Kinky Little Sex Shop

Last Monday I received a call at work from my friend Anna in Las Vegas. When I saw her name pop up on my cell phone in the middle of the day, I was sure something was wrong. This how I usually feel when I am getting a phone call at a time when it is unusual for a particular person to call me. Anyway, my fears were all for naught. Anna had a favor to ask of me. Now I hate to admit, but my first thought, especially when she added that if I couldn’t so it, not to worry, was that she wanted to borrow some money. That however, was not the case. She wanted me to order something off the internet.

Now, if you know my friend Anna (I know Homercles does), you may have an idea where this is leading. Anna works for a company in Las Vegas that manufactures and sells equipment that uses electrical pulses for the purpose of sexual stimulation. These are not your everyday typical sex toys. They sell devices that get attached to or inserted into various parts of the human anatomy for the purpose of sexual stimulation. They also sell latex clothing and S&M devices, but that’s a different story. Anyway, Anna wanted me to purchase a device from a company in England. From what I know about these products, the device was a conductive flexible loop that is supposed to be looped around someone’s penis (maybe more, but I am not sure) then hooked up to a box that sends a pulsing electrical current through it. I'm sure she will leave a comment if I am incorrect in my description of the item

Apparently there has been a lawsuit between the company Anna works for and the one in England. I guess the settlement of the lawsuit prohibits the English company from shipping the device to address in the United States. Anna’s company wanted to make sure they were holding up their end of the agreement, so she needed someone who couldn’t easily be connected with them to order it to see if they shipped the item. I placed an order, but it was cancelled. So I guess they are abiding by the agreement. It was the first, and probably last, time I ever ordered a product of that type.

RAGBRAI Overnight Towns Announced

The Des Moines Register has announced the overnight towns for this year's RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa. I have been looking forward to this summer's RAGBRAI since last year's ride ended. I just hope my friends from Texas are able to make it up this year.

We'll be starting the ride in Sergeant Bluff. I had a college roommate from there. This will be the first time that RAGBRAI has begun there.

The overnight towns will be:

• Ida Grove
• Audubon
• Waukee
• Newton
• Friday
• Marengo
• Coralville

The ride will end in Muscatine. In 2001, my second RAGBRAI, the last day went from Coralville to Marengo. If the route out of town is the same as that year, we'll be passing by the place in Iowa City where I work on Highway 1.

In 2001 I was living in Coralville. The main campground was in the city park located just a few blocks from my apartment. It was really nice because my dad, our friends from Texas, and I were able to stay the last night in my air conditioned apartment. I have a coworker who lives in Coralville. Perhaps she will let us stay at her house. I'll have to remember to ask her tomorrow.

Time to Exercise

I put the NordicTrack elliptical runner together last night. It wasn't too hard to assemble, although the first step of securing parts to the bottom of the very heavy frame were difficult. The rest of it went pretty smoothly. However I think I damaged the wires from the pulse sensors when putting the handlebars on. When I tried to find my pulse while using it, the display only read "PLS." We did pay for the service plan. Hopefully they'll be able to fix it, although since I likely caused the damage, I'll probably have to pay for the repair. Now it's time to use it and to get into shape!

There's still time to bid on the Super Nintendo. The auction doesn't end until some time after 11:00 a.m. Central time on Monday. The bidding is now up to $51, but don't let the price scare you off. You'll enjoy hours of gaming fun with this wonderful device.

Super Nintendo for Sale

In unpacking some boxes in my house, I finally found my Super Nintendo game system. As I didn't use it much before packing it up in anticipation of moving, I am selling it on eBay.

I am including several SNES games with it:

• Tetris Attack
• Super Mario World 2 - Yoshi's Island
• Donkey Kong Country
• Clay Fighter 2 - C2: Judgment Clay
• Super Mario All-Stars (Includes the games Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3)
• NBA Jam Tournament Edition
• Star Trek: Starfleet Academy - Starship Bridge Simulator
• Super Return of the Jedi
• Populous

It also comes with a Super Game Boy adapter and some Game Boy games:

• Ms. Pac-Man
• Donkey Kong
• Donkey Kong Land
• Arcade Classic 4: Defender & Joust

The bidding starts at $24.99. So if anyone is interested, check out the eBay listing.

Sorry about the blatant use of my blog for advertising this, but I figure that more exposure to this auction can only be a good thing.

A Wasted Day

I have today off from work for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. I have no problem at all with this day being a holiday, but I don't really feel the need to get the day off from work. There are several other federal holidays that I still have to work and I had a Monday off just two weeks ago and another the Monday before that. If it were a bit warmer outside I'd be able to enjoy the outdoors and go for a bike ride. The company I work for didn't give this day off last year but instead gave its employees an extra floating holiday to use at their discretion.

I was supposed to have a doctor appointment today for a routine physical, but I got a phone call from the doctor's office informing me that my doctor will be stuck at the hospital all day, so I had to reschedule my appointment. Now I have me entire day wide open. There are a few things that I should do around the house. In the fall I removed some bushes from the front of our house. I had been disposing of the brush from the bushes in our yard waste container for several weeks afterward until it was covered with snow. Once the snow melted, it has been too dark by the time I get home from work to cut up the remaining brush to get it to fit into the container. Also, I need to rearrange some furniture in the basement to make room for the NordicTrack elliptical trainer that we bought at Sears yesterday. It is supposed to arrive on Thursday. This will really make exercising much easier.

A Night Out

This evening I kind of felt like I was in high school or college once again. It's been about that long since I have been out as late as I was tonight. This evening, Mel went to the apartment of a coworker (one who is a former student of mine, but that's another story) for some pizza then they were going to some bars. Well, I decided to give my good friend Bill (the best man from my wedding in November) a call to see what he was up to. He is in the process of getting divorced and recently got an apartment and he had previously mentioned that I should come over to see it. I ended up meeting Bill and his son Tristan at Planet X in Cedar Rapids around 7:30 where we played some video games and miniature golf. Bill's friend Scott showed up later to join in the festivities. Bill had some errands to run, but around 11:30 we ended up meeting back up with him at his new apartment in Marion. Bill, Scott, and I had some fun playing darts and drinking a little. Okay, I was the only one who really did any drinking. Scott doesn't drink and Bill thought that the two sips of the drinks I brought that contained vodka were affecting his dart game, so he stopped. Anyway, I just got home. Mel's still out, but I'll probably go off to bed here in a few minutes. This was a really fun night and I would like to do this again some time. I suppose I should enjoy it now before I get even more tied down with having children, not that I am not looking forward to that possibility. It's just that I imagine that having children will completely change my priorities. That's not a bad thing, it will just be something that I have to adapt to.

Music

Music can be a great tool in remembering the past -- both people and places. This occurred to me today at work while I was listening to my iPod. This morning I listened to some music from Babylon 5. This made me think back to 1998 when I was living in Rosenberg, Texas. There isn't anything particularly Texan about the Babylon 5 soundtrack, but it was when I lived there that I really got into the show -- during its final season. In the afternoon I listened to another soundtrack that reminds me of my time in Texas, Titanic. When I think about living in Texas, I sometimes wish I would have given it more of a chance. Of course, things have worked out pretty good for me. If I'd have stayed in Texas, I never would have met my wife.

The Sun!

For the first time in quite a while, I actually saw the sun on my way home from work. I am so happy that the days are getting longer. Just last week, it would already be getting dark when I left work. Those days are now over as long as it's not too cloudy. Of course, it was beginning to get dark by the time I completed my commute from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids, but things will only get better from here, at least until fall.

Wrestling Tournament

Yesterday I spent the whole day helping out at a wrestling tournament at the high school I used to teach at south of Iowa City. It's been almost four years since I have taught there, but I enjoy going back to help out my friend who is the wrestling coach. It also gives me a chance to see some of my former students. The last students I had there are now in their junior and senior years (the school had grades seven through twelve when I left in 2002) but many former students return to see the tournament. Helping out yesterday kind of made me miss teaching a bit. I had my struggles while I was there, but I also had a lot of good times. While it would be nice to be teaching again, my new job has a lot of advantages over teaching; the pay and benefits are better and I don't have to worry about misbehaving children. There are of course other things I enjoy about my current job. I have no plans to return to teaching anytime in the near future. Perhaps in the distant future I may once again return to the classroom.

Podcasting

Last night I discovered podcasting. I had of course heard about it, but I hadn't really looked into it. I had figured that it would be difficult to work while listening to a podcast, but this morning I listened to NPR's Most E-Mailed Stories podcast. I really think that this will add more usefulness to my iPod. I just hope I have time to listen to everything I download now.

Happy New Year!

Ok, I know that I'm a day late in wishing everyone a happy new year, but I was at the in-laws' house this weekend and we didn't get back until late last night. I suppose I could have slipped off into the other room at their house to use their computer, but that would have been rude.

Anyway, we are back. Mel and I had a pretty busy day with our day off from work. We went to the Coral Ridge Mall to do some shopping. Mel needed to return a gift she had received from a friend to Dillard's but we don't have one in Cedar Rapids. We spent quite a bit of time at the mall. Besides exchanging the gift she had for something else, we bought some calendars on sale and a few clearance Christmas supplies. We stopped at Best Buy. Mel had wanted to buy the fifth season of CSI on DVD, but Best Buy was charging $99.99 for it! She wanted it, but not that badly. Fortunately we were able to find it at Target for about $65. She felt that was a much more reasonable price. Of course, I'll still end up spending about $100 myself to buy the second season of Star Trek. But I am going to wait until I get a coupon for 10% off on DVDs. I also received quite a few Best Buy gift cards for Christmas.

I didn't end up getting many presents that I needed to return. One thing that I do have to return however is the extra copy of Monty Python's Life of Brian that I got this weekend. I got it from both my parents-in-law and from my sister-in-law. Both of them had ordered it from Amazon.com, so returning it is going to be a bit of a pain. I need an order number from one of them, and then I'll end up eating the shipping cost of sending it back. I think I will end up sending everyone a different list next year to avoid duplicate gifts.

Now it wouldn't be a proper new year if I didn't make a resolution or two. One of my resolutions for the new year is to get back into losing some weight, and maintaining the weight loss once it is achieved. From May 2004 until January 2005, I managed to lose 33 pounds. I kept most of it off until the spring when Mel and I moved into my parents' house after selling my house in Waterloo in anticipation of moving to Cedar Rapids. Now my weight is back up to just eleven pounds below where I was before I started watching my weight. My goal is to lose 33 pounds between now and August 21, bringing my weight to under 200 pounds for the first time in quite a while. That will mean that I need to lose just one pound per week. But that's not enough. I then have the goal of maintaining the weight-loss for the remainder of the year.

In order to achieve this goal, I am going to need to get back into exercising regularly. Today Mel and I cleaned up the room in our house that has the Bowflex in it. It still is being used as a shelf for a few things, but by the end of the week, I should be able to use it to exercise. I've been using the fact that it's winter as an excuse not to go walking, but the weather hasn't really been all that bad. I could probably go out and walk some. That is part of the reason that I bought the iPod nano after all.

I should be able to accomplish my goal of weight loss if I commit myself to it. I made it a realistically achievable goal and it is a measurable goal, so I should be able to do it.