Down On Ferry Farm

From “Men’s Health”: Ever walk into a bar and fall in lust with seven women at once? Easy, big fella. Researchers at Northwestern University studied speed-dating sessions and found that people who desired most or all of their potential dates were the least likely to find a match. People can pick up on indiscriminate desire, and it turns them off, says study coauthor Paul Eastwick Ph.D. Conversely, when someone clearly desired one individual above all others, that individual was more likely to reciprocate. In normal dating scenarios, make the most of those opening minutes with a woman with a compliment tailored to her, Eastwick suggests. Refer to the real her (style or personality), not the superficial (jewelry or smile). Wow. I had to read this short blurb about 3 or 4 times just to make it was describing me perfectly or just ALMOST perfectly. This is exactly what I do. I almost blushed a little when I read that last part about referring to her style or personality and not her smile. ...

You know, it’s nice not being a professional writer. I can stare at this blank screen all day and not have to come up with a single idea. It’s nice. I was sitting here, trying to think of something to blog about and then it hit me – nothing. There’s nothing on the screen when you first start but as you continue, the screen fills up. In addition to that, I was conveying the idea that I’m not a professional writer but someone is reading this. The difference? I’m not getting paid, stupid. What do you think ‘professional’ means anyway? Jeez. You know what else is nice? Sunny days with cool breezes like today. It was beautiful outside but if I lived in weather like this everyday I think I’d get bored. [Major snip here. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything] You know what else is nice? The smile from a pretty girl. How about a hug from a child. All nice things. Clothes that fit well. Not making a typo in something you’re writing. Winning an argument. Having the right answer when somebody ask...

First, I must make mention of the moon. The shape and angle of the crescent make it look like the outline of a pregnant woman’s belly. You can almost see her arching her back, her elbows bent and her hands placed on the outside small of her back. She has a sweet smile, as if an elderly couple is commenting on her glow. That’s the moon this evening. My sister and I saw a play tonight. We went to dinner first and she told me all the stories of our family of late. Since I’m ‘flying solo’ here, I don’t always get the stories everyone else does so it was good to catch up. The play we saw was… interesting. I thought we were going to see “King Lear” but what we saw was a play called “King Lear: The Storm at Home”. It was narrated by a man whose father was dying and contracted dementia. The play was interwoven with stories of others who were going through the same thing with their parents and tied together with long excerpts from ‘Lear’ that related with what was being said. At times, the stor...

Seems I’m going in the wrong direction here. I’d like to find a nice SINGLE woman to spend some time with but lately I’ve been hanging out with married women. That’s no fun. Friday night I was hanging out with the redhead from HR. She’s the one I took to dinner previously. This time we went to this Mexican place and ate and drank. It was nice, comfortable and we laughed a lot. A LOT! About 80 percent of the way through the evening, A-girl calls me and asks me to come out. She’s at the bar at which we spent the second half of my birthday. She was getting ready to leave there and go to L2’s father’s place (her Uncle, still with me?) Anyhow, redhead and I say goodbye for the night and I call A-girl when I’m close to where she is. She directs me to her Uncle’s place and we proceed to drink some more. They’re already a few six-packs ahead of me. Next thing I know we’re all gathered around the TV watching the Pink Floyd “Pulse” DVD. It’s concert footage from 1994. They have this cranked to 1...

There are NO women like this on dating sites: Whom do I sue?

Whenever I go hunting, for some reason I disarm myself. That is to say, I empty my weapon of its ammunition. I always carry my weapon when hunting. I suppose that it’s to give myself the appearance of actually hunting. I definitely feel more like a man when I'm hunting -- empty weapon or not. I don’t know why I do this. It seems to me that carrying a weapon around without any bullets is a deception. It is hearing without listening. It is talking without speaking. It is a lie. I’ve thought long and hard about this but cannot come up with an answer as to why I do this. When I happen upon a target when I’m hunting they fall into three categories: Too easy to shoot, just right, mostly unattainable. Too easy: this is compromised of things like bunnies and birds. They are abundant and easy prey. The bunnies are cute but fat and some of the birds are downright ugly. Why not shoot them? Why not get a kill under my belt? These are the questions I wrestle with. Just right: This is usually th...

1. Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe 2. Emerson, Lake and Palmer 3. McGuinn, Clark and Hillman 4. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

First of all, I apologize for not writing in a while. I started a new blog (you can get to it by viewing my profile) and have been paying attention to that. Anyway... Ever since I was very sick at the beginning of the year, I just don’t feel like I’ve returned to 100%. My energy seems to be drained very quickly and I feel like I’m sleeping a lot more than usual. That is to say, it takes much more sleep to satisfy me. I used to go to bed late on Friday night and sleep in Saturday morning. Last night I fell asleep around 10pm and slept for 13 hours. Previously, if I had slept for 9 hours, that would have done me just fine. I’m a bit concerned. Superman says he feels a general lack of energy all the time. The only way I can respond to that is that it all comes down to what you’re used to. If you run at 50% all the time then that’s fine. But if you run at 75% and then fall to 50% energy level – there’s a problem. I don’t know that my energy level has fallen that much. For me, I’d say it’s ...

Johnny woke to the sound of music playing – his alarm clock. Through the dim light he saw the numbers “6:00” illuminated in large red type. He closed his eyes and rolled over. If it weren’t for the fact that he had to use the bathroom, he probably wouldn’t have gotten up for another 45 minutes. He turned off his white-noise machine before making his way down the hall. He slipped back under the sheets and turned a cautious eye toward the clock before closing his eyes again. He let out a deep sigh. He thought about the day ahead and any personal errands he needed to accomplish. He drifted in and out of consciousness for the next hour. Once again, he looked up at the clock but this time it told him it was time to get up and start the day. He turned off the radio and walked toward the shower, taking off the t-shirt and underwear he was wearing. He turned on the shower so that the water could warm up while he picked out a selection of music. There was a small boom box located righ...

I seem to be having a very full weekend. Last night, Superman and I went and shot some pool (I know – who would have thunk it?). Tonight I’m having dinner with some people I used to work with. Tomorrow I’m heading to work to patch our computers for the Daylight Saving Time change. I’d really like to punch the guy in the face who thought of doing this. Clearly, he was not thinking ahead. Idiot! I feel very fortunate that I’m not the only one who has to deal with this program. I pointed out to my boss that at my last job I would have been the only one who would be shouldered with the responsibility of patching all the computers. Tomorrow I’ll be joined by 3 others who each have their own parts in getting us up to date. There’s a certain comfort in that. When Superman and I were in the pool hall waiting for our table, I told him that I’m having a severe case of “Internal Tourettes”. I don’t know why. It seems to have started in the past few weeks. Granted, I usually give a quick judgment ...

I don’t know why I do it. I don’t know why I torture myself. A couple years ago I signed up for a local dating website. It had the standard items to fill in: what are you like, what do you want in a mate… that kind of thing. I kept my profile up for several days and even added a picture (something I almost never do on a website). A couple days after creating my online persona I go to check the whopping amount of responses I’ve gotten. I log in to find the unfortunate wording: “You have 0 friends” That was a little harsh to read the first time I saw it. I have no friends. There’s no one on this site that found me even REMOTELY interesting. I will remind you that this was a LOCAL website and there weren’t that many people on the site. I realize this is just semantics but isn’t there another way to say you haven’t gotten any responses? Does it have to get personal with the word ‘friends’? I don’t know – I can’t think of a nice way to say it either but just because I can’t think of it doe...

I’d like to tell you a story, but you need to know 2 things first: My brother was, at one time, very much into performing magic. We had an uncle who was into magic and my brother inherited all his old stuff. My parents had a trailer and we went camping almost every weekend that the weather was half-way decent. Okay, that’s the setup, here’s the story. It was determined that the camper’s (that’s the group of people we regularly camped with) were going to have a talent show one of the weekends we were camping. Naturally, my my brother threw his bunny-infested-hat into the ring and ‘volunteered’ me to be his assistant. At that time, David Copperfield was the showman of the hour and one of the devices he used was a magic trick set to music. My brother being a showman, naturally we had to emulate that as well. But what music to use? Well, that’s how I was reminded of this little story. This particular song came up on iTunes this evening for me. We used Herb Alpert’s “Rise”. We practiced and...

Like stepping through a fog, I think I’m finally emerging from this sickness. I finally broke down and saw a doctor because, after two weeks, I couldn’t shake the way I was feeling. It took a little antibiotics, cough medicine and starting over to finally come through it. I have to admit that I don’t feel ‘well’ yet, I just feel like the medicine is suppressing the bad stuff and will appear again when I run out of medicine. I guess I don’t care because I’m feeling a lot better. I like waking up in the morning and NOT feeling like total crap. I like NOT having a crushing headache and stifling body aches. It’s good to have an appetite again. I feel like I’ve lost about 20 pounds because I wasn’t eating anything there for a few days. When I did try and eat something I could only eat less than half. Anyhow, I hope all that is coming to an end. Unfortunately, so did the football season. While I was sleeping 12 to 15 hours a day, 4 months of American football had its championship game as wel...

A little over a month ago, let’s call it end of December, a woman at my work and I were talking about ‘stuff’. We happened upon the topic of vitamins and she admitted that she took a B-complex vitamin that also had ‘C’. She also mentioned that since she’d been taking this combination, no day of sickness had come to her. “Wow”, I thought to myself “no sick days sound good to me”. So the next time I went grocery shopping I picked up the very same formulary. There were 100 pills. “This will last me a little over 3 months”, I thought to myself. I do a lot of thinking to myself. Not a week later and I was sick. Nothing major, just your run-of-the-mill cold. I didn’t miss any work and medicine help me run its course. Fine. I’m usually sick twice year – this is just “one of those times”. No. Not a week later, I’m sick again. Keep in mind I’m still taking these damn B-complex vitamins that smell like compressed grass. This time, it’s a whopper – I miss two days of work. One thing you have to k...

Superbowl 41: Indianapolis Colts vs. Chicago Bears Woo and/or hoo!

Ingredients: - The smile of an attractive woman - One ticking clock - 7 computers that won’t start - 26 Pieces of paper stuck in a copier - The pony-tail of the help desk guy - 9 keys - A standard 102-key computer keyboard - A box fan with 3 speed settings… high, medium and low - One potted plant about the size of your head - 12 broken floor tiles - An ‘ attaboy ’ from someone you admire - 221 small paper clips - 10 gallons of water - 1 iPod - A newspaper that’s already been read - A flashlight with no batteries - One large 4-drawer metal storage cabinet - 13 Manila folders - 13 olive-drab hanging folders - One loudly ringing cell phone - A bistro table with 3 chairs - 142 LTO -2 backup tapes (Purple) - 16 feet of packing tape - 1 ink pen - 34 degree weather - 14 empty jewel case...

One of the things I do a lot lately is read other people’s blogs. I have stumbled upon one that reminds me that I have not lived. I learned this many years ago when some co-workers and I were standing around discussing ‘star sightings’ at a company Christmas party. I’ve never had what I consider to be a star sighting. That somehow moved into stories of broken bones. There was a slight pause as they looked at me. “I’ve never broken any bones”, I tell them. “What’s the worst car accident you’ve seen?” I haven’t seen any – haven’t even been in a car that’s been hit. That flowed into a conversation about being in the back of a stretch limo. I sighed before letting them know, “I’ve never been in the back of a stretch limo”. I had taken a quick ride in what was considered a limo but was basically a very nice towne car with one of the back seats facing toward the rear of the vehicle. I have not lived. I got to thinking about all the things I’d never done. I’ve never taken a vacation by myself...

I’ve had a very weird beginning to this year. While I was supposed to have a three-day weekend, I ended up not having any of the days off. I (along with others in my team) was in the office with a non-working production system. We worked both Friday and Saturday very late night, most of the afternoon Sunday, and only a few hours on Monday. For a good part of Sunday and all the rest of the week I was carrying a cold with me. I really don’t like having a cold – have I mentioned that before? It makes it even more difficult when you have to work through days like that. I finally got my heat issue resolved. They replaced the breaker in the electrical panel but it was still tripping. They finally ended up running a whole new wire between the electrical panel and the air unit up in the attic. As soon as everything was said and done, the weather turns to 75 degrees and there’s no need for the heat to come on. Isn’t that the way it always ends up? Here it is Saturday and I’m trying recoup from ...

I did something last night that I can’t remember if I’ve ever done before – I went out with a married woman. It was nice but, before you ask, it did not have a “happy ending”. With that being said, I could tell it was going to be really comfortable because I was so relaxed. Usually I’m uptight before going out for the evening but I was calm. I think I knew beforehand how the evening would go and it went according to plan. We had dinner at a very nice restaurant in town. I had been there several times but she hadn’t been before. Had a good dinner and great conversation. Laughed, drank and ate. As things were winding down I suggested we go somewhere else to get a drink and she agreed. We ended up going down the street to an Irish pub that I wanted to check out. It was nice and cozy. We sat at the bar and talked, laughed, and drank some more. I got a little tipsy myself and had to ‘bring it down’ toward the end of the night. All in all it was a really great night without any sexual tensio...

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a pretty interesting life. I have been to several parties, I have been out a couple times with friends and I’ve had some decent weekends – just have them blown away by Monday morning. Sound familiar? I had the same complaint about my last job. Let’s just say that the honeymoon is over, the kid gloves have come off and all the real problems are starting. There are 4 of us in my ‘team’ that deal with network problems and servers. We recently inherited a few systems that have fallen apart, which has made our lives oh so fulfilled… trust me. It wouldn’t bother me if it had sort of crept up on us but all of them blind-sided us and we had to scramble to learn the business model for the servers and their function in the whole scheme of things. Meanwhile, everyone is staring at us thinking we’re the experts (which we are, I mean – c’mon) but at that moment we look pretty stupid. We’re just now getting to the point where things are starting to stabilize. E...