Anal Minutia

She's a lady

2005-12-28T09:53:00.000-06:00

"Well she's all you'd ever want,
She's the kind they'd like to flaunt and take to dinner." - Tom Jones

When you make the decision to get married to a person, one of the first things that you need to be sure of is the fact that you are compatible.

I'm not saying that you have to agree on everything, that would just be wrong, but there are certain parts your personalities that just have to click. I knew that Sarah and I were working on that level shortly after I met her. You can just feel things like that about a person that you're that in tune with.

A few weeks ago, I got Sarah's her very own game console for the first time. There was a moment or two when I thought that she was just humoring me when she said that she was happy to get it, but after a while I could tell that she was really enjoying having it and was on her way to becoming a gamer.

"She's got style, she's got grace, She's a winner." - Tom Jones

If you're married, or even if you're just dating someone, there are those special moments that come along in a relationship that let you know that you're with the right person.

One of the most recent "special moments" that I have shared with Sarah happened just before I fell asleep a few nights ago. I was laying in bed beside her, while she was playing "Pac N' Roll" on her Nintendo DS. Here are the three sentences that I heard, in order, from her.

"Oh, come on."

"Aw, shit."

"Well doesn't that just suck the big wanger."

"Yeah yeah yeah She's a Lady
Listen to me baby, She's a Lady
Whoa whoa whoa, She's a Lady
And the Lady is mine" - Tom Jones

A night before Christmas

2005-12-24T00:10:00.000-06:00

Everyone that has read my writings for any period of time should know by now that I've been a video game player for a good portion of my life. For most people, remembering their first experiences with video games wouldn't be a big deal in any way, but for me games were always something special. Games always took me to places that I didn't think I would ever be able to go. They told me stories about far away places, but the best part wasn't just the stories, it was the fact that I was the hero. I was the person that was running and jumping and saving the princess. I wasn't just another kid sitting alone in his room playing with his toys. I actually meant something to the characters in these games and it made me feel special.

On Christmas Eve 1987, I received the first gaming system of my own. My family had owned some other systems before that point, but this was the first time that I had a system of my own.

When I was growing up, my sisters and I were told that each Christmas we could ask for 1 big gift. For months we would scan through the Sears and JC Penney's catalogs and evaluate each of the items on the toy pages and agonize over the decision of what item we would put on our list for that year.

One of the worst and, in this case, best traits that I have is that I can be incredibly naive at times. On that particular Christmas Eve my naivete led me to the most surprising Christmas gift that I have ever received.

The evening began with a normal holiday meal, but after dinner my family decided that it would be a good idea to videotape the gift opening festivities for the evening. I didn't think anything of it, seeing as how we had just won our first video camera a few months before; it just seemed like the sort of thing that most families would do on a holiday. What I didn't seem to understand was the fact that my sister was only following me around the house with the camera.

After everyone had opened their gifts, I recieved my last gift, a small package. Confused, as I often was and still am, I opened it delicately and found that it had a riddle contained inside of it. The riddle led me to another room in the house, where I found another package, which contained another clue, which led me to another room, and another and another.

Never once during this whole scavenger hunt throughout the house, did I have any idea what I was being led towards. I would open each of the packages, read the clue, and then move onto the next one. Finally, after multiple difficult riddles that I had to solve, I opened the last package. "It's behind the couch," was what it read.

I walked into the living room and walked over to the couch and found a long rectangular box approximately 2 feet by 1 feet, by 6 inches behind it. As I began to pull back the paper, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. For a moment in time, I actually thought that my parents had played a cruel trick on me and had somehow obtained the box for the item, but something else was inside of it.

"You've got to be kidding me," was all I could say as I opened up my Nintendo Entertainment System. For months, I had gone on and on about how much I wanted one and somehow my mother and Dennis had gotten it for me.

Over 50 million people got an NES system before Nintendo stopped selling them, but I doubt that anyone had an experience nearly as special as mine when they got their system.

Ever since that day I have been a Nintendo fan. I have friends that have mocked me for my "alliance" with a company that doesn't put out the best looking or the hottest games, but for me my feelings for Nintendo go much deeper than the hardware or software that they put out. Whenever I see Mario or Zelda or Samus on my TV or handheld system, I think about opening the box for my NES on December 24th, 1987 and remember how special my parents and Nintendo made me feel that day.

Nintendo's next game could be a Mario plumbing and pipe cleaning simulator, but I know that I'll eventually end up buying it... not for what it is, but for what Nintendo meant to me as a kid and for what that memory means to me today.

My first gig

2005-12-19T16:15:00.000-06:00

In 1993, one of my friends tried to convince me that we could start up a metal band. We were both listening to a lot of Pantera and Metallica at that point in our lives. Also, we were drinking a bit too much as well. So, one night when I had had a few too many, I decided that "getting the band back together" sounded like a good idea. He already had a guitar and had become quite adept at playing it, and considering the fact that I couldn't sing, it was a done deal that I was destined to be the drummer.

After a few awful sounding months, the experiment failed and “World Disorder” was put to rest. A few years later I sold off my kit on consignment at a local drum shop and bid farewell to my dreams of becoming a musician.

All of that changed a few months ago when my passion for gaming and poorly performed music combined with the release of a new game for the Playstation 2. I've mentioned this game in an earlier column. It's called Guitar Hero and it kicks all kinds of ass.

I've played more than a few games in my life but I can't recall one before that I've tried so hard to become great at. At this point I'm still playing the game on the medium level, because I want to perfect or "5-star" each of the songs before I move on to the final two difficulty levels.

Another way that I know that the game is great is because of an email that I got from a friend recently. Here's a quote.

"Cowboys from Hell. Four stars, bitches."

Now that is a concise and to the point email, people. Also, it rocks.

There aren't many games that I've played that have inspired me to jump around the room like a little kid when I manage a great score, but this game makes me feel like I'm 10 years old all over again.

So, the other day I'm walking through Best Buy, as I often do, and I see that they have a copy of Guitar Hero running on one of their TV's there. Sadly, there was a 20-something grunge kid just hacking away at the game and making a fool of himself. Seriously, it was just plain sad. Once the song, mercifully, finished I picked up the controller and commenced rocking for the entire retail audience.

After one (5-star) performance of "Spanish Castle Magic" by Jimi Hendrix, I had about 7 or 8 Best Buy employees all gathered around to watch me play. After the song finished, I had guys shouting out requests. Sure there was the one jerk saying "Play Freebird," but he was quickly hushed away by his fellow employees, who knew that they were in the presence of a rocker who could kick his ass for suggesting such a song. After a few moments it was decided that I should take on Symphony of Destruction by Megadeth.

In a performance that everyone present agreed that put Dave Mustaine to shame (not like it takes much to do so) I put down my axe and threw the sign of the goat as I walked away.

Next time I'm bringing a hat to collect tips.

w00t

2005-12-16T19:55:00.000-06:00

For me, that moment occurred a week ago when Sarah took ownership of her first ever video game console.

When I first met Sarah, she professed herself to be a casual gamer. For anyone that was born in the 70’s that typically meant that you played some Atari and/or Nintendo games in your youth. So when she told me of her gaming background, I knew I would have some work on my hands in order to shape and mold her into someone that would not only tolerate my addiction, but would actually happily participate in it with me.

I knew that I would have to move very slowly if this effort was going to succeed, but if I was able to pull it off; my home could become an audio/visual paradise, a Nintendo Shangri-La if you will.

I knew I would have to begin with the basics. Sarah had told me that she enjoyed playing the Mario titles when she was growing up, so we started her with Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64. Having her jump from the 8-bit platformers of her youth and moving her to the newest generation of that type of gaming just seemed to be the natural way to go. Immediately she fell in love with the game. In fact, I think she even went so far as to obtain more of the stars, and complete more of the game, than I did. I was called upon to defeat Bowser in the final battle, but she did put in a monumental effort to get to that point, so I was happy to help her in completing the game.

After she was done with Mario, she moved onto Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon on the Playstation. These games were very similar to the Mario 64 style of play and she took them on with great gusto, but after a time she tired of them and looked to move on to another gaming genre.

“I loved Tetris,” she said to me and so I began again, looking for a new version of a game that she professed to love. First up was Tetris Plus on the Playstation. So many hours were spend playing this game and solving the puzzles contained within, that to this day we still mimic the Macaw-like woop of the victorious professor when he found his treasure. After that version of Tetris she began to play Tetrisphere for the Nintendo 64, an incredible underrated adaptation of Tetris played on a 3D sphere. Hours upon hours were spent playing multiplayer battles against one another with Sarah, more often than not, bettering me on a consistent basis.

Just as a side note, when you’re a gamer, there is nothing sexier than a woman beating you in a game. When a man beats you, you’ll throw the controller and scream for blood. When a woman claims victory, you’ll probably need some “special” alone time.

After Tetris had run its course I decided that it was time to try and introduce a new genre of game into Sarah’s repertoire, the RPG. One of the things that I found while having Sarah try all sorts of different games was that “twitch” or fast action games were never going to fly. So, it was natural to move on to turn-based role playing games. Sarah could dictate the pace of the battles and could stop at any time to look up a hint, if one was needed, to continue. It became clear, very early on, that games such as Final Fantasy wouldn’t fill the bill as there was too much micromanagement to be done and that there were far too many options to make the game interesting to her. Thankfully Nintendo stepped up to the plate and delivered Paper Mario, a cartoony role playing take on the Mario games of yore. Sarah defeated the game faster than I would have thought possible and was ready to move on.

Next up for Sarah was Jak and Daxter on the Playstation 2. This game was made by the same developer as the original Crash Bandicoot titles for the Playstation and Sarah fell in love with it quickly. With my help, defeating a few of the more difficult bosses, she finished the game and even went so far as to obtain every orb and get the “special” ending.

Sarah took a bit of a break from gaming while she was attending school to get her nursing degree, but once she started her job at the hospital, she found that she needed some help staying up on the nights that she wasn’t working. That was when I introduced her to the Gameboy Player for the Nintendo Gamecube. With that device she was able to play some of the old Mario games that she loved, as well as another new RPG, Mario and Luigi. After a few weeks she had played until she reached the final boss, whom I sadly couldn’t defeat for her, and she took another break from gaming.

That takes us up until a few weeks ago. I sent Sarah an email with a link to Nintendo’s new webpage for the upcoming Mario and Luigi role playing game that would soon be out for the Nintendo DS, and even though she hid it well, I could tell that she was excited for this new game. The only problem was that I was enjoying some of MY new Nintendo DS games and I wouldn’t be willing to leave MY system home during the day. The solution was an obvious one; Sarah would have to have her own system.

Christmas came early to the Haag household this year as Sarah “bought” me an Xbox 360 and I returned the favor by buying her an electric blue Nintendo DS.

When she registered her system and began to play her new game, I knew it was a special moment. A few days later she told me, barely able to contain her pride, that she had defeated the first boss in the game without any help from me; a tear welled up inside my eye. I knew I had taken this girl from her humble gaming beginnings and have helped to develop her into a woman that I’m certain will be sending me the following instant message some day.

“DING. W00T! Level up.”

On that day, I won’t be able to hold back my tears.

Your moment of Glen

2005-12-16T12:15:00.000-06:00

7:00 p.m. Gaby goes to sleep for the evening.

Temperature outside: 30 degrees Fahrenheit (22 with Wind Chill)

Decision to be made: Do the meager bit of shoveling that is left after the plowing service has completed the driveway or do something else.

Decision? Play Guitar Hero for 2 1/2 hours. P.S. I rock!

9:45 p.m. Done playing Guitar Hero(for the evening.)

Temperature outside: 24 degrees Fahrenheit (15 with Wind Chill)

Decision to be made: Do the meager bit of shoveling that is left after the plowing services has completed the driveway or do something else.

Decision? Turn on Xbox 360 and begin downloading movie trailers that I've already seen, but this time watch them in 720P on the HDTV.

10:20. Done watching movie trailers (for the evening.)

Temperature outside: 22 degrees Fahrenheit (12 with Wind Chill)

Decision to be made: Do the meager bit of shoveling that is left after the plowing services has completed the driveway or do something else.

Decision? Spend an hour conversing with my friend Bill via email.

11:20. Done emailing with Bill (for the evening.)

Temperature outside: 18 degrees Fahrenheit (8 with Wind Chill)

Decision to be made: Do the meager bit of shoveling that is left after the plowing services has completed the driveway or do something else.

Decision? Freeze my stupid ass off shoveling and de-icing part of the driveway at 11:30 at night when my dumb ass could have been outside for 10 minutes when it was 15 degrees warmer earlier in the evening.

There it is, your moment of Glen.

The one where Glen gets sappy

2005-12-08T15:35:00.000-06:00

Gabrielle reached Version 1.0 last Saturday and it really got me thinking about a lot of things that have happened with her in the last few weeks and months.

Just a week or so ago she began standing unsupported and, in the last few days, she's started taking her first few small steps. Watching her change from, what was essentially, a lump to an infant that has the ability to think and move on her own has been nothing short of amazing.

Last night, Sarah and I went out to dinner with Gaby. When we got to the restaurant, there was no one there to seat us, so we waited in the entryway until someone would be there to help us.

This particular Italian restaurant was playing some music over it's intercom. I was holding Gaby, so I grabbed her right hand with my left hand and began swaying with her to the music, dancing about the only way that someone could with a 1 year old child. Almost immediately, she began to smile as I rocked her back and forth to the music. It took me a few moments to realize that I was having my first "dance" with my daughter and it nearly made me cry.

The entire time we were "dancing" she never broke out of that smile and it made me feel so wonderful that something as simple as that brought so much joy to my daughter. The moments like that make me realize that I'm never going to want to let this little girl of mine go.

I know that in time, hopefully 20 years or more, someone is going to come to us and tell us that they want to marry our daughter. All I know is that it's going to take someone pretty damn special at this point, or else I'm bringing out the shotgun. Hopefully I'll have enough warning that something like this will be coming up... because I'll need to buy the shotgun. Right now all I could threaten them with is the gun that came with my NES.... and even the dog in Duck Hunt laughed at that.

Hello Vegas?

2005-12-07T13:28:00.000-06:00

Memo to self, don’t ever smile to people when you’re in Las Vegas.

Having my company send a person like me to Las Vegas for a conference was a bad idea. Now, when most people think of all of the bad things that could happen if you go to Vegas they’d think of things like losing tons of money or something like waking up in a strange room with one of your socks on a part of your body that is not meant to wear socks. For me though, going to Vegas was just an uncomfortable experience. First off, I don’t like to hang out with geeks, and that’s what this conference was all about. Typically they all get together and drink way too much hoping that people will think that they are much cooler than they are. Of course I join in for the drinking part, but I never expect the coolness to be coming. I gave up on the thought of that ever happening a long time ago.

I arrived late on a Saturday afternoon and made a quick run to the sports book. **Vent Alert** I know I’m a prude, but I was SADLY disappointed that none of the TV’s in the sports book were showing games in HDTV. I mean, come on… they make millions upon millions of dollars on sports betting and I have to watch a projector from 1999? Take a few of my dollars and upgrade your shit. Also, what’s up with only getting free drinks when you’re betting on horse racing? I dropped $150 bucks (ooooh… big spender….) on football bets over the weekend and still had to pay $5 bucks for a damn beer? Christ. **End Vent**

After putting down a couple bets (Can I tell you how much I loves me the parlay? Only making one bet and being able to tie it to multiple games gives you a legitimate reason to watch all of the games on College Football Saturday or NFL Sunday,) I went back to my room and ordered up some room service. Sadly, for the 5 days that I was in Las Vegas, I ate in my room for almost every meal. That should clue you in as to how well my personality meshed with that of Sin City.

On my second day, I went down to the restaurant in the hotel that was serving up their Champagne brunch. One thing that I know now is that you should really avoid the Champagne brunch after brushing your teeth. It just doesn’t mix well with mouthwash.

After spending some time in the sports book on an NFL Sunday (highly recommended,) I went to a few of the sessions for the conference. The conference, in and of itself, was very uneventful but still informative. Later that evening there was a “welcome reception” aka drunken reception for all of the conference attendees, where they gave us a surprisingly good dinner and free drinks for about 3 hours. The first thing that I found out from that evening is that when you get free Corona’s for 3 hours, things don’t go well after that.

Near the end of the reception, (yes… just to let you know I was drinking by myself for about 2 hours) I ran into a person that I met 2 years ago at the last conference I attended. This was yet another bad thing for me as I now had a person that was driving me to drink more for that evening. The reception ended around 10 p.m. and we decided that we should hit the town. After taking a tram from the hotel to the strip, we proceeded to hit a liquor store and pick up 2-40 oz bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale. Probably the most interesting thing that I learned when I was in Vegas was that Newcastle came in bottles that were that big. What a country!

It didn’t dawn on me until the next day, but I didn’t even think about the fact that I was walking around a town with open intoxicants for about 2 or 3 hours and never once saw a police officer. Man, is that a different kind of town.

After a bit of walking, I saw an incredibly attractive woman smiling at me. I smiled back at her and thought nothing of it. Before I knew it she was walking towards me and my drinking partner. He proceeded to push me further down the street before she could get too close to us.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“That was a hooker. She thought you were interested. You shouldn’t look them in the eyes.”

“Man, I thought that was only for dealing with bears.”

The other thing that I seemed to miss when I saw the attractive woman was the button on her blouse that said, “Want Chlamydia? Ask me how.” It’s amazing the details that you really don’t think about after a few drinks.

After a few more hours of drinking on the town, I stumbled back into my room at 2:30 Monday morning. One way to know that you either had a very entertaining or a very bad evening is when you have to look at all of your receipts just to figure out where in the hell that you went. In my case, I still have figured out which of those two options the night was.

Another sign that I was really out of place in Las Vegas was after I (yet again) got room service at 8:00 in the evening, the attendant asked me what my plans were for the evening. The only thing I could think of was, “Well…this meal and then sleep.”

The conference mercifully ended a few days later after another reception and watching Jim Belushi’s band sing at the House of Blues (That man can’t hold a candle to his brother, R.I.P., when it comes to singing the blues.) That night also included an alcohol induced close call involving me almost singing “The Humpty Dance” at their Karaoke machine. I didn’t give everyone a chance to “Do the Hump” but I think they were all ok with that.

The next day, I bid Las Vegas a farewell, and couldn’t have been happier to leave. I can easily see how some people could have a great time in a city like Las Vegas, but those people aren’t me. I’m cut from a different cloth, the kind where you’re more interested in spending 3 hours in your hotel room playing Castlevania on my Nintendo DS. Ah, the memories.

Mario... and not the one you think.

2005-08-30T21:30:00.000-05:00

I would have to think that quite a few people's first sexual experiences happened in front of some form of media, such as television, which is exactly where mine took place. I would have to say that my experience was a bit more unorthodox though.

My family moved from Deerfield to Cambridge, Wisconsin in the summer of 1987. These two towns are no more than 5 or 10 miles from each other and as a result of that, they are school rivals.

When we moved from one school district to the next, people tried to tell us that there were large differences between the two towns. Most people in Deerfield said that people in Cambridge were snobs, while the people in Cambridge thought that the people in Deerfield were rednecks.

Of course both groups of people were wrong. In actuality, the difference between the two cities is like the difference between saying "Fuck you" or "Eat Shit" to finish an argument with someone. Sure, they're both crass and offensive, but one of them is the clear winner to finish an argument. Looking back, Cambridge was "Fuck you."

After moving there, I made a few friends that lived near the farm house that we were renting and after my 8th grade year we would camp out in our yards like young kids do.

One of those evenings, we started to have a discussion about masturbation. Don't ask me how the topic was brought up. Before that evening I hadn't ever even thought about masturbation. I was 13 years old and video games were much more important to me. (Please, no joystick jokes.)

Somehow or another the following subject came up, which is worse, Masturbation or being a homosexual? I can tell you one thing, I didn't think up that particular question. I sat back and listened to two of my friends talk about this subject as if they were knowledgeable beyond their years and this was their conclusion, "Masturbation was a good thing and being gay was unbelievably wrong." I guess that's not a shocking conclusion from two 13 year old boys living in rural Wisconsin.

I sat on the sidelines of that discussion mainly because all of this talk of masturbation intrigued me. What was the big deal? I'd gotten this far in my life without any sort of outlet like that and was doing just fine.

The next day was a Sunday and my friends were picked up early in the day by their parents and went home. For some reason that I can't recall, my family left me home alone that day. So there I was, a young boy left at home by himself, no more than 12 hours removed from gaining his first bits of knowledge of his adolescent sexuality. In all honestly, it was probably the best day to be left home alone.

I sat down in my living room, turned on the TV, and began to think about the discussion from the previous evening. I tried to distract myself from those thoughts by flipping through the channels, but seeing as how it was a Sunday afternoon, my television options were pretty limited. As we were living in the country and did not have cable, I settled in to watch an Indy Car race that was running on the local ABC affiliate. I think it was the Toronto Grand Prix. What could be manlier than a young man sitting down to watch a car race? What with all the talk of engines and camshafts and gears and such, I was going to be distracted for sure.

I tried to pay attention to the race, but my mind began to wander and before I knew it thoughts were led elsewhere.

I like to look back at my life and even though my long term memory is pretty poor, I think that I have a decent ability to remember some of the more important moments. Although it sounds melodramatic, when I look back at that weekend, I can see that that was where I began to lose the innocence of youth.

When it comes to their sexuality, some people will regale you with stories of their first sexual experiences as if they were some sort of warrior taming a wild beast. Then there are people like me who found themselves as a quiet and scared young man, sitting in a living room watching cars go around in a circle.

My daughter, the Koala

2005-08-11T17:00:00.000-05:00

Gabrielle will be 9 months old on September 3rd and while 9 months isn't an event that most people would choose to celebrate, it is a big event in her daycare life for that is when she goes to the Koala room.

The daycare center that my wife and I send Gaby to is a very nice place, but for reasons that completely baffle me, they name each of the rooms that the children spend their days in. Infants are in the Panda room, after that they go to the Koala room. I'm not sure where they go after that but I'm sure it's a herbavour of some sort. Probably the 3-toed sloth, who knows?

One of the benefits of this particular daycare center is the fact that it's very close to where I work, so on the days that Gaby is spending there, I get to go have lunch with her. Lunch is a loose term, usually I sit there and watch her play with her toys and enjoy the smiles that she passes out, like the government gives out no bid contracts to Haliburton. (ie lots of them) (Gotta love a cheap political shot in a blog entry about my daughter.)

Today was a bit different though, as she is "visiting" the Koala room to mentally prepare her for the new surroundings that she'll be dealing with. I'm excited that she'll be moving onto the other room as the kids that are in there are doing things that I can't even imagine Gaby doing at this point. It's amazing how quickly you get used to the limits that your child has and then are stunned when they start to learn all of the skills that you take for granted. When she starts walking, I'm positive that I'll shit myself out of total shock.

It became pretty clear to me in the time that I spent in the Koala room that this room was going to impart a type of education on my daughter that I was going to have to undo. From the moment I walked in there, I heard songs about how great each of the kids was. That's not right. That's not what I got when I was growing up. It's sad to think that I'll have to try and un-do all of that positive reinforcement that she's going to get for 8 hours every day.

I want my daughter to be tough and hard-nosed, but it looks like I'm going to get a very secure and confident Koala instead.

I do hear that they can be mean if you try and take their Eucalyptus leaves away... so I guess that's where I'll start. Gotta nip this self-esteem thing they're starting in the bud.

Rapid

2005-07-28T15:17:00.000-05:00

Every now and again, a funk will settle upon me and I’ll begin to think about some of the parts of my life that I try to avoid dwelling on, as don’t really have the strength to deal with them for more than a few brief moments. Some of these times have been very painful for me, not to mention what the other people involved went through, and while I think that I’ve learned something from each of them, sometimes your mind just gets stuck and just can’t let go of what could have been done differently.

I won’t mention the names of the people involved in any of these stories, other than myself, because of the fact that I haven’t spoken to them in quite some time and I wouldn’t want someone to do a random search on their name and stumble across a story that would involve a part of their lives that they may not want to think about again. Also, these stories are meant to describe my side of what happened, not to pass judgment on any other persons involved. For the purposes of simplifying this story though, I’ll call the primary person Art.

Shortly after I dropped out of college, I began hanging out with a few people that I knew in high school. We weren’t close friends in high school, as we ran with different crowds. Just before I left college, I started to get more interested in the consumption of alcohol. I had avoided drinking until I was 20 years old, as I was always worried about following in my footsteps of my father and becoming an alcoholic.

I didn’t really see it at the time, but most of the relationship that I had with Art was based on alcohol. We would get together and we would drink, a lot. Each time that we spent together usually revolved around, at the very least, a 12 pack of beer for each person and sometimes more than that. For the better part of the first year that we were friends again, it was a very casual friendship. It was easy to see that we were friends, but it was obvious to both of us that it wasn’t anything more than a social relationship.

One Friday night after work, we went out of town together and went to visit one of Art’s old college buddies. Art’s friend lived about 2 hours from us, and seeing as how both Art and I were still living in our parents’ homes, it seemed like a great place to go and spend a long night drinking together. Neither Art nor I had ever been to this town before, but seeing as how we were going to be staying at his friends place, it hardly mattered that we didn’t know the lay of the land.

Art’s friend was a large and gregarious person who seemed to really enjoy making sure that other people got sick when they went out drinking with him. It’s not like he was forceful about it, he just seemed to be able to plant the suggestion in your mind that no matter how much you have drank to that point, you needed to drink more.

When Art and I arrived it was around 7:00 at night and the temperature was dropping rapidly. As soon as we walked in the door, we were told that we were late and we had to begin drinking to catch up with him. He had already had a few drinks so I knew it was going to be a long night already, but this was what I had signed up for when I decided to come along on this trip so I dove in.

Thankfully, the evening began at a restaurant and we were able to eat a great deal of food along with our first drinks and were able to stuff ourselves with breads and pasta in the hope that the food would allow us to sustain our uninterrupted drinking for quite some time. After our first 4 or 5 drinks with dinner, we proceeded to go to the back of the restaurant and drink more. As you would expect, my memory begins to get a bit foggier at this point, but I’ll try to cover as much as I can.

We moved from beer at the restaurant to whiskey (Kessler’s) and Coke’s after that, each drink becoming stronger than the next. As our sense of taste and the ability to distinguish how much alcohol was being consumed in each glass faded, the evening seemingly became more entertaining. More laughs were shared and revelry ensued.

After several more hours, we either finished the large bottle of Kessler or decided that we should take our little private party to another location. I can safely say that at this point that our bodies had already taken enough abuse, but we weren’t about to let our minds make an important decision like that.

From there we stumbled our way into a local bar. A biting and frigid cold crept into town, and neither Art nor I had thought to bring so much as a jacket as we never intended on stepping outdoors on this particular night.

I remember ordering a drink, but what it was, I can’t recall. I have a vision of being near the bar and the next thing that I can remember is spilling the drink all over me. It’s safe to say that it was for the best that I didn’t actually drink it, as my next memory is of being sick in the bathroom that I went to clean up in.

For those of you that are experienced with the adventures that go along with drinking, one of the signs that a night is nearing its conclusion is when a friend throws up. There isn’t much good that can possibly come from the rest of the night after that. They’re not going to be the same person and, more often than not, the same fate will be awaiting you if you continue.

Thankfully, there was someone out with us on this evening that wasn’t drinking and was playing the role of chaperone and guided us from that establishment to the car. It was decided amongst the three drunken miscreants that we should go out to have a late night meal to settle our stomachs down, so that we would be able to enjoy a pleasant nights rest on a full stomach, or in my case, a partially full stomach.

We arrived at a Denny’s/Perkins restaurant and sat down and ordered a meal. After a few moments, our drinks came.

Art picked up the glass of chocolate milk that he had just received and splashed the entire contents of it onto my face. After any normal night of drinking the whole series of events would have been comical, if it would have made any sense. The waitress had gotten no further than a few steps away after setting down our drinks and I was covered in milk.

I sat there for a few moments, blinking, trying to put together the chain of events that had brought this upon me, but nothing seemed to explain it. I looked across the table to see that Art was still sitting there; but it was clear to me that he wasn’t there. There was no trace of my friend in the eyes of the person sitting across from me.

Art launched himself from the table and bolted for the door, with his college roommate close behind. I rushed to the bathroom to clean myself up, all the while trying to replay the chain of events that led to me being completely covered in chocolate milk. After a few futile moments of fumbling drunkenly while trying to clean myself I left the bathroom with a clean face but an unclear mind.

I found that when I returned to the table that neither Art nor his friend had returned and must still be outside. I stepped out the door and could hear the two of them arguing behind the restaurant. Art kept ranting about the fact that he had to go, but where he would not nor could not say. As I got near the two of them, Art noticed me and his shoulders dropped as if to indicate that he was sorry for what had just happened, but the moment that I stepped closer to him any trace of sadness that was in him was quickly replaced by anger. It was an anger unlike I had ever seen in a person; an anger that I’ve never seen in a person since.

After some time, Art’s friend convinced him that we should go home for the evening and with a small bit of struggle, we all got into the car. As Art’s friend had managed to talk him into the car, it was decided that he should stay in the back seat with him and try to keep him calm. For a moment it worked.

Within a few minutes, Art had taken off his seat belt and had attempted to jump out the door of the moving car, all the while screaming that he “had to go.” His friend, being a large man, held onto him as best he could, but Art was not going to be denied. Art rolled onto his back and began attempting to kick out the windows in the back of the car. This was the final straw for Art’s friend. He gave up his attempt in trying to hold him and we all watched as he jumped from the car.

Art ran from the car wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans but no shoes. The temperature gauge on the car indicated that it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

We sat in the car for a while and tried to determine where Art might possibly have been running to, but within a few seconds he was gone and there was no way to see where he went.

Art’s friend was so incensed at the fact that he nearly destroyed the inside of his car that he wanted nothing to do with him at this point, and no matter what I said, they decided that the best that we could do would be to drive for a few minutes and then go home.

To be honest, it wouldn’t have been a good decision for me to have left the car either as I was dressed in nearly the same attire as Art, but I felt that since I had my shoes at least I would be better off than he was. Sadly these were just the incoherent thoughts of an inebriated man.

We arrived at the house and I laid myself down onto a sleeping bag in the basement and cried until sleep finally took me.

I woke up a few short hours later to find out that Art had not shown up at the house. This was a time before everyone carried a cell phone, so we had no clue as to how we would even begin to attempt to track him down. We contacted the police, but seeing as how he had only been missing for a few hours, there was nothing that they could do to help us.

We got back into the car and began to drive around the neighborhood where Art had escaped from the car, but found no trace of him. It was at this point in time that I realized that the only possible outcome from this evening was the fact that my friend was dead. From the moment he left the car, I had pushed this thought into the back of my mind, but as more time passed I began to see it as the only possible truth. We drove for a few hours before we realized that our search was pointless as there were no traces of where he might have been and we were just blindly searching for something that we were petrified of finding.

Back at the house, we decided that we had to call Art’s mother to find out if she had heard from him. It was the last possible call that any of us had wanted to make, because if she hadn’t heard from him we would have to tell her what had happened. As expected, she had not heard from him and wondered why we would call her and ask her so, as he was with us. After a few awkward moments, we explained the brief outline of the events from the past evening and let her know that we had no idea where her son had gone. We told her that we would keep looking for him and would call her back as soon as we knew more.

Art’s friend told me at this point that there was nothing more that I could do and that I should just go home. My friend has disappeared into the night with nothing more than his jeans and a t-shirt and I’m supposed to leave and not do anything to find him? Somehow he convinced me that that was exactly what I should do and they drove me back to my car.

I don’t know why I couldn’t stay and look for him, but there was something inside of me that said that there was nothing I could do. I was already an emotional wreck and I think that my presence there was making things more uncomfortable for them, so I left.

The two hour drive home was the longest two hours of my life. Two hours of torturous thoughts of loss and remorse. Two hours of self-abuse and anguish over your own inability to attempt to help someone who desperately needed saving. Two hours of knowing that you would have to go to see your friends’ mother and explain why you didn’t do anything to help her son before he died.

I arrived at home a broken and distraught young man. Not able to feel good about anything I had ever done.

I walked in the door and found that Art had called his friend an hour or so after I had left. And that his parents were on his way to where he was to bring him home.

Art has no remembrance of that evening. The last thing that he can recall is arriving at the restaurant and eating dinner; after that, nothing.

He woke up the next morning in a strange home. He didn’t know how he got there, but awoke on the floor with no idea of where he was. After eating some of their food, he took a jacket and a pair of shoes and walked to a nearby bar. Part of the problem with the evening was that neither Art nor I knew where we were staying for the night, and so when he woke, he had no idea of where to go. When he arrived at the bar, he convinced them to let him the phone and he was able to call his old roommate.

Art came over to my home the next day and I hugged my friend like I would never let him go.

We became quite close for a few years after that night but eventually we drifted apart.

The fact that Art survived that night, to me, is astounding. Through luck and self preservation he managed to find his way into a home that, luckily, no one was in for the evening. The night could have gone so much worse, but through a great deal of luck, he survived it with no more than a cut on his hand from breaking into the house.

In my life, there have been very few events where either I or someone else made a decision that I will never be able to forgive them for.

While I know in this case I did the best that I could in that particular situation, I know that I could have done more.

Now, I hope that if someone who desperately is calling for my help, I’ll be able to stop the car, open the door, and run after them because that’s what a friend does.

Harry Potter

2005-07-19T16:30:00.000-05:00

Although I do write on this site, I've never actually consider myself to be a writer. I'm more of a layman autobiographer if I look at what I spend my time writing about, and I'm ok with that. Someday, I can only hope that something that I've written will make them as happy as the Harry Potter books have made me feel.

On Saturday afternoon, I was a very unhappy man. I looked at the email from Amazon that announced that I was due to get my copy of Harry Potter on Saturday, via UPS. The problem with this was the fact that UPS doesn't deliver on Saturday. Needless to say, I was fit to be tied. I was home taking care of Gaby and while my daughter almost constantly makes me smile, she couldn't do anything at that moment to make me feel better about the fact that I was going to have to wait for a few days to find out how things were going to change for Harry as he approached his 16th birthday.

While Gaby was taking a nap, I even went to the extreme measure of weeding the plants in front of the house. It was 95 degrees outside and the sun was beating down on the front of the house, but I didn't care. I had to distract myself.

After sweating profusely for an hour or so, I came back into the house to find Gaby still asleep in her swing and I began to think of the angry email that I was going to send to Amazon for denying me the pleasure of reading the book.

Sarah had been sleeping all day, as she had to work later that evening, so I had no one to complain to and quite frankly Gaby isn't a sympathetic ear at this point. So, when Sarah woke up, I had her watch the little one for a while and I walked the quarter-mile journey down to our mailbox.

"Well, I ordered a new game the other day... perhaps that will be here and that will make me feel better," I thought to myself. It was all about excuses. I didn't really want to admit the fact that I wasn't going to be able to read Mrs. Rowling's newest book, and that this inconvenience could actually bother me this much.

Then when I arrived at the mailbox I found that the book was indeed there. I took it, as well as the unimportant other items that happened to be there, and ran back up to the house, smiling all the way.

When I got back into the house I carefully opened the container that was shielding the book from damage that could have been done during shipping and then set it on my nightstand. I then informed Sarah that the book had indeed arrived and she smiled and said, "That's nice."

Then the book sat.

I had been waiting all day for my chance to read it, but now that I had it, I did not want to start it. Why? I had avoided reading any websites that would have made any mention of the book, as I didn't want to have any part of my reading spoiled by hearing about what was contained within it's pages, but now that I had the book, I couldn't read it?

It's now 3 days later and I have completed only 5 chapters in the book. Never before have I read a book where I have given so much attention to ever sentence, with so much focus on what secrets might be hidden in each turn of phrase. While I'm not one of the people that would have waited in line at midnight to buy the book, I'm just as big of an addict as the rest of them. Why only 5 chapters in 3 days? I just don't want the book to end.

In my entire life I've never read a book, or in this case, a series of books that I've enjoyed as much as I do these. In the weeks leading up to the release of the 6th book, I re-read the first five books again, for the 4th time. Each time I've read them, I've found something more to enjoy. I've found characters to be more nuanced than I had noticed in a previous reading. I found that there were large hints towards the future story that I had completely overlooked. I found myself spending a good deal of time thinking about the backgrounds of characters and wondering why certain people have never been mentioned, Harry's Godmother for one.

But above all else, I found that I was happy while reading these books.

With some luck, I'll finish this latest book in the next week or so and will be able to let the story unfold before me without any outside entity spoiling the finish for me.

I've heard that these books are meant for children, and that's a good thing, as I've never stopped being one and these books allow me to continue to do so.

I think I need a nap...

2005-07-16T01:07:00.000-05:00

When I'm up at 1:00 in the morning and I'm watching Hardcore Midget Wrestling on HDNet, I think it's time to get to bed, but it's hypnotizing.

I have to give Mark Cuban credit, he really seems to cover all bases with his programming. One night it's the 4th Annual Champion Shuffleboard Open, the next it's Hogan's Heroes reruns, and the night after that it's Cagefighting.

I guess when you have a few billion dollars you can put whatever you want on TV... and all in High Definition.

I'm sweating like...

2005-07-11T16:33:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to say that I'm some sort of film critic or that my opinion should be valued above anyone elses when you're going to see a film, but I got a chance to see War of the Worlds last week and there were a few things about the movie that really bothered me. Keep in mind that these are relatively spoilers to the film, and as such can be easily avoided by humming the Bridge over River Kwai theme to yourself. Give it a go, it really works.

I'll put these in chronological order, not that it makes much of a different.

1. Like every movie with a single father, Tom Cruise's kids seem to hate him for not being married to their mom any more. It's formulaic but that isn't my problem with how it works in this film. In the first half hour it's established that the son really isn't all that happy with his father, which is fine. Then the "War of the Worlds" begins. Tom's character does everything he can to get his kids out of the city safely and avoid the mass of destruction that the aliens are causing. Finally, when they get out of town and are driving towards their parents house, the kid rips into him. I'm sorry, if the entire world is under attack and you've just recently seen hundreds, if not thousands of people dying, I think the fact that daddy hasn't been around for your little league games might get pushed to the back of your head. I spent the next hour and a half hoping Cruise would just smack the kid silly.. it was that bad.

2. Eventually all of the people bunch up and start walking towards a ferry. Don't ask me... I would have thought some bridges might still be intact between New York and Boston... but perhaps not. On the way, they cross this one bridge where they show a "9/11-esque" board filled with "Have you seen this person" type materials. 9/11 is something that Americans, and a good deal of people around the world will never forget, but I thought this was done in very bad taste. To me, it seemed as if it was a heavy handed tribute to the memory of what happened in New York. If you look at it objectively, there is no way that something like that would happen in a end of the world disaster.

I thought about it seriously after the movie was over and decided that if I got seperated from my wife and daughter in an apocalyptic situation, I would do everything that I could to find them and make sure that they were safe, but I sure as shit wasn't going to head to the scrapbook store and put together a collage. Also, where in the hell would the pictures come from? It's not like you would see people getting evaporated by lasers and would think... "Hmm... I need to go back to the house and get a picture of little Timmy for a 'missing' poster."

3. When they're hiding in the basement they use a mirror to escape from one of the searching creatures. A mirror fools them? Are Kodos and Kang directing the invasion party? Jesus...

4. Boston survives this massive onslaught of aliens and looks to be virtually intact when they arrive there. First the Red Sox win the World Series... now this?

5. **major movie spoiler** I'm warning you... I'm going to talk about the ending... run away now....

If you're still reading, you either don't care about the ending or already know how it ends, so here goes.

Fucking miniscule organisms kill the aliens? How lame is that? They've been plotting this invasion for millions of years (as their ships are buried underground) and they can't think to do an air and soil sample? Hell, I couldn't get a well at my house without having the water checked out. You don't think an invading alien race wouldn't want to give the air a sniff before trying to take over the place. Hell, even Star Trek ships could do that. We're an 'M Class' planet, remember? We're prime for takeover by everyone.

Man, just writing this column makes me even more upset for sitting through the movie. There were some good points to the movie, but on the whole I really disliked it... can you tell?

Short and sweet

2005-07-11T10:45:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but todays entry will be a short one.

You know you have it good in your marriage when you can buy your wife a universal remote control as an anniversary present and she's as happy as can be.

What can I say? When you live with me, your standards are destined to drop.

Stop your grinnin'...

2005-06-22T16:30:00.000-05:00

I know that I officially became a father on December 3rd of 2004, and that I had my first official Father's Day on June 19th of 2005, but yesterday... I truly became a man.

Up until this point, it was up for debate which team I was actually on. Yesterday changed all of that though.

Yep, both of my boys dropped and I officially joined the club.

I guess I've been doing some of the things that men do for a while now. I even have proof that I've had sex once, with a woman even, though Sarah may debate whether I was actually masculine during the event.

It arrived yesterday at 4:00 in the afternoon.

I didn't get a chance to see it delivered, as I was still at work, and had hockey after that. You would think that hockey would make me feel masculine... but no. I play co-ed hockey and when you're doing your best to avoid running into, or even touching, people.. sometimes you feel more like Kristy Yamaguchi than Wayne Gretzky out there.

It was just sitting there when I got home.

Throughout the years, I've had a hard time hanging out with "the guys" in most situations. God help me if anyone brings up a carburetor in conversation. I just have to stare blankly and smile while people talk about valve springs or piston hammers or whatever the hell else could be contained in an engine. For all I know engines are magical devices that are powered by keys that work as silver talisman.

I looked at the jet black matte finish and a sly smile crawled across my face.

Hunting could have been a way for me to claim my manhood, but guns are not really my cup of tea. (See, right there... I used "Cup of Tea." Fit me with a bra and start telling me about my cycle.)

Sarah made me look at the manuals, but I just wanted to to town with it.

Maybe it was all the time that I spent around my mother and my two sisters when I was growing up, but doing all of the manly stuff just wasn't for me.

Until 26 HP of pure mowing glory showed up.

Yes indeed. I now am the proud owner of a lawn tractor.

The tattoos will come later... I'm sure. (Have they figured out a way to tattoo you without pain being involved?)

Ok, so I'm not all man yet, but it's a start.

She's the DJ...

2005-06-21T14:20:00.000-05:00

and I'm the Rapper apparently.

Yesterday was my first ever father's day. Father is never really a word that I thought that I would be associated with. This will seem odd, but I thought I would be a dad, but I never thought that I would be considered a father.

I can look back at my childhood and see the role that my actual father didn't play. I didn't really have that "Father" to speak of for the first 8 or so years of my life. Then Dennis came along and he picked up that role and ran with it. I saw both my father and Dennis yesterday and Dennis was the only one that I thought I really needed to say "Happy Father's Day" to.

So, I got home from hockey yesterday morning and found my gift sitting on the counter. Gaby had gotten me a book called, "Why a Daughter needs a Dad: 100 Reasons" and a card. It's a very nice book about why little girls need dads, but it was the card that got me. The envelope just had the word "Dad" on it.

I've been Gaby's dad now for a few months (6, to be exact) but it wasn't until I saw that card that it really struck me. I'm playing a major role in shaping a persons life, and I'm not even screwing it up, all that much, to this point. Who could have thought that was possible?

The majority of the day was spent out at my Grandparents 60th wedding anniversary (Just for perspective, my Great-Grandparents made it to 78 years of marriage before my Great Grandfather passed away at 103.) Gaby is having a very tough time with keeping food down at this point, so my father's day consisted of a great deal of cleaning up baby vomit.

After I opened the gift from Gaby, I walked over to her and gave her a kiss and thanked her for the gift. I then told her that I would not accept a Father's day without a breakfast being made for me in the future. Seriously, could a 6 month old be lazier?

I'm guessing I'll be getting that meal from her next year... she may even spit in it for me, just so I know who's in charge in the house.

Check it out... an Audioblog

2005-06-13T23:22:00.000-05:00

New stuff

2005-06-13T09:17:00.000-05:00

If things go well... tonight I should have my first audio blog up on the site.

Nothing like listening to the sultry tones of a 31 year old Wisconsinite.

Sometimes I get to wear pants..

2005-06-01T11:30:00.000-05:00

Part of being married is understanding the need to compromise. Take for example what happened to me this memorial day.

Sarah and I took Gaby to her first Brewers game (a loss) on Saturday and on Sunday I had gone and played hockey in the morning. So, basically, I hadn't spent a day at home at all over the holiday weekend. I was just out running about and generally not relaxing like I like to do.

Sarah was supposed to work Sunday night and wouldn't get home until Monday morning, so I would be home watching Gaby all day. This was pretty much what I was hoping to do. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything... just sit back and relax around the house and spend time with the kid.

Sarah got sent home from work early and as a result of this, we got to spend the day together. I have no complaints about this in any way. I always enjoy spending the day with Sarah, and since she's one of the 3 people that actually reads this site, I want to make that fact very clear.

So, when we woke up in the morning, she asked me what I wanted to do on that day. I said that I would just like to stay home and relax. Sarah, being the wonderful woman that she is, says that's just fine.

This is where I make a critical marital mistake. I take her kindness and then try to show that I'm just as kind as she is.

"Sarah, if you really want to go out today, we can. I would prefer to stay home, but if you really want to..."

What I tried to do was to really let her know that my intent for the day was to stay put, but I just went about it all wrong... before I knew it she had flipped over the table and had removed any trace of my manhood and put it in her pocket.

"I guess we could run into Home Depot then..."

Damnit... I'm almost 8 years in and I still don't have a clue.

My eyes....

2005-05-25T15:32:00.000-05:00

So, I have a new car now. In the process of having to get rid of my old heap (a 1995 Chevy Cavalier, with myriad problems) I had to give over my title to the dealership. I had no luck in finding it though...

So, off to the DMV I went.

Personally, I think DMV employees get a bad rep for their attitude. I've yet to have a problem with the actual people that work there. The people that you see at the DMV are another matter altogether.

The moment I walked into the building I was overwhelmed with the combination of the following smells. Big Red chewing gum. Ben Gay. And fear. I thought that there was poem that said, "Teenagers are teenagers, Old people are old people, and never the twain shall meet." At least that's how I thought the poem went.

It was the Big Red gum and fear smells that really took me back. Back to the day that I went for my drivers test.

Like most kids in America, when I turned 15, I got my learners permit and then went on to start taking my driving lessons at my local High School. Our drivers education instructor also happened to be the High School football coach. I think that this is set in stone in every school in the United States. If you want to torment young athletes on the football field, you have to also do it to young people learning how to drive. I think that they figure that this is the educational version of the Army drill instructor. Break you down to nothing and then build you back up again.

The main deterant that was put forth by the instructor was the ice scraper. Sure, it was April, but the ice scraper was in the back seat and you were told that if you made a mistake that he would wrap it across the back of your hands.

I've never been one that believed that the fear of making a mistake would prevent you from making one. Completely the opposite is what I believe to be true. If you tell a kid to do something, and if they make a mistake that they'll be punished severely for it, my thought is that they'll probably crack under the sheer pressure of trying not to mess up.

Thankfully, I never made the major mistakes when I went through all of my driving practice, so as my birthday approached I actually felt as thought I was prepared for the test. So, I went into the local DMV on my 16th birthday and sat and waited for my test.

To say that I was nervous would be an understatement, but there was also that great sense of excitement to know that you were going to be able to go anywhere you wanted as soon as you got home. You'd have your car and you'd be able to drive and drive... until you had to beg your parents for enough cash to fill up the tank again.

I got into my mother's car with the instructor and managed to be a semi-competent driver for about 5 minutes. I completed all of my turns correctly. I executed all of the essential hand signals that I knew that I would never use again. Everything was going fine.

Then I was told to parallel park behind of one of the cars that was parked on the street. There were no other cars behind this car, so it should have been a piece of cake. It all went wrong from there. I backed up onto the curb and just couldn't manage to straighten anything out. Clearly the pressure got to me and I got a bit flustered.

The next thing that I heard from the person conducting the test was....

"What in the hell are you doing!?!"

I really didn't have an answer for him at that point, so I tried to maintain my composure and just pulled the car back off of the curb and started back towards the DMV.

When we got back, I basically lost it. I had had so many people tell me how important it was to pass the test on the first try that I just broke into tears. I wish you all could have seen the look on the guys face. All of a sudden he felt really bad about yelling at me during the test. He still didn't give me a passing grade, but it really seemed to make him think about how he had snapped at me.

A few weeks later I went back and took my test again and as luck would have it... I got the same guy to give me the test.

He didn't make me parallel park and I passed.

I guess that just goes to show you that women aren't the only one that can get their way by turning on the waterworks.

I really don't like that zoom zoom kid.

2005-05-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

Recently I made the decision that it's about the time to retire my car. I've had it for 10 years now and it seems to be showing the signs that it's about to give up the ghost.

In no particular order, here are the things that have gone wrong with my car in the last 2 years.

- The windshield wipers reset straight up. They still function, but when they're off, they're pointing straight up. Never in my life have I had as many of my friends say, "Hey, I saw you driving down the road the other day." There isn't a chance in the world that you couldn't pick out a green cavalier that looks like that.

- The horn stopped working. This isn't the biggest deal in the world, as it's something that is pretty easy to replace if you have some sort of vehicle repair competency. I do not possess this and as a result, the horn I put in... broke off and I just haven't had the heart to replace it since.

- The transmission cable snapped. There is nothing quite like driving all of the way across a large city with only 3rd gear. It definitely makes for some interesting starts at a traffic light.

- The turn signals stopped working. The hazard lights work, but the turn signals don't. I think I scare a lot of drivers as the only way I can let them know I'm turning is to turn on the hazard flashers... this way I just make them guess which way I'm going.

So, I figured it was time to look for a car.

I went into a few dealerships over the weekend and found myself in two completely different experiences.

The first dealership started out well, but ended up just a bit wrong. I went in and described my needs to the salesman. The first thing that I told him was that I did not want an SUV. Sarah already has a Ford Escape, so the last thing that I want is to be a 2 SUV family. The first vehicle that I asked to drive is a wagon.

One thing that I know is that I'm man enough to know that I don't need any sort of sporty car. Well, that's not exactly right. I'm comfortable enough in my lack of masculinity to know that I don't need a sporty car. No need to prove anything to anyone. I'm happy with my penis, thank you very much, and I don't need a car to make me like it anymore than I already do.

One of the things that I liked about the first dealership was the fact that they just photocopied my drivers license and gave me the keys. I was on my way in the car and didn't have to worry about anything other than finding out if this car was for me. As it turns out, it wasn't and I took the car back, got into my POS and moved onto the next dealership.

This salesman used a different approach, one that makes me feel pretty uncomfortable. He didn't offer to make a copy of my license, he just wanted to come along.

Just to be clear, I don't let most people ride in my car. Car rides are for friends. Rides are for people that I feel that I can actually hold a conversation with during the duration of our travels together.

Here's part of the exchange on my test drive.

"So... You sell cars, huh?"

That's how comfortable I felt with the guy in the car. I felt like my conversation skills were regressing as each mile passed that we drove down the road.

Here's another zinger from me.

"Crazy weather, huh?"

Thankfully, Sarah called me on my cell during the drive and I was saved from any other awkward moments such as that.

As it turned out, I liked the car quite a bit and should be going back at some point this week to pick it up.

When I told one of my friends that I was going to be buying a car, he said...

"Anything but a wagon."

Like I said before, I already like my penis, I might as well have the type of car that matches the guy who has it.

Coke and Fries

2005-05-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

The 31st anniversary of my hatching is coming up in the next few days and I'm preparing for it as if it were any other day. It's gotten to the point now where I get about as excited about my birthdays as I do when I'm seeing a new ad on TV for Genital Herpes medication.

Sidenote: Who knew that having Herpes was so cool? It's like it's the new pink.

Sarah's a terrific woman and each year she approaches my birthday as if it was something worth being interested in.

"What would you like for your birthday this year?"

"Some dignity."

She didn't like that idea. Who couldn't use dignity? I'm very lacking when it comes to getting respect from others... so why not shoot for the moon.

Maybe I should just ask for new spoons. Everybody needs spoons.

I'm the type of guy...

2005-05-02T16:18:00.000-05:00

Recently, my wife, Gaby and I had a visit from Sarah's parents. Other than Sarah getting a pretty bad stomach bug, it was a relatively good visit.

During part of the weekend, I went off to do a bit of shopping with my Father-in-law. I went to Sears to look at a riding lawn mower as Sarah and I will need one for our lawn. (There's no way in hell I would push mow a 1+ acre lawn.) Without boring you with the details, I was looking at a particular mower and the associate started to talk to me about the differences between that model and the slightly more expensive model.

I can say without any trace of sarcasm that I don't have a clue about anything revolving around the automotive process. I can drive my car or a lawn mower without any problems, but if anyone was to ask me what the hell a cam is, I'll just shrug my shoulders and smile politely.

So, when the salesperson started to talk about pressurized chambers of the barometer (or something like that), my mind started to move onto other things.

After a while, we finished up what I had to do there and went off to Toys R Us and picked up a few things for Gaby. I didn't really think much of the time at TRU, I just was going through my normal process of shopping there, looking at clothes, seeing what kid toys I could look forward to next, etc.

So, last night Sarah says the following to me. "My dad says you have more fun shopping at Toys 'R Us than you would at Home Depot."

Sorry for the simple answer... But "DUH!!!"

I think just about anyone that reads this site would be able to glean the fact that I'm not exactly the most handy of people from my writings. Sure, I've completed a few projects around my house, and I've even done all of the home theater and computer wiring, but if given the choice between looking at toys and clothes for my daughter and picking out a belt sander, it's not even a competition.

Plus, that new Strawberry Shortcake line of clothing just looks so damn cute.....

Poodle block....

2005-04-29T16:14:00.000-05:00

Occasionally, I'll sit back and take a look at my life and try to figure out how I got to where I'm at. Not that I'm unhappy with any aspect of my life, outside of my job, but I like to look at some of the decisions that I've made and see where they've led me. So, I'm going to go back through a few moments of the past 10 to 15 years of my life in a game that I call.... Good call, Bad Call.

1. Let's start out old school, no pun intended, and take a look at my Senior year of High School. Somewhere within the first few months of the 1st semester I found out that I had hit all of my requirements to graduate and could quit school after the first semester. It sounded like a good plan. I was planning on picking up a job to save up some scratch for my first year of college, and thought it would be great to not have to go to school anymore.

Well, as it all worked out, the job fell through and most of my friends ignored me for the last 4 or 5 months of what should have been the remainder of my senior year.

Result? Bad call.

I passed up quite a few good party chances (even though I wasn't drinking at the time) and gave up 4 months of prime screw around time just so I could sleep in every day.

2. After I dropped out of college in January of 1994, I took a job working for the Department of Revenue for the State of Wisconsin. The job was an LTE (Limited Term Employment) position, so I had 6 months to find a new job before I would be gainfully unemployed yet again. After pissing away the first 5 months of that job, I finally had an interview with a local insurance company, and was offered a job in their customer service department and I accepted the position. Later that day, one of my friends (Trevor) called me and told me that he knew someone that was looking for help at a small consulting firm in our home town. I had an interview with the owner, Harry, later that day and he offered me a job making the amazing sum of $6.50 an hour. I took the job and called the insurance company and told them not to expect me to show up on Monday.

Result? Good and Bad Call.

Good call - Due to that job, I got my first computer of my own and got my first experience with computer networks.
Good call - 5 months later, I met Sarah in an AOL chat room.
Bad call - I couldn't work with my boss, at all. Some supervisors are from the "My way or the Highway" school. He was from the "My way... period" school.

3. Three months after meeting Sarah, I decided to call in sick and go up to see Sarah in North Dakota. Within 2 hours of calling in sick, Harry was calling my house to find out where I was. About 1 hour into the drive, I was pulled over for having hanging clothes covering one of my windows. I should have known at this point, that things could be going wrong for this weekend. I got up to Grand Forks later that Friday and had a great couple days with Sarah.

I planned on leaving around 12 or 1 in the afternoon on Sunday, as it was a 11 hour drive back home. Well, I got a much later start than I intended to and didn't end up leaving until 2 or 3. Add to this that North Dakota and Minnesota were hit with a massive ice storm right around the time that I left. I was stuck driving on the interstate at roughly 30 to 40 miles an hour all the way from Grand Forks to the Wisconsin border. If you've ever driven through that part of the country before, boring doesn't describe it. Did I mention that I was driving a Geo Metro with only an AM radio, and that most of western Minnesota doesn't get AM radio? Yeah... it was that kind of trip.

I hit Wisconsin around 3 or 4 in the morning and was in serious need of some caffeine. I stopped and purchased some NoDoz and Orange Juice. To this day, I don't know if it was the combination of the Orange Juice and the mega dosage of caffeine or whether I was just allergic to NoDoz, but I got the shakes something fierce.

Within an hour of taking the pills, I had to pull over because I was shaking so badly that I was scaring myself. I stopped at a rest stop and called into the office to let them know that I was not going to be making it in to work that morning. Little did I know that a primitive version of *69 existed at that point and my boss found out where I made the call from.

I woke up an hour after falling asleep in my car and found myself feeling much, much better. I proceeded to drive into the office and actually make it there by the time the office opened. I was actually on time for work. Of course I was sent home while my boss decided what to do. I was glad to go home and get the rest.

I was woken up later that day with a call from him letting me know that I was being fired and that we could meet up later in the week and I could get my things then.

Result? Much better than a good call... a Great call.

Being fired from working with Harry was one of the best things that I can remember happening in my life. Shortly after I was fired, I drove back up north and spent a week or two with Sarah. Not that our relationship wasn't already off the ground, but it really took off from there. Also, a few months after that, I was hired to work at Best Buy, where I met a good deal of my closest and dearest friends in the world.

I really like this game.

I'll do a few more of these in the future.

Suit jackets and funny shorts

2005-04-29T00:17:00.000-05:00

From time to time, when you see bad writing, a person will equate it to a monkey pounding away at a typewriter. When I was trying to come up with an analogy for my writing style, this was what I came up with.

It's like putting a keyboard at the bottom of a hamster cage and seeing what happens when they scurry across it while trying to get to their water bottle.

For the most part, none of it will make any sense, but one day, after a vigorous turn on the exercise wheel some hamster will stagger towards their food and by complete blind luck, you might actually see something that makes sense and speaks to you. Either that or you might find hamster crap.

Today is one of the latter.

I'm not what people would call a world traveler. My typical idea of an exotic weekend is choosing Olive Garden instead of TGI Friday's. I've only left the country once and it was to go on a week long vacation in Bermuda.

My sister was lucky enough to get a deal on a timeshare, that her boss owned, in Bermuda. So Sarah and I, along with my sister and her brother-in-law, all decided to go down there for a week in April of 2000.

Sarah and I did a lot of fun things during that week. We went on our first SCUBA excursion. We got a chance to spend some time up close with dolphins and I got to play golf on a course that overlooked the ocean. It was a wonderful week and I really don't think that Sarah and I have ever felt more at home, then we did during that week in Bermuda.

The one thing that really sticks out to me about that trip is one particular person that we met there.

Part of the deal with the timeshare that we were using was the fact that we had to spend a certain amount of money at either the country club restaurant or at the bar. I'll give you one guess as to where the two current and one former Wisconsinites chose.

When some people travel they have the tendency to treat every person from that place like they are some sort of servant that is there to service or help them whenever they need assistance. For Sarah and myself though, we actually like to sit and talk to residents when we travel so that we can get to know the people and the place where we're staying a little better. That's not to say that we walk up to any person that we see and start grilling them, but if we're out having dinner, or out shopping, we like to actually talk to the people. It's just something that we like to do.

One of the bartenders that we met while there was named Madison. It's pretty easy to remember the name of a person when he shares the name of the place where you live.

There aren't a great many people that I've met throughout my life where I can remember entire segments of our conversations verbatim, but for some reason Madison really spoke in a way that made you remember what he had to say.

One of the things that he said was just so entertaining that it's burned into my brain. It's one of those things that you could easily see someone saying to a tourist just to get a laugh, but you could also see it as something that they actually meant.

On our last night at the resort, we told Madison that we'd be leaving the next day, but planned on coming back in the future.

"Well, if you come back and I'm dead, don't bring flowers to my grave. You didn't bring them to me when I was alive, don't bring 'em to me when I'm dead."

The way my mind works, one minute I'm laughing at a fart joke on Family Guy and the next I'm trying to plan out how my funeral should be taken care of.

So, if you're around when I go and wonder why my will states that there will not be any flowers, now you'll understand.