From The Land O' Lakes, Through The Land O' Cheese

I am currently recovering from joint move-road trip adventure. A move that, like all moves in my life, focused primarily on the last minute. The road trip, barring Wisconsin, also went very well. The newly purchased truck ran like a champ and the weather was perfect.

Wisconsin, without doubt, has it's own natural beauty with the farms and the rolling green hillside and whatnot. But it's hard to focus on the pastoral landscapes passing you by when you have a man in a passing vehicle screaming at you with his head and arms out the window, full handlebar moustache flapping in the wind. Now I don't mean screaming like something something I would do as a toddler when my mom would go through the cereal isle and not pick up Lucky Charms. This was a "you killed my entire family and I have been searching the world in a fuming boil of fury for ten years until this day that I have found you!" I have never seen a man so angry, while simultaneously being comically muted by the fact that we had our windows up and we were traveling at 70 miles per hour. It was kind of like a larger, roid-raging Charlie Chaplin screaming at us to get off the f-ing road. So as he screamed by, with the utmost animation, I did what anyone in my position would do. Gave him a big goofy grin and a thumbs up!

The weirdest part of the encounter is that we have absolutely no idea why he was yelling at me. There is no reason, that we could thing of, that he would: A) be telling us impolitely to get off the road, B) be so very angry, or C) grow such a hideous moustache.

Not to mention (even thought I am right now) the fact that highway patrol cars were just about as common as the bugs that littered my windshield. Between them and the highway-screamer, I felt a little less than welcomed in the state of cows and cheese. Maybe I should have taken off my bumper sticker that says Brett Favre Sucks!

Airlines-22

We were in an airplane in Philadelphia. We were on the ground, full stop, waiting in line to take off. We had been waiting for thirty minutes. Such are the things at airports. The airline industry, naturally, takes these delays into account when calculating your arrival time. In fact, you'd be dead wrong if you thought they can't pinpoint the EXACT moment of your arrival. They can. And they do.

The industry is so finely tuned, it goes off without even the smallest of hiccups and is used as the model for most American businesses.

All the planes in line in front of us were, of course, empty. There were no passengers in these planes. Sometimes the airlines even put decoy mannequins in the windows so as not to arise suspicions. They were only there to create a line, delay our flight, and fly off to the next destination to do the same thing, creating delays all over the country. If they didn't, well, then our flight would have landed early. And their prediction would have been wrong. You can't have a delay without traffic, and you can't have traffic without extra planes. And you can't have extra planes if nobody flies anymore because of all of the delays. It's all very confusing, but it forced the airlines to come up with creative and ingenious ways to make sure that their delay forecasts are correct.

It's an incredibly complex system of accurately coordinated delays and seat shortages. On a given busy day in an airport, I would guess that five, maybe ten percent off all the people in the terminal are actual patrons, the rest being paid actors and extras. These people work tirelessly to fill seats, hold crying babies, complain to the service agents, and make it really look like the airlines are busy, and doing their darndest to get you off at the right time.

Now it wouldn't make any sense for you to pay upwards of $400 for a plane ticket if you thought all the airlines had to do was ship you from point A to point B, and maybe right back to A again. That would be simple. You could probably do that for $100, at the most. So to keep the prices up, they need to order extra planes, extra patrons, and cute little miniature trucks to drive around the tarmac in circles for effect. Suddenly you are paying $500 for a crowded and dirty flight to Milwaukee, and your bags get sent (with mathematical exactness) to Phoenix, where they are in turn shipped to New Delhi and then Baltimore to justify the cost of your ticket. It's a modern marvel, if you take a step back and look at it.

You have to pay more because the industry keeps spending all of this money, and they have to keep spending money to justify charging you so much for a ticket. It makes sense, really.

Sen. Arlen Specter: Tom Brady Using Nerf Football

FOXBORO, MA - In the deepening senate investigation into the New England Patriots 'Spygate' scandal, Sen. Alan Specter has released a new and controversial detail. It appears that on at lease three separate occasions, Tom Brady has used a Nerf football during regulation home games in Gillette stadium.

If the allegations are founded, the Patriots recent string of dominating seasons will fall into question. "Such a fluffy, indoor-friendly, and squishy ball would be a grievous breach of the NFL bylaws stating that only regulation cowhide skin and leather lace sanctioned footballs are to be used at all times," Specter states. "Such a flagrant disregard for the rules should outrage the fans." When questioned by the media, Brady dismissed the accusations as "unfounded", and pressed that you "can only throw those things, like, five feet."

In what the media is now calling a modern witch hunt, the Pennsylvania senator, clearly wearing a McNabb jersey under his white shirt and red tie, vows to "get to the bottom of whatever the Patriots are doing". NFL commissioner has urged the senator that the proper procedures had been followed and the Patriots were punished accordingly, and that the senators suggestion of making them play the 2009 season "without a defense" is a ridiculous punishment.

Specter has also hinted at other violations including Randy Moss tying his shoelaces in the "double-knot", when the traditional "loop-swoop, and pull" method is "dictated clearly, somewhere, I think," in the NFL handbook.

The frenzied senator can be seen scurrying around the Gillette compound under a federal warrant, mumbling to himself and checking water coolers. Specter is now heavily involved in an investigation of the stadiums irrigation system, claiming that performance enhancing drugs were used on the playing field's turf.

Self-Help Contusions

I have read my share of motivational 'how-to' books for success and business. Books by Donald Trump, Lance Armstrong, Robert Kiyosaki, and Russell Simmons. Books by people who have succeeded in their field and, through either a strong sense of philanthropy or the allure of a book deal, have transcribed their methods and thoughts to the page. I am currently reading the precariously hip-hop titled book by Russell Simmons right now branded as 'Do You'. He parlays the idea that in order to be successful, one needs to be true to who they are, and be honest with themselves.

As I leaf through the introspective pages of a hip-hop and entrepreneurial mogul, I strive to to find ways to 'Do Me', or at least find a way to become successful enough so that others might want to. One of the lessons I happened upon early in this book is the idea of projection. For instance, if you see the world as a happy and exciting place, then the world will be a happy and exciting place. The converse is also true. If you see the world as cruel and unfair, the projection will manifest itself. In another light, Simmons is stating that the world is a self-fulfillng prophecy.

Usually I would roll right on through that idea with only a hint of skepticism, but overall acknowledgement, but it so happens that I am reading another book right now as well, 'Catch-22', by Joseph Heller. The completely ridiculous and genius novel that was influential enough to plant the phrase forever into the American vernacular.

So now as I read Simmons words, I can't help but torture myself with the catch-22 of the situation. If the way you see the world is dependent upon the outlook you assign to it, AND if you admit that an outlook, in general, is defined as 'the way you see it', we seem to have run into an issue here. The cause is the effect, and the effect isn't caused by the cause itself, but by the effect. It's like trying to have a battery charge itself by connecting the terminals. It's like the plotline of Terminator. It's like infinity plus one. Crap. I think I just burst a blood vessel in my eye.

Now my outlook on life just seems confused, frustrated, and clouded by a corneal contusion.

Maine till Monday

www.theonion.com

songs i'm listening to:

Where is my mind - Yoav
Heretic Pride - Mountain Goats
No More Running Away - Air Traffic
When life gives you lemons, you paint that shit gold (album) - Atmosphere
Fake plastic trees (acoustic) - Radiohead
Houghty Melodic (album) - Mike Doughty

always looking to expand the playlist...

Horsepower v. Legpower

So I biked to work today for the first time, which is really embarrassing because I live only a couple of miles from work. It took me a while to figure out why, after almost two years, I haven't biked before. Aside from the fact that I have a perfectly working car, these are the best excuses I could come up with:

Top 10 reasons not to bike to work:

1) Sweaty socks.

2) Helmet hair.

3) That "you think you are saving the planet, don't you, you son of a bitch" look you get from coworkers.

4) Tucking your pants into your sock.

5) Rouge late afternoon rainstorms.

6) Actual, physical effort required to get to work.

7) Helpful comments, gestures, and crushed soda cans from passing motorists.

8) Actual, physical effort required to get back home.

9) Being associated to the dude biking the other direction with spandex shorts, rear-view helmet mirror, 30 lb. beer belly, and neon pink reflector vest.

10) Sweaty socks. They just suck.

Not That There Is Anything Wrong With That

As a bank teller, there are a multitude of daily tasks that fall under my direct influence. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But some, if not all, could be construed as banal or mind-explodingly mundane in nature, opinions that are, of course, subject to interpretation.

I have found, as a quiet solace to these activities, a new way to look at them. Instead of just cleaning out the dust from the cash machine, I ask myself why is it important to clean this dust out? Or is there a more efficient way to remove this dust? Or, lastly, Do my dust allergies really qualify me as the best person to do this?

This academic and logical mindset opens new doors to my day, and provides the necessary mental stimulation to get me to the end of the shift. I try to find curiosity in the routine, but in some cases this leads me astray.

Some banks, the best ones in my opinion, hand out a lollypop ('sucker' for you Minnesotans) to the kids when they get dragged along with their parents to the bank. It's kind of the only thing we can do for them, seeing as they have to spend ten, maybe twenty minutes of their ADD riddled attention span trying to figure out what in God's name their parents would find interesting about this boring quiet sterile environment. So banks give them some candy, which usually shuts them up enough for their parents to complete their transaction and buckle them back into their car seat right before the sugar high hits.

Out bank, unfortunately, only offers stickers. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Candy offers up the slight possibility of choking, which we are not primarily concerned about, but things like that usually lead to lawsuits, which do bristle some hairs with the board of directors. Apparently kids have not discovered a way to inflict serious harm with a Little Mermaid sticker yet, and until that day, we will continue handing them out.

The problem is, with my new introspective dialectic, picking out a sticker has become a chore. As I was about to hand out a sticker to a young lady in her carseat waving at me, I froze at the selection. The first one I pulled out was a blonde princess with Prince Charming. This girl is Asian, I don't want to reinforce the stereotype of beauty as a white skinny blond girl... that'll destroy her self image later on in life. The next one I pulled out was a Bratz sticker, no way. Third one: Superman punching a building, Jesus the mom is starting to get impatient. Fourth pick: Sally the blue car from the animated movie 'Cars', good enough.

Sending the little lady off with a smile, I came to a sudden realization: she is going to grow up to be an auto mechanic now. Not that there's anything wrong with that.