Frenchy's Rant

Back from my self induced rehab trip to Ireland, and I feel like some balance has been restored. Tried to keep up my Death Jogging regimen, but thankfully that only lasted one day. There are way too many pubs and interesting people to meet in Ireland to waste time running around. Plus I had a rental car.

A small old man bumped into me in another pub. His eyes were swimming in his head as he tried in vain to focus. Not sure what to do next, he extended his hand to me and mumbled, “I’m Tom, I’m droonk, and it’s maaagic!” It wasn’t long until Tom’s magic show ended, and he was crumpled in a heap on the floor.

While sipping a pint of Guinness in still another pub – yes there is a trend here – a guy came up to me, said something about me being a Guinness fan, and proceeded to tell me a story about something or other. His story was so long and involved it lasted me through two pints. When he finally finished his yarn, he shook my hand and walked away. Because of his thick accent and my pint input level, I hadn’t understood one single word the man said.

Believe it or not, there are also a few non pub-related Ireland stories – The main reason for this trip, aside from my Guinness rehydration therapy, was Fiona’s sister’s wedding. The wedding was beautiful and a lot of fun. Once it was over, we had three days left to sight see. The only motorcycle rental place I could find was in Northern Ireland, and the wedding was as far south as it could be. So, instead of riding the great roads of Ireland on a blue Yamaha FJR, we toured in REAL style – a royal blue Toyota Corolla Station Wagon!

We met a motorcycling couple from Holland. I listened as my new friend Joost bitched about the bad roads and worse drivers. He said his back hurt from the constant beating the roads dished out. However, his biggest complaint was one we both shared.

Sheep in the middle of the road.

We saw a bunch of ruined stuff on the trip:

And some cool things too:

Plenty of stuff like this:

And this:
Aww… How sweeeeet!
And finally: One of the places Fiona and I decided to drive to was the Drombeg Stone Circle, located in the middle of nowhere down some small dirt roads. My map indicated this particular stone circle was ‘of interest’, opposed to the Lisseyviggeen Stone Circle, which was marked as ‘not of interest’ on the map.

In this case the map was right. This ‘of interest’ altar was used in Druid ceremonies dating back to 945 BC. Somehow the Druids figured out how to align their alter (the rightmost, lowest stone in the circle) exactly with position of the sun on the Winter Solstice, which everyone knows is December 21st. How the Druids knew that way back in 945 BC is a mystery to me, as is how anyone managed to figure the ‘stone altar alignment with the sun’ thing out in a country that is almost always cloudy.

Stone circles are interesting, for about ten minutes tops. Then it’s time to go. At a dirt road intersection, I noticed a woman running towards me, flagging me down. Expecting some kind of emergency, we stopped and waited as she ran up to the car. I mean we were in the middle of nowhere, so there had to be some reason for this lady being out there.

This mystery woman came up to the car, opened the door and jumped in the back seat. “Boy, am I glad to see you! Can you give me a lift to town? It’s such a long walk you know.”

In California, this would get you shot, but in Ireland, it gets you a ride.

The so-called ‘experts’ say that any training regimen should be eased into. I am starting to believe they may have a point.

After three incredibly intense days of Blood and Guts Masochism, I’m nearly dead. The sharp pains shooting down my left arm haven’t gone away, the floor constantly moves like a treadmill, and my right lung seems to have collapsed, or at least stopped working.

Quitting my Cheeseburger and Guinness diet cold turkey AND making my heart over rev like an Indycar on that damn GrimReaper 6000000 treadmill at the same time is proving to be too much of a shock to the system.

The experts are right. I do need to start off slower. So, much like Lindsey Lohan, Bald Britney, Amy Winehouse (They tried to make her go to rehab, but she say no no no. She ended up there anyway) and the rest of the recreational rehabbers do when the going gets rough, I’m off to Ireland for some intense ‘rehab.’ Right now, nothing sounds better than vigorous Guinness rehydration therapy in a proper Irish pub.

I’ll try to post from the Emerald Isle – if free Wi-Fi is available at the pub… err… the ‘rehab center‘ that is. If not, I will resume posting when my rehab stint is complete.

In the meantime, post your best caption for the caption contest below!

“Please take out all liquids, gels, aerosols and pastes, place them in a Ziploc bag, and put them in the bin separately,” the automated TSA robot droned at us early morning travelers. 4:45 AM is without a doubt my favorite time of day to fill my Stupid Quota, and the TSA never lets me down.

The rookie traveler in front of me asks, “Toothpaste OK?”

“No, toothpaste is part of this.” Without even looking up, the TSA drone mindlessly continues, “Put all liquids, gels, aerosols and pastes in a Ziploc bag, and place them in a bin.”

From someplace at the back of the line a gruff voice asks, “Wha’ ’bout whiskey? Is whiskey OK?” I turn around and realize the guy, completely dressed in white except for his sunglasses, is actually serious.

“No. Whiskey is a liquid. You can’t take more than three ounces of liquid on board.”

I think to myself, is this a rule change? I didn’t realize we could bring our own liquor with us, provided it was in a Ziploc bag. I need to stock up on Ziplocs!

Waving his brand new, unopened bottle of cheap whiskey at the agent, The Snowman demands, “Well, what I’m gonna do wit dis den?”

With a shrug, the agent says, “You can’t take it with you sir.” Thinking she’s finished with this exchange, her popular refrain continues, “All liquids, gels, aerosols and pastes must go in a Ziploc bag, then place the bag in the bin.”

But the guy wasn’t done.

“Yo! You tellin’ I really can’t bring dis wit me? OK. Das fine.” He then proceeds to open the brand new bottle of whiskey, takes a long, deep chug from the bottle, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, screws the cap back on and hands the bottle to the now flustered agent, saying, “Dere you go. Make yo day betta wit dis, honey!”

My Stupid Quota has been filled for the week, and it’s only Monday!

Now that September has officially arrived, it’s that time of year once again – time for me to try and lose some of my accumulated winter weight. In other words, it’s back to that evil three letter word place, the dreaded g-y-m. I have a love-hate relationship with the gym, I love to come up with excuses not to go, and hate it when the excuses run out, and I end up back on the treadmill like a rat in a deranged experiment.

There are two reasons for my unceremonious return to exercising:

One – In a moment of sober yet extremely irrational exuberance, I declared the other day that I’d hike up Mt. Washington in New Hampshire on my fortieth birthday. Thankfully, that birthday is at least fifteen years away, so there’s still time to get in shape for it. There is also time for Mt. Washington to collapse the same way the ‘Old Man Of the Mountain’ did a few years ago.

Two – The WWE crew is in the middle four month long contest to see who can lose the most weight. Only at the halfway point and the roundest members of the crew are already starting to look svelte. Though I am not in the contest, I don’t want to be the odd man out, or the round man around for that matter.

Through years of intense training my body has become a super-tuned fat storage machine. I’m not sure exactly the reason, but lately I’ve been suspecting my fantastic cheeseburger and Guinness diet may have something to do with it. Even though a cheeseburger platter contains nutrition from all four food groups – Swiss cheese for the dairy group, Two All-Beef patties for the meat group, French fries and ketchup for a double helping of the vegetation group, and… what the hell is the fourth food group? Oh yeah! The most important group of all – beer! I always try and have a triple helping of Guinness to satisfy the daily recommended dose of that most important group. Maybe my diet is partly to blame for the thickening layer of insulation covering my abs. In any case, it’s time to try and zap a few of those – shall we say unnecessarily additional accumulated calories.

When I was younger, all I had to do is think about it really hard, and pounds would melt away. But as my metabolism has slowly let me down, my girth has quickly increased. So, it’s time to dust off the ol‘ shorts, deodorize the ol‘ sneakers and… well… throw out the ol‘ gym socks and get some new ones. It’s finally time to go back to the torture rack better known as:

The Gym… gym… gym… gym… gym…

What a silly word. It should be called something more appropriate, like the Blood and Guts room.

I dragged myself away from dreams of two Jessicas kissing this morning to begin the grueling regimen to undo years and years of fun and good times. The hotel fitness center featured the latest in high tech treadmills, the HeartThrasher 9000. Not only do these fancy contraptions measure heart rate and calories burned in real time, they also have built in TVs! What a great way to waste time while wasting time going nowhere!

Thanks to this high tech gadgetry, I found out it takes a half hour of high-speed running in place to burn off the amount of calories contained in two pints of Guinness and five peanuts. The obvious easy route would be to stop drinking Guinness, but I’ve never been one for taking the easy route. I’ll probably cut down on the peanuts though.

I watched as my heart rate climbed alarmingly during this calorie-burning fest. 210 beats per minute is 3.5 beats per second! I felt that was an unreasonable amount of work to ask of a heart, especially one that is happy to crank out about one beat a second or so. My body readily agreed. A copper taste filled my mouth as a tingling, electric sensation shot down my arms. My legs felt as if someone had poured cement into them, and it was beginning to harden. My lungs wheezed pathetically as they cried for more air. As the clock slowly ticked off the minutes, my vision narrowed to the tantalizingly out-of-reach defibrillator on the wall. Boy this was some fun!

Four hours later, I’d completed my half hour on the Death-o-Matic Treadmill of Doom. I climbed off… well climbed isn’t really the word, I think it’s more like… fell – yeah that’s it – I fell off the still-moving belt while desperately trying to suck up all the remaining oxygen in the room.

People gave me a wide berth as I staggered wildly back to my hotel room. My field of view kept narrowing until it felt like I was walking though the world’s longest toilet paper roll. Everything, including my eyelashes was sore and hurting. It was all I could do to pour myself on the bed and watch as pretty pinpricks of light danced across the ceiling. Who needs drugs when working out has pretty much the same effect? Maybe this is the reason people go so nutty for the gym.

After half an hour of this self-induced light show, I recovered enough basic motor function to drag myself hand over hand to the shower and wash off all the blood.

Though it doesn’t seem like it, I’d have to say that all things considered, Day One of ‘Working Out’ went pretty well. By pretty well I mean I didn’t die. Now if I can only think up an excuse not to go back tomorrow.