrounded by ten other vehicles - even when I’m in a carwash - and I tend to get stage fright if I know that others are watching me in my attempt to belt out “Amarillo By Morning.” (People also tend to think I’ve having some sort of attack when I’m trying to hit the high notes on “My Maria.”)

However, when traveling through the wilds of northern Wisconsin and Michigan, which is where my road trip was taking me, a person tends to have plenty of time to bellow out songs as loud as they want for as long as they want, just as long as they don’t mind deer giving them funny looks as they continually lunge out in front of the car.

Anyway, I took full advantage of my opportunity to sing, and I have to say that I was rusty. Songs I’d memorized the lyrics to years before had begun to disappear from my mind, leaving behind only fragments that I had to piece together the best I could via improvisation. (“On a warm summer’s evening, on a train bound for nowhere, I met up with a big bear, we were both on fire and weak…”) My voice, which was never that impressive to begin with, had eroded dramatically, to the point where I sometimes wondered if my engine was ceasing up – or perhaps exploding – as was I trying to sing the low parts to “Elvira.”

Still, despite my newfound failings, it was well worth it to just let it all hang out for a while. However, there was a price to be paid, as I finished the road trip with raw vocal cords, not to mention a rounder stomach, courtesy of a bit too much non-guilt snacking.

This leads me to a word of caution: If your self-control isn’t what you’d like it to be, try to limit your solo road trips to several times per year. If you don’t, you’ll probably end up with both laryngitis and the need to wear a girdle, and the eight-thousand mosquitos surrounding you in Minnesota will laugh at you for both.

The Shopping Alternative

As I’ve mentioned before, I hate to shop for clothes. In terms of desirability, it ranks right up there for me with root canals, spinning around in circles until I fall over, and One Direction.

Because of this, my current wardrobe is roughly as old as I am, which means that it’s in a state of rapidly accelerating decay, which can potentially lead to embarrassing situations. (“But I remember putting on pants this morning! Where’d they go?”)

This has left me with two choices, assuming that going to jail due to indecent exposure charges is something I’d rather avoid: Buying new clothes, or fixing the ones I already own.

Being a stubborn Finlander who likes to avoid both social contact and the expenditure of money, I’ve chosen the second option and recently began to fix – or perhaps the better term would be to “mend” – my rapidly dissolving wardrobe, all from the comfort of my own home.

In order to take up this task, I’ve fallen back on the skills I learned during middle school sewing class, ignoring the fact that my middle school cooking class skills haven’t exactly stuck with me over the years. (“Oh boy, this hamburger is getting out of control! Man your battle stations! I need one of those pokey-prong-thingies, and a knifeamajig!”)

Back in middle school, my main sewing accomplishment was the construction of a stuffed shark from a kit. I was rather happy with my work, proudly naming the shark San Jose. (I still like that name, even though nobody else ever did.) Unfortunately, ever since then, the world hasn’t lent me many opportunities to construct any additional stuffed sharks, which has left me rusty in the sewing department.

Still, I haven’t been intimidated.

Recently, I mended a pair of shorts, where the lining in the pocket had torn. Here’s a brief overview of how it went down:

For the first eight to ten hours, I attempted to thread the needle, which is at roughly the same difficulty level as spearing a mosquito out of the air with a toothpick while blindfolded. Luckily, I was working from the comfort of my own home, so my colorful language did not fall upon the ears of any young children. Eventually, I had to resort to the old man trick of taking off my glasses in order to see better. (You’ll only understand this when it happens to you, and then it’ll be too late.) The result was I was finally able to thread the needle, but at the expense of every last illusion I had of me retaining any vestige of my youth.

Then came the actual sewing. I had no idea what I was doing and just winged it, with my main goal being not to poke myself more than eight or nine times in the process. (I don’t know if I succeeded. I lost count due to weakness from blood loss.) My line of stitching had a cardiogram-type pattern to it, as it happily weaved its way here and there, sometimes not even joining together the two desired pieces of fabric. The end result was a sewing job usually associated with what’s holding together Frankenstein’s Monster’s various limbs.

However, despite the lack of intrinsic beauty, I was successful in my efforts! My shorts are now fixed and ready for action! The true test will be how long they last before either a new tear occurs or my patchwork stitching falls apart. Still, it’s better than buying new shorts. Plus, even if my sewing job doesn’t last long, I still have one more trick up my sleeve: duct tape.

Corporate Shenanigans

Well, I’ve run out of semi-interesting things to write about in this blog, so I’m now forced to discuss something that will either put you to sleep or make you run out of the room, shrieking at the top of your lungs: Work! I will, however, do my best to incorporate Darth Vader into the mix, so perhaps all is not lost. But no promises, and I advise you to have a pillow handy if you choose to read on.

Recently, I was at work, looking at a data file given to us by one of our clients. This file included names and addresses in it. However, this was a test data file, so the names and addresses were all made up. Included on said file were records for Curly, Larry, and Moe, along with one Igor Henchman, who lived on Frok and Steen Drive. Obviously, whoever had put the file together had been bored and decided to amuse himself by coming up with silly names. I got a good chuckle out of it, not only because it was humorous, but also because I’ve done the same thing at various times in my career.

For example, during a past job I spent some time working on my company’s career web site, where applicants apply for jobs online. While doing this, I had to create a lot of job applications in our test environment, which turned out to be extremely fertile ground for using silly names. I believe I started with country music singers, which led to Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash applying to be things such as business analysts or software developers. (“I used to be a singer, but then I realized my true calling was to sit in meetings all day long, scribbling down notes that I’ll never be able to decipher later on.”) I then moved on to fictional characters, and the likes of Indiana Jones and John Rambo were soon applying to be actuaries and accountants. (“After the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull fiasco, I had no choice but to get a job in corporate America.”)

Eventually, Darth Vader even got into the mix. (Address: 123 Death Star Drive, A Galaxy Far, Far Away, 67364) I tell you, there’s no better way to beat a bout of work boredom than by imagining Darth Vader getting a job as a junior mail clerk, where he’d push around a cart of mail and force-choke anybody who did annoying things, such as whistling in the elevator or talking on their phone while in a bathroom stall.

Yes, we office worker types are loads of fun, always looking for some way to amuse ourselves. Sometimes we’ll even go so far as to change the desktop background for somebody who left their cubicle without locking their computer. (“Aarrrggghhh!!!! It's Fabio!!!! Break the screen! Break the screen!") I know it sounds harsh, but when you’re living in a virtual Dilbert universe, you do what you must to stay sane.

Now, if only Daffy Duck would get that job as Vice President of Technology, then things would get more entertaining!

Cool Again

In a stunning turn of events that defy the laws of probability, on par with me being named World’s Best Dressed Man or Most Likely To Survive A Month In A Barren Wilderness Devoid Of Pizza Delivery, I have managed to lay a whupping on Father Time, by which I mean I’ve officially become cool again, even at an age where the highlight of my day is if my knees either snap, crackle, or pop, but not all three, when I get out of bed in the morning.

Cool, huh? And all it took was me being incredibly careless and almost destroying an expensive piece of technology.

It all started a few months ago when I was getting out of my car. Now, this is a maneuver that I’ve successfully executed countless times in row, ever since mastering not getting caught up in the seat belt, but on this particular day, fate had something else in store for me. I honestly don’t know exactly how it happened, but as I was swinging my legs out of the car, I somehow sent my cell phone flying out the door along with them. The result was a horrible grating clunk as the phone crashed down to the garage floor.

Gasping in horror, I picked it up to survey the damage, ready to initiate mouth-to-camera resuscitation, if necessary. Luckily, it was still working. However, the screen had been cracked. The damage began in the bottom left-hand corner, where the brunt of the impact had been absorbed, creating a dense spider-web of fracturing. From there, several cracks crawled up the screen, as if in a race to get to the top, before petering out three-quarters of the way up.

My first instinct was to fix or replace the phone. Luckily, I’m both cheap and lazy, and so I did no such thing. Instead, I took the path of least resistance and learned to live with it. Within days, I was hardly even noticing the damage anymore! It was kind of like when you have a beloved car that’s continually falling apart, but you choose to ignore all of its flaws simply because over the years it’s become almost a part of your family – or you’re just too cheap and lazy to fix it. You instead grow to accept its faults, such as the engine falling out several times a week, as nothing more than lovable quirks, and the situations that these faults keep getting you into, such as having the engine fall out on your way to the hospital so your wife can give birth, as zany adventures that you’ll continually laugh about over the years, assuming she backs away from all of that divorce talk.

This all leads up about a week or two ago, when I discovered that cracked cell phone screens are now all the rage with the young crowd. (Google it if you want proof.) Apparently, a cracked screen gives you a sort of street cred, which is something that I haven’t possessed since – well – ever. This was quite a welcome revelation to me, and as a result, I’m now pretty sure that I’ve become cool! (Disregard the fact that I learned about this latest trend while listening to NPR.)

So far, the only problem I’m having is that people don’t realize that I’ve become cool. This is because nobody ever sees my phone, because– unlike the youth population of today – I don’t spend ninety-five percent of my waking time posting unreadable status updates to the internet with it. Instead, it sits cozily in my pocket until I need it to make my next move in a game of Words With Friends with my mom.

But I have a plan: I think I’m going to get a holster and start wearing my phone on my belt. Then I can show off my cracked screen and thereby gain the street cred that I so richly crave. Hot dog, it’s gonna be great! By golly, I just can’t wait! Gee willikers, I can’t see how this plan could ever fail! But first, I should probably listen to more NPR.