As a follow up to the previous story. On our way to the water park, Charissa and I passed two little boys in the hall. They had just left their hotel room and were urging their Dad to hurry up and come to the water park. One of these boys had a swimsuit on. The other was BUCK NAKED! That's right, this small child was so excited to go swimming that he just decided that the old "cash and prizes" didn't need to be tucked away in any itchy swimsuit netting. They were half way to the park when we saw the Dad emerge from his room and realize that his son's wiener was pointing the tourists in the wrong direction.
Later after spending about an hour at the park we passed the same Dad and the clothed boy in the hall. After recognizing us he looks up and say, "yeah, I still haven't got clothes on that other one."
Classic.
A Christmas Story
On the topic of life saving devices...
Seriously, when did the hot tub become the kiddie pool. I can understand that you might make the mistake from a distance. A hot tub is similar in shape and size to a kiddie pool. But some of the tell-tale signs that this is, in fact, NOT the designated children's swimming area are...
1. The jets that churn up the water which come standard in hot tubs, and well... aren't in kiddie pools.
2. All of the men wearing gold chains with dark manes of back hair drinking Bud Light.
3. The fact that the water temperature is 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
4. And of course, the GIANT signage stating the rules for the hot tub.
But if one were to go to the indoor water park at the hotel I stayed at during Christmas break, you would not find the hot tub so easy to spot. You would see the kids play area of the water park, the body slide, tube slide, lazy river, pool basketball area, and .... wait where are all the kids... oh yeah... they are all jumping into the two 5x7 hot tubs.
Now, I'm not going to go as far as to say that these kids have bad parents. I'm just going to say they have stupid parents. For years doctors have been urging parents to keep kids out of the hot tubs because they are too hot, the chlorine levels are off the charts, it's not safe, etc. The hotels post signs that say no one under the age of 16 are allowed in the jacuzzi without direct supervision. But lets face it... Bill over here wants to sit in a jacuzzi and drink one or two or five Bud Lights, outline the hot tub in beer bottles, hit on the nearest two piece or his friend's wife (which was clear in a few occasions) and he can't do that while being a good parent, so lets just bring the kids with. I saw a child wearing a life vest, that couldn't be older than two, float around in the tub while mom and dad drink beer under the sign that states the ages for the hot tub and the warning about consuming alcohol and using "the spa."
And the parents shouldn't take the full blame. One hot tub had a life-guard sitting at it. I watched a group of four girl that were most likely in the second grade enter the hot tub. The life-guard's reaction was to twirl her gum in a counter-clockwise motion... this did not solve the problem.
The only thing I can credit this too is selfishness on the part of the adults. They didn't care about the other people who don't really sit in the jacuzzi to be splashed or supervise other people's kids. These parents just did what they wanted to do rather than play with their own children in the water park, or God forbid, be sober during the family vacation.
As Charissa and I played with my niece in the lazy river and the kid portion of the water park we vowed not to be those parents. But only time will tell.
Make The Call
Does your job bleed over into your personal life?
Wait, maybe I mean: Does other peoples' personal lives bleed over into your job? I don't mean on a relational level, because that is inevitable. I mean like people bring you their mundane tasks because somehow they feel that you can run their life better than they can.
Now, I am not a network administrator and I am not employed by Best Buy on the Geek Squad, but I did live in a men's dorm in college. And if you lived in a men's dorm in college you played video games, and if you had any friends you played video games over a network. So unless you wanted to be the whiny guy, you learned a small small small small bit of information about setting up a network to play video games. Plus, because I like computers I have put a lot of time in learning the software that I use. So then this is what happens...
A lady I know just switched over to ComCast internet. And because I can click "next" on the windows network setup wizard at my work, my boss says, "oh, you should talk to Luc he is great with computers. I'm SURE that he wouldn't mind coming out to your house and fixing that." How did I just become tech support for ComCast? They employ people at ComCast to come out to your house and fix things. Dell, BestBuy, everyone has people to do that. Or God forbid you might take a class and learn a little bit about that $2,000 appliance you just bought just to check your e-mail.
Now I'm going to go and try to fix it, because I happen to care about this woman, but I just don't get this practice. I watch people who, rather than make one phone call for an appointment, try to corner doctors, dentists, physical therapists, computer techs, and other professionals during their time off to ask them questions or show them where it hurts. As if a dentist is going to say, "Oh yeah I can just come over to your house later and pull that tooth with some string and a doorknob." And I know the thought is to save some money, but do they realize that the money they are saving is coming out of the pocket of the person they are trying to ask for help?
And in cases like mine, people would rather ask someone they know (who is unqualified) than ask a stranger who is a specialist. In this case, she wouldn't even have to pay for tech support.
Does this happen to you or are you lucky enough to have a job where this doesn't come up? I just think of my friend who is studying ancient Greek. When does that come up?
What's The Experation Date On That...?
Ever since I can remember I regarded my appearance neither strikingly handsome nor gruesomely ugly. In fact, my features are not memorable at all. I was born to the average and have been quite content with it. The only thing ever really remarked about my appearance consistently is that I was always told I had a "young face" with "old eyes." Supposedly this is why I always carded at rated "R" movies when I was 23, but why people sought me out for counsel when I was 16.
Just recently I shaved a beard that I have been sporting for a few months now. I'm not really sure what I expected to find underneath it, but when I set down the razor and wiped the steamy fog off the mirror, I felt like I stared at a stranger in the mirror. An adult, who was beginning to show the signs of age. Lines in the face, dark circles under the eyes, and even though the whiskers were gone the skin was still slightly rough. My nose and mouth seemed strange and misplaced without their outline to keep them in position, and the eyes... the eyes that looked back at me were tired. They looked like they really should belong to an old man of eighty who was still keen eyed, but had clearly seen enough for his liking. Is this really me?
Like I said, I don't know what I expected to find under the half inch of hair that had come to be somewhat of a staple in my appearance, or why I haven't noticed the state of my appearance before... to a certain extent I feel on the edge of something other than my razor.
When I was a small boy, I grew up hearing all the time my father saying that Jesus would return soon. I believed it so much that I didn't expect to live past the age of sixteen. I'm not sure why I picked this particular year, but I believed it whole-heartedly. And because of this belief much of my early behavior was shaped. Not necessarily accepting your death, but to see an end frees you in ways most people only dream. By the time I hit sixteen I had acquired a reckless taste for life and so this did nothing to dissuade me from thinking my time on this earth would be short lived.
Now I sit at almost twenty-seven. Eleven years past my deadline, if you will forgive the pun. I feel like I have lived enough for three lifetimes. Or maybe I feel like I have lived three times as much as people my age, because there are so many experiences I have left that could not be partaken at any earlier age. Some experiences are not for young men and to rush them is foolishness itself. I have never been married, or made love, or had children. There is a section of my life yet to live that I have never really considered a possibility. Honestly, they always seemed abstract ideas that I would never participate in before my life ended. My freedom has always derived from having nothing, to very little to lose. And now that I have relationships and responsibilities I'm having a hard time figuring out how to hold loosely to that which is most dear to me. I know why the apostle Paul calls to men in the ministry to stay single, and forsake worldly possessions that tie you down, but on the other hand I believe I'm beginning to understand the love that God likens to the devotion, passion, and anticipation of the bridegroom and the approaching wedding feast.
And so here I am on the edge of something. I find people, many people my own age inept at life. They run and run in a panic at one thing or another and I am frustrated that they cannot see the solution that easily presents itself. Even more so I am frustrate that my cousel which sometimes is the very heart of wisdom that I have prayed to God for falls on the deaf ears of those older than me simple because they regaurd me to young to see things clearly, when they haven't so much as bowed a knee. I see people with hollow lives, mundane existences, and people my age and sometimes older that (in my estimation) are not wise and have not lived as much as I have. I don't know if this is true or it is my own vanity. After all, I'm a not even a big duck in a small pond, but a tadpole in a sea of experiences. I guess I just feel like other people my age are talking about all the things they want to do, and I don't feel that way. I am content with the things already done, but I know that if I feel like I have lived three times over at twenty five... how many more adventures await me?
Christ have mercy on a small man... make my beard grow back in fast.
On the Grid
Back in a time when Yahoo was still a better search engine than Google, people just used the Google search engine to "Google" other people or themselves. This is how most people heard about Google. You would be sitting in your coffee shop of choice sipping your double shot cafe' latte' and your hip and trendy friend would sit down next to you and say "I Googled myself last night and this is what came up..." Or some psychopaths would Google the person they were dating as the ultimate act of checking up on them.
If you have never done it, just go to Google and type "your name" (make sure you use the quotes) and search. The scary thing is, I haven't done that in about four years. A fellow blogger just mentioned it so I wanted to see what has changed. So I ran a search and my results brought up this site.
http://find.allfolks.com/
This site allows you to track someone through legal documents like address changes at the post office, criminal records, traffic tickects, court records, etc. For fifty dollars you can find out everywhere I've lived for the past fifteen years at what ages I lived there, all my relatives and their addresses, lawsuits brought against me, and so on. Just think for the low price of 49.95 you can download someone elses entire life.
Scary.