The Doctor's Office

Hacked!

2011-06-24T08:12:00.002-04:00

So remember those last two posts? No? Well, there were two posts here that didn't make any sense. Spam, if you will. See, what had happened was that my yahoo address got hacked, and I happened to have the address I used to use to post in my contacts, so there you go. On the bright side, at least the blog itself didn't actually get hacked. But if anyone clicked on the link that I "posted" or "sent", sorry about that. I need to get back on here, though. I miss it. That having been said, not now.

Long Overdue Rough Draft

2011-02-08T01:34:00.005-05:00

Well, I've finally gotten my hands on a new desktop that can handle the kind of video editing I want to do, and that means it's time to go poring through many hours of footage that needs to be cataloged, edited, compiled, and produced. Just for fun, I went through the footage from the Nashville trip the guys and I took a couple of years ago that I said I was going to edit, and I threw this together. I forgot to add transitions, so it's a bit rough, but it's a jumping off point. Oh, and you can watch in HD, which is also cool.

(Side note - guys, I'll send you each a copy of the DVD I'll make from this once I get it all put together and trimmed up.)

Priorities

2010-08-05T19:01:00.002-04:00

Jessica: Luke, next Thursday is your first day of Kindergarten! Are you excited?

Luke: Yes. But Mommy, Thursday is garbage truck day.

Jessica: I know.

Luke: Mommy, I can't go to school before I see the garbage truck.

Here's to RSS Readers

2010-07-21T09:27:00.003-04:00

Been a while, hasn't it? Well, I kind of lost my motivation there for a while, but I'm hopping back on the blog here to try out the old digs again. It'd be pointless to go into all the happenings of the past year in detail (those who are reading here are probably Facebook friends, so you know about it anyway,) so we'll just dive back into the present.

First, the kids. Luke is five now, and he'll be starting kindergarten here in a few weeks, which will bring to an end the era of being able to plan trips at any time of year. Sad on one hand, but on the other hand, that kid is ready for some school. He's the most curious and observant little kid I've ever seen. Always with the questions like "how does this work? what's that made of?" And while I love that he's going to prove smart, answering questions that I really don't know the answer to can get tiresome. So school will be good for him. Ronin is three, and he is a monster in every sense of the word. He's almost the same size as Luke (they can wear the same size clothes,) and he's built like a linebacker. If he ends up with that size and my brother's athletic prowess, watch out. Unfortunately, however, he may end up about as coordinated as I was when I was a kid (which was not very.) Also since he's this age, he is a miserable person. I don't know if everyone has this experience with three-year-olds, but in short, mine have been awful people. Luke is better now, which gives me hope for Ronin, who a year ago was a gregarious, outgoing, fearless little boy and is presently bad-tempered, demanding, and scared of everyone and everything. But we still love him. As for little Renae, she's pretty much the cutest baby ever. There are only good things to say about five-month-olds, after all. She pretty much just sits there and smiles and makes cute baby noises. The boys love her to death, which is both good and dangerous. They don't quite realize the size difference between them and her (mostly the oafish Ronin,) so we have to keep a pretty close eye on their interactions.

As for personal stuff, I'm still pretty much a fat guy, but I'm getting on a program to make that different. This has happened a few times before with moderate success followed by reinflating, but this time I've got a pretty good feeling about it. The thing with me is that I have to have a routine that I can follow constantly, and it's good to have my food regulated to "you can eat the following things, and if you eat anything else, here's how to do it." So Jessica and I are on the Power 90 program right now (which is the precursor to the P90X, because we're just not in good enough shape to do that yet,) and it's feeling good. We get up at 6:00-6:30 every morning and work out for about 40 minutes. I haven't been able to stay up as late as I typically like to, which is a drawback for me, but at the same time I feel good all day long and I have energy like I didn't have before, even with the same amount of sleep. I'll get into results once we finish the program--we've only been doing it for a week and a half now, so I don't want to talk it up too much just yet. Hopefully the results will be dramatic enough to post some before and after pictures.

I think blogging feels good again. I won't get into a bunch of media recommendations or witty anecdotes just yet (namely because I don't have any at the moment,) but that will come later. I do have just a few recommendations, though:

*If you haven't seen Breaking Bad, the AMC series, watch all three seasons immediately.
*If you haven't seen Inception, run - do not walk - to your nearest movie theater and take care of that.
*If you want to hear some good music, check out the new Black Keys album, called "Brothers." It's fantastic. I had just about given up hope that this group would release an album that sounded a bit different from all their others, and this one did the trick. Great stuff.

Goodbye, Harry

2009-04-13T22:49:00.003-04:00

For my money, the best baseball announcer around died today. Harry Kalas called games for the Phillies since 1971, including every memorable Phillies moment in the last 40 years. Every good memory I have of the Phillies is accompanied by his play-by-play. I can still tell you word-for-word how he called Mike Schmidt's 500th homerun in 1987. Even if you don't know him from the Phillies, you've probably heard him narrating NFL films or doing voiceover on any number of commercials - most notably the Chunky Soup spots featuring NFL players. You may not know the name, but even if you're not a sports fan, you know the voice. I grew up listening to Harry Kalas, and in my mind there is no other announcer when it comes to baseball. Listening to the sport will never be the same for me. It sounds melodramatic, but it's true. So goodbye, Harry. Thanks for the memories.

We Interrupt This Vacation Story...

2009-03-27T22:18:00.002-04:00

With a special announcement. As of a few days ago, my wife has joined the ranks of the bloggers. I can tell by her first post that she's going to be good at this, so check it out. I'm adding the feed to my list of blogs as well. Till next time.

Link

European Odyssey, Part 3

2009-03-23T09:55:00.022-04:00

Alright, after another overnight train to Vienna followed by the reason we got to go to Europe in the first place (the annual Manager Meeting), I'm on a plane from Amsterdam to Memphis with some time to write. There's a little baby up front who is not enjoying the flight much at all, so I'm going to put on some Explosions in the Sky (good writing music – or at least better ambience than small babies crying) and get down to bidness.

After Nuremburg, we took the train into Munich, where we stayed the night. We were booked for two nights in Munich, after spending only one night each in Berlin, Dresden and Dusseldorf, so it was a relief not to have to carry our bags around the next morning. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it got a bit old moving from place to place – even with only one piece of large luggage for each of us. So anyway, the next day we were slated to go and see King Ludwig's castles. That is, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein.

The castles were about a 45-minute train ride from Munich, in a town called Fussen. Fussen is a small place that looks like it hasn't changed much for a long time, at least as far as outward appearance. There were the little houses that you think of when you think of little dorfs in Germany, and of course there were the castles up on the hills. The feeling of oldness was slightly marred by newer restaurants and souvenir stands, but we're forgiving of that.

The castles were awesome. Unfortunately there were no cameras allowed inside, but here are some shots of the outside.

Here's Hohenschwangau.

We took tours of both castles, which were possessed by the aforementioned "Mad" King Ludwig. He grew up in Hohenschwangau and commissioned Neuschwanstein to be built during his final years. He died young, in his mid-twenties, so he only got to live in the castle for about six months total if I'm remembering correctly. But hey, if you're interested in that, there's always Wikipedia.

The things that stand out about the inside of the castle were the throne room (which was incomplete, having never actually gotten a throne) and the cave room. Yes, a cave room. Adjacent to the King's bedroom was another room that had been fashioned into a cave. Using plaster, the builders had made it into a rather convincing-looking replica, complete with stalagmites and such. Having been in a few actual caves, I thought the façade was quite impressive. So this was apparently where Ludwig would go sometimes to be by himself. Sure, there were 60 rooms in the castle, but who wants to be alone in a regular room when you can be alone in your own personal not-actually-subterranean lair? And of course, here are some pictures from the outside:

From the town below

From the Gatehouse

View of the Gatehouse from the Inside (they let you take pictures out the windows; just not inside.)

And a few more for fun. This place was enormous.

After the tours, we stopped at a shop and bought a nutcracker. How can you be in Germany and not buy a nutcracker, right? At this point the day was pretty much over and we headed back to the hotel, where there was sausage for all to have. Or at least me. I tried the Munich white sausage, which I hadn't had the pleasure of tasting before. It wasn't bad, despite the frightening color. I didn't have it again during our stay in Munich, because the taste wasn't good enough to overcome the fact that I was eating white sausage. It's rare for me that the appearance of a food causes me not to consume it, but such was the case here.

Speaking of the white sausage, that reminds me of the breakfasts at the hotels where we stayed. I don't know if I've mentioned it yet, but we stayed in all of our hotels for free because of the points I'd saved up during my time living in a Fort Wayne Marriott. So it was Marriotts all the way. The breakfasts came with the hotel stay, and they were unbelievable. I think I was probably more of a fan than Jessica since I'm used to European food, but they weren't too shabby by any standards. Think of your American continental breakfast at a hotel. You've got your eggs from a carton, bacon, sausage, toast, fruit, maybe some muffins, and cereal, right? And usually it's not actually all of those things. Well, that was all there. Plus there was about 4-5 different kinds of bread (German bread rules), 5-6 different kinds of pastries, a bunch of different yogurts (and quark, which is like yogurt with extra bacteria), a whole lot of fruit, and meats. Lunch meats, different kinds of sausage, sometimes there were meatballs, and usually at least one or two kinds of potatoes. This is not to mention the fact that they have Nutella in Germany. If you're not familiar, Nutella is a chocolate spread that they use kind of like peanut butter. That is, putting it on bread and whatnot. I'm not a big Nutella guy, but Jessica was pretty excited. So yeah, the spreads in ol' Deutschland were pretty impressive.

So the next day was our last in Munich (and Germany), and we took a day trip to the Dachau concentration camp. There's not much history to add here, as you all know what the deal is with concentration camps. I've got to say, though, that knowing about them and visiting one are two very different things. Going to Dachau wasn't what I would call an enjoyable experience. It wasn't fun, by any means. But I definitely don't regret going. Knowing what happened at these places lends the grounds a gravity that you have to experience to understand.

Germany requires all students to visit a concentration camp as part of their curriculum, which is an admirable thing, and certainly not unnecessary for a country with its history. If there ever was a way to keep history from repeating itself, that is it. So there were some students on the grounds when we were there. They were kids, and they didn't always act so seriously obviously, but you could tell at certain times that most of them were impacted. This was especially true in the museum portion of the grounds, which was the former registration building where prisoners came when they arrived. This was the only part of the grounds which gave a history and an accounting of what went on there, and the rest stood largely in silence to be observed. I'll finish this portion with pictures. I tried to get as many pictures as possible without people in them. It doesn't completely give the feeling of stark coldness that you feel in certain parts of the site, but I think that this place, once teeming with thousands and now standing empty as a reminder of what humans did to other humans, has a certain weight even just with pictures.

Entrance

Roll Call Area

Bunker

Former Barracks Site (Every plot is where a building stood)

The Crematorium

Inscription: Remember How We Died Here

Memorial in Front of the Museum

This is probably a long enough post for now, so I'll be back later with more.

European Odyssey, Part 2

2009-03-20T10:01:00.004-04:00

The whole "tomorrow" thing didn't quite work out as planned, because now we've been through Dresden, Dusseldorf, and Munich, and I'm typing flat on my back on an overnight train to Rome. I don't know how long this will last, but we'll give it a shot.

After we spent the night in Dresden, we woke up the next morning and took about an hourlong walk through the city. The picture is of a statue of Martin Luther - a Dresden native - in front of Frauenkirche, which was the largest Protestant church in the world upon completion. It was largely destroyed when Dresden was flattened by bombs during WWII, but has been restored very well. We have a tour book for Germany (if you're ever traveling abroad, bring Rick Steves' tour books – they're fantastic,) and it has a detailed description of a bunch of the sites along a walk in the main part of the old town (Altstadt.) So we did that first, and then it was time to get our bags from the hotel and go to the Historic Green Vault.

The Green Vault was amazing. It was basically a treasure trove of showing off all of the Royal treasure of Augustus the Strong, the Crown Prince of Saxony and King of Poland during the Baroque period. It's pretty much everything you would expect from a bunch of rooms full of treasures. There was a room full of nothing but things made of ivory, a room for bronze, a room for silver, etc. There was also a room (the most impressive to me) full of jewels. There were sets of sapphires, rubies, diamonds, and emeralds. The jewels were all in sets. There were swords with scabbards containing these jewels (one sword had a scabbard completely coated in diamonds), along with broaches and buttons for royal robes, etc. All very cool. The whole thing was explained with an audioguide that came with the tour. You walk into the room, and hold the guide up to your ear (it works like a telephone) and it explains what exactly you're looking at. That makes the experience much more enjoyable, because it gives everything context. We've found that to be the case at most of these German museums. They've all been really impressive (outside of the Checkpoint Charlie museum, but maybe that's because we were sleepy.)

After the Green Vault (which unfortunately did not allow cameras inside), we got on the train (6 ½ hours) to Dusseldorf. That was another one where you just don't think of the travel time involved with the trip. But in the end, we got into town at about 8:00 or so. It was pretty cool getting back to the Hauptbahnhof of one of my old stomping grounds. A lot has changed over the time that I've been gone, and everything seems a bit more modern.

The plan in Dusseldorf was to hit the hotel and drop off our stuff, then head back into town for dinner. But by the time we found the hotel (we happened to run into a couple of girls that were staying there and they showed us where it was,) we were too tired to go back out, and the rowdy crowds downtown make Jessica a bit nervous, so we went down to the hotel restaurant. They said it was open until 11:00, but when we got down there at 10:30, the guy said they were closing up because business was slow (a slight difference between German businesses and US businesses – they just kind of close when they want.) He told us to go to the bar and get something to eat if we wanted. So we did. I saw a bunch of stuff on the menu that looked like it was worth eating, so I got the mixed plate, which under the description said "a little of everything." I cannot tell you what was on that plate, my friends, but none of it was on the menu that I was looking at. So that was obnoxious, but it ended up being okay. I can't honestly remember what it all was, but there was bread involved, and some peppers stuffed with cream cheese, and something else. Perhaps I've blocked it out. But Jessica got a cheeseburger, and in hindsight that probably wasn't a bad idea given the other options.

The next day the plan was to get up early and go into the pedestrian zone to take a walk before getting on the train to Nuremberg to see the museum there. We really were going to do this, but just couldn't get going early enough in the morning. I had even set an alarm, but I ended up turning it off. It didn't end up being a big deal really, as mostly what I wanted to do was just see one of the areas where I was as a missionary. At this point I haven't been back in almost 10 years, so there isn't really anyone here that would remember me, and there aren't a lot of sites to see in my old areas, so just seeing the Hauptbahnhof, and walking by the taxi area where we used to pick up and drop off new and old missionaries was fun. So we didn't get to take the walk downtown, but we hopped on the train to Nuremberg.

The museum here was also fantastic. There was an audioguide again that provided a lot of helpful details about the exhibits and also narrated some of the videos that were being shown. Seeing as how we've been in Germany, we've seen a lot to do with World War II, obviously. This museum probably did the best job (understandably so, since this was one of their main headquarters) in showing how it was possible for the Nazis to come to power. It's not as though it couldn't have been avoided, or that the atrocities that they eventually committed are understandable, but the social and especially economic conditions of the time were such that Hitler's propaganda machine and his public demonstrations were very effective in winning over the people. Not to mention the fact that Hitler created tons of jobs by starting to build the Autobahn and beginning Volkswagen (which means "car of the people".) Inflation had gotten to the point where it cost 8 billion Marks for an egg. They had actual million-mark bills on display from this time period. Unbelievable stuff. Inflation, folks. When it gets that bad, that really sucks.

Nuremberg played a huge part in the rise of the Nazis and was one of their bases of power. Seeing the architecture of the places the Nazis built totally reminded me of the old emperors and their fortresses and amphitheaters. Everything was concentrated on building the mythos of Hitler and his ideas. This showed us the social and political part of Hitler and the Nazis, and two days later we would see the human cost of their reign in Germany. But all in all, this was a fascinating museum.

On that note, it's getting late. So I'm taking a Tylenol PM and seeing if I can get some sleep on this train. Till later.

European Odyssey, Part 1

2009-03-13T04:49:00.008-04:00

Note: We're on our third and final day in Italy right now, and this is the first hotel where we've had free internet, so that's why I haven't been posting. As for why I didn't post the last couple of days...well, Rome's kept us busy. So here's the first post I wrote when we came to Germany. I'll continue to update as I'm able to.

We're in Dresden now, and there is no free internet here. Hence, you will not see this post until we get to Dusseldorf. But the timeline is beside the point. Let's talk about how we got here, shall we? (Boring stuff first.)

We left Indianapolis's fabulous (seriously) new airport on Wednesday afternoon, and flew to the magical land of Detroit. From there we caught our long flight on a big giant A330 to Amsterdam. Now, on my last trans-Atlantic flight, I was still set apart as an LDS missionary, and as such I did not partake in any media goodness that was available at the time. However, this time I was able to do so. Let me just say this: Holy crap, does that make an 8-hour flight more bearable. I mean seriously. We watched Slumdog Millionaire, which was fantastic. Then we tried unsuccessfully to get some sleep and avoid extreme jetlag, followed by me taking out the ol' laptop and plugging it in (we sat where there was power) to watch some Friday Night Lights. And then the flight was done. So yeah, it was not that bad.

We ended up getting into Berlin around noon. After taking the bus to the Hauptbahnhof (central train station), we took way too long to figure out what trains we needed to take in order to get the Courtyard, where we were staying that evening. By the time we actually made it to the hotel, we were pretty wrecked. But we still fired up the Interwebs to get on the webcam and talk to the boys. (As a side note, big thanks to the in-laws, who came out from Delaware to watch the boys while we're gone.) If you've used webcams before as we had, you may think that they're always choppy delayed. This was not at all the case when we used the gmail webcam service. There was no delay at all in the picture, and the quality was great. So we're using gmail's webcam service from now on. Since you're extremely interested in that.

So the first actual sight we saw was Checkpoint Charlie. This was the American Sector of Germany when it was separated into four parts after World War II (for those that don't know.) It's right next to where the Berlin Wall used to be. The museum was good, but a bit nonlinear. We felt like we walked in and were suddenly in the middle of things. There wasn't much of an explanation of origins, or logistics, or anything like that. The first thing we saw was how people attempted to escape East Germany. It was cool, like I said, but just a bit disorienting. The other problem was, as we realized partway through the museum, we were freaking tired. We sat down at one point to look at something and almost fell asleep. So we walked back to the hotel and got some dinner (keeping it easy at this point – Jessica had a club sandwich and I had some mushroom ravioli. It was most excellent.)

All these details and I forgot to mention how my German is. It's actually still pretty good. I can get along just fine, although it took a few times talking to people to get comfortable. I think one problem I still have is that once people are aware that I speak German, they get excited and start talking too fast. Then I can't understand them and I feel kind of dumb when I have that look on my face like, "Ummm…..I know I was speaking German to you just now, but I have no clue what you just said." But largely it's been fine.

So today we started off in Berlin. To get around, we had a Welcome Card, which gets you all your train and bus fares within the city, along with discounts at museums and such. We've also got the German Rail Pass, which gets us four days of travel anywhere in Germany for two people. So it's a lot of public transportation for us, which I love. I like being able to walk through the train stations and walk along the streets to wherever we're going from the smaller stations. It brings back a lot of memories of how we got around as missionaries, and plus I just enjoy the atmosphere. You get to really see the city, and you enjoy the company of the people. You almost feel like you fit in somehow. It's getting the whole Germany experience, since a lot of people get around like that. The downside, of course, is that it's murder on the feet. Since we don't walk nearly this much at home, we're not quite accustomed to the beatdown that the ol' dogs are currently receiving. But the good part is that we're walking off all the food that we're bound to be eating over the next few days.

So anyway, Berlin. We went to the German History Museum, and let me tell you, it was fantastic. It was a complete history of Germany. From about 100 BC until today. There were two floors worth of exhibits. Artifacts, paintings, written history, etc. And we also got the audio guide, which gave us further details about specific exhibits. Our guidebook says that there's six hours worth of information in the audio guide should one choose to listen to every part. There's certainly enough to keep you busy in the museum every day for a week or so. We were a bit worn out by the time we hit WWII, but we got a pretty good dose of that at Checkpoint Charlie, and we're hitting Nuremberg and Dachau later as well. So we've got that covered.

After the history museum, we went over to the Reichstag through the Brandenburg Gate. The Reichstag is the German Parliament. We were going to get in there and have a look around, but the line ended up being too long to get in and we had a train to catch to get to Dresden, and we still had some lunch that needed to be eaten.

Speaking of which, one thing that we didn't factor into our plans was travel time. You know, you watch these guys on The Amazing Race, and you kind of lose perspective on that sort of thing. It's like, "okay, we're starting in L.A., and the first stop is…Scotland!" And then they're in Scotland. Not that we thought we'd be teleporting or something mind you, but still. You look at Berlin and Dresden on a map of Germany, and you don't think "two-hour train ride." But that's what it is. So we hit the train to Dresden, and now after walking around for way too long again, we're in the hotel. It's actually 1 am right now. We hit the hotel restaurant for dinner, since the place we were going to go to was closed. I had a duck salad (bad idea, since I remembered I'm not a fan of duck, but it was still edible), and Jessica had a Hawaiian pizza. Before you boo that decision, I'll just say that pizza tastes completely different here. Forget your canned pineapple, pre-shredded cheese, and pre-made spaghetti sauce. Everything is fresh on these bad boys. And they're good.

I also forgot to mention that Jessica had her first Doener today. What is that, you ask? Well, it's a kind of sandwich with lamb, lettuce, cucumber, and zaziki sauce on a piece of flatbread (not the kind of flat bread you're thinking of – better.) You can also get goat cheese on it, but that's gross. It's a staple of missionaries in Germany, and it is delicious. I was very pleased that she enjoyed hers. Staying on the food side of things, I'm thinking brats and pommes tomorrow. Pommes is French fries, but different because you get curry ketchup, mayonnaise and onions on them. I know what you're thinking, but trust me, it rules. The caveat is that you cannot try this at home, because it's not the kind of mayo that you buy at the store in the States. That's just wrong. Don't do it.

So this is way too much detail right now and I need to get to bed, so I'm going to stop. More tomorrow.

Every Year I Forget

2009-02-05T19:56:00.004-05:00

Being a manager, January and February are absolutely insane months. Especially January, but the first half of this month is also no joke. Performance reviews, setting goals for the next year, accounting for what happened last year, meeting with the boss and the boss's boss (that one's not every year, but it was this year,) etc. Not to mention I'm the spreadsheet guy for the region, meaning I put together all the new spreadsheets to track stats, attendance, marketing, and everything else for all the Indiana centers and pretty much for anyone else who likes to use them.

And the problem is that most of my New Year's Resolutions have to do with dedicating time to things. So I always pledge to do things - get in the habit of doing things - that take time. So by the time things die down at work, the resolutions are gone from my mind. But this year I'm not forgetting. It's been a couple of weeks (like I said - the end of January is ridiculous), but I'm back. It may not be much of a post, but a post it is. My bigger writing problem is that I can't dedicate a lot of time to writing columns at MMATorch. I enjoy doing it, but it takes a good couple of hours of solid thought research and writing. And if I don't do it all at once, it makes things a lot tougher. But right now I'm working at work, then bringing my work laptop home and working some more after the kids go to bed. Or falling asleep - whichever comes first. Oh, and that's not even including the fact that it's the season for 24, Lost, and American Idol, among others. So this is not an interesting post, but it's here to make sure I don't stop posting before I forget.

Remember how we were going to drive to Delaware if the Eagles made the Super Bowl? Well, we went anyway. Last week was the visit with my boss's boss, and it went really well, but there was so much preparation involved, not to mention everything else that was going on, so I just wanted to get out of town for a few days. We conducted an experiment on the way out, making the 12-hour drive overnight on Thursday night. It actually went much better than I had expected. I'm a late driver and Jessica is an early driver, so I drove till about midnight and then she took over till about 5am. And the kids slept for most of the ride, so that made it even better.

The trip was nice; blissfully uneventful one might say. Some shopping, some hanging out, and watching the Super Bowl, followed by the second 12-hour drive in four days. That one wasn't actually too bad either. Really they were better than two drives of that length with two kids should be. So no complaints here. The other nice thing was that when I got back, it felt like I'd been gone for way longer than I actually had, so I was only backed up a couple of days, but it felt like a longer vacation. Good times.

Now, speaking of the Super Bowl. A lot of people talked right afterward about how great the game was, but I thought the first three quarters were horrible, followed by a great fourth. It was poorly officiated and poorly coached. Also, the Cardinals were robbed by the touchdown at the end of the first half. Harrison didn't get the ball across the goal line. I'm just sayin.

Live Blog of the NFC Championship Game, or Another Emotional Flogging at the Hands of A Group of Men That I Follow Closely But Do Not Know Personally

2009-01-18T18:35:00.003-05:00

These are the unfiltered thoughts that I had while experiencing the worst sports-watching time of my life. That is not an exaggeration. I wrote everything at the time indicated, and it is unedited and un-proofread. Enjoy my suffering.

4:00pm – I can't believe I let them do this to me again. They look great at the end of the regular season and for two playoff games, and then they turn into the EXACT SAME TEAM that lost three NFC Championships and the Super Bowl. All the telltale signs are here. They're giving up big plays, they can't get into the end zone, McNabb is inaccurate, they can't stop the run, and the blitz isn't doing them any good because Warner has the timing down. I'm close to having already given up, and if the Cardinals score again here, I'm out. I don't even want to watch the rest of the game. I will, because I'm a glutton for punishment. But I won't want to. I've already yelled all I can, and the first half's not even over. So I'm done investing any emotion into this team if they give up another score.

4:10pm – Yeah, the Cardinals are driving to the end zone again, and they're going to score. So I'm going to record this and watch the Foo Fighters on Austin City limits so that I can come back and fast forward through the rest of this half. It's making me sick.

4:20pm – Watched two Foo Fighters songs and fast forwarded through the AZ touchdown and up to the point where McNabb was flagged for intentional grounding. This is the kind of thing that would be surprising if it didn't happen literally every time they get as far as they're going. The thing that's maddening is that they never play well and lose. Every time they play well, they win. But they simply cannot win the big game. Can't. Never will. Not with Reid and McNabb at the helm. They've shown time and time again that they fold under pressure. Want proof? After this game, their record in NFC Championship games will be 1-4. Yes, they've gotten to the game five times in eight years, and it's been great to watch up until that point. But I've followed bad teams and good teams, and there is nothing worse than watching a good team get so close to winning the whole thing only to forget how to play. It's one thing if it happens the first time they get there. But to have it happen four times, and once after they actually got to the Super Bowl, is unbearable. I'd rather they never made the playoffs this year. The last two weeks were not worth this week. Not even close. If they were ever going to win the whole thing, it was going to be this year. In fact, if they had won this year, I'd give them a shot to win it again under McReid. But after this, it's never happening. You can't come back from this. You just can't.

4:32pm – I haven't looked back yet. I'll probably wait till after halftime so that I don't have to see the analysts' grinning faces as they rave about the destruction of my team. After that, I'm watching the first drive of the 3rd quarter and seeing how the defense plays on the first drive. If things don't change, I'm done. I can't take it anymore. I'm gonna watch some fights to calm me down.

5:13pm – The fight is over, and I feel a little better. I've switched from my McNabb jersey to a Chase Utley jersey to see if there's any mojo at all at work today, but I have my doubts.

5:15pm – And it's a fumble on the first drive. Might as well forget about this one.

5:23pm – Don't ask me why, but I'm still watching. And McNabb just laid a beautiful pass in to Kevin Curtis on 3rd and 19. Now is the part where they'll suck you back in if you let them. They'll get the score to like 24-20 before sputtering out with two minutes left. You watch. (Or they'll just continue getting blown out.)

5:25pm – Touchdown to Brent Celek. I'm not giving in. You cannot have me back today. Understand? You've lost me. (Although on a side note, I hope LJ Smith is out of town next year and they just go with Celek as the first string TE. Dinnertime for the boys, so I'm taking a break from watching this.

5:50pm – Back from dinner, and the defense has begun to play. Too bad it's too late.

5:51pm – Celek scores from about 30 yards out. Wow. I'm not believing yet, because it's too dangerous. But I'm intrigued. No emotion right now. And Akers just missed an extra point. Which means we're losing by one. But man, Hank Baskett made the block of the year on that play. Two guys at once. Awesome.

5:53pm – Why is Troy Aikman killing the Eagles for not trying for two? You never go for two in the 3rd quarter. Had they known Akers was going to shank the PAT, that's one thing. But why would you go for two when you just scored two touchdowns in five minutes?

5:57pm – Another series where the defense dominates. They're clamping down.

6:00pm – DEASEAN JACKSON! 70 YARDS! DEASEAN JACKSON! DESEAN JACKSON! I JUST LOST MY MIND!

6:01pm – Now is when you go for two. No regrets after they didn't get it. It was the right move there. Turns out it was 62 yards, but whatever. Still awesome.

6:04pm – They're saying it depends on the spot from 3rd and 2, but no way they got that.

6:06pm – Good call by the Cards to go for it, and they got it. Time to put an end to this drive, posthaste.

6:08pm – Touchdown Cardinals. Unbelievable.

6:11pm – I'm almost up to realtime now after watching on DVR time, and I'm shaking in my boots.

6:12pm – And it's back to business as usual with incomplete on 1st, 2nd and 3rd down with the game on the line. All we need is 4th down for the soul-crushing defeat, and there it is. I'm speechless. Completely speechless. I'm back at realtime so that I can't fast forward past my shame. If you'll look back at earlier comments, you'll see that I was almost exactly right about the ending here. Except instead of getting within four, they took the lead and then gave it away on the very next possession. Welcome to Eaglesville.

6:17pm – They get the stop on 3rd down, but it doesn't matter. They'll have the ball back with like 10 seconds, and they'll just throw an interception. This game is over. I wish they had never made the playoffs, I wish they had never come back from being blown out in this game. Over and over again I get my hopes up, and over and over again they're crushed. The cycle keeps going, and it will never end. I have no hope that this team will ever win a title, but I'll keep on riding with them. I'll be here next year once again, following them like a sucker, just to get thisclose and lose again. Such is my life.

I'm in no state of mind to do anything right now, but I've got so much to do before work tomorrow it's ridiculous. So I'll take the next hour to mourn the Eagles until my wife gets home and can take care of Luke, then we'll see what I'm capable of. This is far and away the worst loss out of any of the championship games. And it's not close. The Super Bowl was bad, but this was worse.

On & Off the Wagon. Also It's Freaking Cold

2009-01-16T20:21:00.007-05:00

There's been some talk of weight loss in the previous post/comments, and I'll keep that theme going for a little bit.

My boss was in town this week, which put me a little bit behind on...well, life. So I was a day late with my MMATorch column (it's up now), and I'm a day late here. Besides putting me behind on my writing, that little fact also makes me eat badly. An excuse? Of course. But she buys us lunch more often than not, and what am I going to do, get a salad? Please. I'm not that far gone. So yeah, it's been a bad week for being on the wagon. I haven't actually weighed myself, but I'm surely a couple pounds heavier than last week. That's considering also that I've been at work more hours than usual, preventing me from going to the gym. That's the first week I've missed since November. So I'm getting on that train again next week, and getting the discipline back in my eating habits.

Speaking of which, his Shoelessness asked about any recommendations. I don't know what this will do for you, but I can tell you what I've been doing, and it's really simple.

1. Count calories

I never did this in any prior diet. But when I'm really going strong, I'll eat anywhere between 1200-1500 calories a day. Not a whole lot. It's actually pretty easy when I'm working because of some habits I changed. I never used to eat at work. That meant that I ate a whole lot when I got home or before I went in. So I started eating a lot of lean cuisine/healthy choice frozen meals. Most of them are actually pretty tasty, and they're usually under 300 calories, and they're quick to eat at work. Also to keep the calories down, I drink almost none of them. I usually have a glass of orange juice or milk at breakfast, and then it's water and Crystal Light the rest of the day. I'm a big drinker, and I actually hate water, so this was an adjustment. But it definitely works. Drinking a lot of water keeps me from being really hungry, and of course it's nice to be hydrated (especially when working out). I also stopped grazing. I don't walk through the kitchen and grab a cracker, or a cookie, or a handful of chocolate chips, or all of the above. That's all stuff that I'd have to keep track of, and it takes away from what I can eat at dinner.

2. Eat breakfast, but not a huge one

I don't like cereal, so I never used to eat breakfast. Now I have a banana (sometimes with some peanut butter to get the metabolism going) and a glass of orange juice or milk. When I keep it low-cal at breakfast and lunch, it makes dinner a lot easier to deal with because a lot of times it's tough to count calories in recipes. Usually by dinner I've only eaten between 350-450 calories, so I've got lots of room.

3. Don't eat late

Nothing after 7:00. I've always struggled with this because I love to eat, and I love to eat while watching TV, especially sports. So this is a tough one, but also important.

4. Portion and self control

This was the biggest thing. I didn't want to "go on a diet." I wanted to change my eating lifestyle. I figure if I go on a diet and lose a bunch of weight, but never change my eating habits in general, I'll just gain it back. So the key to all of this was to control myself. The non-grazing, not eating after 7:00...all that stuff. That's why the portion control is also important. I would usually eat 2 or 3 servings at dinnertime, but now I keep it at one. The best thing about that is I can recognize more easily when I'm not hungry, and that's when I stop eating.

So no magic tricks or anything. Just change. Also there are no dumbbells. (At least until I lose some more weight.) (And yes, that was for Joel's benefit.)

So as you can surmise from the post title, it's freaking cold here in North-central Indiana. Last night it got down to -4 with a -26 wind chill. That is coldness of ridiculous proportions. I know it's cold in Minnesota and North Dakota and stuff, but this is not there. We are not used to living in a freezer. My garage door doesn't work because it's so cold, and I get up to five employees a day calling me because their cars won't start when it gets like this. At least there's not ice on the roads to go with it, because I'd have no one left to work.

As an illustration of the numbing frigidity of this joint, Jessica saw the cable outlet out of the corner of her eye yesterday and noticed that one of them was white. She was about to get annoyed because one of the boys put Desitin on it, but when she took a closer look, she saw this:

That's right. Ice. In my house. Such a thing is not cool in my book, literal interpretations of that phrase aside.

I mentioned the boys earlier , and it occurs to me that I haven't posted pictures of them in a while. So here's something for you. This is them on Christmas day, showing off their new pajamas in front of the awesome Christmas tree that we turned into a prelit tree ourselves (pictures of that may come later as well.) I guess that kind of makes it a post-lit tree, but it's prelit for next year now, so whatever.

As a side note, the ice picture was taken with our new camcorder, which is awesome. It's a Canon HG20, and it's most excellent. We'll be taking it on our 10-day trip to Europe (more on that next week), and if I can figure it out, I'm thinking about a series of vlog posts while we're there. We'll see if I can do it, and if I'm up for it when we get there. But that's it for now. Till next time.

Ooooooohhhhh!! I totally fooled you. You thought I was leaving without talking about the Eagles? Please. I'm not going to say much because I'll get myself all lathered up, but let's just say that if we can't beat the Cardinals to get to another Super Bowl, it will not be a good day. If the Birds can get into the big game, I'll be headed to Delaware to watch the game with the family. But in short, here's my prediction: Larry Fitzgerald (the best receiver in football) will have a few awesome catches and perhaps get the Cards a touchdown or two. Anquan Boldin will also have one or two nice plays. But they won't be able to run the ball, and Kurt Warner will lose at least one fumble, maybe two. McNabb, meanwhile, will be able to use short passes to the quick receivers and tire the defense out. Westbrook may be hurt, but he'll still command a lot of attention even if he doesn't get the ball a whole lot. Buckhalter will get some carries and he'll also make a big play as a receiver. The Eagles will seal the game in the fourth when DeSean Jackson makes a big catch for the winning touchdown, but the outcome of the game will never be in doubt as the Cardinals will not be able to consistently get anything going on offense against the Eagles' suffocating D. They'll be shut out completely in the second half as Philly takes over and finishes off an improbable run to the NFC championship.

Bank on it.

2009 Resolutions

2009-01-07T19:45:00.003-05:00

Just before the new year is a week old, I'm posting the ol' resolutions for this year. We won't talk about last year's resolutions, because I tried something a little different (remember the year of the month?), and kind of fizzled out around March. So I've got a few things I want to get done this year:

1. Lose 30 pounds
Right now I'm about 35 pounds lighter than I was this time last year, so I know it's possible. Losing another 30 will get me down to about 200. It can be done! We joined a gym in late November and I've been going three times a week since then. I also finally got serious about dieting around September and dropped about 20 pounds in 3 months. So I'm pretty confident that I can keep going.

2. Blog once a week
I know, I've said it before, but I'm putting a number on it this time. That will give me 52 posts this year if I keep it to only once a week, which would be more than 2008's 37 posts. As of now I've set my blog day to Thursday, which is 2 days after my column day. I'm a day early this week.

3. Organize memories
I've got hours of home video that I haven't even transferred from the mini DV tapes on which they were recorded. So this year it all gets transferred to the computer, edited, and turned into an ISO file, to reside on an external hard drive in addition to a DVD format. And that's just the video side of things. I'm also going to come up with a system for organizing my photos (I haven't decided on one yet - Picasa? Flickr? Just put them on the hard drive and organize by folder? I don't know.) But I'll figure that out and make it easy to perpetuate the photo organization.

4. Stick to the Budget
Yeah, this one's a given. But this year we've got a system. The wife and I will track the finances together instead of only having one of us do it, and we'll meet once a week to sum up what we did, where our budgets are, and that way we won't just ignore the fact that we're spending way too much on groceries and eating out until the 15th of the next month when all the expenses are finally tracked. I'm just sayin, that's not the most effective method.

5. Get the House Where We Want It
Or at least have a plan of action to finish what we can't afford this year. There's a lot of projects that we need to start in the house to make it a more pleasant place. The problem is not wanting to put a lot of money into the house that we're not going to get back. But we at least want to paint, and get the place decorated to where it's nice to look at. We're just incredibly lazy when it comes to beautifying the house. Upkeep? No problem. Making it "homey" or whatever? That we could work on. The first thing on the list is to paint our bedroom, which has walls resembling a jungle. It's kind of like living in a safari. After that's done, I can move the desk into the bedroom from the basement and have a decent workspace where the kids don't mess with all the stuff in the desk. I can't even work there now because it drives me nuts. But that's a whole different rant that I'm not going to get into.

I think that's about it. I also generally want to be more organized with my time, but that's way too general and broad a goal to even expand upon just now. For the moment, I think those five will suffice.

Shawn Ryan is the Man

2008-12-05T00:08:00.003-05:00

Just finished watching the series finale of "The Shield." I won't spoil it for those who might see it later, but it was amazing. One of the most emotionally devastating pieces of fiction I've ever experienced. A dramatic statement to be sure, but trust me that I'm not overstating it. If you haven't seen this show, start from the beginning and do it. Once you watch the first two or three episodes, you're in for the long haul. That was a great ending to a way underexposed series. So if you're keeping track, "The Wire" and "The Shield" are both great. That's the last two cop series that I've watched in their entirety inside of a year. I'd almost like to watch all of "The Wire" again already. So good.

Random Thoughts Without Segue

2008-11-20T19:58:00.004-05:00

So I've finally broken down and joined Facebook. I did this about a week ago. I figure hopefully it'll help me get back in touch with a bunch of people that I haven't talked to in forever, and I'll also have more people checking out the blog (and hence perhaps some more motivation to update it.) That also means I'll probably break out a "what I've been up to for the past 10 years" post, so the three of you who are regular readers of the blog will have to put up with a bit of repetition.

Those of you who are both Xbox 360 owners and Netflix subscribers like myself have noticed that the 360 can now stream movies from the Netflix Watch Instantly catalog. How awesome is this? Extremely. Am I a nerd? Absolutely. But it's still fantastic. I just put on an episode of The Office for the heck of it, and the video quality is great.

You know what's underrated? Two things: Tater tots and Heath bar. You might never include either of them in the pantheon of great foods, but neither ever disappoints. It also holds true when you combine either one with other elements. Case in point: Heath bar pieces in ice cream or on a cake? Wondrous. Tater tot casserole? Delicious.

I've decided that I'm not going to make a long-term decision about facial hair. I've had a goatee for almost five years with the occasional full beard interlude thrown in for good measure. Then in September, before the Outer Banks vacation (about which I criminally never blogged) I shaved the whole thing off and went with bare face for a little bit. And now I've got the full beard going again. So basically what I'm saying is that if you see me on a regular basis, you'll never know what's coming at you. Is it stubble today, or do I still have the beard? Perhaps I shaved it down to a handlebar mustache (I did that for two days after Halloween.) You just don't know.

I've also decided that it's probably time for the Eagles to move on without Donovan McNabb. It hurts me just to say it, because I love McNabb, but I think he's reached a point where we're not going to win it all with him. He's been horrible in the first half of almost every game this year, and then he hit a low point (maybe a career low point) with a horrendous performance against the Bengals on Sunday. I mean, really? They couldn't score more than 13 points in 5 periods? The defense is still pretty good, and the only reason the team isn't terrible right now. On the other hand, I'm not nearly as devastated about the Eagles this year as I normally would be, because the Phillies have lifted my sports spirit for the next year. What? The Sixers already have a losing record? That's alright. The Phillies won it all. The Flyers are in fourth place in the Atlantic Division? It's okay. The Phils are taking care of me.

Finally, the boys proved my theory again that toys are not needed. We bought a new upright freezer on Saturday and brought the box inside for them to play with, and that's all they've been doing. Luke brought all the toys upstairs from the basement and put them in the box, but not necessarily to play with them. Just to have them there. Jessica's parents were here over the weekend, and her dad cut windows in it for them. It's big enough that Ronin can walk upright in it without ducking, so he can't stick his head out of the window in the top, but he still enjoys it. So basically toys are a waste of money. Just buy large cardboard boxes. Or just magazines and wrapping paper for smaller kids.

For those who may have followed the link here from my Facebook page, you may not know about the boys yet, but I'll have pictures up soon enough.

Updatification

2008-11-10T21:41:00.004-05:00

I've finally migrated to the new Blogger style. Let me know what you think. I've looked at so many templates I'm not sure if this is a good one, or if I just got tired of looking. Also, I've gone the way of Zimm and abandoned Haloscan. I'm going all low-maintenance. So if you want old comments, sorry. But you don't care about old comments, right?

Anyway, I'm pissed about the Eagles game last night, but that seems to be the theme for weeks when they play good teams. The difference is that unlike any other year, this year I've still got the Phillies. (No, I'm not letting that go any time soon.)

Euphoria

2008-10-30T20:43:00.003-04:00

I don't even know how to react. It's almost 24 hours later, and I still can't even process it. Every other hour or so at work today, I'd spend about 10-20 minutes and just look at pictures and read articles, just to remember that it's real. Yeah, I shed a few tears last night, and I still feel a little misty every time I think about it.

They did it. For the first time in my life, I'm happy at the end of a sports season. I've watched the Phillies my whole life. I love the Eagles, but I was a baseball guy long before I was a football guy. I used to stay up late and listen to Harry Kalas call the games on my walkman when I was a kid. I remember Mike Schmidt hitting his 500th homerun in Pittsburgh, and the call that Harry made on that long drive. I was one year old when the Phils beat Kansas City in 1980 for the only other title in their 126 year existence. Since then it's been heartbreak after heartbreak. From seasons of futility right down to Joe Carter sinking the dagger into my heart in 1993. But this Phillies team did it. For the past few years, they would get so close. They'd be one game out of the playoffs. Two games out. Coming so close, but never getting in. Then there was last year, when they ran into the buzzsaw Rockies. Finally getting into the playoffs, then back home four days later. But not this year.

This year things were going to be different. The Phillies were notoriously bad in April for the past few years. They would always stumble out of the gate. But this year they came out on fire. They had some speed bumps along the way, but it always felt like they would get into the postseason. Then once they got in, they were underdogs against the Wild Card Brewers, and then against the LA Mannys. They smoked both teams, losing one game in each series. You see, we Philadelphia sports fans are not used to postseason dominance. We're used to high expectations, high hopes, and almost making it. So when they cruised to the World Series, the feeling should have been ominous, but it wasn't. For once, I felt like I could believe that this team would win it all. It was a dangerous prospect, because I get seriously messed up when my teams get this far and flame out. But I allowed myself to kind of think that it was possible to see my team actually win.

And in the end, it was classic Philly, except for the end result. All sorts of things happened that should have stopped the Phils from doing it. Slumping power hitters. Stranding guys on base. Playing against a young team with nothing to lose. Terrible calls by umpires (yeah, it went both ways, but more went against the Phillies. I counted.) And of course, game five. I mean seriously. They essentially wasted a start by their best pitcher, in the last home game of the Series, with the chance to clinch, and they had to play one more defensive inning in terrible conditions than the other team did (say what you will, but it was no coincidence that the game was suspended when it was.) Every other Phillies team I've watched would have let the tying run score in the top of the ninth. Every other Philadelphia team would have given up the game at the end. In any other year, with any other group of guys, it would have been too much to overcome. But not these guys.

These guys did it.

The List: Bucket List of Bands

2008-07-28T19:54:00.003-04:00

Last Wednesday, Zimm and his wife came with Jessica and myself to see the Foo Fighters. It was most awesome. The setlist was perfectly paced and ended up with "Best of You", after which it would have been pointless to do another song. There was also an acoustic portion of the show which featured the Foostics and a rousing version of "My Hero." And so, as is the tradition after I see a concert, I started thinking about all the bands I need to see in my (and their) lifetime.

1. Metallica

Probably the band I'd be most excited to see out of all those who will follow on the list. Bands that have been around for as long as Metallica with so many different kinds of songs are always a lot of fun to see, because the shows end up being diverse. Of course, you can only be so diverse when you're Metallica. But still that would be a great show.

2. Eric Clapton in some capacity

Whether it's with a band or just by himself, I gots to see Slowhand. There is nothing in the world like seeing a guitar player of his caliber live. These guys never play the same thing twice, and it's electrifying to watch them go off. On an unrelated note, I recently read Clapton's autobiography, and it was pretty good. A little sappy toward the end, but forgiveably so.

3. B.B. King

I know Joel saw the King before and said it was good stuff. And how could it not be? The same thing applies here as to Clapton. And with a catalog that spans 60 years, he's got a heck of a bag to pull songs out of.

4. U2

It's inexcusable really that I haven't attempted to get tickets to a U2 show before, and I don't intend to let another tour go by without remedying that situation. I've seen concert movies that are as exciting as some actual shows that I've been to. "Rattle and Hum" might be the best concert movie ever. So yeah, this will be a priority next time they're on the road.

5. The White Stripes/Raconteurs

I know the White Stripes have been in the area and they've played a smaller venue. I was quite annoyed when I saw that I had missed it. So on the next tour Jack White's involved in, I'll be watching. Anything involving Jack White in a smaller room promises to be gloriously loud and enjoyable.

6. Chris Cornell in some capacity

Whether it's in a Soundgarden reunion (please?), with his next band, or playing solo, Chris Cornell has got to be awesome live. I've heard all sorts of live performances of his and they're all pretty good. The guy has an unbelievable voice on top of having great songs to pick from.

7. Stone Temple Pilots

If they resemble the "Core" STP, sign me up in a heartbeat. If they resemble the "Tiny Music" STP, nevermind.

8. Either Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Kanye West, or Lupe Fiasco

My favorite rappers. I don't know that I could go to a lot of rap concerts, though. So one or two would probably do it.

9. Garth Brooks

I know he's not touring now, but I can't imagine he won't go back to the cash well one more time at some point.

Honorable mention (wouldn't mind seeing): Derek Trucks Band, Band of Horses, Dave Matthews in some capacity, Jose Gonzalez, Prince, Wolfmother, Jason Mraz (guilty pleasure), Nickle Creek.

I'd also go and see most acts that I've already seen before. Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, AC/DC, Keith Urban, Gary Allan, The Black Keys, Foo Fighters...the list goes on.

Of course, this is not all-inclusive. I'll go see pretty much anyone if I'm in the mood for a show and the genre is right. The point is that concerts are great, and you should go to some. I'm going with Zimm and Shoeless Joel to see Wilco next week, so that's exciting again.

In Case You Haven't Heard...

2008-07-22T00:53:00.001-04:00

I joined the masses of humanity on Friday night that clamored to see The Dark Knight. As you’ve heard, it’s fantastic. This is hardly news – even a mere three days after its release, positive reviews aren’t even timely. But just to add my two cents, Heath Ledger was indeed unbelievably good, and Christian Bale is the man as always. The thing that sets Bale apart from anyone that’s played Batman is that when he’s in the costume, he is Batman. With Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney…that always looked like those guys wearing a Batman suit. But when Bale is playing Batman, he’s playing Batman. Not a disguised Bruce Wayne. If you didn’t know that Bale was playing the character, you’d never recognize him with the suit on. And to me, that’s an underrated part of what makes this and Batman Begins so good.

And let’s not forget Christopher Nolan. This guy has a resume that’s unrivaled for the number of films he’s made. He wrote and directed Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige, and now The Dark Knight. He’s also done both Following and Doodlebug, which I can’t speak for since I haven’t seen them yet. But still. That’s four movies that are all fantastic.

In other news, it looks like we finally have our travel plans figured out for the next little while. Jessica and the boys will be heading out to Delaware on the 9th to catch her brother’s wedding reception (the wedding is in Oklahoma, which is not an option), and I’ll be following on the 22nd for my sister’s wedding the next day. One of my goals while everyone’s gone is to do a bunch of video and photo editing. I’ve got a ridiculous amount of both that are untouched, waiting to be edited and put on DVD (in the video’s case anyway.) And when I do that, hopefully I’ll get around to posting some of it in this very space. You can start getting excited now. Also hopefully that will inspire me to start taking more pictures and video. There is shamefully little of both featuring Ronin. We’ve been the stereotypical parents who have a ton of footage of the first child, and very little of the second. But at least he’s only a year old, so hopefully it’s not to late to avoid giving him a complex when he gets older.

Speaking of things I wasn’t talking about, I finally fixed the siding that was hanging off my house. During one of the winter storms, we had some siding blow off of one of the gables. I bought a ladder in December, but of course at that point it was too cold to get up there and cut/nail siding. So we had siding hanging askew on the roof for about 7 months. It’s funny what you stop noticing after a while. The catalyst for me to actually get up there and fix it was that I saw birds flying too close to the house, and it reminded me of the last time I had birds living in the house. I decided to prevent another couple of birds crawling in there and dying.

But anyway, it’s getting late. I think we’re slowly getting back into the swing of things here. No gimmicks this time…I’m trying to do it organically. I’m not sure if that’s the right term for it, but whatever. Till next time.

All Wet...Again

2008-06-30T19:46:00.000-04:00

Remember that story I never finished about my basement flooding? Well, it happened again. I don’t know if I even mentioned what caused the flood last time, but it ended up that the wiring in our house isn’t well done. I don’t know the details, but the ground fault interrupter or something, which is a safety switch that turns off the power to certain appliances if the circuit overloads, isn’t set up right. So what happens is that if the circuit overloads, everything plugged into a GFCI outlet loses power.

Well, it’s an easy enough fix if you know that the circuit has shut off, so after last year we didn’t think it’d be a big deal. If you see that the GFCI overloads, you just push the reset button on one of the outlets, and you’re all set to go. Also we had lived here for two years prior to the flood with no problems, so we figured it was probably a fluke thing. Obviously we were wrong on all counts, as it happened again last week. It was raining pretty hard at the time, and Jessica had just seen that the circuit was still working because we’ve got a night light plugged into one of the GFCI outlets to let us know they’re functional. Ten minutes later, water was seeping through the carpet in the basement.

Another reason we didn’t get the wiring fixed last year was that the electrician that came out told us it would cost several thousand dollars to fix. Seeing as how we had just spent a healthy sum on drying out the basement, such an investment just wasn’t feasible at the time. With this happening, however, we decided to just bite the bullet and get the stupid thing fixed. Well, another electrician came out today (different guy, same company) and gave us an estimate: $320. So needless to say, we’re pretty pleased that there’s one zero fewer than was expected. Now once we take care of however much it’ll cost to get the basement dried out again (it wasn’t nearly as bad this time, so it shouldn’t be too ridiculous), hopefully we’ll be done spending money on fixing water damage in the house.

So anyway, here I am posting again. I won’t make lame excuses, because they’re lame. I’ve just let myself get busy and bogged down again with work, and blogging took a backseat to everything else – even though I seriously would think about it almost daily. I would constantly think, “I’ve got to blog about this,” or “I’ve got to post that picture.” Alas, I never did either of those things. So hopefully in the next little while I’ll be able to catch you up on some happenings. The kids are entertaining (and/or maddening) as ever, so there’s plenty of stories and whatnot to talk about. I’ll be back soon. Hey, if Matt could revitalize his blog, why can’t I?

Summary of the Next 30 Days

2008-03-01T01:43:00.000-05:00

Like Zimm mentioned, I can’t quite believe that February is already over. It’s already time for a summary of the second 30 days. There was good and bad this month, as I am indeed back in the habit of practicing the guitar, but I missed a pretty significant number of days. And why, you may ask, is this the case? Well, I can sum it up in two words: Guitar Hero.

I got Guitar Hero III for my birthday (the 20^th), and I haven’t put it down since. Of course, the byproduct of this is that I’m awesome. Not crazy awesome, like the people who can play the expert level and get perfect scores, but I’m pretty good at medium difficulty. Mind you I do realize that it’s hardly an important accomplishment to be good at Guitar Hero, but I don’t care. It is much fun.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. So without further ado, the summary of the second 30 days:

Total Days Practiced: 20

Total Days Missed: 10

Was it Worthwhile? Definitely. I’m as good on the guitar now as I’ve ever been (which, granted, isn’t saying a whole lot), and I got a refresher on power chords, barre chords, and some scales I hadn’t done in a while. My fingers are nice and calloused, I’m in the habit of practicing and I’m enjoying it. So hopefully I’ll be able to keep playing and get better. It’s definitely something I’m having fun with again.

What’s Next? Well, at the moment I’m going to take the weekend off. Jessica’s sick, and I need to take care of a little business this weekend before I get rolling on the next project. So I’ll make the final decision over the weekend and let you know what it is on Monday. At the moment though, I’m sleepy. Good night.

Happy Anniversary

2008-02-16T08:26:00.002-05:00

Today I get to celebrate spending seven years with my best friend. Happy Anniversary, baby. Seven years and two kids later, I love you more than I ever have.

First 30 Days Results

2008-01-30T23:22:00.000-05:00

The story of the manager meeting will be largely told in pictures at some point this week, but for now it's time for a look back at the past 30 days and how I've done with my commitment to blogging every day.

Total posts: 25 (including this)

Days missed: 4 (I wrote a little post that I never actually published because of the poor internet connection, then I missed the next three days at the meeting outright. Once I missed those days, the little blip of a post was no longer worth putting up.)

Was it worthwhile? Definitely. I may not always have published a gem--heck, I may not have published a gem all month--but I'm back into it now. And without the obligation to post daily, I might be able to actually put some more time into a few of my posts. Not that they're usually masterpieces or anything, but things are better when they're not rushed, right?

What's Next? I've got a list of eleven more things that I can do this year, and I stared at it for about 20 minutes before making the decision. The list, by the way, will remain unrevealed at the moment since it's a living document. Also, if you have any suggestions (smartass or otherwise), feel free to post them in the comments. But as for the next 30 days, I'll be practicing the guitar. It's another of those things I want to get back in the habit of doing. So we'll get to tell pretty early in the year if I have any stick-to-it-iveness, or if I can only commit to something like this while I'm constantly being reminded. (I know I've heard people say that word, but how does one spell it? And is it even a word?)

As a side note, I'm planning on updating my MMA blog over on MMATorch.com on a daily basis for four weeks, starting next week. This will be independent of the Year of the Month projects. I want to do that because it's a lot easier to come up with ideas and write columns if I'm in the habit of writing regularly and thinking of smaller subjects for shorter column lengths.

So I may or may not post tomorrow, but you can bet it won't be another six weeks before you hear from me again.

Speaking of Communicable Diseases...

2008-01-30T00:03:00.000-05:00

I feel like crap. I caught something at the manager meeting last week (the flu was going around), so I got sick on Sunday, which wasn't too bad. Just a sore throat and some coughing and whatnot. So I stayed home from church and felt fine yesterday. So today the flu hits Jessica like a hammer, and she can hardly move. I come home and suddenly I'm all congested and annoyed by the multitude of mucous. So I'm not going to be telling stories tonight, fish or otherwise. I will say, however, that you should check out my mom's blog. She's been updating.

A Day to Mourn the Prophet

2008-01-28T22:31:00.000-05:00

Instead of talking about myself today, as I promised to do before, I'm putting in a bit of a moment of silence, as it were, out of respect to Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You may have already read about the passing of President Hinckley, or read the thoughts of other bloggers, and I'll add mine to those which have already been written.

President Hinckley is the first living prophet that I was able to see and hear in person (at least the first that I remember clearly; I have vague memories of seeing Spencer W. Kimball when I was younger.) The feeling you get in the presence of one who carries that mantle is indescribable. It seems odd to even be talking about this, even though President Hinckley was 97 years old. He was another who never seemed like an old man. The fact that he was the one chosen to make the Church more well-known to the general worldwide public is hardly disputable. For a quick summary of what President Hinckley did, here's an article from the New York Times. It's hardly all-inclusive, but a good read nonetheless. I don't talk about religion much in this space, but there's a time for everything. I, along with many of the LDS faith, will miss President Hinckley greatly. At the same time, however, what a joyful reunion must be taking place today between him and his wife, who passed a few years ago.

Large Make-Up Post Coming Tomorrow

2008-01-27T23:07:00.000-05:00

I've had a nice weekend to relax after wearing myself out at the meeting, but after a fun evening of approving employee hours (not to mention the fact that I still have some budget stuff I'd like to do ), I have no desire to do anymore typing tonight. So I'll be back tomorrow to tell fish stories (true ones, mind you) and talk about limo rides, steak, chimpanzees, getting my groove on solo in a suit, communicable diseases, and more. I'll even have some pictures to share. So be ready for that tomorrow. Of course, I'm gon' be plenty busy tomorrow, too, so we'll see how much of that is actually discussed.

Don't Leave Drinks in the Car

2008-01-21T22:22:00.000-05:00

[Note: I'm in my hotel in Florida right now. Despite being a very nice hotel, they don't have very good wireless Internet here. In fact, I'll be lucky to stay connected long enough to post this. It's kind of like living in the Stone Age, only with HBO. But anyway, my point is that if you don't hear from me at any point this week, I'm more than likely still writing, but unable to post.]

It’s 6:05am, and I’m currently on my way to the airport in a big white limousine. This shuttle company kills me. I’ve used them a couple of times before, and I always request a sedan. Every time, they pick me up in a limo. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It’s comfortable and it’s pretty cool to rolling around Kokomo in style. It just feels a bit excessive to be the only one in the car. But anyway, I’ve got a story to tell.

Yesterday morning was like most Sundays. I got up and got ready for church as usual, then walked out in the zero-degree cold to my car. The car was in the driveway instead of the garage, because as I’ve mentioned before my garage door is sometimes loathe to operate correctly in the cold. As such, the car had frosted over in the night. I figured it wasn’t a big deal, and I’d just start it up for a few minutes before I left and get the heat going, so I wouldn’t have to scrape it. So as I opened my car door, I noticed something on the inside of the window. I thought it was odd that something would be there, and the mystery of its origins would soon be solved when I looked inside.

A bit of back story: Whenever I work Saturdays, it’s a pretty long shift. Usually about 5am-4pm or so. So during that shift, I usually get pretty hungry, but in particular I get thirsty. So this past Saturday I decided to bring a soda with me for when I would get thirsty. I left it in the car, since I figured the car would keep it cold, and I’d come and get it when I wanted it. As luck would have it, on this particular Saturday I wasn’t thirsty at all. So the soda remained in the car and I forgot about it. Combine that with the fact that the car spent Saturday night in the freezing cold driveway, and you have a perfect storm of coincidence which brought about the disaster I’m about to speak of.

You’ll remember that earlier in the month, I talked about a phenomenon known as the exploding soda can. This is what took place in my car some time on Saturday night or Sunday morning. So when I opened my door yesterday and looked at what lay before me I was, shall we say, distressed. There was frozen soda everywhere. On the seats, on the steering wheel, the glove compartment, the back seat, the cargo space. It had gotten the front and the back of the Explorer in equal parts. Needless to say, I was going to be late for church.

I set about the task of cleaning up with much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. As you may or may not know, frozen soda is much easier to clean up than liquid soda. So in order to keep the soda frozen while I cleaned, I had to leave the car off and clean it in the zero-degree cold. With no gloves. Oh, did I not mention that? On the Friday before, Zimm gave me a ride back from the regional meeting, and I left my jacket (with my gloves in the pockets) in his car. So I had no gloves, and I was cleaning the soda with a wet paper towel. As you may guess, it was cold as frick. Whenever I made a trip into the house, I would run my hands under the hot water so that I could feel them again before I went back out.

So to summarize, I used the paper towel on the seats (thank goodness they’re vinyl and not fabric), and the ice scraper on the inside of the windows, because all of the windows had been sprayed. After all this was done, I got ready to get back in the car, thinking to myself, “Well, that could have been worse.” No sooner than the thought had entered my mind did I look up at the ceiling of the car and see that the situation could indeed not have been worse. For covering the ceiling was a layer of soda-ice that would be impenetrable by paper towel. I’m not exaggerating either. I couldn’t see parts of the ceiling because the ice was covering it completely. So while my fury ran white-hot, I knew I had to take action before starting the car, because I couldn’t clean it effectively, and if I just left it there, it would surely be raining soda in a short while.

So with that in mind, I grabbed a garbage bag and some duct tape. I proceeded to tape the garbage bag to the ceiling in order to catch the soda as it melted. You see, I had no desire to have soda rain down on my car’s interior.

So that’s where we are right now. The bag is still taped to the ceiling, and I’m not going to be home until Friday. Convenient, right? I’ll be taking it in for some upholstery cleaning as soon as is permissible when I get back. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m sleepy and I’ve still got about 45 minutes till we get to the airport. Till tomorrow.

Rolling Again

2008-01-21T00:29:00.000-05:00

I'm finally packed and ready to go. I'm heading to Florida tomorrow for the company's annual manager meeting. As is the case with most meetings, I expect great boredom during the day, with a few fun things at night. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Had I gotten around to it earlier, I'd have already told the story of what happened this morning (actually I'm not sure when it actually happened, but I discovered it this morning). That story will have to wait for tomorrow. For now, it's time to get to bed. I've got an airport shuttle coming to pick me up at 6:00.

Hot Streak

2008-01-19T22:38:00.001-05:00

You know, the good thing about not having time to watch a lot of movies for a while is that since I finally got to check out a bunch of movies, they've all been great. The first movie I saw this year was "Next", which was fine. I give it 3 stars out of 5, mostly for unintentional (or intentional) Nicholas Cage humor. Seriously, when he's in a goofy movie, he can be fun to watch. But anyway, let me just enumerate to you the movies I've seen since then, with their accompanying star ratings:

"Eastern Promises" (****)
"Shoot 'Em Up" (****)
"Glengarry Glen Ross" (****)
"Frenzy" (****)
"The Orphanage" (*****)
"3:10 to Yuma" (*****)
"Cloverfield" (****)

That, my friends, is seven straight movies that I have loved. Seriously though, "Cloverfield" is awesome. My wife saw it in Delaware today with her dad and brother, and I didn't want to wait, so I went and saw it myself. I want to watch it again right now, actually, to see stuff I missed before. Apparently the movie is getting some mixed reviews, though. It seems to be largely popular among critics, but it didn't get a great reaction at the theater where I saw it, or the theater where Jessica saw it. Also Jessica and her company disliked it. I don't know what there is to dislike, honestly. But I won't get into that right now, at least until a couple more people see it, and we can have a discussion.

In other news, my mom is the first to acknowledge that she has been tagged, so go check out her blog if you will. The rest of you, get to it, will you?

The Scene at the Theater

2008-01-18T23:11:00.000-05:00

As Zimm told you, we saw "The Orphanage" last night. And also as he told you, it was absolutely fantastic. I find no fault with it. It was scary in the way that a movie is supposed to be scary. It doesn't gross you out, it doesn't exploit violence or cruelty, but it gives you something to be scared of, and a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I think it might also have been the first time I've seen a foreign language movie in the theater, oddly enough. I'm certainly not averse to seeing movies with subtitles, as this was the third Spanish-speaking movie from Guillermo del Toro that I've seen. "The Devi's Backbone" and "Pan's Labyrinth" were also awesome, so I'm officially a fan. On the way to the theater, though, there was a fun exchange with the girl working the ticket counter. It went as follows:

We join our heroes as they enter the movie theater, already running a bit late for El Orfanato, the movie they plan on seeing on that particular night. It's late in Fort Wayne, and there are no patrons ahead of Zimm and Tha Docta as they approach Girl at the Ticket Counter.

Zimm: I'd like one for El Orfanato.

Girl at the Ticket Counter: What?

Zimm: The 10:00 El Orfanato.

Girl: (stares blankly)

Tha Docta: The Orphanage.

Girl: Oh! Okay.

Zimm: Thanks.

Tha Docta: Also one for The Orphanage.

Girl: Here you go. (pauses) Ohh! You were speaking Spanish! That movie's in Spanish, right? I only took like one year of Spanish. The second year was way too hard. I don't know Spanish.

Zimm and Tha Docta take their turn to stare blankly.

Girl (to Zimm): So there's subtitles, right?

Zimm: Um...yeah.

Girl: But you won't even need them, huh? You understand what's going on, right? Because you speak Spanish?

Zimm: Sure...yeah, I can pretty much follow it.

Girl: Ha! Spanish was way too hard for me after the first year.

Zimm and Tha Docta move slowly toward the theater, leaving Girl at the Ticket Counter still talking.

Tha Docta: What just happened?

Zimm: I don't know.

End scene.

Good times, my friends.

Intermission

2008-01-17T18:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm in between the meeting and the dinner today, and Zimm and I will likely catch a movie after dinner, so I'm posting now just in case. I literally have nothing to report about the meeting other than I'm not a fan of meetings. We're going to a jazz club tonight for dinner, so that should be fun. I'll let you know how that goes. Also, to respond to my mom's comment: medium was pink all the way through, so I figured medium rare might start to get cold. I like pink, but I'm not down with losing heat. I'm just sayin.

Mmmmm.....Steak.

2008-01-17T00:43:00.000-05:00

Zimm and I drove up to Fort Wayne today for the meeting that we have tomorrow and Friday. To start things off, we all went to Eddie Merlot's, a steak and seafood restaurant. The meal lasted about three hours between the appetizer, salad, main course and dessert. I started things off with some calamari and spinach & artichoke dip. Both (especially the dip) were fantastic. The salad was good, but a little heavy on the red onions. I've never been a big fan of red onions (too strong for me.) Then of course, the steak. Good grief, the steak. I had two four-ounce fillet medallions. One of them had a bleu cheese crust, and the other had a peppercorn thing going on. I've never had good experiences with bleu cheese, but this was an exception. It was very, very delicious. The peppercorn, though, was the highlight. The steak was seasoned and cooked perfectly (medium) with a nice kick. Fantastic. Along with the steak, we had some asparagus, sauteed mushrooms, mashed potatoes, and fries. Good stuff. Finally, I got the apple and peach crisp for dessert, which was an enormous container full of apple and peach crisp, topped with vanilla ice cream. All in all, everything was excellent. The steak, though, may have been the best I've ever had. I've been eating healthier this year so far, but man that was worth the lapse. Gotta love business dinners.

Tomorrow and Friday will inevitably be annoying, as the meeting is all about planning the year and setting goals. But hopefully the food will continue to be the highlight. I had to do some work when I got to the hotel room tonight, so hopefully that won't continue either. Until tomorrow.

It!

2008-01-16T00:59:00.000-05:00

Okay, here's the deal: It's 1:00 am on Wednesday, but this counts for Tuesday's post, because I make the rules and I say so. One thing for which I did not make the rules, however, is this game of blog-tag. And so, here I am with a writing assignment. I need to finish packing for the meeting I'm going to tomorrow, I've got dishes to do, and it'd be kind of nice to get some sleep tonight, but hey. Duty calls, and I've put it off long enough. The rules are as follows:

A. The Rules are posted at the beginning

B. Each player answers about themselves.
C. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people, posts their names, and goes to their blogs letting them know they've been tagged.

(I might add that Amelia never actually came to my blog to tell me I was tagged, but who's keeping score here?)

5 Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago
1. Starting my second semester of my freshman year at BYU, after having the most fun I'd ever had up to that point, and getting the worst grades I'd ever gotten in school.
2. Playing in the two-man band Autumn Eclipse with Zimm (maybe we'll get the band back together for a couple of recordings at some point...)
3. Taking a dance class to pick up chicks. (I was good, too.) (At dancing, I mean.) (And picking up chicks.)
4. Going out when I should have been studying...taking Shoeless Joel's car, where it fit the whole crew only when Johnny rode in the back.
5. Having water fights in the dorm that were intense enough to get the floors above and below us wet.

5 Things On My To-Do List Today
1. Pack for the two-day regional meeting starting tomorrow (almost done)
2. Watch Glengarry Glen Ross, which has been chilling on my DVR for a while (almost done)
3. Get some groceries (done)
4. Put together some spreadsheets at work for other locations (done)
5. Do a complete staffing analysis so that I can tell how many more people I need to hire (done).

5 Snacks I Enjoy (A shorter list would be 5 snacks I don't enjoy, if I could come up with 5 things)
1. Town House crackers with sharp cheese or peanut butter (not at the same time), accompanied by orange juice
2. Any flavor of Fritos
3. Most things involving chips and dip (tortilla chips/salsa, potato chips/french onion, etc.)
4. Fries with fry sauce or honey mustard (the best condiment and/or salad dressing in existence)
5. Ice cream with some milk to give it that certain consistency that enhances deliciousness

5 Things I'd Do if I Were a Billionaire
1. Give my friends a million dollars each
2. Make sure my parents and in-laws were taken care of and could retire
3. Run an Alamo Drafthouse-style movie theater, but less Texas-y
4. Travel a lot.
5. Attend every UFC event and every Eagles game live, along with a bunch of Phillies, Flyers and Sixers games.

3 Bad Habits
1. I tend to procrastinate, not that you would ever know that by reading this oft-updated blog
2. I'm too organized with things that aren't important, and not organized enough with things that are.
3. I talk too much after I've already made whatever point I'm trying to make

5 Jobs I've Had
1. Pizza delivery guy
2. Mover
3. Drug store clerk
4. Video store assistant manager
5. Dish washer at Boston Market

5 Things People Probably Don't Know About Me
1. I was a big pro wrestling fan as a kid, and I still enjoy the occasional good match
2. I played the saxophone in fourth grade, but just for a little while
3. There was a point in my life when I wanted to be a statistician (I call this my "I'm a boring person" period.)
4. My right front tooth is half fake, because I chipped my tooth in fifth grade when I passed out from sucking too much helium from a balloon
5. The only bones I've ever broken are my thumb and my pinky toe.

So there you go. I've poured my soul out to you. And I choose to tag the following people (brace yourselves):

Zimm
Kristen
Johnny
Joel
My Mom

Zimm likes this kind of thing, because he likes to talk about himself; Johnny, Kristen and my mom haven't updated their blogs in forever, and Joel gets to do it because I said so. Have at it.

Checking In

2008-01-14T23:12:00.000-05:00

I'm back in Indiana after a day of traveling, and it's cold here. I was going to do the post in response to being tagged tonight, but I'm getting a few things done in anticipation of my upcoming two-day region meeting followed by the 5-day manager meeting. So tomorrow it is.

I'll Make Up For This on My Business Trips

2008-01-12T22:35:00.001-05:00

Maybe. It's tough to get a more than a few minutes to put together a post of any substance while I'm hanging with family. So yeah, I'm here, but I'm still keeping it short. We're watching the Patriots beat the Jags right now, which makes me exceedingly sad. I hate the Patriots with a passion. It's worth saying that Donte Stallworth, whom the Eagles neglected to sign after the end of last season, just made a huge catch. Hello, obnoxious.

Quickie

2008-01-11T21:17:00.000-05:00

So basically I have less time today than I had yesterday, what with the funeral and the lack of flight delay. So I'm just dropping in to say that the funeral was very nice, and also that someone needs to comment after that last post. It took too long to go unacknowledged. I realize now that I should have split it into two posts, but at least lie to me and tell me that one of you read it. I'll be back with more tomorrow.

Surgery Stories from the Airport

2008-01-10T17:43:00.000-05:00

So I figured on writing a couple of posts last night, and posting one of them just after midnight so that it would count for today. I didn’t get around to actually doing that, so I was somewhat concerned that between going to work and leaving for Delaware, I wouldn’t have time to write more than a “Hello, Goodbye” type thing, if I even got to it before midnight tonight. But wait! What should happen when I get the airport in Indianapolis? My flight is delayed for an hour. And so I get to bust out the laptop, put some Jay-Z on my giant headphones, and go to town for a bit. Of course, the wireless connection here is not great, so I may not be able to actually post this for a while, but it’s being written at 3:30. I’m just sayin.

I’d do the thing that Amelia tagged me with, but again, I can’t really get online to see what the questions are and answer them. So that will have to wait until Friday. I’d also finish my basement story, but I can’t remember where I left off. So luckily I have one more story to tell, and it is about a body part. Not the one you’re thinking of, but my knee.

Every year, a bunch of the guys from church get together and play football on Thanksgiving. It’s lots of fun, and so I was looking forward to it this year. Zimm’s brother-in-law Matt and I went to the field by the church on Tuesday night and painted in some end zones and sidelines, so there would be no disputing in/out of bounds or whether or not someone crossed the threshold of the end zone. With Matt as the quarterback and me as the big-time receiver (I know what you’re thinking, but it’s true!), we were ready to go.

Of course, this being Indiana, the day came and the weather was nasty. It snowed the day before, and it continued to rain and be cold that morning. This didn’t faze anyone of course, because everyone knows that football is best played on a sloppy field. So we got going and took a commanding lead (the teams were a bit lopsided in our favor this year, since we played old guys against young guys—young guys being 18 and younger, and with a distinct height disadvantage), and it was our turn to be on defense. I went to drop back into coverage on a routine play, and we just happened to be in the sloppiest part of the field. As I backed up, I slipped in some mud and felt the familiar sensation of my knee buckling as ligaments stretched and slid around. Not the best. So I went down and figured I was done for the day. This wasn’t the first time I’d messed up my knee, which would likely lead one to believe that I wear a knee brace when I play sports (one would be wrong). Usually when it happened (once every couple of years or so), I’d limp around for a little bit, then be fine in a couple of hours. Thinking this was the case at that particular time, I attempted to walk it off for a little while so that I could get back into the game (hey—I don’t get to play football all that often, okay?)

Needless to say, I determined that I could still play after a little while, though I was still limping. The injury worked in my favor game-wise, since no one wanted to cover me, and I could limp out for a few yards, wide open, and catch check-down passes. So we played for a while longer until it was time to go, at which point I called my wife and gave her the story on my knee. She was not pleased, but I played it off, because hey, this kind of thing has happened before.

The first indication that this time was different came when I got home and had a look at my knee. It was roughly eight times the size of my other knee, which had never heretofore been the case. I still wasn’t alarmed, because I figured I had just sprained something, and I could stay off it for a little bit and be okay. Worst case scenario, I’d be fine in a couple of days. Unfortunately for my knee, it wasn’t an option to stay home. We were taking the boys to the children’s museum in Indy the next day, so I was going to have to figure something out with my lame self. (Excuse me for a moment while I get that dirt off my shoulder…thank you.)

We ended up going to the museum as planned, and I used the stroller as a makeshift walker on the way inside. Luckily for me, the museum rented out wheelchairs, so I got to wheel myself around in that for the day. I was hoping I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew (not because it’s embarrassing to be in a wheelchair you understand; I just didn’t want to have to tell the story), and I was fortunate in that way as well. So that was all fine.

Well, a couple more days came and went, and I decided I should probably go get my knee checked out, because it was still rather large, and I couldn’t bend it. I went in and they gave me an X-Ray, which I thought was kind of silly, because of course it wasn’t something with a bone. As expected, the doctor said there was an “effusion” around my knee, which as far as I can tell means “stuff that’s surrounding the knee, making it big”. This was not a news flash. So I got referred to the orthopedic dude in Carmel (a tasty suburb of Indy.) I went there on Friday, figuring I’d get an MRI and they’d figure out what was wrong. Well, I got to the office (about 45 minutes away), signed in, waited for about 15 minutes, got called back to the exam room, took my pants off, waited for another 15 minutes, then saw the doctor. He felt my knee for a few minutes, asked me a couple of questions, and then said, “Okay, I think it’s a torn meniscus. I’m going to send you for an MRI, which you can have done in Kokomo.” At this point I was confused, because I live in Kokomo, and really I already knew I needed an MRI. So I had driven a total of an hour and a half, waited for half an hour, and had the substance of my visit take five minutes all so that I could get sent for something I already knew I’d need. Of course, without that visit, I could hardly have paid my $30 co pay, right?

The MRI was good times. I had just watched the episode of “House” the night before where the magician swallowed a key before he went into the MRI and it got sucked out of his intestines by the magnet, so I made sure not to swallow any foreign (especially metal) objects before I went in. Or at least I made sure they passed through the system beforehand.

What I didn’t realize from all my experiences with MRI machines (again, most of that experience comes from watching “House”) was that they are exceedingly loud. The tech gave me some headphones before the procedure was to start, and she said the radio was broken, so she’d have to put in a CD. She asked if Rascall Flatts was okay. I figured that was just about a small step above listening to an MRI machine for 45 minutes, so I said sure.

If you haven’t had an MRI before, I’ll explain the process. Basically they take whichever part of your body is ailing, stick whichever half of your body encompasses that part in a loud tube for an hour, and tell you to sit completely still for the duration. Luckily for me, the knee is in the lower half of the body, so I didn’t get my head stuck in the tube. That would have made me claustrophobic, and I might have gone crazy having to sit still for that long, or at least turned into the Incredible Hulk. No, I was merely waist-deep in the magnet tube. So seeing as how I was supposed to hold still and I was sleepy, I managed to take a nap, despite the loud high-voicedness that was Rascall Flatts assaulting my eardrums.

It took a few days for the results to come back, and in the meantime I continued to limp around. Zimm said at one point that I looked like Anton Chigurh from “No Country for Old Men” with the way I was lurching and having shaggy hair (I didn’t quite have the bowl-cut-bob of Chigurh, mind you.) The office called with the results eventually and said that the problem was indeed not a torn meniscus, as the doctor had originally theorized, but a piece of broken bone that was floating around in my knee area. She told me that it was a chip from my femoral something-or-other, meaning the top of my femur. This sounded like it should have been quite painful, but in truth I didn’t hurt too badly at all. (This, if you’re wondering, is because I’m a badass.) The problem was simply that I couldn’t really walk well because my knee felt like it was going to buckle. (Which didn’t really fit with the diagnosis until I found out more about muscle and bone structure later on. I will not bore you with this information, but just trust me when I say that it makes sense now.)

So the verdict was that I would need surgery to get the piece of bone out. Shocking, right? I’d never had surgery up to this point, so I was actually kind of excited for the new experience. It was scheduled for a week later in Carmel again.

Before the surgery, I got some material in the mail that told me a little of what to expect. I was supposed to shave me knee and a few inches above and below, and I was also supposed to write “No” on the knee that was not to be sliced. I will say this: shaving legs that have never been shaved before is not the easiest of tasks. I have five blades on my razor, and I needed all of them for about 20 minutes to carve through the forest of knee hair. I wondered at one point if a machete might not do the job better. And I’m not even all that hairy. As for writing on my knee, I figured if I was going to write on it, I might as well go all the way. I took a sharpie and wrote “NO. Please use other knee (the smooth one).” I have a picture, which I’ll post when I get back from Delaware, since I don’t have it on me. They also mentioned that I should have someone drive me to the hospital so that I’d have a ride home afterwards. I thought perhaps I’d be able to drive home, but found that apparently they use this thing in surgery called “anesthetic” that renders one incapable of operating motor vehicles. I wondered if it was like Nyquil.

It was not like Nyquil. I was wheeled into the surgery room, and the anesthesiologist said he was going to give me something to make me relax. I said, “I’m actually pretty relaxed right now.” He said, “No, I mean relaxed.” You know the most disturbing thing about being under for the surgery? There was absolutely no sensation of the passage of time. I woke up and didn’t even know that they had started. Also, I have no recollection of the events that occurred directly after the surgery. According to my wife, however, I was loud, obnoxious, and prone to fits of laughter. Apparently I asked the nurse loudly if the surgeon had seen the knee that I wrote on, and I laughed for a good few minutes when she said she was sure they had seen it. That’s hardly all I said, too. She knows better than I do, and she was lamenting the fact that she didn’t bring the video camera. There was also one point when the nurse was going to take my IV out, and I said, “You should have told me to shave my arm too. This is going to hurt! Oooooh, it’s gonna hurt! Is this gonna hurt? Ohhhhh.” Or something to that effect. I heard all sorts of things that I allegedly did, but I can’t remember what most of them were anymore.

The epilogue to the story is that I’m walking pretty well now, though my knee is still a bit tight. I don’t especially like climbing ladders, but I can do it. I can also go up and down stairs, but I don’t know that I could run right now. Oh—and one more thing. Before the surgery, in between the 45 times they asked me which knee was being operated on (didn’t they read my message?), they told me that the piece of bone was actually from my kneecap. I thought that made a little more sense than the top of my femur, but I still don’t get how it happened. No one even hit my knee. It just buckled. Oh well. Guess I’ll wear a knee brace next year.

Getting Ready to Go

2008-01-09T22:15:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm all packed up and ready to roll out to Delaware for the funeral on Saturday. Now it's just a matter of getting things completely in order at work before I go. This wouldn't be as difficult as it's going to be if I hadn't had such a useless day yesterday. I had no desire to do anything at work or at home. Not the best timing, since I'm taking off for the weekend. I'll be flying out tomorrow afternoon and coming back Monday afternoon. And the best part? My mom had a bunch of miles on her US Airways account and got me a ticket for five bones. Thanks, Mom!

I don't have too much else to say tonight, though I'll acknowledge that I've been tagged by my good friend Amelia (the wife of Shoeless Joel, mind you). More on that either tomorrow (though between working, driving, flying and visiting, I don't know how much time I'll have to write) or Friday. But for now, I leave you with videos (that won't play automatically when you load the page.)

1. The reason I love Joss Stone:

2. The reason that I wish heroin didn't ruin Stone Temple Pilots:

3. The reason it's good for songwriters to get their hearts broken (though he's married to Nicole Kidman now, and is probably over whatever caused this song):

4. The reason I'm excited for U2's new album and subsequent tour this year:

And I bid you goodnight.

Bye, Mom-Mom

2008-01-08T20:19:00.000-05:00

I got word this morning that my grandmother died. She's not been well for a while, so it wasn't entirely unexpected, but it's always sad to lose a grandparent. And Mom-Mom was great. I won't take too much space to eulogize here, but she was always very kind to me and to everyone else, though I don't know that you'd want to cross her too often. That was part of what made her fun, was that she never seemed behind the times to me. She never seemed old outside of, you know, having a high number for an age. Mom-Mom had an email address, and used it more often than my dad does. She watched every Phillies game every season (though she only ever saw one game in person - last year.) She always had something nice to say if she wanted to, and she had a quick wit to go with that. I'm glad for her that she'll be with Pop-Pop now, who died a few years back, because I know she missed him terribly. As a side note, those of you who aren't from the East may wonder at the Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop names, so just trust me when I tell you it's an East Coast thing. Heck, it's my parents' names now too. How weird is that?

At the Wire

2008-01-07T23:50:00.000-05:00

Just got home from work...I'm trying to use the time while everyone's gone to put in some long hours at the beginning of the week and get caught up on things at the office. Today I did some out-of-my-office things while everyone was gone (since that's the only time I can really get some peace and get things done outside my office), so tomorrow I'll look to close my door and pretend I'm not there so I can catch up on paperwork and such. Not my favorite, but if I do it all at once and get to a nice starting point, hopefully I can stay caught up this time. It should be a bit easier than it has been, since I'll be getting some more help.

Since you asked, I'll tell you. At my job, the management team consists of the manager (me), two assistants, two center supervisors, and at least one training supervisor. Since April, I've only had one assistant. Since August, I've had no training supervisor. So my assistant and I have essentially been doing the job of four people (the center supervisors can't do a lot of what assistants and training supervisors do.) And now my one assistant is taking another position, and one of my center supervisors is stepping down because the position got to be too much for her. So it's just me and one other person. On the bright side, I've got a new assistant that started today, and I hired a training supervisor as well. There's also a guy coming down from Fort Wayne (I hired him when I was up there), and he wants to apply for my vacant second assistant position. So if that works out, I'll go from almost nothing to almost everything in the time that it takes to train an assistant and a training supervisor (about two or three months, depending on certain things.) And now you see why I never talk about work. You're welcome. Back with more tomorrow.

Fi'n to Be By Myself For a While

2008-01-06T20:09:00.000-05:00

Jessica and the boys are going to Delaware for about three weeks starting tomorrow. It's something she likes to do when I go out of town on business. When she bought the plane tickets, I had a meeting scheduled for this week in Cincinnati, and another scheduled from the 21st to the 25th in Naples, FL. Of course, the week after she bought the tix, the first meeting was rescheduled for next week. Luckily of course, it's still all within the range of them being gone. I just hope it doesn't get rescheduled again.

So I'll be flying solo for a while, which is fine for a few days, but gets old after a bit. We'll see what happens here. I'll surely be checking out some movies during the time, but I'll also be catching up on fights. I've got a ton of fights to watch. Speaking of movies though, I saw the first few minutes of "The Dark Knight", which is playing with "I Am Legend" in the IMAX theaters, and I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am for it. In just that short clip, it is apparent to me that Heath Ledger has nailed the role of The Joker. Yes, I am a nerd. For what it's worth, I also enjoyed I Am Legend. I had a small quibble with it, but it was largely a good movie, and very entertaining. You know, I always forget how big the IMAX screen is between visits. Then I remember when I have to turn my head to see what's happening on the other side of the screen.

Anyway, I'm keeping it short tonight because I'm getting up way too early tomorrow to take everyone to the airport. The flight leaves at an ungodly 6:20 am, and we live an hour away from the airport, so you do the math. I'm also planning on working some serious hours tomorrow so that I don't work a bunch of big days this week. We'll see how that goes.

More Difficult Than I Thought

2008-01-05T23:10:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to think that this whole "30 straight days of blogging" thing might be a little more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Not because I forget to post or anything like that. The problem is either that I don't have anything to say, or that I have too much to say, but I need to get a post up and don't want to split something into two posts.

Take today. It's 11:15 pm again, and I don't want to sit and bang out the rest of my basement story, or my knee story, or talk about a few things I've been saving, because all of that would take too long. Not to mention that typing on this laptop is a little goofy with my spacebar the way it is. You saw the picture in my post from New Year's Day, and the spacebar needs some extra force in order for the space to "take". So I'm here like a bass player slapping the fret with my thumb after every word. Kind of annoying. At the same time, I don't want to throw up too many cop-out posts, or the kind where all I say is, "This post counts. Good night."

At the same time, I'm definitely getting more comfortable. I had forgotten how you have to get into the habit of writing before it feels natural. I'm way too used to business (which is to say "bland") writing, and it shows when you read my first few posts of the year. I've been struggling mightily to string a few sentences together. Now, though, I can start to feel the juices going.

I'm not going to get into too much tonight, other than to say that I beat Bioshock on the 360 today, which is one of the most beautiful and horrifying games I've ever played. I enjoyed every minute of it. I'd say my top games of 2007 (off the top of my head) are Halo 3, Crackdown, and Bioshock. Loved them all. Next up, I've got the Orange Box, and also I will officially begin petitioning for Guitar Hero III for my birthday in this space.

As a final note, I just saw a commercial for a show called "Lipstick Jungle", which will fit into a category that I'll probably talk about this month: "Things I've never seen, but am almost positive I would hate." And goodnight.

Happy Birthday Luke!

2008-01-04T23:09:00.000-05:00

{In case this gets finished after midnight, let me just say that I started at 11:15, so it counts.}

Luke's birthday was Tuesday. He's a fan of birthdays, you see, because he knows two things: cake and presents. Mostly cake, really. Jessica made a dinosaur cake, which went over huge with the three-year-old crowd (which happens to be Luke's new scene, luckily.) All day long, from the time he woke up, he wanted cake and to see Jaden and Zane (Zimm's kids). We would play for a while, and he'd say, "Have cake?" And we'd say again, "We'll have cake at your party." "See JadenZane?" "They're coming to your party." "Okay. See JadenZane and have cake at party." This was the conversation we had at least 400 times before the party. We also set up the present that my youngest sister sent for Christmas, which was an inflatable tent with plastic balls inside. Ronin enjoyed this as well, as you can see . So with a ball tent, dinosaur cake, and pizza, we were all set for a birthday party.

The guests (Zimm and family along with Zimm's brother- and sister-in-law and their two kids) arrived at about 5:00, and the party was on. We started by watching the end of the Michigan-Florida Bowl game (the Michigan people were in the house, after all). There were four kids (Luke, Jaden, Zane, and Matt & Nikki's daughter Kieli) who were mobile enough to enjoy the ball tent and roam around the house playing, while the other three (Ronin, Keegan, and Kieli's brother Grayson) stayed with the parents. Once the game was over, we all headed to the kitchen for pizza and cake, and then came the presents. Luke is always excited to open presents, but it got to a whole new level when he got to the one from my mom. Contained inside the wrapping paper was a moving and roaring dinosaur toy. This was the hit of the evening with all of the kids. (See exhibit A.) I don't think I've ever seen four kids of that age group all enthralled with the same thing without somehow beating each other up. They all took turns and pushed the button to watch the dinosaur move and roar. I have to say, too, that the thing is pretty cool. Every day since his birthday, Luke will wake up in the morning and from his nap, and ask "Where's the dinosaur?" Then he marvels at the fake reptile for at least 10 minutes. Good times.

So after the presents came the real fun. As you may have read on Zimm's blog, Matt and Nikki have a game for PS2 called Singstar. This is the best game ever. As Zimm explained, it's basically competitive karaoke. You get points for holding notes the appropriate amount of time and singing in tune with the song. And not to blow my own horn, but I'm pretty awesome at it. We played guys against girls for two games of seven rounds each. The rounds consisted of either a battle (where a representative from each team takes the mic and lays down the lyrics in hopes of getting a higher score than his or her opponent), a duet (where each team takes turns having two representatives who sing a song simultaneously in hopes of achieving a high combined score), or pass the mic (which is what it sounds like). This game was so much fun, I could have played all night. My favorite part, however, came in between games when Zimm and I went toe-to-toe and scream-for-scream on "Best of You", by the Foo Fighters. He edged me in that one, but I want a rematch. My score suffered when I looked down and saw the kids staring slack-jawed at their dads screaming, muscles clenched, eyes closed, into microphones. It was hilarious. And as a side-note, I don't know how Dave Grohl does it. Just doing that one song took it out of me. I was literally flexing every muscle in my upper body trying to force the growling and yelling out of my lungs and keep it in tune. Good times. So it is now my position that Xbox 360 needs a karaoke game. And really they've already got Guitar Hero and Rock Band, so why not?

Still Not Fully Conscious

2008-01-03T20:56:00.000-05:00

Well, I know I gave a preview of what this post was supposed to be about, but I worked another early shift today, and usually I reach the pinnacle of my semi-consciousness on the second or third day of early shifts. So today will be the first of this month's sure-to-be-forthcoming cop-out posts. I'm posting, but there's not much substance. See how that works? But hey, I'm closing tomorrow, so that should mean more words and more coherence. Until then, I give you a recommendation: Check out Lupe Fiasco's new album, "The Cool". It's fantastic. See you tomorrow.

Sleepy

2008-01-02T18:10:00.000-05:00

So here's the thing about getting up at 4:30 to go to work: I don't like it. "But Tha Docta," I hear you saying, "When you get up early it leaves you refreshed and happy the rest of the day! Didn't Ben Franklin say it was good to get up early?" Well, first of all, stop quoting Ben Franklin to me. Secondly, the other part of that quote mentions going to be early, which I am incapable of doing on purpose. It's not that I don't like going to bed early (though that's also true). If I lay down before 10:00 on a regular night (i.e. a night after a day in which I didn't get up at 4:30), I just lay there and stare at the ceiling. So this presents an interesting situation on weeks when I work the opening shift at work. Alright, it's not interesting, but I'm writing about it anyway. So what happens is that I get up at 4:30 on the first day of the work week (today) after going to bed at probably 12:30 or 1:00 the night before (my usual bedtime), and once I get going in the morning, I'm fine. When I come home, however, I am no longer fine. I am sleepy like a mofo. That is the state in which I currently find myself. My wife, being the excellent person that she is, let me sit on the couch for most of the day and drift in and out of consciousness without getting outwardly annoyed, even though there are other things I'm sure she wishes I were doing. Luke, on the other hand, chose not to let me sleep for more than 10 consecutive seconds. Whenever he sees someone sleeping, he tells them to wake up. Such was the situation with me. So that's the summary of my day so far.

One of the things I'd like to do today is to clean out the garage a bit, because I'm pretty sure there's enough cardboard in there to build a house. Not a very sturdy one, mind you, but a house nonetheless. The holidays and two birthdays have left us with an abundance of cardboard, and I usually take all of it to the recycling bin but haven't had a chance yet. The issue right now is that it's so freaking cold in the garage. To demonstrate, I give you something that happened last year, but luckily not yet this year. Ladies and gentleman, the exploding soda can.

The first time this happened, we had gone to the grocery store and left the garage door open (the garage door acts up in the cold, as it proved again today when it refused to close as I left for work.) We came back and saw that there was soda slush all over the floor--the byproduct of three exploding sodas. I figured it was an isolated incident, since the cans were naked to the wind and cold for all of 10 minutes while we were gone. I was proven wrong the next day when another gunshot went off in the garage - the result of which you are currently looking at. So anyway, it's cold. It's also been snowing since yesterday, which results in an annoying thing called snow drifts, which happens with dry snow. I was not familiar with this phenomenon before coming to Indiana, having lived in Delaware (where the snow is wet and heavy) and Utah (where the snow is dry, but the wind is curtailed in large part by the mountains). The verdict is that I'm not a fan. There's half an inch of snow in some places, and two feet in other places.

That's it for me today. Tomorrow's post: A birthday party! Karaoke! Dinosaurs! Seven kids in one house! Steven Seagall!

(Okay, that last one's a lie.)

The Year of the Month

2008-01-01T09:55:00.000-05:00

I know what you're thinking...this is going to be the next in a series of posts on a blog that's updated every six weeks or so. And up until the last post, you would have been right. Not anymore, my friends. You see, I've decided to take control of things. My activities and such, you know? If you'd asked me some time this past year why I haven't been blogging much, I'd probably tell you it's because I've been so busy. And to a certain extent, that's true. (Also, my keyboard was broken. See? Luke did that, in case you're wondering. And my spacebar still doesn't work right.)

But the real story is that I've been miserable. I've been spending too much time working, thinking about work, being annoyed with work, and generally feeling sorry for myself. But no more. Yeah, my job sucks right now (and has for most of the year), but what am I going to do about it? And moreover, why should that have an impact on the rest of my life? I'm always tired, I'm worn out from the strain of it all, from not having enough help, and all that. So I'm done with it. I'll still put in my time, and I'll still do what's necessary of course, but that's where it ends. Outside of the office, my responsibilities are in the home. I mean taking care of the family, and being more engaged in life in general, and I also mean taking my hobbies back up. You'll remember that I have many. But that's all preface. This is really about what I'm doing this year.

This year will be known as "The Year of the Month" for me. Every 30 days, I'm going to dedicate a certain amount of time on one activity. I know it's taking a page out of Morgan Spurlock's book, but this is different in its own way. For example, in January, I'll be blogging every day. I also won't be missing anymore column deadlines where I write my mixed martial arts columns (that site has been as neglected as this one.) In another month, it might be something as insignificant as watching a movie every day. Or it might be as obscure as spending time every day reconnecting with people that I've fallen out of touch with. Basically, the idea most months is that I want to do something for 30 days in order to get into the habit--or back into the habit--of doing something I want to do. So I'm starting with blogging. That doesn't necessarily mean that I'll blog every day for the rest of the year, mind you, but hopefully it should be more frequent than it has been.

One of the byproducts of this project is that I should be able to finish the last story I was telling, and I can hopefully even throw in some more stories...like the tale of my recent knee surgery. (Good times were had by all, I assure you.) So this isn't just some resolution that I'll forget about soon enough. I'd start this any time of year, but I just happened to think of it at the beginning of 2008. Heck, I may not even stop at twelve months, or even go the whole year. I just want to take a little action, and get some control back in my life. This little project won't be the only thing I do; I just figure it's a start.

At Least You'll Have Something To Blog About

2007-09-12T00:42:00.000-04:00

These were the words spoken to me some three weeks ago (I started writing this in September, so it's now been about three months) by my good friend Zimm, after he helped me carry my furniture out of my basement. But he wasn't referring to the actual moving of the furniture, because if that were the case, I'd already be done with this entry. No, moving furniture was simply a byproduct on this day. We were moving furniture because of the flood in my basement. I had every intention of blogging about this when the ordeal was over, say in four or five days at the most, right? Well, let's just say that I'm blogging about it now (on September 12, mind you), and it's not what one would call "over". But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning.

Summer in Indiana is a bit of a strange time, or at least it can be. Sometimes the climate functions normally. You know, it's hot for a while, then it rains, and it's still pretty hot, but at least everything's not all dried up. But sometimes, as it happened this year, it's really hot and humid for...I don't know, 19 weeks in the summer, and it never rains during that period. Then when it does rain, the rain comes in torrents for eight consecutive weeks, without stopping. It was during one of these torrential times in which our story takes place.
On August 20, if memory serves, the rain started. It came down all day long. I had mixed emotions at first about the rain, because I hadn't mowed my lawn in a good three weeks, which is nice, but it had also started to look scorched, which is not as good. So I'd have to mow the lawn again, but at least there would be patches of green among the brown. Traditionally, of course, the rain falls outside the house, and that was what we were expecting on this day as well. Unfortunately, when Jessica went to do laundry, she found that water was on the floor in the laundry room (which is in the basement). This wasn't an immediate cause for alarm, because hey--lots of things can leak, right?

The problem became apparent when we investigated further and found that the carpet along the walls was a bit...damp. Now this, my friends, got us alarmed. This alarm was multiplied when, in front of our very eyes, the carpet began to get wetter, and said wetness began to spread into the middle of the room. Now, I can take some wetness along the walls, but this was getting ridiculous, you know? To make a long story not as long, we eventually figured out that the sump pump had stopped working. (Duh.) I know approximately as much about sump pumps as I do about most other household appliances. I'm glad they work, and I know what they're supposed to do when they work, but when they stop working, I have no idea what to do with them. So I called both my dad and Jessica's dad, and as it turns out, I could get back to where the sump pump was, reach my hand down into the hole, and see if there's a switch that was tripped. Or something. This was a while ago. All I really remember is that I needed to stick my hand down in the hole that was full of water.

The sump pump is back in the crawlspace of the house. Of course the name "crawlspace" is deceiving, because it implies that there's room for one to crawl. A more accurate title might be "slitherspace", or "rollspace", because those are the two things I could have done more easily than crawling to the sump pump. When I finally did get back there (Jessica went in before me since she fit better, but was unable to reach very far into the opening for the sump pump), I reached into the hole and felt water. And that was about it. After a few minutes of trying to improve my position to reach further down, I gave up. You see, there was no guarantee of me being able to fix the pump even if I was able to locate a switch, or a blockage of some sort, or whatever it was I was looking for. And so, since the rain was still falling and the basement wasn't exactly getting any drier, we called an emergency plumber. Of course, when a service has "emergency" in the title, that translates to "expensive".

And so it's here that I will leave you for now, so as to avoid having this sit as a draft for another two months. I'll finish the story soon. (Maybe this will even push the Will Ferrell video to the archives so that it doesn't load every time you open my blog...)

That's Not Jesus

2007-08-14T16:58:00.000-04:00

Dear Crazy People,

I know you fancy yourselves people of faith, and I can dig that. Maybe you are people of faith. I won't say otherwise. But tell me this. Why is this special? Because a car leaked oil that kind of looks like a face? Because if that's the case, I've got a shadow on my basement wall in the shape of John the Baptist in the Jordan River that shows up at about 8:00 every night. I can take a picture of it, and I'll sell it to you for the low low price of $500. Seriously people. Does this enhance your faith? If so, how? What message is the Lawd sending by causing oil to leak in the shape of a face (kind of)? I'm not making fun of you, crazy people, as hard as that may be to believe . I'd just like an answer to the question. So if anyone's out there who thinks that Jesus is sending oil messages, the comments are open. I'd love to hear from you.

Love,
Tha Docta

I Give You My Thoughts So You May Get More From Life

2007-08-02T20:56:00.000-04:00

Ah, intentions. I've intended to post pretty much every week since the last time I did so (in June). You can see how far that's gotten me. But all that aside, I wanted to get on here and give an update of sorts to those of you who remain in the wasteland that this blog has become.
Our newest addition, Ronin, is doing really well. We've been lucky with babies so far. Luke was really mellow as a baby, and Ronin is the same way. The difference is that Ronin is a lot more actively happy. Every time he sees someone, he gets a big grin on his face. It's hilarious. He almost never cries, and he sleeps through most of the night, waking up only once to eat. So things are great on that front.

Luke is still a mess. There is no mistaking him for anything but a two-year-old, but I must say that his two-year-oldness has gotten a lot better over the last couple of months. Whereas he used to throw himself on the ground and have a fit when we asked him to do something (go to bed, take a bath, etc.), now he just says, "no". That is, of course, unless we're in public. If we're out, he feels it necessary to make a scene. But such is life, right?

I won't bore you with work stories, because it bores me just to type them. It's enough to say that work is keeping me way more busy than I'd like. My next trip is to Bloomington next week. Good times.

Mainly, I wanted to get on here and throw a couple of things your way that are worth checking out. Let's start with TV, and we'll go from there.

Dexter: I saw that this show got an Emmy nomination, and while I usually don't put much stock in those, this one deserves it. It's about a serial killer who is also a blood spatter expert for the police. I thought the premise was intriguing, but had the potential to be hokey. Luckily, they managed to pull it off. The series is excellent, the storylines are great, the acting (with one or two exceptions) is superb, and it's definitely worth checking out.

The Wire: I know you've heard it before, and I'm telling you again. This show is amazing. I watched all four seasons last year, and it was riveting the entire time. I know you've grown weary of the Law and Order-type procedural drama, and I promise this doesn't even come close to fitting that mold. It's so realistic it feels like a documentary at times. Take it from a guy who watches a lot of TV. This is a show you need to watch if you like good television.

The Harry Potter Series: This is directed at Zimm. Read these books. Seriously. I know you may have forgotten that novels can be enjoyable by this point, but I will lend you all the books in the series. You'll finish them in less than a month. Also, to anyone else who hasn't read them, or who makes fun of people who read kids' books, I'm not wrong about this. These books are stupendous.

Crackdown: If you have an XBOX 360, play this game. You won't regret it. Also, Zimm, get a 360. Also, Johnny, get a 360 when you return to your native land. I have missed shooting you all in the face, and the face-shooting must shortly resume.

Black Snake Moan: Great movie. Samuel L. Jackson as an old blues man. Do you really need to know anything else? Okay, the movie opens with a Black Keys song. That should tell you enough about the soundtrack. Also, if you watch this and Alpha Dog, you will agree with me that Justin Timberlake has a future as an actor.

300: This one isn't for everyone, and you probably know if it's for you by watching the trailer, meaning you probably don't need my recommendation, but still. This movie rules and it's on DVD, so I figured I'd say something.

This Link: Here's what happens when you microwave things. Do I need to say more? (Watch the eggs.)

And there is your random list of cool things. Check them out. Also, you have my standing recommendation to start watching mixed martial arts, if you have not already done so. I spend a lot of my time watching, writing, and podcasting about the sport, and it's tremendously enjoyable. I'm thinking about putting together a list of fights that people should check out if they're curious about the sport but haven't seen anything. I'll post that here if I do it. And until next time, enjoy your song of the day.

Song of the Day: "Future Baby Mama", by Prince. This song isn't even that great, but I thought you should know that Prince has a song called "Future Baby Mama", and that only Prince could make a ballad out of a song with that title. I'm just sayin'.

Tha Docta Bloggeth

2007-06-06T22:30:00.000-04:00

It may be true that I'm spending a lot of my time writing and podcasting for MMATorch, where I'm having a lot of fun, but you can be sure that I will visit this space when things happen like the events of Monday. But first! Back story.

The setting is lovely Kokomo, Indiana. Dixon Road. July of 2006. I'm driving home from work, as I tend to do on occasion. As I approach the entrance to a neighborhood (the neighborhood where Zimm lives, coincidentally, but he is not a character in this story), I see that there are cars stopping. Cars have a tendency to stop in front of neighborhoods when someone wishes to make a left turn into said group of residences. This was the case as I approached, and as such, I applied my foot to the brake, causing my car to cease its forward progression toward my own abode. Apparently there were cars behind me who either felt that such action was unnecessary, or decided to play chicken with themselves to see if they could hit their brakes really fast and not hit someone in front of them. Whatever the case, there was an automobile about three cars back that made the wrong decision at some point and rear ended the person in front of it. (I say the car made the decision, but you know what I mean.) As it happened, the chain of rear-endings stopped at my bumper, and I was tapped right before I had planned on accelerating away from this situation. I didn't even realize that contact had been made until I looked in my mirror and saw that people were exiting their vehicles. Of course, feeling like I should see if everything was okay, I exited my vehicle as well, and checked things out. As it happened, there wasn't much to check out, but for reasons that escape me at the moment, I stayed until the law arrived.

To make what could be a long story not so long, the officer checked everything out, assigned fault, and checked everyone's information, including mine (though I said I didn't sustain any damage to my car or person and felt the measure unnecessary, and also I wanted to go home.) To my dismay, the insurance information that I provided the officer was out of date, as I had forgotten to put the new information in my glove box when the policy renewed. Luckily (or so I thought at the time), the benevolent officer told me not to worry about it when I explained the situation, and that I did indeed have insurance.

Let's fast-forward now, past my time in Fort Wayne, and up until this past Monday afternoon. I was driving once again, as I tend to do, but this time I was accompanied by my wife and the boys. This would prove to be fortuitous later in the story. We were pulling into the parking lot at Wal-Mart, where I only go for oil changes anymore, because I hate it. But that's beside the point. As we pulled into the parking lot, I looked in my rearview mirror, only to see flashing red and blue lights. A UFO, you would think? The Publisher's Clearinghouse van, coming to give me large sums of money? The Monkeywagon, coming to award me with my long-awaited pet monkey? No. Alas, it was none of these things, but rather an officer of the law, looking to gain my attention and my pulling over. I obliged him, at which time he came to the car and told me that I had a tail light out. And really, why else would one get pulled over while entering a parking lot, other than having disembodied limbs hanging from one's trunk?

And so, as is customary, I provided him with my license and registration. He returned shortly to tell me that my license, which I had thought to be valid up until that point, was actually suspended. Why, you ask? Well, I had the same question. As it turned out, the events of July, 2006 proved more annoying than I realized. For you see, when the original officer mentioned in this story told me not to worry about having proof of expired insurance, what he really meant was that I needed to go to the DMV (called the BMV in Indiana for some reason) and provide proof of current insurance, or my license would be suspended. Unfortunately for me, he chose to communicate this information by telling me not to worry about it. Luckily for me, my wife has a valid license, and as such it was not requisite that my car be towed and I be hauled off to the big house until I could be picked up, basking in the ignominy of having to ride in the back of a police car.

So at least I had avoided that extra annoyance, but an annoyance it still was, and I'm still not pleased about it. Now I have to fax my insurance company a form, which they will fill out, then fax back to the state. Because that's the...easiest way to take care of this? No, that's not it. It's the...way that ensures I'll have no control over whether and when it's finished? That sounds about right. So who knows when I'll have a valid license again? I'm certainly not going to stop driving because of it, while I wait for fools to fax documents. A man's got to work, you know, and I can't have my poor wife drive me to work every day, especially when I often work as early as 5:30 am, and we have two kids that we'd have to haul around at such a ridiculous hour. I'm not too worried about it. The tail light is fixed, and I haven't been pulled over in almost three years for anything else. So the moral of this story? If you're in an accident, leave the scene immediately, regardless of the circumstances. Free advice from Tha Docta.

The Second Son Has Arrived

2007-05-11T22:09:00.000-04:00

I tried posting this Monday, when he was actually born, but I unwisely tried to upload pictures before I had resized them, and it took too long, so I didn't have time to finish the post, and I'm just getting around to doing it now. Anyway, meet Ronin. He was born Monday, and weighs 7 lbs 11 oz.

Luke has been great with him. Even when Jessica and Ronin were still at the hospital, Luke was always excited to see his "baby dubba (brother)", but we were worried that the novelty would wear off once he realized the baby was actually coming home with us. But he's still been really good. At least with Ronin. He still acts like a two-year-old with us sometimes, but he's good with the baby.

There's not too much going on other than that, but hey...what else do you want? I'll be back soon with some more of the regular stuff.

Getting in the Groove

2007-04-17T20:39:00.000-04:00

So I've been wanting to post again for a while since my last half-asleep mess, but I simply haven't had much to say. It's been busy at work, since I'm essentially working two full-time jobs for the same company. This doesn't work very well, of course, so hopefully my replacement in Fort Wayne will be in place some time in the next couple of weeks. This would be handy for many reasons, not the least of which being that we're expecting the new small person to show up pretty much any time after next week. In the meantime, the weather can't decide what it wants to do here. It snowed two days ago, and it got up to almost 70 degrees today. This, of course, makes everyone in Kokomo sick, including the three people inhabiting this particular abode. Good times. I recover pretty quickly from this kind of thing, but my poor pregnant wife does not have the same sort of luck, what with the shared immune system and such.

If you haven't seen Zimm's blog yet, check it out. I'm thinking about updating my template, but I don't know when I'll be willing to take the time to do it. I know that once I start, I won't be able to stop until it's done. And if I do stop, I'll leave it half-done for too long. But I need to upgrade it, because I need to add the thing that he has on the left column. Very cool.

As for my other writings, I'm in the middle of a brief hiatus over at MMATorch while I'm in transition. Those columns will be coming back soon. I'd like to write more over at the Diary, as I am angered by the Phillies' performance so far this season, but my problem is that I don't have enough access to the games to be able to form a sufficiently informed opinion. I'd like to be able to watch more, as Ryan Howard is the most exciting player we've had since Mike Schmidt, but I'm already buying the NFL pass from DirecTV, and buying the baseball pass in addition would be pretty implausible. They ought to sell individual games, or packages for teams. I'd throw down 50 bucks for a pass to see all the Phillies games, but I can't drop 200 bones for all the games when I won't watch most of them, you know? And now I'm rambling.

In what should be a surprise development, I've updated the Eight Cents blog tonight for the first time since last July. Unfortunately for those who read this blog (except for perhaps Mr. Zimmerman), it's a live running diary of tonight's "American Idol" show. I hadn't done one of those for a while, and this one was a bit rushed, but it was a last minute thing and I enjoyed doing it.

So to wrap up, I have said nothing of great significance. Enjoy your Tuesday evening. Also, watch this. My wife thinks it is awful, and I think it is hilarious. You decide.

Unable to Come Up With a Clever Title, but if I Was, it Would Probably Center Around the Fact That Haven't Posted in a While

2007-04-08T22:18:00.000-04:00

When I start blogging in my head, I know it's been too long since I've posted. I'll say that much. Also, it occurred to me that it's been so long since I posted, you guys don't even know that the Fort Wayne ordeal is quickly coming to an end. If you read Zimm's blog, you know that the manager in Kokomo has moved on to bigger and better things, and that Zimm himself is taking a new position outside the realm of center operations. Since they just barely filled my old position of Assistant Manager, that would leave the Kokomo center essentially empty at the top. Since the Kokomo center is in a good place right now, and the company wants to keep it like that, my boss called me in Fort Wayne and wanted to know if I had any interest in returning to my old center, this time as the manager. Now, if I'm to speak frankly, Fort Wayne is a much cooler city than Kokomo. There's a lot more going on, there's a lot more to do, and it's the kind of city that I generally like. All that having been said, when the offer came in to go back, it was pretty tempting. So Jessica and I talked about it and weighed our options, making the old "pros and cons" lists for each city. The lists were pretty much the same lengths, but Jessica and I both knew from the time we started them that we were staying in Kokomo. We just knew that Kokomo is where we need to be right now. Why? No idea. But we're glad that we're able to stay where our friends are, especially the Zimms. So now I'm back. We don't have to sell the house, and as far as work goes, I may not get all the kudos for turning a bad center around, but I don't know that I really care about that anyway. I know I'm good at what I do, so whatever. The only question remaining at this point is what the frick I'm going to do when I outgrow this position. But as for the current situation, I say I'm back, but really I'm working out of the Kokomo center and still managing the Fort Wayne center. I'll be heading up there every other week or so, until they find a replacement for me (which, if I'm lucky, could be by the end of April). It'll be a huge weight off when the new guy gets there, because I'm still pretty much on the phone with my staff on a daily basis. The management up there is great, but they're all still very green, so they need a lot of help. If they can get a seasoned internal person in there (and it looks like they might), I could completely let go of Fort Wayne, which would be fantastic, even if I'll be a little disappointed that I won't see the fruits of my considerable labors over the last few months.

A byproduct of living at home again is realizing how much I need to get done, having done essentially nothing around the house as far as home improvement goes since August. So I've been trying to get a few things done lately. Unfortunately, the weather here is bipolar, and we went from warm spring weather to some pretty cold early-March type stuff lately. So I haven't been able to do a lot outside or in the garage, which really needs some of my attention.

We had the Zimms and Kristy's sister's family over for Easter today, which, as anyone who has spent Easter at our house before knows, included Egg Battles. Kristy went undefeated and took the title this year, in case you're curious. The basic idea behind Egg Battles (my mom can tell you what it's really called--it's a Greek name) is that you decorate your hard boiled egg, then you smack either end of your egg against someone else's, and whoever's end breaks is the loser. This continues with different opponents until one person remains standing with at least one end intact. It's always lots of fun, with as many as 10 adults decorating eggs and cackling like goofballs the whole time.

On the baby front, Jessica is due on May 9, and I think she's pretty much ready for it to be May 9. Personally, I'm hoping that we'll be able to check out the Spider-Man 3 premiere before the baby comes, but we'll see how that goes. Speaking of movies, though, I just saw a couple of really good ones. Last night, we watched "Children of Men", which was excellent and filmed in a really effective way so that the story resonates after it's over. The other was "300", which is on the opposite end of the spectrum, but so much fun to watch. It was visually spectacular, and I thought the balance between story and action was perfect. I tell you, Frank Miller (who also wrote the source material for "Sin City") is getting the royal treatment in Hollywood, at least for those two adaptations. I'm looking forward to more, if the directors can continue to pull it off like they have. But wait, I was talking about kids, wasn't I?

Luke is doing well. He's talking more, and even though he's not saying complete sentences, he's starting to put words together, and he's actually starting to try to learn words and numbers and letters. Some of his words are hilarious, as is often the case with two-year-olds. His name is Ook, and his favorite drink is choco mook. His favorite breakfast is O Moops (Froot Loops), and of course he also enjoys the occasional nonut (donut) when circumstances allow. Those are, of course, just a few, but hopefully I can get into a groove here and start posting more regularly with actual stories and whatnot.

Anyway, I think that's about it for now. Whenever I have these big gaps, I start posting thinking of how much I have to talk about, but it always ends up leaking out of my ears once I get my initial point across. So hopefully I'll be around more often now, or at least once I'm really back for good, and I'll have something of substance to say. Until then, some notes:

-TV in high def is fantastic. If you've got HD--or even if you haven't--you need to watch the series "Planet Earth" on the Discovery Channel. Fascinating stuff, and beautiful photography.

-There are a few entertaining and informative movie critics out there - Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper are two, (which seems like a mainstream thing to say, but hey--there's a reason why they're on TV), and another is Eric Snider. In addition to generally agreeing with his reviews, I love reading his negative reviews of movies that everyone knows are going to be horrendous. Here's the latest. You're welcome.

I was going to go on a few more tangents, but I'm sleepy and this is getting long. Till next time.

Where The Flag Have You Been?

2007-02-13T20:41:00.000-05:00

Alright, so it's been three months. That went by pretty quickly. At least in blog years. In truth, it's been a pretty long three months, and a pretty long three months before that. I've been working in Fort Wayne and living in a hotel now for six months, and my house still hasn't sold, but there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. I won't say anything just yet, but in the next couple of weeks, there will be yet more to talk about concerning work and home. For now, let's talk about a couple of things.

First of all, I grew tired long ago of eating out every day. One would think, of course, that this development would cause me to eat out significantly less often. One would be mistaken in this line of thinking. I probably eat out a little less often, but seriously, who wants to work for at least 10 hours, come home to the lovely Residence Inn, and cook a meal? Not me, my friends. No, I'd rather just have something delivered. And that's what happens most nights. So as you may have guessed, I am a fat man. Was I a fat man before? Sure. But now I've entered the territory of fatter man. Also I have a big bushy beard, which is maintained once a week. I know I look a mess on a number of levels, but I have ceased to care. With my schedule being what it is, it's impossible to get into any kind of routine, so I don't even try anymore. But hey, such is life, right? It's temporary, so telling myself that is how I've been able to deal with things. And were my wife any less fantastic than she is, she would complain constantly. She's been great. She's been mostly at home alone with a two-year-old, getting progressively more pregnant (although pregnanter is a more fun word), and she's had nary a complaint. My wife rules.

So in a nutshell, that's life right now. Let's not dwell on that, lest this post get more depressing than it already is. Right now, let's talk about some Luke. He alternates between being terribly two and painfully cute. His favorite game right now is to pretend that someone is chasing him, laugh hysterically, and run into different rooms, slamming the door behind him. On the speaking side of things, he says "no" to everything and everyone unless he really wants to say "yes", which he pronounces "dess". Sometimes he'll even say "please", which is pronounced "pzips". He also has favorite objects that he looks for wherever we go. The child has a radar for these objects. Of course, any circular object is a ball. All balls are to be played with, and it is unacceptable if he is unable to obtain any of these balls for his personal use. Balloons in grocery stores, the giant balls that are sold in the department stores, basket-, foot-, and baseballs on TV, those big red metal balls in front of target that don't move…he must have all of them. Also, he loves to look for trucks, which he calls "teeku". This word evolved in an interesting way.

When he first started noticing trains, he would call those "chugga-chugga". Trucks, on the other hand, got only one "chugga". "Chugga" was pronounced "chicka", which became "tika", "teeka", and now "teeku".

Okay, maybe that wasn't all that interesting. But when he sees trucks, the bigger they are, the longer he'll hold the syllables. For example, a pickup is simply "teeku". But a truck on a construction site is "teeekuuuuuuuuuu!" So there's trucks, balls, the moon (which he pronounces correctly), and most recently, flags. The pronunciation of this word is especially amusing. If you take away the "lag" and add a "uk", that's what it sounds like. I mentioned before that he has a radar for these things, and what I mean is that he sees any of them, he'll yell the word multiple times, getting progressively louder, until one of us acknowledges that the object is indeed there. And he always sees them way before we do. Way before we do. He must have Jessica's eyes, because I don't see that well. He could be a freaking fighter pilot with those eyes.

So moving on to current events, we had a snow day today at work. Or at least my employees did. I still worked a full day and then kept working on the laptop when I got to the hotel, but whatever. It's snowing like a beast out there. There are snow drifts all over the place, and I've seen them as tall as about six feet. And that's just on the sides of the road. I opened up the center as usual at 6:00 this morning, but had to close at 10:00. There's a level two snow emergency in Fort Wayne right now, which means you can only drive if it's an emergency. So that pretty much tied my hands as far as closing up. And now I'm back in the hotel, and it hasn't stopped snowing or blowing out there all day long. I couldn't see too much driving home from work today, and that was like seven hours ago. Doesn't look great for tomorrow, but who knows.

Well, that's enough out of me for now, but I'll probably have some random stories to tell as we go along here, including the harrowing adventure of how I got my tooth fixed. Let's close with some notes.

-"Heroes", "24", and "the Office" are the best shows on television right now.

-I have to admit it: I like Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera. I can't help it. Shutup.

-The Dixie Chicks were less than gracious while accepting all of their bogus awards on Sunday night at the Grammys. It sure would be nice if the Grammys weren't completely irrelevant to everyone outside the music industry.

-The Descent is the best horror movie I've seen since The Ring. Fantastic stuff.

-And speaking of horror, The Ruins, by Scott Smith is the best horror novel I've read since It. And I read a lot of horror/suspense/thriller novels.

-If you enjoy rock music and still haven't checked out Wolfmother, I implore you to do so.

-If you enjoy acoustic guitar music, check out Rodrigo y Gabriela. In fact, check out the video below. Pure awesome. (Let's just say the song of the day is "Diablo Rojo", which is the song playing below.)

-Also, I predict that the guy in the second video will win "American Idol" this year. You heard it here first. Or maybe not. But you heard it here. This audition was good enough that he made it through the Hollywood round with two awful performances. And there's a guy that looks like Jack Osborne who's a lock for the finals, too.

-"Veronica Mars" has slipped a lot this year, but I'll give it another season to turn it around. I just really don't understand the whiny, teenage girl-like direction they're going with Veronica's character. She seems to be acting younger instead of older as time goes by, and it's annoying. Also, Logan's character has never been sympathetic and needs to go away. Quit trying to make me feel sorry for him.

Enjoy the videos.

Announcement

2006-11-19T22:44:00.000-05:00

It's been pretty much more of the same around here. I'd wait until I had something upon which I could pontificate, but I just figured I'd let all my faithful reader(s) that we're expecting our second child in May. We found out that Luke was a boy before he was born, so we're thinking about letting it be a surprise this time. I know, it won't be that much of a surprise, seeing as how there's only two possibilities here, but it'll still be fun. Until I have to buy a bunch of pink stuff. But I kid my unborn child. My real hope is that we'll be moved by then. I can't imagine the house won't have sold by freaking May, but I'm not making any assumptions. So if anyone out there is moving to Kokomo, IN, I know of a nice place they can buy.

As a side note, NBC is re-running the SNL with Hugh Laurie and Beck next week (it just ran like three weeks ago, but it got some pretty good reaction), so check that out if you didn't see it the first time around. The show was actually half decent (though not as good as the one with Alec Baldwin), and Beck was awesome.

Look! It's a Post!

2006-11-11T00:02:00.000-05:00

It's been so long, and yet I still can't come up with a decent opening sentence. Not having looked back over the last couple of years in my blogging history, I think it's pretty safe to say that almost two months is the longest I've gone without posting. It's not as if this is an uneventful time in my life, but the events are repetitive enough to me that none of it really seems interesting. I've been essentially living in a hotel since August, and the novelty is pretty much lost on me at this point. Although I have racked up a few Marriott Rewards points—I'm a platinum member, which I guess happens after about 75 nights stayed. Of course, 75 nights is kids' stuff now. I don't even know how many I've stayed. So it's a hotel in Ft. Wayne during the week, and then back home to Kokomo on some weekends (when I either don't have to work Saturday or feel like making the drive when I do work Saturday.) Happily, Jessica and Luke come up sometimes to keep me company, though I'm still at work quite often these days and don't get out as much as I'd like. But hey, them be the breaks right now—it's always like that moving into a new position like this.

We're still trying to sell the house of course. The market is just so frustrating right now. Of course, it was no good when we first put the house on the market, but it's really not good now, with the holidays coming up and whatnot. I think since we've had it on the market, we've had like four showings. I can think of three, and I'm adding one in case I'm missing any. That averages a little more than one per month. It's all temporary, I know, because the place has got to sell some time, right? I mean, it's a good house. Who wouldn't want to live here? Come on…you know you want to move to Kokomo. Joel, I can't promise you could teach at a school on an island, but there's a big stuffed bull in a park here in town that would make a great field trip. No, seriously. His name is Old Ben, and someone stole his tail one time. But I digress.

Despite my lack of activity here on the old blog, I have been writing weekly articles over at MMATorch.com, which I'm still really enjoying. For the uninitiated, mixed martial arts (MMA) is a fast-rising combat sport that is just so much better than any boxing you can find today that it's ridiculous. There's a card tomorrow at 9:00 on Spike TV. They don't usually have the great matches on free TV, but there's a chance for some decent action, so check it out.

As far as media goes, I don't let travel slow me down. Well, okay, yes I have. But I'm really glad now that I bought a laptop earlier this year, as I'd probably never see a movie without it. As it is, my Netflix activity has slowed to a crawl, but I've still managed to check out some decent stuff. Brick was fantastic, and Hard Candy was not for everyone, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit, despite being squeamish about the premise. The Proposition was also pretty good, though honestly I can't remember a lot of detail at this point. I just remember enjoying it.

I've gotten a chance to check out most (not quite all) of the new shows this season while keeping up with the old favorites on the weekends thanks to TiVo. I tell you, I don't know what I did before the technology. But anyway, "Heroes" wins the prize for best new show of the season. Much-hyped "Ugly Betty" is alright, though it's set in the world of a fashion magazine, which should be enough to make me hate the show, so it says a lot that I'm still watching it. "Friday Night Lights" has really surprised me. I thought that show had no chance, but I enjoy it a lot. Of course, I'm a football nut, but Jessica likes it too, and she steers mostly clear of the gridiron on Sundays. "Lost", of course, is awesome, and have you seen the trailer for the next season of "24"? Wow. That's just quality viewing there, folks. Can't wait. I'm also intrigued by the show "Day Break", which will fill in for "Lost" during the mid-season hiatus (a much better idea than breaking up the momentum of the show with countless reruns, ala last year.) Against all odds, "Prison Break" is turning out to be better this season than it was in its inaugural season, where they actually, you know, broke out of prison. "Veronica Mars" isn't as good this year as it has been in the past, but the latest episode showed some signs of good things to come. And of course, "The Office" continues to be the highlight of Thursday nights. Seriously people…does it get any better? (Okay, "Arrested Development" was pretty good too…don't get me started on that again.)

I'm listening to a lot of different things right now, too. I like the new John Legend album a lot. I don't know if it's better than the first, but it's pretty good. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I'm digging some Mastodon, which is a metal band that keeps it pretty basic as far as metal goes, and they remind me a lot of early Metallica in that way (although the singer screams more than I'd prefer.) I especially dig their "Leviathan" album, which is based on Moby Dick. Fun stuff. In another totally different vein, did you see any of Beck's recent performances on Letterman or SNL? The man can do no wrong. If you didn't see his performance of "Clap Hands" on SNL, find it and watch it immediately. I'd link to the YouTube video, but NBC had it taken down. Because they…don't want people buzzing about the best episode of Saturday Night Live in recent memory. Or something. Seriously though, you'd think that if they know people want to see things like that, they'd at least put it on their own website, but nooooooo. Friggin' NBC. But next time that show airs, you must see this performance. Hugh Laurie was the host. Speaking of Beck, his new album is sweet as well. And staying in the music vein, I've been trying to think of the best album I've heard this year, which is very hard to think of, because I listen to a LOT of music. I still haven't figured out what I think is the album of the year to this point yet, and of course it may not matter with more albums still coming out, but I think I know what my favorite single this year is. It's two minutes and 56 seconds of hard rock perfection, and it is "Woman", by Wolfmother. Short, sweet, and great. Also, one more music note: Zimm turned me on to this blog, where he found an acoustic performance that Chris Cornell did in Sweden. Download it (you can find the link there), for it rules. Cornell is amazing.

With books, I'm currently listening to the audio version of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, which I love. I tried reading the fourth installment after listening to the second and then reading the third, and I couldn't do it. The audio was just too good. Frank Muller, the guy who reads the books, really brings the story to life. I know he doesn't do he whole series, so I'm hoping the other(s) are as good as he is. But for the written word, I'm currently reading The Ruins, by Scott Smith, and I'm loving that too. I'm on a pretty good run right now for top-notch media. You get in those ruts sometimes where you just can't pick a good movie to watch or book to read, but right now it's the opposite for me. It's nice, because it really helps me unwind after obnoxious days, and it takes my mind off of being away from home so much.

I suppose that's all for now. I know most of this was about media, but I'm hoping (hoping, I say) to post more often about all the everyday happenings. We'll see how that goes. I've missed posting on a more regular basis, but it's still tough to get back into the pattern. Take care, everyone.

Song of the Day: "Billie Jean", by Chris Cornell. Yes, he covers it in the performance I linked to above. It's really cool.

Big Week Ahead

2006-09-17T01:02:00.000-04:00

One o'clock on Sunday morning and I can't sleep. I don't know what it is about Saturday nights/Sunday mornings, but this seems to be the trend. Weird. But that's not why I'm here. I'll probably be writing for the Torch a few times this week, since UFC 63 is coming up next Saturday, but there's a long week coming between now and then. Tomorrow we've got an open house here. We still haven't had any showings up until now, so hopefully this will start something. Then I'll be staying in Kokomo Monday and Tuesday to finish up some training, which will be nice--I haven't been in at the house for more than a couple of days in a month or so. Then I'll be getting back up to Fort Wayne on Wednesday morning to keep an appointment at 9:00 (more likely I'll reschedule it so I'm not leaving so early from here). Then I'll be working from open to close on Friday and Saturday before coming back here to cover the UFC event on Saturday night for the Torch. Which will probably get over right around this time next Sunday morning. So the week is pretty well planned out. If there's anything of note between now and then that goes on, I'll be sure and put it in this space. If not, you'll at least see a couple of columns over on MMATorch and next week's NFL picks over on the Diary. (I posted this week's just prior to writing this.) Until then, faithful readers, Excelsior!

Song of the Day: "Revelation", by Audioslave. That's the title track from their new album, and it's another solid offering. That's what I like about Audioslave. They don't take forever getting the next epic album ready for release, and then it's dissappointing. They don't try to be self-important, or act like anything they're not. It's just solid rock music. Maybe the last two albums haven't been worth 5 cents, but if you ask me, they're both worth four. Or at least 3 and a half.

A Story About a Dumb Person, and I Answer a Smelly Question

2006-09-11T23:54:00.000-04:00

You know, it’s been too long since I told a story about some fool at my job making a dumb request or otherwise confusing me as to how they’ve survived life as long as they have.

Working in a plasma donation center as I do, I’ve had some strange requests.  I had a guy ask if he could get a piece of the tubing in his disposable set with his blood in it so that he could make a necklace out of it (I think Zimm had the same request from the same guy).  I had someone ask me if he could be allowed to taste his plasma.  I had a guy ask if the plasma tasted like urine, since that’s what it looks like (I don’t let other people taste plasma, but when they’re not looking?  I’m all over it.  Nothing says delicious quite like blood products, my friends).  But I never got a request quite like a caller had today.

There was an employee in the front area who was on a phone call with a donor for a while this evening.  The nurse noticed that she was getting a little frustrated answering the guy’s questions, and that the questions were of a medical nature, so he had the employee transfer the call to his office.  About five minutes later, he comes to my door and says, “Hey, Tha Docta?  Will you take this call?  This guy wants his plasma back.”

Well, I figured it’d be an easy call, since that’s kind of a silly thing to ask, and I could easily explain why we don’t just give plasma back to people after they donate it.  I was mistaken.  He started off by telling me that he donated plasma about a year ago.  He said that since it was his plasma, he’d bring back the money we paid him and we would give him the plasma back.  I explained that the plasma was no longer in the center, as we ship it out every couple of weeks so that it can be used to make medical products, the likes of which I won’t detail just now.  I told him that he had really already gotten his plasma back, because your body replenishes what you give in about a day.  He told me that he wanted his plasma back because he felt “empty”.  I told him if that was true (whatever the frick that even means), he needed to see the doctor, because it had less than nothing to do with his year-old plasma donation.

Somewhere along the way in this increasingly-annoying conversation, I mentioned that we keep the plasma frozen, and he said he wanted the phone number to the freezer place where we shipped it.  The tone of the guy’s voice, along with his persistence in this matter, led me to believe he was screwing with me.  So I asked him, “Are you…being serious right now?  Because I’ve already explained that there’s no way you can get your plasma back.”  He proceeded to call me names and tell me what he’d do to me when he came to the center.  That gave me reason enough to end the phone call.

Unfortunately for me and everyone else, this fool called back, and this time they transferred him directly to me.  He told me he’d be calling the police if I didn’t give him his plasma back.  I was already past annoyance at this point, but I couldn’t help but laugh.  I told him that would be fine, because if he wouldn’t listen to me, maybe he’d listen to them when they told him the same thing I had already said.  I could have been a jerk to this guy more than once, but I never was, because it would give him a valid complaint against me, and it’s astounding how far that kind of thing can go.  So it just wasn’t worth it.  But anyway, I told the staff not to forward him anymore, and just to tell him if he called again not to call anymore and hang up.  So if I end up on the next wannabe Jerky Boys CD, that’s the story.

In other news, our house has been on the market for three weeks, and it has shown a total of zero times.  So as you can see, the Kokomo housing market is booming, people.  Booming.  I know there were some other things I was going to talk about, but for whatever reason, I can’t remember what any of them are.  In the meantime, remember to check out my other writings at the Diary and at MMATorch.com.  I’m planning on doing some brief assessments of new shows over at the much-neglected Eight Cents blog at some point, but I don’t know exactly when that will be.

And Joel, I’m with you.  Once I get set up here in Fort Wayne, I’m all over live night again.  It has been far too long since I’ve asserted my dominance over you and Zimm and Johnny.  Unfortunately, Johnny feared my wrath enough to move to Thailand so that he could gather his wits before challenging me again.

Song of the Day: “Before He Cheats”, by Carrie Underwood.  Despite being an “American Idol” nerd, I was never a big fan of Underwood.  But this is a good song.  She sounds all groweds up.  Sultry, even.  There’s a lot of other good music that’s come out recently and that’s on the horizon.  Audioslave, Jet, OutKast, The Black Keys, and Beck are some of the acts that have new music out or coming out soon.  I’ll surely be mentioning them later.

Ask Tha Docta

The first question I’ve gotten in a while comes from a concerned employer who happened to see my post on smelly people, and how I have to routinely tell people that they are too stinkified to donate plasma.  Her question reads:

“We as management need to tell an employee about poor hygiene. Specifically the stench coming from the bathroom when she in finished using it. How can we tell her (in a nice way) about the problem?”

I am saddened to report that this question comes from a management member at a dining establishment.  But back to your question, concerned reader.

To be blunt, there is no nice way to tell someone they stink.  Obviously you don’t have to use that exact wording (unless you want to…the person in question will certainly get the point if you do), but however you put it, the person in question will hear, “you stink”.  The best way to do this for you and for her is just to bring her in your office, sit her down, and tell her point blank that she has hygiene problems that she needs to address.  It’s likely that she already knows she’s a little on the ripe side, and that she’ll take care of it when she realizes that people notice.  But it’s important to be direct, and not to make light of it.  The easiest way to offend the person is to say this kind of jokingly.

Now, as for the bathroom end of things (and we all know which end that is), do you have an air freshener in the bathroom?  A powerful one?   Because usually that will take care of the problem.  But I’m assuming you’ve already tried this.  So you have a couple of options here.  You could put an “out of order” sign on the women’s bathroom, but knowing how worked up women get when the bathroom is out of order even for a short amount of time, this wouldn’t work.  You could institute a company policy against solid waste, invent a female version of a urinal, and install only these female urinals into your bathroom, but that would be kind of expensive.  So that leaves you with the option of having someone go into the bathroom at the same time as this person and continually spraying air freshener while she’s on the toilet.  It sounds ridiculous, but I’m really only half-kidding here.  If you don’t want to tell the person with words that her sh*t do stink (sorry—couldn’t help it), you could tell her with actions.

Another Iron on the Fire

2006-09-06T20:57:00.000-04:00

I’m still working on a few things before I get around to posting—one of them being finishing the third season of Deadwood—but I just wanted to show you something awesome. As you probably know, I’m a big fan of mixed martial arts, and as is the trend with things I enjoy, I like to write about it. Well, a new MMA website launched today, and I’m a staff member. It’s called MMA Torch, and you can visit the site here. This is really exciting for me, because my columns here will find a much larger audience than they could have over on the Diary. So go check it out and let me know what you think. I’ll be back at the Diary tomorrow for part two of the NFL preview, and I’ll be back in this space over the weekend.

Quick Update

2006-09-04T20:35:00.000-04:00

I’ve got a few happenings from last week that I’ll post about soon, but in the meantime, enjoy part one of this year’s NFL preview over on the diary. Part two is coming before Thursday.

Greetings From My New Joint

2006-08-14T23:42:00.000-04:00

Well, day one of my new job is over, and what a day it was.  I got into Fort Wayne last night and checked out my hotel room.   Just by chance, I happened to check into the penthouse of the Residence Inn.  Not because I wanted to or something, but because I wanted to stay here and this was the only room available.  It’s a pretty ridiculously sized room for one person, with a bedroom and bathroom on each of the two floors.  So I came in and walked upstairs to see what was there, and as I walked down the hallway and looked to my right, I saw someone else in the room!

Needless to say, it scared the everloving crap out of me.  I jumped and yelled, all while realizing that there was a mirror on the wall to the right, and I was being scared of my own reflection.  So that was embarrassing thing number one that’s happened to me on this trip so far.  It may not have been so embarrassing had I not just written it for everyone to read, but there you have it.

Embarrassing thing number two happened this morning after I got dressed and went to put my shoes on, only to remember that I hadn’t brought them in from the car last night.  Upon further reflection, it occurred to me that I hadn’t brought them in from the car because they weren’t in the car at all; rather they were still in Kokomo.  So here I am at 6:30 in the morning, all dressed up in my shirt and tie…and sandals.  Needless to say I went and bought some new shoes, and surprisingly, Meijer has some pretty good ones.  I got a pair of Dr. Scholl’s shoes that are actually a sight more comfortable than my Dockers.  Had I known before that Dr. Scholl’s made shoes, I might have checked them out in the first place.  But enough talk about shoes.  I am, after all, a creature of the male persuasion who is not usually wont to talk at length about footwear.

I ended up working from about 7:00 in the morning until 8:30 at night, and I still have a ton of things I’d like to get done before the internal audit tomorrow.  Oh—did I not mention the audit?  Yeah, there’s one tomorrow and I’m not even anywhere near feeling ready for it.  I think we’ll be okay (relatively speaking, considering the rough state we were in for the last pair of audits), but it doesn’t make me feel any better.  Also, did I mention that I have poison ivy on my arms?  Because I do.  It’s pretty nasty-looking.  Which is why I’m wearing long sleeves this week.  I never wear long sleeves—at least not without rolling them up.  Rolling up my sleeves gives the impression to some that I’m ambitious (which is sometimes true, mind you), but really I just roll them up because I hate wearing long sleeves.  But as for the poison ivy, I’m pretty sure I got it doing the landscaping in my side yard the other day (as I can’t imagine I would have gotten it while hanging pictures on the wall), and I could certainly have it in worse places than my arms, though I complain about long sleeves.  I’ve known more than one guy who picked the wrong plant as a substitute for toilet paper while camping.  I’ve never had that particular misfortune myself, but I can’t imagine the experience would be a pleasant one.  And on that note, I bid you farewell for the evening.

I'm Back Again. To Stay This Time. Seriously.

2006-08-10T12:20:00.000-04:00

The last few months have been pretty nuts, and I haven’t been able to hold a thought for more than a couple minutes at a time, but it finally looks like things are about to calm down. Wait, did I say calm down? I meant they’re about to get more crazy. But probably more for Jessica than for me. I shall explain.

A while back, the management staff in the Fort Wayne center all either left or were fired. So to put it lightly, the center there has been without leadership and frequently without management coverage (which is required to keep the center operating). In addition to that, for the month of July, Zimm’s and my boss was on vacation. So that left the two of us in charge. That’s not a problem really, seeing as how we are awesome. But we had to factor in that we both had a few scheduled days off, and so did our training coordinator (who can also run the center when other managers aren’t there). Then we also had to cover Fort Wayne numerous times throughout the month. So that’s what’s been happening in Kokomo. Meanwhile, I applied for the center manager position in Fort Wayne.

The application process started in June, when our regional manager asked if I'd be interested in the position. Well, the center was an unmitigated mess at the time, and I knew it. But a promotion is a promotion, and getting the place into shape would be a feather in the proverbial cap, so I applied. I had my reservations at first because of the way the Bloomington situation was handled, but I got over it.

Well, initially things started out exactly the same as they did the last time. The word was that they needed a management staff in the center as soon as humanly possible…and yet no effort was really being made to schedule interviews. So I kept saying, “I’m not going to think about it anymore until I hear something else”. But how do you do that, really? I had to submit an “action plan” to give the regional boss an idea of what I would do should I get the job, and I sent in my resume so that it could be forwarded to whomever would be conducting interviews.

This was all going on around the middle of June. I heard toward the end of June that interviews were a priority before July 4, and so I offered up a bunch of possibilities about scheduling (I had a vacation planned around that time, but was willing to work around it). But again, it didn’t get done. And so the wait continued.

So you can imagine if you’ve ever waited for something like this, why I couldn’t put together a coherent thought to blog about over the past little while. And you might surmise, considering this lengthy post, that the Fort Wayne saga be over. And you’re kind of right. So let’s fast-forward through the stewing and waiting to last week.

On Thursday the 29th, after much hinting and speculation, I finally got a call from my regional saying that I had an interview scheduled for the third of August. (A quick note: I may sound like I’m bashing my regional for inaction, but good Lord that woman has a lot going on. And to try and coordinate this must have been a task.) So the fact that an interview as actually scheduled was a step in the right direction. I also found out that I’d be interviewing with five people in the same day. You can imagine my enthusiasm at this point.

We made the plan that Jessica, Luke and I would drive to Chicago (where the company is headquartered) on Wednesday night, I’d interview for five freaking hours on Thursday, and we’d go check out houses and the area in Ft. Wayne on Friday and Saturday. Everything was all planned out. And therefore something had to go wrong. We were packing up the rental car when the phone rang, and it was my boss, telling me that the person that was currently covering Fort Wayne was going on vacation, and they had no coverage for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday. Actually I already knew this via an email earlier in the day, but I figured I wouldn’t have to account for why I couldn’t cover, since everyone knew. Well, apparently all other options were exhausted, so it came down (as it always does) to Zimm and myself. He would cover Thursday from open to close (that’s a 15-hour shift, people), and I would do the same on Friday through Monday. I expressed my great displeasure at this development, as it served to inconvenience not only me (which would have been fine), but also my family and the realtor that was set to show us around over the weekend. But I knew as well as Zimm did when they asked him, that it was a foregone conclusion that I would cover the shifts. But I still had an interview or five to do, so we packed a few more clothes, decided to stay until Tuesday, and took off for Chicago.

The interviews were intense (but really only because there were five of them in a row), but I’ve never interviewed for a job and not gotten it, so I was pretty comfortable. Then to make a long day longer, we hopped in the car and drove six hours (Chicago traffic, people) to Fort Wayne.

In the midst of my first 15 hour day on Friday, I got a call saying that I got the job. So that was pretty exciting. I didn’t actually end up accepting the position until Monday because we wanted to get out and see some houses and check out the area. The area, by the way, is great. The size of the city is a lot more my speed than Kokomo. It’s not a huge city, but it doesn’t feel like a small town in the middle of nowhere either. The only minor issue I have is that the closest real major city is a couple hours away (Indianapolis). But all things considered, I’m really excited to be moving there. I don’t think Jessica is quite as excited as I am, because the city seemed a lot bigger to her than it did to me, but I’m sure she’ll come around.

I’ll continue to post updates as they happen so that you can experience the suckage of trying to sell a house and working 2 hours away to commute home on the weekends (I know some people do that regularly, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck). I’ve written this post over the course of like six days, so if it’s a little disjointed, deal wit’ it. I’ll also be back to talk football on the sports blog, but due to circumstances, my preview won’t be quite as in-depth this year as it was last year.

Don't Breathe Refrigerant

2006-07-23T20:00:00.000-04:00

Note: I wrote this post last Saturday at the 4H Fair, but totally forgot I had it.  So it’s a bit outdated, and I was going to tell the helium story here, but that will have to wait for next time.  It’s been long enough since I posted that I figured it’d be nice to just get something going.

I am now at the ultra high-tech 4H Fair in Greentown, Indiana.  Unfortunately, the internet connection is not working for me.  On the bright side, the library booth next to me has a video that they’re playing at an annoying volume so that I get to listen to that over and over.  Why they’re playing it is another story, because there’s no one here.  I’ve been here for about a half hour, and I’ve seen like five people pass by.  Good times.  It’ll get busy in a couple hours for sure, though.  This place gets quite crowded in the evening.  But anyway, on to the subject of the post.

As you may know, Zimm and I work at a plasma donation facility.  The plasma that we collect from donors has to be kept at a temperature of -20 degrees at the warmest until it’s used by the company for various vaccines, etc.  There are two different freezers that we use:  the shock freezer and the storage freezer.  The shock freezer is where the plasma goes immediately after it is collected, and it has to stay there for at least 3 hours while it freezes.  This freezer is kept at about -50 degrees, which is about 10 degrees colder than the storage freezer.  The freezer temperatures are monitored via an alarm system.  When the temperature gets above -34 on either one, an alarm goes off, and if no one is at the center, one of the managers gets a call at home to come check things out.  This has been your background.

So on Sunday, I’m relaxing at my house.  At about 5:00, the phone rang and it was the alarm company.  The shock freezer was getting too warm, they said, and so I hopped in the car and headed to work.  I figured I’d just be in and out, as I’d be able to move the plasma from the shock freezer to the storage freezer and leave.  If there was nowhere to move the plasma, I’d have to try and figure out what was wrong and monitor the temperature until it was back in range, or call the freezer repair guys if necessary.  But in this case the plasma could be moved, so it wouldn’t take long.

Well, when I got to the freezer and started emptying out the plasma, I noticed a strange smell, but I didn’t think much of it.  I wondered briefly what would happen if the smell turned out to be some gas that could knock me out or something.  What if I couldn’t get out before I was unconscious?  I had brought Jessica and Luke with me, but they would hardy be able to drag me out of there, especially with a gas leak. But I didn’t worry about it.  This had happened before.

Not a minute later, my ears started to ring.  I thought that was a bit curious, as there was no loud noise or anything.  I kept moving the plasma, and then I started to get lightheaded.  I decided it was time to get out of there before I passed out.  When I got out, I had to sit down for a few minutes to get my bearings.  I don’t scare easy, but that shook me up a bit.  Not so much the feeling, but what would have happened if I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.

So anyway, I called the freezer guys, and they sent someone out who told me that there was a massive refrigerant leak that caused all the refrigerant to flow out of the freezer.  That’s a lot of refrigerant, in case you’re wondering.  So I didn’t really almost die there, but it certainly wasn’t the safest situation.  The larger annoyance to me was that I had to hang around on Sunday night until the repair was finished, which took until about 11:00.  Good times.

Some Good Things About Indiana

2006-07-08T14:32:00.000-04:00

I’ve decided I’ll no longer talk about what I’m working on as far as posts, because every time I do, it takes like 2-3 weeks before I post again.  Also it’s not like there’s some kind of hook that’s bringing people back here anyway.

So let me just start off by saying that Independence Day is 400 times better in states that allow fireworks.  We spent most of the day on the fourth with Zimm and his family, and his brother-and sister-in-law and their daughter.  It was pretty much the best Independence Day in recent memory.  The men went and played disc golf early in the day (which is more and more fun every time I do it), and later we all went up to a state park and went swimming and ate kabobs.  Luke had the time of his life in the water.  I know Zimm’s wife got some good pictures of him at the beach, so once I get a hold of those I’ll post some.  His main activity in the water is splashing, but he could do it forever.  It was a lot of fun up there.  After the beach, we came back here and set off fireworks.

Now I grew up in Delaware, where they don’t allow fireworks.  Sometimes my dad would get some black cats when he was in…Pennsylvania, I think (is that right, Mom?), and firecrackers are fun and all, but setting off your own artillery shells and bottle rockets is just awesome.  I like going to see fireworks shows and everything, but there are some cool things about doing it yourself:  you’ve automatically got a good seat, there’s no crowd, when it’s over you just go inside instead of sitting in your car for three hours waiting to get out of a parking lot, or worse yet taking a shuttle to get to your car.  I remember a fireworks show from years back when we had to take a shuttle to get back to the car.  I don’t remember the show itself, but I remember the shuttle, and I remember my youngest sister thinking that we’d never get home (she was serious—she’s always been dramatic like that).  So hopefully our three families will live close enough to do that for some more years.  It was kind of impromptu this year, so I think when we have more time to prepare and coordinate the fireworks purchases, we could do some really cool stuff.

Obviously I haven’t posted much lately, and honestly I’ve barely even been online.  I had the trip to Wisconsin a few weeks ago, and then went straight to Delaware right after that, and since then I’ve just been trying to get caught up, so to speak.  Work has been exhausting, and there’s a lot going on with that that I won’t talk about just yet.  We’ve got the county fair coming up this week, and our company has a booth there.  We take turns manning the booth, so both Zimm and I will be up there for a day this week.  The best development from last year to this year is that they’ll have wi-fi in the area where our booth is.  On a side note, you can put me in the group of people who never thought in a million years that there would be wi-fi access at a county fair in central Indiana.  But I’m pretty excited about it, because it can be pretty slow there during the daytime hours, so that should give us something to do.

Well, I should probably go mow my lawn now, so it will be a race between my willpower and my sleepiness.  Let’s see who wins.

Song of the Day: “Learn to Fly”, by Foo Fighters.  I’m currently watching their concert DVD, “Everywhere but Home”, and that’s playing right now.  Good song.

Again, Not Posting From Home

2006-06-22T21:06:00.000-04:00

It’s funny how I always think I’ll have more time to blog when I’m on the road, and then it ends up that I have less time than usual.  Of course, some of the time away from work is spent catching up on my movie watching, but hey—that’s important too.

I’m at the Indianapolis Airport right now, waiting for my flight to Philly.  No limo ride down this time though, unfortunately.  I took Tha Docta Express this time.  I did get a limo on the way back from Wisconsin again, though.  And this time it wasn’t 5:45 am when I came rolling into the neighborhood, so it was kind of embarrassing to get out of this limo that doesn’t even fit in my driveway with my whole street watching me.  However, good fortune smiled upon my clothes and there were no stains to be seen (much to my wife’s relief).

So why am I heading out to Philly a mere 4 days after returning from a business trip?  A family reunion, of course!  It’s for Jessica’s side of the family (since I’m the only one not living in Delaware, there’s a family reunion for my side every time we visit), so that will be…interesting.  I decline to add further comment.  Back to notes from the Wisconsin trip.

The last week of my training was as productive as the first two, which is to say it was quite productive and exhausting.  It made me wonder how people got through the training after all the heavy drinking going on every night.  Now since I’m Mormon and everything, I make a pretty good designated driver and spectator to the whole “getting drunk” experience.  I learned that if one enjoys the alcohol, one never turns down drinks paid for by a corporate card.  At times it was entertaining, but it did get tiresome after, oh…two nights of everyone getting smashed.  They even dragged me to a bar on the second night (it’s hard to refuse when it’s 12 against one, but that was the last bar I agreed to go to for the week).  If you’ve never been to Wisconsin, but you’ve heard that beer is part of the culture there, let me just confirm that beer is a staple in that particular part of the nation.  I have never seen so many bars in my life.  There were more corner bars than there were corners.  I’m not even kidding.  I don’t know how a city of 40,000 people keeps that many bars going, but none of them were empty.

Note:  There’s a British guy a couple seats down from me that just said “jolly good” in a conversation on his cell phone.  I didn’t know people actually said that in real life.

So another thing about that part of the country:  I could listen to that accent for hours.  I’m not making fun, but it’s just so entertaining.  There was a guy from North Dakota who was there, and he could tell stories forever without anyone stopping him.  I don’t know what it is about that accent, but it’s awesome.  And yes, it sounds exactly like the people in Fargo. (I’m sorry, I had to say it—it really does!)

I haven’t seen Luke and Jessica now since last Saturday, so I’m missing them quite a bit now.  It wasn’t as bad when I was on the road, because I’m used to being alone there, but the house has seemed really empty since I’ve been back.  This is also the longest we’ve been apart since we’ve been married.  Anyway, the flight’s about to board, so I’m gonna wrap this thing up.

Song of the day:  “Woman”, by Wolfmother.  How great is this song?  I will answer:  very great.  If you haven’t heard these guys, they’re definitely worth a listen.  The first thing I thought of when I heard them for the first time was Black Sabbath, what with the fuzzy guitars and the lead singer’s peculiar voice.  But there’s a lot more to them than that comparison.  And the singer is much more intelligible than Ozzy ever was.  The album, by the way, is excellent.  I’ve been listening to it continually.

More Cheese Never Hurt Anyone

2006-06-13T07:55:00.000-04:00

Note: I wrote most of this yesterday and didn’t get around to posting it.

My final trip to Wisconsin for training started off interestingly enough yesterday morning.  First let me preface by saying I have a hard time sleeping the night before I’m going to travel.  So I knew there was a chance for shenanigans when I booked an airport shuttle to pick me up from my house at 6:00 yesterday morning.  It wouldn’t have been a big deal if Jessica was home, but she and Luke are currently in Delaware.

So anyway, I didn’t get to sleep until about 2:00 Sunday morning.  I woke up to the doorbell ringing at 5:45.  This was not the most soothing wake-up call I have ever had.  I set the alarm on my new cell phone (which merits a tangent, by the way.  I’ve recently taken up disc golfing.  And by “taken up”, I mean that Zimm and his brother-in-law and I all went one time, and then I bought my own discs.  There’s a course in Kokomo, and one of the “holes”—I’m not sure what you call them, really—has a large water hazard.  Were I able to throw a disc straight yet, this wouldn’t be a problem.  Of course, I haven’t yet acquired that skill.  So when we came to this particular part of the course, I used Zimm’s aptly named “floater disc”, which, when thrown into water, will float.  (Told you it was aptly named.)   It’s not hard to see where this is going, is it?  So I threw the disc, and much to my chagrin, it landed out in the middle of this pond over which we were supposed to throw the discs.  Now, even though the floating of the disc itself is a good thing, it still doesn’t magically come motoring toward the shore.  So I had to wade out and get it.  I was wearing shorts, so that wasn’t a huge deal.  Zimm said that the water wasn’t too deep, and it wasn’t, but the silt at the bottom tends to sink a large fellow like myself a little deeper than say, a bottom made of rocks would.  I went in not expecting to get wet up to my waist, so I didn’t think of emptying my pockets.  But when I started to sink, I decided it wasn’t worth the slow walking when I could just swim out into the middle faster than I could walk.  And thus, I came out all wet.  It didn’t even dawn on me for a little while that both my cell phone and wallet were still in my pockets when I went out there.  The phone was loathe to turn on while wet, and after I got home I wasn’t able to turn it on then either.  So luckily we qualified for a free upgrade—thus the new phone.  The old phone, incidentally, has started working again.  End of tangent.)

So I set the alarm on my cell phone, but when it went off, either I didn’t hear it or I got up and turned it off and laid back down without remembering it (I put it across the room so that I’d have to get up to turn it off).  So anyway, the doorbell woke me up, and I ran and got dressed and told the driver (who was all dressed in chauffer gear, which I found interesting at the time, seeing as how I had just booked a sedan to come get me) I’d be out in a few minutes.  And what was sitting in my driveway when I gathered my things and went outside?  A white stretch limousine.  I’m not even kidding.  If my camera hadn’t been packed and I hadn’t been half asleep, I would’ve taken a picture.

I got in and was greeted by fiber optic lights and artificial…stars or something on the ceiling.  There were also all sorts of knobs and buttons, the function of which I could not decipher.  Whether this was due to my grogginess or their complexity I do not know, though I lean toward the former.  So I’m rolling through Kokomo in this limo, and I look down at my white T-shirt that I quickly grabbed as I was heading out, and there’s ice cream on it.  Now I feel like a big winner.  In hindsight, the driver could have said something, you know?  I told him I overslept, and he knew I must’ve just thrown it on.  He couldn’t tell me I was going to travel all day with dribbles on my shirt?  (My wife is sick right now, I’m sure—I didn’t tell her this part of the story yesterday.)  When I got out at the airport, I pretty much felt like some dude that wandered out of a trailer park and found a coupon for a free limo ride.

That’s it for now…this week’s saga will continue later.  (My Pearl Jam review is up now, in case anyone is interested.)

A Post With Ramblings and Randomness? I Would Never Do Such a Thing.

2006-05-31T23:42:00.000-04:00

What is it about this time of year that makes me want to go to Lowe’s and spend all my money?  Tools, gardening supplies, decorations, light fixtures…it doesn’t matter.  I melted the head on my old weed eater (the one I got for free last year), so I had to buy a new one, and while I was there I had to buy other things.  Nothing drastic, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t tempted.  And then the other day I was mowing my lawn, and after I filled up the mower with gas for the second time (it takes a little more than a full tank to do my back yard) and tried to start it, it wouldn’t start.  And when I pulled the cord, gas came shooting out of the holes in the cap.  I have no idea why, but my best guess is that it’s not supposed to do that.  Maybe the engine’s just flooded or something.  I have no idea how one floods an engine on a push mower, but whatever.  So today I tried to start it again, and while there was no gas coming out of the cap, it still wouldn’t start.  Baby steps, perhaps?  Hopefully so, because buying new lawn equipment every year will get old very quickly.

I’m reasonably sure that there’s been something wrong with the flow of time this month.  I’m pretty sure it’s been May for about three years, and yet in terms of blogging, a week goes by before I even know it.  Oh well.

So here’s the thing: I’ve had this post saved on my computer for like a week, and every time I’ve opened it, I’ve thought about something to write, and then gotten pulled away for some reason or another.  So basically, I’ve been working on this post since last Wednesday and all I have is the first paragraph.  That’s just sad.  But now that I think about it, I do have a theory to share with you.  Since there are numerous geographical regions represented here, I’d like to see what you guys think.

Anyone who’s spent enough time with me knows that I don’t order “Philly Cheesesteaks”.  I don’t order them at chain restaurants or at independent places.  Not franchises, not mom and pop stores, nothing.  This is because you can’t get a good cheesesteak (in my experience) outside that part of the country.  Actually (and I’ve mentioned this numerous times as well), the best cheesesteaks I’ve had aren’t even in Philly.  I’ve had steaks from Geno’s and Pat’s (the two most well-known steak shops in Philadelphia), but neither of them are as good as a lot of steaks that you can get in Delaware.  I don’t even know the names of a lot of the shops where I’ve gotten the sandwiches.  Some of them are just corner places in downtown Wilmington.  But a few minutes from my parents’ house you can find four or five places that have better cheesesteaks than anything I’ve had in Philly.  Did you know they put Cheez Whiz on the cheesesteaks up there?  I’m serious.  You don’t have to get it “wit whiz”, but it’s certainly the default choice for a lot of people.  I’ve had it, and I still say it’s gross.  But on to my theory.

The theory is that if you’re from a place that’s known for a certain kind of food, you can’t order that food anywhere else.  It’s almost like blasphemy.  Off the top of my head, I know I can’t order cheesesteaks or crab cakes unless I’m visiting Delaware (Maryland is known for the crab cakes, but it’s all pretty close to the Chesapeake, you know?).  If I see either item on a menu anywhere else, I completely ignore it.  I can’t even order the cheesesteak Thickburger from Hardee’s, and I love Hardee’s (reason #42 that I’m fat).  It’s not that the food isn’t as good (although that’s certainly true), it’s just something I can’t bring myself to do.  The theory doesn’t apply to places that you visit, either.  For example, I’ve had Chicago-style pizza in Chicago, but I’ll still order it from Papa Murphy’s (I like that better anyway).  But would someone from Chicago do that?  Or am I alone in my food-related neuroses?  I’d like to know.  Clue me in here, people.

Up next on the other blogs:  I’ll be reviewing the Pearl Jam concert soon enough over on Eight Cents, and I’ll give my thoughts on UFC 60 and the state of the Phillies over on the Diary.  Check it out this week (hopefully…although it seems that whenever I give a timeline for posting, I never meet it).

Song of the day:  “Can’t Stand It”, by Wilco.  Wilco is good stuff.  There are better songs, but that’s been stuck in my head for the last little while.

Has it Really Been a Week?

2006-05-22T23:54:00.000-04:00

I’m back again.  I was going to do more posting last week than I ended up doing, but it was extremely busy.  Of course, Tuesday night was Pearl Jam in Chicago, which was absolutely the most amazing concert I’ve ever been to.  It’s cliché to say it, but it was more than a concert.  It was seriously an experience.  All those obsessive Pearl Jam fans?  I understand now.  It also helped that the band (or someone who got in their collective ear) came up with the best idea in the history of concerts:  making each live performance available for download.  There were so many moments during the show that I wanted to relive, and the download gave me the opportunity to do so.  I won’t review the concert now, as Zimm may want to do all three when he returns from his road trip (if he doesn’t, I’ll review the Chicago show), but it was, to make a gross understatement, awesome.

So the show ended at about 11:30, and I got about 5 hours of sleep before making the 3 ½ hour trip back to Wisconsin to finish up the week’s training.  I won’t go into detail, because it’d be boring.  It was pretty good other than this one guy that was determined to make things difficult.  This whole training is about going into a place and making changes for the better.  But this guy had to disagree with everything anyone said until it appeared that he was the one who came up with anything of worth.  He was one of those people that needs to be needed.  He needs to know everything, but no one else can have information, because they wouldn’t have to go to him for everything.  Have you ever seen a person who, when he smiles, it looks like a snarling grimace?  That was this guy.  He never looked genuinely happy.  It just looked like he was bearing his teeth.  Anyone I’ve ever met with that particular characteristic has been obnoxious.  But that’s enough about that.

Congratulations to Shoeless Joel, who landed a job teaching at a school in Georgia.  Good job, man.

I think that’s about it for now.  I’ve got a List in the works, along with some sports stuff and reviews of all the season finales I’ve been watching.  So I’ll be around.

Song of the Day: “Jeremy”, by Pearl Jam.  I’m not even really a big fan of this song, but it was unbelievable when they played it live.  After the lyrics were over, Eddie let the crowd take over for the screams at the end.  My voice was toast for the rest of the night, but it was so cool.

Cheesy Musings

2006-05-15T23:25:00.000-04:00

I’m on the road again for the second week of the training that I started last month.  This week brings us to the magical land of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  I’m editing some old home videos here in my room at the Holiday Inn Express.  It’s good times.  Oshkosh is about a six hour drive from Kokomo, which I completed gladly instead of flying.  I’ve taken enough long trips in the car that six hours doesn’t really even make me flinch anymore, but the process of flying involves so much wait time that it drives me nuts.  Of course, there is indeed waiting involved when you’re driving through Chicago.  I drove through at about 3:30 local time yesterday and it was like rush hour (not a Chicago rush hour, mind you, but like a rush hour in any city with a reasonable amount of traffic).  Ridiculous.  How are that many people driving through Chicago at 3:00 on a Sunday afternoon?

Speaking of Chicago, I’ll actually be temporarily interrupting my training tomorrow afternoon to travel again to the Windy City.  For what, you ask?  That would be for my first Pearl Jam concert, which I will be attending with resident Pearl Jam fanatic, Zimm.  I am extremely excited.  I haven’t been to a show this size (sold out at the United Center) in quite some time, and the fan club tickets that Zimm acquired for us promise to be of excellent quality.  Here’s my wish list for some things I’d like to see them play tomorrow:

“Evenflow”, “Alive”, “Yellow Ledbetter” (I think those are the ones they play at pretty much every show), “Leash”, “Dirty Frank”, “Why Go”, “Given to Fly”, “Porch”, “Rats”, “Present Tense”, “Hail Hail”, “Lukin”, “Off He Goes”, “Do the Evolution”, “Love Boat Captain”, “Faithfull”, “Evacuation”.

That’s just off the top of my head, and it doesn’t include songs from the new album, because they’ll probably play most of those ones.  Of course, I don’t expect that they’ll play all the songs I listed (they haven’t played “Dirty Frank” or “Leash” in quite some time), but it’ll be fun to see which ones they do play.  And with any luck, they won’t play “Last Kiss”.

So after a long day today (pretty much eight hours of lecture), I’ve got another one coming tomorrow.  I’ll be leaving here at about 1:00 to make the 3 ½ hour drive to Chicago, and hopefully I’ll beat most of the really bad traffic that way.  Then it’s time for the before-party at a pizza place where Pearl Jam cover band Even Flow will be playing.  Because what else would you do before going to a Pearl Jam concert other than listen to a Pearl Jam cover band?  Then it’s off to the big shew, after which I’ll grab a few hours of sleep at the hotel (gotta love a free hotel room because I just happen to be on a business trip at this particular time) after which I’ll roll on back to Oshkosh and resume training at about 9:30 or so.  Hopefully I’ll be functional early enough that I’m not extremely late here.

Well, it’s time to get packed up here.  I’m checking out of this hotel tomorrow so that I can check back in the next day in a different room.  The next room will have a Jacuzzi if I’m not mistaken, which is fun, but not as much if one is by oneself, as I am.  I’ll be posting updates as I see fit this week, so peace out until then, faithful readers.

Picture Pages, Picture Pages, Time to Get Your Picture Pages

2006-05-09T15:31:00.000-04:00

I haven’t posted here for a while, but I’ve had a few on the other blogs, so at least that’s something. We did some landscaping on Saturday. I will say this: if you want to do something that’s harder than it looks, remove a large patch of grass from your lawn. That’s what we did. I’ll be traveling next week, so for Jessica’s Mother’s Day present, we went and got some flowers (marigolds and some phlox) and planted them around the mailbox. The planting itself wasn’t so bad. The tough part was the aforementioned grass. I was picturing taking it up the same way sod goes down. I figured I’d get a shovel under there, start a patch going, and just roll it right up. That is not how it went. I talked a while ago about how much it sucked to pull up ivy. This was way worse, because at least with ivy you can pull for more than half a second before something breaks. With the grass, it just came up in patches. So it took about two hours to get everything ripped up, then we tilled it and planted. Here’s some pictures (these are mostly unedited, but I don't feel like editing them right now):

I forgot to take a "before" picture, but you can probably imagine it. Pretty much take away the border and the mulch and the flowers, and add...grass.

Also, while I'm at it, here's the before and after for the flowerbed in the back yard. I took the before pictures last fall, and the after's are from a couple of weeks ago.

Before,

...and after. The pictures aren't at exactly the same angle, so that's annoying, but whatever. We were happy that the tree in the middle survived, because we took it out completely and re-planted it. It doesn't look great in the picture, but it's filled out now.

And while I'm still at it, how about a couple of Luke?

This is what happens when I try to use a TV tray.

Here's a couple more recent ones (from when we were in Chicago):

Song of the Day: "I'd Rather Be Blind, Crippled and Crazy", by The Derek Trucks Band. These guys are good. Their sound (at least on their latest album) is a real funky blues type thing. This song is a great example of that.

To Smell Like Burning Car

2006-04-25T22:32:00.000-04:00

The scene opens on the plasma center 10 minutes before our hero is scheduled to leave for the day.  An employee approaches.

Employee 1: Hey Tha Docta—there’s a car smoking outside, and the people in the waiting room are saying it looks like “it’s about to blow”.

Tha Docta: What?  Is the car running?

E1: No.  It’s just out there smoking.

Tha Docta (in his mind): Surely this is just a case of someone’s car overheating just as they were arriving here.  This has to be an overstatement.  It wouldn’t exactly be the first time.

Tha Docta then looks out the front entrance and sees said car and its owner. The owner lifts the hood, where flames begin to leap out.  Tha Docta runs for the fire extinguisher on the wall, pulls it out, and heads for the door.

Tha Docta (to himself): Okay.  Point nozzle, squeeze handle.  Point nozzle, squeeze handle.  Never used one of these before, but it’s got to be simple, right?  Point the nozzle at the base of the fire, squeeze the handle.  Just like you’ve always heard.

Tha Docta continues toward the door, picturing how the scene would go down:

Tha Docta:  It’s alright!  I’ve got an extinguisher!

Donor 1:  Thank goodness!  Hurry!

Tha Docta:  Nobody worry.  Everything will be fine!

He makes his way outside and pushes through the gathering throng to get a clear shot at the engine.  As he squeezes the trigger, his massive pectoral muscles cause the buttons on his shirt to detach themselves from the fabric and whiz through the atmosphere like bullets.  The testosterone in the air is palpable.

Tha Docta stops daydreaming.

Donor 2: I’m a firefighter!

Tha Docta (handing him the extinguisher):  Here you go!

Tha Docta watches as Donor 2 pulls the pin from the extinguisher in preparation to put out the fire.

Tha Docta (to himself): The pin!  Good thing he took that.  I would’ve looked like a giant idiot until I figured it out or someone told me.

Employee 2 (watching from the back of the center): Why’d he hand the fire extinguisher to that donor?

Employee 3: Maybe he didn’t know how to use it or something.

Donor 2 proceeds to put out the fire in the engine.  It smells like no car should ever smell.  Or anything else for that matter.

End Scene.

Alright, so it’s obvious I have no idea how to write in that style.  But I thought it would sound better like that than if I were to just tell the story like I usually do.  As an epilogue, I called the fire department afterwards so that they could come and check out the guy’s car before…what, he drove it home?  I don’t know what you do with a car after the engine ignites.  As I was leaving, one of the employees asked if I was on my way out, and when I said I was, she said, “Good.  You smell like burning car.”  That’s the way to make your exit, my friends.

Looks Like a Boring Post Until the End

2006-04-23T20:33:00.000-04:00

Well, it was a busy week.  The in-laws were here till about Thursday, which was nice because we got a bunch of things done, as I mentioned in the last post.  On Friday we decided we’d go out to Chicago for the day to visit the temple.  We hadn’t been in a while, so it was nice to get out there.  Of course, there was the issue of leaving at 4:00 in the morning with a one-year-old.  It was really nice, but it was a long, long day.  We ended up getting back at about 6:00.  I won’t go into details about the trip, because mostly it involves driving and listening to crying, but I’ll post some pictures.

One thing I did learn about my son while we were there is that he likes mandarin oranges.  A lot.  I took him to Wendy’s while Jessica went through and got him some chicken nuggets and the aforementioned mandarin oranges.  He pretty much lost his mind.  He was flailing all around and yelling at the top of his lungs between bites.  It was almost embarrassing.  In addition to the food excitement, he was yelling, “HI!” at everyone who looked at him, and at most people who didn’t.  When the oranges ran out, I gave him some of a frosty, which, to make a gross understatement, did not help him to calm down.  But it was good times.

If you haven’t seen it yet, head over to the sports blog and check out the new design.  I kind of dig it if I do say so myself.  I don’t have too much else to say at the moment, so let’s see what I look like, courtesy of Google, shall we?  (If you haven’t seen this by now, check out some of the blogs on the sidebar and they’ll tell you how to do it.

-As you can see Shawn looks like a happy go lucky kind of guy, so you must have the laid back "cool" attitude like Shawn

-Shawn looks like Rocky

-Shawn looks like the kind of father who might very well wash a kid's mouth out with soap

-Shawn looks like Jesus took the night off.

-Shawn looks like he came right out of Zoolander

-Shawn looks like Keanu Reeves

-Shawn looks like he's muggin for the camera

-Shawn looks like hell through the whole thing

-Shawn, looks like you throw a mad assed party dude

-Big Shawn looks like he's developing!!!

-I like the way Shawn looks like on stage, he has a commanding type of presence, almost larger than life

-Shawn looks like Elvis, his mannerisms are like Elvis and oh baby, he sings just like Elvis.

-Furthermore, Shawn looks like a big dork in this picture

-Shawn looks like Suze Orman

-Shawn looks like a homeless old man

-shawn looks like he’s had way too much to drink

-SHAWN LOOKS LIKE THE WIND HAS BEEN TAKEN OUT OF HIS SAILS

-Shawn looks like Kelly Rowland a lil

-Shawn looks like he’s in serious pain

-Shawn looks like a very handsome continental tennis player!

-Shawn looks like he is either Chachi in Happy Days or a hopeful wise guy

That’s me in a nutshell.  A hopeful wise guy who’s developing the ability to throw a mad assed party and sounds like Elvis.

(You were right, O Shoeless one.  They got better.)

Here Comes the New Boss, Same As the Old Boss

2006-04-16T19:02:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter!  After far too long, I’m finally back.  I got the laptop a while ago, but I’ve been quite busy since then, so I haven’t really had the chance to post.  So while we’re here and all, what say I catch you up on the goin’s on out here?

I’ve started some new training for work.  I won’t go into great detail or anything, but it’s actually been pretty good.  I’m always wary of business training, what with their “thinking outside the box”, and “other retarded phrases that don’t really mean anything”, and whatnot.  Luckily, this one seems to be different, more action-oriented, and more centered in reality than others I’ve been involved with.  But the reason I mention that is because I was in Chicago from Sunday to Wednesday this past week, and while I usually would keep a “Chicago Files” or something like that on the blog, I didn’t because I was busy furiously customizing my new laptop.  Everything had to be perfect, and perfection takes time, my friends.  However, I do still have two more trips planned for this particular training—one in May and one in June—and I’ll be traveling to Wisconsin for both of those.  I’ll be sure to keep you updated on my journeys to the wonderland of cheese.

So I got back Wednesday night, worked the late shift on Thursday, and then the early shift on Friday, and then I worked from 6-4 on Saturday.  Needless to say, by the time I got home and finished with the yard work, I was not in the mood.  Also my in-laws arrived on Friday, so we’ve been doing projects with them.  My father-in-law likes to come and help out with stuff.  For example, we’ve replaced some wood on the shed, re-hung some cabinets in the garage, and fixed some plumbing.  And that’s since Friday evening.  Of course, these are things I could do myself for the most part, but I don’t have a lot of the tools (read: motivation) necessary to complete such projects all the time.

Speaking of tools, I think I’m speaking for most men when I say that I want all of them.  Seriously.  I want all tools.  I want tools that I know I’ll never use.  Tools I’ve never seen or heard of.  I want tools that I can’t figure out how to use, and that I don’t even want to use.  I want tools that have no practical functionality besides one task that’s easier completed without tools.  I want a mansion of pegboard to hang all my tools in so that all my friends can come to look at them and congratulate me on my manliness.  And I want it now.

But I digress.  Did I mention that laptops are awesome?  Because they are.  They’re just so much more…portable.  Which I guess is the point, right?  So I think I’ll be doing a bit more of the “live blogging” thing now.  See, sometimes during shows like “American Idol”, (in its best season right now, by the way) I favor my wife with a running commentary/critique that I’m sure she gets tired of hearing.  Therefore, I think I’ll try live blogging my thoughts while I’m watching the show.  Of course, I’ll be using the term “live” loosely, since I TiVo the show and fast forward through everything except the performances and judge evaluations.  I may or may not do that this week, depending on what’s going on with the in-laws here.  The point is that I talk a lot during TV and other activities (I know it annoys my wife sometimes, because sometimes I annoy my own self), and now I don’t need to talk quite as much.  Even if nobody reads it, at least I’ve said my piece, right?  And there’s something less obnoxious about someone publishing their thoughts where it’s optional for people to read them, rather than broadcasting said thoughts for everyone in the room to hear.  At least that’s the idea I’m going for.

My other hope is that this will really help my sports blog (which I’m currently redesigning).  It was hard for me before to think of something sports-related to write about when I was at work, or just sitting at my desk at home unless there was really something on my mind.  A lot of times I’ll get ideas while watching ESPN or some sporting event, or what have you.  So now instead of jotting down some thought or idea on a piece of paper that I will surely lose before I can write about it, I can just fire up the old laptop.

Anyway, I’m off of work tomorrow and Tuesday, so we’ll see what happens.  I’ll probably be busy around the house for most of the day, but you never know.  In the meantime, have a song of the day:

“Making Memories of Us”, by Keith Urban.  One of the more underrated country singers who’s just starting to get the recognition he deserves.  Also he’s Australian, which rules.

Coming Soon: More

2006-03-30T07:42:00.000-05:00

I’ve gone and done it. On Tuesday, I ordered a laptop. My desktop is becoming increasingly less stable, and I fear for the day when it decides that it shall no longer grace us with its functionality. Thus the decision was made to take the plunge into portability. I’ve actually wanted a laptop for a while, so I’m pretty excited about it. My wife isn’t quite on the same excitement level as I am, but once she realizes the awesomeness of the situation, she’ll come along. But on to the more important thing: What does this mean for you? Well, in all probability, it means more blogging from me. Whether that’s a good or bad thing remains to be seen, but I’m looking forward to it. This will enable me to do the “multitasking” thing I’ve talked about before…namely blogging while I’m watching TV or something (doing two things that are hardly “tasks” to be “multi-ing”) instead of sequestering myself in the basement, where my office space is.

The new computer is coming around mid-April, and entries may or may not be sparse until then, but bear with me. More is coming.

Smelly Dude, Smelly Dude; It's Not Your Fault!

2006-03-23T19:18:00.000-05:00

Isn’t it Spring right now?  Why did it snow once already this week, and why is it threatening to do so again?  I’m annoyed with the weather.  I’ve got a laundry list of things I want to do around the outside of the house, and it’s still too cold.

I kept waiting for the comments section to pick up before I posted next, but I waited in vain.  Of course, I just realized that perhaps I should have contributed myself before expecting other people to do so.  Oh well.  There’s really not too much going on around here as far as news, so I’ll just favor you with the aforementioned conversation.  But first, an introduction.

The way it works around here is that the donors come in and first have their medical history taken by the medical historians.   I know, it’s a weird job title for such a position.  Anyway, if the medical historians take someone into a booth to do their questions and are overpowered by stench, they will defer that donor for the day because of poor hygiene.  Usually people take it well; or at least as well as can be expected when someone tells them they can’t donate because their odor makes everyone want to shove pinecones in their nostrils to mask the smell.

On occasions where the donor does not take the bad news in stride, reinforcements are called in (namely Zimm or myself, depending on who’s working).  So here’s how that particular conversation went (after far too much buildup, I might add):

Me (pulling an unintentional face as I entered the booth):  How’s it going today?
Smelly Person:  Uh—not great.  They said I can’t donate today because I smell bad?
Me: Right.  The problem is that sometimes when this situation comes up, we can’t let you donate because it’s distracting to the employees and other donors around you.  It makes everyone uncomfortable.
SP: I don’t stink!
Me: Well, I don’t know whether the smell is coming from you personally or something you’re wearing, but there were employees outside this room who said they could smell it, and there were donors in the waiting room who could smell it, and I’m sitting across from you and I can smell you.
SP (indignantly): Who said I stink?!
Me: …
SP: Which donors said I stink out there?  That’s none of their business!  Why don’t they come up to me and tell me to my face?!
Me (not sure where to go with this, because I was not expecting the conversation to go in this direction): I actually don’t know who said it, and it really doesn’t matter.  They don’t make the decision on whether you can donate or not.  I make that decision, and I’m telling you you’re not donating today.
SP: I want to know who said I stink!  I don’t stink!  People used to make fun of me and I don’t like it!  I wash my clothes by hand because I don’t have a washing machine, and I took a shower today!
Me: Well, maybe it’s something that you use to wash your clothes, but none of that really matters.  What really matters is that you’re not going to be able to donate today.  So you can come back tomorrow as long as the smell is taken care of, okay?
SP: Fine, but I’m gonna find out who said I stink, and we’ll have words!
Me: Don’t do that, or you won’t be able to come back anymore.  Just let it go for today, alright?
SP: Fine. (leaves)

Can I just say I love my job?

Would You Like Some Free Clothing?

2006-03-09T19:01:00.000-05:00

I’m at work, and it’s so freaking hot in here today that I’m pretty sure my face is going to melt off of my skull.  It sure would have been nice if the contractors had installed the air conditioner correctly two years ago when we opened.  I know it’s March and all, and it’s not really warm out, but it’s raining like a mother.  When it gets humid like that, the heat inside the building is ridiculous.  Oh well.

Zimm got some Pearl Jam tickets for a show in Chicago on May 16th, and I’m going with him.  So we’re pretty excited about that.  Of course, he’s a certifiable maniac when it comes to Pearl Jam, so he’s soiling himself with excitement about all three of the shows he’s going to.  I don’t even know that I have one favorite band anymore.  It used to be Aerosmith, and I still really enjoy them, but there’s no one in particular that I like that much more than everyone else.  Also, I listen to so many different bands and acts that I don’t have the inclination to listen to one particular so much more.  Anyway, enough of that.  I’m beginning to wax boring here.

Let me set a scene for you.  You donate plasma, okay?  There’s a promotion going on where if you donate a certain amount of times in a given period, you get a sweatshirt, and if you donate a little bit less than that, you get a t-shirt.  On the announcement for said promotion, it reads that the plasma donation center only has a limited supply of sweatshirts, so even if you qualify for one, make sure you get in early after the promotion ends to ensure that you get it if it’s really important to you.

Now given that information, see if you find the following exchange rational:

Irrational Person:  My wife and I qualified for sweatshirts, but we didn’t get any.
Me:  Sorry to hear that.  We only had a limited supply of those, and we’ve run out.
IP:  My wife was here yesterday and they offered her a t-shirt instead, and she took it but she was very unhappy with it.
Me: …
IP:  I think we should get sweatshirts, because we’re entitled to them.  When are you getting more in?
Me:  Actually, I have no idea.  We haven’t ordered any.  That’s why we said on the announcement that we only had a limited supply.
IP:  I just don’t think that’s fair.  Can I be put on a list to get a sweatshirt whenever you get them in?
Me:  So let me get this straight.  You and your wife have donated eight times in the last four weeks and gotten $200 each over that time.  We offered sweatshirts if you hit that threshold, though we had no obligation to do so, and we told you that we didn’t have a ton of sweatshirts, and if you wanted one you should come in early…like Monday, when we started giving them out.  Your wife came in on Wednesday, and here you are on Thursday, and somehow it isn’t fair that we’ve run out and you don’t get one?  Are we really having this conversation right now about free sweatshirts after we’ve already given you $400?  And did you really use the word entitled?  Am I in the Twilight Zone?  Where are the cameras right now?
Me (What I really said):  Sure.

Sometimes I really wish I could say what pops into my head when these conversations happen.  But since I can’t, it sure is nice to have a blog.

In the comments section, since we’re talking about weird conversations, I’d like to have a roundtable discussion about how one goes about telling someone that they can’t donate plasma because they stink too bad, and it’s distracting to other donors and employees.  Then in my next post I will favor you with one such situation I encountered not too long ago.  You may begin.

Song of the Day: “Close Edge”, by Mos Def.  If you ever saw that segment on “Chappelle’s Show” where Dave’s driving around and Mos Def is in the passenger seat, this is the song he did.  Sometimes I just need some rap that’s no frills…simple beat and solid flow.

Fortunately, There Are No Deadlines in Blogging

2006-03-02T08:55:00.000-05:00

I didn't mention this last week, but I'm Delaware right now. Jessica and Luke and I came out Saturday and are here until this Saturday morning (our flight leaves at 6:00 am, but let's not talk about that). I've had all sorts of things to talk about, but I haven't been in the mood to actually get on here and post something. I just put up another edition of the Trailer Park over at Eight Cents. There was going to be more on that blog than there has been, but I haven't really been reaching for anything to write about, seeing as how there's a ton of new TV shows coming out relatively soon.

We took Luke to get some pictures done yesterday. We hadn't had any professionally done since he was about 6 weeks old or something. He's usually a pretty happy guy, so we didn't think there would be a problem in getting him to smile. That was incorrect. He pretty much had the stone face on the whole time. The photographer tried her best, but there wasn't much she could do. We were probably there for a half hour, and we only got one pose that was any good. And the only reason we even got that one was because we had enough Goldfish crackers to put on the props, so that he would stand there and eat instead of walking away. He's hilarious sometimes.

We've been keeping pretty busy here, as is usually the case when we come out, even if we're not doing many productive things. There's always something to do or someone to see. We had hoped to get to see Shoeless Joel and/or AtomicU2 with their respective families, but it doesn't look like we'll be able to. Sorry guys.

I've got a lot of sports thoughts these days, so hopefully one night (I guess there's really only tonight left), I'll be able to get over to the Diary and get something going there.

Back From the Infirmary. Again.

2006-02-22T18:23:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I thought I was out of the woods after my last post, but as it turned out, two days later I was sidelined once again with the cold from Hades.  I didn’t pay it much mind, because I thought, “I was just sick last week…how bad could it be?”  I found that it could be pretty bad.  I had that cough that makes you feel like you’re having a heart attack every time it comes, and I couldn’t breathe because every time I took half a breath I’d start coughing.  The sensitive skin made a triumphant return, and I wore my jacket at work for a couple of days (even on the day when the heater was broken and it was 75 degrees in the center).  I went through 3 days of people taking a double take every time they saw me and saying, “Ooh…you look terrible.  What are you doing at work?”  So that was nice.  Of course, I had just called off two days of work the week before, so I couldn’t call off any more.  I can’t even remember the last time I called off of work before that.

But now I’m back at full strength once again.  Unfortunately, in the meantime I was out of commission on both Valentine’s Day and my anniversary.  I was lucky to be about 70% when we went out for my birthday, though, which we celebrated with the Zimms on Saturday night by treating ourselves to steak dinners (Saturday was two days after Zimm’s birthday and two days before mine).  Nothing like a steak to bring you back to full heath, right?  Anyway, in related news, I should be resuming my multi-blog posts starting immediately.  I wasn’t doing too badly in keeping everything up to date before, so hopefully now that I’ve gotten all this mess out of my system, I’ll be good to go.

By the way, I’m not so sure if it was food poisoning that we had before.  It may have been the stomach flu.  After we had it, it seems a bunch of people started having the same symptoms, with Zimm being one of them.  Also, I don’t know if I mentioned the severe pain that went along with the sickness, but it was there.  It hurt really bad for about a day, and I’m not sure that food poisoning can do that to you.  I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway.

In Luke news, he’s starting to walk more, and he also replies to you now when you talk to him.  I don’t mean he says actual words or anything, but he’ll look back at you and make a sound that maybe he understands.  A normal conversation would go something like this:

Me: What are you doing?
Him:  Ngot.
Me:  Are you getting into something you’re not supposed to?
Him:  Glark.
Me:  That’s Daddy’s.  Put that back.
Him:  Bladoladm LOL.

So it’s always a productive thing when we talk.

I think that’s about it for now.  Be on the lookout for more content coming your way this week on the three blogs.

Song of the Day: “One”, by Metallica.  I just watched the documentary about the making of their last album, Some Kind of Monster.  Excellent stuff, even if you’re only mildly interested in the band.

Poisoned! Or Should I Say...Poisoned?

2006-02-13T18:20:00.000-05:00

I’m back from a relatively brief hiatus with a cautionary tale.  Last Wednesday, the wife and I went to Pizza Hut for the lunch buffet before I went to work.  We had a coupon for a free buffet with the purchase of one, so we figured we’d go ahead and do that, there being two of us and all.

The day was rather uneventful, as most days are I suppose, until about 7:00, when I began to feel some stomach pain.  This was somewhat troubling, but I didn’t think it was that big a deal.  I should mention that until this point, I could not remember the last time I’d thrown up.  I have, as I like to say, an iron stomach.  It had to have been at least 9 or 10 years.  So I got home at around 8:30 or so, and we started watching “American Idol” and waiting for “Lost” to come on.  I’d started to get the chills and extra-sensitive skin by now (you know…when it hurts that your arm hairs are brushing against your clothes), so I knew something was amiss.  My wife made the comment that I didn’t look so good either.

I was pretty uncomfortable for the next hour or so, but mostly because of the skin thing.  Well, right around the end of “Lost”, it hit me.  I hadn’t puked in a long time, but it’s not a feeling you forget when it comes back.  The saliva jets and the impending sense that the eviction notice has just gone up in your stomach is undeniable.  So I ran to the facilities and did what I had to do.  And oh, what an initiation back into the world of abdominal expulsion it was.  I was not aware that one could vomit out of one’s nose.  (While I’m on the subject, here’s a question:  How do you get rid of the smell?  I tried blowing my nose and snorting water, but it was no use.)  It was definitely an unpleasant experience.

So I figured, what with the flu-like symptoms, that I had some kind of stomach flu.  And for the record, I did feel better afterwards, though only for about 10 minutes.  And my color didn’t go back to normal, either; unless my normal pallor had resembled that of Herman Munster, in which case I looked perfectly fine.

We went to bed shortly after this whole event; me with extra blankets, because I just couldn’t get warm.  The next morning at about 4:00, I woke up to find my wife having the same symptoms that I had earlier exhibited, only at more frequent intervals.  In fact, by about 6:30, she was throwing up every couple of minutes.  It was not good times.  I was also visiting the facilities at an alarming rate, though not for the same thing.  Let’s just say it was good that we have more than one bathroom in the house.  If we still lived in an apartment, things could have very easily gotten ugly.

After a little while longer, we decided we should go to the emergency room rather than wait for the doctor’s office to open, try to get an appointment, wait in the waiting room, wait in the second waiting room, etc, etc.  I used to have a different view of the emergency room.  I envisioned scenes from “ER”.  Really, an emergency as defined by the room itself is just something that can’t wait 4 or 5 hours (at least) before you take care of it.

I decided not to check us both in since we pretty much had the same thing going on, and it would cost twice as much.  So I figured I’d pay attention when they told her what to do.  They told us it was either food poisoning or the stomach flu, since both have pretty much the same symptoms and the same treatments.  They gave Jessica an IV and some anti-nausea drugs, and some friends came and got Luke so that we could get some rest.  Of course, the downside of not having checked myself in was that I didn’t get a bed, so I sat in an uncomfortable chair while the IV ran out and Jessica got some sleep.

Needless to say, I didn’t go to work that day.  I also didn’t go to work the next day actually, because when I wasn’t all high on vicodin, I was in a lot of pain.

So the verdict is still kind of out on whether it was food poisoning or the stomach flu.  I’m leaning towards food poisoning since we both got within about 3 hours of each other, and Luke hasn’t come down with anything.  And if you’re wondering how pizza can give you food poisoning, look no further than undercooked chicken on a barbecue chicken pizza.  It’s my favorite kind as of late, and as with most good things, it has its dangers.  Anyway, this is also why there were no posts here last week and minimal posts on the other two blogs.  There is a new trailer park up over at Eight Cents, though.  I always enjoy writing those.

Song of the Day:  “Tribute”, by Tenacious D.  One of the all time greatest music videos ever.  Also pretty good just to listen to.  I listened to the whole album recently for the first time, and I actually rather enjoyed it in a weird way.

Taxes and Things

2006-02-01T12:38:00.000-05:00

Ah, taxes.  The mere mention of the word just puts you in that special mood, doesn’t it?  Though preparing taxes in my generation is not such an arduous task as it was for my parents’ (thank you, TurboTax), still, preparing my taxes always makes me angry.  You might be wondering why, considering I’ve never actually owed anything (in federal taxes, anyway).  It’s because I get to see how much the government has taken out of my checks for the entire year, and I get to thinking what they must be doing with it.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I don’t make tons of money, and my tax contribution is downright paltry compared to many.  But I start thinking about the billions and billions of dollars the governments (state, federal, etc) have at their disposal, and what exactly we see from it.  I don’t normally talk about politics (because I don’t know anything about politics outside of what Jon Stewart, Dave Letterman and Tina Fey tell me), but I’ll make an exception here, because I think this may be a common perspective among those of us who don’t know much about politics.

You know what I see when I think about the money the federal government has?  Rich, self-congratulatory politicians who don’t have any idea what life outside of Washington is.  Sure, they’ve got all their programs about which I know nothing, and a lot of which do a lot of good (I assume), but every time I turn around, it seems, the House or the Senate is approving some pay raise for themselves.  I see the capital of the country that seems like its own little world.  A place where bureaucrats and red tape are king and little of consequence ever seems to be accomplished.  That’s all I’m going to say about federal, because to go any further is to make myself look dumber than I already do.

As far as local government, I owe $200 in county taxes this year.  What does the county do that the city and state don’t?  No, seriously—I’m asking.  Is it snow removal?  Because the snow removal here is garbage.  It’s not even worth a dollar, let alone 200.  Is it for the upkeep of the county roads that no one uses and that are never maintained?  I come from a state with three counties, and this whole “county tax” thing is new to me.  It must not be standard practice among all the states, because it’s not even an option to have county tax taken out of my paycheck.  I would just have to withhold a certain amount more every pay period, which I don’t want to do.  I’m a bit annoyed by this whole thing.  Can you tell?

I thought about making some suggestions here for improvements and programs that would be worth our tax money, or just save tax money in general.  Things like revamping the prison system.  But I’m already tired of talking about political things, so maybe I’ll save that for a future “The List” subject.

Anyway, moving on to lighter subjects.  I’ve posted the definitive top ten list over on Eight Cents, with the top ten shows on television right now.  So check it out and throw in your own two cents.  I’m always interested in what people like to watch.  Maybe my partners in crime on that site (who haven’t posted in ages) will join me and make their own lists (I’m looking at all of you expectantly).

I’ll cut myself off here for now.  I had a few more things that I wanted to talk about, but I can’t remember what they are anymore.  I need to start writing these things down.  I think when I first started blogging, I had all this pent up knowledge that I just needed to drop on the general populous, and so I got it all out quickly.  Now things don’t stick in my head for quite as long as they used to.  I have a specific window in which I need to either write down an idea or post it, because it’ll be gone later.  Or maybe I’m just getting old.  I’m turning 27 this month, after all.

Song of the day:  “A Change is Gonna Come”, by Sam Cooke.  Old but good.

Yes, Vacuum Salesmen Still Exist

2006-01-21T10:23:00.000-05:00

I was hoping I’d have something good for my hundredth post, so this happened just at the right time.  Get comfortable…it’s story time.

It’s been a while since my last good story, so let me fill you in on a little something that happened last night at the house.  I got off of work at 8:00 in the evening, and planned on enjoying a few hours with my wife before going to bed and getting up at 5:00 to go back to work.  Such is life when it’s my Saturday to work.  Around 9:00, there was a knock at the door.  I thought surely this must be someone we knew to be coming by so late.  Alas, I was wrong.  It was people selling vacuums.  You’re probably thinking, “Who sells vacuums at 9:00?  You didn’t let them in, did you?”  Well, the folks at Kirby sell vacuums at 9:00, and I did in fact let them in.  I will give you my reasoning.  There was a girl and a guy at who came to the door, and the girl was apparently working to have her college tuition paid for by Kirby.  I’m not exactly sure how that worked, but whatever.  They told me that they’d demonstrate this vacuum on my living room carpet and get some spots up with the shampoo attachment that comes with the vacuum.  So I figure they’re going to shampoo my carpet, show me how much my present vacuum sucks (ha!) and give me a sales pitch.  So basically I get a free carpet cleaning for sitting through this thing.  I figured the whole thing including the cleaning wouldn’t take more than an hour.  It was freaking 9:00, right?

Wrong.  I found out when they came in that first of all, they didn’t even have the vacuum with them to begin with.  Apparently this sales office is based out of Indy, and they take a van full of salespeople to different cities every now and then to go door-to-door.  Well the vacuums were in the van, which was currently in another neighborhood.  So we sat awkwardly and waited for the van to show up with the vacuum.  Now, I don’t have a problem with door-to-door sales in principle.  I figured selling vacuums in such a manner was a thing of the past, where the guy comes in and dumps a whole bunch of crap on your floor and then cleans it up or something.  But if you’re doing this, shouldn’t you kind of have the product with you so you’re not wasting people’s time?  But I digress.

The vacuum people showed up after about 15 minutes, at which point the girl left.  I’m not sure what exactly she was doing to earn college tuition other than keeping the actual salesman company, but having her there certainly didn’t influence my decision to let them in one way or another.  So anyway, the guy started his pitch, and first he had me vacuum the room up a bit with our present vacuum.  Then he proceeded to show us all 4,328 attachments for his machine and what they do.  There was pretty much a tool for everything, but I’ll spare you the details.  Let’s just say it’s a pretty nice machine.  Then he went and vacuumed the carpet with his little white pad that caught what he was sucking up, and he showed us how much our vacuum was leaving behind underneath what it was picking up.  Of course, we already knew this to some extent, as we’ve had our current vacuum for 5 years and sometimes it smells like burning.

There came a point where he was about to do another demonstration, and my wife just told him in not so many words, “Yeah, we understand it’s great and everything.  How much does it cost?”  I should say at this point that I knew we weren’t going to be buying one of these things.  He told us earlier that Kirby doesn’t do any sort of advertising, and that all their machines are sold like this, from door to door.  Also he said that Kirby wasn’t “built to a price, but it’s built to a standard”, which means, “It’s really freaking expensive”.  So at that point, I was ready for him to clean my carpet and leave, because this whole purchasing thing just wasn’t happening.

So after she told him to get on with the price side of things, he started into his spiel.  He told us how we’d never have to buy another vacuum, it’s got a lifetime guarantee, etc, etc.  Any guesses as to the cost?  Anyone?  It blew Dyson’s $600 out of the water with a whopping $1990.00.  Yeah, that’s why they don’t tell you how much it costs first.  And since the first price they give you is never the real price, after we laughed at him he took it down to about $1668.00.  This was obviously still more than we could afford, so I told him we just weren’t going to do it.  Of course, he persisted and went through the always hilarious “Let me call my supervisor and see what we can do for you”.  It was made even more hilarious by the fact that he’d forgotten his cell phone in the van and needed to use our phone…to call long distance.  So that was a good sales tactic.  This went on for longer than it should have, and I probably should have just told him to get out, but he hadn’t shampooed my freaking carpet yet!

Finally the whole purchasing ordeal came to an end when the supervisor himself (who looked like the mob boss of vacuum salesmen with the unbuttoned shirt and a wife beater underneath, accompanied by a gold chain and a thatch of chest hair coming out of the shirt) put in an appearance and made his best offer.  We refuted it, and I could see his frustration, and I wanted to be like, “Is this really uncommon that people don’t buy a ridiculously expensive vacuum cleaner?”  I mean it’s great and all, but who can afford that?  Sure, it’s the last vacuum you’d ever have to buy, but even if I could afford it, I don’t make $1500, or even $500 decisions on the spot.  The wife and I have a policy that we take a day to think about all large purchases to make sure we don’t get caught up in the sales pitch and the excitement of having a new toy.  And man, those salesmen hate it when we tell them that.  It’s actually pretty hilarious.  They go through their whole deal and we tell themt, and they get all indignant and say the price offer won’t be good tomorrow, which we all know is a bunch of crap.

Anyway, after all this, they guy finally cleaned some spots out of the carpet.  We’d been talking about getting the carpet cleaned since we moved in, so that’s the whole reason I let these guys in in the first place.  Here was the kicker though.  My wife answered the door before I talked to these people, and they told her three lies:

-They would not try to sell us anything (which we knew was BS, but we forgave it)

-The shampooing would not get the carpet wet (which was intriguing, and also untrue)

-They would get all the spots out of the carpet in that room (which changed once they found out we weren’t going to buy it)

Oh, and did I mention how long they were there?  Two hours!   So the whole thing didn’t end up being over until 11:00.  If I’d known how long it was going to take in advance, I would have turned them away.  Who goes from door to door at 9:00 on a Friday night knowing that their presentation takes two hours?

So the moral of the story is this:  if you’ve got the money and you really want your house to be clean, buy a Kirby.  It’s a great machine.  Just don’t sit through two hours of a presentation on a Friday night expecting to get your carpet cleaned.  If these guys come to your door, only let them in if you plan on buying something.  Because otherwise it’s pretty much a waste of time.   Especially if you have to get up for work six hours after they leave.

Random Thoughts While Watching a Movie

2006-01-18T19:05:00.000-05:00

I’m watching Bob Dylan: No Direction Home right now on the computer and it’s awesome. If you haven’t seen it and you like music and/or lived in the 60’s, you should watch it. It’s cool for me to see because it puts a lot of today in perspective. Dylan was a rebel when there were still rebels. In a time like now, when everyone’s trying to be a rebel, there are no real rebels. He made his voice heard when it wasn’t easy to do so. Now, some schmo like me can get a blog and say whatever he wants, but back then it wasn’t so simple. At least it seems that way to me. Maybe I’m just glorifying a time I know nothing about. But at any rate, it’s still a great documentary. Some people groan when you say “documentary, but if you think they’re boring, try these ones on for size: Murderball (about quadriplegics that play a brutal type of rugby), Mad Hot Ballroom (about New York elementary schools that teach ballroom dance to underprivileged kids), Dogtown and Z-Boys (about the originators of skateboarding), and Riding Giants (about how surfing got popular). That’s just a few. I love documentaries.

Here’s a few tidbits that Zimm turned me on to recently:

-The best thing to happen to your job since the Internet.

-All sorts of cool stuff for your computer. Try the ClearType, Alt-Tab Replacement, Tweak UI especially. There’s a bunch of things.

Luke is finally starting to take some steps. He’ll stand for longer than half a second, and he’ll walk for a few feet before he falls. So now I’m less worried that he just doesn’t want to walk. Of course, he still gets tired of it after a while, but progress is progress.

Am I the only one that thinks about a ton of things to say before I start blogging, and then when I start I forget 99% of them? I guess watching a movie while I’m writing doesn’t help me remember (not to mention helping the quality of my writing, but I’m not exactly winning any writing awards any time soon in the first place), but still. It annoys me.

Song of the Day: "A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall", by Bob Dylan.

One more thing before the pictures: If you somehow haven't seen this yet, go watch it now.

And finally, here are the pictures I promised in my last post.

He started out slowly...trying some frosting and digging it.

Eventually, he decided to attack the cupcake, devouring it with his "mad face".

Who needs to learn how to talk? If you want more, you just smack the table repeatedly with both hands!

First Post of the Year...Finally

2006-01-11T23:56:00.000-05:00

Well, the holidays are over, and it’s time to get back to business.  Time to get rid of the weight I gained back, time to post more often (and resurrect Eight Cents), time to be generally more productive.  Of course, today is the eleventh, so perhaps my productivity has been delayed, but I’ve been on vacation, so what do you want from me?

This New Year was less eventful than the last, for obvious reasons.  We spent it playing cards in Kansas rather than in a hospital room waiting for Luke to show up.  I prefer the former, by the way.  We were in Kansas visiting Jessica’s sister and her husband and their kids.  We had a great time, and we had a party for Luke down there.  It was decided that he loves cake (pictures to come).

It’s a bit late right now for me to look back and see what’s happened recently that’s post-worthy, so I’ll favor my readers with a random grammatical suggestion.  I propose that we change the past tense of certain verbs.  Every verb that has “ea” in the present tense should have “o” in the past tense.  I will give you examples.  We already have “speak” and “spoke”, “freeze” and “froze”.  I’ve heard people say “squeeze” and “squoze”.  I think we should just make it universal.  Here are some examples used in sentences.

“Man, I was sitting with my back turned, and Matt came in and yelled at me, and I about jumped out of my skin.  He totally froke me out.”

“There was this mouse trapped behind my wall, and he squoke all night long wanting to get out.”

“I was at the football game, and this drunk guy jumped out of the stands and stroke across the field.”

Why do this, you ask?  Well, why not?  I think it sounds better.  I’m going to incorporate it into my every day speech, and I encourage you to do the same.

That’s about it for now.  I’m resurrecting the media journal this year.  So far I’ve actually kept track, so we’ll see how that continues to work.  I’ll also be posting reviews of the new winter shows on Eight Cents eventually.  And while I’m at it with all of this blog-related stuff, I think I’m going to be changing the name of my sports blog.  So keep your eyes open for that.

Greetings From Bloomington

2005-12-28T11:45:00.000-05:00

I may not have gotten the job down here, but now I'm here for a week to cover another manager's vacation so that the one still here doesn't have to work 14-hour days. I did that once for about 4 days, and it's not fun. At all. So I don't mind doing this. I was going to be on vacation this week, but I'm taking it next week now instead.

We'll be going down to Jessica's sister's place in Kansas for a few days for New Year's (otherwise known as Luke's first birthday). That should be good times. We'll leave from here (Jessica's bringing Luke down tomorrow) on Friday and stop in St. Louis for a night. Whenever we travel, we always try to stop somewhere where there's something to see or do. So since we haven't been to the St. Louis Arch yet, we'll do that. We have to keep planned activities brief now with Luke around.

I thought I might be able to come up with some interesting tidbits if I just started writing, but that's proving not to be the case. So I'll sign off for now, and maybe if I think of some things I'll check back in later. Till then.

Random Observation

2005-12-23T13:15:00.000-05:00

I’ve thought about it, and can someone please tell me why school buses stop at railroad crossings?  I understand that they don’t want to get hit by a train, should one be coming down the tracks.  The problem with this logic is that the bus is already on the tracks when it stops.  I don’t walk out into the middle of the street before I look both ways; why does the bus stop on the tracks and then look to see if a train is coming?  Would it be faster to stop, look, and then if a train is coming they throw it in reverse right quick and back off than it would be to just drive over it?

Maybe they just want to be able to have the bus driver make an announcement that all the kids should brace themselves and secure all loose objects in the event that a train should collide with the bus.  Or maybe it’s written into the bus driver’s contract that he is to be a sacrifice to the train gods if their wrath is somehow incurred, so he has to pull up on the tracks a little bit—but just his little compartment up there.

By the way, I finally did find out about Bloomington, and it looks like we’ll be staying in Kokomo.  They found an outside candidate that has more HR experience than I do, and usually it’s a prerequisite that you’re in your current position for 24 months before being promoted, anyway (I’ve been in mine for about 19 months, which is why I was kind of surprised when they asked me if I was interested in the first place).  So I wasn’t too upset to hear about it.  Actually I was kind of expecting it after not hearing anything for the past however long.  Apparently the higher-ups spent the better part of a week going back and forth between the two of us (or so my boss told me), so that’s always nice to hear.  And also on the bright side, I don’t have to move.  I freaking hate moving.  I guess we have friends here too, though I can’t think of any names at the moment.

Of Dead Trees and Excellent Food

2005-12-19T13:16:00.000-05:00

I know, I know.  I’ve been on vacation since last Monday and I haven’t posted once.  Well, I’m going back to work tomorrow, so I figured I’d get one cranked out to avoid total ignominy.  There really isn’t much of note to blog about.  We’ve been keeping busy with Christmas coming up and everything.  It’s been one of those times where we’ve been busy every day, but I couldn’t really tell you what we’ve been doing.  Here are a couple of quick notes for your enjoyment, though.

Last Monday we bought a Christmas tree, which was our first live tree.  It will probably also be our last.  I always had a live tree when I was a kid, and I like having one.  I like the smell and the needles and the…liveness.  The problem with our tree is that it was only alive until we got it in the house.  Or maybe not even that long.  It was weird because when we got it over at Lowe’s, everything seemed fine.  The needles were soft, I shook it to make sure they didn’t fall off, and all that stuff.  Then I got it home and sawed a piece off the bottom and put it in the house, and within a few hours the needles were falling off if you looked at them funny.  So I was not pleased.  I called Lowe’s to see if they have a guarantee on the freaking $30 dead tree that I had bought, and they didn’t.  So now we have a dead tree in the house until next Monday.  What, you think I’m buying another one?  You’re nuts.  We just put a few low-impact decorations on it, and we’re good to go.  No lights, though.  That would be sure to knock out some needleage.

Yesterday was the wife’s birthday.  I took her out Friday and we went down to Indy to a place called The Melting Pot.    Holy crap.  It was delicious.  It’s a fondue place.  We got this four-course meal that started out with a cheese fondue, moved on to a salad with a really good house dressing, then the main course which we cooked in a vegetable broth base fondue, and then a ridiculously awesome dessert.  Very expensive, but very worth it.  We were there for about 2 ½ hours (eating fondue is a process, you see. So if you go, go with someone you like).  I won’t go into more detail about the menu because you can see it on the website, but I will just say that nothing was less than excellent.  And you can just go for dessert if you want, so I highly recommend that some time.  Good stuff.

Luke is doing well.  Christmas should be fun with him.  He’ll be more interested in boxes and wrapping paper than anything else, but that’s alright.  I can’t believe he’s going to be one year old in two weeks.  It seems like a long time ago that Jessica was pregnant, but it doesn’t seem like he’s already been here for a year.  I’ll put up some pictures soon.

By the way, remember that whole “I might be moving to Bloomington” thing?  Yeah, me too.  I haven’t heard anything about an interview yet, though.  So I’m just kind of hanging out right now.  I was able to skip the first round of interviews because it’s with the regional manager, who knows me and figured she didn’t need to interview me.  So now they’re figuring out who of the other interviewees is going on to the next level (flying to Illinois and interviewing with a bunch of people).  I’m guessing once they know they’ll let me know.  This whole process is just frustrating because I haven’t heard an update in like two weeks.  That’s just how big corporations are though—especially this time of year.  It’s actually better (if I get the job) to wait until after the holidays because the house market is better in the late winter/spring (for sellers, anyway).  So I’ll keep everyone updated with any developments I might hear about.

By the way, I haven’t forgotten about Eight Cents.  I’ll be posting there at some point.  I’ve decided to forego movie reviews in favor of reviewing TV and music.  I think I’m better at those than movies.  So keep an eye out for that in the coming days.  I’ve got a few albums on tap for that.

Song of the Day: “Distant Lover”, by Marvin Gaye.  Marvin Gaye is the man.  If you think otherwise, I’ll kindly ask you to stop being wrong.

Dog Days of...Winter, or Something

2005-12-07T11:27:00.000-05:00

I’ve taken the week off for having been sick.  I think that’s what my problem was last Monday and Tuesday.  It was like foreshadowing or something.  Anyway, as my mom mentioned in the comments, our nephew was sick when he came out here (the “wetness” she refers to is snot and spit…hope you’re not eating), and so that’s making its rounds at the house.  But now I feel better.  It wasn’t so bad except for Saturday, when I had to get up at 5:00 to go to work.  I usually feel better in the evenings than the mornings when I have a cold.

So back to the story I was telling.  Thanksgiving went really well, and then my dad and sisters stayed till Saturday morning.  We all played “Scene It?” on Friday night, which was fun.  If you know my family, you know that it was not a quiet affair.  The highlight of the night came when there was a question about which “brothers” made Raising Arizona and my sister’s guess was Warner Brothers.  This caused much laughter, which led her to say, “It’s not that funny, guys”.  But it was, and it is.  So there.  Somehow my mom and youngest sister won, even though I am the movie guy of the family.

There was another interesting thing that happened on Saturday night. We went over to Zimm’s place to bring some of my famous banana cream pie (which I screwed up this year, but it was still alright).  On the way home, we saw a little dog on the side of the road, trying to eat something in the street next to a stop sign.  If you know me, you know I’m a dog person, and this made me sad.  So I asked my wife if I could get out and put him in the car.  To my surprise and delight, she said I could (she’s a softie too).  So I scooped up the little guy (it actually turned out to be a girl) and put her in the back of the Explorer.  Luke thought it was great to have a dog to look at from his car seat (he still faces the back, so his view is usually pretty boring).

We got the dog home, and she was wearing a collar with a tag that had a number on it referring to her rabies vaccination, so I called the animal hospital where she got the shot and left a message with the number, description of the dog, etc.  By this time, we’d given her some water and she was exploring the surroundings and having a great time with it.  Luke wanted in the worst way to get down on the floor and play with her, but there was a distinctive odor emanating from her fur that I identified as excrement, if you know what I’m saying.  She was smelling pretty ripe.  So faced with the prospect of keeping a poop-smelling dog in my house until Monday when the animal hospital would call back, or giving the pooch a bath, I chose the latter.  Needless to say, my wife thoroughly disinfected the tub when I was done.

I was thrilled with all this.  I had a dog in the house for the first time in a while, and it was fun.  She was a really good dog, too.  Very obedient.  The only thing she had a problem with was that she wanted to get on the furniture to lay down.  I’d tell her “no”, and she’d listen, but then she’d look longingly at the very comfortable leather couch again, and she wouldn’t lay on the floor.  So apparently she was a furniture dog at home.  This was actually surprisingly easy to fix.  I grabbed a couple of pillows and put them on the floor, and she happily laid herself down.

So by this time it’s about 9:00, and the phone rings.
Caller:  Hi, is this Tha Docta of Love?
Me: Yeah.
Caller:  This is Dr. So-and-so over at the such-and-such animal hospital.  I think you have my dog.

It turned out that the guy that owns and runs the animal hospital lives right next door, and that little Mattie is a habitual yard-digger.  Dr. So-and-so checked her usual haunts for when she runs away, but obviously she wasn’t there, opting instead to scrounge for food at stop signs.  So although I enjoyed temporarily having a dog, I was glad that she got to go back home, because she obviously came from a good place with how good and obedient she was.

So in honor of dogs, the song of the day today is “Ol’ Red”, by Blake Shelton.  Yes, it’s a country song, but it’s not like you’re thinking.  The main character doesn’t lose his dog or anything.  Red is actually a bloodhound that they use at the prison where the character is incarcerated.  It’s a fun song.  Check it out.

By the way, I’ve finally posted my essay on mixed martial arts, or “ultimate fighting” over on the sports blog, in case anyone’s interested.  I was hoping to spawn a conversation and answer questions in the comments section, but perhaps the lack of comments left should tell me something.  If so, I won’t advertise it anymore over here.d

Holidays, Vacations, and Other Myths

2005-12-01T09:39:00.000-05:00

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks, over which I have posted approximately zero times. So I’ll just start typing, and maybe this post won’t be as long as it seems in my head.

Last Sunday at midnight (I guess that’s Monday, but whatever), we got a call from Mrs. Zimm saying that it was time to go to the hospital (if you’ve read Zimm’s blog recently, you know what I’m referring to). This was great news for them, because she wouldn’t have to walk around pregnant for two more weeks, and he wouldn’t have a pregnant wife for two more weeks. It was not such great news for me, because it meant I was cutting my vacation short and going back to work in 12 hours.

I’d been teasing Mrs. Zimm over the past couple of weeks, saying things like, “Don’t have the baby until the 25th [the day I was to return to work], and if you feel like you might, just hold it in.” Things like that. I only did that because I didn’t think she would go early. So now I felt bad for having said those things. Anyway, the more immediate consequence was that I’d be going over there for the rest of the night to sit with mini-Zimm (or I guess that’s mini-Zimm #1 now? I’ll have to think of something better than that). My only hope was that he wouldn’t wake up until Mrs. Zimm’s sisters arrived in the morning from Michigan. He likes me and all, but telling a sleepy two-year-old that his parents went to the hospital to get his little brother wasn’t what I felt like doing. So anyway, I lucked out and the sisters arrived at about 7:00 (minus the usual chatter—they must have been pretty tired).

I spent the morning not wanting to go to work and being tired. It was good times. Then at work, it was the worst day in recent memory. I’m not even kidding. I’d go into detail, but none of it would make any sense to anyone but Zimm, and I already told him about it. So just take my word for it. Then, to top the day off right, I picked my mom up from the airport (she flew straight here for Thanksgiving from Shanghai). But this was more of a process than one would think. I’d been trying to get her itinerary for the last week that she was in Shanghai, but I was unsuccessful for the most part. I told my sister to tell my mom the next time she called to email her itinerary. So my sister says just to email it to her, and she’d forward it to me. Just chew on that for a minute……….Ready? Ok. So my mom emails the itinerary to my sister (I later found out that the thought actually did cross her mind to just email it straight to me), who subsequently accidentally deleted it. By this time it was Sunday, and she was coming home the next day, most likely without any communication to home before then. I was left with the information that my mom would be arriving from Chicago some time between 10 and midnight. I didn’t know what airline. However, one thing did happen to go right among all the mess. At 8:30, my dad called and said that he just saw an email from the airline confirming an upgrade that my mom had bought for her flight from Chicago. The email had a flight number, and finally there was rejoicing in my house. So I didn’t have to go to the airport and sit and wonder where my mom was for two hours. Did that story seem confusing? Good. Because I’m still not exactly sure what happened.

On the bright side, it ended up not being such an awful thing that I wasn’t on vacation last week. I worked the early shift, which got me out at 2:00 at the latest. My mom slept until about noon on Tuesday (a 13-hour time change will do that to you), and my dad and sisters didn’t arrive until after I got home on Wednesday. And to top it off, I have another week of vacation to look forward to (I’m taking that when Zimm gets back from his vacation).

Now here’s where things started getting weird. In my job, it usually takes a little while to get into “work mode” after one arrives at work. It just takes a few minutes to change the thinking and terminology all around so that it’s possible to focus on work. This is especially true when coming back from vacation. It might even take a whole shift before you’re running on all cylinders. Now last Monday, after expecting to be on vacation and being pulled back in, I thought the lag would be pretty severe. For some reason though, it wasn’t. I jumped right back into work mode as though I never left. I can write that off as a fluke, but now when I came in this past Monday, it was like I hadn’t been to work in a month. My thought process was considerably slower, my motor skills were off, I couldn’t type very quickly, etc. Even now, on Wednesday, I’m having trouble focusing entirely on work when I’m here. My mind is wandering and I’m just not as efficient as I usually am. I think what happened, to use a bad analogy, is that when I came back last week, my emergency generator kicked on and I was cool for a week. Now the juice has run out and I have to walk to the gas station and get some gas, then bring it back and fill up the generator again, because the main power is still off.

But back to last week, Thanksgiving went really well. My wife was quite concerned about the food and whether everyone would like everything, but everything was delicious. I’m still eating turkey. Maybe that’s the cause of my out-of-it-ness. I’m overdosing on tryptophan.

That's all I have time for right now. I'll continue the post later. In the meantime, my mom updated her Shanghai diaries. She's still got a lot left to post about that trip as internet access there wasn't readily available for her at all times. Till next time.

Nighttime Ramblin'

2005-11-16T23:02:00.000-05:00

What to say, what to say?  I haven’t said much of anything to anyone as of late, actually.  But there’s still been lots going on.  We’ve pretty much decided that if I get the offer to go to Bloomington, that’s what we’re going to do.  It came down to this:  If Zimm and his wife weren’t here, would it even be a decision?  The answer is no.  We like Kokomo and all, but they’d be the only thing keeping us here (other than the job, of course).  So as for a timeline, right now the first round of interviews is going on.  I’m skipping that part.  Since my boss knows me (and specifically wanted me to apply), she’s not going to interview me.  So I know I passed that part.  The next step is that they’ll send me and the other top candidate (if there ends up being one) to Illinois to go through a whole bunch of other interviews in one day.  Joy of joys.  I love me a good interview.  Or five.

So I’m on vacation now until next Friday.  I’m working that day, but only from about 6-12 if I have anything to say about it.  My mom and dad and two sisters are coming into town next week, so that’s exciting.  Our house will seem much smaller than it usually does, I’m sure.  It’ll be fun for Luke too, because his cousin is coming.  The two of them can actually move around and control their own appendages now, so it should be fun to watch them interact.  Speaking of Luke, he’s started dancing to music.  Not really dancing like Zimm’s kid dances (it’s hilarious—he gets his “rock face” on), but if there’s music on, he’ll start rocking back and forth and grinning.  I was playing Beck today and he was feeling it.

You want to know what kind of sucks about moving?  Everything except the actual promotion.  We went down to Bloomington last week to look at houses and see what our price range looked like, and it was pretty encouraging.  The problem is that up here, the market is not so great.  So even if/when we do end up selling the house, we’re probably going to take a hit.  Not good times.  If we’d known we were moving, we would’ve just stayed in the friggin’ apartment for another seven months or so.  But the one good thing to come of the whole house thing is that we actually have the experience of looking for houses and then living in the house that we picked.  We’ll probably do a few things differently this time around.  Not that I think we made a mistake, mind you.  There’s just a few things that we could have done to put ourselves at more of an advantage.

But enough with all this serious talk.  I pre-ordered an XBOX 360 a while back with the intention of selling it on eBay.  Why, you ask?  An example:  I saw one sell on eBay today for $750, and it’s not even released yet.  It comes out next week.  The demand will far outnumber the supply, as evidenced by the fact that I got a call today from the game store telling me that it’s going to take another week for me to get my system because Microsoft cut back on their initial rollout shipment.  It’s a smart move on their part, though it might not seem so.  Why would you send out less than people want?  The answer is because a shortage of this kind of item, especially around the holidays (it launches three days before Black Friday), creates a huge buzz.  Remember “Tickle Me Elmo”?  I do.  And how many years ago was that?  I don’t even know if I was married when that whole thing was going on.  The point is this:  everyone who wants an XBOX 360 will get one.  And the people who didn’t know they wanted one until they found out there weren’t enough?  They’ll get theirs too.  And I’ll sell it to them for way more than the sticker price.  I’m hoping that I can double the sticker price and pay for my own system.  I saw a demo at Best Buy the other day, and it was just plain ridiculous (in a good way).

I may post more extensively about this over at Eight Cents, but once again one of my favorite shows has been essentially cancelled.  I let out a silent cry of disappointment when I read the news at work.  Seriously folks, this is the funniest show on TV right now.  I love The Office, Scrubs, The King of Queens, and all that.  But nothing makes me laugh like Arrested Development.  Apparently there’s a slight chance that a premium channel (most likely Showtime) will pick it up.  This would mean I’d at least get to rent the season’s DVDs once a year, but probably also that they would stop bleeping the profanity.  I think the bleeping adds to the comedy.  Call me weird.

That’s about it for now.  I’m hoping to get some stuff done over the break, but you know how that goes.  Mostly we just want to get the house in order, but I’d also like to edit some video and some pictures.  I’ve got about 5 hours of raw home video that I need to trim and put on a DVD.  That’s a big project.  It’s the kind of thing that I really enjoy doing, but it takes me forever to get in the mood to do it.  Then once I start, I can’t stop.  Anyway, that was a paragraph full of rambling.  See you next time.

Song of the Day: “Breaks”, by the Black Keys.  This song was playing on my car stereo as Zimm was dropping out of his attic and into his garage.  Hopefully he’ll tell you that story soon.

Update

2005-11-16T20:26:00.000-05:00

I’ve got a new post up over on the sports blog, so feel free to check that one out, and I’ll be on later tonight to update this very blog here.

I'm Coming Back, Fools

2005-11-14T16:04:00.000-05:00

I just figured I’d throw in a quick note before the game here.  If you want to see some good football (I hope), turn on Monday Night Football tonight.  Eagles-Cowboys is always an interesting game, and the Birds are going to be fired up tonight after having their heads handed to them in Dallas a few weeks ago.

In other news, I’m done training the new manager at work, and I’m going on vacation starting tomorrow until the 25th.  So hopefully between now and then I can put up some good posts.  I’ll be sure to keep the Bloomington updates coming.  I haven’t heard too much more, but after the break I’m sure the news will pick up.  You know how big corporations are during the holidays.  And if you don’t, I’ll tell you—they don’t work much.  (By this I mean the higher-ups in the corporations.  Obviously some people work, or else they wouldn’t be making money.)

Anyway, I’ll be back later with a link to the sports blog and other miscellaneous stuff.  In the meantime, be sure and check out my mom’s adventures in Shanghai.  Entertaining stuff so far, and it’ll get better as she continues to experience China.

Maybe if I Avoid Everything It'll Just Go Away

2005-11-03T10:23:00.000-05:00

Have you ever had one of those times where you just want to avoid things? That's been me recently. I'm behind on everything and I don't even want to start catching up because it's depressing to see how far behind I am. I haven't blogged in forever and there's a whole bunch of things to talk about, so I haven't wanted to start that, and now I might be moving. I just don't want to think about anything. So now I'll write about all of it. How does that make sense?

Last week I spent a few more days in Muncie, continuing the training for their new manager. That was good times. Any time I go to Muncie it makes me appreciate the situation we have at work up here. There wasn't anything monumental or any really good stories that I'll talk about here, but it's just the little things. Anyway, I got back on Friday and we started doing some work in the back yard on Saturday. Let me just say this: pulling up bushes is not as easy as it seems. I dug around two bushes for what felt like forever and I cut about 3,867 roots before the bushes actually came out of the ground. Then of course there was the matter of getting all the rest of the ivy out. Every time I think about it, I just can't imagine why someone would plant something that can get under your siding and in your windows. I was pulling it out of both places while removing it.

I could probably extend that last paragraph into a full post, but there's one thing in particular that's been weighing on my mind for about a week. I'm an assistant manager at my job right now, along with Zimm. My regional manager (my boss's boss) sent me an email a while ago asking me if I was interested in the manager position in Bloomington. I replied saying that I didn't think the time was right, but I'd talk to my wife and if we decided something different, I'd let her know. I didn't send another email because I figured that was that. But last week when I was in Muncie, she sent me another email detailing how they could make it worth our while to make this move. She mentioned a pretty attractive relocation package and some pretty decent bonuses to go along with the requisite salary increase. It got me thinking, and so I talked to my wife some more. We decided it couldn't hurt to get some more information, so I talked to my regional again, and my wife and I ended up taking Luke and going down to Bloomington on Tuesday to check out the center there and to look around at the town.

Jessica and I both grew up in a college town (Newark, DE--home of the Fightin' Blue Hens), and we both like the atmosphere that a town like that provides. Bloomington is a beautiful city with a nice college campus (the main campus of IU), and it seems like a pretty good place to live. There's a few things that make this hard, though. Not the least of which is the friends we would leave here. Of course, Bloomington is only a couple of hours away from Kokomo, but still. I got in touch with Zimm when the extra AM position opened up in Kokomo and they ended up coming down here, and now it almost feels like we'd be abandoning them. I know they wouldn't see it that way, but you know what I mean. Of course, there's also the matter of how the work environment is here. I don't know that I've ever enjoyed work so much. Having one of my best friends work with me every day has really been great. We never ran into any kind of conflict or pitfall that sometimes happens to friends when they work together. We've been good partners that get the job done well and have fun at the same time (as much fun as possible, anyway--it is still work after all). So for that I thank Zimm.

The other thing that bothers me is whether we'll be able to sell the house. The relocation package is nice, but the company doesn't buy your house from you. We've still got to sell it, and the market here is not good right now. So that could be a problem.

But on the other hand, business-wise this is a great opportunity for me. The center down there has a lot of potential that has gone relatively untapped. This would give me the chance to prove to myself (and of course my bosses) that I can be successful in this kind of situation. That would go a long way to build my confidence more that I'd be able to run a successful business of my own (which is my ultimate goal--and yes, right now it's still the movie theater idea).

So we've got a decision to make. It'll be tough, but I'm confident that we'll make the right choice. We're going down again this weekend to look at houses that might be in our price range. So the only thing left if we do move is to get another of my friends to move out there. So Shoeless Joel, since Johnny's going to Thailand, you're up. I'll be letting you know of job opportunities.

Now you may be asking yourselves why I need to get friends out there instead of making new ones. The answer is that I generally keep to myself, so I don't really meet a lot of new people. My wife is the same way. So it's easier just to get our friends to come to us. And besides, who wouldn't want to be where we are? I mean come on now. Be honest. You know you want to go to Bloomington now that I might be headed there. I hope this post is somewhat coherent. I've kind of got a lot on my mind these days.

Garage Findings

2005-10-20T10:08:00.000-04:00

I was off work Monday and Tuesday after working two weeks of Monday to Saturday, so during that time the wife and I figured on getting some lingering jobs done. You know those jobs that you always think about doing but never get around to? Yeah, those ones. One of those was cleaning out the garage. Sure, we’ve only lived here since March, but it doesn’t take long for the garage to get cluttered, you know? Also there were some cabinets under my workbench that needed to be cleaned out. There was a bunch of dried-up paint and whatnot down there.

So anyway, after getting everything out of there and sweeping it out, I set about cleaning out the cabinets. Little did I know I would find hidden treasures. My first discovery was a small Louisville Slugger, which is ideal for beating down burglars. This was a good find, because ironically just the other day I was thinking about how I don’t really have anything handy in my bedroom with which I could beat down said intruder. So that miniature bat now resides under my side of the bed.

My second discovery was even more interesting. I was pulling out the old cans of paint when I saw something that resembled a rolled up piece of tissue that had gotten wet some time ago and dried into a hardened tissue-type material. Of course, when I picked it up I realized that it was no such thing. That’s right ladies and gentlemen; I found a joint in my garage. Now being Mormon, I’ve never actually smoked a joint…or even a cigarette for that matter. So I’m not sure exactly what to do with it. Do I throw it away? Then what if the garbage man finds it and turns me in? Do I burn it? Then what happens when the whole neighborhood gets high? Do I just use it as a decoration and say it was a souvenir from Jamaica? Maybe I’ll plant it in Zimm’s house somewhere and wait until his wife finds it. That would be funny.

Luke continues to do hilarious things. For no reason yesterday, when he was playing with his plush ball, he was chasing it around and picked it up with his teeth (all four of them). I don’t know where he got this from, as we don’t have a dog and I don’t routinely go around picking up things with my mouth.

I’m still working on all things blog. The plan is to have the sports blog ready by the end of the week, but I continuously find myself distracted by countless other leisure activities when I’m not doing important things. I may end up just posting my football stuff there this week before it’s done. In fact, I’m sure that’s what will happen. The photo gallery is another story. I’m hopelessly behind compared to where I had hoped to be by now. Oh well. It’ll happen sooner or later. Later. It’ll happen later.

Song of the Day: “Plush”, by Stone Temple Pilots. An oldie but goodie. Too bad STP never did anything of note after Core.

Go Away and Let Me Eat!

2005-10-15T11:05:00.000-04:00

Last night we went down to Indy—partly for a trip to Costco, and partly just to get out of the house.  We haven’t been too far from the house since the gas prices have gone up.  Anyway, we stopped to eat before going to the store.  We had Luke with us, and it was the first time since he’s been able to sit in a highchair that we’ve had him with us at a restaurant.  Even though he can be a handful at mealtime, he’s pretty good when we’re out, so we weren’t really worried.  We sat down and started looking at the menu, and when the waitress came over for the first time she asked if we were ready to order.  I didn’t think anything of it at the time, since that’s what waitresses tend to do.  I did find it odd right off the bat though, that she didn’t acknowledge Luke.  Not that it’s a requirement or anything, but I would think, having worked for tips myself, that you would make a comment about the cute baby or maybe say “Oh, hello!” to him, or something.  Again, I don’t need reinforcement that the boy exists—I’m just sayin.

This was where the weirdness/annoyance began.  In the space of five minutes, the waitress came back three times to ask if we were ready to order.  I was starting to get annoyed, because I like to take my time when I’m ordering at a restaurant.  I don’t want to end up with something and then wish I’d gotten something else, you know?  It’s too expensive to eat out and then not get what you want.  So by the fourth time, I felt so rushed that I just picked something.  I was bothered at this point, and I mentioned it to my wife.  Her tip was slowly decreasing.  Not only was she rushing us, she wasn’t even friendly when she was talking to us!  My wife mentioned that she was probably rushing us because of Luke.  I could understand that if he was being loud or anything, but he wasn’t even making a sound!  He was eating his dinner (we brought some for him) and being a good baby.  And even in the case that he was being a distraction, would it help two frustrated parents if their waitress kept hassling them?  She seriously stopped by the table every couple minutes, and never to ask how everything was going.  “Should I bring your soup out now?”  Well if it’s ready, why are you asking me?  “Your appetizer is almost done, it’ll be out in a minute.”  I haven’t even started my soup yet.  Relax.  “Are you ready for the check?”  I’m still eating.  Go away before I have to get violent.  Not only that, but I guess she couldn’t find the time to clear the table of the things we were done with.

As even-keeled as I usually am, I was really annoyed.  I didn’t understand what was going on.  We were out of there in about 45 minutes, including waiting for the food.  I was upset because it was a place that we usually enjoy, and this lady had all but ruined it for us.  As I said, I used to work for tips (as a pizza guy), so I’m a notoriously heavy tipper.  Last night she was lucky I left her anything at all.  In fact, after rehashing it all I’m regretting that I even left her the buck that I did.  Well, hopefully it got the message across that “I’m not cheap—you just really sucked.”  If I didn’t tip at all (something I actually have been compelled to do twice, but we won’t get into those disasters right now), it might have just made her think I was simply cheap.  Whatever.  I don’t care.  I just don’t get how someone who relies on tips for most of their income would show that much disregard for a customer.

But moving on, can I just say that Costco is the best store in the world?  I love it.  We live near a Sam’s Club up here, but it’s just nowhere near as good as Costco.  Better products, better prices, and it’s not associated with Wal-Mart.  Not that I don’t go to Wal-Mart.  I just resent that it’s such a good place to shop.  It’s kind of like that one episode of South Park.  Did you see that one?  I’m totally rambling right now.

I’m not a traffic expert or anything, so maybe someone out there can help me with this.  There’s been construction everywhere near our house for a while, and they just finished widening a stretch of road that I take on the way to work.  They made it four lanes and put in traffic lights instead of the stop signs that were there before.  I get all that.  Here’s what I don’t get:  before the construction, the speed limit was 50 mph on that road.  Now it’s 40.  Huh?  I can do 50 in between stop signs, but now there’s a possibility that I won’t have to stop, and I have to do 40?  I don’t get it.  Can anyone tell me how that makes sense?

I’m working on setting up my sports blog (link will be coming soon).  I felt like I interrupted a conversation in the comments of my last non-sports post, so it seems like time to separate the two.  That makes three blogs that I’ll be writing in now.  What did I do for creative release before this?  I probably just annoyed my wife with long random speeches about all my thoughts.

Song of the Day:  “Photograph”, by Nickelback.  As much disdain as I have for most popular music today, I’m a sucker for a good hook.  And as much as I want to not like them sometimes, I just can’t help it.  The nice thing is that I don’t listen to the radio much, so I don’t get sick of the good songs.

Poll

2005-10-13T18:46:00.000-04:00

I'm considering making a separate blog for my sports posts. Sometimes it feels like I'm clogging up all the space here with sports, which isn't really my intention for this blog. If I did that, would you (those of you who read the sports posts to begin with) click through to yet another blog where I'm a contributor? I'm just doing this to gauge interest. I may do it regardless of what my approximately five readers say, but I'm just curious. You won't hurt my feelings if you say no. What do you think?