Category: The Challenge

This post is going to be…well… awkward.  Now this is really awkward.  If some of you are still hung over from International Question Day (what else would you be hung over from), questions may still be popping in to your head.  If one of your questions was “Why is it four stages of awkward,” I will actually answer your question now.  Ten cool points to you.  There are basically four different types of awkward.  But wait a second, the title for this post is clearly four stages and not types.  If there are four types, why did I not title my post this?  Well for that, please enjoy my introduction and proceeding lecture on… THE FOUR STAGES OF AWKWARD!!!!
Welcome.  Awkward is not just the act of doing something awkward known as the act but the overall moment it creates, permeating through those around you also known as the audience.  It is the full awkward moment.  My theory is that each of these awkward moments can contain just one type of awkward or it can flow through the other types as though through stages. There are four different types of awkward.  While some scientists include other types, the different types are accidental, friendly, creepy, and intentional.  Each awkward moment is not a cycle and does not have to include each of these types but can include any of them based upon the audience and the act.  Please use these following stages as only a rough guide of the awkward moments that occur in your life.

• Accidental- This is the type of awkward that happens when you are not planning on doing something awkward.  Anyone who has graduated from high school and walked to accept their diploma is familiar with this type of awkward.  Remember when you were nervous about walking along that stage and suddenly tripping on the edges of your graduation gown.  This was you fearing an accidental awkward moment, a moment that happens organically that leaves people wondering whether they should laugh or cry for you.
• Friendly- Sometimes awkward is endearing.  This type of awkward can also be known as funny or innocent.  This is the type of awkward that it is okay to laugh at.  This is like when your friend says something while in an elevator with a senior member at your office that causes the senior member to grimace.  While kind of tense in that initial instance, it leads to great laughter and reminiscing afterwards.  Many times moments that are not even awkward can be turned in to a funny or innocent awkward moment by someone simply saying the word awkward.  Please consider the following example:
  • Bobby:  Hi Jim,  how was your weekend?
  • Jim: It was a great weekend
  • Craig: …awkward…

This moment was not actually awkward but was turned in to a friendly awkward moment when Craig said, “Awkward.”

• Creepy- This type of awkward is like the hungry eyes guy from the M and M commercial.  This is the type of awkward that runs a chill down your spine and just makes you want to leave the situation.  The best example I have of this is when you are riding on the metro to work and you realize that the homeless person on your train is just staring you down.  You try to ignore them but they just keep looking at you.  While this type of creepy is normally considered the most evil type of awkward, it can also be kind of endearing.  For instance, the kid in Hey, Arnold! that only breathed through his nose and always appeared directly behind Helga.  He was creepy, but in a cute, squeeze him and pinch his cheeks kind of way.  However if he was sitting on my bed when I came home from a movie, not that would be too creepy for even a cartoon to make adorable.
• Intentional- Back home my friends used to play a game called Nervous.  The game was played by the guys in the group primarily.  It involved two friends placing their hands on each other’s knees and basically seeing how got nervous first.  This is a great example of an intentional awkward moment, specifically doing something that you know my make someone feel uncomfortable.

Any of these different types of awkward can be done together and a moment can start out as one type of awkward and quickly turn in to another.  A moment could start out as intentionally awkward between friends.  This moment is also probably a friendly moment.  But then it could turn creepy if one friend decides to push that awkward moment too far.  Sometimes when one person does something awkward intentionally another person does something accidentally.  If I rub a friend’s shoulder awkwardly but then they knock over an elderly man trying to cross the street, my intentional awkward moment led to an accidental awkward moment that probably caused some people to laugh and others to silently moan.
Now for homework:  Even though National Awkward Day is complete, take a look at some acts I have listed below.  Think about what types of awkward this would cause.  If you get stumped, try a couple of them out and gauge the reactions around you.  Enjoy!

1. Go to a church with chairs and not pews although this could work with pews but would be much more uncomfortable. Sit on the chair backwards and just stare at the person behind you for the whole service. It’s a church. What can they do?
2. Planking on a crowded metro train.
3. When you have your hand on the railing on the train and then someone else places their hand on yours but refuses to move it.
4. Someone stands creepily close to someone in line at a grocery store
5. Go to the meat counter and ask for five pounds of vegetarian sausage
6. Wearing your dress shirt inside out to work
7. For a guy, wearing a “world’s greatest mom” tie and for a girl, just wearing a tie… just kidding… kind of…
8. Allowing people with any points on their record apply to be bus drivers.  Looking at you DC metro.
9. When in line at Target or Walmart, the person in front of you mumbles about your significant other being at work and it being so hard to find good baby sitters for when you need to do some shopping.  Then asks the cashier if they can hurry it up because they cannot remember if they left the car windows open a crack or not… awkward…  Public Service Announcement: While in this example no children were actually left in a car to achieve an awkward moment, parents please make sure you take your children with you.  The occasional cup of coffee on the roof of your car may be forgotten but I feel like a full person in your back seat should not be that hard to miss.
10. Go to a restaurant with stools on the counter top.  When the person next to you orders, tell the waiter/waitress to bring two sets of silverware so that you can share.
11. Telling someone while messaging that you will “BRB” and then disappearing for hours.
12. Sending your ex significant other a message meant for your new significant other.
13. Picking your friends up but when you turn on the cd player Like a Virgin blasts through your speakers
14. Jump on your friend’s Facebook when they step away from their computer and send a relationship request to that girl on your softball team he has never even spoken with.  Watch him awkwardly try to weasel out of that scenario.
15. In your best man’s speech at your friend’s wedding, accidentally mention that you bet the maid of honor 20 bucks that they wouldn’t stayed married for over a year and you could really use the money.
16. Randomly raise both your hands while seated on a crowded bus and keep it raised for an uncomfortable amount of time.
17. As suggested by D, not giving any signals that you need to get off the metro at your stop and then hurriedly try to jump over the person sitting next to you at the last minute.
18. Go to an empty movie theater and sit right next to the only other person in the theater.  Extra points if that person you sit next to is on a first date.
19. After visiting a friend’s bathroom, mention to them that you think their toothbrush bristles are a little too firm and they should consider getting a softer one.
20. Just keep smiling all day long no matter what happens.
21. Enjoying an American Pie movie marathon with your parents and grandma.
22. Noticing a masterpiece of random people’s pictures connected by brightly colored string and random words pieces of paper with giant words like “COOKIE MONSTER” written on it that your friend forgot to pull the curtain over before you came over to visit.

For more awkward moments, visit this awkward site.  If you do nothing else from my blog, check this out as it is sure to kill at least an hour of your day.
As if that long post was not enough, I also whipped together a Pillsbury Doughboy inspired recipe.  Since this post is a bit long already, I will post the full recipe tomorrow in my post.  But please enjoy this picture of the finished product: Chocolate Fudge Brownies.  I will be bringing these in to work.  While supplies last and to make this more fun for me,  I will not be advertising that I have the brownies but anyone that mentions my blog will receive a piece of the final product.  Happy Birthday Pillsbury Doughboy!

Sometimes celebrating a holiday takes me away from the keyboard, and St.  Patrick’s Day was just one of those holidays.  Christmas and Thanksgiving is for celebrating time with family.  Fourth of July is for rejoicing over the birth of our nation.  Valentine’s Day is for pushing people to get out there and meet people… or drop some serious cash to prove that they still kinda, sorta like the person they are with.  President’s Day is for vaguely trying to figure out exactly which Presidents we are celebrating and why.  St. Patrick’s Day to me is for celebrating life and the great people around you then just seeing where the day takes you.  With such beautiful weather yesterday and great friends, it was an easy holiday to enjoy.
How did I spend my St. Patrick’s Day?  Well, obviously, I wore green all day both to dust off the softball skills but throughout the rest of the day too.  I made sure to check out some fun clips from the Leprechaun movies and of course, dyed things green that have no reason to be green other than its just kind of cool to look at.  Note to blog: dying coca cola green does not really do anything.
Now for a short history lesson on who else but St. Patrick.  While his life is mostly blanks that have been filled in by limited information, he was captured by slavers when living in Wales at the age of 16.  They took him to Ireland where he spent many years before he escaped.  He later returned to Ireland as a bishop spreading the word of God and basically taking the hills by storm.  St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated on the day of his death, March 17th.  The day is supposed to be spent as a Holy Day of Obligation.  What is a Holy Day of Obligation you ask?  Well, that is a great question.  I had to look it up myself, not being Catholic but Protestant- all of the religion with slightly less of Sunday morning in church traditions.  Besides, Protestants are not “required” to give up anything for Lent.  ::enjoys a nice piece of chocolate on a bed of potato chips washed down by some soda while playing video games and Facebooking hard::
Oh, it appears I went on a tangent.  Back to the Holy Day of Obligation… now where was I… oh yes.  Well, that is a great question.  This is a day that is on Sundays or other holy days where the faithful are obliged to participate in Mass and go to church.  They are also to abstain from works or affairs which hinder worshiping God or the suitable relaxation of mind and body.  So we have decided that the best way for most people to celebrate this holiday is to start drinking at 7 am, push our bodies to the upmost limits so that it can take a full week of lying in bed afterward to recover, and the closest we come to a church is if we have to pass one on the way to a bar that’s name starts with “Mc” or ends in “urphy.”  Hmmmm… I guess this is not the first holiday we have kind of made our own…
What fun Irish themed drinks did you have to celebrate the holiday?  Here is a recipe inspired by the most common drink in Ireland to drink that you can bust out at your St. Patty’s Day party next year.
Whether you celebrated the holiday by hunting Leprechaun (this trap would work if your Leprechaun is extra slow), drinking over 15 Shamrock Shakes in one day, watching some great Disney original movies, or just kicking it back with some friends, I hope you all had a great St. Patty’s Day.  Check back later today as I celebrate Awkward Day and Pillsbury Doughboy’s Birthday.  I have a feeling my coworkers will love me tomorrow…

Hello all,
You may be wondering why there was no post for Lip Appreciation Day.  My Comcast internet went down for the past 16 hours.  While you may find it hard to believe, I rely heavily on the internet for my posts.  I will be posting something in appreciation of Lip Appreciation Day later in the month.
Everyone enjoy your St. Patty’s Day and look forward to my St. Patty’s Day post later!
Sincerely,
The mEssy Chef

Webster’s Dictionary defines a true confession as “Something that most people do not usually write on a blog for the world to see.”  March 15 was True Confession Day.  Let’s be honest, everyone’s favorite subject is themselves.  Theodore Reik claimed that there was a “compulsion to confess” as people desired to tell the stories of their lives through confessions.  Of course, we do try to hide the elements of our lives that might invite rejection by others but more often than not we are willing to confess our true feelings.
Here is my confession for the day: This very holiday gives me a severe case of writer’s block.  To remedy this action, I have found ten random confessions from all over the internet.  I will let these complete stranger’s confessions be your reading for today.  If any of the people that wrote these confessions are reading my blog today, thank you for your contribution as guest bloggers!  I have attempted to fix their grammar and punctuation, although, I know, that my, punctuation skills; are not-always perfect.  Let me also say that I had to skip through way more confessions that I care to admit because most of them were pretty dirty… awkward…

1. I’m 29, female, and still suck my thumb. I don’t care if I ever stop.
2. I made my ex-husband beneficiary of my life insurance policy. My ex has no idea, and neither does my new husband.
3. My girlfriend likes crosswords more than me.
4. I ate playdough today.
5. I cried more when my cat died than when my mom died.  I think I am a bad person.
6. I get so angry when people say they don’t like The Beatles when they’ve only head two or three songs.  The Beatles are timeless and if you listen to how they progressed you would see that you ignorants!
7. My milkshake never brought any boys to the yard. 🙁
8. I get this crazy, tingly feeling when I see sheep.
9. I spoke about fight club… twice
10. I have used cough syrup in a manner inconsistent with its labeling.

March 15 was also the Ides of March.  This is the day that Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C.  He is known for making critical steps in forming the Roman Empire.  He was stabbed by 60 conspirators 23 times and killed in the Theater of Pompey.  I guess some of the conspirators missed.  Billy Shakespeare wrote a play that detailed the March 15th death of Julius Caesar and for those of you that have never experienced the story, I have put together a quick 1 minute and less than 30 second video to catch you up on the story of Julius Caesar.  Oh ya, and the role of Julius Caesar is played by a noodle.  Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k60_C9mRC2U&feature=youtu.be]
 

Why is this post not exclusively about Pi Day?  Well, that is a great question!  And why is that a great question?  Because today is “Ask a Question Day!”  So leave the Pi at the door and let’s embark on a good old question and answer.  First I will ask all of the questions I could think of and then I will list all of the answers I could think of… Ready?  Leggo!
Questions:

1. How much wood could a wood chuck chuck?
2. Why do people stand right in the doorway when you try to exit the elevator?
3. Who decided ice cubes should mainly be cubes? Why not circles so that the edges are less likely to break?
4. Why is it acceptable for a man to be on the bachelor and make out with multiple women but taboo for a straight man to watch it… even if only to see the pretty girls on the show?
5. Who would win in a fight: Luke Skywalker or Captain Kirk?
6. Follow up question: who would win in checkers: R2D2 or Spock?
7. At what age is it no longer acceptable to hang posters of Disney child actors on your walls?
8. If the girl from Poltergeist saw Poltergeist in theaters, do you think she sat first row?
9. If sitting down is bad for you, why does it feel so right?
10. Who ever decided it made sense to trash your neighborhood to celebrate something? Seems counterproductive to me.
11. People ask me about delaying their retirement all the time and looking at my own retirement in like fifty years I ask “why would anyone want to delay retirement any longer?”
12. Who decided bacon should be on potato skins? Give them a medal
13. Why can singers forget the words and make millions but writers are expected to get them all right for less?
14. Which is less cool: a bike with a basket or a bike with training wheels?
15. If shoes were meant to be tied, why is slipping them on so convenient?
16. Whoever decided wearing a long piece of fabric around your neck was dressing up? Isn’t that how hangings started?
17. Have you ever attempted to drift in your car before you realized you drove a mini van?
18. What would happen if everyone walked backwards for a day?
19. Who decided sock matching mattered?
20. Is there a place in hell where you are continuously offered fresh girl scout cookies and forced to turn them down?
21. What restaurant really makes the best slice of pizza in the world?
22. How many adults do you have to gather to play laser tag before its not weird to shoot 12 year olds running around?
23. Why don’t homeless people take 12 bucks and spend the whole day in a country buffet instead of just riding the metro?
24. Why does anyone set a speed limit if it really seems to mean go 10 mph slower or faster?
25. Could official basketball hoops be set to 7 feet so more people could dunk? What happened to equal opportunities for all?
26. If the FDA wanted us to eat more vegetables, why have they not made them smell like pizza?
27. What is causing the death of chivalry?
28. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
29. Why can’t all drinks be served in slushie form?
30. What’s your favorite color?
31. Whats the craziest animal you have ever had the courage to touch? (your high school girlfriend does not count)
32. Who decided lying dying flowers on a dead body was a good idea for celebrating a person’s life?
33. We have HOV lanes. can we have TDO, texting drivers only?  The lanes could have big walls between their lane and my lane
34. If not texting, then how about just a Teenage Driver Lane?
35. How do North Carolina fans suck it up to root for Coach K during Team USA Basketball time?
36. How many more trees would we have killed if we had never invented texting?
37. How many trees have we killed doing surveys and writing articles about texting?
38. When a sign says “no turn when pedestrians are present,” how close is “present”?
39. Am I allowed to park in the “future residents” spot at apartment buildings if I cannot afford to live there but just want to see how the other side lives?
40. Why can’t all job interviews be as fun as the Celebrity Apprentice?
41. How many nerds actually ended up marrying a head cheerleader after high school and is there a website the rest of us can join? (High School Hierarchy say what?)
42. Do people think its weird to buy trash bags, carry them home in a bag, and then throw that bag in to the trash can? Recycle!
43. What is the best word that starts with the letter T?
44. Where will we all be in ten years?
45. What is the meaning of life?
46. Is the American Dream lost?
47. Why did McDonald‘s really take the small fry off the dollar menu?
48. Has Santa Claus ever had frost bite?
49. What really happens when you wish upon a star?
50. Would you get on a sail boat tomorrow and travel around the world?
51. If you are in a car, in the middle of the woods, with no one around, and a fork in the road, do you signal?
52. The Zombie Apocalypse has started.  What is the first thing that you grab?
53. The Zombie Apocalypse has ended.  What is the first fast food franchise you reopen?
54. If you could star in any movie, what movie and character would you be?
55. What’s the craziest thing you have done lately?
56. Is this enough questions?

Answers:
This blog post is getting long.  Check out all my answers here.  Feel free to leave comments and answer some of the questions yourself.
And now for the celebration of Pi Day.
I decided to create a recipe inspired by Pi and a couple of recipes I found online.  Check out my recipe below, which I also made and enjoyed for the holiday.
(Pi)zza
Ingredients for crust
3 cups of flour
Point of yeast
1 warm cup of water
4 half tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon sugar
A.  Preheat the oven to four hundred and twenty five degrees.  Mix the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl.  Allow it to sit for the first portion of an hour or until milky.
B.  Pour in the flour, olive oil, and a smidget of salt for good measure.  Whisk it all together.  Let sit for 5 minutes.
C.  Spread the dough out on to a greased pan and flatten in to a circle.  Grab your favorite sauce and spread out 9 spoonfuls on the dough along with any other toppings.
D.  Place the pizza in the oven for 2 minutes then 6 minutes then 5 minutes then 3 minutes then 5 more minutes until golden brown.
E.  Cut your pizza into 8 slices.
Now you have a pizza that I could eat for 9 lives and 7 days a week.
 

On March 13th, people all across the world pulled out their umbrellas in their apartments, classrooms, homes, offices, portable bathrooms and did the unthinkable… they opened them.  I have not owned an umbrella for over a year which has caused me to show up to any number of places dripping wet- restaurants, concerts, movies, the office, grocery stores, portable bathrooms.  I used to have to duck and hide close to buildings hoping that the builders had made the sides slightly sloped to catch some of the rain before it reached me.  After a year of attempting to dodge rain drops when outdoors, I decided it was time, in honor of the holiday, to buy an umbrella.  It was a very cute, compact, and efficient umbrella.  I should warn you now…. I did not open it.
NOOOOOO! How could I vow to celebrate the holidays and then not open an umbrella?!?  How can any of you trust me again to celebrate another holiday truthfully, honestly, and with a bit of flare if I would not celebrate such a simple holiday, a holiday that is so simple the very name of the holiday tells you what you are supposed to do???  I celebrate Christmas and the Fourth of July without fail and their titles tell you nothing about the holidays.  So I know that I have a number of celebration of holiday crimes to answer for and I am now ready to face my jury.  Please here my defense.  Why did I refuse to simple open an umbrella that I purchased and am looking at right now?

1. The bad luck that goes with it.  Maybe this is enough to win many of you over to my cause and I will not even need any more reasons.  Just days prior my lucky bamboo had died and I had crossed a bad cat.  One of my mirrors fell off the wall.  Being a sport’s fan, there is a bit of superstition that always kind of follows you, whether it is wearing a jersey for each game or not saying that there is a perfect game going on during a perfect game.  I would not consider myself a lucky person to begin with but with all of the other bad omen signs stacking up against me, I decided not to open an umbrella and add another one.  Maybe bad luck is like those penny machines at arcades where you shoot pennies on to stacks of pennies.  Most of the time nothing happens but if you toss that penny on to the perfect spot hundreds of pennies collapse in to the bottom of the machine.  I did not want thousands of bad luck pennies to fall to the bottom of the machine after opening my cute, compact, and efficient umbrella.
2. Gene Kelly has already done everything with an umbrella that I could have ever dreamed to do with one.  No, this is not a dirty innuendo.  In case you do not know, Gene Kelly danced through the streets with an umbrella after a beautiful evening with a woman while crooning the iconic “Singing in the Rain.”  Even though I consider myself to be on the same level of heart throb as Gene Kelly, I knew that there was very little I could do to recreate or compare to his inspiring and memorable tap dance with an umbrella.  I mean if Glee tried it and failed, how could I hope to do any better?  I do not have the choreographers, back up band, or number of vests that they are able to produce!
3. I typically dislike Rihanna and she was caught standing underneath an umbrella…ella…ella
4. I did not want to become a super villain.  I did some research and so many super villains choose the umbrella as their symbol of evil that I did not want to risk joining their ranks.  Consider the facts.  The Penguin used umbrellas to battle Batman.  Equipped with little else, this rain blocker was enough to block the Dark Knight from protecting his city from the evil of the Penguin.  In the “Resident Evil” series, the entire organization that turns the world in to mutated zombies named themselves the Umbrella Corporation.  I know we do not live in Racoon City but I am pretty sure that this proves that their is some correlation with umbrellas and pure evil.
5. I just did not want to.  Deal with it.

Would you have opened an umbrella indoors?

What happens when you spend too much of napping day napping?  You have to post a ridiculously short blog post before running to work the next day.  Go me!  Sleeping is important, but so many of us do not get enough.  We have busy lives filled with things like commuting, eating, brushing our teeth, and sometimes even more.  So let us play with a hypothetical question…
You just started writing your novel, an exciting book about a boy that falls in love with a vampire but is also in love with his best friend who is the descendant of the blob, and you are so engaged by the story that you are staying up well past your bed time of 8 o clock, leaving you very tired at work the next day.  Whatever will you do?  Get in a quick cat nap of course.  Here are some handy tricks for the next time you need a little shut eye while shut in at work.

• Cut out fake eyes and place them on the inside of your glasses.  Of course, you could simply wear sun glasses and claim pink eye but then you would have to skip out on the company pool party later.
• Tape your phone to your hand and set your head on the same hand. Prerecord a message of you talking frustrated to someone on the phone. Press play and bury your face in your other hand.  When your boss walks by, it will sound like you are arguing with a caller on the phone.
• Set up a folder around your head like you did in grade school when taking a test to help prevent cheating.  No one will be able to tell you are sleeping or copy your answer to number 12. (It’s D by the way)
• In case you are well hidden from view but worry sleeping sounds will give you away, tell everyone about the new app you bought on your phone called “The Snoring App.” But say you have not quite figured out how to turn it off so if they hear snoring it is just the phone.  Problem solved.
• Set up this premade sign reading “Shhh. Testing in progress.” That will definitely stop your boss from rudely interrupting you.
• Drop your pen on the floor and exclaim “Ahhh. That was my favorite pen. I have to find it whatever the cost.”  It may take some time to make that phrase sound believable so do not be afraid to practice at home.  Once you have said that phrase convincingly, you can dive under your desk and sleep at least ten minutes.  If your coworkers still question you, mention that the pen is a sneaky pen. I’d recommend keeping at least one pillow under your desk because computer wires are not as comfy as they look which isn’t very comfy looking to begin with.
• Bring in a few cookies and email every coworker you know this message, “I made delicious cookies but I only made enough for ten of you. Let the fifth annual hunger games begin.” In the chaos that will break out, you are sure to get at least a couple of minutes rest.  This will not work for people that struggle to sleep during light battle sounds. Extra credit: If you want to get at least thirty minutes more napping time out of your cookies, set out a few weapons to0 and let hunger reign supreme.
• Turn off the lights claiming your migraine will not go away but you love work so much you cannot go home.
• A March themed idea is claiming that you think you heard a leprechaun and everyone must stay quiet with the lights off to try and catch it. Wishes are at stake. Maybe you could wish for nap time. In fact…
• Next option. Catch a leprechaun. Wish for world wide nap time
• Just lay out on your desk. Pillow. Blanket. Soothing ocean sounds. You did not like your job anyway. Go big or go home, literally, as you will probably get fired.

Hope you all had success getting in a nap yesterday as well as every day from now on.  If anyone actually tries any of these, make sure to comment below.
March 12 was also Alfred Hitchcock day, the brilliant movie maker known for his original stories, captivating characters, and masterful suspense.  From recreating the movie genre to re-imagining the movie trailer, he was a true pioneer and visionary.  If you have never seen one of his movies, I highly recommend you pick one out soon and take a walk in to his wonderful world.  In honor of him, I have decided to recreate one of his all-time greatest movies.  But since you cannot produce an Alfred Hitchcock movie in a couple hours on a Monday night, I am issuing a challenge.  I will create a semi-feature length short film reproduction starring just me of one of the best Alfred Hitchcock movies if my blog can reach 1000 views by the end of March.  As of this moment, we are at 439 so almost half way there!  I will give you one more hint on what movie I will make… it is one of the ones starring James Stewart.  So let’s make this happen!
What is your favorite Alfred Hitchcock moment?
I also quickly celebrated Girl Scout Day by eating some thin mints.  Score.

With phrases like “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” apples are in high demand.  It is a good thing that they are so readily available across the country.  Growing up, my neighbors even had an apple tree… although it produced the sickliest looking apples I ever had the privilege of avoiding eating.  Thankfully, there are plenty of delicious apple tree and apple tree orchards across the nation.  What kind saint do we have to thank for having the foresight to give up all over earthly pleasures to wander the country with a metal pot on his head and a bag full of seeds at his side?  His name was John Chapman but he is better known as Johnny Appleseed.
The image that I picture of Johnny Appleseed is an amiable man wandering across the country with a whistle and bounce to his step.  But in preparing to celebrate this holiday by eating apple desserts, wandering through the gardening section of Loews, and learning about John Chapman, I discovered that for Johnny life was not all the beautiful picture that Disney painted it out to be.  I have separated this next segment in to what I call “Johnny Appleseed: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”
The Good:  Johnny was a kind soul.  He was a vegetarian because he cared for animals so much.  Once when building a fire, he noticed that mosquitoes were flying and dying in the flames.  He put out the fire because he did not want comfort if it meant hurting one of God’s creatures.  I know there are a lot of strict vegetarians out there and while it is not for me, I respect your decision to make that choice.  Yet I think that even the strongest animal activists out there would be willing to put out a fire on a cold night in the woods to save a few mosquitoes.
Johnny was also a minister.  He went around spreading the Swedenborgianism religious movement.  When I first read that I had to double check, but it is in fact a real religious movement based on worshiping Jesus Christ.  I have to admit that it probably would have gotten much bigger if they had picked a slightly easier name to remember like the Quakers or Mormons or Muslims or Catholics or Protestants.  In fact, I think that if you are planning your own religion it should be limited to three or less syllables.  Sorry for those of you that practice in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as you do not make the syllable cut off.
He did not actually walk around tossing seeds willy-nilly like the Parable of the Sower (since he was a minister and it is a Sunday, I think it is acceptable to get a bit of religion up in this house).  He planted nurseries, built fences around them, and left them in care of someone in the town while returning year to year to check on the status.  What a guy!
The Bad:  He was an eccentric fellow.  He wore a metal tin on his head that also served as a pot for cooking his meals.  He rarely wore shoes and was often found wandering around near naked.  That is not exactly the site I would want to wander upon now a days while checking out the gardening section at Home Depot.  As a part of his religion, he believed dealing with pain and suffering in this life led to more happiness in his afterlife.  As such, he put himself through awful conditions with a bright smile on his face.  Living over 80 years of his life with this doctrine of suffering, I sure hope that he was hooked up with an eternity of awesomeness and a pair of Air Jordans.
Keeping up with the notion of bad, a basketball conference in Ohio was named the Johnny Appleseed Conference from the years 1961 to 1977.  Over that history, the baddest team of them all was the Crestline school accumulating a 43 wins-140 losses.  I do not think that they would have made the March Madness Tournament…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGGN0xkHP-M&feature=youtu.be]
 
The Ugly:  Johnny Appleseed had 99 problems (NSFW) and a “woman” ain’t one was two of them.  You figure a man who was so involved with charity and had some wealth (owned 1200 acres of land at his death) would have better success with the ladies.  Even a man that dedicated his life to bettering the world around him had girl problems.  Finding love is never easy but as seems to happen so many times in my own life comes down to timing.  It is about being in the right place at the right time and not arriving a day too late at the doorstep of your dream girl.  Johnny did love a woman and intended to propose.  He bought a ring and went to propose only to find that she had been proposed to by another guy just a day before.  Talk about bad timing.
Heart broken from his first failure at women, he did the 1830s version of finding love on Craigslist.  He met a girl that was alone and had no one to care for her.  He decided to become her benefactor with the plan to marry her when she became of age.  Of course, he visited her unexpectedly one day and found her shacking (this clip actually gets pretty intense but here is a funnier, shorter version of the same idea) up with another man… well, she was holding his hand but same difference.  All of this failure in love turned Johnny a bitter man towards women, claiming that some women were deceivers and not the amiable people that pursuing men thought them to be.  I guess even for a folk legend love can still be ugly.
Summary:  However you want to remember the man, the legend, Johnny Appleseed is up to you.  As a person, he was a culmination of his good, his bad, and his ugly.  As a folk hero, he is cherished with every bite of a Red Delicious or a Granny Smith.  We can only hope that our legacy is marked by something as good as an apple and not something as slimy as a worm.

What defines awesome?  One blogger I found described it as being defined by three things: you, your friends/the people around you, and your world.  Once you had truly designed and challenged yourself in each of the areas, he said you could join the cult of awesome.  If any of you do read about his ideas on being awesome, I think you know how directly I relate to the 24 year old version of himself, although my hummus is frozen pizza.  Talk about feeling like a stranger is giving a personal shout out to you. His concepts are a bit abstract and blunt but there are other step by step guides to becoming awesome for the inspiring impaired.
My analysis of the articles about being awesome out there is that the important part is about getting up and doing something.  Sure sitting on your couch playing Call of Duty 24 hours a day may be enjoyable, but unless you just want to be awesome to 12 year olds living with their parents, you should probably push yourself slightly beyond a battery charged remote.  You have to expand your world and be willing to put yourself in new situations to find the ones that you excel in.  As a result of trying new things and taking chances, someone who is awesome has to not worry about what other people think.  This may seem counter-intuitive because being awesome is judged by other people’s perceptions of you.  If I think that I am awesome, it is conceited, rude, and a little pompous.  But if everyone else thinks I am awesome while I am oblivious to the fact, then I just became one of the coolest people in the room.  By not caring what other people think, a person is able to engage in the very activities that make them awesome because they were willing to not conform, do something different, and expand the scope of the people they affect.
Maybe you are awesome already and maybe you need a lot more work to become awesome, the first step is finding a few concrete ideas to get you started on your yellow brick road to the Emerald City of Awesome.
To celebrate being awesome, I decided that there was only one thing that I could do.  Yes, I finally planted my bonsai tree.  Over the next months and years, I will be cultivating, growing, and hopefully not killing my very own bonsai tree.  Call me the white, very little karate knowing Mr. Miyagi.
One thing that can make a person awesome is having stories of their adventures around the world.  Today is also National Passport Day.  Being from the Midwest, many of the people I grew up with did not have passports.  Our idea of going some place exotic was taking a 5 hour car ride to Wisconsin.  But there is a lot of world out there and I do believe the awesome people are not afraid to explore it.  Because TravelZoo also believes travel is awesome, it posted a discount to the Travel and Adventure Expo next week in DC.  I feel like I owe it to myself to check it out.  I still have not gotten my passport (because I am lazy and it is a Saturday) but I have taken one step closer to obtaining it.  I have filled out the DS-11:  Application for a US Passport.
For anyone else interested in getting their own passport, the steps are simple:
1. Fill Out Form DS-11: Application For A U.S. Passport
2. Submit Completed Form DS-11 In Person
3. Submit Evidence of U.S. Citizenship
4. Present Identification
5. Submit a Photocopy of the Identification Document(s) Presented (Step 4)
6. Pay the Applicable Fee
7. Provide One Passport Photo
8.  Stop Waiting
Have a great World Awesomeness Day and enjoy this videos on your way out!

THE PANIC IS HERE! THE PANIC IS HERE! THIS IS NO CHICKEN LITTLE MOMENT.  EVERYONE REMAIN CALM… or you could always… PANIC!!!!!
RUN TO THE STORE! FIND THE STORE CLOSEST TO YOU AND GRAB THE GENERATORS, WATER PURIFIERS, AND PORTABLE TOILETS   FIRST!
WHAT HAS ONSET THIS PANIC?!?

• A FEAR OF SOURNESS- ACEROPHOBIA
• A FEAR OF THE POPE – PAPAPHOBIA
• A FEAR OF PEANUT BUTTER STICKING TO THE ROOF OF YOUR MOUTH- ARACHIBUTYROPHOBIA (try to say that four times fast)
• GIANT SPIDERS OVERTAKING YOUR LOCAL MCDONALDS- THE DOLLAR MENU INSANITY!
• BEN CHOOSING COURTNEY ON THE BACHELOR FINALE
• YOU LOST YOUR FAVORITE PAIR OF SOCKS
• NO CLEAN TOWELS AND GUESTS ARE COMING

WITH ALL THIS PANIC RUNNING AMUCK, THIS IS NO TIME FOR READING A BLOG.  GO PANIC SOME WHERE.  SCREAM AT PEOPLE UNREASONABLY.  PUSH OVER SHELVES IN A GROCERY STORE. START LIGHTING THINGS ON FIRE AND THEN SCREAM “WHO LIT THAT ON FIRE?!?!” THIS IS A PANIC.  ANYTHING GOES.
Today is also World DJ Day, so please allow DC’s DJ Chris Styles set the beat for the rest of your panic.  Please remember to always panic responsibly.
 
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umycg9dQ-OI&feature=youtu.be]