The rejoicing has ended. My excitement about flip flops has come to an end. Now I can’t even remember why I was so excited about getting flip flops. Maybe because they were forbidden is what made them appealing and something I HAD TO HAVE! But after nine days of wearing them, my blistered feet have had enough. Maybe this was Regan’s plan all along. Buy me cheap flip flops so my feet will hurt and I would not want to wear them. Well, if that was her plan it worked. I don’t even want to see if nice flip flops wouldn’t hurt my feet. I just want to go throw both pairs that she bought me in the ocean now. I am a broken man…
I make fun of Regan all the time for saying that she is afraid to take yoga. “The instructor tells me to bring my anus back to which it came from”, she always says. I never believed that an instructor would say something so hippieish. After today I won’t make fun of her any more for saying that. We have been taking a yoga class in the morning, and yeah I know we are insane for waking up at 6:30 am while on vacation. Yesterday’s session was fine. We were on the beach and exercising the whole time. But today we had a hippie for a teacher. He rattled on about how yoga, real yoga, had nothing to with exercise. We westerners could not grasp the concept of yoga. We had to adopt it to our way of thinking and as Madonna says, we live in a material world, and that is why we made yoga into an exercise. He then proceeded to ramble on about unions and what not throughout the whole class. With all his ramblings and preaching I didn’t get any exercise. If I wanted to listen to some hippie shit I would have joined a drum circle. All I could think while listening to him was Cartman saying, “I’ve been keeping this place free of hippies since I was five”.
Would you like to know how I know this? She showed me that she loves me by calling up Barnes and Noble to see if they had a D&D book that I wanted. You are probably saying to yourself that this really isn’t a big deal, it’s just a book. I would agree with you, but she makes a point of telling everyone that I am very lucky to be married, a point which I do not dispute, because I play, as she puts it, dork games.
If calling and seeing if they had the book was not enough to prove her love for me, she actually went and purchased it! Again you are probably thinking this isn’t a big deal, but apparently the booksellers at Barnes and Noble, which she used to be, look down upon and criticize the people that buy dork books. For her to brave the scrutiny of her peers was most definitely a testament of her love. Whether this was for me or her secret love of D&D, I do not know;-)
To further our circus act, Regan and I started taking trampoline classes tonight to help improve our dismounts from the trapeze bar. As a kid I’ve always known someone with a trampoline and always enjoyed jumping on one. I was a little shocked when Regan said that she has never jumped on a trampoline before. Then the shock turned into concern because she is the only person I know that can easily give themselves a concussion.
So how did the class go? She was better at it than I was. That is up until the point where she started trash talking and told me that she was going to show me how it was done. After losing control of her bounce, she managed to knee herself in the head and fling herself half way across the trampoline to hit hard into the springs around the edge. If it wasn’t for two big padded things sitting on the edge of the trampoline she would have flung herself straight over the edge.
For anyone keeping score, here are the injuries so far:
Regan:
Landed in the net wrong and hurt her neck, which resulted in five hours in Urgent Care.
Bad take off from the trapeze platform, which resulted in an injured shoulder.
Got cocky on the trampoline, which resulted in hurt pride and most likely bruised forehead.
Jason:
No injuries to date despite the fact that he got dropped on his head from the trapeze.
Today is Groundhog day. This is a day that has been much anticipated here in the Parks’ household. Why? This Winter the only way Regan would let me grow out my beard, better known as my Winter coat, was that come Spring I would shave off my entire beard. Yes, my entire beard! No goatee. No mustache. No mutton chops. It had to all go.
While Spring officially doesn’t come until the end of March, this hasn’t stopped Regan from asking “Is it Spring yet?” A few weeks ago when she asked is it Spring yet, I told her that we would know when Spring was going to be on Groundhog Day. I made an error here. I thought the legend said that if the groundhog didn’t see his shadow that winter would be extended longer than it normally is. While in reality, which sometimes I don’t pay attention to, if the groundhog did see his shadow then Spring would come early. I have to start paying attention to things!
Right now the following groundhogs have seen their shadow, Punxsutawney Phil, Staten Island Chuck, Wiarton Willie, Shubenacadie Sam and General Beauregard Lee. Which means that I will be shaving my Winter coat soon;-(
Or at least that was what I was told today after my trapeze class today. Unlike Regan, I had no fear of jumping off a platform high in the air. She was a little skeptical when I told her this before I took the class. I had to explain that as kids we would climb trees and who ever could hang and drop from the highest point would win. It was like monkey’s version of dare. Of course, this elicited the normal question of: Were you retarded as a kid?(tm)
I had a very productive first class. The only thing I had to try twice was a back flip. I was a little confused on what I was suppose to do and forgot to let go of the bar when I finally got into position. I was able to do three catches of the first trick. I hope I do as well on the second trick next week.
I’ve started a photoset, both on Picasa and Flickr, of our trapeze classes. I also have video of Regan attempting the second trick.
What is the IFL? That’s the question that most people ask when we tell them that we went and saw the IFL on Friday Night. It stands for International Fight League, which as their site puts it, is the world’s first team-based professional mixed martial arts league.
I had very low expectations of this event and was going mostly to see what it was about. The girls, Regan, Whitney, and Mary-Lynn, were more excited than I was. How excited were they? When Regan sent me an email about the event the subject line read: “ASSWHUPPIN”. I wasn’t so sure why they were so excited, but after going I can see why they got pump up. For that matter, I can see why people like boxing so much. There’s nothing like watching a guy get put in a choke hold and pass out to get your blood going.
I was going to post this a while ago but never got around to it. I even had a clever idea of writing it in the form of a break up letter. But for some reason I’m in a creative slump and never finished it;-(
I traded in my MINI Cooper S in for a Volvo S40. Why? After moving back out here, I was quickly reminded of one of the major reasons I hate living in the Bay Area: traffic. Traffic here sucks! It sucks even more when you are driving a standard. It really sucks when you are the only person in your household who can drive a standard. So if we did take my car out I would always be the driver. That also meant that I was always the designated driver. That sucked ass.
After Regan got her new car (a kick ass Volvo C70) I thought that we would just take her car every where and I would only use the MINI for going to and from work. That didn’t work out so great since we decided to lease her car so she can get a wagon in a few years when we decide to have kids. With the lease we could only put 12,000 miles a year on her car. In the Bay Area you can put that on in a few months. After the miles started racking up really fast, it was back to me driving the MINI if we wanted to go any where. That sucked ass.
Just over a month and a half of when Regan got her car, I went and traded Danni in for Donna. I never pictured myself driving anything other than the fastest, smallest, semi-luxury car I could find. But I have to admit that I am rather enjoying driving my “adult” car.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, and I’ve decided it was time I spruced up the place a bit and start posting again.
I sort of went on a mini-rant to Regan and Whitney earlier today about how New Year’s Resolutions don’t count until unless they are presented in a bullet pointed list, here are my New Year’s resolutions, in no particular order:
Publish at least 52 posts this year and attempt to participate in this year’s NaBloPoMo (that is if they have it again).
I pretty sure I can do the first part but the second part may be bit ambitious. But I figured I would at least attempt it.
Go on a diet, get buffed, and take fencing lessons.
After my plan of beating my brother senseless with a foam sword back fired on me, I figured it was time that I get in shape. I need the fencing lessons because my punk brother works construction and I have a desk job; there is no way I will be able to get stronger than him. Hopefully better swordsmanship will be able to defeat his berzerker rage.
I missed out on acquiring this past Christmas. It was my fault that I didn’t get one. Initially I thought I would build up some serious good karma by letting all the little kids that wanted one for Christmas get one before I did. What, surprised by my selfless act? Don’t worry it didn’t last long, my stance on the matter changed as soon as I played one. I think my exact statement was, “Screw the kids! I have to have one!” Plus the more I thought about it, it wasn’t me that would prevent some kid from getting one, it is those damn eBayers. All I had to do then was not buy one from eBay and I would not incur any bad karma. Since then I’ve been hunting for a Wii.
Google has totally spoiled me when it comes to food. Since I’ve started working there I haven’t really been motivated to cook my own meals. Why would I when I have chefs that are better cooks than me, cooking three meals a day? But it turns out, I don’t actually eat three meals a day at Google. And the money that I thought I was saving was actually being spent on dining out at night and on the week-ends.
Take more pictures
Regan has taken control over all the camera’s in the house, which has led me to take less pictures in 2006. Not this year!
Turn off the bathroom light
Warning, this was put on my list by Regan and I might not get it accomplished;-) The fan in the bathroom comes on when you turn on the light. For some reason, that little fan is the only thing that can wake her up from her coma like sleep.
Regan has this effective defense mechanism while sleeping. If one was to accidentally bump her LIGHTLY on the head while she is sleeping she will, without waking up, return the light bump in kind with a massive head butt that would put the Zidane headbutt to shame.
I can’t help but tease her about it because she grunted when she headbutted me.
I totally forgot to post where we were going this weekend. I’m such a bad blogger. I guess it really doesn’t matter since most of my readers are coming from Regan’s blog now;-(
For anyone who doesn’t read Regan’s blog, we went to Austin this weekend for Jeff and Aim’s wedding. Everything was great except for the trip home. I keep saying this, but this was the absolutely last time that I fly through Dallas DFW. No really, I mean it this time. Our plane was 30 minutes late in arriving to the gate and took off 40 minutes later that it was suppose to. After landing and being delayed for 10+ minutes because of lighting strikes, 1 lighting strike within 5 miles of the airport == 10 minutes of waiting in the queue to de-board, we were left 10 minutes to make it to our next flight. Long story short we made it but our bags didn’t.
There will be pictures on Flickr soon and more of a story on Regan’s blog.
Regan and I have rebuilt our library so fast that you wouldn’t be able to tell that we lost almost every book that we owned eight months ago. It was more important to us to acquire books rather than a place to put them. This really didn’t matter in Austin since we had a two bedroom apartment with tons of closet space. When the books started to overrun the common space, we just stashed them away in a closet. Now that we live in the-kingdom-of-unreasonable-rent we had to down grade to a one bedroom apartment with less closet space. This meant that we actually had to stop buying books and break down and buy bookshelves. Today, after 245 days of being bookshelf free, we are now owners of a IKEA bookshelf.
Regan said to me that we should get together with Lauren for Easter to have dinner and watch a movie. The heathen in me suggested that we watch Army of Darkness because it had things in it that come back from the dead. Both Regan and Lauren liked this idea so much that we are now watching two undead movies tomorrow: Army of Darkness and Shaun of the Dead.
Too bad they weren’t fond of my suggestion for dinner: rabbit.
regan: “OH SHIT! WE’RE GONNA DIE!” regan floors it instead of stopping. I start shaking my head. regan(laughing): “If you weren’t so tired you would be yelling at me.” me: “I’m too tired to care about dying.”
Regan and I are very busy this week getting ready for our move to California. We got so much to do that she’s actually broken down and created a list for herself. Here’s my list so far for the week:
1. Lily’s walk turned into her walking us. I had to carry her most of the way because she was tired after getting a rabies shot and a thermometer stuck up her butt.
Today, after 4.37 years, I resigned from my position at PalmSource. I’ve accepted an offer from Google. This means that Regan will be moving back out to the Bay Area.
I have the entire week off and Regan has to work for most of it. Which is more of a problem for her than it is for me. I don’t see any one all day so as soon as she gets home I am in super jparks aggravating mode. I feel sorry for her because I am so annoying sometimes that I annoy myself.
Regan usually as quite a few stories about what some moron said or did while she was at work. She always has a funny or witty response for the idiots when they do or say something retarded. I always ask her if she actually told them that or not, but her response is always a disappointing “no”. I lecture her all the time on how she should actually say what she is thinking because that’s what I would have done. Which her response has always been something like, “I’m glad you don’t work retail because you would get slapped, kicked, hit, fired, maimed, shot, trampled, etc..” Yesterday she was extremely exhausted and actually told me to go and get a part time job. She explained that it would solve my boredom by getting me out of the house and interacting with people. Plus I would be aggravating and telling off all the idiots and I wouldn’t have to annoy her when she got home. Appealing to the inner scientist in me, she suggested that it would be a grand experiment to see what it would take to get me fired from a part time job. Oh she fights dirty sometimes;-) I think might actually try this because it sounds fun. Plus I finally watched Jackass for the first time over the weekend and I feel like doing something retarded.
So what should I go apply at first? Regan suggested Borders but I think she just wants me to put the competition out of business;-)
