Too cool for...

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

We finally got a break from all of the crazy hot mid-dryer cycle heat today. Our highs were in the 70s.

Love it.

Someone in the 'hood has a fire pit going and it smells really good. It reminds me of camp.

I stepped out of the garage this morning, and I felt like I needed a jacket. I resisted. I resisted so much that I drove to work with all of my windows down.

OK, so I had the heat on for part of the trip. Just part.

I'm also calling out all of the people today who were rolling with convertibles with their tops up.

-Kirk

Arms and legs of rubber.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

Today was our annual group outing at work. We spent half the day on the lake. We did some boating, jet skiing, and pulled some people around on tubes and skis.

I could get used to that lifestyle.

After my last jet ski ride, my arms and legs felt like rubber. I felt like I was still on the water after I was on dry land.

I have to work on my dismount though - Every time I pulled the jet ski back to the dock, it was a disaster. I'd either swing around the dock, hit something, or almost fall off the jetski trying to grab on to the posts to stop.

I don't know how I'd ever learn how to dock a real boat.

-Kirk

Walk down dot com lane

While cleaning out the den in the basement, I found a letter from the old dot com job outlining my stock option grant.

I would have been fully vested on August 2, 2005.

Ahh, the good old days.

-Kirk

Best type of sandwich.

I've had a craving for ice cream sandwiches recently. Not sure why.

I am sensing you want one too.

-Kirk

Heat wave intermission.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

The weather last night was incredible. It felt like one of those evenings that you summer evenings that you only read about. It was so nice that I felt like I was obligated to go outside and enjoy it.

So I did.

I was outside until it got dark. Good times.

-Kirk

Tattoo envy.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening. After I came home, it felt like a Friday.

So what's been going on?

Saturday I was at Best Buy and I was standing in line behind some dude with major tattoos on both of his arms.

I like tattoos as much as the next guy, but the majority of the ones that I've seen on people are your garden variety skull and crossbones, roses, cartoon characters, logos, or tribal stuff. But for the first time, I saw something different.

And I thought it was pretty cool.

I don't know what he had on the fronts of his arms, but on the back part of his upper arms, he had these colorful rectangles that had vivid color segments separated by freeform black lines. It reminded me of an abstract painting I had seen once.

I liked the colors, but the best part was that the tattoos weren't just flat colors. I'm talking about how the colors were shaded to look like watercolor. I was thoroughly impressed by the artist's skillz. I would imagine it's pretty difficult getting the shading effect injecting dye into someone's skin. But that's just me... I had enough time just doing shading with watercolor.

I don't think I liked the tattoo enough to get one, but still.

-Kirk

Living someone else's life.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

Tonight I went out with my mom and our family friends - We went to this very nice Japanese restaurant and had some great sushi, nigiri, and sashimi. Everything was served on these wooden boats - I was able to try some fish that I'd never tried before, so that was cool.

I ate so much I was ready to swear off Japanese food for a long time. Ok - Maybe a week or so.

We talked about golf, travel, vacation homes, kids, etc.

Afterwards I snuck a quick drive by visit to the Ferrari dealership to see the famous prancing horse. There was an Enzo in the showroom :)

-Kirk

Fly greenhouse.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this weekend. It's been quite the lazy one for me. I haven't done jack shit today.

Unless you call playing video games and taking naps something...

Anyway, a few days ago, there was this housefly buzzing around the den. I was getting annoyed, so I set the fly swatter to "stun" and just temporarily put the thing out of commision.

It was still alive, honest.

To help keep the fly contained (until I could take it outside or something), I used one of those plastic trays from a single-serving packet of LifeSavers Gummies (five flavor) that I had left over during my gummy candy binge.

Well, I kinda forgot about that poor fly. It's been like 3 days.

whoops. My bad.

-Kirk

Gerbilation.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening. I'm very very glad it's the weekend.

Introducing the latest additions to the family.

I know, blame the fuzziness of the photo on the photographer - I'll try to get better pics one of these days.

I must say, the gerbils have it made. Bottled water, a fitness center and a 24 hour buffet that's fully stocked.

Not too shabby.

-Kirk

MY sandwich?

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

I had a Friends moment today. I'm getting ready for lunch and go into the fridge to find...

My entire lunch was gone.

I'm talking the entire thing - from the frozen entree to the fruit in gel cup.

Bastards.

Needless to say, I was very unhappy.

-Kirk

Waiting for the joke that never happened.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

I had a few blog entries queued up so that's why I had 2 other entries today.

So for the past 2 weeks or so, I've had this cupcake on my desk. A coworker brought it in to celebrate a birthday - They were from a different warehouse club that I do not belong (hint: rhymes with spam's nub). They were actually really good though - the cupcakes had this super light and fluffy frosting on it.

So after a few days, there was one left. As a joke, someone put it on my desk. (I was gone during the last half of the week and then there was the weekend).

When I came back and saw the cupcake, I thought it would be a funny gag to wait until the frosting hardened, chisel it off the cupcake and then hide the frosting in random places on my coworker's desks. Plus, as an unexpected bonus, the baked good made my desk smell nice.

Fast forward to 2 weeks and many coworker comments later...

The frosting will not harden. It's still somewhat soft, mildly fluffy and tacky.

I'm scared to know what was in this frosting.

Anyway, so today I gave up. I threw my lovely air freshener away. I was getting tired of waiting, and of all the different people asking me why I had a 2 week cupcake sitting on my desk. Oh yeah and threatening me with the thought of ants.

(shrug)

Maybe next time.

-Kirk

Poor kids.

I kind of feel bad for kids nowadays. Some haven't been out of school for more than a month, and they're already bombarded with back to school stuff in the stores.

I think we need a holiday in August...

-Kirk

Wanted: 1 sippy cup.

Yesterday I had a little accident...

I spilled a bottle of water on my desk and office phone... The sounds from my cube went sort of like:

Thump.
(glub glub glub)
Ohh shit!

Anyway, so my phone didn't work after that. I got dialtone, but none of the buttons worked to dail out or hang up.

I wasn't looking forward to explaining to the office admin today what happened - I tried the phone again this morning and luckily, all was well. I guess the phone just had to dry off :)

-Kirk

Sunflowers.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this weekend. As usual it's flying by.

Something's happened with the weather and I've been loving it - It's been perfect. Warm during the day, and cooler at night.

Makes for good sleeping.

This morning/early afternoon I was intrigued by the Discovery Channel show MythBusters. The network was having a MB marathon or something. I ended up watching 2 hours of the show - hence the late start to the day. I had to shut off the TV right when the 2nd show ended for fear that I'd get sucked into watching another episode.

So here you see my impulse buy for today. My mom was looking at plants for her garden and I saw sunflowers for sale.

It reminded me of our old house - We used to have these crazy tall sunflowers on the side of our house. I remeber the flowers being huge, so there were a ton of sunflower seeds.

I thought these flowers just natrually came back every year, but it turns out my mom was doing some behind the scenes magic and had been planting the seeds every year. Who knew?

-Kirk

Sucks.

Rug fringe and my vacuum cleaner don't get along well.

We'll need to work on that.

-Kirk

Endangered species.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well on this sunny day.

Yesterday morning I woke up around 9 ish and decided to watch some TV in bed. You'll never believe what I saw.

Music videos on VH1.

Ok, it was during their Top 20 Video Countdown - not just "on" like the good old days.

I was afrad to change the channel for fear of scaring the videos away, neiver to be seen again.

So I enjoyed watching the top 3 videos - Just in case you were wondering what was #1, it was Mariah Carey - We Belong Together.

It's an ok video, pretty standard Mariah Issue - Complete with cleavage, fans blowing air, satin, and light caressing. But my question to Mariah is, why are you leaving that older bloke for the younger one that looks like he's trying to kill you?

-Kirk

Kirk's got a brand new bag (that he's never used).

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening. And are enjoying the extended weekend, of course :)

Last night I hung out with M from back in the day. She was home for the holiday weekend and I got to chill with her and her family for a bit. I had dessert with everyone and then M and I baked a cake.

I ended up getting back really late - A first in a long while.

It was so nice hanging out with her. It made me forget that it was Friday. I woke up this morning feeling like it was Sunday.

Today was spent cleaning out my room. I reorganized my closets, cleared out some clutter and now my room actually feels a little bigger.

While I was cleaning out my closet, I came across the graduation gift that our close family friends (from North Carolina) gave me. I forget if it was from my undergrad or grad degree from Michigan - But it's this really nice leather Kenneth Cole briefcase thing.

To this day, I've never used it - It's been in my closet for at least 5 years.

Honestly, I'm not sure exactly why I don't use it. I used to tell myself that it was "too nice." When I was working at the dot com, it was too "adult." I feel like a bag like this should be carried by a businessman or lawyer or something.

I guess I don't feel worthy yet.

Every time I see the bag, I admire how nice it is, open it up, check out the inside, and zip it back up.

That's it.

One day...

-Kirk