The Sanibel Vacation Chronicles – Part 2

The Brain Rejuvenation Continues

This morning I took a four mile walk on the beach and thought about …. absolutely nothing.  On previous vacations these morning walks were used to do heavy thinking about what ever was worrying me at the time.   Today I was focused on the awesome sunrise and seagulls.  

The Sanibel Sunrise

I noticed seven seagulls standing on the beach in formation so for a moment I stood by them as the eighth gull.  Gulls make irritating noises and poop at random, so I think they accepted me as the “Gullman”.  This made me feel like one of those “nature guys” on animal planet.

Going Timeless

Get this, for most of the day I did not even where my watch!  That’s right, when I was at the beach if someone asked what time it was, I didn’t know. Whooooo, whoooo!  This gave me a great sense of freedom.  I am still wearing my underwear down here however because, of course, freedom has its limits.

Doing Nothing

I am really enjoying doing nothing.  When you think about it, when you were seven years old you got to do nothing every day during the summer.  This was before peer pressure, relationships, financial pressures, work, etc. In other words, these were the best times of your life, but you were seven, so you had no realization just how good the days were and how challenging life would someday become.

This is why vacation is so important.  So don’t e-mail me, don’t text me.  “Don’t feel like picking up my phone, so leave a message at the tone”.  This includes work.  Don’t bother me.  Just figure it out on your own.  Unless someone is about to die, I am too busy doing nothing. 

Testing Significance

Today on my morning walk, I did spit in the ocean just to see if it made a difference.  I am happy to report that it did not.  Although maybe the long term results may differ.

However relaxing at the beach does sometimes create some weird, crazy, thoughts like the one where I quit my job and begin writing as a career.   Wow, that is a crazy thought.  And all the people who have suggested that to me in the past are crazy people too!  Especially you, Stephanie.

The Most Interesting Thing I Saw Today

This evening I saw an attractive woman wearing a one-piece swim suit that was red on top, but  a light pink (flesh-like) color on the bottom.  This made it appear she was airing out her hoo-hah in the evening breeze.  I thought that maybe the beach might be semi-nude after 7 p.m.  If not, I thought a Hoo-Hah alert might need to be issued.  “Warning, a hoo-hah has been spotted on the beach.  Please proceed with caution.  I did want to get a photo of the woman, but I was worried her boyfriend might object and punch me in the head.

Shelling Update:

Shells Collected: 0

Bums Looked At: Er, eh, … I think I lost count.  But unlike Cleveland Indian batters, I have not been caught looking!

The Sanibel Vacation Chronicles – Part 1

This week I am vacationing on beautiful Sanibel Island, Florida.  The goal of the vacation is to total recharge, refresh and rejuvenate and to forget about work, worries, blogging and any other crap for an entire week. Okay, so maybe not the blogging part.  Obviously, I do need more discipline (woman reading this post who are dominatrices, please disregard this statement).

Go To Shell(s) 

Sanibel Beach is the most shelliest beach in the U.S.  I was told this by my stock broker before I left and this information proved to be much more accurate than his investment picks.  This has proved to be a distraction however.  One of the ways I defrag my brain is to take long, early morning, walks on the beach.  But, this morning I was continually distracted by beautiful, young, women in bikinis and shorts bending over to pick up seashells.   I may have not learned the art of shell collecting, but I am intently studying the technique of shell gathering by these ladies.  I guess I am not so much of a beach bum as I am a beach bum looker.  

Naturally, shell collecting is very popular here.  You can see dozens of people walking around staring at the beach even in the heat (103 heat index today – hoo yah!) looking for shells.  I even came up with a shell rap for all these Shellers: 

I think this guy is a bum looker!

It’s all about the shell game (uh huh)

You need to know my shell name (uh huh)

I got me some shell bling (yeh, yeh)

I’m the undisputed shell king (oh yeah)

*%$*#*%**#*$**%!!!!!!!!!!!! 



 

Funniest Thing I Saw Today 

There was a guy jogging past me on the beach this morning who was shirtless and wearing a pulse monitor band around his chest.  From the back he looked like he was wearing a bikini top.  Later when he ran back towards me I was tempted to yell, “Hey buddy, nice tits!”, but then I realized it would be just a bit hypocritical coming from someone with middle-aged man boobs.
 

Fort Myers Is For Geezers 

The average age of the population of the nearby city of Fort Myers is ah, deceased.  It is literally where old people go to die.  Because of this you see some strange television commercials.  My favorite so far is this guy enthusiastically hawking cremations that are: DIGNIFIED AND AFFORDABLE!   

I don’t know what an undignified cremation would consist of.  A guy shows up with a gas can and a Bic lighter perhaps?  And do you really care how dignified this is since you are already dead.  Does the fry guy wear gloves and a suit and tie?  Anyway the dude in the commercial is way, way, too eager and happy about turning you into a pile of ashes.  If I did decide to purchase this service, there is no way I would sign the papers at their facility.  Oh no, I’m mailing that contract in.  Because of course you do not want to get burned.  At least prematurely, that is.

 

She’s Always A Woman To Me

Often my co-worker Tom will let out a loud sigh which is followed by one of the following questions. “Why is she doing that?”, “Can you believe she made that decision given the alternatives?”, “Why does she have that attitude?” “She is just crazy, right?”

Of course Tom is a newlywed and in the quest for frequent, hot, sex has entered into a very strange, confusing, world.  This is a world where a human brain is fueled by estrogen instead of testosterone.

My answer to all his questions is an easy one: “Tom, you married a woman!”  He looks at me incredulous and then explains the situation in great detail and includes his possible explanations of his wife’s motives.  I listen politely and then render my wisdom gained from many years of marriage and the raising of two daughters.

“You will be very frustrated if you continue to try to figure out the female mind”, I caution.  “You can’t do it. Please stop trying now.”

“But she does things that make no sense.  Things that are clearly wrong, decisions that I would never make!” Tom protests.

“Unfortunately, these decisions and opinions make perfect sense to her”, I explain.

“Well that’s just stupid!” Tom exclaims.

“Many times she thinks your decisions are narrow-minded and stupid”, I say.

“I am never stupid”, says Tom.  “I am very intelligent and have a college degree!”

“In the words of the prophetess Shania Twain: That don’t impress her much”

“Then what am I supposed to do when she does these stupid things?” Tom asks.

“First of all, never call her stupid. You respond to it, you react to it, you dance around it, you try to guide it where you want it to go, but never try to understand it”, I explain.

Recently some male researchers in Germany tried to figure out if men could “read” and understand women by using something called “science”.  They did a study (reported in the journal Plos One) and came to this startling conclusion: MEN CAN’T READ WOMEN’S EMOTIONS. 

Stop the freakin’ presses.  This was another worthless study conducted by Captain Obvious.  If women scientists were asked to conduct this study, they would have laughed hysterically, but Wolfgang and his crew tried to find the secret and failed miserably!

If you need more evidence, mega-genius scientist Stephen Hawking was asked in a 2012 interview if there was anything he could not understand.  His reply: “Women, they are a complete mystery to me”.  So Hawking may be able to understand black holes, but when it comes to understanding other types of , ah, ah, “spaces” (perhaps the spaces between a women’s ears), he is clueless.  He is one of the smartest men alive and he is utterly clueless when it comes to understanding women.

One time I asked a gynecologist friend of mine if he understood women.  He looked at me dumbfounded and said “of course not”.  So if a guy who spends all day staring into women’s ah, ah, “essence”, yeh essence, can’t solve this riddle, then who can?

Well maybe there is one guy who does understand women.  Hugh Hefner at 86 years of age married a 26-year old Playboy Playmate in January.  His bride is very blonde and very, ah, ah, very healthy.  Disregarding any moral judgments or ulterior motives for a moment, you must have some deep, special, knowledge to take a bride this bodacious who is 60, yes 60 years younger. (You also need a tremendously strong cardio system and the capability of buying Viagra by the barrel).  So it may be possible to understand women, but this knowledge is limited to a privileged few.

So Tom is clueless, but won’t admit it.  Hawking is a genius, but knows when he is clueless. And Hef knows the secret, doesn’t talk about it, but just smiles a lot.

A genius about one thing 

A genius about all but one thing

This Sex-Ed Was “Old School” and Effective!

Recently there was an article in the local newspaper on the declining teen birth rate in Ohio (for you younger readers, a “newspaper” is a collection of Internet news articles printed out together on “pages”). This article featured the standard interview with a 19-year old woman (white, by the way, just in case Paula Deen is reading this) who is raising a 7-month old daughter.  I was feeling the expected amount of compassion for this woman, especially since her goal is to become an obstetrician someday.

But near the end of the article there is this revelation (I am not making this up): “She and the father didn’t use birth control, she admitted. But she never thought she would become pregnant”.

There are several things so, so, wrong with this.  We live in the “information age" with books, movies, social media and a gazillion bits of information on procreation and this 18-year old (at the time), could not figure out where babies come from.   Do you see all these people walking around, people on TV, billions in China?  Did you ever wonder how they got here?

Come on, this pregnancy has got to be someone else’s fault.  Of course I was having frequent sex with my boyfriend and I thought things were just fine.  And then out of nowhere, bam, I get pregnant, can you believe it?

The fact she would still admit this to a reporter makes me question if she still has doubts how she ended up pregnant.  I really don’t think she is cut out to be an obstetrician:

Patient: Doctor, I think I’m pregnant.

Obstetrician: Do you have any idea how this could have happened?

Of course she should have learned this in sex education class in high school. But the schools are failing to teach students how to add and subtract, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are also failing to teach them how not to multiply.

Fortunately when I was in school my friends and I learned all this important stuff from Coach Gary who taught sex-ed.  We trusted Coach Gary as an authority on the subject because he wore neck chains and aftershave and had had chest hair.  In addition, Coach Gary was known to have made “goo-goo” eyes at Miss Finch the music teacher (who was hot!) and she reportedly made “goo-goo eyes” back!

Coach Gary explained to us that during “certain frictionally activities” a man’s battleship would release millions of seamen into a woman’s “South Pacific Region” (being warm, wet, and south of the equator).  These seamen were very horny sailors and they all tried to penetrate the shoreline. 

Fortunately, most times all the seamen would drown in the ocean.  However if just one of these seamen reached shore, it would lead to a cataclysmic series of events that would lead to you someday having to actually change dozens of “poopy diapers”.  This horrible consequence was enough for us to keep our seamen under control.  What coach Gary failed to mention is that someday the captain of your battleship would “fall in love” and you would actually try to get a seaman on shore, with the ultimate result being changing the poopy diapers.    

This guy wants to score!

Of course the reason the poopy diaper threat was effective is that most guys in my generation felt an obligation to marry the woman if a seaman completed a successful mission. This factor kept most guys from releasing their seamen in the inviting waters of the Slutlantic Sea. 

However today guys indiscriminately sleep with any “doable” chick, knock her up, and suffer no consequences.  The government even pays for it! So after guys do it once, of course they go do it again. It’s a great deal. The government should call it the SSP (Slut Subsidy Program).

We may have been old school, but at least learned how to control our seamen. And thanks to Coach Gary there were fewer unplanned pregnancies and everyone was better off because of it

Don’t Let Just Anybody Cut In Line

As I warned, the winner of the $590 million Mega Millions lottery prize was an 84 year-old Florida woman.  This is just not right.  There is a minimum age to play the lottery; they need a maximum age limit also.  An 84-year old has no business playing the lottery and has no business winning the lottery.  So now while thousands of other lottery players get nothing for their efforts, this woman is enjoying wearing name-brand protective undergarments (which she needs a lot with all the excitement of winning the lottery and whatnot) and eating gourmet pudding (no more box-mix crap).  Just as people under 18 are prohibited from buying tickets because they don’t know what they are doing, old people shouldn’t be permitted to buy tickets for the very same reason.

And this woman seriously did not know what she was doing.  We found out after she claimed the prize that a younger woman had let her cut in line to buy the winning ticket. (The timing of the old lady's purchase is important because she had her winning numbers randomly selected) That’s right; the old lady was oblivious to where the line started.  She heard about the lottery on the radio and thought she could just waltz right up to the counter and buy her ticket.  “Oh look, goodie, there’s nobody in line” when in fact there was a long line!   I’m not sure she even knew she was buying a lottery ticket.  Maybe she thought she was paying her electric bill and they gave her the lottery ticket as a gift because she paid on time.  So this old woman wins mega-millions of dollars instead of much more deserving people like the woman with eight kids from six different men in Ohio and the meth addict in Michigan.

And what about this “kind soul” who let the old lady cut?  Do you realize that you didn’t just let her cut in front of you, but to cut in front of the other 90 people in line?  Your responsibility was not to let her cut, but to direct her to the back of the line. “Oh, way back there? That’s a long line, I can’t even see the end from here.”

Of course the younger woman who granted cuttsies says she came forward to tell her story not because she wanted any credit for being polite, or wanted any sympathy, or heaven forbid, getting a cut of the winnings for granting the cut in line.  If these things are not your motivation, then why the hell are you even talking about it?  Of course we all know that while you are telling this pleasant story on the outside, inside you are thinking: “Look you old bat, I let your sorry a** cut in line.  You owe me; you owe me so very much.  SHOW ME THE MONEY! SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

However the old lady has no concept of just how much $370 million (lump sum) really is   Okay, so I don’t have a concept of what $370 million is either, but that is not the point.  But because the old lady remains clueless, she will probably reward the younger woman by baking her a nice batch of oatmeal raisin cookies (made with fresh raisins of course, because now she can afford them). The younger woman will accept the cookies with a smile and say “How nice!” Of course on the inside she will be thinking “Cookies? Cookies? You stupid old bitch! I let you cut in line and win $370 million and all you give me is some f#@!*&g cookies? Give me some cash! You owe me some cash!

SHOW ME THE COOKIES!

I think this changes the rules about letting someone cut in line.  Of course there are times when common courtesy dictates that you do this: at the grocery, in traffic, etc.  But now if the circumstances are such that the person does not deserve the cut or if it adds a burden to the people behind you in line, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LET THE PERSON CUT! If it makes you feel guilty, just rationalize your decision by thinking “If I let this person cut in line, it could cost me $590 million like that stupid sap in Florida!”

Steroids Are Legal In This League

A fictional tale ….

In 2013, Major League Baseball responded to its latest steroid scandal by finally decided to get tough and enacted a lifetime ban on all players who were found to be using performance enhancing drugs. (Okay so maybe this is a fantasy tale).  In response, the banned players and a group of “Mark McGwire wannabees” formed a new league, “Roid Rage Baseball” and began play in 2014. 

We pick up action in the 5^th inning in a late season game between the Boston Biceps and the New York Needles, Skip Scary and Joe Bulk on the call:

Skip: No outs, two on for the Biceps. The next batter is Brian Brawny, but there seems to be some delay.

Joe: Brawny is having trouble finding a batting helmet that fits.  He had been using a size 12, but it looks like he’s ready to move up to the 14.

Skip: The head size has become a real issue with Brian.  I really look for him to go for the home run here so he can walk around the bases.

Joe: That was really unfortunate when he got that single last night and kept tipping over when running the bases.  Not only did he get tagged out, but it took two guys to set him upright.

Skip: Brawny is finally set in the batter’s box and takes a 140 mph fastball high for ball one.

Joe:  Brawny has recently been on a tear lately with 12 homers in his last 4 games.  He currently has 140 for the season which is second in the league behind “Steroid” Sam Cooper’s 155.  The Biceps trail 20 to 17 so they could use one on Brawny’s tremendous 780-foot jacks right now.

Skip:  Brian credits his new Rawlings sports bra for his recent success at the plate.  It seems his man-boobs were interfering with his swing, but the bra offers the support he needs to swing smoothly through the ball.

Joe:  You can remember the commotion starting back in May when he moved up from the formula VX 30 to the VX 40 and he started to sport some serious hooters.

Skip: Yes, it got so bad at one point that his teammates refused to shower with him!  Then eventually everyone moved up to the VX40.  Now shower time resembles a “Girls Gone Wild” video.

Skip: Fisher fires a 120 mph cutter on the corner for strike one.

Joe: What a pitch! Does Hiller need a new mitt after that one?

Skip: No, he’s using that new Kevlar mitt.  Not only can it withstand the cutter, it has greatly reduced the number of broken hands.  This is a great improvement. Remember the league went through 31 catchers in its first month.

Joe: The other thing that has really helped Brawny is that he’s has grown a fully functional third eye.  At first they thought it would be a third eye blind, but it’s not.  He now has 20-15-20 vision.

Skip:  That’s high for ball two.  Runners count, do you think Wilson will try to steal third?

Joe: No need with Brawny at the plate.  And remember in June when Wilson stole third, but couldn’t stop and ran straight through the stadium wall and landed in the third row?

Skip: Yes, but team pharmacist Jerry “The Juice” Frazier said he dialed back Wilson’s meth hits to two per day. Not only doesn’t he shake as much, but he is chewing his food so much better!

Skip: Brawny swings and misses at a smoking hot fast ball that registers 157 on the radar!

Joe: What’s with Crawford at first base?  The guy is really scratching up a storm.  I mean baseball players scratch, but this looks excessive.

Skip: That’s because he had nad replacement surgery last week.  He did that pop-up slide in a game against Detroit and unfortunately they popped out.

Joe: We have seen other players have a problem with this.  The synthetic nads are great, but they can be very irritating until your body adjusts. 

  

Skip: Fisher to the plate and oh no, Brawny has been hit by the pitch.

Joe: That fastball was clocked at 162 and the ball has cracked in two pieces in front of the plate.

Skip: That’s not the only thing that cracked; Brawny’s forearm is laying just to the left of the batter’s box.

Joe: Yes and here comes the limb retrieval squad racing on to the field.

Skip: That is a bad break for the Biceps. Remember when Strickland suffered the same injury in June; he was on the disabled list for three weeks.

Joe: They will have to shoot him up with some formula CF-45, that stuff is great for healing this type of injury!

You Can Lose It All – If You Don’t Play The Lottery

It’s been a couple weeks since American’s last bout of lottery mania.  Strangely enough, the big $590 million winner has not yet come forward.  I think he is busy planning the day when he turns in his winning ticket, does his obligatory interview and then quickly jets off to his new private island in the Caribbean.

We do hope that the winner is a kind, decent, soul who deserves the money and not that obnoxious jerk Brad La Duca from your graduating class.  We also hope that the winner is not an 89-year old geezer who would spend the money on new teeth, brand-name pudding and extra-absorbent Depends.

My feelings on the lottery have evolved over the years.  I do agree with whoever said “the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math”.  For some it is a tax on the stupid, which is still better than a “stupid tax” of which we have too many.  If you are counting on winning the lottery as your retirement plan or if you are unemployed and this is your job hunting strategy, you are indeed stupid and should not be playing the lottery.

But I think most people play the lottery because they are buying hope, they are buying fantasy.  For a dollar they can get a cheap thrill of escapism.  People buy lottery tickets for the same reason guys buy Playboy, it gives you the fantasy of having something you are never going to get.

Opponents of the game claim that you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery, but this analogy is stupid.  You are comparing the chance of something very bad, with the chance of something very good.  Given the choice between getting struck by lightning and winning the lotto, I’ll choose the lottery.  So I better buy a ticket, because of course I do not want to get struck by lightning!

I have to be one of the few people who have won more money from the lottery than I have spent.  This is because I bought one ticket when I turned 18, because I was now “lottery legal”.  Unbelievably, I lost.  This really fizzed me off and I never bought another ticket.  However I have won small amounts on lottery tickets that people gave me as “gifts”.  But lottery tickets have to be the lamest gift ever (sorry Aunt Sally).  “Hey, I just spent two whole dollars that give you the opportunity to collect mega-millions of dollars.  Oh you didn’t win; well that’s your problem.”  And when a person does win big with a gift ticket, of course you have to give Aunt Sally a generous cut.

Although the odds of winning the Power Ball drawing are astronomical, there is one circumstance where you should always buy a ticket. If your coworkers are collecting money for the “office pool”, you should always participate.   This is not because you actually want to win, it is insurance just in case the knuckleheads you work with hit it big.  If you decline to contribute, you could be sitting on your couch eating macaroni and cheese watching that moron Gail from Accounting telling the world how she plans to spend her millions.  You do not want to be that guy! Two dollars is a small price to pay to eliminate the chance of that ever happening.

And this stigma would be long lasting.  You would always be known at work as that cheap sonavabitch who didn’t join the mega-million dollar winning lotto pool.  “The fool wouldn’t spend just two dollars, what an idiot.”  You would have to train all your new coworkers and when you retired the company president would remark, “This is a special day because we haven’t had anyone retire in years.  Of course that it because all the people Bill’s age left the company after hitting the Powerball years ago.  Bill was always such a cheap sonavabitch.” In your eulogy they will say that Bill almost won $10 million in the lottery one time, but he didn’t play, because he was such a cheap

The only thing missing from this photo is you!

sonavabitch!

And your coworkers will quit their jobs after they win.  Everyone says they won’t quit their jobs if and when they win, but they are liars. Even bigger liars than our government!  Even if they try to continue working, it only lasts until their butthead boss says or does something moronic that upsets them (otherwise known as Tuesday).  Then they realize they could be home, lying on the couch, watching Judge Judy and eating snacks.  And not cheap snacks either.  We are talking vegetable chips with organic guacamole.

Strangely enough, during my career a coworker has never asked me to join a lottery pool.  Then again, they all know I am good at math.