Living in Miami, I had always known not to swim during dusk and dawn as well as to stay away from murky water.  These are the times that you would most likely have a run in with a shark and you would not be able to see it.

So fast forward to now that I live nowhere near the ocean, and my only water access is to various lakes and rivers, all of which are for the most part, murky.  How am I supposed to just jump into this water where I can’t see the bottom? Rather, I can’t see two feet in front of my face.

I take a deep breath, and, as I learned a long time ago, pretend to secure my mask and gauges (which I’m not wearing), and take a giant stride into the lake. I’m less buoyant than in the ocean. This takes me slightly by surprise, though it shouldn’t. I open my eyes as I’m kicking my way to the surface and all I see is a faint yellow green blur all around me. I can tell that the sun is trying to reach me, below the surface. I’m trying to reach the sun too.
My face breaks the surface. Light is all around me. The water, both warm and cool at the same time, swirls around me as I tread. The heat of the sun warms my face, I feel it beginning to turn pink. I climb back onto the deck and prepare to jump in again. I look down, one glimpse of panic that quickly fades, and I’m back in the air and quickly making another splash. All I have to do is remember that this isn’t the ocean.

And I’m a bit saddened by this thought.

If you’ve already reached old age (aka 30 years old), there are a few things that you should not be doing because you are TOO OLD.  Yes, you are now too old to do many things.  The time has come to put aside the follies of youth and become, for all intensive purposes, a grown up.

Here is a list of things that you should not do.  (Note- this list is by no means all inclusive, but will serve as a good little guideline)

1. DO NOT WHINE- It’s not cute when you were 3 and it makes people want to beat you upside the head now that you are 30.  If you consider whining “your thing” you need to stop that NOW.  People who are whiny do not get invited to do fun things because no one wants to hear the equivalent of nails scratching up and down a chalkboard.

2. DO NOT CONSTANTLY COMPLAIN- Everyone has their own issues they are dealing with and they don’t want to hear about yours.  It is one thing to vent every once in a while, but not every conversation should start with “Oh, you’ll never believe what happened…” and then proceed to tell every single tiny thing that (in your head) went wrong down to the last minutiae.

2.1. DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE SAME EXACT THING EVERY TIME YOU COMPLAIN- (This is an addendum to the above.) If you insist on complaining, no matter how much you should stop it, it should not be about the same damned thing every time you open your mouth.  Whoever you are speaking to does not want to hear about your bunion or how a salesclerk was rude to you AGAIN.  They heard you the first fifty times.

3. DO NOT SAY THAT YOU HAD/HAVE TO GROW UP TOO FAST- This one is of particular importance if you have never cooked your own meal, cleaned up after yourself, and still don’t know how you do laundry because your mommy does all these things for you.  By the way, this makes you not have grown up at all.  You are THIRTY.  Do all these things for yourself.

4. DO NOT ASK PEOPLE HOW THEY MANAGE TO PASS THEIR DAY- People do lots of things to have their day go by.  They run errands, go to work, play with kids, play video games, watch TV, read, watch movies, meet up with friends…  The list goes on and on.  Figure out something to do, and do it.

5. “-  If there was too much food put on your plate, get up and fix your own damned plate.  If you woke up (at noon) and find that lunch will not be ready until 2pm, don’t whine or complain (see points 1 through 2.1), but make yourself some breakfast like a grown up would instead of crying about it like a baby or ,better yet, make your own damned lunch.  It is not anyone’s privilege to cook food for you.

Now, I am not saying that you have to lose all the fun of your life just because you are now old.  All I’m sayng is that you need to Man or Woman up.

Gary Coleman passed away today.

As Reuters reports:

Former child star Gary Coleman, who shot to fame on TV sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes” but suffered personal troubles as an adult, died in a Utah hospital on Friday, after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He was 42.

It’s really kind of sad.  I mean, he was such a big part of my life growing up.  Diff’rent Strokes was one of the TV shows that I really think I learned English from (along with Gilligan’s Island, Magnum P.I., and Bewitched) and just the other day I was commenting with a friend about “a very special episode” of Diff’rent Strokes about molestation and bikes.

How else would I, as a kid, know how to spot pedophiles were it not for Arnold and his buddy?  This was before “stranger danger” and plain white unmarked kidnapper vans manned by men looking for lost puppies were what we really needed to watch out for, not older kind looking gentlemen who could be someone’s grandpa.

I’ll miss you Gary Coleman.  You and your pouty “Whatcha talkin’ ’bout, Willis” self.

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You know you wanna.

Everyone’s doing it.

Don’t you want to be like all of your friends? Jump off this pier, dude!

What’s the biggest news from Greece, you might ask.

Has the economy gotten any better?  Are people done protesting and back to work?  Is Antichrist up to her old antics again and in need of being struck down?

Only one of these questions gets a resounding YES as the answer.  And it’s nothing to do with money…well really it has all to do with money, but not the way you might think.

The AP was all aflutter today with a torrent of amphibians hopping through the streets of Greece.  Well… one street.

Greek officials say a horde of frogs has forced the closure of a key northern highway for two hours.

Thessaloniki traffic police chief Giorgos Thanoglou says “millions” of the amphibians covered the tarmac Wednesday near the town of Langadas, some 12 miles east of Thessaloniki.

“There was a carpet of frogs,” he said.

Authorities closed the highway after three car drivers skidded off the road trying to dodge the frogs. No human injuries were reported.

Thanoglou said the amphibians probably left a nearby lake to look for food.

We’ll get past the fact that the officer’s name is Giorgos.  Every Greek man has that name.. or Nicolas… or Kostas… or Alex.  All of their male children will bear these same names, even if they are first cousins, so that the only differentiations between said cousins is an “aki” (little) tacked onto the end of the younger cousin’s name, even if the cousin is only a millisecond younger.

Yes, folks,  thousands of frogs.  Isn’t frogs one of the ten plagues that signals God is angry?  Why, yes it is…

8:2 And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs:8:3 And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading troughs:

8:4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.

So it comes to this, does it?  I knew that, in time, things would come to pass to declare my outrage with Antichrist as just.  This comes from more than just the attempted pilfering of my keyboard when I was  young.  It’s even from more than the jacking of a chunk of my inheritance.  It’s Karma.  And to think that it was just off by 12 miles.  Where is the GPS when it’s needed?

As reported by MSNBC, Tony Hayward, Chief Executive of BP, stated to NBC’s TODAY Show that

“We have let people down in our defense of the shore and we are going to redouble our efforts,”

This was part of a response to being asked why last week he said the environmental impacts seemed “very, very modest.”

Really?  In what world does all the oil that has been spewing out of the Event Horizon Deepwater Horizon result in a modest environmental impact?  Thousands and thousands of gallons being leaked into the Gulf every single day for over a month is apparently a blip in BP’s environmental screen.  Nice.  Awesome, Dude.

And to state that the people have been “let down” might just be the understatement of the year thus far.  You did not let the people down, Mr. Hayward, you have let down the world.  As for your non-existent “defense of the shore,” I wonder exactly how much planning for said defense was ever done, or if it the extent was some little guy in a board meeting asking “Um, what if we have a spill?  What should we do?  It might kill animals and destroy ecosystems” to which the response was simply, “Yeah, yeah.  Whatever.  Let’s break for lunch.”

To view the “progress” go here.

To the untrained eye, I may very well be considered “WEIRD” sleep-wise.  But that isn’t so.  There are very real and precise reasons for my idiosyncrasies.

1. Burrito-Sleepingness-  I described how I sleep in my last post. I have a hatred for cold air touching me when I’m trying to sleep.  If I feel any air, I need to make sure that I am completely burrito-ed in and can no longer feel that air.

2. Light Aversion- Besides the fact that I hate to be cold when I sleep, which is the primary reason of burritoing and putting a pillow over my head, I have issues with any kind of light while I’m trying to sleep.  It keeps me awake even if it’s as tiny as the little laptop light that shines when it’s closed.  I need to cover it and also cover my eyes.  I even cover my alarm clock.

3. Sleep Position- I am a right side of the bed sleeper.  I can’t sleep on the left because I don’t deal well with having hot air breathed on my face.  (As previously mentioned, this is also why I don’t mummyfy myself in the blanket.)

4. Hair- I can’t sleep on my hair, it bothers me.  I think this may have come from reading books where the characters would fan their hair on the pillows and at some point in my young reading career I thought it was cool, or something.  I don’t know.  I’ve never studied psychology.

5. Bed Placement-  This one is of particular importance in hotel rooms with two beds.  If there is one bed, then I just need to be able to sleep on the right side.  If there are two, I need to sleep on the right side of the bed, either facing the window or the wall, but not facing the opposite bed.  So, if you have just stepped into the room (the door and window are behind you and you are facing towards the bathroom) and the headboards are on the lefthand wall, I need to sleep in the bed furthest from the door, facing the wall.  If they are on the righthand wall, I will sleep on the bed closest to the door, facing the window.  This is because I will not face anyone on the opposite bed.  It’s just the way it needs to be.

A little OCD?  Maybe.

Specific?  Sure.

A good night’s sleep?  Definitely!

I am a burrito sleeper. I need to completely wrap y blanket around me and even reach under my neck (side sleeper) to pull the blanket through so that no air gaps are present before I can comfortably get myself to sleep. If it wasn’t that I hate to have my face covered by the blanket, and in turn breathe hot air, I would mummify myself at night. Instead, I cover my head with a pillow in order to be able to cover my eyes from any light and my head from cool air, all while still being able to breathe said cool air.

Also, I need my space in order to sleep. I hate cuddling at bedtime and if I am cuddling, then it is definitely an experience where I am the cuddle-ee instead of the cuddle-er, and cannot last for too long. It all has to do with the way I sleep and the arm positions I would have to have were I the cuddle-er that would make it impossible for me to actually fall asleep.
-Yes, I have issues when I sleep. So what? This is just the tip of the iceberg there and I am not even talking about my compulsive need to sleep in a particular bed/side of bed depending on which way a hotel room faces. But that is a story for another post. Maybe even my next one if I decide to keep up with this bed-themed idea.

Anyway, C and I have a king sized bed so that we are full of neutral space, which sometimes gets invaded by either party. We also sleep with separate blankets- which is the #1 secret to a happy marriage. It’s true. There is a lot to be said about happiness being tied to a lack of air pocket that keeps you cold at night instead of feeling safe and secure in your nice warm bed with the person you love.

So, last night Enzi woke up several times with  cough.  He was having a hard time being able to sleep in general and wanted me constantly so I brought him into bed with us, sharing not only my side of the bed, but my blanket as well.  This alone keeps me from getting a good night sleep as no matter how much I try, I can’t get that air pocket to disappear.  Using a separate blanket for Enzi is futile because he will eventually worm his way under mine in oder to cuddle with me.  I can’t deny him that when he is so sweet and so sick, so I brave both the cool air and the mounds of germs being coughed on me, and he manages to sleep comfortably the rest of the night.  I don’t, and not just because of my “issues.”

There is a reason that Enzi has not slept with us since the day after we brought him home from the hospital, and it has very little to do with child safety.  That first night, the only way we got him to sleep was if he was laying on top of my chest and I was laying on C’s.  Not an ideal way to sleep at all.  Enzi is also a very active sleeper.  On vacations where I have no choice but to sleep in the same bed as him, I constantly find myself kicked,  both in the stomach and the face, used as a foot rest, pushed, and have even woken up to being a pillow and a mattress for this child.  It’s really not pleasant to find 30lbs of child on top of you, using your face as his pillow.  Alas, he had managed to get my over-the-head pillow off and decided that my cheeks were fantastically soft and inviting.  They are not.  They are boney…and they can’t be comfortable to actually sleep on.

So, today I am on my 3rd cup of coffee and have managed to stay up on no sleep since said child was up for the day at 7:15am.  Seriously, I may as well have just stayed awake all night watching the AppleTV, except for Merlin which always manages to put me to sleep at night no matter how much I like that show.

I think it’s time for coffee #4…or a Redbull, but I would have to drive to get one of those and I am not sure I should be driving today.

It may  just be that I have been up for 18 hours already, and have been hopped up on multiple cups of coffee for most of that time, but I thought this was hilarious!

Project Rant #055: (from YouTube)- All Your Kids Are Named the Same Thing

So, how popular are these -ayden names?  Spudart compiled data from the Social Security Administration data, demonstrating their popularity.

A quick look at the SSA website for 2009 shows that only Jayden made the top 10, so it may have reached a temporary high, or not, after all, Sex and the City 2 is coming out this week- along with Aiden.

There was a time when we were actually considering Hayden as a possibility for Enzi, after all, there is not much different in the pronunciation between languages, our biggest criteria for a name, but his actual name won out because he just didn’t look like a Hayden at all.

If you’re wondering, our other big criteria was that the name should not have an easily definable bad nickname.  I figured if I could think of bad nicknames right away, imagine what horrible things some first or fifth grader could come up with.

Some names that didn’t make the cut– (*please note that there is nothing wrong with these names, they just didn’t do it for us.  I am not bad mouthing anyone who has named their kids these names or the kids themselves who have said names*)

• Benjamin- as much as I have always liked that name, it comes with nicknames like Benny and Benji.  I am also not particularly fond of Ben
• Caleb- I actually really liked this name.  Unfortunately, it sounds like Kah-Lehbe is some other languages
• Vincent- Nicknames would be things like Vince or Vinny, the latter which just sounds like a little weasel looking mobster who would rat out his pals for a cannoli.
• Æthelstan- This was one of C’s half joke (atleast I think it was jokingly mentioned).  There was no way I was going to have a boy that other kids would call Ethel… or Stan.

There were many more names that we considered.  These weren’t even the worst ones by any means!  Eventually we ended up with something way down the line in popularity (somewhere in the mid to upper 200’s throughout the past 10 years).  This makes C the only one of us with a common name.

From the Columbia Daily Tribune, here’s the outcome of the “investigation” into the SWAT raid in Missouri.  No surprise here that a police inquiry into the validity of the raid and the events that happened within didn’t find any real fault in the way things were handled.  Although, new departmental policy is supposed to make these kinds of raids “plummet.”

“The use of the department’s SWAT team in conducting a drug raid will now:

• Require the approval of a captain in the department in charge of the area where the raid is to take place
• Require that a location be under constant surveillance once the warrant has been issued
• Not take place when children are present except “under the most extreme circumstances”

One of the new procedures is to conduct surveillance.  Imagine that!  What a novel concept it is to make sure that your information is actually correct!  Wow!  Bravo Columbia Police Dept!  Such innovative ideas!

I just hope that Police Chief Burton isn’t just blowing smoke up everyone’s patootey to appease the angry crowd not just in Columbia, but all over the country, if not the world.  Unfortunately, the wording of these new policies just seem like rhetoric to me.  What exactly constitutes a “most extreme circumstance”?  For all we know, it could be just because there might be a piece of tape with some lint on it.

Apparently, the informants that were used were paid.  Great.  Depending on how much I would get, I could tell a good story, too.  It doesn’t replace the need for actual detective work.  The story has also been changed to the team knowing that there was a child in the house and SWAT went in that way anyway, etc.   It just keeps getting more convoluted.  I guess that we should all be happy that it didn’t result in the child’s death, unlike this current case in Detroit.

There was a public meeting on the 17th.  This is an article from the Missourian.  There were also citizen suggestions on usage of SWAT.