Tag Archives: Long Time

Thank you Colonel!

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A long time ago, when I was a new employee at a company named after a certain fruit of paradise fame, there worked a retired army Colonel.  I was in a class that he was teaching on a certain troubleshooting procedure that had a lot of us newbies in a bind.  The Colonel was a senior rep and had a reputation for being very methodical, regimented and “by the book.”  Anyway, I remember that during this training session he said, and I quote:

You newbies end up looking like a bunch of puppies trying to f$#k a beach ball.  Lots of energy, lots of good intentions, but not a lot of results.

That phrase has stuck with me.  Usually, it’s in the back of my mind, but it has recently come to the forefront.  For the last few months, I’ve been very unsuccessful at reaching some goals and the image of the puppies trying to hump a beach ball just popped to the forefront of my mind as the best description of the results that my efforts have attained.  Just thought I’d share that image with y’all.

Meh

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I’m feeling really meh today.  Not sure why.

This morning, when we were getting ready to come in to town for the day, I remembered something that happened a long time ago.  My parents, brother and I were on a ferry boat crossing the Orinoco river on our way to visit my grandma.  This drunk guy walks, well more like stumbles, past my brother and I.  We commented about how drunk the guy was and chuckled about it.  A few moments go by, and I look back to see that the guy is standing behind the safety rope, on the plank that cars drive over to drive onto the ferry, urinating into the water.  Suddenly, the ferry makes a sudden movement, and the guy fell overboard.

Once the guy went over, people started yelling to get the captain’s attention.  The captain, slowed the ferry down and started to turn it around to go back and pick the guy up.

In the meantime, the guy frantically starts to swim towards the ferry, but is getting noticeably more and more tired with each stroke.  A moment later, his swimming slowed.  Then it stopped.

He started treading water, waiting for the ferry to get to him.  Waving a hand in the air so we wouldn’t lose him in the wake and the waves.  He must’ve tired because he just went under.  He surfaced a little bit downstream from his original position, arms flailing in the air, but then he went under again.

I remember hearing someone say that if he surfaced again, he would live, if not, he was going to drown.  He never resurfaced.

His body, was never found.

He was a tall man, of about average weight, wearing beige pants and a brown shirt that was half way unbuttoned.  We never saw anything about it in the news, no one seemed to miss him.  If anyone did miss him, it never made it to any news outlet.  I don’t know why I remembered this event today.  I don’t remember the date that this happened, I only remember the place where it happened.  For years, I think I told myself that the guy resurfaced again, we just didn’t see him.  He made it to shore and walked home, with a heckuva story to tell.

I don’t feel guilty about watching the guy drown.  As a certified lifeguard, I know that if you jump in to save a drowning person, two people will drown that day.  The guy was too far away to throw him a life line, not that there was one available, and besides he should not have been behind the rope.  I think it’s sad that the man drowned, but there was nothing that I or anyone could’ve done to save him.

Peace be with him.

Weird feeling all day today

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I’ve had this weird feeling all day today that someone has died.  Someone that I used to know, but haven’t spoken to in a long time.  I had one of my weird dreams last night, and it involved someone that had a thing for Knorr brand chicken broth or chicken stock or something along those lines.  I couldn’t tell if they were male or female, but I could tell that they were not very tall.  Anyway, this person was trying to tell me something but I couldn’t understand what they were saying.  The whole dream, as I remember it, looked sort of like when you’re trying to watch the scrambled cable channels, with scrambled audio and video.

Weird, n’est pas?