I TOLD You It Was a Crazy Month

And this might have been the craziest and the most fun. Sorry (again) for the delay in this, but the following really happened. These pictures are real, and there's more where they came from. Even the Courier-Journal's "Wedding Crasher" showed up and snapped a few (I'm sure you can still find them if you search for the Powell-Mudd wedding at courier-journal.com). I officiated a pirate/fairy themed wedding.

I'll be honest, when they first told me what they wanted to do I was a touch unsure. Now they were willing to jump through enough hoops for me to be sure that they were serious about the marriage and I've always thought that the wedding ought to be however the bride and groom chose, but when they said they'd be dressed as pirates and fairies, well, that gave me a chance to see how much I really believed that. But fair enough -- it's their wedding, if they'll show me they're serious, I'll roll with it. And so they did, and so I did.

And it was awesome. Don't get me wrong, I think being able to join two individuals in Christian marriage is one of the greatest privileges around (2nd only to baptism, probably), but it's not necessarily something that I get all jacked up about. It's time and stress and being around people's families at, all too often, their worst. But this one? This was just fun. Check out the pics below, they're not the best but they're the best that I have.

And now, Mudd and Rachel, it's up to you two make your marriage as awesome as your wedding. God be with you, it can be done.






Note on colors -- although the free-agent signing of a bona-fide all-star IS worth keeping Flogging green, we're approaching the "other" all-star break, and the Phillies are in first. Here's to another parade this October, fellas!!!

Crusin'

There are a lot of things that most people love that I just never quite "got."

In high school, for instance, one of the "big" events (if there were any "big" events in small-town South Dakota) was cruising. I never much did it, but I guess the concept was . . . driving around. Maybe stopping and hanging out with other cruisers too, I don't know. Like I said, I never quite "got" the whole deal. Maybe it had something to do with that I just wasn't very popular -- nobody wanted to cruise with me, nor talk to me while cruising -- but whatever the reason, it was really never my thing.

Obviously there's no correlation beyond the word, but fast-forward to 2009, and everybody loves vacationing on cruise ships. What's the hype about? I would wonder. What is there to do on a ship that I can't do at home? I don't like to sit by the pool, and frankly we have pools in Louisville. If I wanted to gamble, that can be accommodated with a modest drive. Really, what's the deal? "Oh, the food is incredible, and it's everywhere!" people would say. Cool, I can get with some good food. "The cabin boys come and fold towels into animal shapes!" others would exclaim. Ummmm, ok.

Nonetheless, Laura's always loved the idea of a cruise, and so with our 10 year anniversary coming up, I thought it might be time to give it a shot. I took her to Iowa for our honeymoon, after all, so I figured I could step my game up. Mobile AL to Cozumel and another port near Playa del Carmen Mexico it would be, then.

I still don't get it. The food was fantastic and in abundance. I dug it. The towel animals were surprisingly fun. The ports were nice, we went snorkling which was exceptional even for an anti-water guy such as myself and saw some Mayan ruins, which was interesting.

But seriously, what there was worth a week of my life? We did a lot of napping and reading on the boat. Which is fine, but I can do those as well from here (already have today, thank you!). Of course it was great to spend some time with my lovely bride, but we do a pretty good job of making that happen in our regular lives, too. And most importantly, she had a good time, but after about three days I think we were both ready to be back at home.

Much like this post, then, I just didn't quite get what the point was.

Figure This?

Alright, this hasn't been updated in a long time, but there are reasons. For one, it's been a pretty crazy month. For another, I'm lazy. So I'm behind, but because I am who I am, I'll start at the beginning and work chronologically. That means we start with:

Do you remember when your college buddies, after about eight beers, would say "Do you know what someone should do? *Fill in the blank with ridiculous -- although potentially hilarious if it ever happened in real life, but there's NO WAY that whatever this is ever takes place in real life -- idea* Dude, that would be incredible! They should really do it, too. You KNOW people would pay to see that. I'd pay to see that, wouldn't you? Someone really should do that!" Well, apparently someone across the river in Southern Indiana took their drunk friend seriously and made one of these things happen. That's right, Laura and I enjoyed some school bus figure-8 races about a month ago. The pics are from my phone so excuse their inadequacy, but here we go:






So, yep! School bus figure-8 racing turns out to be pretty much exactly what it sounds like. School buses crashing into each other and causing general unruliness. What more can you say about that?

Anyway, it's been an extremely eventful month even after that, so stay tuned for more updates, hopefully within the month.

Self-Stung

There isn't much that I hate more than wasps. They're ugly, they're scary (I'll admit it), and when I was about 10 I got absolutely rocked by one right on my lower lip and it hurt worse than about anything I'd ever experienced. I really, really hate (and am scared of) wasps.

It just so happens, however, that our backyard is insanely infested with wasps. When I try to mow in the late morning, I can seriously stand and look at the back of our fence and count five or so within my range of vision at any given moment. If I bump a part of the fence with the mower, six or eight will fly up all disturbed and then disturb me in kind. It makes an unpleasant but not-unreasonable task into an absolute gauntlet of terror.

So how excited was I when my lovely bride tells me that she saw a trap at the store for $15? I went on-line to check them out and I was sold. It looked like there could be a hundred of those little devils inside a trap, and that's exactly what I was after, so we went for it.

After about a week, the trap was still wasp-free. I couldn't believe it. On the company's website, they like swarmed to it. So what do I do about the disappointingly impotent wasp trap? I did the only reasonable thing -- I went and bought another one. Now there are two traps with no wasps, and here's why this is discouraging for me:

The three principles of the situation, in order of intelligence:
1) The Wasps. They send me running scared and stay out of the traps.
2) The Trap Company. They sold me a product that didn't work, and then sold me another one.
3) Me. I'm still deathly afraid of the wasps, whose numbers have not been reduced by one despite my best efforts; and I've given the trap company my money twice for a product that hasn't worked once. The obvious conclusion? I'm a scared, broke moron.

Bullish

Be honest, it DID kind of look like the Celtics sleep-walked through the first half of game 1, didn't it? But after an incredibly intense series, I have to take back some of my rage after that loss. I underestimated the B*lls (hint: It's not Bills, Bells, Balls, Bolls, or Bylls) and am quite happy to just get out of the series alive. Thoughts:

1) Incredible. Really, really incredible. Whoever doesn't watch the NBA missed out big. On the whole it's not as compelling as college, it's true, but watch THIS series and then tell me it's boring.

2) The B*lls played great. I hate them, but that's the truth. Gordon, Rose, Salmons. Those cats brought it.

3) No new news, but I love Paul Pierce. Did anybody else hear his interview after he single-handedly lifted his team to victory in Game 5? The reporter asked something about how they find the energy to keep going with all the overtimes and all. Paul smiled (doesn't happen often!) and said something to the effect of "Oh man, this is fun! We'll play seven overtimes if we need to." Pro athletes are asked stupid questions all the time, and they NEVER get it right. Paul got it right. Nice. It's a job for them, I get it, but it's supposed to be fun. Thanks Paul, for restoring just a little bit of faith in pro sports/athletes.

4) So the Magic are next. We'll see, but without KG, it's going to be rough. And if they can pull it off, the Cavs are almost for sure just too tough. Still, better than going out to the B*lls.

It's Playoff Time

Isn't it? I sure hope not -- I sure hope I didn't just watch my team sleepwalk through a home playoff loss to the Ch*c*g* B*lls. It sure looked to me like they were playing some sort of an extended exhibition, because I've seen them in the playoffs, and it didn't look anything at all like that.

I know Garnett's down, and any realistic chance of hanging Banner Number Eighteen went with him. I get that. But that's no reason to drop Game 1 to the freaking B*lls. So I'm doing my part -- Flogging's going green. Now let's see you do your part, and I don't want to see another loss this round.

If You Have Nothing Worthwile to Write. . .

Just a thought I had the other day -- what happened to colors? I mean colors used to be colors, right, like red, blue, yellow, purple, whatever. Not that the cardinal colors or whatever were sufficient, but of course we weren't necessarily limited to those, so it was ok. We could modify any color in any number of ways. No, not shackled simply to "blue" we could have light blue or dark blue. When light and dark aren't enough, we could even modify it with adjectives from outside the traditional realm of color. "Sky blue," "electric blue," "sea blue," "midnight blue," the opportunities are almost endless. Even if they're not endless, however, we could combine colors -- "blue-green" or what have you. And now the opportunities really are virtually endless.

And all of this before we even get into the colors that we don't really make use of anyway, like fuchsia, indigo, magenta, crimson, vermilion, mauve, teal, and taupe, to name a few.

Why is it, then, that things have suddenly become colors?

You guys, salmon isn't a color, it's a fish. Charcoal isn't a color, it's a carbon residue (I'll admit, I had to look that one up). Rasberry isn't a color, it's a berry. Our sofa is considered "mocha" (although it cost less). Mocha isn't a color, it's a freaking flavor!

Now I confess, there's no good reason why this should bother me. It's purely a product of my own mild nueroses, and I understand that. But still, where will this end? Will it stop with fish, berries, and flavors? Who's to say that it won't get worse and worse until someday someone describes something that's a sort of pale, unattractive pink (see how I just took a real color and modified it for a more specific purpose?) as simply "Ross." Besides, it had been too long since I'd written anything on here, and I just had nothing better to say.