98... 99... 100!

My 100th post. Wow. When I first started this blog thing back in July, I never thought I'd post any more than four or five before eventually quiting. But, Jim and Jennie started following me and I thought to myself, "Self, you may actually be able to post a few more and get another follower or two."

42 followers later, I'm at post #100.

I started going back through my posts and of course, I had to start at the original rant that started it all! "A Blood Rush to the Brain". Rush Limbaugh said something that ticked me off enough to start a blog just to make a political point.

I enjoyed being able to say what I wanted and decided to continue blogging. Weeks later came post #25. "Why Am I Not Asleep?" It should have been titled "Why Didn't I Hit Delete?"

It was early in the morning and I was flat-out tired and borderline hallucinating. Although I was still awake, my body was clearly tired. I tried sleeping, but every time I drifted off, I would wind up in a nightmare within seconds. I don't know if that happens to any of you or not, but when my body is dog-tired, I have nightmares. I wonder if I'm the only person cursed like that?

You would think that blog would have been the one to get me to quit, but I kept going. After all, I was up to 20-something followers by then, so blogging became a drug. In the month of October, I cranked out 28 posts in 31 days on a range of topics from if white women care if white men date outside of the race to discussing the plight of guys crossing into "The Friend Zone" with women.

Post #75 was about the growing attention on the Brett Favre "Crank/Crocs" scandal. Brett reportedly sent a photo of his junk while wearing Crocs to a former Jets employee named Jenn Sterger. Although I think Jenn was in it for the publicity and money, I do believe Favre got off (wrong choice of words) with a slap on the wrist in a $50,000 fine. I wondered in the post if there was a bias against black athletes who get criticized for doing a lot less than what Favre did. It was appropriately called "Media Bias Against Black Athletes."

I've really enjoyed blogging, although I've sort have taken a break over the past few weeks. I do intend on working my way to #150 and hopefully generating more feedback. I always get comments from people who agree, but rarely from people who do not. I'm always looking for different opinions, so hopefully I can get more banter on the comment feeds.

To those who have supported the blog as a follower or a casual reader, I truly appreciate it. For those who take the time to comment on a post, you get a special "thank you".

I've had a range of serious topics to discuss as of late, but I'm going to return back to the lighter side of things for a while. To try to recapture the humor from posts like "Get Out of My Back Pocket!", "When Pampering Becomes Tampering", and "Don't Do It, Fellas!"

Again, thanks, all!

JAN to MCO

So, it's Sunday, December 5th and I'm making an annual business trip to Orlando. From JAN to MCO is about a little less than a two hour flight. It's my fourth time to this office, so everything is pretty routine at this point. Except for the people you encounter. I'm always looking for blog content and some people make it too easy for me.


Personal Space Violators

You all know that I hate it when people come all up in my area! So, we're at the beginning of the security line at the airport. The place where you take off your shoes, take your laptop out of your bag, etc. For those not familiar, before you fly, you have to put all of your personal effects into a bin so that it can go through an x-ray machine. This clueless... wait, no, selfish individual stopped at the very front of the table to take his shoes off and take out his personal effects. He had another 10 feet of table he could have moved down to use. That would have allowed other people to start putting things in the bin. Instead, he stood at the very front of the table and held up the line while nine feet of table went unused. Finally, a security guard came over to speak to him. "Sir," she started. "Please move down so that others may start using the table."

Do you know that idiot actually looked annoyed? And even after we went through the x-ray, this loser still didn't move down on the conveyor belt. He stood right where his things came out of the machine and started putting on his shoes until a security guard asked him to move again.

Why are people so selfish? This guy didn't care we had to wait. He just felt that he could take his time and the world would stop for him.

Contradiction to a Stereotype

Okay, I know that stereotypes are bad, but they make for the best jokes. On the plane, I had an Asian gentleman sit next to me. Shortly before take off, he pulls out this book about the human brain (the name of the book escapes me right now). Of course, the stereotype kicks in and I immediately assume that this dude is a genius which is a stereotype of Asians. Why would anyone be offended by that any way? People pick and choose what offends them. Black guys aren't offended when people say our junk is large, but talk about our credit and we fly off the handle. LOL!

Anyhoo, I saw something that debunked my theory that all Asians are geniuses and almost caused me to laugh out loud: as this guy was reading his book, he was moving his lips.


No Flat Screens in "Sports Bar"

After a very peaceful and prompt flight (via Southwest), I went to baggage claim to retrieve my things. If you've never been to the Orlando airport, you basically have to walk a distance the equivalent of Jackson, MS to Memphis, TN to reach the baggage claim area. I got my things and made my way to the FOX Sports Grill to wait on the rest of my co-workers and boss to arrive. I hate travelling on Sundays because I'm a huge fan of the NFL, but you do what you have to do when it comes to work, right?

I get into the FOX Sports Grill and although I've been there before, I was annoyed on this particular day. I was irked at the fact that I was watching the games on a bunch of 27-inch standard definition Toshiba tube TV's instead of something in HD on a flat screen. In 2010, how can you be located in a major airport and not have HD in a "sports bar", but I can watch Lifetime HD, in two different languages, in the Lush store around the corner? Until you remedy that, I will refer to you as a "novelty bar" because a sports experience definitely isn't your focus. I was glad to see my boss and co-workers arrive because the music they were playing over the loud speakers in the "novelty bar" was annoying me. Music and not play-by-play commentary? Fail!

I never thought the best experience of my trip down to ORL would actually be the flight.

(more of my trip to the ORL later...)

Get Out Of My Back Pocket!

So, for The Mrs.' birthday, I decided to take her to Baton Rouge, LA. It is not very far from where we live, roughly three hours away.

Although my intention was to leave early in the morning, I some how managed to sleep until 1030 AM. Hey, I was tired! Don't judge me! LOL!

We grab breakfast right outside of our hometown and get ready to jump on the road. She is driving while that homewrecker, Fantasia, plays on the radio. I'm so fortunate to have a woman who doesn't mind driving. Who am I fooling? She doesn't trust anyone with her car!

Any way, let me share with you what went down during breakfast at Cracker Barrel, which is a country-style restaurant. A pet peeve of mine occurred: the violation of personal space.

There's nothing that aggravates me more than when a person doesn't recognize that they're "in your area". I'm getting ready to pay for our food at the register and when I reach for my wallet, this older guy is standing so closely behind me that I accidentally elbowed him in his stomach. By reflex, I said, "Excuse me."

"No problem," he replied.

Wait. I started thinking, "I reach for my wallet and elbow you and I'm apologizing? Why are you standing that close behind me? Dude, get out of my back pocket! You're closer than my wallet!"



You would think that the elbow to the solar plexus would be a hint that you're violating someone's space, but obviously this guy obviously doesn't have any home training. So, I'm paying my bill and whip out the debit card. As I sign my receipt, this guy is literally standing beside me waiting to pay his tab. I look to my left and The Mrs. isn't even as close to me as this guy is.

I shoot him a dirty look, but keep my cool and don't say anything smart to him (although that was very difficult to do).

So, we make it to BR and I already have a dinner spot picked out called Texas de Brazil. Basically, it's a Brazilian steakhouse where they have servers walk around with skewers of meat including chicken, beef, pork, lamb, etc. They normally have roughly 10 to 13 different types of meat. They bring it by your table and if you want to try something, they slice off a piece and give it to you.



We both enjoyed our meals as we basically said "yes" to everyone who offered a slice of something. Mix in their huge salad/soup bar and it was a hit.

The next day we decide to hit up the Hollywood Casino. I don't care for casinos, but The Mrs. wants to try her luck since we rarely go. We walk around a couple of floors before she finally settles on a lonely looking row of slots against the wall.

She puts $20 into the $1 slot machine and plays three credits. Red 7.... Red 7... Red 7...

What? Wait. Three 7's? That's a good thing, right? Immediately, we both look towards the scoring legend at the top of the slot machine to see exactly what she's won. It's hard to concentrate with the machine making tons of noise announcing her as a winner.

$600. Are you kidding me? She won $600 on one pull? Maybe I should play slots on my birthday in November!

So, she plays out the remainder of the $20 she put in to start and we leave there with $599 feeling pretty good about ourselves. That's when the next violation of personal space occurred. And it was bad, folks.

First of all, I don't know who designed the men's restroom at the Hollywood Casino, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a guy. Once you walk into the restroom, you see a huge wall, but for some reason, all three urinals are within six inches of each other. "Why didn't they space these out and maximize the room in here?", I think to myself.



Sure enough, as soon as I unzip and start my business, some guy walks into the restroom. Now, being that the urinals are so close, I'm thinking that he will just go into a stall and use one of the toilets.

No such luck. Not only does this guy decide to use a urinal, he violates the oldest man code in the history of Man-stivity and chooses the one directly next to me!

Are you freakin' kidding me!!!!???? You always leave a space in between urinals. That's Man Law 101! Were you raised by wolves, dude!!!???? Just because the one on the end is lower than the others, you can still use it, man!

Now, not only do I have a guy within eyesight of my "particulars", I also have to concern myself with "spatter" as Secretariat next to me is relieving himself. For some reason the thought "don't cross the streams" comes to my mind (that's a "Ghostbusters" reference for those of you who aren't paying attention -- you need Netflix in your life).

I use every muscle in my body to stop, zip and make my way to the faucet. Of course that nasty buzzard leaves without washing his hands. Figures. Anyone without the common sense to stand next to a man at a urinal surely doesn't have the proper hygiene.

Wow. What a day. If it weren't for my lucky lady winning six Franklins, I may have been in a bad enough mood to go Chuck Norris on one of these violators today.

Share your "space violation" stories in my forum discussion.