Getting Back on the Ball (Literally)

The other day while #1 son Kurt and I were chatting, he told me that he was following the example of his mom and of Leo Leporte (http://www.twit.com) and he had bought an exercise ball to sit on while working. This immediately rattled my brain reminding me that the work hiatus was indeed over, I was back at work, and I was sitting on...the couch. Not good. A few years ago, after hearing Leo delight in  the virtues of sitting on an exercise ball while working, I purchased one and became instantly hooked. When sitting on an exercise ball, one is never truly sitting...more like gingerly bouncing, sliding, shifting, etc. That has to be good for muscle tone, right? I'm going to run with that. Nevertheless, after talking with #1 son, I made a hasty trip to the basement where my big white exercise ball was patiently awaiting my return.

I have some interesting memories with the exercise ball. One that vividly comes to mind was one nice spring morning when I was working away during our busy season and all of a sudden the exercise ball and I started doing a gyration that neither of us had planned. Once it was all over, it occurred to me that we had just bounced our way through a moderate earth quake. I was correct. My workmates throughout the state started reporting similar shaking at their home offices (although none had experienced it on an air-filled exercise ball...exhilarating!).

The exercise ball and I have a basic routine throughout the day. I always start off seated on it with one laptop on my work station and the other poised on the couch. In this way I have "stereo" laptops and I get a great deal accomplished...or so I'd like to believe :). After lunch, I give my hips a bit of a hiatus and the exercise ball becomes a hassock of sorts. Nevertheless, its necessity is never questioned.

Someday the inevitable will happen--I'm just curious as to whether the ball will slowly deflate as I'm working away until I notice my chin is bumping my laptop or if it will suddenly explode much as the old inner-tubes did on cars when we were kids (remember that?). The former will come as an inconvenience; the latter will come as a complete shock much as it did for the aforementioned Mr. Laporte. I was listening to a podcast one day where Leo was just chatting along and all of a sudden there was a loud noise and apparently Leo found himself on the floor, somewhat shocked at what had just transpired. Fortunately, I don't do many video chats during work hours; I can imagine the roar of laughter in the school lounge later after I implode during a video conference call...of course after checking to make sure I hadn't imploded along with the ball...these are nice people :). Be that as it may, I throw caution to the wind and continue to bounce my way through my work assignments.

The discipline attached to maintaining multiple blog sites has hastened me to get back on a different ball of sorts. Already, as any writer (or hack, given the day and the quality of the work) will relate, I wonder about the day that I wake up, switch on the laptop, and then stare blankly at the blinking cursor with nothing more to say...nah. I haven't shut up in 50 years--no need to stop now! But, I have noticed that my observational skills have been put on higher alert...perhaps that next story is sitting near me and I don't want to be so caught up in my own world as not to see it. Besides, it's kind of nice to take a break and just observe--mighty interesting as well. No shortage of stories to tell.
So, I'm back on that ball--proverbial and synthetic--bouncing through life.
Have a fine fine day!