I tell you what, the combination of boredom and stress can take the mind on odd journeys. Case in point: Tuesday's review for my Wednesday morning accounting final. I feel like I am woefully unprepared for this final, yet I'm bored out of my mind watching the professor work through problems on the board. A thought out of nowhere strikes like lightning, "He's Australian." From there, it's a prairie fire of thought association spreading across the wasteland of gray matter residing behind my eyes.
Australia is hot, probably at least as hot as Phoenix in some places.
Most of it is a big desert, I think.
What's their water situation like there? Is it sufficient for sustainable growth?
What are their natural resources?
(OIL?)
Mel Gibson is from there. (The Jews never had to cross a wasteland like that. Is that why he feels so superior to them?)
Wait a minute. Mel Gibson. Mad Max. That's where Mad Max was filmed. Of course they have oil, if the movies said so. That's what Lord Humungus was after.
All roads lead to Humungus.
In the end, I found myself sizing up my professor according to how well-suited he was for the apocalypse. "Sure he can tell you where your missing Accounts Receivable went, and he probably could advise you on how to reduce your days payable. But in hand-to-hand combat, those arms will be ripped right out of their sockets. As soon as he's out of ammunition, he'll have to fight. Then he's dog meat."
Yeesh. I like to think that boredom without the stress would have taken me on a more magical journey involving flying carpets and a big blue genie and a princess in a halter top. Maybe Thursday, it'll be a whole new world.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Words That Make Me Pale
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| How would Georgia capture this? |
Once in awhile I learn a word that is so powerful and terrifying in its ability to convey imagery that it bleeds the color right out of my face. I encountered just such a word this week. It is not for the faint of heart, so if you are easily nauseated, you'd best move along now. it comes to me via a good friend and occasional Humungus contributor, Phat Mexican. The word is:
Vaganus
Hrm. A-Hrm. Ha-rumva. Ha-rumvavavav. Ugh. Sorry. Dry heaving just writing the word. What does it mean? What is it's origin? So sad you asked, but if you insist...
Phat Mexican's wife brought their second child into the world this week (Salute! May the second be as handsome as the first.) He picked this word up from the nurses in the obstetrics department. It is a hybrid term born of the unholy union of the words "vagina" and "anus". It is industry lingo for the not-dissimilar union of said orifices that sometimes occurs during childbirth. Hrm. Aaahr.
As a celibate bachelor, I have yet to peak behind the curtain in OZ. I'm not privy to all the dirty little secrets women keep hidden. I function in a world relatively isolated from any form of Woman composed of anything more than the sugar and spice of folklore. So when I read Phat Mexican's story about his conversation with the nurses that day, and the graphic frankness of their descriptions, the fairytale glow in my dreams dimmed a little bit.
The Humungus in me says all things end in blood and filth. But I don't want to hear that right now. I need comforting fables like the always-popular "girls don't fart." All of this other stuff...I dunno. And given that the vaganus would be at least partially my fault for planting my seed in the first place, I'd feel awfully guilty every time I saw the wife sitting on her inflatable donut while my progeny gnaws her nipples to rawhide. I mean, how can I be responsible for inflicting such suffering on a human being I'm supposed to love? Yeesh.
Vaganus. Hrm.
Vaganus. Hrm.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
After the Boys of Summer Have Gone
So where was I before the sun cooked my brain? Ah, yes. Summer's treats. Let's get on with it then.
I think this summer may aptly be described as my Summer of Baseball. As I began laying the plans of my exodus from DC, I put in a request with my brother, The Nuge, to fly out and help me make the drive west. The Nuge was willing, under one condition: that I meet him in Boston to begin our drive. He had seen DC a number of times, and wanted to go somewhere he'd never been before. When he suggested this, it occurred to me that I had never been to Fenway Park. I don't care much for the Red Sox, but I'm a big fan of visiting different baseball stadiums, and Fenway is a historic park. So we agreed to catch a game while we were there. Then I got to thinking, "There are a lot of parks along the way back to Denver. We should visit those as well." I ran the idea by The Nuge, and he liked it. Fate gave a wink and a tip o' the cap, and made sure that all of the teams along the way were having home games on the days we planned to pass through their cities. Then, having laid those plans, I thought, "You know, if I could just make it to a couple more, I will have visited every ballpark here in the Northeast." So I made that my goal before leaving the east.
On consecutive weekends in June, I spent the night in Chinatown at Dirty Harry's place so I could catch the 6:30 AM Chinatown bus to NYC. The C-Town bus, for those not familiar, goes from DC's C-Town to NYC's C-Town, but also stops at Penn Station in NYC. There are a number of companies that make the run, so your experience can be very different depending on which company you get your tickets with. My first trip was to see Yankee Stadium, and when time came to depart, the driver gets on the bus and barks in broken English something to the effect of the restroom not flushing, so please don't throw the deuce or we'll all have to smell it the whole way to NYC. Sir, I will hold it as long as I have to. Thanks for the warning.
It was a day game, so the game finished around four in the afternoon. My Chinese Chariot didn't depart for DC until seven, so I took a nice long stroll from Penn Station in midtown all the way down to Little Italy for some Gelato. This may not seem extraordinary, and it's not on its face. What made it special was that it happened to be the day of the NYC Pride Parade. The parade had gone right down Broadway about an hour or two before I got there. So the parade was long over, but the street was still all blocked off. I was able to take my stroll right down the middle of Broadway, and I didn't even have to put on my leather daddy gear to do so. It was a surreal feeling, one of those unexpected providential nods that make the times in between memorable.
The next weekend was the same drill, only instead of the Bronx, this time I took the Long Island Railroad out to Brooklyn for a Mets game at Citi Field. It was a hot and muggy day, and I had no sunscreen. But the stadium was great, probably one of my top five so far. From my seats in the right field grandstands, I could watch the planes taking off from La Guardia airport. And something I didn't even realize, it is right across the train tracks from the U.S. Open tennis stadium. Had I known, I would have made the trip for an Open in prior years. Oh well. For the ride home, I had a nicer bus, but in the row behind me I had some ridiculous Jamaican woman preachifying to the man next to her the entire four-hour journey. Can you imagine having to listen to Calypso from Pirates of the Caribbean jabbering nonsense for four hours after sitting in the sweltering sun all afternoon? You can rationalize some pretty violent stuff in that condition. My will held out, though. Just barely.
I made one more trip to NYC before leaving the east coast. Again, I took a C-Town bus, and this time stayed the night in a crummy little hostel on the upper west side a few blocks from Columbia University. That night, I met with my trainer from my mission, whom I hadn't seen in nearly ten years, and who lives in the city working as a playwright. Very talented guy, it was great to catch up with him. We parted after dinner and I had nowhere to be until the next day. So I wandered into Central Park to pass the time and stumbled upon the New York Opera giving a free performance in the park. Again, an unexpected nod of fate. The next morning I wandered Greenwich Village and Chinatown, hit up Magnolia to mack on some cupcakes, and then beat it out to Brighton Beach to meet an old Russian friend who had recently moved there. Brighton Beach is a head trip. Store signs are all in Russian. It didn't even occur to me to speak to people in English. It also happens to be an armpit, so if you ever get the chance to go, don't.
Upon returning from my final trip to the city, it was time to load my car and get outta Dodge. I got it all in with room to spare, and pulled out of DC on Thursday morning around 11. The Nuge's plane arrived Friday in Boston at five o'clock in the ay em. So in the meantime, I drove to Syracuse, NY, to visit an old friend from Denver doing a grad program there. After dinner, I drove through the night to arrive in Boston at 4:30 AM. I napped in the cell phone waiting lot for about 20 minutes until The Nuge called, and then we were on our way. We parked near Boston Commons on Charles Street around 5:30 and began our tour of the Freedom Trail, but came back for breakfast at a cafe there when we realized that none of the historical sites were open yet. Thanks to our early start, we managed to see all of the Freedom Trail sites and still had time to drive out to Lexington and Concord to visit the Revolutionary War sites, as well as head up to Cambridge to wander around Harvard's campus a little. In the afternoon, we went to see the Bunker Hill monument, but were so exhausted that we just fell down in the shade of a maple tree and slept for about an hour. By then, it was time to get over to the game and start the baseball portion of the trip. It's all travelogue-ish from here to Denver, and I'm assuming most everyone has been to a baseball game before, so I'll just give you the cities we visited and let the pics give a taste of our experiences. From the Friday night game in Boston, we went to Pittsburgh, stopping at Penn State for lunch. From the Saturday night game in Pittsburgh (with fireworks after the game!), we went to Cleveland and caught an Indians game the next day before departing for Chicago and a rendezvous with the Cubs at Wrigley Field on Monday night. At that point, The Nuge had to get back to work, so we left for Denver straight from the Cubs game, arriving home around noon on Tuesday.
And now to the pics:
Once back in Denver, I caught a Rockies game (where they scored 12 runs in one inning!), and since arriving in AZ, I've been to three D-backs games (first time in a dome). For the scorecard, I've been to eleven parks this year: DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, NY Yankees, NY Mets, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Denver, and Arizona. I only missed Toronto in the northeast. One day, Blue Jays, we'll party.
I think this summer may aptly be described as my Summer of Baseball. As I began laying the plans of my exodus from DC, I put in a request with my brother, The Nuge, to fly out and help me make the drive west. The Nuge was willing, under one condition: that I meet him in Boston to begin our drive. He had seen DC a number of times, and wanted to go somewhere he'd never been before. When he suggested this, it occurred to me that I had never been to Fenway Park. I don't care much for the Red Sox, but I'm a big fan of visiting different baseball stadiums, and Fenway is a historic park. So we agreed to catch a game while we were there. Then I got to thinking, "There are a lot of parks along the way back to Denver. We should visit those as well." I ran the idea by The Nuge, and he liked it. Fate gave a wink and a tip o' the cap, and made sure that all of the teams along the way were having home games on the days we planned to pass through their cities. Then, having laid those plans, I thought, "You know, if I could just make it to a couple more, I will have visited every ballpark here in the Northeast." So I made that my goal before leaving the east.
On consecutive weekends in June, I spent the night in Chinatown at Dirty Harry's place so I could catch the 6:30 AM Chinatown bus to NYC. The C-Town bus, for those not familiar, goes from DC's C-Town to NYC's C-Town, but also stops at Penn Station in NYC. There are a number of companies that make the run, so your experience can be very different depending on which company you get your tickets with. My first trip was to see Yankee Stadium, and when time came to depart, the driver gets on the bus and barks in broken English something to the effect of the restroom not flushing, so please don't throw the deuce or we'll all have to smell it the whole way to NYC. Sir, I will hold it as long as I have to. Thanks for the warning.
It was a day game, so the game finished around four in the afternoon. My Chinese Chariot didn't depart for DC until seven, so I took a nice long stroll from Penn Station in midtown all the way down to Little Italy for some Gelato. This may not seem extraordinary, and it's not on its face. What made it special was that it happened to be the day of the NYC Pride Parade. The parade had gone right down Broadway about an hour or two before I got there. So the parade was long over, but the street was still all blocked off. I was able to take my stroll right down the middle of Broadway, and I didn't even have to put on my leather daddy gear to do so. It was a surreal feeling, one of those unexpected providential nods that make the times in between memorable.
The next weekend was the same drill, only instead of the Bronx, this time I took the Long Island Railroad out to Brooklyn for a Mets game at Citi Field. It was a hot and muggy day, and I had no sunscreen. But the stadium was great, probably one of my top five so far. From my seats in the right field grandstands, I could watch the planes taking off from La Guardia airport. And something I didn't even realize, it is right across the train tracks from the U.S. Open tennis stadium. Had I known, I would have made the trip for an Open in prior years. Oh well. For the ride home, I had a nicer bus, but in the row behind me I had some ridiculous Jamaican woman preachifying to the man next to her the entire four-hour journey. Can you imagine having to listen to Calypso from Pirates of the Caribbean jabbering nonsense for four hours after sitting in the sweltering sun all afternoon? You can rationalize some pretty violent stuff in that condition. My will held out, though. Just barely.
I made one more trip to NYC before leaving the east coast. Again, I took a C-Town bus, and this time stayed the night in a crummy little hostel on the upper west side a few blocks from Columbia University. That night, I met with my trainer from my mission, whom I hadn't seen in nearly ten years, and who lives in the city working as a playwright. Very talented guy, it was great to catch up with him. We parted after dinner and I had nowhere to be until the next day. So I wandered into Central Park to pass the time and stumbled upon the New York Opera giving a free performance in the park. Again, an unexpected nod of fate. The next morning I wandered Greenwich Village and Chinatown, hit up Magnolia to mack on some cupcakes, and then beat it out to Brighton Beach to meet an old Russian friend who had recently moved there. Brighton Beach is a head trip. Store signs are all in Russian. It didn't even occur to me to speak to people in English. It also happens to be an armpit, so if you ever get the chance to go, don't.
Upon returning from my final trip to the city, it was time to load my car and get outta Dodge. I got it all in with room to spare, and pulled out of DC on Thursday morning around 11. The Nuge's plane arrived Friday in Boston at five o'clock in the ay em. So in the meantime, I drove to Syracuse, NY, to visit an old friend from Denver doing a grad program there. After dinner, I drove through the night to arrive in Boston at 4:30 AM. I napped in the cell phone waiting lot for about 20 minutes until The Nuge called, and then we were on our way. We parked near Boston Commons on Charles Street around 5:30 and began our tour of the Freedom Trail, but came back for breakfast at a cafe there when we realized that none of the historical sites were open yet. Thanks to our early start, we managed to see all of the Freedom Trail sites and still had time to drive out to Lexington and Concord to visit the Revolutionary War sites, as well as head up to Cambridge to wander around Harvard's campus a little. In the afternoon, we went to see the Bunker Hill monument, but were so exhausted that we just fell down in the shade of a maple tree and slept for about an hour. By then, it was time to get over to the game and start the baseball portion of the trip. It's all travelogue-ish from here to Denver, and I'm assuming most everyone has been to a baseball game before, so I'll just give you the cities we visited and let the pics give a taste of our experiences. From the Friday night game in Boston, we went to Pittsburgh, stopping at Penn State for lunch. From the Saturday night game in Pittsburgh (with fireworks after the game!), we went to Cleveland and caught an Indians game the next day before departing for Chicago and a rendezvous with the Cubs at Wrigley Field on Monday night. At that point, The Nuge had to get back to work, so we left for Denver straight from the Cubs game, arriving home around noon on Tuesday.
And now to the pics:
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| The Concrete Mausoleum |
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| Jeter takes a swing |
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| Me with the Bleacher Creatures |
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| Somewhere in my top 5 favorite stadiums so far. |
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| Posing so easy, a caveman can do it |
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| Flatiron building down Broadway |
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| It's the 21st century and Bostonians are still sitting on wooden seats |
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| The Green Monster |
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| I do love festivals. This one may not be my scene, though. |
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| The Nuge on a bronze donkey. This has GOT to be in Revelations somewhere |
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| Pittsburgh: Definitely my favorite so far. |
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| The view just before the fireworks |
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| Fireworks on the one night we happened to be in town?? |
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| Anointed by the hand of Roberto Alomar |
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| Cuban Pete at the Indians game |
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| Gotta admit, the war drum was a pretty fun feature of Jacob Field. |
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| Was going for a shot of the robot street performer, but got a two-fer with this Cleveland fashionista |
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| At Notre Dame, me and Touchdown Jesus |
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| Knowing nothing about Chicago, we opted for the full-blown tourist experience of a double decker bus. |
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| The Nuge at Wrigley. Great surrounding neighborhood. |
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| Very intimate feeling park. Much better than Fenway. |
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