Just a good old boy....

I wish I had a better way to illustrate today's story, but because I believed that it would in my best interest to make sure I didn't inadvertently create evidence that could later be used against me, so I didn't document my activities using my iPhone. I'm hoping though that perhaps my words alone and images from pop culture can effectively put an image in your mind of what I was up to on Saturday.

Was that previous sentence overly wordy? I'm working on trying to convey things with verbal efficiency. I am open to any and all constructive criticism.

ANYway.....

So, after 10 years of faithful, unfailing service, my $200 futon, bought in Salt Lake City, moved into 3 different apartments and having spent 6 months in a storage facility in Denver, then making the trek to the east coast, and 3 more address changes before settling into West Chester, finally broke. Splintered actually. It was an inelegant demise, with loud cracking, creaking and popping noises as it gave up the ghost, embarrassingly reminding me that I'm fat, as if it could simply no longer deal with the enormous pressure of serving as my couch and bed.

So I needed a new futon.

You're probably wondering, what's a successful, handsome guy like myself still doing living in a studio apartment, sleeping on futons? Hey, did you see that Philies game? Wow!

Soooooo, I found one at IKEA, a METAL futon frame, (I saved the large foam mattress, since it has had 10 years to memorize my unique body shape, so much for memory foam) that seemed to be the perfect solution to my dilemma, and at $80 bucks, such a deal!

There was one major problem, how was I going to get this unwieldy thing home? As you know, Ikea does the whole flat packaging thing, and it sure as heck wasn't going to fit IN my car, and I didn't have those roof carriers, so I thought I was screwed, but it turns out they have a cool solution, these triangular thingies (again, a problem with vocabulary) that you put on the roof of the car, and it helps to distribute the weight of the item on the roof of your car. They even give you free twine, as much you need, you just have to, you know, do it yourself. So, guess what I did?!

I muscled this 60 pound beast on to the roof of my car in the cold, unrelenting rain mind you, and man, I tied the shiiiit out of it, ask Mike Sawyer one day about his flying bed. There was noooooo waaaaay I was going to have this thing set sail off the top of the roof of my car, because I ran all of that free twine around the top of my car, threading it through the windows of the front and back seat, up top again, pulling tighter and tighter with each successive round trip, enjoying by the way my new driver's side window that rolls both up and down, thanks to me correctly deducting that I had a bad contact on the power window switch, not some $700 window motor that the dealer wanted to charge me. Sorry, off tangent a bit, but man I'm so proud of myself that I fixed it with a simple replacement after market window switch, and not getting ripped off by the dealership.

So, back to the pouring rain, and me tying down this flat futon to the roof of my car.

I probably went 6 or 7 times through the windows of my car with this twine, tying it down to the point that there was veritably no slack at all when one plucked at the individual strands of twine. I stood back and wiped the rain off my glasses so that I could better admire my handiwork. Then it dawned on me. How am I going to get into my car? You see, in my haste, or lets say in my unbridled exuberance, I neglected to you know, think it all the way out. I should have opened the doors first, and I'm assuming you, my loyal and more intelligent than me reader, would have figured it out from the outset, right? Right....

Now if you know even a little about me, it's not that I'm lazy, (no really!) it's just that I, (like electricity) prefer to take the path of least resistance. There was very little chance in hell that I was going to undo the all ties in the twine that I just spent the last 20 minutes tying off in the cold October rain, so with the windows already down, (ah, that new power windows switch, sooooo nice) I figured that if Bo and Luke Duke and every NASCAR race car driver can slide into their cars through the driver's side window, so surely despite my Boss Hogg size, I could do the same. Long story short, it wasn't pretty, it wasn't graceful, but damn it, I somehow managed to get into my car feet first through the drivers window.

I sat in my car for a moment, laughing at myself and my ingenuity, before tentatively setting out of the parking lot of Ikea for the ride home. I tell you what, I started off, 25, 35, 45 miles an hour, occasionally looking up to make sure my futon was still with me, although trust me, if it had blown off, I'd have known about it right quick. But with more time and confidence I had it up to nearly 60 mph on 202. When I pulled in to the back entrance of the Greentree building, all I had to do was grab the P-38 can opener on my key chain, and one by one, cut the individual twines until the last one popped, and "Ta-Da!" I was free, I could open the door to my car and exit it in a much more dignified manner than which I had entered.

The rest of the day is of course anti-climatic, putting the thing together was a piece of cake as is all Ikea furniture, and although most of my old futon is scrap wood now, I still have the original arm rests and mattress to remind me of my humble beginnings, aaaaaaand it reminds me of my humble present.....damn I need to buy a real bed, maybe get a real place to live while I'm at it?
Since I'm wishing for things, I want a puppy....sheesh.

Is it October already?

A few things. Hello all, I'm writing to you to what amounts to my living room, (since I really don't have one in my 1 man cell, er, I mean studio apartment in the Greentree building) other wise known as the Starbucks across the street. First, welcome everyone to the fall season, here in beautiful West Chester, as if on some pre agreed upon signal, some of the leaves on some of the trees begin to wimp out on life, turn yeller, and make their suicide leap to the ground. Like lemmings I's tells ya these leaves are...

Second, my scooter crossed over the 1000 mile mark of trouble free service. I took this very clever picture at the northern gate entrance to Everhardt park as it crossed 1000, as if to give the casual viewer the idea that through fortuitous circumstance and fate that it just happened to cross 1000 ever so randomly at that particular location, but of course the truth is that I circled the park several times during the last mile, 999.0 to make sure I ended up there when the numbers rolled over. Sorry for perpetrating such a heinous fraud upon my loyal readers, but, well, whatever!

Third, as if this humble blogger cannot be given an even bigger head, I got quite the compliment from Godfather of West Chester Blogging, WCJIM, otherwise known as West Chester University professor and city councilman Dr. Jim Jones. I like to call him Dr. Jones, because it sounds so Indiana Jones-ish. Anyway, to read his post about myself and other local area bloggers, click here.

Finally, with the fall weather upon us, it can only mean one thing. ROTORFEST. Now I've always been, and will continue to be, a fixed wing man, but I do have a fond memory of flying in a Bell 47 up and down Cocoa Beach for 4th of July, 1975, and then several years later in a UH-1P as a Civil Air Patrol Cadet at McDill AFB, 1983, and most recently last year flying side by side with my brother Joe right before he went to Afghanistan in a Hughes 500. So suffice to say, it's difficult for me to imagine under what circumstances I'd miss a chance to check out ROTORFEST when it comes to town. This year it was Lana's turn to ride in a Helicopter, and surprise, surprise, she enjoyed it. She managed to get some great shots of West Chester off in the distance, and those miserable McMansions that are a sadly ubiquitous in the suburbs, no offence to my readers who are rocking the McMansion lifestyle, more power to you, no seriously, you use up a disproportionate amount of power! :)

So, with October off to a high and mighty start, I find myself looking forward to the last 3 months of the year, what with the Halloween parade, Veterans Day Parade, and Christmas Parade all on the horizon. The twitter-verse is all a twitter with talk of a Guerrilla Drive-In float in the Halloween parade, and you just know that's going to be fun! Also, the Phillies are also in the playoffs, so let's hope they make it all the way to the fall classic, but let's hope we avoid last year's celebration in the borough, what with the flipped cars and the fires and whatnot...