Christmas Post

*Author's note: I wrote this back in 2008 and I have since made it my Christmas Eve or Christmas day post. It is simple and makes it easy for me to say that I at least wrote something for the holidays. Enjoy the day everyone. Be sure to keep the television off as long as possible and love being with family and friends.* 

We are watching A Christmas Story right now, and there is nothing better in this movie than the nostalgic feel of the Christmas morning scene. More than the kids ripping apart the wrapping, it is the expressions on the faces of the mom and dad. Just the joy that they have watching their kids. 

As much as people think it is all about the Red Rider BB gun, the movie is more than that. It's about family, more than anything.

• Idolizing the father
• Having a life long understanding with your mother
• And the fighting with your brother

And the final scene of the mom and dad relaxing with the Christmas tree alight and the snow falling at night.  Magic.

63/120

Holiday Music

I'm sure I've written about this before, but I am in desperate need of writing inspiration.  Not topic inspiration, but just inspiration in general.  Over the past two months I have not had the need or the urge to write.  For whatever reason.  Anyway, let's talk about holiday music and the fact that it just makes me so happy.

Not all holiday music is great.  There are songs that just don't sit well with people.  Ask anyone and I'm sure they can rattle off two or three holiday songs that they don't like.  Off the top of my head, 'Frosty the Snowman', 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town', and 'The Christmas Shoes' are all songs that I would be okay with not hearing again.  I'm sure we can all agree that the Christmas Shoes song is just plain awful.  Right?  RIGHT?  I mean, it's gotta be listed as the worst holiday/Christmas song ever.  With Frosty and Santa Coming to Town, they aren't horrible songs they just aren't my favorites.  And with only a limited amount of time in which I listen to Christmas music, I don't want to spend it on songs I don't want to listen to.

And then there is great holiday music.  I could listen to Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas' album over and over again.  Every time one of his songs starts, the world, in my eyes, is draped in sepia.  It gives it a yesteryear feel.  Part of it might be because growing up we had the record and it will always sound old school to me.  Same thing with the 'Charlie Brown Christmas' soundtrack.  I love it.  Again, it's attached to fond memories from childhood and watching the special.  And isn't that part of what Christmas is about?  Great memories and family and childhood happiness.

I have found random songs that are fun too.  Songs like 'Purple Snowflakes' by Marvin Gaye.  'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' by Barenaked Ladies.  And, of course 'Christmas in Hollis' by Run D.M.C.  And everyone has their favorite versions of songs.  I love, love, love 'I'll Be Home for Christmas'.  My favorite Christmas song.  My favorite is Bing Crosby's version, but Frank Sinatra's version is a close second.  'O Holy Night' by Nat King Cole gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.  'Sleigh Ride' by the Ronettes is a fun cover.  

62/120

Sandwich Rankings

On my day off, I ran some errands up in Woodbury.  Not the biggest deal in the world.  While I was up there, I made a stop at a bar/grill for lunch.  I was going to get a burger because this place has a build your own burger option.  You can pick everything from the bun, to the doneness (is that a word?) of the meat, to the toppings.  Customizable burgers.  It's pretty sweet.  When I got there, however, I for some reason was not in the mood for a burger.  So I looked throughout the menu and came across their sandwich section.  Pretty standard stuff.  Then I remembered that they have a Cuban sandwich.  I love Cuban sandwiches.  So let's rank some sandwiches.  Because why not?

5.)  BLT.  While I am including this on the list, I think that this is an overrated sandwich.  Is it tasty?  Yes.  But it's also an underwhelming sandwich.  I always think, BLT!  Then I eat one.  And it's just....meh.  Plus, if you don't have previously cooked bacon, or previously sliced tomatoes, it is a lot of work to make a sandwich.  Plus, I'm not the biggest fan of mayonnaise which apparently makes the sandwich.   

4.)  Peanut butter and jelly.  A classic.  A staple amongst school age kids for generations.  The nice thing about the PB&J is all the variations.  Plenty of peanut butter and jelly options are out there.  I still enjoy the sandwich a couple of times a week for lunch at work.  The major downside is that it is not very filling.  Plus, there is always this.

3.)  Grilled cheese.  I have been to restaurants that have had grilled cheese on their menu and they put different cheeses on it.  Let's be honest, there is only one real way to make a grilled cheese.  Two slices of Kraft American cheese, butter, and white bread.  As a kid, when we had this sandwich for lunch, it was accompanied by vegetable soup.  I know lots of people that prefer tomato soup to go with their grilled cheese, but for me it's got to be vegetable soup.   

2.)  Reuben.  One thing that kept me away from the Reuben sandwich for so long is the dressing.  I have slowly grown to appreciate Thousand Island dressing which has opened me to this sandwich.  And what is not to like about it?  It's got meat, cheese, sauerkraut, and it's traditionally toasted so it's nice and crispy.   

1.)  Cuban.  The Cuban sandwich.  The first time I had one of these, we were in St. Thomas getting married.  I got it because we were as close to Cuba as we were going to get without defecting.  The Caribbean islands know how to cook pig.  It was so savory and succulent.  And the pickle that was on the sandwich was a great compliment to the meat.  One thing that the place where I had lunch the other did that was awesome was put a jalapeno slice on top of the sandwich.     

Honorable mention:  Meatloaf sandwich.  Meatloaf.  On bread.  The end.   

I don't know why I decided to dedicate an entire post to sandwiches.  I haven't been feeling the want or need to write over the past several months, so I guess when I get that spark to, I might as well do so.  At the beginning of November, I had a thought that if I wrote one post each day for the rest of the year, I would be close to my insanely stupid goal of writing one hundred and twenty posts.  And where am I at?  Sixty one.  Yeah....yeah....

61/120

Ramping Up

I don't want to scare anyone, but we are in the month of November.  And you know what that means.  It means that Thanksgiving is this month.  Hunting season is upon us.  The fall is turning into winter.  Right?  RIGHT?  Of course not.  Especially if you walk into any retail store.  It means that it's Christmas time!  No.  NO!  It's November!  Goddamit, it's noooooovemmmmber.  *Deep depressing sigh*

My wife and I went to Target a couple of weeks ago and this was the first time I was in one in about a month.  And it looked like the Christmas season got into the adult egg nog a little too early in the evening and then ended up puking decorations all over the place.  And I know that all retail stores are like this.  We have all of our Christmas stuff out at work.  It's been out since the end of October.  So it's not just the big retail stores that do this.  Working in retail for close to ten years, I guess you get desensitized to seeing everything out a couple of months ahead of time.  And it's not just Christmas.  Other holidays such as Easter, Valentine's Day, and Halloween are included.  How many months ahead of summer do you start to see shorts and tank tops at clothing stores?  And how often do we hear 'you guys are putting out Christmas stuff already?  It's not even November and you have all your Christmas stuff on the floor and selling it?'  

I guess we just have to go with it.  And you don't have to shop the holiday section until the month of the holiday.  Normally it is all concentrated in one section of a store.  Don't like the fact that stores start to stock holiday stuff a few months ahead of time?  Just ignore it.  Your complaints fall on deaf ears because the person stocking the shelves making minimum wage doesn't give a shit that you hate the fact that his employer brings in holiday stuff two months early. 

60/120

Best Phone Call EVER!

At work the other day, I got a phone call.  I get plenty of phone calls at work.  Mostly people asking questions, looking to see if there is a certain piece of furniture in stock, price, size, etc. etc.  But, I got the best phone call I have had since I started at my current job.  In fact, it might be the best phone call I have ever gotten while at work.  Below is the paraphrased conversation.

Caller:  'Hello, my name is xxxxx.  You helped me about a week ago look for and find a Christmas cookie cutter set I was looking for.  Do you remember that?'

Me:  'Hello xxxxx.  Yes, I do remember that.  Is there anything with that I can help you with?  I can check to see if we have anymore.'

Caller:  'No, I just needed the one.  Thank you.  The reason I was calling was because I was really impressed with your customer service, knowledge of the product, and that you knew exactly where it was.  I work for Target as a human resources manager in town and was wondering if you would be interested in coming in and applying for a job as a department manger with us.'

Me:  *Smiling ear to ear* 'Thank you, but no.  I really enjoy working here.  The team is great, the management is supportive, and the pay is good.'

Caller:  'Okay, I just thought I would extend the offer.  They are lucky to have you.  Have a good day.'

Me:  'You too.'

Now, I got home and told my wife this story.  She said, 'well, you should have told her that you worked for them for close to eight years and all the shit that you had to deal with and how they don't try to develop their people unless they are close to the managers.'  And part of me really, really, really wanted to.  If this had been a phone call from my store here in Minnesota, I would have.  And if this caller had caught me on a bad day, I might have.  But, I wanted to take the high road, plus all she was doing was trying to staff her store.  You know, her job.  And the main reason I wanted to be polite and was because she doesn't have a clue about my previous work history.  She just saw someone that took the time to work with a customer and make sure they found what they were looking for.  It just made my day.  I went and told my manager shortly after the phone call and we both had a good laugh about it.  Because she has gotten the same type of phone call from her previous employer.  And the same type of scenario.  Someone who was impressed with her service, but was from a store that she did not work for.  We both have only been in our current position for less than a year, so we have something in common. 

59/120

Fruitless Travels

I went home last week.  It was nice and relaxing.  The main focus of going home was to get out into the woods for some hunting.  I was able to hunt the previous two years and living so close to home now is starting to become a fall tradition. Which is nice on a couple of levels.  It's nice to get home more than once a year. It's nice to get into the woods.  It's nice to have an opportunity to provide food for the majority of a year.  But that is also the problem, it's an opportunity to provide the food, it's not a guarantee.  

I did not harvest a deer this year after having success the previous two years.  The weather was not the best.  It was cold and windy and rainy the majority of the time I was home.  The winter last year was a harsh one.  The DNR noted that at the end of the hunting season last year.  Pretty much everyone knows that last winter was harsh on the deer population. In fact, there are plenty of people that think it will take a couple of years for the population to recoup.  And many are hoping for a more mild winter to help out the deer population.  I don't know if it will happen or not, I'm just reporting on what I've heard.  

My time in the woods was not without interest or entertainment.  Below is a list of what I saw In the woods:

•rabbit

•squirrel

•partridge

•porcupine

•coyote

•various birds

And I did see one deer.  Just one.  It walked through and did not present a target.  All in all it was disappointing, but every hunter knows that it is not a guarantee that you will get a deer each year.  As the saying goes: if it were easy, it would be called 'killing' and not 'hunting'.  

And there is always next year...

58/120

My Aversion, and Eventual Signing Up, of Pinterest

Social media sites are a dime a dozen it seems like.  Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Myspace (remember that?), you can take your pick of how you want to spend your time on the internet.  I have mainly used Facebook and Twitter just because that is what I am comfortable with.  I looked into Tumblr, but it just wasn't for me.  I don't have a reason, it just didn't look like something that I was going to like using.  Another very popular site is Pinterest.  You all know what it is, I don't need to explain it. 

After searching for something similar to Pinterest but 'for men', I have come up empty handed.  Don't get me wrong, there are a few sites that are geared as 'Pinterest, but for men'.  I have looked into them.  They are not great.  Lots of pictures of guns, fully naked or half naked women, lots of sexist jokes and pictures, grilling tips, sports, and lots of things revolving around bacon.  If you're into that, cool, be my guest.  There are some fun and useful things on those sites, but so few and far between that it isn't really worth the time nor the energy.  Get a bunch of guys together to make up a website's content, and what would you expect?  Nothing but what I described earlier in the paragraph. 

So, I looked into Pinterest.  It wasn't like I was avoiding it because 'Pinterest is stupid' or 'Pinterest?  You mean where all the women go to put pictures up? '  I just kind of gave up on using a social media site like it.  And while I was sitting around today on my day off, I thought about it.  I thought about it because I didn't have anything better to do.  So I checked it out.  And I made an account.  Just to have one.  I have found a few interesting things so far.  I don't know how much I will use it, but it's there because it is more useful than the 'Pinterest for men' sites. 

57/120

How to Cheer for Not Your Team

The MLB playoffs started last night.  And if that game is any indication for the rest of the postseason, we are in for quite a treat.  Kansas City beat Oakland in twelve innings.  Very exciting game.  There are lots of story lines to choose from.  Kansas City in the playoffs for the first time since 1985.  Oakland choking away three leads in the game.  How about Brandon Finnegan?  Age 21, pitched in the college World Series for TCU THIS YEAR and came in and pitched two and a third innings.  Cold.  Blooded.  Because Detroit wasn't playing in the game, I had a chance to cheer for a different team.  I cheered for Kansas City for a couple of reasons, and I think that it can be applied when watching a game that your favorite team is not currently playing.

Kansas City is in the AL Central, the same division as the Tigers.  This division is looked down upon as a weak division, yet have two teams in the playoffs this year.  It is no longer a one team division which is great for the sport, but not so much for their fans.  I like to see the division of the team I cheer for do well (no matter what sport) unless that team is from Chicago.  Fuck all of those teams.  The same can be applied to college sports.  Except Ohio State.  Fuck them.  I also watched a lot of Royals baseball living down in Wichita for six years.  So to see a team that struggled improve over the course of those years, it's cool.

I know not everyone likes to cheer for divisional opponents, even when they aren't playing your favorite team.  Some people are like that.  I am not.  I have teams that I never want to see win (see:  Chicago, Ohio State), but I always like to see the division my favorite team plays in do well.  Whether it is baseball, hockey, or football, as long as the team isn't from Ohio or the city of Chicago, and they are not playing a team from Michigan, you will see me pull for them.  I won't sit down and watch the entire game, but I will check in frequently and if they do well, I will give the team their due and think 'well, good for them'. 

56/120

Officially Moved

We have officially moved!  We had our final walk through in our old apartment.  Technically we have been living down in Hastings since the 21st because that was when we ha all of our big furniture brought down here, but now we only have one set of keys.

It's not a house (unfortunately) but a big step up in that we are renting a townhouse.  Tons more room, no more people living above us, a washer and dryer!  So it's new and exciting.  We do have a big hill to climb in unpacking everything, but that we can do one box at a time.

55/120

Rules Are Meant to Be Broken or Changed

In my previous post, I wrote about how football has really become less important to me in my sport watching endeavors.  A good portion of the reasoning behind it is because of the slow nature of the game.  The time between plays, the dragging out by using up all the time on the time clock, etc.  I have come up with a few ideas that I feel would improve the flow of the game and make it more appealing.  

Change the play clock.  This is a big one for me because if there is one thing that really irritates me is a team using up all of the play clock before snapping the ball.  I know a good portion of the time they are waiting for the ball to be snapped is spent watching the defense to see what they are going to do and then changing the play.  Or if it is near the end of the game, and the winning team has the ball, they are running out the clock.  If you change the play clock to twenty five seconds instead of forty, it would speed the game up just a little bit.  Fifteen seconds doesn't sound like a lot until you start to compound it over the course of the game.  

Less time outs, less challenges.  I don't really like coach's challenges.  I like even less the fact that they get two.  It makes a slow game even slower.  However, with all the instant replay, thousands of cameras, and even more angles in which we can see the play, you know that it needs to stay in the game because of all the scutiny the officiating gets.  I'm a big fan of allowing just one challenge per team per game.  If they are successful with their challenge, they are given one more.  Or, if you really want to get creative, give a team twenty challenges at the start of the season, but with no opportunity to earn more.  That would put more strategy into the entire season instead of just one game.

Eliminate quarters, move to halves.  You would eliminate two times in which the game stops, play is halted, and momentum of the teams (whether it is the defense or offense playing well).  This idea would never happen, but it's just a thought.  

The final idea, and my favorite idea, is instead of having a play clock of forty (or even twenty five) seconds is to give the offensive team three minutes to score or turn the ball over.  Think about how exciting the 'two minute drill' is during any given game.  The time between plays is shorter, the players pick up the pace to getting onto the scrimmage line, the fans really get into the game.  If, by the end of the three minutes, the team has not scored or turned the ball over, the opponent gets the ball just like it was a turnover on downs.  People look at the 'two minute drill' as a good way to analyze the team.  On both the offensive and defensive side.  How quickly can your team adjust to an uptempo opponent?  With less standing around, you can see which team or players are game ready and in shape.  How quickly can you get your substitutions on and off the field?  

54/120

Loss of Appeal

Football season has started.  And I don't really care.  Maybe I don't care as much as everyone else does.  Let's go with that.  I will still sit down and watch a game, especially if the Lions are on, but I don't plan my day or evening around it.  For example, Thursday night there was a game on but I was more focused on watching baseball.  Sure, I flipped over to the football game during commercial breaks, but that was about it.  Part of it was because the teams that were playing didn't interest me and part of it was because baseball season is winding down and the games being played mostly have playoff implications.  Also, baseball is better.

This is not to say that I am going to just stop watching football.  I just don't find any joy in sitting down for three hours to watch start and stop action.  One of the main drawbacks of football, to me, is the fact that after the play happens, there is a lot of standing around before the next play.  I know a lot of it is the offense studying the defense to see what they are going to do and then adjusting the play from there.  I get that.  But one way to speed up the game is to have a shorter play clock.  Instead of standing around for close to a minute (I know it sounds like a minimal amount of time), why not make the play clock twenty five seconds or thirty?  Now, most people will argue that baseball is a slow pace game.  And it is.  And most people will ask, well how long is there between pitches?  It seems like a long time of just standing there.  In actuality, the average time between pitches is eighteen to nineteen seconds.  Don't get me wrong, there are lots of things that MLB can and should do to speed up the game.  In fact, there is a rule that states that if the bases are empty, the pitcher has twelve seconds to throw a pitch or else the umpire will call a 'ball'.  It is one of those rules that isn't really enforced.

I have two thoughts to speed up the game of football.  One idea is to reduce the time on the play clock.  The NFL play clock is forty seconds.  Again, it doesn't sound like a lot of time, but when you are anticipating the play to begin (from the viewer's angle) that standing around seems to last forever.  If you take a look at the Canadian Football League (CFL), they use a twenty second play clock.  Now doesn't that just sound like it would speed the game up?  They also have a neat little rule in the CFL that if a delay of game penalty is called after the 'three minute warning' (the CFL version of the NFL's two minute warning), it results in a loss of downs if it occurs during the first or second down.  That is very cool.

The other thought I had was to give the offensive team three or four minutes to score or turn the ball over.  Think about how a team approaches their play during a 'two minute drill'.  Announcers, commentators, and fans all talk about how well a team does during a two minute drill.  All of a sudden, they are calling plays quickly to get down the field to score at the end of the half or end of the game.  It speeds up all of a sudden.  Instead of three plays of three and four yards, they are throwing fifteen to twenty yard passes.  It gets more entertaining.  Why not implement that into the game entirely?  After the kick off and the team's first snap, start a running clock of four minutes (because I'm generous) and if they fail to score or turn it over (whether by downs or defensive play) it is given over to the other team at the spot of the ball.  The four minute clock would then start over after the first snap.

There are variables to this thought.  Time outs, challenges, injured player, substitutions.  All kinds of things.  And I could go on and on, but that would make for a more lengthy post (a future post maybe?).  Sports are suppose to be fun and exciting and are suppose to capture the attention of the fans.  And in an age where we demand results RIGHT NOW football really misses the mark.  Again, don't get me wrong my favorite sport of baseball has tons of room to improve the speed of play, but that's not what I'm focusing on right now.  That's for another time and place. 

53/120

Elongated Move

We get the keys to our new place in eleven days.  Exciting stuff.  It's weird, though, because I look around our current apartment and still see the majority of our stuff out and being used.  Some might look at it and think we haven't done much, but in actuality..well, no.  We really haven't.  I was going to try and paint a picture of productivity, but I can't.  And here's the reason why.  We have a two week overlap between the time we can move into our new place and the time we need to be out of our old place.  That creates a little bit of a predicament. 

When we left Kansas, it was easy because we knew we had to have everything packed up and ready to go because we were leaving the state.  We had a rental truck and had to pack everything into it the day before leaving.  There was a date in concrete of packing.  This time around, we don't have that.  We are going to be making trips back and forth with our vehicles.  Days off will just mean multiple trips, and that is just fine because we can take breaks, and will have all day.  When we moved from Kansas, we just wanted it to be over and done with. 

One problem is figuring out what we can live without for this two week overlap.  We have packed up non-essentials such as books, games and movies.  Winter clothes that were already in boxes are going to be making a trip early on as well.  We have a pantry full of shelf stable food, but we have to plan out meals and make sure we don't pack away something that we might want to eat during this span.  Looking at all the dishes we have, how many can we pack away and still function without primarily using paper plates?  Same goes for pots and pans, although we use them all so they might be hanging out here for a bit. 

And the other thing to consider is when do we stop living in our current place and start living in the new one?  When do we move all the furniture down there?  A week before our lease is up?  Or just a few days ahead of time?  One of the bad things about apartment living and moving is having to make the place look presentable to get the deposit back.  It's especially annoying because you know they are just going to come in and paint and replace the carpets, but you just have to do it to get that money back. 

52/120

What it's All About

It is the end of August.  The weather is on the verge of changing.  Fall is just around the corner and most people are excited about it.  Whether they are excited about the start of the football season, the cooler weather, or pumpkin spiced EVERYTHING, I think this is the time of year people are just flat out done with summer.  Done being hot and humid.  Done with using the air conditioner.  Just done.  I'm not the biggest fan of summer.  Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy summer.  I enjoy wearing shorts and the long days.  I don't enjoy the humidity.  I'm not the biggest fan of high temperatures.  One great thing about summer is that there is one major sport going on...baseball. 

This is the time of year that most everyone forgets about baseball.  It's a long season.  It started back in April (for some of us, it started during the Winter Meetings).  By this time of year, the playoff teams are mostly in position.  It's just a matter of where they are going to be sitting at the end of the season.  A lot of games don't really matter other than pride amongst the teams that are close to, if they haven't already, been eliminated.  No one really cares if the Twins beat the Astros this time of year (or at any point of the year maybe?), but all eyes are on the Angels/Athletics series.  And why?  Because there are three games separating them in the standings.  The Angels have won the first two games so before the wins, there was just one game between them.  Both of these teams, barring a complete and absolute meltdown, are going to make the playoffs.  It's just a matter of which one will win the division and which one will be a wild card team.  And that's the fun of this time of year.

Another tight race is in the AL Central with the Tigers and Royals.  For the most part, the Tigers have had the division lead this year.  However, there have been times when they have struggled and the Royals have surged.  They happened to take place at the same time and currently the Royals are in first place in the division while the Tigers are going back and forth with Seattle for the second wild card spot.  For the first time in several years, the Tigers and their fans have something to worry about this late in the season.  As a fan of the sport, this is great.  A close divisional race (before the start of today's games, the Royals are up by half a game) makes it fun to scoreboard watch.  As a fan of one of the teams involved in this race, it is ulcer inducing.  I knew, as most people did, that the Royals were the only team ready to wrestle with the Tigers for the division.  And they are proving that they can hang with the Tigers.  There are six games left between the two teams, and while games in April and May are important, these six games are even more so.  If you ask players from both teams, they will say that they are just going to be focused on the opponent of the day, but you know deep down that they are all looking at these upcoming series.

And these tight races are what it's all about.  Do I want the Tigers to triumph and win the division again?  Of course I do.  But if they don't win it, they don't win it.  And you have to tip your cap to the Royals.  It seems that they have finally turned their 'this is the year they will challenge the Tigers' chip in and are ready to make it interesting.  The nice thing is that this is what the division has been missing for the past couple of years.  While Minnesota and Chicago have been rebuilding and Kansas City and Cleveland have had up and down years, it has been kind of a boring division race to watch.  Again, I love seeing the Tigers win and I love seeing them in the playoffs, but with an actual fight on their hands, they can't coast into the playoffs.  And that is where they seem to have faltered.  Build up a large lead and coast into the playoffs.  You can't turn it on like a light switch.  Winning builds momentum.  It makes you play confidently.  You're in the middle of an eight game winning streak and although you are down 5-1 in the 5th inning, you know you're playing well enough to come back and take away the win from that opponent.  It is that confidence that the Tigers have been missing in the playoffs.  It is that confidence that, if they can win this division, will carry into the playoffs.        

51/120

Terrible Timing

My wife and I went to the Minnesota State Fair on Sunday.  And while it was fun to see everything and spend the day there, I'm pretty sure we picked the hottest day to go.  It was just awful timing.  Later this week it is suppose to cool off, but we planned it out to go on the weekend.  And it happened to be in the high 80s to low 90s with lots of humidity.  It was very sweaty.  As we were getting ready to go, she remembered that we went to the Kansas State Fair every year we were living there and it was like 100 degrees so this couldn't be as bad.  Right?

We played it smart and brought water bottles and just hydrated throughout the entire day.  I kept seeing people walking around with cups of beer and thought that it looked delicious, but stuck with the water.  Because I'm SMART!  And yes, I probably could have had one beer and been fine, but that doesn't replenish all the water you are sweating out.  Also, it was hella expensive for a beer.  It's like beer at a baseball game.  I have never understood that, the price gouging of beer at public events.  Actually, I get it (profit and greed) I just don't like.  

For the most part, the weather wasn't that bad.  Was it hot?  Yes.  Is that better than raining?  Yes.  Could it have been better?  Yes.  There were clouds for the most part during the day and they hid the sun.  That wasn't always the case though, and it seemed like when the sun did come out, all the benches and tables in the shade were occupied.  I look at yesterday, it was sunny but tolerable.  About twenty degrees cooler because it wasn't as humid out.  I look at today, it's overcast and about thirty degrees cooler.  Seriously, it is 56 degrees at the time of this writing. 

I took a few pictures throughout the day.  At some points, it was just too hot to want to take pictures.  However, we sat down just to sit down and cool down a little bit.  While we were sitting down, this family of four sat a few rows ahead of us.  My wife and I both started cracking up because the following happened.  They all pulled out their phones.  Out of context, this is a hilarious photo because this just looks like a family that doesn't want to talk to each other.  However, it's what we do now as a society.  When we stop moving, we go to our phones.  We both thought it was funny and I thought I would share.  

50/120

Music Reminiscing

I found a new podcast about a month ago.  It's called 'This part's the best'.  The host, John Frusciante, has a guest over to discuss one of their (the guest's) favorite albums.  There have been eight episodes so far.  All of them have been fantastic.  The very first episode was weird because the guest brought over a Swedish metal album.  The nice thing is that I have little to no knowledge of any of the music that has been played on the show, so it's cool to hear new stuff.  It's not all about the music, it's more about how you feel about the music.  Memories, stories, feelings.  Favorite parts of songs whether it is an instrumental part or a certain lyric.  And what is great is that music has this affect on most people.  I'm sure everyone has that one song or that one particular album that they can play and it brings back just a rush of memories.

The reason I bring this up is because a few weeks ago, I found an old CD under one of the seats in my Jeep.  It was Less Than Jake's 'Pezcore'.  The reason it made me just so happy is that it brought me back to high school and my introduction to ska and the new era of punk music.  I always looked at this type of music as 'skateboarding is not a crime' punk as opposed to 'fuck authority' punk.  Think of the Sex Pistols when it comes to that type of punk music.  This new punk/ska era, at least the stuff I was listening to, was mostly coming out of California.  Bands like Buck-O-Nine, No Doubt, Reel Big Fish, Sublime.  They all have connections to California and they all at one point had a very similar sound.  Each band evolved and changed their sound and style.  It had a laid back feeling to it.  Just a bunch of people getting together to make music.  I have fond memories of riding around my hometown with my friends blasting some of this music.  Just being high school kids.  You know, driving poorly and being obnoxious to those that drove past.  But it was all in good fun.  We weren't dangerous to the public.  We weren't drinking at a friend's house while their parents were away, having sex, or getting arrested (you're welcome Mom and Dad).  We were just being teenagers.  

Another memory about these bands and CDs is that they were my first 'parental advisory' type CDs.  Crazy, I know.  I was living on the edge.  During middle school and high school, I mainly listened to country music, so this was a big step for me.  Having music where the word 'fuck' was used without a care was awesome.  A favorite Reel Big Fish song (Nothin') ends with them screaming 'I don't fucking care, no I don't fucking care, no I don't fucking care anymore!'  Repeatedly.  If that isn't a great motto for a high school kid about to go off to college, I don't know what is.  Most of my other music at the time, the worst word was mayyyyyybe 'ass' and that would be pushing it.  Looking back at it all, it's pretty hilarious.  These CDs were only played in my car or portable CD player (remember those?), never within earshot of my parents (again, you're welcome Mom and Dad).  And if they did hear it, they never really said anything (thanks Mom and Dad). 

One thing that is funny is that some of the music and lyrics are more profound as I listen to it now than when I was listening to them back in high school.  Buck-O-Nine has some songs on their 'Twenty Eight Teeth' album that are just amazing.  It's weird how a song like 'Steve Was Dead' is just a funny song when you're seventeen, but now it's eerie when listening to it.  The song is about how a rumor gets spread so quickly.  Especially now in the social media fixated world we live in now, it's both hilarious and insightful.  Just one of the few things that you can find when listening to music from your younger days is new meaning in the lyrics.  Some songs aren't meant to be profound.  Some songs are just meant to be fun.  At different points in your life, a song can mean something to you but later on it might not mean anything to you.  It's all about your interpretation.

Music is great.  Everyone needs a soundtrack to their life.  Whether it is country, thrash metal, folk, or rock n roll, it's all about you.   


49/120

House Hunting Hiatus

You know how you find something really big to focus on and that is all you can think about?  And when it turns out you can't have that really big thing and you go into a state of denial about not being able to have said really big thing?  That has happened.  And it revolves around home ownership.

We have been renting apartments since we were in college.  We are both sick of it.  This past January, my wife finally found a job after looking for a handful of years.  We finally had a second income and by the time our lease in our current apartment was up at the end of September, we thought we would have money for a house.  We started looking, passively, as we looked at our options.  We didn't want to get our hopes too high.  We started paying off more and more of our debt in an attempt to increase our credit scores.  I went to a first time home owners' seminar put on by our bank to get some information we might not have known or found via the internet.  We even found an area in the Twin Cities that we started to look at houses and even looked at a couple in person.  After we came to the decision that buying a house is what we wanted to do, we put in paperwork for a home mortgage pre-approval to see what price range we could look at.  We didn't want to fall in love with a house only to not afford it.  Then we got a phone call and the bottom fell out.

My wife's employer is considered a temp agency and therefore her income will not be considered when it comes to a home mortgage.  Even after talking with the loan officer about the fact that this wasn't a job that was going to be going away any time soon, some of my wife's co-workers have been employed by this temp agency at her current employer for the past five years, it was to no avail.  Some questions we have had to answer revolve around going to work directly for the employer she has her job at instead of working through the temp agency.  Here's the problem, the shifts that are available for this employer are either overnight (midnight to eight in the morning) type shifts or early morning (four in the morning to noon) type shifts.  The fact that she drives forty five minutes each way put those shifts out of the question.  So my wife has been looking for a job again, in the hopes of finding something permanent in the eyes of a loan officer.  It was very disheartening, or in the words of my dad 'fucking bullshit'.

We did find a new place to live, though.  So there's that positive note.  We will be moving into a townhouse at the end of September.  There are many positives to this move.  It cuts my wife's commute time in half while only adding about eight to ten miles of a commute for me.  There is way more space than we have now.  There is room for a grill (MGT will once again be a thing)!  We'll have a second bedroom for any visitors instead of a couch, air mattress, or hotel...as soon as we get a second bed. 

So we took a totally negative situation and turned it into a positive.  This will give us even more time to pay off debt.  We are getting ever so closer to paying off our college loans.  We will be able to stash away money for another year or two to put towards a down payment.  Whenever it is that we can buy a house.  Sure, it would be nice to be a homeowner and have a place to call our own, but thanks to the banks, sub-prime mortgages, and the housing bubble burst, we'll just have to stave off the American dream a few more years.        

48/120

Rotating Beds

The second to last day of our vacation, my wife and I came to the same realization just about the same time.  We packed, unpacked, and slept in too many beds this vacation.  I use the term 'beds' loosely as there were some nights we were on an air mattress.  So, how many beds you ask?  In the ten days that we were gone, we slept in five different beds.  Why so many?  Let me explain.

We left Minnesota Friday night after work.  Our plan was to drive half way home that night and finish the trip on Saturday morning and afternoon.  It takes about nine to nine and a half hours to drive home if you drive straight through.  We have done that drive numerous times since moving to Minnesota.  It's nice to get home in less than ten hours.  So we drove to Green Bay (the half way point) after work and stayed the night in a hotel.  Bed one.

After we got to Michigan on Saturday, we spent the weekend with my family.  We have started to do family gatherings during the summer.  We use to do a big family party at Christmas time, but with all the grandkids growing up and moving all around the country, it makes it easier to get more people together during the summer time.  My entire immediate family was staying at the cabin.  With my sister and brother having kids, they stay in the cabin and my wife and I stay in the loft above the garage.  Funny thing though.  The bed in the loft is two twin beds.  Yeah....yeah.  My wife and I joked about this song that SNL did a few years ago.  Side note:  can we talk about how hilarious the women of SNL are?  Not only did we joke about that song, we also joked about the episode of 'How I Met Your Mother' where Marshall and Lily go to a bed and breakfast and accidentally book a room with two twin beds and have the best sleep they had in years.  So, bed two.

After the weekend, we drove to our hometown and stayed with my in-laws.  We were going camping for three days starting on Tuesday.  We had to find a bed to stay in Monday night.  We debated back and forth.  Their pop up camper was open because we still needed to pack food and all that.  The other option was to blow up an air mattress and stay in the basement.  We went with option one.  We stayed in the pop up.  Mainly because we didn't want to unpack and pack the air mattress.  So we stayed the night in the camper.  Bed three.

Because the pop up camper is small for five people, we brought a tent so my wife and I stayed there for the camping trip while my parents in-law and brother in-law stayed in the camper.  We brought the air mattress because who wants to sleep on the ground?  Or so I'm told.  We slept on the air mattress for the three days.  Bed four.

Back at home after the camping trip we continued to sleep on the air mattress in the basement in my in-laws house.  No new bed.  The bed count in still at four.

For the last night, we went down to the cabin to see my family one more time.  By this time, my sister and family had moved down to Missouri so there was an open bed in the cabin.  This was our last night of vacation, and needed as much sleep as possible as we were driving back to Minnesota the next day.  A little problem though.  The room we were staying in was so hot that I couldn't sleep.  I got up in the middle of the night and slept on the couch downstairs.  It was much cooler and I got a few hours of sleep.  My brother, sister in-law, and niece were up at around 4:30 to fly back to Seattle, so we were up to say goodbye to them.  We then went back to sleep after they left and got a few more hours of sleep.  That was bed number five.

While it was a very nice vacation and very relaxing, it was extremely choppy because of all the packing and unpacking as we moved from place to place and bed to bed.  Normally when we go home, we stay at either one of the parents' house or split the time between the two families.  So at most we sleep in two beds.  By the time we got back to Minnesota, I felt more tired than when we left.  Maybe it has something to do with all the different beds?  Who knows. 

47/120

Vacation Planning

Tonight, we are heading home for a vacation.  Very exciting stuff.  We'll be able to see family that we haven't seen in quite some time.  There is a family weekend party planned that starts tonight and wraps up on Sunday.  Because that's how we do.  A full weekend.  None of this one day shit.  We go all out.  Three days, three different places. 

As I was planning out what to pack, there are a few things that I am not bringing.  And I feel that these items should always be left at home when vacationing.  The first thing is my watch.  This is the most important thing to leave behind when going on vacation.  Because who wants to keep track of time when you don't need to?  I know I don't.  The other thing I am leaving behind is my razor.  It's one less thing to pack.  It's one less thing that I won't use for the week.  And let's be honest, having a beard helps hide the stubble.


46/120

Building Frustration

The past five days, I have sat down to write a blog post.  I have not gotten anywhere with it.  It's awful.  I still haven't finished it.  I have about a paragraph written.  In my mind, I have about five or six paragraphs worth of ideas.  I basically I had all day off yesterday (I was finished with work at 10:00 in the morning), and wrote nothing.  I tried.  I got distracted.  And the sad thing is, I think I have written about this before.  Am I going to go through the archives to check?  Nope.  

One problem with living in a one bedroom apartment, is that there is nowhere to isolate yourself when you need to do something (like write a blog post).  There are distractions EVERYWHERE.  And by everywhere, I mean right in front of me.  It's the television.  And here's the thing, there is jack shit on television at 10:00 in the morning.  But still, I found myself turning it on trying to find something to watch.  You know what I should have done?  I should have turned it off.  And then taken the batteries out of the remote.  And then unplugged the television.  

One nice thing to have is the mobile app for Blogger.  I can write on my phone.  This helps to make progress after I drive to work.  I usually have fifteen to twenty minutes depending on traffic before work so I can take some time to write down some thoughts and ideas.  I just don't because I forget about it sometimes.  I do other things like check Twitter and read articles.  Who wants to write when you have a full day's worth of work to do?  I just want to spend the last few minutes of my morning relaxing and listening to music or podcasts.  

Another problem I have found is that I look at this goal I set for myself this year.  I thought that a lofty goal would help me be more active with my writing, but it has turned into a mental block.  I look at where I'm at right now (forty five posts) and when I realize we are coming up on August, I just get flustered.  I should have thirty more posts than I do.  I justify my lack of writing on working and not having any energy after work, but that's not good enough.  It's not like I work twelve hour shifts or anything like that.  


45/120

Time Away

We took our vacation.  It was fantastic.  It was relaxing.  It was just the right amount of time.  Maybe another day would have been good, but three days of not being home was very nice.  The only downside was that my wife had a cold while we were up there.  Weird right?  Summer colds are just...odd.

The weather was outstanding.  I was a bit worried about the weather because most of what we wanted to do was outside.  And what do you do when it rains outside?  You find stuff to do inside.  Usually you look to going to malls and stores, which is not as cool when you live in a metro area and have access to the stores.  We did not do any shopping.  We did spend quite a bit of time outside.  Practically all day on the 5th was spent outdoors, minus drive time.  We went up to a couple of state parks that were half an hour or so north of Duluth.  The drive reminded me so much of driving in the U.P.  We were able to step foot in Lake Superior.  It's cold on the western end just it is on the eastern end.  Proof of being in the lake:

I went up to my ankles.  That was enough.  Like I said, it was cold.  We had a picnic and enjoyed the scenery.  There weren't any black flies or mosquitoes driving us crazy.  Just a few flies here and there.  It was busy because it was a weekend and a holiday weekend at that.   

We spent some time with friends from high school/college.  For all the complaining I do about social media, the only way we were able to see them was because we are all Facebook friends.  It was great to see them, and they were great resources for things to do.  They told us which restaurant to stop at and get pie (The Rustic Inn) on our way up the shore.  And....AND...they hooked us up with a great view for the fireworks.  On top of a building!  Away from the people and congestion. 

I only took a handful of pictures of the fireworks because I wanted to actually watch them with my eyes and not through the screen of my phone. 
I'm sure that if we had spent one more day up there, we would have been able to find some more stuff to do.  But then again, Duluth isn't huge, so two days without having concrete plans was just enough.  We did agree though that if we were to do another trip like this, it would be on a weekend that was not a holiday weekend.  Just dealing with extra traffic on the roads was all we needed to know that we didn't want to do it again.  And we thought about that after we started making plans, but we stuck with it.  And I'm happy we did.  Like I said, it was nice and relaxing and it was a new adventure. 

44/120

Making Traditions

I don't know exactly when it started, probably in 2004 or 2005, but every year I find myself watching the movie 'Gettysburg' some time between July 1st and 3rd, the days that the battle took place.  Is it hokey?  Yes.  Not as hokey as if I were watching it on three separate days to coincide with the actions of the battle.  That would be down right troubling.  I prefer to watch it all in one sitting.  One, four hour long, take an intermission break, have both breakfast and lunch during the viewing, sitting.  It's my own little nod to a part of history that I have always found interesting and the movie is very enjoyable.

While the movie watching might not be what most people would call a 'tradition' in the normal sense of the word, I am going to include it.  Normally, when you think of a tradition, you think of eating a holiday meal at one specific relative's house, or going camping at the same place every year with the same group of people.  I don't necessarily think that traditions have to occur at the same time year in and year out.  I know that when I think of 'traditions' that families have, they tend to revolve around holidays.  Which is the norm, is it not?  Whether it is summer holidays or winter holidays, I'm sure every family has at least one tradition that they stick to each year.

When you think of a tradition, you do not normally think of sitting down and watching a movie the same time each year.  And why not?  Because normally, a tradition is something you do with other people.  Whether it is family or friends, a tradition is something you can always mark on a calendar and call people a month ahead of time to make sure that the plans are still on.  When I was growing up, each summer we went camping with our longtime family friends.  I do not remember it always being the same time every year, but I just remember going each year.  That is the nice thing about a tradition that doesn't revolve around a holiday.  If you take a summer camping trip with friends, it doesn't have to be the same weekend every year, it can just take place in the summer.  Or if you go on a ski trip each winter, it doesn't have to be the second weekend in January every year.

But sitting down and watching a movie around the same time each year can be a personal tradition.  For people like me who enjoy both history and movies, taking the time to watch a movie the same day(s) as the historical event took place, that's a pinnacle of nerdiness.  If you want to watch 'Half Baked' on April 20th each year, go nuts.  Watch 'The Longest Day' each June 6th if that tickles your fancy.  More recently, I have noticed that television channels have been doing holiday marathons of movie series.  AMC did a 'Jaws' marathon leading up to the 4th of July weekend.  I have seen channels like TNT, Spike, and TBS all show movies like the 'Lord of the Ring' trilogy, the 'Star Wars' prequals and original trilogy.

So there are different kinds of traditions that you can now start to call your own.  Traditions that don't involve the stress of planning out entire weekends or weeks.  Traditions that are cost saving too.  And yes, these types of traditions are a bit anti-social.  But if you are going to just sit down and watch a few movies, that isn't going to take up an entire week....unless you want it to.  

43/120

Your Child Runs Your Life, Not Mine

I have seen this article linked by a few people on social media.  I read it, re-read it, and thought, what about those of us who do not have kids?  I'm not going to yell and kick and scream about how horrible this article is or if it offended me (it didn't).  It is a nice piece of writing, there is some good advice, but I am going to write a few things about what parents should not say to non-parents.  I one hundred percent realize that the article comes from a website that is all about being a parent.  Everyone needs their own community.  I have plenty of friends and family that are in the midst of growing their family, and I support their decision to do so.  But there are those of us who don't have kids, and to be quite honest, I have gotten to the point that I just skip right over social media posts that are two paragraphs long revolving around your children.  Sorry (not sorry).

When are you going to have kids?  I have heard this question many, many times since we got married.  Not everyone wants kids.  Not everyone can have kids.  How bad would you feel if you asked one of your friends this question and they broke down into crying hysterics because they were unable to conceive?  Wouldn't you feel like a complete asshole?  We have never really wanted to have kids.  And like I have said in the past, our thoughts on children might change down the road, but for right now, we do not want kids.  We are happy being child free.  We can make plans to go out for dinner and be in the car in two minutes.  We do not have to herd the brood of offspring just to go out to eat or see a movie.

Do you not like kids?  Just because we do not have kids does not mean we do not like kids.  I have one nephew and three nieces.  I love them all very much.  We have friends that have kids and they are great.  Just because we do not want to have kids right now doesn't mean we do not like them.  Granted, there are times when I cannot stand kids.  For example, they run around the store I work at grabbing glass vases or crawling over the furniture.  I do not blame the kids for that, I blame the parents that are not paying attention to their kids.  

Don't you want to know what is going on with my child?  No.  Keep that personal stuff to yourself.  I don't know how others feel about this, but I do not want to know about your child's bowel movements.  Or their ability to shit so much that it leaks out all over a car seat or their clothes or your clothes.  I do not want to know that your child has learned to use the toilet.  I do not want to know about your blocked milk ducts or your pumping regiment. 
 
Could you not swear around the children?  I do my best not to swear a lot when kids are around, especially when they are old enough to repeat words.  If you have a newborn laying on the floor like a sack of potatoes, do not expect me to say 'darn' instead of 'damn'.  Do not censor me.  One great thing about not having children is the fact that I can swear without dealing with consequences.  Take, for example, a phrase that is spoken frequently in our household.  'Fuck you A.J. Pierzynski you fucking piece of shit.' (It is said more often than you would think.). I did not have to double check the room like your co-worker that's about to tell a racist joke he heard from his racist uncle to make sure a child did not hear me say it who would then go on to repeat those wonderful, wonderful words in school.  I know not every parent changes their vocabulary when they have kids, but to be told not to say things like 'damn' and 'shit' because your children are like little parrots, that's not my problem.  Like I said, I watch my language when I am around kids for the most part, I don't need someone else to do it as well.

42/120

Bounce Back?

Hopefully the darkest part of the baseball season is behind the Detroit Tigers.  After a miserable month of baseball and a horrible series that saw their top two pitchers get knocked around by the Kansas City Royals, they seem to have righted the ship for the moment.  Maybe all it took was a few days in second place and everyone that is interested in the sport to question what the hell was happening to the team that was predicted by most to make it to the World Series.  After salvaging one of the four games played against the Royals, the Tigers slunk away from Detroit to play against the team that seemed to have sent them on their month long downward spiral:  the Cleveland Indians. 

As many fans recall, it was a sweep at the hands of the Indians that started the Tigers' month to forget.  At the series start, I was hoping for at least one win of the three game series (optimistic, no?).  And what they came away with made me very happy, a three game sweep.  But more importantly, the Royals were also swept at the same time.  The tables turned and the Tigers reclaimed first in the division for a little bit.  There are still issues that need to be addressed.  The bullpen is still giving up runs and throwing too many pitches.  The starters though, were firing on all cylinders for at least one series.

Is this the turning point?  Can the Tigers bounce back from a horrible month and start to create space between them and whatever team is in second place for the rest of the year?  We are closing in on the halfway point of the season.  While you don't want to put the team on cruise control early on, it would be nice to see more than just a two or three game lead.  I would prefer five or six (not too greedy is it?) game lead heading into the second half of the season.  They have a tough series ahead against the Rangers, but on the flip side to that, they do play the Astros right after that.  Then, the series that every fan of the sport should be interested in:  a three game set against the Oakland A's.  The best team in baseball right now.  They come to Detroit and nothing would be better than to take the series from them.

The next ten games for the Tigers should tell the fans more about them.  Can they continue in the right direction after the sweep in Cleveland?  Can they forget about the month that was?  Can they defend Comerica against the unwashed mass that is the Oakland Athletic baseball club?  I surely hope so.  That would be a statement series win.  Only then will I truly believe that the Tigers are going the right direction.

41/120

All Things Wrong

Over the past three weeks, the wheels have not just fallen off for the Detroit Tigers.  The axles broke, the transmission dropped, the windshield has shattered, the door handles rusted off, and the windows won't roll down.  It has been just bad.  I do not have information on what or why it has happened, it just seems that all teams go through funks during the season, but with the Tigers' hot start to the season it seems to be under a larger microscope.  I am currently watching them play the Royals (who have been the best team in the game over the past month [I think anyway] and they have shown it so far).  They are being outplayed, outhit, and outpitched by the Royals so far this series and for the first time since July 2013, a team not named Detroit Tigers is in first place (Kansas City Royals have a half game lead).  So what has happened? 

All the superstitious fans point to the Zubaz craze that overcame Detroit earlier this year.  After finishing a sweep of the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, they left the park in full Zubaz gear.  Everyone was hyped, they got a little bit of revenge for last year's ALCS and everything was hitting on all cylinders.  Then they got swept out of Cleveland.  CLEVELAND!  At the time, I thought that it was actually a good thing because it would show them a little humility, but it has gone downhill since then.  Since their sweep of Boston (18 May), the Tigers have gone 9-19.  They have given up double digits runs six times, been shutout three times, and have lost five of the series that they have played.  Over the past month, it has been like watching the Tigers in the 2006 World Series. 

During this stretch of horrible play, the main culprits appear to be the pitching staff.  Not only the bullpen, which was suspect at the beginning of the season, but the starters as well.  The Royals put a hurting on the top two pitchers of the Tigers (Verlander and Scherzer) this series, but it hasn't been just this series.  The two pitchers that are suppose to strike fear into the opposition were both chased before the end of the sixth inning over the last two games.  In the games that I have been able to watch, the starters have struggled.  High pitch counts, not hitting their marks over the plate, and a general air of defeat hangs over the mound even at the beginning of the game.  Over the past month, it has been like watching the Tigers in the 2012 World Series.

All the blame cannot just be focused on the pitching.  The batters have not been doing their part either.  They have flat out disappeared.  When a team goes on a winning streak, it always seems like the batters lead the charge.  From top to bottom, the hitters all click at the plate.  Whether it is deep home runs, or plain ol' base hits, winning streaks rely on the hitters.  The Tigers do not have that right now.  One or two batters could be swinging hot bats, but if you don't have the other seven or eight guys doing the same thing, it will amount to nothing.  Over the past month, it has been like watching the Tigers in the 2013 ALCS.  

I have no rational answer to the struggles the Tigers are dealing with right now.  I want to burn all the Zubaz clothing right now.  That's where I'm at.  It's one thing to have a few bad breaks here and there in a game or two, that is part of baseball.  But when you see bad breaks every other game for the duration of a month, there are no answers for it.  Someone in the organization must have broken a mirror while walking under a ladder and kicking a black cat all at the same time for this month of baseball.  As a fan, I will grin and bear it because I remember 2003.  I remember what it is like to have a real horrible team.  This is just one bad month. 

40/120

Change on the Horizon

Manifesto (noun):  a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives, as one issued by a government, sovereign, or organization.

When I started writing back in 2005, I wanted to title this something fun and catchy.  I was fresh out of college and adrift in life.  I hadn't gotten a job yet, I had just moved down to Kansas, and I was just around.  I don't remember exactly how I came up with the title 'My Own Manifesto', mainly because it was so long ago.  And it isn't some sort of crowning achievement.  It just rolls off the tongue so easily.  Anyway, I have decided to move away from the title.  There are a couple of reasons for it, but there is also a big problem with it.

If you, for some reason, are unaware, we in America currently have a big problem with guns and gun regulation.  Some call it an epidemic.  I really don't know what to call it.  I will just call it an issue that needs to be addressed.  Anyway, there have been several mass shootings that have gained national attention recently and after it is all settled and is investigated, it seems to come out that the shooter(s) have a manifesto in one form or another.  Whether it is online or written on their computer or actually handwritten (who does that anymore?), it comes out that they have some weird manifesto.  They cover some fucked up shit and have really scary ideas and thoughts.  I don't want that.  That is not why I titled this blog in that way.  The word has become tainted to me.  And who wants their writing to be associated with that?  Sure, you can search the word 'manifesto' on the internet and find all kinds of fucked up things, but I want to distance myself from that.

But here is the problem, I don't know where to go from here.  Yes, I know how to change the title, they make it so easy that someone like me can change it, but I don't know what to change it to.  I've actually been contemplating this for a couple of months.  Racking my brain trying to come up with a title.  Something that is both fun and something that encapsulates this blog.  However, I have a few ideas of where to go from here.  Don't fret, the URL is going to stay the same so you don't have to try to find this all over again.  But does that really solve the problem of being associated with crazies and their manifestos?  Not really.  So this just a band aid?  Yes.  Yes it is.  But whatever, I'm not all techy and whatnot.  I did some research to see if there was a way to transfer all my info and old posts to a new blog without losing it all and couldn't find anything.  So if there are any tech savvy readers out there that want to throw some ideas my way, I would not turn them down.  

Hang tight, dear readers.  Hopefully soon I will overhaul this blog.  Plus, it's always exciting to shake things up a bit.  The facade needs an uplift and it is time.  And who knows, maybe at year's end, I retire this blog and start up a new one.  

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Be There for Them

Do you ever pay attention to the billboards on your commute?  Some are useless.  I pass one everyday that shows what song is currently playing on a local country music station.  Some are meant to invoke curiosity.  There is one on my commute put up by the Wyoming state tourism bureau.  It has a couple of buffalo and Old Faithful spouting in the background.  There are local college billboards, local business billboards, and radio station billboards.  None of them really distract me, I glance at them and zip pass them.  There is one, however, that always catches my eye.  In huge words on the top of the billboard is 'Be there for her.' and it shows an adult male with his young daughter.  Below the people is the words 'get a colonoscopy'.

My family, on my dad's side, has a history of colon cancer.  As I got older, the subject within our family became more prevalent.  Mainly because my paternal grandfather died at an early age of cancer.  As with any disease, it all comes down to genetics and is passed down from generation to generation.  It's not something to be proud of, obviously.  I don't remember hearing 'and guess what kids?!  When you grow up, you're prone to cancer!  It's all part of your heritage!'

When I was living down in Kansas, I told my doctor about my family history with colon cancer, and I was in my mid-20s at the time, and he said not to worry about it until I was in my 40s.  Because that is right around the age when men without a family history should start to get tested.  I looked at him and thought 'Seriously?  Have you seen this family history?'  Shortly thereafter, we moved to Minnesota and my new doctor looked at my family history and I told him that my dad's doctor said all of his kids should get a colonoscopy by age 30 to get a baseline.  He agreed.  Simple as that.  It helped that his family also has a history of colon cancer.  He understood. 

So, two years ago, shortly after my 30th birthday, after much berating from my mom, I got a colonoscopy.  I say berating in a loving manner because it seemed like the day after I turned 30, she was telling me I had to get one.  I knew, I just had to plan it out with work and all that fun stuff.  I took a few days off of work.  It came back clean.  I did not have any polyps and I was cleared of having another one for five years.  That's how easy it was.  It put my mind, my wife's mind, my family's mind all at ease.  

Here is a link from the American Cancer Society with some facts about colon cancer.  Some scary facts are that 50,000 plus people are expected to die from colon cancer in 2014.  Roughly 130,000 people are expected to be diagnosed with colon cancer in 2014.  This disease is very preventative and treatable if you take the time to deal with it.  Just like any other disease, you have to be aware of your family history.  You have to be aware of your heritage.  You have to be willing to deal with it.  It's an uncomfortable topic, but if you have a family history of colon cancer (or any cancer/disease), get tested.  Get over your fear of having a scope inside of you for a short period of time.  It's better to have that than cancerous polyps in your body.  Am I right?  Of course I am.    

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Lists Are Lame. Except This One, This One is Sweet

So, does everyone remember back in 2009 the 'cool' thing to do was list twenty five things about you on social media networks like Facebook?  I stumbled across mine as I was looking at the archives of this blog.  Here's a link to it.  Now, between then and now I have gained some more frequent readers.  I have also changed a little bit since then.  So, I thought what better way to have the reader get to know me than make up another list.  Because, you know, I got nothing else going on at 10:40 at night and I don't have to be up early tomorrow morning.  I don't know if I have twenty five things to type, I might end up with more.  We'll see. 

1.  I quit a job of seven plus years last November and it was the scariest thing I have done in a long time
2.  A month into my new job, I thought I had made a HUGE mistake.  Now I know I didn't
3.  I was once asked what my dream job would be.  After five minutes, I couldn't come up with an answer
4.  My favorite Star Wars movie is Return of the Jedi
5.  I will never shave my beard again (barring unforeseen circumstances)
6.  The last time I was fully clean shaven was 2007, the year I got married
7.  My first attempt at full beardness was in 2004.  Looking back, it was sad and kind of patchy
8.  I'm on Twitter (@Litzner) and prefer it to Facebook
9.  I applied to graduate school shortly after moving to Wichita in 2004
10.  Two days later I freaked out about it and retracted my application
11.  I lack confidence when it comes to my ability to do well in school
12.  My parents bought me a guitar for Christmas when I was in 8th grade and I still haven't learned how to play it
13.  I will learn to play the guitar as soon as I get out of living in an apartment
14.  For the past five years, I have gone back and forth about getting a tattoo
15.  One song that I could listen to over and over again is 'Paint it Black' by the Rolling Stones
16.  My 5th grade teacher once told me I had chicken scratch for handwriting.  It was at that point that I probably stopped caring when my handwriting looked like.
17.  I have no hope for the future of music
18.  After a stressful day at work, I drive home listening to Rage Against the Machine and it calms me
19.  I don't know how or why, but I picked up a smoking habit for about four months in college
20.  I wish I were more mechanically inclined

That's it folks.  It's late.  I'm going to bed.  

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Myths of Marriage

Remember that one time I thought I was really ambitious and was going to write one hundred and twenty posts in a year?  Yeah, me too.  *silently weeps a little*.  Listen, every time I get done with work I think to myself that I should go home and write something.  Anything.  But I don't have much to write about.  As I was driving to work this weekend, both days, I thought to myself, 'man, I hate people that have office jobs right now.'  They had the holiday weekend off.  They enjoyed the warm weather.  Speaking of which, it has been really warm here the past couple of days and if I hear any Minnesotan complain about the weather because it is too hot after hearing them complain that the weather was too cold this winter, I'm going to throat punch them.  I got a little sidetracked, sorry.  Let's delve into more of these random topics shall we?

What are the biggest myths about marriage?

The first year is hard.  I don't know about anyone else, but the first year of marriage was a breeze.  Maybe it was because it was all new and exciting, but it was not that complicated.  I wrote back in March about how living together made it much easier of a transition into married life because nothing really changed.  I'm sure that if we went back to the first couple of years that we lived together, something that traditionally has been the first year of marriage, I may have a different feeling about it.  But no, the first year wasn't hard.  That's my aspect of it.  I'm sure if you asked my wife, she may have a different opinion.  So why wasn't it hard?  It's only hard if you make it so.  In the first year, you are kind of feeling out how it is to not be a single person anymore.  You are finding out how some decisions are no longer based on just one person.  If you take the time to factor in your spouse and how they will react, then you avoid stupid arguments.  Now, don't get me wrong, my wife and I argue over small things a lot.  Still to this day.  After seven years of marriage.  After living together for thirteen years.  But get your thoughts and feelings out in the open.  They don't do you any good if they sit in the back of your head and stew.

Your spouse has to take your last name.  Traditionally, it happens that when two people get married, they share the same last name.  My wife and I were engaged for just over a year.  In that time, we went back and forth on a few things when it came to our marriage.  We thought about going home for a traditional wedding before settling on going away for it.  By the way, best decision we made.  If you are reading this and you are thinking about doing a destination wedding, DO IT!  Less stress, more about you and not who showed up, plus if you do it right, you have a reception/party back home so you get to dress up twice!  Once we settled on that, the only major decision was the name thing.  Again, my wife went back and forth on taking my last name.  Actually, there wasn't much back and forth.  She thought about it for a split second and though, nah, she liked her name.  It was part of her identity.  And who am I to take that away from her?  I remember having this reaction once she told me that she was going to stick with her name.  I was taken aback.  Even a little angry.  Then I pulled my head out of my ass and realized:  it's just a name.  We were still going to be married.  We were still going to love each other no matter what.  Having my last name or her last name was not going to change any of that.  Plus, from what we understand, there's a lot of paper work involved in changing it.  And fuck that.  Am I right?  There are people that are so excited to take their husband's name (or vice versa) because to them that is part of marriage.  And more power to them.  I'm not going to tell them that they are wrong in doing so.  I just don't think that it needs to happen if someone doesn't want it to. 

You have to have kids.  They cry and scream and eat and shit everywhere.  They do nothing but brood and pout until they are in college and then they call asking for money and don't appreciate you until they are in their thirties.  I know this because I'm in my thirties and I have recently gone through all those stages mentioned previously.  You don't need them if you don't want them.  They don't come as part of the marriage.  It's not in the marriage license.  Trust me, we looked.  And then had it double checked because we wanted to make sure that it was true.  Don't feel pressured that because you are married that kids are the next step.  You always have to do what is best for you.  If you don't want kids, don't have kids.  If you want to have six or seven, first get your head checked, and then go have six or seven kids.

Some of these myths also go along with older traditions.  You look back to the fifties and sixties and traditional marriage was having the same name, raising two and a half kids, going to church every Sunday.  Times change.  People change.  Cultures change.  You cannot expect to pick up a book on marriage and have yours follow that same path.  Every marriage is different.  Yours is going to be different than your parents or your siblings or your best friends.  All you need to know is that marriage works for the two that are involved in it.  And no one else.  If what works best for you is buying a pop up camper and traveling cross country year round doing odd jobs, then guess what, that's marriage.  If it is having a dozen kids that all have names that start with the letter 'B', then that's marriage.  If it is living in a studio apartment in downtown of a major city and it just being the two of you, then that is marriage.  Everyone is different, every marriage is different.  And we are all a bunch of perfect fucking snowflakes looking for that other perfect fucking snowflake to spend the rest of our life with. 

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No More Sleeping In

Do you remember back in high school and college when the greatest thing about the morning was that it was optional?  When you didn't have to be up for class or something else, wasn't it great to just sleep the mornings away?  8:00 in the morning?  What the hell is that?  Perish the thought that the day started before 10:00 at the earliest.  For whatever reason, I have found myself getting up early recently.  And I don't mind that at all. 

I can no longer stay up late either.  I think once you get past the age of thirty, 11:00 at night is considered an all-nighter.  We went out a couple of times with some friends to watch some playoff hockey and half way through the games, we were all checking our watches and phones to see what time it was.  I'm telling you, I'm just happy none of the games we watched were on the West coast.  I doubt we all would have made it to the second intermission.  If you are getting up earlier, it just makes sense to go to bed earlier as well.  Which is funny, because as my mom loves to remind me over and over, I did not sleep very well as a baby.  'You didn't sleep through the night until you were four years old.' is the comment most commonly uttered.  With just a dash of anger in it too.  It's was twenty eight years ago, I'm sure it's time to move past it.  Am I right? 

An example of this situation happened earlier this week.  I work on Wednesday morning at 2:00.  While college kids were closing down the bars, I was headed to work.  And, of course, I did not sleep very well the night before.  I got maybe two hours of sleep.  So I got up, went to work, worked ten and a half hours, and came home.  I did not go to sleep right away despite the fact that I was extremely tired because the Tigers game was on television.  So I had to stay up because I do not get to see them play all that often.  I did fall asleep for a little bit during the game, but I barely missed half an inning.  Regardless, I went to bed and thought I was going to sleep in really late the next morning, so I set my alarm for 10:30, just in case.  You know what happened?  I slept in until 8:30.  I was kind of pissed about it, but then realized I got ten hours of sleep because I went to bed relatively early. 

So it's not like I'm only getting five or six hours of sleep each night.  I am getting more than I use to just because of going to bed earlier than I use to.  I still get up around the same time I use to, or close to it.  I just make coffee and enjoy being up early these days.  For whatever reason.  It's not like I am getting up to go work out or do anything productive.  Well, some days I'm productive.  Maybe if I took time out of each of these early mornings on days off, I will keep up on my goal of writing this year.  Whatever.  Other days I just sit around, watch a movie or two.  It's a wonderful system I have going for me. 

35/120

Little Victories

We have done it!  Strike up the band, throw confetti, plan a parade!  We have planned a vacation.  Not a vacation to go home, but a vacation to go somewhere we have never been.  We are traveling all the way up to Duluth.  A whole two hours north.  The one big mistake we made was going there during the fourth of July holiday.  We both took the weekend off to go do something.  It's nice to hang around home during the big holidays every once in a while, but the last thing we wanted to do was to do it again. 

We have never traveled anywhere for holiday weekends like this one, so we decided to change it up a little bit this year.  What are we going to do?  No clue.  What is going on up there that weekend?  No clue.  All we know is that we are going to be there.  On a side note, plan your vacations way more than two months in advance.  Especially if it is a holiday weekend.  Hotel options are pretty slim.  Also, prepare to overpay.  But what are you going to do?  Other than go on vacation on a non-holiday weekend. 

I have written about this before, taking vacation.  We have just always gone home to Michigan for vacations.  Off the top of my head, I think we have taken one or two trips that were not to Michigan or not to visit family.  We went down to Dallas for a weekend many years ago for a weekend trip for my birthday with a couple of close friends.  We use to take weekend canoe trips with big groups of people.  But that is really about it.  We visited our brothers in Seattle and Colorado Springs.  So it's not to say we haven't traveled places, we just haven't done so without ulterior motives.  We have no plans yet for this weekend trip.  We do not know what is going on up there that weekend.  We are just going.  And that is a wonderful feeling. 

 
34/120

No Big Deal

My wife and I have been married for seven years today.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Congratulations and all that.  *Brushes off the shoulders*  We have never really been the type of couple to flaunt our love and affection for each other in public.  Mainly because we are pretty private and introverted people.  The exception to this rule is this post.  This is as public as we both really get about our relationship.  We do love and respect each other, don't be mistaken. 

Anyway, we've been together since 1998.  High school.  We made it through college too.  I roll my eyes every time I tell someone that and they get all 'awwwww, that's so sweet'.  Again, we aren't that type of couple.  We make fun of people that are like that.  Maybe that's why we work so well together.  If you are our friend, and you are in a relationship that's all lovey-dovey and overtly affectionate, there is a good chance (in fact, a really good chance) that we have made fun of you.  It is out of love for you, not because we hate you.  And this affection does not have to be in person, if you have posted something on social media, we have both looked at it and made fun.

So here's a couple of pictures from our wedding in St. Thomas.  Good times....good times....

Love and affection, right?  Welp, to show you all how we really act, here's a picture from a camping trip back in Kansas.  She's grabbing me and shaking my head.  Probably for something I said or did.  Please note the grin and sheer joy on her face.

Also, this quote.  This is her talking to me, by the way:

'I'm gonna fucking stab you.' -@TheDivineMsA #TrueLove
— Michael Litzner (@Litzner) March 22, 2014

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