Come on, man. You can’t be this stupid. This is a put-on, right? This is a goof…
After watching this clip, I’m instantly reminded of this quote from Animal House: “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
I’d like to see what these guys are up to in 20 years. Ya know, for my own edification…
(HermanTurnip shakes his head in disbelief)
This weekend I learned a very valuable lesson: I am not immune to cactus.
I was mountain biking in Anza Borrego when I felt something hard slap into the the flesh of my right shin. The pain was so sudden and shocking that it took a couple of seconds for my brain to catch up with what had just happened, and when it did a second even more intense wave of pain came rushing over me.
Grinding to a halt I looked down and saw a large piece of Buckhorn Cholla cactus had embedded itself into my flesh.
And here’s a curious fact that I was previously unaware of. It appears that the needles of this evil plant curl a bit when they puncture flesh, making it just that more painful and difficult to remove. After ten minutes of hunting and pulling I managed to remove the majority of the infiltrating spikes, but continued to find broken remnants buried in my shin as the evening progressed.
Luckily no other misfortune befell me for the rest of the trip. And admittedly we weren’t quite “roughing it” in the great outdoors where we were able to drive our vehicles right up to our campsite:
And after an evening of steaks and beer I find myself back amongst the rigors of the working week. I’m sunburnt, sleep deprived and ill-prepared for returning back to work, but what can you do? At least with Easter right around the corner this week will be truncated a bit and I’ll have three days to catch up on my sleep…
Oh, and if you ever find yourself in San Diego, please give me a heads up. I’d be more than happy to take you camping to this spot! We’ll share a few beers and filet mignon. Nothing but the best for my blogging friends…
I’m headed off to the desert for a couple of days to do some primitive camping, star gazing and reading up at Anza Borrego. I feel that it’s about time that I recharged the batteries a bit and contemplate my future, hopefully with the assistance of a beer of two 
And so, if the world should end between now and next week please consider me uninformed and fill me in on the details when I get back on Monday. I’d hate to come back to a zombie apocalypse and nobody told me.
Until then, see you next week!
There’s nothing like coming home from a hard day at work and being greeted by your smiling toddler as he reached out for you and yells, “Da! Da!”
I believe that most people don’t bother to slow down enough to realize how important the trivial things are. They’re so consumed with the pressures of life that they can’t appreciate the tiny moments that are often overlooked.
Your happy child calling out for you, slipping on socks fresh out of the dryer, the smell of waffles cooking in the morning; It’s the simple things that make life worth living.
And so I say “relax”…the next 90 soothing seconds are on me:
…to recover from my vacation.
Many thanks for all of the well-wishes! Tyler had a great time ripping open his presents, shoveling fistfuls of carrot cake into this maw, and being manhandled by family members both alien and familiar. Through it all Tyler never lost his smile or blew his cool. Man, if only I could go with the flow as well as that kid can…
We’re pretty confident that Tyler’s favorite toys are the rocket ship tent and cow noisemaker (many thanks, Dash Riprock!).
Since Karin’s parents had never been to Disneyland we managed to find a sitter on Thursday, piled into the FJ and 80 minutes later were on the doorstep of the happiest place on Earth. We had a great time on the various rides, stuffing our faces with churros and people watching. I was even cajoled into getting on Space Mountain. I don’t do well on roller coasters (they scare the bejesus out of me), but I think I kept a brave face for the duration of the ride:
In space no one can hear you scream…
