On the Road with Joe

Argh!

2007-11-21T00:03:00.000-06:00

I forgot the handle on my roller bag broke the other day and ended up walking all over creation with a 30lb 22" roller carry-on set on my shoulder like I was carrying a boom box on the streets of Detroit in the mid 80's. Real smooth move. I was riding on a paper-towel-tube airplane on a one-leg flight to Cleveland the other day, so it wasn't horrible, but I had to check the bag because I wasn't about to drag it through the airport. Then I pull my bag off the conveyor and be-bop my way to the rental car with my blue square sack of potatoes. Eh... I think I'll try to get a new one this holiday weekend. I'll wait until the least convenient shopping moment on Black Friday, actually. Keepin' it real...

Apartment Homes

2007-09-24T23:29:00.000-06:00

Why in the world am I up at 12:30 in the morning looking for apartments?

Do you ever find yourself so mesmerized by something completely basic in life... just because its on the internet? I'm looking for apartments for my fiance and I when we get married next spring. Not really sure why NOW, but hey I'm at least doing something.

I'm going to go get that glass of water my parents never gave me before bed and try to fall asleep. My ear has been ringing all day.

Actually, I'd like to keep writing, but I have nothing to be cynical about right now. Should that depress me? Maybe. Just for some random association here I suddenly remembered that my roommate likes to let his alarms go off every 5 minutes all morning long as he tries to wake up between 7am and 8:30am. It's interesting, really. There are at least two alarms involved. Usually both operate somewhere between 85 and 90 decibels and last anywhere from 5 seconds to 10 minutes. One is some sort of buzzing thing and the other is the world's smallest/loudest radio. Sometimes they keep going off when he's not here or when he's away for the weekend. Gotta love someone else's alarm going off at 7:30am on your sleep-in weekend (I know, I know... that's late for old people). When I lived in Oklahoma, the papermache walls were so thin in my dorm room that people's alarms going off next door, across the hall, and downstairs woke me up constantly. And that was usually right after I fell asleep from waking up all night as the guy at the end of the hall ran up and down it screaming every night like he was a velociraptor. You know... that reminds me of a velocipede. I think those were those giant wheeled bicycles from the black and white pictures. I just looked up another website for a definition and there was this banner ad of a cartoon family being eaten by what looked to be a staple remover. I stared at it, unmoved for a little bit, then continued on with life (I clicked another web page tab so I could keep writing). I wonder if my reaction may have been different at a time of day my body is capable of expressing emotion. I may have witnessed something that the 1920's would have considered disgusting, heinous, and cruel. But anymore, its just one more cartoon family being eaten by a staple puller.

Ah yes...
So I'm still sitting here... emotionless... squinting into my laptop monitor light... ... ...and stuff...

Ok, goodnight.

Bad Oysters

2007-09-09T23:22:00.001-06:00

I had some bad oysters the other night while I was with a customer. We were at a really fancy restaurant overlooking a city. Next thing I know he's in a cold sweat and dribbling puke on the table as he's doing everything he can to hold it back. There's just something intangible there. It's perfectly disgusting, hilarious,random, and empathetic at the same time. I was just shaking my head in disbelief while trying to hold back laughter at the sight of us in this really fancy place (he was getting better after the incident) and then all of a sudden I'm on the verge of puking. I don't know how I didn't, but that would have just been the highlight of the evening. Front page paper material there. "Two people throw up in high dollar restaurant overlooking the city... more on this late-breaking story at 6!"

Bad oysters.

Apparently I'm a Bad Person

2007-09-09T22:26:00.001-06:00

I think my life slogan goes something like this:

"No, you didn't say/do the wrong thing/screw up/its not that you don't care... you're just a bad person."

See? It's kind of consoling before you drop-kick them with your amazing cynicistic wit. Spell check tells me that cynicistic isn't a word. Oh well.

So I didn't post in about 300 months - and tons of people keep asking me where the posts are. I used the "got lost in the mail" excuse last time.

The dog ate my blog posts.

I do have some special news for everyone tonight. I'm engaged! .... Ok, shut up. I've heard that joke from you already about 300 times. Wow. It's so amazing! I love my fiance more than I could possibly imagine and I'm so excited about what the future is going to bring us. On another note, my spell-check tells me that fiance should be finance. Classic. Everyone knows that the dating/engagement/marriage period is defined by any term other than finance. It's like anti-finance. Or something.

On another note, I've pretty much stopped traveling during the last several months. I've taken a bit of a promotion at work and they let me work full-time in Madison. Its great! I can see Jen all the time and I'm a much happier person not waking up at 4am every freaking Monday morning. This means that most of my adventures now take place at Wal-Mart and the local Giga-Grocery Store. They're huge! They have a special entire gigantic room just for their alcohol that's bigger than most small-town grocery stores. Booze-R-Us if you will. I found myself walking through Wal-Mart the other day with an internal sit-com running through my mind. You know the little voice like in the movie "A Christmas Story" talking in the background? It was like that as I watched ridiculous human activity at an abnormally hilarious pace. I can't even remember what it was that I saw now, but the residual brain vibes are still with me. Man... it must have been hilarious.

Oh, did I mention that I'm engaged to the most incredible and beautiful woman in the world? It's completely surreal. And then the next second its not. I love it!

Just remember to bring me a nice present :)

I'll be posting more. Hold tight. You won't want to miss this.

Posting Delays and Crying Flying Babies

2007-04-08T22:36:00.000-06:00

My last 18 posts got lost in the mail. But, hey... what can you do, you know?

You know, there must be some natural law that determines the number of crying babies on a given airplane. Certain kinds of planes NEVER have crying babies, and other planes ALWAYS have crying babies. Babies only travel during peak business hours on Mondays and Fridays between airline hub cites and major airports. There is a mandate of 5 babies per airplane, and 3 must be crying at all times. If the babies fail to cry, the pilot is forced to delay the flight due to "weather", or one of many "minor maintenance delays" generally averaging 45 minutes to 1.5 hours in length. Maybe this is some sort of distracting cover for the US Air Marshalls. Maybe the presence of crying babies is a deterrent to terrorism? At any rate, the natural law of babyism states that 2 of the 3 crying babies must be in the immediate vicinity of the most frequent business travellers. Generally one on your left in the row behind you (occasionally a crying baby will be substitued for a loudly snoring, strange-smelling man) and one in either the row in front of you or across from you. The babies are angled toward the walls such that the crying is projected the clearest and the most obnoxiously through the aircraft for the better portion of the flight.

I think when I have kids, I'm going to teach my infants to scream on command so that I can be that guy on the airplane whose children are fighting and screaming and I don't seem to notice that anything is wrong. It will be obvious to everyone that I make more money than I should and that I don't discipline my children. Then as we're about to land, I'll wave the hand signal and all will be quiet. Then we'll go have ice cream or something. If I'm really feeling mean, I'll let them scream as the airplane is taxiing to the airport. That seems to be the most annoying part of the entire trip to hear a screaming baby.

Dental Humor

2007-02-26T18:23:00.000-06:00

For future reference, I don't recommend using the phrase "cavity search" while the dentist is digging around in your mouth on your next visit...

Breakfast Milestones

2006-12-23T09:54:00.000-06:00

It has become apparent to me that phases in a relationship can often be defined by the type, yes type, of breakfasts in which the relationally involved partake. My girlfriend and I have been discussing this lately, and I thought I would share the results of my latest theory with you.

It is a basic class-scale, based on 5 factors, that can be applied to a simple breakfast scenario. We begin with a class A breakfast in which all of the factors are met. Remove one and we have a class B breakfast. Remove two and we have a class C breakfast, and so on.

1. Everyone is looking their best.
2. This event is out of the ordinary.
3. The individuals involved are "just friends."
4. More than two people are present.
5. This was a planned event.

So my girlfriend and I are meeting this morning for the first breakfast scenario of our dating relationship. It was a planned event, it's out of the ordinary, and we'll be looking our best. Since we are missing parts 3 and 4, this is officially a class C breakfast.

Wedded couples often indulge in class E breakfasts; couples with children are bumped back to D. Youth group outings are generally Class A's....You see how it works.

Developing...
After further discussion (*ahem*!), we have deemed it best to update the breakfast scale so that there are two versions. A guy's version (above) and a girl's version(listed below). The idea of us sharing a "Class C" breakfast wasn't all that appealing, apparently, to my girlfriend. :) The new scale does not have groupings called "Classes" or "Grades", as they appear somewhat reminisent of meat or beef grades to the fairer sex, but will instead have "Categories" and be based on somewhere between 6 and 137 factors that may include the relational status of the other involved parties, timing of the event, and a bunch of stuff guaging the intent, intimacy, phase of life, relative stage of beautification, time of year, perception of event's meaning by the other involved individual(s), perception of event's meaning by 3rd party individuals, etc. More on this to come...

Harassment

2006-12-02T17:00:00.000-06:00

Ok, people. If you're going to harass me about not posting, at LEAST make it a little more vicious, ok? No more requests or kind reminders. I need to know you mean business - like you're going to kick in the side of my car door, or stomp on my goldfish's tail or something like that. Come to think of it you may have already kicked in my car door, but I couldn't tell. You gotta threaten me or something. Take a handful of paint from my car hood and arrange the flakes into an eerie reminder on my windshield. Slash one of my flat tires. Poke another hole in my leaking gas tank. Get original already!

:)

Please note that I will more than likely contact the police regarding any of your threatening statements and actions, but that's just part of the fun!

The Miracle of Transportation

2006-12-02T16:53:00.000-06:00

I haven't written anything remotely cynical in a good while, and I apologize... kind of. I've been doing a lot of fun things lately. My job has taken the standard "end of the year slowdown" for travelling, which means they slated me for 5 full weeks in town to recoup and try to remember where all of my illigitimate children are again... I'M KIDDING!

I know where they all are.

Giving me 5 weeks in town is apparently like giving a honey bee a honeycomb and setting him next to a wild bear - then telling the bear not to eat it. They clear away a 5 week block for me to recover and then give me SIX "short" trips that I have to go on during that time. SIX . *sigh*

So I go with a coworker to a short job the other day down in central Texas. Man it was a nice day down there. The flight was short. The travel was smooth and problem-free. Everything was happening better than it ever had been. Liesurely lunch, the work went well, etc.

Just to give you some background... I'm on a string of bad-luck trips right now. Sometimes things go wrong on the job, but for the most part its the travel that is getting me. I once was on a trip during which my coworker managed to get the last flight on the last plane out of town after some travel delays caused us to miss our first flight out. I ended up driving 6 hours home - fortunately I wasn't in California or something like that. But it was just stupid! I'm WITH the guy the whole time and somehow he gets to go home and I don't. grrrrr. Then comes the standard weather delays and my 12-hour layover in the Pittsburg airport. They have about 300 escalators and a really mean bartender at the airport and thats really all I remember. I've had a whole bunch of other mishaps lately, inlcuding another flight delay that caused me to have to fly into Chicago and take a rental car home to madison - got home at 3am.

Anyways, I'm with that same guy on this trip. And the SAME THING HAPPENS! We were really late in getting to the airport and he made it through security, but the people at the desk wouldn't let me print my boarding pass because the guy at the gate had closed the flight already - my coworker sat on the plane for an hour as they let 5 other people onto the plane after denying me and then they were stuck at the gate with the plane door open because there was a mechanical problem with the plane that had to be fixed before they could leave - I would have MORE than made it if I had crawled on my belly through the airport to get to my gate. Moral of the story, I guess, is to print out your boarding pass if you can before you get to the airport. Mistake on my part. Anyways, I had to fly to Chicago and take a rental car home. My coworker was home by 9pm and I was all snuggled and tucked away by 415am. Fortunately I only had to get up at 615am to go to work. It was almost a short night of sleep...

Flying is stupid. Planes are stupid. People are stupid... travelling is stupid...yeah.... I'm going to go find something to eat... or whatever....

A Traveler's Life

2006-12-02T16:12:00.000-06:00

I understand how glorious I make my job and my travel sound to you all... fortunately all you hear about are the horrible things that happen to me, and you only hear about 2% of those. I never posted about being stuck in Pittsburgh for 12 hours at the airport, or the flights I have been on that were cancelled while we were on the tarmac, or the flights I took that never got to the airports they were supposed to so I had to get a rental car and drive untold numbers of hours, or all the fast food I have eaten to survive, or how many smoke-filled wet-dog smelling rental cars I have driven, or the several times I have had to fly to a completely different airport and drive untold numbers of hours only to arrive home past 3am, or the TWO times I travelled WITH the same coworker and HE managed to make the flights home but I DIDN'T, the hilarious number of people that smack their heads on the baggage compartment when they stand up at the end of the flight, the way people really get scared of me when I laugh with excitement as our plane skews sideways while we're trying to land, the fact that McDonalds's almost always forgets the barbecue sauce for your nuggets (is the fad to eat them dry these days?), the life-threatening encounters I have had with genuine southern-style sweet tea in Georgia and Mississippi, the various times I have heard gunshots from the hotel or business I was visiting, the way TSA people are programmed to treat travelers in casual dress as if they were morons (they're right a large percent of the time, though), the sheer number of morons that travel, and why I think the federal government should make people pass a short touch-screen exam before they are allowed to go through security (complete with sturdy electric shock administration for stupid/wrong answers), the countless hours of my life I have wasted playing spider solitaire in airports, all the nasty hotel rooms I have stayed in with roaches and burn marks and things I don't even want to tell you about, the magnificent hotel rooms I have stayed in with king-sized beds and pillow-top matresses and little fluffy clouds from heaven for pillows, or the time I watched a semi back over those big parking lot tire spikes the wrong direction, or the time I watched a semi drive over a stop light/street light in slow motion, or how many times I have gotten completely lost in a city I have never seen before, or the number of times my directions to my jobsite (given to me by someone else) included a random "u-turn" in the middle of a 4-lane non-divided highway, or how many times I have bottomed out on sharp inclines with my rental cars, or the time that I hit an igloo cooler that fell of the truck in front of me at 75 mph that flew over the median, or the times that I have gotten to go crazy places and haven't told you about, or how much food has gone bad in my fridge because I didn't use it all before it rotted into slimy bags-0-brownslush in my fridge (cucumbers are special in that category... try it once. its cool), or the fact that I'm trying to date an amazing woman while running around the country like a raving psychopath... so who knows whether you'll ever hear about that kind of stuff...

Biscuits

2006-11-28T12:19:00.000-06:00

There are pieces of dog biscuits in my apartment complex washer and dryer... ??

Corpus Diem

2006-10-11T22:47:00.000-06:00

Seize the corpus... er...

The XM radio in my car died today. It is satellite radio for those of you who do not know. Awesome stuff because once you find a good station, you can listen to it anywhere in the country. Somewhat comical demise, I suppose. What this now means is that I have to choose between either Mexican polka music, country, or weird stations that play only love songs. ...So I stuck with the love songs. Weird stuff, really. I've never listened to them before. I've never desired to. But it was either that or listen to my air conditioner. And I probably should have listened to the AC.

This is a dumb post.

Tub-o-Fury

2006-10-05T20:20:00.000-06:00

Yeah... I tried out the hotel hot tub tonight. I usually don't. Last time I used a hot tub at a hotel was in Palm Springs when my coworker and I sat outside for an hour in the thing and smoked cigars (you gotta do that stuff when you get the chance!) The only time before that in memory was the trip where they gave me the honeymoon suite at the hotel and there was a big 'ole hot tub in my room. I used it every night, but found out that when I did I couldn't actually sleep.

But anyway, I know the hotel hot tub is usually reserved for fat people, but I thought I'd give it a shot. Nobody was around and things seemed clean at first glance. On second glance I saw a bunch of crickets pining for the fjords (monty python speak for "they were dead") around it. I found a relatively clean spot to put my stuff and flipped on the bubble action. I sat down and was about to call my brother to give him a hard time when I began feeling a strange sensation. It was as if I had jumped into a tub of freshly cut onions. My eyes began to water uncontrollably, and against my best efforts the water began to overwhelm me. There was SO MUCH chlorine in the water that I didn't last for 4 full minutes in the tub. No wrinkles, no relaxed muscles, no phone calls to tell people that I was in a hot tub and they weren't... Suddenly I realized why the crickets had all died - they had all succombed to the incredible trauma by chlorine gassing. I just hope my skin holds to my body overnight. I wrapped up my towel and barely made it out of the room alive. (got me wondering if all the fat people just dissolved) There is only enough strength left in me to type this blog article and post a picture of my ridiculous rental car. *gasp!*

Pet Penitentiary

2006-10-05T17:41:00.000-06:00

Tonight, for some amusement and a quick cheer-up after dinner, I walked over to the Petsmart hoping to look at some puppies and kittens sadly peering through the bars of their public prison cells. I like puppies and kittens, and I hadn't stepped foot in a pet store in quite a while. Upon entering, I was somewhat disappointed by a puppy deficit. Only a few dogs were doing hard time this week. Hopefully they've been selling them quickly. Sure they had the obligatory wall-o-fish with your standard arrangement of middle-aged midgets and old men peering at the bug-eyed goldfish, and the cages of mice running aimlessly about while a middle-school-aged girl speaks softly to them through the glass (this is where I just nod to myself and continue to stroll by the cages onto the next aisle of imprisoned little wonders of nature). They had racks of catfood cans and bags of dogfood, bins full of crickets, rows and rows of plastic horses, etc. Arguably the coolest things on hand were the chinchillas. And there was some kind of siberian hamster thing that looked cool too.

It was a good break from dinner, though. I've been in a rut with restaurants this week. Either a crappy steak house or the Macaroni Grill are my choices. And they do not serve grilled macaroni at the macaroni grill. I assume that is only slightly better logic than the local "custard" shoppe back home in Illinois not actually having custard on their menu. But that's Illinois and this is Texas - 'Like a whole other country', remember? Anyway, there was some kid making crow or teradactly calls from the other end of the restaurant as I slurped up my runny fettucini alfredo and chewed on some little fried cheese deals. Shoulda been there...

Tomorrow I get to be pumped through the public transportation grinder again at the airport again. Supposedly I am supposed to catch three planes and be home by 10:37 PM. However, the last three weeks I have been home late due to flight delays by a total of at least 18 hours. We'll see.

I'm gonna go get hopped up on sugar from the local gas station and try to teach someone about some software tonight again for the 167th time. Wish me luck.

Comments

2006-10-04T14:47:00.000-06:00

Apparently I made a mistake recently and may have lost some of your comments. I apologize. I wanted to "moderate" the comments - or at least be able to remove the bogus ads that got through. In my fervor, I incidentally selected an option that allowed me to choose which comments were posted via gmail - and I know I deleted a few of them before I understood what was going on.

"Since this travel delay was caused by weather or air traffic, Bagley Airlines is unable to compensate you for inconveniences. We do apologize, but deep down are not affected by your problems, nor do we empathize with any of you."

Hotel from Hades

2006-10-03T18:12:00.000-06:00

On top of some other hefty things on my mind last night, I find myself in a huge hotel room with no internet access, no desk for my computer, the shower is gross, it's next to a VERY loud ice machine, pop machine which people seem to access at all hours of the night, the sheets aren't comfortable, the pillows thin as wax paper, the room can't be set at the right temperature, the elevator is next door "ding.... ding..... ding..... ding...." all night and all morning, all the pipes in the building must be in my walls because they creak every time someone runs water, I can hear tv's everywhere... then when morning finally arrived, after me not having slept at all, loud music from the breakfast bar in the lobby started pumping through the hallway and the cleaning closet across the hall was constantly being opened and closed and bags torn apart and plastic crinkling...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I just tried to get something out of the pop machine and it was out... it gave me back $1.25 in NICKLES as change for my dollar bill and quarter.

Fish... Shaken, not Stirred.

2006-09-25T20:37:00.000-06:00

Tonight I ran into a hilarious misprint on an Italian restaurant's menu. The special for the evening was "Boiled Halibut." That's a far cry from broiled halibut, trust me.

Nicknames

2006-09-20T21:34:00.000-06:00

I was discussing the topic of nicknames with a beautiful young woman the other evening over a glass of wine. I got to thinking that it would be interesting to see how many of the publicly printable names I can remember that I have had. There are various categories... family, friends, time periods, etc...but I probably won't put them in the categories. I'll put notes next to them if I have room.

Born: Joseph Maurice Bagley

*Joseph - elementary
*Joe - common
*Joey - (copyright held by my grandma)
*Joe Bag - high school. most common.
*Bagley - all purpose
*Cheese Whiz - elementary. long story. stuck for a while.
*Joe Moe - high school
*Maurice - high school. short lived.
*Bagels - college
*Choey - amish babysitter. now my parents.
*Choe - amish babysitter
*Cheese Veele - copyright held by cousin Chen Su (Jennifer Sue, a.k.a. Lettuce Veele). long story.
*Pecos Pete - Dad called me this when I was a wee little guy

I'll post more as they come to mind. There are only a couple non-printables. I'll let you think of them on your own.....

Sinner.

Youngstown Is Growing On Me

2006-09-20T21:07:00.000-06:00

I have always heard so many bad things about Youngstown, OH... but it seems to be a decent place. Since coming to Youngstown I picked up some additional hobbies. A couple friends I met here at the 7-11 introduced me to the drug trade. I am learning to deal small pills before I can move up to the powders and rocks. I hope to get good at the pills, though, because I think those will probably sell better back in Madison. They seem to be against smoking anything but weed in Madison, too, but I am learning it just doesn't pay these days... There was an economics exam with equations and some chart interpretation at the end of the training session, believe it or not. I had a better offer with another group of friends down the street, but I didn't take it. They paid a good bit more, but the benefits weren't as good. Do you know how hard it is to get good health insurance listing yourself as a full-time self-employed drug dealer these days? I mean, you're selling pills for goodness sake. It's not like you don't know anything about health. Don't mix green and blue ones, always drink milk before the orange ones, don't take 2 purple ones at the same time, etc... Not just anybody can do this job.

I am finding some interesting things out about the city, though. An armed robber was shot and killed in the parking lot next to the place I'm working a couple months ago. There are parts of town I have been instructed NOT to drive through under any circumstances. Also, when I walked out of the office today I could hear gunfire in a nearby neighborhood. Those are the moments when you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, and let it all soak in. They seem to have ecclectic tastes in food as well. I most recently ate at a football bar that serves gourmet food. Tonight I had broiled grouper with a tomato basil creme sauce, salad, a nice glass of wine, and a wonderful homemade chicken noodle soup. A couple nights ago I had a penne alfredo dish, an exquisite new england style clam chowder, and a beer while watching the Steelers game on the tv on my table. Last night I ate at a pizza place that serves their breadstick sauce chilled. *shudders* The pizza was good, anyhow.

You really ought to think about booking a vacation here sometime. There are lots of great things about this place. Some very famous people are from here. They are, of course, all somewhere else now, but I am sure they would come back if they had the chance... I'm sure some important things have happened here, too, but I can't seem to find any information on them. And the people are really nice. They'll generally try to walk between you and the street if you're new in town and don't have any kevlar yet.

You ought to check it out.

No Diving

2006-09-14T16:23:00.000-06:00

Why do they have to put "NO DIVING" signs all around the hotel hot tub? The thing is like 3 feet wide!

"Our Top Story Tonight.... Two Puddles May Combine on the East Side to Create One Large Puddle!"

2006-09-13T16:57:00.000-06:00

Have you ever been to one of those places where everything seems somewhat normal on the surface, but just a scratch under becomes a bizzare world of insane proportions? Kind of like a dream world, but one that is real. That's Corpus Christi for you. This is a really lame post with a collection of some stuff that doesn't necessarily all fit what I just wrote. Live with it.

I should have caught on when flying down here that something was about to get weird. For one, I was surrounded by old people on a small airplane. That, in and of itself, is neither odd nor undesirable. I enjoy meeting people with more wisdom about life and talking with them. I do not enjoy it, however, when these wise sages begin extruding a constant noxious gaseous concoction of farts in a small, confined space. There was no oxygen left on my airplane. None. I grabbed three oxygen masks from the overhead bin and pulled the tube tight to start the flow of oxygen. I then placed the elastic band around my head, pulling on the straps to tighten the mask and began self-CPR... ok, so maybe i'm exaggerating a little. It was one of those worst-case scenarios, though, and I doubt you'll find it in any survival guide...

I also went to a Subway today for lunch. Completely normal except for the ceiling fans on the 7.5' ceilings... thats really low for a ceiling fan. Really low. The blades were literally 4" above my head. SLIGHTLY unnerving as I'm trying to look up through the blades to see the menu in front of me.

I was invited by a gentleman to visit his small sailboat about 30 minutes away, which he lives on full-time, and he would make me dinner some evening there... I may decline the offer.

My hotel room's air duct is completely coated with mold. My room smells like mold. Punch-you-in-the-face kind of mold smell. It's interesting, really.

The place where I am working ran a news story about a 30-foot-long, 2-foot wide PUDDLE today. That's right, folks... a PUDDLE. Apparently, there was a risk of this puddle spilling into another nearby puddle. The evil puddle had algae growing in it from some previous city work and the other puddle was leading to a storm drain. This was actually a live report at the top of the news tonight. LIVE REPORT!!! The journalist was extra-cautious, though, and wore a latex glove when dipping his hand in the 4" polluted puddle to show the algae. Who knows how many lives he just saved!!!

I don't know. There is so much hilarious stuff happening here that I just can't remember it all. Stay tuned for more...

Oh yeah, and apparently I am going to eat at a restaurant soon that does not serve food on plates. Its all waxed paper. I can't wait!

Ode to a Yellow Squash

2006-08-29T20:18:00.000-06:00

Dearest Mr./Ms. Yellow Squash,

I'm really sorry about today. I completely forgot about you for so long... and apparently it was a little too long. When I found you in the back of the fridge I felt so bad. You weren't yellow anymore, and it looked like you were feeling down about it. I picked you up and you were really squishy and fuzzy-green. I thought you'd ooze out of your wrapper all over the floor, but fortunately when Mom wrapped you a couple months ago, fresh from the garden, she didn't go cheap on the plastic wrap. I really did plan to eat you, and I am very sorry about that. Maybe someday, in a better place, we can meet again. I hope that maybe for your final few days you can make some new friends in the bottom of the dumpster outside. It really has been nice out and I think you'll like the new home a little better. Godspeed, my little Yellow Squash.

With Love,

Joe
*sniff*

Bagels and Toothpaste

2006-08-26T21:50:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately, I really don't have anything particularly cynical to offer you this week. Although many interesting, hilarious, and offensive things have happened to me recently, I cannot remember any off the top of my head.

Although I did take a trip in the car today that should have consisted of approximately 4 turns. Key word SHOULD. I missed all of them, and some more than once. At the same time I had worn my new shoes out and it began pouring rain as soon as I started driving. That meant fun for the new shoes once I got out of the car again.

Um... my car is still leaking gas a little. A hailstorm the other night, or rather a series of about FIVE hailstorms, took another big chunk of paint off the car. I didn't sleep at all that night. If the storms weren't pelting my windows with little ice chunks, lightning was hitting the building next door repeatedly. The weather men on tv told me it would be partly sunny today. There was no sun at all and it rained the better part of the day. So much for the old 20% chance, eh? That's what I call a bad forecast. If tv weather men were lemmings and a bad national weather service forecast was a cliff along the ocean... Well, lets just say there'd be a whole lot less Mega Super Doppler 2,000,000 XL1500 with Night Vision or whatever on tv around the country.

For some reason I have a bag of small blueberry bagels sitting on my table next to my computer. I don't even really eat bagels. Someone was giving them away and nobody else wanted them so I felt bad and took the thing that I thought MAYBE I might look at sometime and think... "yeah...". And maybe grab one, bite into it in the car on the way to work, and make a weird face when it reacts violently with the toothpaste flavor in my mouth.

Ok, here's how I name my articles. See the paragraph above? I wrote it, then re-read it about 3 minutes later and thought "that's really weird..." Then I put the weird part into the title to make it intriguing to the common blog reader. And it IS weird. Bagels and toothpaste?

Quiz Time.
I need to solicit some responses from you people. I need you to put the nastiest combinations of foods and toothpaste flavor that you have tried (intentionally or accidentally). Don't put something like "Toothpaste and Orange Juice" 'cause everyone knows that one. Maybe you've tried sauerkraut shortly after brushing your teeth? Hot salsa? Good wine? I've got a few jems, but unfortunately I can't remember the very worst combo I've had. I distinctly recall the experience, but not the food... which means its still out there on the prowl, waiting to strike again.

Knowing is half the battle.

Coatings

2006-08-02T23:03:00.000-06:00

Merry Thursday. You all will be happy to know that a couple of nights ago I spilled a large glass of a particular form of iced tea completely down the front of me at a restaurant. Shirt, pants, shoes, floor... everything. It was a moistening experience. On a pleasant note, the beverage dried quickly.

I am human... and likely moreso than most of YOU.

Dwindling Readership

2006-07-31T21:23:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I think people have pretty much stopped reading this blog. Or at least I don't hear about it too much anymore. I was getting so many requests for autographed 8x10 glossy black and white pictures of myself and custom-written birthday cards and stuff that I just couldn't keep up with it. People just got mad and stopped reading I guess.

What this affords me is much more freedom for literary insanity. I could go on for pages about the stupid lampshade on my hotel desk that rattles at every keystroke I am typing... or the fact that my rental car only averages about 13 mpg. I could talk about the fact that I followed the recommendation of a brochure on a restaurant tonight, but when I get there they're only open a couple nights a week - and it was not one of those nights. I could talk about the 4,000 screaming, crying children at the Spaghetti Warehouse tonight and how my waiter proved to me that it was not the fresh-baked bread that tasted good, but the butter I was putting on the bread. I could also talk about the 4,000 WET and screaming children running around my hotel right now, all blurry and red-eyed from the chlorine which I'm sure was at bacterial-shocking levels. I could talk about the annoying rich parents shepherding them around the hotel. Or I might mention that when I was on business last week I had to drive 6.5 hours home from St. Louis, MO to Madison, WI because my coworker caught the last seat on the only plane left going home. I could talk about my front right tire, radiator, and starter on my real car all going out at the same time...and how it sat in the WalMart parkinglot all weekend... and how it's going to cost me a lot of money to fix. I could write about my roommate moving out and driving home (as I write this), forcing me to pay an extra $350/month in rent, which does not help my car situation. I could tell you that I am the guy who bakes frozen pizzas when it is 95+ degrees outside and my little air conditioner was having hard enough time keeping up with just the air outside. I could admit that when I first began eating my spaghetti tonight I dropped a forkful and sauce splattered all over my face. (Children are now screaming for their father's attention in the hallway behind me. I am quite sure they are leaving behind them meandering trails of chlorinic slime, like gigantic vacationing pool slugs, and the hallway now smells just like the pool 3 floors under me. Yes, you remember well the hotel pools where you are sure the chlorine content is so high it is dissolving your flesh; your eyes burn, you choke... but you keep swimming...you're not really sure why... -according to the conspiracy theorists, that's the fluorine in the water)

As I sit here now my AC unit in the room randomly turns on and off. Voices waft from below the window where employees stand outside an emergency exit on the back of the hotel to smoke. The clock strikes 11:00PM CST. I begin to ponder the euphoric state of rest I shall attempt to experience on this really cushy looking hotel bed... and why I have one really short and fat lamp shade and one really tall and skinny lampshade. And what's with that little lap pillow/tablet thing? Do people really use that? That's just weird.

Ok. Here's my quasi-annual poll. Do you use the tablet thing you find on the bed, or would you if you could? Would you? Could you? In the rain? Would you, could you, on a train? Would you, could you, in a box? Would you, could you, with a fox? Please limit responses to 1,000 words or less.

Garbage Laundering

2006-07-26T16:58:00.000-06:00

This Post Rated "G" for Garbage. Not for the faint of heart...

I'm in St. Louis right now. It's a lovely downtown... for the most part. Neat buildings. Especially my hotel. Now this will be a requested feature on a hotel for years to come... so make sure your travel agency knows this is a hotel feature you want before you arrive on vacation or whatever. Please, read on. I shall call it the PutriWave.

It's simple, actually. Say there is a parking garage connected to your hotel, ok? Make sure there is only one way to get from the parking garage into your hotel. Simple enough, right? Then, out of the goodness of your heart, set all of the food waste bins behind a little chain link screen along the channeled walkway into the hotel. Wait until it's a nice, hot summer and bake the garbage all day long in 90+ degree heat. Let it rot and steam and leak so there is a nice brownish black film on the ground in the area by the bins that all driving hotel guests will cross. Then what you need to do is channel all of the exhaust from your hotel's dryer systems into a series of vents placed immediately behind the bins. This way, if the summer heat doesn't get the garbage rotting, then the continuous hot laundry blast will. An added bonus of the laundry venting is that it will actually transport a constant hot blast of super-nauseating garbage heat wave through the channel connecting the parking garage and the hotel. Oh, and make the parking garage underground so people parking have to walk up a small tunnel and over a long enough distance they can't feasibly hold their breath near the bins. Can't you just feel that warm wind blowing in your hair now? Those liquifying bananas, bad chicken, dirty diapers, snotty kleenexes... mmm boy. The smells of summer! That's what I call an idea! Yes, yes indeed. This is my hotel.

Of All Things...

2006-06-22T23:41:00.000-06:00

My car now leaks gas... it also leaks oil, viciously squirts radiator fluid, shorts the electrical system, starts on the 3rd try, leaks air constantly out of the front two tires, I can't use anything but the defroster vents, all the paint is coming off at once because the primer is bad, the steering wheel has turned to a nasty goo, my windshield is cracked all the way across, the vanity mirror was turned into a fine powderous form of glass (by a previous owner-sibling), and sometimes it doesn't want to shift into 3rd gear. The nice thing is I finally got a little milk crate for my trunk to keep all the various fluids and car goos from sliding around.

In Case Of Fire

2006-06-22T23:09:00.000-06:00

My apartment complex, in its infinite wisdom, put an exit sign in my hallway. Let me fill you in on some details. What you see in the picture are two storage rooms at the end of my hall. There are only two apartments in my hallway and we face eachother. We are both at the end of a 12 foot long hallway and there are a total of 4 apartments in my building (2 on the lower floor, 2 up - I'm upstairs). So when I leave my apartment, I turn immediately to the right - there is a wall and window to my immediate left (behind the camera in this show)- I walk 10 feet, round a waist-high bannister/wall thingy, and go down 10 stairs and take 3 steps forward to the outside world. Including locking my door the process often takes as long as 7 seconds. They located the exit sign at the top of the stairs. There is no exit there. Sure, its near some stairs, but it looks really stupid because it's positioned above my storage room, as if that were supposed to be the safe way out. Besides, there IS NO OTHER WAY OUT. You can only go one direction down my "hallway". If there's a fire bad enough that I can't see out in the hall and I need an exit sign to illuminate the way, I'm going to jump off my deck into the neighbor's grass (8 feet below) anyhow... then park my car up against the building... but that's another story altogether.

Original Sin

2006-06-22T22:59:00.000-06:00

I am conVINCED that the ritual of cleansing laundry is a product of the fall of man...

Handicap Accessible

2006-06-16T18:11:00.000-06:00

For all those wondering how you will navigate this egregious website in your old age, it is now handicap accessible. (I know you don't remember what the word means so look up the word yourself, ok? don't just keep reading along lying to yourself)

You will notice on the comments section that there is a little man in a wheelchair. His name is Handy Randy. Click on him to read some stuff about being handicapped I guess (I haven't read it yet). I have also updated the rest of my blog to account for the hard of hearing. Click the word click in this sentence to be able to read the text without the hard rock music. If you cannot hear any rock music, this may be a bad sign for your hearing. I have also developed an alternate website (looks very similar) for the blind. Click the word BLIND in this sentence for the braille version of the page. If you seem to still have trouble accessing the braille, contact Best Buy to purchase a new Braille-Enhanced Monitor.

Thanks to Amy B. for suggesting I make my website a little more reader friendly for those of us with impairments!

Rice and Ribs

2006-06-11T17:55:00.000-06:00

Yeah, you heard it right. Eating in Canada has been an adventure. They think the restaraunts are wonderful, but if you've ever been to the places those foods originated, it's a really scary difference. Just think sushi in North Dakota. Yeah, that little tingling sensation means you're not supposed to eat it. *sigh...* I'm that guy.

One of my first nights in town I ate at a barbecue restaurant (I can't spell that word! I keep spelling it restaraunt!). It was near a fork overlooking two rivers. Nice place, really, and great night to be out on the patio. "Fall-off-the bone baby back ribs (and an emphasis on the fall-off-the-bone in the menu) with some sides and a Canadian iced tea..." I thought to myself. It sounded pretty good. 'Sides, I've been trying ribs all over the states in some of the best, smallest, weirdest places. This was standard.

This was Canada.

First thing that alarmed me was the waitress (The entire country of Canada has no waiters... all wait staff are gorgeous 22-30 year old women... I have no answers for you, and I don't really feel that I need to question it, really). Moving along... the waitress asked me if I wanted fries or rice with my ribs.... ..... ..... ..... Yeah, you just heard that. RICE. Serving rice with ribs will get you 5-10 and a $200,000 fine in the states. Evidently nobody told them otherwise. Just as I recover from the shock (I was shivering and twitching uncontrollably - everyone on the patio just politely stared) the waitress brings out my food. I dig in. Kind of. The ribs were tough enough I had to stand on one end of them and pull on the other to get the ribs apart. I noticed several guys on the patio actually had small chainsaws at their tables. The smell of two-cycle fuel should have tipped me. Evidently in Canada the "fall-off-the-bone" meant you literally fell off the bones, the meat doesn't. I get done with my meal and start in on the sides. One little taste-o-beans and they were some freakishly weird vinegar-tasting stuff and what looked like kidney beans. X. On to the next one. I couldn't even tell what it was. I smelled it and took a wee taste. X. The slaw was the only thing left. There's no way they could... yeah... X. Ever made slaw from sauerkraut? Canada does.

And I was gonna put this in another post, but I'll just put it here. I also had a "wonderful" meal at a steak place in town the other night. Famous steak place in town. I've never known a place so famous for their Ponderosa-dry Filet Mignon, Ponderosa being that super-high-dollar steak place we all know and love in the states. The salad I ate had the most amazing dijon vinigarette. I wolfed it down. It was probably the best house salad dressing I've ever eaten. Then came the steak I mentioned earlier, which was a disappointment. The baked potato was good, but then I cut a slice off of this big tomato chunk that was on my plate. It was 1/3 of a semi-ripe tomato with some melted parmesean on it. No sooner did I put it in my mouth than I thought I was going to puke. I held it for a second and realized it wasn't ME that was feeling the puke. The tomato actually TASTED like PUKE! I politely chewed what was in my mouth (thankfully VERY little). When I asked the waitress about it she was like "oh, that's just a garnish..." !!! It's a big hunk of tomato with melted cheese. Garnish? Whatever. I had a martini to wash down the pukemato. It couldn't remove the scar on my soul.

One more week of survival training remaining... I'll keep you posted!

Canada Is For Real

2006-06-05T17:20:00.000-06:00

Today I made it to Canada. You can always tell you're in Canada, too. It has this kind of smell to it. Can't really describe it, but its like a mixture of the freshest of the fresh outdoor smells you can imagine... with a hint of the back of Grandma's closet. I navigated a serious pile of one-way streets today to get put up in a really sweet / retro hotel room. I'm on the 23rd floor! My car is parked somewhere in a parking garage nearby. I can't even remember what floor. It was so traumatic! It was like a Micro Machines garage - and I'm driving a Jeep Liberty. Concrete chunks were laying all around. (And every stall had an electric socket for engine block heaters - it gets to -40 here regularly) It really reminded me of all those pictures of Russia I've seen on tv with all the concrete buildings disintegrating. I got out of my car and found a staircase. I was trying to get to the elevators for the hotel lobby. I could see the elevator room for the floor above where I parked, but I would have had to run up an extremely narrow cars-only ramp the wrong direction around a blind corner... you see where this is going. I tried to take the stairs and I found out they were nearly vertical and only had a door about every 2 floors... in the same location! Grrr! I just came back up the stairs and ran up the ramp. I didn't hear anything coming. All the elevators in Canada open before they stop moving. No joke. It was like 6-8 inches off. In fact, all of them are. I'm currently working in an office building with no stairs access to the second floor. You HAVE to take the elevator... Well, I threw my stuff in my really nice hotel room (amazing view of the big city), then I walk out to go to work. On the way I weave through the MOST culturally diverse group of people I've ever been in. People of every race, shape, color, size, and clothing style. People were wearing anything and everything. I think I saw a guy running around with paper bags on. I don't even know where all these people are going or coming from. They're just everywhere and keep on walking by. In Canada you use the crosswalks. The police crack down on jaywalkers. Also in Canada, if you're blind, you're better off just taking your chances when crossing the street. They have those little beeper thingies, but since there are at least two on every corner, the one going one way sounds just as loud as the one going the other. There's no way to tell which one is beeping. Just swing your cane like a madman and cross, I guess. I'm about to go find some food around here. This should be an adventure. Last time I was outside there was a dude playing the snare drum (traditional style) on the street corner for money. He wasn't any good, either. Just think of some 7 year old kid banging on a drum right behind you as you're standing there to cross. On the next corner down a woman lit up, then the smell wafted toward me. It was weed. Downtown! Well... welcome to Canada... where people pick clothing items at random while blindfolded from second hand stores and weedsmokers and drumbangers stroll around carefree. I'm already picking up the accent...*sigh*

Please Read All Instructions Before Using This Product

2006-06-04T15:27:00.000-06:00

Some journalists dive into the heart of military action. Some become sleuths tracking down corruption in the highest levels of government. Some even get their hands dirty in humanitarian efforts to help the less fortunate. Me? I'm not a journalist. But I am about to embark on a potentially insane phase of my life. I'll keep it short of course.I'm going to read all of the instructions on every product I purchase for as long as I can stand it. 3 Days? 2 Months? A year? We'll see.

I bought a vacuum cleaner the other day and it told me I wasn't supposed to run the machine (it's a bagless) without the dust collection basket on there. First of all, "bagless" vacuums really do have bags. They're just plastic and you can dump them out. But I just get this image in my mind of someone sweeping around the house without a collection tank and dust and hair and dirt are just flying all over the place. It also mentioned about 20 times that I was specifically not to cut off the polarized plug (one side is bigger than the other) and replace it with a non-polarized plug. Like people even know what a polarized plug is anyhow... Oh, and you're not suposed to submerse the vacuum cleaner in water. !!? You know there had to be some guy that tried to vacuum up the contents of his tub. And then blamed it on the company saying "The instructions didn't say you couldn't do that!".

I also bought one of those little personal hair trimmers. It's made by Wahl and it comes with a Double Panda Super Alkaline Battery. It probably cost me twice what the Single Panda did. It makes the kind of noise you. hear on Discovery Channel when surgeons are cutting bones. They even included detailed instructions on cutting hair for specific regions of the body. Nose... Ears... Eyebrows... Why do they always say "bikini area"? They don't call your eyebrows the "sunglasses area" or your hair the "baseball hat region". Everybody knows what they're talking about, anyhow. You're also not supposed to shave boogers or earwax. Interestingly enough the instructions give basically no help on what attachment is what. It tells you the names of them in the guide, but now I've got a bunch of cutter thingies that I don't know what they do. Guess I'll just have to be a little more careful. I probably should have just bought a Dremel.

Apartment Cheese

2006-03-11T20:03:00.000-06:00

I swear the neighbors are making cheese in their apartment. More on this coming soon...

Personal Inventory

2006-02-26T03:54:00.000-06:00

I've been taking a little personal inventory lately. Its kind of a hard thing to do. Sometimes I'm surprised, but sometimes I don't want to know.......................................................

Oh, what's that? Sorry. I got a bit distracted. I'm working a night shift doing some quality checks on some weather websites (no joke) and watching tv at the same time. Don't worry, its okay. Anyways, I was flipping through and there was this weird channel showing odd scenes of a nursing home and the audio track was all screwed up and slow. Needless to say it was a WEE bit distracting. Its off now.

Anywhoo (how do you spell that, anyways?) I'm not going into the specifics of my personal inquiry, mostly because they're personal and they're specific. I'm coming to realize, though, that if you don't find a way to dig in and work... you won't amount to jack squat in this world. And I'm not referring to material things, but I'm sure it applies, too. I'm talking spiritual. For people who claim Christ and really do know him, everything in life is intimately and integrally linked with spiritual growth and health. Everything. Physical state, mental state, friendships, work, recreation, and of course ministry... everything. And it doesn't help that everything in the world is completely against you the whole time. I'll readily admit that some places are MORE completely against you (no logic specialists comments, please), but I'm also a firm believer that God gives us the grace to do what we need to do wherever he puts us.

I'm reminded of the Olympics this year. Moments ago, I just watched Bode Miller, certainly one of the most amazing skiiers of my lifetime - favored best in the world - throw this year's winter Olympics away. I don't know that he'll ever get another chance... especially since he didn't seem to care how his performance was this time. He was overweight, slow, made bad mistakes, and kept saying that he "just wanted to get to experience all the games had to offer." He was out drinking most nights. Other athletes trained hard and worked and worked. Meanwhile another skiier from Austria was entering his first olympic games at age 28, which is old for a skiier's first games. He had knocked another person off the team because he just kept working and training ...until he FINALLY got his ONE SHOT at the Olympics in his lifetime. He walked away tonight with a bronze medal. An honor to his country, his countrymen, and the Olympics.

2 Corinthians 9:24
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.

I just want to know that I left it all "on the floor," as we say in basketball...

Pictures of Palm Springs

2006-02-01T02:04:00.000-06:00

I thought it might be nice to give y'all some idea of what horrible conditions I run into with my job. It has been a very difficult last few weeks. My company forced me to go to Palm Springs, California. *sniff* I really can't get into the details... its almost too much for me. Just look at the pictures. There will be more later.

Hehehehehe.

Lady in a Lampshade

2005-12-31T21:29:00.000-06:00

Holy cow. I haven't put anything down in a while. I was reading an article online about conspiracy theorists who think the government is spying on people by means of radio-frequency "theft protection" devices on boxes at stores. You know the one they have to slide over the magnet so it doesn't set off that dude's voice at Wal-Mart? Yeah, I guess the govt is using those tags to track our every movement and send our voice signals back to NORAD or something.

Anyways, I was going to tell you that I'll be buying a digital camera. I'm going to somehow begin including some pictures from my travels. I don't know if people are even reading this thing anymrore, or should have been in the first place, but there will be some pictures. Here is a random image I hope you will enjoy. This is from my camera phone. I took it in the airport in Madison one day because this lady was wearing something hilarious. I think she buys her clothes at furniture stores or something. I call it simply "Lady in a Lampshade." I'll probably post a bunch of other pictures, too 'cause I have a few from my trips. I just don't have any decent hi-res mouth-watering pictures to show you where I've been. I'll try to capture all the wonderful moments of my life as I travel this great country of ours... like the mannequin tied to the mattress along the highway... I'll do my best.

Its Still Winter!!

2005-12-19T13:31:00.000-06:00

Holy crap its cold outside. Thank goodness I travel for a living. I'll be spending 3 full weeks of Jan/Feb in Palm Springs, CA :) What temperature is it at your house? It was -3 when I walked out to my car last night.

Its Winter!!

2005-12-04T14:47:00.000-06:00

Ahhh! You walk outside and take a deep breath. Every molecule that you missed with the kleenex is frozen instantaneously. The crisp, clean air, the smell of wood burning stoves, fresh snow on the ground. But this is the cold kind of winter. The kind that eats through your fleece gloves and where the wind feeds micro snow granules down the back of your neck by the handful. And when you're scraping the 5 inches of fresh powder off of your car... You know the part where you get it down your sleeve? Well micro snow granuals go farther. Maybe even to your elbows sometimes. Then you step into your old paint-peeler vehicle. You know the one... the one where the air diverter is broken and air only gets pumped through the defroster along the windshield. Yeah. That one! Its so cold that it takes a couple minutes to warm the transmission up enough so you can shift into gear. And while you're waiting the missing muffler is pounding out 150 decibels of pure Harley power...and slipping a little exhaust into the car while you're sitting still... you're slowly going deaf and seeing pretty colors. Then you get going and the snow powder you wiped under the blades is systematically fed through the air intake into the interior of the car...where it proceeds to all sneak down the back of your neck again. A little shiver goes down your spine. You creep out of the parking space and down the road. And then the fun begins. You know those garbage hard-rubber tires on your car? They're pretty awesome in the winter. Have you ever tried to ride a Big Wheel on ice? Well, probably not recently, but they've got hard plastic tires and no tread and they're usually pretty light in the front. You spin and spin and spin and spin, throw the wheel around...just having a good old time. Then after several minutes of chaos, the car responds to your coaxing and creeps into the next lane so you can turn at the light. Fortunately I have front wheel drive, but my tires are crap and my car is somewhat light. I feel like I'm a lame Shetland Pony trying to cross a frozen lake. It just ain't pretty. At least the heat works in my apartment, but we keep it pretty low so we can survive the electric bill. And my roommate drinks all my Dr. Pepper and doesn't put any cans back in the fridge so there are cold ones. Anyway, somehow I have to get my muffler replaced this week. We'll see how that goes. Its looking like temps are going to be in the balmy low teens for highs up here, and the forecast is showing loads of powdery neck-snow all week. As long as I stay here in my apartment curled up on my couch with 15 blankets and my warm Dr. Pepper, I should be alright. Lets just hope the internet doesn't die. I may not be able to deal with that loss...

I Drank The Water

2005-11-21T00:06:00.000-06:00

It was an accident!!!

Tequila and Folded Underwear

2005-11-20T22:22:00.000-06:00

Ah... the long awaited Mexico post. I'm sure that three of you were hanging on the edge of your seat for this one. I'm back safe and sound.

Mexico City is possibly the most insane place on the planet. Since I have extremely limited experience in this area and particularly with legitimate out-of-country travel, I will go ahead and declare it "The Most Insane Place on the Planet." Think of it this way... My company sends me into the midst of a city with 20-25 million people (nobody's really sure). Very few traffic lights, no marked traffic lanes. Most highways are roughly 3-4 lanes wide but no speed limits are enforced. At one point, my driver was going 180km/h (something near 113mph) and cracking open beers as we whizzed by a string of ancient pickup trucks hauling unsecured loads down the tollway. Most cars are about 8 feet long so the driver knows where the front and back end of the car are at all times. Thats so you can whip between two other cars moving 80 mph through city traffic if the guy in front of you is going slow or weaving drunkardly (like everyone else).

Oh yeah. And the pollution. I'm sure that you've heard Mexico City lives under a brown cloud of pollution. Well I'm here to tell you that Mexico City lives under a brown cloud of pollution. Everywhere you breathe is like sucking out of the back end of a bus muffler. There are billions of little green VW bug taxis, but I don't think you want to ride in them 'cause someone told us that we'd be abducted or something. We rode in the red ones.

The food down there was unbelievable. It completely destroyed my view of Mexican food in the US. Real Mexican food is just awesome food that comes from Mexico. It may have some spice, it may be made of weird things, but you can be assured... if its really Mexican, its really good.

I climbed two Aztec pyramids outside of Mexico City. The Pyriamid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. Theres a lot of stairs and if you fall you'll pretty much die so it was kind of cool. I looked around from the top and you can see about a million cactus farms. People eat a lot of cactus in Mexico. No kidding. It was good stuff (no spines, silly). The aloe plants are about 8 feet tall and have branches as thick as your leg. Mexico's prized fruit is the little ball that grows at the end of the cactus plant branch. Its a really sweet fruit called a "tuna" or something like that. I didn't get to eat any, but I almost ate fried worms and ant eggs. Its a central Mexican delicacy.

There are probably about a million other things that I could say. I'll just say its beautiful, polluted, and dangerous. Don't go to Mexico City on vacation. I may randomly remember other hilarious details about my trip (like everyone who saw me instantly assumed that I didn't know spanish and girls on the street were blowing kisses at me. I was a celebrity). I was a foot taller than everyone else. That was kind of funny. My little brother is a foot taller than me. He'd have been like Godzilla, but the Norwegian version and minus the scales. Just ask some questions and stuff. I'll probably randomly interject Mexico stuff into other posts too. You know how things come to mind.

Heheheheheh! I almost forgot the most important part! Yes, I tried Tequila. How can I not try it? They drink it like we do iced tea. The service at my hotel was incredible, too. I basically came back one day to find all of my stuff hung up in the closet and my dirty underwear folded and set out... talk about service... I must have forgotten to put the "please don't remove clothing items from my luggage and hang them up" sign on the door. Thats the latin way. Oh....and don't EVER walk in front of a woman through a doorway in a latin country, even if she's preoccupied and it becomes a quite logical thing to do in the US. You won't believe the dirty looks. You American Scum! (Finally! Chivaly lives somewhere!)

Oh yeah, and Amy Breeding is pretty much the coolest single girl that I know. If interested in more information, please see her agent.

...And go out and see the Johnny Cash movie. Its amazing! In fact, if you're a handsome young college man, take Amy to the movie. She hasn't seen it yet.

Voy al Mexico!

2005-11-05T12:04:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah... I'm going to Mexico tomorrow afternoon. I'll be gone for the whole week and I don't think I have any access to internet or email - don't expect any posts about me getting my pesos mixed up or walking into a girls bathroom... at least not for a week. I know you'll want to find out, however, if I could keep myself from drinking the water :) . . . to be Continued.

Zombie Arm

2005-11-05T11:35:00.000-06:00

I hate it when you sleep on your hands or something and they "go to sleep". This time it was my whole arm - a new experience for me. I could feel all the cold blood moving up my veins when I got the blood flowing again. I've been wondering all day how it managed to recover... or if I'm really walking around with some kind of zombie arm. This is important stuff!!!

The Scoop on Marrow Donation

2005-11-01T23:36:00.000-06:00

Right now I'm a potential bone marrow donor for someone. I signed up on the registry a couple years ago and recently got a letter stating I was a potential match for someone. Matches are extremely hard to find, and I'm not going to go into a joke about "well turn the light on!" because thats usually what I would do. I am the guy that constantly interrupts people to interject stupid puns and one-liners. My life is Mystery Science Theatre 3000. My problem is genetic, and I'll leave it at that. Anyways, so I went to get some blood testing done today to make sure that I'm the match. (Hey...maybe I oughtta ask them since they're so good at matching other people to blood and tissue types, maybe they could find ME a match :)!!!. Its not happening, but if I can remember, I WILL ask the next doctor I talk to.) So blood, yeah. They took 5 little vials of blood to send to some people in a lab somewhere via Fed Ex. This is all I know so far. If I find out in 90 days that I am the match, I will then go through with the remainder of the donation process. This is done a couple different ways, but I haven't read all the literature just yet, so bear with me. One of the processes involves putting me to sleep and taking marrow out of my pelvic bones. Thats the painful method and donors usually have a really rough time walking for a couple days. They take the marrow out using big hollow needles or something. The other way is a wee bit like Hansel and Gretel and a wee bit like dialysis. I'll explain. From what I read and what I came up with, they inject you for about 5 or 6 straight day with some whacked-out medical stuff that causes your bone marrow (aka marrow stem cells) to freak out and start making a ton of themselves. I'm guessing a little leftover Bit-O-Honey from Halloween in 1993 could do the trick, but who knows. Once I'm fattened up with the juice - a fully functional marrow machine - they hitch me up to a deal that takes the marrow out of my blood. I don't know if they've got like a spaghetti strainer in there, or if there are a bunch of marrow-gnomes scooping out the little cells as they float by, but its none of my business. They pump the blood back into my other arm and it takes like 4 hours to do. Which method they do probably has something to do with the patient, the donor, the doctors, and the relative ambient level of professional medical sadism.

If you could pray for the patient, I'd appreciate it, and I imagine so would she. She's a 57 year-old woman, and I know nothing more about her. I just know that if she's to the point where she needs a marrow donor, the situation is not good, and I'm hoping that maybe I work out for this woman so she might get another shot at life. At this stage, they tell me I'm about 1-in-5 of being the right person statistically. Potential marrow donors are very few and far between, and matches are impossible to find for many people. We'll know in 90 days.

Eduardo Is My Car's Name

2005-11-01T23:16:00.000-06:00

So...

I've been dragging my tailpipe now for 3 full days. I violently range from histeria to severe embarassment, depending on the part of town I'm driving through and how cute the girl is stepping out of the car next to me. You can be sure that I didn't meet the basic "This man will be able to provide for our children," requirement on most of their lists. I find myself quite often stepping out of the car, shaking my head in shame, but only if someone is watching or might be watching me. I usually set my hands on my knees and give a concerned look down toward the bottom of the car, letting the person watching know I know something is wrong. I shake my head and continue walking across the parking lot toward the ritzy little bank office building I work in. I must be trying to act as if the whole tailpipe-dragging thing just happened on the way to work - every day. I half want to kick the thing in front of people just to seem disgusted at its sad condition... (don't tell me YOU don't know what I'm talking about) but deep down... deep down Eduardo is quite magical and I like him just the way he is. If Eduardo were human, I would feel shame for such hypocrisy. On the one I love the feel of crusing down the expensive neighborhoods of an affluent society with my bob-sled brakes jammed on full all the way down the road, around all the corners, over each bump in the road... On the other, well... there are the girls.

I took Eddie to the shop today to get him fixed. Now I know that sounds awful, so I'll leave that sentence for open interpretation. I took him to the Heather Valley Garage. Fortunately it was super-close to my apartment. Its even open at 1030PM. The mechanic set him up on blocks and crawled under with a flashlight to re-strap the remainder of my exhaust system back up under the car. Flawless work. Didn't even get his hands dirty. I was quite impressed. Below is a key for decyphering this paragraph. (KEY: Mechanic = Me. Blocks = Apartment Sidewalk. Strap = coat hanger.)

What is that yellowish stuff on metal coathangers anyway?

Ciao Spam!

2005-10-30T22:57:00.000-06:00

Hey. In an effort to curb the malicious spam on my blog (it's not malicious yet, it just sounds better that way), I'm making everybody type in some weird letter things to make sure that you're not a robot or something. You still don't have to join the site and you can still be anonymous. Just no more spam about computer sales and weed-growing equipment (sorry if you're into that kind of stuff) . It takes a whole three seconds to type in the letters. If you're an index-finger-only kind of typer, it may take you like six. Suck it up, people. You'll live.

Desperation of a Bachelor

2005-10-30T20:14:00.000-06:00

In a brief moment of desperation, I, a singular bachelorized man, got into my car and backed ever so slowly out of my parking space at the apartment complex. Its never a quiet moment, as my muffler is no longer part of the exhaust system. Neighbors often peer from their sills to see what rogue Harley gang has decided to terrorize their neighborhood...only to be disappointed to witness a fractured, poor excuse for a vehicle and a scrawny, helmet-haired meteorologist at the wheel, in a rugged old flannel jacket nonetheless. Its chilly outside and the rain is falling lightly. Tonight a new sound is terrorizing the neighborhood, however, and it is bone-chilling. Ten times louder than any missing muffler, and at least as unmistakeable. Young and old turn heads as I drive by. An eerie reminder the effect nature and poor upkeep have on older vehicles is more evident than I would like. I cannot escape their glaring eyes and wincing cheeks... Not tonight, anyhow. But I needed pizza and nothing would stop me. My top-fuel dragster roars up the hill and down the other side, dragging with me a combination of sounds akin to several running motorcycles being pulled behind a tractor with a rope. People driving behind me hold their distance for fear of me. People beside me honk and point, or point and honk, or simply just stare. But tonight....tonight it was time for pizza. I eased into the minimall parking lot and parked sideways across three unused spaces in the back of the lot. It was best if I did't try to back up at all. You see... my muffler is missing... but my exhaust pipe is not. Yesterday a strap broke and it is now drags quite obnoxiously against the road when I let off the gas... All help is closed on Sunday here. And did I mention its loud? The people outside Little Caesar's thought so too. I puttered my car home with the window down (so I could hear the action at full volume), laughing histerically at what people must be thinking. What would I have thought myself? It would have been pretty funny to see some guy dragging a sparking pipe down the highway through a quiet, sleepy residential district. [Enter heavy night air and thougtful moment.] Its cold and damp outside and you're on the sidewalk. Then comes this noise... Think mower dragging the blade. You stop. It gets louder and louder 'till you're cringing from the sound and sight (remember the nerd at the wheel). It continues past you, tops the next hill, and all becomes silent again. You're left standing there thinking to yourself, still staring at the top of the hill in disbelief. Don't you just laugh to yourself in moments like that?
Its all good when there's pizza at the end of the rainbow.

Pumpkin Scratching

2005-10-15T14:02:00.000-06:00

Anybody ever have this crazy idea that it would be cool to carve your pumpkin with your bare hands? Man...you'd be scratching at those eyes for a really long time. Forget the teeth. My pumpkin's only going to have eyes. I bet the pioneers did it that way.

Weddins, The Minipost

2005-10-14T23:29:00.000-06:00

Oh hey, did anybody else go to 3 weddings this month? Yeesh. October is evidently the new hitching post of the calendar. I'm just jealous...thats all. *sniff*

Kansas City and the Reeeealy Long Story About Something Like the "Art of Futility"

2005-10-14T21:13:00.000-06:00

Kansas City... ah, yes. The name of it brings tears to my eyes.

In the past several weeks, I've eaten some great barbecue stuff (random cow and pig pieces). I've driven nice SUV's. I've used a lot of pillows. I've even thrown down Dr.Pepper at every opportunity (both figuratively and literally...but we'll get to that). Good times.

You know what? I gotta go back to this whole pillow thing... I keep getting these down pillows, right? Yeah, yeah, "I'm so sorry to hear that, Joe." Well they have pointy things at the end of the feathers and they all point OUT of the pillow. You'd think the feathers would have been trained to have the fluffy side out, but noooooo. Someone needs to go back to feather school.

Okay, so now for part of the real part of the story. Last Friday I was in a hurry to leave the jobsite in "KC" so I could catch my plane back to Champaign, Illinois. I left the job REEEEALY late and arrived at the airport in a remarkably short period of time. (I'll blame my punctuated trip on the traffic...sure it was rush hour, but cars seemed to be moving out of my way quickly when they saw me approach....*ahem!*). I blasted my way to the airport just in time to find the world's slowest rental car check-out kids. I waited patiently, and even impatiently. Some guy finally came up and saw I was in an obvious rush, so he helped me out. I ran over to the buttle shuss and proceeded to WAIT. We all loaded on like pigs in a trailer, but then SOME GUY needed to run inside the main building like 200 feet away to grab "something." Fortunately the driver didn't wait too long, but I was already missing my flight, yo. The buttle shuss screamed over to the airport, something like a 5 minute drive, at about 10 miles an hour, (which made it longer), and then I had to endure the single most RIDICULOUS airport layout I have yet come across.

The bus turns into the lane running in front of the terminal. The Kansas City airport is horseshoe-shaped, for those unfamiliar (which hopefully is all of you). There is a road and parking area inside of the horseshoe and the outside part is used for the airplanes. Get it? Okay, well picture driving all the way around this really long building, slowly dropping a couple passengers off here or there...picking up one....driving to the next airline part, picking up, dropping off...(and you're extremely late, remember?). Then you get ALL the way to the far end of the horseshoe... and your airline isn't there! You get really nervous. You look around the shuttle bus at the people inside with a horrified look on your face. You're trying futilely to express to these helpless innocent regular people wearing the obligatory tropical tourist getup how late you are and how much they should care about your awful situation. Evidently I have not perfected this look, as I'm sure they thought I was having some serious gastrointestinal issues instead.

I buried my head in the backpack on my lap. I knew what lay ahead... kind of. It had to be another building. We slowly pulled away from the building and drove another couple minutes to an identical large horseshoe building. Then began the process, once again, of dropping people off and picking people up. Over. And over. And over. Guess what? My airline wasn't in that building either!!! Kansas City has THREE completely separate large horseshoe-shaped buildings and MY airline was in the LAST ONE! AND I WAS LATE TO BEGIN WITH! Once at my stop I ran off the buttle shuss and the other passengers were likely praying I would find a good specialist for my digestive disorder at my final destination. I ran to the counter and the guy gave me my ticket. They were already giving away seats to standby passengers so my original seat was gone. They stuck me in the back. Now for the security gauntlet. On my first approach, I put everything right through the x-ray, but I forgot the phone and change in my pocket. Next trip through the upright, I passed, but proceeded to dump all the loose contents of my laptop bag all over the floor in the security area. Always handy for a late passenger. I pick it up, walk 20 feet to the gate, walk on, and crawl all the way lback to a window seat right next to the engine of the plane (side-mounted on the back end). My favorite seats because its acceptable to yell at the passenger next to you just to express a simple idea like: "I must urinate!!!!!" The first words out of the guy-next-to-me's mouth reminded me of all those prison movies you see. The "whacha in for?" line. "Flying standby, huh," he asked me. I looked around and sensed that everyone around me at the butt-end of the plane was of the reject-standby flavor. Its like another class of human being...treated like you're somewhere between monkey and dog on the animal spectrum. I then, for some reason, tried to explain to my row-mate that I did have a nice juicy seat up near the front but they gave it away because I was late. Thats always a good way of making the person next to you feel first class. There was silence. Moments later over the intercom the flight attendant asked if someone had left a cell phone at the security checkpoint. I felt up my pockets and smashed in the attendant call button. I was that guy. Strangely, all my pocket articles were returned to me except for about 70 cents in change I placed in the dish.

Caution. New story. This week in the buttle shuss I was more than on-time and prepared mentally and emotionally for the ridiculous airport layout, but the other folks in the bus weren't quite ready for me. You see...on my way to the airport I picked up a juicy Wendy's cheeseburger, and nice big-old Dr. Pepper. Man it was good. Both sips.

I carry a backpack with my books, notebooks, pens, keys, and a bunch of weird things that I can't even remember. I also carry a laptop bag containing most of my work utensils and paperwork. Well I'm on this packed bus, so I set my laptop between my feet and my backpack on my lap. I wanna start digging into the burger, so I do the most logical thing I can think of. I set the drink down and wedge it between my right foot and my laptop bag. Makes sense, right? Putting a really large top-heavy beverage on an wildly moving surface and "holding it still" with the side of your ankle is always sensible. Seemed to work for me for like 2 minutes, then I quickly became "That Guy." One of my favorite phrases in the world. I heard it from a friend at college and proceeded to use it incessantly. I always joke in public situations about someone being "That Guy" and people always laugh. 'Cause there's always that guy who holds up the plane. Always that guy who drives the wrong way down the one-way street. Always that guy who does something incredibly obnoxious and against the rules no matter how many signs and warnings are posted, or how many times he's told otherwise. Yeah...I spilled my drink. It lurched forward, and landed with the lid toward the front of the bus. We were also going downhill at the time :) I yelled at all 6 people in front of me and they simultaneously picked up their stillettoed heels as a headwall of Dr. Pepper flooded the floor of the bus and collected near the driver's seat. (The lady immediately in front of me didn't fare so well as the others). Every time the bus would speed up or slow down the surge would change direction and flow toward the back where I was sitting. I was that guy. I felt so stupid, but in all that I still had the presence of mind to wait for a few moments, 'till it was silent, and utter my special phrase. "Dangit. I'm that guy." Everyone laughed. The bus driver did not. All I got from him was a simple "...its not the first time." I quickly exited at my stop and continued my day.

And that, ladies and gentlemen....is my story.

Pillow Forts

2005-09-19T21:06:00.000-06:00

Due to the extreme number of pillows I have been encountering in my travels of late, I have decided to endeavor into a "pillow fort stage". In this stage of my life, I will build a sleeping fort from the armloads of gratuitous fluffety pillows adorning my sleeping slab. I will sleep within the fort, making an effort to touch ALL the pillows every night to gather the most extreme and luxurious sleeping experience possible. The results of my research shall be posted in the near future...

Tonight's experiement begins with a simple 4-pillow arrangement on a standard medium-firm Holiday Inn King Size bed.

In an effort to embrace my past, I may also post information about future research into hotel bed tents and the relative springability of said hotel beds. I hope, in the case of the springability, to determine whether children simply delight in denying their parents satisfactory obedience on a nightly basis, or if they actually enjoy jumping on their beds.

Ooh. :) This just in. Its kinda fun.

How to Advertise

2005-09-19T20:34:00.000-06:00

Today I saw a wonderful lesson about the freedom and freefalls of capitalism.

I'm driving by this store in Albany, Georgia. Instantly you can tell what they sell. Mattresses. There's one out front on display along the highway. Its standing on end. Don't worry. Its covered in plastic so the rain doesn't get to it...'cause it does rain about every afternoon here in the summer. The store is probably set 60 feet back off the road, so the mattress is pretty much by itself except for its companion.

In order to demonstrate the use of this company's product, they hired a mannequin. A handsome, slate-grey fellow donning red surf trunks and a cornflower blue t-shirt. His head is twisted to his left, looking down the road. Quite the stylistic visionary. As for the rest of him, he's strapped repeatedly to the mattress with bundles of heavy rope with his arms helplessly down to his side.

I can see the TV commercials now...
"You'll Sleep Like A Hostage At Jack's Mattress Shack!"

Joe Goes To Yale

2005-09-11T20:47:00.000-06:00

Yes, thats right everyone. I'm going to Yale.

I wish I could say I was pursuing a higher degree in the study of some bland, nebulous social injustice field, but alas, I cannot. I'm just there on business for a few days. This brings up a very important topic of discussion... What would you do if you stopped by Yale for a little while?

The best things I can think of right now are to deface some campus buildings by the cover of night and walk around campus during the day with my nose to the sky wearing my pink cardigan and loafers... but maybe you all have some better, safer ideas. What would you do at Yale? I will now solicit these ideas:

I need your ideas. Give them to me.

...I'm at least going to get a t-shirt.

Hmm...Maybe I could just run wildly around campus wearing army pants and a torn, dirty long-sleeve white waffle sweater. Then they'd be dealing with a right-wing fundamentalist middle-class white unkempt redneck. Would they even know what to do? Would they be injured just looking at me?

Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-06T00:05:00.000-06:00

In an effort to oblige the world of journalism, I, too, will post a brief article on Hurricane Katrina. Not only am I related to her (my father's side), I was in southern Mississippi during the storm. It was quite an experience. I caught one of the last flights into Jackson before the hurricane hit land and my bag didn't make the flight. I spent several days with extremly low water pressure and no electricity. You couldn't drink the tap water because it was contaminated. People formed lines of 200 cars just to try to get gas at the 2 or 3 gas stations in town that had electricity. They fought over ice and other basics. After a day of eating chewy granola bars and pop tarts, Taco Bell was restored power down the street. We made a run for the border. Of all things in a natural disaster....Taco Bell ....

I mean, seriously.... Taco Bell.

If you want to ask questions, feel free. I'll at least act like I know the answer.

Man of Many Languages

2005-09-01T23:19:00.000-06:00

I now speak homeboy, spanglish, missippi, minnesoootan, madisonian, chicaagoan, cowboy, canadee-eese, and can distinguish 3 southeren dialects. Talk about resume material!

Travel Memoirs

2005-09-01T23:05:00.000-06:00

The other day I met a man shaped like a Weeble.

Don't ask.

There was something else I was going to write, but I forgot it in my notebook which is at work right now. I'll fill you in later. The title of my writing will include something about life observations while on antihistimines. It should be a good one.

INVASION OF CANADA!!!

2005-08-08T20:53:00.000-06:00

Like a supermarket tabloid come to reality. I witnessed the invasion of Calgary, Alberta Canada tonight. Side note, I never know whether I'm supposed to put another comma between Alberta and Canada, but ANYHOW... I arrive at my hotel to find probably 80 Japanese people all with their little wheeled hard-case airplane bags (saw a couple toyota and mitsubishi brand...good mileage I hear). Nothing quite like touring halfway across the world during vacation to see a late-summer Canada!

This place is strange, though. Very very flat, and its 9PM right now and the sun is just starting to THINK about setting. Still very light outside and its rather nice. It rained all day today and I had to bust out my "slicker." Good thing I threw it in at the last minute, eh? Get it? Get it? I'm acting canadianese. Some lady who asked me like 500 questions at the immigration office stamped my passport today. It was so cool! I'm an official world traveler now. Also, all the signs here are in French and English, but its really hilarious, 'cause almost NONE of these people up here can speak a lick of French. I get the vibe that the Calgarians want nothing to do with anything French.

I ate ocean Sunfish for supper and hit on a whole bunch of really cute waitresses....um....ok, so maybe I just ate Sunfish. Had a fine glass of flavorless white wine with my super-chocolatey little cake thingy dessert. I also read this neat article on the plane magazine that said Japanese sake is made from rice and its brewed like a beer (rice beer?) but the alcohol content is about 12% or something like wine. I used to think it was some super-hard liquor or something. I read about all of the good places to go buy sake...in Japan. You should have been there.

People Skilz

2005-07-31T16:03:00.000-06:00

I hope its no knock on my personality, but I get back from a week-long vacation in North Carolina and two-thirds (2 of 3) of my neighbors have moved out. Anyways, I've put in an order to the main office for some cute girl neighbors.

A Bug Got In My Eye Today

2005-07-12T22:39:00.000-06:00

I'm copying this from an email to my Dad today from Jackson, Mississippi...

As I was about 40 feet outside the WalMart door, a bug the size of a Mississippi river barge flew into my right eye. As I instinctively blinked, it shoved the critter up under my eyelid in one of the most excruciating tear-filled moments I've experienced. Its not so much of a severely painful pain, but more of a very painful shock-pain. There's something alive lodged in a place where it REALLY REALLY should not be. It hurt so bad that I couldn't keep my OTHER eye open to see where I was walking, so I had to stand still for several minutes. I was feeling around for walls, carts to lean on and desperately trying to get the thing out. People walked by and they had to have thought it was either the most bizarre thing they've seen or that I had some type of severe mental disorder. And I mean severe. It let up for a minute and I fumbled into the WalMart door to head for the bathroom. 10 feet inside the door next to the registers and a whole crowd of people, it hit me again. Couldn't see and again desperately trying to get the thing out. After about two minutes leaning against a cart and feeling around like I'd been shot in the face, an old lady in a blue vest finally came up to me and asked if I was alright. I told her no. It let up for a second and I was able to make it to the bathroom to flush my eyes with a whole lotta water. After that I found they used hand dryers instead of paper towels and I had to use toilet paper to wipe off my eyes and face. I then walked out onto the floor sniffling and looking like I'd been in the bathroom crying over a breakup for an hour or more. I made my purchase, thanked the woman, and left. She looked much different when I could see her face.

There was one stall door closed in the bathroom and I bet there was some guy witnessing the whole thing. I'd have stayed locked up in there, too, if some freak came in doing what I did.

My eye still hurts a litte a couple hours later. I keep thinking it was some huge mosquito and I just wonder if the little terdbag didn't decide to bite me where I couldn't scratch.

Tube Pillows?

2005-07-09T00:25:00.000-06:00

You know those little tube pillows they put on fancy beds? What in the world are they for, anyhow? Its a tube, right? Its gotta have some kind of purpose other than aesthetics, methinks. I'll report back if they're some kind of upper-spinal nightmare. I mean, you gotta know that stuff, you know? Don't worry. I've got your back.

WEIRD!

The Sandi Patti Bratwurst Festival

2005-07-02T23:44:00.000-06:00

I cooked brats for the entire world today. Some were more burned than others, and I have no hair on my right arm now. Sandi Patty sang some songs. It was a fireworks and symphony orchestra performance in Madison and it was good (I had to volunteer. Please note key-word). I will now perform a haiku: *Ahem!*

Sandi Patty sang,
The weather and brats were nice,
Hairless arms and booms!

Thank you.

Since you liked that one so much, here's a grill haiku (can you taste the sarcasm? you are my captive of this moment, so you MUST continue reading anyway). Even though haiku's are traditionally about something like the weather, I will neglect this.

Hairless and blistered,
My arms are blazing fire balls.
Here's your bratwurst, sir.

And here's another one.

Heavy burger smoke
Is charring my eyeballs. Tears!
I shed one billion.

Hmm. That one was pretty good. I'll leave you all with that. Good night.

Here's a Real Deal and Mail Bag Day #1 !!

2005-06-26T16:27:00.000-06:00

Got a coupon today for $25 off on a set of four tires. But thats not the good part. Evidently, you get them rotated for free with your purchase! Free rotation on four new tires! ...you KNOW you're in the yuppity 'burbs when kids get away with that one.

In case you know nothing about tire rotation, please continue reading below (I won't assume that everyone knows):
-Tires are "rotated" (front tires moved to the back, and vice versa) as they wear to make sure that they wear out evenly. The front tires wear out slower than the backs, so you move the fronts to the backs for more tread. Only old tires can be rotated.

Its kinda like having brand new shoes relaced. Or taking out an empty trash bag....completely useless.

On to the next topic! I got some cool mail today. One letter addressed to "The GirlScout Family at...." I'll open it while we're speaking so you can see my excitement.... Hmm. Evidently I take my daughter every month to her girl scout meetings and activities, but have to watch from the outside. Now I can bring the whole family to a family fun day picnic! I am reminded to remember my picnic blanket and camera. Well now...for a $25 donation I can go and see who my family is! However, thinking further, just a wife would suffice for now and a daughter would certainly not have a positive impact on this stage in my life. I guess I'll have to pass and wait for the "Parents -Only" picnic day if that ever happens.

I just gratuitously shredded the letter, the donation form, 3 other long pages of girl scout stuff, and the envelope. I love my new shredder!!!

Letter #2. Super-sweet american express / delta airlines deal. I'll read you the first two sentences of the letter:
"Dear Mr. Bagley,
I'm writing to share some exciting news. As of February 20, 2005, you have 0 SkyMiles in your account."
...shred letter
...look over sign-up form for cool stickers to use on all the free business reply letters I send back (in case you didn't know, I mail every last one of those blasted things back. Sometimes empty, sometimes with presents or other great offers I received from competitors :) My preferred envelope filler is easter grass, but I'm recently out and must use shredded paper, which works well, too! I have 12 business reply envelopes to send back this week. Every time I do, the company is charged for it by the US Postal Service. Do your part to keep our stamp prices low!)
...shred form
...unclog cheap stinking shredder...
...open more mail
...2 more business reply envelopes...
(I hear tell I'm soon to get my own zip code! )
...another bill....shred bill...

Quarters and Brain Shrooms

2005-06-24T21:32:00.000-06:00

Sorry its taken me so long to bring another fresh breath to my site...truth is, I've had a ton of hilarious experiences in the last couple months, many of which I would like to write, and none of which I can remember. You know those moments? When you know something really funny happened, but the only thing left in your brain is the residual hilariosity? That stuff is probably some kind of fuzzy brain scum.

The following is an aim excerpt from just now on AIM.

kyleptapp: Isn't it about time you updated your blog again, you lazy punk?
ontheroadwithjoe: :-)
kyleptapp: Other pople with blogs update them more than once a month. What are you lazy? :-)
ontheroadwithjoe: you thought I was dilligent?
kyleptapp: Never

My friends know me best, and those who know me best know me well.

I'd share some brain scum with you, but I'm actually kind of enjoying it right now. I may give you some of the warm fuzzy that is left over. I suspect thats where that comes from, too.

Do you have any idea of how hard it is to get quarters when the bank is closed? Oh yeah, and I pulled one of those new nickels out of my pocket the other day. I couldn't figure out what it was for a second. It just looks really weird. You should try it sometime. If you can't replicate the same effect, just let me know and I'll put a mark on the "brain shroom attack" board I keep in my apartment. Its getting full this month. Brain Shrooms...hey, now there's a catchy little phrase. See? Now you've gone and made me think that I'm cool for just coming up with it...or you might say "growing it off the top of my head." Ar Ar.

And for all those who need to know, I am now addicted to a weekly Japanese children's cartoon about a boy who makes bread. See above for possible explanation. Evidently, all thats good and loving in Japan hinges upon the magically warm hands of a young boy who must bake bread so good that it will change the world. His super power is warm hands. You can't say its not original...

NOTE TO SELF:

2005-06-06T02:53:00.000-06:00

Do NOT, I repeat... DO NOT, however great the temptation, turn off your refrigerator by accident for 2 weeks. The warming of the freezer contents (chicken, beef, frost (frost must melt into small lake) , etc, and more chicken) leaking into the warming main compartment (dairy and produce) and onto the apartment floor will likely be difficult to clean up and quite possibly the most monstrous odor you will ever come across in your entire stinking life...

Oh yeah...and don't lick the thick green powder off of the "apples" left in the crisper.

And if you DO manage to do this, use way more than 2 boxes of arm and hammer. Even they can't handle this baby.

Renter's Insurance

2005-05-14T16:01:00.000-06:00

I got renters insurance recently to cover my stuff in case something weird happens. I was going through the policy and I noticed that I am covered for damages due to spacecraft and self-propelled missiles. Pretty cool. I'm not covered for damages due to insurrection, rebellion, or revolution. So I wonder if I'm covered if insurrectionists fire self-propelled missiles at my apartment. You gotta know this stuff! I sent an email to my insurance agent and we'll see what he has to say...

Deep Thoughts

2005-04-30T01:47:00.000-06:00

I wish I had a sand box.

Diary Entry...

2005-04-30T01:27:00.000-06:00

Still no candied corned beef in sight... The men are beginning to lose hope and have resorted to rationing meals so that we might push on further, although I somehow fear a mutiny may be in store if we do not find what we're looking for in the next few months. The length of day has grown lean and the dogs are fighting more often now. One can only hope that we will find more resources, and especially the coloring books that the men are so desperately attached to...the thin pages can only hold so many months of crayon markings depicting colours of the deeply needful soul...
-Joe

Chinese Wonderland

2005-04-29T01:07:00.000-06:00

I now know there is an Asian restaurant in northern Idaho (next to a very nice lake) that has a koi pond inside the bottom floor. There are chinese lanterns hanging everywhere and all the furniture and woodwork in the room are bamboo. Awesome atmosphere. The koi pond is a wide circular ribbon like a lazy river and the middle island contains room for several more tables, accessed by a little bridge. It was really neat! I got to sit next to the fattest part of the pond/stagnant river and a turtle sat next to me on a rock with big koi and some little goldfish swimming all around him. If I ever build a generic Asian cuisine restaurant, it will look just like this. The only difference is that I'll serve regular clumpy rice instead of the dry fluffy American stuff that you can't eat with chopsticks. The fluffy stuff was actually a menu item, which is really bizzare for asian cuisine.

I guess that was the "Hey! We're in Idaho!" part.

I'd probably pump the water in a circle really fast and over some rocks and a little waterfall so people could watch the koi jump like salmon. That would probably be neat during supper.

Either that or they'd just kinda tumble over the falls as they're whisked around the river... "Mommy! What's THAT?"

The Saga Continues

2005-04-29T01:03:00.000-06:00

Eh....they dumped the trash.

Ice Cream Leftovers

2005-04-27T22:02:00.000-06:00

Okay, get this. Last night I got an icecream-based dessert to go from a restaraunt I ate at. Just before I went to bed I ate the thing. There's no fridge in my room, so in order to keep it cold I ingeniously used my ice bucket, filled halfway, to attempt to chill the dessert (peanut butter ice cream on an oreo crust...eh...it was alright). It didn't work all that well. A little mushy, but it was still cold and could be eaten with the fork I got from room service ;)

So I'm done with the thing. I don't want to throw it in the trash can because the waxy cardboard box it came in will probably soak through and leave ice cream nastiness all over the unbagged (no clue) trash can. So, I dump out the ice from the bucket and just put the trash in there. Its sitting in the top of the container, open and visibly empty except for a few oreo crumbs and a bunch of chocolate mush...and the fork sticking out of it.

I get back to my room today and found room service done with their duties. I eat, come back, then get ready to head off to work again at 9pm PST. I know, not fun. Anyhow, I come out of the bathroom only to see my friend Mr. Icecream container still in its little bucket. "What the crap?" I'm thinking. "Didn't they see this thing? It takes up half of the sink countertop." Then I notice that its sitting a little higher in the bucket than it was when it was yesterday's trash.

They put ice in the bucket underneath it to keep my garbage cold. Chilled chocotrash ala fork.

Is that service or what?

No, really. Its a legitimate question...please comment...I'll be laughing for several days about this one.

Pure Swank

2005-04-27T00:21:00.000-06:00

Alrighty, my trip to Seattle was awesome last week. Ate in the space needle during a sunset, etc. Found out that the cascade mountains (washington state) are every bit as awesome (if not moreso) than the rockies. They're just as tall and a lot rockier. Mount Raineer looks a WHOLE lot like mount Fuji. Its 14 thousand feet tall (like colorado's mountains) and it sits on the opposite end of a county that starts at sea level on the west end. 0 feet to 14K feet is WAY more than anything colorado can do. Essentially, its pretty cool. Oh yeah...I spent the weekend in the RAINFOREST on the west coast of the cascades. Didn't know it was there, but its the coolest place I've EVER SEEN! Here's the lodge: http://www.visitlakequinault.com/ I was gonna post a link to pics of the rainforest, but none of them were nearly as cool as what I experienced. I mean...it was a real rainforest, mind you it was temperate climate, but every square inch of everything was covered with green stuff and slugs and bugs and a whole lot more green stuff (bugs weren't bad at all). Saw the farthest northwest point in the continental US and stood on the 80-foot cliff there. Pounding waves, cold blue water, sea otters rolling around, the whole bit. I met a town named Sequim (squim).

I'm in Spokane this week and its like a trip back to the wild west. I ate in a place called the catacombs. Yuck. Food was good but the whole thing about booth seating with bodies behind you was REALLY weird.

i was kidding. it was a good restaraunt and I didn't see any dead bodies. rotkraut (antithesis of sauerkraut) is weird.

So I get to town, right? And I see this thing thats a giant mormon temple about 1/4 mile away from my hotel. Turns out that its actually the county courthouse and they do VERY LITTLE baptising for the dead there...the talking with demons thing is still suspect. Some county courthouse. The health department next door looks like an islamic mosque. No kidding. This is a weird place.

Why Swank in the title? The place I'm working at put me up in a 4+ star hotel (nothing to back that up, but it's GOT to be) a few blocks away from the office. People come to my room in the evening just to turn down the sheets on my insanely soft bed, leave cookies, put down the lights, close the drapes, open the tv cabinet, and turn on some soft jazz music for me. Some room service dude today brought me up a FORK to the 10th floor. I walk around in a bath robe in the evenings after my soothing hot shower, drinking water from a champaign glass and looking at myself in the mirror with a sly grin. (all true) Last night I took a hot bath (in the giant bathtub next to my massive walk-in shower) just because I could! If you check out http://www.thedavenporthotel.com and check out 'guest rooms', look at the deluxe room. I'm in one and mine looks a lot better than that rattly little picture :) That swank room on the main page is just the lobby... HOLY COW!!!!!!!!

The Real Philosophical Underpinning of OU

2005-04-12T16:33:00.000-06:00

DROP OUT NOW.

Life Lessons

2005-04-12T16:21:00.000-06:00

Ready for a test? Get this.

'NOT changing brake pads as a part of general preventative vehiclular maintenance' is to 'your checkbook' as:

A. "placing your hand in a great white's mouth" is to "your baseball career."
B. "jumping from tall trees" is to "learning to fly."
C. "petting kittens with a live 220 wire" is to "friz control."
D. "many other bad things" are to "things that are good."
E. "Zero or more of the previous answers."

Mr. T says: "I pity tha foo that don't change his brakes! Stay in school!"

Stealing OU BSU Girls

2005-04-11T22:39:00.000-06:00

As per Holly's comment on the previous thread I will recommend the following course of action to my fellow BSU men...

Gentlemen: Steal them while you can!!!! Only by a sheer act of God will you find anyone close to these types of girls in the outside world...well...its only by a sheer act of God that you're breathing right now anyways, or can even tie your shoes in the morning, or put on matching clothes for that matter :) , but you get my point.

Never Ceasing Amazement: 2K Flushes Part 3

2005-04-08T21:53:00.000-06:00

I come back from my first week away with baby flushes in the tank, right? I do the flush thing and the placid blue water turned a violent dark brown. Here's the lowdown on the phenom:

1. 2KF will please the eye upon installation, delivering consistent blue peacefulness with every flush.

2. On the first morning, you wake up and the blue is gone. I don't know if the bleach tablet cancels out the blue in the bowl or what...it was just gone. One flush and its back.

3. Go away for a week and the water in the bowl is blue again. ??? Don't ask. Flush once and be amazed. The blue turns to dark chocolate brown out of nowhere, flushes out, and replaces itself with blue again.

Hey, just thought...do they make a gag version of 2KF? I want a dark yellow tablet to toss in somebody's tank when you go over to their house. Every time they flush it'll just look gross! Some of you chemical people get on that one! This stuff is important! Oh yeah...maybe one that makes the water stink, too.

Charlotte Motor Speedway and Me

2005-04-08T21:43:00.000-06:00

This guy I met on the airplane was from Alaska. He works 8 weeks straight, then gets 2 weeks off hauling pieces of the Alaskan Oil Pipeline in Alaska and Canada. Not a bad gig if you like working 2 straight months of 12 hour days, 7 days a week. I'm all over it. He tells me about the Charlotte Motor Speedway and that I ought to check it out. I thought it might be cool if we (my female travel partner and I) had time during our business trip.

Little did I know, the Charlotte Motor Speedway would pick me up at the airport.

We dodged traffic like we were fleeing a comet-induced Tidal Wave only inches on our heels, tailgated as if we were to try to pick out what brand of gas the car underneath us was running, and consistently arrived at the TV station intact. I am utterly amazed.

Gentlemen...if you travel with a woman and she drives, ask to see her papers and credentials. Make sure her shots are up to date and that she's not certifiable...and that she's not closely related to Jeff Gordon, the patron Saint of Carolina.

This topic should generate sufficient hate mail.

No Pizza, No Brakes, No Problem

2005-04-08T21:27:00.000-06:00

In case you were wondering, the day when the Pizza Man would risk all peril to deliver that oh-so-tasty goodness to your front door are behind us, my friend...part of the Golden Age of Man that abandoned Earth about the same time resonable gas prices did. I wish I could tell you a tale of a Pizza Man whose brakes went out, had a horrific accident, survived perfectly, and still delivered my pizza in its adolescent warm conglomerate phase...alas I cannot.

On to the next topic...okay, I'll finish my pizza story. No accidents. They banged on the door to my complex, rang my bell a bunch of times, etc, but then left 'cause nobody answered the door. My bell never rang. I did hear somebody honk from the parking lot, but hey...people do that sometimes. Thought nothing of it. The brakes are part of my next story.

Next Story: Arranging imperative car maintenance during/around incessant travel is quite difficult. My brakes locked up the other day. I managed to get the car to a shop I was recommended to. The price was WAY super high, but now I have to somehow get this stupid car from one place to another to get a "second opinion." If only I had life insurance on the thing I may just arrange some type of 'mishap,' so I could collect the damages. Anyway, this leaves me with at least a mile walk to the place where it is currently sleeping (on a fresh oil change, mind you) and I have to find some new place to go in this big city of rich kids. I wish I may, I wish I might, find an honest mechanic tonight...or at least some time tomorrow.

Story 3: Hey, it has been a while. This is the full dose. I was in Charlotte, NC for the last two weeks. Absolutely beautiful city with an amazing downtown. If you have to stay there for some reason, I will feel very badly. Not because you have to go, but because I cannot. The Dr.Pepper is fresh, the iced tea is toxically sweet, and everybody has more money than you. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Life Realizations

2005-03-13T15:58:00.000-06:00

Man...that 2000 Flushes thing is a scam.

Back in Detroit

2005-03-08T20:03:00.000-06:00

So I find out that Michigan has this thing for Little Caesars. I'm back in town for two weeks now. Turns out there are roughly 5 million Little Caesars restaraunts in Michigan (including the UP). An average of 3 Michigan Lefts are required to reach the nearest one. If you're not familiar with the Michigan Left, see my previous post on this ingenious traffic device. If you are, see it anyways. So anyway, this infatuation with Little Caesars is kind of weird. The co-worker I'm travelling with is originally from the area and is totally addicted to the stuff. I hear tell of gangs pushing cold deep dish on the streets around here. Pretty creepy.

Oh yeah, and there's this refrigerator in my room behind me thats making some really freaky noises. You know the whole "mosquito caught in my ear canal" thing? Its kinda like that.

You Know You're A Bachelor When...

2005-03-05T21:13:00.000-06:00

Adding a blue 2000 flushes cube to your toilet tank is the highlight of your week.

Apartment Complex Smell of the Day

2005-03-02T22:35:00.000-06:00

Skunk and Pickles. I kid you not.

Question of the Day

2005-03-01T19:28:00.000-06:00

Why on earth does it have to smell like something absolutely bizzare every time I open my apartment door? The nasal flavour du'jure is: WARM RAW MEAT. If you can't picture it, just think of warm week-old trash. Who knows, maybe there's some of that in there too. Seriously, its just gross. Anybody else have those other people in the building that just weird them out?

Free Spinal Correction Service

2005-02-28T12:24:00.000-06:00

Hey, guess what? I discovered a free local spinal correction service this morning. It was actually set up in the parking lot of my office. All they required was that I wear dress shoes and the outisde temperature remain below 32 degrees. It was only preferred that I was walking ever so slightly downhill. Even though I couldn't breathe when it was done, I just felt really glad my laptop wasn't broken. It was as smooth as mother nature can make it.

Hot Real Estate Endeavors

2005-02-26T20:47:00.000-06:00

For a long time I wondered what was necessary to create a really vibrant real estate opportunity. I thought about Florida. Many older americans move to Florida because the temperature is warm and the pressure is a little higher, which can aid against arthritis pains, however the humidity there is pretty high. Then I thought about Arizona. Many older americans move to Arizona because of the warmth and the dryness, although the pressure is lower because of the elevation. I got to thinking...where is a place we could find higher pressure and warmer temperatures on a consistent basis? Some place that few enough people are currently living to make some money selling land? Then I had it!

Death Valley!

The advertising may be challenging for an older retiring population, but I'm sure that with some ingenuity that there is plenty of opportunity to make some money.

Did you know...

2005-02-26T20:24:00.000-06:00

That I will use fewer than 6 rolls of toilet paper (used quite liberally) this YEAR in my apartment? Purchases must be made VERY carefully as one package will last me up to two years or more. This being the case, I must err on the side of luxury.

Observations

2005-02-25T21:08:00.000-06:00

The Big Mac is not a driving sandwich.

The Michigan Left

2005-02-22T22:01:00.000-06:00

The stuff of folk lore lives on in the state of Michigan. Dreaming of a magical world where people can turn left on red lights will inevitably lead you here. But I now know that this dream is derived from the fall of man, the corruption of spirit and flesh that leads to real physical and spiritual death. This very thing has also birthed all of the other traffic laws and road systems in this "magical" state. The law is thus: When stopped at a red traffic light, and said light begins to blink, one may turn left after yielding to oncoming traffic. This at first seems a novelty. Until one also learns that one may not turn left on normal highways. You have to find the special U-turn intersections to do U-turns because there are no left turns from side roads onto main roads. But you can't just pick any of them. Some of them are BAD places to turn, partly because you're not allowed, and partly because they are one-way Ueys, which again is why you're not allowed to Uey down the wrong way into an oncoming Uey. If you want to turn left, you turn right and drive down the street to the U-turn place, then pull a Uey, which may or may not have a traffic light to allow you into the 4 lanes of high-speed oncoming traffic. We were quite confused as to how the whole system worked when we arrived here. My travel partner, the driver, decided the only reasonable option, then, was to act as if all reds (blinking or not) were simply yield signs and when no cars were coming, it was perfectly acceptable to turn. This has actually worked pretty well for us. Most of those moments for illegal turns are pretty choice turning moments, so we've been taking advantage of all of them we can while we're here. In return, we leave our 10-cent pop bottle deposit in the state by not recycling our garbage. Sounds like a fair trade-off to me.

Eubonics, Linguistics, its all the same...

2005-02-22T18:59:00.000-06:00

Had somebody tell me today that they had an eubonics class in college. I was amazed. "Really? Wow. I had heard of such things, but I didn't know for sure they existed." There was a pause...."What did I just say," they asked? "Did I just say eubonics?" The head drops..."uhh.....LINGUISTICS."

The Finest of the Fine

2005-02-21T20:03:00.000-06:00

Detroit is such a lovely place. The people are just like the movies, its run down and dirty, and WAAAAAY to close to Canada for my tastes. Every room and corridor of our hotel has a completely different and equally mind-bending odor. The rental vehicle is another blog in itself. We took advantage of the "facilities" here at the hotel and played some serious games of fooseball and air hockey. The foosball was great. The table was twisted and leaning and was missing a row of defensive guys. The ball was completely smooth except for a large plastic nub sticking out of it where the plastic mold had left its mark. One side had score marking beads and for the other we piled up bark chips from the fake plants next to us. The air hockey went "smoothly" until the air pressure on the table dropped and the puck wouldn't slide anymore. We were going to play pool until the hotel staff informed us that the table was "out of order." After some questioning they admitted that all the balls had been stolen. Good stuff. I bet the street value of hot billiards balls around here is too good to miss out on. The hotel had a sign up listing which rooms were down which hallways. The last two rows said: 2 Floor Guest Rooms and 5 Floor Rooms. We were amazed that there were two floor rooms in the hotel and looked around for a little for them without any luck. They my travelling partner noticed the 5 Floor Guest Rooms placard and asked the hotel staff if there were really 5-floored rooms in the hotel. They said no. The hotel had several parts and each section was classified by its number of floors. A 5-floor room? I'll admit that the sign was somewhat misleading, but wow. Thats a lot of stairs! Imagine getting out to your car and remembering you left your keys on the up-up-up-up-stairs nightstand. Not too much fun. Food is scarce, but with patience, a few wild berries can still be found in bushes on the median of the nearest interstate.

Random Question for the profile

2005-02-20T01:54:00.000-06:00

I couldn't post this on my profile because it was too long. It would have been clever had it remained buried in the background of my site, but I went through the trouble to post it on my main page and let everyone know I wrote it...which takes away the fun, but you get the idea.

Random Question:
You've broken up with your old band and are about to release your first solo album. Please write the liner notes:

I'd like to thank the Dancing Doolberries, the guys across the hall, the dead raccoons on the floor every weekend in the dorms, and a host of little people...without you all, I may have accomplished this much, much sooner.

The Blog

2005-02-20T01:20:00.000-06:00

In an attempt to copy the mastery of ianbot.blogspot.com, I am offering a competing blog of far greater simplicity, far fewer humours, and many more spelling mistakes. It should leave you desiring nothing but ianbot.blogspot.com, should all go well.

Okay, actually I'm going to try to create some type of road journal from my many and varied travels across this fine nation of ours. Most will be by airplane, but I'll try to detail the finer points of all the cities I visit. If you have questions about any of the cities I've been to, please feel free to post and ask, or post your own comments about them. I'm afraid that I cannot detail anything about what I'll be doing in any of these cities, but I'm sure that you can understand.

So far I have been to:

Greenville/Washington, NC
Steubenville, OH
Charlottesville, VA
Las Vegas, NV

I'm not going to mention these cities. I will just start fresh with my new adventures. Expect Detroit, MI and Youngstown, OH in the near future. RIVETING I TELL YOU!!!

Hopefully this thing will be funny, or else it will be lame beyond comparison.