Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

As I readied myself for lunch today, Earl dropped me an e-mail to let me know that he would not be able to make our lunch appointment. Apparently the plant outside of Cleveland had flooded last night and he had to be on a conference call. The situation was eerily similar to that of about a month ago, when the same thing happened in the southern part of the state.

Big hurricanes. Lots of rain. Flooding where it hasn’t flooded in a really long time. Lots of heat. Volcanoes erupting and earthquakes in the ocean. I get the feeling that someone is trying to say something.

So I ended up heading home for lunch. I looked outside and noticed that it was raining like crazy. The street was flooding and it was just coming down in buckets. Did that make me stay at the office for lunch? Of course not. I borrowed my co-workers emergency umbrella, saddled up the car with a pair of water skiis and surfed home.

Surf’s up dude.

Oil companies are reporting record quarterly profits for the 2nd quarter of this year. Shell is up 40% from the same time last year.

Kind of makes you really hate that “$3.129” that appeared on the gas station price board this morning, doesn’t it?

Instead of going on and on about how consumers are basically being screwed by big business when we try to fill our tanks (note the interesting visual that comes to mind when you really read that phrase), I believe that oil companies should embrace the New American Way by changing the public perception of gas prices in lieu of addressing the fact that they’re getting rich while we consumers are mortgaging houses to afford the fuel needed to commute.

This is the perfect opportunity to go metric.

Just imagine how much better you would feel this very moment if you drove down Main St. USA and saw that gas was $0.829 today. By the way, why do they charge to the 9/10 of a cent? What part of Lincoln’s head are they chopping off that penny anyway – the top of his head or his neck? Anyway, motorists wouldn’t be nearly as manic if they thought they were paying less than a dollar for gas. All we need to do is switch from gallons to liters and presto, perceived instant savings.

Makes cents to me.

I’ve always been a metric sort of guy. On the radio I would give the temperature in fahrenheit and celcius. I design road signs in millimeters for my road geek web site. When I was single, I was asked how “big” I was to which I replied “14.65”, not that I measured or anything.

If the U.S. would join the rest of the word and go metric, we’d all be a little bit happier. No more trying to convert quarts to acres. No wondering how many bushels to peck.

And lots of cheap gas!

Sometimes it only takes one little thing to make the day seem brighter and better. This morning I woke up not feeling quite on my game. There were a variety of reasons; it’s been very sticky and hot sleeping the past couple of nights, several of my dreams have been apocalyptic in nature this week and my stomach is feeling a little bit off this morning, undoubtedly because of the nachos and beer I had for supper last night. No regrets though, it was good.

Anyway, Earl and I eat these healthy Special K breakfast bars for breakfast and Earl has a sort of unspoken rule that we don’t open the next box of them until the current box is empty. We’ve been eating strawberry and blueberry bars since we discovered these little goodies, but last week Earl brought home another flavor: Chocolatey Drizzle.

This morning I was finally able to open the Chocolatey Drizzle box. I haven’t had my first bar yet, as it’s sitting to the left of the PowerBook with the promise of breakfasty goodness. But the prospect of eating this little delight has made the morning not so bad.

It’s like a little bar of sunshine.

Yesterday I was all proud of myself because I walked 2 1/2 miles during my lunch hour. Did I feel better for it? Sort of. Not really. I was hot, sweaty and sticky and it wasn’t even from the heat of passion. It was from walking the streets of our fine city. Afterwards, I stuck to my office chair and dripped on my keyboard.

Not pretty.

So today I did the sensible thing. Now if you think that means I packed up a bag of gym clothes to change into during lunch then you really haven’t been paying attention. No, no. I came home and did the right thing, I followed my traditional routine by flying home at an unreasonable speed, parked my butt in front of my computer and surfed the internet, all accompanied by a delicious wrap Earl made for me this morning. (I’m extremely lucky in the “let’s eat!” department).

Will I feel all better this afternoon? I think I will because I won’t stick to the office chair and my keyboard won’t be dripped on. I’ll save the walk for tonight.

With going back to work today after yesterday’s day off I’ve decided that I need a little change of pace to liven things up a little bit. So at lunchtime today I’m planning on going for a walk around downtown instead of my usual mad dash home for lunch and then fighting with traffic to get back on time.

I’m hoping the exercise will wake me up a little bit.

Never the morning person, a fact I pride myself in, I’m working the 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift this week and so my butt is dragging already. Sometimes I feel bad for the company I work for, as I’m basically a walking zombie before noon. I wonder if they’re getting their money’s worth. Well, I’m not a zombie, but I’m at my most productive in the afternoon. I work amongst “morning people” that are all chipper and whatnot when they get to work. I occasionally fight the impulse to slap them.

Earl called me “Fuzzy” last night because I haven’t shaved my head since Saturday. For the first time in a number of years I’ve taken a break off from the task. It’s not going to last by any means, but it’s interesting to see what grows and what doesn’t and what color it all turns out to be.

Such an adventurous life.