Hike!

WAYNE’S WORDS
Volume 1 Number 4
Hike!

I had lunch with a couple of the Big Heads today.

Oh… sorry. Big Heads is what my core group of friends and I have called our collective self since college. Actually we have all known at least one other member of the Big Heads since grade school, but in college we decided (probably during some beer influenced conversation) to give ourselves a name. The name has also been somewhat perverted over the years by various individuals. One of the Big Heads actually referred to us as the Super Friends one night after one too many beers. My mother has always, inexplicably referred to us as the Round Heads. And recently a co-worker of mine made mention of my friends by asking me about the Fat Heads. Anyway, we are the Big Heads whether we like it or not.

I had lunch with a couple of the Big Heads today and at one point the topic of conversation turned to football. A couple of us are joining a Fantasy Football League because our (the Big Heads’) league disbanded last year. ARGH!

Man, I was sad that day. We had our Hibachi Football League for 16 or 17 years. We even had a traveling, miniature replica of the Lombardi Trophy that was made out of dental gold (thanks Dr. Hadley). Our league was around before you could go online and instantly get stats and info and such – we actually used newspapers and figured all the stuff out ourselves. We had a simple yet competitive system, but it worked and we liked it.

As Big Heads started moving away one of us poor saps would be appointed commissioner and that sucker would research, layout, publish and mail the scores and stats to every Hibachi team owner by Tuesday morning. It was hard work and a little time consuming, but it sure was fun. It was also a great way to keep in touch with all of the Big Heads.

Then the internet and ubiquitous access to same exploded onto the scene. Was the HFL gonna be awesome now or what? Or what! For some reason, even with access to everything instantaneously (including an HFL website) the majority of the Big Heads suddenly didn’t have time and the league evaporated.

Here is the eMail I sent out to the Big, Round, Super, Fat Head Friends last year when I found out the league was about to be no more.

WARNING: The following is an eMail rant so read at your own risk – you may actually get offended…or not.

Things [our fantasy football league] seemed to be perceived as so much easier (and there seemed to be so much more interest) before the Internet. I personally like the web based action [of our fantasy football league] and like the way it works, but then again I have no life and it is part of what I look forward to every year. Let me know what is up. I would hate to see this die, but I guess there are other fantasy football clubs out there. It was cool that ours was one of the longest running [16 or 17 years!]. Maybe all good things come to an end. Gosh I hope not. How come this feels like a marriage dying? Cheating b****es!! LOL I'm funneeee I make at least me laugh. Hello? Is this thing on??? I wish I was as funny as you guys. Maybe I should wax my body. Wax on Wax off. I miss Mr. Miagi or whatever his name was. He was great on Happy Days. Ralph Malph really did "still got it." Man he was the bee's knees. He was no Potsie, but then again who would wanna be. If you wannabe my lover better check...I wish the Spice Girls had never happened. Whadda pain in my a**. Trying to decide which Spice Girl was the hottest one. That "Baby Spice" kind of disturbed me. Maybe she should have called herself "Private College-Girl Spice" at least it wouldn't be such a pedophile-esque feeling for those who thought she was the hot one...gross. Wonder how old I will live to be? I hope really old so I can b***h a lot and people will say how cute he is when he doesn't get his prunes. I hate prunes. Man I gotta poop. Poop. What a fun word. Not as fun as pooper or even pooper-scooper. Alice Cooper was really cool in concert last night. [ed. Note I had obviously just seen Alice Cooper the Night before] Doesn't anybody wanna come out and play??

This whole thing (I just realized) is less about Fantasy Football and more about a commodity that is in high demand: time. We only have so much of it and once it has passed we cannot get it back. And for such a valuable commodity it is probably the most wasted.

Make sure to take time each day to communicate with the people you care about. Take time to call an old friend just to tell them the fantasy team they had sucked. Take time to send an eMail to your buddy (no "stoopid" forwards without a personalized reason for sending it) about, heck I don’t know, how danged hot it is today.

The reason or the content matters so much less than the time you took to communicate with them. Your friends and family (near and far) are all that really count and if you cannot squeeze a few moments out of your oh-so-important and busy schedule then…well, I don’t know… good luck.

Until Next Time,
Wayne

PS You want homework? Go call an old friend you haven’t spoken to in years…it’ll be neat.

Serenity

WAYNE’S WORDS
Volume 1 Number 3
Serenity

You may or may not know that I am a huge fan of Joss Whedon’s Firefly and Serenity. I love this series and subsequent movie, partially because I have always liked science fiction and partially because I enjoy character and plot driven TV and movies.

What a great diversion from daily life this series (including the movie) was. Adventure, spaceships, gunfights, horses, concubines and monsters: everything a growing boy loves. It’s a story that truly takes me to places I have always wanted to go (space, other planets) alongside people I would love to know (Mal Reynolds, Zoe, Wash, Inara, Kaylee, Jayne, Simon, River, etc.) to battle bad guys who are easy to hate.

I actually didn’t sit down to tell you of my geeky love for this sci-fi series that was all but killed by the execu-dorks at FOX TV, but to introduce you to an email that I found rather funny. (By the way, The collector’s edition of Serenity was just released… go buy it and Firefly if you do not already own them – Can’t Stop The Signal!)

Anyway this email starts with Serenity and is quickly twisted and perverted from there…

eMail #1 (sent out to this gentleman’s entire contact list)

>Subject: serenity dvd
>
>
> I have a copy of Serenity wide screen DVD still in the wrapper that I would
> like to sell. Best Buy and Amazon currently sell it for $14.99. I'd be
> more than happy to let it go for $10 bucks. [editor’s note: this guy better be selling this
> dvd so he can go purchase the Collector’s Edition right away]
>
> Anyone interested?

eMail #2 (responding to the previous gentleman’s entire contact list)

> I love that movie Serendipity, John Cusack is cool so is Kate Beckinsale.
> It's hard to believe that she played in that Goth flick-I can't remember the
> name of it. Dude, I will give you full retail for that b*st*rd. Just
> kidding. Not interested. Yes I know that is not the same movie.

eMail #3 (responding to the previous gentleman’s entire contact list)

>Serendipity! I'll take that movie; I love the fact that John Cusack always has his sister
>in his movies. Billy if you have any other John Cusack movies let me know. I really like
>the one where he holds up the boom box and asks Molly Ringwald to go to prom and
>she makes a dress with her computer but the dress comes out as a hot chick instead.

Short and sweet. A couple of people took a total of 2 minutes out of their day and made their friends laugh about something stupid. I like that. I like the silly comedy in life. I like it when you feel the weight of… well, everything on your shoulders and you open up an eMail and you can still find yourself able to smile. The dreaded “forwards” in your eMail box sometimes can do it, but the really special instances are those when someone takes a minute to key something in that they know will bring a smile to your face. I don’t know if this did it for you, but it made the people involved in this eMail exchange (and me) laugh.

I hope that someone does it for you and you do it for someone else…..the laughter thing I mean!

Until Next Time,
Wayne

PS The Movies in the eMail exchange in the order of appearance:
1) Serenity (2005)
2) Serendipity (2001)
3) Underworld (2003) and Underworld: Evolution (2006)
4) Say Anything... (1989)
5) Pretty in Pink (1986)
6) Weird Science (1985)

PPS Go buy Firefly and Serenity!!!

50 Dollars

WAYNE’S WORDS
Volume 1 Number 2
50 Dollars

I was going to title this Wayne’s Words entry “The Best $50 Dollars I Ever Made.” That title, however, would be incorrect, because the best $50 I ever made was the first $50 dollars I ever made. I received it for a hard day of lawn mowing when I lived in Germany when I was a kid.

Today’s $50 is definitely, without a doubt, the coolest $50 dollars I ever made, so far.

The people with whom I work are less like colleagues and more like family. We are always ribbin’ each other and… wait I just received a text message from my boss (I hate texts – that will be another entry). Hang on.

OK it was NOT a text - it was a picture message! It was a picture of a note asking me a question! I shouted my response across two offices (a whole twenty feet) and also stated he was an idiot for taking a picture of a note he had hand written. He said he had done that because he couldn’t text all of those words…

AARRRRGGGGHHH!

That last true-to-life paragraph or two (it REALLY DID just happen) should illustrate what kind of work environment this is. It is silly and fun.

Let’s back to the $50 story…

It all started at our meeting Tuesday morning at 8:30. The six of us were settling in to start the day as we usually do with some coffee, current events, joking around and a little business. When all of the sudden - we’ll call him Carl, yeah Carl – starts jumping up and down and hootin’ and hollerin’ like a kid on Christmas Morning…times 100.

He then ran back to his desk in a blur with papers swirling up toward the ceiling in the turbulence caused by his joy-fueled velocity. The rest of us may have glanced up from our coffee for a split second, for this type of behavior, while particularly intense today, was not too far out of the norm for Carl.

After reaching his desk and returning to the table in that cartoon-like Tasmanian turbulence, his sheer Christmas Morning joy turned to bitter rage. Fury, spit and bits of breakfast flew from his mouth as he cursed …himself.

It seems that his pick three lotto numbers came up! Oh Joy! However, he was holding a six-consecutive-play ticket that he bought the previous Tuesday…and had not renewed. Whammy! So he ferociously wadded up the ticket and threw it away. Was he pissed? Oh boy.

Then we all went back to our coffee and subsequently about our day.

At noon I was telling the story to another co-worker who was not around when all of this happened. While we were laughing at our buddy’s stroke of bad luck a few things kept nagging at me. “I’ll be back,” I said.

Tuesday Morning meeting, Tuesday’s newspaper, purchased last Tuesday, 6 consecutive draws. Hmmmm,

I dug the discarded entry out of the trash and in that impact-printer-lottery-font right on the face of the ticket it stated good for 6 consecutive draws, Tuesday August 7^th through Monday August 13^th.

See, Carl was an idiot on several levels: 1) he didn’t read the ticket, 2) he assumed the 6^th draw was on Sunday (they don’t draw on Sunday because of God), 3)he was reading Tuesday’s paper and thinking Tuesday’s numbers (Monday night’s numbers was the set being reported) and 4) his Tasmanian Devil like reaction to things made him lose sight of the facts and shove the proverbial Bugs Bunny in the trash while stuffing the lit dynamite (his anger) right down his gullet

I took the ticket to the nearest lottery retailer and, after pressing as many of the wrinkles out of it as possible, had it scanned and was informed that I was an $80 winner (it was a boxed ticket for any of you players of the game out there)! The clerk, after loudly exclaiming “HELLO MONTANA” (I’m still not sure what that means) counted off 80 bucks to me and I was on my way. Cha-Ching!

Wayne, you won $80 but said it was the coolest 50 DOLLARS you ever made, you may be thinking at this point. You are right I won $80, but in an effort not to receive bad Karma, I gave Carl $30. Giving him any more than that would have been rewarding his foul behavior while giving him any less would have just been mean.

The moral of the story? Hmmm, how about:

Keep control of your emotions because clear thinking is always profitable.
Or
Recycling Pays!

Until Next Time,
Wayne

An Introduction

WAYNE’S WORDS
Volume 1 Number 1
An Introduction

Blog (blȯg, bläg), noun, short for Weblog, 1999: a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer. blog·ger noun blog·ging noun.

Well, according to Webster’s that is what is going on here. I guess the proof is in the puddin’.

Introductions are probably in order. First and foremost, you are the reader. I know you are aware of that, but sometimes it important to establish things from the get-go. I guess that would make me the “blogger.” Blogger: that sounds like such a horrible word. I am sure now that I am a “blogger,” that the internet equivalent of Drain-O is going to come work its “un-blogging” magic on me and wash me right down the drain for clogging (or blogging) up the works.

Ah, but I digress. My name is Wayne and these are my words. I am not a specialist in anything nor am I a total simpleton. I am just a regular guy trying to get by. In fact, from my run-ins with blogs, bloggers and news and rumors of and about the aforementioned, I am probably the most ordinary average guy (to quote Joe Walsh) of the whole bunch.

You will learn more about me as you continue to read this, but there are just a couple more things you should know before we continue.

1.) I was “between schools” when the whole grammar and sentence diagramming lesson was being taught, so you will discover that I am not really sure of what I am doing when it comes to punctuation and sentence structure. If you are an English teacher please feel free to correct me, but know that it may or may not stick. I’m an old dog. You will probably best serve mankind by making sure the children can read and write correctly. Please, feel free to use my scrawlings as an example of how not to do things.

b.) The other item you should know (for now) is that, although I have never been actually professionally diagnosed, I am very, very sure that I have… (Mom, don’t be afraid) …Attention Deficit Disorder! (Cue shrill horror movie music) There is no sense wasting time and a 25 dollar deductible to hear from the doctors that of which I am already sure. In fact, I am so riddled with ADD that while writing this paragraph I stopped to hum the theme song from Three’s Company, read an invitation (not addressed to me) to a baby shower that was held last November & looked at the texture on the wall and pretended I was in space looking down at the clouds covering the Mesilla Valley today.

As far as the subject matter of this blog goes… your guess is as good as mine. I have no agenda. It will really just depend on what’s on my mind any given day. One day we may discuss… well, let’s just wait and see, shall we?

All in all I hope this will be fun for all of us and I am looking forward to the future of this blog whether it last a day or a decade.

Until Next Time,
Wayne