After a very trying week at work, I think I’m going to take a cue from Nicole from The Madlab Post and crack open a nice bottle of Stone India Pale Ale and relax in the backyard with a good book.
Might as well make myself some fresh guacamole while I’m at it. You know…do it up right.
Hope everyone has a great weekend! See you bright and early next week 
In elementary school a teacher once asked me the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I dunno,” was my reply. What did I know? I was just a kid. How could I possibly know what I wanted to do with my life at such a young age? I specifically remember the very question as sounding odd and contrite. My world at the time revolved around cartoons, seeing if my friends could come out to play, and riding my bike around the neighborhood. What I wanted to do when I grew up was the furthest thing from my mind at the time.
When I entered high school we were asked to take a test that was supposed to reveal our personalities, what our talents were, and what future professions would best suit us. My test revealed that I was a highly functional malcontent with an artistic bent. My future profession would most likely be an artist, actor, or (surprisingly) accountant.
Although I agreed with the first two conclusions, neither teacher, actor, nor accountant sounded appealing to me.
In short, I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I grew up.
I started college with no idea of what to study. After two years of floundering around from class to class, subject to subject, with no professional field really calling out to me, I decided to join the military. After four years of the Air Force, I knew that it just wasn’t the best fit for me (but it’s an experience I’ll always treasure).
With my four-year contact with the military over, I left and completed college with a BS in Information Systems (thanks to the military for introducing me to computers) and landed a great job in the tech industry, in which I do quite well in to this very day, and it’s a job that I actually enjoy.
But I still don’t know what I really want to do with my life.
It’s as if I’ve been wandering along a nebulous path whose very makeup seems to materialize underneath my shadow mere moments before I set my foot down upon it. I never really had an ultimate goal in life. I never had a singular desire to be rich or famous, amass power and wealth, or make a lasting dent in the world. Luckily I was always smart, stuck with problems until they were solved, and never fell into the easy trap of sloughing off responsibility.
Seemingly without trying I obtained a modicum of success.
I married a wonderful woman who’s clearly my better half. We bought a house. We had a son.
I accomplished all of this without a real game plan. It’s funny what life gives you.
What do I want to do when I grow up?
Honestly, I still don’t know. I guess I’ll just see how far this ride takes me.
The new trailer for the upcoming movie Men In Black III has been released.
I saw the first trailer many weeks ago, but never made the connection that Josh Brolin from The Goonies co-stars in this upcoming flick. Judging from the screen cap, I guess I can forgive myself for not recognizing him:
Glad to know that his career continued on a steady course after The Goonies, where he’s managed to snag parts in movies such as True Grit, Hollow Man, Milk, and No Country For Old Men.
MiB3 is looking more and more like a worthy sequel in a fun series. Can’t wait to see how this whole Earth invasion scenario turns out!
And for those of you who couldn’t care less about this upcoming movie, pay I present to you the most inefficient drinker in the world?
Ever since his first trip to the barber, Tyler knows where the barber hides his stash of lollipops. When we walk into the door Tyler makes a beeline behind the counter and helps himself to a lollipop.
Normally we don’t allow Tyler to eat candy, but I think it works to our benefit when taking him to the barbers and allowing him a shot of hard candy.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what an instant sugar coma looks like:
Yes, he’s actually frozen in this position, lips wrapped around candy, fist clutching paper stick. While in this state Tyler is like one of those posable Gumby toys, making it a snap for the barber to cut his hair.
Does hacking our son like this make us bad parents 
Five Minute Fiction Monday is an ongoing experiment. The goal: To write as much as I can in five minutes. Don’t think. Let the fingers do the work. Once done, walk away then come back later to clean it up.
Enjoy?
The Debt
She drags the burning mattress down the stairs, leaving behind a trail of flame, setting the house on fire.
Upstairs, her husband lies flat on his back, with a perfect red hole in the center of his forehead. His eyes are wide open, pupils frozen in an idiotic stare, as if he can’t get enough of the blackened popcorn ceiling above him. Glass from a broken window litters the floor, and the smell of gasoline hangs thick in the air.
Kicking the front door open, she tries to pull the mattress through, but it becomes stuck in an awkward angle. Impossibly wedged in the doorframe, she can see the hundreds of coiled springs glow red hot underneath a dancing blanket of orange flame. Grabbing hold of a burning edge, she screams as bubbling blackened foam filler coats her palms, and tries to drag the frightful thing out with her into the night air.
It doesn’t budge.
“Michael! Jessica!” she screams, pulling at the smoldering wreckage of her bed. She cries and kicks at the thing as it casually drips rivulets of fire on to the welcome mat beneath it. Flames race up the walls in the house, coating the white paint with an oily, smoky haze.
She hears the voice from the phone in her head. “Your husband skipped out on his mark,” it said. “He’s four weeks behind on the vig. You know we can’t have that, Mrs. Cloat. Bad for business, you understand.” Then she heard the breaking glass. The shout. The gunshot.
Cradling her burnt hands in her armpits she screams again, cursing her husband. Shouting obscenities at the conflagration of blazing polyester, rayon, cotton and metal she collapses on the front lawn, shouting, “Michael! Jessica!”
Neighbors arrive. They hover at the edges, like vultures eyeing the decay of a dying beast. One man, dressed in boxer shorts and a t-shirt, has a cell phone pressed against his ear. The sound of wailing alarms can be heard slowly approaching from somewhere deep in the night.
Upstairs the children cower behind a dresser as smoke and flames fill the house.
It’s there that the firemen find them the next morning.
