Tourist

This is why I can’t show pictures from my trips to my family anymore.



I’m pretty sure I took other pictures, but this is my favorite.

Tell Me What Hot Yoga Chick Was Doing

I was recently at a CVS (like a Walgreens) stocking up on travel sundries (love that word), cards, batteries and other random goods. I was in the store for nearly thirty minutes up and down various aisles.

Just after I walked in, I passed the candy aisle and noticed a hot chick scanning the shelves. Being the horny guy I am that gets excited when the wind blows; I did a u-turn and proceeded down the candy aisle. She was a hot blonde in great shape wearing some kind of black exercise/yoga pants and a fancy tight t-shirt. She was pacing the aisle like a caged tiger intently looking up and down the shelves at all the chocolate. She was so immersed in whatever she was looking for that she didn’t notice my slow walk-by pretending I was looking at the sweets on the shelves when all I was really doing was checking out the eye candy in the yoga pants. I went as slow as I could without being obnoxiously obvious although in hindsight, I could have stood right next to her and stared at her tits and I don’t think she would have noticed. Chocolate does strange things to women.

So I moved on and picked up a few items a couple aisles over. A few minutes later, I had to double back for something else and went by the candy aisle again. The hot yoga chick was gone. I grabbed a few more things and moved to the other end of the store, by the Easter shit. Guess what? It had been fifteen minutes since the candy aisle and there was the hot yoga chick again – perusing candy in the Easter aisle.

I bumped into the end cap because I was surprised to see her again, and maybe I was staring at her ass; I can’t remember for sure. I knocked over a couple Easter baskets and made a bit of a ruckus. Hot yoga chick didn’t have a clue I was there. Again, she was focused on a massive candy search of some kind. At that point, she still wasn’t holding anything.

I moved on again. By the time I finished and paid, I had been in the store for twenty-five minutes. My car was parked in front by the store doors, next to a garbage can. I got sidetracked by something shiny and then was busy checking and answering email on my phone. Five minutes later, I was about to pull out when I saw hot yoga chick walk out of the store. I didn’t realize she was still in there.

She remained completely oblivious to my presence. I believe whatever was in her hand was the object of her concentration during the store search and now that she had her bounty, nothing could distract her. To my immense pleasure, she briskly walked to the garbage can right in front of me and started clawing at the packaging of the only item she had purchased in the store. I was close enough to clearly see her prize – a three pack of chocolate Cadbury eggs.

I watched her frantically unwrap the package like a crack addict trying to get her fix. She ripped off the packaging and for a brief moment was holding the three eggs in her right hand. She put one egg in her other hand and then tossed the other two in the garbage can. I watched her peel off the foil on the remaining egg and wondered if there was something else in her hand because it was balled into a little fist while her fingers worked on the candy. She finally got it off and threw the clump of foil wrapping in the garbage; along with a handful of change!

She very briefly looked quizzically at the garbage can and then at her hand now devoid of candy wrapper and all loose change. One second later, a look of pure happiness and heaven covered her face as she started eating her Cadbury egg.

And then hot yoga chick was gone. All that was left of her was a garbage can holding two unwrapped Cadbury eggs and a pile of loose change.

Time for You to Get a Stinkin' Watch, Lady!

I’ve been traveling up the buzzhole lately. Two trips ago, I was in New Orleans. The stories are many and what happens in New Orleans stays in Las Vegas or something like that so I’ll have to figure out what to share. One story that I am still a little perplexed about happened on the flight to New Orleans.

I was sitting in an aisle seat, legs splayed out, taking advantage of nobody sitting in the middle seat. I put on my iPod and was feeling really sleepy. I leaned back, turned up the music and closed my eyes. It only took a couple minutes for me to drift off into those early stages of sleep where you are dreaming but still kind of hear noises around you. My mind was wandering, sort of feeling conscious, but really was lost in la-la land.

I was dozing peacefully. And then I felt something nudge my elbow. In my sleep I thought nothing of it other than just knowing it happened. I quickly returned to an increasingly deeper state of sleep when I felt another nudge. It was on my elbow again, harder this time and lingering. My mind registered that it wasn’t a dream and the feeling was still there to the point of waking me up.

I groggily looked at my elbow and saw a pudgy hand; the pudgy hand of the woman sitting across the aisle from me. She said something but I couldn’t hear her because of the loud music blaring from my iPod and the cobwebs from my sleepy state. I looked at her trying to understand if I was really awake. She spoke again and I had to remove my left ear bud.

She said, “What time is it?”

I heard her clearly but I was shocked by the simplicity of the question that required her to wake me up. Especially when there were two people sitting next to her. So of course I said, “What?!?”

She said it again. “What time is it?”

I had trouble reading my watch because it has hands and it was a weird time like 10:52 and I was so incredulous that she woke me up to ask me what time it was. I told her the time and she asked if that was in Denver or New Orleans. I told her Denver, put my ear bud back in and closed my eyes.

Ten seconds later she nudged my elbow again. I opened one eye and she yelled, “Thank you.”

Who does that?



Besides this woman?

Sometimes Old School is Just Better

Old School: I wrote you a letter last night. And I hope you have been getting my cards.

New School: Yes, thank you. I emailed you about them after you didn’t answer my text.

Old School: Oh, and I’m sorry you didn’t make it to the long weekend. All our old friends were there. I’ll drop some pictures in the mailbox. They will look great on your fridge.

New School: I keep checking your wall on Facebook for the details! Pics would be great! PDF them or give me the link. Are you on Flickr or Shutterfly? I’ll upload them to my electronic picture frame that I have plugged in next to my AppleTV.

Old School: Maybe we can catch up on the phone about the long weekend. It would be great to hear your voice for a change of pace. Plus I need to tell you how some of the girls got all snappy with each other. I thought a cat fight was going to break out.

New School: I’d call you, but my Skype camera is choppy and my internet connection at home is tied into the DirecTV that is covered in snow. You can IM me at work. Catch me on meebo on any of the messengers. I’m always there. Those silly girls. I am so blocking them from MySpace. I saw they had a smear campaign going on trying to get each other deleted.

Old School: Yeah, well they looked good. I think they were jealous of each other getting attention from the guys.

New School: I tried to check them out from here, but their photo albums are all marked private.

Old School: Okay, if we can’t talk, do you want to meet me at the new bar on the corner? It is really fun. They have games too. We can play Scrabble, drink some beer, and people watch. Maybe you will meet your next date!

New School: That totally reminds me how angry I am with the Words With Friends application on my iPhone. It has been down for two weeks and I had a bunch of games going. I can’t resynch because my iPhone has been surgically attached to my body. Hang on, somebody is texting me. I have to see who it is immediately. Oh, it was just a sports update. The basketball team just scored another point. Oops, somebody is calling on my Blackberry. Oh, I’m not picking that up. Thank god for Caller ID. I really don’t want to talk to my mom again. She has been calling me all week! Another text. The score of the game is 12 to 10 early in the first quarter. Hey, a Facebook update from Ashton Kutcher! He is sitting in traffic. Love that guy! Don't even get me started on the dating. I've got a hunderd winks out on Match.com.

Old School: So do you want to catch up over beers?

New School: I’d love to. Can you send me an eVite? I’ll send you a virtual Guinness right now. ‘Send.’ There you go. Enjoy! You know my Twitter handle. You can catch up with me all day long right there.

Old School: Ok fine. Hey, listen, I’m about to go on a trip and was wondering if you’ve read any good books lately?

New School: Hell to the yeah! I was listening to a book on my iPod while I was at the Oxygen Bar drinking designer bottled water. I had to leave early because I was out of cash and they don’t take PayPal. So I rode my Segway home and ordered ebooks via my smart phone. I loaded up the Kindle and can’t wait to start scanning books!

Old School: I just thought I’d grab a paperback. Something I can curl up with at night, maybe take to the pool during the day. Oh, and I’m driving and want to load up on discs. I’d love any music recommendations.

New School: Driving? That is ambitious. Do you need to borrow my GPS or will you just Mapquest it? I hope you have OnStar. My laptop just pushed a weather update to me that the roads might be slick.

Old School: Even though it is doubtful I will ever consult it, I do have a map. Last time I opened it, my origami skills failed me and I wasn’t able to refold the Western United States to the point with the actual cover on front, but it works.

New School: Well, be careful folding those things while you drive. They can be distracting and cause an… Whoaaaaaaaa. Geez! Sorry. I was just short coding a text to the satellite radio station to try to win a contest and I didn't see that red light with all those stopped cars in front of me. Okay, back. So you want some music recommendations? Go check out the playlist I made on MyPlaylist. I put it on Pandora too. iTunes is selling it. Or you can upload the YouTube video montage of my list and play it on your in-dash DVD player.

Old School: My trip is mostly for fun, but while I’m there I’m going to see a client we have had for five years. We have never met in person before.

New School: Whoa, that seems like a waste. That is the client I've got a second connection to on LinkedIn, right? Between web conferencing and trading information on your Wiki, you could really use your time more wisely than seeing your client in person. And didn’t you follow up on the webinar with a Survey Monkey? And isn’t the Second Life store doing really well? I can’t believe you are going to see, touch and smell your client. Gross.

Old School: You are right. This is gross.

We Were The Cool Kids

Hey you. We were totally the cool kids. We weren’t all jocks or the smartest kids or even the best looking (no really, we weren’t). But we were cool man. Chicks dug us. I mean just look at the proof, baby.



That is 1984 on the steps of my high school before it closed after my junior year. Clearly we were bright students. You can see the smartness oozing from the collective inquisitive looks on our faces. Chicks dig brainy studs. I’m the brainy stud on the upper left with the skinny rubbery Gumby body. Some people may look at our seemingly amazed faces and wonder if we have ever seen a camera before, when in reality we were pulling off that look of nonchalance that just kills the babes.

Not convinced we were the cool kids? Well look at this:



Our fashion sense wasn’t just in how we dressed. It was in how we decorated too. And you thought just gay guys were good at interiors! We had Xmas spirit. We were undeterred when the stuffy economics teacher made us take down the banner that said, “Merry Christmas Damn It.” The cheerleaders used to fill our socks with goodies hoping we’d stuff theirs with something real good. My Footloose knit tie and mutant bug sunglasses were the basis for a many Barry White love songs, I kid you not.


Still questioning our coolness? Check out the 1985 Prom.



Can you say “Chippendales?”

You want more, don’t you? How ‘bout this bash in my parents basement in ’86.



Oh man, I had the chest open and large ledge of hair on my head back in the golden days of uber coolness. And we were manly enough to be comfortable with each other to the point were Lemon on the far left sweetly held on to Wally’s finger in a cool kid’s act of loving camaraderie. Oh man, just like guys fantasize for the cheerleaders to fight with their pom poms and then make out, the gals liked seeing us boys arm in arm.

I know you are already a believer. You know we were the cool kids. Now for icing on the cake. We were so cool, one of the guys made business cards, just so we can remind people. We were The Boys of Summer. Yeah, I know, enough said. Beyond cool, right? The Boys of Summer title was underscored with our nicknames. I was Willy (first name). We also had Cheech, TR, Wrobes, Lemon, Forge, and Hammer. And we had our own tagline. “We are young, good looking and will make it fit.” Of course, we didn’t want to be so crass to the freshman girls, so our tag was edited down to “We are young, good looking and will be there.” And you thought calling cards were only something you’d see in the old Clark Gable and Carey Grant movies. Nope. 1986 baby.

You want more of the Boys of Summer don’t you? I don’t blame you. Everybody wanted a piece of us. Including Mrs. Lund. Ohhhhhhh yeah. Let me take a moment.

Okay, back. Yeah, Mrs. Lund was Lemon’s girlfriend’s mom. She was today’s Stacey’s Mom, from the song. She was hot. And she knew we were hot. One time me and two of the Boys of Summer stopped by the Lund house and only Mrs. Lund was there. She rubbed my hairy chest, made a comment about Forge’s curly hair and told Lemon he was so handsome. She said we could come inside and wait for her daughter to come home. So we did what all horny high school kids and their friend’s hot mom does; we went down to the basement and piled into the tent they had set up for the little brother. We all sat Indian style. Mrs. Lund had on her short tennis skirt. We were sitting INDIAN STYLE. Are you with me? We were totally the cool kids.

Mrs. Lund was a photographer. Since we were so cool, we thought we should do a photo shoot. Mrs. Lund told us what wardrobe items to bring to the forest preserve where she’d do the shoot for free.

This is what you’ve been waiting for. The ultimate proof of our coolness. The Boys of Summer forest preserve shoot with Mrs. Lund:



We have the classic U2 shot, the blue jeans and suck belly shot, the sportys in sport coats and of course the casual river frolic. I’ll have you know Mrs. Lund stood waist deep in the water to get those last shots in the river. Upon leaving, she put my hand on her ass and said, “I’m wet.” I’ll never forget that moment for the rest of my life.

Clearly we were the cool kids. I don’t know why I have to keep telling you that.

Orange Puffy Coat Man

I was driving to play basketball last night and turned the corner onto the road that leads to the gym. I passed a guy in an orange puffy coat walking on the street. I drove about two more miles and pulled into the school parking lot where we play hoops.

I was early, so I sat in my SUV checking messages, trying to get Words With Friends to work again on my iphone, and reminiscing about my afternoon in the bookstore camped out near the Self Help section so I could spy on the freaks and speculate as to why they were trying to find books that might save them from themselves.

About twenty minutes later, I was amazed to see the orange puffy coat guy walk by. I immediately took his picture and emailed my crazy (but the cool kind) friend. And now I share him with you.



See? Amazing! What is amazing, you ask? Is it his puffy orange coat? No. Is it that he is walking in the street despite being a mere five feet away from a perfectly good sidewalk? No. Is it his fashion sense to mix a powder blue hat with an orange coat? No. Isn’t it clear? No?

It’s amazing because he was walking backwards. The whole time! I gave him a double take when I originally passed him two miles down the road. I watched him disappear up the road, walking backwards and peeking over his shoulder now and then.

I wondered what he would have done if I would have yelled, “Back up!” to him. My crazy (but the cool kind) friend suggested, “Look behind you!”

Basketball was about to start or I would have really done it up right and driven in reverse behind him, which would have been in front of him since he was walking backwards. It would have been fun to reverse along side of him and ask him what time it was an hour ago. He might have said, “Back off.” And I might have said, “Watch your back, pal.”

And we would have laughed and laughed until I rear ended a car in front of me with my rear end and he would have walked backwards into a parked car but he would have been okay because his orange puffy coat was also like a life preserver.

Instead, I played basketball and focused on my backpedaling and reverse layups.

Float On

As I may or may not have been speeding through a yellow light that may or may not have been mostly red with my two precious boys very safely strapped in as per NHTSA child passenger safety seat guidelines, Will said, “Daddy, that was red.”

“I thought it was mostly yellow.”

“The cops are gonna get you.”

Drew piped in, “Yeah!! They are gonna get you daddy!”

“How can they can get me when I’m driving so fast?”

“Daddy, drive the speed limit.”

“I am, I am. I just sped up a tiny bit to get through that greenish-yellow light.”

“It was red. The cops are gonna get you if you do it again. How do cops catch bad guys?”

I decided on the spot not to mention that time the cops busted Lemon and I for stealing a rubber six foot tree from the Rolling Meadows Holiday Inn Holidome. But I used it for inspiration to declare, “Well, they tell you to stop and put you in handcuffs. If you won’t stop, they might zap you with a tazer which is sort of like getting struck by lightening. It’s a little stun gun that keeps you from moving so they can catch you better.” Note, Lemon and I were not tazered. We shit our pants and did what the cops asked.

Will said, “So they catch them, put them in handcuffs and take them to jail?”

Before I could confirm, Drew interrupted with, “Or they just roll over them!”

Will and I said in unison, “Roll over them?!!!”

“Yeah, they just roll over them in their car. That will stop the bad guys.”

Will tried to explain the problem with this. “Drew, they can’t just roll over all the bad guys. Even if they are bad, they can’t just do that. They have to let them go to jail.”

“No, they should roll over them!”

Wow, my kid should be a judge in Texas doling out death penalties to shop lifters. I thought this was amusing until later in the afternoon when I saw the Lego project Drew put together by himself.



He was cruising this Lego car around the floor while dragging the poor Lego knight around by chain attached to the fender. I’ve got one kid that will give you a fair trial and I’ve got another kid that should be in the mob.

I thought of all this as I sat in court today. I had passed lots of shady characters on the way through security. There was an interesting combination of thuggery, idiots and bitterness with a few sane people interspersed. Happy Monday. I got divorced this morning.

It went fine. The wait was an hour and a half. The court proceedings were seven minutes. The judge thanked us for having our shit together. Just as we got married with an “I do,” we got divorced with an, “I do,” when the judge made us promise to tell the truth. I was pleased to hear the ex answer, “No,” to the judge’s questions about whether or not she was pregnant and if she was taking back her old last name in order to defraud and/or avoid anyone.

We walked out together, final documents in hand. We passed some dudes that probably should have been rolled over rather than detained. We hugged goodbye and will see each other tomorrow when I see the boys again.

I don’t feel anything special. I’m not going to go celebrate or mourn anything at a bar. Besides it being a Monday morning, I just don’t need to do that. Instead, I went to Pete’s Kitchen and had breakfast at the counter. Ham and cheese omelet, breakfast potatoes, side of bacon, wet toast and a diet coke. Now I’m at St. Mark’s having a chai and playing on the laptop.

There are people all around me. Some are probably married, others single, others should be single. Some are good guys, some are probably bad guys. Hopefully none of them deserve to be rolled over. Whoever they are and whatever they deserve, I hope they get it.

I’m doing what I need to do for me. Good things happen with that. A good kind of rollover. Today was just another step along the way. I’m holding my head high, open to anything and damn glad I’m not getting dragged behind the bumper of life.