We Don't Walk Slow

I Want What He’s Having

tongue sticking out

The idea was first brought to my attention years ago by a friend of mine. The idea is simple: kids are straight-up trippin’ balls!

I don’t have any scientific data to support this notion, but the evidence is quite obvious if you simply spend some time around children. I believe that for the vast majority of children, up until around 8 years of age, give or take, because the brain is still developing, they are not yet full human beings. Instead, they are almost-humans, perpetually wacked out of their gourds.

Logic tells me it’s likely brain chemistry and early developmental stages of becoming a full-fledged human being. I don’t know if it’s the juices in the brain still swirling around or the very fact that as children, things are still novel, so everything they do and say is, in a sense, a test. They are testing out the world and their environment, learning from it with each and every move and calculated and un-calculated decision. They are like mini scientists without any guidelines or instructions manual.

They pee on stuff. They make funny faces and sounds. They laugh at seemingly everything and nothing. They scream for no apparent reason. They run around in circles shouting nonsense, as if it’s utterly important; I wonder if their gibberish very well may be gospel if we could only interpret it.

What if they’re tripping because they are still feeling the effects of getting over living a previous life? What if it’s because as the brain develops they have yet to realize how fucked up the world is, so they are untainted by it, just out to have a good time? I obviously don’t have any of these answers but when I see kids, I see how much fun they have and I often think to myself, I wish life were still that much fun and that simple: test and re-test. Remember how great a simple toy was as a child? And how if someone handed it to you now, you’d be like “what the hell, why are you giving me this? Go away I have expense reports to review.” Whatever the reason may be, I think every one of us at one point or another would relish the opportunity to just go balls-out, that is to say, to re-live childhood, or at least the good parts of it.

By Tom Stortz|2016-10-29T13:33:59-04:00February 18th, 2013|Childhood, My Brain, My Life|2 Comments

The Long Lost Early 90’s

The Early 90’s was when my memory starts kicking in. I get a few memories from Pre-school but nothing major. Once I hit the later years of elementary school, I believe you start to develop a better understanding of what is happening around you. That’s why I remember the early 90’s and some of the products and events that stood out. Here is a list of some random items and topics that I will never forget.

Video Game Consoles – Neo Geo & 3DO

I would assume that most people born before me would never have known these two systems even existed. Throw in Sega CD and these were probably some of the biggest console flops that no one owned. I didn’t even have a friend, aside from the McGrath’s, who owned one of these consoles. I remember the Neo-Geo costing $650 bucks or something ridiculous. Fatal Fury and Metal Slug were the bread winners for series. I have not seen a 3DO in my life. The popular systems were the ones they made games for and that’s what people played. The progression was Atari, then NES, next was Sega Genesis and SNES, then Playstation and N64, then PS2, Xbox 360, Wii. PC picked up steam when a connection fast enough to run the games with no lag was huge to gaming. Many consoles were out there though that didn’t catch on and these are two that come to mind. Lynx is another.

Addams Family Movies

I was a huge fan of the Addams Family movies. I know the TV series ran in the 60’s but these movies were my first introduction to the family. I particularly liked Cousin ITT and Thing. I sort of remember thinking Wednesday, played by Christian Ricci, was hot. Pugsley just got on my nerves and I didn’t even realize Fester was played by Christopher Lloyd years later when I knew who Christopher Lloyd was. Addams Family Values, the sequel, I believe was when Wednesday and Pugsley went to some camp which wasn’t as good as the first one when Uncle Fester came back brainwashed from a Bermuda Triangle incident. I honestly forget but I still remember enjoying these movies tremendously as a kid. I think it was the quirkiness of the characters and the death jokes.

1992 Dream Team

The greatest basketball team ever assembled. They defeated their opponents by an average of almost 44 points a game which I would consider embarrassing the opposition. They took home gold in 92′ and stamped the USA as the most dominant basketball nation existing. Obviously the world has caught up in terms of talent since 92′ but this was a historic team and we will never see this type of annihilation again in history. The committee was not going to include Barkley because of his aggressive personality but he proved it was a wise decision by going 71% from the floor and 7 or 8 from 3 point land in the tournament. I bought a set of Dream Team player cards that I still have today. They aren’t worth anything.

Jansport & Eddie Bauer

There was a pretty funny scene in 21 Jump Street when they are discussing if you should wear one strap vs two that I remember pretty accurately being the case in grade school. What type of bag you had could also bring about some ridicule. A black Eddie Bauer, 2 strap look is what I used to rock. Remember when you’d have 5 big ass text books and it would bulge your bag out? I was like 4 ft tall carrying around 50 lbs of books on my bag, torture. I wish I had some photos of my old backpacks because I don’t think it was until 6th grade that I got a real backpack. I’d have TMNT or GI Joe. I remember taking pride in having a neat and tidy backpack. A pocket to hold #2 Ticonderoga pencils was a must. I swapped to a .07mm lead mechanical pencil in high school and college.

Roller Blades

The move from Abec 1 bearings to Abec 3 was a major change in my life. I always wanted to move onto Abec 5’s but I’m just not that much of a wild man. We even built a two foot ramp that we’d do minor tricks off of. Rollerblades were also essential to roller hockey which I believe we had a decent time playing. It’s a little bit sad to see these lose popularity but I still see some people whizzing by on Kelly Drive with them. I also remember taking some serious spills when your brake got so worn out it would be nothing.

LA Gear

I never owned a pair of LA Gear light up shoes but they were still pretty cool in terms of hype. I suppose people could see you walking around in the dark which must be their greatest advantage. I honestly can’t think of another reason why you’d want your shoes to light up. With a little research though it seems like they sold 100 million pairs throughout time. That is not a typo. They’ve also failed to regain popularity but that shouldn’t be surprising considering their spokesmen were Luke Walton and Ron Artest.

Tandy Computers

Did anyone not have a computer class in middle school? We had these types of machines, I honestly can’t remember if they were Tandy or some 486 stands out in my mind. They tried to teach us spreadsheets and how to type but all I remember is playing arkanoid and Gorilla in QBasic. I think back to those days and do believe that Mrs. DeFranco teaching me how to use the homerow is one of the greatest things I’ve ever learned. Even though I thought she was the worst teacher, she taught me the most useful skill. I also learned a decent amount about DOS which I’m sure kids today have never even heard of.

By Tom Stortz|2013-02-18T12:06:26-05:00February 18th, 2013|Childhood|1 Comment

The Greatest Console of All Time?

I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing about my childhood and early adolescence video game playing days. My parents got me the original Nintendo for my 7th birthday I believe, I remember I was in 1st grade, so that should be correct. I fuckin’ loved that thing to death. I spent countless hours playing solo and with my childhood friends defeating level after level, boss after boss, throwing touchdown after touchdown, and so on. I loved that hockey game with the skinny, normal and fat guy. Well I loved a lot of games, so I won’t begin to list them (cough, Crystalis, Metroid, Abadox, XEXYZ, all the Megaman’s, sorry I’ll stop). In fact, I still have my original console, the Game Genie, the gun and some classic original games like the first Final Fantasy. I even bought another console (now I’m not even positive which one was my original) with a bunch of games included off of a kid during high school for $20 because he wanted to buy pot. Unfortunately, I gave most of my original games away to a family friend prior to high school, but at least I have that kid’s and a few I still had laying around.

So like I said, I had a true love affair with Nintendo. After Nintendo, I then got a Sega Genesis (sorry Nintendo), and then I traded that in with my dad’s help (we went back and forth to stores for maximum trade-in value, when an old system and games still were worth something) to get Nintendo 64. Before it even came out I was blown away when I saw what the controllers looked like and opted to rekindle my relationship with Nintendo. I couldn’t have been happier. I played Super Mario 64 the way Jimmy Hendrix played his guitar: truly one with the game/guitar. When I was suspended at one point during middle school, I played it like my life depended on it, that is of course, until I heard my mom come home. Needless to say I got all 120 stars. I think that was my favorite game of all time; it’s tough to say, but I can’t recall loving any game more than that one. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina in Time was one of the greatest games I ever played as well. The amount of games for 64 wasn’t overwhelming, but it’s quality over quantity, and that system was not short on quality games. MarioKart 64, Mario Party (any of them), Mario Tennis (God, me and my friends spent endless hours with this one, it never seemed to get old), Super Smash Bros, Starfox 64, Star Wars Shadow of the Empire, Turok (this game is actually what inspired me to write this, as it randomly popped into my head the other day), and let’s not forget the amazing Goldeneye 007.

The list could go on of course, but we don’t want to get bogged down further reminiscing and listing. Plus, I might shed a tear if I continue to think about each game. While I occasionally felt like I was missing out on some games that Playstation had to offer (like Final Fantasy 7, which I later bought when I got the PS2 the day it came out, ditching school to get it and stay home and play it), I did not care because my 64 was all I really needed. The graphics at the time were top-notch, putting Playstation to shame. The games, as I mentioned, were nothing short of incredible. The controller was funny looking and insanely comfortable to hold; the mini-joystick was awesome. Sure, the new systems have internet and play movies and are complete entertainment centers. But all the games nowadays seem like they’re just first person shooters, designed to train kids for war and desensitize them to violence. I bought an Xbox360 about 2 years ago I think, maybe less than that, after taking a Bar exam. I figured I’d get back into video games again, but the allure was gone, I couldn’t get into them. Assassin’s Creed was supposedly a classic, and I put it down after about 4 hours due to utter boredom. The 360 just sits around and collects dust. The most use I got out of it was the year I had Xbox Live and used Netflix (until their selection inevitably dried up, as Netflix selection sucks by the way), and that’s just not worth the cost of a system and the fees.

So, looking back, I cannot think of a greater system than Nintendo 64. In writing this I also realized I subconsciously was pretty loyal to the Nintendo brand, straying less frequently than I initially thought. I loved my Gameboy, and my Gameboy color was great too, I even got the Nintendo DS. I played a fair share of computer games all growing up, and absolutely loved Warcraft 3 during college; played it constantly. But in the end, other than the initial Nintendo, none of them could hold a candle to the great Nintendo 64. All hail Nintendo 64, the greatest console of all time.

By Tom Stortz|2013-02-15T09:36:16-05:00February 14th, 2013|Childhood, My Brain, My Life|2 Comments

Mother Can You Take Me

Think back to your childhood and recall how much you relied on your parents to get you from point A to point B when you were younger. How your parents would get annoyed once you started asking them too often. I remember my mom was always my go to and my dad was always a last resort. When I think back to it I really have to give my mom tons of credit because driving a teenage kid around must be a huge pain in the ass. It’s, stop everything you’re doing and drive your child to where they want to go. What is going on in your life must come to a halt. Plus you’d have some of your friends whose parents would rarely ever drive and it would get into a numbers game. Multiple rides to places in a day would occur to make matters worse. All my kids are riding a bike Jake Schwartz style.

The worst age for a parent had to be when your kids were 15 and they’d want to hang out late and then ask you to pick them up. My mom used to get PISSED when we’d say we had rides figured out, something would change and then we’d call her at midnight, and be like “can I have a ride home?” This obviously stopped once kids got their licenses but these had to be tough times. I remember a year or two before I could drive where we had track practice during the summer and we would break for lunch. Kids moms would actually pick them up at lunch and bring them back every day. I would hang nearby where my mom worked at a nursing home.

While I’m back in my childhood days, did anyone else get really excited just to see a boob (when did youtube start showing nipples?)? I remember movies like Species, Just One of the Guys, Disclosure, Wild Things, The Specialist, Barb Wire, Striptease, and some others that would come to me if I kept thinking about it, were like heaven sent. I probably didn’t even know how to bust a nut but the anticipation of a boob was all I needed. Let’s not forget meticulously searching through Vanity Fair for any semblance of an outlined nipple. Anyone else remember the introduction of the magazine Heavy Metal?

I did a lot of nerdy things too like set up a lan with Evan to play Quake 3. We used to abuse the Electronics Boutique return policy by buying a game and returning it within the 14 days. Why didn’t we just rent the game? The magic trick phase where we practiced magic was hilarious too. That used to piss my mom off more than anything because they had a magic stand at the Montgomeryville Mall that we’d always ask to go to when the Willow Grove mall was 15 minutes closer. Plus once you have more than 1 kid this is times 4 for my family. Ahh the good old days.

As you get older and mature you start to realize what a hassle it is to have kids but I’ll take this post and thank my mom (with slight recognition to my dad) for driving me to and from places to make my childhood a memorable experience. Without them I don’t know how I would have done all these nerdy activities.

By Tom Stortz|2013-02-15T09:35:36-05:00February 14th, 2013|Childhood, My Life|0 Comments

Mario’s – The Barber Experience

Today at Mario’s in Maple Glen, I spent 14 minutes and $20 dollars as I walked out with a fresh new haircut. I couldn’t have been happier. I always have a fear when I’m getting my hair cut that the barber is going to leave too much in front or buzz off the sides. There is a lot that can go wrong in a hair cut and then you have to deal with it for days, if not weeks, with a stupid hair cut. It’s not something that is easily fixed once it goes south. That’s why I still go to the same place that I’ve always gone to since childhood. The staff has hardly changed in the past 20 years and I think that gives a nice comfort level. My personal favorite is Nick and he is who I had today. He’s friendly, tells some decent stories, there aren’t any awkward moments of silence, and he gives a decent hair cut in quick time. He barely even uses scissors which shows his skill strictly with an electric razor. I couldn’t bring myself to trust a girl from Hair Cuttery to cut my hair. I feel like she’d try to style it into something it’s not. Here is what I came out with:

I blog shirtless and have those huge headphones as I listen to Spotify or AltNation on Sirius. I was going to doctor the photo with something comical in the background because I know everyone analyzes pictures looking for something to call someone out on. Not this time but just know that it’s in the back of my mind as something funny to do even though I’ll probably lose all credibility from here on out.

By Tom Stortz|2013-02-13T23:33:58-05:00February 13th, 2013|My Life|6 Comments

Men Are From Mars

By Tom Stortz|2013-02-12T09:12:55-05:00February 12th, 2013|My Life|1 Comment

People Helping People

Unlike the individualistic Howard Roark from Ayn Rand’s the Fountainhead, people need the help of other people to succeed. I’m obviously commenting on the post that was written below by one of my friends who I grew up with. I’ve been maintaining this blog for 3+ years now and have never taken a real leap into what I would consider a successful blog. With that thought in mind I decided to do something different and ask someone who I thought could aid me in this goal of success. There are certainly advantages to seeking out help and why it seems to me an important step in the right direction.

The first thing adding someone new does is it expands the audience. Instead of reaching only the people I know, the blog reaches people we know. More eyes on this website lead to more potential opportunity. Another crucial element is the addition of maintaining high standards. As the sole owner, I can do whatever I please with no one telling me how to run the site. With someone else involved I have a newly added responsibility to not slack off and make sure my posts are to the best of my ability. The other obvious addition is the material. A new mind creating work gives my readers a break from my same old thought process that I’m sure you’ve all grown bored of by now. Plus more content means that readers will check in more often. More people = more content. A final note, RedRocket promotes my blog over these past two days more than I ever would.

With all of these benefits being offered, I hope to give a clear understanding of the power of people helping people. Of course with more people involved, it leads to more managing. I do believe though that I’d be a way better manager than writer. I was terrible in English class throughout school and my verbal SATS were a joke. My only attribute is observing and thinking of ideas and getting them down on wordpress. Guest authors would be phenomenal and help grow this site. Obviously I can’t offer much but I think it’s pretty clear that I’m not doing this for financial gain. I wanted to use this post to express my gratitude for my buddy to take his own personal time and write an entry that I thought was a particularly worthwhile read. I hope you all enjoyed it too and that we can use this synergy as an example of what can be achieved when people work together. Also calling out anyone who wants to write something and utilize the guest author widget that took me an hour to figure out how to use properly.

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T02:58:23-04:00February 10th, 2013|My Life|0 Comments

Rnningfool Speaks

I feel that the time has come for a new era of this blog. The reach of this blog is disappointing and it’s time for new, fresh ideas to take rnningfool.com into the future. I have been working intently with SEO optimization and believe that this will help traffic moving forward. HOWEVER, this isn’t enough to generate the buzz I’m looking for. I am a progressive person and constantly trying to improve on what I do. A definitive goal has been set which is “to reach 1,000 hits in a single day.” This will require an active website that will be updated more frequently and with better content. I am asking you, yes you behind the keyboard & monitor, for help. Either suggestions that could make this blog better or perhaps even material that I would be delighted to share. JKash does send me things from time to time which I haven’t acted on but sometimes I’m not sure how to create an entire post dedicated to Vontaze Burfict pointing at Matt Barkley. The only way for me to reach this goal is to have a collective effort from my readers. I can’t do it myself. A good indicator of the future of this blog is how many “GOOD” comments this post generates.

0-1 – Hope is minimal
2-3 – We stand a chance
3-4 – People are actually reading these posts
5+ – Ain’t no stopping us now

By Tom Stortz|2013-02-08T00:29:49-05:00February 8th, 2013|My Life|1 Comment

International Roofing Show in San Antonio

My traveling has finally concluded and I’m back in the frigid air of Philadelphia. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I enjoyed the 80 degree weather of the keys and the 80 degree weather of San Antonio. On Monday, I scheduled a flight into San Antonio for the International Roofing Show in the late evening. I was chatting it up with the cab driver on my way to the hotel and learned that 50% of San Antonio is Latin American which for whatever reason I hadn’t considered. I arrived at 10pm at Hotel Contessa which was quite a luxurious hotel. I had a king suite which I packaged for 2 nights and airfare for about $650 dollars which I thought was pretty reasonable considering how nice the hotel was. I went to sleep early to get a good start on my Tuesday.

I woke up at 7:15 and ate a buffet style breakfast which was tight. After rocking a deuce, I put on my running gear to explore San Antonio. After some basic running around the streets to get my bearings I found the Riverwalk which you can see from the picture below.

On just a fabulous run I must have taken the Riverwalk upstream about 4 miles or so and then back. Early in the morning, not many people on the path, and beautiful weather was a perfect start to the day. When I got back I showered and prepared for the first day of the roofing show. I also downloaded a book called the Keys to Success by Napoleon Hill which I’ve been pretty floored by after only finishing about 20% of the book. More on this in future posts. Without getting into great detail about the show, I spent 5+ floor hours meeting people and networking with contacts amongst the industry. A Gourlay lookalike who I’ve been working with and has taken a liking to me and invited me to a business “party” hosted by a huge player of the roofing industry.

It was at 7:30 and the show ended at 5 so I went back to the hotel and to the pool area where I just relaxed on the top level of this beautiful pool. After that I found the Riverwalk again and ate some Spanish food and had a few beers at a local spot. I met some random Texan at the bar who was pretty entertaining. After my first sentence to him saying I was from Pennsylvania he replied with, “you sure sound like it.” After dinner I met up with my contact and we drank some beers and basically just had a good time at this open bar. I probably drank about 10 beers and was pretty buzzed but not out of control. I went back to my hotel and called it a night around midnight.

Sadly that was the most exciting part of my adventure. The 2nd day of the roofing show wasn’t nearly as beneficial to me as the first day because I had done most everything I wanted to do. I spent some time exploring the Alamo which I can know say I know what happened there and more of the city of San Antonio which I will say is a pretty nice, clean, well laid out city. The weather is pretty fantastic as well. I boarded my plane at 6pm to connect in Chicago and then back home. I got in around 1am and everything was smooth sailing. The trip was really quite refreshing and doing things like that are essential to keeping your mind open and thinking.

This is just a quick thought on airplane travel which bothered me. Carry on bags are just that, carry ons. They aren’t small suitcases. I watch all these guys who think they are so smart not checking in a bag and watch all the inconvenience they cause with their too large for a small compartment suitcase. In the past 6 days I’ve checked a bag 4 times successfully. Literally not having to wait more than 7 minutes after getting to the carousel. So the idea of them losing your bag isn’t a valid argument. USAIR makes you pay 25 bucks so I understand the cheapskate mentality of not paying this fee but seriously if I watch one more idiot stuff a bag too big for the storage compartment I’m going to flip. I also watched this idiot Asian play this game on his Ipad that made a sound every time he made a move. I almost spazzed out when I heard it for 30 minutes straight but figured he was some foreigner who didn’t understand English and it would be more trouble than it was worth. MUTE MOTHERFUCKER! Same thing with people playing Solitare. That’s the worst game on the goddamn planet. I don’t even feel I need to back up the shittiness of that game.

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T02:59:00-04:00February 7th, 2013|My Life|4 Comments

South to the Keys

I returned safely from a trip to West Palm Beach, to Fort Lauderdale, and the Florida Keys. I left on Thursday and met up with one of my dad’s old friends who lives in Delray. It was the first time I’d seen him in about 5 years so we had some catching up to do. We talked about investments, family, and everything in between. In the evening he drove me to Lauderdale where I met up with the Rock.

I’ve wrote this before but the two of us just get along pretty well. There is no awkwardness or anything, we just act like we’ve known each other for years even though we only see each other every few months. We went to Los Olas Blvd and had food at an overpriced tavern and purchased a few cigars for later. Next we went to a local pub by him and met up with another bro who we used to go to high school with. Even though we only talked for a few hours, it’s still fun to catch up. We called it a night at around midnight because Rock still had to work on Friday.

I woke at 9 or so on Friday and got some breakfast and then went on a 6 mile run down A1A. Running along the beach in warm weather is quite a treat in February. After that I went to the Galleria and got some lunch by myself on the water. At 5 pm, the Rock got back and we had made hotel reservations in Key West which is the southern most point of Florida. We met one of his friends who ended up driving us down there. We stopped at Red Robin along the way because his friend really loved the bottomless steak fries. After driving for 3 hours or so, we finally arrived at our destination.

The hotel was pretty decent and we wanted to see the bar scene even though it was already pretty late and we were all sober. We walked around a bit but it was tough interacting with all the tourists when there was no alcohol involved. We had a few drinks but called it a night at 1am so we’d be ready for the next day.

Saturday was perhaps one of the best Saturdays I’ve had in a long time. We got up at 9am and went to get some breakfast. Along the way we stopped at a resort to rent some MoPeds which the Rock said was pretty fun. For some reason we had to wait an hour before they picked us up to get the MoPeds. When we got to the place, I made it pretty clear I’d never rode a Moped before when I almost slammed into a fence by gunning the throttle the first time I tried to make a turn. Still, the guy didn’t really care and sent us on our way. I’ll be perfectly honest and say it was pretty exhilarating riding these things around with no training whatsoever. We were in traffic being tailed by cars and having no idea how to switch lanes properly or even turn. Amazingly we managed to get back to our hotel where we lounged around the pool for an hour or two. For 5 minutes in the pool area I can honestly say I didn’t have a care in the world and felt really great.

We got on the Mopeds again to head to town to watch the Miami Hurricanes basketball game when the first Moped mishap almost occurred. I was feeling a bit too cocky on the Moped and tried to make a left hand turn onto a two lane street with a car coming in the far right lane. On my turn I swung the bike out way too far and thought I was going to get rear ended but somehow the car avoided my stupidity. We took the Mopeds to a place called Dante’s which was an outside pool bar. After some time there we went joy riding for a bit more before we turned the dangers of the motorcycle world in.

We watched a really tight Hurricanes game that they ended up winning and then headed to a bar to smoke some cigars we had bought earlier. This was the view and us at this point.

This was the 2nd time I could say I was truly happy. The view was unreal and the cigar / Johnnie Walker combo hit the spot. I was starting to catch a pretty good buzz at this point and my memory isn’t perfectly clear. We met up with a few of his friends at a bar and I Irish exited out to a strip club at one point. Once I got tired of that I went to a bar called the Garden of Eden which was a nude club. I figured it was worth a look. As I got up the stars the first thing I’m greeted with is a 50 year old fat man with his junk hanging out. I promptly exited and called it a night.

We woke up at 10 today and had breakfast before the brutal 3 hour drive made worse by the singing of Dave’s fat friend. We got back at 3 and hung out for a bit before the Rock drove me to the airport. I put 187 dollars on the Ravens which covered and helped to bail me out of the large some of money I spent there. I spent about 700 dollars there which included every single thing I did aside from the 48 dollar Moped charge. Throw in the airfare and it was about a grand for 3 days. Bottomline, it was worth it. We had an experience that I’ll never forget for the rest of my life and that’s priceless. Plus there were multiple times I can say I was truly happy which I haven’t been finding as easily of late. Now I’m off to San Antonio for a few days. The fun is just beginning.

By Tom Stortz|2013-02-03T23:57:53-05:00February 3rd, 2013|My Life|0 Comments