Category: awesome!

The Big Bad Sultans of Swat And One Eight Year Old Girl

Imagine it if you will, Albuquerque in the 1970’s. Idyllic late summer days of blazing hot temperatures and then around 4pm, the boiling dark clouds move in and the rain comes a’pouring down.

That summer monsoon rain would cool things off, water the plants and change the smell of the air.

I used to love running outside to play in the pouring rain. It was always a warm rain and I’d dance among the raindrops, catch a few on my tongue and generally frolicking about getting soaked from head to toe while searching for rainbows.

Rain storms in New Mexico are a show. Ripping bolts of lightning and crashing booms of thunder. On one such dancing day in the rain when I was a kid, I didn’t realize how close I was to the center of the storm, and as I did my soggy dance, the thunder cracked so loudly that my feet moved from a lively jig to a dead ahead run in one swift movement as terror coursed through my veins.

It looked something like…well…this:




Except I was an eight year old girl. The people in this .gif are grown ass men. Major league ballplayers for the New York Yankees. (there is video out there, the Boston players had a similar reaction).

But I know the feeling. Oh, I get it.

Just as my dad laughed his butt off when I went racing by, terrified and soaking, I am laughing my head off at this .gif (and the video).

Just can’t stop watching it. heh.




.gif found on Cheezburger.com.





You Don’t Hear That Every Day

So I was rolling home last evening after a really long day of cranky behavior and I was a bit brain dead and just ready to be at my own little home.

I put on the radio to the local news chat station and turned off my brain for the ride.

Somewhere along the way as I was bumpitty bumping along a torn up stretch of road, my brain locked on to a couple words uttered by the news caster.

The words were: loose kangaroo

Huh?

“Oh,” thought my tired brain, “They are probably talking about something that happened in Australia.”

Nope. They were talking about something that happened in Florida.

Doesn’t the weird stuff always happen in Florida? It seems like any of the weirdest of the weird news I read either went down in Thailand or Florida. The humidity must make things odd.

Reader’s Digest version: A loose kangaroo held up traffic on US 301 and the authorities were called. Police and fire chased the animal around for a while and then a former wrestler named Kevin Wehling showed up. He tracked it to a ditch and then grappled with the beast.

Side note: I understand kangaroos are sort of mean. If they get a back claw into you they can open you up pretty good.

But Wehling prevailed and finally subdued the beast. It was then taken to a local kangaroo ranch for safekeeping. Evidently it was not their ‘roo. Evidently it’s normal to have a kangaroo ranch? Evidently it’s normal for many people to own a ‘roo? Evidently a loose kangaroo is to be expected?

Um. Ok.

Just another normal day in the Sunshine State.





What?




Image found here.




Boring Training, Day 3

Here I am, day three of my three day training. On a Friday, no less. Today is the final uphill slog for this training class.

It is a long climb and this hiker is weary.

Not sure whether I can continue on. Sooooo booored.

Today, instead of being “that guy” I have gone into slump mode. I already got called out for looking at my phone. I’ve eaten every pastry they offer (all terrible!) and I’m drinking caffeinated tea. Nothing is helping.

So now, instead of paying attention, I’m obsessing on a white board marker.

This marker, particularly.




This is a very respectable marker. It’s green, made from 90% post-consumer product, almost fully recyclable and refillable. This is a very smart and responsible pen, a good business choice by whomever purchased it.

So why am I obsessing? Well, one, it’s orange which is my current favorite color (it changes all of the time). And two because of this…(Look at the yellow tag)




That little pen reservoir holds the orange ink. You can watch it sloshing around in there. Neat!

And that tag, it tells me not to open up that sloshy ink container. Why!?! Because it is a brand new pen and opening it now will splash ink everywhere. So!?

I wanna! I wanna I wanna I wanna!

I am having to exercise the utmost in restraint, something I don’t have a lot of, to keep from ripping the end off that marker. Then I tell myself, “I’m steady handed enough, I can pull that off of there and have no problem! Without spilling a drop! Let me prove it to myself!”

But I know the truth. I’m not sure handed. I’m the girl that falls down. I will pop that cap off and ink will spring up in the air and aerosolize and there will orange ink from here to there, ceiling to floor.

That sure would be awesome, though.

Way more fun than talking about warranty claims, insurance provisions and cost accounting.

Barf.





Images Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth, not that you’d want to steal photos of an orange marker, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone 5, the Camera+ app and no small amount of lack of attention to the subject at hand.




Whoa Fair

Ah yes, another one for the “don’t it make me proud to be a New Mexican” files. This one comes courtesy of The Good Man.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A New Mexico man faces multiple charges after police say he was having sex with a woman while driving drunk and crashed, ejecting the woman from the vehicle.

The Albuquerque Journal reports 25-year-old Luis Briones was found with one shoe on and his shorts on inside-out Monday night after he wrecked his Ford Explorer in Albuquerque.

Police say Briones’ female passenger was found naked outside the SUV after being ejected. She had deep cuts to her face and head.

Authorities allege Briones tried to drive away after the crash and leave his passenger behind, but a witness grabbed his keys from the ignition. He also allegedly tried to hide from responding officers behind a cactus.

Briones is charged with aggravated DWI, reckless driving and evading police.

Source

Now, in all of things that are really bad about this story, driving drunk, attempting to leave your injured girl behind, reckless driving, the one thing that jumped out at me, the ONE thing that I focused on was…..

“Briones was found with one shoe on and his shorts on inside-out…He also allegedly tried to hide from responding officers behind a cactus…”

Ouchie. Really, when you ain’t got no pants or shoes on, hiding near, around or behind a cactus doesn’t seem to be the wisest move.

Then again, wisdom didn’t really seem to play a role in this whole circus of events.

Oh Fair New Mexico, I really do love you love you so. You know how to keep a native entertained.

Saaaaaaalute!








Image found here.




Trying Not To Be “That Guy”

The rest of this week is going to be a drag. Any joy I feel at having a short week after a long weekend is dried up by the fact that I am required (not suggested, not a choice, required) to attend three full days of training here at the ol’ place of work.

Three. Full. Days.

Somewhere around that time in history when the first smartphone came out, I developed a pretty severe case of adult ADD. I cannot sit still like a good kid for more than an hour at a time. In order to get me to do that, the topic better be damn interesting.

Sneak preview: The topic of this training is not. At all.

The guy giving the training is doing a good job. He is trying his hardest to make this interesting. Cracking a joke here and there. But even he knows this is a drudge and we all just gotta get through it.

And so the first couple hours were fine. It was all new and somewhat interesting. The next couple hours were hell. Part of the “rules of the road” for the class are no open laptops and no looking at phones.

Argh!

So I’m bored. I doodle in the margins of my notepad. I let my mind wander to far off topics (at one point I was wondering if I should cut my nails or keep them a bit longer since they are so strong right now).

And then I run out of things to wander off about and supposedly I’m supposed to be paying attention and learning something and getting something out of this class that my department paid big money to force me to attend.

So then boredom gives way to something else. Something sinister. I become “that guy” in the training class. You know that guy. Or girl. Whatever. You know, the person who participates. Who answers questions. Who offers suggestions. Who always has something to say. That person who everyone is sick and tired of by the end of day one with two more days of class ahead.

I hate that guy! Except when I’m being that guy and then it’s a crap load of fun!





It’s a…you know…big mouth bass. *snork*




Image found here.