How not to spend time on your vacation

It's after 11:00 P.M. on a Wednesday, right in the middle of my vacation, and I'm getting upset because I can't seem to get the wifi to work so I can check e-mails.

I don't have a job that requires me to check e-mails while on vacation, but it is a job that necessarily means I will return with over a thousand e-mails when I return July 6 if I do not check them and delete the deletables. My Outlook inbox is likely already filled to its limit, which is stressing me out more than any subject matter I may find once I do get in.

It's weird stressing out over something that will really not matter one bit once I return from vacation. My July 6 return will be filled with catching up regardless of whether I stress about it now, and whether I do anything about it once I get into the wifi. If I ever do get in, that is.

It's also frustrating that I drove over a half-mile to do this, as our room does not get wifi.

If only my golf game was good enough to relieve the stress.

Opposites attract

I hate slow walkers. My wife is a slow walker. OK, I don't hate her, nor other slow walkers really, but I hate getting stuck behind them in places where I'm not even trying to walk fast - just at a nice, lively pace.

My wife hates slow drivers. I am a slow driver. OK, she doesn't hate me, nor other slow drivers, but she hates getting stuck behind them in places where she only wants to go 5 mph over the speed limit. I don't really drive slowly, either, just typically 1 mph slower than the normal flow, unless I'm in a hurry, which isn't often.

She really gets stressed out over other drivers, which causes her to tailgate, cuss, etc. And that stresses me out even more than she already is.

But you know what's good for stress? A nice, lively walk. It's supposed to be, anyway.

World Cup

At the risk of sounding like another ignorant American, I just can't get into the World Cup. But to all those worldly, smarter-than-I fans of the game, who "get it" like I "obviously" do not, I have a few things to say, in no particular order:

1. Because I don't enjoy the game as much as the "Big 4" American professional team sports does not mean I do not enjoy the game.
2. Because I would like to see more scoring in an average game, does not mean I do not "get it."
3. If soccer is such a pure sport, why is the most important game of the "best game in the world" allowed to be decided by the luck of a goaltender's guess? (Oh, that's right, I know the answer...because I just don't "get it.")
4. If soccer fans do not have the same short attention span as we glib Americans, and fully understand and enjoy the beauty of the game as it is, why must they blow those vuvuzela's from start to finish, in a game that takes a mere 2 hours total time to complete? (What's to "get" there?)
5. Because I criticize the game as I do, does not mean I do not enjoy it.
6. I greatly appreciate what soccer players can do with the ball without resorting to their hands. Because that does not entertain me to the same extent as many other sports, does not mean I do not "get it."
7. Soccer, like many other sports and games, is great fun to play. It just ranks lower on my list of sports and games I enjoy watching. Which, again, is not the same as my saying I do not enjoy watching it at all.

OK, I think I've made my point(s), although I admit there may be some straw man arguments in there. I probably will watch the World Cup final for the same reason I watch the college women's softball finals, and other sporting events I otherwise don't regularly follow. That is, when something is truly on the line, I enjoy pretty much all forms of athletic competition.

I'd just rather clap along with an organ than blow a vuvuzela.

Yes, I do see the potential for the sophomoric innuendo joke in that last sentence. Have at it, if you wish.

Duct tape: It really can do anything

We took our four-year-old to the doctor today to look at what appeared to be a wart growing on his foot. Actually, his "Mema" took him, at her insistence, and it pains me to admit I'm glad she did.

It is indeed a wart (we had hoped it was merely a corn), and my wife and I had a brief discussion about whether it is a Plantar wart. She said because it is on the bottom of his foot, it is by definition a Plantar wart. I disagreed in my head, kept my mouth shut, Googled it later, learned to my satisfaction I was right, and continued to keep my mouth shut.

From http://www.howtodothings.com/:

"Plantar warts often appear near the balls of the foot or around the heel (essentially, the places that most likely made contact with the virus in the first place). You can feel the lump of a plantar wart as you walk, but when you look at it, the wart appears surprisingly flat. Due to their location on the body, plantar warts grown inward as opposed to outward. As a result, the wart won't look like a wart on someone's face. A plantar wart feels like a callus because it's covered in callus tissue due to the frequent pressure of walking. Often the planter wart will appear darkly discolored, sometimes with the appearance of a small black core (which is a blood clot, not any physical materialization of the virus itself)."

So yes, a Plantar wart does appear on the bottom of the foot, but exhibits no likeness to the wart my son has. His is outward-growing and has none of the small black cores explained above, which I once experienced in my early twenties.

What I did not expect to learn was the home remedy for it: duct tape. It kills the virus I guess, and eventually the wart goes away. It is supposed to work for "real" Plantar warts, too. I was very glad to know my son didn't have to have it frozen off, for his sake and mine, as I'm not sure my insurance covers the procedure.

I used a daily regimen of a prescription cream, Band-Aids, and a razor blade to remove mine back in the late '80s. It was kind of gross and creepy to self-mutilate my way to a wart-free foot. It was a lot cheaper than freezing the warts off, but it was no match for duct tape.