BLOG IN YOUR FACE

Ben Franklin once said (in a letter to someone he had borrowed money too):

“I do not pretend to give such a Sum; I only lend it to you. When you […] meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro’ many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.”

What an incredible concept. If any of you have ever read the book or seen the movie Pay it Forward, then you know what I mean.

I work the 2-10 P.M. shift Monday through Friday. Jaci and I have been extremely busy with wedding planning and entertaining guests and relatives on the weekends. God knows that I am truly blessed in nearly all aspects of my life, however every person on this Earth is in some way, shape or form in need  of something in their life. Everyone will tell you that there is at least one thing in their life that is lacking; something they need more of: Affection, money, sex, religion, hair, love, happiness etc. For me, I need more TIME.  Nobody but Doc Brown and Marty McFly have ever been able to harvest time, so I suppose I will just have to continue my efforts to make the most out of the time that I do  have.

But God Bless my neighbor, Doug. I came home last night at 10:30 P.M. and my entire front lawn was mowed and trimmed. Something I had been putting off for far to long. I  know that he  knew how busy I have been lately. We talked about it over the fence the other day. Doug may have some voids in his life, but I don’t think that time is one of them. And leave it to a good ol’ Midwestern boy to take something that he has an abundance of and give it away to someone who needs it.

For the most part, that is the single biggest reason I absolutely love this part of the country. People are so willing to give and give and give here. At the baseball game Sunday I saw a Dad order his daughter a snow cone from a roaming vendor. The vendor gave it to the little girl and the Dad got a panic look on his face as he realized he left his wallet in the car. The vendor looked at the little girl and whispered under his breath to Dad, “Don’t worry about it.”

I don’t know where I am going with this and I don’t plan on editing it to make it sound like I actually have a point. All I am saying is that the entire world would be a better place with a little Midwestern mentality…with a little bit of “Payitforwardness”…with a little bit of mowing your neighbors lawn for them…by giving something to someone for free when they probably should have paid for it…

Think Globally, Act Locally.

That’s what I’m going to do. Ben Franklin (and Jesus for that matter): I am not going to let you down. Can one good deed by one measly person make a world of difference in one and/or many  lives? It did for me.

Stay tuned to find out how I pay it forward.

This weekend I:

1) Went to a new pub in town called “No Dogs Allowed” Friday night. While in the outdoor beer garden my two buddies and I were approached my a woman who informed us of a girl checking out Buddy #1 and liking what she saw. I approached said girl bypassing the middleman (or crazy old middle aged  woman that is) and introduced both myself and Buddy #1. I’m not the fashion police, but I could have made a citizen’s arrest. This girl was wearing a tube top with some sort of “X” shaped bra sticking out the back and around her neck. She had a serious case of “tennis-balls-in-a-tube-sock” syndrome, and I quickly returned to my picnic table and rocked back and forth for a little while trying to come up with some positive words of encouragement for Buddy #1.

2) Went on a 10 mile bike ride. Jaci and I have both decided that our Quadricep muscles could use some work to take the strain off our knees from running and Saturday was a cross-training day. I rode by a sod farm that reminded me of Ireland. It was so green and healthy looking from all of this rain we are getting that I almost wanted to stop and take a bite out of it or make a casserole or something.

3) Bought Jaci’s wedding band.

DISCLAIMER! The following represents my distaste and frustration for wedding consumerism (rip-off) and should not be interpreted as saying that my incredible bride-to-be is not worth the most beautiful ring in the world and then some, but…

The cost of my wedding band? 6o dollars.
The cost of her  wedding band? 400 dollars.

Jeepers…

4) Went disc golfing. If you don’t know what disc golfing is, you can read about it here and here. I took my dog along with me failing to make the connection of it being 97 degrees outside and her being a little black dog. I brought a 32 oz. Nalgene Bottle with me that contained extremely cold and refreshing water in it, along with her water bowl so that we could take pit stops. We did fine for the first 5 holes, but after that is when the trouble began! She had already consumed about 3/4 of the water in the bottle and began acting very sluggish. I assumed - and probably assumed correctly - that it was simply to hot for her to be out tearing around outside. Then tragedy struck…in the form of a bumble bee, unleashing its fury onto (into) Annie’s paw. She stopped in mid run and hit the ground, like in the old war movies when somebody gets shot. I performed emergency surgery (with my thumbnail) to extract the stinger; then I took my shirt off and wrapped it around her hind leg to stop the bleeding until we could get her to the nearest hospital (OK, not really); then I had to clean the wound to prevent Gangrene from setting in by dipping her foot into her water bowl. And finally, I had to carry her to safety through the woods (the row of trees lining the park) to the command center (my pick-up truck) where I could get her the supplies she desperately needed (some old animal crackers lying on the floor in the back seat). I waited there until the rest of my party arrived (when they were done disc golfing) and Annie and I made it back home. She barely made it through the next hour (she had diarrhea for some reason), put she persevered and was back to herself in no time (drinking water out of the toilet and eating used Kleenexes). She truly is  a miracle dog.

5) Had an impromptu camping trip. OK, so it wasn’t actually a trip. You see, Jaci had to work until 11 P.M. on Saturday night and was really bummed out that we couldn’t go camping after all, as we had tentatively planned earlier in the week. So I decided to bring the camping to HER!!! I set up our tent in the backyard and used some old bricks to make a firepit. We had a nice little bonfire and I got 6 Keystone Lights (16 oz.) for 4 dollars and it was a swell ol’ time!

6) Was very proud of my girlfriend. At church on Sunday, Jaci got up in front of the whole congregation (she hardly EVER does things to draw attention to herself) and asked for prayers for her cousin Corey. She was pretty choked up but I was proud of her. An update for anyone interested: Corey has a fever that just won’t break, but other than that he is hanging in there pretty well.

7) RAN 4 MILES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For those of you that say “Woopity Doo” then go fluctuate yourself. For me, this is a huge milestone. I have been running ever since I quit smoking and have never ran more than a 5k (3.1 miles). For those of you that don’t know, Jaci and I are training for a half marathon and this 4 miler was really special for me. I have never ran that far in my life at one time. We even missed a turn and came to a dead end at one point and had to backtrack. So, you could technically say we ran almost 4 and a half  miles! By the end I was running hunched over so much I could almost see Jaci running behind me through my legs, but then I realized she was actually beside me smacking my butt and winking as she blew by me on the last hill as if this was the easiest thing she had ever done in her life.

8 ) Went to an Omaha Royals baseball game.They had canned food day and if you brought one perishable item you got in free. We took in the baseball game for a grand total of about 50 cents worth of creamed corn. SWEET! I applied sunscreen heavily (and by “heavily” I mean I douched my entire body with half the bottle) before we went in and it did not have enough time to soak in my skin before I started sweating profusely. Before I knew it, I was covered in white slimy stuff dripping off of me like I just ran through a wall of bird crap. I had to go out by the concessions stands and wipe myself down with napkins to the tune of appalled looks and curious faces on little kids. It had been awhile since I had been to a baseball game, though, and I really did enjoy myself!

9) Went to Hu Hot. After baking in the hot sun at the baseball game and working up an appetite, we decided to finally use a gift card from one of Jaci’s friends that was from Christmas 2007 for Hu Hot Mongolian Grill. If you aren’t familiar with this chain of restaurants, it is basically a buffet. Only, at this buffet, you are given a bowl and a HUGE  table full of raw ingredients. You walk along that table filling your bowl with meats, vegetables, noodles, tofu and sauces until it is spilling over the sides. At the end of the table you give it to a grill master who is sporting two large metal spatula looking things and he dumps your bowl of stuff on the grill and throws it around and up in the air, etc. and then transplants the whole shebang onto a plate. I ended up devouring 2 bowls of food, a bowl of fried rice, a bowl of salad and a pitcher of Coke (a-cola). It definitely appeared as if I was attempting to counteract my 4 mile run earlier that day by about 400%.

10) Got a marriage license. Surprisingly, in Nebraska the formal, official and legal process of saying you are going spend the rest of your life with somebody only takes a short form (one side of one sheet of paper) and about 15 minutes of sitting there trying to read National Geographic en Espanol while the thing gets typed up by some blond bimbo who calls herself the Register of Deeds (more like Registered D-Cups). It was pretty easy and pretty painless and only took 2 quarters (30 minutes) in the parking meter!

I know it is a busy world and there is a lot to pray about, but if anyone has a second I would sure appreciate a quick prayer for Jaci’s (my fiance’s) cousin Corey. Corey is 21 years old and just had to have emergency skull and brain surgery. He lives in a farm in North Dakota and was trying to unload a four-wheeler from a pick-up truck when it rolled backwards on him. The surgery required 18 pieces of skull fragment to be removed from his brain and a big ol’ titanium plate to be attached to hold his skull together.

Now we wait patiently while they have him sedated for the next 96 hours. Apparently his brain pressure cannot go above 20 or that is bad! The doctors also fear meningitis for some reason. And then there is always the possibility of brain damage once he wakes up. But for now, let’s just pray he wakes up, shall we?

 ”For I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds,” says the Lord. (Jeremiah 30:17)

Thanks,
Andy

A while back I wrote a little article about an ultra marathon runner named Yiannis Kouros. I couldn’t believe how much of an animal this guy was! When The Proclaimers wrote their hit song “I’m Gonna Be,”  Yiannis Kouros was probably like: “So, let me get this straight-you are going to walk 500 miles…and then walk 500 more, just to be the the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at someone’s door? I don’t get what the big deal is…I run 1000 miles and set world records doing it. It’s not even that hard.”

Well, Yiannis…I’m sorry, but you just don’t seem like as much of a bad-ass as you used to. I have found someone else to take your place. I am soooo  over you. That someone is my new hero and motivation in my quest to complete my half marathon. His name is Dean Karnazes.

I hope this guy donates his body to science when he dies. But to be honest, it doesn’t really seem like he can  die. The feats he has performed are un-human. How a mere mortal could pull off some of the things he has pulled off is far beyond my scope of understanding. Lets look at some of his accomplishments:

1) By age 11 he had hiked the Grand Canyon from rim to rim and had also successfully climbed Mount Whitney which is, ya know, only the HIGHEST FRICKING  mountain in the United States!

2) By age twelve he was cycling 40 miles a day and while still in junior high he went to the California State Long-Distance Championships and WON (as in beat everybody  there) the one-mile competition.

3) In his Freshman year of high school he ran his first marathon.

4) Won the Badwater Ultramarathon: As my friend AxsDeny from The Vax Cave suggested in a previous thread, anyone who is interested in supreme athleticism should watch the documentary Running on the Sun which is about this particular race. Its a 135 mile foot race starting at 282 feet below sea level in Badwater Basin, CA and ends at Whitney Portal; a incredible 8360 feet above sea level! On top of this 135 mile run you have temperatures of 120 or more!

5) Won  the Vermont 100, a race in Vermont that covers nearly 15,000 feet of elevation changes when it is all said and done.

6) Ran 148 miles on a treadmill in 24 hours.

7) Ran 350 miles in 80 hours. Without stopping…

8 ) Has ran the 1000 mile/10-day “Buckleholder Run” 11 times!

9) He has swam across the San Francisco Bay.

10) Ran the 1st annual (inaugural) South Pole run, a marathon in one of the coldest places on Earth, in tennis shoes while all others wore snow shoes.

11) And the most bad-ass of all…in my opinion anyway: He completed the North Face Endurance 50.  Never heard of it? Let me explain: 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days!!! The final marathon was the New York City marathon and when he was finished he decided that instead of hopping on a plane back to San Francisco, he would simply run ALL…THE…WAY…BACK. But maybe he is human afterall: He stopped in St. Charles, MO because he missed his family and flew the rest of the way home.

I don’t have too many regrets in my life. In fact, if I had a time machine I would probably hang my towels on it or throw a sheet over it and make it into a coffee table. I think the only thing I would go back in time for would be this past Sunday morning where I would promptly walk up to myself, kick myself in the junk and use a staple gun to staple a picture of Dean Karnazes to my forehead and tell myself to shut the hell up and quit whining about the measly 3 miles I just ran.

Well, as I mentioned last week (I think), Jaci and I are training for a half marathon (13.1 miles). Throughout the course of that training we are required to do a series of “Cross Training” activities on our running off-days. The other night I suggested that we do sit-ups.

Now, Jaci went to college on a softball scholarship. She is a fricking hard body (she won’t ever admit it, but what girl does, right?) and she has done her fair share of sit-ups in her lifetime. I on the other hand may not have a pregnant looking man-belly, but my tummy is not exactly what you would call “washboard abs.” In fact, it is more like a can of Crisco  that has been left out in the sun. The only sit-ups I have ever done are sitting up out of bed, and that isn’t very often considering I usually employ the less urgent method of rolling onto the floor, army crawling to the bathroom and lifting myself up by the toilet seat so that I can have my morning pee. Jaci’s abs? You could bounce a quarter off those puppies.

So she agreed to do sit-ups with me. I could hardly believe  the arsenal of sit-up exercises Jaci utilizes. She must know at least 50 different ways to work out the stomach muscles. In asking her to help me, I soon realized I was way over my head. But the worst came when she suggested that we do a workout called “throw downs.” What you do is this:

Lay on your back and lift your legs in the air so that your body forms an “L” shape. Have a buddy - or in my case a really intense bootcampish girlfriend - stand behind you at your head. Then your buddy pushes your feet toward the floor as hard as they can and you have to not frickin’  let them touch the ground. Lift them back up and repeat until you are whining like a sissy and begging for the torture to stop (for yours truly it was after only six  throw downs).

Let me just tell you: I spent the next few days walking around hunched over, insisting that I had multiple hernias. My stomach muscles hurt so incredibly bad that it felt like I was going to have diarrhea…constantly. If the cramps in my abs were anything like what it feels like to have “that time of the month,” then ladies: never…ever…ever…ever…will I underestimate what you go through. In fact, I considered buying some Midol  to see if it could suppress my agony, but then I realized I wasn’t really feeling bloated or moody so I stuck with Ibuprofen.

Besides the torture of getting my flabby abdominals in shape, the half-marathon training is going really well. We are into our second week and we are going strong. We motivate each other. We encourage each other. We drive each other. I am having a lot of fun running with my best friend. I have more energy during the day and I sleep better at night. And, of course, I just want to look good naked.

It was 2 in the morning. It started off as a “Reverse Mohawk.” I am glad I have grown up and matured in my mid-twenties…

If any of you are into literature, then you are familiar with the writing technique called “Stream of Consciousness” (S.O.C.) writing. It is basically when a writer puts to paper the first thoughts that come to his mind, not stopping much to include punctuation or worry about sentence structure. One example that I can think of comes from James Joyce’s book Ulysses  where S.O.C writing is all over the fricking place. The last words of the book come to mind when a character named Molly Bloom is talking about Leopold and the very first moment that she finds out she is in love with him:

“…I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

So, instead of just writing a post about my Fourth of July weekend, which I was going to do, I thought I would give S.O.C. writing a shot. So here you go:

Thursday evening WORK! will it ever be 10 o’clock? Tick tock take a break, try to stay awake…only 8 P.M come ON! Too excited for work, too excited for 3 day weekend to get here…been sober too long just want to go have a beer to kick things off HOORAY! I read an old Sports Illustrated  to pass the time and now it’s 10 P.M…actually 9:50 but who’s counting? Get on elevator SORRY security guard guy, no time to talk, I am outta here I’ve got drinking to do. Get home. My buddy is in town, other buddy comes over and we are off to the Sean O’Casey’s pub…MMmmm 15 beers on tap…corn beef and cabbage sounds good…no, on second thought, just beer, I have hot dogs at home. Black and Tan? No, straight Guinness will do. 7 dollar pitchers are you fu*king kidding me? Oh well, no work tomorrow. Special occasion. Drink until closing time hanging out in an over sized booth with my best friends. Bartender has a handlebar moustache. I want one. He gives us free beers at closing time if we promise to chug them with him while he does the Charleston  dance outside the booth. Time to go after chugging. Evidently it is time to puke up the beer I just chugged all over the parking lot. No worries, at least I feel less bloated. Tony drives home. Probably shouldn’t have. Oh well. Only 5 blocks. Got home HEY! I’VE GOT AN IDEA! Reverse Mohawk. That looks funny. Take a picture with your camera phone. OK, now shave my head so that I only have a ring on the outside and bald on top. OK, take more pictures. I’m close to passing out. Brandon takes more pictures of me. HAHA, funny guy in underwear with self-inflicted male pattern baldness. Harms leaves. Tony sleeps in backyard. 4:30 A.M. 13 year olds setting off fireworks across the street. Not happy. Get up. Walk over. SHUT UP! Doesn’t do any good. Call cops. Go back to bed. Rise and shine!!! It’s 8 A.M. and I need to mow the lawn. Neighbor Doug is outside. I am hung over and my hair looks funny. He laughs. We bullshit. I mow. Clean the house. Expecting future in-laws later in the day. Why? Because it is 4th of July! Happy Independence Day! Almost forgot all about the Hot Dog eating contest. Tony wake up! Brandon, come back over here STAT! Joey Chesnut I heart you. Mustard Belt stays in America for another year. OK, its a great day for disc golfing. 5 under par for me…a personal best on this course. Back to the house. Future in-laws show up. Quick! Shave off the rest of my hair so that it looks normal! Help me clean the house! Hi, in-laws, how are you? I am sweaty and I smell like grass clippings and last night’s beer. Better go shower. Make yourselves at home. Out of the shower. Watching T.V. You brought how many coolers full of Busch Light??? Oh my! I had better start drinking! Future Mother-In-Law brought me a present. A Twin’s jersey. I scream like a girl. I am happy with that gift. I’ll start thawing out the frozen hot dog buns and cutting up the watermelon. You fire up the grill and put on the Jalapeno/Cheddar Deer Brats. MMmmm…cookouts. Anybody up for playing some horseshoe golf in the back yard? Tree branch hanging in the way. Tony, don’t hang on it…I told you not to hang on it. Now it is broken off and laying in the middle of the yard…get the tree saw out even though I am a little drunk at this point. FIREWORKS! We forgot to buy fireworks! Go to the tent down the street. Tony, don’t by the 371 shot artillery box…not worth it…don’t be an idiot…it’s 80 fricking dollars, dude. Note to self: never going to a fireworks store drunk again. Primal urge to blow stuff up and start things on fire along with alcohol consumption makes for an overwhelming urge to buy WAY…TOO…MANY fireworks. OK, we made it out of there spending less than 100 dollars. Nice work. Go to Ralston, NE’s fireworks display on their golf course. Tailgated. Drank some more. Peed in some bushes. Back at my place sitting in driveway. Drinking. Blow stuff up. Where did the rest of the fireworks go? Dude…I told you, we seriously set them all off already. OK, but I swear we bought way more than that. Maybe it was because I was setting off 5 Roman Candles at a time. Better go to bed. Gotta get up early and drive. I get up early and drive to Sioux City (hometown). Go for a run with Tim (insane guy who convinced me to run half marathon). 1.5 miles…through Stone Park…almost all uphill. Ugh. Go to parents’ house. Hi Mom. Shower. Talk with Mom about my anxiety…as usual. Feel better about it after I do. As usual. Finally go to Tony’s. He bought a keg. He lives5 blocks from Grandview Park. It is the first Saturday of July which means it is Saturday in the Park day (huge, I mean HUGE music festival…personal favorite day of the year). Drinking and eating at Tony’s house. More people keep showing up. Even more people keep showing up. Now there is like 50. Keg stand? Sure, why not. Take shots off of kitchen counter until I lose track? Sure, why not. Shove a hot dog in my mouth, then pour ketchup straight out of the bottle into my mouth, then eat a spoon full of minced onions. Real classy, Andy. Go back outside. Talk with man about prostate exams. All I remember from that conversation is the phrase “…puckered up like sour candy…” OK lets walk to the park. Fall down a couple of times. No big deal. Get to the park. Head straight for the beer garden…NO! Head straight for the ATM machine first. Hold up line for 5 minutes because I can’t see straight. OK, now for the beer garden. See some gay guys I know. Hey gay dudes! See some other friends I know. HEY! How have you been??? YADDA YADDA, you haven’t changed a bit. Pass out a couple times in the grass. Having a lot of fun, though. OK, fireworks are going off…that must mean the show is over. Lets take the bus downtown. I think I will take my shirt off and helicopter it around my head. Embarrass my girlfriend. Go downtown. Fall into some bushes. HAHA. Take pictures of that. Finally at the bar. Dancing. Drinking. DAMN! I am a good dancer. If I am such a good dancer, then why am I getting so many dirty looks? Closing time. Call a cab. Stand out in middle of street. Girlfriend yelling at me: “…[get] the hell out of the road before you get hurt…” Somehow we make it back to my parents house. UH OH! We are missing somebody! I call my buddy: Where are you man? Why do I hear train whistles? Hello? Hello? Lost call. Kind of worried about him and hoping he gets home OK. Pass out. Wake up Sunday morning. Call my buddy. Find out he made it home. Got a ride with two shady dudes that found him sitting on the curb in the middle of nowhere. There is more to the story but this blog is PG-13. Mom made brunch for all the hungover people. God bless her heart. Time to drive back to Omaha. Get back to Omaha, go for a 2.3 mile run with Jaci. Take her out to eat Mexican food. Damn it feels good to be alone with her. Seems like we never were alone over the weekend. Go to bed early. One of the best 4th of July’s a guy could ask for. Sad to go back to work after that much fun. Gonna go feel sorry for myself and eat some Doritos.

Pheidippides was, in fact, a Greek messenger and, as most of you have probably heard the story, was the man that ran 26.2 miles from the town of Marathon, Greece all the way to Athens. When he arrived he supposedly burst into the Senate and screamed “Νενικήκαμεν!” which, when translated into Ebonics means “Yo, da Persians was all up on our turf, but we be down-ass Greeks and we was all like ‘Yo Persians! Why you gotta be all up in our set like dat? You know we be rollin’ all up in here wit deeze chariots and Homie don’t play like dat!’ and we busted a [arrow] all up in they asses and told dem bunk muh-fuggas to get on back to Persia, ya heard?” which when translated into English simply means “We have won!”

Supposedly after that he collapsed and died from exhaustion…

Anyway, in honor of Pheidippides, Jaci and I have began a 16-week training program in preparation for the Lewis and Clark Half Marathon in Sioux City, IA (my hometown) on Oct. 19th. As if wedding planning wasn’t taking up a ton of our time already, we are now gradually working our way up to running 20 or so miles a week. What wedding planning?

I must admit, me running this half marathon is not simply in honor of Pheidippides. In fact, it has nothing to do with the man at all. You want the real reason?

THE WIZ

“The what?” you ask? The Wiz is a good friend of mine from way WAY back in the day. In fact, he is a groomsman at my wedding. His nickname derives from a shortening and misspelling of his last name. My friend Tim called me the other evening and informed me that The Wiz was going to run the Lewis and Clark half marathon and that I should do it. The Wiz is a cocky little pipsqueak and I immediately agreed to torture myself for 13.1 miles just so that I would not have to listen to The Wiz for the rest of my life about how he completed a half marathon and I didn’t. If you knew The Wiz and knew how much he likes to brag about himself, you would do the same.

But anyway, I was reading an article in The Wall Street Journal  the other day about whom they consider to be the world’s top 10 athletes right now. I was surprised to see that no long distance runners were listed. I could not think of too many things in the world of sports that could possibly be harder than running 26.1 miles at at time!!!

Then I stumbled across a story about a man named Yiannis Kouros.

And HOLY BLEEPITY BLEEP!!!

This guy goes above and beyond the capacity of the human body. This guy is insane…a NUTCASE! Why his heart hasn’t exploded by now I have no idea. I would love to find out what kind of running shoe this guy wears and then ask the company that makes that shoe why the hell  they aren’t paying this guy a billion dollars in endorsements! What makes Mr. Kouros such an animal?

He is what is known as an “Ultramarathon” runner. He laughs in the face of inferior marathon runners who run a measly 26.2 miles. Pphft! Pansies! Then he makes a joke about their Mom and gives them a swirly. Then he throws their backpack in a tree. Then he steals a bike lock from some other kid and locks their bike up with it so they have to walk home…wait a sec…somehow I got to talking about my middle school years…

Anyway, check out some of the races that Yiannis runs and the world records he holds. These are absolutely atrocious!

DISTANCE (some of these I converted to miles from kilometers)
100 miles - 11 hours 46 minutes
621 miles - 5 days 16 hours
1000 miles - 10 days 10 hours

TIMED RACES (see how far you can run in “X” amount of time)
12 hours - 100.9 miles
24 hours - 188 miles
48 hours - 294.3 miles
6 days - 643 miles

You know that feeling you get when you say “I’m hungry” and then you see a commercial for starving children and you feel really awkward and weird? I am kind of getting that same feeling when I think about how nervous I am to run 13.1 miles. Then I think about this guy who has probably ran more miles in his life thus far than most cars have on them. Why the heck this guy wasn’t on the 10 Greatest Athletes list, I will never be able to understand. Oh yeah…I forgot to mention his wicked moustache.

I have gotten this e-mail twice. Two slightly different versions, but nonetheless I have received it twice. I think it is very one sided and some things need to be cleared up on it. I happen to know someone who works at Best Buy. She didn’t want to be named here but this is her first guest post. Let me just tell you that this “person” that I know is a cute blond with big brown eyes and a pretty sweet engagement ring if I do say so myself…but she won’t be named here. This is the e-mail that has been going around:

And here is my very good “friend” responding to the e-mail:

“Parts of this are true, but others are not.  First, not all of our products have a restocking fee.  Just computers, cameras/camcorders, and GPS systems (and I know that Target has this too and more stores are starting on their electronics).  All of these items are supposed to have stickers with large letters that explain the restocking fee.  If a customer would come back to most of the stores that I have ever been too, and told us that they didn’t like the one they purchased, but would like to exchange it for something, then I would waive the restocking fee.  Obviously, I can’t speak for all stores, but it’s what my store does and so do some others that I’ve been too.  As for the 14 day return policy, we only have this on a few of our products, the same ones that have a restocking fee.  Mostly because many people along the way abused the return policy in one way or another and would just take the product on vacation, use it and then bring it back…like a camera for instance.  This caused us to go from a 30 day to a 14 return policy on some products.  As for the check, it is true that if you spend over $250 in cash or check and want to do a straight return, you will be issued a mail check that will take about a week to get. We don’t carry that kind of cash in store for obvious reasons. However, if you are just exchanging the product for something, that can all be taken care of right then and there, without having to wait for your money and then coming back into the store.”

I want to thank my guest poster. Maybe I will have to cook her dinner later. I just want everyone to know that there are two sides to every story and that most chain e-mails like this are pretty one-sided. Best Buy is a great company, but like every other corporation, they must have policies in place to protect themselves from consumers who take advantage of the system. Sometimes this affects honest consumers like the guy who apparently wrote this e-mail. If you appreciate the low prices at Best Buy, then I hope you can appreciate policies like this.

I know the entire blog-o-sphere is exploding with tributes to the late, great George Carlin, but I am going to follow suit anyway. A lot of people liked his classic acts such as “The 7 Words” and “Stuff.” His words about kindness, self care and humanitarianism were always my cup of tea. This, I must say was my favorite:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbour. We conquered outer space but not inner space.

We’ve done larger things, but not better things. We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

Remember, to say, “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Am I the last person in the world to hear about this? Or maybe one of the first? This is about as far away from wireless Internet as one can get, but still I found it to be pretty cool!

CURRENT  (www.current.net) is an Internet service that runs through your power lines somehow or another. I find it fascinating. From what I can tell, the service is only available in Ohio for some reason. I thought Ohio was only good for losing college football championships, but I guess they redeemed themselves! You just plug in the special modem right into any outlet in your house and WAH-LA! You have broadband Internet!

Lord have mercy on the folks in my home state of Iowa who are displaced and scared from the weather conditions as of late. Lord have mercy on my future brother in law who is working sun up to sun down for the Army National Guard. Lord have mercy on our leaders and help them to devise a way to make things better for our citizens. Lord have mercy on our farmers whose livelihood depends on the sunny skies of late June and July. Lord help the people of the midwest to have kind and open hearts and befriend their neighbors in times of need. And finally Lord, if you could…please spare Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City so that the Hawkeyes can have a good summer football camp. I put my trust and faith in you, Lord and I love you.

Andy

As you sit there and read this, slightly lift your right foot off the ground and rotate it in small circles clockwise. Now try to draw a six in mid-air with your right hand. I betcha can’t do it without changing the direction of your foot! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Well, as if the Minnesota Twins couldn’t suck any more than they already do, they had to go and get swept by the White Sox. They lost by a 4-game combined total of 15 points to the White Sox’s 40 points! I hate seeing them lose to the damn Sox, let alone lose 4 games in a row. In fact, I can’t think of many things that I hate seeing more. I have compiled a short list of some things that I would actually rather  see than my Twins sucking this bad. Here they are in no particular order:

1) Roseanne Bar in a ketchup bikini.
2) Marilyn Manson doing a Dwight Yoakam cover.
3) Chris Farley naked in a kiddy pool full of Ramen Noodles.
4) Jaci gaining 65 pounds.
5) My parents making out.
6) Ru Paul in a Victoria’s Secret Commercial.
7) Ball Park Franks Inc. going out of business.
8 ) You Don’t Mess With Zohan winning an Oscar.
9) Poop on the back of the toilet seat.
10) Amy Winehouse as my kids’ kindergarten teacher.
11) Richard Simmons starring in the next Batman movie.

Seriously, I am taking offense to our offense. We gotta pick it up. At least we have the Indians for a series…always an upside, I guess.

Jaci and I have several resident squirrels in my backyard ever since installing the squirrel feeder on the big ol’ Hackberry tree. All I did was screw two 2×4s into an ‘L’ shape and screwed that to the tree trunk. Then I went to Home Depot to get some HUGE nails to impale some corn cobs on. I found some 9 inch ones that were slightly short of railroad ties sitting on a shelf next to the rest of the nails. I asked the kid working there how much they cost, and he looked at me and nearly started hyperventilating. After he came to terms with the fact that his name tag reads “How may I help you” and he couldn’t pretend that he simply hadn’t heard me (being that I nearly shouted the question directly into his ear the third time I asked him), he mumbled something about “…however much it says on the box…”

I informed him that the two nails that I was holding had been separated from the herd.

He blinked at me a couple of times.

I rephrased the statement (for the sake of an obvious lack of neuron responsiveness) and said “They are not in any box. They were just sitting on the shelf. Besides, I only want two. I will pay whatever price you want, just tell me how much they are, buddy!” 

Now, this next part of the story (tangent that I have gotten off on) goes out to anyone who owns stock in Home Depot. The kid told me that he doesn’t care how much the nails cost and that I should just put them in my pocket and walk out the door furthest from the registers.

So I did.

Anyway, in the weeks since building my squirrel feeder I have become very fond of the (only) black squirrel that frequents my backyard buffet. I call him “El Negro.” When I was in elementary school we briefly had a kid in our class from Sudan. Now, if this kid closed his eyes in a dark room, we would seriously forget he was there. I mean this kid was black.

El Negro is so black that he makes the Sudanese kid look like a flourescent light bulb made out of marshmallows. I mean, El Negro is ONE…BLACK…SQUIRREL. Seriously, if Omaha, Nebraska was a Mexican border town and Zorro lived amongst us, he would shit his pants if he saw this squirrel.

Getting back to the point…

El Negro is getting so tame that he peeks around the tree at eye level with me while I am changing the corn cobs on the feeder. I keep talking to him every time I am out there and I try not to make sudden and threatening moves. My goal is to be able to feed him out of my hand at the end of the summer without getting rabies.

Besides having a baby, I don’t know if I can think of a lot of things more painful than this:

My nephew totally dropped a bowling ball on his finger and broke it. But he broke it in half vertically. If you are having a hard time grasping that, think of the letter “Y.” As my mother put it, “Bones came right out of the finger and bled like a son of a gun.”  Yikes!

 He is one tough little man! Definitely didn’t learn that from his uncle!!!

Definitely my wife-to-be, Jaci! Why? Because when I came home last night she surprised me with this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah! The new mutha-effin’ Weezer album! I can’t wait to listen to it all day today and write a review of it. Also, if you are obsessed with viral videos (like myself) and have not seen the new Weezer video for the single Pork and Beans yet, you should check it out.

Hey Andy! You should embed it in your blog with your new YouTube plugin!

OK!

Get ready Nebraska! And for those of you that aren’t from Nebraska, boy do I feel sorry for you! You are missing an extraordinary event…one in which Nebraskans await nearly as anxiously as the opening season of Husker football. Yes indeed, it is wild Asparagus season! People all across the upside-down-pan-shaped state will be scouring the ditches and  railroad tracks in search of the delicacy this week. And in honor of wild Asparagus season, I would like to honor the one thing that makes Asparagus absolutely hilarious: Stinky Pee.

Did you know that your post-Asparagus stinky pee is caused by none other than a chemical called Methanethiol? But don’t be so quick to give Methanethiol such a bad rap! This cousin of sulfur actually helps cleanse your body of toxins. So give it a break!

 Wanna know some other foods that have the stinky substance in them? HO-KAY!!

1) Cheddar Cheese
2) Eggs
3) Cabbage
4) Peanuts
5) Coffee
6) Mushrooms

Don’t bother this year, because wild Asparagus is only in season for another couple of days. But, get your friends together for next year’s wild Asparagus season and don’t miss out on the stinky pee excitement!

I know that God tests us everyday of our lives in different ways. These past couple of days he has really gone over the top!!! I didn’t get sick…ALL…WINTER…LONG. That is pretty good considering I share a floor of an office building with 500 some people and this was an extremely cold and miserable Nebraska winter.

However, the day that it hits 80 degrees for the first time, my ear started to ache. And now it has multiplied exponentially and the crud has completely taken over every membrane, gland and organ in my face, throat and chest. I was sitting at work yesterday and the pins and needles took over my face. You know, when you are freezing and sweating at the same time. I felt like I had something that was a cross between the Black Plague and the Ebola Virus.

Here is what I have been doing to treat the sonuvabitch:

1) Drinking English breakfast tea.
2) Having Jaci scratch my head while I lay in her lap and moan and groan.
3) Using throat numbing spray every 10 minutes.
4) Using nasal spray like a black tar heroin addict.
5) Cleaning my ears out nightly with the baby booger sucker outer thingy.
6) Taking generic Sudafed which works about as well on my cold as tomato juice baths do when you get sprayed by a skunk (and by this I mean it does not work worth a crap).

I refuse to call in sick, though. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said “I have a dream that one day I will put a sweet down payment on a car with the money I make selling my sick days back to the company…”

The most valuable lesson I ever learned from my Father is that calling in sick is for wussies.

Well, this week the Twins swept the Royals at Kansas City. Kevin Slowey (one of my favorite pitchers) was one out away from pitching a shutout last night and delivered the Royals their 11th straight loss. In the wake of once again realizing how bad the Royals suck, I thought I would bring back a classic: