They may smell like medicine, but they sure can roll

I took a few hours today to relieve some stress from work by going bowling. It is comforting to take your time and roll, even though I sucked today (122, 104, 93...fatigue set in during the last game), with no rush. Don't let the scores fool you, I left a lot of open frames, it was only a few good frames that helped me out. I had all afternoon. It was pretty empty on my side of the building. North rock lanes has forty five lanes, much larger than what it appears on the outside. The first half of them were taken up by senior citizens. A senior league. It was great to watch for a while. They all seemed so happy. And some of them could probably roll better than I can. They were calling out some of the high scores for last week. I heard a couple of 200 games. Very impressive.

That is the kind of old person I want to be. I may end up smelling like Vick's vapor rub, but if I can roll like that, I would be content.

The funniest thing I saw there, however, was not on the lanes. Three guys crowded around a pinball machine. Just like when they were fourteen years old. One playing and the other two on his flanks. Gawking, it seemed like, at how good the player was. If only I had had a camera at the time. That would have been a great picture.

I guess this kind of thing lets them all escape the world around them for a few hours during the day.

this just in: Kansas weather sucks balls

It is February. It needs to snow. Snow a lot. I'm talking four feet of snow. I can just imagine Wichita in four feet of snow...hehehe (mental image). We wouldn't see anyone for weeks, maybe even months! Kansas weather, as I have stated numerous times before, sucks. It didn't snow today...it iced. Yup, it iced outside today. Not cold enough to snow, not warm enough to rain.

When last I talked to my parents, it had snowed the day before about six inches. I miss it. The snow makes everything seem bright when it is sunny. It helps with the whole 'its winter and cold and cloudy'. Dad was saying that at the cabin he couldn't see out the back bathroom window because the snow drifts are that high. Thats pretty fuckin' amazing to think about. In fact...that is awesome.

It's nine o'clock at night, and I am ready for bed. I could have gone to sleep an hour ago. This whole go to work at six in the morning sucks, but it is also great gettting done at two in the afternoon. Its a bit of a win/lose situation. But I'm all for it because I have two hours at work that I don't get bothered by people asking dumb questions. I'll get use to it...


eventually.

reflective moments: engaging or vomit worthy?

I don't know why I just thought about this, but have you ever wondered how you got to this spot in life? I'm talking about right now, this very instant. Every aspect of your life, love life, work life, life life. How do we arrive at this point? I guess this came into my mind a couple of days ago talking about calling Kansas home.

I guess I'll start with school. A and I agreed we would move to wherever the first fitting job came to. So that is how we ended up here. Her degree was a bit more marketable in the bachelor sense. Mine, not so much in the bachelor sense...mine is more fitted for masters or ever phd...but I don't have the patience to sit in school for all those years. Plus, I don't think of myself as the smartest person in the world, and I don't think I could have handled all the stress and even more learning. I would have gone insane. So we moved away from Michigan (sadly) and from family (even sadder).

Moving out meant having to take on more responsibility and the whatnot. Now one thing that was a weekly routine for me living at home was church. Every weekend we would go. I understand the importance of it to people and even the importance of the 'great mysteries' in life. But my adult mind doesn't really work that way. I need to see the hard evidence. So I don't go to church anymore. Heartbreaking to my family, I'm sure. But I just can't find a reason to go...any questions I have, I have answers to.

Living in my mid-twenties the way the world is right now, can make you either angry towards the government or venegful towards those who question authority. I would like to say that I have a distinct political value to my life, but I don't. I don't let people tell me what to think. I try my hardest to listen to issues and choose whichever I see fit. Most times, I don't give a shit. Some of the things people get up in arms about is just rediculous. To follow a political figure based on what they believe in (be in war, marriage, abortion [just a few hot topic issues]) isn't being mindful, it is being a sheep. Just being a follower. Don't settle for what someone wants you to think. Think for yourselves. I don't have all the answers to political bullshit. I don't follow it. I just listen every once in a while and base my opinions on that.

So here I sit, four days after I turned twenty-six. The youngest (or close to it) in both groups of friends I have. I find myself enjoying my job (for the most part). I can't stand the turn over rate at work, it puts a shit ton of stress on me while I'm there. I do have days when the alarm goes off at five o'clock (yes, five o'clock) and I just want to call in. But I have the thought of having to go in the next day and make up for the work that didn't get done on the day I called in. So I deal with it. Eventually, and I don't know when, that aspect of work will smooth out for me. Not everyone can be millionaires doing lines of coke off of dead hookers, some of us have to get in the work trenches and deal with shit.



Unfortunately, I am a foot soldier for the working world.

Home from Texas

I am happy to be home. It's funny to think about Kansas as home after calling Michigan home for so many years. K,M,A, and I had a great time even though the three of them are somewhat sick. Just stuffy head and sore throat, that kind of thing.

It was funny to watch M's big city instincts take over. He lived in Atlanta for about six years and as we were driving around he was trying to be a navigator for me. 'Just change lanes and don't look back.' was one of the comments. This was in four lanes of traffic, at night, in Dallas. I told him I couldn't I liked living too much.

Freedom three weekends in a row!

I officially got this weekend coming up off so I can go to Dallas for my birthday. Sometimes it pays to suck up to your boss. So I had last weekend off, this weekend coming up off, and the weekend after that off. Don't ask how I do it, just recognize the fact that I rock. Granted, having weekends off has led me to want to believe in genetic engineering/cloning (are they the same thing, are they different?). To me, an uneducated man in this field, they are just about the same thing. Take one person, and make them two (or more). I don't care about the specifics or wheter it is right or wrong, I just need another me.

The people I have working for me are pretty much useless. There is no real argument here. I tried a while ago to help them all along in the process and show them, you know, how to work. It didn't get to them. So I had this weekend off, and I went to work this morning and looked around the departments and realized that nothing was really done in either of them all weekend. So I spent the first two hours practically running around (and you must take into account that this is at six oclock in the morning...I'm not a morning person. And this kind of shit makes me real pissy) and getting everything looking somewhat okay for the daily opening. So I want a clone for the weekends I do not work. It would make me much happier on Monday.

It's either that or I start living at work. And I could take my tent and live in the cooler and maybe have a small stove in the corner.

Nothing says I love you like a mix tape

Valentine's Day is this Thursday (hope you didn't forget guys). I have no problem going out and buying a little something for my wife, but what I do have a problem with is the prices. Especially roses. Thankfully, A and I have a common thought...she doesn't need roses on Valentine's day. Don't get me wrong, she wants (and gets) flowers. I just have a problem paying the over the top prices for roses. Any other day of the year, a dozen roses don't cost that much. However, the card companies have blown this day out of the water and some moron decided that roses are the 'perfect' flower for this day. And so stores throughout the country (and possibly the world, I wouldn't know...I've only been to Canada) jack the prices up. Supply and demand, right? But are those the flowers that every woman wants? Probably not. Some women aren't picky, some are. I know what kind of flowers A likes, and those are the kind that I get for her. Aren't I great? (not all the time)

What is more important, spending some money on something you think she will like, or spend some money on what she will like? And don't get me wrong, I don't listen to her all the time, but on stuff like this, I am learning to listen and take her advise on what she wants. It isn't about how much you spend, it is about how much thought you put into it. Always get their opinion and follow it.

the absence of soul, the sound of money

As I sat on the couch this morning flipping through the useless channels on the tv, I stopped on Mtv cribs. Sad, yes I know. It was one of the guys from good charlotte and he had a huge fucking house (like they all do). As I was watching him talk about is three cars (which he probably rarely drives...and who cares about how big your tires are [wait, excuse me, your rims, whatever]) and how they are all custom made and blah blah blah, I thought 'would money change me'?

Sadly, I think it would. I can say now that if I had a ton of money I would pay off car loans, student loans, buy a nice house, that kind of stuff. But if I were a rich snob from a band or an actor, I wouldn't have to worry about those kinds of things. Maybe I could be like Bono and find a cause to throw money at. That would make me at least feel a little bit better about myself. Or I could buy a sports franchise. I can sit here today and yell and rant and rave about how I would try to be giving and modest, but that is not who we are as people. That is why Capitalism won over Communism. We aren't about caring and giving on a huge scale.

You don't see celebrities living a normal life in a three or four bedroom ranch house. They buy (or build) houses with pools, movie theatres, and living rooms they never use. You know, the 'formal sitting room' where all the nice leather couches and chairs are with the grand piano in the corner that they never use. And those are the houses they use most of the year. They don't talk about their houses in other states or their summer homes. Watching shows like that iritate me for the reason that they don't really know how to live. They just go spend money and sit in empty houses and think that they are living a good life.

In actuallity, they are just dying inside wishing their houses weren't so big and empty...or not.