Adventures at the DMV

11:30 AM. The woman beside me has 4 toes. Yet another reason why food addictives should be banned by the FDA.

She was wearing sandals...from Wal-Mart...and jorts...also from Wal-Mart. She had obviously consumed far too much FD and C number 3 yellow food coloring extract...or had a mild case of jaundice. Hard to say really when one wears amber-tinted sunglasses to maintain a low profile when smirking-rated activities are necessary.

12:30 PM. Still waiting. The four-toed lady has moved to window #9 and where she is being asked for far too much personal information by the kind DMV lady with less than the full compliment of teeth.

1:00 PM. C497 (my number is called) I let out a war whoop which I immediately regret. (I should really cut down my caffeine intake from 700 mg to something more like a dozen or so mgs) and proceed to the molar-challenged lady. She takes a sip of her Mt. Dew and I take the time to kindly remind her that experiments show that teeth placed in cups of Mt. Dew have shown the teeth to erode into their elemental atoms.

DMV lady is not amused.

1:45 PM. Still waiting at window #9 while same DMV lady has difficulty finding my name in her database. I tell her I changed my last name a year ago for personal and highly confidential government reasons. She sips more Mt. Dew and makes a sound something like a cross between grunting and coughing up phlegm.

2:00 PM. Finished. Go home and remember that I forgot to get my new vanity license plates.

 

For those of you to whom this applies: Never expect to run a comfortable 8 miles on a breezy August day six hours after consuming an entire rotissiere chicken baptised in spicy mustard and homeade Italian dressing.

It's always the easy ones you tend to miss. Every time one comes to something that seems quite simple, man has the unique ability of all creatures to mess it up and destroy part of the very fabric of nature itself. Nature is now flawed due to man's trangressions against the fundamental laws of the universe. I wish this were not so. Were things otherwise, the universe would not be undergoing a slow erosion to nothingness and an eventual heat death.

"Meaningless! Meaningless!" said the writer of Ecclesiates. Everything is meaningless. For no matter how hard a man toils, in the end it will all be forgotten. Everything a man does is meaningless, a chase after the wind. Many will come after and will they remember the deeds of the men who live today?

No!

They will continue on in their meaningless lives...their paltry existence...wandering the earth seeking to fill their belly with things that only satisfy temporarily. Then, the aching dull pain returns and beckons them to flee into the void...that nameless void...that final walk we must all take into the Great Unknown which whispers into our ears every night to join the throng of those who have gone before.

“Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?

I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.

It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here.” 
Chaim Potok, from The Chosen

I met a man who fell in love with the most beautiful girl in the world. He said the girl was a princess and was traveling to a faraway land to learn of other cultures. He admired her so much the gods became jealous. They placed a mark on his head as a warning to others that he was destined to be a lonely wanderer upon the face of the Earth. In time, he repented of making an idol of the most beautiful girl in the world and begged the god's forgiveness. He then asked the god's for her hand in marriage since they created the princess. I asked him about the response they gave him, but he never answered the question.

Create

Rare inventions usually have a specific purpose. The more quirky a gadget, the greater the specificity it's job. Some jobs require a mind that is curious about everything. The same minds usually have a unique perspective into reality and show great influence over many people. Do-gooders and well-wishers often tell the quirky mind to settle down and join the crowd, but curiosity will prevent the quirky mind to restlessness with the status quo. They must travel, and explore, look for other kindred souls to dance with, and of course capture the moments with pen and brush.

What matters is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.

except ... chihuahuas.

London 2012

I'm glad cheerleading is not an olympic sport. Can you imagine the thousands of Chinese kids forced to go to a training camp away from their families for years on end forced to learn to appear "spontaneous and cheerful?"

OK. Be honest. How many of you used to think the word hazwoper was a derogatory term for obese DOT guys???

Plura Scriptum Epistola...'Write more letters'

Letters are one of those things that sets us apart from mere animals for only a living soul can translate his unseen, abstract, thoughts to another using graphite and cellulose as the medium. It's like magic really. Letters are the most valuable treasures one can leave behind. They unite past lives with current lives thus building a community that stretches across the ages.

I almost think God expects us to write to one another as a way to better our lives...make us more human. Don't you think?

Daily Log:

Look at insects under two different microscopes all day.
Run 8 miles and decrease the gnat population of Central Virginia by 1,000 by swatting them during the run.
Drink 2 gallons of water.
Make one pizza using corn chips, garlic powder, chili powder, cheese, pepperoni, corn meal, olive oil, horseradish sauce, salt, and the tiniest bit of sugar.
Read a couple chapters from 'Far From the Madding Crowd'
Pay rent.
Work on the next great american novel.
Pray to God asking him to send me a wife who looks like Mary Poppins...hey, I like Brits.
Get involved in a staredown with a mean-looking cow.
Learned the Yugoslavian words for 'Happy Birthday'
E-mail secretary data for a report.
Drink another 2 gallons of water.
Wash clothes by boiling them in water to shrink them to make them fit better.
Ponder the hidden meanings in Ecclesiastes.
Watch Dr. Christian Harfouche preach on the internet.
Lift weights.
Eat part of the aforementioned pizza and make mental note to never use horseradish sauce ever ever again when pepperoni is involved.