I remember going to the Sun N’ Fun swim club with my mom when I was a young kiddo (<8 years old).   I remember many details surrounding this place.  To my surprise today, I looked it up on google maps and the place looked a bit run down and the pool was definitely drained.  This is quite the opposite of the lively days surrounding my childhood in Lubbock Texas.  As we would go, I distinctly remember it bothering me to walk through the mens locker room barefooted.  I think this must have been the first moments I knew I was a germophobe.    The floor was cold and always damp concrete.  As soon as I made it through the locker room, it probably wasn’t 20 seconds and I was flopping into the pool.  I was like a fish in the water, and you couldn’t get me out.  I know my mom would sit back and just watch for as long as I wanted to be there.
She told me a couple years ago that when I would exit the pool, I was always purple!  The water at this place had no heating.  I was frigid, but it apparently never bothered me.  I would periodically get out of the pool and lie flat on the hot cement to warm up, and as soon as I had regained functionality in my fingers and hands, I was back in the pool.

They even had 3 high diving boards, and I can remember jumping off those all the time!  I loved the thrill and the high impact and splash that resulted from the high dive.  At the time, that board must have been 30 stories tall, but looking back on it now, it wasn’t more than 20 feet or so off the ground.
Another detail i distinctly remember is the snack bar..  I always loved it when my mom would give me a dollar to buy a butterfinger candy bar.  That was back in the days where you could buy something from the snack bar for less than a dollar.  I really miss those days.  The downside to growing up was losing that time that was just my mom and me at the pool.

I once heard a story about an man who was glancing through the window at some designs that the tattoo parlor offers.  One of the designs had the text “born to lose.”  The man began chatting with the asian tattoo parlor owner, and asked him, “does anyone ever get the born to lose tattoo?”  The asian man responded that yes indeed, people do get that tattoo. The man asked why anyone would get a tattoo like that.  The asian man responded, “before tattoo on body, tattoo on mind.”

This story clearly depicts a scenario that we have all seen.  So the ultimate question becomes, what goes through a person’s mind before they get a tattoo.  What are their reasons for getting it?  It must mean something to them.

I actually typed this on April 15th, 2009, but didn’t publish it, and in the time that has passed from then until now, I have been having recurring dreams.  They constantly focus on smoking cigarettes, getting a tattoo, etc.  I don’t know why but I know I have never smoked anything and I have never had a tattoo, so perhaps my mind is subconsciously telling me that I want to do one of these?  Weird….

It’s alright to tell me what you think about me
I won’t try to argue or hold it against you

In other news,  my first day of SCA subsurface mapping training is complete.  It was a bit simplistic, but i did learn a few things.  Hopefully we will pick up the pace a bit in the next few days.  Oh, and there is what’s called estimated restored tops.  It’s a pseudo depth of where a well would see a certain formation if it had appeared in the well… the main problem being that, IT’S NOT THERE!!!  So i’m not sure why we are wasting time with this because it seems a bit nonsensical.  I’ll humor them for now and perhaps there is some big picture that is just over the hill that i cannot see from my current viewpoint.

I’m torn, but ever the same.

Which was followed up soon by my transactions to drop Tarvaris Jackson and pick up Kurt Warner.  A few weeks into the season, i picked up steve breaston.  Although i dropped James and Hightower after the team decided to only pass, my final line up included Kurt Warner, Anquan Boldin, Steve Breaston, and the Arizona defense.

Too bad i didn’t win the league.  I did manage to stay in 2nd place throughout the whole season, but then lost in the championship.  It’s going to be a good game in a couple weeks!

In the meantime i’m just livin’ my life!

I have literally no plans this weekend.  Maybe i’ll study some for the GRE?  I wish she would call me, or text, for any reason; even if it only said Hi, it would make me smile and warm my heart.  I have a training this coming week with SCA which is supposed to be a superb class.

I wish times were like the old days when geologists wore cavalry boots and actually rode horses around looking at rocks and evaluating where to drill a well.  I mean it just doesn’t get much cooler than that.  Unfortunately, people are much less likely to want anyone on their land these days, which makes it much harder to do that.

Gabe and I ordered Star Pizza and watched the Eagles v. Giants game.  The Hank’s specialty pizza from Star Pizza has italian sausage, mushrooms, and black olives.   It was soooo good!  As for the game, it was aweful.  Eli Manning sucked it up and thanks to Plaxico, Eli had no one to throw the ball to.  I literally cannot stand Donovan ‘D-bag’ McNabb.  He makes me sick to my stomach a little bit.  So the fact that his team won, made me want to throw up.  The good news is… During the battle of the birds next week, I have complete faith that my Cardinals will annihilate the Eagles.  Then I will be extremely happy, and probably smile on the inside.  Probably the outside for that matter.

Gabe took off after the game to head back home, and I surfed the net for a while.  Then, the new season of 24 started, which was brilliant.  I am very excited about this new season and cannot wait for the next episode!

Dave and Buster’s last night was quite fun!  Jon, Gabe, Ferras, and I went for Brian’s birthday.  Unfortunately, i had a terrible throbbing headache and so some of the games were just too much.  The main example i can think of is the Daytona racing game where the seat actually jars you from side to side as people run into your car.  This Daytona game is made by SEGA and is literally the same version they used on the SEGA Saturn; I know this because I had a Saturn console and also had this game — and over many months of playing it, got to be quite good!  D&B’s has a video game of the Deal or No deal!!!  I couldn’t believe it, and fell in love with this game after playing it once and winning big!  In fact, everytime i played this game, i won a fairly large amount and told the banker……. NO DEAL!  We also played some skee ball and i came to a quick realization that I am not near as good at that game as I was when I was much younger.  The shooter games were okay; I am a crack shot.  We won soooo many tickets through the night, and everyone just donated them to Brian for his birthday.  He is now a bit closer to being able to buy a Wii game at the store there;  Ironically, if each of us that had gone to D&Bs had just give him the same amount of money that we used to play games, he could have bought several Wii games at Best Buy.

Today is the big game – Eagles v. Giants; which Gabe and I will be watching.  Gabe is a die-hard Eagles fan, and I am a die-hard ‘anyone who’s playing the Eagles’ fan, so it should be fun!