You might be camping…

After camping for these past long weeks I have come up with a twist on the saying used by Jeff Foxworthy and it is “You might be camping…”

You can add the obligatory words in front of or behind the next few statements, you’ll get the picture. I’ll get you started with the first one.

- If you have to walk 100 yards to your shower / toilet AND you have to wait in line to do either…you might be camping.

- If you stroll by your neighbors “house” and are jealous of how level it is…

- If you turn off the air conditioner so that you can run the water heater…

- If your neighbors change 3 different times in a week and you refer to the old ones as “Georgia Airstream with the shitty bikes”…

- If WiFi, cable TV and cell phone service seem like miracles…

- If someone screams “WATER!” if you let the water run for more than 3 seconds…

- If DUMP STATION is sooooo not changing the radio channel…

- If you get 9 mpg and are thrilled…

I’ve been mulling these over for days as you can tell by their hilarity…time to get back to civilization.

Keep going, plenty of room….

If you ever want to visualize the differences between men and women I suggest you do the following. Go down to your local boat ramp or RV park and wait for a husband and wife “team” to arrive. Find a good vantage point that you can hear them from and sit back and observe.

First thing you will notice is that the MAN has to drive the truck / car. There is no turning over machinery to the woman. Second thing you will notice is that the woman already knows where this is going and has a scowl on her face. Typically they will have already agreed upon some signals and words that will guide them to success. These words and signals will cease to work as soon as the activity is started. Usually the man will get frustrated first, make a rude remark, and exit the vehicle. This will start an argument over the signals and words and this will usually happen a couple of times before the man simply decides he can do it alone and backs the trailer / boat into a(n) (insert inanimate object here). A team of two guys can usually get the above task done through grunts and signals that are genetically common to other men. A team of two women can probably get the job done, but it usually takes longer because there will be men watching and giving advice. This tends to slow the women down, plus they have to waste gestures on the men watching.

You think I’m kidding…go set up your lawn chair for the ultimate people watching opportunity. Report back to me.

Spring forward…don’t fall back

Just a short update since I haven’t posted for a bit. Sara is hiding in some militant Swedish girls camp in an undisclosed location in Minnesota, so we took this opportunity to do some additional camping. I still have more thoughts on camping, hang in there.

I think I posted earlier that trying to find good swimming in Florida during the summer is a challenge. If I didn’t, this will about sum it up. Anything that holds water (including the Gulf of Mexico) turns into a boiling bucket of pee on or about June 15th. Everyone comes down here on vacation and thinks they are going to hang on the beach, well, they best stay on the beach. The water sucks. We decided to do something about it. We hooked up the trailer and headed to Wekiwa Springs State Park near Orlando. Why you ask? Well according to the literature the water is significantly better than the pee water described above. It didn’t take long to find out. I expected to have to hack a trail through the bush to get to said springs and much to my surprise it is very in keeping with its Orlando location…ripe for touristy pleasure. Here is a picture unless you clicked the link and got basically the same shot.

My first observation was that about 50% or more of the swimmers were huddled near the stairs. I figured, “Great…it’s swimming lesson day and all these idiots can’t swim”. I took one step down the stairs myself and found out why everyone was there. The water was freezing. Amazing. After tiptoeing around the stairs for a bit Jen, Sam and I decided that we had stumbled on the answer to the Florida bladder water that we found everywhere else. We had a blast. There was another group huddled around the spring head where you could dive down 20 or so feet into the clear spring water. I don’t know about diving into cavern like structures. I’ve seen too many Peter Benchley movies.  We have been back a couple of times and find this state park to be clean, quiet, fun and best of all…5 minutes from Publix and a Redbox kiosk. More soon…

SPAM is a dumb name for really crappy e-mail

Rather than go another month or so without writing something I will just riff on some random thing. Sorry.

The random thing is my SPAM filter on my e-mail. I usually just go through it, empty it and move on. Today I decided to make sure I wasn’t missing some notice from Publisher’s Clearing House. I wasn’t. What I did find is that I think I am being targeted by some really crappy marketing people who don’t know their audience…

Clue number one that I might not be “the guy” for this e-mail subject: Black Guy Daily. I really hope they are finding the right people for whatever they are selling. I’d hate to see the look on their faces when all of us white guys show up for the “Black guy meeting” I’m not even sure what you would sell at the black guy meeting that you would specifically single them out for. Might as well call it a “Plain old guy” meeting and you get twice the audience.

The next e-mail rightfully planted in my SPAM box is this one – Subject: CristianMingle

This one I actually opened to get some ammo for this writing. Lo and behold it has a link for Christian Singles. I don’t click links. I guess that one will forever be a mystery. I really hope it goes to a legitimate site, but I’m guessing that the Christians all clicked like crazy on that one and have some explaining to do.

Last and not least…the e-mail I was waiting for…”You have just been selected…” Oh well I have to click this right? What? Another link? How bad could it be? I HAVE been selected. They wouldn’t do harm to the selected one would they? I mean it seems alright it did make it to a special folder in my own personal e-mail box. You aren’t still reading to see what happened when I clicked it are you? I don’t click links.