Tuesday, February 23, 2010

New Shoes!


So I got new shoes. Not just any new shoes, new running shoes, for running. Yeah, I know.
You see I made a choice nearly 26 years ago to become friends with Michelle. Little did I know that it would bite me in the butt 26 years later. [In my defense I was 5 and in kindergarten, I didn't know better ;)]

Ok let me clarify, I love my friend Michelle, she has been an amazing, thoughtful, loving, caring, dependable, and FUN friend for the last 25+ years and try as we might, we couldn't get rid of each other. But Michelle did something amazing for herself this year. You see Michelle has always struggled with weight. I mean really struggled not like "ugh these last 15 lbs just won't drop off!" So this spring she had gastric bypass surgery and has lost an entire person! And she is still going. She is like the incredible shrinking woman.

Well before she had the surgery she made me promise to help her through this, to be her support system, the person she is accountable to, and to keep her grounded. I told her I would absolutely do that for her. You see I really wanted her to go through with the surgery, I'm selfish, I didn't want my friend to die. I still need her. Well she has called in that promise.

Michelle wants to run the Disneyland Half Marathon in September.

And she wants me to run with her.

And I said I would.

That is where the new shoes come in, you know the running shoes, for running. We have 193 days to prepare. So I'm gonna get off the computer and my butt and maybe go running, if I am not back in an hour send help. :)

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Life Before Cell Phones

Stole this from a friend on Facebook but it made me laugh:

If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways… yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in heck I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!


But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!
And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the dang library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our butts! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks!

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!


And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were luckily, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Michelle's Quelf Makeover

Most of you know that we have game night every Sunday at our house. We play some pretty awesome/ weird games. The weirdest being Quelf. Michelle drew a card that she couldn't complete and the only way to avoid the penalty was to allow one of the other players to do her makeup. Well as my son says "Tom is more girl than boy" so she picked him hoping he'd be nice. He wasn't. :D