Sunday, May 27, 2012

Off

A lot of people will tell you I've always been at least a little off, but today I was way off.

My misadventure started off with a miscalculation. I was headed to a picnic at my boss' boss' house, which I had never visited before and wasn't really sure where it was. I put the location into my trusty dusty motorcycle GPS and headed off on my scooter to obtain hamburgers as assigned for the party and beer for myself.

The miscalculation came when I tried to buy beer on Sunday in my county of Tennessee. Tomorrow being a holiday I completely forgot it was Sunday so I was shocked that I was unable to purchase beer with my $27 worth of raw hamburger meat pre-shaped into patties. Strike one.

I arrived at the fancy house way up on the hill far too early after a fantastic ride along Natchez Trace Parkway which runs the length of Tennessee into northern Mississippi, a beautiful unspoiled 150-mile roadway that doesn't have a straightway on it. Even the bridges, of which there are hundreds, are curved.

Instead of being the first person at the party my social anxiety completely took over and told me to scoot around for a while. The beef was in a cooler on ice packs so it would be fine for another half hour. Plus it was an opportunity to find a beer store in a county that allows alcohol to be transferred between adults on the sabbath. I found a store and the clerk looked at me sideways when I asked if he would sell me beer today. Why wouldn't we? He even asked me for ID. I realize I look young for my age, but I am FORTY FOUR. Sheesh! Okay that was actually a good thing that happened to me today.

When I got back to my boss' boss' hilly driveway I was approaching it from the opposite side, so instead of a 50 degree angle it was a 130 degree turn, and I foolishly wanted to keep my speed up for the hill so I overshot the turn and my front tire went off the pavement onto the grass. I cursed and hit the brakes, looking over my shoulder to see if I could back up without backing into traffic. When I turned my head back around my bike was headed DOWN on the left side. I quickly considered trying to hold it up but instead decided to slowly guide it down.

Unfortunately I guided it right down onto my ankle, and I was foolishly wearing shoes that did not cover my ankle as I nearly always do. I can't remember a time I've gotten on the bike without proper footwear since I twisted my ankle on it last summer. I didn't want to wear clumsy boots at the picnic but instead of bringing a better pair of shoes to wear in my spacious trunk, I wore them.

I pulled my ankle free from the bike now laying on it's side with its wheels off the ground. This is the third time I have put the bike down and each time was an exercise in stupidity. This time, however, I didn't have help lifting it back up. I attempted to lift it on my own but the pain in my ankle was making it very difficult. I abandoned hope of lifting it myself and sat down on the capsized vehicle, exhausted. It would be embarrassing when the next party attendee came along, but at least I would have help getting my bike upright.

For what seemed like 15 minutes but was actually probably 60 seconds nobody came by. I noticed that sweat was running down my arms from the 98 degree heat, and gas was flowing from the overflow spout. Things were not looking good. I got angry and decided to give it one more try, this time managing to get the bike back onto it's wheels by myself. It cranked right up (thank you Honda) and I remember thinking as I slowly tooled up the hill that nobody would know that I was down at all! Score.

But when I got to the top of the hill I barely got the kickstand down before my vision started clouding up and I felt like I was going to pass out. I don't know if it was the heat or the adrenaline rush or what but I was crashing. I grabbed a drink from my cooler and downed half of it, then sat down in the grass. That was the moment other party guests decided to arrive, rushing to me to see if I was okay. They assumed I was hot from the ride, but I told them the whole story of the off at the bottom of the hill. Embarrassment restored!

The picnic was generally pleasant after I recovered, but I was worried about my ankle the whole time. I become a hypochondriac when I have a mild injury, constantly testing it to see how bad it is. At first there was almost no pain at all, but it got progressively worse as the day went on. It remained stationary for almost the entire one-hour ride home and when I got off the bike at my house it was throbbing. I now have it elevated and after take some Tylenol and Advil it feels like I have a cramp in the top of my foot. It is unpleasant but not horribly painful.

Ironically, if my ankle doesn't improve I will have to ride my bike to work on Tuesday. I may be the only guy who drives a manual car but an automatic bike. We shall see!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Twitters Greatest Hits

When I want to post something and cant think of anything to post, I just repeat the stuff I said on Twitter!

Duh. Kia commercial where a guy has a dream where he's driving his Kia at a Motley Crue concert. And the weird part is it's Motley Crue NOW.

We need to invent a lot of shit in the next seven years to make Blade Runner accurate.

After spending 20 minutes trying to post a new profile pic to Facebook, I have decided to delete my account entirely.

I just heard on Fox News that George Zimmerman was running for office on the same ticket as Joe the Plumber.

Does anyone watch Archer? If you don't please start. Unless easily offended. Then go fuck yourself.

Gotta love a news story that says chin implants are becoming as popular as breast implants and uses pictures of breasts as graphics. Nice.

Don't be the guy who gets the entire Secret Service in trouble by not paying a Columbian hooker $46. Just don't be that guy.

I can picture everybody in the Kansas City Royals organization watching "Moneyball" and saying "what a bunch of horseshit!"

They've replaced the toilet paper in the restroom with something more closely related to roofing shingles.

The best thing about being a libertarian is your ideas will never fail because they will never actually be implemented. :|

Friday, May 04, 2012

Dog Days

I love dogs. If there is another creature on earth that is born with a greater capacity to love, I don't know what it is. The unconditional love that comes from a dog is unparallelled.

Someone (who reads very closely) asked me if I love dogs so much, why did I wait until I was 30 to get my first dog. An excellent question. My first thought was that I didn't know what I was missing, but that's not really true. Even in my 20s I used to hang out at an animal shelter and take pictures of the dogs for the local newspaper to help them get adopted. There was a dog there I absolutely adored named Mollie. (Not to be confused with my black shar-pei named Molli.)

molli
This is Molli, not Mollie


Mollie ran the animal shelter. She was the most terrifying looking dog you've ever seen, maybe a cross between an English Bulldog and a Rottweiler. Of course she was a total sweetheart. When I would sit in the chairs in the lobby of the shelter she would come and lay her gigantic head on my thigh and look up at me with pure love. Mollie only hated two things. She hated the dog catcher, and she hated rats. I know it sounds disgusting, but this was a no-kill shelter. When they needed to expand they had an anonymous donor who gave them money to build outdoor cages out behind the shelter. So the place was really vast. And anytime you have a lot of cages with a lot of dog food around, you are going to get rodents. It's a fact of life. And I saw Mollie plow through 55 gallon trash barrels to try to catch a rat. It was the most hilariously terrifying thing I have ever seen.

Mollie was a sweetheart, but she was never leaving the shelter. That was her home. She was the queen of that castle.

Dougs Photos 026
This picture actually ran in a newspaper once upon a time

This was the woman who ran the shelter. Yes, it's strange that I can remember Mollie's name and not hers. They only destroyed dogs that were sick. They didn't even kill dogs that would bite. They would try to socialize the smaller dogs that were biters, and the big ones just lived out the rest of their lives in the cages. I think both the dogs in the picture above were recovering biters. Now all they wanted to do was lick you. Puppy dog kisses.

So I didn't answer the question, because I don't really know what kept me from getting a dog for so long. Maybe I never thought I was responsible enough for a dog before then? That implies a self-awareness that just doesn't fit. All I know is I always loved dogs, and I'm glad I have them now. 



Thursday, May 03, 2012

Ceramic Dog

Title sounds like it would be a good P-Funk song.

IMG_20120503_071905

The weird little thing in the corner of that picture is a ceramic cookie jar. While it doesn't technically belong to me, I have it and I don't particularly have a use for it as I do not bake. But I am not going to ship it because it will surely break, and I'm not taking it with me to Vegas this summer because I am bringing more important stuff and I'd feel dumb trying to take it through security.

Maybe you could send Waffles to get it?

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

I Love Italian

I could eat Italian every night and never get tired of it. When my folks visit I prefer to go with something Italian, and everyone always loves it.

This time I went with Lasagna (spelt it right thanks to my foreign language expert.) It was quite a hit!