My My, Hey Hey

 "Out of the blue, and into the black"

"It's better to burn out, than to fade"


And in this vein, of living as if I'm burning....... I'm gonna be gone for a few weeks. International. Travel. As this song plays through my mind.............

Wait for my return.

Don't tongue in cheek.

Don't swim with sharks at night.

Don't put your ladder in the back of your truck so you can get on the roof.

Don't put ice cream on funnel cake. The overpowering deliciousness can main or even kill a lesser snacker.

Don't bring a dog to your church unless it's a service dog.

Don't let a kid eat a marshmallow unattended, they are a choking hazard. If you're gonna feed them straight sugar and ignore them cut them into quarters. Says so right on the bag!

Don't wear voodoo skull beads from NOLA for "good luck."

Don't wear this when I go to Israel this Saturday.

Took the GRE this morning at 8am at the testing center in SDSU. I rode on two wheels as it is easier to park close and be sneaky and not pay for parking. What's the point in riding a motorcycle if you can't do things like this in urban areas?

Room full of people waiting to take the same test. Some of them going into it totally cold! No way is that a recipe for success! This is not an easy test. I was the only person who admitted to doing any sort of formal studying. One guy said he printed of a study guide from online, and one person said they got a book from a bookstore to help.

I totally think the Kaplan prep school was worth it. On my own I was scoring in the 30th percentile in the math portion and in the 60th percentile for the verbal part. After the Kaplan class I scored in the 72nd percentile for the verbal and and in the 62nd percentile for the math. Impressive gains and well worth the expense of the class to almost double part of my score.

Physician assistant is hard enough to get into, no need to have a poor GRE score due to being cheap or lazy.

My score on the new, revised GRE is about an 1,200 on the old GRE. I'm sure once my essays are graded that will only bump my score up as well. I'm pretty sure they are "5" level essays. So there ya go, of all the people trying to get into graduate school in the US, I am easily smarter than 60% of them.

Don't eat too much.

When you're hungry, you eat. A lot.

When you eat a lot, your clothes don't fit right. So you change into loose clothes, like just shorts.

When you're wearing just shorts you want to be outside. In the sun. In your yard.

When you are outside in the sun in your yard, you want to lay down and read. In the front yard. Shirtless.

When you are full, shirtless, in the front yard, in the sun, and reading you get sleepy.

When you get sleepy, you fall asleep. For around 30 minutes. With the neighbors watching.

Don't fall asleep at 3pm in your front yard, face down, shirtless. On fake grass no less.

(read this out loud like how the similar commercials are voiced)

ps-Yes, I really did do this Monday.

Truth on a Tuesday

What I've eaten: Oh wow, I was soooo full from yesterday's food I couldn't even eat my birthday cake until this morning. Cake is an accepted breakfast food right? Yesterday I ate 4 bowls of Honeycomb cereal. A mango slushie. A big bowl of Nalley's chili with 1/4 loaf of french bread. And dinner was lobster bisque, seared ahi and, fish and chips. No way was I able to then eat cake on top of that.

My breakfast of birthday cake was angel food cake with whip cream and strawberries btw. With some fresh pineapple as well. After all of this eating excess I think I am only going to have liquids for all of my meals each day but for dinner. Give my guts a rest and limit my calories a bit before I also go on vacation and most likely eat high calorie foods.

What I've watched: The indie movie with Jack Black, Bernie. It's about a super nice guy funeral director who hooks up with one of the little old widow ladies. Except she is a beast and he snaps and kills her. Though told in the typically funny A. Linkletter manner for any story in Texas. Hilarious. Rated R for swearing.

I speak Spanish OK. Enough to not be totally clueless and hold a basic, present tense conversation. So I enjoy watching the Mun2 spanish language television channel as lots of it is in english with spanish subtitles or the other way around. And unknowingly I'm into the two shows that in 2011 made huge waves.

Decisiones Extremas. This is like the wildest 'After School Special' you've ever seen! The Boston Herald called it 'The most outrageous show of 2011', and it is! Or was. These teenage kids all make the most horrible decisions and suffer the most horrible of consequences in the 1 hour show. Rape, murder, drug use, suicide, kidnapping. It covers them all. Extreme decisions indeed!

La Reina del Sur. Evidently this show crushed all other shows, often even mainstream english programming, in the ratings. It is fantastical and filled with crazy characters. Go ahead, Google it, you'll find all sorts of fan information. Basically it is about a woman's rise through the international drug trade. This show was huge! I'm enjoying its many twists and turns. Really, a super telenovela. And if you hate TV, you can always read the book by the same title on which the show is based.

What I've said: So I started with, "I'm gonna ask Oliva (my housekeeper) about my favorite show, see what she thinks."

To which Super D replied, "What makes you think she watches those kinds of trashy shows?"

My reply, "Have you seen her much younger boyfriend? Anyone who dates guys that much younger than her is totally the type to watch these shows. She's like a Mexican cougar. Er, well I guess that would maker her a puma technically."

What I look like as I officially become "old":

I can't sing, but THEY sure can!!

The above is a one of a kind song, commissioned just for my birthday. Performed by Bobtown!!! Thanks SuperD for the incredibly imaginative gift!

Secondly, my sister's kids called and sung an especially spirited version of the Happy Birthday song to my voicemail and again for me to hear.

The beautiful gift of song! Thank you!

A Rowdy life recollected....

As today is my birthday, notice the cute baby pics one post down, I thought I would reflect on the things that I have done in life, or that have happened to me, that equal living a 'rowdy' life. My rowdy life.

-Driving a Porsche 911 around Laguna Seca.
-Traveling to over 16 foreign countries. Travel has been a huge rowdy life blessing.
-Being in a war. Getting shot at and such.
-Swimming with sharks. In and out of the cage.
-Enjoying a variety of extreme sports by mountain biking, snowboarding, rock climbing, wake boarding, surfing and motorcycles.
-Running a half marathon with no training. In under 2 hours.
-Surviving 10 surgeries.
-Graduating from college later in life.
-Owning over 200 good books at any one time.
-Various motorcycle/police chases all ending in my favor.
-Touching historical and cultural icons over 2,000 years old.
-Speaking to people in another language.
-Learning as a kid how to camp, shoot a gun, fish, hunt, cook over fire, tie knots, read a map.
-Skydiving. Bungee jumping. Check. I've even piloted a plane a few times.
-4 broken bones. 4 concussions.
-Having something published. Even if only on the local independent level.
-All the amazing natural wonders I've seen. Too many to list.
-Divorce, bankruptcy, unemployment, addiction. All of them overcome.