Ramblings Post #355
I made a big deal about getting back to writing, at least on here, then I just kinda whiffed. I'm still not writing enough of anything , shorts, poetry, etc, and with the big one coming up at the end of the month I'm still not quite there. I have stories I've been meaning to write and I have been using this as an excuse to write them, but this year feels different. To many things in flux I guess.
So let's see how many half finished posts I have that I can't get done right now: Construction near office causes professional fatigue, bad television show critique, political post that got trampled by current events, other bad television show critique, other political post and more trampling, middle age rant about traffic, middle aged rant about cleaning my house, book planning for November writing frenzy, and office bowling teams.
That last one: Office bowling teams. Yeah, I signed up for the bowling team because at work ( i.e., the Ranch) I can spend hours not speaking to anyone. Because of the nature of what I actually do, It is possible to go in, ride herd and stack hay and not have an actual conversation with a live person until mid-afternoon. My fellow cattlehands have embraced the headphone lifestyle, rocking out all day oblivious to the goings on around us, and that combined with a series of rolling meeting schedules that mean its not uncommon to look up and me be the only ranch hand I see on these particular forty acres. So in an effort to be sociable, I signed up for an office bowling league team.
I need to have my head examined.
I signed up as an alternate, so that what I should have been able to do was show up and have a beer or two while cheering the rest of my team on. You know, just being sociable. No fuss, no muss. They even threw in a free T-shirt for my trouble. So, planning to breeze in late and leave early because I actually had another stop or two to make, your boy slid through for a quick meet and mingle with the "other farmhands." Have some laughs, drink a bit, knock the kinks out of the old social mojo, that sort of thing.
I got roped into playing as the inaugural event had a sparse showing. But I guess you saw that coming, didn't you?
I might have last been bowling over a decade ago. Have the lanes gotten narrower? I think the lanes have gotten narrower. I'm going to partly attribute my poor showing to the fact that by arriving late I did not have time to warm up. And that my ankle was sore. And that Mercury was in retrograde, causing my chakras to become misaligned and knock my vibes out of sync. Something like. Could it have been I'm just not a good bowler? Nah. Or yeah. One of them. They're all equally valid reasons.
The guys in the next lane (also farmhands) could have been on the pro tour - they had that classic spin on the ball, the made it curve like a bow, picking up spares off splits and other bowling lingo that makes them seem cool. I was bowling with people who once the ball left their hands would turn around and ask us not to look at the lane and we cheered for two or three pins going down. I was bowling against someone from the Bedrock bowling league who literally heaved the ball a quarter of the way down the alley Flintstones style. The sad part is that he is still a better bowler than me.
The Ranch provided us with some "social lubricant", but me being of a certain age and temperment I decided to go get what I actually wanted. The bar, in a throwback bowling alley that looked like it was time locked in 1973, was a bit of a surprise. Not that it was there, I mean where else does the beer you're supposed to drink while bowling come from? No, what was a shock was that I spotted a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle. Seriously. I asked the bartender if I was seeing things and he assured me that he was not. I asked how much it was and he indicated that it was $40....a shot. Not a drink, a shot. So I went back to the beer.
It was a fairly good evening. If the point of the game was fun, then my team clearly won. Unfortunately the actual point of the game is knocking down pins, and we knocked down less than they did. But this wasn't like bowling but golf rules, right? No? I went out again for week 2, but this time they'd made such a big fuss about all the fun even the company execs showed up. And none of those deep pocketed bros even broke down and got the Pappy. Weak. It was still fun, but halfway work associated fun, you know?
Barkeep. How much is the Pappy? How much? A glass of your finest *cough* cheapest, beer on tap please. Thank you.
I made a big deal about getting back to writing, at least on here, then I just kinda whiffed. I'm still not writing enough of anything , shorts, poetry, etc, and with the big one coming up at the end of the month I'm still not quite there. I have stories I've been meaning to write and I have been using this as an excuse to write them, but this year feels different. To many things in flux I guess.
So let's see how many half finished posts I have that I can't get done right now: Construction near office causes professional fatigue, bad television show critique, political post that got trampled by current events, other bad television show critique, other political post and more trampling, middle age rant about traffic, middle aged rant about cleaning my house, book planning for November writing frenzy, and office bowling teams.
That last one: Office bowling teams. Yeah, I signed up for the bowling team because at work ( i.e., the Ranch) I can spend hours not speaking to anyone. Because of the nature of what I actually do, It is possible to go in, ride herd and stack hay and not have an actual conversation with a live person until mid-afternoon. My fellow cattlehands have embraced the headphone lifestyle, rocking out all day oblivious to the goings on around us, and that combined with a series of rolling meeting schedules that mean its not uncommon to look up and me be the only ranch hand I see on these particular forty acres. So in an effort to be sociable, I signed up for an office bowling league team.
I need to have my head examined.
I signed up as an alternate, so that what I should have been able to do was show up and have a beer or two while cheering the rest of my team on. You know, just being sociable. No fuss, no muss. They even threw in a free T-shirt for my trouble. So, planning to breeze in late and leave early because I actually had another stop or two to make, your boy slid through for a quick meet and mingle with the "other farmhands." Have some laughs, drink a bit, knock the kinks out of the old social mojo, that sort of thing.
I got roped into playing as the inaugural event had a sparse showing. But I guess you saw that coming, didn't you?
 |
| Our spot wasn't near this nice. This is a "representative picture" of where we were. |
I might have last been bowling over a decade ago. Have the lanes gotten narrower? I think the lanes have gotten narrower. I'm going to partly attribute my poor showing to the fact that by arriving late I did not have time to warm up. And that my ankle was sore. And that Mercury was in retrograde, causing my chakras to become misaligned and knock my vibes out of sync. Something like. Could it have been I'm just not a good bowler? Nah. Or yeah. One of them. They're all equally valid reasons.
The guys in the next lane (also farmhands) could have been on the pro tour - they had that classic spin on the ball, the made it curve like a bow, picking up spares off splits and other bowling lingo that makes them seem cool. I was bowling with people who once the ball left their hands would turn around and ask us not to look at the lane and we cheered for two or three pins going down. I was bowling against someone from the Bedrock bowling league who literally heaved the ball a quarter of the way down the alley Flintstones style. The sad part is that he is still a better bowler than me.
The Ranch provided us with some "social lubricant", but me being of a certain age and temperment I decided to go get what I actually wanted. The bar, in a throwback bowling alley that looked like it was time locked in 1973, was a bit of a surprise. Not that it was there, I mean where else does the beer you're supposed to drink while bowling come from? No, what was a shock was that I spotted a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle. Seriously. I asked the bartender if I was seeing things and he assured me that he was not. I asked how much it was and he indicated that it was $40....a shot. Not a drink, a shot. So I went back to the beer.
It was a fairly good evening. If the point of the game was fun, then my team clearly won. Unfortunately the actual point of the game is knocking down pins, and we knocked down less than they did. But this wasn't like bowling but golf rules, right? No? I went out again for week 2, but this time they'd made such a big fuss about all the fun even the company execs showed up. And none of those deep pocketed bros even broke down and got the Pappy. Weak. It was still fun, but halfway work associated fun, you know?
Barkeep. How much is the Pappy? How much? A glass of your finest *cough* cheapest, beer on tap please. Thank you.
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