The Pool

I live in a nice townhouse in a nice apartment complex with a couple really nice pools. Floating around in the pool wearing some sunscreen and relaxing is one of my favorite summertime pastimes. Here are some helpful tips to keep you out of trouble at an apartment pool.

• Do not go there to stare at the opposite sex because that will give you a reputation as the pool pervert...unless you are wearing really good sunglasses.
• Those no diving signs are there for you own good because a swan dive in a 4 foot deep pool just doesn't work...unless you can land on someone cute.
• Ordering a pizza to be delivered at the pool is a great way to make new friends...unless you have beer which  works better!
• Always ask the age of the girl to whom you offer a beer because bikinis are worn by all ages...unless they are the age when they really shouldn't be wearing a bikini anymore then don't even ask and looking may not be the best idea either.
• Lap swimming is considered rude in a pool that is only 15 feet across...unless someone wants the jacuzzi effect in which case you need to do the butterfly stroke.
• Just because they are obnoxious brats you do not have the right to hold them under water until they stop being bratty...unless their parents aren't watching.
• Do not flirt with anyone close to the age of your teenage son...unless they are hot as Barney Stinson would say.
• Always accept a beer from a babe...unless it is already opened and you have been staring at her.

I hope these summer suggestions help you have fun in the sun without getting in too much trouble...unless you want some trouble.

Far Away Focus

You may find this hard to believe but there are times when I find it difficult to focus. With a blog entitled Random Thought from a Random Mind surely you would never have guessed that. It is sad but true. My mind has the tendency to wander down dark alleys, airport runways, racquetball courts, mountain trails, and the occasional jelly fishing fighting league while leaving my body on the couch. It has come back every time but it can be gone for hours without leaving a note.

In college I went into the library once to see what all the hullabaloo was about with this whole "studying" thing people kept talking about. I sat down to read from my text book when I noticed something. It was really quiet in there. It was an unnatural quiet. It was eerie the way people would sit there and not move around or look around or make any noise while looking at books and taking notes. It was just wrong! No one should do that when there are more important things like Frisbee golf and tater tots to consider. 

Another time I had to sit there and take this test for my insurance license. (Yes I have an insurance license! You don't have to be so shocked!) We had to wear sound dampening headphones that made it so that you couldn't hear anything other than your heart beating in your ears! That was one of the worst experiences of my life. I passed the test without a problem. It was the silence that was deafening. They tried to MAKE me focus. Well there was not going to be any of that! While taking the test I also read the warning signs about cheating on the walls, watched the reflection of proctor pacing behind me, and wrote a song in my head called, "A Toe Truck for My Toes." It had a catchy tune and everything. 


Now please don't think I am totally incapable of focusing. If the situation calls for it there is something those of us with A.D.D. do called hyperfocusing. We get so focused in on one thing that we are unaware of people talking to us, fire alarms, or the occasional foreign invasion. Fortunately I do not have to do that very often. But when I do it I totally block out everything else in favor of what I am doing and have been known to stop everything else very abruptly. Is that a new crack in the wall that needs my attention?

Too Terrible Television

Mega Shark Verses Giant Octopus is on Netflix now. Thank God we don't have to wait for it to come back on SyFy channel in 20 minutes. (I know it doesn't come on every 20 minutes. It is on a 30 minute cycle.) But there are some shows that are just too stupid to be allowed to continue. Anything with a pretend judge, a pseudo celebrity, a reality show featuring the serious nature of the highway patrol, or anything with Jerry Springer should be cancelled before they are given the opportunity to lower the collective I.Q. even further.

MegaShark logo Dark T-Shirt by CafePress 

That being said, some of them are just too much fun to make fun of not to watch. It is like Mystery Science Theater 3000 but not with just science fiction. What should we call the show that watched reality shows and makes fun of the silliness of the series? I have the idea to call it Let's Make Fun of the People Who Want Their 15 Minutes of Fame So That They Will Not Become Famous for Being Famous Like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardassian. That may be a little too long of a title but I think it really gets the point across. We can shorten it to Don't Let Stupidity Be Broadcast. I like that one!


As I look at the list of reality shows on Wikipedia it boggles the mind that someone in some office somewhere thought this would be a good idea. Some of the actual titles are The Salon, Sorority Life, Fraternity Life, Amish in the City, and Gachinko! (I have no clue what that last one is but is looked like a cool name to put in my blog. It is Japanese.) I watched almost 8 second of Jersey Shore and felt my intellect dropping rapidly. 

Can someone please explain to me the shows that start with Real Housewives of...? I see that Orange County, New Jersey, Atlanta, New York, Beverly Hills, and Miami all have their own housewives now. Why? Is this something new that is kind of retro back to the 50's that makes it quaint to be at home with the kids? Or do they even have kids? I bet the Beverly Hills one has nannies.

I will confess that I have watched a couple season of The Amazing Race. But since I got divorced I broke myself of that bad habit. Please learn from my example and say no to the terrible tv out there. Anything that is reality based is not real anyway. Let's save our viewing time for the shows that tackle the important issues of the day like How I Met Your Mother, any of the Star Trek series, and The Office.

Thank God It's Monday!

I love weekends. There are all kinds of relaxing activities that make them fun. Swimming. Hiking. Family time. The occasional drinking game. I played this one over the weekend where we watched Farscape and had to drink every time they said Crichton. I would have been drunk if we hadn't been drinking chocolate malts but I did gain five pounds.

There have been times when I hated Mondays. I remember one Monday when I had fourteen meetings, three friends in the hospital, a road trip, two a lunch appointments, returning a Doctor Who movie to a Bluebox, a dinner dalliance and had return a pink and purple platypus to it's rightful owner. (That story involved a confusion with a beaver and crayon factory. Don't ask how it happened.)

This is not one of those Mondays. I am headed to work with one of my best friends. He is one of the coolest rednecks I know. He told me this joke about a roadrunner, tequila and butter beans that has had me laughing for days! 

When was the last time you were glad it was Monday? I bet it was on Memorial Day. Right? Don't you think life is too short to let Mondays be meant for moaning over missing the mojitos of of the night before? Some people are truly happy to see the new week peek into the world. Most of those people are in tourist areas, insane, unemployed or on something. For me it is working with someone that makes me laugh. My friend makes me laugh on purpose and my coworker makes me laugh accidentally. He could have inspired the whole I.Q. of Soup blog from a few weeks back!


I wish you a happy, fun filled Monday. If you are not happy it's Monday then check out my blog on Monday Morning Mischief to help you along.

The Energizer Bunny Slope

Looking back over my misspent youth there are many things I regret. One of my greatest regrets is that I never learned how to snow ski even though I lived in Colorado for four years. But that is not to say I didn't try...

I had just moved to Greeley, Colorado that July. It was time to try out my new home state's famous slopes.There is a place called Keystone, or as I like to call it "the cold snowy hell of skiing." They have an evil sense of humor out there. They do not like "flatlanders" very much. As a way of punishing those who are not from the Rockies this particular ski slope had the choice of putting the ski school at the bottom of the mountain or the top of the mountain. The bottom of the mountain was at 9000 feet above sea level. The top of the mountain was 20 feet below the Russian MIR space station. I'm sure you can guess which one the sadists chose. I'll give you a hint: Russian for "stupid American skier" is глупый американский лыжник.


As I rode the gondola to the top of the mountain (yes I said gondola - not ski lift) the air became thinner and thinner until we reached the edge of space. Looking down from the lodge at the top of the mountain at the jumbo jets flying at altitude I began to ponder the wisdom of this endeavor. I was committed or should have been for even thinking about this. We began the class and I was into it. We were learning about snow plowing and how to hold onto a rope to get back up the little hill we were pretending to ski on and something else that I can't remember now. Eight minutes into the class the mountain turned sideways and it felt as those one of those aliens was trying to bust out of my head instead of my chest like all good aliens as supposed to do. I had what is known as the bane of flatlanders everywhere - altitude sickness.


For those of you who have not had the wondrous wobbliness of altitude sickness let me try to describe it to you. Imagine getting the flu right after falling on your head from a treehouse with the aches of running a marathon without training. Then imagine all of that on top of a vodka and tequila hangover. That is kind of what it is like if it is just a minor case. I went into the lodge, sat down by the fire, and passed out for three hours.


It is amazing what three hours can do for you. It can take away the pain of altitude sickness. It can give you an amazing moment of clarity. It can also give you the wisdom to walk up to the sign, look at the slopes and head straight to the gondola to get back down to the bottom of the mountain where is was marginally safer.


At the bottom of the mountain they had a little slope that they called the Energizer Bunny Slope. It is 250 yards of sheer terror! They actually had a cute little ski lift to give us the illusion of really skiing! I got on that little ski lift to give it a try. Half way up the lift I realized there was one little detail I had missed due to puking my guts out. How do you get off a ski lift? That was not the best moment to consider that little detail!


As it turns out it is not rocket science. When you get to the top you stand up and the ground drops out from under you at a 90 degree angle so that you do not hit your head on the ski lift. Now as an additional joke on the flatlanders this BEGINNER slope was made so that you have to make a sharp right turn immediately after the free fall off the lift or you eat the snow bank it front of you. It tasted good.


Going down that slope was another experience that I will never forget. Falling is fun the first 56 times you do it but that 57th time... Anyway, as I was watching where I was going careful to avoid hurting myself or others I saw that there was a little kid going straight down the slope. Some quick geometry told me that we are going to get to the same point at the same time! My first thought was, "I am bigger and can plow him into the ground." My second thought was, "I should really turn to keep from killing him." 

As I was turning he flew past me. I tried to turn so that I could keep zig zagging my way down the slope. I didn't turn far enough. I started going straight down the hill. Even though I could have I did not run over the kid who got me into that mess but I did pass him at the speed of sound. The sonic boom knocked him off his skis. I want to go on record to say that the one thing I remembered from my lessons was the making of a V with your skis is called a snow plow that is supposed to slow you down. It made me more aerodynamic because I went faster when I did that!


Somehow I made it down the hill without killing anyone or myself. They have a little rise at the bottom of the hill to slow you down or make you catch some air if you are skiing at warp speed by that point. It was then that I saw the parking lot coming toward me far too quickly for comfort. It was at this point that I asked myself, "Why didn't you just fall down when you started your kamikaze trip down the hill?" Falling seemed preferable to playing chicken with an SUV. While turning sideways to fall I somehow managed to do one of those really cool stops you see the pros do when they throw snow up in the air. I was standing. I was alive. I was not going to tempt the angel of death again because he had just been cheated and I suspect he was looking for another chance to grab me. I took off my skis and went into the lodge and watched a rerun of a football game between two teams I didn't care a thing about. That football game was the best part of the day!

Blogger's Block

There are times when you sit down at the computer and you are blessed with what Steven King once referred to as diarrhea of the word processor. The words just flow from the fingers in a smooth way that makes it seem like they will never end. As I look at those last two sentences even I am a little grossed out by the analogy but don't want to be the only one uncomfortable so I am gonna share it with you! Don't thank me. It is the least I can do.

There are other times when it is more like constipation of the word processor when you just can't get anything out. I call it blogger's block! Looking at all the random thoughts that have spewed forth from me you wouldn't think I ever get blocked up. It happens. Sometimes I'm just too pooped out to try. Other times my brain just gets foggy and I close up. Then there are the times when I just want to read or watch a movie instead of writing something deep, profound, thought provoking or mentally stimulating. An argument could be made that I have watched a lot of movies because the stuff I write falls into the “mildly amusing after a few drinks” category instead of the aforementioned intellectual material.

For those of you who suffer from bloggers block I have come up with a few suggestions to help get the creative cacophony careening through the cranium.

• Go to WalMart and look around. The stories write themselves!
• Walk backwards through the whole foods store with our clothes on backwards so it looks like your going forwards just to see if that makes you stand out from the hemp hauling hippies.
• Eat foods that only begin with the letter R until you get creative again to force yourself to write due to the fact you hate ratatouille, rutabagas, rhubarb and Redbull every meal.
• Sing answers to all questions as if you were Pavarotti in Rigoletto and make sure you sing in Italian just to mess with people's minds. They tend to stop asking you questions rather quickly.
• Finish every sentence with the phrase, “until linear time as we know it has come to an end to be replaced with a spiral time flow.”
• Use a computer to speak for you in the same voice used by Stephen Hawking and insist that it makes you sound smarter.
• Drive a Volt through every Exxon and BP you see and make faces at them.
• Give your kids all the sugar and caffeine they can ingest and then send them to your ex. (O.K. That doesn't help with creativity but it is really fun!!)
• Read from Dante's Paradiso while claiming that all should be honored to be in your presence since that is as close to paradiso on earth that they will ever get.
• Duck when people throw things at you for doing any and all of the above suggestions.

I truly hope this helps any of you blocked bloggers out there. If this doesn't help may I suggest more fiber in your diet?