The 5 Hour Energy LiveBlog

Don't get me wrong - I'm as accomplished a coffee drinker as anyone. But for the last several months, I've been trying to wean myself off of the stuff, the idea being that the less I consume, the greater the impact it will have when I do drink it.

Today I had my first 5 Hour Energy. I chose Pomegranate. What could go wrong?

4:06 p.m. Examining the bottle of 5 Hour Energy. Trying to decide if I really want to do this. Claims to be like coffee, but quicker. Comes with a warning label. Coffee doesn't come with a warning label, except when it's hot.

4:07 p.m. Reading about Niacin flush, a "natural warming sensation" that occurs when your body processes necessary minerals of which it was previously deficient. That's the 5 Hour Energy way of trying to convince you that the way you're about to feel is healthy.

4:08 p.m. What could go wrong? I love pomegranates.

4:09 p.m. Oh, gross.

4:13 p.m. Head upstairs feeling normal. Time to get to work and pound out some projects.

4:16 p.m. Notice a delightful jump in my typing WPM. That's if you count "pnusctuality" as a word. Unclear if this is due to 5 Hour Energy.

4:19 p.m. Niacin flush.

4:21 p.m. Toilet flush.

4:36 p.m. Working on a parent letter. You know how sometimes when you say a word too many times, it starts to sound funny? Every word is that word right now.

4:45 p.m. I literally cannot stop thinking about bridges - how they're made, who designs them. How do we really know they're safe? I can't focus on this letter right now. All I can think about is bridges.

4:47 p.m. Reading about bridges on Wikipedia.

4:50 p.m. Force myself to focus on the parent letter. Just spelled the word "contact" with a semicolon. And an umlaut.

4:57 p.m. Looking for Rick Keller's phone number. He's a structural engineer and I've got a lot of questions about bridges.

5:00 p.m. Saved from a very awkward conversation by the fact that I don't actually have his phone number.

5:10 p.m. Go downstairs to help with dinner. Hold the baby. Bounce the baby. I am not intentionally bouncing the baby.

5:15 p.m. I am literally yelling at a pot of green beans for what I suspect to be blatant malfeasance.

5:28 p.m. Drink a glass of water as an attempt to flush the 5 Hour Energy from my system.

5:29 p.m. I feel like I drank that glass of water awfully fast.

5:30 p.m. My shirt is soaking wet and there are ice cubes on the floor. Can't figure out why.

5:45 p.m. Eating dinner. Trying to hold it together.

6:00 p.m. Offer to clean up after dinner. Ask Lindsay to "time me." She declines.

6:02 p.m. Done. Wish she would have timed me.

6:05 p.m. Back to work. So excited AND so scared.

6:12 p.m. Just realized I'm not wearing a shirt. Not sure how long this has been.

6:44 p.m. Drooling. Thanks 5 Hour Energy.

7:00 p.m. 25 emails in 2 minutes. All to the same guy.

7:16 p.m. Less concerned about bridges than I am about asteroids all of a sudden.

7:40 p.m. Watching the 5 Hour Energy commercials online. That guy seems so happy at the office, but trust me, he's using every ounce of his willpower not to go outside, strangle a bunny, and eat it raw.

7:55 p.m. Well, this is the third time I've gone to the bathroom "just to be sure." And for what it's worth, I'm 0-for-3.

8:02 p.m. I'm Batman.

8:17 p.m. Parent letter finished nearly four hours after it started. Thanks 5 Hour Energy.

8:34 p.m. I wrote down "Great idea for sitcom." Post 5 Hour Energy, I have no idea what it was.

8:39 p.m. When did I take my pants off? I may have eaten dinner in my underwear.

8:45 p.m. What is the stuff made of? Chihuahua concentrate?

9:00 p.m. Is five hours over yet?

9:14 p.m. Struck by inexplicable urge to blog again.

9:16 p.m. Really just excited by all of the labels I get to use again.

Have a Little Faith

Earlier this year, I asked for book recommendations on the condition that if someone recommended a book, I had to read it. So today, I finished my fifth book of 2010, Mitch Albom's Have a Little Faith. I've never been a big fan of Albom*, because a lot of what he says is a little too syrupy for my taste. This isn't to say that he doesn't relay quality stories with quality insights, just that he does so with a little too much sugar.

* And who listens to Alboms anymore!?**

** Pun.

The book centers around Albom's wrestle with faith and religious co-existence as he works to write his beloved rabbi's eulogy. He also dives into the economic downturn of Detroit, by getting involved with a rundown church that's doubling as a homeless shelter. But mostly its about his waning Jewishness* and how he comes to reclaim pieces of that as he gets reacquainted with the old rabbi.

* That's a quality band name if I've ever seen one.

It is also about Albom's refusal to use quotation marks when he, himself, is a part of the dialogue; a tool that has become a trademark style, and a little annoying at the same time.

This makes me think that maybe what I need to differentiate myself as a writer is a trademark style to call my own, which is why, for the remainder of this post, I will end each sentence with two periods instead of one and capitalize the letter P every time I use it.. Albom's blatant disresPect for grammar made him a bestseller, after all..

--

Faith made me wonder about Pieces of my own eulogy, and who I might ask to deliver it when the time comes.. Ricky Gervais handled the Golden Globes alright, and I think he'd do a fine job at my funeral.. But I'd be awfully disaPPointed* if I didn't outlive that guy..

I suPPose it doesn't matter too much who gives the sPeech, just as long as he or she hits on the high Points of my life so far: My first chest hair, for examPle, or the first time I ate entire Pizza by myself.. This Person will need to know about these events, and in the case that my eulogy is transcribed for a literary audience, as it was in Faith, this Person needs to ProPerly use syntax, grammar, and Punctuation, because - darn it Mitch! - this stuff is hard to read..

Writing without Fruit

Every now and again, I'll pull up Blogger, sit down to write a sentence much like the one you're reading right now, and then I'll begin to realize that I don't have a clue where I'm going with it. I am intent on writing something - because I want to write - something, but I just don't have anything to say. I suppose it's sort of like wandering onto a grassy field with a football helmet, a baseball bat, and a basketball, then saying: "I want to be good at sports." Sure, you've got a pile of equipment, but you really look like an idiot.

And in this grand metaphor, I suppose it means that I look like the idiot right now. But due to the wonders of the Internet, if I complete this stream-of-consciousness blathering and I don't like it, I won't post it, and you'll never know how stupid I really am.*

* Unless of course I'm stupid enough to hit "Publish Post" anyway. I guess you'll be the judge.

--

As we were watching American Idol last night, I mentioned to Lindsay my disbelief at some of the poorer singers that try out for the show. For my part, I think that at least half of them are aware of their suckitude, but play it off well so that they can win a bar bet and enjoy their 15 minutes of fame.

But I'm sure that there are at least some of these people who actually believe that they can sing. In and of itself, this isn't what throws me. I can fully understand how a poor singer can delude himself into believing he's a decent singer.* I can understand how a mediocre singer might believe himself to be good. But for the life of me, I cannot understand how a poor singer might believe himself to be one of the 24 best undiscovered talents in the entire nation.

* If I couldn't do it, I wouldn't sing. I'm the expert here.

One guy said he couldn't believe he didn't make it, even though he "hit the really loud notes." This is clearly a guy with zero training, because musicians wouldn't convince themselves that volume is what makes a good singer great. If this was the case, my neighbors would have won multiple Grammies.

Of course, almost all of these people claim that their friends always tell them how great they are, which has to lead you to believe that either these people aren't really friends or that compliments lead to delusion far more frequently than illumination.

--

Someone who I didn't know once approached me and told me she enjoyed my blog. Another person told me that if I didn't write for the rest of my life, then I'd be missing my calling. Another told me she'd laughed so hard she cried, and another told me my prose was touching enough to bring her to tears. I suppose it takes a certain degree of talent to cause humorous and serious tears at the same time. I suppose it takes even more to do that with a blog that's standby material involves a ferret wearing a sweater or inappropriate jokes about meeting Scientologists in my underwear.

--

Then I remember, that when I was 24-years-old, someone told me I should try out for American Idol. There might be something there too, but I know that I can't hit the loud notes.

Can't the Washer Just Do It for Me?

If I had any idea how to apply for a patent, I'd do this myself. But I don't, so my great ideas are merely a call for you to invent it, give me one, and make the world a better place.

Washing machines should automatically default to the cold/cold setting after every single load.

Think about it.

No one ever gets too upset about accidentally washing their whites in cold water, but no one's thrilled when they pull a stack of color-bled doll clothes out of a washing machine that's a little bit warmer than it was supposed to be. We've all done it at least once - washed something improperly and turned it into the kind of garment only a rodent would wear.*

* Strictly so I could use this:

Here's what I want to do. I will turn the dial to hot for the whites, and the washing machine will turn it back to cold again when the load is finished.

I would guess that most families, at least in this country, don't go through enough white clothes* to justify doing more than one load of whites anyway. There's very little reason for a washer to remain on the hot setting for consecutive loads.

* I know what you're thinking: Klan members. But you're wrong. Klan members don't wash their clothes. Ever.

So my great idea is a washing machine that defaults to its safest setting. It just makes sense.

And no, this post is does not owe it's birth to anything stupid that I've done.*

* At least not recently.

Please Enjoy the Music While Your Party Is Reached...

No I will not.

This seems like it would be a neat idea.* It really does. Instead of listening to a phone ring, all of your friends can listen to some top 40 song while they wait for you to answer your phone. It's an idea that the Verizon dude with the glasses came up with when he wasn't stalking some chick with 800 of his friends. The dude overhead in the helicopter is a co-conspirator.

* False.

First off, I don't like that song. No one does. I promise.

Secondly, and less forgiveable, the sound quality is just atrocious. It sounds like someone took a shower radio, put it in the shower, ran the shower, activated the shower radio, then absconded some sort of crappy tape recorder, circa 1992; placed it under the sink, (ran the sink), and hit record. Once recording was finished, they dropped the tape in the toilet, recovered it, then sold it to Verizon.

Verizon then played the tape back in one of those real old MACs with a cassette drive, plugged one speaker into the audio port and the other into the printer port, placed the computer and speakers in a post office box near the airport, placed earmuffs on a microphone, then held that microphone up to the window of the plane as they rolled past the post office box.

Then they made it play in my ear.

I'll stick with texting.

Mountain T.O.P.

Most people wouldn't decide to move across the country on a bicycle. Most people wouldn't decide to move across the country on a bicycle a mere three days after they're going to be on a mission trip for a week, leaving them only two days to figure out all of the crucial details surrounding a trip across the country on a bicycle. I have never been accused of being most people.*

*I've also never been accused of murder or arson or most felonies. I was accused of stealing a mouse ball when I was a junior in high school. I was told I would have to serve detention, but refused to go since I had not stolen the mouse ball. It went back and forth, me and the assistant principal and the people in the Attendance Office - them giving me more detention for not going to detention, me not going to those detentions. One day, in the middle of the whole ordeal, I was named a National Merit Semi-Finalist and that was all the ammo I needed to just tell the guy to shove it.

I'm ready for the New Mexico trip, and am prepared to live for two months on only what will fit on a bicycle. So, when I packed for this eight-day mission trip, I packed light. I figure I will only need 13% of what I will need in August. This makes packing easier.

I packed deodorant, a toothbrush, some old clothes, a bar of soap, and a wretchedly uncomfortable (but miraculously light!) sleeping bag. On the list of things I didn't pack: a razor, shaving cream, hair product, shampoo, SPF, face wash, etc... This can only mean one thing. Look for to the patented "Aaron Helman Resembles a Boy Band Member but Only if that Boy Band Member Was some Sort of Hobo"* look to begin before the bike trip is even nearly planned.

*All Rights Reserved. (c) 2008.

See you in a week.

Stir Crazy

It's been awhile since I've contributed to this blog. That's because I haven't done anything interesting lately. This is because, after I survived being hit by a truck, I injured myself trying to catch a Frisbee. So for the past five days, I've done little but try to rehab a pulled hamstring. Ice and heat and elevation and Icy Hot* and a bunch of other not-so-medical things that make for a boring blog post.

*There was one fiasco with the Icy Hot. It wasn't terribly interesting, but it will garner the "I am an idiot" label. Just remember, after you apply the Icy Hot, wash your hands before touching your eyes.

Anyway, I can't run or jog or bike or do anything fun, and it's worth noting that these are the only things that I actually do. Couple that with the fact that my job is winding down slowly, and there's not too much for me to do for another couple of weeks. I've been watching SNL reruns and sleeping in and keeping my house obsessively clean.*

*Like, I cleaned the baseboards clean. Not kidding. It's really a good-looking place. Did I mention it was for sale?

The real trouble is this: In the past two months, I've cleaned out my library, gotten rid of some movies; I've basically begun to dematerialize my life; looking ahead to the New Mexico adventure. After all, I'll only stow what I can carry on a bicycle.* So while I'm on the DL, there's not a book or movie to keep me company. I know what happens usually in these circumstances: I rush my recovery and hurt myself worse. I cannot afford that this time, so I'm being beyond intentional about being boring.

*Really not much at all.

And I hate it.

I Got Warned

Only a week earlier, Paul and I were headed back to the forest when I received a call from Drew Shepherd.* He was concerned because he had just driven by the church and had seen several police cars on the property. We hauled back there every second as fast as we could to see what was going on. By the time we arrived, most of the “several” cruisers had departed; still we were greeted by a policeman and a conservation officer.

*Drew throws a Frisbee more precisely than any human I've ever met. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

I approached cautiously, and asked what was going on. I explained that we actually lived back in the forest, and then we were told that maybe it wouldn’t be a real good idea to go back there at that point. Apparently, the police were on a manhunt, and they were hunting a man who had escaped into the woods!

That’s my home!

Neither of the officers had reason to expect that the man was at all armed or dangerous. That was before I informed them that a pair of axes, a machete, and my throwing hatchet were at the campground. That seemed to pique their interest.

Regardless, they set back toward camp to hunt this fugitive from justice. Paul and I were instructed to wait at our cars. Then we had the thought together – what if this dude comes out of the forest while the two cops are inside of it? No time for words to be spoken; sandals and jeans came off. Running shoes and shorts went on. We were going to have to catch this guy ourselves.

It never happened. We didn’t see anything or anyone. About an hour later, the officers came back, reported essentially that they hadn’t caught the guy yet, but that they were leaving for the night. We could do what we wanted.

We stayed in the tent, me, clutching a throwing hatchet.*

*I am actually really good at throwing hatchets. Unfortunately, this has never worked as a pickup line. Yes, I've tried.

Happy Bike-to-Work Week!

It's a little known fact that May 12-16 is National Bike-to-Work Week. In fact, I didn't even realize this until after I'd biked here today. I'll do my duty as a cycling evangelist and encourage everyone with a manageable commute to get out the old bike just once this week. Good for you, good for traffic, good for the environment.

--

My shoe broke this morning. Most people don't realize that I have special cycling shoes that clip in to and attach to the special pedals. They make me go a little faster and keep me under control. Also, they make it very difficult to disengage from the bicycle after you get hit by a truck. It's a small price to pay for an extra mile-an-hour.

The cleats attach to the shoe by three adjustable screws. Maintenance isn't much; you've just got to check the screws occasionally to make sure they don't loosen or fall out. I apparently don't do that as much as I should. So today, about four miles in to my fourteen mile commute, I noticed that I was having all sorts of trouble clipping into the pedals.

I pulled off to investigate and found that my left cleat was dangling there - the screws were barely intact. Pedaling clipped pedals without the cleats is disastrously impossible; then again, I was in no-man's land; and was strangely without my Allen wrenches. I have no idea why I took them out of my bag, but this post will be given the "I am an idiot" label.

I had to try something new. I rode the last ten miles of the trip basically with one foot - this is possible if you're clipped into the pedals. However, the one-footed method makes it tough to maintain a speed, use a high gear, or move with any sort of urgency. Still, I had to one-leg it through farmland, in traffic, and down a very familiar section of road.

That's where the German Shepherd appeared. It was like he sensed that this was my moment of weakness; today he would get me. I gave everything I had with my right leg; my left leg was left dangling in the wind like a sort of doggy treat. He could practically taste it.

He was going to catch me; that much was inevitable. Then something unexpected happen. He barked a few times and then maintained an angry dog jog right alongside me. Never bit, never snarled; really, all he wanted to do was run with me.

In the chaos of everything that were these moments, I realized something: I'm not scared anymore.

I'd like to see that truck try to hit me now. I'm hitting back.

The Day Everyone Noticed...

During our church services, I sit in the back of the sanctuary, diligently striking the space bar at approved intervals. See, it's my job to display images and video. I am a Visual Worship & Media Technician. It's not ridiculously difficult. And it's the kind of job that, when done right, goes virtually unnoticed.

Think about it; have you ever called your cable company to let them know that everything is working perfectly and you're getting ready to watch Kangaroo Jack on OnDemand?

No, we tend to notice things only when they don't work.

And on Sunday, during the 9:00 service, everyone noticed me.

--

It was time to display a clip from the Video Bible. I dimmed the lights appropriately and launched the clip. There's always a bit of a delay before the video appears on the wall, so that was no big deal. But I noticed almost immediately that there was no sound to accompany the moving images. Suffice it to say, the narration is the most important part of the Video Bible.

I glanced quickly at all of the settings. Everything was working fine, save for the fact that nothing was working. After about seven seconds, the congregation had noticed that something was amiss. People were shifting uncomfortably, others looked in my direction. In short, I had the unique opportunity to share an awkward silence with more than 350 people.

It's worth noting that no one excels in that kind of moment the way I do. As it happens, I can hear the coach telling me: "This is your moment, Aaron. You were made for this."

And so, after another moment of congregational fidgeting; I declared in a thoroughly loud, but altogether understated tone:

"I got nothin'."

I always wanted my own catchphrase.

--
Updated: It's been pointed out that the actual quote was "I got nothin,'" so things have been updated accordingly. Tip of the hat to Harold Blake.

You Just Don't Get Me, Do You?

Sometimes I make jokes. And most of the time those jokes are dumb. Often, someone won't realize that I'm making a joke, and then they look at me weird.

As I left my house this morning, my neighbor was walking his German shepherds. They saw me. They went nuts. No big deal.

I run a few loads of stuff from the house to the car, and the guy calls over to me, "Hey, got a second?"

So, I walk over. He explains that the dogs get antsy around people they haven't sniffed. If I let them sniff me, they'll be more comfortable next time.

Me: "Yeah, I'm the same way around new people."

Neighbor: ...

I Shot Myself in the Eye with the Cork from a Bottle of Wine

Kids, listen to your parents. Alcohol is dangerous.

Just like Red Rider BB Guns.

When to Shut Up

At least I know why I'll always be single. It's because I'm kind of an idiot. The following is the precise transcript of a conversation I had at the 56th Street Starbucks today. I started talking to a cute blond girl, we exchanged pleasantries, and then this happened:

ME : So what do you do?
HER: I'm a waterfront monitor.
ME : So you're a lifeguard.

And that was the end of that.

--
Updated: I added the "Reasons I Will Always Be Single" label.