That's where it comes from

I recentely started playing Civilization IV again recently. It is a turn-based strategy game, and is the reason I haven't posted anything in almost a week. I find that when I get addicted to a game, almost everything else takes a backseat. Instead of a bunch of different activities taking up my day, it is instead condensed to video game and meals (which are usually taken in conjuction with the game). If there is something else that comes up like work or snow removal, I'll plan the whole day around that one event so I can still maximize my playing time. Last night, I was going to bed and I told myself I'd play in bed on my laptop for 15 minutes and then call it a night. It was only after my battery was about to die two hours later that I was forced to retire. It's a little bit sickening, but typically these addictions last a week or two max, and they usually don't happen at all if I'm at school.

Anyway... Over the years, my mom has always been yelling at me for one thing or another. Typically it was for something miniscule that I never really saw as that big of a deal to get upset over. I always told myself that I'd probably understand some day when I'm older. It just so happened that that day was Sunday. I woke up to about a foot of snow outside, and I was ready for a day of CivIV. I had my one big event for the day -- snowblowing -- already planned out. So I proceeded with my day of doing nothing particularly productive. I was getting ready to go snowblow when I decided to clean up the kitchen a bit. I grabbed a cereal box that was sitting out on the counter and went to go put it back in the pantry. When I reached the pantry, I heard a crunch under my foot as I stepped on a pile of tortilla chips that were there for seemingly no good reason. A bit annoyed, I cleaned that up and then went over to the sink to start loading the dishwasher. I went to grab a dish and there was just soggy apple pie all over the inside of the sink. What the hell! Somebody had left the sink a complete mess and I got kinda pissed off.

*DING*

That's where it comes from. I've gotten yelled at for dropping stuff on the floor and leaving the sink a mess for years. I never saw it as a big deal, but now I could definitely see why my mom gets mad. I laughed to myself and continued on with my task. However, there are still a bunch of things that my mom does that I am convinced that I will neither understand nor endorse as reasonable. Things like trying to find every little scrap of paper that is lying around before I can take out the trash. That little piece of paper can just as easily fit on the bottom of the next bag. That's just the tip of the iceberg for her, but you get the idea.

After that, I headed outside to snowblow the driveway. I went into the garage to start up the snowblower. One would think that starting the damn thing up would be the easiest part of the job. NOPE. I was following the blasted directions on the stupid machine. Turn the knob, hold the lever, and push the button. Negative. I tried various combinations of the directions, but still no dice. I find myself extremely patient with things that can give me feedback, like people, but just the opposite with things that cannot tell me what's the problem. I just wanted to snowblow, I didn't want to spend more time getting the stupid machine to start than actually using it. I don't like wasting my time, I don't like when things don't work like they're supposed to, and I don't like hurting myself in the process. When this trifecta of terror comes together, I don't get mad, or angry, I go absolutely ape-shit beserk. So when I punched the metal snowblower in frustration the stars aligned and I went nuts. At that point I just wanted to throw things and break things. I instead relieved the tension of the situation with a loud verbalization of the 'F word'. The anger subsided as quick as it had come. After about 25 minutes of wrasslin' with the stupid thing, I finally it working and snowblowed the driveway pretty quick.

And for the bizarre event of the week... After snowblowing, I was trying to walk back into the house, and adversity struck. I had gloves on, and I got my thumb stuck between the door knob and the edge of the door frame. Typically when my hand touches that knob, I just turn it and walk right in the house. Well this time, I grabbed the knob and tried to turn it, but I was thwarted by my thumb that got wedged agains the frame. Well the little men that works in my thumb (who is not related to guy that turns the light on in the fridge) forgot to call his supervisor up in my brain, because the brain division still sent the "GO" signal for walking through the door. I ended up annihiliating my face agains the wooden barrier that was the entry way to my house. I think my nose might be bruised a bit, but the thing that hurts the most is my pride. I couldn't do anything but laugh at myself and try again. Don't worry, I conquered the door on the second try.

It's December 16th

As the title would suggest, it's the 16th of December... And you know what that means right? It's make your son a lunch day once again! Make Your Son a Lunch Day is a holiday I made up 7 or 8 years ago one day when I didn't feel like making myself a lunch for school. I just said, "Dad, It's make your son a lunch day," and that was that. I have no idea how I/we managed to make the holiday stick. But every year since then he has made me a lunch on that day. I've tried to spread it around to some of my friends, and they've gotten in on some of the action. At the very least, it's going to be a holiday that I will follow for years to come. I can definitely see myself making a trip from wherever the hell I end up living when I'm older, just to celebrate the holiday. And if I have a son, you bet your ass I'll be continuing the tradition.

So if you read this then feel free to celebrate. And if you're a daughter, I'm sorry, there is, as of this time, no female equivalent. Of course the only real barrier is lack of interest haha.

So today, I had just gotten out of the shower and was brushing my teeth. I heard a knock on the door. I ran up to the door and opened it, expecting it to be my mom or dad with their hands full... Nope, it's my neighbor stopping by to drop off some cookies. I'm in nothing but a towel, and I'm brushing my teeth. She explains that she's just here to drop off some cookies. She ignores the condition I'm in and keeps badgering me with questions.

"I'm Kathy, what's your name?"
"WyWer" (I had a mouth full of toothpaste, half of which I ended up swallowing)

Didn't end there.. "Are you home from college?" "Where do you go?" "When do you go back" "How old are you?"

Beyond being a bit awkward, it was freakin' cold outside and the wind was blowing in... Come on! At least the cookies were awesome.

Props to Stanley Robinson

Stanley Robinson was a starter on last years UConn Men's basketball team. He was a solid all-around player. He obviously showed that he had NBA-Level talent. A very raw talent, but talent none-the-less. At the beginning of this year however, Stanley Robinson was not a part of the men's basketball team. He wasn't academically ineligible, he wasn't arrested, and he didn't do anything specific wrong. According to an article on ESPN:

"The only one being harmed was Stanley," Calhoun said. "I had a couple of players I asked to leave the program. I didn't want Stanley to leave. He's a really good kid with a heart of gold, but he had to get his life square. I saw signs, little things. He'd be late to study hall or late to practice. He wasn't always going to class. He just wasn't focused."


Basically, he lost his scholarship and wasn't a part of UConn in anyway this semester because he had an attitude problem. Ever since Stanley came up from Birmingham, Alabama, he's had a lax attitude. He isn't very sociable, and he's been very homesick. He has two kids back in Alabama. He has a very complicated life. Now about 99.9% of college players would just transfer to another school if they got kicked off the team. Almost any school in the nation would be ecstatic to have the caliber of player that Robinson is, but he chose not to do that. Instead he got a job at a local steel mill in Connecticut, and by earning $700/week, earned enough money to re-enroll at the University of Connecticut. That's right, when he comes back to UConn tonight against Stony Brook, he will technically be a walk-on. A likely first-round draft pick paying to play at UConn for the coach that kicked him off the team. If that isn't a testament to the man's character, than I don't know what is.

When he returns tonight at 7PM, I don't know if he'll even play, but he will surely receive a resounding ovation in Hartford. I hope only the very best for him, and I thought writing a blog post about him was the least I could do to show my support for him.

A longer article basically expanding on what I just said can be found here.

Holiday-Related Anecdote

Needless to say, my family is pretty weird. Most families likely are, but in different ways. I'll touch on a few things that I like about my family.

We like to do dumb things that make us laugh. We typically don't show too much restraint at public venues or events. A prime example is my sister Kim's graduation. When she graduated from the University of Rhode Island a few years ago we had quite the good time. The ceremonies themselves were miserably boring, and that's right, there were multiple ceremonies. They had one enormous ceremony for the whole school where they gave speeches, and then they broke up by specific college for the actual giving out of degrees. We had to walk through the woods to get to this other ceremony. Funny thing was, was that we were leading the pack somehow, and we had no clue where we were going. We eventually got to the right spot, but if we took a random turn, EVERYONE would have followed us. Anyway, we got to this other building, and we were there for about an hour and they were starting to read off names. My sister is actually my step-sister so her last name starts with a B and she was done and over with pretty quick. That left us with about 650 more names to sit through in our incredible boredom. My family and I devised a fun game: Pick a name on the list of someone we thought had no one there to support them, and bring on the obnoxious yells from the Owens family. Xi Yang Hou or something very similar was the first recipient of our generosity. We collaborated with my sister via text message to get the people around her to cheer as well... "Xi Yang Hou"... "WOOOOOOOOO!" Everyone within 30 rows of us looked in our direction, and were probably wondering why some random ass white folk were cheering for some asian girl. They probably were really wondering what was going on when we did it for several more random people. That pretty much represents the caliber of my family.

So every holiday season, we always send out a plethora of christmas cards to all of our friends and family. But this year, just to spice things up, we sent a little holiday cheer to some random family in another state. I really hope that "Charles & Linda Johnson" from Bethlehem, GA, are appreciative of their christmas card with no return address from "Phil, Marge, Kim, Steph, & Ty". That really got our jollies going around the kitchen table tonight.

Also, you can probably look forward to a favorite songs of my week post coming up soon. Chances are by "week" I'm going to mean like 2.5 weeks, but who's counting?

Man vs. Nature: The Road to Victory

Well exams are over, and that means I am at home for winter break. Five weeks off to do everything else that isn't school. I'm not sure if I'm really looking forward to this break. I do enjoy being home, and I love being with my family, but at the same time I miss UConn and the constant interaction with my friends, peers, and classmates, hell, I even miss going to class. Anyway, that isn't an option, so home it is!

Anyway, I woke up this morning and surfed the internet for a good hour before having to help my dad with some yardwork. We have this tree in our front yard that had been rotting for as long as I could remember, and we were finally able to get rid of it thanks to the wonderful people at CL&P. They chopped down the majority of the tree, just leaving a creepy 12 foot stump with a few major branches coming off of it that make it look like a decaying person praying to god. I hope it leaves some freaky-ass shadows on my wall in the middle of the night! They chopped it down, but they didn't clear it; That was up to us. We pulled out the tractor from the barn and utilized our pick up truck to facilitate the operation. As I was walking across my front yard, I saw an enormous flatbed trunk piled about 20 feet high with 60-foot long logs pull into my neighbors yard... He has these machines that cut all the wood for him (It's actually pretty cool). Back in our own yard, my dad was hacking away at the big logs with the chainsaw while I threw the brush into the back of the truck. After I filled up the truck, I went down into our backyard to dump it into the woods.

I took a break from throwing everything into the woods, and stood up in the back of the pickup truck and looked towards my house, which had smoke billowing from the chimney from the fire I had set earlier. In the distance I saw my dad brandishing the chainsaw above his head hacking down my neighbors shrubery (presumably at her request). From there I looked into my neighbors yard to see an enormous mechinal claw pull a 60-foot log into the air and onto the conveyer belt of saws. As I stood in a pile of brush up to my waist, the words of Saruman from Lord of the Rings ran through my mind...

"The old world will burn in the fires of industry. Forests will fall. A new order will rise."

I paused for a second and turned around and peered deep into the woods for any sign of an Ent army coming to quash Bethlehem's apparently vibrant forestry removal enterprise. I didn't see anything, so I continued throwing rotting chunks of wood into the forest... Mother Nature 0 Tyler 1... Chalk it up.

That also got me thinking. Two hundred years ago, people got around with horses and wagons and such. Today, we get around in cars. Two hundred years ago, electricity wasn't invented. Today, we have television and nuclear power. Two hundred years ago, people heated their homes with wood. Today, we heat our home with wood. I find it slightly amusing that we are depending on such archaic technology to surive. Take it as you will, I have some more nothing to do.

Monopoly Rundown

It's 2am, and I think that's a fine time to rank the monopoly tokens in a standard monopoly set. There are 11 pieces that I am going to consider for the list. There are a few others that are in the deluxe edition or something, but if they aren't in my box, they ain't legit.

From the top
1. Battleship - My favorite piece. If you run with the battleship, you aren't taking flack from anybody. You call the shots on the board. You have the technical know-how to get through the game, but when you don't feel like thinking you can still brute-force your way through it.

2. Wheelbarrow - The wheelbarrow is a perennial dark horse. People forget about it because it is such a simple machine that they think it doesn't warrant their attention. Well, if you underestimate this token, your body is going to be trucked off the board in the wheelbarrow at the end of the game.

3. Scottie Dog - A favorite of the female persuasion. Something with four legs can't get much classier than the Scottie. It is clear that the controller of this token is well groomed with great posture. While it's hard to tell on the piece, I'm sure that the dog and it's controller has great nails as well.

4. Iron - The iron represents industry. The owner of this token is all about getting it done. They put in the 60 hours a week to get food on the table, and send their kids to college. The pinnacle of their week is the church social on sunday after mass.

5. Bag of Cash - The baggers are greedy and arrogant, but they aren't afraid to flaunt that fact. They'll drop stacks of cash on inane purchases. Steven Jackson, of the Golden State Warriors, would be the cash bag.

6. Howitzer - Brute force, plain and simple. The player who picks the Howitzer will choose to confront any situation rather than try to avoid it. They are the schmuck that says, "It just got real fuckin' quiet in here" when there is a sudden silence in the room.

7. Top Hat - The owners of the Top Hat are reminiscent folk. They wear outdated clothing styles, but still manage to pull them off somehow. They are fascinated by history, and love to travel.

8. Horse and Rider - Good ol' fashion horsepower. The one who picks this token typically has had some contact with horses in their life. They usually aren't the most popular people in the world, but are solid friends.

9. Thimble - A favorite of the older generation. Those who knit or crochet are naturally drawn to this piece. Every once awhile, a young kid will pick it up. These are the same kids that put shaving cream on their face, and think they are shaving when they take a plastic knife and scrape it across their face.

10. Shoe - If the shoe were a real shoe, it wouldn't stay on your foot. It always baffles me, and it's kinda dumb. I hate the damn thing, I wish I could kick it out of the game. Zing!

11. Car - If you pick the car, you're an asshole. Plain and Simple. I hate the car, and everything it represents. I'm getting all fired up just thinking about people I know that have picked the car in the past... Have some originality you schmucks.

That's that. I don't really know why I just wrote all that. I just made it all up, but if you find that any of it is true, please share your experiences.

Another fun thing I'd like to share is Richard Cheese. Richard Cheese parodies popular songs into clever lounge tunes. It's pretty hysterical. These are some of my favorites:

Milkshake Song
Down with the Sickness
Baby Got Back

Red Delicious

Well, I'm about two and a half hours removed from being done with the hardest of my exams. I had no exams yesterday, but I have two today (managerial accounting and finance). I just finished managerial accounting, and it went well, and as long as I didn't do anything stupid(always a possibility), I'll be okay. Finance is what I'm really worried about. My professor(Captain Orange Sweater himself) is ruthless in his question selection, and expects you to know everything. He curves ridiculously as a result, but I don't like to have to rely on the curve, I like knowing I did well before I get the grade back. That exam starts in less than an hour, but why study, when you can blog?

If you know me, or have read part of this blog before, you know I play fantasy basketball. Well, one of my players, Derrick Rose, recently had a strange altercation between himself and a piece of mother nature. A few nights ago,he decided to have an apple while lying in bed. He got his nice shiny apple, took out a knife, sat down in bed and turned on his favorite TV show. He finished his apple without incident, and then got up to get a glass of water. Apparently, no alarm bells went off in his head when he decided to leave the knife in his bed. He came back with his dose of H2O, and it was only seconds later when he was cuddling with 4 inches of razor-sharp steel. He sliced his non-shooting arm (thank god) and needed ten stitches to fix himself up. He said it was a "silly" mistake. 'Silly' isn't the word Derrick.

I do have to give him credit though, it's not the dumbest thing an athlete has done to injure himself lately. At least he didn't accidentally shoot himself in the thigh while trying to unload his illegaly-held pistol at a night club WHILE drinking wine a la Plaxico Burress. This is what happens in my mind:

"Plax, you can't have that gun in here, you're going to have to unload it and leave it back here with us."
"Awww come on man. Alright fine."
*Pulls out gun, and begins to unload*
"Where's my Chardonnay. Ohhh here it is... This is soooo tast...*BLAM!*"

Followed by this thought process:

"Oh shit... I just shot myself in the leg... You know what, no one probably recognized me, I'm only one of the highest paid, and most prolific wide receivers in the history of the NFL. I'll just walk out the front door, with my friend Antonio Pierce, also one of the more famous players in the NFL, and no one will notice the trail of blood I'm leaving behind me. Oh and then, I'll go to a hospital and say my name is Harris Smith, and say I got shot at a local Applebee's, I won't get caught... And when I go to practice next week with a giant hole in my leg, I'll say I had a pencil in my pocket and I fell on the sharp end"

True story... Except the pencil part, he got caught by then.

Under the news article about Derrick Rose, there was a comments section. Props to Sparzo for telling this to me; Someone had commented below that now they should call Derrick Rose, "Red Delicious", in honor of his mistake. I like it.



In other news, Hurricanes started up again. Open house was on sunday, and it was a blast. Our new show is called, "Gold Rush". Last year, our show was called "A Journey West" and featured songs that would reflect that, like Copland's Hoedown. This year, we're taking music that reflect the gold rush era, none of which I've heard of, but it's good none-the-less. I also won the Rookie of the Year award from last year. I won a plaque, and got to take home one of the trophies the corps won from our competitions last year. I chose our 3rd place trophy from our homeshow. It may be third place, but that was a great show. The cheers we got just entering the field were deafening to the point where I couldn't hear the snare captain tap us onto the field. The rush of adrenaline I got when we were finishing up our closer and the crowd rose to its feet with about 30 seconds to go. I get goosebumps just thinking about it now. The score didn't reflect how we thought we did, but it was awesome none-the-less. When I came back home with the trophy this sunday, I felt a bit like Happy Gilmore when he walks into the nursing home after winning the Waterbury Open. I was just waiting for someone to say, "Mr. Owens, how do you... Wow that's a tremendous looking trophy you got there." That never happened, but at least I get to expand my trophy collection from 0 to 1.

Count it.

Top 5 Songs of my week

Well it's been a bit of a rough and long day. I'm pretty tired, and a bit upset with myself, so why not blog my worries away? I've always liked numbered lists. That sounds really dumb, but I love countdowns, and organized information. So I figure, since I like reading other peoples lists, why not make one of my own. So I'll just recap my top 5 favorite songs from my week. Typically, during the course of a week, I'll listen to a select number of songs, over and over again. These are some of those songs. If they have a link, it's to a youtube video of the song for your listening pleasure.

5. Jesse McCartney - Leavin' - I love this song, and I am not ashamed to admit it. It's very subtle, pretty slow paced, and doesn't have a lot of background noise. It flows very nicely, and tends to put me in a good mood. I like to turn this song on in the car and just drive and listen to it over and over again. Turns out, my roommate Steve also really likes this song.

4. Code Red - Elbow Room - This song is great. I found it one time on the 'Zune Marketplace' when I was looking for a song I heard in an ESPN commercial. I never found the song I was looking for, but I did find this one. It's fast paced, has a thumping bass, and a plethora of digitized hand claps. Apparently, ESPN has used this song in the past to promote college basketball. Consequently, the song is entirely about college basketball, and it's a blast.

Favorite Line : "This is for my baller's in the 3-point range, surrounded by D in 3 a point game, it's time to have heart like a soulja', pop the shot and watch the shot drop right at the buzza'"

If I'm in a good mood, this song will amplify tenfold. When this song is blasting through my MP3, I am walking with a swagger. I feel like Brian Urlacher on that old spice commercial. I will legit walk with a bounce in my step. Chances are I look like the biggest tool in the world, but I feel like I can conquer the world.

3. T.I. - Whatever You Like - T.I. has become one of my favorite artists. I love all of his new work. I've never really been big on rap or hip-hop, but I've been beginning to enjoy it a lot more. This is another song I love to listen to while in the car. I put this song on, and just start thinking about everything. Typically, I listen to this song on when I'm not in the best of moods. It doesn't really put me in a good mood, but it motivates me and that motivation will eventually put me in a good mood again. If I'm in a bad mood, I love turning this song on and just going for a longggg run, hitting the replay button on my MP3 player everytime the song finishes for miles.

2. Akon - I'm so paid (Feat. Lil Wayne) - Basically what I wrote for 'Whatever You Like' applies for this song as well. Good contemplative song, great running song. I ran 7.25 miles earlier in the week basically by just playing this song on loop.

Favorite Line : "I get in 'til sunrise, Doing 90 in a 65, Windows rolled down screaming 'ahhhhh', Hey, ey, ey, I'm so paid"

I also find if I'm listening to this song, I'm not in the mood for talking. I spend a lot of my time thinking, and if you interrupt my thinking I usually get unreasonably annoyed. So if you ever experience that, I apologize in advance, I don't mean anything by it.

1. T.I. - Live Your Life (Ft. Rihanna) - This one edges out the past two by a slim margin to become my favorite song of the week. T.I. is pretty much the man. Mad props to him and Rihanna for taking an internet phenomenon (the Numa Numa song) and make a hit song out of it. If I'm shooting around at the gym, I like to have this song playing. So when I'm missing 85% of my shots like usual, this song makes me not care in the least, because I am (here it comes...) just living my life.

Favorite Line : "I'm the opposite of moderate, immaculately polished with the spirit of a hustler and the swagger of a college kid, allergic to the counterfeit, impartial to the politics, articulate but still'll grab a nig** by the collar quick"

Then when Rihanna comes in with her part at the end, just icing on the cake.

Well that ends that. I should have been studying for finals for the past 45 minutes, but this made me feel better. Some of it was probably a bit on the sappy/emo side, so sorry for that, but then again, it's always good to know that I'm just not a cold-hearted, cynical, angry bastard.

End of Classes

Well I finished up classes yesterday afternoon. I still have my finals next week, but as far as routine classes go, I be done. It feels pretty good, and I'm excited for the upcoming week. We have our last football game of the year, and then I have Hurricanes open house on sunday which I am absolutley pumped for. On top of that, I've actually gotten some studying done during the week so I'm not going to be freaking out as much. Being the end of the semester, I guess it's time to reflect. I've learned a few lessons of the semester, so I suppose I'll share some of them with you.

1. Most of class is a waste of time. I've been figuring this is the case for awhile now, but I really haven't confirmed it until I was able to bring my laptop to class with me. Woody Allen once said, "80% of success is just showing up", and I think that applies to my classes quite well. Showing up and paying attention for five minutes will essentially get you that 80, the 20 extra points is either paying attention for the full 75 minute class period, or an extra hour of studying before the exam. I typically choose the latter of those options, and it has worked out very well. This isn't to say that I've been skipping classes, because I still haven't skipped a class in 5 semesters. Either way, it brings me to my next point.

2. Class is the most productive time of my day. One would think this counters my first point, time to drop some knowledge on yo' ass. Again, thanks to the wonders of a laptop, I've transformed class into some wonderfully productive times. I've been expanding my horizons in all manners of life. During the hour so of each class where I don't feel the need to tune in, I am still learning. I've planned trips, worked out my course of study for next semester, learned to deal with shin splints while running, bought shoes, bought games, made my christmas list, learned to use microsoft excel, wrote the majority of this blog, created a fantasy basketball rating spreadsheet with that aforementioned excel knowledge, accidentally looked up porn while searching "Sarah Palin" in google images with 'Safe Search' off, downloaded movies, bought stock, caught up on 30 Rock and House, kept in touch with my friends and family, managed my finances, kept up to date with all my favorite sports teams, and myriad other things. Either way, class has made me a more complete person, mostly because of what I do while not paying attention. It's a bit of a goal of mine to be at least proficient in everything I attempt, and class facilitates that dream.

3. Class is the best time to people watch. It's great to watch the habits of your fellow peers and professors when they don't think anyone is watching them. Essentially, it's stalking, but it's okay because we're in the same room. It's fun to see people develop relationships with the people around them. They make small talk in the beginning of the semester, and by the end of it, they're sharing their life story. It's pretty sketchy, AND pretty cool. A twofer.

4. Turn the volume down on your cell phone. I really don't care if my cell phone or someone elses cell phone goes off in class. In fact, I love when "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" comes blasting out of someones backpack. So why would I turn down the volume? Well... Going back to lesson number three about people watching, I noticed that my finance professor liked to wear the same orange sweater, every. single. day... So I was planning to write a blog entry about it, and to provide evidence to back up my point, I was taking pictures of him with my cell phone during class. (Again, typing this makes me looks like the ultimate sketch... but what can you do?) Anyway, everything was going great, I got three pictures without incident, but then the fourth one came. It was in the middle of class, and I pulled out my cell phone, pretended I was typing a text message, and took apicture. Well the digitized sound of a shutter snapping that the phone makes carries very well on the "Very High" volume setting. My heart rate went from about 65 to 200 as everyone in the room looked at me. I tried to play it off like I had hit the wrong button, but it was pretty freakin' obvious. My B, My B.

I'm sure there are a ton of other things I could write about, but I don't want to make this too long, so I'll just round out with rule number 5.

5. Don't smoke crack.

In other news, I ran a lot of miles this week, 7.25 on tuesday, and then 4.7 on wednesday. On thursday, my legs were absolutley shot, but I still wanted to do something physical. I decided to try swimming laps in the pool at the gym. Don't get me wrong, I can swim, but only recreationally I guess, swimming laps is not my forte. I cannot swim at a slow pace without drowning. So I had to go at a pretty fast clip, but I exhausted myself very quickly. And I can't tell you how many times I thought I was in the shallow end of a pool when I tried to stand, but then come to find out, when I'm 4 feet underwater trying to breathe, that I was in the 12 foot end of the pool.

I was trying to find that drowning warning label of a child falling into a 5-gallon bucket to go with this blog entry. My google search of "5 gallon baby bucket drown" didn't turn up what I wanted, but I did get this picture which I find hilarious. Click on it to see it clearly.