Monday, September 14, 2009

Too many keys, not enough brain cells

I had a bit of a "senior" moment today at work, nothing big, just got sidetracked by a teacher with an email problem and forgot to do what I had been heading down that hallway for in the first place, but it set the tone for the following two and a half hours.

For those of you who don't know, I recently purchased a vehicle: a lovely 1992 Plymouth Voyager SE.



This isn't actually my car, but if you just picture this beautiful piece of American engineering with a bunch of rust, a sweet roof rack, some duck tape here and there, and not majestically perched on top of a mountain, you've got my hot new ride (oh and I've got the Grand Voyager version with the extended back end). Also, it looks like the hub caps on this one match, that is not the case on my car. I have to say, however that I am extremely happy with my new ride. It has low milage (for its age of 17 years), and it has a tap which makes it very easy to hook my ipod up to the stereo. Matt has already named the car "Silver-back," more than appropriate I'd say not only due to its size and color, but when it's on the road, you know who's in charge... I bought the car for a song from our the Franklins (thanks you guys!!!) across the street, where it spent the last few years delivering Jonathan's paintings. They bought it new in '92 and they still think it's weird to see it parked in front of someone else's house.

Anyway, I digress. The key piece of info you need about my car really is that, though I've had it about a month now, Jon keeps finding more keys for it and giving them to me. Unfortunately some of these keys work for the doors and some for the ignition, and some, as I found out today, for neither.

So, after a lovely Monday at work, which is about an hour commute in rush hour, and my little senior moment toward the end (which the teacher I was helping diagnosed as "brain overload" - to which I replied "I hope you're right and it's not an underload of brain"), I headed out to my car, reached for the set of keys in my pocket and tried to unlock the door. FAIL! Neither of the two keys on the ring were successful at unlocking the door. Apparently, when I entered the car in the morning (this was all coming back to me now) I had used another set of keys to unlock the door, found out that they would not start the car, and used the set in my hand to turn it on. At this time I also recalled how I had, instead of doing the smart thing and putting the first set of keys in my bag and kept them with me all day, left them in the car. Long story short, Matt was nice enough to come and deliver another set of keys to me all the way from home (thank you Brother!!). But my episode of dementia was not over.

As I was driving home on Roosevelt Road, I remembered that I needed some deodorant and soap. I stopped at the Walgreens a couple of blocks from our house and as I walked up to the soap isle I had one of those (prepare yourself for an inside joke) "Al you dingleberry!!" moments. I had, once again, locked myself out of my car. Once again I was standing outside of my car with a set of keys that would turn the car on, but not unlock the doors.

I'll spare you the rest of the details, but rest assured, I will be turning off my brain for several hours this evening.

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Originally I wanted to write a few things about CHC this weekend, but I felt that the "tale of too many keys and not enough brain cells" was worth telling. So here they are in brief.

Frisbee is fun, driving to and from frisbee is not fun (no sense of direction in this case - went very far in the wrong direction both to and from the tournament on Sunday).

I had a frustrating weekend. Haymaker is a very good team, but I feel that there is just not enough young blood to compete with other teams who can run hard all day without injury, who don't have weddings to attend (I am just as guilty as anyone for not showing up to tournaments/practices by the way), or other engagements, etc.

I got a wake up call with my fitness. I really believed I could run with anyone, the way I've been training and the speed I've gained, I feel like I'm the fastest I've been in a long time, possibly ever as far as top speed goes, but some of these guys we played against can just keep it up longer than I can. Or, perhaps, they just care less about breathing than I do. Even Edward mentioned that I looked faster, which I take as a great compliment, but I still need to develop the killer instinct that gives you that little bit extra.

As a team, we only came up with one win on the weekend. There were, however, several impressive showings against very talented teams, but we were not able to close them out, which is tough to deal with.

I completely lost my voice and got terribly sunburned on my face and neck. I need a hat and a bullhorn.

There were some points where I felt... exultant (ten dollar word of the day): scores we needed badly and got easily, plays where I felt no one could touch me (chest pounding, shit talking, all that stuff you don't see me doing too often).

There were some points where I felt I was out gunned, got ran circles around, had my mark broken, made a weak play to the disc, etc. (no chest pounding here).

I seem to be checking my g-chat list much more often these days...

3 comments:

Caleb said...

I find it hard to believe that you can't just as easily break into that van.

Colyn said...

Please, that things like a fortress.

Chris said...

Ummm, Colyn....how about putting all the keys on one key ring? Just an idea. (Even tho I'm much closer to being a senior than you, Nursing school taught me a little bit about critical thinking.) I'm just sayin'....
By the way...congrats on your accomplishments and we miss you guys. This full time job stuff is for the birds