If Airlines Sold Paint

Customer: Hi. How much is your paint?

Clerk: Well, sir, that all depends on
quite a lot of things.

Customer: Can you give me a guess? Is
there an average price?

Clerk: Our lowest price is $12 a gallon,
and we have 60 different prices up to $200
a gallon.

Customer: What's the difference in the paint?

Clerk: Oh, there isn't any difference; it's
all the same paint.

Customer: Well, then I'd like some of that
$12 paint.

Clerk: When do you intend to use the paint?

Customer: I want to paint tomorrow. It's my
day off.

Clerk: Sir, the paint for tomorrow is the
$200 paint.

Customer: When would I have to paint to get
the $12 paint?

Clerk: You would have to start very late at
night in about 3 weeks. But you will have to
agree to start painting before Friday of that
week and continue painting until at least
Sunday. You must paint on a Saturday night.

Customer: You've got to be *&%#@* kidding!

Clerk: I'll check and see if we have any paint
available.

Customer: You have shelves FULL of paint! I
can see it!

Clerk: But it doesn't mean that we have paint
available. We sell only a certain number of
gallons on any given weekend. Oh, and by the
way,the price per gallon just went to $16.
We don't have any more $12 paint.

Customer: The price went up as we were talking?

Clerk: Yes, sir. We change the prices and rules
hundreds of times a day, and since you haven't
actually walked out of the store with your paint
yet, we just decided to change. I suggest you
purchase your paint as soon as possible. How
many gallons do you want?

Customer: Well, maybe five gallons. Make that
six, so I'll have enough.

Clerk: Oh no, sir, you can't do that. If you
buy paint and don't use it, there are penalties
and possible confiscation of the paint you already
have.

Customer: WHAT?

Clerk: We can sell enough paint to do your kitchen,
bathroom, hall and north bedroom, but if you stop
painting before you do the bedroom, you will lose
your remaining gallons of paint.

Customer: What does it matter whether I use all
the paint? I already paid you for it!

Clerk: We make plans based upon the idea that all
our paint is used, every drop. If you don't, it causes
us all sorts of problems.

Customer: This is crazy!! I suppose something terrible
happens if I don't keep painting until after Saturday night!

Clerk: Oh yes! Every gallon you bought automatically
becomes the $200 paint.

Customer: But what are all these, "Paint on sale
from $10 a liter" signs?

Clerk: Well that's for our budget paint. It only
comes in half-gallons. One $5 half-gallon will do
half a room. The second half-gallon to complete the
room is $20. None of the cans have labels, some are empty
and there are no refunds, even on the empty cans.

Customer: To hell with this! I'll buy what I need
somewhere else!

Clerk: I don't think so, sir. You may be able to
buy paint for your bathroom and bedrooms, and your
kitchen and dining room from someone else, but you
won't be able to paint your connecting hall and stairway
from anyone but us. And I should point out, sir,
that if you paint in only one direction, it will
be $300 a gallon.

Customer: I thought your most expensive paint was $200!

Clerk: That's if you paint around the room to the
point at which youstarted. A hallway is different.

Customer: And if I buy $200 paint for the hall, but
only paint in onedirection, you'll confiscate the
remaining paint.

Clerk: No, we'll charge you an extra use fee plus
the difference on your next gallon of paint. But I
believe you're getting it now, sir.

Customer: You're insane!

Clerk: Thanks for painting with United.

Exercises in Folding and Stowage 2

Exercise 2: The Super-pack

Having learned new and interesting ways to fold clothes and save space I naturally started packing that way too. And I got really good at it… I have had friends ask me to come over to their house to help them pack because of what I can fit into a carry-on suitcase.

Here, I will show you… Last month my friend Gary came to visit. Like always happens when he visits I made him buy an entirely new wardrobe. I hate shopping for myself but I’ll tell you, I got a talent for helping other people pick out the hottest clothes.

So when Gary left I had to pack his bag for him. One standard sized carry-on bag, this is what I was able to fit into it:

15 shirts (both t-shirt and button down)
7 pairs of underwear
7 pairs of jeans
5 pairs of socks
4 Tank Tops
3 pairs of shoes
2 Belts
1 Toilet Bag
1 Electric Razor

Here is how to do it...

Step 1: First put in the shoes. Heel to toe across one side of the suitcase.


Step 2: Using the shirt fold I already taught you, put as many shirts as you can fit between the shoes and the other side of the suitcase. You will be able to stack two levels of shirts this way.


Step 3: Roll up the pants as shown below and lay them over the shoes. Like the shirts, you will be making two stacks of pants. Fold your underwear into squares and put them in the gap between your shirts and the wall of the suitcase.


Step 4: When you have all shirts, pants, underwear and shoes in the suitcase roll up your belts. Sometimes it helps to put a rubberband around them. Lay them on top of your underwear.


Step 5: My recommendation to you is to find a decent sized toiletries bag like this one. You don't need to take your entire bathroom with you every time you travel. My rule of thumb is to take the essentials: toothbrush, hair product, toothpaste, condoms and some little lube packets maybe, and whatever medication you may need. Things like shampoo, toothpaste and what not you can get when you get to wherever.

Lay the bag on top of your shirts. Socks go into the shoe pockets on the lid of the suitcase, and tank tops get folded into squares and put in the top zipper on the lid. This is also a good place to put any extra shirts like you see in the picture.


Step 6: Zip bag. As you can see the extendable zipper is still zipped so you should have no problem carrying this onto the plane. If you have loose small stuff than you can either put them into the outside compartment of the suitcase on in your other carry-on. You can have two, a suitcase and a small personal case/laptop case.


If you are going on vacation, this is a good way to pack, but you may run into problems if you buy a lot of souvenirs. If you do get a lot than you can always just buy a separate bag to put all your new stuff into and check this one.

The faces that have worn me...

Halloween 2007: Peter Pan, Tinkerbell and Captain Hook

Halloween 2006: The Wicked Witch of the West and her Naughty Flying Monkey



Halloween 2005: Shrek

Halloween 2004: Batman & Robin

Halloween 2003: Boring 'ol Sailor

Halloween 2001: Cruella DeVille


I missed all the Halloweens while I was in the Navy, although they tell me that I was dressing up for Halloween, I was dressing up like a sailor... now go to work!! My last civilian costume was as a Witch and Warlock. Before I really learned how to dress up properly.

I have done drag exactly twice for my chorus: Singing "You're Timeless to Me" from Hairspray, My Edna Turnblad looked like Divine and Dolly Parton had a baby... not pretty. The other time was even worse. I was in scag drag playing the title role in the kd lang song "Big Boned Gal"... oh yeah, sat on a little old lady, a priest and a woman in a wheelchair during that song... oy gay!!!

Drinking with Crazy Horse

Puerto Vallarta

On vacation in Puerto Vallarta, some friends of mine decided to go on a booze cruise. Now I have done my fair share of drinking, but I have issues about drinking while the room itself is moving. However majority ruled and so we set out to find a good cruise that would suit everyone. We found one that included the cruise, the booze, a scuba lesson, lunch at a beach front restaurant and a horse ride to some local waterfalls.

The first stop on the cruise was the scuba lesson. Because of the oxygen mixture, scuba gear, and other such scientific explanations I didn’t quite get, we couldn’t drink until after the lesson. Now I have done my fair share of drinking, but unlike most of my friends, I was unable to maintain my composure after about two beers. I was never so relieved to pull my head out of a trash can as I was the moment I saw the boat pulling up to the restaurant.

After a very nice meal we all set off down the road with the other cruisers looking for the stables. My friends decided to walk to the falls. I however was going to get the full service tour. I paid for a horse ride and I was going to get one! That may have been the worst decision I made on that vacation. You see, I am not a small man. I stand six feet, five inches tall and weigh in at… well, let’s just say at the time I was around 230lbs. So the guy at the stables looks at me and then looks over all his horses. Finally he picks one out saddles it up and brings her over to me.


If it’s possible to see emotion in a horse’s eye, I saw it that day. Not only fear at the thought of having to bear me, but clear hatred for her master. Of course at that moment I was completely oblivious. I got right up on that horse and directed her toward the falls. With a little kick we were on our way, and the stable guy told me to hang on tight as we trotted away. He wasn’t kidding. He had given me the crazy horse, and she wanted me the hell off her back.

She dominated the trail to the falls by pushing other horses off the path. One of the other riders was knocked to the ground when his horse was shoved off the path. I was screaming WHOA! But she was having none of it. She was on a mission; she wanted me off. When we finally reached the falls, after a hundred apologies to other riders, I leapt off her and kissed the ground.

When I looked up I got this weird sense of Déjà vu. That was when I realized I had seen these waterfalls before. I had seen them when Arnold Schwarzenegger was jumping over them trying to get away from the “Predator”.

two tears in a bucket... mutha phuket

Phuket, Thailand... that is.

I was five minutes off the boat and there was a line of taxi’s waiting to take people into downtown Phuket. I hired a woman named Penny and her brother Aroon, who made their living as taxi driving tour guides. On a very tight budget, Penny and her brother managed to show me in five days more than I had ever expected.

While I was getting the locals tour of the island we drove by a beach that had a sailboat abandoned on it. I asked why it was there and Penny told me the story. The boat had belonged to a Russian man. He and his son had gone on a round the world trip only to be stranded when the old clunker broke down out to sea.

They had floated around the ocean with no food and very little water for several weeks until the Thailand coast guard found them and dragged the boat to land. They both made full recoveries and were released after a couple of weeks. They flew home leaving the abandoned boat on the beach, where it still remained months later when I took this picture.


While trekking through the countryside in search of a secluded empty beach I started to get a little hungry. Penny decided to stop at her parents’ house, where she got me some fried bananas and cracked open a coconut for me to drink. After making dinner plans for later that evening we continued our search and eventually found a beautiful deserted beach where they dropped me off for a few hours of relaxing and swimming in the eighty degree water.

My five days spent with Penny and Aroon made for an amazing adventure in a foreign land. They treated me so well I felt like family. From wake up calls and door to door service to taking me to their family home for an authentic Thai dinner, my time in Thailand was an amazing adventure. So far outside of the “tourist” trap of bars and beaches, I got to see the real Thailand, the people and the places of the everyday.