BillyStyle

So today something happened that hasn’t happened to me before. I saw some friends (well, due to circumstances, more acquaintances, but I could see us as good friends if the chance was there) at the local grocery store who are readers of this here blog. It was funny.

I don’t know if they (the Niederhausers) felt the same awkwardness that I felt at first, but it was pretty good stuff. The blog took care of the initial small talk that usually occurs when people see each other for the first time in a good while. It didn’t help that my mind locks up whenever I see them because both of their names are androgynous (Kelly and Casey), and that’s too much for my brain to handle. It always takes me a minute to remember which K-sounding name belongs to whom. So sorry, if you guys are reading this, but that’s why I was so stupid there at first!

So after a bit of good awkwardness and an awesome why-did-I-ask-that question, normality ensued. My question was “Is that your girl?” I was referring to their daughter, who was in Casey’s arms at the time. Yeah, I’m sure they go around kidnapping at the local grocery store.

It was cool though, the rest of the conversation picked up like we’d been hanging out, keeping current on things. They asked about Florida and stuff like that. I mentioned Casey’s pictures, since he’s a man of images, not words, at least online.

Anyway, I found that it was kind of a weird thing that wouldn’t have happened if I had no blog. With all that said, I think you guys, Kelly and Casey, need to get a blog going so I can ask more up-to-date questions during our next random encounter!

I just got offered my dream job, woo! How much money does my dream job offer? Not much at all! Neat! So what is it? Coaching at The Wakeboard Camp in Clermont, FL. Freaking sweet.

Most people who know me don’t need to ask why it’s my dream job. But I’ll ramble on about it anyway because I’m as giddy as a school girl about it. For the past decade or so, I’ve been addicted to wakeboarding. I’ve been lucky enough to meet most of the pro riders who show up in videos and magazines. I’ve met Tony Finn, the inventor of the Skurfer, the original wakeboard. I’ve seen some pretty sweet things and been to some cool places because of wakeboarding. But with all of that, I’ve just kind of been a lurker around the wakeboard world. Most of these events have been for a day or two, then it’s back to normal life.

So now, I have a chance to live inside of the wakeboard world. I’ll explain. Wakeboarding was invented in California, and has spread world wide. People everywhere ride. But the Mecca (if you will) of the sport is Florida. And not just Florida, but more central Florida, around Orlando. And not just central Florida, but namely, Clermont, Florida. That’s because The Wakeboard Camp is in Clermont. It’s been there since 1996 and has been the starting place for many pro riders like Dallas Friday and Aaron Reed, to name two. Many top pro riders live right around the camp and stop by often to ride there and dial in some of their more difficult moves.

Many videos have been, and still are, filmed on Lake Minneola, where the camp property sits. New products are shipped there for testing and reviews. It’s THE hot spot in the wakeboarding world. And I’m planning on becoming a broke board bum who resides right there in the thick of it!

Now, the pay I’ll get to start off isn’t even worth mentioning. I’ll probably have to get a job in the evenings to even make a buck or two, but it will be well worth it. My riding will be all paid for, and with top riders from all over. This isn’t just getting my foot inside the door of the wakeboard world, this is diving in head first. I can’t wait!

Update: I just saw this awesome site linked to from the main Wakeboard Camp site: Why One Camp is Better. See, they have the best coaches, that means I’m one of them! Jolly good fun!

I saw the best infomercial ever last week. Why aren’t all of them like this? It seems obvious to me that 2 beautiful busty girls (that ought to bring me some awesome search engine traffic, haha) showing the goods would be the industry standard. I know it got my attention.

So I went out on the series of tubes and found the actual video! The product is a total scam, but you see what I’m talking about with the ladies. Well played Jeff Paul, well played.

Radiohead is awesome. They just released their new album, In Rainbows today. I guess their contract with their record company is expired, and so they’re taking a completely unique approach with this new album. You can download it from the album’s website, InRainbows.com. At the time of this posting, the site is not loading, but I got the album late last night, so it does work.

The catch is this. You decide how much to pay for it, really! You can pay less than a dollar or a thousand dollars if you wish. You can also pre-order the discbox edition, which will ship later this year. It has all kinds of stuff. Extra songs, vinyl records, artwork, sweet. I’m listening to the album for the first time as I type this, and I must say, it’s blasted good.

I’m a reader of Darren Rowse’s blog about blogging: ProBlogger.net. This week is the three year birthday of the blog. Due to that, he’s putting up a big old prize giveaway thing to make sponsors happy and readers happy and so on and so forth.

There are some pretty sweet prizes up for grabs, each with their own way to enter as a possible winner. The one I’m most interested in is these two 20″ LCD USB monitors. Sounds pretty neato, and I could use a lot of monitor here. The requirement to enter in this one is to post about the Birthday Bash Giveaway and link to it, so that’s why I’m throwing this post up.

I’ve been lucky before in these types of contests, so hey, why not go for it? I think the last super good thing I won from a contest (that I didn’t even know I entered, it was at a wakeboard comp where I was a rider) was a 350 lb fat sack for the boat. That was awesome. I still use it today and I think I won the thing around seven years ago.

If you’ve got a blog, you can enter to win those monitors too by doing what I’m doing here, neat huh?

Sorry, there’s no story about farting and cigarettes, but the title has to do with my thought that I’ll get to after a short ramble. I live in a condo which is connected to some other condos. They are just side by side, no stacking going on. This time of the year, I love to leave the windows and sliding doors open at night to let in the fresh, cool air. Most nights, from about 9 pm to 1 am or so, about every half hour, cigarette smoke invades my home.

It seems to fill up my entire condo, and by the time I smell it, it’s too late to prevent further invasion, for most of it is in here by then. They’re the nasty smelling ones too. I don’t like any cigarette smoke, but some is more tolerable than others. These ones smell like cigarettes that are half rotted and should be incinerated instead of smoked. I’m pretty sure it’s my neighbor to the south of me with whom I’ve never really spoken. I like my hermitness, so I keep hidden from my neighbors mostly. I’ve heard her hit our common wall once because I was playing some music loud late at night. So we both have our pollution, but hers happens much more frequently and causes cancer.

Now, about the post title. I compare cigarette smoke to the worst fart ever. It lingers way longer than a fart, the smell is comparably offensive, and it causes cancer. At least with farts, you can wave them out of the air in most cases, and if not, just move to the next room and wait for it to dissipate. Whenever I see people smoking in a public place, I liken it to someone with the worst gas ever, just standing there proudly letting it flow freely and fanning it all around for everyone to smell. It’s the same principle, only much worse.

Maybe because people don’t choose to have gas, they try to hold it in or at least be sly about it and let it out where nobody will notice. People who smoke chose to start smoking and must be more proud of it or something. It really seemed to me that smoking would have started disappearing about a decade ago and eventually be something rarely seen except among rougher neighborhoods. It blows my mind when I see young people smoking. My whole life, the dangers of smoking have been publicized to the point where everyone who understands English should know what it does to you. Yet people continue to start smoking.

Anyway, I guess I’ll end my rant here. I’m sure if some smokers came across this page I may have offended them, but they all offend me with each puff (in regards to this post I’d say this is a different kind of offense taken), so as the British say, piss off! (Haha, love that saying.)