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While on vacation, I decided that I would ocean swim every day. In the campus pool I can do a mile in about 40 minutes or so. I figured that if I did at least 45 minutes in the ocean, that would be the equivalent of a mile.

Ocean swimming is a lot different than the pool – for one, it’s much more salty. Add in the waves, variable depth, other swimmers, potential for fish and sharks and it’s a pretty intense experience.

I usually started from the beach in front of the condo, then swam down toward the pier – but not all the way to the pier since the fishermen throw the un-needed fish parts over the side and it attracts sharks.

Though I swam the same stretch of water every day, it was always a unique experience. The currents and the tides were always changing and some days were more difficult than others. I got smacked in the face by the tides many times – but eventually found a rhythm that kept me in the clear.

I mostly swam breaststroke, but occasionally ramped it up a notch and switched to butterfly. I’m not very good at that one, but the tossing motion of the waves actually helped. It didn’t do that too long since it tired me out, but it was pretty cool for a while.

So, I figure I did about 12 miles while I was on vacation, not counting the swimming I did in the pool or the “epic fail” of the boogie board.

Not Olympic level, but not too shabby.

I got back Thursday from a 2 week trip to Myrtle beach (Surfside) with my room-mate and his extended family. Here are some highlights from the trip:

1. Day one on the beach and two women approached us with free samples of Pringles SnackStix. We accepted a few packages and they went on their way. A few minutes later, another duo approached with more samples. Then a third group, and finally a fourth. When the 5th group came around, we politely declined. Apparently, they were poorly coordinated and didn’t realize that they were hitting the same part of the beach over and over. Or they didn’t care. In any case, we got a pile of snacks.

2. We met up with some of my room-mates somewhat distant cousins at another condo for a cookout and game night. The odds were somewhat stacked against my team as we were playing Scene It and there were limited TV/Movie/Music fans on our side. Fortunately, I do pretty well with the visual puzzles and we held our own. On the last set of questions, my room-mates 8 year old cousin came up with the answer of Jimmy Newtron before anyone else and I followed up with another cartoon based answer – Princess Monokoe. The rest of the group was stunned when they answer came up on the screen. Thank you, somewhat obscure anime.

3. On a separate occasion, we played Scatagories and for the question of “Things you Replace” I suggested Needles. Which seemed quite responsible and clever. For “Things You Shout”, I used – for different rounds – Kneel before Zod! and Spoon! That being the command of Superman’s enemy in Superman 2 and the battle cry of the Tick, respectively. I was denied both times.

4. In the past, I’ve gotten pretty well burned on these trips. This time, thanks to liberal applications of SPF 30 and 45, my pale geek flesh was only moderately tanned.

5. I bought and tried a boogie board. The only way to describe my experience on that is “Epic Fail”

6. I watched a lot of “shark week” on tv in the evenings and a special on the History Channel on corn.

7. While out to dinner one evening, I split an order of calamari, black olives, and cheese. It was disturbing to look at, but quite good.

8. On the last night we were there, there was a massive lightning storm out to sea. It seemed like the lightning kept hitting the same general area with huge strikes and in many cases, the lighting would branch out in cloud to cloud strikes. Really amazing.

9. While we were down in the area, we also went to see Brookgreen Gardens. It has a bunch of really impressive outdoor sculptures and a sprawling garden – really neat to see. They also had a sort of outdoor zoo – my favorite animals were the huge spiders near the horse barn, the three otters in their own creek, and a giant alligator that moved just enough to show us he was the boss.

10. I didn’t do as much reading as I thought I would, but I did a lot of writing on the beach. I worked mainly on a short story – but I’ll need to type it up so that other people can read it.

I also did a lot of swimming – but I’ll go over that in another post. It was a good trip, but it’s also good to be home.

On Saturday, I went to my FRM’s son’s baseball game – and it was the All-Stars. So, we saw some pretty good – and still pretty funny – baseball. The game started very early, but it was still pretty hot out. We also had some wankers going the whole passive-aggressive route when we sat on the bleachers and apparently blocked their view of home plate (they were sitting off to the side). I heard everything they were saying, but wasn’t going to move until they grew up and asked politely. They finally did, and I moved a bit. My FRM’s mom was overheating and I brought an umbrella for her – but apparently that was in the way as well so we had to put it down. She finally had to move since it was too hot for her.

We went to lunch after the game and I did some running around with some errands. Had a pretty productive day for a weekend and of course, I had to pay for that. That evening, while watching a movie, I got another migraine. Haven’t had one for a while and apparently I was overdue. I took some asprin and went to bed early. I still had the remnants on Sunday, but I was perked up enough to finish up a little project – using glass paint on a light bulb.

I’d purchased one of these at Target, but the wattage was too low for what we needed, so I painted my own bulb and finally finished it on Sunday. Looks pretty cool – even better than the store bought one. I also tried a variation on the painting technique based on accident – trying to go for something that looked like jupiter or something. Didn’t work as I intended, but I may try again. I was also feeling well enough to watch most of the Shining – still a dang good movie.

Also played a bit mroe Okami – and using the celestial paintbrush in the game to reshape the world. Pretty sweet game.

Then this morning the headache – or a new one of the same flavor came back. I got it stopped with some potent asprine before it went full-blown – but it lingered all day. I swam at lunch time and that helped a bit – but then the sunshine was bright enough to make it worse. It got a little beter as the day went on. I still have it a bit and I’m still here at work – waiting on the relaunch of our website. Better go check and see how things are going – and if the pizza is here yet.

One last thing… while I was at the pool there was some kind of kids swim camp going on. I came out of the locker room in my square-cut speedos and one of the kids said – quite loudly – “that’s disgusting!” I ignored him – as I do most childern unless they are directly talking to me – but was thinking to myself a line that Yoda said: “When 900 years old you become, look as good you will not.”

And Yoda was a wise little dude. And besides, I do look pretty good in my suit – I’ve worked for it. And it’s way more modest than some of the other suits I’ve seen guys wear there. If the kids had gone through there half an hour later, they might have been scarred for life at the old guy with the pot belly and a micro-speedo. Hell, I was shaken by the sight and I’ve watched a lot of horror movies.

That’s it for now… later…

I made a page that lists the fortunes I’ve gotten from cookies – and my comments about them.

Fortune Cookies

later…

I’m working on a project at home that required some very specific shapes – and I had one from an old Lego set that fit the bill. Needing more, I checked out the Lego site and found I was able to order specific legos – in any quantity I wanted. It was way cool.

Finally convinced my room-mate to go to Chipotle recently. He thought the burrito was okay, but thought they put too much rice in it. I, of course, ate my burrito in it’s entirety and enjoyed every morsel.

I bought an “abs ball” a while ago – essentially a weighted ball used to enhance abs strengthening exercises. It’s been mocking me for a while in the living room and I haven’t had the motivation to try it out yet. On Monday, I fired up the included DVD and tried it out.

I didn’t really get a good workout from the ball – but I think that was because I was taking notes from the DVD as I never wanted to watch it again. The fitness dude on the dvd was a complete tool and seriously annoying to listen to. I did the exercises and took notes – I’ll run though the exercises again tonight without the DVD. I saved it, though, as the DVD also has an advanced program on it too. I suspect it’s the same guy. Update: I just looked at the website for this product and found they won an award for the DVD! Proof positive that people will give other people awards for everything.

Motivation – I lack it. Really tough to get and stay motivated here at work. We’ve got some big projects, but I’m finding it difficult to stay on track. I’m getting stuff done, but not as much as I should be.

The drive to work this morning saw me going the speed limit and slightly above. And the traffic was flying past me like I was standing still. Normally, I’m a little casual with speed limits but with the cost of gas I’m a little more careful about my speed. Plus, we were all going to work – why would someone be in a hurry to do that?

I got a few “high importance” emails today from people that were wondering what to do with the sudden increase in a particular type of spam. I’ve never really understood a high important flag on an email – am I suddenly going to drop everything else in favor of that one email? Not likely – especially when I get several at once. The spam had a heading about “urgent fund transfer” and one of the users actually asked if it was legitimate. Sigh.

I guess that’s it for now – starting to get busy this morning. Later…

I tried to leave work a bit early yesterday, but I got delayed a few times. Managed to grab a bit of food (2 breakfast bars and a green tea) on my way to the blood drive – so I didn’t have any problems with getting sick afterward. The experience was pretty good and the staff were friendly.

Only one slight downward note was the trainee that took my history. He was very nervous and when he went to take my temperature, he didn’t get the plastic sleeve on the metal temperature probe. Neither of us noticed until I bit down on metal. I handed it back to him and explained the problem. He was quite freaked out and I knew it was a simple accident.

As he cleaned off the probe, the supervisor that was hovering over him said that the metal probe without the plastic would have burned my mouth. So, it was apparently a bigger deal than it seemed. The rest of the process went smoothly and he did a far better job at the finger stick than the last trainee I had. (they had used too much pressure and blood had spurted onto their lab coat – I felt bad about that, but it really wasn’t my fault).

The actual donation part went very smoothly and I was out of there 45 minutes after I had walked in. No problems at all – though I am very tired this morning.

back to work before I doze off… later

I had a meeting yesterday – and got a headache. I’m not saying that the meeting gave me the headache, but I’m strongly implying it. This one centered itself on the sign of my head, on the level with my temple on the left side, but further back. I put some pressure on the area and rubbed it – which seemed to help for a bit – but it came back a little later while I was out trading in some video games. I managed to get myself home and sat quietly for a little while, hoping it would fade out. I also took some aspirin, but it ramped up quickly and I had to lay down for a while. I got up and ate dinner, then just lay around for a while – then gave up, took a shower, and went to bed early. I guess I’m over it, but it was annoying. Especially since I just bought new games and was eager to play.

This is the second time I’ve gone into GameStop – and like last time, they tried to pressure me into getting a discount card. I’m normally a fan of discount cards – but not the kind you have to pay for. In those cases, I always feel pressured to buy more to justify the cost of the card – which kinda bites. The sales guy tried a several times to get me to sign up for the card – and finally pulled a bait and switch on me – which I fell for based mostly on my headache and a desire to get the heck out of there. So, now I’ve got a discount card that I may only use a few times a year, a magazine subscription that I’ll read but wouldn’t have chosen, and entry into their mailing list (great). Still, I got some cool-looking games, so that’s something.

My swim yesterday was pretty average – I did 32 laps. There was a girl 2 lanes over, though, that was swimming the butterfly stroke like some kind of mer-person. She basically exploded out of the water on each stroke and then plunged back at incredible speed. I was really impressed. I don’t know how fast she was, but it would have made a dolphin feel bad.

That’s it for now…

This morning, on the drive to work, a truck hauling a backhoe in a cart passed me on the left. Unfortunately, the back right tire of the cart wasn’t up to the challenge and was disintegrating. Chunks of the tire were coming off and flipping up onto the road in front of me. I slowed down and he started to get over in front of me, then managed to get all the way off the road. There was no damage to my car, but I did have the stink of burning tires with me for a few miles.

I frequently get food at the Asian restaurant area of the student union – and when I do, I get a fortune cookie. I like these little auguries and don’t read them until I’m done with my lunch and have eaten the cookie. In the past, I’ve gotten encouraging ones like:

“You will have a long and healthy life” or
“Obstacles can’t hold you back”

Yesterday’s cookie, however, had this message:

“Do not be afraid of computers. Be afraid of the lack of them.”

Ummm… great? What the heck does that mean? I mean, I like computers and I’m not afraid of them – though I’ve seen The Terminator too many times to really trust them.

But for a fortune cookie? Weird.

At some point, I’m going to have to post all my fortunes – maybe on my web site.

That’s it for now… later…

Earlier this afternoon I headed over to the restroom near the vending machines here at work to “do what needed to be done”. This is the larger of the men’s restrooms in the building and boasts 2 stalls and 2 urinals. I proceeded to one of the stalls and discovered that the previous occupant was apparently not feeling well and left behind some “residue”.

But, hey, two stalls. I went into the next stall and found that there was what appeared to be blood on the outside of the toilet bowl. It started at the edge of the bowl and ran down the outside in two areas.

In the men’s room? Blood on the outside of a toilet bowl? I’ve seen this before… in a horror movie.

“what needed to be done” was not that urgent – I’m going to wait until I get home.

(shudder)

As I got out on the road today, the sky opened up and started to pelt my car with rain and hail. I almost typed “me” instead of “my car” but that wasn’t the literal case. It had been, however, pelting the poor soul on a motorcycle before he got under the cover of an overpass. I slowed down as a I went past, thinking that excessive splashing would only add insult to his injury.

I reached my destination, accomplished the tasks I set out before me, and attempted to leave the parking lot.

Now, I don’t like parking lots. Rather, I don’t like the other people that use parking lots – as they usually do it wrong.

1) They park as so to take up multiple spaces. I freaking hate. Either learn to park more accurately or don’t take your fancy pants car out into the world if you are that scared.

2) Lots are designed so that humans not paying attention to their world are forced directly into the lane of traffic right in front of the store.

3) People that cut across the spaces and don’t pay attention.

It’s that last one that really torqued me to today. I was traveling down the lane as I was supposed to and this car came screaming diagonally across the spaces – headed right for where my car was going to be. Since I’m not an idiot, I slowed down to a stop and so did the other car. The driver stuck her hand out the car window and I expected that she was doing so to wave me on or perhaps flick away the cigarette ash.

Instead, she flipped me off – then put the accelerator to the floor and took off in front of me – still going diagonally across the lot. Since she was still diagonal, she decided that the stop sign didn’t quite apply to her so she ran that as well.

Ironically, I caught up with her at the next stop light. She was one car up and one car over – putting me ironically diagonally from her car. She didn’t notice me – or if she did she chose not to acknowledge me. In any case, I thought some unpleasant things about her and considering myself lucky I both saw her in time to stop and that I don’t have a baseball bat in my car since I would mostly now be in jail.

Speaking of guilt – there are two things I am guilty of, and they are both internet memes. Now, I am normally disdainful of overly hyped things. Example: I still haven’t seen Titanic nor do I care to. So, appreciating anything that is defined as hype should be impossible for me, but there are two memes that I really enjoy.

1. LOLcats. I know, I know. It’s terrible. These damn things just crack me up. I mean, there’s some really stupid shit here, but there are a few gems in there that sometimes make me LOL. The best I’ve seen so far is a cat in a box, looking up at the camera. The caption says, “I’m in your Quantum box. Maybe.” That’s funny on several levels.

2. “Do not want” and “All your base are belong to us”. The first is a mistranslation of the ending Darth Vader shout of “Nooooo!” from Star Wars episode 4. The other is another mistranslation – this time from a video game. I really like how they have taken on a life far beyond their orginal forms. Also, the “Do not want” has a decidely Zen quality to it which I’m just really starting to appreciate.

Finally, I tried an experiment today. Over the weekend, I tried something called Cashew Crush – which was a really excellent snack except that I got seriously congested and spent the rest of the afternoon sneezing. I ended up having to take an allergy pill to get it settled down – and I really don’t like to take any kind of medicine until it’s really serious.

Thinking that I might be developing an allergy to cashews – which would really bite since I enjoy them – I tried a bit more cashews today in the Cashew Crunch to see if I would start sneezing again. I haven’t. So, that wasn’t it.

That’s it for now… later…