Time Travel

Daylight Saving Time is officially now in effect. I get two 2am's today and fortunately, I have no right to wrong...I have no actual need to relive the hour in attempt to get it right. It is a shame that I only have the time between 2 am and...2 am to get a 'redo.' It'd be more practical to use it for any hour of the day I choose. I'm torn between using that hour to sleep more or alter things I've said. On one hand, that extra hour of sleep would be nice and with this being college, I should get it while I can. However, I'm sure that I've made as big of a fool of myself today as any day, but at least today I get the chance to be more suave about things. Then again, it could be argued that I'm inherently clumsy at social situations, so even during my 'redo,' I'd end up making a fool of myself. Oh well...I'll take any extra hour/chance I can get. The worst thing about this, though, is that there will be days where I will be at work before the sun is up and home after the sun goes down. If I want to continue my reveling after dark, I'd best invest in a flashlight.

The Amityville Horror

Katie and I commemorated this year's Halloween with pasta at Applebees, brownie cake, and a viwing of the 1979 thriller, "The Amityville Horror." Parts of the movie were creepy, but it really didn't bother me at all. However, the fact that this was based on a true story, means that I now have something to 'google' while up past my bed time. Thus, I now present Five Facts about Amityville Horror

1. George Lutz is an actual person. He's an ex-marine that lives in Pennsylvania.
2. Ronald Defeo, Jr., the man who murdered his family, is still alive and now resides in the Greenhaven Correctional Facility. He is serving six consecutive life sentences for killing his family.
3. The address of the Amityville house is 112 Ocean Avenue.
4. The Lutz's knew of the killings that had occurred in the house but had few reservations about it. The decision to purchase the home was made because Kathy Lutz's were not concerned with the events that took place at the house and that the prior events at the house did not seem to affect the children.
5. The Lutz's purchased the home for $80,000. (That's a lot of money for the late 1970s.)

You can read more about the Amityville haunting here.

It's an interesting movie, but I don't think I'd go as far to call it 'great' or even 'good' for that matter. James Brolin's hair/appearance was one of the most frightening things about the film and every time Margot Kidder shrieked, I expected her to then leap out the window, run down the street, and hide under her neighbor's car. If you frighten easily, this movie will bother you, if you don't frighten easily, it'll just give you the creeps instead. And if you're like me (big nerd), you'll find yourself reading on the actual events that inspired this film after the credits roll.

Piss Poor Decision Making?

I say the wrong things and I do the wrong things. I do things with fuzzy logic behind it. I do things with no actual plan in place. I do things impulsively. I don't know all the answers and I don't know what the future holds and both of those bother me greatly. I do know, however, that we learn from each experience and hopefully gain wisdom or at least insight into ourselves or insight into others...

I know that sometimes the subconscious is way smarter than our conscious...so I'm just going to follow it and see what happens.

To be Drunk and Alone...

After laying face down on the floor for about 15 minutes, I decided to get up and pull my hair back in case I should vomit. Feeling a weighted sensation on my chest, I decided it wasn't the smartest thing in the world to top off a night of Amber Bock and Lebatt Blue with Wild Turkey. I feel like I could throw up, but I can't and probably won't. I sucks to lay on the floor alone and yet I'm no longer on the floor...instead, I'm at my computer typing strangely well. I wish I weren't alone right now; I just want someone to talk to-someone who understands what it's like be a brown corduroy, as we're few and far between in this world. Yes I like popsicles and yes sometimes I feel I am all alone in this world...but never so much as when I'm face down on the living room floor feeling like I'm riding the swings ride at the county fair. I don't have to be laying face down on this burber carpet all by myself right now. It doesn't have to be like this. I don't have to even be tucked into bed...all it would take is a reassuring voice to tell me to pick myself off the ground and put myself into a bed. It's been dying for a while. But never has it felt so dead as now, as I lie face down on this coarsely carpeted floor.

Thoughts on Frontage Roads

When driving down the highway of life, it's inevitable that periodically you'll take the wrong exit ramp or end up going in a direction opposite of where you intend to go. But what do you do if you're headed in the right direction, you're sort of on the right road...but maybe you're not on the freeway...maybe you're on a frontage road. You'll end up at the same destination, but you'll have things like stop signs and areas where the speed limit is 35 mph. The road works, but you'd rather be blazing down the interstate at 70 mph. But maybe traffic is backed up on the interstate, so it's moving at the same pace as the traffic on the frontage road, so the scenario is now that regardless of which road you take, you'll end up where you want to be in approximately the same amount of time. Frontage roads are nice...you can easily pull into a gas station for a soda or a place to use the restroom...Krispy Kremes are readily accessible on frontage roads...so why does the interstate seem so appealing?

3-Alarm WakeUp


Friday morning was my third morning in a row of sleeping through my alarm clocks. That's correct-I used the plural form-because until Friday, I had two of them: a traditional one that plays loud music and makes a screeching noise next to my head and the alarms on my cellular phone. As how I'm easily distracted by shiny items (and the internet) between bouts of grooming, I've taken to setting the alarms so that I am up at least 90 minutes before I have to be somewhere or be departing for somewhere. This extra time has worked out well, seeing as how lately I've been sleeping at about an hour (sometimes more) through my alarm. I'm not even hitting the snooze button and rolling over. I flat out sleep right through it. Of course, seeing as how in my life, I've slept through three tornadoes and two earthquakes, it's really not surprising that power of an LG phone and a GE alarm clock are no match for the magnitude of my slumber. I did consider connecting a car battery to my bed to um, jump start (har har) my mornings, but instead I decided to get another alarm clock.

I purchased my second actual alarm clock at the charming (and by charming, I mean unreasonably dirty) Wal-Mart in Centralia (Land of Lincoln). The store is currently being remodeled (for once, it's dirty with a quasi-valid excuse) and apparently, after the changes have been made, there will be absolutely, positively no room whatsoever for alarm clocks. Ergo, I may be one of the last people to ever purchase an alarm clock in the history of Centralia Wal-Mart. What I fail to understand, though, is why alarm clocks? Of all the things this store may cease to carry, why did they decide alarm clocks. Aside from Big Lots, I can't think of any other place in town (Radio Shack is often too price prohibitive to be considered) where one may obtain this necessary item? However, what Centralia Wal-Mart lacks in alarm clocks, I'm sure they will be able to make up with in weird and paranoid stares. From the reaction my inquiry received, I apparently forgot to use my censored introduction and instead said something along the lines of (while not wearing pants?) "Hello, I am from Mars. I require an alarm clock to rouse me from deep sleep and help my ship return to Mars." I guess next time, I'll have to do a better job of concealing my Martian origins.


Until then, live long and prosper...



Bonus: Funny Centralia Wal-Mart Story

In August of 2001, I accidentally shoplifted a box of resume paper from the Centralia Wal-Mart. Well, I guess it wasn't actually shoplifting since I realized I had strolled out of the store with it once in the parking lot. Ames and I were dashing through the store and I had picked up a box of resume paper so that my plea for a job would look nice...though later I'd discover that apparently, I'm not even fit to grind coffee or empty change machines (a sampling of jobs I didn't get), but that's not my point. Actually there isn't a point to this at all. I freaked out when I realized I had stolen the paper and scurried back into the store and hopped into a checkout line, legally purchased said paper and I think no one (save for Ames) was the wiser. So the moral of the story is...don't ever rush me while I'm shopping. I may end up inadvertently robbing the place.

Travellin'

This week marked my second trip to Louisville. While driving the entire length of the Western Kentucky Parkway is arguably one of the most boring stretches of road I've traveled, it is quite a pretty drive in the fall-with rust and gold colored trees lining both sides of the road for a large portion of the drive. I tried to cram as much fun and activity into this trip as I could, though I was only up there for about 25 hours. The actual purpose of going was to attend an Environmental Health and Safety "Mega Meeting" featuring a lecture on the reorganization of Kentucky labor offices and the meeting was informative, networking opportunities great, and I had a decent time.

Highlights of Louisville

1. Professional meetings are fun. I think I need to be sent to more of them.
2. Driving in Louisville is not bad because the roads are well marked.
3. Allison making potato soup and cinnamon biscuits for me.
4. Curling up in bed with a stack of magazines and Maddy the dog.
5. Lunch hour shopping at Jefferson Mall. I picked up some pear scented shampoo, so next time you see me, smell my hair-it's glorious.