Shower -vs- Rain

I grew up in Oregon and Washington so I know weather. I've experienced the deserts, from Arizona to Iraq. And the cold mountains of Patagonia and Norway.

But right now I live in San Diego California. Year round 68F average. 8" of rain a year. Temperate, mild, unchanging. I've often said San Diego makes you a weather wuss when it comes to clothes, driving and just general coping to anything but nice sunshine or a light chill.

So when it rained earlier this week I was not happy. Ugh, I dislike rain. But as I came in the house on Wednesday I said to myself, "I'm gonna go get in the shower, I hate this rain."

Hmmmmm, leaving the rain to go stand in a spray of water. Contradictory? I think not; let me explain why the shower is better than rain 9 times out of 10.

First, the challenger. Rain.
-it's cold. i've been rained on at the equator from malaysia to costa rica. rain is cold. the air may be warm, but rain never is.
-it get's things dirty. rain does not wash your car. check your clothes, shoes, floor mats, car or anything. and don't forget you shouldn't surf for a few days after a rain due to all the "washing" it does.
-rain is random. if you like rain, you can't just get it when you want. nothing about the time, duration, intensity, direction, droplet form, none of it can be made to match your desires.
-99.9% of the time, you are clothed during rain. because you have to be.

And now for my personal favorite, and still champion, the Shower!
-it can be warm or cold. to your specification.
-it cleans you. legitimately.
-endless ways, from the simple classic wall mounted nozzle to handhelds to multiple jets you can customize how you want your shower experience to feel. be. you get to control it.
-you're naked.
-if you're stuck inside it's way better than a lot of other indoor activities.

Clearly, the shower is better than the rain.

Tough Poetry

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!

excerpt from "The Destruction of Sennacherib" by Byron.

And you really owe it to yourself to read the first half of Paradise Lost by Milton. Take it from a secret, but tough, romantic.

The things that happen at work.

I work for a staffing company, so I travel around to all sorts of different medical place in San Diego county for work. In this time I get to see and hear lots of different things as my "scenery" is always changing.

The only real downside to it is I don't work enough to be consistent. So it feels more like an annoyance than something I should be doing. Oh, and I'm a pretty gregarious person and I'm often the only person in nuc med when doing these jobs. So I'm just left to myself.

But I'm a people person! hahaha. Every once in a while things cool/funny/interesting happen that brighten my day, like hopefully anyone's job, so let me share some recent ones with you now.

-I walked to my truck in scrubs and white coat over my arm. After pulling up to exit the parking lot, one which required paying to use, the attendant just looked at me and said, "oh, never mind" and just raised the arm for me and let me leave without paying. Score! (I've gotten lots of white coat treatment before actually. it's gotten me to the front of the grocery line and out of speeding tickets and free lunch and so on.)

-I often get asked strange questions. The ODDEST question ever, of a non sexual nature, has to be the guy who asked me yesterday, "Will playing the theremin mess up my pacemaker?" Wow. Like I imagine 95% of the people out there, you don't know what a theremin is, but due to my love of old movies I do. Rowdystyle. So yeah, I imagine standing next to an electric field like that could be a bad thing. 1 in 1,000,000 question.

A patient was worried about passing out when I started her IV. Her biggest concern, "What if I fart when I pass out? I've done it before." Uh, not sure where to go with that...... Soo many things......

You can find the humor, and I guess beauty, of humanity in almost anything if you look. I'm happy to have found some in my work day.

Inside/Outside

From the photographer's point of view. (Foxbat Photo)

And the entire match from my POV.

Winner

After my top ten finish at the National Championships in September I was hoping for a good result here in the California State Championship. I'll let the picture speak for itself.

Suffice to say I'm Expert now in two different gun classes.

Big Arizona match on November 2nd. Time for another trophy?

You be the judge.

I felt like dressing up for a presentation of a photo for my digital imaging class, so this is the outfit I wore:

Now I know a few things, like that I am older than most of the other students. I also very rarely dress up to go out in public. I look very much the arrested development man-child in my flip flops, cammo cargo shorts and surf company t-shirt that is my normal uniform.

So when I wore the above outfit here is a collection of things I heard that day:

"Whoa!"
"Faculty or student?"
"Looking fresh!"
"So what are you going for, sexy male librarian?" (I had my glasses on at this point)
"Excuse me sir, do you work here?"

And the list could go on. People even treated me differently in that more people talked to me in class. People I've never talked to in photo class asked me to review their work and give my opinion.

Wonder what I should wear tomorrow????

Ready. Aim. Photography!

With my class and swelling sense of creativity I've created a blog solely to my photo "brand". So if you're interested in the finer art side of Rowdy. Of if you want to see if you'd like me to take any pictures for you, then please check it out.

My photo blog, Ready Aim Photography!