Where the Sun Don't Shine, Honey Milk, SW Challenge Series, Movie Review

My current obsession with winning my age division in the Southwest Challenge Series is interfering with my blog postings, just seems like there is never enough time in the day. Since I like to offer some kind of original thought processes to this site I find it hard to just jump on the keys and type out something that doesn’t make sense. Remember the scent post concerning the cow, horse and pig manure and how you could tell the difference between them. Now that was an original post and I know probably changed the world in some way. Guess my original stuff was just not coming to me but now it has and my writer block has been defeated and now I can enlighten the world with some interesting stuff. Last week I went to a little coastal town called Seaside, Oregon to work a trade show for my newest healthy product, Athletes Honey Milk. But before I get to that let me tell you about my interesting airplane ride to Portland (where the sun doesn’t shine). Prior to boarding the plane I looked around at the folks that would become my flying mates for the next 3 plus hours and came away with the thought process that you can almost figure out where you are going, if you didn’t know this, by just looking at the people who are traveling with you. In this case you could tell you were heading to a spot where the sun just doesn’t shine very often so no one had a tan, plus they wore plaid shirts that didn’t match the pants they had on or the fit right. Since I was in the first group to board I took my seat and watched the rest of the passenger’s board. While watching all of these folks board that looked like they had just been resurrected from a long sleep with no sun this puffy botoxed lipped, artificially endowed, blonde woman takes the seat beside me in the middle seat. Since the window seat was not taken yet it was obvious we would have to do the same thing in a matter of minutes. Sure enough this dude comes in and we move out into the aisle and to let him in I notice the blonde was somewhat frustrated with the whole deal. Well sorry about this inconvenience but you could have let him climb over you and then maybe you would have both been happy. Regardless we finally got settled and I noticed that she had a big wad of gum in her mouth and was smacking it with a lot of enthusiasm. At least she wasn’t popping it like some people can do, even though with the sugarless gum it is harder to pop than it used to be. The dude who took the aisle seat was basically a computer nerd and wasn’t going to be a problem but I could sense that this blonde was going to be trouble. Aside from the popping gum she seemed to think she owned not only the middle seat (I’ll give her that since she paid for it) but both arm rests and any other spare space close to her seat. Somewhere along the way she and I just didn’t have the chemistry and at one point she felt like I was leaning to close to her so she started pushing on my shoulder telling me to move over. Move over hell, I just barely had enough room to sit and using the arm rest on her side was out so I was totally scrunched up on a ball and was very uncomfortable. In addition to her implication that I had somehow molested her with my right elbow she now took out her lunch and began to smack the turkey and ham sandwich. For the life of my I wish I could fly first class so I wouldn’t have to mess with this sort of thing, but it is just too much money. Now I was too the point that I couldn’t even take a nap for the worry that some of my body heat would somehow venture over into her forbidden zone and she would push that button that summons the flight attendant and I would be in cuffs the rest of the way. Much to my delight I was able to lean forward enough to not bother her and we completed the flight with a successful landing and now we were ready to exit the plane. After we stopped and everyone jumps up (worse on long flights, since everyone is ready to get off this submarine of the sky and get some fresh air) there was a guy in the aisle with a rather large butt and he was leaning towards me not knowing it was landing in my face. As this happened I pulled away and God forbid I landed in the forbidden zone of the Botox queen. She immediately grabbed my shoulder and pushed me away, wow two times in one day that I have been rejected, what will my ego do? I just looked at her and said, “Sorry about that, I guess having that big butt in my face caused me to over react.” She didn’t think that was funny at all and gave me one dirty look with the comment, “well I didn’t mean to make you mad.” What a trip and this was just the beginning since I had to make the flight back after my work was over. On the return trip I couldn’t be this unlucky again, but yes I was. I had the middle seat this time in the poor man’s first class commonly called the “emergency exit rows.” These seats have plenty of leg room and all you have to do is agree to help people out of the plane in case it crashes. Crashes??? Most crashes I have seen photos of no one walks away but the guys with the body bags, so I figure I just enjoy the extra leg room and not worry about helping others get out of a crashed airplane. Of course we could crash into one of the many lakes on the way to Dallas and then I could save the day by being a good life guard or something. At any rate the guy to the right of me in the window seat gets on and immediately starts sniffing, and kind of grunting. So, this is not my trip for good flying partners. First the Botox queen and now I have a guy sniffling and apparently he has a head cold. Then I think well maybe he just has an allergy and if he doesn’t sneeze I am alright, so then he sneezes. Next I think well if he doesn’t go to sleep with his head turned to me that will prevent him from breathing on me, but no not my day, he does go to sleep with his head tilted towards me and now I am sunk. So, I lower the tray in front of me and bury my face in my hands while holding my nose and hoping that I don’t get his germs. He is still doing this grunting thing, sneezing, and sleeping so I figure I am doomed for a cold or something. It reminded me of the George Carlin remedy for having the elevator ride all to yourself. He says, “just ask someone for a Kleenex, blow your nose in it, open it up staring at the stuff and then say, WOW! Look at this; it is all green and yellow.” Then show it to the other riders and you will have the elevator ride all to yourself in a short time. Next time I might try that!! To date I am healthy and breathing well, so maybe my preventive measures worked. Now on the other side of me was a Meg Ryan look alike, you know perky, short wild looking blonde hair, nice athletic body and real stuck on herself. Well since I never like to make best friends on an airplane it really didn’t bother me until I had to go to the bathroom and wondered how I was going to get to the aisle with this cold fish beside me. Lo and behold I got lucky (not in the since you are thinking) and she had to go to. So we went back to the back of the plane and since she was there first she got finished and went back to her seat. After I took care of my business I went back to the seat and of all things she had these black binders on so she could sleep and when I said “excuse me” she didn’t hear me. So, when this didn’t work I just decided to take my chances and step over her. Of course if I failed I could see the hand cuffs clicked on my wrists and house arrest would be in order. Due to the big space between the seats I was able to step over her legs and make it to my seat without any kind of incident. My lucky day! Needless to say it was nice to complete this flight and then wait for the flight to Lubbock, which turned out to be very boring since I had no challenges from my seat mates.

After all of this, working the trade show was a breeze and we handed out 7,800 cartons of Athletes Honey Milk, www.athletesmilk.com (to be covered in full on maturefitness.blogspot.com) to the 17,400 finishers of the Hood to Coast 197 mile marathon event, in Seaside, OR. The product was well received and the twelve hours spent handing this out was well worth it. This is a tremendous recovery drink and is going to be very successful in the future.

The challenge to win my age group in the Southwest Challenge series has become quite a chore and is becoming like hard work. For the month of September there will be an event every weekend to compete in and I must go to all of them to maintain my slim lead. This past weekend we did two events, one on Saturday in White Sands (I got a first) and then on Sunday in El Paso (give me a second with awfully tired legs). My lead is still very slim, but now I have another event this weekend in Rio Rancho and then Levelland the following weekend. If it is needed I will go to Elephant Butte on the last week end to wind up the year with 17 triathlon events completed. Hopefully I can manage to have the most points but my competition is very fast and can over take me if I am not out there doing my best. Will report back!!

Movie Review: “Inglourious Basterds”, ****, This is one weird movie, a true black comedy concerning the goal to kill all of the Nazi’s during WW II. While Brad Pitt is the name star and the leader of a pack of mean killers (think Dirty Dozen here), Christoph Waltz, playing a Nazi Colonel dubbed a Jew Hunter, really does a great acting job. While the writer of the movie, Quentin Tarantino (known for “Pulp Fiction” and “Kill Bill” fame) wanted Basterds to equal these two I am not quite sure it got there. But it is interesting to see how he put this all together and the ending has his trademarks on it for sure. Rated R for strong graphic violence (under statement), language and brief sexuality.

greerman