The post's title, while being a brand of red wine that's quite good, is also a valid motto for my ambulatory habitation patterns during 2007. I traveled a lot last year. A LOT. I did a quick rundown on my calendar and counted 13 round-trip flights last year and 69 days away from my home during them. That's averaging a flight every 4th weekend and being gone one out of every five days. And that doesn't even include any road trips I might have taken (of which there were a few).
Here's how the flights break down by the numbers:
13 total round-trip flights
8 flights to visit Ginger
4 flights that were work related
4 flights to visit family
1 flight for a wedding
10 days out of the country
I haven't bothered to tally up the total expenses or the frequent flyer miles, but I'm sure the numbers are staggering. Hopefully there will be some free flights in the near future, especially with all the weddings coming up. This year is shaping up to be quite similar -- one flight already logged with two planned for February, one in March, and one in May. I haven't even started looking at football season yet.
I'm walking back to work after lunch today with my coworkers and one of them is debating what new car to buy. She's debating between Toyota and Lexus SUVs. My other coworker points out a Mazda RX-72 ZC (or some other stupid combination of letters and numbers) and says "How about that one? That's what the Cardassians drive." I swear to God I thought he was talking about the alien race on Star Trek that have big thumb-prints in their foreheads. I busted up laughing because it seemed absurd for a Cardassian to be driving a Mazda SUV. Where were the cannons for shooting up Bajorans?
My quickly figured out what I thought they said and started laughing at me. Turns out there's some reality TV show called "Keeping up with the Kardashians" where they just follow some family around. Now, I read a lot of useless shit on the internet everyday and watch my fair share of television, all for the sake of keeping up with pop culture, but I have never even heard of this show. Apparently I'm supposed to know all about this show which, from what I gather, is about some bimbo and her family. What the deuce is going on?
I was chatting online with Jism the other day and she said, "I wish I still had my childhood imagination." What ever happened to us that we no longer have great dreams and fantasies (no those kind, sick-o). And for the matter, what ever happened to predictability? The milk-man, the paper-boy, even TV?
Jism's question reminded me of a lecture I watched online earlier this year that I meant to share on my blog. It's entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" and it was given by Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon. he gave it as part of a lecture series titled "Last Lecture" whose theme was "What would you speak about if you could only give one last lecture?" Turns out Randy has terminal cancer and this probably is his last lecture.
So I got to thinking about my childhood dreams, and here's what I could remember:
Driving a Mustang or other muscle car
Improving the efficiency of solar cells
Being an astronaut
Being a veterinarian
Playing basketball for the University of Louisville
Owning a large plot of land in Kentucky and keeping it from being developed
Having a horse farm
Sailing the Mediterranean
Performing with the Future of Corps
To be honest, I'm not doing too shabby on those so far. Some will never come to fruition (astronaut, vet, basketball), but I'm okay with that. There's still a lot of time for the others, and substitutions can be made for some.
What were your childhood dreams? How are you doing so far?
I'm pretty sure that even though I look like this:
my friends look at me and see this:
"Why?" you ask. I have participate in a handful of Secret Santa gift exchanges in my day and every time I have received something related to alcohol. First year: a Notre Dame beer mug. Second year: frosted Budweiser pilsner glasses. Third year: homer Simpson monster mug. And this year was no different. What did I receive? A Sierra Nevada pint glass, a 12-pack of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, and a mini putting green with six shot glasses designed to be a drinking game.
The only other common factor in all the gift exchanges was Pangle. So I'm putting the blame for my lush image squarely on her. Curse you, Pangle. Curse you.
All I want is a Dr. Pepper from the vending machine. It only takes dollar bills and non-dollar coins, and all I have is you, new golden dollar coin. Sure, you bear the visage of our nation's first (and possibly greatest) president, but you do him a disservice. You are not great, golden dollar coin. You aren't accepted by vending machines. Parking meters will not accept you. Even cashiers at stores look at me when I try to pass you off as legal tender. And to top it all off, you represent the base amount of a currency that is in the tanks right now. You, coin, suck at life.
I don't think that guy's going to forget that his friends are jerks. And awesome at the same time.
The post's title, while being a brand of red wine that's quite good, is also a valid motto for my ambulatory habitation patterns during 2007. I traveled a lot last year. A LOT. I did a quick rundown on my calendar and counted 13 round-trip flights last year and 69 days away from my home during them. That's averaging a flight every 4th weekend and being gone one out of every five days. And that doesn't even include any road trips I might have taken (of which there were a few).
my friends look at me and see this:
"Why?" you ask. I have participate in a handful of Secret Santa gift exchanges in my day
All I want is a Dr. Pepper from the vending machine. It only takes dollar bills and non-dollar coins, and all I have is you, new golden dollar coin. Sure, you bear the visage of our nation's first (and possibly greatest) president, but you do him a disservice. You are not great, golden dollar coin. You aren't accepted by vending machines. Parking meters will not accept you. Even cashiers at stores look at me when I try to pass you off as legal tender. And to top it all off, you represent the base amount of a currency that is in the tanks right now. You, coin, suck at life.
