I got another phonebook dropped of at my doorstep. I wonder how many trees are cut down to make the paper that is used to compile all the phonebooks printed in the United States in a calendar year?
I cannot think of the last time I've used the phonebook. I just simply go to one of the many online searches and find what I'm looking for. I'm kinda partial to http://www.smartpages.com but I'm sure there are others.
Is the phone book obsolete?
There was a very loud knock on the door which got Belle and Coco barking because an unfamiliar noise can not be heard unbarked.
So I walk to the door and peek through the window beside the door to see who it is. We have solar screens installed which allows me to see out but the people cannot see in (as long as it is brighter on their side than mine so one must be careful about walking nude with the lights on at night if you don't shut the blinds). What I saw was two middle-aged women and a girl that looked about 5-6 years old. I originally wasn't going to answer because I didn't recognize them, but I thought that it might be Nancy's new visiting teachers. Despite the fact that we haven't attended an LDS church in 2 years they still come by to visit her. I know how difficult it must be to come to a house where your message must be not so willingly received so I answered the door.
As soon as I answered the door I heard, "I'd like to give you a message...blah, blah, blah) and I caught in small print on a glossy stack of flier in the lady's hand JW and Jehovah. Great. The Jehovah's Witnesses.
My last encounter with a JW standing in my doorway involved a heated discussion that mainly involved my trying to get them to leave and they wouldn't go. This time, all I had to do was listen to their invitation to some conference they were holding, accept their flyer and wave as they walk away. They did try to use the current situation between Israel and Lebanon as a selling point to convince me the Second Coming is near.
At least this time I knew better to keep my mouth shut. If I had said something like, "If I couldn't accept the LDS what makes you think I'll like your church?" I'm sure I would've never gotten rid of them.
Well, I didn't get much sleep last night. I just couldn't seem to get my mind to relax. Then once I did manage to close my eyes for a bit I kept getting haunted by the same dream.
I was apparently in college. What college I do not know. I was still living in my childhood bedroom in Durham, NC. A room I haven't stepped foot in since 1986. A room that technically no longer exists since that house burned down a couple years after we sold it. Apparently, the owner cleaned out the fireplace and some of the ashes were still hot and they stored those said hot ashes in the garage and it caught the house on fire.
But I digress.
The weird thing is that Wally is in my dream in the role that he holds in real life....my best friend. The haunting nature of this dream is that we have final exams starting the next day and apparently, I have neither studied for them nor even taken the effort to attend classes all semester. Well, you see, in real life Wally hates college just as much as I do. But in my dream, he was not only prepared, but on top of everything. I kept calling him to try and find out what classes had exams the next day but he wouldn't tell me.
Needless to say, my alarm went off this morning right when I was getting to college and walking into the exam hall (which I must say looked awefully similiar to the one I went to at my high school I attended in Singapore). I was walking in and not knowing what test I was taking.
I wonder what I feel unprepared for. I'm obviously under great duress about something, I just don't know what
I must thank my friend Wally (not his real name). He has gotten me back into the gym. It's the perfect partnership. Both of us want to work out, but we can always manage to come up with some reason to not go. So we help each other get our butts over there.
The little gym I was a member of got bought out by a chain called L.A. Fitness. They finished building their new facility in June and I must say color me impressed. I have been a member of alot of gyms and gone to quite a few 24 Hour Fitness locations and I haven't seen a gym yet that compares to this one for variety of machines, free-weights and abundance of cardio machines (treadmills, eliptical trainers, stair steppers, recumbant bikes, etc).
I have been a fair-weather friend of the gym for about 4 years now and haven't really been at all since I had my ulnar nerve transposition surgery in April 2005. So I decided to go extremely light in order to prevent the dreaded lactic acid buildup and resultant pain. Unfortunately, I wasn't too successful in that endeavor.
I was fine until we worked our biceps and triceps. Since my surgery was on my elbow and involved the disconnection of my bicep and reattachment after the nerve we moved beneath it, I expected that biceps would be difficult. I also was more cautious to exercise with good form. I guess I did too good of a job, because my biceps hurt!
Needless to say, I am excited to be back in the gym. Like my wife keeps telling me, you cannot complain about things you don't like if you aren't willing to do anything to try and change it. Well, I've been complaining about my ever-expanding waistline and how much I miss my much leaner frame of a few years ago. Now I hope I can rebuild the habit.
For those of us who live in the United States or are expatriated US Citizens, yesterday was Independence Day, informally known as the Fourth of July because, well, it falls on the 4th day of July.
I was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling last night and into the early morning thinking about this blog post. Why couldn't I sleep? Glad you asked. It was due to the pyrotechnic experts known as my neighbors. Where I live in Houston it is legal to buy and shoot off fireworks. People spend hundreds of dollars on various types of explosive devices that seem to operate as efficiently and accurately as a Korean missile launch.
I don't know what's wrong with me because I love the fireworks at Disney World but I guess it may have had to do with the really organized nature of it and the fact that I can avoid the hassle of it if I avoided the prime viewing locations within the park.
But outside the Wonderful World of Disney, people are very Machiavellian when it comes to their fireworks enjoyment. There were long lines of cars just pulled over on the highway making it impossible for a car to pull off the highway in the case of an emergency. Why? Because they wanted a prime viewing location for the downtown fireworks celebration, yet didn't want to park and walk somewhere and they wanted the convenient location to the highway for when the fireworks show was over.
When it comes to those who create their own fireworks extravaganza, they don't seem to care if those around them could care less about an explosive light show. I even would bet they don't consider Independence Day as anything more than a day to drink beer, fire up the BBQ and enjoy burgers by the pool, topped off with lighting explosive devices.
I wouldn't be as irritated if the festivities concluded at a decent hour, but they shoot them off until 1-2AM and it isn't just that one night. This will be a night event for the rest of the week.
Then, when you complain, you are basically told that your opinion doesn't matter because it's the freakin 4th of July and it's their right to shoot them off.
I don't know when I started to hate fireworks. I cannot pinpoint a date where I went from ooh and ah to "shut the hell up". It must've been about the same time I started to hate snow. That point and time when you realize the fun doesn't outweigh the inconvenience.
I often wonder what veterans of our wars think of such amateur shows. As I was laying there it sounded like an air strike was going off over my head. Has their ever been a vet you was awoken by the sound of the revelry and hit the floor and went reaching for their rifle.
I'll be jumping for joy when they finally outlaw fireworks
I saw the craziest thing today. My wife and I were sitting on the couch discussing topics for her nursing exam on Monday and she turns to me and says, "Ray, look...Coco's asleep." Coco is one of our two Chihuahuas (otherwise known as the fur-kids). I told her that she couldn't be asleep because her eyes were wide open.
She insisted she was asleep because her body was twitching like she does when she's asleep. I got down and put my face in front of hers and she didn't move. I knew at this point she had to be asleep because Coco hates to have someone look her in the eyes and will turn her head away if you put your face into hers.
That's when I saw the cool yet wierdness. Her eyes were twitching like crazy. First they rapidly moved left and right. Then they'd roll back or roll to the side. The whole time her eyes were going crazy her body was twitching like she was wanting to run somewhere.
I guess what I was seeing was REM not the band, but Rapid Eye Movement. I just never knew anyone besides Beetle Bailey had figured out how to sleep with their eyes open
