My Lazy Ego

This now marks the 4th time this blog has fallen on lean times and I’ve tried to resurrect it. Will I be successful this time? Who knows. But we’re about to find out.

I spent the Memorial Day weekend in Austin, TX at a friend’s lakehouse. I’m embarrassed to admit that even though i’m from Houston, I’d only spent one other weekend in my entire life in Austin. I was 12 and I was with my mom, sister, and brother as we were chaperoning two french foreign exchange students around Texas. We were amazing chaperones. I learned the proper pronunciation of Guile. They learned that eating too much McDonalds made you fart a lot. Anyways.

I have two stories I’d like to share about this last trip. Both involve 10 year old children.

I’m pretty good with kids. But the bulk of my experience comes with my nieces who are young. You basically try and prevent them from chopping a limb off with a knife. You nod at what they say as you struggle to disentangle the gargles and half spoken sentences. Its pretty easy. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have teenagers whom I’m accustomed to dealing with. You can occasionally swear around them. You tolerate their moods by saying things like “life sucks bro” and “I love the Jay-z too!”. Statements like that are sure to endear you to every teenager there ever was.

But 10 year olds? I know nothing.

Story 1 involves a 10 year old boy who was kind of hilarious. Besides thoroughly whipping my ass in air hockey, he used the words “inclined plane” correctly as he skateboarded down a hill at breakneck speeds. But better than this is when he came downstairs and very non-chalantly described a dream he had to me:

“I had this dream last night where I was in an alternate universe and people communicated to each other via piano. Except I could only speak Beethoven.”

I sat there sort of stunned listening to this kid. He’s 10. And this dream sounded AWESOME. My dreams always involve something random and rarely as cool. Like pizza. Or telephones. Or using a telephone to call a pizza parlor. But this kid’s dream? Wow. Freakin awesome.

The second story involves chaperoning another 10 year old, this time a girl, on a jetski. Her parents asked me to give her a ride around the lake so I obliged. Once we were out there, she tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I’d let her drive. I believe I said “oh hell no”. She then informed me that her dad let her from time to time. At this point I should have repeated my “oh hell no” reply. Instead I shrugged and said “alright”.

Little did I know the 10 year old is a burgeoning daredevil.

She took over control of the jetski and immediately demonstrated she knew what the hell she was doing by taking us out into the middle of the lake and opening up the throttle. Lake Travis was really choppy that day so I didn’t get the thing much over 30 MPH and when I did it was only for a second. This little chica pointed it straight ahead and hit the gas. I thought to myself “this kid knows what the hell she’s doing. sweet”. We swerved all over the lagoon we were in. Hit a couple of sweet waves and caught air. And basically tore that thing up. But it really got interesting when she pushed the thing over 40 MPH. I thought we were going fast but when I looked over her shoulder to the speedometer and saw how fast we were going, I was like “woooooohooooo!!”. I then quickly realized that I was the adult in this situation and despite my desire to tell her to go faster, I told her it was time to slow down. And take me back to the boat so I could unload her before she killed us.

All in all, it was a great weekend! I learned a lot about 10 year olds. And my willingness to put my life in the hands of a 4 foot tall speed demon.

Familiar with the X Prize? This is the foundation that established a $1 million prize for the first private organization to successfully launch a vehicle into space twice in a two week period. This prize was claimed a few years ago and has gone on to spur many other similar $1 million dollar prizes.

Today I’d like to establish my own such prize, the TJ Prize. This will be far less than a $1 million prize. In fact, it’ll only be worth $25. My objective is simple: I will give someone $25 if they can teach me to effectively and quickly fold a fitted sheet.

I’m 33 years old. I’m a reasonably intelligent dude. I build complex systems for a living. I can remember random baseball trivia about as well as anyone I know.  And I can juggle. This combination of problem solving and dexterity means I should be able to fold a fitted sheet pretty easily. Right? RIGHT? False. My closet is littered with awkwardly folded fitted sheets. Balls of sheets actually. I’ve taken to just rolling them up like a rug and jamming them into corners of my house to hide the blight from me eyes. I’m more intimidated by fitted sheets than I am by a Republican OR a current member of the Taliban.

So this is my call to you, dear reader. Teach me how to fold a fitted sheet. And if I can reproduce this effort twice, in a two week period, once with the teacher in attendance to watch me and once alone, I will give you $25. Or a few beers. Whichever strikes your fancy.

Every quarter we get an email from our building superintendent giving us the goods on what kind of criminal activity that’s going on around us. Generally its your usual tom foolery: stolen laptops, car break ins, etc. However, yesterday we received the year end report for 2010 and it has several things that make me laugh, scratch my head, and maybe cry just a little bit.

Without further ado, the top ten crimes of 2010 were:

The first four items are pretty usual. Laptops. Purses. What any normal criminal would go after.

Its after item #4 that this list goes completely off the rails. General observations include:

What, exactly, happened to items 5 and 6? Did the burglars steal those too? Are they top secret? Do I work near a nuclear waste facility and some Al Qaeada assholes stole some enriched uranium and Sandy Springs police don’t want to admit it? That would kind of rule

I’ll skip #7 for now and save that for later. But #9. Food tabs? What the hell is a food tab? My first idea was that it was the UPC code off of a box of cereal. Look, everyone knows I’m no expert thief (seriously. ask me sometime) but If I WERE going to start stealing stuff, It’d be food tabs. I’d raid the hell out of a publix, cut off all the UPC tabs from the Count Chocula boxes, and get myself some sweet ass prize from General Mills. As it turns out, “food tabs” actually refer to store receipts. Apparently the sophisticated criminals of my work barrio like to steal receipts and plunder credit card numbers from them. And the police like to refer to them as “Food tabs”. Is this 1950s Queens NY?

And my favorite observation….the 7th most stolen item in 2010 in Zone 5 was Candy. That’s right. Freakin candy. I love those little reese’s peanut butter cups like the next person. But what kind of neighborhood am I in that candy is so often stolen that it registers on the top ten (err eight) of stolen things in this neighborhood. I can see it now… the 6th season of The Wire. A criminal task force is convened to stop the marauding band of grubby little 4th graders who are terrorizing the town, stealing candy with abandon. (note: i just kinda nerded out there. no one who reads this blog is going to get this reference. sorry. but it was for me. not for you)

After reading this, I have no choice but to fear for my safety. No choice but to walk more carefully to my car at night. And most importantly, to lock up my candy every day before I leave.

I’ve distilled down what I think are life’s great mysteries to three things:

1. Indoor plumbing.  Have you looked under your sink  lately? Seriously. Amazing.
2. Buying gifts for women. Freakin mysterious
3. Dog communication

This last one is what I’d like to tackle in today’s entry (the first two? UNSOLVABLE). I think owning two dogs is a pre-requisite for truly understanding this post. My dogs, Herb and Marv, believe in the divide and conquer approach to guarding the house. Herb is the Alpha dog in this equation. He’s small, somewhat girlish, but feisty and a fine ring leader. He usually finds the highest point his 13 pound frame can scale, and perches himself there for hours on end. Its all the much better if the highest point involves a pillow.

Marv is the younger and subservient dog of the two. He’s also naturally curious and since he’s a terrier, capable of an NBA-grade vertical leap. He maneuvers himself into awkward spots w/ the agility of a cat and with his radar like ears, can capture subsonic sound in ways most bats can only dream about.  He generally positions himself halfway up the stairs, staring at the door, waiting for someone, or something to make a move on us.

From here, you can see what happens next. Marv, the look out man, has to communicate to Herb, the brain, what’s going on. Based on years of observing, I suspect the canine conversation would be translated to something like this:

Marv: I THINK I GOT SOMETHING HERE!!!

Herb: WHAT!!

Marv: I don’t know….hold please

Herb: WELL, WHAT IS IT!!

Marv: I heard a noise!! I HEARD A NOISE!!

Herb: Is it a squirrel?!!? PLEASE SAY ITS A BIRD TRAPPED IN THE HOUSE!!!

Marv: ITS OUTSIDE! SOMETHING IS OUTSIDE!!

………[both dogs bow up]…………

………………[silence]………………..

…….[both dogs lay back down]….

Marv: False alarm. My bad.

Repeat the above about 10 times a day. And you’ll see what its like to have two tough little bastards living at your house with you.

I’ve been in the newspaper a few times in my life.

When I was in 5th grade, my square dance team made it to the county competition. My partner, Samantha Scott, and I were square dance prodigies. Want to know where I get my sick dance moves? Come by my house and check out the scrapbook my mom made for me a few years ago. It has pictures. You’ll see.

The second time I was in the paper was in junior high. I placed second in extemporaneous speaking. Want to know what that is?  So do I. All I can remember is that it was some speech writing competition. I think I wrote a speech about Iran. Or maybe it was about my favorite breakfast item. I can’t remember. For the record, I think Iran is misunderstood. And I think Cinnamon Toast Crunch should win the Nobel Peace Prize.

The 3rd, and final time I made it into the paper was when I was a senior in college. At the time, I lived with my two closest buddies — Matt and Jason (still two of my closest friends).  At the time, Matt was dating the biggest drag of a girlfriend known to man. She hated me. Told me on multiple occasions to leave Matt’s stuff alone, to quit breaking his stuff (as if), and to generally quit acting like a 12 year old (maybe she was on to something…).  Anyways, this was the late 90s. When the Atlanta Braves were in the twilight of their decade long reign of terror in the NL East.

So Jason, a few other friends, and I decided to ditch class and head to one of the Braves games. At this time, we were sort of at odds with Matt — all due to the lady friend. So we conspired to go without him. We snuck around, bought the tickets, and basically disappeared one evening without him. We went to the game, had a grand time, drank too much beer, and ALMOST caught a homerun ball (remind me to tell another story where I caught a homerun ball at another game. I still have the bruise to prove it). Said ball landed in the row in front of us. Alas, it was an opponent’s hit so we cheered and rallied and cajoled the person to throw the ball back. And they did. VICTORY! The game soon ended, went home, and basically avoided Matt at all costs.

The next morning arrived and Jason’s future mother-in-law called  him first thing to let him know he was in the newspaper.

The paper?

Yes, the motherf’ing newspaper. Jason, myself, and our buddies were front and center on the front page of the damn newspaper, appearing to almost catch a homerun ball at a braves game that we did not go to (or so the official record was supposed to reflect). Jason and I were stunned. All this work to avoid telling Matt about us going to the game and here we were. The paper of record would reflect for all eternity that we were there!

Fortunately, Matt never read the paper. Jason and I kept it a secret until my bachelor party. I was hammered. And I let loose the deep dark secret that had haunted me for years at that point.

Sometimes my Calexico station on Pandora produce something that looks like THIS:

I don’t know who this dude is or why he looks like a piano playing version of Erkel. But this song was terrible.

This blog posts needs no introduction. I’ll simply say that it highlights how shallow and narrow I am as a human being. But it’s cool.  So here it goes, the things that most of you give a crap about that I don’t.

1. Lance Armstrong  – I came out of the Lance-hating closet a few months ago and was pleasantly surprised by the warm reception I received. I figured that the number of assholes out there that wore the livestrong bracelets meant I was going to be alone on this one. So while I think raising money for cancer prevention is pretty cool, I think Lance Armstrong is kind of a dick.
2. Old movies — Freakin Sound of Music, Gone with the Wind, and a million other movies drive me nuts. They’re long, black and white, and boring. Give me The Running Man or Predator and I’m a happy man
3. Cars — Wait, cars? That’s right, I don’t give a crap about automobiles. Well I do and I don’t. I care that they get me from point A to point B without me having to slog my fat ass up a hill or carry my groceries through the rain. But do I care what kind of car that I drive? No. Do I care that my current car has 175,000 miles on it, has a lame ass A/C, and makes me look like i just graduated from college and still listen to the Dave Matthews Band? Nope
4. Jersey Shore — Who are these people and who do I hand my pop culture card to for not giving a crap who they are or what tanning beds they go to.
5. Cake — Yeah, I hate cake. Unless its my mom’s strawberry shortcake. That shit will make you gain 20 pounds AND start shedding little tears of joy. But other kinds of cake? Especially wedding cake? Too sweet. Too stiff. Too boring.

That about covers the core of my dislikes. I have many more minor dislikes (driving with the windows up, pleated pants, shaving, combing my hair) and I like things that many people don’t like (doing the dishes, working at night, accidentally wearing women’s clothing out in public). More on these to come later.

So I’ve always thought the women running the cafeteria downstairs looked a lot like villains from a Dukes of Hazzard episode. They’re probably in their late 30s but because of 25 years of smoking Menthols and drinking Busch lite, they each look like they’re in their late 50s. Add to that their accents resembling North Georgia Hill people with a 3rd grade education and you have a recipe for a really awkward experience. Like this past friday’s:

I was in sort of a hurry so I went against my better judgment and ran downstairs to get some lunch. I surveilled the offerings and found the usual: white bread, kraft singles, stale lettuce, and cheap deli meat. So I asked what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question:

Me: “Ma’am, do you have any kaiser rolls today?”

DoH Villain #1: (without looking up from what she was doing. and add to the mountainpeople accent a certain amount of lethargy and I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude that can only come from a Wild Bills induced hangover) “Sweeeeeetheart, its Friday. I don’t have the time or energy to make anything spicy”

Me: “Uhhhh — wait, something spicy?”

DoH Villain #1: (keeps her head lowered and looks up at me with these eyes that says “Boy, do I LOOK like I do custom orders??”)

Me: “Yeaaaaah (looking at one of my co-workers). Wanna go to Publix?”

And so it is.