Oh, to Work in an Air Conditioned Office
Saturday, July 23 will go down in the books as perhaps the most uncomfortable day of work in my life. I arrived to work at 4:45, ready to close down the Outer. It would be about eight hours of work. That morning, there were actually a few scattered storms, a rarity nowdays in Minnesota. Nevertheless, it was hotter than ever later in the day. After one hour of work, my entire uniform, both shirt and shorts, were 100% soaked with sweat. I was sweating worse than anyone, but even the usual non-sweating girls were soaked. It was so hot and so humid that it was nearly unbearable to stand outside. At one time, the temperature was said to be 102; coupled with the dew point, it felt like 120 degrees. As if that wasn’t bad enough, on my drive home at 1:15am, WCCO radio reported that it was still 90 degrees with a heat index of about 105. So, it felt like 105 degrees in the middle of the night. Sunday was pretty bad too, but Saturday clearly was one of the worst days in Minnesota history for heat. Twice last week I tried wearing a headband at work to keep my sweating to a minimum. The first time, manager Ron Hubner approached me. “Take that off,” he said. “We’re running games, not teaching aerobic classes. You look ridiculous.” I thought he was just giving me a hard time. So I was wearing it again a couple days later when he said, “Okay seriously, take off the headband.” To which I replied, “Oh, I thought you were just saying that it looked bad.” Ron said: “Well you look stupid too, but you actually can’t wear it.”

On This Date in Ryan Glanzer History
On July 25, 2003, I was back home in South Dakota for the one and only time in my first two years of working at Valleyfair. Jordan had just given birth to Peyton a few weeks earlier, and this was my first chance to get back home to see her. And wouldn’t you know it, on this date in 2004, I was also back on the farm for the first annual Carpenter Bash. I woke up to Jason, Patrick, and Travis drinking already on a Sunday morning while playing goofy golf. Then it was time to go to Carpenter for a city gathering. A drunken Jason interrupted a Christian band and was stared down. Then we drove back to Minnesota.

Monday Movie Reviews
Monday was my day off, so I decided to take in another new movie I thought looked enticing, “Wedding Crashers.” Last week, I saw “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which was incredibly funny. I didn’t think it would even be remotely possible to top the old one, but Johnny Depp and Tim Burton pulled it off very nicely. “Wedding” was pretty funny. It never really had that one hysterical moment, but overall it had a little better story than I had hoped for. There were times that I laughed, especially during Will Ferrell’s brief appearances towards the end. Overall, I’d say it was about what I expected, which was just mediocre. Later in the day, I decided to check out our Comcast OnDemand feature of our cable plan, and watched one of our many free movies, “Philadelphia.” The ’93 picture starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington was a very good movie. Of course, in that movie, Tom Hanks plays a gay man who gets AIDS and sues the law firm he worked for for firing him because of his disease, while Denzel plays the lawyer who wins the case. Pretty good.

Random Stories | Today’s Topic: Windows
I was having trouble thinking of a good topic, so I looked up and the first thing I saw was a window. Again, it may be interesting to see if I can think of some good window stories.

3. On the school bus back in the day, the older kids invented a game called bus hockey. Each person stands in front of the open window by their seat. Several pieces of garbage are thrown back and forth between the players in an attempt to make it out the window. If a piece of garbage went out your window, you were forced to sit down. Of course Curtis Froke kept right on driving, oblivious to the massive littering.

2. Back home in the terrible winter of 1996, I lived in the upstairs of our house. The snow was so bad that year that my entire window was covered by an enormous snow bank, which formed a flat sheet right over the window. I invented a homemade urinal by sticking a bottle of some sort into the snow bank. I don’t remember if I used it or not, but it was a hell of an idea.

1. My favorite story involving a window takes place back at good old Willow Lake High School. I was walking by the English room one day, when I came up with an amazing idea for a joke. There is a door with a window halfway up on it, so I would walk by the room, then get down on my knees and crawl back to the other side of the door, and then walk back by the room from the same direction seconds later. I did that several times when some of the kids in the class began to catch on and look on in bewilderment.

Top Ten List | Today’s Topic: TV Shows I Wish Would Come Out on DVD
Pretty much every great show is already out on DVD, but here are some good ones that they haven’t brought back yet. What would be better than reliving those god-awful Nickelodeon shows of the early 90’s? And The Wonder Years and Coach would be great too.

1. The Wonder Years
2. Hey Dude
3. Coach
4. America’s Funniest Home Videos
5. Kenan and Kel
6. Are You Afraid of the Dark
7. Salute Your Shorts
8. Perfect Strangers
9. Stella Comedy
10. Mama’s Family

Briefly…
My last day of work is August 22, meaning I have about 25 days of work left at Valleyfair… Through last Sunday, I had worked a grand total of 445 hours this summer. If I work about 7 hours a day for the rest of the summer, I should eclipse the 650 hour mark… Cooney is fifth out of over 125 Games employees in total hours worked… Cooney also received a handshake from Valleyfair general manager Larry MacKenzie for his outstanding operation of Whac-a-Mole, not an easy task… Neal Colford and I have been playing an ongoing movie game at work where we have to name five movies from a certain category. For instance, I might ask Neal to name five movies where a kid is in trouble with the law, or he might ask me to name five movies where there’s a character named Ted… The Twins still can’t hit… Patrick Lynch and Liz Burke were circled by Bert Blyleven on a recent Twins telecast from Detroit. They were also the Dodge Fans of the Game… I have been to eight Twins games this summer. They are 2-6 in those games. When Amanda goes, they are 0-4. When Cooney goes, they are 0-3. When Libby Boggess and Justin Springer go, they are 0-7. They really aren’t that good this year… I pitched that tent I bought for the Carpenter Bash in our bedroom, then put the air mattress in it. For some reason, I like it better than not sleeping in the tent… If you need a website built or know of someone who does, let me know so I can do an internship this fall and graduate in December… For future reference, as hungry as I am and as delicious as it sounds, a 6-piece KFC meal with mashed potatoes and three biscuits is not that easy to eat in one sitting as one might imagine… I weighed 247 pounds on the first day of work this summer. I now weigh 242. On this date three years ago, I weighed 186. On this date two years ago, I weighed 206… There are actually two employees in the Games department taller than me–supervisor Mike Meyer (6’10”) and game op Tommy Giesen (about 6’8″).

Well that’s all for Monday. Come on Twins, trade for Soriano or Thome or someone who can hit.