This book is wildly funny. I lost track of how many times I laughed
out loud. - Kathleen, Amazon Reviewer Author Al Macy is a character
and a tightwad with a unique sense of humor. He and his wife
squirreled away enough money to retire early, do interesting
things, and take unusual trips. As he puts it: "Every day I wake up
with nothing to do, and by the end of the day, I've only gotten
half of it done." During his working life, Macy was a
neuroscientist, computer game programmer, jazz trombonist, chef,
CEO, piano player, clam digger, and technical writer. The book is a
journal of a car/bicycle/camping trip from California to St. Louis
and back, but Macy promises that "if it starts sounding like one of
your brother-in-law's boring slide shows, I will stop this book,
and we'll turn around and go home. I mean it." Interspersed with
the journal chapters, you'll find thought-provoking life tips,
stories from the past, and descriptions of Al's wacky inventions.
You'll hear poignant anecdotes about what happened when doctors
discovered a golf-ball-sized tumor in his wife's brain and how
everything they owned burned. Here's an example of one of those
chapters: Chapter 47 - Puking in a Thunderstorm Here's a mishap
that illustrates the saying "You're on an adventure when you wish
you were home wishing you were on an adventure." In 1982, Lena and
I were visiting her folks in Sweden, and we went on a
ryggsacksfotvandringtur. To speak Swedish, all you do is take a
bunch of English words, screw around with them, and squeeze them
together. For example, in the big word in the last sentence, the
only real foreign part is "rygg" which refers to one's back. Other
than that it's just "Back - sack - foot - wandering - tour,"
meaning "wandering around on foot with a pack on your back," or
"backpacking." Apparently we have 1,019,729.6 words in English (.6
really?). In Swedish, the total depends on how you count them. Is
"ryggsacksfotvandringtur" one word, or just five words stuck
together? Most Swedish dictionaries have around a half-million
entries, but if you count words that are Velcroed together, it has
many more. Speaking of Velcro, it was discovered when Georges de
Mestral went for a fotvandringstur, and noticed the burrs that
stuck to his pants. The word "Velcro" was added to our dictionary
in the year nineteen something-or-other. I've learned that the
phrase "Velcro forehead" refers to the overly dramatic gesture of
tilting your head back and holding the back of your wrist against
your forehead ("Oh, woe is me "). Can you tell that I'm worried
that this chapter is too short, and I am desperately looking for
stuff to add? So anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, Lena and I were on
a shortbackpackingtripinthemountainsofsweden. On our route to the
more desolate sections, we passed houses that had sod growing on
the roof. And when I say sod, I don't mean the neat, well-mowed
stuff you buy at the nursery. I mean long messy grass, other small
plants, cuckoo birds, and gophers. And these weren't museum
displays put up for tourists, people were really living in these
things. It's where we get the saying "People who live in sod houses
should throw stones, but no stones from the roof, please." This was
a great place to foot wander, but when we were the farthest from
the car, Lena got sick (really sick), and both Lena and the heavens
opened up at the same time. It gave me a case of Velcro forehead,
and my main memory of that trip is of continually taking tiny
plastic snack bags of vomit out and dumping them in the streams of
water surrounding the tent. Luckily Lena's Scandinavian
constitution won out over the bugs, and the next morning she was
all better and ready to drag me home, out of the wilderness. So, we
had a generalgoodtimedespitethepukingadventure. If that kind of
humor appeals to you, you need to buy this book. And if you're
still on the fence, please use the Look Inside feature or download
a free sample to your
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