Writer's block...

Image via WikipediaOk folks, it's time to come clean.  Lately I've been running in strict improv mode.  You see being a student again has given me a daily live venue to debate all the moral dilemmas that we face as Americans.  And get this, there's no principal's office.  Apparently I'm supposed to be mature and understand how to behave during class.  Seriously?  Don't people know that I'm not capable of such nonsense?  So my loving classmates are now the privileged recipients of the overflowing pools of knowledge that can not be contained in my head.  When I say "can not", I honestly mean I don't have a choice.  Apparently when my brain was being manufactured in the "mind factory" some tweaker on the assembly line, who's in charge of installing the part of our brain that filters out innappropriate comments in social situations, was coming down off a three day high and fell asleep.  Well, there was probably a new guy or a fill-in running quality control too, because I got passed there undetected as well.  Anyways with an open venue to discuss mind blowing subjects such as anatomy and nursing theory (...zzzzzz), I arrive home at night pretty spent.  

So here I am left to question my own awesomeness.  Don't get confused it is not a question of awesomeness, it is more like--where do I stand?  Am I at level: super awesome or inconceiveably awesome to the 10th power.  You see, I thought that there was an endless fountain of knowledge and incredibly lucid quips constantly flowing from my mind.  It appears that economists may be on to something when they all agree that even on this great earth raw materials are limited.  Although I'd love to support "common belief" and be just another sheep in the herd, I prefer the lonely road.  Could it be, that maybe there is no deficit of knowledge and maybe there is a filter?  Maybe the filter just needs to be delved from bellow the layers of white matter (that's the quick part of the brainage).

Now I'm just confusing myself.  I just want my little soldiers to know that the revolution is still very much alive.  Unfortunately, my mad skills are being used up on sexual innuendos during talk of reproductive organs...

another fork in the road...

Image via WikipediaLately I've been distracted by school and whatever other "extremely important" matters have crossed my path.  This last term I got four As and one B.  Even though that one B was in Microbiology (keep in mind that all my performance in all previous Biology classes provoked school and government mandated testing to see if was in need of "special attention", after which all signs pointed to--he's just a lazy no good [bleep x5]), I was still pissed that I got a B.  I should also mention getting a 3.0 was like some unachievable mystery to me that involved a level of concentration and will that would simply not be granted to me in this life.  I really wanted all As just to say I did it (what I mean there, is shove it in everybody's face.  I mean cram it in their face while prancing around shouting--who's your daddy?).

Anyways with all that extra attention geared towards learning, I've neglected what I was sent her to do.  You see shortly after I married my most excellent wife, I noticed that my decrease in physical activity became evident in a belly that I hadn't seen in years.  I hated that belly, because it was equipped with stringy arms and perfect target for ridicule.  Let's just clarify that I have nothing against ridicule, I just don't like to see it aimed in my direction.  So shortly after marriage, I decided to partake in a Forrest Gump like lifestyle- "and from that day forth, I was a running."  I enjoyed the fact that, probably just like Forrest, it made me feel less retarded.  It was my very passion towards running that led me to start my first blog (I started it about 3 years ago and it has a solid 2-3 posts total).  My problem, I guess, is that I haven't learned how to intertwine being a smartass and a runner.

Either way, my running activity has been slipping.  It also so happens, that I'm planning on running my 6th marathon this summer.  So once again, I will regain power and hope to use my running blog as my fuel to keep me going.  If you have the stomach to follow me on that blog as well I welcome you and your sharp criticism: hamstringspasm.blogspot.com

I'm also in the works of creating a blog dedicated to the field of nursing, as I will be entering.  It is at a very rough development, but should be promising.  nursesandmurses.blogspot.com Of course, we all know that the thought of me keeping all these current would require a performance beyond miraculous.

We'll see...

If you don't know, now you know...

Image via WikipediaIt's been another week full of people on each commute to piss me off.  A particular lady really got the best of me this week.  First of all, she was driving way too slow for my comfort and psychological well being.  Sometimes I think that there are people out driving around, with no purpose whatsoever but add to traffic.  Kinda like the movie the Truman Show, when he tries to leave the "island", all kinds of cars just show up to block his way.  Am I the only one who has a fixed destination?  So this particular lady has one of the strangest driving habits I've ever seen.  Keep in mind she's forming what's known as a "Mexican Roadblock" with the adjacent car, with only two lanes to choose from.  So naturally I'm about 3 inches from her bumper in an attempt to give her a clue like, "hey lady get the hell out of my way!"  She didn't get the memo.  What she was doing was swerving as if there was something dangerous in the road.  Due to my limited vision of anything other than the back of her Camry, I was forced to follow suite.  After dodging three, of what must been some type of large animals in the road, my neuro-pathways refused to subscribe to such coincidence.

I backed up enough to see what we were both swerving for; and what I saw was so astonishing that my mind sailed away from all things present in search of a valid explanation for this crazy behavior.  This lady was swerving for manhole covers.  As a general rule I don't swerve for anything other than potholes of a minimum 3" depth or animals that are tall enough to meet my gaze.  Anything else will be absorbed by the engineering of my truck.  But here we have this crazy lady swerving to protect herself from manhole covers.  What fear could possibly enter the human mind creating a need to conciously swerve around all manhole covers?  How could you even live with that type of anxiety?  Is she affraid that the cover will give and her entire car will be engulfed?  So there I was, all day long.  She's the idiot, yet I can not focus for the rest of the day because I can't believe what I just saw.  What I want to know is- why was this not addressed during her driving test?  Surely at some point the person administering the exam would say, "What the hell are you doing lady?"

But nooooo, we give all these idiots licenses.  And you wonder why people go postal...

I guess it doesn't have to make cents...

Time is a commodity, be careful what you trade it for.  I can't wait until the day that time no longer has meaning, it is a poor measurement.  Does it really matter how many hours are spent in the office?  No my friend it does not and any employer who argues the contrary is an ignorant Stalin impersonator.  How did we become a civilization so desperate for a means to measure productivity, that we completely threw quality into the wind?  Our entire economy has been slowly spinning in a whirlpool right down the toilet.

Look around it didn't fall because we got more lazy physically.  The crapper ate us up, because of our mental laziness.  All because we put everything in a box.  We stopped checking the basics.  It was decided that productivity should have a more comparable unit of measurement.  If you spend 12 hours in the office you must be accomplishing more than you would in 8.  It's that type of reasoning that has landed so many empty headed fools a position of leadership.

So Wall Street decided to put all their crap in a box and mark it "premium".  They decided that trading items of value just didn't seem to make much sense.  So they started to trade theory.  Congress points the finger, but they too have determined theory to be far more valuable than actually doing something.  So while people talk and argue everyone gets to sit and watch the free entertainment.  We're all wondering how this all happened, but we know the truth.  We just didn't care anymore.  The sad part is that it has all evolved into some form of alien excretion, and we don't know what to care about.  

If I sell you some lemonade at 25 cents a cup, is it profitable?  After I pay the neighborhood kids for dodging traffic and swirling signs, then settle my recurring bill at the grocery store, I can see if my net is black or red.  I could work 12 hrs or 12 min, in the end all I care for is profit.

Next time you tell me to hurry, just know I'm not listening.  The rambling above is what's running through my head.  So I'll take my time and do it right.

And that, my friends is your country in a hand-basket.  Where are you going?

I'll get right on it (that's what she said)...

There're soooo many important things that I should be doing right now.  I wonder what it is like to be a responsible person, who sees due dates for what they are....  You see, my neurological software goes through a series of algorithms when anticipating deadlines.  I hate to drag everyone through the details but I think that it's important for people to know before they ask me to do something.  It's actually a pretty simple equation, pay attention:  (deadline) minus - (amount of time to complete task) equa
Image via Wikipedials = (product delivered on time to smiling faces).  That's the theory anyways.  My OS doesn't take into account a certain contingency or padding, if you will, for possible road blocks.  What my OS does instead, is quite impressive.  Like two dudes at Home Depot my brain literally starts to argue with itself about certain items such as: agility, quickness, efficiency, ability to open eyes under salt water, personal records for competing various rungs up the ladder of the Ninja order, the list goes on like this....   So each new argument shaves off anywhere from 5 minutes to 24 hours (depending on the task).  Eventually a completely subjective, unproven hypothesis becomes doctrine and time has been cut in half.  This is where the clever adjustment comes to the playground.  Rather than agree that I will be done early (not in my vocab, I had to look that word up--its implications exhausted my entire mental apparatus), my brain subtracts that extra time that will be saved, because it says it can be done.  Thus we have:

(Specific Deadline) - (readjusted finish time--after hours of arguing, bragging, then folding) =
(Thanks for screwing me over brain, you gave me worse odds to meet this deadline than the chance of a "good" decision in Las Vegas)

Image via Wikipedia

OK, so it is complicated.  That's why I've been caught walking around talking to myself.  It's hard to just sit back while all that debate is going on up there, and I can't participate.  Sure, I could sit back listen to some distracting angry music and let the unconscious battle it out with the sub-conscious, but I'd get restless after about 14.5 seconds (on average I've only been able to sit still long enough to time myself on 2 occasions).  So I engage.  Sure everybody make fun of the crazy guy talking to himself.  Don't think for a minute that he doesn't notice and you haven't been added to his list of "silly fools who've crossed me... I'll save the last laugh for me".  What's that?  Now you want to be friends?

My wife is well aware of this--my ability to get sidetracked and postpone (I don't like the stigma attached to the word procrastination)--which is why I'm looking over my shoulder every time I'm gettin' my blog on.  She's like my productivity coach, always trying to get me "back on track".  Some people just don't understand the importance of the underground education.

There, I've gone and done it again.  I completely forgot what all those important things were, that needed to get done.

And that's why I have peace over anxiety...

It hurts so good...

Image via WikipediaSo there I am modern-day slave.  My mother-in-law tells me, "build me a deck, NOW!  And it better be done before you start school, or else..."
I reply, "Yes'm, I go build deck.  Please don't beat me, Mama."

So I'm out at Home Depot with Mom's American Express.  I'm doing all I can to give that magnetic strip a frictionless surface (I'm used to getting my credit card declined when I try to purchase something for like $8.  So I have to split the transaction between 3 cards, some pocket changes, and a counterfeit baseball card [silly cashiers will believe anything].  So, imagine what it's like for me to walk around with the AmEx.).  So, I get some wood to build scaffolding.  Ol' man gets home and tells me the scaffolding is a P.O.S..  Then, he about blows his top to learn that I spent $20 on wood to build it.  He says it "DOLL ERRS", rather than twenty bucks.  You know how I feel about money talk (If you know my in-laws, you know they're loaded.  All that money and stingy as could be.  They love making me build a deck that has more square feet than my home.  Just rub that money in my face.)  So when I ask Ol' man to rent some scaffolding, he just laughs at me.  Than he tells me to move my truck full of wood and tools off of their 100 foot drive, and to re-park his Lexus.  Excuse me!  I'm sorry I wasn't raised in a state that values potatoes and patriotism over safety and education!  Don't pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about Ol' man.

So there I am, working away on my home-made, definitely NOT OSHA compliant, scaffolding.  I did my best to build it to last.  As I had about 4 more joist to place, I could tell that the structural integrity of the scaffolding was definitely in question.  I planned to add reinforcement, but fearing the belt, I kept working away.  Mom's glaring at me through the window, shaking her head in shame, every 20 minutes.  I'm running out of excuses for why it's taking me sooo long.

Second to last joist to put up, and gravity seems to be accelerating.  Had I only added that extra reinforcement.  I don't want the joist to land on me, and if I throw it the scaffolding will collapse even quicker.  So I stand there, like and idiot, as the scaffolding crumbles below me.

The Ol' man declines the worker's comp claim.  To stick it further in my face, he pays off the judge.  The case is thrown out.  GAME OVER.  I lost.

The details are all sketchy at this point (probably amnesia from the fall).  So I may have exaggerated the story a little for effect (Ol' man will be proud of me there, cuz that's how he tells stories.  Details are only as important, as the reaction they provoke.  His people will probably have this blog censored before it even posts).

The point is, I got a boo-boo and people need to feel sorry for me.

Be careful out there, a lot of disfunctional wood at Home Depot.

That's what she said (but not to me)...