sink or swim

wow! how did another holiday weekend disappear so fast? without me blogging at all? i must have been busy :D

i'm currently uploading my mars one application video after an evening spent with an ice pack on my leg and stuffing myself silly on a really good salad and dessert...

---friday night:

the wolverine! just what i like in a comic movie. very, very cool and a lot of fun :)
we did nothing after that but crash in front of the telly until braindead.

---saturday:

we got up early in the morning to join some friends of SxS's on a boat. i wore a peak cap for the first time since childhood, and i'm told it suits me.

we began the boat ride drinking gin and tonic. fort lauderdale's really impressive when you travel past its houses on the water! it's also pretty cool from the ocean. has it really been that long since i was last in the ocean? damn. we stopped for the perfect swim (my first since the operation), and the captain had just finished attaching the tube to the back when the storm broke. massive, threatening black clouds swarmed the inlet accompanied by drenching rain and lightning. driving into that to get to a dock was pretty damned intense! and quite fun ^_^

after half an hour eating and drinking to while away the time (yuca fries and bottomless iced tea) the skies cleared and we continued back. suddenly we found ourselves amidst a group of anchored boats blaring pop music and sharing jello shots, so we joined them for a beautiful afternoon in the water tossing around a hefty coconut and playing fetch with very cute dogs.

afterwards we went to a raw vegan restaurant. raw vegan restaurants are not my cup of tea. they're definitely not SxS's :P

we returned home exhausted. i watched some ufc before my cousin picked me up for a cup of coffee: i haven't seen her in twenty years! we talked for hours, and could have talked more but she had to get back to her family.

---sunday:

SxS and i were both broken after the previous day, so aside from shopping for sports equipment and eating a large and delicious meal at chipotle, we spent sunday on the couch with a friend of his watching americans playing soccer and enjoying moshe kasher's stand-up.

my israeli apartment: not only did i want pg's agent to manage my apartment's rent and sale, but my tenant woke up at the last minute and realized that he needed a couple more days. those cost me a lot of email time typing in hebrew on a canadian macbook. not exactly fun.

we ate take-out and watched pirates of the caribbean (the third one) to round out the nothing day. not good for the eyes, but definitely good for the soul :)

---monday:

monday was such a beautiful day! i *had* to go to the pool. i was on my way there with my hands full of towel and book and keys, thinking to myself that i had better remember to take my cellphone out of my pocket before getting in the water.

i didn't.

iphones can't swim.

i enjoyed the afternoon in spite of this, continuing to read kevin mitnick's memoirs and alternating between feeling like a complete imbecile and laughing at myself and the world.

[oh, man! i just realized that i scanned a photo my cousin brought of twelve year-old me and her kids and it's lost now...]

i picked up lunch at 4th generation, which is a pretty cool place. putting a veggie patty on a bagel surprised them, but it was absolutely delicious.

the drive down A1A (i wasn't allowed to put on ice ice baby but i really wanted to) was cool, that's one impressive stretch! i arrived at the airport on time, the only surprise was having a tsa official look at me and go "eh, what's up, doc?"

i hoped he wasn't talking to me, i looked away. then down, and realized i was wearing my bugs bunny shirt. i looked back up at him and signaled that i got where he was coming from.

"yeah, you looked at me like i was crazy or something."
"sorry, i forgot what shirt i was wearing today."

he wouldn't be the only one to comment. otherwise, boarding was smooth and we paid for it by waiting on the runway for over an hour. the delta staff were very careful to explain that the connecting flights would be made aware of the delay without even insinuating that they'd actually care enough to wait for us. this happened a few times, including just after landing.

detroit is beautiful from above in twilight.

we ran (with me flap-flapping my flip-flops) to get across detroit airport in time. we had plenty of time. that sucked.

after arriving late and close to midnight, it only made sense that they'd park the plane on the side of the airport furthest from passport control. i made it out just in time to not be able to make the metro home.

---tuesday:

it was late, and i made a terrible decision to take the bus and then night-bus from downtown. the bus took forever and without google maps i couldn't find the right bus stop so i ended up taking a cab anyway. all told i lost an hour and saved $5. not exactly worth it.

...

no phone meant no alarm clock, but i woke up at alarm time on the dot this morning.

wr is dating a friend of scrappers?!?! how did that happen? [she's one of the slow couple which i guess broke up] i was most amused by the background check i was asked to provide :)

my new old iphone (refurbished) isn't ready, so i was given the same galaxy that made me love iphones more before. on my way out i was given its big brother, which might be better but i think it's too big to be a phone :P

---the big meeting: our cto didn't like what i had to say at all, and megaman backed him up.
"no, we're going to do it this way. it's a fact, it's already been decided."
"oh, okay then."
... everybody else talks until they finally arrive at the same conclusions and suggestions i'd offered in the first place...
"oh, so all i had to do was agree with you guys to get what i wanted in the first place?"

i realized that wasn't necessary the second those words left my mouth. i'm very glad my "i told you so" was ignored.

---i've been mixing the creatine and the protein powder, and while it doesn't taste bad it does make me feel a bit sickly. i can't explain it better than that.

---finally - back to training! my skipping was horrible, i kept managing to somehow smack the back of my head. my legs weren't responding correctly to kick signals. my back and neck were a bit sore. there were only two of us, so we got an ultra-light sparring session which proved to me that i have a long way to go. it also made me think about the fact that sparring involves being hit in the head, even if not at full power.

hmmm.

the other guy wasn't satisfied with the intensity level when we were done and so got sent back to the punching bags to do a hundred roundhouses with each leg. i decided to join him, and while i'm really proud that i finished them i'm not so proud of my technique (directly related to that lack of a kick response). i also managed to connect on the wrong part of my shin a lot - i didn't count those - so that's what the ice-pack (frozen peas) was for.

i had to go shopping afterwards, and in addition to the usual i picked up fairly cheap microwave stir-fried veggies: *that's* how i'm going to make my salads from now on!

i can't believe that i've spent more than two hours on this post and my mars one application. i've got shit to do tomorrow!

---prosthetic advances usually inspire me, but everyman advances really make me happy. for this message i'm proudly south african ;)