New Job

Apparently I was doing a decent enough of job in my old position that I received a job promotion. I will go from a Records Specialist to the Education Assistant Coordinator of Pediatrics and will be in charge of 9 residents and be an assistant to 2 of the pediatric directors. I start on the 27th of February and I will expect to drop the ball in a major way in less than a week.

Shark Guts

Yes, you read the title correct. This post will be about shark guts.

A couple of weeks ago, Stephanie and I braved the cold and rainy weather to head to Dallas for a hearty breakfast at The All Good Cafe and head to The Nature and Science Museum at Fairpark for the Shark exhibit.

The only thing I knew about this exhibit was that it included sharks and had a live dissection of a shark. Obviously, fun was going to be had by all on this awesome day.

Stephanie and I started the museum by visiting the children's portion of the museum. We learned how fast a sneeze will come out of your nose, how DNA works, and played with sound waves as well.

After a couple of hours, it was time for the shark dissection. I have been waiting for this since I first heard about it earlier in the week.

We arrived in a small auditorium and were the first ones to pick out seats and watch the cutting begin. I was filled with so much anticipation, it was somewhat embarrassing.

Once the instructor started to give his speech about different types of sharks, all I wanted him to do was the shut the hell up (his lecture ending up being interesting and educational) and cut the shark up. And just like that, my dream was about to come true.

The instructor was having a field day slicing the dogfish shark up into many parts. At one point, the instructor cut open the stomach and pulled out pieces of old undigested fish and shrimp and displayed it to the visitors like it was some kind of prize.

After he sliced and diced the shark like he was Gordon Ramsey, it was time for the audience to out on some gloves and shove our hands into that killer beast of the sea. But as we started to stand up, all of the kids jumped in the line like they were some sort of gazelle in their natural habitat.

Since the line was way too long for Stephanie and I, we decided that it would be a good idea to check out the other exhibits and come back to inspect the shark and all of its innards.

The other exhibits were very interesting to see. There were tons of shark teeth, fins, pictures of people who survived shark attacks and people who didn't. One of the most interesting things that we saw were all of the different types of shark head fossils. The teeth in some of the jaws of the shark were crazy looking. One bite from some of these sharks look liked it could rip your flesh off in a million little pieces with just one quick flinch of the jaw.

Our shark exhibit ended right in front of the shark dissection portion of the exhibit. Stephanie and I quickly grabbed a pair of gloves, told a couple of kids that there is not Santa Claus and pushed them out of the way, and got in line to feel some shark guts.

To be honest, the shark guts felt extremely slippery and gross, but bad ass at the same time. We got to touch every part of the shark that we could. Heart, lungs, pancreas, stomach, you name it, I touched it. It was awesome.

After feeling up the shark, Stephanie and I saw an IMax movie about a turtle giving tours of the deep blue see while warning us of all of the dangers sharks can be. After the 90 minute movie, we saw the Nature Museum in Fairpark and called it a day.

Visiting the shark exhibit was an awesome way to spend a rainy Saturday. We already have our next museum trip planned out: The Grossology in Fort Worth.

Valentine's Day Massacre

Most people like to celebrate Valentine's Day by either going out for a nice romantic dinner or cooking in and showering your significant other with flowers and chocolates. I like to do the exact same thing, but I also like to throw in a haunted house in to the equation.

Valentine's Day actually started the night before for The Condiment Kid and I. After I got off of work, she surprised me with a great homemade dinner that consisted of fresh asparagus, applesauce, and the best lobster tail that I have ever had.

And that wasn't the end of it. Stephanie surprised me by setting up the dinner table like you would find one at a small romantic restaurant. She did a fantastic and wonderful job.

Later on in the night, we had some wine and then watched our guilty pleasure shows known as The Lying Game and Alcatraz.

The following night, which is Tuesday, February 14th, is officially Valentine's Day. I wanted to do something special for Stephanie so I decided that I would cook dinner instead of going out.

I made tequila lime shrimp and tilapia soft tacos with Spanish rice and a house salad. Valentine's day wouldn't be complete with fresh flowers and a half dozen chocolate covered strawberries for desert. I don't mean to brag, but I like to think that I did a decent job.

After dinner, Stephanie and I met up with her best friend Amy to go to one of Stephanie's favorite places in the world. A haunted house.

The Haunted House was called the St Valentine's Day Massacre, which was located in a hidden corner of a strip mall. To be honest, I am not one for haunted houses because I don't like to pay money for people to scare the living hell out of me, but this was one damn good haunted house.

The Haunted House seemed to take over at least two vacant store fronts and took at least 25 minutes to complete in its entirety.

Everything you expect to be in a haunted house was in full effect in this complex. People were jumping from the walls, ceilings, tombs and even a fake children's nursery.

Overall, it was a fantastic Valentine's Day and I may have some tricks up my sleeve for next year's February 14th.

Zombie Musical Dream

The dream starts off with me recognizing that I'm no longer trying to go to sleep in my bed because I'm now standing with a shot gun in the middle of an almost never ending field of knee high grass. My shoes aren't on, which is a funny feeling since I can feel the grass shift in between my toes, so I realize that I must be dreaming because I have a shotgun but no shoes.

Weird logic, but that's how it went, so I guess that makes it a low level lucid dream.

Anyways, I decide I might as well get this dream over with, so I start walking through the grass towards a hill in the distance. Once I reach the top of the hill, I see to the other side that there's not only more grass, but a crowd of randomly dressed people huddled in front of the door of a building with gorgeous looking windows.

When I get closer, they notice me and my gun, and approach me, asking me to use it to help them get rid of the danger in their library. They lead me over to the windows to let me see what I'd be dealing with, and I see a bunch of undead corpses standing facing different bookshelves. Just standing stock still, staring at the shelves, making tiny movements with their heads that you can see from their twitching neck tendons (I didn't actually see their heads move, but their necks did the motions).

A lady from the crowd pulls out a chicken with a rope around it's legs from nowhere. She then slits its neck, opens the door and flings in the chicken, and one of the zombies perks up and starts chasing after it, and she pulls the rope so it would chase it outside.

When the zombie is out of the library, with me having my left shoulder facing the windows, it shields its eyes from the sun and turns over to me. I raise my gun ready to shoot, and it opens its mouth and starts singing the word "Wait!" in an opera-esque voice. I falter, end up misfiring, and shoot the building by accident.

It continues to sing in a deep, reverberating voice of why they won't eat us, and other zombies start to file out and sing too, not like a chorus to the main one, but mixing in and out for the focus singer.

The first zombie never looks at anybody else, seemingly singing to me and me alone, which makes my skin crawl, and as his jaw gets closer and closer to falling off with each note (while he gets closer and closer to me, making me stumble and fall on my butt), the other zombies mix in with the crowd. Still singing, they make graceful motions towards the crowd of survivors, and each one picks up one onto its shoulder and raises its free hand from its hip to level with its shoulder in a waving motion before disappearing and leaving me by myself in that field with a library.

After hearing such a beautiful song (Which I wish I knew more about opera to be able to place a good example of what it could sound like), I try to think of a reason to stay alive in this dream, because if I stay alive, something else will take up the memory of that song. The more I contemplated it, the less of the song I could remember, so I freaked out and decided right there to end the dream with my usual method by killing myself with the shotgun

Thank god I had that gun, or else I probably wouldn't have been able to leave till something else got me.

3D Movies Are Awesome

Last week, I saw my first 3D movie and it was awesome. For the longest time I was against 3D movies because I thought it was just a cheap tactic the movie companies would use in order to get more income for a movie. But that all changed when I saw a Disney gem.

And what was that Disney Gem that took my 3D movie virginity away, Beauty and The Beast of course. Yes, you read that right, it was Beauty and The Beast.

Stephanie and I went to see the movie at Grapevine Mills and at first she didn't believe that I have never seen a 3D movie before since I have seen 40 times the amount of movies that she has. Once she finally believed me, she promptly started to make jokes about it.

I remember seeing the movie as a child in theatres but after seeing it again almost 20 years later in 3D seemed to be much more enjoyable this time around. Even the previews, the end credits, and the 10 minute cartoon short was in 3D.

If is safe to say that I have jumped on the popular band wagon and now want to see everything in 3D. I blame Stephanie for this.