Why does the stylist ask "What do you think?" after you get the haircut? Do you really have the option of saying, "Wow. That was just way, way too short. Can you do something about it?"
I'm taking a short entry on here because I forgot to do an Album of the Day earlier, and I don't think I've done one here for awhile. Anyway. Today's album is "Carving Desert Canyons" by Scale the Summit. They're an instrumental band I found this summer when I learned they were going to be a replacement act for a different band on the Progressive Nation '09 Tour, which I'll be seeing later in the month. Think about them like they were a jazz combo playing complicated and demanding arrangements with a lot of jumping around time signature wise, except they're playing with their guitars really loud and crunchy and the drummer doesn't need to hold back so much.
I bought this as an iTunes download earlier in the summer and according to the play count column have only listened to it twice. This is indicative of a trend that has inspired me to give up on my music shopping for the rest of August, or perhaps even until the beginning of the school year. I think I'm going to be better off spending time getting to know the music I already have a little better than I would be by adding more. ALTHOUGH! If Dream Theater is selling any of their self-produced bootleg CDS at Progressive Nation, I am allowing for a loophole that would let me buy that since it would be a rare opportunity. I'm jus' sayin'.....
Monday, August 3, 2009
A True Lazy Man
There are six more days until the end of the Lazy Man Triathalon. I must have mentioned this here at some point -- it's a summer workout program at the Y where you have to do all of the work involved in a normal triathalon (112 miles of biking, 26.2 miles of running/walking, and either 12.5 miles of rowing or 2.5 miles of swimming), but you have five weeks to get it all done. And yeah, five weeks seems like plenty of time. And yeah, it is if you really bust your rear to get done. As of today with those six days remaining, I've completed all of my walking and rowing and only have another 21.5 miles left to bike. I am confident I will finish.
But I'm not sure if I agree with the name. As a response, I have developed a separate set of criteria that could be used for a TRUE Lazy Man Triathalon.
(1) The biking would be replaced with a television marathon. I've had a few of these in my day, when I had new DVD sets I couldn't wait to watch and just burned through them one after another until I reached the point I was dreaming about the characters that night. For this marathon to be any measure of endurance though, challenge is necessary. So it can't be a show that it interesting or honestly entertaining or mentally engaging on any real level. Based on some of my closed-captioning experiences on the treadmills and bikes at the Y, I suggest that the marathoners are only given the choice between watching eight hours of either Fox News midday coverage or eight hours of "Full House." "What Not to Wear" on TLC would be an alternative.
(2) The swimming would be replaced with being up to your chin in junk food instead of water. You would have 24 hours to eat 2.5 large pizzas which had been delivered late and were already cooling off. No carbonated drinks would be allowed, because slamming down some Coke and letting go with a seismic burp could open up too much extra space in the stomach. An alternative to the pizza would be 2.5 bags of low-grade store-brand tortilla chips that taste a little stale but not stale enough to throw away just yet. There would also be either cheese dip, salsa, or guacamole to get through, and yes, you would have to use your finger to clean out the can or the jar to avoid disqualification. And no letting the dog finish it off for you.
(3) The running would be replaced, most naturally, by video games. Because you do have to make a character move around in most games, so this seems like a logical enough connection. It would have to be a mediocre and repetitive game that doesn't do a very good job of engaging the player. Buggy graphics, poor voice acting, no AI to speak of so there isn't any real challenge other than continuing to play. This stage of the triathalon would have to last a minimum of four hours, or however long it takes for the individual's body to begin permanently remolding whatever piece of furniture they've mounted for the duration. Game time would also need to be completed between the hours of 12:00 midnight and 6 A.M., because, as any true gamer knows, those are prime hours. No limit on caffeine for this stage.
There you go. You have five weeks to finish.
But I'm not sure if I agree with the name. As a response, I have developed a separate set of criteria that could be used for a TRUE Lazy Man Triathalon.
(1) The biking would be replaced with a television marathon. I've had a few of these in my day, when I had new DVD sets I couldn't wait to watch and just burned through them one after another until I reached the point I was dreaming about the characters that night. For this marathon to be any measure of endurance though, challenge is necessary. So it can't be a show that it interesting or honestly entertaining or mentally engaging on any real level. Based on some of my closed-captioning experiences on the treadmills and bikes at the Y, I suggest that the marathoners are only given the choice between watching eight hours of either Fox News midday coverage or eight hours of "Full House." "What Not to Wear" on TLC would be an alternative.
(2) The swimming would be replaced with being up to your chin in junk food instead of water. You would have 24 hours to eat 2.5 large pizzas which had been delivered late and were already cooling off. No carbonated drinks would be allowed, because slamming down some Coke and letting go with a seismic burp could open up too much extra space in the stomach. An alternative to the pizza would be 2.5 bags of low-grade store-brand tortilla chips that taste a little stale but not stale enough to throw away just yet. There would also be either cheese dip, salsa, or guacamole to get through, and yes, you would have to use your finger to clean out the can or the jar to avoid disqualification. And no letting the dog finish it off for you.
(3) The running would be replaced, most naturally, by video games. Because you do have to make a character move around in most games, so this seems like a logical enough connection. It would have to be a mediocre and repetitive game that doesn't do a very good job of engaging the player. Buggy graphics, poor voice acting, no AI to speak of so there isn't any real challenge other than continuing to play. This stage of the triathalon would have to last a minimum of four hours, or however long it takes for the individual's body to begin permanently remolding whatever piece of furniture they've mounted for the duration. Game time would also need to be completed between the hours of 12:00 midnight and 6 A.M., because, as any true gamer knows, those are prime hours. No limit on caffeine for this stage.
There you go. You have five weeks to finish.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
25 Years of Hope
The Relay for Life was last night. I had high hopes for it being a significant event, but it just wasn't. Not because of some emotional fire that went unlit or anything; we were rained out two hours after it started. Clouds were gathering during the whole opening ceremony, and by 9:00 the organizers announced that the storm contingency plan of moving everyone to the far end of the high school parking lot and into the Ice Arena was being put into effect. Given the choice between doing that and taking the chance of beating the storm home, most of our team went with option B. Kind of disappointing because the amount of rain that came made the luminary paper bag torches unusable before they were even lit, and because (for me) there were several people there for our team that I frankly don't get to see very often, and only saw for an abbreviated amount of time instead of the hours I was hoping for. So there were elements to it all that were disappointing.
But that isn't to say there weren't highlights. And most of them involved my nephews.
--Nephew #1 brought his two best friends along for the night, which is always fun. The two friends are both awesome kids, and it just makes me smile to think that Nephew #1 has these guys at his side while they navigate their high school years. Plus the three of them are entertaining to be around. One of our cousins brought her son along, another good kid a year older than my nephew. He fell in step with the other guys like they'd all grown up in the same neighborhood, which was great to see. Nobody wants to be the outsider. The group of them even got into a minor bidding war at the silent auction tent over a 25 lb. Pearson's Salted Nut Roll. And, unless I'm mistaken, because of the way so many people bugged out as the storm was coming, I think one of those four boys may have actually won all 53,800 calories of that thing.
--Nephew #2 is, in my opinion at least, the most sensitive of the three of them. He was pretty psyched for the relay, and the excitement was already cranking up pretty good back at Grandma and Grandpa's house before we all left because it was the first time the boys got to meet the new puppies. While #2 and #3 were playing with the puppies in the front yard, there was a moment when #2 just kind of bounced up to his feet and bounced up to my dad with a hug and an "I love you, Grandpa," out of nowhere. Followed with another quick bounce and an "I love you, Grandma" just to make sure she didn't think he was playing favorites. I know how much this meant to them. I love this kid just because he's the one who will do things like this without hesitation. When the relay started and he and I were walking to the track, we walked past my parents, already on the track and starting their first lap, holding hands and my mother's eyes full of tears, missing the hell out of her daughter and trying to understand how she could already be dead for five years.
"Grandma looks sad," #2 said.
"Yeah, she is," I told him. "She misses Dop."
"I do too," he said.
"Then go give Grandma a hug," I said. "She needs it right now."
I choked up while I said this because I just remembered saying the same thing five years earlier to #1 just before my sister's funeral was about to begin. So #2 takes off running to catch up like he's on a mission, and he caught up to them and gave her a hug, and she held on to him tight.
After #2 took off, Nephew #3 saw him running and asked where he was going, because those two have kind of a symbiotic monkey-see monkey-do relationship. When I told him, he took off right behind him to offer up his own hugs. Nephew #3 has been a rather spirited child for, well, his whole life, but during the past year he's been growing up a lot, and he's actually responsible for my favorite part of the whole relay event this year. I took in some early laps with #2 and #3. As we were looking for luminaries our family had made, we noticed that several of them had blown over in the wind that would be carrying in the storm later that evening. I stopped a couple of times to set them back up so the names were visible, and after seeing me do this #3 started running ahead a little whenever he saw one that needed fixing. I coached him on how to get the sand spread out on the bottom so it would be more stable, and after that he designated himself the Luminary Straightener. He probably reset at least 20 more by the time we finished the lap and met up with some people on our team. To see this little guy doing something like this, demonstrating how much he has grown past the selfishness that too often defines younger kids, just warmed my heart.
Overall the event was disappointing because I just didn't get enough time there to really feel like I had gotten in the emotion and reflection that the relay usually brings on. But it certainly had its moments.
But that isn't to say there weren't highlights. And most of them involved my nephews.
--Nephew #1 brought his two best friends along for the night, which is always fun. The two friends are both awesome kids, and it just makes me smile to think that Nephew #1 has these guys at his side while they navigate their high school years. Plus the three of them are entertaining to be around. One of our cousins brought her son along, another good kid a year older than my nephew. He fell in step with the other guys like they'd all grown up in the same neighborhood, which was great to see. Nobody wants to be the outsider. The group of them even got into a minor bidding war at the silent auction tent over a 25 lb. Pearson's Salted Nut Roll. And, unless I'm mistaken, because of the way so many people bugged out as the storm was coming, I think one of those four boys may have actually won all 53,800 calories of that thing.
--Nephew #2 is, in my opinion at least, the most sensitive of the three of them. He was pretty psyched for the relay, and the excitement was already cranking up pretty good back at Grandma and Grandpa's house before we all left because it was the first time the boys got to meet the new puppies. While #2 and #3 were playing with the puppies in the front yard, there was a moment when #2 just kind of bounced up to his feet and bounced up to my dad with a hug and an "I love you, Grandpa," out of nowhere. Followed with another quick bounce and an "I love you, Grandma" just to make sure she didn't think he was playing favorites. I know how much this meant to them. I love this kid just because he's the one who will do things like this without hesitation. When the relay started and he and I were walking to the track, we walked past my parents, already on the track and starting their first lap, holding hands and my mother's eyes full of tears, missing the hell out of her daughter and trying to understand how she could already be dead for five years.
"Grandma looks sad," #2 said.
"Yeah, she is," I told him. "She misses Dop."
"I do too," he said.
"Then go give Grandma a hug," I said. "She needs it right now."
I choked up while I said this because I just remembered saying the same thing five years earlier to #1 just before my sister's funeral was about to begin. So #2 takes off running to catch up like he's on a mission, and he caught up to them and gave her a hug, and she held on to him tight.
After #2 took off, Nephew #3 saw him running and asked where he was going, because those two have kind of a symbiotic monkey-see monkey-do relationship. When I told him, he took off right behind him to offer up his own hugs. Nephew #3 has been a rather spirited child for, well, his whole life, but during the past year he's been growing up a lot, and he's actually responsible for my favorite part of the whole relay event this year. I took in some early laps with #2 and #3. As we were looking for luminaries our family had made, we noticed that several of them had blown over in the wind that would be carrying in the storm later that evening. I stopped a couple of times to set them back up so the names were visible, and after seeing me do this #3 started running ahead a little whenever he saw one that needed fixing. I coached him on how to get the sand spread out on the bottom so it would be more stable, and after that he designated himself the Luminary Straightener. He probably reset at least 20 more by the time we finished the lap and met up with some people on our team. To see this little guy doing something like this, demonstrating how much he has grown past the selfishness that too often defines younger kids, just warmed my heart.
Overall the event was disappointing because I just didn't get enough time there to really feel like I had gotten in the emotion and reflection that the relay usually brings on. But it certainly had its moments.
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