I'm back, baby!

I’m learning that not getting sleep is a hell of a thing. I’ve been the head coach of my swim team for 3 months now, and in that time, I’ve been getting up at 4:45 am. Yes, there is a 4:45 in the morning. Not many people get to experience it, but it’s a glorious time of day. It’s still pitch black outside; you’ve never seen as beautiful a sky as the one that exists at that time in the morning. The blackness has a nice, bleak quality to it. It has the feeling of a vast, never-ending black hole. It’s a black hole that can suck anything into it – like the small amount of lucidity that exists in, say, a swim coach driving to work.

Don’t worry though; I manage to fight that beautiful black hole that begs me to follow it into a highway barrier. I blare horrible dance music in the morning (By the way, this is a trick my swimmers have taught me: dance music can destroy any level of sleepiness that exists). Listening to that kind of music at that time of the morning is like chugging a Monster after getting a massage – any amount of relaxation or feeling of ease is replaced by jittery muscles, fast twitching, and an inability to think about anything for longer than 1 second.  Play this and read these as fast as you can to get the effect:

“Am I driving straight?

“What’s the username for my computer at work?”

“How tall is Yao Ming?”

“It’s just emotions taking me over.”

“Dante Bichette, Dante Bichette, Dante Bichette.”

“Was that car next to me before?”

“Err… err… err.”

“That can’t be my wallet in my back pocket.”

“Dive straight… err… drive straight… drive straight.”

I imagine you get the drift at that point. Well, I’ve managed to make it to work every day, so I guess it’s working. Honestly, the weirdest part about going to work that early is being the first person in the school. I’m a paranoid person (read any of the other posts I’ve written), so I think about all the ways someone could kill me when I’m walking into the school. I keep waiting for an attacker to pop out from behind one of the building walls and come after me. I have my keys between my knuckles though; they’re ready every morning, so don’t try it. It’s probably hard for you to imagine, but it’s also nerve wracking for me to walk into the school when it’s pitch black. I hear weird noises every morning. I assure myself it’s the school settling and not zombies. Not the fast zombies from 28 Days Later at least. Only slow zombies would be inside the school at that time in the morning. The fast ones would never be awake.

Where was I?

Oh, so I had baked chicken from Kroger’s for lunch today. I think it was fried though. Way too greasy to be baked.

[All typos and errors can be blamed on sleep deprivation]

Lone Star Jam!

I have run into a couple of celebrities in my lifetime. Actually for the longest time, they were all athletes of some sort – I live in Houston for God’s sake! It’s not like I’m going to run into George Clooney at El Gallo or Warwick Davis at The Galleria. For example, while I was at the University of Texas, I ran into Major Applewhite at a college party once. People were almost lined up to meet him and shake his hand. When it came to me, he shook my hand and introduced me to his girlfriend. I thought that was weird (In case you don’t know, he was the quarterback for the UT football team at that time. He was kind of a big deal then). I don’t know why I was introduced to his girlfriend. Maybe he was trying to get rid of her and by introducing her to every guy, the odds of her leaving with someone else were greater. Probably not though.

I saw Regis Philbin in an airport when I was coming back from Las Vegas once. He looked SUPER old, like he was wearing a rubber mask – kind of like an older Muammar Gaddafi. I saw Shawn Kemp (ex-Seattle Sonics star) at a restaurant once. He had hoard of children with him. I saw Flo Rida in Vegas the last time I was there. That’s it. I just saw him walk by me.

Ultimately, I have no real interest in ever meeting any celebrities. I kind of don’t get why it’s cool to meet them. In fact, it would pain me to stroke their egos! And, why would they give two shits about meeting other non-celebrities? I know I wouldn’t if I were a celebrity. “Sweet, some chick from Salem, Ohio, thinks I’m awesome.” People who suck up to celebrities are sad, hopeless people.

This all brings me to my main point. I went to the Lone Star Jam, a festival that showcases several small, Texas country bands, in Austin last weekend. One of my favorite bands right now, Turnpike Troubadours, played at 1:30 or so and put on a fantastic show. They only have one album so there was no worry of them playing songs I don’t know. If you haven’t figured this out already, they are not a hugely popular band, but they were just great live.

 This isn't from the concert but it's a pretty sweet song.

Well, after they finished playing and the crowd had dispersed, my wife and I happened to walk by the stage on the way to the port-o-potties. As I’m sure you could predict with all of my simple foreshadowing, we ran into the band. We talked to the bassist and the lead guitarist until I basically excused us. They were nice, normal people who seemed happy that anyone cared about their music. I was giddy as a school girl, and I ended up getting a picture of them and my wife.

Later, we walked by their merchandise stand and we saw the lead singer. I patiently waited my turn (still giddy like a school girl) and got a picture with him. After the initial euphoria wore off, I felt like a complete idiot. My whole life I had decried the idea of jocking a celebrity and there I was jocking a celebrity. I might of well have asked him to sign my breasts.

Oh well, I guess I am just a sad and hopeless person now.

Maybe he’ll remember me and spot me in the crowd the next time I go to one of their concerts.

Yeah, sad and hopeless stalker sounds much better to me.

Just kidding. :)

Homemade Taco Bell!

My wife and I make quasi-Tex-Mex food every once and a while; though I’d greatly prefer to go to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, my wife prefers for me to make it. These types of restaurants are on every street corner in Texas, and I’ve never eaten at a bad one. Some might have stronger margaritas, some might have fancier décor, and some might have better murals of mariachis. Really, the main difference between one Tex-Mex place and another is the quality of their chips and salsa. The food overall could be slightly better at one restaurant than another, but if they don’t have the right kind of salsa then sucks to them!

Back to my point, for some stupid reason, when I cook at home, my goal is to make my tacos and burritos taste as much like Taco Bell as possible. When I buy the ingredients at the store, I buy the Taco Bell taco sauce and Taco Bell seasoning packages. When I mix the ingredients, I’m extraordinarily careful as to how much I add to the mix. I taste the refried beans constantly to make sure they are the right consistency and flavor. “Hmmm… Taco Bell’s are creamier. It needs a dash more sauce.” It never occurred to me until today that this is probably the most pathetic/asinine/misguided/uncreative/lazy culinary effort in the world. I’m trying to make homemade food taste like freakin’ Taco Bell. Do I have a problem? I know my palette lacks refinery but is it really this bad? Why don’t I just eat things I find on the ground like my dogs? They’ll eat floor cheese to a dead cockroach. Am I the human equivalent to this?

 Maybe I need loftier home, Tex-Mex cooking goals, so I’m looking at you Taco Cabana. When are you going to put out some products I can buy at the grocery store? I’d like to imitate your slightly higher class Tex-Mex fast food taste. I think it will help my self-esteem.

Senator Stinky for 2011

I got home from a swim meet last night around 9:00, which is late for me because I usually go to sleep around 10:00. After 30 minutes or so of watching TV and hanging out with my wife, I started getting ready for bed. I found my jeans (Friday is jeans day!) in the dirty hamper and guess what? They were dirty. The question presented itself: were they stinky enough where I couldn’t stand to wear them? I wore some super smelly jeans with melted-turned-dried whip cream all over them the other day and withstood it – barely. In the end, stinky-ness beat laziness 51% to 49%. It was a close race and laziness put up a good fight, but good old Stinky just has more of an in-your-face campaign. 

I put them in the washer and went on to the worst five minutes of my day, every day – getting ready for bed. I hate it, so I brush my teeth as fast as I can, nearly poke my eyes getting my contacts out because I’m doing it so fast, and go into a full body flex, nearly straining every muscle in my body, to urinate with max power and pressure. 

After I finished those chores, I checked on my jeans – still washing. Oh yeah, it only takes 5 minutes for me to get ready for bed. Not wanting to get too comfortable, I sat up in bed and watched TV with my wife for a minute. That’s not an expression, a minute; I got up after one minute to check on the progress. That didn’t help but moving the washer knob over a little bit did! Do I really need 5 minutes of rinse? This exact process continued every minute until the knob was pointed to the end of the cycle. Success! I washed my pants in 12 minutes. I pulled them out and gave them a once over to see if there were any remaining suds. Diagnosis: negative. Into the dryer, they went. I could just grab them in the morning and be on my way.

I went to bed and got into a nice, deep sleep. <Chink> Heart rate increasing. Is someone trying to break in? <Chink> Sweat forming. Is it a serial killer trying to get in? <Chink> Anus apucker. I need to wake up Wife. She’ll protect me. <Chink> Adrenaline induced lucidity. Oh, I bet that’s the sound of the metal button on my jeans hitting the inside of the dryer as they tumble around. I got up to check and I was right. I got back in bed and closed my eyes, and all I could hear was the same noise. It would stop for 4 seconds or so then start up again, which I couldn’t take. I pulled the jeans out and hung them up. They’ll be dry in the morning I thought.

Well, I wore pants with a sopping wet, pelvis area all day. Wet enough where my underwear was wet too. I was nervous all day that someone would sit in a chair after me and feel the moisture of the watery butt print I left behind. 

I’m not sure what’s worse, but if having a cold, prune-y midsection isn’t worse than being stinky, it’s a close second. 

Feelin' Stupid Part 6

During swim practice the other day, one of my athletes (Dan) asked to get out to go to Chinese Club (he’s Chinese). You’d be surprised but junior varsity kids sometimes come up with excuses to get out of practice. Crazy, huh? Who wouldn’t want to swim 5000 yards in a couple of hours? 

Because sometimes they are less than honest, I ask for some proof that they went; usually, the teacher they are going to emails me. When practice finished, I went in my office and checked my email. I wasn’t actually looking for Dan's teacher's email but I did notice there wasn’t one. I've never had any problems with him before, so I figured he went. If I were the Chinese Club sponsor, I would totally put off emailing the swim coach. “I’m busier than him damn it!” I'd angrily yell with my fist in the air if I were her.

When I was walking through the building and out to my car, I saw three boys of Asian descent walking out of a classroom. I called out to them (I was far enough behind them that I had to raise my voice). I loudly but nicely said, “Did you boys just get out of the Chinese Club?” Now, I’m from Texas and have a mild, at best, southern accent. “You boys” and “CHIIIII-nese” – I just can’t help it! They all turned at the same time, and the one on the left said, “I’m Korean and they’re Vietnamese.” 

I’m not racist, and I don’t even need to bother defending myself. On the other hand and more importantly, I really, REALLY didn’t want them to feel that way. All of the ration and reason of the situation began swirling around my head, and before I could defend myself, he said, “Yeah, we were there but it is called Asian Club.”

Thanks, Dan. 

Thanks.

Feelin' Stupid Part 5

I listen to all sorts of music. It basically depends on what I’m doing that determines which type. For the most part, I listen to indie-type stuff on a day to day basis. By the way, this isn’t going to be a stupid post about music like before (admittedly, my worst post… ever). When I go to the gym, I listen to mostly electronic, pop, and rap. I was getting warmed up on the elliptical machine and was listening to Runaway by Kanye West. Here it is in case you don’t know:

Near the beginning of the song, he says, “See, I could have me a good girl and still be addicted to them hood rats.” Hood rat is a common term in rap songs, and as a fan of Dave Chappelle, I’m familiar with the term. It never crossed my mind what hood rat means. I always kind of took it literally. In my head, I always imagined a less than savory, ratish type of woman sitting on the hood of a car, like this:

When I was working out today and listening to this song, it crossed my mind that it means ‘hood rat (a la Boyz in the ‘Hood) – ‘hood like a neighborhood. Either this is just a sign that as a white man I’ll always be slow with this kind of stuff or I’m just getting old and slang comes harder to me. Regardless, hood rat or ‘hood rat, I knew it was something insulting, and that’s what’s important, right?

By the way, get off my lawn you damn kids!

Feelin’ Stupid Part IV

If you’ve read my blog before, you know that I am quite the fast food connoisseur. Being as experienced as I am, I have noticed quite an annoying trend at these establishments over the years. There is no standard size variation. There is no longer just a small, medium, and large. Some places have extra large now, while some use their special name to indicate the size (i.e. Whatasize or a Biggie Drink). This is annoying because I have to look at the menu to figure out what size I want. I can’t just say large because that might not be the largest. I just point like an infant who can’t read and indicate the one I want. The problem isn’t feeling like the name of the size is arbitrary like Paul Rudd’s character rants about in Role Models; the problem is the extra hidden size (or medium is the smallest or large isn’t the largest). It’s frustrating and I hope Bill Wendy’s, Juan T. Bell, and Dick Whataburger are reading this!

So here’s what makes me feel stupid. When I get my drink, I have trouble figuring out the accurate sized lid to put on my drink. I always stand there carefully trying to figure out which one matches the top of my container. I feel like Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade trying to pick Jesus’ cup, hoping I won’t wither and die in a matter of seconds for choosing incorrectly. I really think hard before I select. Don’t blow it. Don’t blow it. Don’t blow it. Bam, blew it! This ALWAYS happens. I get a lid, see that it doesn’t fit, and throw it away. Who wants a lid with someone else’s Coke residue already on it?

This reminds me of the toys that involve putting a peg through a hole. I guess I was the kid who put the square peg in the round hole.

Feelin’ Stupid Part III

I drive a school bus. Well, actually, I coach swimming and we’re told to learn to drive a bus because it saves money. So I coach and driving the school bus is a byproduct of that. Truth be told, it’s actually much more convenient having me drive us around instead of another person. Anyways, getting my Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) was an overall horrifying experience. I think most people would agree that going to the DPS is one of the worst things in life. You are forced to wallow with the troglodytes, to bump elbows with the unwashed masses. That might sound harsh but it’s true. For example, in Texas, sex offenders have blue IDs that are different from everyone else’s. I’ve seen two different people with them at the DPS. I have sat in a room where I know I am with SEX OFFENDERS.

Well, here’s the feelin’ stupid part. To get a CDL, people are required to take 6 tests. I think I’m a pretty smart guy, so I didn’t study at all; I very arrogantly thought, I’m smarter than a bus driver. I learned quickly that I am not smarter than a bus driver. In fact, I am much dumber – probably. I walked into the DPS for the first time and was relegated to the unwritten rule that the DPS will takes no less than 3 hours. I specifically remember doodling all over (never reading) the bus driver study packed the entire time as I inched forward to show these people a thing or two about test taking. When I finally got to the front, they showed me to this little room with computers where I would be taking these tests. They explained that I could only take three tests a day (by the way, what the hell kind of torture is that? We are making you come here twice! Mwa.. mwa.. mwahahahahahah!) I can’t remember the exact amount of questions per test, but I do know that if you miss a certain amount it would fail you before you even finished. Oh how I know that.

The first test: failed. Second test: failed. Third test: failed. They are apparently hard tests. Like, I needed to know the inner workings of the brake system. For some reason, the state doesn’t want unqualified idiots driving their children around. Huh. Eventually, the evil DPS lady (because she makes the rules I’m sure) waddled in and told me to come back tomorrow. The weight of this hit me. I would have to come back no less than two times. I remember feeling like I was going to cry. I’ve never felt like that as an adult. I would have to walk out of this building whimpering and teary eyed in front of these... people. If the sex offenders saw me crying, they'd take that as a weakness and pounce. I had to be strong. I walked through the parking lot in a daze with the thought of punching holes in every car window in the parking lot. Luckily, I didn’t do that, but I did feel a lot of self-pity; I think I got ice cream instead.

Ultimately, I had to go back two more times, and I passed the tests. The day that I finished all of the work for this (it also required about 20 hours of driving and 20 hours of class work) I remember feeling like it was one of the best days of my life. 1. Getting married. 2. Buying a house. 3. Passing the bus driving test. 4. Graduating college.

Feelin' Stupid Part II

Do you ever experience small, kind of dumb things that if someone else noticed what you did you’d feel really silly? Here are two examples from my daily life:

1. When I’m driving in my car in the morning to work, I usually listen to loud music. I go to work before 6:00 am most days, so I need that extra boost to wake me up. It’s usually something hard, dancy, or really stupid (i.e. Pantera, Daft Punk, or Backstreet Boys, respectively). I’m getting old so I, of course, get to the point where I have to turn it down. Without fault, I turn the air conditioner knob down. The sensations slowly filter through my skull and I notice how my ears are still hurting and I’m getting hot. Even by myself, I just let it be as if I did it on purpose.

2. My key ring is quite full. Along with all of my house keys and car clicker key, I have keys to several rooms and offices at my school. I almost always have my keys in my hand because I’m always moving around from room to room at work. I would say at least half the time I click my car clicker for room entrance. It doesn’t work I guess.

P.S. If you read my blog, become a follower! I'd just love it. More importantly, I'd love you.

Feelin' Stupid Part I

Obviously, no one likes feeling stupid; well, maybe clowns do. I’m sure they don’t feel stupid as much as are acting stupid. Maybe they feel stupid for acting stupid, like a what-have-I-done-with-my-life stupid feeling. That’s not the point though. I have this reoccurring problem when I purchase things using my debit/credit card.

First off, I’m referring to the self-swipe debit card pads at grocery stores and gas stations. I always assume that the part that reads the magnetic strip is on the big side of the pad, which it is sometimes. Doesn’t it just seem like common sense that the part of the pad with more – stuff – would read the card? Here are the two examples of card swipers in case you don’t get what I’m writing about:

My problem is that I never guess right. I’m always wrong, but being wrong isn’t that big of a deal. The big deal for me is trying to understand the example picture of the credit card. I can never tell which way it’s facing or which way it wants me to orient my card. Combine that problem with the normal problem of the strip just not scanning properly, and it’s just a mess of stupidity. The cherry on top is the high school kid who, frustrated by my perceived ignorance, asks for the card so he can do it for this old timer. I refuse to allow them to work it for me; quietly and annoyed, I laugh into my chest and keep trying. After failing again, I dejectedly give up and hand over my card. The rest of my day involves looking into the mirror with self-doubt wondering if I can tie my shoes or turn on the lights. If I can’t scan a card, what other things can’t I do? It takes a couple of days of teasing my dogs by hiding treats and sneaking up on them (I’m smarter than them!) but I get my self-esteem back.