Have you seen the commercial for the How to Spot a Bogus Mini Cooper video? Is anyone buying this? I realize that the whole purpose of the video is one big joke, but I'm not quite willing to pay $29.97 to watch a mock documentary that I myself could make! Maybe Andy has a different take on the matter, but I stand by my claim that that commercial is utterly ridiculous and is wasting my time.

So I donated blood yesterday for the first time to someone other than myself. I had no excuses anymore. The Red Cross actually came to The Workplace, so I did my job of signing up. The questions they ask you these days before giving blood are way more painful than the actual procedure. Stuff like, "Have you ever had sex with someone from Africa?", "Have you ever been to Africa?", "Have you lived in Germany for at least 6 months between the years X and Y?", "Have you ever had sex with a man who had sex with another man?" I can understand why they need to ask the questions, but it's just very straight to the point and cold. Oh well I suppose. The one nurse actually wouldn't take the blood from the left arm because my vein was too big. How about that one? That's never happened before. So I had to give up the right arm. Why I couldn't remove my bandages for an hour or 4 afterward is beyond me. I took those things off as soon as I was back at my desk. How do they expect me to code when I can't even bend my arm comfortably. And darn those people if they didn't rip half my arm hair off when they took that tape off...

Easter weekend is always a big hoot. It's pretty much non-stop laughter the whole weekend long. Here are a few highlights.

• My sister, her husband and I bunking on the family room floor
• If you would have turned on a fan, there would have been a blizzard of dog hair...Everywhere!
• Six people; one bathroom
• The three year old tells us not to laugh or sing in the house
• Have you ever seen the game show Distracted?
• How about the movie Saving Silverman?
• Cleaning the dinner table with used car wash rags
• No sugar, salt, or fat for Easter dinner...Anywhere!
• Salad dressing that had expired back in April 2001
• An unfathomable complicated route to church
• Did I mention no singing or laughing?

I also learned that I cannot multitask very well while driving. Though I've known this for quite some time, it was demonstrated to me last night as I ran over an already dead animal while trying to adjust the volume of my music, and then a live one while trying to talk to my mom on the phone. All in all, I'm glad it was raining because the evidence of both struck animals was non-existent. Still doesn't beat my sister running over a dead deer in the middle of the road. You could hear that puppy scrape the whole undercarriage all the way thru. It smelled pretty good too sitting in the garage for a couple of days...

The Snow Whores mock me. No sooner do I take the ski racks off my car then they deliver 3 inches of snow in my back yard! PTEWW! I spit on their melting entities. Anyway, with today's snow, I've seen Pringles potato chips that were smaller than some of the flakes coming down. It was pretty wild.

So I have come to following conclusion today: Everybody has their "Blond Moments." However, I have narrowed the field down to four catagories as to how people act when they have them and why it seems some people never have them at all.

First, there are the true blonds. Let's face it. They don't even know they are having them. Basically their whole life is a blond moment. End of story. Then there are those that dye their hair blond. They have the blond moment, but for whatever reason, they choose to tell the rest of the world that they are having it. It's like they're trying to prove something. I don't get it. Then there are those who do not have blond hair, do not dye their hair blond, yet for whatever reason, their hair is not blond but maybe should be. Huh...Could have fooled me. The darkness though does allow them to be aware of the blond moment, so generally they fall under category two. And finally there are the rest of us. Us true dark haired wonders that, on rare occasions have a blond moment, however, the dark hair allows us to:

A. Usually experience the moment by ourselves and be smart enough not to tell anyone that it ever happened.
2. Play it off like it was some random happening that the event even took place.
And
D. Make it look like it was the exact thing we wanted to happen.

It's what separates us from the rest of you all. You never know it was even there! So which group do you fall under? Of course the red heads are exempt from all, because...Well let's face...They're red heads...Hmmmmmm...

I guess when Spring Break (yah-woo-ahh-ya-woooo!) comes around people stop blogging. How am I supposed to be entertained huh? How am I supposed to keep myself occupied?! How is a 24 year old supposed to get his kicks when no one blogs??!! Spring Break is no excuse to keep me at my computer constantly refreshing your blogs on Mozilla Firefox waiting, just waiting, to see a new post!!!

I just came across this at the Messiah Alumni page. Have you ever read those Where's Waldo? books when you were a kid (or yesterday if you're like me)? Yeah this picture is nothing like that...

I’d say you could call me an amateur myth buster. I don’t quite go to the extremes like those guys on TV, but I do my research and I do it well. A few of the previous myths that I’ve busted in the past involve Daddy Long Legs not being the most poisonous spider in the world or even close to it and the fact that Dr. Pepper contains absolutely no prune juice in it what-so-ever in any way, shape, or form. Yesterday I had my most recent bust. It was brought to my attention that an egg could only stand on end during an equinox. Of course this made absolutely no sense to me, “Man of Science” and according to some “Expert of the Paranormal.” So we set out to do a test.

First of all let it be known that I really didn’t expect an egg to ever come to rest on its tip, at least not the eggs I eat anyway. So of course, since yesterday was the vernal equinox we grabbed an egg and tested away on my counter top. To no surprise to me, the egg would not stand. Others were more disappointed. So we tried to rest the egg on a softer surface. With a little bit of effort we were able to rest the egg on its end on a soft coaster for a few seconds at a time, but nothing more. Note: Do not attempt this on an end table in a room with carpet for reasons you can obviously think of. So it still didn’t make any sense to me why this would not be able to happen any other day. I mean, yeah Earth’s tilt on this day is normal to the sun, but that has absolutely nothing to do with an egg standing on its end. It’s not as though Earth’s tilt doesn’t exist on this day (which would still not cause this abnormality), or that gravity is not so severely distorted that an egg will rest on its hide. After some hard-core research it was found that eggs could (or could not) stand on end any old time of the year.

So when you hear something peculiar about the world around you (or you read it in the Altoona Mirror) and it just doesn’t sound right, give Jimmy the Man of Science, Paranormal Extraordinaire a buzz and let him set you straight. We can’t have bogus information flying all around the world now can we? That’s how rumors get started and how I get annoyed…

So I have officially declared this ski season to be over. This afternoon I took the ski racks off the car and put the snow gear away. I'm a little saddened by this, but I realize that the year must move on. It's time for the weather to warm up and for the frisbees to start soaring. The only thing I need to do is to find some people that want to play frisbee. In any event with the snow season now over my Saturdays open up. I need to find some things to do. Of course the arcade still is not finished and I've got months worth of Scientific American waiting to be read, so I shouldn't have trouble finding stuff to do. I may need a good Warren Miller documentary from time to time throughout the year to keep the boarder within me stay blissful...

By the way, the Google image search may just be the best thing since sliced bread... (photo courtesy of http://boardz.com/)

I'm in pain! Yesterday I played in a fours volleyball tournament from 8am to 5pm. Of course we had the usual breaks to keep score, and one break to go get some food, but other than that, it was play. We started off sucking pretty bad. There were seven teams and you play each team once, with two games per match. We lost our first 6 games. Then we decided to change our clothes...That made a difference. We won our next four games straight after that! We finished regular play 5-7 and were pretty sure we weren't making it to the playoffs. It turned out that there was a three way tie for 4th place with us as one of them. Even better news, we beat both teams that we were tied with in regular so it was off to the semis! After over an hour of waiting for the last game to get done I was starting to cramp up and we still had our playoff game against seed #1 with giant tree man. Needless to say we lost both games and left as four extremely tired people. But it was fun. Now every muscle from my neck down to my knees is sore. I was going to go boarding one last time today but getting out of bed ended that thought really quick. Oh well. It turned out to not be such a bad season after all. Now it's volleyball tournament time with the next one in April in Altoona at The Summit in the racketball courts (wallyball). The best part about that is that it's all weekend long and they give you all the beer you can drink...For free!!

Oof. Too much green beer...

Mmmmm green beer...

I've discovered there comes some point during the evening when I go from my thinking self, to my feeling self. You can probably tell by comparing the time of my posts with what the posts are about. I've known about this transition for quite some time but have sort of pretended that it isn't there. I've never really talked about it with anyone and I'm not really sure what causes it. Maybe it's the lack of sunlight, or the amount of time I am awake. Maybe it's a combination of the two with some hormones kicking off. Whatever the cause I'm not sure how much I like it. I'm sure my roommate of 3 years, Tim, had noticed it as we used to have countless conversations in bed late at night (chill out, we slept in bunked beds, though I was always on top...) years back. So does everyone have this? I've known for quite some time that I am not the normal human being. Mostly for reasons I don't mention here. But is this an abnormal thing? Can anyone relate out there? Is there anybody out there?

Have if you ever wondered if the world around you even exists at all? What if it's all made up and we are solely alone, constantly dreaming to only some day wake up and realize that there is truly nothing outside of our conscious mind. The only reality we would want to hold on to, is that that isn't real. What is there to live for if there aren't people to live for?

I never quite thought about naming children, as it will be quite some time before I am in that predicament, but it was brought to my attention today. A co-worker is having a baby in a number of months and her mom brought up the name James Robert as a suggestion. Since my username at work is jrbarley (don't hack, you don't know my password) she was curious if that was my name as my first name is James (though I go by Jamie there). She was a little concerned, but heck I don't care if she named her kid after me! Anywho, so we got to talking and it turns out, choosing a baby name is very time consuming. There's so much to think amount. The main thing is coming up with a name that other kids can't make fun of. She wasn't to found of nicknames, even regular ones. With James she was concerned about people calling him Jimmy, though she did like Jamie (of course her mother informed her that Jamie was a girl's name). I told her Jimmy wasn't so bad and that it was my nickname thru college.

Anyway I got sidetracked. Choosing a name. You need to watch it or else your kid will end up the laughing stock of the school. Take the name Claiton Rae Garmen. Sounds nice right? Wrong! Would you like to be called Clay Ray? Or how about Robert James Garmen? Ha! Hey Jim Bob! It's a tough world out there. Kids can be brutal. But we have all had our moments, and we grow up, with minimal scaring. But a name is a name, and it is who we are. And what grown up doesn't like their own name these days? This is Jimmy Dick, signing off!

So I was checking out Vikki's sister's trip to Europe and was mildly amused. First of all, if I could make comments to Meg's comments of each picture, I would be one seriously happy camper. For the 100th time, "NO I AM NOT JEALOUS!" Secondly, I hate to say this but you're sticking out like a sore thumb. You look like (and sound like) a valley girl from good old LA. Give up the pink fluff think, give up the Red Sox hat (they don't know who they are over there anyway) and give up the goofy sunglasses and you'll be all set. Don't worry, you too can be normal yet! Don't come back with an accent...

If Andy doesn't talk about this, then you'll only hear it from me. If you missed last night's episode of Stargate SG-1, you missed out. Here's a list of exciting stuff that happened!

• Anubis is a fat man?
• Carter and O'Neill . . . Will we see some sookie sookie soon?
• The Jaffa are finally free!
• We finally get to see what those Ancients are up to these days
• Anubis' existence is explained
• "Hey! Can I get some coffee!"
• We finally have a character breakdown of Oma the Ancient
• Did you ever see an Ancient go at it?
• Daniel, put some clothes on!
• Say bye bye to Selmak
• Say hello to next week's first episode season finally!

This past weekend I watched a documentary by Warren Miller called Cold Fusion. If you've never heard of Warren Miller (no relation to my sister's husband...I think...), you're obviously not a ski or snowboard enthusiast. This man makes the absolute best documentaries ever! We're talkin' fantastic camera shots, and amazing people flying hundreds of feet in the air landing in 4 feet of fresh powder off a jump from the top of some barren mountain in Alaska. He interviews amazing people in an amazing style and a single documentary could take you all around the world, to each of the seven continents to find the best ski spots at each place. If this guy knew there was snow and mountains on the moon, he'd have a camera crew, a few hikers/skiers, and a pair of skis and be half way there by now. Miller can not only capture the awesomeness of a mountain and its terrain, but also the skill and playfulness of his subjects. If you've never seen a Warren Miller documentary, and you're a snow enthusiast, I highly suggest you find one, and be truly awe-struck!

Does anyone else think sleep is just plain stupid? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good sleep, but there is so much more that you could be doing instead of sleeping. Let's face it, you're not enjoying all that life has to offer you by sleeping. Sure your dreams might be filled with visions of sugar plums and all that jazz, but frankly, they aren't real. Some might say dreams are meaningless random firings of neurons, while others may say they are our subconscious thoughts reaching out to us. Whatever the case may be, they are merely fantasies; images of a life that we do not live. So why not be able to spend time living what is real instead of what is not. Why not spend the time with others, learning about who they are. Why not spend the time living life to its fullest and experiencing all that it has to offer, instead of closing our eyes, and merely residing in a place where no other real person could ever enter, and no other real experience could ever transpire.

On a completely different note. Happy birthday to Amy Hall who just called me a few minutes ago from a bar in Stasburg, PA. She was rather intoxicated but was having a great time. So here's to Amy and all life has yet to offer her! I'm guessing you won't be feeling too well when you open up the store with Pops tomorrow...

They change radio stations around here more often than the FOX Sunday night line-up! A few weeks ago I lost a good Mix station to Country, and just yesterday I lost another good Mix station to Pop/R&B. Now I have only 2 Mix stations left and one I can rarely get clearly. The worst part about the most recent loss is that this station had my favorite morning talk show on it, Bob and Shery. They sometimes had some serious topics to talk about, it made for a nice 13 minute, commercial free ride to work. Now I'm stuck with too much Country (is there really a need for three Froggy stations here?), Pop foo, and hardly a Mix to listen too. The nice thing is a while back we lost an Oldies station and gained a Rock station. Let's hope that one stays around...

I'm pretty sure the weekends are not long enough and I doubt I could find anyone that would disagree with me. To solve this problem, I think Monday should be added to the official weekend that is observed by all. Friday is practically already a weekend day, so there's no point in making that an official one. Think about how much nicer life would be if you could go to bed on Sunday night knowing that you didn't have to be up at the crack of dawn to go to work the next morning. Then when Tuesday eventually comes around, you'll be ready and well rested for it. It would make for not only a much more productive week, but also a much more fun Sunday night! So whom do I have to talk to to put this law into affect?

There is a new love in my life. She goes by the name Shortway and can be found on the lower mountain at The Knob. For whatever reason, this trail has eluded me for the last 6 years (maybe because there needs to be a decent amount of snow to be able to ride it) but brother did I find her today! It's a skinny, steep trail thru the woods right down to the bottom of the mountain. The snow there was sweet and light, and regardless of the very thin base, it was a dream to glide down her exquisite curves. I will see her again! Maybe it might not be this year, but some day, we will meet up again...

I'll admit it; I'm not much of a writer. When it comes to being artistic and creative, well, I think I got the short end of the straw. It'd be nice to be able to play an instrument, or be able to draw and paint, or even be able to scrapbook (well, okay, not that really). But alas, my mind is purely mathematical. Anything that is without pattern or logic is lost to me. If something does not have structure, or rules, then it is unfathomable. Though I still admire the beauty in the chaos that is creativity. For creativity is purely chaos and randomness somehow designed to impersonate structure and order. You could try to come up with a computer program that would design a portrait or landscape or some sort of artistic creation, but it would be solely based on rules and algorithms. It would never be truly random and it would never be truly creative. Though, behold, even the most mathematical minds have a trace amount of creativity in them. It's called imagination. Go on, think up anything your heart and mind desires. I promise you this, it can be purely chaotic, purely random, purely creative and it's what makes us purely human.

Something I never thought about until now is moving away (I'm not planning on it so don't worry). Far away. Sure during college I had these delusions of going to live in Washington state or North Dakota, but that didn't pan out too well. I wound up moving in with Pops in The Cove that time forgot. At first it was rough, but I finally met some great people and got the hang of life 'round here. So in my short existence I have moved from Lancaster, PA, to Grantham, PA to Martinsburg, PA. The End. I'd hardly classify myself as a world traveler. But the thought of moving away, far away, pretty much just scares the snot out of me. My life has always been here in good old PA, U.S. of A. Living outside the country...It's something that doesn't even exist in my mind.

Let me express some pride here in my country here. I love this country! Call me ethnocentric if you like, but frankly, we have it good. It bothers me to no end people that choose to live here, and yet complain about how bad this country is. Sure it's not perfect, heck it might not even be close (it's no communism, or Canada that's for sure) but a country is only as good as the people that live in it. If you're constantly looking for the bad, and all the faults within our government, then sure that's all you're going to see. But you know; even if you decide to move away, far away, still have some pride. For it was this country that made you the person you are today. And maybe that's a good thing, maybe it's not. That's your call.

But back to moving away, far away. Moving across seas...Hey if you can do it, more power to ya. But frankly, I've grown accustomed to the way of life here in The States and I don't ever see myself trading it for anything. For those of you that are moving away, far away, I say to you, "Aloha." Farewell to all you've ever known about life and Welcome to that brand new walk that lies ahead. May you achieve exactly what you set out to do!

What Does the Snow Think?
--------------------------
Ever wonder what the snow is thinking
As it dances across the roadways
On a frigid windy night?

The road becomes a swirling black sea
Where only the frozen and void
Lurk.

Ever wonder what the snow is thinking
As it gracefully slithers its way
North and south, east and west?

Whistles and howls come from the
Crevices and angles of my car
Only to evaporate as I spin the wheel.

Ever wonder what the snow is thinking
As it elegantly glides from your site
Off into the nothingness?

- James Barley