Hunger Games: the missing scene

I saw the movie Hunger Games last evening and was a little confused until I later found out that a scene had been removed to protect the rating of the film. The missing scene would have helped a lot:

- Catness (our heroine) and Rue (her younger and smaller friend) are walking through the woods when they suddenly encounter one of the competitors. He is poised and ready to throw his spear in an effort to take out Catness, the main competitor. Catness moves quickly and grabs Rue and uses her as a human shield. Rue takes the spear in the chest and appears mortally wounded. Catness sees this and in one move, snaps Rue's neck and tosses the lifeless body aside. Still moving, she draws her bow and brings down Spear boy with a single arrow. He is lying on the ground moaning as she pulls his head back and starts sawing on his neck with her bowie knife. There is an terrible scream that is suddenly silenced, until it is picked up by the mocking birds. The camera switches to a silhouette shot of Catness holding his severed head up to the sky. Jumpshot to each of the remaining competitors, trembling as they hear the awful echoing sound from the birds and the sudden realization that it wasn't the evening gown they feared, it was her Heart Of Darkness...

The Top 5 Things That Need To Change Before 2012

Seriously? You really believe that I would steep so low as to create a headline that would pull in more readers? Maybe I should have put something about Casey Anthony or Michelle Parker in the title too....sheesh! Still no surf, but upcoming camping trip with the boys looks to hold decent weather, and it IS near the beach. Maybe I'll bring the surfboard along just in case. Anyway I will attempt a list, just so I cannot be accused of deception: 1) I need to quit wanting more stuff - the house is overflowing, the attic is overflowing...I need to just play with the toys I have. 2) I need to use my mornings more wisely. I'm getting up earlier, but I seem to spend a lot of it puttering around, surfing on the web, etc. 3) I need to get back into making music...I don't know, slump or what, but I need to snap out of it. 4) I need to spend more time enjoying the current moment and less dreaming about the future...or worrying about it. 5) I need to be more inventive with my blogs!

A Cold Day In December

It's been a long time since I have written. The waves have been bad for every weekend for more than a month now and the last time I could have surfed, I was recovering from have a bit of skin cancer removed from my head. Today is the first day this season that I had to wear a coat to work, almost a 40 degree drop in temperature in one day. I guess that it is days like these that make us appreciate how balmy it usually is in Florida. I'm actually enjoying the cold today, but it did prevent me from running this morning. If I had this weather for a few weeks, I'd probably go out anyway, but a cold day here and there means a day of rest once in a while. Before the cold came, I was working on a new plan; running 5 miles and then paddleboarding around the lake...all before work in the morning. I found that by getting up at 4am, I could do this and really enjoyed the outdoors before the 9 hour day of computer work. The only problem is that it leaves me sleepy by 8pm at night...we will see how long this lasts...

Again...

There it is again...a restless night full of dreams, another version of the same dream I've seem to have had forever: Everything has gone to hell, but somehow I'm happy, living on next to nothing in a efficiency apartment. It's just me, my surfboard, and a bunch of empty beer bottles. Nothing much else matters, because I'm across the street from where I like to surf, and no matter how horrible my job is, I've got time to hit the waves every morning. There is nobody else in the dream and I'm acutely aware that I might die any time and I'm not really sure who would handle the details, nor am I that concerned about it. I'm not sure if this represents my happy place or is it just the final solution to problems I can't fix..

The Dream Day

I've had an infrequent dream for years, that I'm 15 years old, skipping school and learning to surf with my friends. A lot of it is some sort of twist on a real life event. The water is perfect glass, I'm wearing cutoff jeans and riding on the bruised banana, a 8 foot yellow surfboard, with a large brown softspot on the deck. For some reason in the dream, it is important that the fin is a clear red plastic. I'm not sure if that is a dream of lost innocence, or some kind of perfect happiness that I have been pursuing, but today I caught it.
We pulled up to the beach this morning and saw waves right off. They should have been smaller, according to the forecast, but we saw many surfers out and many catching waves. Old guys on longboards, paddleboards, girls, young ones on short boards and it just seemed to be a picture perfect day.
I looked to the south of the pier, and only saw 3 surfers there. We headed that way and got right out. It was nothing but fun. Hooting, hollering, laughing and cheering each other on, it seemed to be that my dream day had come to life. There were so many ridable waves, that we finally had to let some go, just to rest up.
When it was time to take that last wave in, I stalled a bit, thinking I wanted a memory that would last a while. I got it when I took off across the face of one of the larger waves in the set and saw my friend watching from the beach. This wave held me through the middle section and actually started curling over my shoulder. The perfect end to this was not the wave, but seeing a young surfer girl paddling out, getting that perfect camera view of me coming towards her down the line. That's when you know it really happened, when you see the look in their eyes.

Surfing Irene

Irene the hurricane skipped right past us and did most of her work to North Carolina and the New England area. We were fortunate in that she passed us just close enough by to send us some good waves. Friday was the day, and it was hyped-up well in advance by our local surf forecasters, but I always knew the big day was not for me. What I wanted was the leftovers. Friday came and we were greeted with photos of amazing surfers on waves that looked photoshopped, not like Florida waves at all.
Saturday, my friend and I headed out early in the morning to a spot that was protected and more likely to offer something we could ride on our longboards. There were plenty of surfers in the water by 8am, but the waves didn't look all that daunting, at least until I paddled out during the middle of a set. I knew this wasn't a normal day, when on the way out, I had a perfect opportunity and chickened out at the last minute. After a bit, I figured them out and had a great morning of riding some waves that really had some juice to them for a change.
The best part is that the conditions were the kind that usually spell SKUNKED for me. sizeable waves and a hard off-shore wind that makes them difficult to catch until the last minute. It seems that the board I have been riding for the last year has turned into that board that fits me just right...too bad it took 40+ years to find it!

I Must Have Cut Him Off In Traffic

Ah, perception versus reality. You think you are generous, and others think you are a miser. You think think you are big and others think you are small. I wonder what they call it when your self-image is too far off? Or, could it just possibly be that the perception is miscued?
We took personality tests the other day, and from less than 5 minutes of my time, I was told that I was highly agressive, which probably has a large number of people at working rolling on the floor laughing, and this does not include the friends and family that will be howling as well. Self-image not-withstanding, I have been told for ages that I am more like a golden retriever personality than anything else. I'm "too" nice. I couldn't supervise because I'm "too" nice. I don't have the roughness needed to survive what management has to deal with every day.
BUT...perhaps, like the tin man, the only difference between me and the tough individual that defeats all enemies in his path, is a piece of paper saying that he is agressive. OZ has given me that paper and it has changed my life.
I was always thinking of a post-retirement job of selling hotdogs on a stand at the beach, but I am now considering the post of leader of the Golden-Age Hells Angels....hey I got references!