A Herd of Free Armadillos (To a Good Home)

Florida FridayPeople sell ANYTHING on Craigslist. Treadmill with broken motor and no belt? $100. Microsoft Zune with a cracked screen? $50. So if someone’s just giving something away on Craigslist through the “Free Stuff” board, it’s got to be pretty bad.

A quick roundup of actual Craigslist Cleveland Free Stuff for today:

  • Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within DVD (“In decent used shape”)
  • Free fishing bait? Freezer burnt (?) lg bag frozen shrimp (“I have a large unopened 2 lb bag of frozen unpeeled shrimp we never got around to eating. Ice in the bag so I suspect it’s freezer burnt. Maybe not since it’s still in the shell?”)
  • Free bag men’s depends underwear (“Free free free!” Does not say if they have been used or not.)

So when you find something that’s actually good on the Craigslist Free Stuff board, you need to pounce. Jacksonville, it’s time to pounce. Continue reading →

The Pooch

PoochI am skinnier than the average guy. According to a quick Google search, I am also skinnier than the below average guy and the underweight guy.

You know those growth percentiles parents can’t stop sharing sharing? (Amelia Rose is in the 75th percentile for her weight, 64th percentile for height, 98th percentile for head size, etc.) Those were the most important stats of my teen years. The doctor would bring my mom in after a physical and give her a grave look.

“Dustin is doing well, but…”

Here it comes.

“He is in the 5 percentile in weight for his age.”

Sigh of relief and silent celebration. I had been in the 4 percentile the previous year.

Although living below the 7 percentile has had its benefits from time to time (hide-and-go-seek, reaching change between car seats, etc.), it’s not something I’ve always been happy about. Especially in high school. Continue reading →

Surviving the World’s Longest Day

World's Longest DayMy wife Deserae, and I recently took a once-in-a-lifetime-now-we-can-have-kids trip to Australia. Going to Australia has been a dream of mine ever since I was little, and it exceeded my expectations in every way. Well, maybe except one – the trip back home.

Between America and Australia is a mysterious thing called The International Dateline. I’m still not sure what The International Dateline is all about, but I do know that it involves a fair amount of time travel and can make for some very strange days. In our case, The International Dateline gave us The World’s Longest Day.

From midnight in Brisbane to midnight when we finally fell asleep in a Dallas hotel, 40 hours had passed. In those 40 hours, we encountered the grumpiest Australian, a homeless Spider-Man, a team of racist breakdancers and the best meal of our lives.

You may enjoy a running diary of the day’s events. Continue reading →

2048: Be Smart, Don’t Start

2048Hello, my name is Dustin, and I am addicted to iPhone games.

I don’t know how it works for most people, but when I download a game, I am unable to stop playing it until I beat it. This is a problem for two reasons.

  1. Most iPhone games are really long.
  2. I am terrible at all of them.

Over the last several years, I’ve gotten smarter about downloading these games. For example, I deleted Candy Crush after two hours when I realized the game has 500 levels, forcing me to choose between nine months of colorful candies and my marriage. After the Plants vs. Zombies 2 disaster of 2013, I finally decided to become an iPhone teetotaler, and stopped downloading games all together.

I had been clean for five months, then 2048 happened. Continue reading →

Congressman Picks Ear on National Television AND EATS IT

Florida Fridayhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk2dyF5Fvv8

It can be one of the biggest battles parents fight. Most stop and ask themselves at some point, “Is it even worth the effort?”

Breaking your child of the habit of picking his nose and eating the boogers is worth the effort. Because even though his picking-and-eating habit may not stop him from doing something great with his life – even becoming a member of Congress – it will rear its ugly head at the most inopportune time.

Probably when he’s on national TV. Continue reading →

A Marathon Is Really Long When You Have to Pee

Marathon Finish LineThe Cleveland Marathon is this weekend. I ran the race five years ago and wrote about my experience. If you’ve ever wanted to find out what it’s like to run a marathon without actually running one, this is for you.

Pre-race
It’s 5:45 on the morning of the race, and I’ve just discovered my car has been egged.

I promise, I’m not surprised. In the weeks leading up to the race, I’ve dreamed that my car wouldn’t start, that I had forgotten to sign up for the marathon all together, that I’d gotten lost on the way to the race, and, of course, that I had run the whole thing in my underwear. Really, I’m relieved that an eggy car is all I have to worry about. Continue reading →

To the People of the ER Waiting Room: I’m Sorry

ER Waiting Room

The other day, I was thinking that I hadn’t done anything worth writing about for a while. Then I poked myself in the eye with a stick.

I had been breaking branches off a small bush in the backyard when somehow a twig splintered off and flew into my eye. If you’d like to know what it feels like to have a twig fly into your eye, dig your fingernail into your eyeball and leave it there for the rest of the day. Continue reading →

Hump Daaaay

Hump Day

Perhaps you remember the greatest television advertisement of 2013: the Geico Hump Day commercial.

In the ad, a camel walks around a workplace asking people what day it is. (The people may be his coworkers. It’s unclear. The camel is not wearing a tie.) When he finally gets an answer (Hump Day), he lets out a “woo woooooo,” the Geico guys tell us that people who switch to their insurance are happier than a camel on Wednesday, and everyone buys Geico car insurance. Continue reading →

Florida Woman Calls 911 to Report the Sun

Florida Fridayhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsVq07tyUcs&end=64

Being a 911 operator has to be awesome. Yes, there’s daily tragedy, but I’m sure there’s also plenty of THIS.

A Florida woman recently looked into the sky and saw the sun. (Being from Cleveland, I can only assume that’s a nice feeling.) She noticed a phenomenon known as a “22-degree halo” where particles ice particles high in the air cause a halo around the sun. It’s a pretty cool effect, but not cool enough to like pull the kids out of school to see it or anything.

Anyways, instead of joining the rest of Florida by saying “That’s weird” and returning to Candy Crush, she chose to call 911. This was her chance to not only save Tampa, Florida, but also possibly “get the news people out here.” Continue reading →