Dream Journal : The Biggest Wave, Part 2

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Back on the boat, I found myself sitting at a table talking with one of my uncles and some other people, and the conversation quickly becoming heated. He got off on some ridiculous conservative rant that really set me off, to the point where I finally got up from the table and said that I was tired of having the same argument with him, and that if he wanted to know how I felt, he could just look at Facebook because we had literally had the same argument online several years earlier.

From there I stormed off and found myself looking for a quiet place to write about all that we had just seen. I ended up in the lounge in the back of the ship where they were serving drinks and desserts – I first ran across one of my old bosses and his wife who happened to be on the same trip, but it was like I wasn’t supposed to talk to them because they didn’t seem to have any dialog other than, “Hello…” when I approached.

Anyways, I ended up taking a corner of a table where a couple of other guests sat and wrote while I sipped a drink, listening to Jimmy Buffett’s Trying to Reason with the Hurricane Season being played by the band as I wrote.

People came and left as I jotted more things down until the tempo began to pick up a little and I was ready to leave as a newer crowd came into the bar. Somehow in my departure, however, I angered this really beefy guy who had clearly already been drinking because for some reason suddenly he wanted to fight me.

The guy’s muscles were huge and I knew that I didn’t have a chance, but when he came at me and took his first swing, I somehow blocked it like a pro and then came back at him with a flurry of punches to the chest and one last one to the gut that put him on the ground. But I didn’t even stop there, moving up to continue punching and kicking him to make sure that he knew that he had messed with the wrong guy.

For my final move, I kicked him hard and the guy went flying through the glass window out onto the open deck behind us

That’s when I ran.

I’m not sure if I was running from the guy that I had just knocked out or maybe the staff for starting a fight on the boat, but I zigzagged my way through the ship several times, looking into a room for the guy before I would enter any of them, until I finally just gave up and went back to my room to lay low for a while.

I pictured just hiding there for the rest of the trip, afraid to be spotted by the guy who would clearly be seeking his revenge, and that’s when the siren went off across the ship.

There was another giant wave coming, and this time we weren’t safe because there was a broken window on the sixth floor that would let the water in…

Dream Journal : The Biggest Wave, Part 1

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Sara and I were on this cruise.

It was still a big ship – something like six decks – but it was local to the Tampa Bay Area. That said, the area was much more diverse than in reality and getting off the boat where we had docked felt like getting off in another country anyways…

Apparently the weather was really bad, but the cruise staff just seemed to take it in stride. On our way to one destination, the captain simply announced, “Everybody hold on!” as we looked out the window to see a wave coming that was taller than the ship itself. It was scary because it took a few seconds for the wave to approach, but when it finally came down it was almost like we were underwater for a long time.

We all looked around, wondering if the boat was going down, but a few seconds later the wave passed and we could see sunlight outside again, and that was that.

I did worry a bit about anyone who might’ve been on the top deck, though.

When we got to where the boat was going, we decided that we’d go out for a little jog / run … I think the track was on the upper deck. I never made it there because we had some confusion and I followed my wife to the changing room, only to find that there were separate facilities for men and women and I wasn’t allowed in, so she went ahead and got changed while I went back to the room to get my own stuff because we weren’t going to be allowed to share after all…

On my way back, somehow I ended up down on the streets outside of the ship and stumbled upon this outdoor Lego display, which stood out to me because I actually had a set being displayed as well. I was instantly mad because although there hadn’t been a lot of guests through, my piece had kind of gotten trashed – it was a Lord of the Rings set that was all medieval, and there were pieces of one of the towers in a big pile with all sorts of other sets.

I stopped to try and fix it because a guy I knew was working on his own as well, and it’s probably a good thing that I did because as I gathered up the wreckage from my set from the bigger pile, he noted that a bunch of the pieces that had gone into mine were pretty rare … as if to indicate that had I not been standing there, they would’ve ended up his before too long.

Suddenly without warning, that’s when the next wave hit.

Being on the ground instead of back on the ship, that’s when I felt the full force of the wave instead of just watching it harmlessly flowing over the six story boat.

People ran for nearby buildings and a few got inside, but more didn’t, and then the wave started sweeping people and things away like they were pebbles.

I watched one lady get crushed by a refrigerator who was scrambling to get inside somebody’s house, but they shut the door on her … a moment later, that steel box slammed into the side of the building and squashed her like a bug.

The weather was more pronounced on the ground than it had been on the ship – the wave came in multiples, and other smaller things like twisters made of dust (?!) were born after it arose.

For a brief moment, I was pissed because my Lego pieces by now were surely gone forever, but then I thought of Sara and got her on the phone to make sure that she was ok. Being back on the boat, she said that she was fine and that they had closed the jogging track on top of the boat due to the weather, so she was safely inside the whole time.

After the final smaller wave hit, I wandered the streets a bit and tried to take some pictures of the damages with my phone, but it quickly because apparent that my presence wasn’t wanted by the locals because at any time I could go back to the boat and escape it all.

Their streets were a mess, the water had swept in these giant locust creatures that were laying eggs and multiplying rapidly, and as tensions rose it was clearly time to go…

Thoughts of an easier life…

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I read a post on Facebook that triggered a little thought trail that I wander from time to time – would it have been “easier” living 50 years ago without all of the fast-paced goings-on that our society is known for today?

The post talked about an older generation that didn’t have “a green movement” like we see today for environmentalism, yet they reused milk bottles and had paper instead of plastic bags and walked instead of driving a lot of places, etc, etc… It reminds me a lot of small town life up north because I have a hard time picturing how that would even work here in suburbia where communities are more spread out because distance isn’t the limitation that it once was, and as much as I’ll be the first to shout from the treetops that I don’t think I could ever really adapt to small town life after finally “escaping” a little over a decade ago, there are certainly parts of me that wonder what it would’ve been like…

…to have the family business to go into where I suppose you might not really get a choice, but it makes sense in so many ways to just keep on doing what your family has always been doing, be it farming or running the general store or whatever.

…to have that kind of physical work built into your daily schedule that “exercise” simply isn’t something that you have to think about after you’ve been tossing hay bales and chasing pigs around all day!

…to not have the constant urge to update and be connected with the entire world, all of the time, and to enjoy that family togetherness that comes from everyone living in the same town so that everything – not just Christmas or special occasions – are a time for family.

Granted, I think part of this thought process comes simply from feeling exhausted and idealizing that world as more free from problems than it really was … science was in a much different place back then, and being stuck in one path can be just as much stifling as it is easy, and my biggest pet peeve from back home will always be the simple notion of how a lack of diversity in a community holds it back in some ways that are often times ugly and cringe-worthy.

Plus, for what it’s worth if I really sit down and analyze it, although they can just the same make my life more stressful at times, having options is something that I take a lot of great value in. One of the big reasons why I left Northern Michigan was simply in feeling like there wasn’t enough for me there – jobs, social life, opportunities in general – and although the Internet today is doing some impressive things to bridge that gap back home that I never would’ve expected, at the end of the day I think having choices as opposed to only the one that’s laid out right there for you is a valuable one, and modern society gives more opportunities for that than ever.

Not to mention … I love the Internet! I love sharing the stupid things that come into my head on Twitter, and I love posting pictures of my food, and I love having an immeasurable wealth of knowledge available at my fingertips that simply was not there 50 years ago. I love that instead of reading three paragraphs in the encyclopedia at the library about a given topic, I can pull up Wikipedia and read more than I’d ever think to ask about something that’s been put together and curated by fanatics and experts who are passionate about that very topic. The access to knowledge in our current times is something that I couldn’t possibly discount no matter how entertaining the mechanic down the street is when he shares his own knowledge on a particular topic!

Maybe it’s one of those grass is always greener scenarios – it’d be neat to live that lifestyle that my grandparents lived maybe for a week, but the war certainly wouldn’t have been as much fun, and the generation before that had the Great Depression which I’ve read was kind of a downer! I guess each generation has its pros and its cons, and all we can do is try to live our lives putting more things on the right side of the scale than the other during the time that we’re here.

Who knows – a hundred years from now, people might look back at my time and think, “Boy, life must’ve been so much easier before hyper transports and intergalactic warfare dominated our lives! Also, those tree things seem like they would’ve been pretty cool – too bad there aren’t still any of them around…” 😉

Everything, Everything Will Be Alright…

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Got this cover of Jimmy Eat World’s The Middle in my inbox the other day courtesy of The Doubleclicks and I must say that it’s a pretty endearing rendition … I really enjoyed how it gives you a chance to slow down and really listen to the words, and of course, the backdrop of two aspiring, little girls who grew up into the ones singing to you was pretty darned heartwarming, too… 😉

You Pick Two with a Side of NOBODY!

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paneraThis isn’t an advertisement … I wish it was … but I’ve got to say that I’m kind of loving Panera’s new Rapid Pick-Up service, and I think my recent orders reflect that because lately we’ve been eating out from Panera at least once a week as opposed to maybe once a month or whatever in the past.

The biggest selling point by far is simply put – I don’t have to interact with anyone to get food anymore!

I order on the app, pay on the app, drive to the restaurant down the street from me, and without fail every time there’s my order just waiting patiently on the pick-up shelf for me! No stupid pagers, no haggling with the cashier to see if they’re willing to make the sandwich that I want on a given day – just in and out.

Anti-social Scott LOVES Panera Rapid Pick-Up!!!

It also doesn’t hurt that parking at my nearest Panera absolutely sucks. It’s in an outdoor mall where apparently people getting to the mall was an afterthought and so even if their own parking lot was actually big enough for the store, you’ve got people from eighteen other mall stores bogarting spaces when they’re not even eating at Panera in the first place!

I seriously used to spend so much time circling parking lots that I’d be absolutely fuming by the time I finally made my way into the store … not exactly getting your customers started off on the right foot! But as for the Rapid Pick-Up spaces up front, surprisingly I’ve yet to see people really abusing them yet and there’s always been at least one open when I pull up … I’m literally in the store less than a minute, so if they can keep those spots dedicated for pick-up only it’ll be a godsend…

And lastly, I’ve also been enjoying the new program because it seems to give me a little more elbow room to experiment with their menu, whereas when I’m standing there in line and there are half a dozen soccer Moms behind me, I kind of feel obliged to just pick something off of the menu and get out of the way! But the app gives me all the time I need to browse and consider my options … I wonder how many people realize that not only can you pretty much get your sandwich on any kind of bread that they have, but you can also swap out sauces, cheeses, and even meats.

Lately I’ve been doing their Steak & White Cheddar, but I get it with BBQ sauce instead of horseradish and a different kind of bread, too. It’s nice to actually have options when there are so many things on their menu that are almost, but not quite what you’re in the mood for eating! 😉

So anyways, we ended up ordering from there tonight and I felt compelled to write a bit about a company actually doing good. It’s nice to have an option that’s as fast or faster than fast food, but considerably healthier.

Now if Red Robin next door could jump on the same bandwagon… 😀

a hiking we will go?

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It’s weird because for the most part I don’t really consider myself to be an outdoors person at all these days, and yet oddly enough there’s a very small part of me that finds the idea of taking a very long hike through the wilderness to be intriguing.

And by long, I’m talking about weeks and weeks long… 😯

The thought came about once again this afternoon when I stumbled across this blog from a guy who hiked the Appalachian Trail from Maine down to Georgia. It reminded me of A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson that was recommended to me years ago by my biology teacher back in college … if I remember correctly, Bryson didn’t actually end up finishing the trail, or maybe he did it in sections by coming back, but the tale was really funny and would make for a fun story to write if it hadn’t already been written before.

There are a lot of logistical things that would probably hold me back from ever doing something like that – first and foremost, I’m not sure if I could physically handle walking 2100 miles even spread out over the course of a couple months! Hell, I woke up with sore arms after carrying Christopher around Disney yesterday, though I suppose it’s something that you probably have to condition yourself for. God, I haven’t been hiking in ages…

And then there’s the responsibility factor – I’m not in my 20’s anymore … I have a mortgage, and a wife and son, and bills to pay, and hilarious things on the Internet to write. Being gone for a month or more straight would put quite the strain on all of the above, not to mention if I somehow managed to accidentally get eaten by a bear or something throughout the process!

Plus, I don’t think that I could go without Internet for that long, although that blog guy seemed to post every day so maybe sporadic cell signals every so often would be enough to keep up on things, and writing is typically more productive to do offline anyways.

I don’t know … it’s an interesting idea for someday in the future, I suppose. Maybe once I get in a little better shape and responsibilities are a little more flexible … it’s funny that although the idea of camping isn’t really appealing to me, I think just the idea of getting that far away from people is what sort of draws me to the notion. Nothing but miles upon miles of open trail and the wilderness to entertain you along the way. I’ve always wanted to put together a proper travel blog to journal about my life’s travels – the blog series that I did for my and Sara’s big road trip a couple of years ago was like that and turned out to be a lot of fun.

Hmmmmm…

remembering the Power Glove…

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This video amused me when I came across it late last night because I totally had a Power Glove myself and like 100% of other Power Glove owners, unfortunately these teens’ experiences were pretty much par for the course!

I didn’t get mine when it first came out – in 1989 I had only had my Nintendo since the Christmas before, so I was much more interested in getting more games than a peripheral that costed nearly as much as the console itself did at the time. I want to say that my Power Glove was a birthday gift from one of my aunts 5-6 years later, mostly because they had found it on clearance at KB Toys back when they were still around, so for $20 it was worth a try…

And even though at the time the controller was pretty god-awful, it’s still kind of neat to look back and see where an attempt at motion controls first started because now here we are 25 years later and not only is the Wii pretty darned good at it, but you can even plug in a Kinect to your Xbox and use your whole body as a game controller! It doesn’t apply to all, or even most games, but the technology is still cool.

If only Lucas could see us now! 😉

Slapstick for Babies…

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I hope that it’s always as easy to make my son laugh as it is right now, and vice-versa!

Being the aficionado of humor that I am, I find myself particularly intrigued to watch Christopher’s sense of humor developing because right now it very much beckons back to the times of slapstick comedy and silly voices and situations, as opposed to more complex forms that take the form of actual words. He loves The Muppets, and to an extent Sesame Street – I think at this point simply because the characters are big and colorful, and sometimes they flail around crazily like Kermit the Frog.

And hearing somebody else laughing is almost a sure-fire way to make him laugh, almost as if the laughter itself is contagious!

I often feel like I’m channeling a bit of The Three Stooges because it’s such a simpler form of comedy and it’s so much different to explore. I’d sound like a crazy person if I were to talk in random voices and “disappear” around doors in the adult world, yet to an 11 month-old all of those things are hilarious, and I might be biased but my little guy has a wonderful laugh that just makes the whole experience very rewarding.

Maybe it won’t be as much fun in a few years when he learns how to heckle, but even then I suppose that’s just another opportunity to teach him something new… 🙂

Why copy editing is important…

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Because there’s a considerable difference between:

“Eminem wins 6th best rap album Grammy Award for sequel to 2000 release”

And:

“Eminem wins 6th Grammy Award for Best Rap Album for sequel to 2000 release”

My first thought when seeing the former … What an award – 6th Best Rap Album of the Year?!

Dream Journal : The Blaze

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I was still living with my Mom when we came home to find that our house was on fire.

I frantically called 911, but the operator was aloof to the point where I started screaming at her when she just mumbled monotonously through my questions.

“How long is it going to take them to get here?! My house is on fucking fire!!!”

While we waited out in the driveway, I briefly considered running in to try to save some things, but ultimately I realized that it was a bad idea and a few minutes later, the fire trucks rolled up and began to get to work.

The next evening once everything had been cleared, I looked around and found that the damages hadn’t actually been that bad. Despite burning for what seemed like forever, the fire was almost completely contained to the roof and although there were numerous areas where you could see right through to the starry, night sky, most of our belongings were still ok.

Plus, I lived in the basement, so my stuff went relatively untouched.

Nonetheless later on I found myself scrambling to pack up my things as some people from my old Boy Scout troop helped carry boxes up the stairs – some of them just went out to my car, while the bulkier things were packed into a big moving truck.

The last thing I remember packing were several bankers boxes full of Nintendo Power magazines, followed by a bevy of old industrial batteries destined to be recycled. Not really sure where I was moving to, although when I tried to look up the story about the fire online, my browser kept diverting to news about Tampa instead.