Simply Complex

Of all the places I've been in my life, the cutting edge of technology is not one of them.  From time to time, I stumble across an online survey that asks a question like, "are you a trendsetter among friends and family; someone who is always first to buy the newest electronics?"  On the rare occasion that I answer the question honestly, I have to admit that I'm usually the guy people look for when they have an outdated form of media and need some ancient, electronic relic on which to play it.  I have not one, but two VCRs.  My car has a cassette player.  I have two big screen TVs...unfortunately, the "big" dimension is depth, not width. And on those big-screen (deep-screen?) TVs, I receive a whopping five channels--exotic stations like CBS and ABC.

And, for the longest time, I was one of the last holdouts in America still walking around with a flip phone--a text-disabled flip phone, to be precise.  That's not to say I wasn't impressed with the iPhone.  It seemed like everyone around my had one, and I was consistently impressed with the things they could do with an iPhone.  But I could never justify the added monthly cost to tack a data plan onto my service.  Sure, an iPhone would be cool, but I already had an email and internet addiction at home; did I really need to spend money to take it on the road with me?

Yet by late fall, cracks started to appear in the anti-iPhone wall I'd built around myself.  Two things started to make me reconsider.  First, I could see the end of unlimited data plans on the horizon.  AT&T dropped it's unlimited data plans in 2010, then announced last summer that it would start throttling download speeds for its remaining unlimited data customers who had been grandfathered in.  Around the same time, Verizon, my carrier of choice, announced that it, too, was doing away with unlimited data for new customers.  That left Sprint as the only major remaining carrier offering unlimited data.  I was envious of my iPhone-using Verizon friends who would be grandfathered in...and I started to wonder how much time I had before Sprint, my last hope, axed unlimited data.

I started casually shopping, looking for a way to get a reasonably-priced unlimited data package.  Sprint was my main target, but after considering every possible angle--company discounts, joining a family plan with my parents, you name it--I couldn't find a way to get the monthly bill down to a price that I found acceptable.  Perhaps that was for the best...contrary to the company's name, I'd heard numerous complaints that Sprint's data speeds absolutely crawl.  I lost hope and decided I would stick with my flip phone until the bitter end.

And bitter it would be, because my desire to upgrade to an iPhone only grew stronger when Apple released the iPhone 4S.  A lot of die-hard Apple fans, expecting Apple to launch a spectacular new iPhone 5, were disappointed that the new version wasn't radically different than the iPhone 4, with some upgrades to standard features like an improved camera and faster processor.  Nevertheless, I was impressed, but I suppose it doesn't take much to impress a guy who's phone is pretty much just a phone.  The camera on the new 4S offered 8 megapixel resolution--better than my actual camera and a huge leap forward from the 1.3 megapixels on my flip phone.  The pressure was mounting, and a few more cracks formed in that wall...but I was still holding strong.

Then, out of nowhere, a random email showed up in my inbox and drove a bulldozer straight through that wall.  I almost deleted the email on the spot, mistaking it for spam, but it would change my cell phone future in a profound way.  I still don't know how she got my email address, but a Verizon sales rep sent the message, announcing a special deal offering an unlimited data package for a mere $20 a month.  I emailed back and forth with her about thirty-seven times just to make sure I there was no fine print, no catches, no traps.  This sounded way too good to be true--not only would I have a cheap unlimited data plan, but I'd even be able to stay with Verizon!  The wall was gone; I was getting an iPhone.

I went to Verizon's website to place my order.  I tried to take advantage of the Verizon trade-in program but was disappointed to learn that my Moto W755 flip phone had a trade-in value of exactly $0.00.  I also felt a little cheated that I didn't receive double the amount of Verizon's standard "New Every Two" discount since it had been at least four years since my last cell phone upgrade.  But I tried to dwell on the positive; after all, this was a day of celebration!

After a grueling six week wait thanks to an Apple back-order, the day finally arrived, and on December 3, 2011, I found myself in place I'd never been and would likely never find myself again: on the cutting edge of technology.  I immediately went out and purchased a case for the phone, and after considering a wide range of options, I went with the most industrial, heavy-duty, and expensive case on the market: Lifeproof.

The case is shock-proof, cold-proof, dust-proof, and most appealing of all, water-proof.  This thing is so tough that I never have to be away from my email--not even in the shower.  I was flattered to see that Lifeproof was already using my picture on their website:

Back in college, I dropped my Nokia Cinder Block 230 cell phone in the toilet.  As much as it pained me to reach in and fish that thing out (yes, it fell in after I'd used the toilet), the $200 price tag to buy a replacement hurt even more.  But I still wasn't going to buy insurance for the iPhone.  I don't know if Verizon even offers it, but if they do, I imagine it costs about as much as a homeowners' insurance policy.  The replacement cost of an iPhone is substantially higher than that of a Cinder Block 230, so I wasn't going to skimp on the case...it was going to serve double duty as my insurance policy.  Walking around with an $80 case on a cell phone feels a little strange; part of me feels like I need a second, cheaper case to protect the expensive case that's protecting the phone.

Generally speaking, I've been very pleased with the LifeProof purchase.  If I have any complaints about Lifeproof, it's that the case is a tad on the bulky side, and in addition to being life-, shock-, dust-, and water-proof, it's also dangerously close to being headphone-proof.  Only the newest version of the Apple headphones fit into the tiny hole that opens by unscrewing a small cover on the top of the case.  But it's already protected my iPhone on a few brushes with drops and stray liquids...

As I acquainted myself with the new phone those first few days, I had a nagging concern in the back of my mind that the iPhone acquisition might be the first step down a slippery slope.  Was this the end of simplicity for me?  Perhaps complexity would flood my existence...would I soon find myself hanging pictures on my walls?  Driving a new, tape deck-free car?  Sending text messages?  The future freaked me out.

But with more thought, I realized that the iPhone would actually move me further down the path of simplicity.  This may sound like the words of a man trying to rationalize, but stick with me on this...the iPhone is an indispensable tool, particularly when traveling.  My greatest source of frustration when I take a trip is the massive pile of electronics that I have to haul with me.  By the time I've packed all the gadgets and accessories, my carry-on bag is so full that I can't even pack a single pair of spare underwear.  I won't go into details, but let's just say things get interesting on extended trips...

In the pre-iPhone days, this is what I'd take with me on a longer trip:

In that chaotic mess, I've got a camera, wall charger, power cord; an iPod, wall charger, headphones, and power cord; a GPS, dashboard mount, and power cord; a (flip) cell phone, wall charger, and car charger; a laptop, mouse, and power cord; and an A/C converter to plug in the laptop in the car.

That's a lot of stuff to carry and keep track of on a trip.  If nothing else, the iPhone will pay for itself by avoiding checked bag fees.  Most of all, I absolutely despise pulling the laptop out when I go through airport security.  When I'm trying to take my shoes off, pull out the zip-lock bag full of liquids, and hold onto my I.D. and boarding pass, I don't want to be moving things in and out of a carry-on bag.  It's a wonder I haven't lost more stuff at the airport...

Now let's take a look at that same shot, post-iPhone:

That's just beautifully simple.  I have all of the electronic capabilities I had before, but all I have to carry are an iPhone, power cord, headphones, and car and wall chargers.  Best of all, never again will I have to take that *^#@$ laptop out in the security line.  The only potential flaw in my slimmed-down travel profile came in the form of the iPhone's tiny on-screen keyboard.  I do a lot of typing (and blogging) when I travel, and I just don't have the thumb speed to keep up with my racing thoughts on that tiny iPhone keyboard.  The same goes for the standard pen and paper--too slow to cut it.

What I needed was a full-size keyboard that plugs into the iPhone, but that's bulky and defeats the purpose of a portable handled device.  Fortunately, I tracked down an accessory that solved my typing problem:

I don't care how strange it looks when people walk by and see me with my hands below the table, furiously tapping away at my crotch.  These handy pants eliminated the one and only obstacle standing between me and ultra-light packing...just don't ask to see the joystick.

Aside from the travel conveniences, I've also justified my cellular upgrade with the incredible benefits that come from having a camera at my fingertips at all times--the iPhone is an absolutely necessity when it comes to blogging.  Not a day goes by when I don't encounter something weird or hilarious that I want to capture on camera.  In the past, taking pictures of other people was always a nerve-wracking endeavor; there was no way to hide my intentions when I pulled out my camera and pointed it at someone.  It was at great personal risk that I captured pictures like this one in Key West in 2010:

But now, it's almost scary how easily I can capture photos and videos of people with the iPhone.  I casually point the phone in their direction and pretend that I'm texting or checking email, and unbeknownst to the rest of the world, I'm capturing pictures or video clips.  By conservative estimates, it's safe to say that the phone has prevented between five and ten beatings from random angry people who don't want their picture taken by a stranger.  And in that regard, the I have little doubt that my iPhone has already paid for itself many times over in medical cost avoidance.

I have now spent five months living the wild and crazy iPhone lifestyle, and there's no going back--the features and convenience are so amazing that I know I'll never again fire up the old Moto W755.  The camera is incredible, the GPS is a life-saver, and the variety and usefulness of all the apps are stunning.  But my favorite thing about the iPhone is something that you'll never hear anyone list as a top iPhone feature--in fact, it's a feature that I even had on the W755: an alarm clock.

What's so great about an iPhone alarm clock?  First of all, I have the option to set a weekday-only alarm, which means I don't have to reset the alarm every night, and there's no risk of forgetting to set it the night before a workday.  And best of all, the iPhone gives me the option of waking up to the sound of crickets.  Getting up at 6:05AM will never be fun, but it's a little less painful to rise to the soothing sounds of crickets instead of loud, incessant chiming.

I was a little late to the game, but I clearly have no regrets about jumping on the smartphone bandwagon.  As it turns out, none of my initial concerns were justified, and I've successfully avoided that potentially slippery slope. Simplicity is still mine...my walls are bare, I'm driving a car that's closing in on "classic" status, and I even called Verizon and had them disable text messaging on my iPhone.  I'm left with just two concerns:

(1) It's rumored that Apple will release the iPhone 5 late this year. For most of the world, this is exciting news.  But for me, it's tragic--having now tasted life on the leading edge of technology, can I handle being being bumped from the front of the pack?

(2) What do I do with all of my now-obsolete electronics?  For the first time in five months, I charged up the battery on my old camera just to take the picture of my iPhone for this blog post.  That seems to be the only thing the iPhone can't do--take a picture of itself.  At least not yet...maybe the iPhone 5...

Rollercoaster: Google's Hottest New Product

On a Saturday afternoon in early February, I walked down to the mailbox and pulled out the usual stack of weekend ads and junk mail.  Dropping the stack on the table, a small postcard with the Google logo printed on the back fell out:

Intriguing...what possible reason would Google have to send me anything in the mail?  I flipped the card over and looked at the return address, and my heart started racing:

AdSense Support?  My only involvement with AdSense is this very blog and its now infamous $2.37 in ad revenue that it's generated since I started blogging in the summer of 2010.  This postcard could only mean one thing, and it most certainly was not good news: Google was booting me from the AdSense program!  This had to be some kind of rejection letter, telling me that I was a drain on Google engineering resources and explaining that my blog was not of sufficient quality to support advertising.  Perhaps Google had grown tired of trying to convince businesses to place ads next to my lackluster writing.

I was so depressed, I almost tossed the postcard in the trash without opening it.  Instead, I abandoned the postcard on the table and walked away dejectedly.  It wasn't until later that day that I finally opened the postcard as I sorted through all of the week's junk mail.

My heart started racing once again; my spirits suddenly lifted.  This was no rejection letter at all.  My eyes immediately fixated on one particular phrase: "To enable payment for your account..."

Was this it? Had my moment finally arrived?  Here I was, thinking that I was on the verge of a blogging dead end, but it looked like Google was urgently asking me to take some kind of action so they could pay me!  The postcard said that I needed to enter a PIN number on the AdSense website to enable payment.

I sprinted over to the computer and logged into my AdSense account.  I hadn't checked it in months...seeing that paltry balance is hardly a wellspring of inspiration to continue writing this blog.  Last I'd checked, Google wouldn't issue an AdSense payment until the account balance reached $100, and that milestone was decades away at my current rate of earnings.  I started to wonder if things had taken off since I last checked and my words had somehow struck Blogger gold.  When I logged in, my heart rate ratcheted up another notch when I saw a red warning sign:

Earnings on hold--that sounded promising.  Google wanted me to verify and enter a variety of information...tax stuff, phone number, and the PIN number from the post card.  Holy crap, I think they were going to pay me!

But my disappointment returned--as I clicked around and investigated further, I realized that Google had made some kind of change to its AdSense program since I'd last logged in, and they were only looking for me to update my personal information.  One thing that hadn't changed: the $100 minimum for AdSense payments.

Over the course of half a Saturday, Google had taken me on a wild rollercoaster ride of emotions.  Before I picked up the mail I was perfectly content. When I saw the post card: ashamed and disappointed. After opening the postcard: elated and optimistic.  After logging into AdSense...back to the disappointment.

Google has turned itself into a money-printing powerhouse with its innovative, Internet-based products--it's a very impressive portfolio of free Google tools: Maps, Books, Documents, Chat (instant messaging), Voice (phone service), Calendar, Music, Finance, Translate, Wallet (online payments), YouTube, Offers, Wave, Picasa (photos), Chrome (web browser), and one you're looking at right now--Blogger.  There are far too many to list, and I've personally only used a fraction of all the available Google options--I don't even know what half of them do:

I'm not so sure about its newest--and first offline--offering: Google Emotional Rollercoaster.  That *@#$ postcard took at least five years off my life expectancy--I'm still recovering from the palpitations.  Since Google caused this mess, I figured they might be best positioned to fix it. So I turned to another product: Google Health.  I'd heard the name but had no idea how the tool worked.  Regardless, I hoped to find an online solution to my new offline problem, so I Googled "Google Health."

Uh oh.  When I visited Google's blog post, I learned that Health never gained a sufficient following to achieve Google's desired scale.  (Interestingly, PowerMeter, a product I was not aware even existed, suffered the same fate).  I do enjoy Google's choice of words when describing the end to an unsuccessful product's life.  They aren't "cancelling" or "terminating" the product, they're simply "sunsetting" or "retiring" it.  I picture Google Health easing into its golden years, buying a condo in Florida, and playing shuffleboard until a dinner/Matlock matinee at 4PM.

It looks like I'm on my own on this one; not even Google can save me now.  Next time I receive a postcard in the mail with anything Googley on it, I'm going to maintain an even disposition and avoid jumping to any hasty conclusions.  My motivation is slowly returning--as part of the whole AdSense account verification process, I linked my bank account to AdSense, and I was pleased to see Google's $0.18 trial deposit show up in my account.

Apologies for the microscopic image--click to enlarge!

I don't want to exaggerate the importance of this little milestone, but I think this qualifies me as a professional writer, doesn't it?  I've now had actual money deposited into my bank account for my work...not like that $2.37 in phantom earnings that I can't access until my AdSense account balance balloons to $100.  My heart is on the mend.  Sure, I've had at least five years lopped off the end of my life by this crazy whirlwind of optimism and disappointment, but the last five years aren't the good ones anyway.

Gym Class Zeroes

In case you missed it, Thursday, May 19th, 2011 was a dark, dark day.  Much like 11/13/2011, it's a date that will never make the pages of the history books, but a terrible tragedy struck the Minneapolis area:

The Gym, formerly the Twin Cities' top-ranked training center as rated by The Gym's former owner, was repossessed by the bank and shut down that morning.  The Gym's closure marked the sad end of a spectacular five year run with the only gym I'd ever known.  It didn't take me long after joining The Gym in the summer of 2006 to realize that I was in the right place--what that blandly-named building lacked in creativity, it made up for with a top-notch weightlifting environment.

During an otherwise quiet Saturday afternoon workout that summer, two police officers walked in, talked to the guy at the desk for a minute, then made their way over to a steroid freak on the incline bench. An officer walked up on each side of the bar, spotted the guy on his final rep, then one said, "you need to come with us."  The cops escorted the guy out of The Gym, his bag and chalk still sitting next to the bench. I knew I was a member of the best gym in the state. My opinion was solidified in the years that followed as I overheard countless conversations of gym members sharing stories of their prison experiences.

That's why I felt utterly hopeless and depressed when the bank shut the place down.  Where would I go?  What was I going to do after work every day?  Was I destined for afternoons of couch time, ice cream, and Oprah?  After some time off, a few of us former Gym members  exhausted all other options and reluctantly joined a Lifetime Fitness, trading power-lifters and ex-cons for soccer moms and accountants.

There's no doubt, The Gym's membership list included a cast of odd characters longer than the rap sheet of some if its longtime members. But in the nine months I've now spent at Lifetime, I've realized that for whatever reason, gyms inherently attract an incredible number of unusual members.  The specific oddities you'll experience may differ slightly depending on the type of gym you join, but as a universal gym rule, members seem to fall into a handful of stereotypical groups.  The following is my top ten list of weird gym people, in no particular order:

#1: The Count-Out-Louds

The count-out-louds (COLs) are a rare, but unfailingly annoying breed of gym member.  During a workout, a COL makes it his job to let everyone around him know exactly how many reps he's completed.  Don't get me wrong--you've gotta keep track of your reps during a workout, but most people are able to manage that complicated math in their minds...quietly. One particular COL at Lifetime seems to talk louder and louder as the set wears on, grimacing and exhausting himself until he's shouting unintelligible numbers at everyone around him.

#2: The Cheaters

Every gym has 'em--the people who load an insane amount of weight on a machine, then climb on and start exercising with the worst form or smallest range of motion humanly possible.  I can only assume that these people are trying to impress other gym members with their incredible feats of strength. My personal favorite is watching the guys who load twenty or more of the 45-pound plates on a leg press machine, then use their arms and/or hands to press on their legs and move the weight. Can the exercise still be called a leg press at that point?

The partial bicep curl also seems to be a favorite exercise among Cheaters, but I guess ignorance is bliss--who knew that the human elbow could bend beyond a 45 degree angle?  I'm also a huge fan of the Cheaters' infamous half-bench press.  After all, letting that barbell get anywhere near your chest is just too *$@^# risky!

#3: The Wanderers

You don't have be a life coach to know that focus and direction can be key difference-makers on the road to success in life...or success in workouts, for that matter.  That's why it's so sad to watch Wanderers during their painfully aimless workouts.  Veteran gym members walk into the gym every day with a specific plan in mind and concentrate on one or two major muscle groups during the workout--shoulders, legs, back...something.  Wanderers, on the other hand, treat the gym like a wine tasting, trying a little bit of everything and accomplishing absolutely nothing over the course of an hour.

This crowd tends to swell in population immediately after New Year's, during that painful ten-day stretch during which couch potatoes resolve to get in shape and then quickly reverse course and decide that fitness will be next year's resolution...again.  To help the process along, whenever I'm talking to friends at the gym in early January, I try to make loud, discouraging comments with the hope that these short-timers will overhear and start packing as quickly as possible, reducing the pointless January gym overcrowding.

#4: The Thieves
You can set your bag near it, you can leave a dumbbell on top of it, but nothing seems to stop bench thieves from working their magic.  It's nothing more than simple gym etiquette, really--before you start using a bench or machine, you ask the people around if anyone else is using it.  But some people choose to ignore this simple courtesy...and believe me, there's nothing more frustrating than returning from a 30-second trip to the water fountain to find a middle-aged woman using your bench as a magazine rack for her issue of Better Homes and Gardens while she does bicep curls with pink, one-pound dumbbells. This sort of thing happened from time to time at The Gym, but those occurrences seemed fewer and much farther between.  I guess you make it a point to learn gym etiquette when most of your fellow gym members have wrists the size of your thighs and aren't terribly concerned about the prospect of returning to prison.

#5: The Neat Freaks and The Slobs

Another important lesson in gym etiquette: clean off the equipment after you use it.  But it's important to strike a balance, because there's a difference between touching the equipment and leaving it drenched with sweat.  Back at The Gym, one man took his fear of gym germs a bit too far.  Every time he walked in, he headed straight for the sanitizer bottle, picked up a towel, and sprayed it with cleaner until it was dripping wet, then wrung it out on the floor.  For the rest of his workout, he wouldn't touch a single dumbbell or piece of equipment without first scrubbing it down with his soaked towel.

Oddly, a guy with a polar opposite philosophy often worked out at the same time.  Normal people usually don't sweat too much during a non-aerobic, weight lifting workout, but this man, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Bill Clinton, constantly looked like he had just climbed out of a swimming pool, and not once did he ever wipe down a piece of equipment.  Using anything after Mr. Clinton was downright frightening--beads of his sweat were still streaking down the bench long after his workout ended.

Here's my general rule: if I only touch something, I don't wipe it off.  If I sweat all over it, I wipe it off.  I don't get too hung up on cleanliness at the gym.  I wash my hands at the end of the workout, and I make it a habit not to go around licking the equipment.  So far, that strategy has worked pretty well for me.

#6: The Freeloaders
Television is a great way to help pass the minutes during a grueling cardio workout, but TV can also destroy a well-intentioned lifting routine.  Clearly, some members believe that as long as they're at the gym, it counts as a workout...no matter what they're actually doing. I thoroughly enjoy watching gym-goers sit idle on a bench for ten-minute stretches, eyes glued to the TV screen a few feet away. (Even better when they're sitting in a gym, watching The Biggest Loser...a brilliant strategy to one day end up as a contestant on the show.)  This phenomenon has gotten so bad that I'm convinced that some members' sole purpose in joining the gym was to take advantage of the satellite TV subscription, not because of any interest in health or fitness.  Here's my philosophy: if you're able to follow the plot of the TV show you're watching at the gym, it doesn't count as a workout.

#7: The Screamers

Every gym has a least a few people who fall into this category--the painfully loud grunters and screamers. Back at The Gym, the frequent screaming made at least a little sense. There were always crazy power lifters who were lifting incredible weight, enough to justify the gut-wrenching shrieks. That, and at The Gym, it was always a safe bet to assume that someone may have been stabbed when you heard screaming.  But beyond the hard-core power lifting crowd, the grunting and screaming gets old very quickly.  One particular member was a poster child for this group.  A short, round, bald man who resembled Humpty Dumpty, this guy always screamed--and I mean always.  Doing warmup stretches?  He screamed. Toning his calves with some light weights?  More screaming from Humpty.

#8: The Droppers

If you've ever worked out at a YMCA, then you already know that the group known as "The Droppers" consists primarily of high school males who seem to enjoy drawing attention to themselves by dropping dumbbells from a height of several feet at the end of each set.  Ironically, Droppers aren't typically lifting very heavy weights, which makes it hard for me to understand why they want everyone to know that they just completed a set. Even when Droppers are standing within arm's length of the dumbbell rack, they choose to drop the weights. I just don't get it. I'm still waiting for the day when a Dropper breaks a few of his own toes with an errant drop--it would make for a delightfully appropriate, self-inflicted punishment for an extremely annoying habit.

#9: The Overly Comfortable

Unlike Droppers, members of the Overly Comfortable crowd skew much more heavily toward the upper end of the age spectrum.  This group gained fame not from its members behavior in the workout area, but in the locker room. After a post-workout shower, most people dry off and get dressed--the way it should be. But that's not the case for the Overly Comfortable.  After showering and toweling off, the Overly Comfortable are in no great hurry to track down their clothes.  I guess we should be happy that these people feel comfortable with their bodies, but from what I've witnessed (despite my best efforts), the Overly Comfortable are the least deserving of this overwhelming sense of confidence that they seem to possess when it comes to their body image.

I suppose when you reach age 65 you just assume that you've earned the right to take your sweet time in putting your clothes back on, but I can't say that I appreciate the group of senior citizens that has turned locker rooms across the country into a nauseating network of nudist resorts.  If you're a complete stranger and want to strike up an awkward locker room conversation with me, please, please have the courtesy to wait until you're at least partially clothed...

Apparently I'm not the only one who has experienced this uncomfortable situation...what a fantastic illustration!

#10: The Inflated Egos

The Inflated Egos are a unique class of gym members, easily identified by their illusions of tough-guy grandeur and their mysterious allergy to sleeved shirts.  You'll rarely make eye contact with any of the Inflated Egos, because they spend 95% of their time admiring themselves in the mirror.  But keep an eye out, because Egos are so engrossed in self-admiration that they've been known to walk right into other people while not-so-subtly sneaking another glimpse of their own reflection.

To make matters worse, the Egos occasionally pass the time between sets by flexing in front the mirror. If you're a professional body builder preparing for competition, then practicing your posing technique is an important part of the job.  But if you're a narcissistic, recreational weight lifter with an undeserving sense of pride, flexing in the mirror is just plain laughable.

It's also important to realize that the average IQ of the Inflated Ego crowd is extraordinarily low, and if you somehow manage to get pulled into a conversation with one of the Egos, your only shot at a semi-meaningful discussion rests on your ability an speak at length about one of the following three topics: weight lifting, bar fights, or strip clubs.  Outside of those core subjects, you might as well be trying to explain calculus to a hamster.

#11: The Freaks

Yeah, I know I said this would be a top ten list, but I need one final catch-all group to fully capture all of the other odd gym members who fall outside the ten other categories: The Freaks. This category covers all of those strange gym-goers who are so unique in their oddness that they fall into their own niche of weirdness. What exactly am I referring to?  I have two perfect examples, each supported by brief video clips.  First, there's dancing guy:



The clip isn't even ten seconds long, but let me assure you: every spare second that this guy isn't on a machine, he's dancing--not just a few seconds here and there, but for the entirety of his hour-plus workouts.  And believe it or not, he was relatively subdued when I captured this clip. When he really gets into it, he'll clap his hands and get his hips swinging like you wouldn't believe.

Next, we have skipping/prancing woman:



Let me start by saying that I apologize for the length and quality of this video clip, which warrants further explanation.  The local Lifetime Fitness has a 1/11th mile indoor track, where you can often find this 50-something woman on weekend mornings.  What is she doing?  I'm not exactly sure.  I can describe it only as some kind of combination skipping, dancing, toe-tapping, arm-swinging, Michael Flatley-esque run/walk. And on such a short track, you're subjected to this unusual routine every 45 seconds, which makes for an odd workout.  I'd hoped that I could capture a much better video of this strange ritual, but I decided to air on the side of subtlety.  This woman already attracts enough strange looks from Lifetime members when she's not being followed around the track by some creepy guy with an iPhone, video recording her prancing.

It appears that the glory days are over and The Gym is closed for good, but while the faces have changed, the daily entertainment and frustration that comes from being around strange and annoying gym members will live on forever. As I've come to learn, that's just a universal truth, as certain as death, taxes, and monthly dues.

A Malibu Milestone

July 4, 1776.  December 7, 1941.  September 11, 2001.  November 13, 2011.  Okay, so the history books may never recognize 11/13/11 as a milestone in American history. But that doesn't make the day's occurrences any less significant. For months, I had pictured exactly what the occasion might look like, but when the day finally arrived, it somehow slipped my mind.  And I missed it.  Not by much--only 21 miles--but I missed it:

But you can't really blame me.  When I left for Arizona on November 11, the Malibu was sitting at 99,992 miles as I flew out of Minneapolis.  I knew that when I returned on the 13th, the drive home from the airport would push me past the elusive 100,000 mile barrier, and I would be ready and waiting with my camera.  The instant those five consecutive zeroes appeared under my speedometer, I would capture the historic moment, even if it meant slamming on the breaks and coming to a dead stop in the middle of the interstate to ensure a high-quality photo.

During my time in Arizona, I feared that something--I didn't know what exactly, but something--would happen to the Malibu while I was out of town.  It just couldn't possibly happen...a Chevy Malibu reaching 100,000 miles?  It's like winning the lottery...or getting hit by lightning...or winning the lottery at the exact same time you get hit by lightning.

With the excitement of the trip and the painful transition from the 70s of Tucson to the shrinkage-inducing 20 degree temperatures of a Minneapolis winter, I failed to give the odometer the attention it so desperately deserved.  The plane landed, I picked up my luggage, found the Malibu (sadly, no one had stolen it), and managed to get the car started...on the first try, no less!  Me: 1, Theft System Light: 0.  I pointed the car toward home and was on my way.

When I pulled into the garage, I realized I'd missed it.  I looked down, and my odometer read 100,021. Tears filled my eyes as the significance of the moment began to overwhelm me.  Over the course of eight and a half years (and with a 25,000 mile head start courtesy of the previous owner) I had timidly gone where no Malibu owner had gone before.  It was the perfect ending to a year that, by Malibu standards, was pretty darn good.  (The Malibu celebrated the occasion by briefly shutting off the Check Engine light, which promptly returned in all of its blinding glory on November 15.)

It's been a full 13 months since I last wrote about the Malibu...twice, I guess, back in December, 2010.  That's a good sign, because when it comes to the Malibu, no news is good news.  With my opening blog of 2012, I figure now is as good a time as any to update the infamous repair expense thermometer:

As of the previous update, the repair thermometer sat at $6,494, which means that I spent another $924 on Malibu repairs in 2011.  That may not sound like a great year, but it beats the $2,600 I spent on repairs in 2007...or the $2,050 I spent the year after...and it's well below my five year annual average of $1,500.  But enough about the numbers.  Behind the $924 repair budget sits a fine, fine Malibu story.

The entire $924 was spent on a single repair...and a strange one, at that.  On Friday, April 22, I came home from work and pulled the car into the garage.  Family came to visit that weekend, and I didn't drive the car again until I started backing out to go to work on Monday morning.  The moment I started backing up, I heard a loud grinding sound. Believe me, I've been through enough Malibu repairs to know an expensive sound when I hear one, and this didn't sound good at all. My first guess was that something was lodged under the car.  I got out and looked around, but couldn't find anything unusual.  I got back in the car and slowly started backing up again, only to hear more grinding.  Whatever this was, it didn't seem to be going away.

I slowly navigated the car out of the garage and into the parking lot, loud grinding accompanying me for the duration of my short, pathetic journey.  I felt certain that a tow truck was in my not-too-distant future.  I got out and walked around the car again, and in the bright morning sunlight, I spotted the problem: the front driver's side wheel well was resting comfortably against the tire.  I had no problem identifying the issue, since I had just replaced the rear struts on the Malibu--at great expense--the previous October.

I went upstairs and called a tow truck, then called work to tell them I wouldn't be making it in to the office that day. On the bright side, I'm happy to report that that particular phone call has become supremely efficient over the years:

Me: "I'm going to have to work from home today."
Work: "Malibu?"
Me: "Yeah."

As I waited for the tow truck, I realized that the Malibu had hit rock bottom in it's track record of mediocre quality.  It's one thing when your car breaks down while driving. But the Malibu found a way to break down while sitting in a climate-controlled garage!  To put that in human terms, the Malibu's parked strut-failure is the automobile equivalent of seriously injuring myself during an afternoon nap.  Hardly the injury of a courageous warrior...

But like I said before, 2011 ended up being a pretty solid year.  I got to ride in a tow truck and walk home from the repair shop, and I guess I should consider myself lucky that the struts didn't break while I was driving...after all, I'd hate to roll another car off the interstate.  And after installing my second pair of new struts in six months, I cruised through the remainder of 2011 without another repair bill.  Things could certainly be worse...

With 100,000 miles and nearly $7,500 in my rear-view mirror, I'm slowly rebuilding the Malibu, piece by expensive piece.  New struts, new driver's side window controls, two new tires, an overactive Theft System...I have no reason to feel anything but confident--I'm practically driving a brand new car!  My sights are now firmly set on 200,000 miles.

I now close with the same offer that I extended at the end of 2010: help me fund the next leg of my journey, and ride shotgun as the Malibu extends it's already impressive mileage record.  I promise you this: the next time five consecutive zeroes show up on my odometer, I won't forget to snap that picture.  So click that button...

The Great Gift of Nothing

With my final blog post of 2011, I decided it's time to share my gift-giving philosophies with the world.  To be more precise, I should clarify that what's about to follow are actually my thoughts and feelings about why gift-giving is overrated and entirely unnecessary.  Gifts detract from the true meaning of Christmas, birthdays, weddings, and other holidays, and no one knows better what I want and need than myself.

Feeling like people may not embrace or even understand my philosophy without a little elaboration, I did some research and came across some alarming statistics: 40% of all gifts are a disappointment to the recipient, and the average person spends $35,000 over his lifetime on gifts that the recipient didn't want.  Whether it's the wrong size, the wrong color, or just a plain bad idea, recipients are often left with gifts that they're too embarrassed to return, fearing that they will offend the giver.  Worst of all, they feel obligated to reciprocate the "favor" by giving a gift of their own, and so begins a vicious cycle of unnecessary generosity.

I realize that my views on giving will likely shock to those of you who read last year's holiday blog post--you may recall that around this time last year, I was dreaming of a green Christmas as I furiously wrapped a tree-load of gifts with a variety of old newspapers and magazines.  Christmas 2011 was no exception--I once again put a healthy stack of outdated newspapers to good use as I prepared for the holidays.  But if you jumped to the conclusion that I go through an elaborate process of requesting wish lists from friends and loved ones and carefully shopping for the perfect gifts, then you are painfully mistaken.

You see, what those layers of ancient newspapers conceal are primarily re-gifted items that I received from other people and passed along to the next unsuspecting recipient, along with free food samples from work, many of which are months (or even years) past their expiration date. This year, I even gifted a library book that I checked out a few weeks ago and need to return to the library shortly after Christmas. Despite my beautiful pile of gifts each year, I've decided to reveal the truth as 2011 draws to a close.  You're probably familiar with the phrase "it's better to give than to receive."  When it comes to traditional gift-giving, I'm a firm believer in a slightly different phrase: "it's better to neither give nor receive."

Oddly enough, I haven't always thought this way. As a child, receiving gifts each Christmas was a memorable and spectacular event, because so many of the things I wanted were out of reach with my weekly allowance.  Yet by tenth grade, my focus had shifted away from material possessions to the true meaning of the holidays: a coma-inducing two-week food binge, along with the mental purging of everything I had learned over the past semester in school.  It was around that time that I really started to struggle to come up with a wish list for Christmas.

Once adulthood hit, exchanging gifts had become all but irrelevant.  The one bright spot that came with soul-crushing, full time work was the bi-weekly paycheck. These days, if I want something, I buy it.  And, as anyone who has visited my apartment knows, there simply aren't very many somethings that I want. Sure, I ask for a 370Z each Christmas, but my hopes of actually receiving a new car are about as realistic as my hopes of permanently abolishing winter weather in Minnesota, which I also put on my Christmas list each year.

When it comes to receiving gifts, the best present anyone can give me is nothing at all--370Zs aside, I have everything I need, and anything else is just unnecessary clutter.  If family members insist on getting me something for by birthday, I ask that the gift is practical, that it's something that I will definitely use, and that it is edible or otherwise consumable.  That's why, for my most recent birthday, I received the following gifts: Chap Stick, toilet paper, dental floss, and a box of Kleenex. Best birthday ever!

I credit this philosophy as the reason for a compliment that a friend recently bestowed upon my apartment: "It looks like an Apple Store in here!"  The spectacularly overwhelming, bare-walled nothingness, which has been known to cause waves of dizziness and nausea among first-time visitors, is a testament to my philosophy: when it comes to gift-giving, nothing is everything. (Oddly enough, I have the same philosophy when it comes to John Denver music.)

Though my views on gift-giving developed around Christmastime, they quickly expanded as my friends started to get married. When the first of my friends got married five years ago, I caved to society's pressure and bought a wedding gift...but not without feeling sickened that I had betrayed my sacred beliefs.  Here I was, giving a gift to a pair of grown adults, both of whom worked full-time jobs and were hardly lacking in any way.

The more I thought about it, the concept of the wedding gift registry seemed almost laughable--it strikes me as more of a hostage situation than a way of congratulating friends on marriage.  Not only does society dictate that you will purchase a wedding gift (regardless of whether you actually attend the wedding!), but the bride- and groom-to-be provide the invitees with a list of demands.

A few years later, I received a wedding invitation from another friend. But this time I stayed true to my beliefs, and I showed up at the wedding with the exact same gift that I expect from my closest friends: absolutely nothing.  Months later, when another friend mentioned that he'd noticed my lack of gift at the wedding, I realized that I had erred--not in failing to bring a gift to the wedding, but in failing to provide an adequate explanation for my lack of gift.  I hadn't intended to be rude, and I was in no way trying to send a negative message; I had just decided to take a stand and stay true to my beliefs.  That's where this blog post will come in handy--the next time I'm invited to a wedding, I'll hand a printed copy of this post directly to the bride and groom.

You see, many people misinterpret my distaste for gift-giving as outright cheapness on my part, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  My philosophies are nothing more than a grand application of the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like others to treat you. I can only assume the same principle holds true when it comes to gifting: if you want nothing, give nothing.  In my experience, if you give gifts, the recipients feel like they need to get you something in return, regardless of how many times you say that you want nothing at all.  I decided it was time to put my revolutionary idea into practice and finally break this vicious, unnecessary gift-giving cycle...and actions certainly speak louder than words.

Emboldened by moral triumph at the wedding, I thought I'd conquered all my gift-related concerns.  But later that year, my gifting philosophies clashed with a holiday volunteer event at work. Leading up to Christmases 2009 and 2010, my entire division participated in The Salvation Army's Adopt-A-Family program, in which we sponsored several low-income families.  We received Christmas wish lists for the members of these families, divided into teams, and spent the day shopping and wrapping gifts.

Though I welcome any excuse to escape an ordinary day at the office, pretending to get work done, I take issue with several aspects of Adopt-A-Family, as it combines three of my most dreaded pastimes: shopping (in this case, mostly for children), spending time with middle-aged co-workers, and using traditional wrapping paper. (Yes, I tossed the newspaper/magazine wrapping idea out there, but it was promptly shot down.)

Worst of all, I felt as though we were doing these children a great disservice.  Should we really teach poor kids that the holidays are all about material possessions?  If we fill the underside of the Christmas tree with toys this year, what happens if no one sponsors the family next year? Planting the evil seed of consumerism seems like a spectacularly bad idea.


The way I see it, poor children are uniquely positioned to appreciate the true meaning of the holidays and to enjoy the few things that they do possess--the drafty, run-down apartment that they get to call home; the mangy, rabid family pet; and the grimy sock puppet that mom nabbed from the janitor's closet last Christmas.

And so for two straight years, for the sake of my continued employment, I kept my mouth shut as I shopped and wrapped gifts with my co-workers, once again betraying my gift-giving beliefs.  As another Christmas approaches, however, I realize what I should have done. Both of those years, I turned down a golden opportunity when I declined to be the volunteer driver who would deliver all of the wrapped gifts to the Salvation Army headquarters in my fine, fine Chevy Malibu.  Looking back, I should have jumped at the chance to deliver those presents...

Along the way, I would have dropped off the gifts at some sort of charity for the supremely wealthy, where all of those unnecessary presents would go to families who are already spoiled by America's overly materialistic view of the holidays. When I pulled up at the Salvation Army, I would bring with me a one small, newspaper-wrapped gift for each family on the Adopt-A-Family list.  That's precisely where, once again, this blog post would serve me well--inside each package, I would provide a copy of this post, explaining why they received absolutely nothing for Christmas and should feel grateful for it.

I realize that in the first year, this blog post might deliver a bit of a harsh message for low-income families, so I would consider throwing a little something in to help soften the blow of receiving nothing...perhaps a small bag of airline peanuts stapled to the blog post would do the trick. When the next Christmas rolled around, I would leave the children nothing but a single note, reminding them that if they were feeling disappointed, they should also feel guilty and ashamed of themselves for not appreciating the true meaning of the holidays.

My ultimate goal is to change society's views of gift-giving, one Christmas, one birthday, and one wedding at a time.  Friends and family members repeatedly tell me that one person can't overhaul a whole system of traditions, but I respond by saying that the world needs innovative thinkers to make radical changes.  If it weren't for visionaries like Rosa Parks, Steve Jobs, and me, we'd be riding around on segregated buses full of people listening to portable 8-track players and buying all kinds of unnecessary crap for one another.  But in the end, maybe I'm not as opposed to gift-giving as I first thought...when it comes down to it, shame and guilt are still gifts, right?

A Closing Footnote: The Great Cash Debacle

I couldn't hit the "Publish" button on a blog post about gift-giving without mentioning society's conflicting views of cash and gift cards as gift options. For the life of me, I can't comprehend why cash is considered a thoughtless and tacky gift, while gift cards continue to surge in popularity.

Cash avoids may of the common pitfalls of normal gifts--it doesn't take up space, it can be spent anywhere, saved, or invested, and it never expires.  Maybe the uppity folks of high society have tainted cash as a gift because they find it just too obvious and simple?  Personally, I admire a gifter who recognizes the truth of the situation and proudly announces with a cash-stuffed envelope: "You know yourself better than I could ever know you, so pick out your own gift!"

In my extensive research, I uncovered some staggering information about the gift card industry, which was created by Blockbuster Video in the mid-90s.  (You'd think that with such innovative thinking, they would have seen Netflix coming...)  As of last year, gift cards were on the fast track to becoming a $100 billion industry, and over the next four years, experts predict that online gift card purchases will grow at nearly 30% a year.  Clearly, gift cards are a perfectly acceptable--and very popular--gift option.

The way I see it, gift cards offer essentially the same level of thoughtlessness as a pile of money, with one significant distinction--the gift giver dictates where you have to spend the money.  Gift cards are essentially cash without freedom...which seems downright un-American, doesn't it?  To make matters worse, lots of retailers deduct a fee from the unused balance of a card if it isn't used after a certain amount of time. Better than cash? A more thoughtful gift?  I don't see it.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Terrible Travel Blog

When it comes to travel, 2011 started slowly enough for me, but as of mid-September, my schedule called for five trips in a span of of seven weeks. Yeah, I know, five trips hardly qualifies me as a road-warrior. In fact, now that it's all behind me, I still have yet to achieve anything higher than aluminum or tin status with any of the major airlines or hotels. My travel itinerary looked something like this:


1) September 26-29: Napa, California, for a work conference
2) October 5-6: Vineland, New Jersey, (with a flight into Philadelphia) to visit a manufacturing plant for work
3) October 19-21: Irapuato, Mexico, to visit another manufacturing plant for work
4) October 26-28: Chicago, Illinois, for another work conference and a tour of yet another manufacturing plant
5) November 11-13: Tucson, Arizona, to play in a USTA tennis tournament


With all the hours I would be spending in airports, in hotels, and on airplanes, a brilliant idea started to take shape in my mind: I would create a travel blog! Unlike Passionately Apathetic's "A little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing" approach, the new travel blog would have a specific purpose. I would write about the adventures of my travels all over North America, featuring all of the standard travel blog material: hotel and food reviews, pictures of local attractions, and so on. But as my travels unfolded, I noticed two potential hiccups in my plan: aside from the fact that I'm both boring and lazy, nothing particularly noteworthy was happening on these trips.


The travel schedule kicked off with my first trip to Napa, California. The scenery was great and the weather was spectacular, but work meetings chewed up a sizable chunk of my week. As the days passed, I realized that I had almost nothing to write about Napa, California that anyone would want to read. People scouring travel blogs about Napa are undoubtedly seeking recommendations on wine tasting, local shopping, and vineyard tours. All I had to offer was the ramblings of a guy who doesn't drink, hates shopping, and is about as interested in going on a vineyard tour as he is in spending time with children. Even my attempt to see the Golden Gate Bridge when I flew into San Francisco was a spectacular disappointment. Oh well, I had four more trips on the schedule, and they would surely offer something worth writing.

On an otherwise clear day in San Francisco, views from the Golden Gate Bridge were disappointing...

Next, I flew into Philadelphia in early October for my second trip, a visit to a soup plant in Vineland, New Jersey. But things were looking even more grim than they were in Napa. It was only an overnight trip, which left me with no free time to do anything interesting. The highlight of the trip was dinner with two co-workers in Philadelphia on the night that I arrived. As we ate at a table outside the restaurant, a homeless guy walked by, offered to shine our shoes, then started singing. When that failed to generate a reaction, he attempted one final sales pitch to a female co-worker who was wearing sandals: "Come on, let a black man touch your feet!"

My blogging standards are low, but I do have standards. And what else was there to write about? New Jersey was a wasteland of excitement and creativity. Could I do five-hundred words on the various odors wafting from the armpit of America? Probably...but, again, standards...

Mexico held plenty of promise. I fully expected that I would get robbed or mugged at some point during the trip. I wasn't looking forward to it, but it would certainly make for an exciting story. My greatest fear was that my passport would end up lost or stolen, leaving me trapped in Mexico, wandering aimlessly around the country, mumbling Spanglish and trying to rent a burro to ride safely back across the border. As a result, I kept a close watch on the one bag I brought with me. In fact, I never let that bag out of my sight....so when I left my hotel room, the only sign that the room was occupied was the pair of flip-flips that I assumed wouldn't be worth stealing even if someone broke into the room. Oops.

When I returned to my hotel room the first night, the flip-flops were gone. An exciting break-in?! Sadly, no. The room was so clean and empty when I left that morning, the hotel maid apparently thought that the occupant had checked out and forgotten the flip-flops. Though frustrating, this mistake sparked an interesting thought: if all of the hotel maids in America are Mexican, are the hotel maids working in Mexican hotels from America?

To make the accidental theft even less scandalous, the hotel Fed-Ex'ed the flip-flops back to me after I submitted a strongly-worded complaint on the Holiday Inn corporate website. The most entertaining part of the whole incident was seeing the excruciating amount of paperwork that the hotel manager had to fill out to comply with U.S. shoe import regulations.

The only other noteworthy event on the great Mexico adventure occured in the León International Airport, when a co-worker noticed that my favorite pair of jeans (the only pants I brought with me on the trip), had numerous holes in the crotch area. Although that particular subject falls directly in the bulls-eye of prime blogging topics for Passionately Apathetic, it hardly offers top-notch travel blog material...plus I had already written extensively on the topic. Clearly, the travel blog was shaping up to be an epic failure.

My final work trip of the year, Chicago, was fun enough, but consisted mostly of work meetings. My one last hope for a true travel blog entry--a local food review--managed to escape me when all three days passed without eating a single bite of authentic Chicago deep dish pizza. Before our flight home, two co-workers and I made a last-ditch effort to nab some deep dish at O'Hare, but we were painfully disappointed by Uno's not-so-deep dish miniature pizzas.


The four work trips came and went, and I didn't have a single story worthy of a travel blog. My potential material consisted of a homeless guy with a foot fetish, a pair of temporarily lost flip-flops, some jeans that looked like Swiss cheese between the legs, and an airport's sorry excuse for deep dish pizza. Worse yet, I couldn't even default to complaining about the airlines or hotels. Unfortunately, I'd had an incredibly lucky five weeks of travel: not a single one of my flights had arrived late, there were no missed connections, no lost bags, no over-talkative airplane neighbors, and no signs of bedbugs at any of the hotels (not even in Mexico!).


As I boarded the plane for my final trip to Tucson, I had officially abandoned the travel blog idea and only hoped that my lucky travel streak would remain intact for one more trip. And things were looking up from the start. I was assigned to seat 6B...sure, it was a middle seat, but it was near the front of the plane and would set me up for a quick exit after we landed.


The pilot announced that the flight was full, yet 6A, the window seat to my left, was still empty and there didn't seem to be anyone else walking onto the plane. That is, until one last person lumbered into the aisle...and this wasn't just anyone. The sheer circumference of this man was utterly astounding...if I didn't know better, I'd think that he was in his fourth trimester of pregnancy. I was convinced that his pants could cover the entire state of Rhode Island like a giant circus tent. And there was no doubt in my mind exactly where this man was headed: 6A.

As I watched this guy wedge himself into his seat (and a sizable portion of my seat), it struck me that he could really use some kind of oversize shoehorn to help him cram his 350+ lb frame into such a comparatively tiny space. But I didn't have time to draft any formal blueprints for such a contraption--I now faced the unenviable task of cramming myself into 6B. The other passengers on the plane must have felt like they were watching a group of clowns pile into one of those tiny little cars...


"Ma'am? Ma'am!!" Seconds after sitting down, my newest friend was already flagging down the flight attendant. What could he possibly want right after boarding?! A snack? Apparently not quite yet. "I'm going to need a seat belt extender!" It just kept getting better.

A minute later, the guy had a length of seatbelt sufficient to keep him FAA-compliant for the flight and long enough to turn any normal person into a seatbelt mummy if the need arose. As he struggled to strap himself in, the jokes began. "I swear, these seatbelts get smaller every time I fly...it couldn't be me!"

There are three types of airline passengers whom I utterly despise: children, the overly talkative, and the overweight. This guy already had one of those categories more then covered; I wasn't about to do anything that might encourage further conversation. I stared straight ahead and pretended that I hadn't heard a word. Normally, I might have appreciated his attempt at humor, but I knew what was ahead of me over the next three hours.

I considered lowering the arm rest in attempt to protect at least a portion of the left side of my seat, but that plan had serious safety implications. If, by some miracle, I was able to force the arm rest down, I knew it would only be a matter of minutes before it snapped off and shot through the side of the airplane like a missile, likely killing someone and bringing down the plane in the process. When it came to flying projectiles, I had a similar concern for my eyes--the buttons on my neighbor's shirt appeared to be under serious duress, threatening to go airborne at very high speeds in very short order. With my frightening lack of protective eyewear, all I could do was look away and hope for the best...

As the flight got underway, I realized that things were only going to become more and more uncomfortable as the minutes passed. Every time I shifted in my seat, my amply-proportioned neighbor's fleshy drumstick encroached further and further into my personal space. The enemy line continued advancing into the left side of 6B with every move I made. Forty-five minutes into the flight, I looked like the leaning tower of Pisa, tilting sharply toward 6C and having fully retreated from the left half of 6B.

I felt like the weight of the world was resting on my shoulders...and for all pratical purposes, it was.  On my left shoulder, in particular. By this time, the fat man's right arm and shoulder were entirely overlapping my left side. I only prayed that the air vents continued spewing cold air, otherwise I was going to arrive in Tucson drenched in his sweat. By this time, had the pilot's voice come on the intercom and announced that the plane was going down, my feelings would have been mixed.

By mid-flight, I decided that I would move over no more. It was clear that neither one of us was going to be comfortable on this flight, but I decided I might as well shift as much of my discomfort to him as I possibly could. After all, it wasn't my fault that this guy spent most of his life downing Ho-Hos and avoiding exercise. As he slept, I sat up straighter and straighter and slowly leaned more aggressively into his meaty side until I was seated upright. I couldn't feel my left leg anymore, but I was determined to reclaim as much of 6B as humanly possible.

Not long after, the snack cart approached and, not surprisingly, my neighbor awoke from his deep slumber, somehow sensing that food was approaching. He then said something to me, and the words that left his mouth were absolutely shocking. The only conversation I was willing to entertain involved him offering to reimburse me for half my airfare, since he was using just as much of 6B as I was. But instead he asked, "Could you move over a little?" What?!  Was he serious?! I was absolutely livid, but I controlled myself and angrily mumbled, "I'll try..." I squirmed around in my seat a little but didn't actually give up any ground. Soon enough, my neighbor had his Diet Coke, to which I could only think, "far too little, far too late..."

He quickly fell back to sleep, and I made a fatal mistake with one hour of flight time remaining. If nothing else, this uncomfortable ordeal presented me with a great photo opportunity. Snapping a picture while this guy slept could almost make the whole thing worthwhile. I leaned forward and started fumbling around in my bag in search of my camera. But I quickly realized what I'd done. By leaning forward, I was no longer pinned under my pear-shaped nemesis, but I knew that my left side wouldn't touch the back of my seat for the remainder of the flight. The blob-like mass to my left had immediately expanded into the spot I had just vacated.

Disheartened, I gave up on the camera and leaned back. Sure enough, I experienced a whole new form of discomfort, now sitting with my torso twisted sharply to the right until the plane finally landed in Tucson. That meant, unfortunately, that I was unable to procure a first-hand picture of my rotund rival. For those curious to know what a 350 pound wildebeest looks like when stuffed in a window seat, I can at least paint a mental picture for you: imagine what it would look like if someone parked the Goodyear blimp in a one-stall garage...or if someone inflated a Thanksgiving day float inside a Smartcar.

Once again, stock photos from the internet will have to suffice...

After freeing myself from the death grip of 6B, my imagination ran wild as I stood at the baggage claim, the feeling slowly returning to my extremities. I quickly devised a brilliant strategy to help the struggling industry boost revenues: forget the checked bag fees; airplanes need limo-style dividers between seats. At the precise moment that my gastrointestinally-challenged neighbor asked me to move over, I would have paid just about anything for the option to press a button and watch a solid, sound-proof divider slide up between our seats, restricting every last ounce of his flabby figure to the seat that he paid for. That would teach him to buy only one ticket for a flight...and who knows, the divider might even provide him with a little extra motivation to hit the treadmill before his next trip.

And so five trips came and went, and my travel blog aspirations disappeared like a snack on the tray table of my neighbor. But I didn't return home completely empty-handed: thanks to a whale of a man and an unfortunate seat assignment, I had some prime writing material for Passionately Apathetic. And along the way, I realized that writing this blog has helped me generate all kinds of fantastic ideas for new inventions: oversize bodyhorns for the morbidly obese, peephole covers, gift-concealing Christmas curtains, airline seat dividers...the list goes on and on. It's like I'm Thomas Edison, without the motivation or the knowhow to actually build anything.