Take your protein pills and put your helmets on

Jimmyboy rolls into town Wednesday night.

He's a buddy of mine from Northern Wisconsin.

He lives in Superior with his lovely wife, L., and their dog, Marley.

I love Jimmy.

We've known each other for close to ten years.

Jimmy wants to ski at Big Sky a couple of days. We're also kicking around a few other ideas, like going into Yellowstone to spot wolves, soaking in some hot springs, consuming large slabs of meat and visiting a ghost town.

We're also probably going to do some breakdance fighting.

Jimmy's got a video camera, so look for some action shots of us doing some headspins in the streetz of Bozeman.

Jimmy also promises to return to the keyboard for another guest blog about his vacation.

On that note, here is a guest blog from my good friend, P.

Enjoy.

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So me and the N-man were watching TV last night when this commercial comes on for Universal Studios, Orlando. By the end of it, I find myself saying, "Let's go there." Over the years, we've done the Bush Gardens thing and Disney and Sea World, but we've never made it to Universal Studios. And lord knows, I need me a vacation right about now.

But then I remembered...

Two years ago we went to Las Vegas for the first time. We don't gamble (much) but we had a blast just seeing the sights, Blue Man Group, Fremont Street, Hoover Dam, Elvis impersonators...

The Borg Experience.

Have you been to this thing? It's at the Hilton--pretty cool, actually. You become participants in an interactive Star Trek story, when suddenly something (and I don't remember what) goes seriously wrong, and you have to PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED. But WAIT! No, I mean HURRY!! We might be able to escape if we board the shuttlecraft and hightail it outta Dodge. Or Trekkie words to that effect, anyway.

So everyone in the group crowds into this little shuttlecraft-type dealie, a room about 8 x 10 feet, and the doors close and it's one of those motion simulator rides, which I am preparing to like quite a bit (rather than the other option of being assimilated). So the doors close, the lights go down, the screen comes up, and we're flying and dropping and whirling and shooting and taking hits and, "Captain, we haven't got the power! The dilithium crystals are about to go!" -- I'm totally making that part up --- and the next thing you know...

I want to puke.

Now, I've never been motion sick before. I'm the kind who would likely die of alcohol poisoning because I don't throw up drunk, never had morning sickness while I was pregnant, and can count up all the number of times I've had to barf in my life without even having to think about taking my socks off.

Yet here I am in this little box moving at warp speed and my head is swimming, my brain is saying "too much information," I feel hot, embarrassed, you-name-it, and I SO do not want to ruin The Borg Experience for everybody.

Yeah, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but that kind of thing will scar people for LIFE.

I gotta try something fast or, "Captain, she's gonna blow!" I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Suddenly, I'm no longer on a space craft spiraling through the universe. I'm just sitting in this small seat, and it's occasionally going bump...bump...bump. I've taken worse hits negotiating potholes down East Washington on worn shocks. My gut starts to settle down, my face stops flushing, and pretty soon we're safe in another galaxy, far, far, away...or something (hey, my eyes were closed). Ride over. Enjoy the day.

So I pondered that for a bit.

Do I still want to go to Universal? Hell, yeah. I'll pack some Dramamine though.

I thought about how life is a lot like that short ride in a small box. Sometimes you've got to figure out if what you're looking at is real. Sometimes it' gets overwhelming with all the sound and show.

And when it does, maybe we just have to close our eyes for a bit. Get a feel for the road. Breathe. And wait for the doors to open.



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Thanks, P!