Sometimes, Always and Never
I am sometimes rattled even when I feel like I have my shit together. I always get my work done in a timely manner and never feel that if someone had to check it, that I would have to explain myself.
I have never been audited, but last week the County Auditor popped her head in and explained that sometimes they have to do these things, and that sometime was now.
I found myself having to answer questions that I never really had to answer before. I have never had to explain my work down to every little detail, like how I photocopied documents or how I then placed those documents in people’s files. I never had to explain the process of how I schedule people for training or how my own personal spreadsheets work; I then had to give a detailed time-frame spent on each of these processes.
I am almost always polite to people the first time they ask me a question. But I sometimes I lose my patience once it’s the second or third time that they ask me the same question, which she always seemed to be doing.
I have never been cross-examined by a defense attorney, but that’s the image that I thought of as the auditor asked me all these different questions. About this time I became hostile, which can sometimes happen, so we took a break and won’t be continuing until next week. And after next week, I hope I never get audited again and I hope you don’t either.
(This was from a writing exercise that we sometimes do in my Lumina group. The exercise was to always use one of the three words in the title of this piece in every sentence. I can tell you right now, I will never do that again.)
Marathon Maniac
I’ve decided to run a marathon. If you knew me you’d say, “Yeah freakin’ right.” But regardless of what some haters have said to me, I am going to do it.
The decision to run a marathon came about a month ago when a co-worker, who I’ll call Mrs. S., came into my office and began talking about how her two sons had just finished the St. Louis Marathon the day before. I looked at my officemate Ken and said, “That would us give exactly one year to train for it.” His response was, “Yeah.” He said it more in agreement of, Yes that would give us a year, and not in a, “Yeah, let’s do it,” kind of tone. But for some reason, in my head, we were both in.
I began looking up guides for beginning marathoners. I’ve always wanted to run a marathon and thought that a year was plenty of time to train for it. Right when I decided, OK, I’m going to do a marathon exactly one year from today, Mrs. S. came back and said, “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. There’s another marathon here in St. Charles (where I work) in October of this year.”
“What?” I said. “That’s in like six months!”
“Yeah,” she said. “That would be exactly in six months.”
Before I could protest Ken said, “That’s the one I want to do.”
I whipped my head like a dog watching a fire hydrant pass him by in a car and said, “What? We won’t have time enough time to train for that.”
He said, “Well I know that I’m not going to run in the winter and this is about as flat as you’re going to get.”
Mrs. S. said, “Well good luck,” and left me feeling like I had been hit with dream wrecking-ball.
Part of me agreed with Ken. I’m a cold weather baby. What can I say? I grew up in Hawaii. It took me two winters before I learned you were supposed to dress in layers in the winter. So knowing that I’d be hard press to run outside in the cold, this bumped up my race by six months.
I began looking at training schedules. I soon learned that 26.2 miles could be accomplished with as little as five months of training as long as you were already in shape. I thought, Damn, I wonder if I can get active enough in one month to get up to par to start training for the five month training program?
After one month of training, I’m happy to say that I can run/walk 4 miles and this Saturday I’m doing five. I’ve created a hybrid run/walk schedule using this schedule.
Basically I run for three minutes, then walk for two minutes. Many programs say this is the best way for beginners to train. I wanted to wait a month before I shared it with most people because it seems like such a huge undertaking, especially after I started running.
The first day I literally wanted to quit within the first twenty seconds of running. On day two my legs hurt so bad that even though I was going to walk that day, I decided to ride my bike. The following day, I walked. The day after that, I rested. And so began my run, bike, walk, rest schedule, then I rinse and repeat with my long run on Saturday’s.
There’s a half-marathon on July 18th that’s called the Joker’s Wild Run. This half-marathon is exactly the half-way point to the full-marathon in October, so I’ve decided to run that too.
One thing I’ve learned about running is it’s all mental. Nobody wants to run at the beginning but it’s about pushing yourself to do it. After that, the distance becomes addictive. One mile, two miles, three miles down, before you know it, you’ve done your first 5K and that’s without any crowd there cheering you on.
So what’s your marathon? What have you always wanted to do but thought it was too big of a goal? What ever it is I can guarantee you can do it as long as you put in the prep work; but I encourage you to start now or you’ll be sitting around a year from now say, “Someday I’m going to _________.” My advice is pick a date that you want to accomplish something by, then cut that date in half. That way you’ll get your lazy butt up off the couch and doing something about it.
White Castle Candles
Mmmm…that smell. You know what I’m talking about. The only smell that can be smelled up to a mile away when you’re driving by it at 70 mph on the freeway? No, I’m not talking about a skunk. I’m talking about White Castles. And now you can have that Mighty Whitey smell in the comfort of your own home. White Castles has introduced a hamburger scented candle.
Why, you may ask? It’s for a good cause. They’re raising money for Autisms Speaks. Some have said that it smells like, “The steam-grilled-on-a-bed-of-onions scent of America’s first fast food hamburger.” The candles are being offered throughout the month of May for $10.
Isn’t it great? Now you can finally have that White Castle smell without all the smells that come from eating all those White Castles. And you can also tell your kids to stop lighting their farts and start helping light a cure for autism. Believe me, the dumb look on their face will be worth the $10 bucks.
Want one? Can’t have one, they’re already sold out. But click here if you want some other W.C. merch.
There’s No Such Thing as a Former Marine
Have you ever lent a hand to someone who asked for your help and then they criticized the way you helped them? They remind me of a having sex with a whore. At first you’re happy to be getting laid, but by the time the burning sensation sets in you’re wondering, why did I do this again?
The bad thing is I knew that this person would bitch no matter what I did. First of all, he’s a former Marine. “There’s no such thing as former Marine,” he’d say, “Once you’re a Marine, you’re always a Marine,”; except he was in the Marines twenty years ago and still is hanging on to it.
So knowing this, I decided to take the hard-line, which was difficult because the guy is the person who trained me for his old job. But because of this, he calls me every other day with some random request that has nothing to do with me. So I said, “No, I won’t look for the file that you saved, ‘Sometime last year.’ You can come down here and look for it yourself if you want,” and I then literally hung up on him.
I knew that all I had to do was type in the name of the file he wanted into to search bar and in a minute or so, I would find the document. So blind guilt led me like a Seeing Eye dog down this path of an evitable argument.
I printed up the document that the guy asked for and rode the elevator up three stories and handed the document to the guy. He looked at it and said, “What happened? Don’t you have a color printer?”
I knew the lack of color was going to be an issue, but since I never use color for any documents, I’ve never changed the cartridge. So I said, “I don’t use color.”
He then began to tell me all the documents that I have to use color for. When I kept saying, “I don’t use color for that.” He said, “Well what about…,” and he began rattling off other documents. “I don’t use color for that,” I kept saying, but he was like a pit-bull who latched on to a bone.
I finally lost my patience and yelled, “God damn it! I’m taking time out of my fucking day to give you this shit and now you’re chewing my ass for not having it in color! Fuck that shit,” and I turned and started to walk away.
He said, “What? I’m trying to say thank you.”
I thought to myself, that must be the way a Marine says, “thank you.” First he asks you (or the Navy) for help, then chews your ass for not doing it his way, and then gets offended that you didn’t know that’s his way of saying, “Hey buddy, thanks. Thanks a lot.”
Cinco de Mayo
Americans will celebrate anything. It doesn’t matter if it’s Super Bowl Weekend when you don’t watch football all year or St. Patrick’s Day when you’re not Irish, most Americans don’t need much of an excuse to throw a party.
Today is Cinco de Mayo, which translates to “Fifth of May” in Spanish, and marks the victory of the Mexican Army over the French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. The way that it is portrayed here in the U.S., you would think that Cinco de Mayo is the Mexican Forth of July, but I can tell you from experience, it’s not.
My wife and were married on May 1st six years ago and we went to the Mayan Riviera for our honeymoon. On the fifth of May, we decided to take a collectiva—or taxi, up to Playa del Carmen to celebrate the holiday. We assumed there’d be drunk Mexicans shooting guns in the air and yelling, “Andale, Andale, Arriba, Arriba,” like Speedy Gonzalez. We were disappointed to find out that most Mexicans don’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo like we do in here in the States.
Five years later, my wife and I went to San Francisco to celebrate our fifth year anniversary. We stayed in the Mission District, which is a predominantly Mexican area in San Francisco. I was excited to see if it would be different this time. When night rolled around we walked down to Mission Street, and there was absolutely nothing going on. We walked a few blocks further to a little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant and it was packed—with gringos.
So to all you folks would plan on going out and getting, “drunk as a Mexican on Cinco de Mayo,” you may want to re-think your plans.
Want more? click here
Daryl Cagle’s P.C.
Coming up with new material everyday is harder than trying to understand Stephen Hawking after he’s had a few drinks in him. When I started this blog my goal was to come up with new material for my site at least once a week and even then I have to be on the look out for new material. I never know when inspiration is going to hit me like a Louisville Slugger to the cranium. So when I saw Daryl Cagle’s Political drawings on MSN.com I thought I’d give him a shout-out. Plus it makes it makes my job a little easier.
Cagle’s topics range from Wall Street Reform, to the volcano in Iceland, to Mother’s Days gifts for your oil spilling ass. Check him out.
http://www.cagle.msnbc.com/main.asp
My Friday, My Monday
I’ve had the entire week off, and now that it’s Friday, I’m already dreading the alarm clock Monday morning. This week has gone by in a blur and I don’t even drink anymore.
I had jury duty Monday. There were people there who I wouldn’t want deciding my fate no more than I’d want to play Russian Roulette with five bullets. Put it this way, I’m pretty sure that I saw Quasimodo’s long lost twin sitting in one of the jury boxes waiting to be swore in.
My mother-in-law fell and broke her foot, so I watched my daughter part of the day Tuesday, most of Wednesday, and a good deal on Thursday. I’m not complaining, believe me. It was nice not having to drag my ass out of bed like an old muffler sparking off the highway at five am.
It was also a special treat to be able to hang out with my little seven month old sack of shit’s and giggles. But for the record, I’ve never had the aspiration of being a stay-at-home dad. After a few days with the girl, which is what I usually call her, I can say that staying at home with your kid would be much harder than working a full-time job. For sure, it would be a lot harder than working my full-time job.
At my job I have a little time to write at least a few days a week. At home with the girl? Nothing. I wasn’t able to get in one single sentence. I had to time everything I wanted to do, including taking a deuce, with the girl’s sleep schedule. At least at work I can up and go to the bathroom whenever I want.
When I’m at work, I can have discussions about politics, different cultures, and try to help solve deep philosophical questions like, “Do you realize that if corporations have Constitutional rights, that they are therefore considered legal beings. And if that’s true, then they are actually an evolved species who know how to make exorbitant amounts of money and we are their slaves.”
Versus, “Who’s talking to Mr. Bear? Are you talking to Mr. Bear? Yeah. That’s Mr. Bear.”
I don’t mind having the Mr. Bear conversation. I’m fine with Mr. Bear and Mr. Rabbit too. I’m just saying, maybe Monday won’t actually be that bad.
So for those of you who have jobs, appreciate them. And if it’s your Friday, and are receiving this on Saturday, have a good rest of the weekend. I look forward to seeing you Monday.
Quotable Quotes
I love using quotes. That’s not exactly true because I never can remember them. There is nothing worse than somebody stumbling to remember a quote, just ask former President George W. Bush. So what I really should say is I love reading quotes.
I think it’s cool to see what other famous people said out stuff. That just makes it seem more important than if just some regular guy said it. (Noticed how I threw in other famous people? Like I’m already famous.)
“He who pursues fame at the risk of losing himself is not a scholar.”—Chuang Tzu (369 BC – 286 BC), The Great Supreme
Someone once told me that if you want to use a quote as your own, you have to credit the original author three times, “Then the quote is yours.” I think I like this rule, although I will tell you now, this rule doesn’t apply in comedy or in writing.
Most comics don’t have a sense of humor when you steal their material. For instance, one night I was with a group of friends telling a story about how I had gotten drunk for the first time and thought I was as smart as Albert Einstein. I started asking my friends what I perceived to be deep philosophical questions about the World, such as: “What is the first car in traffic doing up there? Is he just sitting there picking his nose or what? Maybe he’s getting a little road head. I don’t know, but I sure would like to know what the hell’s he doing up there?”
I was about 16 or 17 the first time I got drunk, and since I was telling a real story, I didn’t expect to hear, “YOU STOLED THAT FROM CARLIN!”
This was the first time someone had ever called me out on material stealing, although for the record, it wouldn’t even be close to the last. But the first time anything happens to you, you never know how you’re going to react. Since the rules were explained to me, and since I didn’t steal the bit on purpose, I didn’t feel that I had committed any joke-stealing crime.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I said to my 6’5”, skinny-assed comic, friend of a friend.
“Carlin,” he said. “As in George Carlin. That’s his bit. He did it back in the 70’s or at least the 80’s. Either way you can’t just take someone’s bit and use it as your own! That’s stealing. I mean, you at least got to give him credit for it.”
“First of all, who invited this guy?” I said, looking around to see who this clown was with, so I would know whether or not I was allowed to beat his ass. “Secondly I was 16! And drunk for the first time. It’s a real story! I wasn’t ‘doing a bit’. Smart ass! Besides I’m not a comic, I don’t have to live by your rules. My rules are if you quote a guy, you only have to do it three times then ‘the bit’ is yours!”
“Oh REEEALLY? Three times huh? Kind of like a joke genie? Rub it three times and it’s yours?” he said.
“That’s right! Or how Lenox Lewis knocks mother fuckers like you out: ONE, TWO, THREE!” I said, throwing shadow boxing combos at his face.
“Don’t get mad, I didn’t steal the bit,” he said.
“I’M NOT MAD!…fuck face.”
This guy totally ruined my mojo. Now I couldn’t go around saying brilliant things such as, “Don’t be afraid, the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself!” Or, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
Now I understood what people were talking about when they’d reply, “Ah! JFK, 1964.” And why they’d look at me funny when I’d say, “No, Doug Wallace, right now.”
You might be able to get away with stealing someone’s quote in conversation, but once it’s in print, as I found out the hard way, you better quote it and name your source. Luckily the, “Authorities” were not called in like the publishers threaten to do in their letter. All I did was use: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” Which for legal purposes, is by Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities and is also the longest damn sentence you will ever read. If I wrote some shit like that my editors would be jumping all over my ass, “Run-on sentence! Run-on Sentence!” they’d yell.
I used the Dickens line for an opening for a story I had. I had read that line several times and figured if the three time rule applied in conversation, it applied to writing as well. Apparently the publishers of Dickens felt otherwise.
People take this writing stuff way too seriously. They expect you to go around quoting where you got your inspiration? Who does that? And it’s very specific how they want it done. You need to say first, where you got it from—a.k.a. the title, then the author’s name, then page number, then the publishers name—God forbid you forget the publisher’s name. Then Quotation Police want you to list the copyright date, and then where the thing was published—like New York needs anymore publicity. It’s all a big clusterfuck. And no, I don’t remember where I got clusterfuck; though consulting Wikipedia, cluster-fuck is defined as: “A disastrous situation that results from the cumulative errors of several people or groups. In semi-polite company this is referred to as a Charlie Foxtrot. (From the NATO phonetic alphabet)” So I guess I probably got it from Dave—my Step-dad, who was a career Navy man. Props to Dave on, “clusterfuck.” The point being, remember to quote people where you should and don’t where you shouldn’t.
One place you are not supposed to quote people is in the middle of your conversation, “with your fingers.” That shit drives me crazy. You’re sitting there talking to someone and they say something like, “Politically Correct” and then they throw their fingers up in the air while they’re doing it. I hate that shit…“HEY! Wait a minute! YOU STOLED THAT FROM CARLIN!”
It’s Earth Day
Senator Gaylord Nelson organized an “Environmental Teach-in,” the week of April 16 through April 22, 1970. (I’ll forgo any Gaylord jokes.) Earth Week focused on environmental teachings that climaxed on April 22, 1970—which became known as Earth Day.
Today, Earth Day is more than just some event created by a Gaylord. (I couldn’t resist.) It’s about taking notice of what we are doing to the Earth. I’ve heard that American-Indians used to plan their actions toward the Earth, mainly hunting and fishing, for ten generations. These days’ corporations don’t even plan what they’re doing to the environment for the next ten years. It’s been Environmental Activists that have been bringing what corporations are doing to the environment to the forefront of public awareness. With the invention of the Internet, activists are getting more organized every year.
But even with all the strides that we are taking to save our environment, there is a bigger culprit than all the polluters combined. This polluter is so big that it’s taken over an entire continent and we have to do something to stop it. Who is this polluter who’s messing up our Earth at a speed that would take ten Earth Years, not Earth Days, to fix? It’s the volcano in Iceland. If you haven’t seen the eruption yet, here’s the video: http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/19168040
I think we need to start a “Stop the Volcano in Iceland from Polluting our Earth,” Group on Facebook. All the hard work that generations of environmentalist have been doing for the years, Eyjafjallajokull has destroyed that in a few days. Besides, if you’re going to be the World’s biggest polluter, you need to have a name that’s not impossible to pronounce. So I’m going to start another new Facebook group today. It’s going to be called the “Rename Eyjafjallajokull Volcano to something the rest of the World can pronounce,” Group.
Remember, Earth Day is about changing the World for the better. Yes I understand we can’t stop a volcano from blocking out the sun and stopping air traffic and possibly killing crops in dozens of countries around it. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t throw your recyclables in a recycling can or use a refillable container instead of drinking bottled water. And yes, it may feel like you’re just pissing in the ocean when Eyjafjallajokull is dumping so much pollution into the atmosphere. But just imagine if everyone in the World was pissing in the Ocean at the same time. Oh wait! Please don’t do that either.