cardinal rule #97

i try to live my life by a certain set of rules, one of which being #97, which is:

#97: NEVER BUY SHIT OUT OF THE BACK OF A VAN BECAUSE IT'S EITHER A. STOLEN B. DEFECTIVE, OR C. THERE IS SOME SORT OF SCAM GOING ON

so needless to say, i was a bit skeptical when today, as i was at a gas station fueling up, a couple of young men offer me a set of home theater speakers for cheap. they gave me the pitch, which was actually pretty flawless. i asked to see the speakers, they took one out of the box and it looked and felt legit. at this point, part of me was like "even if this is a scam, i don't mind too much giving them this money because a. they had flawless execution in the scam and b. if these guys are hungry enough that they've got to do this to get money, then i don't mind helping a brother out". so i took the bait, dished out $300 for two home theater speaker stacks apparently worth $1000. i got home, and hooked them up. they work fine, sound ok and then i went on the web only to find story after story of people who fell for this deal, some of which didn't even have speakers in the boxes!

i can't get angry over this because i fell for it, and the speakers work pretty well. i guess i'm just bummed out that i didn't actually stick one to the man. instead i was the man who got stuck!

hey billy bob!! i dun kilt me a pheasant!!!

and boy she was as pretty as a five wire fence!! actually i have no idea what the bird looked like cuz i was too busy crapping my pants. i was 20 miles southwest of The Middle Of Nowhere, Kansas saturday morning, hauling ass to get to a wellsite. the pheasant was apparently sleeping by the side of the road and i flushed it out. it freaked out, flapped it's short flipper-like wings struggling to gain speed and altitude directly in front of me. i was driving 2 tons of vehicle and equipment at 70 miles an hour. the bird made it as high as my windshield and CRACK!!! the bird slammed into the windshield directly in front of my face, splitting my windshield. i look in my rearview mirror and feathers and the carcass fall to the ground. my drivers-ed teacher made me hit a squirrel back when i was learning to drive, and it is because of that training that i continued down the road without a second thought as i changed my pants.

"NO TIME, NO TIME!!!!"

-as screamed by the pilot in Armageddon whilst flying away from the nuke blowing up.

i'm not sure how i'm going to make it through to my flight to Houston on sunday, but i'm pretty sure either time travel, teleportation, or cloning myself needs to be involved.

"air dry that ___!"

last weekend was supposed to be my weekend off. saturday phone call from the dispatcher. "kyle, the well conditions have changed in a very horrible way. bring equipment and knowledge to Guymon, Oklahoma and make this work.... now." ummmmmm lucky they called when they did cuz a half an hour later i would have been 3 beers into it. so i drove 5 hours west, saved the day working for 35 hours straight sunday and monday and drove back <...pats self on back>.

anyway, i now can say that Guymon, OK can be put on my list of many places that i never need to see again. the hotel i stayed in, however, is what took the cake. i wake up early sunday morning turn the shower on and wait 5 mins for the water to get warm. i pull the curtain back and see that there is a pile of towels in the bathtub..... now soaked with water. i look at the metal thing on the wall by the door that is clearly meant to hold 3 different sized towles.... it doesn't have any. WHAT KIND OF JACKASS MAID CLOSES THE SHOWER CURTAIN AFTER PUTTING ALL THE TOWELS IN THE BATHTUB?!?!?! fuming, i take my shower and then stand by the air conditioner to air dry for 10 minutes. that SUCKED!

stupid sundials....

i like that my watch automatically and correctly changes the date. i look down at my watch today and it doesn't say 2-29-06, it says 3-1-06. the point of having the date on your watch is so that you have an accurate quick refference when needed. one should not each month have to say, "did last month have 30 days or 31 days, and depending on which it was, did i set this correctly??" because this is a waste of 30 seconds of one's life every month which could be spent pondering more important things like "which ice cream treat will i purchase from the cute girl driving the kick-ass ice cream truck that plays the stupid muzak over the loud speakers, but alice and chains on the inside today?"