InfiniteTides

On Procrastination Street, the trash is collected twice per week for those who either forget which day is trash day or who otherwise just can’t seem to get it around in time.  On Procrastination Street, the postal service only delivers on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, because they understand that some of us just can’t be bothered to check or don’t want mail every day.  It’s too much effort for too little reward.  It should go without saying that packages are delivered every day, because no one wants to wait for packages.  Beginning 15 days before a bill is due, daily reminders get sent via email, voice mail, and text message, to pay these bills.  Grass heights are carefully monitored by sophisticated sensors involving lasers (I don’t fully understand the technology, I just report).  When grass reaches a preset height, home owners begin receiving electronic notification that they will need to mow their lawn within 4 days or a local lawn care service will automatically be contracted to take care of it (all charges to the home owner, of course).  Homes built on Procrastination street are equipped with in-sink dishwashers.  Nightly (or on a preset schedule), a dome descends and forms a hermetic seal over this special sink, and all dishes within are automatically washed and sanitized.  Obviously household vacuuming is performed by a squad of Roombas, small robots, scheduled to sweep up at least once per week.  On this street, networked refrigerators send messages reminding of impending shortages of cold essentials such as milk, eggs, and beverages.

On Procrastination Street, blogs would not give their authors a Delete button.  Drafts not posted within 4 hours from the first auto-save would be published automagically.  Obviously, this is just a dream!

**Procrastination Street is not a real place (that I know of).  Do not plan to move there.  Do not search for it on the Google Maps.  It only exists in my warped imagination (and now yours).

I started writing a blog post about my 20 year class reunion that I’m not attending tonight, but I deleted it.  Too obvious and redundant.  There’s not much point in talking about it.  People move on with their lives and high school memories fade as they should.

Not too long ago, an NPR news program played a story about what it takes to perform any given talent on a world class level.  Unless I’m misremembering (which is entirely possible), the number of hours of practice necessary is upwards of 10,000 hours.  This got me to thinking.  I walk to work nearly every day.  That’s about 44 total minutes I spend walking on those days, and it doesn’t begin to take into consideration all of the time I spend walking exclusive of my commute.  I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’ve spent, on average, 44 minutes per day walking around or at least upright.  44 minutes is .733333 of an hour, so at this rate it will take a total of 13,636.37 days of walking 44 minutes per day to become a world class walker.  That comes out to be 37.33 years.  I’m 38 years old right now, so depending on when I began walking, I think it’s pretty safe to say that in another year or so I’ll finally stop tripping over uneven spots in the sidewalks and no longer bash my toes on furniture as I walk around my apartment barefoot in the dark.

On a completely unrelated note, lately I’ve been getting a lot more messages on Facebook (I’m trying not to talk about it so much).  I don’t dislike Facebook’s messenger despite its clunkiness and inability to thread messages, but email is a far superior way to communicate.  When the messages are flying back and forth under the same message subject it can get confusing.  If anyone needs/wants my email address, they can find it by going to my profile and looking at the Info.  I’m pretty sure I have it visible to people on my friend list.  By using email, you’ll save me the embarrassment of answering “LOL” to some awful heart wrenching story about someone’s untimely demise because I’m too slow to respond to your previous message.

Meanwhile…my last video project turned out so badly that I’ll have to give it another go.  I refuse to let that disappointment stand.  My effort level fell far below the usual threshold for new projects I undertake.  In hindsight, I could easily have done more with the video of my walk to work.  Perhaps in my free time over the next week, I’ll call “do-over” on it and put some real creativity into an otherwise boring waste of data.

Over the urinal in one of the bathrooms at the company where I work they hang a monthly safety poster.  The poster from July is still there warning me to be careful with fireworks and how to avoid heat stroke.   At the top of the poster is a picture of some poor creature’s face in profile.  This thing has the thickest uni-brow I’ve ever seen!  So I’m thinking, “Am I really supposed to be getting my heat safety tips from Bigfoot?”  I don’t have anything against unfortunate people who don’t own tweezers or who have facial deformities.  Hell, my brother once had some sort of caterpillar thing on his forehead.  I’m just wondering how Sasquatch keeps cool in the summer, by making fans out of pine cones, tree bark, and tree sap?  Does he roll around in cool mud like a pig?  Do they have hidden caves where they chill out?  Or do they just climb a mountain until they reach an elevation where the temperature is more tho their liking?  This poster answered none of these questions and left me very disappointed, not unlike this blog post.

How much does a candy bar cost these days?  $.65?  $.75?  I confess that I do not know and cannot remember the last time I bought one in a store or from a vending machine.  The prices on things in the machines in the break room where I work are inflated, so maybe a candy bar costs as much as $.85.

What do you do when the vending machine fails to release your candy bar, we’ll say it’s a Heath, from its evil spiral clutches into the candy-grabbing area below?  Do you A) Purchase another Heath bar to dislodge the first one; B) Shake the machine violently until your Heath is dislodged (fork lifts won’t fit through the break room door); C) Fill out an envelope provided by the vending company to request a refund; or D) Smash the glass front of the machine and snatch several candy bars as recompense for the hunger pain, suffering, and stress of not getting what you paid for?  If you answered “D,” you might work where I work, and management would like to have a word with you.

Some of my friends have pointed out, I have been blogging a lot more recently, and I’ve enjoyed the comments and feedback.  As a direct correlation, I’ve been trying to raise my game with each subsequent post.  Not an easy thing to do when your last post was about nearly being attacked and shredded by a rabid saber-toothed squirrel in broad daylight.  This morning, however, I have a touch of the writer’s clog.

I thought about writing about my theory that nothing changes in Ohio because of the time warp created by Amish farmers secretly breeding unicorns in underground bunkers, but I haven’t gathered enough evidence yet.  (Have I mention lately that Skittles are actually unicorn droppings?)   I considered going outside with my Flip camera, but there’s weather out there, and you know how the squirrels get freaky when they see someone with a camera.  (If you’re interested in seeing my shakily shot and poorly produced videos, you can do so HERE.)

So I’m currently sitting at my desk, listening to music (You can see what I’m listening to HERE.) and resisting the urge to post my fleeting random thoughts on my Facebook wall for the world to harshly judge.  Since I can’t think of anything else to shamelessly promote, I’ll eat some breakfast (marshmallows with cereal, yum!).