I went to the Hamptons this weekend, oh, what's that...you've never heard of the Hamptons? Playground to the rich and famous? It's just a little out of the way place, you wouldn't like it. Anyway...I love that joke...the joke being that I'm broke and yet somehow can afford to run with the "in" crowd, ha ha. My "in" crowd are my friends "Sally" and Walter (wouldn't have it any other way). Man, we had a good time! We spent about 60% of the time in the pool.

The water and I have an interesting relationship. When I was a kid, I had tubes in my ears, so getting in the pool wasn't on my list of things to do. I was in my twenties before I learned how to swim. And then there's the Howard Johnson's incident. Long story short; the pool depth was in metric numbers, I was a little kid, I asked my brother if this was the shallow end, he said it was...turns out, it wasn't...I thought I was going to die! Everybody had a good laugh...I was scared for life!

Now, at 36, I'll try anything...life is too short to sit on the sidelines. Back to the pool, while I'm trying to ease into the chilly water, I watched as Walter made a text-book dive into the pool:

Picture perfect

I watched this dive in awe. He did it with such ease. Keeping with my NO FEAR attitude, I decided to jump in and get it over with.

I stood on the edge and slowly (very slowly) built up the courage to dive in:

Not so good

Walter counted down, "3, 2, 1 - GO!" as I was in the air, panic set in (as you can see in that photo). I hit the water and never touched the bottom, it was deeper than I thought. Not on the bottom and not out of the water, I freaked out! My arms were paddling around like crazy! I break the surface and I can hear "Sally" say to Walter, "maybe you better jump in there" ha ha! That's how bad it was. But just then, I figured it out and swam to the side.

Whew! Life was a little sweeter after that. I will jump again and I will learn how to swim underwater this summer. Never give up!

That's it! Have a bitchin' week.

Thanks "Sally" & Walter!

Best,

Bob