Tyler's Take - Come Fly the Friendly Skies

Just recently, I was getting ready to fly back to Arizona for a conference. I was sitting in the concourse area of the Indy airport eating a quick dinner before heading to the gate when I noticed a pilot grabbing a quick bite as well. He was sitting at the table a few feet in front of me. Now if you'll allow me for just a second to be slightly judgmental and superficial...I noticed that this pilot is someone that would probably be classified by my wife as a "sad-sack". He was a little disheveled and looked like he was maybe someone that doesn't have a real exciting social life. And most likely, he's never been accused of being the "life of the party"! To me, he looked like the kind of guy that has spent a lot of time focusing on his career. And then I stopped and realized something...this is exactly the type of pilot I want for my flight! I don't want someone in the cockpit who is having a party in there. I want a no-nonsense person who is focused on making the flight as safe as possible. I don't need my pilot to have a personality; I just need to get to my final destination alive!

Precisely as I was thinking that to myself, the pilot stood up, grabbed his rolling suitcase, and started to walk away. As he did so, the bag he was pulling behind him ran into the chair he was sitting in just a second ago. At that point, I changed my mind...I guess this is not the man I want flying the plane I'm riding in after all!

Tyler's Take

Anyone that knows me well knows that I have a little problem. Well, I probably have more than one but the specific one I am referring to now is what doctors call "color deficiency". For those that don't know much about my condition, this does not mean that I'm color blind; I don't live in a black and white world...I see colors just fine except that sometimes they get mixed up in my brain (incidentally, these are probably the same people that find joy in playing the "let's hold up something to Tyler and see if he knows what color it is" game!). Those that know me really really well, know that the colors I most commonly get confused are purple and blue. It's definitely not the worst affliction in the world to have but it can get a little annoying sometimes. One such time happened this past Saturday.

I was at work, running my 2nd/3rd grade basketball league. Midway through the morning a parent turned in a purple iPod to me that he had found laying on the Gym floor. A little while later a boy and his dad approached me and asked if an iPod had been turned in. I said, "as a matter of fact, yes, I did just get one. What color is yours?" The boy told me that his iPod is blue so I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, the one that got turned in is purple". The dad then, being the wise man that he is, (as if he had gotten an inside tip that I don't see colors all that great) said "well, can we take a look at it anyways?" I said, "sure", but in my head I was thinking "why are we wasting time with this...the boy is only going to be more disappointed". Sure enough, I showed the boy the iPod and his face lit up as he told me that it was his. The dad just looked at me like I was a moron and then shook my hand and thanked me. I will forever choose to believe that the iPod was, in fact, purple and that the boy and his dad were together on a conspiracy to trick me. The same way I know that the Sutton family Ford Taurus we had while I was growing up was also purple and not blue like my parents try to make me think!

Darn those defective retinas!

Goodwill

Since I am no longer what one would call a "normal" teacher, one thing I do not get to do is go on field trips. You know, getting to travel to places you would not go otherwise, and bringing along a pluthera of very excited children and their sack lunches.

**Small side story (you are used to these tangents if you have ever talked to me AT ALL)---as a child, I, of course LIVED for field trips. My most memorable one was in first grade when my class went to Rawhide. Where else can you pan for gravel that has been spray painted gold?? Anyway, the reason I remember this trip so vividly is because of a kid in my class, Jonathan. He was know for being a very preppy first grader. Yes, we are talking clothes that looked like they were meant for dads, just put into a shrinky-dink machine so they would fit his boyish frame. Jonathan had chosen to wear a very thick and billowy black and white embroidered sweater to RAWHIDE. In the desert. In the hot sun. Not sure if he missed the field trip attire memo: Ragged T-shirt, black bike shorts and a neon fanny pack. That's really all you need. Soon into the trip he got super pale and ended up vomiting all over himself. This somehow was important enough to me that I wrote about it in my diary that night! Smelled like vomit the whole way home. I'm almost vomiting just thinking about it.

Back to the point of this story: Tyler and I took a field trip to Goodwill yesterday. We are having our small group Christmas party on Thursday, and of course we are doing the "tacky Christmas sweater" theme. I walk in and am instantly hit by the aroma of library, mustiness and feet. Not a great combo. Mind you it was already a mildly aggravating day at work. So Tyler and I each make our way to the respective departments to search for our ugly clothes. While I found an abundance of 3-D Halloween sweaters (you know, the kind the require a 9 volt battery or an extension cord to operate), there were no super tacky Christmas sweaters. Probably because everyone and their moms are having the same kind of parties! So Tyler got some embroidered one, pretty much the grown up version of the one Jonathan vomited in at Rawhide. For me, it was between two pretty ugly ones, but the grossest of the two had an added tacky bonus---it was completely covered in some sort of animal hair. Aren't you supposed to wash things when you bring them to Goodwill? They didn't have a comment card for me to fill out, so I suppressed my dry heaves and bought it.

We had one more item on our shopping list: a gift for the White Elephant gift exchange. What better place to get a unique, and somewhat scary gift? We found it right away. It's about 3 feet tall, and we're 99.9% sure it is a mountable bird bath, perhaps used in the Civil War. It's very ornate and is gold. Well, a lot of the gold has flaked off, and it might be lead-based paint. Which would make it a "killer" bird feeder. To round out the gift, we purchased a "Blue Christmas" vinyl record for a dollar. Then the receiver would be able to listen to festive holiday tunes as he or she watches birds meet their maker. It's more of an experience than a gift, really.

While it was a bit of a "Debbie Downer" trip, overall Tyler and I had a good time. Cheap date night!

On my Christmas List

In the past few weeks, I realize that I have left some very important things off my Christmas list. Here they are:

-Barbie Unicorn Princess. I realize this toy may in fact give me nightmares but it's worth the risk and potential therapy bills.

-Whoever wrote the last episode of The Office, that featured this Unicorn doll, I would like to have these writers meet me for dinner at Cheesecake Factory. I would tape the entire conversation, because I've decided this group of writers may in fact be the funniest group of people I will ever meet. At the end of the conversation, I will get out my planner and ask them the frequency in which they would like to hang out with me.

-I would like a DVD of the Kraft-sponsored made for TV movie "The Misfit Toy". This movie may have been made in 1989 and viewed by around 28 people total, my sister and I being two of those 28. I would want all the Kraft commercials that aired during the movie to be included in this DVD, along with commentary from the main characters (a stuffed lion, a ballerina, and about 100 plastic army men. I would settle for the front line of army men, if all of them cannot be reached.)

-I would like the VHS copy of when I played Mary in the Joy Christmas production, featuring when I scooted off the octagonal platform and fell off the stage while holding the baby Jesus (thankfully, it was only a doll). I would also like to talk with whoever was the director of this production and demand she tell me how a metal folding chair would have been created and present in Bethlehem during Bible times. I thought wood, straw and cotton were the main materials of choice during that time era, also donkey hair. Had I been sitting on a cloth pillow with donkey hair fringe, I doubt I would have scooted off the stage and caused such a spectacle.

You still have some shopping days left! Best of luck!

Dolphin Drama

Who does not love the movie "Pretty Woman"?!?! Seriously. You all should. And have a lot of the lines memorized.

I know there are a select few of you out there who are smirking and saying to yourself "I hate that movie!" There are three possible options for your response:

1- You are lying to yourself. You know you have seen it one on of those Julia Roberts TBS marathons and you secretly love it when the store clerks finally let her shop.
2- Somehow, whether living under a rock or being very busy, you ahve missed seeing this movie altogether. For you, one word: NETFLIX.
3- You are one of the 100 people in the world who genuinely do not like this movie. For you, I inwardly sob and forgive you. You should also probably just watch it again.

So. Back to why I brought this movie up in the first place. One fo the best scenes in this movie is when Julia Roberts has money from Richard Gere to buy a cocktail dress and she goes into a store filled with eviiiiiiiiil and grumpy clerks who will not let her shop there. One of the classic quotes in this scene comes from one of the clerks who gives Julia Roberts the "once-over" and says in an ice queen voice, "I don't think we have anything for you." Gives me shivers just thinking about it!

I thought this was a purely fictional scenario, until my sister and I experienced something similar at the mall on Black Friday. Megan needed to get a present for one of the girls she disciples---some sort of dolphin jewelery. This was an inside joke between the two of them, and Meg and I thought it would be pretty simple to find. So we head into the Icing store. For those of you boys who are out of touch, the Icing is NOT a bakery, but a teenybopper jewelery store. Everything in it is plastic or metal and none of it tastes remotely like a baked good.

We go in and Megan asks one of the employees if they have any dolphin jewelery. Rather than politely saying "no", this woman and one of her henchwomen decide to be snotty! The woman gets this astounded look on her face and looks over at her co-worker. "Dolphins?! Um, no, we don't have anything like that here. Right?" #2 wholeheartedly agrees with her and adds, "Yea, we haven't carried dolphins for at least 2 or 3 years......" Then the two go on to list about 4-6 SADSACK stores that we should probably try if we are to find any of this alleged dolphin jewelery. Both Megan and I walked out of their with out tails between our legs feeling like tools. I honestly felt like Julia must have felt!

There was also a Claire's in the same mall, so we went in there prepared to add that the dolphin jewelery was for an inside joke. We were definitely expecting the worst, especially since the two stores are stinking identical except for the name. Amazingly, the people there were soooo nice and they TOTALLY had dolphin stuff in there!

(Seriously, even if I had gone in there asking for a large Cystal Brooch in the shape of a T-Rex, a smart store clerk would show me the dang brooch for the sake of making a sale!)

Like most girls, Megan and I felt an immediate allegiance to Claire's and wanted to confide in them about the snotty employees from the Icing. Turns out, the stores ARE owned by the same company, so in some sort of weird way the Icing DOES sell dolphin jewelery! SO THERE!

Unfortunately, Megan and I did not go back into the offending and give them a taste of their own medicine like Julia does in the movie. We probably got hungry.

Tyler's Take - Translator Please!

So who else is pumped (no pun intended!) about the low price of gas right now (sad that we think anything under $3 is low, right?!)? I know I am! We moved from Ohio, which was consistently above the national average for some weird reason to Indiana where I think they average just below so that makes it even better for us. We also happen to live in a town that a major interstate runs through which means we literally have 5 competing gas stations within about a quarter mile radius to choose from. So yesterday, we were going to take advantage of the $2.83/gallon gas after work so we stopped at the Circle K which is the most convenient station to stop at on the way home. I pull in, get out, swipe my card in the pump and the message on the screen says “Scroll Table 1F”. You’re probably just as confused reading that as I was. Scroll Table 1F? Are you serious?! What the heck is that supposed to mean? So I cancel the transaction and decide to try again. This time, I figure I would try to “play along” with the mean trick that I figured the Harvard-graduate attendant inside was playing on me. So again I swipe my card and again it says “Scroll Table 1F”. But I remained calm and tried to think back to all the times I have pumped gas and what the sequential messages on the screen were. I figured it had to be something like “Do you want a receipt?” or “Would you like a carwash?” so I pressed the “No” button thinking that was probably a safe pick regardless of what “Scroll Table 1F” was supposed to mean. Lo and behold…it worked! The message changed…I am a genius! So as I was about to give myself credit for cracking the code and being the next in line to take over Microsoft, I looked up to see what the message had changed to…"Scroll Table 2B"! Unbelievable! So, since my computer language decoding skills end at “Scroll Table 1F” and I wasn’t about to try to figure out what “Scroll Table 2B” meant, I cancelled the transaction, got back in the car, and drove the half a block to the next station.

I've met the REAL Batman

There are certain sentences I never thought I would use in my life. One of them is "I witnessed a bat being clubbed to death at an Indiana University Football game." I actually used this sentence last weekend. Let me explain...

Tyler and I got to go to the IU football game with Megan and Brandon last Saturday. Greg, Brandon's dad, (for those of you who aren't quite awake yet, that is Megan's father in law!) also drove up from New Castle to come. Now, for those of you who have met Greg, he is a super nice man! I've enjoyed all the times we've gotten to hang out. But after Saturday, Greg has offocially moved onto my "Coolest Grown-ups that I know" list. He joins the list that already consists of:
*My Mom and Dad (for the sheer act of creating me!)
* the writer of One Tree Hill
* the person who invented Corn Flakes
*N'Sync. (this includes Tyler, who will not admit it but he was the back up bass player. You can see his left arm on their first album cover)

Megan, Brandon, Tyler and me were heading into the game. Greg had already gone ahead to his seat. As we arrived to our seating area, there was a scuffle and commotion going on. All I know at this point is Greg is crouched by a bleacher, clubbing something with a stick. Apparently, there was a bat that was hanging upside down under a row of bleachers in our section (so creepy!), and it was bothering/freaking out one of the coach's wives. So Greg, masked hero that he is, joins up with another guy and they decide to show this bat who's boss. Greg finds some sort of stick (not sure where from, unless he had some large cargo shorts on and had brought a stick "just in case") and begins whacking the bat. The co-exterminator is stepping on one of the poor bat's wings to make sure this thing does not escape.

Once Greg has decided the thing has had enough, he goes out to a trash can and proceeds to find a take out box large enough to hold the bat. He gets this thing into the take out box, and is affirmed by the loud applause of the suurounding spectators. PS-the bat is making weird squeaking noises while inside it's coffin/box. When Greg comes back, I asked him if the bat was still alive...he had to finish the job....and I will NOT go into details but I WILL say there was a concrete brick involved.... This would have been the perfect October blog....but I had to spread the news about Batman....

For those of you who can use his services...I will get his contact info out to you soon. I'm pretty sure he can take care of all mammals who have wings and use sonar to navigate.