Sunday, June 01, 2008

surf, sun, walking and contests

we just got back from surfside beach (just south of myrtle) yesterday after a trip with karen's side of the fam. of course she has all the pics and pertinent details so check out her blog. my memories are of getting sick deep sea fishing and getting sunburned. karen has some great pics of that. i swear i did use lotion but either not enough or stayed out too long. it has been a while since i actually "laid out" so i guess i forgot how quickly one can burn or just forgot how long i was out which, incidentally, is pretty easy to do when you fall asleep. i'm a nice shade of red, particularly in some odd places--left lower back, front chest and stomach, top of the feet, right bicep/shoulder, both knees. somehow the lotion karen put on the top of my back withstood the water and time but the rest of me got burned (or is it burnt?).

now, about the hurling. being the adventurous kind of guy that i am, i would like to believe the main cause was a few too many adult beverages the night before since i've never gotten sick on the high seas or in any outing involving lots of motion. plus, i actually did fine on the hour ride out which was in very choppy waters and didn't get queasy until we started fishing. let's just say i had a lot of company by the time the trip was over. there was even this poor girl, about 10 or so with a dad who probably wished he had boys (he was with 2 girls). well, she wasn't feeling good and he is really getting on to her (maybe giving her a pep talk?) saying "well, what do you want me to do, tell the guy to turn the boat around? do you know how long it's going to take to get back? you're just going to have to tough it out." now hit the showers, i thought. i'm sure the girl felt much better after the talk.

regarding the vomitus (as we say in the medical world), it's funny because i was getting a little paranoid when i noticed some red stuff on the second expulsion. as a free medical tip, it's usually not good to see blood while throwing up. i thought i was bleeding but then remembered it was probably the flaming hot fries discoloring things. i love those flaming hot products as an aside--fries, fritos, cheetos. yum.

i was reminded today about some of the odd competitions i have entered in my life. in case you didn't know, i used to be a very competitive person; still am but not as much although my wife might disagree. i like and play many sports--tennis, basketball (probably favorite to actually play), baseball, softball, football, golf, karate. didn't play much soccer as an adult but did love spending hours with the ol' hackey sack. remember those?

anyway, i told karen i was going to use a coupon we just got for some new basketball shoes because the current ones i have are probably 10+ years old and a bit worn. how did i get them? back in the days when my parents had a dry cleaning business, a new shoe store opened up nearby so i checked it out. it turns out the atlanta hawks dance team was there and they were having a contest to see who could do the most number of crunches against the team. the winner got a new pair of shoes. heck, that was all i needed to hear to get me in. well, after probably 30 minutes, the team had all dropped out (probably more out of getting bored and wanting us to hurry and finish than actually getting tired) but this other guy and i were still left. eventually they just made us stop and declared us both winners. i think we stopped at 1200. granted, our technique wasn't the best but we were both winners and got some shoes! must be the shoes. i even got a poster of the team signed by the team. i remember one wrote "to the ab-master." ha! i actually kept it for a while but it got thrown out way before we got married. that's right.

reminds me of another contest, a jalapeno eating contest at a mexican restaurant for cinco de mayo when i was in college. if you ate only 5 jalapenos in 5 minutes you got a free t-shirt so i figured, hey, free t-shirt. i figured 5 was within reach. my friend actually bet with this guy next to him (they were behind us watching) that i would beat his friend who incidentally was next to me. well, what my friend didn't know was that that guy won the contest the previous year with 29 jalapenos! anyway, that guy was off to a flying start and it took me some time to get through the first few, not only because of the obvious hotness (i love hot food by the way) and taste but it was also the first thing i ate all day and it was already dinner time. plus, you had to eat the whole thing except for the stems. after the first few got down, i started getting in my zone and by the last minute, i was putting those suckers down while the other guy was slowing down big time. i probably ate 8 or 10 in the last minute and wouldn't you know it, ended up eating 29. unfortunately, i guess i pushed that guy enough and he ended up eating 35 or so and won some sort of restaurant tab. one more minute and no doubt i would have overtaken him. oh well. but hey, i got the free t-shirt.

you may have been wondering, did you have any "after-effects" from the contest? interestingly enough, the day after the contest, i had no adverse gastrointestinal sequelae. it's almost as if my body was in such shock that it shut down any pain fibers and it was smooth sailing in the bathroom.

other things i used to or still compete in: video games (favs of all time--donkey kong, centipede, ms. pacman--fast version), other various eating contests (won a free jacket from subway once for eating a sub with no hands, second place), team trivia at restaurant/bars around town, first place in a junior high dance contest with my breakdancing partner in 7th grade, various solo and family singing competitions and many others to be named.

as for the walking, baby kate is starting to take some steps! karen's uploading some videos so stay tuned. she started standing stationary for a few seconds last week and today was able to take a few steps but she has to be really motivated, like going after the keyboard or remote.

lastly, as an afterword on the name thing, the greatest name blunder i have experienced was probably at my wedding. yes, at my wedding by a pastor who actually did know me. maybe it was nerves, maybe something else but for some reason he called me "hannah" the first two times he said my name. the first time i'm like, "hmm, did he ... " and then the second time, "oh yeah, he did." if you've ever seen my wife try to get kids' attention when taking pictures by making weird noises, then you can picture the noises she was making to get the pastor's attention when we got close to him. she was making all these noises and then whispering loudly but discreetly "tanna, it's tanna!" then he says "i know" and that was that. ha ha. still funny after all these years.