Time Now To Flip That There Page

Before I launch off into a strange tangent about the mundane, I want to tell you about the wicked banner that I just got the other day from SelectOGrafix. Please hop over to either Shooting Suburbia or (if you're logged in) Facebook to check it out. They do fantastic work.


Did you ever notice that the pimping of new calendars seem to start earlier and earlier?

Instead of pimping them in December, most stores are now pimping them in October.

Now normally, I don't do calendars for work, simply because bad things seem to happen to me at work when I decide to acquire one. How did I come up with this hypothesis? The last time I decided to get a wall calendar for work, which was in December 2002 for 2003, I got laid off. Even though I came back in mid-July 2003, it wasn't until December 2010 before I decided to buy a calendar for my cube.

And even then, I couldn't exactly get what I wanted. I originally wanted to get one of those fantasy style calendars. the type based on whatever role playing game was currently popular at the time. But as most of you know, I work for the guv'ment (albeit state) and if I put a calendar up like that in my cube, I would once again get into deep dark doggie doo-doo.

So I struck a compromise with myself and bought for 2011, a mini-wall calendar of Winnie-the-Pooh.




Not the crappy Disney version as represented by our good drunken friend Yello Bear that every single child since the 70's has been corrupted on, but the classic A.A. Milne version of Winne-the-Pooh. You know, the version in which Pooh is au natural.

And yes, true to form, something bad did happen to me in 2011 that was an indirect result of me buying a calendar.

By the end of 2011 I was ready to break the curse of bad stuff happening, and I figured that the easiest way to do it would be to buy the same calendar. However, that was not the case as B&N was sold out and I couldn't find a suitable replacement. So I waited until mid-January to see if they had any, but all they had were the esoteric kind that catered to the older generation.

Having no luck there, I decided to see what my favorite discount store had left in stock for super cheap mini-wall calendars. What they had left definitely did not impress me. But I soldiered on, dug my way through leftover pop culture crap like Justen Beiber and eventually found a mini-wall calendar that I could feel comfortable in hanging on my cube wall.

National Parks of North America.

So for the entire year of 2012, I got to look at the best of what Father Nature had to offer in the way of National Parks. And for the first time in quite a few years, nothing bad happened.

Emboldened, I decided that I really needed to continue on this mini-hot streak. I figured if Father Nature could be a pleasant surprise, then surely Mother Nature could blow me away. So we proceeded to get an early jump and start our search in early November to see what we could find that wouldn't bore me to tears each and every time that I needed to look at it.

After fifteen minutes of searching, we narrowed it down to lighthouses, birds and flowers & gardens.

While lighthouses were kind of cool (did a large jigsaw puzzle on them years ago), they were also kind of unfriendly. Now the bird calendar was definitely cool, but looking at animals is something that I can tolerate only in short spurts to begin with, so back to the rack it went. That left the calendar of flowers & gardens, which to me really was the ideal choice.

What other medium is there that can showcase Mother Nature (with a little outside help) at her absolute zenith? None that I can really think of.

So for 2013, I will be looking at twelve months worth of beautiful flowers and gardens, as I while away the days, weeks, and months inside my cube. To me, this is the best way to experience a little peace of mind with zero effort.

How 'bout you? What kind of calendar will be gracing your humble abode or humble work station for 2013?