'All that noise noise noise'

We are watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Not the new one with Jim Carrey, but the old school one. You know, the good version.


Christmas has officially shown up in the ICT. Not in the form of snow or presents, but in the form of decorations. We are ready for our families to come down and visit for practically the entire month of December. We put up lights on the balcony earlier this week and set up our christmas tree last night. It seems too early to do so but on the other hand, it is fun to decorate this time of year. It makes the apartment festive and with the lack of snow in the area, the decorations are that much more important. It doesn't feel like the end of November/ beginning of December with no snow. It has been cold enough to snow, in the thirties and forties at night, but then it gets up into the fifties or even sixties during the day.







Stupid Kansas.....

32 days

It's funny how when you are a kid, the year goes by so slowly. Three hundred and sixty five (or six) days drag on and on. Maybe because the number just seems so daunting. As you get older, the time starts to pick up. Throughout high school and college, the only time that goes by too quick is during summer or winter breaks. After school, work consumes your life and there are no three month breaks (unless you teach, but even then there is work to be done). Vacations consist of a week or maybe two if you have been working for half your life.

I suppose at the beginning of the year, you can look at a calendar and think of how long twelve months truly is. But then you forget about it as if it were a New Year's resolution. Then lo and behold, it is past the summer and into the fall. Retail stores are getting ready for Christmas all over again and your mind wanders back to the beginning of the year and thinks......




Where the hell did those ten months go?

Thanksgiving

Not much good can be taken away when you spend holidays close to 1200 miles apart from your family. So we try to make the best of it. A small dinner, just for two this year, followed up by a night with some friends. That's it. That was our Thanksgiving. Who needs a big dinner when one can be cooked in just a couple of hours?
It was so tasty. And relaxing. While in high school and college, we had two dinners for holidays. It sounds great doesn't it? Well it was for the first couple of times. And then it just got awful. There was so much food. I felt the only way to prepare for those dinners was to fast for three days before hand. And then there was the time factor. How much time needed to be spent at each house, before the meal and after. No one wants to eat and run. By the time college rolled around, we had it all down to a science. Complete with mental spreadsheets. At the end of a big holiday meal, all anyone wants to do is sit around, have one more beer, and slip into a coma for the next few days.

That time of year

Two days from now, I will have to roll out of bed at one in the morning for work. I will start my work day an hour later. Two o'clock in the morning. It is the busiest day of the year. I have always wondered two things about Black Friday.
1.) How did it start? I understand the name. It is when a store or company start to actually make money. The fourth quarter is when you go from red in the books to black. Apparently though, in 1869, there was a stock market scandal in which some people tried to corner the gold market (I love the not always reliable Wikipedia). But who had the idea to drop the prices on pretty much everything and to open at such an ungodly hour? Which brings me to my next point....

2.) Who the hell wants to stand in line for a couple of hours, in the freezing cold in some places, just to save some money? Especially if you have to get up at two or three in the morning. The only reason I am up is because of what I do. If I didn't work in retail, there is no way in hell someone could convince me to stand in line to go shopping. It brings out the worst in some people. The people that come into the store four hours after opening and wonder why the 56 inch t.v. that was dirt cheap isn't in stock anymore. Most people in the store are happy with what they get. They are usually out for one or two things and once they get that, everything else is just gravy.




And gravy for the stores I suppose.

La musica

I'm listening to The Who Live at Leeds right now. I got the album via ebay (best place for old records). It makes me sad about the music situation we are in now. Whenever I see clips of concerts from the 60s and 70s it is the band on stage playing. And eventually, if the stars aligned properly, destroy their instruments. I watched a recording of a concert by The Who that was shown on PBS earlier this year and I was in awe. They were just up there playing and singing and more than likely high on something. It was great to just get the opportunity to watch it even though the concert was from 1977 (I think).

Where have all the artists gone? Now concerts seem to be big dance productions and lip synching.

Snow

It is snowing this morning. I always like to mark the first snow of the year, and it usually happens here in Wichita some time before Thanksgiving. It just doesn't stick because the ground is to warm. It makes me smile, but sad at the same time because I know we don't get cold enough to have the snow compile.

Two years ago we had about five or six inches of snow on the ground at Christmas time and it made feel like winter. Normally the snow comes and goes throughout the month of December so it will feel winter-y for a day or two and then melts away.

Vacationing plans

Both sets of parents are planning visits in the month of December. I can't wait. It will be nice to have visitors. My mom and dad are coming down for four or five days in the first part of the month. Andrea's parents are planning on coming down for another Christmas trip. It makes sense for them. Both of their kids are in the area, with their son being in Colorado.

It will be nice to see family again. I haven't seen any of them since this past August. This will also be the closest to being with my parents at Christmas time since 2005. It'll be good, but I fear they will be taken aback by the lack of snow. Although they may enjoy the break from it, but it never feels quite like Christmas time down here because of the lack of snow. Two years ago we had about five inches of snow, which was great. Other than that year, we have had none on Christmas morning. Each year, I hope to wake up to snow on the ground but it doesn't happen.

To sleep or not to sleep

It doesn't happen very often, but there are nights when I cannot sleep. Or I will fall asleep for three or four hours and won't be able to get back to sleep. It is a matter of comfort. Tossing and turning in bed just gets irritating, and I will usually hunker down on the couch until it is time to go to work. I can get a few more hours of sleep on the couch (it is more like a two in the morning nap).

And then there are the nights like today. I woke up and tried to fall back asleep (failed), went out to the couch to try to get a few hours of sleep (failed), and just dealt with it. Such is life as long as this does not become a regular thing. If I can't get to sleep in about twenty minutes after getting comfortable on the couch, it is over. I won't try to get back to sleep. I can handle not having a full six to eight hours of sleep. There is always afternoon naps.

I am making the best of my extra few hours of being awake, mainly typing this and drink some coffee. After curtailing the amount of coffee I drink during the week, Thursday mornings are more of a treat than anything. It is the earliest I have to be up and to work during the week and is really the only time I make coffee anymore. On occasion, I will make some on my off weekends, but I am more intent on catching up on sleep from the previous week that by the time I get up, it is late morning or early afternoon. That time doesn't really warrant coffee.

I wouldn't come out and say I was dependent on coffee to get me through the day a few months ago, but I could tell when I didn't have any. I would be dragging ass near the end of the work day and would come home and nap for an hour or two.





Okay, maybe I was a little dependent. But at least I didn't get the shakes or cold sweats.

Fun drunk v. Angry drunk

Everyone who knows me, knows I enjoy having a beer or two or three from time to time. On very rare occasions, am I ever in a bad mood while drinking. Like most people, beer makes me happy. One thing that helps that out is being around friends that are having a good time and are having good conversations.

After work tonight, while out at a local establishment, we saw someone who was three sheets to the wind and looking for a fight. Don't know why, but he was pissed about something. It happens, I know this, but do you have to be a downer? When I get angry drunk or mad drunk, I just get quite or, you know, don't go to the bar!

And where were this guys friends? Good friends would get that guy some water and get him the hell out. And the management, where were they? We thought he was getting tossed when a management type person walked him out of the place, which made me smile, but then he came back in. What the hell! I wanted to see him get dragged out and tossed never to return.

So, if you are ever going to go out to a bar to just get completely shit faced and are going to be angry about it, go out with friends who will take care of you and make you drink water and take you home before you end up making a scene. It may be fun to watch every once in a while, but far too often it ends up being annoying.



P.S. Thank you each and every veteran throughout the world.

Time change

A little slow in writing this, but the time change sucks. Everyone enjoys getting that extra hour of sleep for the first night, but what are the other pros?

The night comes at six at night. It makes me sleepy really early. When the sun sets so early it makes the evening seem useless. We had some friends come over for dinner this past weekend, we ate around seven. Pitch black outside. I hate the fall because of this.

Weekend!

It is the weekend. This is the last full weekend I will have off until after the new year. It sounds a lot worse than it actually is. I will have one day of the weekend off, but still will not have two days off in a row.

We had plans to go to Columbia, MO to watch my brother in law play bike polo (look it up) but things kind of fell apart when Andrea woke up not feeling well. If it were closer we could try to make it, but it's about five hours away and not really worth it being this late in the morning. Our apologies Adam, I'm sure you are heartbroken.

It would have been nice to get out of Wichita for a few days, but it is also nice to just hang out at home. I have thoughts of doing the dishes and watching football for the next two days. Ambitious right?

No Shave November

November has been renamed. I am just learning about this. Apparently it started in 1999 by a group of men in Australia. It has since grown and is recognized throughout the world. Names that have been invented are 'No Shave November', 'Movember', and 'Novembeard'. It is a movement in male solidarity for men's health. The main cause is prostate cancer (even though prostate cancer awareness month is September) for men, but other causes as well (think testicular cancer). I love this! The original thought to Movember is to grow a moustache, but I am not about them so I will just let my beard grow out for another thirty days.

I am in an awkward spot though. I grew my beard out for Halloween with the thought of trimming it up after. However with my learning of No Shave November I am thinking of letting it grow for another month. Much to the chagrin of Andrea I am sure. She already complains about it. It is true that I am getting a little sick of how long my beard is right now, but it is for the cause!

So, any male that has read this (whether you read this on a regular basis or you just stumbled across it) make sure you take care of your health. If you are older than thirty and you have not had a prostate exam, GO GET ONE! Thirty years old is generally the age in which men should be getting these exams unless you have a family history of prostate cancer, in which case you should be getting them sooner.

Just something to think about.

Fall?

It is now November. It should start to get cold and....fall-like. Windy, overcast, rainy, cold. It is the time of the year to bundle up to go outside. The beauty of the fall is that it is nice enough to go outside. Find a park to take a walk in or just take a trip around a neighborhood. The leaves on trees are turning color and it is just beautiful outside. It just happened one day, we walked outside and noticed the majority of the trees around our apartment had changed colors. So I thought it was going to be a longer fall and the colors were going to stay for a few weeks.

However, it has been hot outside the past couple of days. In the higher sixties to low seventies. Some people I work with love this weather, but then again they have no problems when the temperature hits triple digits during July and August. October and November are not for seventy degree weather. It is suppose to be in the forties and fifties. Mother Nature needs to get her shit together and get the fall weather here. Now!

Halloween

We had two parties to attend this past Friday. This was the first time we have had two parties to go to in one night that I can remember. The problem that we had was how long to stay at each? We don't do the multiple party in one night thing so how do you prepare for it? I think that the only thing that helped out was the fact that I had to work in the morning. I don't want to be the one calling in 'sick' because I was out too late the night before.

So we went to each party for a couple of hours each. I didn't like it though. I want to go somewhere and just hang out for the evening. I don't want to leave a party before it is over. Kind of like going out to the bar. I don't like bar hopping. I like sitting for the evening and drinking. However, time was well spent. We got to see some friends we hadn't hung out with in a while.

We went as psycho little red riding hood and the woodsman. It was fun.