a musing julius…

i recently got back from vacation at my parents condo in florida, where i destressed and decompressed from a whirlwind 2008 which included 50,000+ miles of flying, 12+ hour days working in a foreign country on 2 seperate occasions and taking a new job that has me responsible for the day-to-day of 5 employees. i think i deserved the break, and sitting laying on the beach while watching a school of dolphins jump out of the water just 100 feet offshore was exactly the kind of break i needed.

our condo is 3.5 miles from the florida-alabama border (i know this, because i ran there) and as i learned, is in an area called the “redneck riviera.” so after 2 days of fairly classy outings to the finest sushi and fish houses on the key, suffice it to say, heading out on the 3rd to an irish pub that’s decorated with about 550,000 one-dollar bills with a group of people i had met at the hot tub over talks of the auto industry and politics…i was destined to find redneck-ish ness.

so my story starts with my outing, where i drove with a guy named brad, a 45-year old former business man, who can’t stop talking about…well, everything. he tells me how he’s gonna “get into the ecommerce” because everyone’s doing it (maybe 10 years ago) and how he’s got “an anargy drank” for “dem old people” so they can live better lives. he had a rock solid business plan; “i just want $1 from everyone. i can today, get 350,000 email addresses,” he tells me. “just think julius, easily, 10% of those 350,000 will just have to subscribe each month for $9.95, and i’ll be rich. hell, maybe 20-30% of them will sign up. easy money,” he continues.

“but brad, what will you sell each month?”

“my cure for cancer.”

WHOA!!! here i was judging this man for being crazy, and now here he is, telling me his cure for cancer. i politely stopped him saying that he may not want to tell me because i could sell it too…he said, “no, i trust you. even though i met you 3 hours ago, i trust you. that’s all we got in this world, trust.”

“perfect, so tell me, what’s your cure for cancer”

“well, i’ve done a lot of research into cancer [says the former financial analyst] and cancer cells can’t survive in a ph above 7.9. so, you just gotta raise the body’s ph level. and to do that, just drink basic water.”

a quick google shows his research came from some very reputable and professionally made websites. but anyway, i admire the man for really pursuing everything that gets him worked up, like his energy drink, health newsletter for the elderly and obviously, cancer cure. it’s a better to do that, than sit around.

next blog post, the greatest story i’ve ever heard down south.

i go to the gym fairly regularly, and i enjoy it there. but there are some really funny and odd people i see going each week, and while they might view me as ridiculous when i show up, some of these guys are classic.

• mister-i’m-too-good-for-everyone: i see a guy like this nearly everyday. non-challantly walking around, chewing gum like they’re burning calories. they’ll sit down at a machine, do 9 reps on a machine, not going through an entire range of motion, and walk away as if he just put that machine into its place. later they’ll meander around, not being impatient by a machine, but you know in the back of your mind, they’re judging people for not being as good as they are. usually, they’re smaller / weaker than the people that actually know what they’re doing.
• miss-sweat-suit: i don’t quite get it, but they’re wearing sweat suits, cotton, polyester or otherwise, moving from one machine to another, in an effort to lose weight, or something. amusingly, they’re often carrying a bottle of water which negates the effects. awesome.
• mr-huge: uh, this guy usually sounds like he’s gonna blow out his colon when he’s lifting something big. he’s just giant, lifts 800 pounds at once, and needs 4 people just to help him lift the damn thing. but he looks awesome after lifting one weight one time. but hey, he’s bigger than me.
• miss-gatorade: this person is usually on the elliptical and is able to consume an entire bottle of gatorade before i’m done warming up. that’s 140+ calories you just drank. takes me almost 15 minutes of slow jogging to burn that many…and here you are, just eliminating your weight you burned. more awesome.

anyone got any other frequent gym offenders.

last weekend i hit up a wedding in wilmington delaware of two college friends. with my senior year roommate, and a another girl from college, we drove up to meet the entire crew from college crew, who decided to fly in saturday to philadelphia international airport. to celebrate our reunion, we decided to head out to the one and only bar the hotel concierege was well aware of, scrimmages. scrimmages is a sports bar, and on saturday we decided to eat and drink to our hearts contents in a place that looked more like your friends basement than a bar. but the food was decent, the beer was cheap, and the entertainment…well, thats your job.

see, karaoke is what scrimmages is known for on saturday’s, and myself, seth and john (the non-jew, jew, and half-jew crew, respectively) hit up the stage to sing Edwin Starr’s ”War.” suffice it to say our motley crew got the entire bar on their feet (one with a lighter) singing and dancing.

seth, john and i were not singers. we were performers, grunting like edwin on his finest day. background vocals were provided by the bar. everyone was in tears laughing and singing. john, seth and i couldn’t keep a straight face by the time the 2nd chorus came around. screams and grunts about war and “what it [was] good for” were the topic of the night. never in my life have a felt like a brought a crowd to their feet than singing that damn song in a random bar in delaware.

so how do i know i made it? well, after the sunday wedding, 30+ of us from the wedding returned sunday night to do more damage to the keg collection. well, believe it when i say when i purchased a pitcher of the world’s finest natty light water, the bartender looked at me and said, “hey, you’re one of the guys that sang war last night.” i responded politely with, “yes, i was one of them,” only to hear, “you guys rocked last night. i won’t forget that for a long time.”

the 30+ of us enjoyed scrimmages so much that plans are in the works to return in the 2009 calendar year. i guarantee scrimmages will be on my agenda for any east coast trips coming in the future.

my alma mater is omniscient. why you ask? let me tell you.

in 2005, my graduation speech was given by a senator by the name of john mccain.
in 2006, the graduation speaker was also a senator, by the name of barack obama.

how neat is that, in that nearly 3 years after i graduated, the two individuals who spoke at northwestern at two consecutive graduations, are running for president.

just a note, in 2008, mayor daley spoke at northwestern’s graduation…now he’d be a pretty sweet president.

um, so i’m watching mythbusters, and i see adam and jamie create a sawdust cannon. holy…effing…sawdust-of-death. insanely hilarious and amazing. it makes me want to create a sawdust cannon and ignite a huge amount of sawdust into a mushroom-cloud-of-crazy.

i would absolutely love their jobs. so incredibly jealous that i can’t do that for a living. although i’d probably hurt myself dramatically, and be missing at least one eyebrow (maybe two)