officer nolan

Getting out of a ticket -- turns out -- not as easy as getting out of a second date. Nor apparently, are cops as easily manipulated as say, the Dow Jones. But when the po-po pulls you over on your way to your next pharmaceutical sales convention, you need to be ready. Here's a approved practice test.*

Which answer will get you out of a ticket?

1. You pull an illegal U-turn on a two lane road. Freddy Fuzz waddles over and asks for you license and registration.

A: Apologize and promise to never to it again.

B: You explain you have diplomatic immunity. You're an ambassador from the country of Awesome.

C: Cry

2. There's a girl fight happening across town. You're doing 95 on the highway. Carl Copper flashes his lights. You pull over. He asks for license and registration. You:

A: Explain you're dyslexic. You thought you were going 59.

B: You do your duty as a bro and tell him about the fight.

C: Cry.

3. You run a stop sign. Trudy Trooper wants your license and registration. You:

A: Say you thought that sign was for your heart, because that's what it did when you saw her.

B: Hand them over. With your phone number.

C: Cry

---

Answers:

Question 1:

A: Ticket

B: Ticket

C: Ticket

Question 2:

A: Ticket

B: He turns on the sirens and you get there just in time to see the girls yank off their tops and roll into a conveniently placed puddle of mud. Then he writes you a ticket.

C: Ticket

Question 3:

A: Ticket

B: Ticket but also a fun night with handcuffs and a lot of "Yes, Officer!"

C: Ticket and she laughs at you.

*Please note that if you are a hot chick, you will never get a ticket. If you are borderline hot, (we're talking 4-7 out of 10), crying should do the trick.

excerpt from Barney's Blog

the ramada inn

Traveler Tip:

Never climb something higher than the number of cigarettes you smoke in a week.

wet wool

"Fear is a powerful tool. Society uses it to scare us about everything, and to keep us on the track. Family uses it to force to follow their dreams, not our dreams. It took me a long way and I paid a very high price to follow my dream. Why do people try to instigate this fear in everybody? And the best option that we have, is to not respect this unnatural fear and move forward towards our dream."

do you know what it means to have a 'plethora'?

After an argument with an idiot, I'd like to clarify a topic for all...

Even a waterproof sunblock needs to be reapplied. All the waterproof label means is that you'll be protected for approximately 2hrs while you are in/at/on/around/near the water.

As soon as you get out of the water you dry off, which rubs off the sunblock.
You need to reapply after getting out of the water.

Don't believe me? Put on waterproof sunblock, wait 15 minutes (the amount of time recommended before going into the water) and then wade into knee deep water. Watch as your sunscreen washes away in the oil-slicked water.

Also, be sure to get a sunblock that is broad spectrum, meaning it blocks both UVA and UVB rays.

UVA rays cause aging effects.
UVB rays cause burning.

The SPF indicates the time a person can be exposed to sunlight before getting sunburn with a sunscreen applied relative to the time they can be exposed without sunscreen. For example, someone who would burn after 10 minutes in the sun would expect to burn after 500 min if protected by a sunscreen with SPF 50.

Thank you, and go forth and sun yourself!

... red sky in morning, sailors take warning

When I drive home, at 4:30 am, the sky is usually pink with hues of yellow as the sun starts to rise in the east.

Today there was no light. No pink. NO blues. As I was getting out of the car, I saw the sky was light in the opposite direction, in the west, and was more RED than pink. Like, a freaky red.

I sure hope today isn't the zombie apocalypse.

there's nothing sexier then a handle-bar mustache

I am renewed, rejuvenated and re- well.. something that starts with re.

I've had some tough times lately. Tough times that I shared with a few of you, or partially with some, and none with others. Sad I know. Tough times that sometimes your not particularly proud of. However, I'm moving past and trying to get life together.

I'm renewed in my quest to join the peace corps. I've officially decided, after months of s pinning my wheels, to file for bankruptcy. Not the best idea I've had in years, but I'm honestly making NO progress, and I still have 5 credit card collection agencies calling me daily. SEveral times daily. Several times daily and leaving messages.

Things that make me happy:
"Return of the Living Dead" on AMC [American Movie Classics].
Friends that call you 4 times in a row until you answer when they know something is wrong.
A tall cool budweiser (or bud light).
Having a driver's license.

I read a great quote yesterday, that I'd like to share..
"do not be afraid of dying be afraid of not living life."

McGriddle Pants Anne

Climbing Mt. St. Helens, July 3, 2009

We started off at 430 in the morning. I was so excited about the climb that I really didn't much sleep the night before, waking up about every half and hour. I had been very excited about this hike for several weeks before. I've heard stories from different climbers about the experience. They all varied from, "Wow, you be hurting" to "It'll be cake walk." Granted the former came from a former college athlete, so you could say I had a few mixed messages about what to expect.

Now let me correct any of your thinking... I am not, in any sort of form, "in shape." Yes, I work my buns off at Lowe's every night, but its nowhere near cardiovascular. If you want me to lift 54 pound bbq's or sinks or weed whackers, I can do that for hours! But run a marathon? no.

So Scotty & Rob (friends from Germany) and myself started early in the morning. We went to Fred Meyers and picked up Scotty's friend Scott and we headed to washington. We stopped and picked up our passes at the Lone Fir Resort. Hahaaa, resort in the loosest form of the word. Ready to set off, now officially "checked-in," in case we went missing and we headed to the Climbers Bivouac (according to wikipedia pronounced Biv-wack). At the start of the trail at Climber's Bivouac, there is a great view of the mountain. I bit daunting as well. The first part of the trail is through the woods for about 3 miles, with a mild uphill grade. We were trucking along at a good pace, and I started to feel my heart beating in my chest. I was thinking to myself, "what have I gotten myself into?!?" I was already beginning to sweat and we'd barely even started.

Once through the tree lines we took a break. The view was gorgeous and the weather really was perfect. Warm but not too hot, with a slight breeze. Looking up at what we had to climb, I remember what happened 19 years ago and pray she waits one more day before doing it again. YIKES!

View of Mt. Adams

Taking a breather, watching other climbers on the trail

Still smiling... barely

Climbing up

Skipping some rocks, and walking up the snow path

Shale and ash, all the way up

After our break we began the "real" climb. I've been hiking before, but I've never been "climbing." I mean, honestly the trail is uphill, between a 30-45 degree angle most of the way, literally climbing over lava boulders. All along the trail the USGS has put fence posts sticking out of the rocks to guide you up the trail. Other than that, you're pretty much on your own. Honestly, we were scrambling up the whole way. Climbing over boulders, occasional snow, shale and ash. Quite a time! Basically I was on a stairmaster for about 5 hours. At one point I was stopping to take a break for every 20 yards or so. Seriously. And the higher you got the harder it was to catch your breath because of the altitude.

The climb was rough, but the views were spectacular!! As you can see from my pics, you can see Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams the whole way up. And once you reach the summit you can see Mt. Rainier. Quite breaktaking!!

Finally at the top! Rob, Scotty, myself and Scott

View of Mt. Rainier, from the rim

Sweet taste of success

So I'll spare you the gruesome details of the last mile, which by the way feels like its straight up. About one mile walking, climbing almost 600 feet. STEEP! NOt to mention that the last 1/2 miles is on ash and shale, basically like walking uphill in sand. Yeah, that was fun. So once at the top, views were spectacular!! Scotty had brought along a flask of Maker's Mark for a celebration. To be honest, that sounded not at all appetizing once we'd climbed for 5.5 hours. But we passed it around, ate our lunches and enjoyed the view. It was funny, since the summit is honestly about 20 yards long and about 8 feet wide, with roughly 30 people milling about. People come and go, everyone cheering on everyone else as they reach the summit. Its a touch climb for anyone. We even ran into a girl who was "training for Rainier" who had 3 gallon water jugs in her back pack just for added weight!! Maniacs.

Finally ready to make our way down we notice people "sliding" down the snow face to the right of the actual trail. People were just sitting down and going for a ride. Most were not very graceful, but they seemed to have a good time, so we decided to give it a try. We must have been quite a spectacle as we slid down, I noticed many flashes to my left of people taking photos of us. It was so much fun!! wheeeeeeeeeeeeee sliding down the hill!!! We were all laughing so hard we could barely stand up. It was awesome. Once the trail seemed to end, we'd see it pick up again a few yards down the way and we'd go again. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee down even further. We could see landmarks of the trail passing by us on the left too. We knew we were near the trail so we weren't too worried about getting lost. a few more yards and wheeeeeeeeeeeee down some more. Somehow Rob must have greased his behind, because he was flying down faster than any of us. I was actually run over several times!! So much fun!!

Sliding down!!

I was really quite relieved to know that I wouldn't have to stumble down the mountain face the whole way down. And after an hour or so of sliding my common sense starting kicking in and I thought... hmmmmmmmm... do we really know where the trail is? are we going to end up on the other side of the mountain? My fears were confirmed when I looked up. The entire trip up the mountain, Mt. Hood was directly behind us. Now as I looked out, it was wayyyyyyyy to our left. Uh Oh Shaggy.

OF course we were at a point where just hopping on over to the trail was nearly impossible. Rob scuttled himself up and took a look. Well, we could either jump down about 9 feet onto wet rocks (not a good idea in my book) or climb up some rock and shale at an ungodly angle to head back to the trail. So up we went. Please note: I have never rock climbed. Why? Because I have a fear of heights. Not debilitating, but enough that I don't put myself into situations that I know I can't handle. Thank God my climbing partners were calm and cool, even if they weren't on the inside, they were on the out. Scott was great telling me where to put my foot, where to grab, where to go next. I was on the other hand, nearly hyperventilating. Visions of rock and land slides filling my head, knowing that at any moment I could be crushed until hundreds of pounds of lava rock. LUCKILY that was not the case, and we made it to the top. ONce there I nearly broke down into tears and I had to take a few moments to compose myself. It was at this point that I really just wanted to get back, get home, take a shower, and have a beer. We had about 3 more climbs and decents ahead of us as we traversed the mountain back to the trail, but none were as scary or as extreme as the first one. As Rob said, It was fun sliding on the ice, but we paid the price.

After that, the rest of the journey was uneventful. We finally made it back to the trail, and to be honest, we made about the same time as we would have if we'd walked the whole way. All said and done we were on the mountain from 7:30 to about quarter to five, not a bad day though. After we took our stinky shoes off and stripped down our of our sweaty clothes we piled into the car. Exhausted, hungry and a little wiser, we headed home.

Inaugural Ball

This is the inaugural post of my new blog. Well it isn't technically new... I started this blog nearly 2 years ago to share photos with a friend who was "too cool" for facebook or myspace. Also I've been blogging on myspace for probably 3 years now. Since Myspace is getting on my nerves, practically overloads my computer everytime I log on, setting my computer's fan on "Manic" and getting hacked constantly, I've decided to move elsewhere.

So welcome! And enjoy! Book mark and check back regularly!