Laziness and the Unsprung Spring

There's no denying it: I've been downright lazy when it comes to blog posting. Here we are in the middle of April, and I can count all of my 2013 blog posts on one hand...sadly, even a two-fingered critic could do the same.  But in my defense, both posts were pretty great.  This blog has been neglected for nearly three months--February and March flew by without any activity to speak of.

So what happened?  I think the grad school application process destroyed my motivation.  After all, that was the primary reason that my blogging streak ended in the middle of last summer.  When I graduated from college back in 2006, a similar fate befell my motivation to read.  Over the previous three years, I may have been the only guy on campus who read 99% of all the assigned reading in all of his classes.  When I left campus, I was so burned out that I didn't touch another book for a solid four years. If something couldn't be communicated in a series of entertaining and easy-to-understand pictures, I refused to learn about it.  "Reading for fun" became the most oxymoronic phrase in the English language.

Working on all those grad school essays and applications last summer and fall had a similar, though less extreme, impact on my writing.  I still did some writing here and there, but I couldn't convince myself to commit to the daily blog posting that I sustained in the early part of 2012.  After enduring so many evenings and weekends packed with un-fun writing of the worst kind, the prospect of sweet, sweet nothing was just too tantalizing to pass up.

I'm going to try to get the blogging started back up again.  No, I'm still not motivated enough to go back to the post-a-day schedule, but I'm going to ease back into it.  Why now?  With this "spring" weather here in Minneapolis, the better question is "why not now?"  Normally I would be spending my time outdoors in the sun am warmth, but at this point the mere thought of going outside makes me want to vomit.  It's April 14th, and this is the view from my patio:

Did I mention it's April 14th!?  It's still @%$# snowing!  This looks like November or December...or January...or February...or this past March, for that matter.  I heard on the news this morning that Minneapolis has had measurable snowfall for six consecutive days, which is the first time on record that's happened in April or something along those lines.  It's downright depressing.  The outdoors needs to take serious note of the calendar and get its act together...I just can't take this.

So here I am on a "spring" afternoon in mid-April, sitting at a keyboard instead of running outside or playing tennis.  My pasty Minnesota complexion isn't going anywhere in the near future.  The highest temperature in the seven-day forecast is 48°, so that layer of white covering the ground is going to stick around for a while.  April showers supposedly bring May flowers, but I'm guessing April blizzards kill May flowers.  The good news is that I'm leaving Minnesota in a few short months, but I could do without winter sticking it to me one last time before I leave.

Speaking of leaving, that brings me to my next topic: school...and the end of this blog.  I'll be starting school this fall--definitely a major life change, which should provide me with an incredible variety of new and exciting things to write about.  Unfortunately, I'll probably be too busy to actually write about them.  That's the way it always seems to go...when I have something interesting to write about, I just can't find the time to make it happen.  That's precisely why this blog's readers have been so consistently disappointed in the fourteen months of its existence--my writing has been a product of abundant free time!

However, despite the impending craziness of grad school, I'm going to at least try to maintain some blogging in the coming years.  But it's going to be on another blog.  I want to re-monitize my writing, which means switching to an AdSense alternative and bringing ads back to the borders around my writing..and I learned the hard way that I can't do that on a blog that blatantly talks about ad revenue, which Away From the Cubicle most certainly does.

So, as I move farther away from the cubicle (pun intended) than ever in the coming months, subsequent blog posts will be published on a new site.  There, I intend to provide the same type of random crap that you've come to expect here, along with riveting coverage of my move across the country and the transition back to life as a student.

With a future that combines two income-free years with writing lots of giant, financially-crippling tuition checks, I'll be going broke in rapid and spectacular fashion.  Fortunately for my weather woes, I'll be doing that in Berkeley, California.  And I've decided that there's no better place to read about a guy going broke in Berkeley than a blog titled Brokeley.  Check out the new blog!  It's not much to look at yet, but it has lots of potential...and no direct mention of ads.

Go Bid Or Go Home

I've been selling crap on eBay for more than a decade now, and something often perplexed me: gift card sales.  Specifically, I've noticed that gift cards sometimes sell for more than their face value...but why?  Just a few months ago, I sold a $10 Starbucks gift card for $11.50. 

As the seller I was thrilled, yet terribly confused.  Was this just a stupid bidder--someone who was surfing eBay for bargains and thought that the opportunity buy $10 worth of Starbucks coffee for $11.50 was a steal?  If so, I wish I could meet this person and talk them into becoming their exclusive gift card supplier...sounds like an incredible career opportunity for me. 

This was no isolated incident--I've seen hundreds of gift cards sell for more than face value.  But I think I've solved the mystery.  Here's the trick: eBay has a program called "eBay Bucks" that lets buyers accumulate points for purchases on the site, which they can later apply toward future purchases.  There may be a few stupid bidders out there, but I'm guessing most of these people are spending eBay Bucks and are still actually paying less than face value for gift cards.

Two weeks ago, however, my sense of understanding of the eBay gift card sales market took a serious blow.  I listed two iTunes gift cards on eBay two Saturdays back--one $50 gift card and one $25 gift card.  With four hours to go in the bidding, the $25 gift card had been bid up to $26, and the $50 gift card was hovering around $40.  I didn't check the final sales prices until after the auctions had ended and I'd received emails from eBay telling me that my items sold.

I checked out the $50 gift card first, and it sold for  around $45...not bad, but not spectacular.  Then I clicked on email for the $25 gift card auction, knowing that it was already selling above face value when I last checked .  Something seemed a bit...off.  I had to do a double take.  My $25 gift card sold for $1,542.00:

I don't think any bidder is that stupid, and I'd be shocked to learn that someone accumulated $1,500 in eBay Bucks and decided to make such an unwise purchase.  Was my iTunes card made of real silver?  It was pretty shiny, but nope, still made out of ordinary plastic.  Could this be one of my fans and loyal Away From the Cubicle followers who somehow knew my eBay user ID and wanted a piece of memorabilia for their personal collection?  Possible, but also unlikely.

As I continued to investigate, the plot thickened.  I compared the names and addresses of the two bidders who won my gift cards, and both were foreign-sounding names, and both had addresses in Springfield Gardens, New York.  It would seem my two bidders were in cahoots...but the $45 bid seemed legitimate.  Was I somehow being scammed?

I've heard of plenty of crazy schemes on online auction sites.  One of my favorites is a scam where a bidder pays with what appears to be an authentic Western Union money order, then informs the seller that they "accidentally" added an extra zero or two to the payment amount.  For example, you sell an item for $5.00 and receive a money order for $500.00.  The bidder asks you to send back the extra $495 by cash or check, and by the time the bank has informed the seller that the money order is a fake, he's already funded a Nigerian prince.

The rise of PayPal and its integration with eBay has pretty much wiped out such outdated scams, so I wasn't sure what was going on with my spectacularly overvalued gift card.  Sure enough, the winner of the $50 gift card sent me the payment through PayPal, and we completed the transaction without a hitch.  And, not surprisingly, the other bidder who placed a $1,542 bid for a $25 gift card has not yet sent a payment.  Interestingly, when I looked through the bidding history on the gift card, there were not one, but two bidders going wild for my $25 worth of iTunes glory.

That second bidder placed a bid of $1,517.00 two days before the auction ended.  To this day, I'm still puzzled.  If I had to guess, I'd say someone (or someones, perhaps) just decided to spend a wild evening on eBay, bidding outrageous amounts for various auctions with no intention of ever paying.  I'm not the only one puzzled, however.  Just yesterday, I received a message from some random eBay user inquiring about my now two-week-old auction: "Just curious, why would anyone pay $1,500 for a $25 iTunes gift card???"  A fine question, indeed.

Here We Go Again...

I had mixed feelings when the clock hit midnight last night.  On the one hand, New Year's Day is one of very few bright spots in a Midwest winter, right up there with Christmas and Thanksgiving.  But 1/1/2013 also happens to be the last of my 13 consecutive days off, and today also included the annual Most Depressing Drive of the Year: the return to Minnesota after the holidays.  Traveling on one of the few winter holidays just isn't fair...

The drive started out sunny, but traveling forty miles north in I-35 brought back the standard layer of thick, disgusting winter clouds.  Who knows when I'll see sunshine again...could be April.  Once again, the world around me looked like it had been painted with a palette that I can only describe as "Shades of Death", featuring brown, dark brown, dead grass, gray, dead leaves, off-white, and winter filth.  Fantastic...but I suppose that transition from sunshine into dreariness was a perfect visual metaphor for the way I feel about leaving vacation behind and going back to work.

The next ten weeks are my least favorite of the year.  Starting with the return to work tomorrow, the immediate future holds nothing but five-day weeks, bitter cold, and short, dark days. The only holidays between here and Memorial Day aren't even real holidays!  We've got Valentine's Day, which is a nationwide candy and flower sales scheme, and St. Patrick's Day, which is little more than an excuse for people to justify excessive drinking...in many cases despite a lack of true Irishness.  Throw in a few absurd bank and post office holidays, and there's absolutely nothing to look forward to until way beyond February.

It's back to reality tomorrow--a return to waking up to an alarm at a ridiculously early hour, and back to spending the majority of my time around coworkers instead of friends and family.  Not to mention, of course, the official end of eating delicious food prepared the way I like it best: by someone else.  A chunk of my New Year's evening was spent preparing remarkably flavorless food for work tomorrow:

On the bright side, the days are getting longer, and I guess there is a light at the end of the cold, dark tunnel...summer will eventually return, but it seems so far away...

The Final Countdown

Believe it or not, there are mere hours left in 2012.  It was a big year, chock full of newsworthy and unexpected events.  Personally, my selection for the top story of 2012 is a recent development: Grandma has embraced the internet!  Somewhere across the country, Al Gore is smiling without fully understanding why.  Here's Grandma  learning about her iPad earlier this week:

It was a shocking development--for the past 80 years, Grandma and the internet always stayed at least 500 feet away from each other.  Granted, that wasn't very difficult for the first 60 years.  But here we are closing in on 2013, and Grandma now owns an iPad and a wireless router.

I see good things in her future--she won her first game of solitaire on her iPad.  Even more surprising, she decided to drop her land line telephone!  Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?  It's like Grandma embraced some kind of pre-New Year's resolution.  I must say, I'm inspired.

I'm not one to make resolutions, but maybe 2013 will be the year that I try something new...like car washes or reading for fun.  Then again, I already switched from boiled to baked chicken in 2012, so I don't want to overdo it with the spontaneity.  What will 2013 bring?  We'll just have to wait and see...

Happy New Year!

Christmas!

The local YMCA was closed for the holiday, which meant that I was able to spend Christmas the way it was meant to be spent: lots of eating and absolutely no rigorous physical activity.  The morning started with an unusually lifelike, cat-looking ornament in the tree.  It managed to leap safely from the tree after some worried glances around the nearby branches:

An incredibly large portion of the rest of Christmas Day was spent completing a game of Settlers of Catan that began last night and carried through until almost 5PM today.  I didn't technically emerge victorious, but I was so tired of the full-day game that by the time it finally ended, I've never had so much trouble discerning defeat from victory.

The more experienced players in the family claim that this was the longest, most closely-contested game they've ever seen...I'm not sure if I feel proud, unfortunate, or just plain exhausted to have been a part of history.

All in all, it was a great Christmas.  The sun was shining all day, though I would have preferred unseasonable warmth over the single-digit temperatures in the afternoon.  You'd think Mother Nature could do better than that for Santa's birthday...

Opening most of the presents on Christmas Day successfully delayed the post-Christmas letdown for another 12 hours as I'd hoped, but with Christmas coming to a close, it's hard not to feel the disappointment of a holiday gone by. I'll have to focus my attention on the second jab of the one-two holiday punch: New Year's.  Another chance to eat big and exercise little for a day.  In the meantime, I'll be devoting most of my writing efforts to the family Christmas letter, which is sure to entertain a few and offend many.  See you next year, Christmas...

Santa's Birthday Eve

I can't believe Christmas Eve is already upon us.  That's the downside of Christmas falling on a Tuesday--I feel like I'm jumping straight from work right into the holidays, and that's never an easy transition.  I completed my annual newspaper gift wrapping session yesterday and pre-stretched my favorite eating pants earlier today, so I'm all set to let the celebration begin.

The greater the number of people who learn that I wrap Christmas gifts in newspaper, the more I find myself explaining the benefits of a black and white Christmas.  Luckily, I can simply send people to last year's holiday blog post on Passionately Apathetic, where I detailed the benfits of eschewing traditional wrapping paper in favor of old school media. However, I feel my wrapping skills may have regressed a bit this year--for some reason, I even found myself struggling with standard rectangular gifts.  But buried deep within my shoddy wrapping lies an important lesson.

The holidays are all about appreciating the things in life that truly matter, right?  I've seen people so skilled at gift wrapping that they can wrap a gift brilliantly while only using two pieces of tape.  I'm not one of those people. What better way to teach people that it's what's on the inside that counts than handing them a gift that looks like it (barely) survived World War II?  Tattered newspaper, exhorbitatnt amounts of scotch tape, and a desh of holiday spirit are the key ingredients in my annual holiday gift wrapping sessions. 

Nothing says "don't judge a book by it cover" like a brilliant gift ensconsed in scraps of hideous paper and a quarter pound of scotch tape.  Well, brilliant might be stretching it a bit on the gift department.  But don't let the lack of color fool you--my holiday spirit is alive and well.  Those black and white gifts look just fine under the tree, especially when they're mixed among the traditionally wrapped gifts from the less progressive members of the family:

We're also trying something new this year and saving the vast majority of the gift opening for Christmas morning.  It's a bold experiment, but I'm warming up to the concept.  I feel like Christmas Day should still be at least a week away, so putting off the main event is a step in the right direction.  And there's always a part of me that goes to bed after the Christmas Eve festivities a little disappointed, thinking "I have to wait another year to do this again?"  Now I can delay that disappointment for twelve more hours! 

That said, waiting won't be easy. I'm hoping that the anticpation of Christmas morning doesn't overwhelm me.  After all, there's nothing I love more than seeing the look of disappointment and confusion on the faces of my friends and family as they open my gifts.  It warms my heart every year.  Festivus may be over for 364 more days, but I still have Santa's birthday to look forward to tomorrow.

A second lesson also came from my gift wrapping this year: when you wrap gifts in newspaper, it's critical to immediately label the gifts.  If you wait a full day to bust out the Sharpie and apply the labels, it's nearly impossible to remember what's inside every package.  Then, of course, the unsolved packages end up with labels like this:

I'm not sure who's going to open this one, but I'll be just as surprised as the receipient, whomever that may be.  I love Christmas morning surprises, and now I'll even by surprised by the gifts I picked out.  Fantastic!

It's Not The End Of The World...Or Is It?

Well, the Mayans were wrong again.  December 21st came and went, and the world is still intact.  It gets hard to follow all of these end-of-the-world predictions from ancient civilizations.  It seems like every few months I hear that the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Incans, or whoever has predicted that the end is upon us.  I didn't read the details, but I do wonder if the Mayans specified what time (and time zone) the apocalypse would strike.  Chances are, it would be December 20th or 22nd somewhere in the world when things started to go south, right?

From what little I did hear about the doomsday predictions over the past few weeks, they made little sense.  Apparently the Mayans didn't specifically predict that the world would come to an end on December 21st.  It turns out that their calendar just didn't extend beyond 12/21/2012.  By that logic, my VCR is predicting that the world will end next week, on 12/31/2012, when the timer  defaults back to 1996. (Apparently Sony didn't anticipate that anyone would still be using VCRs in 2013.  I showed them!!).  To make matters worse, I also heard that the Mayan calendar didn't take leap years into account, so it was actually off by a good six months anyway.

Regardless, the fortunate news for all of us is that these predictions are always wrong.  That news is a little less fortunate, I suppose, if you're one of the paranoid fools who's now sitting on a 20-year supply of Spam and Tang.  Even if a few crazy people thought they could escape the end of the world, I don't know why they'd want to go on living in a world where those are the only viable food options...that certainly can't do wonders for the life expectancy.

Leave it to America to turn the world not ending into another excuse to eat--I received this email offer from Red Robin when I woke up on December 22nd:

So the world goes on.  But interestingly enough, my days of life as I know it in Minneapolis are numbered, as I found out earlier this month that not one, but two MBA programs suffered serious computer errors and/or major lapses in judgment and issued me acceptances.  That's why I'm back to blogging again--that nightmare known as the application process, which ended my blogging streak back in July, is behind me forever.  I'm waiting to hear back from two more schools in January, but no matter where I end up, the one thing I know for sure is that I'll be leaving Minneapolis this summer.

More on that later...moving away and starting school will surely provide years worth of blog-worthy content.  But then again, not having anything interesting to blog about never stopped me in the past anyway.  The end is also near for Away from the Cubicle. With this Ad Sense nonsense, I'll have to retire this blog and start again from scratch.  But more on that later, too; I'll explain the details when I officially write this blog's final post and make the switch to the new one (suggestions for new names are welcome).

Before closing, I should point out one thing did come to and end recently: James's streak of exercising in public with his dignity intact.  Since returning from Africa, it's becoming harder and harder to admit that I know him when we're around heavy objects...or, for that matter, light objects.  Here's a shot of him from earlier today as he prepares to struggle with 65 pounds on the decline bench press.

It was embarrassing for both of us, but at least he made that squad of middle school cheerleaders that was working out on the next bench over feel good about themselves.  They seemed really proud of themselves and offered James lots of encouraging words during his workout.  Happy Festivus everyone!

One (Fifty) And Done

With 149 consecutive days of blogging, I couldn't let go without one more post to hit 150 as I say farewell.  Since posting about ad revenue is what I suspect brought about the tragic end of Away from the Cubicle, it seems fitting that my final post will focus on that very same topic.  Why not finish things off with a traditional, woefully undersized graph to illustrate the meteoric rise and abrupt crash of my blogging fortune?

Nearly five months to the day since my first post, I'm hanging it up...at least for now.  Looking back at that first post from February 25th, I realize that I was blogging about ad revenue from day one.  No wonder the Google cops had their eyes on me...anyway, it's been a wild and crazy ride.  Look for my return on a new site sometime this fall.  Up yours, AdSense!

Suspended

July was supposed to be the month of my big payday--I hit the $100 ad revenue threshold last month, and I'd been anxiously awaiting my direct deposit.  But as of this morning, I still hadn't received a penny.  When I checked my email early this afternoon, I'd received an email from Google AdSense, and the contents left me absolutely shocked.

The subject line stated that my AdSense account had been disabled, and the most disturbing line from the message read:

We have detected invalid activity on your site and your account has been disabled. We're limited in the amount of information we can provide about your specific violation. We understand this can be frustrating for you, but we've taken these precautionary measures because intentional violators can use this information to circumvent our detection systems.

I checked the FAQs section, and my worst fears were confirmed: all the ad revenue I had accumulated over the past five months has been forfeited and "returned to the advertisers."  Worse yet, there's no way to reinstate my account.  Not only am I starting over with nothing, but I'm not allowed to post ads on any blog associated with my Google account, which includes Passionately Apathetic.

I still can't figure out what rule I'm accused of violating.  I didn't click on my own ads...except for the few instances when I had a genuine interest in the product, like the sperm shoes:

Google discourages people from making any references to ads or ad revenue in the actual site content, so I guess my downfall must have started with my constant references to earnings and all those charts and graphs I posted on a monthly basis.

Now what?  I'd like to say that I blog for the pure and simple joy of blogging, but the thought of collecting even a paltry income for my writing was an intoxicating prospect--I just can't go back to giving it away for free.  This lifetime ban from AdSense may very well mark the end of Away from the Cubicle.  Maybe the timing is perfect--I was about to take an extended break as I focus on school applications, and the only other incentive I had to forge ahead has disappeared.  When I emerge from the other side of the application process--if I make it out alive--look for yet another new blog under a different account, with the notable absence of any reference to ad revenue.

Like most major undertakings in life, what started out as a fun and promising endeavor ends in bitterness and defeat.  Apparently James isn't the only one who can bring great shame to the family.  Much like he was banned from Facebook for posting inappropriate photos, I'm now a Google AdSense outlaw for mysteriously and poorly defined reasons.

A Fashion Emergency!

Call me crazy, but I didn't think mug shots were supposed to look good.  I've never posed for one myself, but I figure a person should get a free pass in the looks department when they've been arrested and tossed in front of a camera...especially since they're probably drunk.  People have enough trouble capturing good pictures of me when I'm sober and not battling the law.

But apparently the founding fathers missed a big one when they drafted the Bill of Rights: the right to a fabulous mug shot.  Before I get into the details, I'll just say this: you know you're in for a fantastically trashy tale when the main character's name is "Tanya Ann."  And, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the events of this story took place down south in Georgia.

Tanya Ann Fowler had her mug shot taken after police arrested her for "teroristic threats and acts"...whatever that means.  Here's how that mugshot turned out:

You may not know it to look at the picture, but Tanya Ann is a woman who cares deeply about her personal appearance.  Her unflattering mug shot found it's way into a weekly publication in Commerce, Georgia called "The Bad and the Busted."  Being the fashion icon that she is, Tanya Ann was not happy.  And even a kindergartener knows that when there's an emergency, you call 911.

So that's exactly what Tanya Ann did.  Last Sunday, she dialed 911 and complained about her unsightly mug shot.  Apparently, that call was strike three.  Strikes one and two came earlier in the afternoon when Tanya Ann called 911 in search of someone to store her meager possessions after she was evicted from her "home" (I'm assuming the author of the article treats "home" and "trailer" as synonyms).

Well, Tanya Ann got her wish--a second chance on that mug shot.  The cops charged her with obstruction of a 911 operator and brought her into the station.  I'll admit, I thought that Tanya Ann's compliant about the first picture just absurd, but after seeing her second mug shot, it's clear the the first one didn't do her justice:

Amazing what a little preparation and some makeup will do, isn't it?  Just kidding, of course.  Here's the actual second mug shot:

Let's face it, on a scale of one to ten, Tanya Ann couldn't score a point if she were being compared to a lineup of the world's ugliest farm animals.  I'm not really sure how to rank this picture relative to the first mug shot...but here it goes.  On one hand, Tanya Ann's face doesn't look as creased and wrinkled in this shot.  But on the other hand, it looks like she gave her mullet some fancy groomin' in the other picture.  And what's going on with her eyes?  It looks like two photographers stood on either side of her, each telling her to look directly into the camera.  Miraculously, she obliged both requests.

This unfortunate series of events can serve as an important reminder for all the potential criminals out there.  If you've even considering the possibility of committing a criminal act, try to look your best.  Fix your hair, put on some makeup, and wear a color that complements the beige concrete block that you'll be standing in front of when the cops take your picture.  And for the love of god, direct both eyes at the same camera.

Here's a link to the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/georgia-woman-calls-911-complain-mug-shot-gets-184622953.html

The Dark Night...and Day

Some impressive streaks are coming to an end.  On the positive side, my season-long winless drought on the tennis courts finally ended this evening. My streak of futility came to a halt at the ghetto tennis capital of Minneapolis, the Read Sweatt Tennis Center..."Home of Inner City Tennis".

The name Sweatt on the sign outside isn't just a name, it's a strong indicator of the conditions inside the building.  The neighborhood doesn't seem terribly dangerous, but I do know that inner city tennis doesn't involve air conditioning.  My shirt was instantly soaked with "sweatt" before I'd even pulled my racquet out of my bag.  Luckily I love the hot weather, and we pulled off a 7-5, 6-3 win, and our team won the match-up 2-1.  The bad news is that we're already statistically eliminated from qualifying for sectionals, but a win's a win, and that hadn't happened in a long time.

That was the bad streak that ended today.  Unfortunately, I fear a good streak is also in jeopardy.  I'm approaching 150 consecutive days of blog posts, but I may have to hang up the keyboard and focus all of my writing effort on grad school essays.  With today's half-day Friday at work, I decided I'd sit down and officially start writing my first essay.  I would tackle the "easy" one that asks about career goals.  The problem is, I quickly learned that there's no such thing as an easy essay...odd that that the word easy is embedded in the word essay, huh?

Seven hundred words about myself should, in theory, be a walk in the park.  I figured I'd have a solid draft done between noon and the tennis match in the early evening.  My first rule of writing is that it's much, much easier to edit than it is to create something from scratch.  So I always just start typing crap on a blank screen and go back later to polish the big, steaming mess I'm left with.  For whatever reason, I couldn't even get the crap to come out this afternoon.  I have a bad case of mental constipation and can't seem to find the writer's laxatives anywhere. 

For the life of me, I couldn't find the right balance between concise writing and too little detail to make any relevant points.  If things even out over time like I claimed a few days ago, I wonder if tennis success breeds writing failure.  Because I would have gladly traded a win for a decent draft of an essay today.  I typed, deleted, re-typed, and re-deleted thousands of words today, but I can only describe what I'm left with via a visual metaphor:

Good thing I only have about fifteen of these things to write...and today's was the "easy" one...and the draft isn't even finished.  So it looks like blog posts are going to be fewer and much farther between until mid-October.  Depending how bad things get, I may start a new blog-free streak that rivals what I've accomplished thus far.  I'm guessing that won't help the ad revenue.  Enjoy this while you can, because the dream is almost over...

The Illegality of Stupidity

I'm not exactly sure how to react to these new laws that are intended to enforce what most people would consider common sense behavior.  They seem so incredibly unnecessary, but I guess the reality is that there a lot of stupid people out there.  And I certainly think that it makes sense to give law enforcement officials the authority to punish those people for their stupidity.

Over the past few years, many states have passed laws banning texting and driving.  I suppose if I were more motivated, I could easily look up the answer to this question...but I wonder if it's possible to avoid punishment based on the technicalities of the law.  Does the law really only ban texting, or is it general no-phone legislation?  For example, if I'm emailing behind the wheel and get pulled over, can I avoid a ticket if I can prove that I had Verizon shut off the texting capabilities on my phone long ago? 

And how tightly do these laws define "driving"?  I've been known to surf the internet while waiting at red lights. It's a strategy I strongly advocate--not only does it make productive use of a few boring, idle minutes, but I would argue that if everyone followed my lead, there would be far less road rage among the after work, stop-and-go crowd.  Using a smartphone in an unmoving vehicle is hardly dangerous.  What's the worst that happens--someone fails to notice that the light turned green and the drivers behind him start honking?

Now, Fort Lee, New Jersey is passing a law to make texting and walking illegal.  The local police chief cites twenty-three pedestrian accidents as the cause for this new law, but I think we can all point to one person who really caused this mess:



Cathy Cruz Marrero, the infamous fountain flipper, is the obvious mascot for this legal crusade.  After hilariously tumbling into a mall fountain in Pennsylvania while texting, she went on Good Morning America and other news programs, complaining about the tremendous embarrassment she suffered after the surveillance footage went viral.  She even considered filing a lawsuit against the mall security team who let the video find its way onto the internet.  Given that the person's face is unrecognizable in the video footage, one wonders why someone so afraid of public humiliation didn't simply skip the press tour and remain anonymous.  But then again, it's clear that common sense just isn't one of Marrero's strengths.  Looks like someone is fishing for an easy payday at the bottom of a fountain...

There's also the less-known but equally hilarious case of a man near Glendale, California who nearly got himself killed while focusing a bit too much on his phone.  A bear had been wandering around a California neighborhood regularly for over a month, and the man woke up and heard a helicopter overhead--a helicopter, he would later learn, that was tracking the bear as it walked near his house.

The went outside to check out the action and decided to send his boss a text, explaining that he was going to be late to work.  While typing his message, the man came dangerously close to walking into the bear.  A brilliant move, indeed, but the man survived to get himself killed another day.  Luckily, the helicopter was there to capture the footage:



With incidents like these making headlines, it's no wonder that towns are starting to pass these common sense laws.  The article that I read later posted a clarification, noting that the law does, in fact, allow officers to issue tickets for "dangerous walking," which includes, but is not limited to, texting and walking.  I'm quickly losing faith in my "officer, I was emailing, not texting!" defense...but I still wonder about the unmoving vehicle defense.

Anyway, there's clearly a better way to deal with idiots who don't pay attention to their surroundings, whether they are driving or walking.  If only there were a way to relocate all of these people in one area and just let them Charles Darwin each other out of existence.  Mount some HD cameras at all the street corners, and in a matter of weeks YouTube will be teeming with epic collisions involving drivers who were too distracted by their phones to notice that they were about to hit a pedestrian who was too engrossed in texting to get out of the way.  Throw some loose bears into this utopia of stupidity, and the rest of the world will be a safer and more entertaining place.

Here are some links:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57433581-501465/texting-while-walking-banned-in-n.j-town/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57412188-1/watch-now-texting-man-ambushed-by-bear/?tag=contentMain;contentBody

The Offsight Onslaught

I spent all of yesterday and the first half of today away from the office.  That may sound like cause for celebration, but in this case nothing couldn't be further from the truth.  Outside the office doesn't mean that I wasn't working--instead, I was subjected to that cruel form of work commonly known as the offsite meeting.  Every year we have an annual conference where we meet with the other finance people who work at the manufacturing plants.  Back in the heady days of 2011, the conference was held at a fancy hotel in downtown Chicago.  This year's rendition of the conference, on the other hand, was held in a suburban Minneapolis Sheraton hotel.  Clearly we were already starting in a hole...

To be fair, not everything about offsite meetings are bad.  It can be nice to actually meet the people that you only talk to over the phone and through email all year long.  And offsite meetings normally involve free lunch, which can be an added bonus.  In a best case scenario, the meetings involve minimal interaction, allowing my mind to wander blissfully, interrupted only by the occasional iPhone check.

While a free lunch can be nice, food can also be a major problem at offsite meetings.  I haven't been bold enough to pack in my own cooler with chicken and vegetables, so my normal strategy of eating every few hours gets shot to pieces.  After I go about three hours without eating, my stomach is growling like an angry predator and my mind immoderately and fully shuts off.  By the time lunch rolls around, I'm ready to kill someone.  And when 3PM rolls around, I'm ready to kill someone else.  Meeting organizers sometime anticipate the need for a snack, but a mountain of gummy bears just can't do the work of a little  quality chicken.

This week's offsite meeting presented me with some unique logistical challenges.  The organizers somehow missed me on the pre-meeting email that instructed everyone to dress casually, so I walked in yesterday dressed business casually while the rest of the crowd was in shorts.  I intended to take full advantage of the shorts policy in today's half-day meeting, but there was one problem...and once again, it was food-related.

Knowing that I'd be returning to the office in the afternoon, I needed two servings of chicken stocked in the refrigerator.  I didn't feel like asking to borrow the Sheraton's facilities (would they allow guests to store chicken in their kitchen?), and 90 degree weather and a hot car to bad things to meat in a hurry.  I had to drive past work for an early dentist appointment first thing this morning anyway, so I figured I'd swing by and drop my food off in the refrigerator on my way.  But what would I wear?

I didn't want to walk into the office in shorts and tennis shoes.  That's too casual even for casual Friday, and I my plans for casual Wednesday have caught on about as well as my attempts to institute shirtless Tuesdays.  Even if I only planned to walk to the refrigerator and right back out to the car, I just knew today would be the day that my boss's boss's boss happened to walk by and see making a complete mockery of the dress policy. What if they got rid of casual Friday all together and I was to blame?

So I dressed business casual to drop my chicken off at work, then drove to the dentist and changed into shorts in the car before my appointment.  After, I drove to the Sheraton for the half-day offsite meeting, knowing that I'd have to change in the car once again at work to return to the office wearing business casual attire in the afternoon.  Of course, at the end of the day, I'd have to change again into gym clothes before heading to Lifetime.  The sheer logistical effort was staggering.  The food, meeting, and gym plans required more outfit changes than a Lady Gaga concert.


Even ignoring these other nuisances, I could best describe the events of the past day and half as dreadful.  I knew I was for a rough journey when I saw these scattered around the room:

Sure enough, the flipcharts spelled trouble.  Long, boring, all-day meetings are barely tolerable when I don't have to pay attention.  But flipcharts can only mean one thing: awkward, forced small-group discussions.  Since we just went through a major restructuring, the meetings were painfully repetitive--I've seen the same set of org charts flashed on a PowerPoint slide enough times that they're burned into my retinas.  And with all this change, we spent all of these small group sessions brainstorming obvious, common sense ideas about ways to deal with change, how we can get work done more efficiently, and what kind of training might be helpful.

These discussions always go the same--one overly enthusiastic person dominates the conversation (undoubtedly a former annoying child who always had his hand raised in class), while someone else volunteers to be the "recorder" and write ideas on the giant sheet of paper in hopes that she won't be asked to present the group's ideas to the larger group at the end of the brainstorm session.

Meanwhile, I stand there scowling, waging an internal battle in my mind.  On the one hand, I feel obligated to at least say something so as to not come off like a bitter, uncooperative employee.  But at the same time, the only thing I can think to add to the conversation would be to point out that he fastest way increase our efficiency would be to drop the pointless breakout sessions from the agenda.  And my focus is clearly lacking in these situations--I find myself constantly wondering if there's a single person in the room who truly finds these things valuable...

After twelve hours of this crap over the past two days, I have learned a few things.  First, it's not true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  I'm still alive, but my body is weak from hunger and my mind is softer than a bowl of pudding.  Second, I've learned some invaluable lessons about how to take an hour and a half worth of content and make it fill twelve hours.  I'm impressed at the way some of my coworkers have perfected the art of the financial filibuster.  In case you ever need to pull off something like this, just bring some markers and flipcharts and throw out an obvious topic...the rest will magically fall into place.

Authentic Finger Sandwiches

As I've previously mentioned on this blog, I have fond memories of the great Wendy's thumb-in-the-chili scare of 2005.  The incident escalated into a huge win-win for just about everyone involved.  Office workers got a great story for the water cooler, and I personally benefited many times over when Wendy's offered free Frosty's for a weekend in a shameless attempt to stifle the bad publicity.  Not everyone fared so well I guess...Wendy's suffered all that aforementioned bad publicity, and the woman behind the fake thumb hoax is now banned from Wendy's for life.  (Though one could argue whether that's a punishment).  And seven years later, I benefited again when I found this low quality but still entertaining photo on the internet:

If 2005 was the year of the chili, 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the sandwich.  The first few months of the year were relatively calm before a 14 year-old took an unsettling bite of an Arby's sandwich this past May.  Ryan Hart of Jackson, Michigan bit into something rubbery and tough to chew in his roast beef sandwich.  Hart must have an unusually curious nature, because most people place their orders at Arby's fully expecting at least one rubbery bite of unknown origin.  For the sake of his peace of mind, it's too bad he was so curious...

Hart pulled the foreign object from his mouth, revealing part of a human finger that his mother estimated was about a quarter inch thick and an inch long.  Police investigated his fleshy find and learned that a worker accidentally cut off part of her finger in a meat slicer, and the rest of the world-class Arby's team continued serving food before they noticed what had happened.  The kid was prescribed some medication and had his blood tested.  A friend of the family who was present for the digity-delight swore off fast food for life, eloquently stating, "We don’t eat fast food no more."  Despite the unpleasant surprise in his meal, Ryan Hart gave his Arby's Roast Beef sandwich one partial thumb up.

Two months later, sandwiches sprung up in the news again.  Just this morning, the news covered the story of a man on a Delta Airlines plane headed from Amsterdam to Minneapolis whose in-flight turkey sandwich fought back.  While taking the second bite of his sandwich, James Tonges got poked in the top of the mouth by a needle.  (Note the irony of a man whose last name very closely resembles "tongue" getting poked in the mouth.)  You'd expect this kind of thing in coach, but the most surprising part is that Tonues was served his stabby sandwich in elite business class!

"Needles" to say, Tongues wasn't pleased with his violent meal, and he's now taking anti-HIV medication as a precaution while medical experts test the needle.  This appears to be more than just an isolated accident--a total of six needles were found in sandwiches on planes leaving Amsterdam headed for the U.S. on Sunday.  The F.B.I. is all over the case, working to determine who's behind this.  Could it be a grossly undereducated food service employee who horribly misread a turkey sandwich recipe?  Maybe it's the act of a terrorist who's trying to destroy freedom and capitalism by unraveling American's previously unwaving faith in airline food.  They really know where to hit us where it hurts...

I guess "potential stabbing" now joins "horrendous taste" and "exhorbitant price" on the list of reasons not to eat airline food.  Worse yet, when Tonges reported the incident to Delta flight attendants, they charged him a $15 extraction fee to remove the needle from his mouth.

Where do we go from here?  The simple sandwich always seemed like a safe, comfortable meal option.  I don't know about you, but I'm going to think twice before I slot anything between two slices of bread.  Between Arby's and Delta, I guess there's still a slimmer of hope that these freaky incidents remain isolated to the lowest tier of the sandwich hierarchy.  Chew carefully, my friends...

Here are some links to the stories:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/finger-arbys-sandwich_n_1524129.html
 
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/needles-found-sandwiches-delta-flights/story?id=16790585#.UAYR5vVdDam

Essay Writer's Block

You'd think after nearly 150 consecutive days of blogging, a little 250-word essay would be easier than stealing candy from a baby...though clearly less fun.  I've made a fortune--by which I mean slightly more than $100--by churning out random posts covering just about every imaginable topic.  From Pop Tart carrying cases to Iowa to taxes to weather to work to children who soil themselves at school, I've tackled every last one.  Yet when it comes time to even start brainstorming potential responses to a grad school application essay, I start sweating like a competitor at the Fat Kids' Summer Olympics and turn into this:

I'll admit, some of the essay questions seem fair: What are your short- and long-term career goals?  How will our MBA program help you achieve those goals?  Fair, perhaps, but that doesn't make them any easier to answer.  But then some questions are just absurd.  While scanning the application for one school, I found this essay question: If you could choose one song that expresses who you are, what is it and why? (250 word maximum).

First, I found myself getting a little too technical.  The question says IF you could choose...so why not just respond by saying that I couldn't choose?  That would be an honest, easy, and incredibly fast way to avoid that pesky inquiry.  But an admissions panel might interpret that response as sarcastic and lazy...so back to the drawing board.

I thought more about the question, and when it comes down to it, what's so hard about writing 250 words on any topic?  I pride myself on churning out lengthy blog posts about anything--or more often that not, absolutely nothing.  I've written thousand-word essays every day for the past five months.  Heck, before I even started typing this sentence, I've already surpassed 250 words and more.

Yet when I try to think about what song might describe me, only hilarious responses come to mind.  First, there's "Pretty People" by Dexter Freebish, a song whose lyrics include:

I cannot help it that I'm so good looking
I cannot help it that I have the perfect body
You want me but you cannot have it
I'll slap your hand if you try to grab it

Other options popped into my head, too.  How about Blondie's "I Touch Myself"?  Or if they're looking or something a little more contemporary, I bet Justin Timberlake's "Bringing Sexy Back" would have an admissions panel throwing giant bags of scholarship money in my direction.  With the prospect of grad school applications on the horizon, Theory of a Deadman's "I Hate My Life" seems like an appropriate choice.  If they want a song, I might even demonstrate my ability to over-deliver and throw a whole album their way!  What better way to share my manliness than Tommy Bolin's classic 1970s album Come Taste the Man?  Well, that one might rub the admissions panel the wrong way...

As these brilliant ideas swirled in my head, I came to the conclusion that all this blogging has ruined me.  I can write page after page of ridiculous crap, yet when it comes time to put something serious on paper, my mind is blanker than the walls in my beautifully under-decorated apartment.  My genius brainstorming session generated songs that could convincingly convey a strong message of narcissism, self-loathing, or just plain creepiness.  I know very little about what it takes to get into business school, but I can tell you that those three categories are not the foundation on which one builds a successful admissions attempt. 

The guidelines with the essay question said that the song doesn't have to be well-known. So I suppose that if I were smarter, I would quickly write my own song consisting of lyrics about helping old ladies cross the street, saving African villagers from hungry lions, and rescuing endangered baby seals while solving world hunger.  Because what song could possibly do a better job of expressing who I am?

Unfortunately, here I sit, still staring at a vast sea of white space beneath each endlessly hopeless essay question.  On the bright side, if this whole back-to-school thing doesn't work out, I have a solid plan B in the works.  These past few months, I've been reading a practical and useful book that also has the unfortunate side effect of giving me violent nausea at the mere sight of its cover.

If no school will have me, then I can write my own book, which I'll title 500 Fun and Hilarious Ways to Get Rejected From the Top MBA Programs.  It promises to be a fun and easy read, and best of all, it will even appeal to readers who have no intention of attending business school.  Anyway, if you can think of song that describes me that might also portray me in a positive light to an admissions council, I'm all ears...

Makin' Bacon

I have a whole group of blog posts labeled "Random," and it's really a perfect catch-all for the weird, uncatogorizble things I end up writing about.  And this post fits the bill perfectly--what could be more random that a weekend post about the merits of bacon in all of its unusual forms?  It's an odd post, that's for sure...but why not?  I haven't mentioned bacon since the great Jack in the Box post in early March.  So I'd say this was long overdue.

Two bacon references in the news over the past few weeks got my mind wandering in the direction of this delicious topic.  First, I saw a brief clip of a restaurant in Anaheim Hills, California that was serving a different kind of burger.  Everyone knows that adding bacon to a hamburger makes it better...by simple extrapolation, a burger made entirely out of bacon is absolute perfection.  The brief clip I saw didn't mention the name of the restaurant, but I had to find out more.

A little searching revealed that the inventor of this slab of awesomeness is a restaurant called Slater's 50/50, which has locations in Anaheim, Huntington Beach, and San Diego.  The "50/50" part of the restaurant's name refers to its flagship burger, which is a half-and-half blend of ground beef and ground bacon.  That's all well and good, but a half-bacon burger was rather disappointing after the rumblings I'd heard about a 100% bacon burger.  If I had to quantify the disappointment, I'd say it was approximately 50% as exciting as the real deal.

Fortunately, my fantasies were restored after some additional searching.  During the month of July, in a meaty, celebratory nod to patriotism and freedom, Slater's is featuring a special 'Merica Burger (for those of you who don't read so good, that's short for America).  And they did just about everything they could to avoid diluting the bacon-y goodness on this one--the patty is 100% bacon and comes topped with bacon-cheddar cheese, thick-cut bacon strips, and special "bacon island" dressing.  There's also an egg and a bun involved, which seem strangely out of place.

I must say, Slater's has their act together in the bacon department.  I'm not sure how Jack in the Box gained so much attention with their milkshake, because Slater's has been slinging bacon up and down their menu for years, from appetizers to desserts.  The appetizer section offers Bacon Mac 'N Cheese, main courses include the famous 50/50 burger and turkey bacon chili, and customers can round of their meals with a bacon milkshake or a bacon brownie.

As if I needed another reason to visit California.  The 'Merica is only available during the month of July, and the real tragedy is that I passed through San Diego, Anaheim, and Huntington Beach just last month!  If only I'd known about this, I would have changed the timing of my vacation.  Looks like I have about two weeks left to make things right in the world...

My other recent bacon encounter was a far less appetizing prospect that I also heard about on TV.  A story mentioned that someone had recently invented a squeezable bacon paste.  As awful as this sounds, I still had to find out more.  Could anyone really be lazy enough to consider chewing real bacon a cumbersome chore?  But this bacon paste still has me puzzled, because the story I heard made it sound as if this stuff just hit the market.  Yet I found plenty of squeezable bacon products.  This one is a Swedish-based product in what appears to be a ketchup bottle:

And the stuff that comes out looks like it contains almost as much plastic as the bottle itself:

And this yogurt-looking tub of mystery meat doesn't exactly whet my appetite:

Despite all of my searching, I still couldn't find a single story about any new type of squeezable bacon paste that came out in the past few months.  Hoax?  Parody?  Someone's wishful, imaginative thinking?  Who knows...but the world has already witnessed similar products, and I can't say that we're better off for having seen them.  If this bacon paste does exist, I just hope it's another foreign invention.  With Slater's effort, I'm genuinely proud to be an American...and I can only assume that the Swedish population is feeling more nauseous than patriotic after Squeez Bacon.

Here are some links to stories about Slater's and the 'Merica...including a post by the "Hamblogger"...what a great name for a blog.  I'd post some links to Squeez Bacon, but no one wants to see that.

http://thehamblogger.com/2899/slaters-5050-anaheim-hills-ca/

http://eater.com/archives/2012/07/06/slaters-5050-serves-a-100-bacon-burger-tops-it-with-bacon-cheese-bacon-dressing-bacon.php

Forgetting To Remember...

Today is just one of those days.  There's simply no other way to explain it.  The morning looked so promising, too...sunny skies, temperatures in the low 90s, and plenty of humidity.  It would be a crime not to spend some quality time outside on a day like today.  So I did what any tough guy would do--I threw my rollerblades in the car and headed toward Lake Calhoun.

The uptown area is a solid 20-30 minute drive, but with Sam's Club along the way, it works well to combine a trip to the lakes with my weekly journey to restock the freezer.  There was just one problem...when I arrived at Calhoun and started putting my rollerblades on, I realized that I left my wallet at home.  Any idea what's hard to do without cash, checks, credit cards, or debit cards?  Buying things!

No IOU's allowed.

I was already at the lake, so I did my rollerblading, still frustrated with my memory lapse. I shamefully and walletlessly returned home, curious if the Maple Grove Sam's Club location might be a closer option than the St. Louis Park Sam's Club that I'd already practically driven right by.  Unfortunately, Google Maps showed me that I'm magically positioned equidistant from both Sam's Club locations.  If I'd chosen anywhere else to live, I would have more optimally positioned myself for faster shopping.  What hurt even worse was that I also drove right by Sam's Club last night on the way to that tennis match that didn't happen. At the time I told myself that I'd go to the lakes tomorrow anyway, so why not just shop tomorrow?  If I only knew.

When I took the rollerblades out of the car, I noticed something was missing--the white headphones that came with the iPhone.  Where could they be?  I was wearing them the whole time I was rollerblading, and I distinctly remember sitting in the passenger seat of the Malibu and unplugging them right before I changed back into my shoes.  I checked my pockets, and I checked every last inch of the car...nothing.  They must have fallen out of the car when I walked around to the driver's seat back at the lake.

Normally I wouldn't care too much about losing a pair of headphones--I have a few other pairs, and ones with better sound quality, but that specific pair that came with the iPhone has one critical feature that all of the others--including my old Apple iPod headphones--lack.  The base near the plug-in is narrow enough to fit through the tiny hole in the Lifeproof case on my iPhone.  Without those headphones, I'll have to use the annoying, clunky headphone adapter that I've avoided for so long.  Oddly, Apple is known for low quality headphones that break easily, yet they still come with the infamous Apple price tag...so replacing my lost friend will involve an expensive trip to the Apple Store....and I'm not referring to my apartment.

Since I had to go back to Sam's Club anyway, I figured I might as well drive the few extra miles to Lake Calhoun to search the area where I'd parked.  So, with a sense of annoying deja vu, I drove back toward uptown.  For some reason traffic had picked up considerably, so I spent nearly an hour sitting and staring at multiple cycles of the same red lights...all for the unlikely chance to maybe find those headphones.

When I finally got to the lake, I experienced a rare moment of luck.  Despite the crowds, I found an open parking space right near my spot from earlier in the day.  But my luck immediately ran out. As I pulled in, some jerk decided that open spot was big enough for two cars, and he tried to squeeze his car in front of mine.  I graciously tried to accommodate his stupidity and backed up until my bumper was literally within inches of the car parked behind me.  He, too, continued backing up, nearly parking me in.

Not wanting to get stuck for hours, I had about fifteen seconds to quickly scan the area around my old parking spot in search of the headphones before the guy walked away from his car.  No luck.  I ran back and asked the guy to move his car so I could exit without leaving tan paint on the bumper of his Mercedes.  He seemed confused as to why I was already leaving, but he moved his car and let me be on my way.  I've noticed that the Malibu has a unique ability to part seas of expensive cars...

I'm now down a $30 pair of low quality but much-needed headphones, and my future either involves a frustratingly unnecessary purchase or years of fumbling with an annoying headphone adapter.  After spending my Saturday afternoon driving all over the suburbs of Minneapolis, I finally returned home with my groceries.  Disappointed, but home. 

Then I realized that a friend had stabbed me in the back...well, technically that friend had burned me in the arm.  That friend, of course, is the sun. A glance down at my red left arm reminded me that I'd also forgotten the sunscreen this morning.  I'd hoped that there was enough shade and that I'd wouldn't be facing the same direction long enough to pick up a sunburn, but like I said, it's one of those days.  The sleeveless shirt, my Minnesota-white upper arms, and a hot summer day were a perfect recipe for disaster.

 I want to strangle my friend right now...

My plans for the rest of the day involve re-reading yesterday's blog post to remind myself that things will eventually even out, then lying on the floor in the fetal position for the rest of the day, avoiding sharp objects as I wait out this bad luck streak.  With a day like this and a car like mine, I'm certainly not going to drive anywhere.

Un-Undefeated

I've found that things have a way of evening out over time.  When things aren't going so well, it's nice to know that life will eventually get better again.  On the other hand, when everything seems to be going my way, that also means that rough times are probably ahead.  In terms of my tennis game, 2010 was one of those times when I had to just sit back and hope that things would turn around...

Tendonitis in my left Achilles kept me from playing competitive tennis for more than a year.  After a demoralizing, pain-in-the-ankle match in a work tennis league in mid-January, I hung up the racquet and didn't pick it up again until May 2011.  But sure enough, things have a way of evening out...

When I started up again in May in a USTA mixed doubles league, my two goals I set for myself were very, very basic: (1) don't re-injure the ankle, and (2) no crotch shots--well don't be on the receiving end of any crotch shots.  It was a simple game plan, but I hadn't gone fifteen months without playing tennis since I first started practicing when I was twelve.  Shockingly, despite my horrendous lack of practice, we won the match in straight sets.  And, even more shockingly, we continued winning matches in straight sets all summer.

As my partner and I piled up the wins, our team continued winning, too.  By August, we'd finished the season at the top of the standings, qualifying for sectionals in September.  Somehow, the wave of victory continued, and my partner and I swept our matches, the team went 3-0, and we qualified for nationals in November.

I fully expected our team to get destroyed at nationals--the warm-weather teams from California and Texas have a long history of dominating the pathetic, frigid northern states.  Though my partner and I went 1-2 and our team also finished 1-2, I was pleasantly surprised at how competitive we'd been--every one of our matches was close, and we didn't even have our best lineup playing.  Things were looking very promising for the 2012 summer season...but I should have remembered that things have a way of evening out...

After nationals wrapped up in mid-November, I barely touched a racquet for the rest of the winter.  To make matters worse, the USTA finally came to its senses and bumped up the rating of our semi-pro ringer, Tony, from 5.0 to 5.5, which meant he was no longer eligible to play in the league (yes, the same Tony from that crazy hybrid singles/doubles match this spring.  Then my partner said she was going to be too busy to play regularly this summer, so she didn't sign up.  The old team was getting dismantled, but somehow, I still felt optimistic that we'd field a solid lineup when the season started.

The summer season kicked off in mid-May.  The captain found a new partner for me.  We'd never met or played together before, and to say it didn't go well just doesn't do justice to the epic craptacularity that unfolded on the court that day.  I played bad, and she played even worse.  We were matched up against a middle-aged team with mediocre tennis skills, yet the lone highlight of the match for us was the one game we put on the scoreboard in the second set before they put us out of our misery, 6-0, 6-1.  Any prospect of another undefeated season was blown off the court in about forty-five minutes, and the team's hopes were also squashed as we lost 2-1.

I figured the next match couldn't get any worse, and fortunately, I was right.  I got better, but not better enough.  The captain paired me with a different partner again (it wasn't hard to notice that the last pairing hadn't gone well).  She was a tennis instructor at one of the Lifetime clubs, but I wouldn't have guessed that from watching her play.  My performance was a lot better than the previous match, but her double faulting and consistently inconsistent play led us to defeat.  Again, the team lost...0-2.

Two losses had already all but eliminated us from sectionals, so I really didn't care what happened going into the third match.  I was paired with the instructor again, and things started well enough before they came crashing down.  We blew a 5-3 lead in the first set, then lost the second.  I was 0-3 and the team lost again, also falling to 0-3.

Tonight was my fourth match of the season, and all I could do was hope that things would start evening out. I was scheduled to play with yet another partner, so I hoped that might help end the sad winlessness that's been plaguing me for two months.  The good news is that I didn't lose tonight...but the bad news is that I didn't win tonight, either.  After driving to Lifetime, I learned that one of our opponents' three teams had to default.  I was still scheduled to play, but then one of the guys on their remaining two teams failed to show up.  Default number two meant that I'd driven to Lifetime for nothing.  On the plus side, our team picked up a rare win...

Looking back, why was I even considering the possibility of a turnaround tonight?  After all, it's Friday the 13th, a day far better known for chainsaw massacres and axe murders than tennis comebacks.  There's always next week...but I'm hoping things start to even out swing my way again.  After last year's undefeated season, I now run the serious risk of going winless in the summer of 2012.

This wildly unsuccessful streak of tennis makes me apprciate my old partner that much more.  She hardly ever double faulted, she moved up to the net on every point, and we never felt the need to congratulate each other for good shots or apologize for bad ones.  We barely talked when we played...it was like two singles players covering halves of the same court.  We never tried anything fancy and didn't talk strategy at all, but not overthinking seemed to be the key to success.  Now, as we approach the midpoint of the summer, I have to keep reminding myself that things will eventually even out...right?