Gator Hunting and the Quest for the Greatest Injury

It must be something in our DNA some little genetic tic floating around that makes us this way. Call it the “stupid” gene. All Thompson men seem to have it, and definitely so in our wing of the family tree. It makes us desperate to top each other with the most exotic, or as my wife says, most absurd injury. The Thompson men are on an epic quest, and it has started heating up lately. In the spring I had a surfing accident — a fin on my board stabbed me in the thigh, punching clean through my wetsuit and just missing my femoral artery. While I’m running again, I’m still not fully healed. I set the bar pretty high for the year with my 150 stitches. My brother and father, though, appear to be shopping for a topper. My brother, who has been collecting and refurbishing old vintage motorcycles, has started racing them. And not just on any old track, but on off-road courses mired in mud, rolling hills and tree roots that reach up out of the ground trying to snag an errant tire.

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Planning on Wind, Water from Tropical Storm Fay

It’s Tuesday evening, I’m writing a column, there’s a tropical storm cutting across the state … Do you know where your cans of tuna fish are? That’s all I’ve been thinking about. That’s my storm food if the big one comes. That, some canned peaches and a half-eaten jar of salted peanuts. I couldn’t wait. Who knows what we’ll be facing Friday morning when this newspaper hits driveways. Could be it’s a bright sunny day out. Or could be you’re reading this in four feet of water over a bowl of Fruit Loops made soggy by the steady drip coming through that hole in your roof. While I’m sitting here typing away Tuesday night, forecasters are pondering what to make of Tropical Storm Fay. She’s already made landfall twice in the state and is supposed to make a left hand turn back toward St. Augustine sometime … well … right about now. How will this all turn out?

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Olympic Memories of Track and Field

The Olympics have arrived — Yahoo! Just in time. As the heat has turned the land into a giant convection oven, and summer enters its more-boring-than-a-lecture-on-wall-paper phase, I’ll do anything to stay inside in front of the TV … even if it means watching water polo. I love the Olympics. The competition. The stories. The variety. The fact that all I need to do is sit on the sofa clipping fingernails and drinking iced tea. Let someone else do all the physical exertion. Shoot, I might even watch synchronized swimming. A lot of people will question whether that is a sport, but I have no doubts. Try to tread water while doing all manner of complex motions with your arms, legs and feet. I would drown in about a minute flat. My brain isn’t capable of doing two things at once, and as soon as I started waving my hands in the air, I would forget I was in water and sink to the bottom like a bag of concrete. Anything I could die in, I consider a sport.

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Looking for a Copier with a Lower IQ

“Hey machine, you are not smarter than me,” I yelled at the copier. “Cooperate and nobody gets hurt.” It had little noticeable effect. The piece of inconsequential paper — an off-sized invoice I was trying to reproduce — came out cut in half, even after I adjusted it on the glass. “You arrogant little twit,” I cursed at it. I wondered if slapping its molded-plastic cover would have any effect, or if it would just cause people to look out their office doors and question whether I had finally gone off the deep end. “Um … he’s beating the copier again and calling it a Fascist. Do we have security on speed dial?” I don’t mind technology — in fact, I love it. It’s what makes my world go ’round from my satellite radio to my Internet connection to my fingernail clippers. (I’m very high tech.)

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In Search of a Permanent Vacation

How do you retire at 35 if you haven’t won the lottery, hit it big in stocks or invented something incredibly cool that everyone in the world wants, like an iPhone or spray cheese in a can? If you have some ideas, please let me know. Drop me a line, as long as it doesn’t involve knocking people off or me dancing. I have decided it’s time for me to retire. It’s not that I don’t like working. It’s just that I don’t want to do it anymore. I want to vacation . . . forever. I want to wake up, go to the gym, drink lattes and read the newspaper after a casual stroll. I want to live in a hotel room where I can get cookie crumbs and smeared chocolate all over the sheets. I want to swim in big resort pools with Mayan pyramids and water slides until the chlorine bleaches my black hair the color of snow. I want an endless supply of towels that I can throw wet on the floor. I want to sip rum drinks. I want to become one with my flip-flops. I want permanent stubble on my face. I want to eat greasy food and stay up late with my kid goofing off until we both pass out in bed, or my wife puts us in timeout. I want that lifestyle!

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