Easter Egg Hunt: Miami Style

So, it's Easter weekend. Happy J.C. rolls the rock day, everyone. (We can't ever leave the influence of our friends. Sometimes it can be pretty obvious.) This weekend is a big thing at work, and the field behind the sea lion stadium looks like Vassar on Founder's Day, but without the beer truck or the hookahs. There is a carnival, kids running every which-way, music, food, and good ol' fashioned fun. I even got to partake in an animal care Easter Egg hunt, which is decidedly the most nerve racking one of it's kind that I have ever been on. It's kinda like playing Aliens in the woods by Sunset Lake: you're trying to look in 20 different directions at once and make sure nothing comes close enough to touch you. We went into the crocodile paddock to remove some unfertilized eggs that one of the crocs had laid and to rake up the fallen palm fronds and leaves. To do this, two people had to go in with (quite literally) 10 foot poles with padded ends and poke the 400+ lb reptiles in the head/butt to get them to move out of the way of the people who were carrying the rakes/trashbags. I got a pole. I also got to witness how to deal with a charging crocodile and we found a crocodile tooth on the ground. It was pretty freakin' cool. I kept an eye on the crocodiles while the work was going on, and made sure that none got close enough to charge anyone. It was a good day, even with the rain.

Working out, Caffeine, St. Patrick's Day, and Maiming

Each in their own time

Working out
So, the other day, I thought it would be a good day to bike to work, so I hopped on my bike at 8 of the clock, and rode there. After I arrived, I was informed that the person who was supposed to do half of the scrubbing had called in sick. Now, scrubbing involves man-handling a 40lb piece of stainless steel and fiberglass that rotates at about 60 RPM around the inside of an underwater pool and cleaning all the algae off every surface. So, I had to do about 4 hours of scrubbing by myself. In the middle of this 4 hours, I had to go get more air tanks, because SCUBA diving requires breathing, so filling 16 air tanks (each weighing in at about 35-40 lbs) was required of me. After all that, I had to bike the 8 or so miles home.

Caffeine:
After I got home from this day from hell, my roommates friends, who were visiting, decided they all wanted to go out for the evening, so I decided to go with them. We had some fun, we goofed off, and I got home at 1am. The next day at work, after all this, I was feeling the exhaustion from the previous day's exertion, so I decided to try some iced coffee. Now, I consider coffee to be the Devil's Drink, and will avoid it whenever possible. However, this time, it wasn't that bad. I think I'm on the path to damnation. I made it thru that day utilizing only caffeine and sheer determination. It was epic.

St. Patrick's Day:
This one's for the boys- Tim proposed a challenge of sorts on his blog, to which I must respond. Finding of St. Patty's Day related videos, and I found a good one that makes me think of all my friends, many of whom have their own blogs and might eventually find this.


Maiming:
So, at St. Patty's Day street party, a friend of mine showed up with her boyfriend, who comprises half of the list of "people in the world Justin would literally take a baseball bat to". Now, this may seem rather harsh, until you realize that this guy has beat the shit out of my friend about 4 times. He's tried to run her over with his car, he's tried to drag her down some concrete steps, she's come to me for protection, and she's had him arrested, but every single time, she's ended up with this #$%#$%$^&^*(*()%$#@@er again. After all this crap, she's gone back to him 3 times. Near the end of our celebrations, she showed up and hung out around us with this human being whom I have seriously considered introducing to a piece of lumber. It was a bad end to a good evening.

CFC>KFC

Yes, it's true. The fried chicken has gone international. Now not only do hillbillies way back in the wood of the Appalachian Mountains fry their birds is fattening oil, but now the Cubans do too. Not only that, they do it BETTER! I went in to get my oil changed, they were overworked, and I was informed that it would take them about 2 hours, so I went for a walk in Little Havana. I found a nice little Cuban restaurant, ordered in Spanish, got my chicken, and then the mechanic who was supposed to be working on my car came in and had lunch at the table right next to mine. I smiled and waved, he waved back. Yatta, yatta...A plus side of me catching him not working on my car was that he didn't charge me for the brake inspection, which was nice.

Today, I was at work, and the keepers were weighing the birds, and the girl taking them off their perches couldn't reach one of the cockatoos, so I tried to help her. The bird was NOT interested in stepping off his perch. I tried to pick him up with my right hand, he grabbed my finger with his beak, and very carefully pushed it away. I tried to pick him up with my left hand, and he very gently grabbed it with his beak, pushed it away, and we repeated this for about 10 seconds. (bear in mind that he can bite thru wood, nuts, and without much effort, my finger, so he was being very careful) When I stopped and looked at him, he made a little chuckling sound and bent his head down to be scratched. We repeated this dance about 4 times, him chuckling his feathery little pink ass off each time I stopped. I'd scratch his head, and he'd ruffle his feathers and make little squeaky sounds, and then we'd try again. Finally, I managed to get him down, the keepers got him weighed, and then they put him back up in his perch. Freakin' birds.

Oh, and this

Oh, and this was sent to me today by a friend. She thought the face looked like me, and it was close enough to make me laugh.

Gone Fishin'

Well, there was an Outing planned for yestereve, and fishing was the goal. We gathered upon the Southern Beach, and after a brief debacle with #$%^ING valets (I mean HONESTLY, can't I park my own gol-darn car, thank you very much, and on top of that, they take your money and force you to leave your keys so they can peruse the contents of your car at their leisure. HA! Jokes on them, my car contains mostly junk, some funky-smelling fishy clothes, as well as some quarts of oil. Nothing valued over about $3.17, not even the $5 bill on the visor, that's counterfeit.)

HOWEVER, that's not the point. I hate valets is the point. And there it's such a chore to avoid them. They suck you into their little dead-end calde sacs (note here. I can't spell in English, so why should French be any different?) and force you to leave your keys with them or wait 45 minutes to get out of their lair, and when you're supposed to be on a boat in 15 minutes so you can go fishing, this is a problem.

So! After capitulating to the dubious necessity of valet parking, I took myself to the docks, found my co-workers, and we immediately started to wait. The wind had picked up, and the waves were about 5-7 feet in height. We decided to go fishing anyway. We piled onto the boat with the crew and a couple other brave (read foolhardy) souls, and went out to enjoy 4 hours of night fishing.

After about 2.5 hours of fishing, not catching anything, and being rocked across 6 foot high swells, I was feeling less that premium, and one of my compatriots had already decided it was time to chum the fish (unfortunately, that hadn't improved our luck) and the crew were good-naturedly taking bets on which of us would be the next to vomit copiously overboard (the odds were 1-3 for the skinny blond girl, 1-5 for the redhead, 1-25 for me, and 1-98345 for the large black man, the asian girl having already been eliminated as the first to puke). I managed to make it through the entire evening without catching a fish or spewing my dinner into the bay, so I'd consider the trip only mostly unsuccessful.

Short and sweet

Happy News!!!


Sad News...

Both those stories were on my google news homepage when I signed on at midnight. They made me jolly and melon collie, respectively. Is that how you spell melon collie?