New name and tip for E-FO

Today I was called "The Kiss of Death". Yes, it was meant in the nicest possible way by a fellow swimmer at the gym. She felt obligated to say this since whenever I show up, I get my own lane. Inevitably if there are four of us in the pool's four lanes.. the newest arrival will always jump in her lane and not mine. Divine intervention? Doubt it. I gave her some of my tricks to scare potential lane mooches, but she has yet to impliment them. My main tip is to swim anything other than freestyle. I typically choose butterfly or backstroke since it intimidates the hell out of swimmers. If that doesn't work, try flip turns that are just slightly off the mark while your lane mooch is chillin' at whatever end of the pool. And if those two don't work, it's birthday suit time. Finally, I prefer the name Grim Reaper over Kiss of Death for those tracking this sort of stuff.

Tip: don't make fun of clumsy people. I poked fun at a friend's clumsiness on Tuesday afternoon. Karma being the bitch it is ... later that night I was acting like a spaz and rammed both of my hands into a Handicap parking sign outside a grocery store parking lot. Yes, I did do a fair amount of swearing after that, but inside I was also laughing. Not more than 6 hours earlier I was ridiculing my friend for how clumsy she had to be to walk into walls, chairs, etc. Then, like a putz, I jump into a stationary parking sign cutting my hand. Not to mention the cut is in the webbing between my index and ring finger on my right hand. The ever so slight pain is a subtle reminder to stay humble and to not talk smack about others, or at least until the cut is fully healed.

Flirting with disaster?

Is it possible that I am a flirt? Sure without a doubt. Is it bad that I flirt with female friends via email and Instant Messaging? Hell, I don't know. It seems like it's all well and good and I honestly wouldn't care if the shoe was on the other foot. I don't mean any harm to anyone, especially my wife. Why should we be forced to stop flirting after marriage? Flirting is good clean healthy fun. Afterall, she knows I flirt because we met in a dance club some years ago. It's not like I am pimping myself out for a good time, if you know what I'm mean.

I only bring this up because it could be said that I flirt online, Yes! However, I think I am very straight forward with folks and don't lead anyone on. It's not my fault I have a magnanimous and eight inch personality. I am really just trying to build a large fanbase and following. Am I using my friends? You bet I am, but it's for their gain too. My gift to the faithful is humor in the form of sarcasm. One could call me a "blog whore" if someone was so inclined. Remember way back when I started this blog in November of 2004? My goal was to recruit more voters than Nader did last year. I still have my work cut out for me on this front. I figure my 15 minutes of fame will definitely catapult my following. Don't worry, I won't make any of you swear on some stack of hiking books how much you like me. I just thought I would put this out there, oh .. I almost forgot this "crush" thing.

Yes, I may have a crush or two or twenty on some females. No, this doesn't mean I will leave my wife in hopes of getting a date with Jen Schefft or Jessica Biel. I love my wife gang and there's nothing changing that. Plus she is an amazing inspiration and source of material for my blog. See P.S. below

P.S. apparently my wife has lined up a suitor for me in the unfortunate event something should happen to her. A female friend of ours, which I do admittedly have a crush on, agreed that she and I could get married if something happened to my wife, I kid you not, my wife told me this last week after her book club. So submit your personal requests to the following address with photos or just send me your mugs via the net.

c/o Seattle Suitors
2821 93th AVE NE
Seattle, WA 98115-1315
seattlesuitors@gmail.com

Do numbers really matter?

Those close to me know I have a reputation as a frequent job changer. So much so that listing my jobs before typing this post took me about an hour. I can't even remember the names of some of the more fortunate companies which hired me. One year I had five W-2s to file for tax purposes. Without further ado here are all the jobs I have held in my life, meaning I received a paycheck from someone other than a family member or a friend. These are in chronological order from oldest to newest, but could be off a wee bit as my memory is failing me.

1) swim instructor: taught 3-10 year olds how to swim in an overly chlorinated pool.
2) Metropolitan catering: learned why aprons are so wonderful and that "slop buckets" aren't for drinking.
3) Baskin Robbins: best job title, "Soda jerk", and my first official job that I interviewed for on my own.
4) Little League umpire: ejected one coach and have never looked back at the power I gained that magnificent day.
5) LaBatelle: French bakery serving yummy croissants in a suburban mall.
6) Simply Desserts: maybe the best job I have worked and the longest at 7 years. Still have the key to the front door because the owners love me that much.
7) The Little Prince: lame overpriced bakery that didn't allow a pregnant woman to use their bathroom. Swear the owners were on the government's Witness Protection plan (no longer in business thank god)
8) A la Francaise: French bakery serving yummy croissants near UW campus; one day downed 10 shots of espresso and learned key Thai phrases.
9) Univ. of Washington: set-up for banquets in Horticulture bldg. and removed cigarette butts from ashtrays
10) Landscaping job: mowed lawns for 12 hours a day and I totally sucked at it
11) Pioneer Sports: made cold calls using a boring script; best 2 week notice --> none given, no show next day
12) Pagliacci Pizza: hired as a manager and almost ended the job by climbing out bathroom window on day 3 of job.
13) Nordstrom: served up sandwiches then became a barrista in Portland, OR store.
14) Pasta Veloce: promoted to manager after a week on the job and learned key Spanish phrases. Best job ever? Affectionately known as Pasta Bitch to my friends.
15) Pallino; fast service Italian food where I was introduced to key Britney Spears dance moves by fellow high school aged co-workers. Made vow for this to be my last food service job.
16) Nintendo: first French speaking job; left prematurely because I was dreaming of Pokemon too often.
17) Majiq: 2nd French job; paid for me to travel to Europe twice. Almost got left in Finland once.
18) A large local warehouse company: biggest freaking tightwads ever.
19) A.C.E.: tutored a student in French.
20) The Bush School: tutored a rich "problem" student in French. He drove a Lexus.
21) Current position at software company: [insert your own idea of what I do here]

There you have it folks. Yes, I have worked no less than 21 jobs in my 31 years. A few years ago that ratio was more impressive as it was 21 jobs in 28 years. Notice there are no acting or modeling jobs, however that doesn't mean I haven't tried. Not sure my number of jobs should be higher than my number of sexual partners or IQ, but we'll leave it at that!

*Job list doesn't contain any jobs I accepted, 2, and then rejected later that day or the following day.

I know what you did last weekend

Friday night: Hung out with Sprizee and Sally for noodles and then some Chantico at Starbucks. Chatted in person about blogs and our virtual friends as well as those we meet in person. They both were snapping photos the entire time. Not sure why those photos haven't been posted yet, but I am sure they will surface on the net shortly.

Saturday: Got some bagels for breakfast and met up with my friend Marcus, who ran 8 miles earlier, at our house and shot the shit. Forced him to read through all my blog entries and read over his should the entire time. Also bragged to him about our garage which I spent last Sunday cleaning. Took pics of an opossum wandering the neighborhood in the middle of the day. After both my beloved friends, Marcus and the opossum, left we drove to the local outdoor store, REI, and bought my wife a pair of snowshoes and some warm winter clothing.

We got back home back home and for a bit then decided we would go see Sideways. Loved it! One of the best movies I have seen in a while. It was a very raw and gritty portrayal of two college buddies. The characters were so believable and the scipt was amazing. Laughed out loud for a good portion of this movie. It felt like the movie was a sequel to Swingers about ten years after their Vegas trip. Easily one of the better movies I have seen recently. Stayed up late reading the countless ways I could die in an avalanche.

Sunday: Got up and had a fresh layer of 2-3 inches of snow on the ground. Yes! Seattle goes crazy for snow for those of you not from around here. It's quite comical how nuts this town goes over snow... myself included. Even with snow on the ground at our house, we hopped in our Subaru Impreza and headed east off for Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascades. Put on the snowshoes and hiked around for a couple hours in the beautiful scenery. This was our first experience snowshoeing and we loved it. I took numerous photos during our outdoor excursion. Drove 50 minutes west back to Seattle and read some more about snowshoeing at home. Now I want to summit Mt. St. Helens in the winter on snowshoes. I have done it three times in the summer, but this would be a different experience, especially if the mountain remains active.

Watched the premier of 24 on Fox and some other shows and now blogging into the night. The weekend couldn't have been much better. Hope you all had pretty good weekends. Have a good week!

P.S. Didn't make it to the Survivor audition on Saturday.