I’m tired
Wow. It’s barely 9am on a Monday morning, and I’m about ready to fall asleep at my desk. I think it MAY have something to do with the fact that we spent all day tubing down the Dan river, and then we got home just in time to turn around to go back to my hockey game. From there I crawled into bed around 12:30, only to be woken up around 1am by DQ who had inner-tube arms. The inside of her arms were all irritated by constant rubbing against the rubber combined with all the river water. It messed with her eczema so we slathered them up with Elocon cream and she went back to bed.
Then we had to get up at 7am to get ready for camp before I headed to the office. I tried to wake up earlier, I really did. But the snooze button does nothing but piss me off. I keep smacking it, and it keeps beeping 7 minutes later. What’s up with that?
Anyway, the kids are at camp, and I’m here at work, and my eyeballs seem to be set an inch and a half deeper into my head than they should be. I think it’s creating a vacuum that’s trying to pull my eyelids shut, and also creating a pair of miniature black-holes complete with the extra gravitational fields that are trying to weigh my head down onto the keyboard…
At least when I’m tired, I like to write.
Mega-T
I bought a package of Green Tea Mega-T weight lost pills. They advertise themselves as “fat burners and appetite suppressants”. They don’t work. I’m hungry.
Shaving
My razor is one of those 5 bladed Gillette Fusion “turbo” things. It works really well, yet I’ve said this before: Whoever invented the “turbo” part must have been a woman. The vibrating part does nothing for my face, but every time I turn it on I think it must be great for a woman’s bikini area. And if they take off the razor head and turn the thing around, it’ll make a nice… ah, never mind.
I digress. I noticed I woke up with a zit on the left side of my chin this morning. It’s not a good idea to shave zits with a 5 bladed Gillette Fusion “turbo” that works really well. My zit was effectively shaved off, and now I had a nice bloody spot in its place. It’s also not a good idea to put on a white dress shirt until said blood spot has stopped bleeding.
Tubing the Dan River
As I mentioned above we decided to go tubing yesterday. We got up around 7am, (funny how I don’t seem to have problems waking up around 7am when there’s fun things to do!) loaded up the cooler, packed a change of clothes and headed out the door around 8am. We piled into the car and backed halfway out of the driveway. Then we stopped and GB went back into the house because he forgot the pile of towels I asked him to bring. Then DQ went into the house because she forgot her flip-flops. Then GB went back into the house because he wanted to bring his Nintendo DS for the ride. Then DQ went back into the house because she wanted to bring her Nintendo DS because GB had his DS. Then GB went back into the house because he needed his car charger for his Nintendo DS. Then Joe scolded the kids for not planning properly and forgetting things. Then Joe went back into the house because he forgot the suntan lotion…
So we get to the Danbury General Store, which is a little shack in a little town north of Greensboro, NC. Next to the General Store is about a 30 year old passenger van that shuttled us upriver to the launch point. Next to the launch point is even a smaller shack with an old lady taking names. Off to the side of the shack is a large pile of truck inner tubes of various sizes. I grabbed a big one for me, and a small one for our cooler. Then I sat there watching the kids embark on a 10 minute debate, discussion, and trial in their attempt to find the “perfect” inner tube for the trip. After trying out about 30 tubes and making a mess of the stack of tubes, they each finally made their selection. The old lady smiled with satisfaction. Then we got to the edge of the river and the kids decided to switch tubes…
The actual trip downstream was fun and full of sights to see. Some of the sites were quite natural and beautiful, such as huge trees, cliff walls, caves, fish, bugs and snakes. Some of the sites were rather disturbing, such as submerged beer cans and tires, and large women in string bikinis. There should be some law that prevents women from wearing string bikinis if you can’t see the bottoms because their stomachs hang too low. Or they if they need to be wearing 4 or 5 tops up and down their front to cover all their rolls. Or if their bikini has more pieces than they have teeth.
We stopped for lunch at a little beach a couple of hours downstream. This must have been a common place to stop because there were tons of small fish in the water. These fish quite obviously were used hanging around people because they seemed to be eyeing us rather impatiently. DQ took notice and tossed them a piece of her sandwich bread crust, and it was on. These little fish looked like a pack of piranhas, wrestling each other for a piece of the prize. And the splashing attracted a pack of larger versions of these small fish. So the next piece of sandwich bread crust to hit the water started the little fish swarm again, only this time it got broken up by a bigger fish swarm. This continued until we were out of sandwich bread crusts. But the fish were still hanging around. DQ tried to tell them we were out of food, but they obviously don’t speak English. Anyway, after eating, the kids decided to go swimming. And that’s when we found out why they were sticking around. “They’re biting me!” DQ yelled from the water. And she wasn’t kidding. These little fish were pecking at her. DQ was amused. The fish seemed less so. Apparently they only thought they were piranha, and as such seemed frustrated that they couldn’t finish her off.
After GB and I amused ourselves with DQ’s new friends for about 30 seconds we wandered off to a small rock formation about 20 yards away. It was here we found another new friend: A pretty intimidating 3 foot long snake. This guy was hanging out near a rock about 5 feet out in the water when I first saw him. He saw me and darted under the rock. I called GB over to look but the snake hid himself under there well. We were about to give up when I guess the snake couldn’t hold his breath any longer and surfaced. We decided not to venture too long, or any closer, because I wasn’t quite sure what kind of snake it was. (I looked it up last night and it was a non-venomous Northern Water Snake.)
Anyway, we paddled most of the rest of the way down river. We did have to stop two or three times to get out and carry our tubes since we’re in such a drought here that the water level was quite low. (According to the old woman in the little shack, it was the lowest the river has ever been, due to this being the 5th straight year of drought. Not that global warming has anything to do with that, or our constant 100+ degree temperatures.)
Once we made our way to the exit point, the water got a bit deeper and there was a small park built in and around the river. There was quite a gathering of people around, taking full advantage of the beaches on both banks. And even better, there was a giant tree that overhung the river with a rope swing. All the kids would line up to take turns hanging onto the rope while jumping off a big rock, over the beach, and out into the river where they would let go and fall into the deep section of the river. Except for GB. He didn’t hold on tight enough on his first attempt and almost face planted himself into the sand after he jumped off the rock. If the batteries on my camera wouldn’t have been died I would have had a great picture…
So that was our day. Lots of sun, lots of fun, and a few pictures I’ll post later.
Labatt Blue Hockey
I had a hockey game last night. It was week two of our winter season. (Don’t laugh, yes – we’re in the winter season!) And we lost again. But at least recently we’re losing close games. We lost 3-2 for the second straight week, this time to DTS Software. I’ll repost the link to our team site once someone updates the latest stats.
Nielson TV
We’re officially on the books. The Nielson TV people showed up on Saturday to hook up all our TVs. Including the old 9” TV/VCR combo that GB has in his room that is only used for our old Atari 2600. We tried to tell them not to waste their time hooking up that TV since we don’t use it, but they said that they get in trouble if they don’t hook up everything. Then the guy got upset when he said the VCR part of the TV/VCR combo ate his test tape. He seemed even more upset when I showed no sympathy since I told him not to bother with it and he did anyway. Anyway, it’s all set up now. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but I figured it was going to be completely automated. I guess it is sorta. The only thing we have to do is use a small remote whenever we turn on a TV to let the system know WHO is watching. That part can’t be automated. And I guess it’s for that effort why they pay us to do this…
Still, like I said previously: any boost you see in Raleigh’s rating for Ice Road Truckers and The Deadliest Catch would be me. And any boost in Cartoon Network would be the kids.
Tecmo Bowl
Yes, that’s right. The old Nintendo football game is available as a download onto the Wii. And we downloaded it. Sure it’s only got 8 bit graphics. And the players are nothing but big blobs. And the teams have just 2 color uniforms each. And there are only 9 players on a side. But forget Madden, (or whatever the latest football game is on any of the newest consoles are.) this is still the most fun football game ever made.
Even GB, who loves the latest graphics and all the high-tech shooters, can’t put it down. Thankfully he doesn’t know anything about Bo Jackson, or how all powerful the Los Angeles running back was in the game. (Bo knows football!) That’s the only reason I can still beat his butt, much to his chagrin. Sometimes there are advantages to being old enough to remember when this game originally came out and all its little secrets.
Beckham
I can admit it. I’ve bought into the hype. I’ve been watching a lot of soccer now that David Beckham has come to the US and is playing for the Los Angeles Galaxy. I watched the first friendly last month when Chelsea came to visit. Beckham only played the final 15 minutes of the match because of a bum ankle but you would have thought it was the Super Bowl when he stepped onto the field.
While it’s still early, he’s actually matching the hype. He scored and had an assist last week when the Galaxy beat DC United. And then on Saturday, the Galaxy was playing Red Bull New York so DQ and I sat down to watch. I explained to her who Beckham was and who he was playing for. (Nevermind that the first thing DQ said to me was “Aren’t you supposed to be rooting for Red Bull since you grew up in New York?” I told her to “Shut up!”) Anyway, the game gets underway and within 2 minutes the Red Bull scored. “He’s not doing too well…”
But then it got good. Two minutes later the Galaxy had a corner kick and Beckham fed a kick into the 6 which Davon headed past the keeper to tie the score. “Wow” she said. “Wow” I said too, impressed that DQ recognized the nice feed. Not three minutes later the Galaxy had a free kick 25 yards out, and Beckham bent a cross into the box which once again Davon headed in to put the Galaxy up 2-1. “He’s good!” DQ said. I told her “that’s why they made a movie about him…”
(He didn’t do squat the rest of the game, and the Red Bull came back to win 5-4.)
My belt
I couldn’t find my black belt this morning. So now I’m wearing brown belt with my black shoes. It doesn’t match and I simply don’t care…
Yesterday’s Democratic Debate
I didn’t watch since we went tubing. If you want a review, go to ABC.com. I think that was the channel that was broadcasting it.
Powerball
This Wednesday’s drawing is $245 million dollars. I already bought the winning ticket, but if you guys want to go buy some tickets for yourselves, it’s more money for me. I appreciate it! I’ll think of you when I go buy my first huge house or cool car…
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