It’s coming. The end of year holiday vacation time where your schedule starts to heavily favor days off work. Who doesn’t love this time of year? With so many great options for relaxing you honestly can’t go wrong.
Read More...Marty is a wild child! Escaping the cage, getting his friends shipped across the world, and overall rebelling. He is the embodiment of a 10 year old boy. Loyalty and all.
Read More...Someone please help me understand what goes on behind a stall door that causes a tsunami on the floor because I genuinely do not get it. Am I the only one who can use the bathroom without making a mess?
Read More...Have you ever moved in your life? There’s probably a high chance that the answer is yes. Moving is a thing that we have to do occasionally, or frequently, or at specified intervals depending on your situation. Personally, moving is not my favorite. Moving on, yes, but moving between physical locations, no. There’s something very freeing about stepping away from something in your life that’s bringing you down a bit, or is outright toxic. It’s like when you take a week, or a few months / years, off at the gym and then do a brief workout and feel like a million bucks! And also when you see immediate results because it’s been so long.
Enough gym analogies, I’m not trying to bring the mood down. In summary, live your best life and move on from things that are not helping you grow. On the opposite side of that spectrum, however, we have moving. As in I live in one location and am now moving somewhere completely different. To live, not for an extended vacation. Which means that you need to bring your life with you. The good, the bad, and the random junk you thought you threw out during the last move.
In my opinion, there’s not many exciting things about the moving part of getting a new place. The exciting place is having a new address and getting to explore your new surroundings. Make new friends, find your new daily coffee shop, understand exactly how long it takes to get to the chinese take out place, create a list of new favorite bars and restaurants, explore new running routes, etc. Those things are super fun and I’m all about that … once I’m settled.
Why is the process of packing and unpacking things so difficult? When you break it down, you put things in a box and then you take things out of a box. Somewhere between the base problem and how we tend to do it a whole mess gets thrown in. Literally. If you ever want a good motivation to clean out what you own, move. I’m still not sure why we have two entire kitchen cabinets full of assorted cups, glasses, and mugs when there’s only two of us. Some of those could probably be donated. Do we need four different shoe racks in our closet that don’t even hold all of our shoes? Probably not.
So we have this … stuff. And you need to get it all into boxes. Efficiently and safely. Those being the key terms here. Anyone can shove an assortment of things into a box, but if you do it right you minimize the total number of boxes and, thus, the total effort required to take said boxes from one location to another. You also minimize potential damage to breakable things like cups, glasses, and mugs. Packaging pillows are a must have, but not the styrofoam nonsense – they leave residue particles everywhere. They’re an invasive species like ARTIFICIAL TURF.
If moving was simply boxes, it wouldn’t be so bad. But alas we have furniture. Why is all furniture either awkward or ridiculously heavy? Why can’t it be something easy to carry, somewhat lightweight, and stylish all in one? It doesn’t fit in cars. It doesn’t fit well in pickup trucks, at least not all of it. So you end up with a moving truck. And moving trucks are an expense. How expensive is up to your budget. Sure you can pay people to box your things and move them for you, but I don’t want strangers packing up certain things. Feels like a weird invasion of privacy and somehow there’s always a portion of your things that mysteriously disappear when they do it.
If all you had to do was pay for the moving truck, it would be fairly affordable. But since Lucifer himself invented moving you have either down payments, or security deposits. You have set up fees for utilities. You have to deal with switching Internet providers. Or worse, staying with your same one and transferring locations. You have to buy new things for the new space because when in Rome. You end up with boxes everywhere and piles of items to donate that you either have to pay someone to pick up, or you have to transport yourself. When all of that is said and done, you actually have to unpack what you, or strangers, dropped off. And get re-settled. Who has time honestly.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Taking the path less traveled is a popular thing in today’s society. Physically and metaphorically. You can be whoever you want to be, regardless of how things looked in previous generations. Actually, though. Whoever you want to be. Girl, boy, both, neither, inanimate – whatever your soul is telling you. And then of course physically exploring the hidden gems of the world is usually a fan favorite for the Instagram. Because we all want a piece of that exclusivity.
Like most things in life, someone has to be first. Who was the first person that looked at a jackfruit and thought, you know what, I bet that’s delicious! I’ve seen a jackfruit and I have to say, if I saw it in the wild my first thought would be that the dinosaurs are back. It’s gigantic. And looks prickly. And it’s called a jackfruit … as in jack and the beanstalk? Did the giant drop that too? Don’t even get me started on the inside of it. I mean, think about how lucky we are that it’s safe to eat. How many casualties have occurred because of curious minds and weird looking things in nature?
Alas, I digress into the realm of the mind less traveled. Much like how it feels to drive through country roads. Not country as in we’ve left the obvious city limits and are in the suburbs country. I’m talking about when you see one house and it will be minutes, driving minutes, before you glimpse another one. The cow to people ratio favors the bovines. Heavily. And the “traffic” jams involve you getting stuck behind a slow moving tractor. Are you with me? Better keep up because if you get lost in this field I might never know where to find you.
Country roads are … not for me. They are endless. For some reason there is never a posted speed limit. I guess you have to be born into that secret. Most of the time the road signs have either vanished, or never existed in the first place. Or it’s just State Road and some random number. The cell service is also mysteriously missing. Everyone has satellite dishes. And there are no light reflectors. None. Not because they’ve been worn off over time. They just never existed. Sometimes there are barely even lines.
Have you ever tried driving down a country road at night? There are minimal houses so the only light comes from the solar system and your high beams. Under normal weather conditions, this is not acceptable but it’s kind of fine. It’s a ride at your own risk adventure, especially at night, so you should have left earlier. If, however, you happen to get unlucky and experience even just a slight rainfall, well good luck getting out of there alive.
Rainfall on most roads at night while driving is the worst. During a drizzle, people’s headlights reflect off the rain on your windshield and you’re blinded. Get a steady rain and it reflects off the light poles and you’re blinded. Drive into a downpour and the rain falls so heavily that you’re blinded. It’s a lose lose lose situation. Regardless of rain power. But that’s with other light sources and people helping you make educated guesses about the road. Eliminate your two phone a friend lifelines and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Rainfall on country roads at night while driving is a suicide mission for those of us from the ‘burbs and beyond. During a drizzle, the rain is distracting and makes it annoying to see the road because there are no light reflectors indicating where the middle lines are (or are supposed to be). During a steady rain, it’s almost impossible to see where the road ends and the fields begin because, again, no light reflectors. During a downpour, you might as well stop and plan to camp with the cows. Unless your plans for the night also included off roading and getting stuck in some corn crops.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Have you ever been to an event and needed to use the bathroom? Or been in a city and needed to use the bathroom? Or really just been anywhere outside of your home and been hit with the urge for a bio break? Some places you can count on to have indoor plumbing. The cleanliness usually varies between gas stations and educational buildings, but nonetheless, you know where you can find a toilet in case of an emergency. Unlike some of the more socially aware businesses, however, not everyone offers a restroom option.
Granted, when you aren’t in a physical building, it becomes harder to provide human waste outlets. For example, parks. City sidewalks. Trails. The woods. Any business in a giant tourist city. Most outdoor places come to think of it. Which, honestly, can’t come as that much of a surprise. Part of nature’s beauty is the absence of human tampering. But alas, we have been gifted with the beautiful, convenient, adaptable to any environment construction that is the porta potty. What says natural more than a blue, or green, plastic box designed for special moments?
Despite their unappealing exterior, porta potties are a necessary evil. Think of the last time you used one. I have to believe it was out of necessity and not out of a strong desire to be in the crap sauna. If there had been another option, in any sort of normal brick and mortar building, regardless of the indoor plumbing setup, my gut says we would all choose the more traditional and, arguably, hygienic version. But maybe not, I don’t know you. I know without a doubt what my preference would be though.
Imagine if there hadn’t been a porta potty available in your most desperate moment? What would your options be then? Public indecency? That could result in jail time and AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT. Trying to find a slightly wooded area where you can quickly relieve yourself before another person wanders by? Best of luck to you – sometimes it pays off and other times we’re back at the naked in public issue. Hold it? Well, sure, but Murphy’s law will undoubtedly put some liquid sound, visual, or thought into your immediate space so this becomes harder by the second.
Unless you’re packing adult diapers in your pocket for emergency situations, it usually ends in the decision to suck it up and enter the portable toilet. And no matter how mentally prepared you are entering it, I believe every human goes through a certain set of fears regarding the time they will spend both in the potty, and immediately after. Those fears are as follows:
My exact fears every single time. Hours later I’m always thankful I wasn’t forced to hold it until the UTI stage set in, but wow, in the moment it doesn’t always feel like a blessing. Especially at big events where there’s a line and it’s just been a non stop flow of humans in that tiny space. The things we do for entertainment and to wander around in nature is peculiar. And yet, we will gladly take the porta potty any day over alternative options.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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You know what’s great? Dark chocolate Oreos and Chewy Chips Ahoy! What’s better than delicious cookies? Football season! What’s better than football season? Waking up on a Monday to find out it’s a holiday and you don’t have work! What’s better than a paid company holiday? Vacations! What’s better than a vacation? The moving walkways in the airports that take you to your blissful destination!
We live in a fast world. Have you ever waited more than five seconds for an Internet site to load? No, because nobody has time to wait. You’ve gone back to your Google search and are moving on with your life! Same concept in meetings. Have you ever waited endlessly for someone to start talking? No, because we all have a million other things on our to-do lists and don’t have time to wait for someone to grow a pair and say ‘good morning’ to the team. Thankfully airports have also adopted this mindset. Why walk like a normal human being when you could straight up become the Flash and travel at supersonic (walking) speeds?
I’m actually asking all the people who are forever casually strolling by the Jedi of escalators like they aren’t aware of the magic on their left. Is it like a real world Harry Potter concept where not everyone knows it’s there? Do you have to have a “gift” to see the moving walkway? Or are you actively choosing to remain mortal? Maybe I’m a bit impatient, maybe I still have an inner child well and alive in my soul, maybe I don’t spend enough time in airports, maybe I should plan my terminal transition better so I don’t need to use the walkways, maybe I simply enjoy moving plastic contraptions with railings – I don’t know. What I do know is that I never, and I do mean never, miss a chance to take a moving walkway.
Traveling isn’t always perfect, let’s be honest. Sometimes you get a layover that’s longer than comfortable. Sometimes you don’t get a layover at all. Sometimes you end up having to book a new flight because someone cancelled on you at the last second without warning. Sometimes you have to raise your voice to get your point across. What I’m trying to say is that air travel and relationships are clearly analogies for each other and / or maybe the same thing.
Anywho … moving walkways. I’m no expert, but if I had to guess I would say that they were designed to help you get from one end of the terminal to the other in a quicker, more efficient manner. Which is fine, I guess. A bit boring, honestly, but logical. Are those the requirements for use, though? In a rush and needing to traverse a great distance in minimal time? Because if so, I have not once used them correctly. I’m what one would call a walkway rebel. If I’m j chillin’ at my gate and have to use the bathroom, I’ll use the walkway. If I come out of a terminal store and happen to be positioned in the middle of a walkway, I’ll walk to the end just to travel back towards where I started at the store. If I’m trying to waste time, I’ll walk up and down the terminal using every moving walkway just for kicks and giggles.
As great as moving walkways are, there are still courtesy rules. Well, really there’s just one. Don’t stand on the moving walkway. First of all, wut? The purpose of the walkway is to speed you up, not slow you down. Standing is making you move like a sloth. A real life Zootopia demonstration. That’s a new level of laziness. Why walk at regular speeds when you could stand on the slowest possible moving surface and barely move at all? Do you have time to kill? Great – do it somewhere that isn’t in the way of my fun, entertainment, and terminal joy. But if you need to, for reasons unknown to me, then by all means squash yourself up on the side of the railing like a bug. You get half of a normal person’s allotted space (more on walking space allotments in THIS POST) since you are the one in the way. Your suitcase can, and will, count against you. Make like Stanley and flatten up!
Long story short, I am a moving walkway slut. If I see one, I will ride it without hesitation and without shame. If you’re standing on the moving walkway, you better channel your inner thinness so I can zoom zoom right by you like I’m in a Mazda commercial. If you’re on the side of the moving walkway, I will judge you and question your decisions.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Here’s a fun fact about me: I LOVE flying. More than I love Chewy Chips Ahoy (read about that HERE – Nabisco should be paying me for all this free press, I swear) if you can believe it. What is not to love? For starters, you get to be at an airport (with freaking MOVING WALKWAYS) and airports, in general, make me excited. No lie, just dropping someone off at the airport gives me a bit of an adrenaline rush. Think about it – these super miniature cities are like being back in college. Everyone is in a confined area with overpriced food, cheap souvenirs, and a wide diversity of people. Unlike college though, almost everyone you see is going to be in a different city, probably a different state, and maybe even a new country in a matter of hours. INCLUDING YOU! (I got excited just writing that)
I understand that my love of airports and the terminals is a bit on the extreme side, though. There’s the security line and there are delays and eventually you’ve seen every store available and are STILL waiting to board and you’re tired and cold and broke because you spent all your money on a sandwich with chips, etc. Yes, alright, I hear that. Sometimes the terminals feel a bit like prison. But that is simply the beginning my friends. If you don’t feel a tad VIP walking through the boarding bridge then I question your ability to find joy in life. My favorite ones are glass so you can see the airplanes (like a fun preview of what’s to come), but can also look back at everyone still stuck inside and secretly smirk because you’re about to be a fly motherf***er. The enclosed ones feel a little more secretive, like they’re hiding me from all the groupies wondering where I went so those are almost equally as cool.
Still not convinced? Alright you drag, well now you get to board the plane and leave your terminal troubles behind. First of all, the whole crew is smiling and welcoming you aboard, like thank you, I AM excited to be here! How did you know? Now there are two types of flyers – the people who need the aisle so they can get a little extra room and the window people who understand what this journey is all about (wonder and amazement, obviously). Bet you can’t guess which one I am … anyways you’re in the seat finally being taxied out to the runway (I could write a whole post on getting to the runway, but for length, I’ll paraphrase here) then you get cleared for takeoff and literally this is why I fly everywhere that I can. The little gravity dip that happens right after you leave the ground (when your stomach drops) makes me smile – I’ve tried not to, but I can’t help myself.
Looking out the window for a hot second mid-flight and realizing how incredible the world looks from 10,000 feet is a good enough reason to love flying. But I know what you’re thinking:
Finally, when you land you’re somewhere completely different. In a fraction of the time any other mode of transportation would have taken. And you got there in a metal bird. Truly amazing. If you read this and still don’t like flying, that resentment is on you. I choose to lead a happier life everywhere I am … even at the airport. But I do understand that this is an unpopular opinion and most people don’t like to fly. Clearly most people are wrong. How do I know? Read above you weirdo, why did you skip to the bottom of my post?
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who hates flying then share this with them and maybe, just maybe, the next time they fly they’ll enjoy it … even if it’s just a tiny bit. And if you love flying as much as me, then hit me up so I know I’m not crazy. Thanks for reading!
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The Restless Professional 