Somebody at work asked me if I knew how to clean a Mighty Mouse, and by chance this is something that I’ve been doing every few months for my Mighty Mouse scrollball. I’ve found that by folding a piece of paper several times then wedging it into the scrollball seems to do a good job. I’m always amazed out how much stuff can build up inside of a mouse (honestly I’m not a very dirty person).
While on lunch break, I noticed a little something going on in the now closed KFC parking lot next to IHOP. There were some chefs from Reddings in Atlantic City cooking up some free chicken and waffles outside. Free food, especially from Reddings is something that only the dumberest of the dumb would pass up so I stopped my car to check things out.
There were several reporters there from numerous local publications covering the challenge that apparently Reddings had issued against the chicken and waffles that IHOP had apparently just recently added to their menu. They were out to prove that the IHOP chicken and waffles was inferior to their dish.
After waiting a minute or so for my waffle to finish, I was very politely handed a big plate and could hear the cameras all going off. Apparently me being handed a plate of chicken and waffles is quite the event these days. I then found a nice curb to sit on and digged in.
It was excellent, the fried chicken was especially good. Several reports continued to ask me questions while their photographers continued to take photos of me eating on the curb. I’m sure there are now several photos of me looking like quite the slob (chicken and waffles can do that to you).
It was nice to have a random bizarre lunch occurrence, seems like I had only had one so far this week. By the way Reddings does make some good food from what I sampled and will have to make a stop over there to try more of their menu.
I just finished reading The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard. Back on President’s Day I mentioned that my favorite president was Theodore Roosevelt, since the guy finished a speech after being shot in the chest. They just don’t make guys that tough anymore. So my co-worker was kind enough to share this book about his journey down the Amazon River with me.
I really didn’t know much more about Roosevelt besides what I’d learned back in 7th grade history and a few web articles detailing his toughness. Early on in the read, you get a pretty clear picture of just how crazy he and people in general were way back then. I don’t know many if any people who would take nearly the risks that they would take on a daily basis back then.
A 55 year old ex-president taking a several months long journey down an uncharted river in the heart of the unexplored Amazon is just plain stupid by today’s standards, but the desire to explore at the time was really impressive. It really made me feel like a lazy person to hear of all of their accomplishments and feats.
I doubt many of us would survive 2 days without a cell phone, let alone suffer of dysentery and fighting off 103 degree malaria induced fevers while traveling down raging rapids in an undeveloped part of the world. Oh and there’s venomous creatures all around and natives who kill for fun in the area too. Again, these guys were crazy.
Event though I knew that everyone in the story had to of died by now, it was still very sad to hear of each of their respective death’s in the epilogue. It was most sad to hear of Kermit, Roosevelt’s sons death. This was a pretty solid read, and I’m glad that it was recommended to me.
Yesterday I had to do my civic duty and participate in jury duty. This time it was in sketchy Atlantic City not the fairly new building in Mays Landing. I had to park in a parking garage a few blocks from the courthouse.
The parking garage was pretty gross. The walk from the garage wasn’t too pleasant either. I don’t know how they have jurors make that walk. I honestly wouldn’t want my mom to be walking in that part of town.
When I arrived at the courthouse I had to go through a metal detector. I made it through on my first attempt, I felt so proud. Then I had to wait in a line with some fairly miserable people (it is jury duty after all) to get registered, etc. Many people were talking about how fed up they were with living in New Jersey and how they were hoping to move someplace else. I’m pretty sure it’s the cost of living and taxes that primarily had them up in arms.
Then I took a seat and waited and waited some more. Luckily one of the cases had settled early that morning, so they would only need our group for one potential trial. The woman next to me turns out is the sister-in-law of someone I grew up with. She was really cool, and destroyed me in two games of checkers on her iPad. Apparently I’m pretty bad at checkers. I did defeat her in a game of air hockey however. I was surprised at how many iPads people had brought there.
As we were being led to the courtroom like cattle a former co-worker’s husband recognized me and we chatted a bit. Mr. Battistelli shared my views on Atlantic City (or at least the part where we were situated) and it was cool to see a familiar face.
As we got to the courtroom for jury selection, I stood hoping not to get called. This just wouldn’t of been a good week had I been selected. It was most entertaining listening to some of the excuses that people had once they were called up. After about an hour and a half, the jury was selected and we were sent home.
They really need to come up with a way to make the process a bit more bearable. iPad checkers and air hockey are my suggestions.
I finally beat the last boss on Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii. This game was really challenging, like some of the old school platformers that my brothers and I would play for hours on end growing up. I must’ve tried to beat that last boss over a hundred times before I finally got him and brought the bananas back to the island.
The rest of the game of really well done and did justice to the old Super Nintendo Donkey Kong Country games. But again I must stress how difficult the levels were overall, but how rewarding it felt to beat them. I genuinely felt excited upon beating some of the levels.
I didn’t try the co-op play, but supposedly that’s pretty cool too. There’s also some hidden levels after beating the game, but I haven’t been brave enough to attempt them.
I ran in the Rat Race 10K trail run with NGM. It was in Wells Mills Park in Waretown, NJ. Getting there was a breeze, just hopped on the Parkway to exit 69. It was nice not having to spend as much time in a car as the last few races I’ve run in.
The weather wasn’t as kind as the car ride over. It was freezing out. I know that March can be quite a fickle month weather wise, but I wasn’t expecting such a cold day when we signed up. Oh well, I was a bit more bundled up and ready to go.
There were probably about 300 or so people there and we all gathered around the start line. The organizer’s son treated us to a Japanese song that he sang for all the recent earthquake and tsunami victims. He was very much into and excited about his performance and it was most amusing and a great start to our race.
The race itself was a really nice trail. I was thrilled to be running in the soft sandy soil of the pine barrens. The past couple of races have been on some mean rocks and have been taking their toll on my old man knees and lower back. The trails were great, with some very cool planks covering some water parts.
I finished with a time of 38:29. This would have been a personal best by a half hour at least and meant that I was an incredibly fast human being. However, 60 or so of us runners had apparently taken a wrong turn on one of the trails and ran more of a 6K than the actual 10K. We were disqualified from the race and the looks of the first group of legit racers when they saw all of us already at the finish line was great.
There was a free lunch afterwards that we drove to. I ate an entire basket of cheesy poofs just because they were there and we left before eating there. We drove to the Ocean Breeze Diner which was nearby and got a yummy lunch.
Even though I ran the wrong way and was disqualified from the race, it was still a really good time. I think I’ll have to go back and run there again, it seemed like a really nice park.