A few thoughts about the area:

By now I'm sure you've seen in the news the reports of the crazy heat wave blowing across the western US right now. Las Vegas hitting 116 - that's hot!. Pheonix getting scary records around 120? - that's also hot! 

As many of you know by now, my family and I are now residents of the great state of Washington (well, not officially yet... right now we're "just visiting" - but soon), and there is one thing I would like to convey  to my fellow Washintonians: 

86 degrees F is NOT hot!

In fact, 86F is quite enjoyable. Sure, most places don't have AC, but this area is filled with apartment and condo complexes, and most of these complexes have multiple pools and have common areas that do have AC. But why would you need AC? Because this weather is not hot. 

There's a nice gentle breeze, there's the ocean air, there are trees literally everywhere. The air is not humid, it's got a little moisture in it, but no where near humid by midwest standards. 

Whoever designed the highway interchanges should get a talkin' to:

Traffic is pretty bad over here in the Puget Sound area. Any by pretty bad, I mean horribly unessessary bad. Why is it unnessesay you may ask? As far as I can tell there are two specific reasons:

1. Many of the people are transplants from other countries. Microsoft, Amazon, etc are constantly recruiting from all over the world. This means smashing drivers from all different areas with different driving styles into one small little area.
2. The roads were designed by someone who maybe should have paid more attention in road design class.

Allow for me to ruin your eyes with my awesome MS Paint skills and describe how the roads are laid out here.

This is a perfect example of some craziness. Ok, so lets say the main highway is northbound 405. The highways up here have a dedicated car pool lane in the far left (or the far right if you're on the 520... consistency be damned here). This means that during rush hour, everyone who is carpooling is dying to zoom over to the far left as fast as they can. Which means is they're merging on from... say... the 520 - they are merging 5 times. 5 FREAKING TIMES. But of course, let's not forget about the people merging on from the left... yes... the left. Now, the people merging on from the left are NOT carpooling, which means that they have to merge twice so they get out of the carpool lane. 

Add all thing to humanity's innability to merge properly in the first place, and now you can see why traffic is horrible here. 

Ugh.. traffic.

copyright... uh... the makers of The Whole Nine Yards... or something.

I'm generally a nice person. I smile at people randomly. I use my manners. I hold doors for people even when they're just outside of the non-awkward distance to door holding. I give strangers the benefit of the doubt. I say my prayers. Kiss my wife and children and tell them that I love them frequently. I call my parents at least once every other week. I'm a "decent" guy. 

But there are some people... some people who I just can't get past. There are some people that I just can't bring myself to like anymore. I've tried, I've given in my all, but in the end I always have to fall back on the haunches of "you're just a bad person".

So here's a little online toast to the people I really don't like in life. Raise your glasses high with me!

Here's to you, person distracted while on your cell phone!

Your call is really important. It would have to be if you were driving one handed with the other hand on your phone. I would bet it is even an emergency situation where the person on the other end of the line has your children held hostage and has threatened to kill one of them if you hang up or stop talking. 

I can see that you've also been practicing your telepathic abilities seeing as how you changed lanes so quickly in front of me. I must be one of those stubborn minded folk who are not easily communicated with over the ether. 

So go on, cell phone driver - keep on that phone and make sure you save the world doing it. Nothing is as important as your conversation, especially when barreling down the highway at 75mph in a large, steel bullet. If I had to balance the necessity of my children's lives and your phone call - I certainly would be willing to sacrifice my children.

No wait, just kidding... why don't you just drive into that tree over there at a high velocity. I'm not saying I wish death on you - but I do wish you severe bodily harm that prevents you from ever driving again.

Here's to you exhausted and complaining parent!

You poor, poor thing - your kids are so evil and terrible. Seeing as they are so young, they've clearly been predestined by some mysterious force to climb into this world with the sole purpose of making your life hell.

Oh... wait... maybe you're a shitty parent and that's why your kids are shitty too. But please, feel free to tell the entire social media world how much your kids aggravate you - how bad they act - how much you just need your "other" to pick up the slack so that you can have some peace and quiet and a tall glass of wine. I love reading your latest twitter and blog about how triumphant of a parent you are for making it through just one more day with your hellions, how you are the conqueror of the year because no one else but you could handle the minions of Satan thrown to the surface to burn your ambitions and dreams to the ground. 

It's not the "shitty" part of you that bothers me. There are shitty parents everywhere, and hell, even I'm sometimes a shitty parent. The reason I hate you is because you write about it on the internet to every random person who would want to read it. But what you don't seem to grasp is that anything you put on the internet is around forever. 

Our kids are going to be way more connected to the internet then we ever could be. They are going to see everything... 

and here's the clincher as to why I hate you: your kids are going to see everything you wrote about them

Imagine you sit down at your computer and look up some history of your mom or dad on the internet... and YOU came across globs and globs of hate, whining, disgust, and bitching about how shitty of a kid you are. You'd be hurt... you'd start to mistrust... you'd go through emotional turmoil over it. 

I can't wait to hear about when your kids are teenagers and destroying you. Paybacks a bitch and I full intend to grab a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the show when it happens.

Here's to you, person who thinks waste expulsion is popular mixed media!

In recent years I've come to learn that women are almost more sloppy in the bathroom than men. If I would have been writing this post 6 years ago (also around the time I got married... huh... go figure) I would have segregated this only to the male population since that is all I have direct experience with... but turns out that some-freaking-how women are more messy. Now, everyone is included in this rant. 

Guys: You have a freaking gun... a pointing device... a god forsaken wand that aims. How in the hell do you pee on the floor? A urinal is normally a 2ft x 4ft target and you can't hit that!? Especially when you are practically standing inside of it when you go? 

I wear shoes, but I still don't like standing in your pee pee that somehow made it on the floor. Having pee shoes is not a highlight of my day. 

And why... WHY would you stand and pee at the toilet and not lift the seat?! Is one extra second all the troublesome to prevent my ass from having your wee juice all over it?

And women... my god... the horror stories I've heard...

Are you a mixed media bathroom artist? Then I hate you.

Today I'm going to be random. Not because I don't have other things to write about, but because my focus sucks right now and I want to distract you as well. Welcome to the life of an ADD child. 

Of course, back in the glorious 80s, every child had ADD because they couldn't focus, ran around with lots of energy, and acted like... you know... children. Apparently parents in the 80's wanted mature adults to come crawling out of the uterus. I don't think they thought about those ramifications.

I do have to thank my parents again and again for not putting me on the candy drug that all my friends were on... the good ol' ritalin. They had the foresight to know that I'd be able to handle it myself - and it turns out they were not wrong. So now I just wear small holes in my shoes and feel the need to constantly make noise. 

My little boy is growing up faster then you can say, "wow, it looks like he's grown a little bit in the past week". He's an infant... they've been known to do that from time to time. 

Of course, my child, just like me, likes to be an overachiever right out of the gate and is blasting some 98 percentile length and head size. He's a lanky mo-fo. I don't even know where he gets it - it's not like Isabella or myself are huge-o-giants. 

He also really prefers his fist over his binky. Time for some cute.

(look at those meaty-ass hands)

You know what I suck at? I suck at writing about myself. You think it'd be easy because I'm such an attention whore, but alas writing about myself is almost as bad as jabbing two forks in my eyes. See, I'm not an attention whore in the way that I like asking for it or I need to draw it to myself. I'm an attention whore that only likes it when people give it to me freely. 

This poses an interesting connudrum in the fact that without asking for attention, I often times don't get it. So I've learned to manipulate situations, socially engineer people, or just flat out be an overachiever with the sole purpose of garnering an extra glance or a word of praise. 

My thoughts stem from the fact that I just had to write a little biography for a client that I'm working with so that they could put it in an RFP. I really wish I would have saved the first draft. It looked like a 6 year old who just learned the word biography met up with a 16 year old's speech patterns:

"I'm... uh... neat. I think I do stuff sometimes that... I mean... it's ok. But... I'm not the greatest I know... ya know... but I... whatever."

It was painful. I think I'm going to save what I wrote and just reuse it everywhere so I never have to do that again.

Finally - my bestest friends in the whole world (yes, I'm 29 and still use "bestest") just recently introduced me to stand-up paddleboarding. It's like surfing for the mid-west. A slightly larger than a surfboard surfboard is placed upon the water. You stand upon the board with a paddle... and... paddle. 

So you're standing up... with a paddle... on a board. Thus the ever clever name, stand-up paddleboard.

As funny as I'm failing to be, this sport is quite relaxing and really brings you at peace with yourself and intune with nature as you're gliding across the lake at 7am. Surrounded by nature and silence you find yourself getting lost in your thoughts AND getting a good workout. 

We also had a little yoga in there too. I wish I could do that every morning.

(me chillin' and paddlin')