HappyStinkingJoy – Page 10 – Complaining about life in general…

My Stinking Dream Vacation… Part 1

Have you ever dreamed of the perfect vacation? Have you thought about it for years and years, and then made the decision that you were going to make it happen? Well, the wife and I did just that: we planned for, saved for, and made happen our dream vacation. We went on a cruise to the Bahamas.

Yippee-ki-yeah!

First off, I have to give a big shout-out to the wife. She is the one who squirreled away money (tax refunds, Christmas bonuses, a little extra cash-flow every month, etc) to make our dream become a reality. I want it to be known that the time I had with my wife and two sons was much more enjoyable than I am about to make it appear. In fact, given the opportunity, I would remain with my wife and sons on that stinking cruise ship with the stupid frat boys until the day I die (if given the choice), and I would be one of the happiest dudes alive… until I died on the cruise ship, and then I would be one of the happiest dudes… uh… dead, I guess.

The wife and I planned on going on a cruise for our 15th anniversary. It was going to be a really special treat, and we had been looking forward to it for years. The problems that led to us not being able to make that happen were like the perfect storm of CRAP that transpired in the few years leading up to the 15th year of our ultimate declaration of love. We had started a little business together, built it up to a level of creating a decent profit, and had recently sold that business to a clueless chick who ended up declaring bankruptcy and screwing us out of a lot of money. At that point, we should have declared bankruptcy ourselves, but decided to take the higher road and repay all of the debt we owed. Some “sage” at some point in time made me believe that repaying your debts will benefit you in the long run. Yeah… I’m still waiting to reap the benefits of that stupid little piece of advice. Shortly after being screwed in the candy business, the economy took a major tank; and shortly after that, reductions in pay (as opposed to raises) were the trend of the day. Some of the employers had the balls to call it what it was (a reduction in pay), while others called it a “pay restructuring” or a “new compensation plan” and made you read Who Moved My Cheese.

Needless to say, the 15th anniversary cruise was suddenly a pipe-dream.

Shortly before the 15th anniversary, we had started to save for the dream. When we realized that it wasn’t going to happen at the 15-year mark, we decided to prolong it a couple of years and make it a full-family-free-for-all. In other words, we were going to take our sons. Much less romantic, absolutely NO hanky-panky, more full of farts and body odor, and multitudes of inappropriate comments at the absolutely most inappropriate times.

Chubbies — Mommy, is that big lady in the bathing suit pregnant, or is she just fat?

Sounded like a relatively fair trade to me. Don’t get me wrong… I likes me that there hanky-panky… but I likes me thems there farts too…

… theys makes me giggle… and giggling is good for the soul 🙂

So, we have it all planned to go on a cruise to the Bahamas. We decide on Royal Caribbean, and we were ready to set sail on the Majesty of the Sea.

Sounds pretty cool, right? Sure does. Of course, we have to get on the ship in Miami, and we live hundreds and hundreds of miles from Miami. So, we have to fly.

I hate flying!

I hate the fear of having no control of anything while soaring at 30,000 feet above the earth (or, as I like to think of it, about a 40 second nightmarish fall to a certain, messy, instant death). My palms get clammy and my stomach doesn’t feel too swell just thinking about it. I also hate getting to the point of being able to get on the stinking plane, You know, the whole TSA nightmare.

“But they are just keeping us safe!” says the nincompoop who likes the TSA.

“Flying is a privilege, not a right,” says the government advocate.

I’m gonna call BS on both of those statements. They are not keeping us safe by patting down small children and old ladies. They are not keeping us safe by subjecting us to radiation. They are not keeping us safe by making me put all of the liquids I need in 3 oz bottles and limiting them to a 1 quart bag. This is all retarded. This is all “shock and awe” in an attempt to make us think that they are really keeping us safe… and, in the meantime, they are stepping all over our civil liberties. But it’s all in the name of “stopping terrorism,” so the vast majority of us just let it slide. And when there are armed National Guard in front of Walmart making sure we aren’t trying to bomb super centers, that will be all right too. And when they start reading our mail and listening in on our phone conversations in the name of national security, we’ll be fine with that as well. And when the civil unrest finally starts, those involved in the unrest will be hauled off to “camps” to protect the rest of the population from the “extremists.”

Rant much? Why yes, thank you, I do. Anywho, I hate the TSA. They are just people doing a job, right? Yeah, so are the buttmunchs who send you unsolicited spam, and the jerkwads who call you at 7:30 on a Saturday morning trying to get you to buy their auto insurance. Personally, I’d rather flip burgers at McDonald’s than help implement the military state and invade citizens’ civil liberties… but hey, that’s just me.

So, we get to the airport in Denver, check our bags, take off half of our clothes, get radiated, and make it through security. We get on the plane, and we fly to Miami. Well, we fly to over Miami, and then we circle over Miami for like an hour because of some storms. Then we fly to Ft. Lauderdale because we’re low on fuel. Then we sit in the plane on the tarmac for like an hour getting refueled and waiting for the okay to fly back to Miami. Then we fly back to Miami and land. My least favorite parts of flying, other than the turbulence and the extreme heights and the small seats in “business class” and the fat-assed flight attendants who bump my shoulder every time they walk down the narrow aisle (I thought flight attendants had to be petite… now they’re all fat or dudes and most definitely like banging into passengers) and the narrow aisles and the small restrooms and the long lines to the small restrooms and trying to pee in turbulence… the parts I hate the most are taking off and landing. Taking off and landing are where most accidents occur. Well, on the trip to Miami, what was supposed to be a 4-hour non-stop flight from DIA to MIA turned into an almost 7-hour ordeal with two take-offs and two landings. We really got some bang for our buck on that stupid flight. So, instead of having an afternoon to check out Miami, we went straight to the hotel, grabbed some supper, and got ready for bed.

The next morning, after feasting on the hotel’s all you can eat breakfast buffet (just the beginning of us gorging ourselves), we take a cab out to the port. Going through the boarding process is quite a bit less intimidating than the airport security, but still kind of sucks. Finally, we get on the boat and are ready to really start enjoying our vacation… when I notice them.

Dudes… young dudes… rich-looking young dudes… everywhere. Preppy guys looking like their ready to get their drink on. What the…?!? And they all have Greek letters on their shirts. Frat boys… seriously… everywhere! Most of them appear to be ΣAE (Sigma Alpha Epsilon), although there are some something-with-a-Deltas there, and a something-Kappa-something or two as well. EVERYWHERE!!! It’s nothing personal against young gentlemen in fraternities, God love ’em. I just have a very strong aversion to guys who are almost guaranteed success because they have rich daddies and like looking down on those not in their group. I had to deal with frat boys when I went to college, and I didn’t much care for them then… and now, almost 20 years later, my dream vacation is in jeopardy of being tainted by an extremely large ship FULL of them…

… and not a sorority girl in sight 🙁 It was shaping up to be a long week.

… to be continued

My Encounter with a Sales Genius

In addition to doing tech-support stuff for the Internet provider I work for, I also, from time to time, handle some marketing responsibilities. As annoying as advertising sales people can be, they are usually more fun to deal with than people whose Internet isn’t working. The following conversation did occur, it’s just that the words that came out of my mouth were completely different than what I have written below. I don’t like cold-calling any more than the next guy (in fact, I probably hate it way more than the next guy), but a little bit of pre-qualification can go a long way…

at work, telephone ringing, it is from another extension in the office:

Me: This is Rich.

Coworker: Yeah, I have Ernie from St. Larry’s of the Divine Catholic Church on the phone, and he is asking for you specifically.

Me: Okay, send him through.

really lame hold music, then a click as someone comes on the line

Me: This is Rich, how can I help you?

Ernie: Hi, Rich! This is Ernie from St. Larry’s of the Divine Catholic Church.

Me: Hi, Ernie.

Ernie: We are in the process of redesigning our church bulletins, and are securing space for our advertisers.

Me: ……

Ernie: I notice that, in the past, you have advertised in our bulletin.

Me: ……

Ernie: And I was wondering if you would be interested in advertising with us again.

Me: Well, Ernie, we tried advertising in several local Catholic church bulletins a couple of years ago and were disappointed with the results. We really didn’t receive any inquiries for our service that we could tie directly to the bulletin advertising.

Ernie: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that! Do you mind me asking exactly what kind of business you have there?

Me: ……?!?

Ernie: You know, what kind of stuff do you guys do?

Me: Well, Ernie, we host fetish websites.

Ernie: …… Excuse me?

Me: You know, bondage, foot fetish, golden showers, domination and the like. We specialize mostly in bestiality sites, though.

Ernie: Pornography?

Me: Yeah, sounds kind of nasty the way you say it, but we really try to keep it clean, you know. No sex with dead animals or anything sick like that.

Ernie: ……

Me: We have our morals and whatnot, you know?

Ernie: Well, I think that maybe this isn’t a good fit.

Me: Yeah, I kind of might have to agree with you, Ernie. But you know what’s really not a good fit? We host this one site called “Elephant Amour” and they have this video of this little tiny Ethiopian gal and a bull African elephant, and they take that elephant’s…

Ernie: Well, now… uh… I have some other calls to make. Sorry to have wasted your time.

click

Me: Yeah, I’m sorry you wasted my time too, Ernie.

Why I Don’t Go to the Dentist…

I haven’t been to a dentist since I was 18-years-old. I’m now 41-years-old. For those of you bad at math, I haven’t been to a dentist in 23 years. The last time I went was at the urging of my parents before I went off to college. I was still on my parents insurance and they paid for the whole shebang. I remember it being painful, full of screeching drills and the smell of smoking teeth. I remember shots (notice the plural) in my mouth that didn’t seem to numb everything the way they were supposed to. I remember thinking to myself that the dentist was a skinny little preppy dude, and my 18-year-old body, fresh out of four years of high school football, could kick this jerk’s ass. I’m pretty sure that dentist was about one drill insertion away from having a little dental work done himself… at no charge. That was then.

This is now. I no longer fear the pain. The thought of having some dude sticking his hairy fingers in my mouth is unsettling, but it doesn’t prevent me from having my oral orifice examined. I don’t go to the dentist for the same reason that I don’t see a psychiatrist (of which I am plenty in need of seeing), I don’t go to a chiropractor, I forgo the use of an attorney, and I seldom set foot in a doctor’s office; I hate senators and school superintendents and city managers and CEOs and Hollywood actors and rock stars and successful entrepreneurs.

I have a severe case of class envy.

I hate people who are successful and make a lot of money. I don’t hate them for what they have… I hate them for making me realize what I do not have. I don’t hate them for their outgoing personalities and successful traits… I hate them for making me realize how low my self-esteem is and how my traits all suck. I don’t hate their money… I just do everything I can to not add to their wealth by sacrificing any of my lower-middle-class income to them. That’s one of the main reasons I hate paying taxes… because I know part of what I pay goes into those $150,000 salaries of those morons in Washington who can’t pull their heads out of their asses for long enough to do what’s right for the country.

I remember when I first moved to Scottsbluff, NE. I was in my early 20s and pretty fresh out of college. I was an assistant manager at Sherwin-Williams… you know… the paint store. That’s right… first job out of college was in retail management. Explains a lot about why I think life sucks, huh? I remember my college professors all warning about jobs in retail. “Once you go into retail, it’s very hard to get out… or to do any better.” I was hesitant to go into retail, but after sending out hundreds of resumes with only a handful of resulting interviews and only one actual job offer, I didn’t feel I had much choice. I took what was offered. So, I end up in Scottsbluff, NE making a salary of like $17,000/year working 45 to 55 hours per week. I knew this wasn’t a lot of money, but I could afford a crappy, mildew covered, bug infested little basement apartment, and I could pay my bills and put food on the table. Not good food, mind you, but food. I was also able to keep up on the repayment of the thousands of dollars in student loans I had accumulated. College… funny huh? You spend thousands of dollars on an education that never really seems to pay for itself. Where’s the ROI on a stupid business degree? I guess if you’re a doctor or lawyer, you must finally realize some return on that investment, huh? Anyways, even though I was making pretty crappy money for a college graduate, I was still pretty naive and felt that life might still work out and that hard work would provide it’s benefits in the future. In other words, I was still stupid

I can remember when my attitude started to change… when I experienced my “awakening”. I was driving in downtown Scottsbluff (it’s about five blocks long, so it was a short drive), when I was passed by a car. This was not just any car, this was a fancy little BMW sportster. You know, a silver little two-seater convertible jobbie. And it had vanity plates.

Vanity plates.

And guess what vanity was expressed on those stinking license plates?

“DRTOOTH”

I crap you not. Some dentist was driving around town in a $40,000-plus sports car and was letting everyone know that he bought that car through the cavities of the little children. That is the exact moment that I decided that I was never going to go to a dentist again. I was never going to help some arrogant SOB buy his next Mercedes or Beemer or country club membership or vacation condo in Las Vegas or Miami. Thanks for the invitation, but I’m afraid that doesn’t sound like the kind of party I’m interested in attending. Gather your wealth through the teeth of some other miserable assistant manager at some other crappy retail establishment, I’m gonna peace-out on this one.

And I have been peaced-out ever since. My teeth, of course, are falling apart. They are stained and cracked and filled with cavities. I don’t think there is much enamel left, because sometimes too hot or too cold makes them hurt. One of my back teeth that was filled decades ago when I last visited a dentist has had a huge crack down the side of it for almost 15 years. Finally, a couple of nights ago while eating spaghetti (spaghetti, for crying out loud), that back half of the cracked tooth just disappeared. I must have swallowed it. Better I use it as roughage then let some dentist charge me hundreds of dollars to fix. I have a wisdom tooth that has been trying to come in for the past 20 years, and it’s growing out of the side of my jaw. It gets a little sore and leaks a little pus from time to time (I originally wrote that “my tooth gets a little pusy from time to time”, but I originally thought “pus” had two s’s… and that sentence made me laugh for longer than was appropriate, so I changed it… and then I pointed it out again here, because… damn it, it’s just funny).

The strange thing is, my mouth never really hurts. Aside from the occasional sensitivity issues, and the wisdom tooth acting up on occasion, I feel little pain. I know there have to be tons of cavities in that sucker. I know all of the crack and chips should probably cause some discomfort, but they don’t. Even when that stupid wisdom tooth starts acting up, I just gargle with some peroxide, and it feels better. I brush at least twice a day, and I floss… I floss on occasion (special occassions, like Christmas and Martin Luther King’s birthday).

I know that I should probably go to see a dentist. Modern dentistry is what sets us apart from neanderthals… like the British. I know I could probably extend my miserable existence (oh yeah) by taking better care of my teeth. I can just picture the look on the dentist’s face the first time he gets a gander inside my mouth. You know how in cartoons the eyes roll like slots into dollar signs? Well, my dentists eye’s are gonna roll into Beemers. I just know it.

Stinking Creative Ability… or the Lack Thereof…

Most of the people I work with on a daily basis have at least some innate artistic talent. A couple of them can sing pretty amazingly, at least three of them have at least some skills on a guitar,

Riff — "Who says you can't poop your pants and play guitar at the same time? I'll show 'em!"

and one has mad-drum skills (or so he says).

Erik... :) — "They need to put more warnings on that stupid Viagra!"

There is some songwriting ability amongst the group, and one guy runs and DJs his own Internet radio station (as did a past coworker.)

DJRon — "E=MC²? I don't think so. E=Contemporary Christian Rock, my friend."

Some of them are even pretty good at designing Photoshop-type crap. Working in an environment like that, for someone who has the creative skills of a lump of coal, can be disheartening. Hell… it can be down-right depressing.

I got no mad art skills. I can’t sing or play guitar or draw or dance or act or design or much of anything else that could be considered creative. I watch some mean TV, but I don’t think that counts for much. I can eat like there’s no tomorrow, and that kind of creatively expands my circumference… but I may be grasping at straws. Although there is reward, there is no award for couch-potatoship.

fat ass — "Wash my socks? I didn't even know they came off!"

The really sad thing is… you can’t “learn” creativity. You can develop talent, but it’s pretty hard to take someone with no inherent ability and teach them a skill that involves creativity when the talent and creativity are completely foreign to that individual. Anyone with two hands can learn to play the guitar. If the person lacks actual talent and creativity, they will never really master the skill (or even get close). I think there needs to be a little passion thrown in with the talent-creativity-mix as well. I’m passionate about music… I love listening and I wish I could create, but I have neither skills nor creativity when it comes to music. I love listening to a song that makes me think of a particular time, or a voice that calms me, or see a live performance that gives me goosebumps… and I’d love to be able to evoke those thoughts and emotions in complete strangers…

… but I can’t.

I think that people who have creative outlets, even if they aren’t making a living with their “art”, lead a more satisfying life. I have nothing to back this thought up with, but it seems like it makes sense. I know I’ve read stuff that says this is true… but I don’t feel like turning this into a research paper 🙂

Given the fact that I want to increase the satisfaction of my life, I figure I need to find some hidden talent for the creative that must be lurking somewhere deep within me. Some of the motivational guru-types tell us that we should practice our “art” in whatever career related task we are doing. By this, they are implying that every job can be looked at as somewhere one can apply creative talent, and you will do a better job if you hone your “artistic skills” when performing your job. The problem with looking at a random job as a place to meet those creative aspirations is the “passion” I mentioned earlier. We aren’t all going to be able to learn to be passionate about our jobs, and some of us have been through too many jobs to still believe we are ever going to find a job that fulfills us on a creative level. To convince yourself that you can find a creative outlet in something you aren’t passionate about seems to me to be a little like settling.

Oh Sh*t! — "Remember: close your mouth... close your mouth... close your mouth..."

“Things aren’t ever going to get any better, so I need to do what I can with what I’ve got.”

Deciding to settle (giving up) may make life less stressful (for those with no creative outlet), or it might make make you want to pull your hair out…

New Doo — Looks like someone realized she really doesn't have any talent?

… or lose your mind.

On one hand, realizing that you may never have a creative outlet and accepting that fact must be kind of liberating. You don’t have to worry about what that stupid life-satisfaction must be like any more. On the other hand, it may not be liberating at all.

All I have for a creative outlet is this stinking blog, and if you’ve read it, you know it’s not that creative at all. Me bitching about stuff and posting pictures I’ve found on other web sites; I guess it’s a start. What I need to do now is find my true calling… my true creative ability… the one skill that I can be passionate about using that will move or entertain others. I need to figure out how bring my couch potato act to the stage…

All-Powerful Google :(

So about three weeks ago, I post my previous entry to this blog. It’s all about how stress sucks and how I don’t handle stress very well. This was on a Saturday. It was my 100th post, and I planned on following it up with a 100th postaversary celebration, but you’re getting this instead.

Monday rolls around, and I get a phone call from my dad (one of my three regular readers) who says that his Norton is telling him he can get a virus if he goes to my site. I’m at work, so I don’t really have time to look at whatever the issue is (and I’m thinking in the back of my head that it’s probably just something screwy with Norton… or my dad). Throughout the day, I hear from the other two people who read this blog and they both tell me that my blog is apparently an “Attack Site”.

Sure enough, every time I tried going to my site on any browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox), I’m getting a message that my computer can get a virus my visiting my blog!?! CRAP!

Alright, so I start griping to anyone who will listen about hackers and their ilk who have fun making other peoples’ lives living hells for no apparent reason. I am of the conviction that all practitioners of cyber-terror (spammers, hackers, identity thieves, etc.) should be publicly executed… with stones. You know, Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery-style. I may actually toss a stone or two myself. I bet you have some world-wide televised public stonings and the rate of cyber terror will drop drastically. Just saying.

So anyway, my boss overhears me bitching about some jackwad hiding a link to a malicious site in my code, and he takes it upon himself to remove the link. See, I don’t know anything about coding or PHP or HTML or any of that crap. I use WordPress because I’m not supposed to know about how to do that coding crap with WordPress. Thank goodness I have a cool boss 🙂

I’m all good now, right? The code is gone and my blog is once again safe. I figure I’m all in the clear. Except, I’m not. Because now I have to request that Google re-review my site to confirm that the bad stuff is gone. See, many of the reporting sites that different browsers and whatnot rely on to determine if a site is safe to go to rely on Google for their information. Googlebot is a web crawler, or “spider”, which scours the Internet looking for new web sites… and searching existing web sites for dangers to Google’s users. So, unless you can prove to Google that your site is clean and safe after it has been ruled compromised, a lot of potential visitors are going to get a warning page when they try to visit your site.

This is all well and good. I want to be protected when I visit sites, so I really didn’t have any issues with any of this. Where my issue comes into play is with proving to Google that I own my web site. This was not an easy task.

Google gives you like four different methods to prove you own your site. One requires inserting some “meta” doohickie into a certain position in your sites code. Well… that was out, because, like I wrote earlier, I don’t know nothing ’bout no stinking code.

Another method involved copying some HTML thingamagiggee into some section of your site on the server… blah blah blah. Again… HTML… not happening.

A third option for proving that I owned my site was by adding a DNS record to my domain’s configuration by signing into the domain register and… you’ve got to be freaking kidding me. Isn’t there an app for my Droid that I can just download… or maybe a button on Facebook I can click?

The final option is linking your web site to a Google Analytics account. HOORAY! I have a Google Analytics account, and I use it to monitor my web site. I figure this is going to be easy, right? Yeah, wrong. I try using that method and I come to the realization that I must not have the required asynchronous snippet in my tracking code. What exactly is an asynchronous snippet? Well, I looked it up, and I still have no idea. If I could figure out what a freaking asynchronous snippet was, I’d probably know how to add a DNS record to my domain’s configuration. FOR CRYING OUT LOVE OF PETE!

Alright, so I figure I’ll just contact Google and see if they can help me. HAHAHA! Did you read that? “Contact Google.” Exactly how stupid am I? Apparently, very stupid. One does not “contact” Google. Period. Seriously, go to Google’s web site and click on “contact us” on the bottom of the page. There is no way to actually “contact” anyone. There is no phone number, no email addresses, no mailing address… just recommendations to go to different forums and blogs and crap. When I first went to “contact” Google, they recommended that the fastest way to resolve my issue was to search their forums. Have you ever searched a forum? There is absolutely nothing fast about searching a forum for ANYTHING!

Okay, so I’m way past the point of literally pulling the hair out of my head. There are still hairs lodged in between the keys on my laptop’s keyboard. I figure “screw this, I’m done!”

“Oh, but it’s not fair to ask that Google have live people to help nincompoops like you,” says the tech geek who thinks I’m an idiot. “They are much too large of a company with way too many interests. Do you know how many calls they’d get and email they would have to respond to?”

Seriously?!? Google is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Their stock sells for like $600/ share. $600 PER SHARE! Yes, I just yelled it at you. You mean to tell me they can’t afford a customer service center… or 20?

Anywho, I gave up on the whole blogging thing. Figured it was supposed to be a way to relieve stress, not create stress. I was done with the whole thing. And every day I would try to visit the site and see that stupid warning page, and I’d get more and more pissed off. And I’d try to research a way to get the whole -prove-ownership-to-Google-thing accomplished. And I’d learn a little and get really frustrated and pissed-off, and I’d give up again. Lather, rinse, repeat… for almost 10 days.

Funny thing is, if I used Microsoft Internet Explorer, I could get to the site just fine… no warnings. Apparently Microsoft (and Norton, and McAfee, and all other leading anti-viruses) knew the bad code had been removed from my site and was a safe place to visit. Google (and Firefox… who relies on Googlebot) apparently has no problem listing my site as dangerous, but don’t apparently have the advanced kind of technology that allows them to periodically revisit sites it has condemned to see if anything has changed.

“But that’s you’re responsibility as the site owner,” says the Google advocate. I’m gonna have to call BS on that. Google, on the warning page, stated that they had contacted the site owner to let them know the site had been found malignant. I received no notification from anyone other than my dad and his Norton. They didn’t contact anyone… they just made a decision to make my site appear dangerous to much of the online community (which I understand)… even after it was fixed (which is inexcusable). Google has a crap-ton of power over the Internet. You could almost call it the “Googlenet.”

As we learned from Spider-Man:

With great power comes great responsibility.

It would take very little for Google to make the entire “review” process for corrupted web sites much easier (maybe even automate it)… and that would be showing “great responsibility.” Hell… if some random stranger wants to have my little stinking blog reviewed… I say, “Have at it!” Why does one have to prove ownership to have a web site reviewed?

Anyway, after 10 days of short bouts of learning… intermixed with long periods of full-on rage… I finally figured out how to FTP some HTML to the server I use to prove my ownership… and I got a clean review from Google. What exactly did I just write? You’ve got me. I did it once, and if I ever have to do it again, I may end-up bald!

How to Deal with Stress on a Limited Budget

Stress: the silent killer, right? Hahaha! Well, if you’re like me, your stress isn’t really that silent. My stress is displayed in violent outbursts that can be heard up to 1 and a quarter miles away, and usually something gets broken (which I often regret). I can see how stress kills, though, and I’d love to cut down on the impact it has on my life. I’d actually like to eliminate stress completely, but that is impossible… and thinking of how I will never be able to remove stress from my life just stresses me out.

As far back as I can remember, I have been easily stressed-out. However, I used to be able to bottle that stuff up, and no one was the wiser. I’d hold all of the stress inside and let it build until, once every so often, I’d have a meltdown. These meltdowns were powerful and often catastrophic. Things and people were often hurt, myself included.

Over the course of the last few years, my ability to bottle the stress has diminished. It’s like the storage unit I used to be able to shove the stress into has reached its capacity, and any new stress (which occurs daily) automatically spills out into my temper. Now, instead of occasional meltdowns, I experience daily (but much smaller) bouts of rage.

What is the best way to deal with stress? Good gravy… if I had the answer to that, I probably wouldn’t need to be on blood pressure medication. The “experts” offer numerous stress-relieving methods, most of which are free. When I write “experts”, what I really mean is “people for whom stress isn’t really a problem”… ’cause most of the recommendations are laughable.

Helpguide.org offers the following advice: relax. Wow, there’s some good advice. That’s golden. So, how exactly do we relax when stress has taken over? Deep breathing, visualization, progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, and yoga are Helpguide’s recommendations. Well, when I’m stressed, I’m usually already breathing pretty heavily. I’m also using visualization (usually visualizing my fist contacting someone’s face). In fact, the “visualization” usually evolves into “meditation” as I meditate on destroying every breakable thing in sight. Progressive muscle relaxation is some sort of “two-step process” that involves getting semi-naked and flexing the muscles in your feet while you stare at them…

Gross — Looking at these bad boys is not going to lessen the stress load

… not exactly something that sounds like I’m going to get into the full swing of while I’m stressed out. Finally yoga… seriously? I’m ready to put my fist through a wall, so why don’t I sit all cross-leggy and clear my mind.

If I could clear my stinking mind, I wouldn’t be stressed. I mean, come on, the reason stress is so harsh is because it becomes (to some of us) all-consuming while we are under its grip. Like I wrote earlier, I don’t think that the people who come up with these solutions to controlling stress have ever really been stressed-out.

There are tons of other websites with similar suggestions to helpguide.org, and none of them offer the quick fix that I’m looking for. For a real help with stress, you have to turn to a shrink

or medication

or both. Neither a head doctor nor the suitable pills to make stress go away are cheap, so you will be forking over major cash wads to alleviate stress, and since financial stress is very common, you will be creating stress to get rid of your stress.

Catch-22, anyone?

So how does one go about dealing with stress on a limited budget? Well, my personal favorite is sleep. When I get stressed, I just want to shut everything down. Sleep is a great way to escape from the daily rigors of stress. If you get stressed at work and you have a desk…
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Sleeping under desk,sleep at work — Sometimes a bigger desk would be nice, huh?

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… just crawl under the desk and fall into the stress-busting arms of deep sleep. If you don’t have a desk, there is always somewhere else…
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It is, after all…
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…the “rest” room.

Maybe sleep doesn’t do it for you. Maybe you need something cheap to calm your nerves. Maybe you got a little sumin’ sumpin’ calling your name.

MD 20 20 — Mad Dog... the choice of college students and alcoholics worldwide

And maybe you won’t need your liver in your senior years.

Future? — William Shatner? Man, you've really let yourself go...

Okay, so maybe the drug/alcohol method may not be the best choice for stress relief. It’s a choice, just not a very smart one.

So we have sleep and the use of drugs. What else can we do to relieve stress? A final method… and, next to sleep, my favorite… is breaking stuff. Oh, sure, I could rephrase this “exercise” (’cause exercise helps work off the stress), but who is able to drop everything and go for a 1/2 mile jog every time he or she gets stressed? Athletes, that’s who, and most of us aren’t athletes. I go to the YMCA almost nightly in an effort to work off the day’s stress, but that doesn’t do me any good when I’m trying to book a service call while dealing with our field tech on my cell phone (who I can hardly hear because his stupid bluetooth picks-up the slightest breeze and makes it sound like he’s in the middle of a stinking tornado) and the office phone is ringing off the stinking hook and one of the subcontractors is standing in the door of my office telling me how he needs to charge more money, in extremely broken-English (he speaks English just fine unless he is telling me how he is gonna charge more than agreed upon due to some stupid circumstance that sounds half made-up… then he gets really hard to understand)… and I just want to SCREAM AND START BREAKING STUFF. A brisk walk around the neighborhood is, at this point, not an option. Something needs to give, and it most likely will be my patience. I keep a tomahawk within reach for just such occasion. I grab the tomahawk and look at the subcontractor… who immediately leaves. I don’t know if it is the sight of the tomahawk that makes him leave, or if it’s the look in my eyes whilst holding the tomahawk that makes him decide another time to discuss his pricing may be in order. I then sink the tomahawk into the next closest point of frustration.
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And guess what? I feel all better… even if I still have to use the stupid thing to listen to people bitch about their Internet

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So there you have it. If you don’t have the kind of money that can buy the good kinds of relief for stress, just take a nap, get loaded on cheap booze or drugs, or break stuff. Then, get a good night’s sleep… ’cause tomorrow, you get to do it all over again 🙂

Don’t Mind Me, I’m Just Staring at Your Butt

I was at the YMCA a few weeks ago and something caught my eye. Actually, my eyes were drawn to something. It was a woman’s butt. No, I’m not a pervert… well, most of the time I’m not a pervert… but this lady had on a pair of shorts with writing on the butt. “Surf **something**” was written right there in large letters on the bottom of this woman’s shorts. It wasn’t so much that I was infatuated with the woman’s butt, it was that I couldn’t read what came after “Surf”, and it was driving me nuts. What was this young woman encouraging others to “Surf”? “Surf” on the butt made me think of a band that was had some modest popularity in my younger days, but I figured this gal was probably a little too young to be a Butthole Surfers fan. She was on an elliptical in the front row, and there were several people on ellipticals in the row behind her. I could tell she was self-conscious about the writing on her butt because she kept pulling her t-shirt down over her butt and blocking the words. This made me stare even harder, just waiting her t-shirt to ride up so I could see what came after “Surf”. I wasn’t the only one staring. I noticed two men and a women beside me who all had their eyes locked on that woman’s butt… and none of us ever found out what came after “Surf”. The young woman pulled her t-shirt down one final time, got off the elliptical, and left the circuit room. I was disappointed and a little upset. Why had she left the house with those stupid shorts on if she didn’t want anyone reading what they said.

Ok… I know you’ve seen this: females of all ages, shapes, colors and sizes with writing on their butts. What in the hell are these women thinking? In many cases, what are the parents (especially the fathers) of these girls thinking?!? Do you realize that you are giving every male that you women (or your daughters, for crying out loud) encounter absolute permission to stare at your butt for an inexcusably long time. I mean, seriously. We can’t even really get in trouble for it.
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Wife/Girlfriend: What are you staring at?

Dude: I’m just seeing what it says on the back of her shorts.

Wife/Girlfriend: Quit staring at her ass.

Dude: Seriously, I’m just reading what it says.

Wife/Girlfriend: It says “Juicy”… just like the last five girls whose asses you stared at.
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Dude: They weren’t all “Juicy”. One was a “PINK”.
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Dude: And besides, I’m pretty sure that’s a different font? Isn’t that Old English Text MT? I’m pretty sure the last butt writing was in Algerian. I’m really going to need to take a closer look…

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: guys look at girls butts. No, seriously. I’m not joking. All ages of guys, from the young adolescent just hitting puberty to the old dude with the walker and the glasses so thick you can’t imagine how he can actually see anything, if you are female, will look at your butt. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m pretty sure even gay guys check out girls’ butts.

I know, I know… it’s hard to believe… but we really do look at butts. We’ve been known to look at boobs as well.
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At least there is an explanation for why we look at boobs.
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We’re dogs, and we look at butts and boobs and we probably should feel ashamed for doing it, but we don’t. It’s just the natural order of things. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re perverts or that we’re thinking naughty thoughts. It’s kind of like when you go on a hike up in the mountains and you see a waterfall cascading into a calm pool below.
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You’re going to look at that waterfall and think, “nice waterfall.” It’s a natural wonder. Female butts are pretty much the same thing; we look and smile and think “nice butt.”
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To be perfectly honest, I believe that these females want guys to look at their butts. Otherwise, why would they wear what they wear?

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I think the women want guys to look at their butts, but I think they only want certain guys to look at their butts. They want guys they are attracted to to look at their butts.
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It’s like a flirting thing. Problem is, once you are out in public, you really don’t have any control over who is looking at your butt. Sorry, that’s just the way it works. You are probably going to have dudes that may or may not be Cuba Gooding, Jr. looking at your butt.
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This seems like it should be common knowledge, but if you are anywhere close to just about any male politician from the United States, you will have your butt looked at.

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Old dudes, teenage boys, ugly, hot… we’re all gonna check out your butt when you are walking around with a billboard on your fanny. Even if you try to dissuade us by putting false advertising on your rear-end, we’re gonna look.
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So, if you don’t want every dude and his dog loking at your hiney, don’t leave the house with writing on your butt. If you don’t mind hundreds of eyes checking out your bunnage, keep doing what you’re doing. As far as teenage girls with the butt writings goes, do you girls have parents? Do you have a dad? I know parents have to pick their battles… but I think this is probably one worth picking. Don’t let your daughters leave the house with clothes on that are going to draw eyes to body parts that you don’t want being the focus of intense scrutiny.

Sometimes, however, the writing on the butt can be helpful. It alerts us to something we may need to know. For example:

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I believe the young lady above is telling us that she just ate Ben Roethlisberger, and she is pointing out where his remains will soon appear.

The Life Cycle of Having Friends…

Remember when you were a kid and you had all kinds of friends? Well, unless you were the kid who accidentally pooped the pants in 3rd grade during math and everyone knew about it; then you maybe didn’t have so many friends. Maybe you were the girl who had her first “Carrie” moment during 6th grade English, and none of the kids understood why you left school early, upset and crying; until someone spotted the evidence of the early dismissal on the seat of your chair… your adolescence may have been a little rough. Or you were the boy who got caught enjoying Baywatch just a little too much when you thought no one watching… you may have had a few rough years. But aside from those few sad instances indicative of the cruelty of other children, many kids have lots of friends. And as you grow from adolescence into high school and up through college, you make more and more friends. By the time you get out of college, you probably have tons of friends… and I’m not just talking acquaintances, but real friends… you know, the kind of people you wouldn’t hesitate to call if you needed a good bailing out of jail.

At this point, we’re set! We have a plethora of friends and a brand-spanking new education just waiting to be developed into a life-long career of happiness! Guess what happens to many of us then. We pack up our belongings and move half-way across the country and start completely fresh in a community where we don’t know a single soul! Sounds exciting, right? Sounds like a true adventure, doesn’t it? Yeah… not really. It sucks, and years later, you will find yourself pretty much friendless as you roll through mid-life.

When I first moved to the panhandle of Nebraska (almost 20 years ago), I figured I would fast make new friends. And right out of the gate, I met a few people my age and we became buddies. Considering that the people in this community are very cliquish (which is something I didn’t discover until later), I was lucky. One of these buddies actually introduced me to the woman who is now my wife. So, yeah, I thought I was on a roll. Now see, where the problem comes into play in my example is the fact that I moved to a community where the young people are anxiously leaving in droves. In the small town of Glasgow, MT where I grew up, all of the kids always talked about how they wanted to get the hell out of Glasgow and actually do something with their lives. Scottsbluff and Gering Nebraska are much the same. Kids see what their parents have accomplished living here, and the kids want nothing to do with it. The kids want to actually find some measure of success in their lives, so they bail on the communities at pretty much the first available opportunity. My problem: I moved in as everyone else my age was trying to get the hell out. I escaped from one community where all the kids and young adults wanted to get away to another community where all the kids and young adults wanted to get away. The destination of my escape was another destination from which to seek escape. Most of those original friends that I made when I moved here have long since found more fruitful paths in other areas of the country. There are still a couple in the area, and I really enjoy hanging out with them, but the second thing to come along and disrupt the friendship cycle is kids, and I’ve got them.

Having children is one of the most rewarding things that a person can do. I don’t want to make it seem otherwise. However, having kids puts a huge crimp in any sort of social life that you may desire. You aren’t able to go out in public nearly as much once you have kids, especially while they are young. You’re at home trying to catch some sort of rest and instill in your kids the basics of being a functioning member of society.

Then the kids hit school, and through school and other extra-curricular activities, you are forced to confront other parent of other kids who are pretty much in the same boat as you. Once again, you start forming some relationships. Maybe you find a church or other civic organization, and you begin attending regularly, and you form some relationships there as well.These relationships, however, are more along the lines of “strong acquaintanceships” than they are the true friendships you had in your youth. In other words, these are people who are fun to hang out with while the kids are off playing and whatnot, but these aren’t people you would feel comfortable calling to bail you out of the joint.

Even these strong acquaintanceships you have developed through the parents of your kids’ friends and through your civic activities (and maybe even co-workers from your job) soon seem to slightly dissipate as your kids grow even older and their activities seem to encapsulate more and more of your free-time.

My wife is from the panhandle. Once she finished college, she really never had a strong desire to leave. However, neither does she have a strong desire to stay. She is constantly telling me that if I can find us a life somewhere outside of the panhandle that would make me less… uh, “grumpy” would be a polite way to put it, I guess… she would be more than happy to make a move. She, however, actually has some of the friends from her past here. Not many (most moved away), but she is occasionally able to have a “girls night out” or get together for coffee with a friend or two. I still have a lot of really good friends, but, for the most part, they are spread out all over the nation. If it weren’t for Facebook, I probably wouldn’t even know where most of them are. They sure in the hell aren’t close enough to bail me out of jail, if the need were to arise.

So, what’s next? You got me. My kids actually have some true friendships, and they are doing well in the local schools (even though the schools tend to piss me off from time to time). I’d hate to disrupt their potential growth in a selfish effort to find some sort of friendship or contentment in my life, so moving isn’t the most attractive option at this point. Doesn’t mean that it won’t happen, just means it’s not the most attractive option. I try to keep in touch with the friends of my youth… at least those on Facebook.

I’m guessing that once my kids have joined the mass exodus of young people who leave the panhandle of Nebraska to better themselves in different areas of the country, the options for the wife and I will increase. We will be free to move wherever on God’s green earth we want to live. We will be short two mouths to feed as our college-educated boys head out into the world to try to figure out how in the hell they are ever going to repay all of those student loans. Of course, our bodies will have deteriorated even further, and God only knows what the status of our health will actually be in 10 or 15 years. I’m guessing that will be the next point in the cycle where new friends are made. We will probably find them at the clinics and doctor’s offices and pharmacies and, later, in the retirement communities. We will all sit around and reminisce about our kids, about the friends of our youth, and about all of the opportunities we probably missed by living in the panhandle of Nebraska.

On Getting Old…

How come when your a kid, all you can think about is growing up, but when you finally grow up, you wish you could be a kid again? I think it’s irony just busting us over the heads. As kids, we want the freedom and responsibility of making all of our own decisions, and we see adulthood offering this to us. Then, when we finally get there, we realize that true freedom was an illusion and that responsibility sucks; but by then, it’s too late to do anything different because we are, after all, adults. And it’s not like we could have done anything about it anyway, right? There has not yet been invented a hormone that slows the aging process to the point that we could all live a perpetual childhood. Besides, I don’t think our parents would want to take care of us forever… and if our parents had access to the magical fountain of youth, we may never had been born. Oh sweet irony… thy true name is growing-up.

I run into people who disagree with my desire to go back to childhood. I feel sorry for them. They didn’t have enjoyable childhoods, and someone needs be held accountable. Childhood is meant to be a magical time in our existence, and anyone who denies us that portion of our life has committed an atrocious affront to not only the children and the adults those children become, but also to everyone who loves children. A child who suffers a horrid childhood leaves a scar on humanity.

So, you may be wondering, why is true freedom an illusion? Are you doing what you want to do, when you want to do it? Do you show up someplace because that is when you want to show up, or because that is the time someone else has arranged for you to show up? Do you only deal with people you find pleasant, or are there times when you have deal with people who are less than pleasant… and are you dealing with them by choice, or because someone else has told you that dealing with these unpleasant people is required of you? What time do you get up in the morning? Are you getting up at that hour because that is when you enjoy waking up, or has someone else set your agenda? We are all really nothing more than indentured servants. Even if you are self-employed, you are answering to someone else (customers, clients, vendors, advertising sales people, employees; whoever is involved with the generation of your income). We live by the rules of someone else in an attempt to gain a sense of real freedom at some point in the future after our servitude (retirement? death?) There is no true freedom as an adult in this life. Here we are, in the “greatest nation” on the face of the planet and we never can even really own our own property. Oh sure, you can pay off your mortgage. Do you really think you own that property after your mortgage is paid off? Really? Well, if you really believe that, try this: after your mortgage is paid off, try not paying property taxes. Really, see what happens. See who really owns that property. It’s not you. Freedom is an illusion.

“Well,” says the gung-ho simpleton who you often see commenting on blogs and articles all over the Internet, “welcome to life! Quit your bitching, grow a pair, suck it up and do what you have to do. No one said life was fair!” I love people who leave comments like this, and by “love” I mean “hate with every ounce of my being”. There are people out there who question the way things are and are looking for a better way, but they don’t fall into the mindless conformity that has become life in the USA: you know, work, die and pay taxes. Because they are looking outside of the box, they are “different”, and they make people uncomfortable, so they just need to shut up and conform. Ahhh… life it too short for that, my brainwashed friends. I’m sure the taxpayer-fed government loves your attitude, but I do not.

Wow… I think my rant just went off on a rant?!? Government sucks, but that isn’t where I meant to head with this post, so let’s try to get it back on track, m’kay?

Becoming an adult leads to more than just the loss of childhood innocence and dreams. Becoming an adult leads to, well, getting old. It’s kind of a strange trade-off; you gain more responsibilities and much more is expected of you, and you have less and less energy to tackle these responsibilities and expectations. It really kind of bites. Adults (especially those with small children) can often be heard complaining, “If I had half as much energy as my kids, maybe I could actually keep up with them…or… think of what I could accomplish!” And everybody laughs at the age-old joke. The sad thing is, the joke is not funny; the joke is reality. Youth really is wasted on the young. Our bodies get weaker and our minds begin to slip. The first memories we start to lose are those from childhood, which is sad, because those memories of our own childhood innocence can help us trudge through our adult lives. First, memories start to get a little fuzzy, kind of like watching an Andy Griffith re-run on a really staticy channel. You kind of know what’s going on, because you’ve seen it before, but there are parts you just can’t catch because the static is too bad, and you feel kind of gypped. The older you get, the more memories turn to bad re-runs, and before you know it, the oldest are lost forever.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little too harsh. Our minds are kind of like computers, and maybe stating that certain memories are “lost forever” is a little melodramatic. Maybe it’s kind of like that thingie you downloaded off the Internet and saved a few years ago and you just can’t remember where on your hard drive you saved it. You know it’s there somewhere, and you search every file and folder where you have saved stuff in the past, you just can’t locate that stupid thingie! Maybe our minds are like that. Maybe we just need to place an occasional call to tech support to help us relocate those memories. But, for the love of Pete, don’t actually call tech support of the company who provides your Internet service! Finding files on your computer that you downloaded from the Internet isn’t even the responsibility of your ISP’s tech support department. The last thing I need is someone accusing me of starting a trend of tech related calls for people with fading memories! “Tech support” is a metaphor, people. I know that explaining this seems silly, but I have taken tech support calls. Don’t ever underestimate the ignorance of your fellow man 🙂

Google Sucks

Stinking Google. I recently wrote a post about stupid Google and how they were giving away free netbooks for people to test their new Chrome OS operating system. Well, I never received my netbook. Apparently I’m not the kind of person that Google felt was right to test their netbook. I am, however, the kind of person that Google feels is right to purchase the new Samsung Chromebook. I believe Google may be mistaken.

I received an email from Google that read as follows:

Be the first to get a Chromebook.

Since we announced the Chrome Notebook Pilot Program back in December, we’ve been humbled by the amount of interest that we’ve received from users like you.

We’re excited about the brand-new Samsung Chromebook that goes on sale on June 15. Fortunately, we’ve managed to get our hands on a few machines a little earlier, and we’d like to make these available to you, our biggest enthusiasts.

When you buy your Chromebook, you’ll also be getting a limited edition, custom-fit Chrome sleeve designed by Rickshaw so you can carry your new Chromebook in style.

Our good friends over at Gilt, the premier invitation-only shopping site, have agreed to put these Chromebooks up for sale — but only for a very limited time.

These will go fast. See you over at Gilt.

Cheers,

The Chrome Team

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A few months back, you asked to be notified about the availability of Chrome OS, which is why we sent you this one-time notice. You will not be emailed again regarding the availability of Chrome OS.

I don’t remember asking to be notified about the availability of Chrome OS. I remember wanting a free netbook. I don’t want to buy anything. Nonetheless, I figured I’d check out Google’s friends over at Gilt to see what’s up. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking a Chromebook may be pretty reasonably priced. After all, I don’t believe the computer is able to run non-web-based software… everything is stored in “the cloud”. You can’t download software to the computer (like an office suite or accounting software or publishing software or anything like that). There’s not even a CD or DVD drive on this sucker, so forget having the kids watch a movie while you’re driving across the Nebraska interstate. Sure, there are some decent free online aps that can be used online, but I like to have a hard copy of some files and applications on my computer so I can access them when I don’t have Internet access or 3G coverage (remember… this is Nebraska). I’m thinking that I should be able to pick up a web-only Chromebook for a couple hundred bucks.

Do you know how much these stinking Chromebooks are selling for? The Samsung Chromebooks were selling for like $500! Seriously!!! I could get a decent real laptop for $500… why in the hell would I buy a web-only Chromebook for that price? I’m thinking Google and Samsung may have a little bit of crack-smoking going on at their corporate offices. Plus, now I’m getting all kinds of stupid spam from Google’s friends at Gilt (notice how close that is to guilt… and jilt?). note to self: unsubscribe from ~~Jilt~~ Gilt…

Of course… who knows… maybe these Chromebooks do some pretty amazing stuff. If they did, I’d be able to go on and on about how great Chromebooks are. But in order to rave about them, I’d actually have to try a Chrome OS machine out… and I’m not going to drop 500 hard-earned bills just to see if a Chromebook is actually worth $500 hard-earned bills (which I highly doubt). If only Google would have sent me my free stinking netbook when I applied for it…