Jellydonut

When I was in my mid-twenties about three years out of college and living alone in the upstairs of a rented duplex, I bought a California King size waterbed through the trading times.  It was almost as good as new with a nice book case.  The landlord didn't object. 

Over the years, I upgraded and replaced the free flow mattress that made me a little queezy with foam filled firmer mattresses.  It was always a hassle draining and filling, but if my ex-waterbed had eyes and a mouth, the stories it could tell.

In recent months, my most recent mattress, probably ten years old and with wear indentations where we sleep, started to leak at two seams.  I tried to patch with limited success, and even lifted the corners where the problem was with bricks to try to slow the leak.  It would work for a while, but the leak would ultimately return. 

The floor got wet last week.  Not too bad, and no real damage done, but apparently the bricks had worn a hole in the safety liner and allowed some water to escape all the way to our upstairs floor. 

Last night my son and I spent about four hours draining the 200 gallons of water out of the bed.  About every couple of minutes some foam would clog the garden hose, and we had to stop, clear the foam, pull out what we could from the nozzle of the bed, and start to drain again.  Then repeat, repeat, repeat.  We got it down to about ten gallons, and dragged the mattress out to the street.  It's garbage day today.

We put a queen size air mattress in its place for now right in the waterbed frame as a temporary bed.  I actually kind of like the air mattress.  But when I finally got to bed at 1:00am last night, well past my normal bedtime, I realized an era had ended.  No way I'll go through that again.  It's a little sad to my wife an me.

Any suggestions what I should buy for my next bed.  We want something comfortable, durable, and quiet (I'll let you ponder this one!). 

Have you been to an NBA game recently?  How about Arena Football?  I have been to both this year, and like it or not, the entertainment goes way beyond the ball game.  Yesterday I went to the Cleveland Gladiator versus Dallas Desperado Arena Football game.  One would think the 120 points that were scored would have been entertainment enough.  Not so.  Every break in play, a local radio MC (Munch) ran out to mid-field and hosted some kind of competition to win small prizes.  A pass or kicking contest, sing the words to a song, spin people around to make them dizy and tell them first one to the other side wins, stuff like that.  There were cheerleaders doing routines, t-shirts thrown up into the stands, beach ball hot potato being played, and there was the jumbotron highlighting couples in the stands.  This was done tastefully.  The couple was put on the jumbotron for maybe 20 seconds, and they moved on to the next couple.

At the Cleveland Cavalier games they do something similar with the highlighting of couples on the jumbotron, expect they promote it as the Kiss Cam.  Inside of a heart frame and under the title Kiss Cam, couples are placed and the camera remains on them until they kiss or the cameraman gives up.  When the couple doesn't kiss, the fans jeer.  When they peck like a chicken eating sead, they jeer some more.  Sometimes the couple is shamed into doing a better kiss.  When they kiss like it was Al Gore and Tipper several years back using their tongues, the fans cheer. 

For fun, the cameraman mixes in some same sex "couples"  Everytime so far, the two girls or boys look at each other strangely and make a funny face and the fans laugh.  Imagine this.  The camera finds a middle age lesbian couple and puts them on the Kiss Cam.  Rather than looking at each other strangely, they kiss like Al and Tipper.  How would the fans react?  How would management react?  Or, the camera finds two young homosexual men, and they kiss passionately for all 20K fans to see.  Are we ready for this?  That's exactly what management is asking these couples to do, isn't it? 

In the 80's I mostly worked for small companies; too small to sponsor a Corporate League.  That changed in 1990 when I worked for Bridgstone / Firestone.  The league was a partner league, and my boss was looking.  I'd only been with the Company about six  months, but when he asked, it was an easy decision.  We played nine holes at Emerald Woods every Tuesday late Spring through Summer.  They had a 27 hole lay-out, and we alternated play between the nines, but rarely played the difficult "White" course.

I figured it would be a good way to get to know my boss better, and him me.  It was a bonus that I wouldn't have to worry about beating him.  LOL.  I also learned it was kind of a bumer when I hit bad shots since we were a team.

There were more good Tuesday nights then bad, and at the half way mark we were in contention.  Also at the half way mark I was victim of a Corporate downsizing.  JapeneseBridgestone executives had grown tired of Firestone's losing ways, and mandated a downsizing of it US subsidiary.  Not even a year into my new job, I didn't have a chance against my more experienced colleagues, and was forced to accept a whopping two week severance package and entered the job market.  It was almost like in the movie Office Space with the outside consultants all over the office interviewing the employees trying to find out everything they could and getting paid for recommending terminations.  Except, I didn't get promoted.  That just happened in the movie.  LOL

It was an equally easy decision to continue playing golf with my boss in the league, the same one that terminated my employment mid-season.  He was a tremendous guy, that was put in an awful position to let one of his four reports walk.  It would have been hard for him to select anyone other than me as I had been there by far the least time.  He also knew I was relatively young and would have the easiest time of the group finding another job.  This in fact proved to be true.  I was only out of work 3-4 months, and played in the Alltel league in 1991.

We went on to win the league that year.  Big deal really, but I am looking at the plaque still hanging in my office wall remembering the 18 hole Saturday playoff that came down to the last hole.  I pared that hole, despite shaking a little on my approach shot.  Winning gave me an excuse to go back to the office one last time and see my co-workers and boss.  It was emotional for me.  I still hadn't found a job at that time.  Ironically, I interviewed and was turned down for a job with the Company that I work for today.  They hired me five years later!  The same guy I interviewed five years before made the hiring decision.  If that doesn't say don't burn bridges, I don't know what does.

Funny I won in my first year of league golf.  I had a dry spell for 16 years, and then won again last year.  Well, sort of won.  You can decide if I did when I explain the details in my next blog.   I'll try to blog it the next couple of weeks.

I'm "retroing" back to my undergraduate days this morning.  Dooks "appliance", AV's "food", Mom's "sexuality", and Chargergrl's dating blogs were / are a lot of fun, and I'd like to share this fun story with everyone:

It's been several years since my mind even drifted to my upperclassman dormitory at Vanderbilt.  In my sophomore through senior years, I lived in one of the Vanderbilt Dormitory "Towers"  There were four fourteen story towers, each holding about 400 students.  The tower I was in was set-up in suites.  They were cooducational by suite.  Each suite contained a common living area with kitchenette, a full bath, two doubles and two single rooms.  For three years, I lived with five other guys in one of the suites.  But only in my junior year ('76 - '77) was in one of the top floors in a suite with a southerly view.

The significance of facing south on a top floor was the all girl six story freshman dormitory about 400 yards to the south.  Of interest were the rooms in the girls dorm that faced to the north.  From 400 yards away a person in the towers could see if the blind was drawn and tell movement in the room if the blind was open.  Not much more....  Nothing exciting there, unless.......

One of my suitemates bought a telescope on a tripod.  With our telescope, you could see into the room and recognize faces and even tell what people were wearing.  I felt okay looking because these girls were warned by RA's, administration, friends, etc. that it was not an uncommon practice for students (male I'm sure) in the near-by towers to play long distance peeping toms with telescopes.  So they knew, and when girls with or without dates would enter their rooms, generally the blind would immediately be drawn.

Mostly, the telescope didn't prove to be much fun.  We would see girls studying at their desks, change records on their turntable, talking.  Several times we saw couples dancing.  In rare instances we would see a couple beginning a kiss just before the blind came crashing down to ruin our party. 

The guy that bought the telescope and me would scramble for limited viewing time when action was hot.  It was kind of a hurry up and wait routine.

One night I came home late, and the telescope owner smiled broadly at me as he sat on the couch.  It wasn't a normal welcome home smile, but something more.  Something had happened.  He looked over to the telecsope in the corner of the room, and began his story.  Apparently a freshman had returned to her room, laid down on the bed, and forgetting completely that the blind was open, began to pleasure herself.  My suitemate was able to describe the appliance used by the girl as a bic pen!  The telecsope had finally paid off, but I had missed out on the fun.  He pointed out the room, with view now fully obscured by the blind, and described about 20 minutes of intense viewing pleasure and a bic pen he wanted to get his hands on.

Despite frequent challenges, he held firm to his story.  I think he was telling the truth.  Sad thing is, there was no repeat performance, and  I never saw anything more than a kiss.  I wonder if this kind of thing still goes on today in the Vanderbilt Towers?

I would love to hear any dormitory stories you may want to share..