me in combat

me in combat

Originally uploaded by Burnt Couch

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Gettin’ Better?

I’ve been obsessed with this one game: http://www.gamenode.com/online/games/warzone-tower-defense/

but I’ve also had more and more bullcrap come along than I can get into at 230am.

I just wanted to post the song I’m really really into. It’s from the Maryland Lottery commerical but whatever. Enjoy!  (Lyrics below)

Driving downtown in my big red caddilac
sipping on ice mixing it with similac
feeling the amazing flow
of centuries in the afterglow

setting my stereo for nothing but big beats
windows open sound of the city streets
blowing through the night like a tiger in a movie
feeling kind of groovy

and it’s la la la oh it’s getting better now
can almost see how it’s a big beautiful fay
and nothings standing in my way
oh its getting better now
i can almost forget how all the bees sing her name
and nothing ever gonna be the same

holding in the world the world is full of love
all i feel is everything thats coming from above
feling the amazing flow
of centures in the afterglow

widow weeds and crows and ice chests
stacked up to the tv and i dont want to forget
the way i feel whenever shes around
i have to say it now i got to make a sound like

la la la oh it’s getting better now
can almost see how it’s a big beautiful fay
and nothings standing in my way
oh its getting better now
i can almost forget how all the bees sing her name
and nothing ever gonna be the same

one hundred forty thousand years ago
when i was a wide eyed buffalo
sky up above breathing by
calamity jane my oh my

nothing matters explosions in the eastern plain
jackhammers wrapped up in the novacaine
my what a girl i cant forget about
all the angels are singing with me now

la la la oh it’s getting better now
can almost see how it’s a big beautiful fay
and nothings standing in my way
oh its getting better now
i can almost forget how all the bees sing her name
and nothing ever gonna be the same

—-Clearly I need a song like this cause if I don’t have hope, I got nothing

You might die Tryin’ – DMB

To change the world,
Start with one step.
However small,
The first step is hardest of all.

Once you get your gate,
You will walk in tall.
You said you never did,
Cause you might die trying,
Cause you might die trying.
Cause you—

If you close your eyes,
Cause the house is on fire.
And think you couldn’t move,
Until the fire dies.
The things you never did,
Oh, cause you might die trying,
Cause you might die trying.
You’d be as good as dead,
Cause you might die trying,
Cause you might die trying.

If you give, you, you begin to live.
If you give, you begin to live.
You begin, you get the world.
If you give, you begin to give
You get the world, you get the world.
If you give, you begin to live.

You might die trying.
Oh, you might die trying.
Yeah, you might die trying.

The things you never did,
Cause you might die trying;
You’d be as good as dead.
You never did.

wet and tired

So I was going to post a phrasing that my father sent to me earlier this year and I never let go out of my inbox. I will share that in my next posting but as another blogger told me, “Your being an insomniac is one of the pre-requists to being a blogger” so here I am at pre-6am, writing. Still up for the day before.

I’ve felt guilty about not going to sleep when my fiancee does as “isn’t that what you’re supposed to wanna do?” and I do, don’t get me wrong.

What’s left unappreciated by the mass of populations is that most households run on a 24-hour clock.

It would appear that our water heater and most households have that in common as here I am 14 hours after it was ‘fixed’, at 5:56am and on the job of clean-up. It’s not a complaint as please again, don’t get me wrong. What I’m pointing out is that for all the days I ‘fail’ my duty as male fiancee, there are certainly those occasions when my time-deviance can be appreciated to

Where ya been?

Been trying to train. Not easy when you’re not really sleeping well and burning a ton of energy just being alive.
Basically, watch this

I’m trying not to air my dirty laundry, so this’ll have to do for now…until I crack 😉

What We Have Here Is, Failure to Communicate

It’s been said that I’m never around; and when I am, I don’t seem like I wanna be. Like I’m just fitting people into my schedule. That they’ll just be around for whenever I feel like coming around and oh hey, they should pitch a parade when I grace them with my presence.

I could understand feeling that way, given the tight schedule I’ve been known to hold. Can you blame a guy for trying to build a life outside of work when his work really doesn’t give him the satisfaction he needs and most people rely upon for feelings of success, accomplishment and pride? As a substitute teacher, I don’t feel those things. I remain feeling under-appreciated, under-compensated, and critized to go along with it; All while trying to do the best job I know how.

So my work-life and my personal-life bring about similar feelings and I’m left frustrated and looking for things to fill the void. Things that seemingly can only be brought about by not being around as much as others might like.

With that being said, I have made an effort to be more available; in the physical sense….as my mind is always at your service. I have enjoyed taking time off from sitting around watching the boob-tube. The mindless droining on of the muffled 52-inch is happily replaceable with more interactive activities such as racquetball or raspberry picking. I prefer to have live action over watching others “living” so I don’t feel it fair to say that I wanna sit around and watch football all Sunday. I will say for the record that watching the Redskins is a lifestyle that I grew up with and do not plan on growing out of. I’m the son of a man who never missed a home-game since receiving season tickets over 25 years ago. That is until he got too sick to almost live, and then I tried my best to fill-in.

Call it a Friend tradition! Call it my version of a Jewish tradition! Tradition is still a big thing, ya? Watching football is in my blood and here I don’t even stop my life to watch the Mountaineers in their stumbling season when support is something they’re desperately in need of….but I digress.

Outside of the Redskins, I have made more time for us. Yes, it was a request but it also allowed me to see what all I was missing. Watching life pass me by. What a waste.

Along the path of frustrations, I too have felt neglected. Together-time doesn’t mean time sitting close to each other and not speaking or recognizing the other person’s existence. Sure I’ve been known to do the same thing as I am human and make mistakes, but it can not equal the amount of unanswered comments and questions I receive daily.

For as wonderful as technology has become, with email and text messaging on-top of instant messaging, it is also a wonderful crutch to fake communication and the closeness brought on with live-speech. A relationship, this does not make. At least, not one that I wish to be in. Now with that being said, sometimes it is easier to communicate this way. Quick statements to bring the other person up-to-speed with your situation, questions, concerns voiced; in terms of inability to speak to one another. These are a few valid reasons to use this impersonal manner of communication but to use it as a regular mode and overwhelming mode of communication seems improper in an intimate relationship and gives validity to the thought that the iniator of such communication does not wish to acutally communicate with the receiver of the message.

I am also frustrated by not feeling as if I am heard. Being in such a rush to speak and make your point, one misses what the other is actually trying to convey. Communication, this type of interaction might be…but ineffective and has been known to cause more damage than good. Feelings are hurt by not feeling as if the other person has truly recognized and legitimized what you have said. By quanifying the other person, you have validated their importance. By speaking over them, a feeling of disrespect and unimportance fills the soul that is yearning for qualification.

I’m frustrated by the fact that I feel like second fiddle all the time. That I find out more in the presence of a third party, than if I was to ask questions regarding the upcoming events pertaining to you. I do not feel good to know that you speak to your mother longer and more frequently than you speak to me. That the conversations are more indepth and that I feel like you listen more to her than to me. Not that you follow her direction more or anything like that, but that you actually stop thinking/speaking long enough to hear what the other person has said, validate what they have said, and respond to what they have said.

I feel that in our arguments, my statements are disregarded as quickly as my feelings. That what I have said and what I have expressed as my feelings have less importance than what you have to express and what you are feeling. There is a lack of validation, a lack of giving-a-shit to anything that’s going on with me. That attention needs to be brought back to what you have expressed and a feeling that you want me to apologize for things I have or have-not done.

I’m exhausted from apologizing for things I don’t feel like I’m done or not-done. I feel that I have been doing my best and that the effort is not recognized and feel under-appreciated. I’m not interested in the chicken-and-the-egg theory regarding who started it. I am interested in resolving the matter, hence the efforts made.

I get up before you, am almost half-way done with work by the time you finish your first coffee of the day and am through with work almost 4 hours before you are. I am left with open-time to accomplishing online tasks, any cleaning duties, and other tasks before you touch the exit door. My schedule allows for evening activities other than: Errands, Work, Gym, Eat, Shower, Computer, Bed, repeat..that other might experience through their work week.

The fact that this schedule does not coincide with the schedule of “9-to-5” workers is not a lack of care, understand or desire to spend time with my mate. The fact is that for as much as I am ‘not available’ and have to ‘fit you into’ my schedule, I am left feeling very similarly. The dynamic of Work, Gym, Bed doesn’t allow for a whole-helleva alot of downtime. I am understanding and sympathetic to that situation but I do not feel it is just for me to be solely-accused of not being available and squeezing someone into my busy schedule. It is a combination of conflicting schedules that drives the main rig of this run-away-truck. If I’m forced to lay blame which I would rather disregard as immaterial then I will blame the system as the failure. The system set up by the two parties and it is up to the two parties to iniate an adjustment to that system. It can not fall upon one person or the other solely. Expression of feelings iniates conversation over the need for an adjustment but both parties need to agree on the terms and standards of their system.

—This certainly isn’t everything. I’m tired as I’m on 12 hours of sleep over the past 4 days, 3 nights.

I got distracted by my cd-making. Anyway, I hope I made my point that you’re not alone in your feelings, and surprise surprise, I do have more to say on the topic.

Anyway, back to life
for your listening pleasure:

Weekend of: October 4th + October 5th

Another unfinished blog post….I’m just busy. This is a good thing.

Saturday

Charity Walk – We helped the homeless by getting up early and walking around the lake a few (three) times. While the walking actually wasn’t necessary, we did receive t-shirts for our donation of money and as a reward for getting up-n-out before 11 on a Saturday. Given I went to bed around 4am, the reward was necessary as usually I’m happy to help the homeless and almost anybody, at any time for the reward of feeling good for helping others. -take a breath-

Mt. Airy Festival – fun

Natalie’s house – saw puppy run run, preview of burn – stairs, couch, chair

Sushi and Movie (Resurrecting the Champ)

Sunday

Skins crush Philly at home.

Lastly, watching Pitt v. Jac on SNF but getting rediculously irriated at the 5-dollar-footlong commerical. Oh yea, I said it and now it’s infected your brain and you’re already humming it in the background of reading this. Yea, there’s the twinge of anger that accompanies the tune.

Raspberry Picking at Butler’s Orchard.

Saw Fireworks on the drive home.

I’ll try to do better

So I took Thursday off due to my legs being wiped from all the recent work including the semi-relaxed racquetball played the night before with K. Man, it was totally necessary and welcomed, as was the day off from work due to the Jewish holidays! I guess there are parts I like about organized religion.

Back to it on Friday and I don’t what I was thinking. Somehow I tricked my body into thinking it was a good idea if I went for a run. I was tired in the body but my mind spoke of what a lazy bones I was being and given I wasn’t going to do much of anything on Saturday, I’d better get my butt in gear.

Switch the laundry from the washer to dryer, my butt and I head out to pound the pavement. I start out on my normal route and realize I’m short on time and energy so I’ll cut this a bit shorter.

Let’s try a new path

I say to myself. So I head straight inside of left and pass our local vet, down past a few local businesses and out to the traffic’d road. Well, not only am I continuing uphill, I’m now breathing in the dirt, dust, grit and grim of the unfinished new paved road. Wonderful I think Needless to say not so wonderful but I trudge on as it I’m now too far from home to go back. A wonderful trick for those looking to up their distance training. The Point of No Return some call it.

Trudge trudge trudge……….cough….trudge trudge trudge

………and a few days later, I come back to this post and figure out that “damn it, this is how far I get in most of my posts before the next ‘happening’ happens.

Sorry all, I’m just a busy guy.  Off to bed. Lost 15 in poker.  20 if you count the $5 i gave K as ‘her cut’

I suck but I rock!

So it may not be impressive to some but I’m psyched at my workout today. ran the whole 2 miles in 22 minutes. 11 minute miles is sick for only my 3rd run in this trail-back-to-health.

I’m just psyched is all. -shrug-

I’m having a decent way back but there’s a long road ahead.

Soon I’ll have my training log attached to the side. I guess mostly for my own ease but you might want to use it too.

Joke time

LOVE MY JOB

(If you don’t laugh out loud after you read this you are in a coma! This is  even funnier when you realize it’s real! Next time you have a bad day at  work think of this guy)

Bob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana . He  performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs.

Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.5 on FM dial in , Indiana , who was sponsoring a worst job experience  contest. Needless to say, she won.

Hi Sue! Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you’ve been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it’s not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It’s a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I’ve used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It’s like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my ass started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit.

Now, since I don’t have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn’t stick to it, however, the crack of my ass was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my ass.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive.

I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet.  As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn’t shit for two days because my ass was swollen shut.

So, next time you’re having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your ass.

Now repeat to yourself, ‘I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.’

Whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, is this a jellyfish bad day? And may you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!!!!!

Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.