BillyStyle

Yeah, pretty exciting post huh? A big grocery store chain down here is called Publix. It took my brain a few weeks to accept that as a name of a grocery store, but I’m cool with it now.

It’s the only grocery store I’ve ever gone into and found myself thinking “What a great store.” The few I’ve been into are clean, well stocked, huge, and have a great selection of just about anything I could imagine. We had an English fellow here at the camp a few weeks ago, and he went there with us and found that they had a British food section. I’ve never heard of such a thing.

So yeah, this post is really awesome and exciting, haha. I was just so impressed by the place that I had to put something up about it. How bout that!

Yesterday I got the wind knocked out of me. It was no big deal, I didn’t think much about it for the rest of the day. Today my back is a little sore from the wakeboard wreck that made me lose my breath for a bit. That got me thinking about some stuff hardly blog-worthy, which is exactly why I’m blogging about it!

As a wakeboarder, I get the wind knocked out of me from time to time. It’s kind of funny when it happens whilst floating in the water. Usually after a hard wreck, I struggle to get my mouth to where I can breath in some air, because I have just exhaled most of it upon impact. When I can’t breath when I get to that point, it’s a pretty unique feeling I suppose. I’m used to it now and just wait it out, but I imagine there are people who can’t remember the last time they had their wind knocked out. I love that phrase. It’s the only time our breath is referred to as wind, neat.

Anyway, I bet most people won’t get the wind knocked out of them 5 times their whole lives. Something I’ve only done once that I remember though, is falling down a flight of stairs. That’s another panic inducing moment. It’s one of the worst feelings because it lasts for what seems to be a very long time, and you feel like you should be able to stop yourself with each bounce, but just can’t stop until eventually you land on the floor. At that moment, your brain catches up to your body and you realize what just happened and wait for the pain to set in.

There’s no real point to this post I guess. I think I just realized that my panic level got much lower with getting my wind knocked out because of the frequency with which it happens. I wonder if other panic situations are similar in that aspect.

Neat, I just found an explanation of what happens when the wind is knocked out of a person. And as we know from Michael Scott, anybody who wants can edit Wikipedia, so we know we are getting the best possible information:
Having the wind knocked out of you.

There’s a Harts mini-mart here in St. George in cahoots with a Philips 66 that is near the mortgage office at which I work. From time to time I’ll stop there to get a drink or a snack. Every time they scan the bar code of the thing I’m buying, the cash register makes a chime sound that is the exact same sound from Sonic the Hedgehog when you collect a ring. It’s often the highlight of my trip to work.

I haven’t been to any other Harts stores recently, so I don’t know if this is a unique situation or not, but it really is super awesome. That’s all.

I find myself watching people at crosswalks for some good old amusement. There are a number of different approaches people take at the intersections with traffic signals that have those buttons pedestrians push in hopes of getting the walk signal. Out of those approaches, I have a couple of favorites to watch.

The first type is a quick easy laugh. They stand right next to the button and push the sucker as fast as they can, over and over until they finally get their wish. If somebody is with them, trying to have a conversation, they will have a tough time getting through to the button pusher because of the focus it takes for them to push the button repeatedly and stare down that do-not-cross signal until it finally gives in to the pressure.

The next type is one that goes through phases, and to get the full enjoyment, you must luck out a bit and show up right after the do not walk signal has shown up. This button pusher calmly walks by the button and pushes it in stride. Fully expecting the signal to change as soon as they push the button, they keep moving right on to the edge of the curb, when they suddenly notice that the light didn’t change in their favor. They will pause for around 5-10 seconds right there on the edge of the curb, figuring that the glitch will shortly be corrected. Then it hits them, they must not have pushed the button in all the way. So they will calmly turn around, walk back to the button, and push it again, then return right to the edge of the curb and tell themselves that light will change very soon.

Around now, the button pusher is starting to finally notice that cars are moving by pretty close to where they stand. Typically, it’s a car making a right turn just inches in front of their toes that gets them to realize they’ve almost been standing in the street. Now the anxious pedestrian will back off a couple of steps and start to check out some alternatives. They start to think of crossing to their right or left, weighing the chances that the other walk signal will hold long enough to make the crossing in time. At this point, it can change quite a bit. Anywhere from the person giving up all dignity, returning to the button and reverting to our first example of the button masher, to something I saw a few days ago and completely giving up on crossing the street, and just walking further down the sidewalk perpendicular to the one on which they arrived. (I was awaiting my food at the drive through and the person walked all the way around the fine establishment, Fazoli’s, behind me, and into the door on the other side. I saw him near the door as I passed by on my way out.)

I think my favorite option though, is where the button pusher, while contemplating their other options and amid the other potential street crossers who have by now gathered around them, misses the golden moment where the walk signal appears. They will notice the others nearby have begun to make their way onto the road and suddenly realize that there is still a glimmer of hope left in this world. Their press of the button was finally answered and now they can safely cross with confidence to the other side of the street.

The end.

Oh boy did I see me a doozy today at work! I was doing one of my glamorous duties by changing out some lights in the furniture store. While up on the ladder, I noticed a guy walk buy who was holding some kind of face mask filter to his face. I looked to see if there was a hose connected to oxygen, even though he was probably around 50 years old and looked healthy, but found no such thing. As far as mask filter things go, it was about the nicest I’ve ever seen, looked a little like this here. He was holding it up with his hand, and I couldn’t see any straps, kind of strange I thought. So I went back to my business, then heard some more footsteps behind me. I turned to see a woman walking by doing the very same thing! For a moment, I felt like I was in some crazy science fiction end of the world movie and I hadn’t been clued in to the imminent disaster.

The two mask people were apparently in cahoots, as I saw them talk to each other. I tried to make out what they were saying, but, believe it or not, their words were plenty muffled by these crazy masks. I heard the lady say something half-panicked sounding that sounded like “Let’s get out of here, I can’t [muffled word, but I imagine it was breath]. The two looked paranoid to the point where if approached by a sales person, they would turn and run for the exit, knocking down anything in their paths. I later wished I had started violently coughing up a lung when I was within their same area. That would’ve been a fun little game.

So my best guess is that they both have bad allergies, and this mask solution is the best they could do. My first thought was that they are both hypochondriacs and must have met in the emergency room when both of them had a sneeze attack or something. Whatever the case may be, seeing things like that does a couple things to me: 1) Gives me a good reason to smile and chuckle a bit, and 2) makes me glad that I haven’t hit that level of weirdness…yet…well, at least not in public.

I felt like posting something, so I pulled one out of a note I set aside a while back on an idea for a post. This is a natural phenomena that I like to call the Rubber Banders. Since moving to St. George, Utah about 6 years ago, I’ve spent plenty of time on I-15, the main north-south freeway through Utah. It also goes right through St. George; very convenient.

In my travels on the freeway, I’ve noticed many styles of driving. You have the left lane only people, the I’m gonna go faster than everyone people, the I think the speed limit is way too fast people, and so on. This post is about people who subconsciously cling to one car from ten minutes up to the length of the entire trip.

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I’ve lived in Utah for around six years now. I’ve heard some things enough to make me concerned about grammar taught in schools here. I didn’t really think people said use-ta-could or might-could until I went to Cedar City. Then I heard a professor in college use those terms.

Those weren’t the most concerning. What blows my mind is that I’ve talked with at least five people who don’t understand how to use the words win and won. Far too often I’ve heard somebody say something like “The Panthers won the Flyers last night.” At first when I heard people make remarks like this, I’d poke fun at them for slipping up. Sadly, my humor wasn’t seen as humor, but rather a confusing new piece of information. None of those five or more people I mentioned before had ever heard the word beat used in such a sentence. So instead of “We won the opponent in the game,” it would be “We beat the opponent in the game.”

I thought everybody knew that one. Good work Utah schools.