Randomness - Stuff I'm noticing

When you have all of this extra time on your hands you have more time to notice things and ponder meaningless stuff. My mind surely wanders when I'm swimming, biking and running too, but right now I've got a lot of different stuff to look at. Please forgive the fact that most of these observations are food related:

-At Burger King, they actually have on the soda fountains suggested soda pairings for your meal. For example: a bacon cheeseburger goes best with Dr. Pepper. And in case you were wondering, the garden salad is best served with Diet Coke. In related news, BK onion rings are terrible.

-I watched this CBS Sunday morning news show that was mostly focused that day on obesity issues. But just for good measure, they finished off the show with a trip to the Texas state fair. They fry EVERYTHING. Seriously. I mean, you've probably heard of fried Twinkies, fried Snickers, and fried Oreos. But have you heard of fried cookie dough? Chicken fried bacon? Fried lattes and fried Coke? How does that even work? The ultimate though was fried butter. Not kidding. The fried butter stand had a line a mile long. Honestly, that doesn't even sound good. I'm surprised most of the people don't have heart attacks after just 1 bite.

-Shopping baskets are way lighter when filled with processed crap instead of produce and chicken and such. Also cheaper.

-Why does it only take 1 or 2 nights of going to bed really late before you get used to it and can't fall asleep at the normal time the next night? Yet, after 2 days of trying to get yourself back on track with getting up very early, it's still incredibly hard to do on the 3rd morning and beyond. Hopefully the clock change will help me out on this.

-This isn't a general observation, but a very funny thing that happened to me the other day. I was in North Conway shopping at the outlets with my good friend Heather and her family, including husband John, 2-and-a-half-year old son, Noah, and 3-month old daughter, Kylene. It is important to note who I was with so it makes sense that I was inside the store Children's Place. We were sifting through the racks, trying to find a teeny, tiny Christmas outfit for Kylene when a woman came up behind me and asked me something in a thick accent. You know how sometimes you don't quite understand what someone says right away but 5 seconds later it sinks in? Well, for a second I thought maybe she had mistaken me for someone who worked there. Nope. Actually, she was holding up this vest that she wanted me to try on because apparently I was the same size as her daughter. This situation might not be so strange had I not been inside The Children's Place! For anyone who doesn't know me, I am 6' tall. Of all places for someone to want me to try something on, a kid's clothing store? I couldn't shop there when I was a kid. I hit 5'9 at age 12 and I'm pretty sure I've been 6' tall since I was 14. Fortunately, I'm actually a lot lighter now. Anyway, amidst my disbelief I smiled and put on the vest and zipped it up. It fit. The woman seemed satisfied and I'm pretty sure she bought it for her daughter. I mean, I'm somebody's daughter - 2 people, actually - and like I said, I've been a giant since I was quite young. But even though the store might've been age appropriate for me at the time, I doubt my mother shopped at the Children's Place for me by the time I got this big. In fact, I am pretty sure that like any adolescent in the early 90's, 99% of my wardrobe was from The Gap and American Eagle.

-I enjoy the Halloween special, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! but I don't understand why they always try and pretend it's an hour-long special by after Linus's discovery that The Great Pumpkin isn't coming, they start some other, random Charlie Brown special that nobody has ever seen or heard of. The voices are different and it may or may not have anything to do with Halloween. Cut it out. We all know that the real special is only 30 minutes. Just because Dancing With the Stars! isn't on tonight and you have no other programming doesn't mean we're going to fall for this sub-par Charlie Brown. Oh, and why do they never show the Garfield Halloween special anymore? I love that one.

-If you are ever feeling a little down, do a google image search for puppies. Awwww.....

-You know what else can brighten your day? A $2.99 Pearl Izumi bike jacket find at the outlet store. It might not be the color you would choose, but come on, $2.99!

-There is a big difference between ice cream that is worth it, and ice cream that is not.

-My social life, which is pretty sparse to begin with, almost completely disappears without training.

-I still don't miss swimming.

-Of all things, I actually miss weight training.

-NBC Thursday night TV is awesome.

-Drawer and closet space is a lot tighter when you swap the summer clothes for the winter ones.

-I own far too many sweaters, but still find myself looking for new ones. Even here, when it is cold for almost half the year, I don't think there is enough winter for me to wear all of them.

-Eating crap makes you feel like crap. Sucks how that works.

-I'm looking forward to my first long bike ride after my time off, just hope it doesn't snow by then.

-I am going to need a LOT of DVD's to get me through this winter of trainer rides.

-IM Utah is 6 months from tomorrow, and that is a scary thought.

-I think I like the idea of eating whatever I want a lot more than actually doing it.

-I'm looking forward to the holidays and a bit of chilly weather and some skiing, but I am dreading everything after January when I'm sick of winter and can't stand being inside anymore.

-Whenever I am around little kids and they do certain things, I often wonder how the world would be different if people never grew out of stuff. Like what if we all still cried and pouted when we didn't get what we wanted, no matter how small and simple it is? What if whenever someone offered us a bike of some food we didn't want, we said no with such force that you'd think our lives were at stake? What if we all walked in one direction while looking back the other way?

-Similarly, have you ever noticed how disinterested kids are generally with food? They really do only want to eat when they are hungry. Now there's something I wish we never grew out of.

-I miss when USA and TNT used to show movies instead of just constantly running episodes of Law and Order and NCIS. I think it is because of this that Overboard actually hasn't been on TV once in the past few weeks. Usually you can't go a weekend without it.

-Saturday Night Live, with the exception of last year's Sarah Palin stuff, has been terrible for years, but I still have to watch it every week - recorded, of course. Seth Meyers grew up in my hometown and his mom is still the junior high French teacher.

-I have been watching The Simpsons for so long that I actually remember talking about certain episodes in school with friends in 7th grade. Back then it was up against The Cosby Show. You know, once it jumped the shark and they had to add Olivia because the other Huxtable kids got too old.

-I need to start training again so I have less time on my hands to contemplate these mostly meaningless things.