My Date with the Double Down

I had to have one. The amazing images of a sandwich with so much fried chicken that there's no room for a bun were haunting my every waking thought.

I debated the idea for weeks. But, like those kids locked in the room with the marshmallows, the temptation was too great. My determination and resolve soon gave way, and I allowed myself to become fully submerged in the giant vat of boiling grease that was soon to be my love affair with Colonel Sanders' newest creation: 540 calories, 32 grams of fat, and 1380 mg of sodium of glorious, deep-fried goodness--also known as the KFC Double Down.

The Double Down features two boneless chicken filets, two pieces of bacon, two slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese and Colonel's Sauce, with the tagline being, "This product is so meaty, there's no room for a bun." God Bless America!

I felt like I needed to train before my date with the Double Down, but instead decided that an aspirin as heart attack prophylaxis was probably more appropriate.

I also assembled a team to battle the beast alongside me--Brent Crenshaw (a proven veteran who had already slain the Double Down) and Clay Powell (who likes his KFC like he likes his women--hot and greasy).

The day came and the Double Down was all I imagined it would be. When given the option of getting the Double Down combo meal, I indifferently accepted. I mean, seriously, my blood is about to turn into sludge anyway, what are an additional 260 calories and 740 mg of sodium from potato wedges going to hurt?

I successfully downed every morsel of fried-goodness on my plate, and enjoyed every bit of it. I had done it...I had battled the beast known as the Double Down and won; I stared death in the face and lived to blog about it.

Our two year anniversary!

Two years ago today I was blessed to marry the love of my life, my high school sweetheart Anna Katherine Askew. Knowing that I would get to spend the rest of my life with someone as amazing as Anna was the greatest thought I had ever had, but actually living life with Anna for these past two years has been greater than I could ever have imagined. That old, sappy expression you always hear in movies when people say that “He/she makes me a better person” never really made sense to me until I met Anna. She is the warmest, happiest, kindest, most genuine, and most Godly woman that I’ve ever met and challenges me daily through her actions to become a better person…more like her…more like Christ. I love my Annie more with everyday that passes, and she is truly the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

I’m not much of a country music fan, but there’s one song that reminds me so much of how I feel about Anna. It’s called “She’s Everything” by Brad Paisley, and the lyrics are posted below.

“She’s Everything” by Brad Paisley

She's a yellow pair of running shoes

A holey pair of jeans

She looks great in cheap sunglasses

She looks great in anything

She's I want a piece of chocolate

Take me to a movie

She's I can't find a thing to wear

Now and then she's moody

She's a Saturn with a sunroof

With her brown hair a-blowing

She's a soft place to land

And a good feeling knowing

She's a warm conversation

That I wouldn't miss for nothing

She's a fighter when she's mad

And she's a lover when she's loving

And she's everything I ever wanted

And everything I need

I talk about her, I go on and on and on

'Cause she's everything to me

She's a Saturday out on the town

And a church girl on Sunday

She's a cross around her neck

And a cuss word 'cause its Monday

She's a bubble bath and candles

Baby come and kiss me

She's a one glass of wine

And she's feeling kinda tipsy

She's the giver I wish I could be

And the stealer of the covers

She's a picture in my wallet

And my unborn children's mother

She's the hand that I'm holding

When I'm on my knees and praying

She's the answer to my prayer

And she's the song that I'm playing

And she's everything I ever wanted

And everything I need

I talk about her, I go on and on and on

'Cause she's everything to me

She's the voice I love to hear

And someday when I'm ninety

She's that wooden rocking chair

I want rocking right beside me

Everyday that passes

I only love her more

Yeah, she's the one

That I'd lay down my own life for

And she's everything I ever wanted

And everything I need

She's everything to me

Yeah she's everything to me

Free time?? What's that?!

Now that I'm officially finished with the worst school year of my life, I've been thinking of all the things that I am able to do since 14 hours of my day will no longer be required for studying. I compiled a list.

1) Blogs. Blogging definitely took a back seat to school. I have almost a dozen people who use this blog to satisfy almost all of their humor needs, and now, with Conan no longer hosting The Tonight Show, these people need me even more! I will not let you down again faithful subscribers...I apologize for getting my priorities mixed up.

2) Sleep. I averaged 1 or 2 nights a week in which I was actually able to go to bed at the same time as Anna. Schoolwork always carried over until well after Anna’s bedtime of 10:00, and I always found myself returning to my “study cave” after tucking Anna in and kissing her goodnight. I also averaged about 3 hours of sleep a night on the weekends immediately preceding my knowledge and comp exams. Not cool Pharmacy school…I’m definitely looking forward to regular sleep cycles.

3) Video games. Somewhat of a guilty pleasure of mine, I’m really going to utilize the next couple of weeks off from school to get my video game fix. I’m glad that I’ve now got this year of pharmacy school out of the way, so that I have more time for the important things in life…such as protecting the galaxy from genocide by the Reapers in Mass Effect. J

4) Dog tricks. It’s crazy how “crazy” I am about our 1 & ½ year old Schnauzer puppy Bella. One of my favorite things to do is impress company with her tricks. Thus far we have mastered the twist (where she spins around in circles at lightning fast speed), up (where she stands upright on her back feet), sit, lay-down, and rollover. Coming soon are play dead, high-five, and the 4-move checkmate.

5) Leisure reading. Since last August, I haven’t read because I wanted to…I read because I HAD to. Which is why this one may actually take a few weeks for me to start. For the last year, the thought of reading has been synonymous with some sort of Chinese water torture for me. It’s kind of sad that I can only claim to have read two books since August: Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophysiologic Approach by Joseph T. Dipiro, et al (2592 pages) and Applied Therapeutics: The Clinical Use of Drugs by Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, et al (3040 pages). Some pretty dry reading to say the least………….

So that’s my current, short-and-sweet list of my dreams and aspirations over the next couple of weeks. I’m excited to once again have time to blog--looking forward to entertaining you with my thoughts and stories!

PING!

I hate it when bathrooms don't have paper towels! When bathrooms don't have paper towels to wipe your hands on after washing your hands, it usually means two things. 1) Some article of clothing is going to get wet. 2) You're going to have to touch the door handle to exit the bathroom. (This is especially disturbing seeing as the majority of guys that touch that door handle just got done handling their business with no hand washing in between)

So, the other day I used the bathroom before leaving the library at school when, after washing my hands, I realized that there were no paper towels. DANG IT! Now keep in mind this is one of those small bathrooms with a single stall, a urinal, and a sink, with the floor covered in small 2 in. x 2 in. tiles. I was alone, so I decided to "air-dry" my hands by jerking my arms violently about. After a couple of seconds of this I heard a sound that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I recognized the "PING!" sound as the sound of my wedding ring bouncing off of the tile floor. The few seconds that followed reminded me of those cartoons where someone shoots a gun and the bullet just ricochets off of everything in the room, completely defying the laws of physics. My ring was bouncing off the walls and floor, and I was terrified that it was going to land in the urinal or toilet. Luckily, after what seemed like an eternity, my ring finally came to a stop, and I left the bathroom completely disregarding the germ-coated door handle.

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television, North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

How was I supposed to know they were still hot? They were gray......and ashy.

I had grilled chicken several hours ago, when I decided to go ahead and empty the grill and clean up my mess. I dumped the coals into a paper bag and took the bag to the community apartment dumpster. I had a brief moment where I wondered if I had waited long enough to let the coals cool off, but quickly assured myself that a couple of hours was plenty of time and happily went about my evening.

About 45 minutes later, I hear the faint sound of a fire truck's siren. I, of course, thought nothing of this because our apartment was less than a mile from the Hernando fire department. Seconds later, the siren was loud, but rather than quickly fading away as it normally did when the fire truck zoomed past the apartment, it maintained the same volume, and I daresay was getting louder?? Panic poured over me as I sat there, frozen in fear, next to Anna. I rush to the blinds to see where the fire truck was going, only to see it parked next to the dumpster, which was emitting a beautiful orange-glow that made it easier to see the pillar of smoke rising from it.

"Uh-oh....." I whisper from the window.

"What do you mean 'Uh-oh'? What is it?" asked Anna.

"Umm...there's a fire in the dumpster, and ummm....I think...maybe I started it." I admit, slowly turning to face Anna.

We quickly decided that the best thing for us to do is rid our porch of all evidence. I put the grill in the storage closet, and swept away all evidence of ash from our porch. The firemen put out the smoldering trash within 20 minutes and left the apartments shortly thereafter.

The next day, while working at Fred's Pharmacy in Hernando, a police officer who frequently came into the pharmacy to chat came in, and I decided to ask him about the fire.

"Oh yeah, some idiot put something hot in the dumpster, and it caught fire," the officer said.

"Pfft, yeah....what an idiot! I mean, who would do something that dumb?!"

Kevin McCalister said it best after unintentionally stealing the toothbrush from the convenient store in Home Alone, when he said, "I'm a criminal."

Spelling Bee

I've got many-a pet peeve--people whistling when I whistle, idiots that don't know how to work 4-way stops, etc. One of my biggest pet peeves, however, is misspelling. Probably the one that grates on my nerves the most is when people wrongly substitute "your" for "you're". It drives me nuts! Another really, really annoying one is spelling "definitely" wrong. The most common misspelling is "definately". UGH!! Anyways, Anna and I came across this quiz containing the top 25 misspelled words. We took it together though and made a 17 out of 25. I guess making a 68% doesn't really give me much room to judge :)

Anyways, here's the the quiz. See what "your" made of, and post "you're" scores in the comments :) http://www.businesswriting.com/tests/commonmisspelled.html PS: we didn't answer #'s 26 and 27 because those were the British spellings

Welcome mat or invisibility cloak?

I've always been weird about having packages shipped to my address while living in an apartment. I think that a package just sitting on the doorstep would be too much temptation for any sticky-fingered or even slightly curious neighbor. But I should have known better. FedEx and UPS have been delivering packages for years. They do it every day. They know a lot more about delivering packages than I do, so I should have known that they would have a plan for preventing packages from getting stolen when they have to leave it on the doorstep. I came home to this today: