Lady In Red

After spending a week together with family for an annual reunion, it was time to head back to reality and during the hour-long drive, I made the mistake of listening to this entire song.

It’s not typical for me to stay on a radio station playing 80s music and this song came out when I was 8 years old. There’s no way I related to it in any way back then. I was more interested in Legos and Saturday morning cartoons.

Not only did I listen to the entire introduction of the song by Nina Blackwood (she was hosting for the weekend on SiriusXM and I was hooked listening to her raspy voice), I enjoyed her retelling the about the fervor all of the country when this song was first released. She actually didn’t reveal which song she was talking about until the very end so I thought I’d give it a listen. That was my biggest mistake.

It’s a song that little 8-year-old me would’ve forgotten about 2 seconds after it finished but 45-year-old adult Ben was melting into my seat. Instead of finding another channel, I was drawn back to just a previous relationship, thinking about some of the good moments and basically just being full of regret and hopelessness. I had a “lady in red” but I let her slip through my fingers. It’s her I think about when I’m having my own pity party. When I think my best dating days are behind me, it’s because no one I’ve dated since has affected me as much as she did.

I’m trying hard to believe I’ve still got great things ahead, maybe a beautiful match that will share life with me. It could happen. But sometimes I wish I could go back and do “a lot of things different” as Kenny Chesney would say. So many ups and downs rushing through my mind and all thanks to a 4-minute ballad. What a song. There’s no wondering why it rose to very high on Billboard charts all over the world in the late 1980s.

Do you have any songs that immediately draw out strong feelings, whether they’re good or bad? Tell me about it in the comments below…

-Out of the Wilderness

Beach Day

Having a lot of fun on a beautiful holiday vacation…

To be totally transparent, it’s been hard to set time aside to write because it’s been a nice, fun family reunion where we play pickle ball, go out on the boat, and play board games. Not to mention trying to catch an entertaining Lifetime murder mystery movie. I have more to write, mostly about a recent triathlon, so I’ll be doing that soon!

-Out of the Wilderness

Papa John’s Rap Commercial – The Song

This is a fun commercial from Papa John’s. I think Burger King could take a few notes about creating a catchy jingle but using someone with a pleasant voice to perform it.

What do you think about the ad?

-Out of the Wilderness

Braving The Ocean For An Open Water Swim Practice

I had another chance to do an open water swim practice, the furthest I’ve done since starting to train for sprint triathlons over a year ago. The ocean swim was down on the Gulf coast of Florida across a bay from one shore to another. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle going across a whole bay, with a light chop and boats and wildlife, but it went really fine! Didn’t see one shark which kind of makes sense because the water was so murky I could barely see my hands underwater. In official races, I’ve only done lakes and rivers so the ocean is a difference experience for sure. This practice was my last swim before a race tomorrow, a triathlon celebrating Independence Day. I’ll post more from that race afterwards but for now here are a few pics from the ocean swim…

-Out of the Wilderness

When did “cat” become a trend for hurricanes?

I try to be a glass half-full type person but I have moments where my pet peeves bubble up and I can’t hep but talk about it. Actually, I have a post about a few of my pet peeves here and I guess I should add another one to the list since hurricane season is bound to make me go crazy! Only one of these two reasons can be true for why news anchors and weather forecasters have swapped out “category” for “cat” when referring to the intensity of the summer storms.

The efficiency of one syllable vs. three might be one reason for shortening ‘category’ to ‘cat’ or (and this is the real reason, in my opinion) it’s solely because of sensationalism. There’s something dramatic about saying ‘cat 5’ on air because it sounds more frightening, more intense.

I guess it’s no surprise that, at the end of the day, ratings are the bottom line. It’s why Geraldo is/was so dramatic, Jim Cantore rose to fame, and (not to get political but…) why politicians seek fame. They want to be popular, have high approval ratings, and make money. But it’s only been in the last ten years or so that ‘category’ has been dropped for the more chic and melodramatic ‘cat.’

-Out of the Wilderness