Philadelphia Freedom: Part I

It was an ingenious plan. To be honest, I never saw it coming, But now, looking back in hindsight (as if there were any other way to look back) it is perfectly clear. Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, and Amy, my physical therapist, teamed together (as if there were any other way to team) to kill me.

Steve's piece of the puzzle was simple, create a phone that everyone wants but that also has the battery life of a wind up emergency radio. Amy's piece was much more subtle. She had to convince me to add Fleetwood Mac's "The Dance" to my Netflix queue. While both of these actions taken separately, were fairly innocuous, (and Steve's is obviously bad business) taken together, they almost led to my untimely demise.

As many of you know, I'm currently not in Oklahoma anymore. I'm sitting in a hotel room outside of Philadelphia. I flew into Philadelphia on Monday. All of my travel information was stored neatly on my iPhone. This included my hotel's address and phone number.

When I got in my rental car, a Nissan Versa, (I have come to the conclusion that Versa is named for Versatile only without the acceleration) I entered the address into my GPS. Within a few seconds, Cleo (the name I have given to the GPS lady that gives me directions) discovered the quickest route to get me from the Payless Rental Car parking lot to King of Prussia Pennsylvania. (Two quick notes. 1. You do not get a free pair of shoes when you rent from Payless although you should. 2. King of Prussia is a silly name for a city.)

At this point you are probably asking (I realize that you're probably not) "What do Amy and Fleetwood Mac have to do with this?" As I said, Amy had conveniently convinced me to add "The Dance" to my Netflix queue several months ago. Somehow, I suspect that sorcery might have been involved, Amy knew that I would be traveling to Philadelphia this month. She also knew that I would have an iPhone with the "10 minute: Extended Life Battery." Knowing that I would view "The Dance" the night before my trip, she must have concluded that I would need a Fleetwood Mac fix that could only be cured by downloading "Rumors." She also knew that I would listen to "Rumors" during my 2 hour layover in Chicago, thereby shortening my battery life from "Power nap" to "Hiccup". Some of you might insist that I bare some responsibility for this fiasco. You would fall into the exceedingly large group of people that I refer to as "Not my friends."

So, as I'm navigating Philadelphia traffic, I am constantly looking at my phone to see if Cleo has died. The only way that this situation could become more dangerous is if I decide to start texting or checking email. I probably would have, but right on schedule Cleo died. Fortunately that's not a problem because I have the address to the hotel in an email, I'll just call them and ask for directions. Oh wait.

The Mad Man's Journey to Health or at Least Something that Sounds Like it.

Sheri and I got bicycles for our 24th anniversary which we will be celebrating in July if we live that long. According to my exhaustive web research, the traditional 24th anniversary gift is supposed to be a musical instrument. Believe it or not, a bicycle fits well in this category as my thighs sang a chorus of "Ow, Ow, Ow" for my entire journey. The journey of which I speak was walking to the garage to retrieve my precious anniversary gift. Actually riding the bike was a different story entirely. Not better, just different.

I should start with a visual. Here is a recent photo. OK, that's not actually me but the likeness is remarkable. On a positive note, I have more hair. On the negative side, I have more chins. The culmination of my long and steady decline into a sedentary lifestyle was the indignity of purchasing "Relaxed Fit" jeans at Wal-Mart last week. They call them "Relaxed Fit" because if they called them "Jeans for the Bigger Butted Man", no one would buy them. The other indignity is that I'm certain that as I was bent over to get to the bottom shelf where Wal-Mart has decided that its husky customers should have to reach to find their "Relaxed Fit" jeans, someone snapped a picture of me to place on the notorious People of Wal-Mart website.

After finally making it to the garage (don't laugh, it's harder than it sounds, the grass was wet), I found my white whale. I probably should have just harpooned it and got it over with but unfortunately, my favorite harpoon is in the shop and my backup harpoon was back in the house. I decided that I wasn't making that trek again.

Speaking of treks, ironically enough, my new bicycle is also a Trek. If you want the full visual of the whale, you can see it here. Sheri's is the second one.

(As I was writing this, I came to the realization that cats do not chew their food. You do not want to know the details that led to this revelation.)

The word "trek" itself brings back many memories. As a child, I was a bona fide Trekkie. I played Star Trek with my friends. I attended many Star Trek conventions. I still have my first edition of Starlog magazine. Sheri and I met at OU while watching Star Trek. I was immediately attracted to her even though it was obvious to me that she had never attended a convention and probably never read Starlog. Looking back, those apparent shortcomings were probably blessings.

So now there's a new trek in my life. I'm afraid that this new trek can't be enjoyed from the safety and security of my Barcalounger. This new trek is going to make me boldly go to the garage and beyond. Did I mention that the grass was wet? It's also a long way from my house to my garage. It really is. It's a good 30 smoots (that's over 50 yards for you non-geeks) and its uphill! (and the grass was wet)

I've named my bicycle "Bones" as both an homage to DeForest Kelley and a reminder as to the part of my anatomy that will be in pain when I'm done riding. Bones is called a "hybrid" bicycle. That means that it's part bicycle and part rack only without the benefit of lying down.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the topography around my house, I live right next to a lake. One defining characteristic of most lakes is that they are generally the lowest point around. To me, this means that no matter which direction I leave from home, it's uphill. In my car, that isn't much of an issue. In my barcalounger, it isn't an issue at all. If I had succeeded in convincing Sheri that what we really needed was electric bicycles, it wouldn't have been an issue. Seated high atop Bones, it is a major issue.

Bones comes with 21 gears. They range from "I'm pedaling but the scenery isn't changing" to "Pulling a Hummer". Neither of these will be useful in getting me up Caddo county's version of Mt. McKinley. Yesterday, before I had been on Bones, I thought that with 21 gears to choose from, at least one of them and possibly even more would be useful for my arduous climb. For those of you that don't know, and I was certainly in this group, a 21 speed bike has 21 gear combinations. The dirty little secret that they don't tell you (until after you've made your purchase) is that of these 21 combinations; 5 shouldn't be used and 8 are THE SAME! Really Shimano? Your business model is to provide 21 of something when only 8 are useful? I'm relieved that the engineers at Ford didn't take that approach when designing the gearbox of my Focus.

Through an amazing feat of endurance that could best be described as a cross between "hyperventilation" and "crying", I made it to the top of Mount Caddo. Unfortunately, I was only about 400 smoots (you can do the math) from my driveway and my lungs were kaput. I blame the altitude.

I did manage to finish the rest of my 7 mile trek. Sheri beat me by a mere 8 miles but in my defense, I'm a wuss.

The Madman disproves evolution. Take that Darwin!

In the shower this morning, I was thinking about evolution. I don't know why. As I was pondering the nature of life and the universe, it occured to me that the theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest simply cannot be true. What led me to this inescapable conclusion? Backhair.

I have a hairy back. Not Robin Williams hairy but hairy enough for government work. (The government has all sorts of jobs.) If natural selection were a valid representation of the world around us, any sort of selection, natural or otherwise, would have kicked my particular kind of back out of the gene pool long ago.

I'm not proud of it but many years ago when I was in high school and college, I used to look at Playboy magazine. Consequently, I became intimately familar with the turn-ons and turn-offs of "bubble headed bleached blondes" (thanks Don Henley). Not once did I read a list of turn-ons that mentioned backhair. They all said that they wanted a guy with a nice smile and a sense of humor, both of which I've been told I possess in abundance. Inexplicably, I could count the number of real dates I had in high school without taking my mittens off. It must have been due to the backhair.

When I shared my theory with my wife, she said, "You know that's not right don't you?" I remain unconvinced. She also mentioned that as long as I'm going to talk about backhair, I might as well mention nosehair. I'm not sure what she's getting at but I think I have a pretty good idea.

That also got me to wondering about other qualities that I posess that would help disprove the "Theory" of evolution. (Remember kids, you can't spell "theory" without "the". You could probably use an "or" too.) I suspect that I have many other features which would help prove my theory. What self-respecting cave woman would choose a mate that's knock-kneed? Or has a spare tire? Or needed glasses? Or was about as useful on a hunt as a bag of rats?

The only logical explanation (to me anyway) is that Darwin was absolutely nuts. Look at the facts:

1. He comes up with a crazy theory of evolution.
2. He travels on a ship named after a hyperactive dog. Seriously, who names their boat after a beagle? I think I'm going to name my next boat the HMS Labradoodle.
3. There is no #3.
4. If there's no #3, then this one is really pointless.

I can't wait to see my name in Kansas high school textbooks everywhere. Well, not everywhere but at least in Kansas. You know what I mean.

Kevin's Guide to Home Improvement

1. Buy a better house.

Decisions. Decisions.

Making decisions is getting harder by the minute. The number of choices for any given decision seems to be growing geometrically. If you don't speak math, geometrically means " a metric buttload". The most obvious manifestation of this is television channels. Everyone that grew up in the 60's had exactly 4 channels to watch if you included PBS. Now, through the magic of satellite TV, I have 4 channels devoted specifically to Ethiopian midget porn.

My mother-in-law bought us a really cool Christmas present. It's an electric mattress pad. It's great on a cold night to get into a nice warm bed. The problem with it is the number of settings that it has. If the mattress pad people had asked me, I would have told them that Low, Medium and High would have been sufficient. They did not ask me. Apparently, whoever they asked thought that no mattress warmer would be complete without TWENTY different settings. I simply cannot handle that many choices. I lie awake at night with my pad set on 17 wondering if I might not be more comfortable if I turned it up to 18. If I turn it down to 16, will I get hypothermia? These are not decisions that you can take lightly.

I got my first bicycle when I was in 1st grade. It had one gear. It got stolen. I had another bike in 6th grade that also only had one gear. It got stolen too. By the time I was in high school, I finally had a 10 speed. Surprise! It got stolen too. At this very moment, there are three bicycles sitting in my garage that have a combined total of 57 gears. If I could pay someone to steal them from me, I would. Not uncoincidentally, I have a car in the same category.

I golf. Badly. Seriously. I'm a bad golfer. I love it but I stink at it. The rules of golf state that you can carry no more than 14 clubs in your bag. Naturally, I carry 14. Sometimes 15. I actually use 3. The perverse thing about it is that if I had more sleeves in my bag, I'd buy more clubs to not use.

Gotta go. Monk is on. I think this is the one where you know who murdered the guy but you don't know how Monk is going to prove that the bad guy actually did it. Please don't spoil the ending for me.

I may not be consistent but I am forgetful.

My faithful following (Laura) has encouraged me to put something on my blog. Let's see. What could I write about that hasn't already been done? I would do Sarah Palin (not that way) but that would be like shooting moose in a wildlife preserve. Is it a preserve or a reserve? If it's a pre-serve, you would think that it would have to come before something else. If it's a re-serve then it should be something that it done over and over. I'm at a loss.

Joe Biden is every bit as interesting as Joe Lieberman so I think I'll leave him alone as well. By the way guys, good job on busting the stereotype that men named Joe are dull.

My company (it's not really my company, I'm more like their employee) had our annual auction of worthless crap that isn't good enough for us to use anymore. I'm always amazed at what people will pay good money for. I mean, how much would you pay for a pallet full of broken computer monitors that you knew without a shadow of a doubt had sat out in the rain for the last month? I'm no electrical genius (or any other kind) but I seem to recall that water is bad for most electrical components. That's why you shouldn't swim with your cellphone.

Yes I do work for an electric company (thanks for asking) but they don't let me get near the electricity. I do however keep a hard hat in my office just in case somebody over at the plant needs someone to come over and plug their printer back in.

That's one of the weird things about being a computer programmer (technically, (snort) I'm a "Senior Systems Analyst"), everyone expects you to be able to solve any problem that is even remotely related to their computer. Just as you wouldn't go to a podiatrist and say, "I had a bird that died 7 years ago. What do you think it was?", you really shouldn't ask a guy that does database programming all day what the best way to get the porn off your computer is. I can drive too. Don't let me near your intake manifold. It will not end well for either of us.

Random thoughts part π

• My rapper name is going to be Master Slushy. I'm not tough enough to have solid ice.
• Jim Morrison is Mr. Mojo Risin. I'm Universal Elm Sky.
• Today is the first day of the rest of your life unless you're dead.
• If it's better to give than to receive, aren't the givers putting the givees at a disadvantage?
• What kind of Christmas were Victorians nostalgic about?
• You'd be cranky too if your name was Ebenezer.
• I'm not 44, I'm 2 score and 4.
• If an angel gets it's wings whenever a bell rings, how do demons get their wings? Whatever it is, we should stop doing it.
• How did angels get their wings before the bronze age?
• The Nutcracker is a terrible name for a ballet unless it's being performed on America's Funniest Home Videos.
• Sleeting sounds a lot more fun than it really is.