Poor Baby Girl

The poor sweet sick baby girl didn’t sleep well last night. She had a fever and couldn’t get comfortable. We tried to keep things as low key as possible today to help her rest, which meant spending a lot of time in bed watching television. After a couple of hours of Sesame Street and Handy Manny I started to get antsy so we got up. We played in the play room like everything was fine. She cooked in her kitchen and played with her little people. I continued learning a bunch of Disney songs on the guitar. I swore I would never learn to play anything like the Disney songs, but having a daughter changes a man’s outlook. After about an hour MJ and I switched places. She watched the baby girl while I took a shower. I wasn’t even wet before MJ broke the baby I heard LMJ crying. She hit the cold/flu wall. She was out of energy. She slept for about forty-five minutes before her stuffy nose woke her up. Having a cold sucks and she’s got a bad one. She just couldn’t rest. The only positive about the day was that she was drinking a lot of fluids without complaint. We went back to playing and reading and watching television after her aborted nap, and trying to figure out what we wanted to do with the rest of the day. MJ still had a bunch of grading to do, but we wanted to enjoy the weekend as much as possible even though we had a sick toddler. Once again LMJ was bouncing around playing like nothing was wrong when she saw me watching basketball and asked if she could sit in my lap. We’ve watched basketball together since she showed up UPS on our doorstep almost three years ago. I was happy because it’s one of my favorite things to do. I expected her to sit still for about thirty seconds and then get back to whatever business she still had. It was a bittersweet moment when I heard her snoring. She was so tired, but it took me back to when she was a baby and used to fall asleep on me regularly and made me happy.

You Will Please Make Me Michelangelo’s David

…with Play-Doh. On second thought, just make me his collected works. LMJ doesn’t understand the limits of my sculpting talents. Actually, there are no limits because there is no talent. We were playing with her Play-Doh kit, and I didn’t notice it until she requested something I had no hope of doing, but she kept bumping up the degree of difficulty of her requests. It started out with a purple bowling ball. I did that with no problem. I even buffed out the cracks. It wasn’t PBA regulation, but I’m sure Fred Flintstone would have been proud to roll it. Before I was done with the bowling ball, the request changed. She wanted purple bowling pins and a yellow bowling ball. I don’t know how to make bowling pins. I’ve never been good with visual arts because I can’t see how the blank medium becomes the finished product. I can’t see proportions. I didn’t know that eyes went in the middle of a face and towards the top until an art teacher expressed it in those basic terms. I drew a lot of non forehead havin’ mike foxtrots growing up, and could never figure out what was wrong with them or why I couldn’t fix it. The bowling pins were going to be a challenge for me. I was proud that I figured them out and I made ten of them. I had my technique down and was firing them off an assembly line. They were better than proportional; they were uniform. After the pins were done, the yellow bowling ball was cake. The only hard part was LMJ trying to figure out how to position her hand so she could roll the ball underhanded like she sees on the Wii because she was too close. We were having fun bowling a couple of Play-Doh frames, when I guess she got bored and asked me to make her a jungle with a coconut tree and a monkey. There’s not a chance in all of hell that I can make a jungle with a coconut tree and a monkey. Luckily I was saved by Mommy ringing the dinner bell.

Crocodylus Niloticus

I took LMJ to the zoo today because it’s exercise, it’s educational, it’s free (prepaid anyway), and most of all it’s fun. Today was more about the fun and exercise than the educational. I let LMJ run wherever she wanted to, which was mostly up and down a boardwalk that runs through the Africa exhibit. I don’t think she’s ever as happy as she is when she’s running. It made it easier for me because we weren’t stopping to see animals she didn’t care about. However, we did have an interesting moment at the Nile crocodile exhibit. It wasn’t Peter Pan interesting; it was just a reality check for me. I thought the exhibit was closed. All I saw was film covered water and an empty little grass covered island. I assumed that the cold temperatures had forced it inside. Then my baby girl says, “Look there’s the crocodile, Daddy.” We’re not going to get into the fact that she didn’t call it an alligator right now. I didn’t see it until I shifted my focus, and there it was, a twelve foot long, thousand pound, satanic demon lizard staring at me less than ten feet away. I always have one of these moments when I go to the zoo. A moment where I know I wouldn’t last ten minutes in the jungle. Usually, it’s with the jaguars. I’ll be looking at one and the other will creep up seemingly out of nowhere. I would have been doubly dead after LMJ shocked the hell out of me by correctly identifying the reptile. There’s an alligator exhibit on the other side of the park that we always go to, and she knows they’re alligators. I don’t remember ever going to the crocodile exhibit with her. How the hell did she know the thing was a crocodile and not an alligator? Yes, I know they’re different sizes and their teeth are different, but they’re the same damn thing, AND SHE'S TWO! I think crocodile is the Greek word for run it’s a giant lizard and alligator is the Algonquin word for run it’s a giant lizard. LMJ also does this with the leopards and jaguars as well as the siamangs and colobus monkeys. I chalk it up to her knowing where they are in the zoo as opposed to any hyper-taxonomy skills. But I’m going to start testing her. Freak.

A Look Back At January

Today was uneventful so I’m writing about my workout. Tomorrow is a scheduled off day for exercise so I doubled up this morning. I did and hour on the treadmill and an hour on the elliptical after my pushups and whatnot. I cruised through all of it. Today was a really good day at the gym, and after I was done stretching I reflected on the improvements I’ve made this month. I’ve lost eight pounds. I’m running a mile an hour faster. I did twelve more pull-ups today than I did on January 4th. I did forty-five more pushups. And I did twenty-five more sit-ups. All of which is great, but what I’m most impressed with is how much I’ve improved my flexibility. I don’t know how to best describe the improvements. I’m still much closer to “stiff as a board” than I am to a contortionist, but I’m a long way from where I was. My head is getting closer to my knee when I stretch my hammys. My knees are getting closer to the floor when I stretch my hips. The only goals I didn’t hit were my swimming goals, but January was way too frackin’ cold for that – way too frackin’ cold. So I’m using a Florida Boy Mulligan on my swimming, and if I’m going to be honest, if February is freezing like January was, I’m not getting in the pool and I will use another Mulligan. I’m very happy with my progress. I just have to remember where I started and not make February 1st a hard floor for my exercise goals. I can’t beat myself up and get discouraged if I don’t improve in February as much as I did in January. A constant rate of improvement is impossible. I just have to remain constant in my effort – especially with my eating – and learn to be happy with that, which is a lot more difficult for me than it should be.

All Good Things...

It wasn’t even 8am this morning and I was already in trouble. I was sitting at my computer watching porn placing some offshore bets getting reading for the day while LMJ and Grammy were enjoying their oatmeal and watching a podcast, when out of nowhere the baby girl blurted “DAMMIT!” For some reason Grammy looked at me. I don’t know why. I wasn't the one cursing at the breakfast table. I have no idea where LMJ would have heard such vulgarity. I can only imagine it was one of those HGTV home improvement shows or one of those East Coast Liberal Children’s Television Workshop shows she watches. If she had said “FIDDLESTICKS” or “GREAT CAESAR’S GHOST” I’d be ready to take full responsibility for the harshness of her parlance. I readily admit to using those somewhat off color terms when I get frustrated and it may be possible that she was in earshot once or twice, but to randomly ask for the consignment of something into perdition, that’s just not me. Then the baby girl said it again, and Grammy was still looking at me, shocked. We were clearly past the point of “Hey can you believe that interception Brett Favre threw?” having any chance of distracting anyone, so I went with “What did you say, Sweetie Pie?” LMJ is really cute when she says “You can’t understand me,” but it didn’t help. The toothpaste was out of the tube. The turd was sitting on the plate glass. I’m just not as cool under fire as Rod Blagojevich. In my defense, it took her two years, eight months, and fourteen days to utter her first cussword, and it was a mild PG cussword. That’s a bona fide miracle. I swear like Bruce Lee kung fu’ed. It’s next level. I’ve never used the F word around her (miracle). I’ve been hungry and tired while getting my driving coached up and I haven’t taken the Lord’s name in vain in front of her. While I would have liked to have had the streak continue, I’m chalking this up as a win and as an opportunity to start a new streak. Big Ups to me.

A Mish Mash

I’m just going to write some crap that stood out in my mind today.




I’m getting into some daunting numbers with my sit-ups, pushups, and pull-ups. Everyday I’m trying to do at least one more than I did the day before. On the one hand it’s great because I’m improving. On the other hand I dread starting the routine because all I can think about is what a big number I have to reach. I can’t even count the pushups anymore. I have to count them in sets of ten: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,TEN,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.TWENTY, and so on and so forth. I was hoping that as I improved, I would feel better, which I guess I kind of do, but in general I still feel old but I can do more exercises.

LMJ is now using “I don’t know” as an answer to the question “What are you doing?” Right now she only uses it in silly situations, but I can see a trend.

This probably makes me a bad person, but hey, I feel what I feel. Our neighbor seemingly killed herself by overdosing on sleeping pills this past Sunday. She’s the one I tried to save from some spousal abuse a couple of years ago. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. I was drinking beer and watching the Colts stomp a mudhole into the Jets, when a couple of cop cars roll up followed by a couple of television reporters. My first thought was that dude beat her ass and someone called the cops. Then the C.S.I. vans showed up. I was more than a little disappointed – no Marg Helgenberger, no Emily Procter, no Eva La Rue. MJ noticed that all of our neighbors were in the street talking. That’s when we figured out that something was seriously wrong. My next thought was that I hoped he hadn’t killed her… but if he did kill her, man I hope it was brutal, with shotguns and chainsaws and murder/suicides. We’re going to be on the news. He didn’t do it. He’s in the military and deployed in the Middle East. She, apparently, was horribly sad and just couldn’t cope anymore. Now I feel bad.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WOULD YOU PLEASE SLOW DOWN?

We went down to the creek today to play some Pooh Sticks because the park was overcrowded. Pooh Sticks is when you throw sticks into a body of water off of a bridge and then see which one comes out the other side of the bridge first. It’s from a Winnie the Pooh cartoon. The problem when we play Pooh Sticks is the bridge. We live in an old neighborhood with old bridges, old cracked and uneven sidewalks, and large exposed pipes under the bridge yet not in the water. The photo above is LMJ hauling ass – because how else would one get somewhere – across the old bridge and toward a huge uneven crack in the sidewalk to get some more sticks, and my reaction to the standard parent nightmare scenario of her falling through the guardrail, cracking her skull on the exposed pipe, and drowning in the shallow creek. She takes years off my life. There’s a very nice, flat, wide open field next to the creek that I would love to have her play in, but she doesn’t care about that. She’s only interested in getting as close to the creek as she possibly can. Why aren’t there force fields up to stop wayward toddlers from falling and drowning? It’s not a natural creek, at least not anymore. It’s been buttressed with cement walls; I assume to stop erosion. Force fields stop erosion, not only of the dirt slipping into the creek but also of my heart valves. I’ve never been as constantly terrified as I am when I watch her run down torn up sidewalk. I just know she’s going to fall and bounce her head off the pavement. The city did some work along our street a couple of years ago and replaced the cobblestone with modern cement squares wherever they tore it up. Now there’s a mix of both on our way to the park, and I breathe a sigh of relief whenever she hits a new patch. I’m not going to get into her swinging from the guardrail. It’s everything I can do not to tell her to stop, but I know that I have to let her explore and take some lumps as she grows up. I look annoyed in the picture. I’m not. That’s my filled with dread face, and it's not a choice. If we keep playing Pooh Sticks, I doubt I’ll make it to forty.

You Ran. I Feel Great

We went to the beach today. I ran. It sucked. The wind was blowing from the south at the speed of light. It was foggy because so much spray was being kicked up. I could only see about a ¼ of a mile down the beach. I really did not want to be out there today, but if I skip workouts then I don’t reach my goals. I was smart enough to start running into the wind. I knew that being fresh while running into the wind would be preferable to being spent while running into the wind, so I headed towards Miami. The plan was to run five miles in less than an hour. It was windy. It was on the beach. And like I said, I did not want to be there. I would run 2.5 miles out and then 2.5 miles back. I was so glad that I brought my shuffle. I’m probably going to be deaf soon because I had to crank the volume so high to drown out the wind blowing in my face, but I had a good music mix that helped move the time and the miles along. In a really weird coincidence the Jacksonville Beach Pier was exactly – EGGZACKTLY – 2.5 miles from our base camp. After a couple of miles running directly into the jetstream, I had decided to turn around at the pier no matter how far it was, but strangely enough it was perfect. I turned around and the wind became my friend (at first). I was hauling ass. I hadn’t run this fast, this far, since last year’s Ortega River Run. I wanted to slow down but the wind was pushing me. I finished up well under an hour. I finished in less than fifty-two minutes, which was not the plan, but I’ll take the stats. MJ met me with a smile and some encouraging words. Then she told me it was time to head back the way I came to find Cora Spondence. The photo is my reaction.

It Sounds Like Someone Has A Case Of The Mondays

I’d rather be doing almost anything right now other than writing this post. I’m just not feeling it, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to lead to a bunch of obligatory tl/dr so I can fulfill my daily post requirement. Today was a discombobulated Saturday for me. It was non-descript and kind of depressing. I think the problem is that I didn’t do anything real, so I was grumpy all day. The morning started out well. I ate some bagels from Panera and finished my Percy Jackson book. The series is about a teenage Greek demi-god who lives in New York City, and has adventures while in hero training. It’s fluff but I like Greek mythology and the author does some interesting things to modernize the Olympians. I probably should have started the next book in the series right then and there but I didn’t and got stuck doing nothing. I think a big problem is that football season is coming to an end. Watching large men crash into each other on purpose is one of my favorite opiates. It’s how I know it’s the weekend. I probably should have gotten out and gone for a run or to the beach to get my endorphins going at some point. We went for a walk around 7pm but it was too late by then, the day was already ruined, and walks suck anyway. I probably shouldn’t be writing all this down because after MJ reads it she’s probably going to try to push me out the door in the morning so I feel better. Right now I don’t know if I want to feel better. I’ve got a really good grumpy going. Another problem may be the weather. It’s not cold enough to bundle up and embrace, but it’s not hot enough to be a good Florida day. Today was like Seattle or San Francisco. The weather is the reason everyone in those towns spends all of their time committing suicide and spreading STD’s.

My Sister And Her Fiancé

My sister and her fiancé are in town and we had a family get together tonight with pizza and beer. My parents supplied the pizza and showed up with two cases of beer. LMJ was the only one at the party under twenty-nine so I think they over bought. In my dad’s defense, the beer was on sale. If Heineken gets close to a dollar a bottle, it’s smart to buy as much as the store will sell. We had a lot fun tonight just hanging out and catching up. Everyone is happy that my sister and her fiancé are moving back from Kansas to Florida (Using names would be so much easier than writing “my sister and her fiancé but there are rules). They’re moving to South Florida but three hundred miles is better than a thousand, especially for my parents. Actually my sister and her fiancé (now I’m reminding myself of a Seinfeld episode) showed up with a twelve pack of Stella Artois, and while I’m generally a German beer guy, if I got stranded on a desert island with a lifetime supply of Stella, I wouldn’t think twice about the boat sailing away over the horizon. LMJ thoroughly enjoyed herself with two brand new audience members and got wound up like Beavis on caffeine. She was in 100% Cornholio mode. One of the upsides of my sister and her fiancé (now it’s just a game) moving back to the Sunshine State is that it will be easier for LMJ to see her one and only aunt on a more regular basis. While LMJ is surrounded by strong women, there’s not one in her life right now whose first response is to say “F**k that Bullsh*t” and throw a right hand. My sister is more than qualified for the job. While I try to live that every day, some stuff a girl has to learn from a woman. Sometimes I forget how much I miss my sister. And for those playing a drinking game at home, my sister and her fiancé.

We Weren't There For Fun And Some Games Tonight

We had our first really rough night at My Gym tonight. LMJ was out of sorts for reasons I’m sure her mother would rather I not detailed. LMJ had a rough night. She was forced to flip over a bar, which she would have thought was a bunch of fun but she wasn’t in control so she freaked out. She got run over by the class pariah. I don’t know how to explain to a two year old, sweet, innocent, little girl that she needs to throw a straight right and knock this fool out. I kind of feel bad for the kid because he’s not getting any limits set for him by his parent(s) and it’s going to lead to a lot of ass whippings when he runs into bigger kids. The worst part of the night for LMJ was separation time. That’s when the kids are supposed to play together without us being involved. We’re not good with this part. Last week we sat there and she was never more than two feet away from us, which totally defeated the purpose of the exercise. This week we got out of the way like we’re supposed to, and she lost sight of us and panicked. It was not cool. She was really broken hearted. If she decides to write a Mommy Dearest type book twenty years from now, this was the spark that lit the fire. She was more than a little clingy for the last ten minutes of class. She would calm down for a bit but as soon as someone talked to her or made eye contact she started crying again. I guess she just wanted everyone to pretend that the elephant wasn’t in the room. It’s funny how certain weird personality traits are hereditary. She reacted exactly like her mother would even though she’s never seen her mother in a situation like tonight’s. I, on the other hand, had a pretty good night. There was a slutty mom with fake boobs, a low cut blouse, and wearing a thong. Silver lining and all that.

Bunch Of Jackasses

I’m getting angrier and angrier with Democratic Party and I am so glad that I never joined. After eight years of the stupidest and most arrogant Republican administration –the three branches of government and the Party itself included – the Democrats are trying to top them. The Democrats had a filibuster proof advantage in the Senate and did nothing with it. Then Ted Kennedy got sick and died. Then the Democrats half-assed the campaign to fill his seat and lost it. The Democrats lost a senate seat in Massachusetts to a Republican because they didn’t try. The election ended almost 24 hours ago yet no one has been fired by Obama. His health care bill is now screwed because the Democratic Party was too stupid to even show up. They assumed, and everyone knows what happens when assumption is the order of the day. Do the Democrats think they’re doing a good job? Do they think people that are unemployed aren’t angry? Didn’t they know that congressional seats are harder to hold onto after a new president’s first year? Don’t they know that this may have been the first domino falling that leads to one term for the president? I was hoping Obama was going to be FDR or JFK but it seems he’s on the way to being Jimmy Carter. On the one hand it was his first year. On the other hand he’s a quarter of the way through his first (only?) term. George W. Bush is gone. Barry begged for this job and he’s not doing a good one. Like all first term, different party Presidents, he had a bunch of goodwill and political capital going into his first year. What did Obama do with it? Nothing. He bailed out a bunch of millionaires and billionaires, just like the last guy. Now it’s a year later, he has a contentious senate; people are still out of work, and he still doesn’t seem to have any nuts. Good luck, asshole. I’ve said it before, and unless things pick up, I’ll say it again: I will vote for Mitt Romney without a second thought. I will vote for Sarah Palin with a second thought, depending on how tight her suits are. I have no problem rolling everything over every four years until someone is elected that doesn’t suck. The Democrats got spanked in an election for Ted Kennedy’s seat. How is it that none of them was too ashamed to show up for work this morning?

Four Cheez Whiz Wit! (saving the H for Scrabble)

Maybe it’s because I’m hungry and don’t like mushrooms, but it really bothers me that restaurants completely ignore the basic recipe for a Philly cheesesteak. I was emailed a copy of the new menu for the diner in the lobby. I don’t eat there because it’s a shorter walk to flush my money directly down the toilet. They list their version as new and improved (really?) with Swiss cheese and mushrooms. This got me thinking about cheesesteaks and how everyone outside of Philadelphia seems to do them wrong for no good reason. Swiss cheese and mushrooms don’t go on a basic cheesesteak sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, anyone may put anything they want between two pieces of bread, but I thought following some basic rules is what separates civilization from barbarism. There are two accepted original sources for the cheesesteak: Pat’s and Geno’s. They differ on how the beef is cut, either chopped or thinly sliced, and they differ on whether “wit” or “with” is the shibboleth that will get you onions on your sandwich. Everything else is pretty much the same, including the cheese: old school is provolone, new school is Cheez Whiz. American cheese is acceptable because this is America, but Swiss isn’t on the list. John Kerry ordered Swiss cheese on his cheesesteak while running for President, and was told that represented an alternative lifestyle in Philadelphia. Guess who didn't get elected President. Why doesn’t anyone outside of the City of Brotherly Shove offer Cheez Whiz as an option when it should be standard to begin with? I’ve never eaten at a Philly Connection because the pasty orange goodness isn’t on the menu. I know there isn’t a patent issue because both Pat’s and Geno’s use it. It can’t be for health reasons. It’s a steak sandwich for crying out loud. My cholesterol jumped ten points just by writing this. Your cholesterol jumped five just by reading it. Why are restaurants afraid to go all in? Maybe it’s time to open a sandwich shop.

My Darling Clemintine And Stuff Like That There

Yesterday I wrote about Saturday morning cartoons that I watched growing up, and I got distracted when I started thinking about Huckleberry Hound. Huckleberry Hound was cool. That’s the only way to describe him. Nothing fazed him. Where every other cartoon overreacted to his situation, ice wouldn’t melt in Huck’s mouth. I liked how he would “break character” by turning towards the camera and speaking to the audience directly. Back then everything was about the story. I don’t know if the show originally aired at nighttime, but the whole thing was a bunch of puns that were over a kid’s head, while still being funny for the kids. The best example that stuck with me – or scarred my brain – was the short where he was a dog catcher. That’s kind of twisted. The animation was barely animation. Huck was drawn almost like a hieroglyphic. I guess they were on a tight budget because none of the Hanna Barbera stuff even tried to look like the Disney stuff. Huck scrolled from right to left and from left to right. There was no third dimension. He was like an old school, 8-bit video game. I think my favorite part was his constant way off key wailing of “My Darling Clementine”. He never sang the right words, and he never sang it the same way twice. Even though Daws Butler, the voice actor who did Huckleberry Hound, is dead, and the voice was the whole thing, I think they should find someone who can get close to the drawl and make a Huckleberry Hound movie. I bet Tommy Lee Jones could get the cadence right. It could be about a sheriff in Texas, kind of like No Country For Old Men, but instead of worrying about retirement, he could focus completely on cleaning up the town. There wouldn’t be a wife because Huckleberry Hound is a straight up dawg before he’s anything. Quentin Tarantino could direct it. The technology is there. Look at Avatar. A single blue hound dog should be no problem at all.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: A Retrospective Of My Childhood

I don’t want to write about my run today, even though it was interesting enough for a post. Instead I’m going to steal EJG’s topic: Saturday morning cartoons. I loved Saturday morning cartoons so much because I hated school so much more. I separate my cartoon experience into four different categories based on my watching experience: weekday cartoons (don’t matter), classic Hanna Barbera (pre-1980), Warner Brothers, and The Transformers.

In the late ‘70’s I would race down from my upstairs bedroom to the den in the basement as soon as I got up and watch cartoons until Don Cornelius showed up on the screen at around noon. My favorites were the Hanna Barbera shows. I loved the Laff-A-Lympics the most. It was a spoof on the Olympics and Battle of The Network Stars. The characters were separated into three teams depending on how they fit into the Hanna Barbera universe. I remember there was a Yogi Bear team with Yogi, his crew, and Huckleberry Hound’s* crew. There was a Scooby Doo team with Scooby, Scrappy, and a bunch of other weak ass bitches. And there were the Really Rottens, who I think were made up just for the show. The show was dumb but I remember it seemingly going on for two hours, and I was happy.

In the early ‘80’s I would rush down from my upstairs bedroom to the den on the first floor – we now lived in Florida – as soon as I got up and watch the more sophisticated stylings of Bugs Bunny and his crew. I loved Bugs punking Daffy Duck. I loved it even more when they would punk Elmer Fudd together. Who the hell would sell Elmer Fudd a shotgun? Probably the same people who sold Yosemite Sam his pistols. If anyone ever needed to switch to decaf, it was Yosemite Sam. I never had a use for Porky Pig or the Road Runner, and I got frustrated that they showed so many Road Runner cartoons. Wile E. Coyote’s failure to learn from his mistakes drove me up a wall.

I had almost given up cartoons when in the fall of 1984 I was sitting with my sister who had just discovered Kids Incorporated. We didn’t change the channel or turn off the television after her show went off because that would have required getting up and walking over to the T.V. We didn’t have a remote yet. What followed changed my life. Looking back on it, I can’t believe it was on at 9:30 in the morning on broadcast television. The Transformers had the coolest theme song I had ever heard. It was about 50 foot robots trying to kill each other. The head bad guy had a 30 foot bazooka strapped to his arm that he used indoors and his name was Megatron. Yeah, I was all in.

*I stirred up some memories thinking about Huckleberry Hound and I am no longer interested in the rest of this post, but I’m too lazy to start over. Huckleberry Hound and the greatness that was the Hanna Barbera ‘60’s needs its own post.

I Had Taro and Strawberry/Banana or Is Bill Cosby Too Old To Play Me?

I had a sitcom dad evening tonight. The Girls wanted to go to get some clothes for LMJ and some Mochi frozen yogurt at the Town Centre. I wanted to stay at home and watch the Saints make the Cardinals pee sitting down. So as I was backing the van out of the driveway to head to the Town Centre for baby girl clothes and frozen treats, I hear MJ stifle a gasp because she thinks I’m too close to the fence on the left a second before Grammy tells me I’m too close to the house on the right. The way I know that MJ thought I was too close to the fence on the left is her bursting out in laughter at Grammy’s constructive criticism. Did I mention we weren’t out of our driveway? The shopping trip itself was relatively uneventful. There was nothing interesting enough to buy at the Baby Gap and there were no empty parking spaces close enough to the Gymboree. We enjoyed Mochi, which is a little bit nerve racking for MJ. She doesn’t want to pack her cup too full of yogurt because she’s worried about the cost, but she’s always upset that she doesn’t get enough yogurt. On the way home we were stuck behind a slow poke on the I-95 on ramp. I circumvented, legally. MJ was in the back seat and told me she wanted me to use my signal next time. I used my signal that time, but she didn’t hear it clicking. It’s not a question if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound. If MJ doesn’t hear it then the tree didn’t fall. Grammy told MJ that I had, in fact, used my signal, and they discussed that for a little bit. I needed to get over again, so I turned on the signal, and this time I asked permission to change lanes. I was screamed at, in stereo, for not watching the brake lights on the car 1000 yards in front of me. All we needed was a laugh track and we would have been ready for prime time.  I guess that's the price I have to pay for a cup of very good yogurt.  It was more than worth it.

Fridays With LMJ or Another One You Haven't Written?

There are forces that are pushing me to write a parenting book. My wife has suggested it. Cora Spondence wrote me a letter. And my second favorite sports writer, Bill Simmons, wrote an anecdote about how spending time with his son helped him get over the New England Patriots getting hammered by the Baltimore Ravens last weekend. He had a revelation that I had about a year ago and was reminded of today on my way to the zoo. Nothing is a bigger pain in the ass than a kid who wants your attention while you want to give your attention to something else. We were in the van and I was desperately trying to hear whatever wisdom Sam Kouvaris was imparting. LMJ was giving both play by play and color commentary on everything we passed: billboards, big trucks, small trucks, the river. I was really getting frustrated because I didn’t want to turn up the radio anymore, but I wanted to hear what Sam was saying. Then I remembered that nothing he said was going to be important. I turned off the radio and gave LMJ my undivided attention (I kept my eyes on the road so it wasn't really undivided), and as is always the case, the next two hours were two of the best hours of my life. I’d be willing to bet that the whole thing is evolutionary. It’s one of nature’s ways of helping parents raise successful children. It’s not possible to do this all the time, other aspects of survival get in the way, but giving her my full attention makes things so much easier and much less stressful. I don’t know if LMJ will be successful, she’s got a whole lot of bat-sh*t crazy genes on both sides. Hopefully, they’ll cancel each other out like lye and acid. I do know that however she turns out I will have given the best effort I possibly can. Maybe I should chronicle my Fridays with the baby girl and sell it. Having read the first page of two or three parenting books, I know that I have a unique perspective, at least as far as people who write parenting books. I’m not a psychologist trying to prove how smart I am, and I don’t pretend to have a clue as to what I’m doing. But I’m funny, I love my daughter with all my heart, and I’m not easily embarrassed. We’ll see how it goes.

Just A Place Holder For Posterity

This will play right into Obama's hands. He's humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, "credibility" with the black community -- in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made-to-order for them. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there. - Rush Limbaugh

This is why Rush Limbaugh will never be an NFL owner. What’s the upside to a public statement like this? It’s not funny. It’s not insightful. It’s the best example of someone talking out of his ass, ever. He doesn’t leave Palm Beach, how would he know anything, at all, about the Black community; let alone the intricacies of dark-skinned and light-skinned. His information on the subject seems to have stopped in 1950. A bunch of people in a 3rd world country had their lives destroyed by a natural disaster, and Rush’s unsolicited opinion is that he thinks he pays too much in income taxes and that Obama is going to use the disaster as an opportunity to gain support in a demographic that voted for him at an 89% clip. This isn’t about his statement being wrong. It’s about his desperate need to be part of the “Upper Crust” in America, but all of his success coming from being a dumb, loud-mouthed hick. Unfortunately for Limbaugh, being a dumb loud-mouthed hick is (potentially) bad for business as far as NFL owners are concerned. The hick part isn’t the problem. The dumb loud-mouthed part is. When Limbaugh makes statements this NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell knows that blackballing Limbaugh was the right decision for the league, and it has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with money. I don’t think Rush Limbaugh gets that, or has trouble understanding that money and politics are different worlds even though they overlap – a lot. I guess he feels he needs to make statements like these so he can stay on top, which is just sad, but not as sad as the alternative, which is that he actually believes the stuff he says.

A Taste For Steel

Last night MJ and I were talking about how to get my writing published, and we took our eyes off LMJ. She was playing nicely in the kitchen when I saw her reaching for something out of the corner of my eye. I turned just in time to see her pulling a bread knife off the counter like she was King Arthur freeing Excalibur. No big deal, she was less than ten feet away from me, I would just ask her for the knife. It wasn’t time to panic yet. Then she turned towards me and started waving the knife like she was Inigo Montoya. We had been playing and she was kind of wound up. I was glad that I didn’t have six fingers on my right hand. Panic was becoming a more appropriate response rapidly. I thought about rushing her, but I was afraid that at least one of us would wind up bleeding. I need to mention that the bread knife has a nine inch blade, so for her size it was a broad sword or a katana, something designed with bad intentions. I decided to try to talk her down. I started by asking her for the knife, which she immediately stopped brandishing and gave to me. Then I told her we needed to talk. I was trying to be a parent in control like those stupid parenting magazines and the Supernanny tell me I should. I don’t remember the article about how to stop your two year old from seeing her enemies driven before her and hearing the lamentations of their women. MJ thought my “we need to talk” line was funny, but she hadn’t seen warrior princess mode. I was hopped up on adrenaline by this point so what I wanted to say was, “Don’t swing f***in’ knives!” which fall into the same category as “Don’t set sh*t on fire!” I think “we need to talk” was a great way to start. We did need to talk, and talk we did. Now, not playing with knives is a hard and fast rule just like no screaming or running in the store. The whole thing took less than a minute, including the new rule conversation, but knife wielding babies makes for vivid memories.

Wasting Time

I got a calendar for Christmas. It’s not your run-of-the-mill Dilbert or Calvin & Hobbes calendar. My beautiful, loving wife made me a custom calendar with a picture of the baby girl for each month. The January, 2010 picture (above) is from January, 2009. The February picture is from last February, and so on and so forth. The January picture is LMJ asleep with her head on my chest. I don’t know when it was taken, specifically. I imagine we were coming back from somewhere and she fell asleep in the car – this was pre-van, which means we got her out of the Accord without waking her up. I’m standing in front of the kitchen door, and I guess MJ was standing in the foyer and took a picture of our, LMJ’s and my, profiles. I’m wearing the same sweater today that I am in the photo. I wish I had shaved. Staring at it makes me feel good. It makes all the bad go away. I feel a sense of tranquility. I imagine this is what heroin is like but without the AIDS and ridicule. I hung it up on my wall this morning. I would have hung it up earlier but I’m not a carpenter so I don’t carry around a hammer and nails. I pulled out a nail in the wall that the guy here before me must have used to hang something up and banged it into a new spot with the heel of my shoe. I have another picture of the baby girl on my desk but it’s from about nine months earlier than the one on my calendar. It was taken before she could walk. I know this because she’s sitting on the beach and smiling at the camera. She doesn’t do that anymore. She’s a baby in the photo on my desk. She’s the bucket of go in the calendar photo. She changed so much more in the nine months – possibly less – between the two photos than she has in the year since the calendar photo was taken. She’s growing up and settling into the person that she’s going to be, and I’m just sitting here staring at her, anxious for February to get her so I can see what’s next.

Interval Training Gone Dumb

I jacked up my interval training this morning almost before it could begin. I was planning on doing 10x400, but I wasn’t prepared, not for the cold, not for the training itself. First of all it was 29 degrees, probably less on the river. My plan was to warm up in my sweatshirt and then take it off to do my session. That was just a dumb idea. Wet wind blows off the river almost constantly. Wet wind isn’t conducive to anything other than freezing things to death. I forgot that I’m not a world class athlete and ran the first 400 flat out. I ran it in 58 seconds. That’s more than 15 miles an hour. It’s 15 seconds slower than world record pace for the 400m. It’s about 10 seconds slower than world record pace for the 1500m, aka the metric mile. It’s about 17 seconds faster than world record pace for the 5000m. So if I was representing LJland in the summer Olympics, and you were watching the 5000m at 3:30 in the morning, you would have seen me in the lead after the first lap – by a lot. Of course, I would have stopped and made sure to keep my lungs inside my chest, while everyone else ran another 11 laps. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking. The first 30 seconds felt great, but then I couldn’t breathe. I finished the ¼ mile because I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sure the wind off the river and my gasping gave me pneumonia. I looked down at my watch, which had just beeped telling me I had gone the specified distance, and saw that I was running at a 3:52 mile pace. If I could keep that up I would finish the River Run in about 36 minutes. I tried to run a second interval doing the same thing. I quit about 100 meters in. I chalked up my “bad” performance to not getting enough sleep, the cold, being a wimp, and not getting enough breakfast. It wasn’t until I was inside the Y and about to start my pull-ups that I remembered I wanted to run my intervals faster than an 8 minute mile pace and not faster than a 4 minute mile pace. I got through my calisthenics and did 5 miles on the dreadmill, but it’s amazing the stuff that can happen when you’re not focused.

Lazy Sunday

I got through the day without checking out what was happening on Facebook. I should get a little key chain. I didn’t spend much time on the computer at all. It wasn’t because I did anything interesting instead – or anything at all. A big part of it was because my parents came over this morning and hung out all day. They brought Panera bagels for breakfast, and Grammy made pulled pork for lunch. I spent the rest of the day watching football with my dad. It’s easy to ignore the internet when I’m clogging my arteries with cream cheese and barbecue sauce, and cooking my brain watching grown men in tight pants slam into each other. When I look at it like that it sounds like a Republican National Convention after-party. Ain’t no party like a GOP party ‘cause a GOP party don’t stop. I enjoyed watching football all day with my dad. He enjoys it as much as I do, and I get a glimpse of what I’m going to be like thirty years from now. Spending the day with my parents was great for everyone involved. It was great for them because they normally see LMJ in the middle of the day and she’s either groggy because she needs a nap or groggy because she just woke up from one. Today they got to see prime LMJ. I not only enjoy having my parents around; I enjoy watching them get bossed around by my baby girl. My baby girl also enjoys bossing them around. She gets sick of us after a while. Today was so much fun that we’re thinking of changing the schedule for the grandparents’ visit, and seeing if they’re willing to start coming here for lunch occasionally. The high point of the day was winning a nickel from my dad. He bet me that the Ravens would blow their big lead and lose to the Patriots. They didn’t. I’m rich.


Just a note: Family is family but business is business. I need my nickel. If I don’t have it by Friday the vig kicks in. That’s 20 points. If I don’t have my nickel plus the penny interest by the Friday after that, the interest gets added to the principal. After that, well whatever.

No Facebook For Me For A Week

My bad mood from being uncomfortable because it’s a trillion degrees below zero in the house and stupid Facebook updates from stupid people I wish I had never friended don’t mix. I thought it was the updates themselves that bothered me, but it’s not. It’s the people. I now know this because all Facebook updates are pretty much the same, but when someone I like is updating that they liked a movie, I think maybe I should see that movie. When someone I don’t like – but for some reason have subjected myself to their inane ramblings – makes the exact same post I want them to die violently.

“Really, you want to thank Tim Tebow for all he’s done? What if I butcher your children in front of you and hang you with their intestines? Will you still be a Gator fan then?

That’s probably not a healthy, let alone appropriate, reaction to, well anything, but I don’t like the Gators and people shouldn’t talk about them. Maybe it’s because I’m cold or maybe it’s because I’ve been watching The Tudors. 16th century England wasn’t as squeamish about enhanced interrogation as 21st century America. I wish I had the courage to post absurd status updates on Facebook, or knew someone high up in the FBI so I wouldn’t get in trouble with the police when I did. I think some of my “friends” need to be disturbed, and f**k ‘em if they can’t take a joke. My problem is cyberspace. I don’t have this problem with people in real life. I saw a Facebook friend today in Whole Foods who I hadn’t seen in a few years. He doesn’t update his status much and I was genuinely glad to see him. He’s a nice guy and he’s not stupid. He’s also heterosexual, which was a huge surprise for me. He didn’t turn me down for sex. He introduced me to his girlfriend; that’s how I know. I run into a habitual Facebook tweeter occasionally and his updates usually bug me, but IRL he’s a nice guy. Maybe it’s time for a Facebook break.  I gotta mellow out.

Lazy Friday

When I don’t exercise I don’t have anything to write about. MJ suggested that I write about my day with LMJ, but the only thing interesting about the day was that I learned she doesn’t care if her hands get cold. We were getting stir crazy so I decided to take her to the park. It was about 40 degrees outside, but we were sufficiently bundled. The only chink in our armor was no gloves. I pushed her on the swing for twenty minutes, and my hands were numb. I asked her if she was ready to go and she said no. We ran up and down the hill. We played in the gazebo. She slid down the sliding board, which was funny because it was so humid that she stuck to it and had to literally pull her self down. She loved it though. We took breaks to wipe our noses, and I wimped out we finished up by having a pretend picnic with peaches and apples and soup. The soup surprised me. I’d never heard that one before, but it reminded me how cold my hands were. I looked at her hands and they were red. It was time to go. Before anyone calls social services it was 40 degrees outside so it was physically impossible for her to get frostbite. Besides, she wasn’t complaining. I don’t know how good of a legal defense that is, but if it didn’t work I would try “she still has ten fingers”. We got back in the van (I wasn’t stupid enough to walk to the park) and I cranked the heat up as high as it would go. The cold really took it out of LMJ because she was asleep before we turned into the driveway. The park is less than 300 yards from our house. It’s a golf shot. I took her upstairs, got her shoes off, got her coat off without waking her, which is a miracle, checked my email, and took a nap next to her. I’ll call that a good day.

This Post Was Lazy

I’m done with the first full week, which is always the hardest, and I couldn’t be happier. While I was able to get through my whole routine this afternoon without almost passing out from the pain, I am so dead tired I doubt I make it to nine o’clock tonight. I’m so happy that the only thing I have to do tomorrow is chase LMJ around, and I’m not above drugging her.


Tonight was the first night back to My Gym, and everyone was out of sync. I think it mostly had to do with them being closed for the second half of December for some kind of special camp aka a reason to charge some people some extra money. It may also have had to do with we had a rookie coach. Rookie coach may be too generous. I think he was a coach trainee, which was fine, but I nitpicked his performance all night. I even noticed the veteran coach having to “save” him a few times when he got lost. We still had fun. LMJ had fun playing. I had fun judging other parents and their kids’ behavior. There’s one mom, who I’ve written about before, who I feel bad for because her son is so out of control. She’s a single mom and I think she’s a little bit stuck. The little boy is clearly missing a deep voice to say “Hey!” and give him a moment’s pause. There’s another mom who is clearly a witch. I’m not saying she’s mean. I’m saying she’s been trained in the dark arts. This chick is freaky and her daughter has horns and six fingers on her left hand. There’s not a religion in the world that doesn’t burn people for stuff like that.

Speaking of witches and burnings, I finished season 2 of the Tudors. It’s as well written and acted as it is historically inaccurate. Just like the Wire, I wonder why the performers aren’t bigger stars. Maybe they are in Great Britain. What stuns me the most is that betrayal is the main tool everyone uses to advance themselves, but when they are betrayed in turn they’re always shocked and offended. I also love that it’s about real people. If you have Netflix and some free time the first two seasons are available instantly online. Unfortunately, they want me to wait for some DVD’s in the mail if I want to see seasons three and four.

I'm In Some Discomfort

I did it wrong. I overdid my ab workout and now I’m in horrible pain. To tell the truth, it’s getting better. I’ve been adding a rep to each one of the exercises that I do, but my arms, chest, legs, and back don’t hurt like my abdominals. They hurt so bad that they affected all the other stuff I did today. A pushup is basically a plank in motion, so my weak abs weren't having it. I really didn’t think I was going to be able to finish them. Being the knucklehead that I am, the agony didn’t make me think it was okay to skip the ab work today. I wasn’t convinced to let my body heal up a bit until my sore stomach made my pull-ups harder. I don’t understand what it is about that group of muscles. They get and stay so much sorer than any other group of muscles. I was a mile into my run before they were warmed up and stopped hurting. I was feeling bad for wimping out of my sit-ups, but not after that. The good news is that I cruised through my run thanks to eating right and getting a good night’s sleep, and I had on dark socks so when my bloody blister burst it didn’t make a mess. I take victories wherever I can get them, no matter how small they might be. The bad news is that I just plain old flat out don’t have what it takes to get in the pool in this weather. I’m too much of a Florida boy. I have a hard time passing up the steam room and the sauna after walking through the parking lot. Tomorrow is the last day of my workout week so it’s going to be intense. It’s not going to be intense enough for me to get in the pool, but a double session of cardio will be the order of the day. I’m not too worried about my legs being too sore to chase LMJ on Friday. They’re in pretty good shape right now. I just hope my abs have stopped burning.

TMI?

I got my stride analyzed by Brooks Rehab today. I run straight. I don’t overpronate or oversupinate. Dude went into a bunch of this and that and gave me a bunch of tl/dr. The only reason I went was to see if I could find more comfortable running shoes. I love my Nike Air Pegasuses (Pegasui? Pegasuori?). I never have knee or shin problems, but I get some really big blisters, despite the expensive shoes and expensive super thick socks. The Brooks dude and the 1st Place Sports dude were very helpful with their recommendations of trying a bunch of different running shoes (at $120 a pop) or trying some different types of blister band-aids, and that neither of these might work because a bunch of runners just have to deal with jacked up feet. Fortunately, the blisters turn into corns on top of my feet and calluses on the bottom. For example, right now I have a blister on the side of my left big toe that’s filled with blood. It’s under a pretty thick callus so it won’t burst, but at some point, probably after the River Run, I’ll attack it with cuticle scissors or something. By that time the blood will have dried up, and I won’t have to worry about making too big of a mess or getting an infection. I see it as a red badge of courage but I wouldn’t mind finding some shoes that didn’t rub my feet raw, especially since I’m going to have to start running much longer distances pretty soon. My current shoes are good for about six miles, but then I can start to feel my skin tearing away. Like I said, it’s not bad, but if I could stop it I’d be willing to, and I have no idea what it will be like when eight miles is my short day. I’m going to try the blister band-aids and see how they do. Tomorrow there’s a chance I’ll write about some anti-chaffing methods.

Goals Aren't Goals Until You Tell Someone

I got out the door this morning before 7am, and sweet wounded Jesus was it cold. I was smart enough to wear a sweatshirt but I didn’t wear any sweatpants. I was in the elements wearing shorts – from the back door to the car. My legs never get cold, but this morning it felt like I was being stabbed with 1000 little pins as soon as I stepped outside. I’ve changed my workout routine and almost completely eliminated lifting weights. Lifting weights hurts and I’m too old for that crap. I’ve replaced the weights with bodyweight resistance exercises like pull-ups, pushups, and sit-ups to go along with my swimming. I had a totally non-descript cardio session, and I’m happy that I don’t have anything interesting write about it. It means that it’s becoming part of my daily routine. Today is the fourth day of the year, and I’ve exercised three of the four days. I took yesterday off because I it was scheduled, and no injuries, no pain is the motto for this year. With that said, I am going to have to do some interval training soon, and interval training hurts. I need to get my speed up if I want to take ten minutes off my time from last year’s River Run. My goal is for my chip to read 1:33:32 or lower. That’s not out of this world, especially since my training is starting now. I’m also setting the 24th Annual Montoya BFAST Triathlon as my goal for my first sprint distance triathlon. That’s a ¼ mile ocean swim, a 13 mile bike ride, and a 3 mile run. I look at the site and think this thing would be cake. I click on the registration link and I get scared. That’s why I’m putting my goals out on the interwebs. The one I’m going to do is on July 10. It’s the third in a series and gives me the most time to conquer my fears. It’s f**kin’ go time. My swimming will be where it needs to be six months from now or I’m dying in the ocean.


Not counting the blog, I have three writing projects going. I’m writing a young adult lit novel, a crime novel, and some essays about my life. I don’t expect to finish all three right now. I only want to finish one, but I can’t decide which one I want to do. Instead of procrastinating about it, I figure I might as well work on all three and whichever one is going the best will get finished. It’s like literary Darwinism.

CRY HAVOC!!!

LMJ has discovered sound. I don’t mean that Benny Hinn fixed her hearing with the Power of The Lord. I mean she’s learned that if she does X it makes a certain noise and if she does Y it makes a different noise. All kids go through this. It’s a developmental stage blah blah blah tl/dr. A bunch of us witnessed this at Maggianno’s on New Year’s. After dinner while we were divvying up the leftovers, LMJ stopped running around, took a deep breath, and shrieked banshee style. I chalked it up to the massive ate-her-own-weight-in-chocolate-cake (31lbs. legit) sugar high and didn’t think too much about it at the time. Yesterday, the 2nd, she got her mom’s camera tripod and screamed into the handle like it was a microphone. I was trying to place some bets online so she can go to a decent school and didn’t see her get set up. The first howl startled me. I thought it was the police – offshore gambling is illegal. I turned around in time to see that it wasn’t Five-0; it was my baby girl. Her face was scrunched up, and I could tell that she was jacked to the max. I ran through a bunch of emotions. I started out scared, moved to annoyed because we were in our dining room, rallied to proud, which slid into apprehensive because it was just a matter of time before Mommy realized that she’d seen that face before. It was smaller and the voice was a few octaves higher than before, but she’d seen that face – that exact face. My mom has a saying about having a dime in that quarter, referring to hereditary traits. When it comes to LMJ’s screaming, I think I have a dollar in that quarter and let her keep the change. I went back to being proud and that’s what stuck. I know what it feels like. I know that it’s not something that’s done as much as it’s something that’s released. I had to stop myself from screaming along with her, but with grading still to be done, and vacation almost over, that would have pushed Mommy over the edge and she would have started screaming, but her screaming wouldn’t have been the fun kind of screaming.

Starbucks Philosopher

I’m sitting at Starbucks providing moral support for MJ while she tries to finish grading before she goes back to school on Monday, and trying to figure out what to write about. It’s January 2nd and I’ve got writer’s block. I don’t want to write about dinner last night, even though I said I would. I missed the moment and it’s not fresh anymore. I enjoyed everything, but just like the pork medallions, what I write today would be missing the magic. Instead, I’m going to write about what’s going on around me right now. MJ’s a little upset because all of my music is on her iPod. She’s never set up a bunch of playlists because all of her music sounds the same, so she just hits shuffle. My rich and diverse collection throws a wrench into the works. Everything will be going along swimmingly for her with songs popping up from a bunch of whiny chicks like Sarah McLaughlin and Brett Dennen and Jack Johnson when all of a sudden the subtle, nuanced, dulcet tones of Slayer will grace her earphones. I guess it’s like going from an iceberg lettuce wedge with a side of milquetoast to a plate full of habeñero peppers in a habeñero pepper reduction gravy. The change is drastic and apparently unpleasant when it’s unexpected. I can’t really blame her, now that I think about it, because if the situation was reversed there’s a good chance I would throw the iPod on the ground and stomp on it until it was dead. I feel kind of bad about my music taking up space on her machine, it’s still funny though. I noticed a ginger chick running in a tanktop and running shorts. It’s cold outside and her skin was bright red. I hope this wasn’t day one of a New Year’s resolution because she looked like she was freezing, and I doubt there will be a day two. I saw a group of young single people walking into Memorial Park. They looked like they were in their late twenties. The three chicks all had on high heeled boots, and the three guys dressed in different interpretations of post-college cool. Basically, the women were wearing uncomfortable shoes and the men had dressed themselves. That’s how I came up with my late twenties singles guess. There was none of that last night at the Maggianos table. Everyone was wearing comfortable shoes and no one was trying to be cool. I had a twinge of envy watching the young group at the start of a date night. I think they call it Saturday. The twinge passed almost instantly and was replaced with “Thank God I Don’t Have to Do That Anymore”. I’m happy sitting in a coffeehouse at 5:30 on a Saturday evening, making superficial observations, with the knowledge that my post is done for the day, and I can be in bed by 9.

The other site is up but it's under construction.  I'm double posting until I get everything the way I want it.

Go LJ! It's Ya Birfday

Thirty-nine. Thirteen thrice. That’s insane. There’s no way I’m that old. There’s no way that I’m 365 days away from being forty. I remember my parents when they were my age. They were adults. They had real jobs and did real things. I don’t feel that at all. I still get a thrill from being old enough to order a beer at a restaurant, but getting older is better than the alternative. And since I’m still alive, I might as well make the most of it. I’m two for two on resolutions this year. I got to the gym and did some work in the pool and I didn’t gorge myself on ravioli. I gorged myself on spaghetti and a meat moon but that doesn’t count, especially since I did it while spending time with family and friends. The only thing I didn’t get done today that I wanted to was switching this thing over to Wordpress. I ran out of time before I went to dinner and I don’t have anywhere near enough energy to pick out a design and whatnot let alone figure out how their off-brand picture uploading works. I don’t know if I really want to move, but when Google got ridiculous with their ad policy I said I would, so I am. It’s free and I can find a whole bunch of new things to complain about with how Wordpress does things.


There are a couple of things about today that I want to reflect on, and I will write about tonight’s dinner tomorrow. The first thing is that I had a wonderful dinner with a bunch of friends and family. Next, Bobby Bowden coached his last football game today. I hadn’t thought about it much as the Gator Bowl approached, but my slowly dying love affair with college football died a little bit more today. Joe Paterno and Steve Spurrier are the only two coaches left at big time programs that aren’t complete corporate assholes, and I don’t know how much longer they’ll be around since Paterno is 83 and Spurrier is 64. It was a very sweet birthday with just a touch of bitter, but the bitter let’s you know how sweet the sweet is.