Where is my flying car? I was promised flying cars!

I don't see any flying cars! 

I'm 40 years old today.  Age is just a number, nothing important as I've been an 'old man' much of my life.  But 40.  Forty.  Four-Zero.  That's 14610 days, if I include leap years (and I have, because that's how I roll.  Nerd to your mother.)  

One of my favorite websites, IMDB, lists over 4000 people born the same year as me, actors and best boys and key grips born 40 years ago.  Many famous, some that nobody's ever heard of.  And I share my birthday with the likes of Salvador Dali and Irving Berlin.  They're no slouches.  

1971 was a big year in the space race, astronauts and cosmonauts vying for supremacy of the heavens.  I wasn't yet born when Americans walked on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission.  I was alive and being adorable when we followed up with Apollo 15, but I don't really remember it.  I was alive when DB Cooper jumped from a Northwest Orient flight and into history.

We were doing that in 1971, and now?  Nothing.  Sure, there's a space station up there somewhere, waiting patiently to Skylab its way back to Earth, but are we really using it for anything?  Science is all up in our faces over alternative fuels and clean energy, but where's my robot maid, my dog-walking treadmill?  Do I need to download an iPhone app?  I don't even have an iPhone.    

As for my physical prowess, I'm not going to win a Superbowl or the Tour de France.  Can you imagine?  Especially those of you who've seen me throw a football or witnessed my first bike ride without training wheels.  Anyone who actually witnessed my face-first assault on the school track back in 8th grade isn't at all surprised that I've never become a superstar athlete. 

So, what have I been doing with myself?  I'm married to a beautiful woman who puts up with far too much of my nerdilated insanity.  Not that I'm asking her to stop.  I have two wonderful daughters and a lovely grandson.  I learned how to ride a motorcycle, and for anyone who was there for my early forays into the bicycle realm, that's probably pretty frightening.

In all, I've managed a pretty positive forty years by most standards.  And the future seems pretty bright.  If only I had a flying car where I could keep my shades.  Then again, I'm fairly old-school.  My razor only has two blades.  Most of my music is still on cassette, many of them taped off of the radio, and my first portable cassette recorder (like a Walkman without the name brand) required me to flip the tape over to the B-side manually.  I did walk home from school in the snow.  I've only owned a cell phone for a quarter of my life.

But being old school means I was taught that when you make a promise, you keep it.  And I was promised flying cars, so I want mine.     

Random Acts of Thursday - The Last Ride

I don't want to be morbid, but I am a practical man.  You kids will recall that Lori and I have spent far too much time moving from place to place in our married life.  I believe the last count was five homes and three states in the last six years.

When we moved four times ago, into the home where we planned to spend the rest of our days, I was so adamant about never moving again that I fully intended to pass away the night before trash day, so Lori could just throw me in a Hefty Tear-Pruf Heavy Duty trash bag and drag me to the curb.

The more I think about it, though, I'd like to go with style.

What prompted this?

We saw this on our weekend drive.

Far be it for me to judge (a lie: I always judge.  Call me Judgey McJudgerson.), but I am not a soccer mom.  I don't want to be a soccer mom.  I don't want my last ride in a wheeled conveyance to include stow-and-go seating.  I don't want anyone to be picking Cheerios and gummi bears from out of my coffin, and I don't want it covered in sticky handprints and Sponge Bob paraphernalia.

(Are the kids still watching Sponge Bob?  I'm so out of touch.) 

I like the Cadillac in life, and to me, that's the classic way to go.

Or, there's always this:

And for the Harold and Maude fans out there, I could settle for this:

...and really, who couldn't?  Your last car should always be nicer than your first, right?

And because I ride, and there's just as much a chance that I'll go that way as any other rider, I'd take this, too.

Because just because I'm not cool in life doesn't mean my last act above ground has to be equally nerdy.

Random Acts of Thursday - I had to work a double shift at Cinnabons

Oh, October, how do I love thee?  I love the mist in the mornings, the wind overnight, the smell of fallen leaves, fine seasonal beers and the re-appearance of pumpkin pie in the grocery store.  Given proper funding (see button at right) I also have some wonderfully gruesome, children-wetting-themselves Halloween ideas that need to be played out at some point. 

And this weekend, Lori and I will be attending a masquerade ball themed around Poe's Masque of the Red Death.  Among the tarot readers, headless horsemen and the "Guess who's Death" game, I found a new musical genre that just cries out to be loved:  Goth-a-billy.

I'm already a fan of rock-a-billy and psycho-billy, and despite having never worn black nail polish and a floor-length black coat, I love The Cure.  This just screams to be downloaded for my listening pleasure, I'm sure.

The band playing at this little soiree is named Cult of the Psychic Fetus.  If it wasn't already a band name, Cult of the Psychic Fetus would be a GREAT band name.

Speaking of macabre little pagan holidays, I must say I'm rather disappointed in Food Network even more than normal.  As if it isn't bad enough that Sandra Lee gets a Halloween special, last weekend we watched the Food Network Horror Cakes Challenge.  Judged by Leatherface himself, these were kindly little cakes with little actual horror.  Mock horror, perhaps.  Horrificomical?  Maybe.  But the judges were looking for gumpaste intestines dripping with raspberry blood, the glint of some medieval torture device sawing limbs from exchange students.

And really, who isn't?

And speaking of medieval torture devices, I've noticed an alarming number of dead blogs in my random trolling of the web.  People who clutter the limited disk space of the worldwide web with pages that haven't been updated in three or four years or more.  Sure, pages like MyDeathSpace can tell us when someone's page isn't updated for a reason, but how many people just forget their passwords or lose interest with no sort of sign-off? 

I'll do my best not to do that to my readers.  What I will do is leave you with the award-winning costume Lori made for me a number of years ago.

Now, your turn.  What's your best Halloween/Autumn memory ever?  And for my readers in the southern hemisphere, Spring memories work, too.  Until then, stay out of the daylight.

Fun Fact Friday - NFG's In Cleveland Without the Vitamin D

I have a couple of couches, and as a matter of fact, have been known to fall asleep on the loveseat on more than one occasion.

It turns out I have a vitamin D deficiency.  One would find that hard to believe, me, not getting enough dairy?  However, it would seem that adult vitamin D deficiency is relatively common in shut-ins and the institutionalized.  And if you don't think working in an office all day is the same as being institutionalized, you need to wake up and smell the soothing green walls. 

I'm not getting enough sun, eating enough fish or liver, and I apparently need to up my dairy intake.  And apparently as we age, and because the American Cancer Society along with the National Sunscreen Coalition have been harping at us about UV rays, wearing sunscreen actually inhibits the body's natural ability to synthesize Vitamin D.

(I'm already sick of typing 'Vitamin D' but somehow abbreviating it as 'VD' might give readers the wrong idea...)

Vitamin D deficiency can prevent your body from absorbing calcium (hypocalcemia) and potassium from the foods you eat, meaning your body will start stealing those minerals from itself.  I can end up with osteomalacia, or 'adult rickets'.  With my BMI, I don't think brittle bones are a good thing.  Apparently, it could also be driving my RLS.  See?  I'm not kicking Lori in her sleep due to suppressed rage, after all.  Proper vitamin D levels could also help prevent certain cancers.

So what then, is an appropriate level of solublized Vitamin D?  From the office of 'Well, duuuuuuh!', the Vitamin D Council suggests that the minimum level is 2 1/2 times that which was recommended by the doctor's office.  I don't know what my hypochondria is going to do with this conflicting data.

All I know is that I've had it up to here with these damn rickets.

Random Acts of Thursday - I'd rather fight than switch...

I am important. And not just self-important, but other people rely on my knowledge and insight. I have a lofty important title at work. I have a corner office. A real office, not just a glorified cubicle, my desk and door are both made of wood (or wood particulate...let's not split hairs.)

All that said, I find it necessary to share that yesterday, I wore baby blue boxer shorts covered in flying pigs. Monday, little race cars.

I haven't always worn boxers, I grew up tight and white, snug as a thug. Cool white cotton, softly cradling my 'personal area'. Somewhere along the line, I started the slow transition to boxers (briefs with loose dress pants, boxers with jeans), and once I made the final transition in my mid-20's, I haven't looked back.


Sure, I could still wear tighties, and I could also tuck my tee shirt into them like they do in the ads. But really. Briefs and I had a parting of the ways, and never again will we meet. Can you see me in my BVD's, gloriously parading like King Fahd on some Saudi beach?

You can now, I'm sure.


I've tried the Switzerland of undergarments, the boxer brief, and while I could see the appeal while wearing loose-fitting shorts at the gym, said gym membership was also 'brief', and back to boxers I went.


What about you, dear reader? What fantastic or failed experiments have you experienced in the fine world of undergarments?