For 2 months and 8 days, I have struggled to understand why when I clicked on the links of my pictures, an error message that read “The Image Could Not Be Loaded” would pop up. Jeff alerted me on Jan 21st that the images wouldn’t load and I did some research and couldn’t pinpoint it but thought it had to do with the characters in the file name. Much to my chagrin, as I continued to read forums on WordPress, I couldn’t find a permanent fix. Until today that is.
Amazingly I stumbled across another person’s thread and naturally felt like an idiot when I found the answer. When you click “add media” on the WordPress page, you must link it to the media page and not the attachment page. Who knows how much traffic I lost because of this error. Millions at least. Either way, I’m proud to say that this will no longer be an issue an you can enjoy rnningfool with the images loading from here on out. Now I have to correct 68 days of mistakes…
Priorities change as you age. Your body also has to be handled differently. Basketball is one of those sports that can wear you down.
Tonight I played in a game that meant exactly 0. About 10 minutes into the game I caught a pass and made a nice spinning cut to the baseline to beat a defender and then passed the ball to the opposite corner. After getting beat, the defender spun around and in catching up to me, drove me right into the wall 5 feet under the basket. It hurt me 0 but was completely unnecessary. I made a comment that it was a dick move and he said to stop being a little bitch (which is what people who are on steroids looking to fight usually say).
This got me to write this post that I understand competition. Playing your heart out in rec leagues is admirable and worthy. I am passed that point though. My goal in leagues is to not get injured. I can’t get sidelined in real life. It bothers me too much. (Sorry Adam if you read this). My knees feel like they could pop anytime and I’m pushing my luck.
I didn’t work out for the last week and truly felt bad about myself 7 days later. I have to exercise to maintain my body. It’s not about getting overweight. It’s that I’ve set a standard for myself that I want to maintain. Not doing so is letting myself down physically and then mentally. This is why I like bowling and golf. Can’t get injured.
I’m aware I haven’t been posting to this marvelous website. My last post was exactly one week ago and that’s a decent amount of time that I’ve taken off. I strayed a course that I could feel people didn’t care about and decided I needed a break. This was in combination of not having the time to blog. I honestly don’t even have the time to write this but I’m sneaking it in to let people know I’m still here on this planet.
I have posts lined up about Billion and Better Call Saul which I’m fairly certain are the best shows on TV hands down. I have new music that I’ll share after the Alternative Addiction list is posted tonight. I have a post on response time, chapstick, crossword puzzles, and not working out that I can write about. Bowling has taken a decent amount of my time with both teams are making a playoff push. Nicer weather is coming in as well and that opens the door to many more activities. Do not fret, this blog will be back as I’ve probably written many times previously.
If you don’t know much about bowling, this post won’t mean much. Last night I rolled a 122, followed by a 112.
For someone who should be in a the top quarter of the league, this is not good. Lane 8 especially was a killer. I’ve moved my ball to playing up the right side and hooking into the pocket. This would be different than rolling a bowl through the lane and hitting the pocket with a wider hook. From what I’ve learned, up the right side seems like a more effective strike ball because it hits the pins with more MPH and that seems to be the goal of the game. Hit the perfect part of the pocket with the fastest ball you can throw.
With this idea in mind, after bowling a high career series for myself this past Monday, I felt I should work the lanes the same as I did 2 nights before. However this proved ineffective especially on lane 8 where my first 3 frames on that lane were 9, 1, 3 in embarrassing fashion. I started moving further left to compensate and this left weak entries in the pocket leaving the 7 or 10, which I wasn’t converting. Then I started losing my feel on the other lane and started making poor adjustments and rolling just as bad. In the 3rd game I went back to my initial game plan up the right side and guess what, I started hitting the pocket hard. I had 4 strikes and a spare in 5 frames. I finished with an exact 200 which was decent but had better potential and wondered what happened with a 122, 112, 200 series?
The bottom line is that hi spot is not a first class bowling establishment. My theory is that the oiling of the lanes occurred in the afternoon and the machine missed the end of lane 8; i.e. it was shut off too early or ran out of oil. This caused my ball to hit the oil-less lane early and start hooking directly left. This led to missing hard down the left side. To compensate I moved left and tried to roll the ball to the right part of the lane. As the night went on, the oil on uncleaned bowling balls started to come back to the top of lane 8. In game 3 when I went back to the initial plan, it worked like a charm. I will say that at least 3 of the strikes were Jersey so I was getting paid back for the poor first few games but talk about a volatile night of bowling.
I am a creature of habit. I like what I like and I do what I like the most. This is especially evident in my eating habits. Today I had a major disruption which spurred this post.
Breakfast Dunkin Donuts breakfast, a sesame seed bagel and medium coffee, is $4.03. Every day I grab a nickel or 3 pennies from my change so I don’t get .97 cents back. My other option is to tack on a glazed doughnut and the total comes to 4.87 but I view this as unhealthier even though it is delicious when mixed with the coffee. Anyway, Today I went to the register and the total came up at $4.27. I handed 5.03 and received .76 cents. The fuck.
I’ve eat Dunkin pretty much every day because of the breakfast conundrum. As much as I agree that 4 dollars is overpaying for breakfast, I do it strictly for time. If I woke up and cooked myself eggs and sat down and ate them at my home, I wouldn’t enjoy it as much as bringing it to work and reading the WSJ and doing the crossword. It’s one of the few parts of the day that I look forward to on a daily basis. So I don’t mind whatever money it costs for enjoyment. That being said, I know a sesame seed bagel isn’t the healthiest option but it’s better than sausage, egg, and cheese alternatives. The point is, that even though the price was raised and my world was in a tailspin for a day, I’ll have to adapt.
Lunch
JC likes the corn beef special.
There are tons of places to get lunch from but, like breakfast, location is paramount. I don’t have a work where everyone gets an hour for lunch to do as they please. I imagine corporations leaving for lunch, congregating at a local diner or restaurant, relaxing for an hour, and returning for work. At Stortz, we get lunch, eat for 10 minutes, get back to what we were doing. Most times we pick up sandwiches or get cheese steaks delivered. 3 places are active: Plaza Pizza, Sassafras, and Del Rossi’s.
My personal favorite is Sassafras. There are 3 main menu options I select from which are the turkey club wrap. the honey mustard chicken wrap, and the Jewish hoagie. Based on consistency, the turkey club wrap is my favorite. Every once in a while they’ll go light on the mayo but it’s near perfect taste each time. The honey mustard chicken wrap is at the tip top when the chicken is cooked properly. Every so often it’ll be chewy and it ruins the wrap. The Jewish hoagie, without cole slaw, was my old favorite and I’ll revisit it from time to time but it’s sort of been replaced. With Sassafras I’m also able to get a cherry coke and Mr. Goodbar which I enjoy as well.
Del Rossi’s is not quite there.
I’ll lump Plaza and Del Rossi’s into the same boat. I like the cheeseburger deluxe at Plaza and I also think their pizza is pretty good. Jeff gets the turkey burger which I’m pretty sure is rarely a turkey burger. I’ll sometimes get the half chicken but I wouldn’t be shocked if it was a half pigeon. I like Del Rossi’s but the price is a bit high for what they server. The cheese steaks are decent and the fries are much improved. However, for a 2 person delivery, it was over 21 dollars for 2 steaks and 1 order of fries. The chicken parmigiana sandwich and Stromboli is also recommended by me.
This was an easy to write post and I’m not going to get into dinner. Usually the posts that I think are the stupid tend to be the most liked so I’ll go with that.
The weirdest part is the noise he makes at the end. Little kids like this are growing up watching hardcore porn and this is the result. Obviously that statement is not all inclusive because he most likely has abusive or alcoholic parents but when I was young, getting your hands on porn at the age of 13 was the holy grail. Like even if a Vanity Fair had an ad that had a boob on it. Times are changin.
I decided to play some 1-2 NL on Saturday. The table wouldn’t fold to any of my bigger bets (and I never had it) and I dropped around $250 and decided that I was going to play in the 7:15pm, $100 buy in poker tournament. My tourney game is rusty but I still have decent fundamentals and know when to gamble. I also had been drinking since 4pm so my game was a bit wilder than usual. Here’s the recap as I remember it and I have a feeling it would be slightly different in actuality.
On the very first hand I got KQ and the flop game QJT and I lead out, hit an A on the turn and won a decent sized pot without showdown. The very next hand I get 8T and kept it running by turning a gutter that won another decent sized pot. The next level I had 39 and called a raise from a tight player and the flop came 39J. I busted his QQ. At that point in the tourney I wouldn’t have been surprised if I was top 5 in chips. Now one lousy part of getting this table image is people tend to think you never have it and you surprise them when you do. This brings me to the next hand where I had AJ and hit a flop that was J high with 2 hearts. The turn brought an Ace of hearts and I got it all in against a flush. I had a re-draw to the jack but missed. This put me back to right around average.
Tournaments are all about getting lucky and I called a short stack with AQ and beat his AK. Then my 44 out raced a A8 when he hit an A on the flop and I smacked a 4 on the river. I won another decent sized pot with QQ and went to the final table as a relative short stack. 7 cashed and with 8 left, the table wanted to give money to the bubble boy. I said there was no way I was doing it. I had an A2 beat a QT right on the bubble and that double up caused the entire table to be pissed off. The bubble burst and there was some chop stirring talk and I once again I said I had zero interest. I had about 40k with the blinds at 2.5k/5k and only one guy had a shorter stack than me. I wasn’t pressured into making a move but there was an open, then a 3 bet, and I saw AK and shipped it. I was called by AA and was basically drawing dead after the flop. I took my $387 dollars which barely made me even for the day and called it a night. I was drunk for the end and even though I was reasonably well behaved, the table did not like my antics. There’s always next time.
HS: If you could go back to younger Jerry, would you go back there? JS: Would I want to be young again? No. HS: You’re happy where you are? JS: I think if you’re a little lucky in life, you should enjoy getting older. You’re going to see more.When you’re young you can’t see what’s going on so well. You get older, you walk into a room, you meet this guy and that guy and you see exactly what’s going on here. I love that and I don’t care about the physical deterioration. That’s part of it.
Aging is OK
Listen to this man.
I like Howard but Jerry is more evolved than Howard. I personally love that Howard has gone to therapy for decades and Jerry thinks it’s complete hogwash. You can hear a lot of the therapy at work in Howard’s life and it’s refreshing to hear from a guy like Jerry who has it so together without it.
I lead with this interview because this is one part of life that I’m noticing. If you read my post yesterday, you’d probably think I was a dick if you ever answered one of the math problems on Facebook. This isn’t a post I would have ever written years ago because I have never perceived the world as I do now. I look at life, specifically ads, differently than I did earlier. I’m very aware now of people who I feel are taking advantage of situations. This happens as you experience more life, you start to galvanize yourself to spots that you deem negative (and then critique them in your blog read by dozens).
How I pictured laundry.
I like thinking about how I thought about life when I was younger. This particular example came into my head when I noticed that every one of my pair of boxers was inside out after doing laundry. Now I know that if I just took the boxers and turned them the right way before I put them in the hamper, this would not be a problem. However, even after hundreds of times doing laundry, I still don’t. This made me wonder about getting smarter with age. It also made me remember this example when I was heading off to college. I had never done my laundry before and my plan was to ask a hot girl how to do laundry to meet new people. I look back on that now and wonder why on Earth a girl would ever want a mentally handicapped guy who didn’t know how to do his own laundry.
Trust me on this.
A final move where I think I’m being clever but am really an idiot was last night. I wanted to eat some Chick-Fil-A so I drove 15 minutes to get it and there was a 10 car back up in the drive through. I parked my car, was in an out in 3 minutes, and was proud of how much time I saved. I then drove 12 minutes back and parked my car. As I got out, I thought, “I spent 27 minutes driving to pick up chicken (and 1st class lemonade), what a waste of time.”
What I’m pointing out is that you are always experiencing more life and you’re worldly views are always changing. When I was 20 I didn’t care what was going on outside my state. My world was a 2 mile radius. Now I’m in my 30’s and my world has expanded nationally and globally (to a small degree). By the time I’m 40 I’ll look back and say, “remember when I hardly ever traveled in my 30’s.”
I like aging. Sure I wish I was 25 again and I have plenty of regrets that I know I will never get the chance to act on again but that’s ok. I am who I am and these were the choices I made to get me to this point. Everyone can choose to live life their own way. There isn’t 1 right way. Literally there are 0 “right” ways. It’s what YOU want to do.
I’m sorry the blog has basically stalled as I make weak efforts at recapping this trip report. Each passing day makes it harder and harder to achieve.
I woke up on Wednesday morning to catch a train to Schiphol airport. Carrying large bags on a train sucks but there really is no other choice. I arrived a bit early and waited for the flight to Stuttgart. I could have taken a train but it was 6 hours long vs 1 hour plane. Oddly, this flight was more expensive than much longer flights.
I got to Stuttgart and visited the roofing show which was the main reason I was in Europe in the first place. I won’t bore you with 3 days of details on roofing tools. A few of the highlights from Stuttgart:
I’m sure it’ll be fine.
I’ll start with my immediate quest to find a contact case and toothpaste. I GPS’d whatever I thought was a supermarket and tried to communicate with a German speaking woman that I needed a contact case by pointing to my eyes and the word “case”. This ended with a “no”. I bought some Zahncream entirely in German and hoped it was ok. It wasn’t.
Pretty much looked exactly like this.
I ate at a Turkish restaurant which I’d describe as different. I’m not a huge eater and get stuck in my old routines more so than experimenting with new foods. I should also add that I went with native Germans who spoke German throughout the meal. This is completely in my mind but when you are the only person who doesn’t speak the language, it feels like every word that is spoken is about you. Paranoia aside, it was a fun dinner.
Mercedes Benz Museum
I visited the Mercedes Benz and Porsche museum before the shows each day. The Mercedes museum was a fantastic way to spend time as I enjoyed the history lesson through the company. The vehicles were also fun to see even though I’m not a car buff. Porsche I didn’t find as entertaining because it was solely about the cars.
Pope Mobile
I had to maneuver by train to each museum which was a challenge I was able to overcome. There’s always a feeling of going the wrong way when you aren’t sure where you are going in the first place.
On the 3rd day I headed to Innsbruck, Austria which was 5 hours away from Stuttgart. My plan was to get a train. I paid about 100 euro for a connection of 3 trains. The first was an ICE train to Munich which is a great way to travel. I reserved my seat for 5 euro because it seriously sucks not having a seat on a long train like this. Success to Munich. I boarded the train to Kufstein and once again found a seat and had no issues. From Innsbruck to Kufstein was another hour and when I got on the plane I saw about 10 black men who looked like they were on an adventure. As I sat down, I realized that these were refugees (I was calling them migrants and was corrected twice which I’m still not sure is incorrect) and were from Somalia.
Another pretzel of a bathroom.
I’ll first add that there was 0 incident with these teens traveling to Innsbruck. It’s scary because there is an air of unpredictability about their situation in war torn countries. I try to put myself in their place and realize that escaping bombs and gunfire is necessary NO MATTER where you end up. So even with all the news stories with the migrants committing crimes and other social issues, it is a pure humanitarian problem that is not easily solved. Being face to face with it (about as far as face to face can be) I realize the difficulties Europe faces. I checked into my hotel in Innsbruck and was spent from traveling.
After hearing JC’s story about his trip to Taiwan that never happened in the 80’s, it’s unbelievable I’m the fruit of his loins. Since I know you’re asking “what happened with JC”, let’s just say he had a 7:45am flight and didn’t get back from drinking the previous night until 7:15am. He jammed his suitcase full of clothes, had my mom take him to the airport, and then couldn’t go on the flight because he didn’t have his Visa with him. I on the other hand was completely packed the night before and arrived a few hours before my flight.
My round trip air fare to fly from Philly to Amsterdam and then Vienna back to Philly was around $900 which I thought was reasonable. I had connecting flights in Toronto which if I could do again I would have chose direct and paid more. When I got to the airport I drank a few beers and awaited my ~9 hour journey (2 hour layover in Toronto). I chatted it up with some electrician from North Dakota and a soccer ref who does whatever league is right below the MLS. The flight to Amsterdam was relatively empty and I tried to watch We Are Your Friends and a movie with Jonah Hill and James Franco, both of which I stopped 25 minutes through. I left Philly at 5pm and arrived in Amsterdam around 10am the next day.
When I first arrived to Amsterdam I immediately made a mistake. My hotel was right by the Centraal Station which I did on purpose. However I must have been overwhelmed with excitement and decided to take a cab instead which cost 55 Euro instead of 5. Oops. When I get to my hotel they said I reserved a handicapped room which was news to me. It was a regular room except the shower was open with a seat. You’ll notice this from the picture and when I showered I would get water all over the room which I couldn’t figure out if it was appropriate. Europe.
With no agenda whatsoever, I set out of my hotel and figured I would walk around for a while to get my bearings. My first impression was, “holy shit, there are a lot of bikes.” It was also incredibly windy. I hit the main stretch of roads which were filled with stores for shopping. As I wrote in this previous post, as I walked around I just looked different. Anyone from the area would immediately spot me as a tourist. I noticed the streets were filled with the aroma for weed and every other store was a head shop.
After a bit of discovery of the city I decided to look up in Trip Advisor what were the key places to visit. I ended up touring the Rjikmuseum at the end of the day in a beautiful area that houses Amsterdam’s museums. After that I was curious to experience the world renowned Red Light District. I will share that it is certainly a sight to see. European sex slaves stand in their bra and panties behind glass doors. They tap on the glass as you pass by hoping to take your 50 euro for 15 minutes, so I read. I was completely sober at the time and couldn’t bring myself to open my immune system to an STD so I did not partake the first night.
Line at the Anne Frank Museum
Waking up the next day I got breakfast at my hotel for $25 euro. I was feeling a little more settled than the first day where I could only describe myself as a puppy being on his own for the first time in a foreign land. My first destination was the Anne Frank museum which I figured I had to do. I waited in line for about 30 minutes and toured the house where Anne hid. I ended up buying the diary afterwards and am reading it now and find it to be more boring than exciting. After that I headed to the Van Gogh Museum and did the Heineken Experience. I finished the touristy attractions and decided to let loose a bit in Amsterdam.
I went to a local store and bought 2 spacecakes that were titled Amnesia and some type of Kush. I ate one and didn’t feel anything happening so I ate a second. I wandered around a little bit and then had to take a shit so I went back to my hotel room. I dropped a deuce and started reading up on what Spacecakes actually were. The description of the effects had me a bit concerned because it said they last for 5 hours and stay with you for 12. Also they don’t kick in for an hour or two which had me nervous for what to expect. This video details the feeling.
Pictures are not permitted in the Red Light Disctrict
I should note that I thoroughly enjoyed the nighttime run through Voldepark. I didn’t see a lot of runners in Amsterdam and didn’t expect the physical activity that we have in the States. Much to my surprise there were countless “fit” groups in the park. Once I got done the run I decided to set out in the city a final time. Once again I flirted with the idea of banging a whore and didn’t do it. I had 8 more days in Europe and the feeling of wondering what I could catch from a hooker who has banged hundreds of other guys was not worth the 28 seconds of pleasure.
Library at Rjiksmuseum
I didn’t touch on the coffee shops in Amsterdam which are located all over and frequently crowded. Being by myself I wasn’t going to enter a coffee shop with dozens of people, sit down at a table, and smoke a j to myself. Being foreign was hard enough and being high and foreign I didn’t see as enjoyable. Perhaps this is short sighted but I would have felt much more comfortable if I was there with a friend who would make the scene easier to take. Being alone was my biggest issue with traveling to a European city because 1) I didn’t feel like I fit in 2) Sitting at a bar drinking by yourself wasn’t exactly what I considered fun. This city would have been 10x better with company.
Mr Bean’s Car
I retreated to my hotel room to realize that the maid had somehow took my tooth brush and contact case. I swear there is no other explanation. This was a bigger problem than initially appeared because I had an early flight the next day and no place to buy these essentials. I ended up filling a drinking glass with contact solution which I would do throughout the entire trip. Europe!
