"I think you have some of my blood on your glasses"

I think donating blood is a pretty awesome thing to do. When I see a blood drive, I always think "I'm young, I'm strong, I'm not using all 10-12 pints right now" and make an appointment and donate some a-plus A+ (blood puns!) to those in need. You get to save someone's life, and you get a cookie - pretty sweet, huh? Usually yeah...

One of the most recent times I had donated, it started out pretty standard. I saw a flier for a blood drive close to work and made a donation appointment over my lunch hour. I didn't think I would come out of it with a good story, I just planned on getting some juice, maybe stealing an extra cookie and proudly wearing my "I donated blood, be nice to me" sticker for the rest of the afternoon (girls like a guy who saves lives, right?).

I sign in, have the standard Q&A with the nurse and 5 minutes later I'm in the donating chair - 1 step closer to my juicebox and sympathy-inducing sticker. Nothing out of the ordinary yet...then they introduced me to the new girl. Apparently I was lucky enough to be her very first donor of the day on her second or third day as a phlebotomist. As she nervously laughed while telling me her name I had made a mental note that I will be taking 2 extra cookies.

She looks at my arms, she gets a puzzled look on her face and announces that she might have some trouble finding my veins. I do not want to brag about it or anything, but I have awesome veins. Drug addicts would KILL for veins like these - there is no way she should have had any problems finding them. After some "careful" contemplation she grabs the needle and nervously smiles at me. Seeing a mix of fear and apprehension in the eyes of someone who is lunging at your arm with a needle is never good.

She is about to make her first attempt and I begin to picturing the needle going completely through my arm when she suddenly stops and screams for her trainer to come over and see if she is "doing this right".

This isn't a good sign.

The trainer comes over, tells her to calm down and tells her to just shove the needle in my vein. She takes a deep breath and we officially have "Try #1". From my angle, it looks like she is too far over to the left. When more blood starts trickling out of the puncture wound than in the bag, it's official.

Time for try "#1.5"...how is it 1.5? Why not just try #2??? Well, she decides to just move the needle around in my arm to try to find the pesky vein.  After a few seconds of digging, she things she might have found it. Thinks? Call me a perfectionist, but after someone rakes around the inside of my arm with a needle, I kinda want a guarantee. She puts some tape over the needle to keep it in place and goes off to read some kind of instructional "How to collect blood" manual...again, not a good sign.

She comes back over and notices that my blood bag is filling slower than it should be and thinks that because she had to "dig around a bit", I might actually started to clot...due to the apparent internal damage...so in my head we are now up to 2 juice boxes, 4 cookies and 3 stickers. She suggests she try moving the needle up and down to help get the blood flowing.

At this point, my arm is a little numb, what the hell why not. She moves it a little and goes back to her book. Just as she flips a page, I look down and see a stream of blood dripping off of my arm onto the chair. I try to catch the attention of the other nurse, but my attentive trainee notices me and asks if I need help. "I think I'm bleeding out a bit, can I just get a towel or something? I'm OK but I don't want to get blood on your chair" OH NO! she yells and for some reason, things that re-adjusting the needle will help - is she trying to plug the hole? She moves the needle and blood sprays into her protective glasses. Not a ton of blood - just enough to spray her in the face and make her start screaming. At this point, the experienced nurse decides it's time to step in and save my life ( I was actually starting to wonder if the trainee was a hire hit-woman, I began to ask myself who I had pissed off lately).

After the "Blood Gushing Out of  My Arm" situation is resolved, the nurse (the one who is not trying to kill me) levels with me. "OK, here is the deal, she messed your right arm up, it clotted up from all of the digging. We don't have enough blood in the bag for a donation - we either need to collect a full pint from you or throw this bag out, we can only accept full bags - we can try your other arm - and I'll give you an extra sticker...you've been through alot".

There was no way I was going to:
a) Have gone through a bloodbath and not have had it done anyone any good.
b) Pass up an extra "Be nice to be, I donated blood" sticker.

"Ok, let's get the rest from the other arm, but I want you to do it, and I want an extra cookie".

The rest of the donation went pretty standard. I got my extra cookie, someone out there got a pint of my blood when they really needed it, and "Attila the phlebotomist"  kept her distance as she wiped her glasses off and nervously paged through her manual for the rest of my visit.

Even though I ended up a few pints lower than I expected, I still think donating blood is awesome, but do you know what is even more awesome? Not sucking at your job as a phlebotomist so you don't massacre the donors. 

"Row it off soldier" is horrible advice.

How many of you have gym memberships? OK, all of you who have your hands raised - keep them raised if you went at least 3 times a week when you first joined. Allright...now how many of you still go as often after 4 months? Still got them raised? Good! Quit complaining, if you work out as much as you say you do, your arm shouldn't hurt that bad. How about after 6 months? Anyone?

Like many Americans I am a fan of nacho cheese Doritos. And because of which, I have a gym membership. As you fellow orange-fingerprint-leaving star-athletes know, when you first join a gym, there is a bit of a learning curve. I have actually been a member of a few gyms over the past few years. I like my gym now, and although I do not consider myself ready to join the cast of Jersey Shore (Sidenote - what is up with the GTL thing? How the hell does anyone have so much laundry to do that they have made it into a mantra?), but I think I am experienced enough to not feel completely out of place at the gym. As I said, as with anything else new, there was a learning curve to working out. I'm sure noone involved will ever forget my first day working out at a gym.

A couple of years I decided for the first time that I want to be in better shape and was going to join the gym next door to my apartment complex. I was pretty excited. I spent the whole day at work ready and waiting to go home and work out for the first time at a new state-of-the-art gym. 5 O'clock came and I was on my way. Now I know that it is not good to work out on an empty stomach, so I figured I would quickly inhale a big plate of leftover spaghetti before I went for my first day at the gym. As a public service - noone who "inhales a large plate of spaghetti" into their mouth should be out the door on the way to the gym.

So on the first day that this place, they partner you up with a personal trainer to teach you how to use all of the equipment and then they max you out on every exercise they can think of so you can figure out how hard you should be working out.

WAIT - they do what? Crap...

So a while later there I am - covered in sweat, already sore and reeking of a combination of spaghetti & regret, when my trainer introduces me to our friend, the rowing machine. 3 sets into some furious high-impact high-level rowing "fun", I start feeling 'not so great'.

"You're FINE" I tell myself. "Row it off, soldier" I tell myself. "Row it off, soldier" is possibly some of the worst advice I have ever given myself.

Now it was my first day, I wasn't exactly sure what the tough-guy way was to tell your personal trainer that you are about to puke. Not wanting to seem like a wuss, between rows I manage to pant: "I...THINK...I...AM...GOING...TO...RUN TO..THE BATHROOM ...AND..PUKE...REAL...QUICK...OKAY?" My trainer asks me to repeat myself, points to the locker room and shrieks "OH GOD! Okay, RUN! Good Luck!". Good luck? Really? In his defense, I really don't know the proper way to respond to that either.

I make a mad dash to the huge locker room, which had apparently been built with the architectural goal of hiding the toilets and making them impossible to find. After frantically running to-and-fro with my hand over my mouth, I find them.

About 5 minutes later I'm ready to get back to completely acing day 1 at the gym. I figure "I already vomited - how much worse can it get". Then I fell off an an elliptical machine.

It wasn't exactly a 5-star day, but I can confidently say that I have not fallen off of, or threw up on gym equipment in years.

Sure we all see the new people at the gym - the first timer who wears jeans to work out, the lame couple that wears matching his-and-hers track suits (before he is ridiculed by his friends), when you see them, just remember how much of a spaz you probably were on day 1 and be a stand-up guy and remind them that the elliptical machines apparently operate on fucking moon gravity.

Get a room!

Ok, I will start out by saying that I am not a fan of PDA. No, I am not against little electronic organizers,  Public Displays of Affection are always super uncomfortable for basically everyone. A small kiss, a quick hug, an amorous high-five - I couldn't care less about the small stuff. It's the big stuff that weirds me out. What constitutes "big stuff" you may ask?

Well...

A few days ago I was at work. I looked out the window, saw that it was one of the rare nice days we get in our town. Since we basically only get 4 of them a year (I'm not kidding, we were honestly crowned the "City with the Worst Weather in America" by The Weather Channel), I decided I would go for a morning walk.  I grabbed a co-worker and we headed outside for a relaxing morning walk.

That particular morning, I was not the only one who decided to take advantage of a sunny, low-humidity, surprisingly-thunderstormless morning.

We get about a block away from work and walk past the downtown public library and there they were..I had decided to enjoy the weather by taking a walk around the block - BUT a large couple had decided that they would celebrate the nice weather by making love on the grassy knoll right in front of the library. My morning walk was ruined...not just my walk, but BOOKS IN GENERAL might actually now be ruined for me.

A few questions come to mind:
1) In what universe is this OK?
2) Why is it only the couples who are not considered traditionally..."attractive" who have no shame? Not that it would be ok if it were a couple of models who were mauling each other in front of the book depository, but it just always kinda seems...
3) WHY GOD WHY?
4 Did they get bored waiting for the library to open for the day and just needed something to do? Because there is ALWAYS sudoku. Dear god, I wish they would have chosen to do sudoku that morning.

I just shuttered, shook my head and continued on with my "relaxing" morning walk.

So if you are in love. FANTASTIC!
Am I happy for you? Yes!
Do I think that people who attack each other like a couple of jungle animals in heat in shockingly public places should be pelted with water balloons? Absolutely!

When you are out at Target, or the grocery story with that special someone, don't be a jerk and make it uncomfortable to be in the soup isle with the two of you. Knock it off before someone hoses the two of you down. Or just call the cops...and if they don't arrest you, they could maybe just mace me so I don't accidentally catch another horrifying glimpse. Either way.

But seriously, tone it down when other people are present.

Who's on Twitter?

So, I've had a Twitter account for a few months now that I haven't really used alot. I can either use it more often, or I can find productive things to do. I hate washing dishes, so feel free to follow My Twitter.

http://twitter.com/Josh__T

Yes it has 2 underscores between the h & the T.

Happy Tweeting (it just sounds wrong!).

Plans are for villians and cartoon coyotes.

I have a personal rule that states: "Planning ruins everything". Because it does. Seriously.

Of course I'm not talking about the stuff we should be planning (for example: 'budgeting your money', 'preparing for a major purchase', 'organizing your workload for the week' or 'defending yourself against the inevitable robot uprising'). If you spend any amount of time building up a social event in your head, you have instantly ruined it because almost nothing can ever really live up to hopeful expectations.

The cornerstone of my theory is Halloween Downtown.

It all started a few years ago when I agreed to be sober driver on Halloween and witnessed a night of complete and utter chaos unfold around me. Ever since that revelation, I have always considered Halloween the best people watching night of the year.

• A few years ago I waited till the last minute to buy a costume and ended up with a really relevant "Ghostface" from Scream costume. At one point in the night some random girl walked by, grabbed me and started furiously making out with my mask. I just kinda watched her through the mask eye holes until her friend came over and asked what the hell I was doing to her friend. 

• Face/body paint always seems like a really good idea until the moment you have to actually have to do anything. A few years ago, I saw a guy in a hulk costume (green paint) bun into a guy in a smurf costume (blue paint). Suddenly there were 2 drunk dudes pissed off that someone smeared paint all over them and ruined their costume. Suddenly a fight breaks out, 3 more surfs jump in to defend their friend. Then the bouncers get involved. It was a big, blue & green massacre.

• The wailing mermaid…who could ever forget. not really sure what happened with this one. I walked into a bar, there is a girl dressed like a mermaid, wailing and sobbing hysterically in the middle of the place flailing her arms like the robot from Lost In Space.

• Some girl dressed like Big Bird going apeshit crazy on some people across the street. I have never seen someone in such a cheerful costume yelling so violently at people a block away.

There have been many other hilarious incidents I've witnessed, and while alcohol can probably also be partially to blame,  I can't help but be somewhat convinced that the true culprit was the disappointment and frustration of everyone realizing that what was supposed to be the "BEST NIGHT EVER!" is just ending up like every other night…except for the costumes..and possibly a restraining order covered in blue and green paint.

I try not to put expectations on events. I now "Plan not to have plans". As lame as planning for  spontaneity sounds, I know that there is a good possibility that if I walk into a situation expecting it to be super fun, there's probably no way it can live up to my expectations.

So my advice to you is this: Let life happen and enjoy the moment you are in, rather than anticipating to find an enjoyable moment. And watch out for Big Bird. She is an angry drunk.

Rules for life: Fall 2010 edition

 So I usually write about awesome stuff I see, but I'm feeling inspired to pass on a bit of random advice. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll see someone throw up in public or get bitten by something next week and return to my usual content.

• Don't be too cool to have fun.
• Don't hum in public, it makes you look like a crazy person.
• Nothing makes a situation more awkward, than pointing out how awkward it is.
• Don't be a jerk to people. You'll do something dumb in front of someone soon enough and you'll want them to be cool about it.
• Always plan for the worst. Then, no matter what happens you'll be ready.
• Problems: either work on fixing them or shut up about them.
• Animals love to bite, and can't wait to bite you. From parrots to horses to roosters to kittens, don't turn your back on them. Unless you want it to get bit.
• Strangers don't want to hear music you are listening to. Ever. Seriously.
• 99.92% of people with facial tattoos are crazy. I'm sorry, it's just how it is. The ones that aren't crazy are really interesting.
• If you find yourself obsessing over a decision about something for more than 10 minutes, ask yourself "Will anyone but me realistically care about or notice this?". Probably not, just make a decision.
• When you order food and there are people behind you in line, if you don't know what you want, step aside. Hungry=cranky, don't make it the day you get stabbed with a plastic fork for spending 15 minutes asking some poor high school kid what all comes with a bacon cheeseburger basket vs the cheeseburger basket.
• When in doubt, ask a person something about themselves. For the most part, people like talking about themselves.
• Pick up your trash in public.
• Be nice to cops, everyone else is probably a jerk to them.
• It's gross to feed pets off of the same silverware you are currently using to eat. No exceptions.
• Close you mouth when you eat. Do not chew loudly.
• It's never OK to clip your nails in public.
• Take time to enjoy the moment.
• Tell someone when their zipper is down.
• It's not going to kill you if you get a parking spot far away from the door. (Unless you live in a really really bad neighborhood?)
• Liking your own status updates on Facebook is really douchey.
• dOn'T eVrR tYpE lIkE tHiS. iT mAkEs YoU lOoK rEaLlY aNnOyIng.

What came first? The idiotic questions, or the egg.

I know that if I would buy a blender I'd probably never use it. Or I would somehow lose a finger in it. The only reason I'd ever think of getting one is a craving for a smoothie like twice a year. I was having such a craving about a week ago but once again assured myself that I would only use it for two weeks, and then maybe one more time - which would be the time I would more than likely have the prophesied finger-losing accident.

Then I remembered I have a food processor that I still haven't used - I wonder if I can use it to crush ice?

So I went to the place I go whenever I have a  question - the internet. I type in my question in Google and click on the Yahoo Answers link.

Apparently I should not be crushing ice in my food processors. Crap, well I still not buying a blender.

While retelling myself not to buy a stupid blender because I don't want to have to buy specialty gloves this winter, I happened to notice they list other random questions at the bottom of the website.

I notice one of the questions is:
"Are eggplants safe 2 eat because of the egg recall? like is the plant ok to eat but not the eggs they make?"

Um...

I must have misread that, I better take a closer look, that can't be what this person is asking.

Nope.

It really is what this person is asking. My first questions literally was, how can someone this dumb figure out how to type this stupid question all by themselves??!! I then remember some weird show I saw on Animal Planet about these crazy people who have these pet monkeys that they dress up and treat like children and then wondering if they have to have a pet monkey dressed up like a cowboy type this burning question for them.




Well, thanks to the diligent work (possibly by a monkey in a diaper). Someone very artfully answered the questions and let the concerned egg-lover know the difference between plants and animals.

The thankful egg-thusiest (yeah, just go with it) replied with: "ok cool, I didn't want to miss out on my favorite fruit"

 ...again...what?



So to recap, somebody out there (who may or may not own a monkey) believes that eggplants are fruits that grow the eggs that birds/reptiles hatch from. Also, they want to know if it's ok to eat the plant and not the fruit...so are they eating the stems and leaves of the eggplant fruit?


Screw it, maybe I should just buy a stupid blender and enjoy an eggplant smoothie.