Everything but the Picket Fence

Death of the Opamobile

2008-11-19T08:17:00.003-07:00

It was a difficult day for all of us when the Silver Honda Civic pulled out of the adjacent neighborhood without looking at the oncoming traffic. Try as she might, the Opamobile didn't have the strength left inside her to push those antiquated--sorry--anti-lock brakes any more ferociously as the front end slammed into the back of the startled Honda. The look of terror as the driver screamed into her cellphone, realizing the unavoidable carnage that was about to ensue only milliseconds later only heightened the Opamobile's last breath. Alas, she is no more. The blue beast that could only find familiar refuge at retirement homes, bingo parlors, shuffleboard tournaments or shipyards died on that autumn day. The explosion of the airbags ensured that there would be no repairs. Humiliated, tarnished and now banged up beyond its Kelley Blue Book and NADA value, the once proud bluehair--sorry--metallic blue Buick Century was towed to the lot for the last time. Opamobile, we hardly knew ye.

I think that for Kim and the kids, they will miss the scent most of all. Never really sure what smells might emanate from the beast, but assured that it would be unpleasant, created a car that was truly mine and mine alone. I can't recall the last time that Kim actually stepped foot in the Opamobile--"Um. No Honey, let's just take the van." The kids weren't so fortunate, and once the wiring on the Sirius was shot, and there was no Radio Disney to be heard in the confines of the relic, they were forced to endure countless torture as I drove them the 1 1/4 miles back and forth to school, or heaven forbid, all the way to the Athletic Center. It wasn't like they could escape the malfeasance either. Over the years, every window in that '98 standardbearer of American engineering ended up breaking, to the point that Poppy Joe and I just nailed the bastards closed. We could only replace a pulley system 5 or 6 times per window before it got a little silly. The only one that remained working was on the driver's side, because there is nothing more humiliating than trying to go through a drive-thru and needing to open the door to pay for your crappy food. Well, nothing except perhaps going through that exercise in the Opamobile.

But to be fair, the beast served me well. The ladies loved the stylings and especially the little nuances that made the Opamobile especially, dare I say, Sexy. The missing hubcap on the front right tire always made an impression as did the layer of film that made you ask yourself, "Is that car really blue, or maybe grey? Whatever it is, it's dynamite!" At least I was pretty sure that was what they were thinking. Needless to say, I got lots of looks--generally surprised to see someone so youthful driving such a sophisticated automobile. I guess that is just the risk one runs when living in the lap of such luxury.

I think that the neighbors are also somewhat sorry to see it go. Something to do with property value or the like. Alex especially liked riding in the blue beauty to Market Street or to Starbucks because he couldn't roll down the windows to smoke and deep down, I am pretty sure that over the long haul, this will extend his life around six or seven hours--no need to thank me. Anyhow, I don't possess the words to give the Opamobile its proper due. It has served us well and has been extremely affordable (well, except for the exorbitant cost of gas and repairs--since I never actually had the oil changed, I saved a bunch there). The new ride, an '09 Hyundai Sonata is currently clean, efficient and pretty cool with gadgets. It has the XM built in and a port for the I-Pod and a CD player. The Opamobile had a pretty sweet cassette deck. The Sonata has cupholders built right in, where the ingenuity that was the 1998 Buick Century didn't realize that their drivers might enjoy a beverage while operating a motor vehicle--I mean seriously, even in 1998, didn't people enjoy a soda or a bottled water while driving--who the hell desinged this thing? The only real downside I have found in the Hyundai is that there is an interior release handle inside the trunk. Now, what the hell am I going to do with the kids when they piss me off?

Scaaaahbura Paht II

2007-07-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

I think that I just posted this thing with nothing other than the title. If you are on my site right now, there is probably a title and nothing else following it. You are probably incredibly confused and frustrated that you did something wrong, when in fact I just hit Enter instead of Tab. If you are reading this, however, you have waited the right amount of time for the full published tally of the continuing excitement that is this year's family jaunt to the coast of Maine. While things are happening at a pace that can only be described as frenetic, I still have to catch things up from my first several days of foolhardy laziness and inefficiency.

I noticed that in the comment section of yesterday's posting, we have far fewer responses than I would expect with such a vivid tapestry of images and characters. Along with the challenge of writing this thing with every possible target of this story stopping what they are doing to read as I am doing my best to get this thing caught up is the fact that most of the characters in this intricate story line are right here reading the thing and they can comment to me directly instead of posting a comment as would usually be their method of communication. Based on the silent stares and hurt looks that I have been receiving all day, I think I have only scratched the surface of my usual attacking method, and the fact that we only covered 6-10 yesterday does not portend well for the potential victims out there. Comments that were received were extremely vanilla, and my belief is that I might have been a little too kind in my observations. My hope is that by the end of this trip, I have been written out of any will that exists, my siblings and significant others no longer return my phone calls and my nieces and nephews discover that all of their existing family photos suddenly have a face cut out as though "good 'ol Uncle Josh" was that x-boyfriend who ruined everybody's ski trip photo. So far, it appears that I have underperformed in this attempt as I still have throngs of these people speaking to me. If I ever want to get some peace and quiet, I probably need to take off the gloves. Unfortunately, it appears that I missed a golden opportunity yesterday, but I will do what I can to provoke whomever I can at this point. So without further ado, we move on to #s 5 to 1 in our countdown of the most significant stories of the first 60 hours of this trip.

Right now, Aaron and Kathy have left to go pick up her nieces and nephew, who will join us for the next couple of days to hopefully provide Hunter with somebody his own age to play with for the first time in the four years we have been taking these trips. Most everybody else is in the room talking about some sort of nonsense--it is only a matter of time before it erupts into a full-fledged argument about tapioca pudding or something at least as significant. One can never be sure what will ignite the battle, but the longer they talk the more assuredly the wick will be lit and the explosion will ensue. Dad is out on the patio, so we might have about 30 minutes until he strolls in and intrudes on whatever conversation doesn't really involve him. If it makes it that long with Shari, Mom and Rebecca sitting in the same room, I will be shocked, but once he enters the fray, you can pretty much count on some sort of pointless and loud screaming match. I promise I will interrupt whatever I am talking about when it happens. Kim is hiding in a book right next to me, pretending not to hear the fun that is about to break loose around her. She knows its coming too, but she just lets it happen. Right now the conversation is about breast feeding--fortunately, nobody in the room is doing that right now, but goodness knows this could be the take off point.

5. Cranky Son Of a Bitch Of the Day(CSOBOD): I would really like to go retro on this category, because in general you never know who is going to be the one who wins this category. Hell, by the time I arrived on Saturday, I was certainly a strong nominee if not the outright winner. But it would be pretty unfair to run this award until we were actually all in the house together. Shockingly, we had a repeat winner for the first two full days of action, so I am able to condense this section into one full bodied attack instead of having a great opportunity to shred two members of the family and thus limit my interaction to 6 other adults instead of the 8 I started with this week. Unfortunately, Grampa G has consistently distanced himself from the competition for the first two days of the trip and thus, I can only alienate him at this time. Congratulations, you are the runaway winner of the prestigious CSOBOD for Sunday July 15th and Monday July 16th. In fact, with your performance, you have actually been nominated by an unnamed member of the family for an entirely different category that I had the chance to write about many, many moons ago when I actually kept up with this blog. Please see Someday I'll be Crotchety Too for those of you who haven't had the chance to read about the contemporaries my father now finds himself amongst.

Sorry to interrupt, but right now Shari and Rebecca are arguing about the time Rebecca lost her virginity and Shari called her a whore--very nice topic. This should be the moment that starts the fireworks--good times, good times all. Back to Dad's prestigious awards.

For whatever reason, Dad has entered this week with the passion to take this honor by storm. Nobody else has come even close. In fact, disappointingly enough for my posting's sake, most everybody has been relatively well behaved. I don't even know what to make of it. I'm not saying that they aren't providing quite a bit of future comedy for all of us to enjoy, but they have all come here with pretty damn good attitudes. Perhaps that is why Dad stands out so much this year. I'm not sure if he forgot his medication or if he forgot that I promised I would end up ripping on anybody who deserved it when I introduced this trip to the world last week, but for whatever reason, he has been a fountain of bitchiness that more than makes up for everybody else who decided to come on this trip. We have had the typical complaints about the food and waste and noise and we have been inundated with the impatience and need to involve himself in everybody's business at all times until it becomes apparent that he would need to inconvenience himself in some way. We have enjoyed the never ending and nonsensical babbling and commentary about everything from how great it is to watch the cousins together (this means Lauren and Leynie) to inquiring about every recipe Dan and I made on Sunday, after he spent 45 minutes bitching about how much money we spent for the food in the first place.

The thing that puts it over the top for Grampa G on the first two days of the trip is his unyielding urge to frustrate everybody at the same time. It is pretty damn impressive to watch a man with such a skill set. He used to be a pretty damn good Doctor, and lord knows he will tell you how great a bridge player he has become in his retirement, but there is no doubt in my mind that as he continues to age, he is entering a world of Crankiness that few have entered and he has a real chance to enter the pantheon of all time pain in the asses. He has always struggled with large gatherings because of his need to be the center of attention and involve himself with everybody and everything. So far, he hasn't been murdered in his sleep, and I base this on incredible restraint by all members of our party. I can completely see a scenario where everybody in the house beats him with a bar of soap wrapped in a towel like they did to Gomer Pyle in Full Metal Jacket if he keeps this up.

In his defense, he has been really well behaved today. Maybe he just needed a couple of days to get over the immense pressures of packing a suitcase and travelling all the way to Maine. I know that they have a couple of days planned in New Hampshire after this trip finishes up to unwind after the exhausting week of napping, reading, walking on the beach and sitting in the Jacuzzi. All I know is that he has made it much more difficult to come up with a winner for today. Dad, I appreciate you making the first two days so simple for all of us and Congratulations on your big win. Crotchety is right around the corner.

4. The Cousins: For the past three years, we have had Hunter, Lauren and Leynie at this gathering. Lauren and Leynie are about a year apart and have become very close on these trips. Hunter, unfortunately, has been significantly older than the others and unless my data is incorrect, he remains just as much older today as he was last year. We were all hoping that they would have started to make up ground on him by this point in time, but alas they have failed miserably. As I stated earlier, we are at least going to have some company this year for Hunter to play with so he isn't stuck in that awkward in between phase for another entire summer vacation. This year, we have also been introduced to our newest niece and nephew, Luke and Emelia. We met Emelia at Thanksgiving when she was like 2 or 3 hours old. My understanding is that Kathy birthed her on the airplane out to Texas sometime just after take off because they refused to miss the annual feast. My memories about this event might be somewhat foggy, but I'm almost positive it was something along these lines. So needless to say, she has grown significantly since November. Luke on the other hand was born in February, so this has been the first time we have met him.

Both babies are really well behaved. Well, to be honest with you, I have no grasp of well behaved when it comes to children, as the crazed freak of a demon spawn that is our Lauren has skewed my perception of what the difference between tolerable behavior and great behavior. We would have taken any child that gave us at least 30 minutes per 24 hours where she wasn't screaming uncontrollably. From what I can tell, these two seem like they are actually happy. I haven't heard either of them produce the screams equal to one hour of our first year with Lauren in the entire time we have been with them, and for Emelia, that includes the five days she was with us in Texas over Thanksgiving. So from my standpoint, they are both really good babies. They smile, they play, they genuinely seem to like other people and I have actually witnessed both of them not being held for more than 20 seconds at any one time. Kim has been really enjoying having babies around, especially the non-psychotic kind. The babies you can give back have always been the best kind, so we are both relishing our roles as Aunt Kim and Uncle Josh.

Hunter seems to like his new niece and nephew as well. He has always been really good with Leynie and he has taken to the little ones very quickly. They both smile and laugh at him whenever he gives them attention, and Hunter eats it up. Leynie and Lauren continue to be into each other, but occasionally need some time apart as neither is used to having to share the stage or fight for attention. Leynie seems to mimic everything that Lauren does at this point, which is understandable because Lauren is a year older, but all in all, they are both very happy to see one another. As the years go by, it is good to see that they continue to look forward to interacting and playing together.

3. Sunday's Dinner: While many of you have been left clutching to the hope that I would actually finish the July 4th week BBQ postings, I hope that I am able to at least temporarily placate your food obsession with a description of our dinner from Sunday night. I am not sure if I have mentioned anything about the dinner deal for this year. As we have evolved this trip each year, there have been changes to how things are simplified. This year, somebody came up with the idea that we should all be responsible for dinner one night, and as such, that family would buy the groceries, put together the menu, make all the food and put everything away and clean up after the fact. Aaron and Kathy volunteered for the first night and they made a delicious pork tenderloin marinated with a teriyaki glaze. It was nice to come in the first night and not have to scramble for dinner and fight with everybody about what we were eating or where we were going, so I am pretty happy with whoever came up with this idea. I am guessing that there will be at least three of my siblings who lay claim to the idea, but I for one am certain it wasn't me.

With Dan coming to town, I decided that we would take care of the Sunday night dinner plans. I had no idea what we were going to make, other than I was insistent we include lobster somewhere in the menu. I wasn't about to travel all the way to Maine and not have lobster on the night I was cooking. I mean when you think of Maine, what pops into your mind? Probably not lighthouses, or really cold, or Shawshank Redemption or Vacationland as the license plate would suggest. When you think of Maine, you think of those majestic 1 1/4 lb red beauties steamed, stuffed or turned into bisque. I wasn't going to miss my opportunity to create a feast that involved the grandest of all crustaceans.

If anybody needs any background regarding Dan and my love of food and wine, suffice it to say that we have destroyed many a budget, overextended many a credit card and beat the crap out of many an expense account in the name of culinary delight. Often times it could be as simple as going out for dinner and buying a couple of dry aged steaks and polishing off a couple of bottles of Mondavi Private Reserve Cabernet or Opus One. But lately, our affinity for fine food has turned into an expression of our culinary talents and the creation of a thoroughly overwhelming gastronomic ensemble. Between the two of us, we put together a skeleton of a menu that is constantly in a state of flux and while we go through a couple of variations, Dan determines the wine pairings for each course. I love wine, but I have one tenth the acumen that Dan possesses in this regard. He has an absolute obsession with the fruit of the vine and relishes any opportunity to introduce others to his passion. So, even though I am confident I can put together wonderful wine selections for each course, I leave that area completely up to Dan.

With the cooking and menu selection, we act as co-chefs. I wouldn't dare call him a sous chef, as depending upon the meal, he may take the lion's share of the tasks and on other occasions, he may be creating one course and I end up taking care of three or four. On this occasion, we divied up the responsibilities pretty evenly. Dan didn't arrive until almost 2:30 on Sunday, so we left almost immediately to go up to Portland to shop. We decided upon the menu as we strolled the aisles of Wild Oats and Hanneford's and decided we would rely on some items that we had prepared in the past as well as create a new main course. The main reason we chose to rehash old menu ideas was really a simple necessity due to the lack of time we left ourselves with because of our late start. Hunter was our assistant shopper and Saucier.

Our menu turned out to be four courses plus a fruit, cheese and meat platter to enjoy while we finished preparing the dinner. We kept the platter as simple as possible and went with a sharp white cheddar, aged brie, garlic boursin, a spicy Hungarian salami, two kind of pears, grapes and crackers. Dan introduced the platter with a buttery Chardonnay that we had been using for a couple of the sauces we had made. While everybody ate this, we put the finishing touches on and sampled our crab cakes. We had prepared the crab cakes before for a dinner with Christine and Alex in Dallas and we served them with a mildly spicy roasted red pepper sauce. This was paired with a light Pinot Gris which allowed the spicy characteristics of the red pepper and cayenne to really open up.

Dan and I were pretty much trapped in the kitchen throughout the meal, as we were trying to get each course completed, plated and out to the main dining room in a well orchestrated and timed manner. This was not the worst fate for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, we were able to sample everything first and get first crack on all the wine. Secondly, we didn't get trapped in a room with Grampa G, who still at this point in the week was raging on about how much we spent on this bleeping meal. Avoiding him was probably a good thing. Thirdly, we got to hang out in by far the coolest room in the house. When they updated the kitchen, they did it right. They installed a Thermador double oven and six burner stove with heat lamps in the hood, a Viking wine cooler and a Sub Zero Refrigerator/Freezer combo. Everything worked great. While we were limited by the amount of silverware, plate ware and glassware (so much so, that we were forced to wash dishes after each course in order to serve the next one), the kitchen more than made up for the shortcomings of the accessories.

Our second course was the salad and again we stole a previously successful salad. Quite honestly, Dan and I had gotten confused between a couple of the salads we had produced for our recent meals, so we ended up with Mesculin salad mix, red onion, and Mandarin oranges tossed in a raspberry lime vinaigrette, and topped with a pecan crusted warm goat cheese medallion. For the wine, Dan paired it with a choice of a slightly more oaky Chardonnay for the white wine lovers and a light Pinot Noir for the red wine enthusiasts. I chose the red, and to be honest, I probably should have gone with the white, because the goat cheese overpowered the soft Pinot. Once I finished the salad, I did enjoy the glass of red.

We cleared the salads and moved to the main course, which was actually two main courses. Aaron and Kathy do not eat beef of any kind. They have been banned from Texas once the authorities got wind of it, but there is just no shaking them of this sickness. Because we didn't want to cause any kind of uproar, we provided them with a Wasabi crusted Tuna steak flash grilled and served with garlic mashed potatoes and sugar snap peas. Our main course, the Piece de Resistance, was a full tenderloin of beef that we stuffed with lobster meat and topped with bacon to infuse the flavor. We topped it with a white wine lobster sauce and also served it with the accompaniments that we provided for the Tuna. We were willing to make an alternative entree, but we drew the line when it came to side items. Dan chose a full bodied Malbec and another Cabernet for the beef and he continued to offer chardonnay to those who were dining on tuna.

We polished off the wine and the entrees and proceeded to the dessert phase of the night. Kim made individual chocolate bundt cakes topped with homemade whipped cream and fresh raspberries. She wanted a raspberry sauce to tie it together, but I completely whiffed on that request when we went to the store. All in all, I think that everybody was pretty happy with how the dinner turned out. Sure we shelled out $2600 of Gramma G's hard earned cash, but I think even she would agree that it was well worth it.

2. Anybody know a good Exorcist?: I've got to tell you, this is not my area of expertise, but more and more I am becoming convinced that the sweet, charming, not quite as clever as some but pretty darn clever in her own right, and beautiful daughter of mine is unequivocally possessed by some sort of demon. I don't know what the true warning signs are, but as the days and weeks and months roll by, the evidence just seems to pile up in ways that are beyond circumstantial. As more signs point to her having some sort of evil being sharing her body, I find myself going back in my mind to the earlier days of her life. Let's face it, something was wrong with that child that goes beyond what doctors called "colic" for a full 16 months. I still don't really know what the hell colic is other than it is what pediatricians come up with when they've got nothing else to offer you when your evil twisted child refuses to stop screaming at the top of her lungs for more than 10 minutes at any one time for a year and a half (including the times she is allegedly sleeping).

I think it is more than a coincidence that strange utterances keep making there way out of her mouth. This week has been no different. It started with Lauren rolling an ottoman around the second level of the house babbling that she was driving her "car" to Murder Road. I don't know where exactly Murder Road is, or more importantly what Murder Road is, but I cannot imagine what would put an idea in her head that this place existed and that it was a place she should find herself visiting. But there she was rolling around the house, happy as a clam, singing about driving to Murder Road. If that was the only episode, I would probably just look the other way and chalk it up to allowing her to stay up with us every night and watch reruns of the Soprano's--she just thinks that Tony is so funny. But it continued on from there.

We were on our way to see some light house and a rocky area up the road a way, and out of the blue, Lauren made a rather unusual comment from the back seat, "Mom, I would rather be burned than die." I thought I must have misunderstood what she said, and Kim didn't hear her the first time, so I asked her to repeat it, and as clear as day she said again, "I would rather be burned than die." We kind of looked at each other and responded with "Um, honey. You don't have to choose one or the other. Why don't you just not get burned or die?" She thought that sounded like a pretty good idea. We drove along and about two minutes later, we drove by a graveyard and she looks at Shari and says, "That's where the dead people are."

To say we were a little creeped out might be an understatement. I mean, the kid is four. I know that kids have an unusual curiousity when it comes to death, and occasionally they will say something that seems strange, but three times in an hour, she makes really strange and morbid statements about death. I've got to tell you, something really wacky is going on here. We are definitely going to limit her to watching only regular CSI and not let her watch CSIMiami or CSINY--at least not reruns.

1. Hunter's First Lobster: The single greatest event of the first couple of days at the beach had to be the monumental accomplishment of Hunter when he took down his first lobster. Over the past year, Hunter has continually pushed the envelope on his dining and we can almost never get him to order off the kids menu anymore. While this is exciting from the standpoint that he is growing up right before our eyes, it is really getting expensive having these kids and we are trying to slow down the process as much as we can. We actually have tried to convince him to order something that we are confident he will hate so that we can later say to him that he can't order off the adult menu the next time we go out because he couldn't finish his dinner.

I should have known how excited he was when we got to the parking lot and he forgot to close the door as he smelled the steaming ocean roaches in the distance and had this faraway look in his eye babbling something about discovering heaven. When Kim asked him to close the door, he just kept his eyes focused on the prize and said, "Heaven doesn't have doors." and kept on walking. Well on Monday evening, our oldest child walked over to the Lobster Shack, convinced Gramma G that they should split the two lobster dinner and between sips of his Mountain Dew and bites of french fries, he dipped claw and tail like a champ and devoured every scrap of that 1 1/2 lb son of a bitch. He sobbed silently when it showed up and immediately took to the task at hand. You could tell he was serious from the outset when he ignored the overflowing basket of french fries and declined the offering of onion rings in order to devote all his attention to that beast. It was a little hot at first for him, and the spiky legs and body made it difficult for him to break the shell and expose the treasure hidden within, but he stayed the course and allowed me to help him get to the goodies. When he found a claw he could crack, he made sure to handle it himself. I split the tail for him and thought back to the hundreds of lobsters I cracked and separated for the clambakes at the Newport Marriott when I was working in catering back in '99. He didn't stop to breathe. He did pause long enough to make dozens of happy sounds. When he finished the tail and the claws, he backtracked every square inch of his prey. He pulled the little side legs off and sucked them like they were straws filled with manna from the gods. I don't know how much meat he could have found for the last 20 minutes that he pilfered that baby, but he sure loved the search. Gramma G made the clean plate club as well, but I am quite certain that we have absolutely no chance of ever getting our oldest son back on the kids menu. Sometimes you just can't stop progress, no matter what the cost.

Scaahhbura Part I

2007-07-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

Trying to find some time where I can get away from all the people I intend to prattle on about for an entire thread is extremely difficult when, for all intents and purposes, I am trapped under the same roof with each of these insane individuals. I never really know when somebody is going to be standing directly behind me, with the faintest of hopes that they might catch a mere glimpse, or even a morsel of the shredding that is certain to follow. At this very minute, I can hear the mindless droning of Grampa G on the cell phone to Gramma G who is at the store with Rebecca. He is about to raise his voice in rage and frustration as she doesn't grasp the concept of what kind of mayonnaise she should bring. Probably because there is a better than average chance that there might be a thimble full of leftover condiment upon our departure and the thought of anything food related being left behind and thus wasted for eternity. The idea that we actually might end up not utilizing every last grain of garlic salt is the greatest stress in his life at this point. While that might be a good thing that he has nothing more pressing to deal with, the fact that he would allow such minutia to continue to infiltrate his thought processes on a daily basis cannot be good for anybody's health.

So while I will try to get to as much as I can to catch everybody up, I am somewhat limited in how much time I can utilize to put all the details of the last 60 hours here in beautiful Maine. So without the usual vitriol and foreshadowing that usually accompanies the introductions that so many of you have become accustomed, I will proceed to our main event. In order to make sure I don't miss anything catastrophic that has occurred up to this point, I am going to everybody's favorite format and will only talk about the top ten things that have occurred up to now. As always, these are in ascending order of importance, and are not based on any kind of chronology.

10. Wii: About three months ago, we got a Wii. We were very fortunate that our brother in law in Guam was able to locate one, because the challenges here on the mainland to track one of these computerized Crack machines is immeasurable. Kim had tried her best to find out where a shipment of one of Nintendo's little monsters was going to show up and then camp out for 72 hours in the icy Texas night, just on the off chance that her only son might be able to show his face in public at some point in the future, but it was of no use. Her attempts, though valiant, turned out to be a colossal failure along the lines of The USFL or at least as bad as those freaking stairs for my scale model house at Georgia Tech in January of '88--damn balsa wood. So instead of just crying herself to sleep at night one more evening, Kim decided to call Stevie in Guam and see if he could get in line ahead of those families of 45 from India that seemed to camp themselves out in front of every Toys R Us in the metroplex. It is amazing that they need so many game systems, but every week, they are back to buy up the whole lot--thank goodness they are helping keep Nintendo in business. For some reason, the only game systems we could find here in Texas were on E-Bay and cost at least double the price. I know those poor Indians at Toys r Us are thankful they could all have a dozen to use just in case one of theirs ended up malfunctioning and they needed to ship it back to Seattle for repairs. From what I understand, there are far fewer folks from India hanging out on Air Force Bases in Guam, so we thought we might have a shot at getting one that way.

Turns out that Stevie came through for us big time and shipped one out to us. For those of you who are not savvy enough to understand the Wii and all its glory, let me assure you that it is worth all the hype. Most gaming systems are decidedly geared toward one segment of the populace or another. The Wii is hands down the best unit for family entertainment. As a firmly entrenched member of the family entertainment camp, it is the perfect system for us. It is just as much fun for me as it is for Hunter and Lauren absolutely loves playing the game. What separates the Wii from other systems is that the controls actually mimic your own motions. Instead of pushing buttons and manipulating joysticks or some facsimile thereof, with the Wii what you do standing in front of the TV is what your character does on the TV. In the games that come with the unit, for example, in order to hit the ball with a tennis racket, you swing the remote control with the motion of a tennis racket. If you swing early, you miss, if you swing late, you miss. If you use topspin or backspin or hit it to a certain spot on the court, the ball follows your intent. It is pretty amazing and really fun.

We decided that it would be a great idea to bring the Wii this week, because everybody we know who has tried it, has been hooked. The great thing about it is that when you finish playing, you feel like you have gotten a workout--especially with the boxing game or the tennis game. Many a night, Alex and I have worked ourselves into a lather playing a vicious tennis match against one another (he's really freaking good by the way). So far this week, the Wii has been a monumental success. Uncle John and Aunt Shari have been playing for hours on end. We even got Gramma G to give it a try until she got pissed off because she couldn't see the ball. In her defense, the big screen TV we hooked it up to has an absolutely abysmal picture, and it is really hard to see, but come on. She had lasik a couple of years back--I'm pretty sure she can see the ball as well as we can, but once that Gramma G gets something into her head, she is pretty hard to convince otherwise. She'd rather slather on some SPF 400 and hide beneath the brim of her enormous floppy hat--there's just no helping those who won't step outside their comfort zone. Hunter is angry that John is able to beat him in almost every game that he took months honing his skills. He even hit a homerun in baseball out of the stadium (something that we didn't even know was possible). We were all very impressed. For now, I still am able to hold my own, but if John and Rebecca have another all night session, I might have to put in a couple of hours to keep up. Dan just got a Wii of his own three days ago and he and Danielle were both bitching about how sore their arms were from boxing all day. While I would never recommend video games as a great option for family entertainment, especially on vacation, this time I am pretty happy with how well it has turned out. The only thing we need to do for next year is bring more controllers. We have three this year, and there almost always seems to be a wait for a game. At least we have a pool table to kill time while we wait.

Holy Crap--Grampa G is actually down there right now trying the thing for the first time. If we can suck him into a video game, I can only imagine the power of this machine. For those of you out there unaware of his stance on TV, video games and the like, this is huge. This would be like Al Gore getting a Hummer H2 or George Bush looking into Haliburton for possibly questionable business dealings. All I can say is wow (and more importantly, thank God I am not the one having to take him through the intricacies of the Wii and all its splendor--John is taking one for the team, and I just can't wait to watch him later and rollick in the fun).

9. Travel Challenges: Whenever you travel with Shari, you should prepare yourself for the incredible nightmare that ensues. I don't know what she did to the travel gods at some point in her life, but I have had the chance to travel with her on numerous occasions, and inevitably something goes horrifically wrong. You can almost take for granted that you are going to be delayed, that your luggage will be lost and that somebody might end up missing the car rental shuttle. It just happens every time. When she travels alone, it is amplified exponentially. This time, having us on board to ensure she had somebody to share the misery with her somehow mitigates her suffering. I don't really understand how it all shakes down, but if there is anybody out there considering a Trans-Pacific trip that will be on the same plane as Shari, let me point out in no uncertain terms that you have been fairly warned. That being said, we actually planned our trip to Maine (knowing all of this information well in advance) and included Shari as a travelling companion on both legs of the journey. We sometimes aren't really smart.

Fortunately, there were five of us travelling, so her pain could only inflict so much of its venom. Sure we found ourselves on the back two rows of the McDonnell-Douglas S-80 with the ever so gentle whirring of an unabated jet engine being occasionally drowned out by the 400 decibel speaker above our heads. We were treated to some of the finest display of customer service known to mankind by our crack team of flight attendants. It was entirely my mistake to ask her for a place to dispose of our empty cups while she was reading a current copy of US Weekly--it was after all the first issue to cover all the excitement of the Tony Parker/Eva Longoria wedding, and for my money, there just isn't ample time to catch up on all the excitement that comprised that day. We were only about 45 minutes late into Logan International, and our luggage only took about an hour to come off the baggage claim. We actually only had to run across three lanes of oncoming Boston traffic to catch the Avis bus before he unceremoniously pulled away, and we were merely trapped in line at Avis for a scant 20 minutes until we came to the counter and waited an additional 20 minutes for them to track down a booster seat for Lauren. We only got lost one time getting out of Boston on our way up the coast, and it only took three temper tantrums by yours truly to get us back on the right route. All in all, not a bad trip when you consider that we scoffed at the travel gods. The next time I book a flight that includes Shari flying on the same airline that day (or really any of their partner airlines), I have only myself to blame.

It didn't help anything either that Jill (my GPS) has suddenly decided that she really relishes taking the scenic route everywhere. I don't know what setting I put it on, but while she always ends up getting me there, she no longer believes in the highway system of this great land of ours. I probably shouldn't have been playing Rainman in the portable DVD player at the same time I had her hooked up. It wasn't very efficient for Charlie and Ray in that epic, but Jill has got some cockamamie bug up her ass that causes her to send me all over God's green earth on my way to a destination two blocks away. She and I are going to have a long talk before we strap her back up to the cigarette lighter and traverse this great land of ours again. Either way, we made it to our destination in one piece, the kids were extremely well behaved for the entire trip and we didn't have one flat tire. All in all, on a trip with Aunt Shari, nobody here is complaining.

8. Driftwood for Alex: Nothing like a little extra hobby while we are on our vacation. Some of you out there might not be aware of my friend Alex' gig as a proprietor of an upscale flower shop in Frisco. Let me just tell you that he does the most incredible arrangements I have seen, and believe me, I get no kickbacks for driving business his way. He has only been open a few months, but his store Skai Floral--check it out at http://www.skaifloral.com/ -- has the most consistently mind-blowing floral designs of anyone in Texas. Granted, he is a friend of mine, but I wouldn't risk the credibility of this fine publication for a deadbeat florist. If he sucked, believe me, I would tell you. Think about it--have I ever really pulled any punches on this site before? Didn't think so. So for whatever its worth--if anybody out there needs a florist in Dallas for anything, give him a call and trust me when I tell you, you will be thrilled with the results.

Now that the advertorial section of this posting is out of the way, there must be a point to mentioning Alex' flower shop in the middle of a Maine beach rant. Well, we got a call from Christine yesterday, and she mentioned to us that if we happened to come across any great driftwood, Alex would love to use some in his arrangements. New England is notorious for great driftwood washing up on shore, so we told her that we would be thrilled to try and find something he might use in an arrangement sometime.

While I am no expert in driftwood, I am becoming an expert in the best ways to manipulate my son, and that quite simply means anything involving cash for services is suddenly fair game (provided those services do not include anything of a physical nature, interrupt something that is going on while he is immersed in a video game of any kind, or doesn't sound like it is worth his time). Christine has also quickly caught onto this dynamic and she offered Hunter cash for any cool driftwood he brings back from vacation. We have spent the last two days raking the beaches of Maine for the best hunks of wood from what I can only assume are wrecked wooden pirate ships or lost cargo from a freighter carrying lumber. Either way--we only are keeping the really cool wood. I have absolutely no idea how we intend to transport 38 hunks of broken, water-logged and probably ant and termite infested branches, but when it comes to Hunter collecting some cash, I have no doubt we will find a way.

7. Pine Point Beach: I have never been to Scarborough, Maine. The closest I have been is actually not too far away, about 20 minutes south of here in Kennebunkport. Dan got married there last October, but other than that time, I can't recall ever being in Maine. I am sure that we made a trip when I was an infant, but my earliest memories (as well as my most recent unfortunately) have faded. But I am quite certain I haven't been to this beach before. When it comes to beaches in New England, there are a few things that should be abundantly obvious. First and foremost, they are going to be crowded. Much like a golf course in New England, you only have so much of a window as to when you can enjoy the beach up here. My understanding is that Summer lasts about 6 hours in this part of the world, so it seems like everybody and their brother are going to try to capitalize on a nice day when it rears its ugly head. The times I have golfed in this part of the world, the course was packed to the rafters and generally occupied by people who had no business picking up a club unless they were going to bash somebody's skull in. The beaches here have a similar challenge in that the people occupying them should probably not be hanging out with a limited array of clothing--a situation that inevitably does not correspond well with beach going. Extremely pale, overweight and downright unattractive specimens make up a large contingent of the Northeastern part of the country. This is not a shot at anyone in particular, but when you are trapped in your homes for months at a time and the only thing you are trying to protect yourself from is boredom and cold--it probably makes a lot of sense to eat to combat boredom and create a fat layer to inhibit the cold. I get this, but I don't get the need to suddenly show up in public and display this reality. Unfortunately, nobody here got that memo. When the flannel comes off and the thong goes on, we are left to witness something that no human should be exposed to.

The other thing that should be self evident to anybody coming to a beach in New England is that the water has a tendency to be a might bit chilly. I didn't bring a thermometer, and I haven't recently checked the weather channel for water temperature, but having dipped my toes, ankles, shins, knees and accidentally even my thighs in the arctic surf, I can tell you that it is on the wrong side of chilly. I actually made it up to my waist at one point as I felt my manhood go Costanza on me. Sweet mother of pearl, I don't think it is a great idea to spend too much time submerged in the frozen grips of the tide. Hunter went in up to his belly, jumping waves and being a true trooper. Lauren got up to mid-toe I believe and Kim has felt some moisture as she's walked over still not fully dried sand at low tide. I'll probably suck it up and at least fully immerse myself beneath the water once before we depart, but we are not spending the usual requisite time in the water this year.

There is quite a bit of seaweed of all shapes and color throughout the water and there are acres of area that is filled with something--I don't even know where the hell it comes from, but I swear to you, there are pea sized wood chips everywhere. I have never seen anything like it at a beach before, but you walk out twenty feet into the surf and your feet are covered with little pieces of wood. Very strange. the sand is multi colored--parts of it are silver, or grey and other parts are black. There is very soft white sand as well leading up to the dunes which are covered with wispy sea grass that extends about 150 yards from people's backyards to the shore. There is also a section of the beach which is very reflective and shiny, because of all the granite in the area mixed into the sand.

All in all, it is a very cool beach. At low tide, the shore recedes at least 100 feet and reveals a huge expanse of beach. At high tide, there is barely room for the throngs of beachgoers to set up their umbrellas away from the freezing waves and cascading seaweed and kelp. As you walk down the beach, you are struck by the typical architecture of the area and you absolutely know where you are. There is no place like it on earth--nothing quite as quaint, chaaahming, or real as New England.

6. The House: As I mentioned in #7 above, the location we have this year is absolutely exquisite, and the house is more than ample to handle our needs as a huge family trapped together in perpetuity--sorry I mean as a travelling family tethered together by unfortunate circumstances--no, that's not right either. I mean the house has plenty of space for all of us who are here to enjoy each other's company unconditionally. Are any of you out there as physically ill as I am that I had to produce the last part of that sentence? Thought so--to that end, just take from the above what you need to understand--the house is big enough.

The houses we have enjoyed the past couple of years have been significantly more modern than this year's version, and I am certain that is by design. While we have a recently updated kitchen to enjoy--more on that later when we talk about our dinner from last night--the rest of the house is remarkably unchanged in some time. It seems that most of the houses we rent on these journeys each year are designed specifically for large groups travelling together. There is quite a bit of forethought into what is important, whether it is a business gathering or, more frequently, a family gathering. To that end, there have always been multiple master suites in the houses we end up swarming. In fact, every room is oversized and has a huge bathroom attached. Usually, there are multiple rooms with jacuzzi tubs in the bathrooms and every room has a view of some kind (except for the kids rooms). There is always a media/entertainment room of some sort, and there are multiple areas for gathering inside and out--sweeping verandas, and lots of comfy furniture.

This year, we find ourselves in a somewhat dated and less formally thought out house. There are only two rooms that have their own bathrooms (both of which are located in the basement--and my guess were added after they decided to turn it into a rental property). The rooms are undersized (so much so, that there is not even room for a dresser in our bedroom with a queen sized bed). The house is filled with tile floors, so there is a great deal of echoing and it has been somewhat challenging to allow the kids to get the rest they need. The decor is comfortable, but also very dated and in dire need of a coat of paint. And the kids rooms are completely set up for girls for some reason, a point of contention for poor hunter who had to decide if he wanted his comforter on the pink and green plaid side or the tangerine polka-dot side (which was far and away the most masculine choice he could make).

But somehow it all works. The house is very comfortable and it has everything we need. The area is very convenient to Portland (about 20 minutes north), but Scarborough has everything we need. The house is equipped with every modern convenience, and even though there are at least 35 light switches that are placed in areas that make no sense or don't actually control any light, it is an absolutely beautiful home. I will say, however, that the downstairs bathroom has to have created at least 10-20 lawsuits. The downstairs has a pool table, a big screen TV, a poker table, a dart board and a full bar. They decided to build a bathroom there as well, and to get into it, you have to step up a 14 inch step. While nobody has probably killed themselves yet, I would think that putting a cliff-sized dropoff two feet from the bar may not have been the most prudent idea every put forth off the coast of Maine. Just a hunch.

All right, while I would love to sit here and type for the next four hours to finish this posting, I am going to have to stop it here. I realize that this continues to put me further behind, because the craziness keeps on going with or without my postings being completed. I don't know what is on the agenda for tomorrow, but I will get this posting done provided I haven't been incarcerated, or find myself on the lam. To that end, I would say that there is a 30-40% chance you will see a posting tomorrow. Sorry for the delay, but 5 through 1 are worth coming back for--at least a couple of them ought to be!

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program

2007-07-09T16:29:00.000-07:00

For those of you who were tuning in today to see the next (possibly final) chapter of the BBQ epic, I apologize for my egregious lack of etiquette. Sometimes we are forced to change course midstream in this blogging business and unfortunately this is one of those days. Prior to 9/11, there was a huge uproar regarding a rogue US Rep from California that was inundating our airwaves mercilessly every day. He had some sort of relationship with a missing girl whose name completely escapes me at this point, but up until September 10th, her damn photo started every newscast and his link to her and suspected foul play absolutely overwhelmed our senses to the point it was unavoidable. Not quite the in depth newsworthiness that was the Elian Gonzales or the JonBenet crap, but every freaking day, we had to hear about this now completely forgotten politician and his missing tartlet.

Well, once September 11th happened, they suddenly weren't so important to everybody. Believe me, I am not making light of anything that happened that day or since, but suddenly some California rep and his missing mistress were rendered entirely irrelevant. In fact, they completely faded from the American subconscious overnight. I've completely forgotten both of their names, and if you don't remember either of them, believe me we heard every bleeping detail of both of their convoluted lives for months. It was painful and I am certain that one of the readers out there can educate all of us who these folks were (Aaron, that would be you). Like that day in September when these two moved from the dartboard to the back burner of the American Media, the BBQ story suddenly and unexpectedly has to be put on hold indefinitely. I am hoping to return to the exciting conclusion very soon, but I can no longer hold off on getting to the most exciting blogging story of the year and that is the insanity that is my family rolled around the backdrop our annual beach vacation.

I thought that I could make it to mid week before offering up to the world a preview of our trip, and as such, we would all have the chance to see a tidy bow put on the fascination that is the world of Friscan (that would be Frisco style) BBQ. But as the daily toll of countless e-mails between family members pounds upon my consciousness, I must take a detour from the intended topic and delve into the endless riches of comedy that my family represents to the rest of the world as they prattle about with the nonsensical realm of all they deem integral to existence. To that end, I apologize in advance and will most certainly get to the end of the fascinating BBQ thing. But for right now, BBQ is as important as Chandra Levy and that other guy (thanks Kim--in a second I'll Google that name and figure out what the former politician turned fry cook at In-N-Out Burger's name is).

Many of you out there have not been fully indoctrinated into the fascinating study that is my family. Sure, you have had teasers here and there--an occasional anecdote about Grampa G or Aunt Shari, but until you have experienced the entire clan, up close and personal, all at the same time, you truly haven't lived on the edge. Few have entered into this world and lived to talk about it--the last one to try was Opa, God rest his soul. If you are daring enough to attempt consorting with this band of crazies, and you can maintain the proper perspective, the constant barrage of laughter that one might derive from their antics (unbeknown to them--Bill Simmons of ESPN refers to this as the Unintentional Comedy Scale) is well worth any risk you might encounter along the way. But perspective is difficult to say the least. Not naming any in-laws directly, but there have been many a brother or sister-in-law who thought they could handle the daily grind of voluminous nagging, whining and bitching for a week at a time without feeling the few remaining strands of their dignity (nay their soul) seep away. It isn't so much any one incident, mind you, but rather the constancy of it all. At first, you walk into the beach house and think to yourself, "This isn't so bad--sure they have been arguing unabashedly and unapologetically for 2 1/2 hours about who is getting the King sized bed, and sure three of them have left the room in tears, and sure our kids are going to be spending the majority of their formative years in hard core therapy, but this is a really nice house and it has to settle down some time soon. Nobody can nit-pick and whine incessantly over nothing for a whole evening." Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of the seven days of hell that are waiting for any who dare go this far or dare take a second to step back and actually allow themselves to get sucked into the minutia and insanity of every conversation that will permeate the dwelling for the next 168 hours.

So to say that I expect to have some blogworthy materials to choose from next week might be the understatement of the year. We are heading to a remote beachhead in Maine on Saturday and depending upon whose turn it is on the insan-o-meter, you just never know who is going to be the one who provides the fodder for my daily amusement. I am hoping that it translates appropriately into the written word, and I have every intention of taking some time each day to update a posting about whatever strikes me at that particular moment. Being trapped in a house for seven days with people who are probably going to make a point to read every nugget I write about them should make it even more entertaining. If not, and everybody is walking on eggshells on their best behavior to avoid the biting commentary that reaches nearly libelous proportions when not kept in check, even the better. At least I will have a relaxing week at the beach. Realistically, for you the reader out there, I would put the chances of everybody choosing the same week to behave while stuck in the same house with 13 other members of our family (as well as numerous guest appearances over the seven days) somewhere in the vicinity of winning both Powerball and Publishers Clearing House simultaneously only to be hit by a meteor as Ed McMahon handed you the giant check. So fear not my friends, this week should produce a hearty feast for your viewing pleasure.

In the interim, my family has haphazardly provided me with the proper fodder for today's posting in their daily communications about our impending journey. You would think that they wouldn't have to toss up so many softballs for me to take a swing at, but it has been a while since I posted with any regularity, and I understand they are looking to get me started back up with as few excuses as possible. I guess they were feeling like it was time to give me some good material. Enter the pre-trip e-mails to provide today's episode. I guess the e-mails can actually be traced back almost a full year. That was when we started the discussion about where we were going to go this year. Those of you who are unaware of our annual trip up to this point, I probably need to provide some background. About 5 years ago, my Mom (affectionately referred to as Gramma G most the time) decided that she would spend our future inheritance in as frivolous a manner as humanly possible. She was going to go out and create her own boy band with the dough, but after the spectacle that Justin Timberlake made of himself at the superbowl (and the way it nearly destroyed the FCC and cost Uncle Aaron his job), she just couldn't justify that anymore. Her next plan was to create a colony for wayward librarians who were unable to successfully transition from the Dewey Decimal System to the modern conveniences of the Internet. This also ended up being a disappointment to her when she discovered that nobody actually ever understood the Dewey Decimal System in the first place and all of the books she kept asking people to file for the last 40 years of her life had instead been merely color coded. You can imagine her dismay and inability to face the fact that she had wasted the better part of her life learning that 542.223540 was supposed to be reserved for a history of pre-colonial Latvia, and not Little Bear Finds a Stream. Instead of facing the harsh reality that her two lifelong dreams might never be realized and instead of giving up in the face of challenge, she decided that she would find a way to squander what was rightfully mine by forcing all of us to pile into a large seaside house for a week each year.

And the caveat was that we would rotate who chose the destination (actually this part of the equation was added on my suggestion three years ago, so that we wouldn't keep being stuck at Crescent Beach in the condo I broke into dozens of times in my teenage years). This family was responsible for picking the area, finding a house to rent, organizing the details and choosing the week. This year that responsibility fell on Aaron and Kathy who decided that instead of embracing the heat of the Summer, it might be nice to rent a house where the average daytime temperature just a couple of ticks below 130 degrees. To me this seemed completely reasonable. In fact, it seemed downright delightful. We had spent the last three years in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina beaches respectively. I was thrilled that somebody was going to have the courage to pick something north of the Mason-Dixon line for a getaway, but you would have thought they had decided to park our asses in Uzbekistan for vacation with the turmoil that ensued. First, the thought of Maine was incomprehensible to one of my sisters (I have searched my memory bank to the best of my ability and unfortunately the details are extremely sketchy. Most of my short-term memory gets blended together now, which is why it's so tragic that the BBQ story is on hold now. All I know is that both of my sisters were bitching about something about going to Maine. Who did what bitching and exactly when the bitching took place, that might be anybody's guess. The nice thing is that in about two hours when both of them figure out that I have posted about them, there will be a rebuttal where they unequivocally deny any wrongdoing and blame somebody else--just part of the amusement my friends--stay tuned). When they showed us a picture of this absolutely gorgeous old farmhouse , you can only imagine the hell that broke loose. We were still at the South Carolina house at the time and Kim and I thought it was absolutely amazing. For the sake of the story, I'll take a stab here and say Rebecca was pissed off because there wasn't a pool. Shari was upset because there were too few King sized beds or some other damn reason that this house wouldn't work for either one.

For two weeks after we got back from SC, they e-mailed back and forth about the horrors that awaited us if they chose the farm house. It turned out that the house was on the market and the only rentals available were Monday to Monday, so they ended up ditching that as an option. Shari spent countless hours online finding a better house for them to choose (because Lord only knows they would be able to handle such a thing on their own. Now that I think about it, the house that Kim and I ultimately ended up choosing in The Outer Banks the prior year has been claimed by at least Shari and Gramma G separately as though they were Ponce de Freakin' Leon finding the fountain of nice beachfront houses. Everybody has to butt their ass in and take the credit, regardless of their role). The house she found was too far from the beach for Rebecca, so it just wouldn't work for anybody. To their credit, Aaron and Kathy stayed the course, send obligatory e-mails making sure that everybody had a chance to offer legitimate reservations about this particular house in Scarborough and ultimately picked one on their own. I assure you that when it isn't perfect next week, Shari will pipe up about how if we picked the house she found, none of these problems would exist. The only way that doesn't happen is if she reads this thing and runs to a closet every time she feels the compulsion to tell the world that her house would have been far superior.

Once the house is settled upon, there isn't much interaction regarding the summer rental until Thanksgiving when we rehash everything at some poor sap's house. Other than that, the topic gets dropped until about two weeks prior to the event. (Sorry to interrupt, but if you were going crazy trying to remember that US Rep's name it was Gary Condit--just took a break and Googled that dead Levy chick) One of my biggest issues with the summer trip the past couple of years has been the grocery thing. Nothing should be simpler, but you would think it was the Salt II talks trying to orchestrate food at this week long summit. It seems that every year, we arrive at our destination and there is a huge uproar about who needs to go and get the groceries for the week. In 2005, we were the first to arrive, we were the ones who picked out the house and we were waiting around to check into the house anyway, so we were volunteered to forage for everybody else. It wouldn't have been any kind of issue except for the fact that everybody in my family is a complete pain in the ass (those of you who do not consider yourselves complete pain in the asses, I apologize, but when it comes to the grocery thing and you're a blood relative, you are a complete pain in the ass). We were told (that differs a great deal from asked politely) what to get everybody and there were some extensive lists provided. When we were finally able to check into the house, we weren't greeted by one Thank you for saving them time and energy. Instead we were inundated with a barrage of individuals whining about how we got the wrong kind of breakfast cereal or we didn't get nearly enough bananas for the week or it was supposed to be caffeine free Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper or how could we get ground beef, but no ground turkey. So instead of being thanked for our efforts, we were instead chastised and sent back out to fetch the right items to satisfy their slovenly needs. At that point, I was more than happy to escape for a couple of hours. Somehow, the next year, though we were among the last to arrive, I was again volunteered for the thankless, never-ending food run.

Thankfully, Aaron took the initiative this year to send out an e-mail two weeks ago to try to ascertain everybody's particular needs for the week with regard to food. He volunteered to make a trip to the store before we arrived and eliminate so many of the problems that have cropped up over the last several years. Some of my family members took this gesture as an invitation to provide 60-70 specific items that had a range and scope that some might think to be unfathomable. Where else are you going to find a list that includes 1% Milk, 2% Chocolate Milk, Milk Duds, Milquetoast, a Breast Milk Pump, Spicy Jalapeno Cheez-Its, Boar's Head Rare Roast Beef sliced using the #3 setting on the meat slicer, and designer colostomy bags? You have to be a part of this family to experience such things, and over the next 11 days, you are in for the event of a lifetime. Kim is planning on packing all of our food in our luggage (she has completely turned into Meemaw, by the way--I can't wait to see how the 9 lbs of bacon holds up between my boxer shorts and frozen chicken). This is what my life has become.

The next e-mail fiasco has taken place over the last 24 hours and involves the obligatory photo shoot that we now find ourselves mired in on an annual basis. I don't understand this whole process. While we were growing up, Gramma and Grampa G had one family photo taken--one! I am forever enshrined on the wall in their study sporting a blue collared shirt with all the colors of the gay and lesbian coalition flag striped horizontally across my proud chest, a pair of tan courdoroys and a cheesy grin that hasn't faded in nearly 30 years on their wall. So now, suddenly, we are forced to dress up in the same outfits every freaking summer so we can have the same damn people in the same damn picture with the same damn background for some damn reason. I am yet to figure it out. The 5x7 collectors item I received two years ago still maintains a special place in my heart. Are you kidding me? What is the point? So not only do we have to waste an entire afternoon posing again and again and again, "OK, now let's do one with just the boys. Great. Now let's do one with all the brothers and sisters. Great." Now let's shoot me in the spleen if I have to go through this again.

We have received no less than 10 e-mails today back and forth about the necessity for all of us to wear khaki pants and a white shirt (except for the girls who need to be in white dresses). Rebecca seems to relish her role as official dresser of our family for photo shoot day and is instrumental in choosing outfits for all of us that make us look like the Bobsy Twins in the twisted grips of mesculin binge. What kind of white shirt. . .Can it be a button down. . . can it be a t-shirt. . .can it have writing on it. . .We don't have khaki pants. . . This year, we are going to have our guests who are brave enough to actually show up to our rental next week take the photos for us. Very nice. "Hey thanks for making the 4 hour drive up here. I hope you brought a camera--we'd love for you to take family photos for us until sundown. Thanks so much."

Here's my solution. How about we skip a year of the exact same family photo (sorry, there are two new kids this year, so the photo would be completely different this time around). Why don't we give them a year of growing and then take the picture every couple of years. We somehow made it through an entire childhood with one family portrait. I am almost positive, we could take one summer off and we would all survive. Oh great, now I'm the bad guy--see how that works. I have been tracking Kim's stress level daily on a scale from 1-10. We call it the Annual Stressed- (Summer House)-Out Level (Or ASSHOL for short). Right now her ASSHOL is a 9 and rising.

All I know is that there are days and days of fun ahead for all of us to enjoy. I am going to do all I can to provide you with an up close and personal look into the beast that is the annual beach house trip. Trust me when I say that it is not going to always be pretty. But I assure you if you take a step back from the natural rage that accompanies every interaction with my family, amusement abounds. You are in for a treat. Hopefully I can sneak in a day to finish the BBQ thing, but it took me 6 years to find out that Chandra Levy was found dead in a park outside of Washington, DC, how long do you think it might take to hear about the White Trash Bacon Wraps on the 4th of July in Frisco, TX?

BBQs Galore--Frisco Style Part II

2007-07-07T07:45:00.000-07:00

Sunday Night, July 1st aka Burger Battle

After being the main participant in the creation of hot dog night, we were able to take the night off for the Burger Battle at Alex and Christine's house. One of my favorite parts of being associated with this group of neighbors is that there is no let down from one event to the next. With just as much passion and care that we tried to exhibit with the previous evening, Alex put into his burger entry. We invited Chris next door to participate with his offering as well and we were immediately immersed in the most confounding burger creations that have been exhibited in the state of Texas. First and foremost, here in Big D, we are lovers of beef. There must be 30 prime steak houses and hundreds and hundreds of slab o' beef type places in the metroplex. Just behind steak houses are the burger joints, and there are countless mom and pop places as well as local chains and the larger national places. One thing that they all have in common is that they pay an almost lustful homage to beef. There are probably a couple of those barn looking places that'll let you go and pick your own black angus cow out of the pasture like it was a lobster and they'll butcher it right there for you and slap that Porterhouse right on your platter. (If nobody has come up with that genius idea yet, count me on board for making it happen--how could that possibly go wrong?)

So here in Texas, any burger battle would have to start with the finest cuts of ground beef, nurtured into delicate patties and embraced for all of its bovine goodness--mooooo indeed. If that was what you might be looking for by attending this grand event, unfortunately you would have been sadly disappointed. There were a couple of obligatory beef patties for the kids, but Alex and Chris would have nothing to do with cattle on this day. Prior to the enjoyment of the burgers, however, Alex made sure we were treated to the proper ensemble of pre-burger nutrients. As always, there was an antipasto platter. This time we had a variety of Muenster and Pepperjack cheeses, Hungarian Salami, Italian Prosciutto and crackers. He also put together a grilled tomato appetizer (fresh from his garden) which he stuffed with fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, homemade pesto and a squeeze of lemon. I am not usually a fan of tomatoes, but these were fantastic--a perfect combination of flavors: the sweetness of the tomato, the saltiness of the prosciutto, and the tartness of the lemon all gave way to the rich pesto and creamy mozzarella. As we waited for Chris to arrive, we enjoyed a few of these to say the least.

The main course was obviously the hamburger. In addition to the beef patties for the kids, Alex created a buffalo burger stuffed with Muenster cheese. For some reason, people are intimidated by Buffalo as a protein option, and I truly have no idea why. I can promise you that if you had a Buffalo burger one time and nobody told you that it wasn't beef, you would almost certainly have nary an inkling that it was something other than beef. You probably might think it was just a better grade than what you are used to eating. It is very consistent, extremely lean and incredibly flavorful with absolutely no gaminess. It is better for you than beef (I realize now that living in Texas, this might be the worst thing I could possibly say--I'd better call Oprah and find out how she handled the backlash from the Beef Council--hey, it's still almost always what's for dinner). To me, the Buffalo burgers were perfect. If you aren't willing to take a risk creating food this week for this venue, I don't know what to tell you. While some were gun shy about trying the bison, those who did were treated to an outstanding burger creation.

Chris is a little bit of a perfectionist and his food preparation is a labor of love (his words, not mine). He showed up predictably a bit later than everybody else. A couple of things I have learned to count on with regard to Chris is that he almost never is the first arrival to any event, and that he is always well worth the wait. His contribution on this day was lamb burgers. He used a seasoned ground lamb topped with arugula and a cucumber yogurt. He brushed his hand selected buns with an extra virgin olive oil before lightly toasting them on the grill. I would love to share with you the splendors that I am absolutely unequivocally certain were represented by this Burger creation. However, due to circumstances beyond my control, I did not have the opportunity to taste this marvel.

After two nights of staying up late, Lauren had hit her wall early this evening. Kim decided that she needed to get Lauren home and tucked in because the night was quickly disintegrating. After finishing my Buffalo burger, I went over to the house to check on them and to see if I could bring Kim something to eat or to switch out and let Kim return to Alex and Christine's house. They were laying down in my bed when I got there and she said that they were fine. By the time I got back to the festivities, they were putting all the food away and I had missed my chance to try the lamb burger delight.

I was probably the only person there who missed out on a lamb burger that was actually disappointed that I missed out. Alex and Chris both made sure that they got to enjoy both varieties of the old classic gone wild. As they took turns taking bites and babbling to each other endlessly how incredible it was, I imagined only what could have been. On the other hand, while Kim is truly getting more adventurous in her dining exploits, I still think that she would have passed on a lamb burger drenched in a cucumber yogurt topping no matter what the occasion. I almost definitely could have gotten her to try a Buffalo burger, but there would have been certain trepidation. Brad of the appendicitis fame was back for the burger battle, but his appetite had been greatly reduced and he couldn't find room for a second burger--even though Brad has a somewhat meat and potatoes palate, he does usually try anything one time, so he would have at least ventured into the world of lamb on a bun. Gillian was so enraptured in her Buffalo burger (unbeknownst to her that it was buffalo until she was 3/4 the way done) never even feigned interest in a second burger. Christine also called it quits after the Buffalo Muensterosity. Stacy wanted no part of anything that didn't come from good 'ol US Beef, and when it became apparent that those offerings would only be available to the kids, she went to her freezer and had Alex whip her up a Gardenburger. He begrudgingly grilled it up for her and mumbled and muttered under his breath about "the freaking veggieburger" for at least three days. The thought of her delving into the lamb was almost as realistic as the idea of Kim going on a 3 day bender at a sushi bar. Those who were daring enough to partake of the lamb burgers were no doubt afforded a treat that the rest of us can only imagine. The next time I have the opportunity, I will most certainly not allow it to slip away again. Hopefully I won't have to wait past Labor Day!

Part III tomorrow

BBQs Galore--Frisco Style Part I

2007-07-06T10:34:00.000-07:00

Whenever you move into a new neighborhood, there is always that sense of curiosity mixed with anxious energy because you really don't know what you are getting yourselves into. At first glance, you can stroll down the lovely tree-lined streets and see kids riding their training-wheel enriched bikes with Moms and Dads cheering them on. You can listen to the high-pitched whistling of the crap creating flying rats that seem to inundate all towns throughout the world (any Audubon society members out there, please don't take offense, but birds should be entirely outlawed in at least 41 states). The abundant flower beds busting at the seams, silhouetting the elegant brick or stucco homes. It always seems remarkably idyllic, but you never see the dark side teeming beneath the surface of these suburban minefields.

After a few weeks in a new house, the routine of the neighborhood begins to take shape. You know who are the "regular folks" and you also realize whose yard you need to make sure your kids don't accidentally allow their Frisbees to escape in. There are also those houses where you never see anybody except for the obligatory wave as they pull out of the driveway on their way to their anonymous job, just as certainly as you can pretty much guess which house is never going to move that 1974 blue-gray Pinto hatchback from the side of the yard.

Over the years in our ventures, we have encountered a wide variety of neighbor. Sometimes this can be construed as a great thing (our first house in Anthem) and other times it can be precariously uncomfortable (our second house in Anthem). Here in beautiful and soggy North Texas, we have a veritable bouillabaisse of neighbors to choose from, and the incredible combination of all of them makes life extraordinarily interesting. We have the really annoying neighbors on one side, who always feel the need to bitch and moan about their lives without regard to any body's actual interest level. Fortunately, that house is a rental and eventually, their house will be built and they will actually move away, though after six months of promises, I am getting further and further away from believing they will ever freaking leave. We have the downright rude neighbors on the other side who refuse to make eye contact with anybody for fear that they might turn to stone. Lord knows the consequences when their five year old actually smiles and waves at somebody. Their 13 year old daughter dutifully stares straight down at the sidewalk as she passes the houses on her way from the bus stop to the front door. Very pleasant and sociable.

Truth be told, these are the exception to our neighborhood, not the rule. Aside from those two miscreant households, we have an incredible wealth of fantastic neighbors to choose from. It has been a while since I posted anything, and I am pretty sure I introduced the world to some of these people at some point, but we have three sets of truly amazing friends across the street from us in the forms of Brad and Stacy, Alex and Christine, and Chris and Gillian. Pretty much every night after the kids have been put to bed, any combination of them comes over to sit on our front porch, sip a glass or two of wine (better yet, a couple of glasses of scotch), and recount the highlights of the day. No matter how challenging the day might have been, I can almost always count on finishing on a high note and fighting the urge to stay up another hour chatting with our friends. I wouldn't trade this part of my day for anything, and it doesn't matter if it is all eight of us sitting out there (or up to ten of us when Shari or Meemaw and Poppy Joe come to town) or just three of us, I know that my day ends on a high note. I guess at some point in our lives, the simplest things have the broadest appeal to us, and sipping scotch with friends on my front porch is among my favorite things these days.

Last Thursday, as we were sitting there, somebody came up with an idea that we really go and blow the doors off this 4th of July thing and expand upon the greatness that is the Granddaddy of all patriotic holidays. Instead of cramming a BBQ into one afternoon, why couldn't we break it up a little bit and have multiple dinners throughout the weekend and into the holiday on the 4th? I mean, if one day of cooking out with the family is pretty good, wouldn't five days of a culinary extravaganza with all the neighbors be absolutely incredible? We batted around a few ideas, and eventually came up with the following itinerary for Independence Week 2007:

Friday Night--Pizza night location TBD (Brad & Stacy weren't there for the conversation, but were insistent that they would take care of the Pizza Night)

Saturday Night--Hot Dog Blowout at our house

Sunday--Burger Battle at Alex and Christine's house

Monday--Nothing

Tuesday--Italian Festival at Chris and Gillian's house

Wednesday--BBQ Royale in the street (eventually relocated to another neighbor Bill's house)

We prattled on about who was going to be responsible for what meals, what each of us could bring, what time we would be undertaking each of these events and had a pretty good skeleton for the week. Kim, Christine and Gillian sat there and smiled and nodded without offering much to the conversation. Chris, Alex and I on the other hand kept trying to one-up one another and before we went to bed on Thursday, we were geared up for an onslaught of neighborly dining. This certainly wasn't the first time that we had enjoyed having everybody come over for dinner. In reality, we probably have a get together once every couple of weeks at somebody's house, but we had never gone to this length in such a short time period. I was pretty pumped up about it. Kim--not so much. We came in from outside and in my scotch-soaked thought process, I couldn't have been more excited.

"This is going to be awesome, don't you think?"
"Awesome?"
"We are going to have so much fun. We've got the whole week planned!"
"That's an awful lot of neighbors."
"What do you mean. I thought you liked everybody."
"I do. I love every one of them, but that is a lot of time to spend with anybody."

She gave me that look that makes me realize I am a complete idiot. I thought about it for a second and she was almost certainly right. Maybe everybody else would come to the same conclusion and we would end up paring it down to maybe pizza night on Friday and a BBQ on the 4th. That would be plenty of time with the neighbors and we wouldn't end up killing each other's children by the end of the week--not exactly the way you want to remember Independence Day. . .
"Hunter what are you doing for the 4th this year?"

"Oh, I dunno. Probably the same as every year, going to go and visit Mom and Dad in the Klink. What about you guys?"

I figured on Friday morning, everybody's wife would have talked some sense into them and we would end up simplifying the week's agenda signifiantly. At work the next day, however, I checked my hotmail account and saw about 20 messages back and forth from all of the concerned parties about how much they were looking forward to all these meals this week. Stacy and Brad had volunteered to handle the Pizza that night and all of the chatter looked like everybody was pretty damn excited. Before anything could be remedied, we were being swept up in a wave of enthusiasm that would not be contained. The week's festivities were on.

Friday Night, June 29th aka Pizza Night

While we were thrilled that Brad and Stacy had volunteered to host Friday's prelude to the week that lay ahead, it was far and away the simplest of any of the evenings. Brad picked up three pizzas from Market Street (very good pizza for a grocery store by the way) and we had a few beers, ate some pizza and relaxed. It couldn't have been any easier. We often get together on Friday night for pizza as a group, so this really wasn't anything different. After dinner, the guys went upstairs to Brad's media room and watched Borat and laughed hysterically. The ladies walked across the street to our house to do lord knows what and the kids ran around in every direction like recently uncaged monkeys. Things were moving along swimmingly until we got through about half of Borat and Brad suddenly started complaining about stomach pain. He had just eaten a bunch of pizza and had jalapenos with his lunch, so we didn't really think too much of it. We were wrapped up in our movie and didn't even notice he had left the room and was lying downstairs on the couch for the last 45 minutes.
We ended up taking off and told Stacy that he seemed to be in a lot of pain on the couch. Gillian and Chris brought over some high powered gas relief. Kim mentioned that she thought it might be his appendix because the pain was about six inches above his bellybutton. Alex and I poured ourselves a 12 year old Balvenie Doublewood and relaxed in our patio chairs as the circus of activity regarding Brad's stomach went on around us. The kids went to bed and Stacy never returned as she nursed Brad back to health with his upset tummy--wimp.
We retired for the evening at about 11:30 and I quickly fell asleep until we were awoken at 1:45 with the phone ringing. It was Stacy and she was bringing Brad to the hospital. Kim made her way across the street to watch the boys and sleep on their couch. I went back to sleep and woke up the next morning taking care of the four hulking labs that we suddenly found ourselves parenting (if that sounds like two more than you remembered from the last time I wrote, don't worry, we'll get to that story line another time--too much ground to cover right now). By 9:00, we had heard from Stacy again. Brad indeed had appendicitis and they were getting set to remove the little bastard from his belly. All right, so maybe it wasn't the jalapenos, but he is still a wimp. Tyler and Connor woke up on Saturday morning to find Kim on their couch and wanted to know where their parents were. When they were told, Connor was pissed off because he was supposed to get a hermit crab that morning and now he might have to wait a whole day. Tyler was less put out by these developments, but every bit as concerned about Brad's health. He was more like "Oh. . . Can we go play at your house now Mrs. Kim?"
The level of compassion for the Dads out there is always immense. Stacy came home from the hospital around 3:00 and the only thing she mentioned was that she was so upset she would be missing hot dog night. Pathetic!

Saturday Night, June 30 aka Hot Dog Blowout

I wasn't about to let our night to shine slip away without giving forth full effort. While I realize that hot dog night might not sound like much on the surface, I was determined to create the finest evening of frankfurter delight that the world has ever known. I put some thoughts together about what would comprise a perfect hot dog for me, and then thought of all the ingredients that might be viable accompaniments to others' enjoyment of the All-American favorite.

We weren't going to grab a couple of Ball Park Franks off the rack at Kroger, throw some yellow mustard and ketchup out there and let people fend for themselves on stale hot dog buns. That is not what the 2007 Hot Dog Blowout was about, at least not in my mind. We had to provide more--we had to draw a line in the sand and create a standard, nay a benchmark from which all Hot Dog Blowouts that might follow by future generations would dream of achieving. But how? How indeed.

The vitality of each component could not be understated. We needed to provide variety that might appeal to a broad range. The goal was to create a sense that all guests would want to try several varieties and combinations. Variety couldn't just be about the dog itself--it had to be about the buns, the condiments, the preparation of the condiments, the accouterments, etc. We (and when I say we, I do so because Kim was involved in the shopping trip, but stayed as far away from me as humanly possible because she was confident that I was completely insane throughout the process. I take full responsibility for any insane idea, premise and outcome) picked up the groceries from Market Street and went home to start preparations for what would ultimately become a legendary night of hot dog nirvana.

As I am starting to become increasingly aware, this like so many postings in the past is starting to become somewhat lengthy. Though I am certain that each of you reading this are overwrought with anticipation of knowing the details of this meal, I might need to skip to the chase and just describe the finished product.

We ended up with grilled Johnsonville Brauts, Hebrew National and Boars Head hot dogs, three kinds of toasted buns, homemade chili, sauerkraut, grilled onions, grilled red peppers, diced onions, sweet relish, homemade dill relish, pickles, yellow mustard, dijon mustard, spicy mustard, horseradish cream, mayonnaise (don't know why, but some freak might have wanted it), ketchup, BBQ sauce, sliced jalapenos, and grated cheese. We also had baked potato salad, bbq baked beans, cole slaw, and 4 varieties of chips. Our counter could barely contain the bounty. I watched as one neighbor after another sauntered up to the counter to take another stab at the perfect creation. Alex and Chris continued to amaze me with their creativity and appetite. Alex ended up with a bowl of chili for an appetizer, a braut, and two absolutely over the top creations with at least 8 ingredients on each one. It was magical, and it was only later in the festivities that I realized I could have done the entire event without any brauts--the hotdogs were being gobbled up at an 8 to 1 ratio.
As far as my creation went, I had a Boars Head frank with chili, mustard, ketchup, diced onion, grilled onion, homemade dill relish and diced cheddar/jack cheese. It may have been the most magical hot dog of my life. I actually wept.

Part II tomorrow

Week Two Reality Check

2006-09-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

The single greatest mistake a sports bettor can make is putting too much stock into one game's results. It is the easiest thing to do, after all, because the event is so fresh in our mind. I say this because we only have one week's worth of effort from each of the 32 teams, and yet most of us have already made up our minds about the lifeline of our respective teams.
A great example of this dynamic is the 2001 New England Patriots. For those of you who do not remember this team, a week before the season kicked off, the Patriots released Lawyer Milloy because of salary cap issues, even though he was an immensely talented and popular player still in what would be considered to be the prime of his career. Looking at that singular event based on the fact that the Patriots had yet to do much as a team up to that point gave most fans of that team a bleeding ulcer. One week later, the Patriots went up against a Buffalo team who had picked up the recently released Milloy and the result of that game was a 37-0 pasting at the hands of the Bills. If you were able to find a supporter of Bill Bellichick in the New England area that Monday morning, I would like to hire you as a private detective sometime.
A funny thing happened sometime after that game. The team realized that they were either going to have to find a way to play without the intimidating presence of Lawyer Milloy at strong safety or they were going to be the worst team in the NFL. A few months later, that same team was hoisting the Superbowl trophy in New Orleans 0after Adam Vinatieri broke the hearts of the heavily favored St. Louis Rams in one of the greatest Superbowls in history. If we made decisions about teams based on one week's worth of data, we would have no reason to watch the rest of the season. Realize that nobody is probably as good as they looked in week one and nobody is probably as bad as they looked in week one.
But Vegas loves this stuff. In the NFL, you don't get double digit spreads very often. Unless you have the Colts from last year going against the 49ers of last year, double digit spreads just don't happen in the NFL. Teams are too evenly matched due to salary caps, draft order, injuries, depth and scheduling. Somehow, however, we have five games with double digit spreads in one week. This is not because the fools in Vegas actually believe that there are five mismatches so obscene in the same week that they were forced to push the line that high. It is because the idiots out there (you and I included by the way) are so impressed by one team due to one game that the line gets pushed off the charts and out of whack. The problem, of course is that we still don't really know anything. Is Baltimore's defense really back to being the most dominant in all of football, or was Tampa's offensive horror show last week due to the injuries on an already suspect offensive line. Is Oakland the worst run franchise in all of sports or is San Diego just primed for a huge bounce back season. It is too early to tell my friends, so we must do what all good, smart gamblers do and remove the glitz and emotion from the equation and strip down our picks to what we do know (or at least what we really think we know). Confused yet. Good--it's week two you are supposed to be freaking confused. Here are this week's prognostications:

Oakland at Baltimore-12.5 This is one of those spreads that is just dripping with recent memory. Baltimore looked like world beaters last week and Oakland looked like they would get their asses kicked by Alameda High's JV squad with half of their starting offense out due to academic ineligibility. I generally caution against spreads like this one, but this game could be the springboard we need to make a ton of money betting against Baltimore in coming weeks. I just can't imagine Oakland actually scoring in this game. Baltimore will look like world beaters after two shutouts in a row and people will be jumping on their bandwagon so quickly that the spread for probably the next three weeks will be artificially too high. Stay tuned sportsfans, these picks might be real easy in the next few weeks when it comes to the overhyped, overrated Raven defense. For this week, things continue to be ugly in Oaktown. Ravens 20 Raiders 3

Houston at Indianapolis -13.5 Indianapolis just had to get through that absurd Manning bonanza on Sunday night where we were force to watch 38 commercials involving one or all of the Mannings. I just can't take it anymore. Is Peyton Manning that interesting an advertisement? How many freaking companies have jumped on this guy for their marketing needs? I may never understand the draw, but we've got another one of these lines that makes you cringe. Can you really lay some cash on Houston--on Houston? Thorin--Thorin?? (Sorry, DJ is probably the only guy out there who knows what the hell that one means, Maybe Matt R.) You Have to take the dog in this game. Indy has to prove to me that they can cover a big spread without Edge. Houston generally plays them closer than most of us would like to recall. Indy should win comfortably, but not quite two touchdowns. Colts 31 Texans 20

Cleveland at Cincinnati -10 Cleveland is one of those teams that intrigues me. Later in the season, you are not going to want to play these guys. They are getting many of their quality offensive players back and you never know which week they will break out of their dormancy. Cleveland is a football mad city and they just need a little spark to get things going. Cincinnati is an opportunistic defense (because most teams are playing catch up with their high powered offense and they can make a team one dimensional). I trust that Romeo Crennell understands this and will slow down the game from the outset. I expect some baby steps this week and a close physical game that catches the Bengals sleeping. Bengals 17 Browns 16

Buffalo at Miami -6.5 I don't get the Miami bandwagon. They have an aging defense and a quarterback learning a new system with a surgically repaired knee. 6 and a half points seems really high going against a Buffalo team who looked pretty good against New England last week. It used to be pretty cut and dry that Miami would roll out of the gate strong and build their record to either 5-0 or 6-1. The whole freaking world would jump on the Dolphin brigade only to see them start to unravel and limp into the playoffs with a 10-6 record only to get stomped in the first round. For some reason, they have gotten away from this routine and I couldn't be more disappointed. Nothing like being able to count on something these days. Going back to my belief that week one doesn't mean that much, I am going to ignore what I saw last week from Miami and Buffalo and go with my gut (not my emotion because I would angrily pick against anything from South Florida every stinking week) Dolphins 27 Bills 13

Detroit at Chicago -8.5 Detroit looked pretty damn good last week. They shut down the vaunted Seattle attack and held them to field goals in a three point loss. I don't believe that Chicigo's offense is better than Seattle's even under the most pristine conditions, and yet the Bears are a staggering eight and a half point favorite. Is this because they shut out that horrible Green Bay squad last week? Or is it because nobody buys that Detroit is that good? I like the direction they are heading in Detroit. They weren't happy with a moral victory last week and some jackass on their team guaranteed a win at Chicago this week. Detroit is one of those franchises that does just enough to get into a position to blow the game and why should this week be any different. White Sox 10 Tigers 7

Carolina at Minnesota -1.5 How in the world is Minnesota favored in this game. I love it. A week ago, we were anointing Carolina as the NFC Supergbowl representative. Minnesota was a first year coach and an over the hill game manager at QB, and now suddenly the Panthers are a road dog. Did anybody else see this team run roughshod through the playoffs on the road last season? Expect a statement game and the Viking players looking for the first party barge out of Lake Minnetonka. Also pay attention this year to the team that wins on Monday night. They almost never cover the following week. They sometimes win, but they almost never cover. This week, they do neither. Panthers 31 Vikings 9

New York Giants at Philadelphia -3 The Giants lost a heartbreaker and Philly got fat against the Texans. The Eagles have a long way to go to prove to me that they are back as the class of the NFC East--the toughest division in football from what I've been told. Oh wait, they were 1 and 3 last week, weren't they? Yeah, maybe we should hold off on anointing this division as the mightiest in all the land for at least one more week. Giants 20 Eagles 13

Tampa Bay at Atlanta -5.5 I still feel like I have throw up in my mouth after last Sunday. Thank God I had to work through most of the game and didn't know what had happened until early in the third quarter. I remember many years ago when I actually did put wagers down now and again that I learned a valuable lesson about betting on or against my beloved Bucs. I lost money every freaking time. It got to the point that I wouldn't event consider betting on them, because it was tantamount to playing the lottery or throwing $100 bills out the sunroof. You just can't take your heart out of it--not really. For the sake of the rest of you, understand that I don't feel good about any of this, but until their offensive line finds a way to patch itself up, I don't see Cadillac getting any running lanes and corners will be able to squeeze the routes knowing that there is a safety waiting over the top. It could be a long early portion of the season (it was only one game. it was only one game. it was only one game) There's that vomit taste again. Falcons 23 Bucs 9

New Orleans at Green Bay +2.5 New Orleans just makes out like a bandit getting another pushover in week two. How does this team get this schedule, when Tampa doesn't play against a team with a losing record from last year until they come up against the Saints, I may never know. Oh well, we can only play the games we're scheduled. Break up the Saints. Sean Payton for Head Coach of the Year. Wrap it up now. Expect at least three Favre interceptions and Reggie Bush getting into the end zone for the first time, and maybe the second time as well. Saints 27 Packers 2

St Louis at San Francisco +3 The Rams might be onto something. While the Niners remain the finest team in the Bay area and did actually score some points last week, they are still a four win team at the most. Their wins are not coming this week. Lay the points, take the Rams, collect your cash. Rams 24 Niners 13

Arizona at Seattle -7 They may not be able to stop anybody this year--In fact they let the Niners put up 30 plus on them last week, but the Cardinal offense is for real. By the time the season is over, there might not be a more fun offense to watch and that includes the Bengals and the Colts. Seattle needs to figure out a way to run the ball on that left side because they looked Gawd-awful last week against the Lions. I wonder if they can find Steve Hutchison's cell phone number at this point and explain that it was a big misunderstanding. I don't expect that the Deion Branch signing will make the Squawks any better for this week. They should have just enough to win, but they really need to figure out that line quickly if they want to cover. Seahawks 27 Cardinals 23

New England at New York Jets +6 This is a classic case of making too much out of week one and in the case of the Jets I should say Weak one. The Jets beat the Titans, who are really bad. I don't think that there is much love lost between NY and New England in general and Eric Mangini did not leave with the heartfelt goodbyes that were tearfully expressed to Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennell. I expect Brady and company to remind the Jets that they are indeed the Jets this week. Patriots 34 Jets 10

Tennessee at San Diego -11.5 As much as this pains me, I must stick to my guns. San Diego should run rough shod over the Titans, but these double digit spreads for a team that won on Monday night. I have to take the dog. I can't do it. Be strong, stay the course, this is like hitting on 16 against a King. You know that you probably are going to bust, but there is no other way to win. Chargers 17 Titans 10

Kansas City at Denver -10.5 This spread is only based upon the fact that Trent Green is still wondering what kind of fertilizer they use on the turf where he buried his skull this past weekend. Kansas City could be in for a long season, even when Green returns because they really, really, really miss Willie Roaf. That 2500 yards for Larry Johnson talk might have been a bit premature after all. Broncos 27 Chiefs 13

Washington at Dallas -7 No Clinton Portis. No chance for the Skins. This is a big rivalry and living here in Dallas, they do still take it seriously. Seven might be a shade high for the point spread here, but it feels about right. The Cowboys start believing their ludicrous aspirations to be a Superbowl contender after a shaky victory against the hapless Skins. I can't wait to go to work to hear all about it on Monday. Cowboys 24 Redskins 9

Pittsburgh at Jacksonville +2.5 And finally, the Monday night extravagganza. Do not expect Jacksonville to roll over and play dead. Pittsburgh is going to start to feel the pressure of having a target on their back. The Jaguars are one of those teams that has always given the Steelers fits and they enjoy a physical match up. I would expect Jacksonville to be fully prepared for Upchuck Batch or Big Ben. Being a home dog always puts a huge chip on really good team's shoulders. This one might get ugly. Jaguars 27 Steelers 10

Good luck to each of you in your selections. As always these picks are for educational purposes only.

Last Week 10-6

Season 10-6

Dumb as a Freaking Post

2006-09-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

You never want to bring your kids with you when you are picking out a new dog. Nothing good can possibly come from it. You could be looking at a flea infested mutant of a mutt with chewed off ears and a severe limp from the fact that he was missing at least one full apendage, but those kids get up close and look at those cute little puppy eyes and you are stuck taking the little freak home.
Sometimes Kim and I just don't think things through. While we were going through our big move at the end of May, we found that we were so caught up in getting everything done with the house that suddenly Hunter's birthday was upon us and we had yet to come up with a reasonable idea for a present. We choked under the pressure and decided that we would get him a dog of his very own. As we were going to be away for a week in mid-July, we were able to push off the grand purchase until we returned.
We got a paper on the Sunday morning after we got back from Myrte Beach and made a couple of phone calls to find yellow lab puppies in the area. Aparently there is no shortage of lab breeders in the North Texas area, because there must have been at least 20 listings. With no real way to tell them apart, I called one number and found a breeder who was about 30 minutes from here, so we loaded up the family and drove out to the outskirts of the outskirts as it were and into the sketchiest part of town that probably existed within a 500 mile radius. The name of the town was Culleoka and it had long ago been abandoned by any self-respecting being. We had to meet at some convenience/grocery store because they wanted to guide us down the homestretch to the sprawling estate. As the sweet strumming of the banjos from Deliverance echoed in the background, we pulled up to the yelping and barking of a truly magical environment for raising purebred labs.
Realize, of course that we were eschewed in the middle of the second hottest summer on record here in the Dallas area and these puppies were living in the squalor of their own feces, in what could only be described as idyllic in my opinion. Were Kim and I by ourselves, we never stop at the convenience store, never follow this crazy 80 year old inbred freak to her mobile home complex (at least she lived on the cul-de-sac), we never come upon the bizarre brother in law with the garden hose and the creepy eyes, we never listen to how they bathed one of the dogs because we were coming, and we never have to hear about it again. It would have been some sort of crazy story that we would laugh about many years from now. But we had the kids in the car (in fact we had our nephews Tyler and Trevor as well), and when you have the kids in the car and you are picking out a puppy for one of them, you really don't have any recourse. "Hunter, daddy picked a bad phone number out of the paper. We'll call another number and try again tomorrow." I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that strategy might not have held much water and the next 37 minutes of our lives as we bee lined it back to our safe little world would have been filled with the high-pitched screams and shouting that my kids are somewhat famous for on those special occasions.
Instead, we tried to caution the boy with pearls of wisdom like, "You know Hunter, if we don't see the right dog here, we can go and check some of these other places. We don't have to pick one out today. Make sure you really love this dog, because we are going to have him for a long time. . . " We could have told him that these dogs were known to devour their owners in their sleep when they were fully grown and it wouldn't have deterred him. Try telling a kid who is about to get his first real pet of his own that he has to wait another thirty seconds. Let me know how it turns out for you.
So as we exit the minivan, fully realizing that we are entering into the worst possible situation, we come upon the three remaining "puppies" in the litter. The two filthy ones who they didn't want to take the time to clean for us and the one filthy one who they insisted just had a bath. They were flea bitten and skinny, but overall they looked relatively healthy. The parents were both good looking dogs and the puppies were very active. What we were expecting was to find cute little balls of fluff rolling around and chasing each other. When we purchased Wilson, we met him when he was about five weeks old and he (along with all of his brothers and sisters) was just freaking adorable. We brought Lauren to that first meeting, but we didn't need the kids to help pick out Wilson. We were not leaving that house without picking out a dog. These puppies on that hot July afternoon were far from cute, cuddly and adorable. They were big, hulking, rough dogs, who were already 15 weeks old (what we like to call that akward in-between phase). They still had some puppy characteristics, but they were certainly not irresistable. Again, if Kim and I were there alone, we would have politely thanked the inbred hicks and made our way as quickly as humanly possible back up the road to civilization.
Hunter wanted a puppy. In his mind, he had waited since his birthday six weeks ealier, and really since the day he was born. There was no way we were leaving without one. So the marketing strategy ended up working. The less filth-riddled one of the bunch became the obvious choice, even though he kept running away from us, even though the other two were far more playful, we filled out some requisite paperwork. She didn't like dealing with the AKC, so this bohemoth of a mutt is CKC certified. I believe this is some sort of Knights of Columbus affiliation and I am certain that they allow brothers and sisters to breed because those darn AKC people are just hard-headed about such things, so we took our flea-riddled, worm-infested brute of a dog with a two inch overbite and packed the little freak in the car where he spent the next 37 minutes trying to bury himself into the floorboard.
I started asking Hunter what he was going to name the dog. He was deadset on either Jake or Marley. I started offering dozens of great names as did everybody else in the car.

Josh "What do you think about calling him 'Mr. Derrick Brooks?' That's a pretty cool name, don't you think?"
Hunter "Uh. No Dad--that's a horrible name."
Josh "How about Gruden? Doesn't that sound like a tough name. Come here Gruden. Good boy, Gruden. It's got a great ring."
Hunter "I like Marley or Jake"
Kim "You should call him Jake Marley or Marley Jake."
Josh "Isn't Jacob Marley that guy from a Christmas Carol that is dead?"
Kim "Oh yeah, maybe something else."
Hunter "I'm calling him Marley."
Josh "Just because you liked that Marley and Me book doesn't mean you need to call him Marley. How about Dungy? That sounds awesome."
Hunter "Daaad."
Kim "I like Dungy. That does sound cool."
Tyler "How about green?"
Hunter "No Tyler."
Tyler "How about red?
Josh "Those are great names Tyler. I think Hunter might want to stay away from the color wheel for name choices."
Kim "Hunter, it's your dog--you name it whatever you want."
Josh "As long as it's not Marley. Unless of course you're choosing that name to pay homage to Bob Marley. We can listen to some reggae and smoke some spleef---"
Kim "All right--that's enough of that. Hunter. You name the dog whatever you want."
Josh "Old pirates just a robber. Stole I from the merchant ship."
Lauren "Daddy. Stop singing!!"
Hunter "I'm going with Marley."
Kim "Marley it is then."

And thusly, Marley Wilson was christened that day on the 37 minute jaunt from the mobile home hell that we left behind in Culleoka to our home in Frisco. The next 48 hours were pleasant. I went to Petsmart to find some flea medicine and while I was there, my phone rang and I was instructed to purchase some tapeworm medicine as well. Aparently living in the feces of your brothers and sisters for 15 weeks does not necessarily translate into a healthy living environment. Who knew? He refused to eat for the first day and ate very little for the next two days.
We took him to the vet on Monday morning and we got the proper tools for deworming him, got him caught up on his shots and got the stronger flea medication. We were picking off fleas from his body for what seemed like days, but he started to come around after a while. He began to eat with some regularity, much to the dismay of Abby who was enjoying getting the second helping of much needed nutrients twice daily. Abby was busy mauling the runt while she still had the chance, as we kept looking at his enormous meathooks that pretended to be paws knowing full well that within a couple of months, Abby was destined to be his bitch. His peculiar personality began to percolate to the surface. He was very shy and subdued most of the time, but as his appetite started to come back and this got his energy kick started. We realized very quickly that sometimes it is better to have a sweet, shy, intimidated puppy than to have a crazy, revved-up hell child.
Marley started to grow. He greets everybody with his immense paws, usually with his dew claws cutting your thighs and forearms like a boxcutter through packing tape. He has grown to the point that he is as tall as Abby already and obviously still has a way to go. He is still very sweet and will constantly look for human comfort. He has developed a deep, rich bark that he enjoys showing off when it echoes in his kennel at two in the morning.
My favorite aspect of Marley is that he absolutely doesn't get it. You can catch him in the act doing something like peeing in the house (a good gallon at a time usually), grab him by the scruff of the neck, show him what he did, yell "No! Marley. Bad Dog," take him outside, and he still looks at you like its playtime. He'll get up on the couch in the living room only to be removed by myself or Kim (the kids can't get him off of anything at this point). Tell him no. He'll look at you and jump back on the couch with his tail wagging and he'll get himself right back into the same cozy position. After about 10 removals, he starts to look at you as though you are really beginning to annoy him. If there is anything within his reach (which continues to expand on a daily basis), he will help himself and do whatever he can do destroy it. He is especially a fan of undergarments and shoes. Fortunately, that huge overbite of his makes it more difficult for him to do any real damage too quicky, but you always have to be on the alert. Any of the things that are supposed to help deter/train your dog don't seem to resonate with him. You can yell, catch him in the act, smack him in the nose, grab him by his collar, beat him with a stick, poke him with a cattle prod, attach his testes to a car battery, jab him in the eye with a pencil, bash his skull with a bowling pin--nothing seems to work. Pretty soon we will have to start taking drastic measures.
He is also a bull in a china shop at all times. When you open the door from the backyard to let him in, you had better hold the knob because he will rush the door and knock it through the kitchen wall on his way in. The same goes for his kennel. As soon as he hears you jiggling with the latch, he gets into full sprinter mode and shoots out like the gunpowder on his ass just went off. He has discovered that human food tastes pretty damn good and usually when people are sitting in the breakfast nook, this human food is pleniful if he just sticks his head above that flat wooden thing and helps himself. While he once faced the stairs with a certain trepidation and we had to coax him to walk from one side of our bridge to the other, he now prowls the house with reckless abandon and anything in his way is fair game. He continues to be dopey and sweet and as I look behind me, I can hear him mauling Kim's face with his sloppy wet tongue and his giant paws. She has been gone for 30 minutes after all, and he didn't know when he might see her again.
Every night when we put him in his kennel, he flops down with all his weight and insists that you lug his carcass into the cage. Kim sits there patiently with his treat, encouraging him to make the ten short steps to his nightly bed, but as you might expect, I don't necessarily have the patience for such things. You would think that at some point, he might pick up on his role as a dog--learn the ins and outs of what is acceptable behavior and what constitutes being bad. It's tough to get too mad at him as he akwardly makes his way through life. Hunter has been pretty good about being involved in raising his dog. He feeds him whenever he is home and he walks him and plays with him as often as he can. He is yet to clean up one of his accidents, but knowing our son, he would just throw up everywhere and Kim or I (who am I kidding? It would definitely be Kim) would have to clean up his mess as well. For a mentally challenged, inbred, flea bitten, worm-infested doofus, that Marley has grown on us after all.

They Just Love to Buy Your Crap

2006-09-11T06:58:00.000-07:00

I don't get it. I mean, I really don't. The attraction, the draw, the je ne se quoi that is the allure of human debasement that is the American Garage Sale. I don't get it on so many levels that I don't know if I am able to fairly dissect into the belly of the beast to determine what aspect of the whole experience sickens me the most, but dammit, for those of you out there who need this, I am willing to plunge head first into what I consider to be the lowest form of americana. Please bear with me. I bring this up because this past weekend, Kim embarked in another one of these nightmares with the neighbors, and I just don't get it.
The horror show that is the garage sale is not so much one thing. There are components from all angles that make it so impossible for me to understand this to be an acceptable thing to do on a perfectly good Friday and or Saturday and or Sunday. Good lord, the mere thought of a three day garage sale sends chills down my spine--uuuuggghh----focus Josh, focus, we can get through this together. OK, I am back. Where was I--oh, yes--the vast challenges one must overcome in order to put oneself through such an event. There are at least five areas that would prevent me from personally putting one of these things on. The planning, The Set-up, The Recognition of the Value of your Stuff, The People you Must Deal with, and The Clean-up. There is another factor at play here that is kind of mixed in with a couple of others and that is the fact that when one enters a negotiation environment, there must be a recourse for both parties. When you are selling your crap and the option is sell it to some jackass for a buck or haul it to the junkyard, the buyer tends to have the upper hand (especially as the sale draws to an end), but more on that later.
Let's start with the planning. I assume that one walks around their house, looks at all the piles of rubbish filling the shelves, closets, attics and garages and decides that donating them to the salvation army, goodwill, a museum for useless nostalia, or science would not be appropriate. Instead, let's pile all of the shit from our house and display it outside in our driveway and in our garage for a couple of days, so that the neighbors can rummage through it and realize what kind of losers live in the house down the road--genius. Not only is this a brilliant idea, but we can charge ridiculously low prices for these items and instead of getting a tax credit for the donation, we'll sell it for 5 cents on the dollar.
"Honey, how much do you want to charge for that stereo that you spent $350 on for my birthday?"
"I don't know, maybe $15 bucks--I'll try to get $20, but there is a scratch on the volume dial." "Cool."
So once you decide that you have enough clutter to dispose of, it's time to start the planning. You need to determine what weekend will be perfect to destroy, because there are several things to consider. First of all, it must be hot enough that by 9AM after the first wave of humiliation, you are so drenched in sweat that your odor causes would be negotiators to not even approach you unless they are committed to the purchase. This saves time and critical energy. The heat also leads to dehydration and delirium to assist you in those tough decisions when you need to pull out your best negotiating skills--you know, when one of the countless undocumented Mexican workers who come by, look through everything and offer $1 for any item, regardless of size, use, weight or value. After enough of these offers and the dizzying need for fluids sets in, you find a way to part with the never been used, still in the box, X-Box 360 with eight games for a dollar. It was just taking up space anyway, and you forgot that you spent $800 for the damn thing and were planning on giving it to your loving husband for Christmas this year. So the heat is an obvious and necessary component on the planning.
Then you have to invest in advertising. There is requisite signage necessary for all "successful" garage sales. The signs must lead the people with the cash to your front door and they must be cleverly placed to draw people in from areas that would not otherwise attend a local event such as yours. I recommend at least a ten mile radius with encouraging signs as you get closer. They should start out with standard "Garage Sale" with one of those impressive directional arrows. This will entice them to start the journey. Use a bright color, but don't go with those orange and black signs that everybody else uses. Yours need to be a shocking color that doesn't blend in--Fuscia will suffice. This way, our unusecting prey will not be detoured by other garage sale signs as they make their way to your doorstep. After three or four miles, start putting "You're almost there" on the signs or "You've come this far, don't turn around now." and finally, "Don't be a sap. You're going to want to punch me in the throat for making you drive this far. Just a few more blocks!" This should provide the proper incentive for the potential buyers. The trick is that when they do finally arrive, you have so many of these dolts in your yard at the same time that they immediately forget that they really do want to punch you in the throat, and instead are forced to hurry up and find the "hidden gems" that we all know are submerged beneath the miles of miscellany displayed in your yard. We call this "creating demand." in the garage sale bizness.
You also need to make sure to advertise in the newspapers, because there just aren't enough good garage sales around and you need to make sure that everybody who actually can read has the opportunity to find your house first thing in the morning. The ability to read leads to the ability to hold a job and in turn, the ability to make a living. This living is what leads to them having the disposable income necessary to offer $2 to $3 for those items that you paid $100 for just last spring. These are the type of people that you want to flood the street. You never know when the vast array of cars lining the street will yield one of those unsuspecting, never actually been to a garage sale people who doesn't get the whole negotiating environment and will pay the price you tell them the first time. When you have one of these consumers, your job as a garage salee is to guide them to the best items and make sure they feel that they got great deals at every turn. It is important to steer them away from the full-time junk mongers who are busy offering a quarter for that ming dynasty vase that just doesn't match your drapes anymore.
Enough about the planning. The Set-up is almost as much fun as the planning, so if you're still on board, let's delve into that aspect, shall we? You want to make sure that you devote at least two full days to a garage sale. The first day, you get your finger on the pulse of your shopping pool and can make necessary adjustments in your pricing strategy, your marketing techniques and at what time to release the dogs to chase away the riff-raff when it gets too uncontrollable. The second day also gives you the opportunity to display things in a different fashion based upon the items that were moving well. There is a lot of strategy involved. I recommend the Friday/Saturday combination because you want to have access to the workers who are building houses in your neighborhood and they all work on Friday.
Make certain that you realize that your desire to get this thing up and running by 8AM in no way makes any sense to those would be purchasers who see you setting up at 6:45. Most likely, your driveway will be filled with loonies by 7:15 while you are busy pulling out tables, spreading out old bikes and carrying retired furniture to its proper place. Some guy is already asking you how much for those dusty old Beatles records that have never even been opened. Knowing that your husband would be so excited that you finally found some poor sap who would actually buy those things (especially that silly one made out of white vinyl--how gay is that?) because nobody actually has a record player anymore, you tell him $5 for the whole thing and he actually accepts--sucker born every minute. Wait until that dumb spouse of yours hears about that transaction. He didn't even know that you put those old records in a milk crate at the bottom of the driveway. He'll just be so thrilled that there is finally that extra space in the house. Who knew that some guy would not only take away all of those stupid Beatles records, but he took all the other ones off our hands too, and now we have enough cash to buy doughnuts today. These are the kind of early morning tragedies that can be averted by proper set-up technique.
The key is staging. Empty your vehicles from the garage and driveway the night before and get everything that is going out for this grand event into the garage and onto its proper table. In the morning (at least an hour before you actually plan to open) be ready to go. Convince your spousal equivalent that he or she needs to help you get everything outside and set-up first thing. Once the sun is up, you are too late. You will be inundated with those sons of bitches who want to steal from you blind. You've got to be set-up before they arrive. If you are still carrying out major items when the first couple of cars roll up, you will never catch up. It always starts with good intentions, but before you've tagged every pair of socks and coloring book, it goes horribly wrong. Once that garage door opens, you had better be ready for operations. Have somebody who is just setting up and have somebody else who is just dealing with customers. Trying to do both is a recipe for disaster.
The hardest thing to come to grips with is Recognizing the Value of your Stuff. I would literally rather douse an item with kerosene, light it up and watch it burn in front of that asshole who just offered me $5 for my digital camera than to let him have it or to give him a counter offer. If he is offering $5 and you paid $350 for it and expect to get $75-$100, you are never going to get close. There is no point in making a counter offer at this point, because no matter how high this clown goes, he isn't reaching your selling point. I don't think it is so much nostalgia or a sense that my things are better than that, but I have a lower threshhold of what I am willing to do and where I am willing to go with my pricing scheme. For Kim, it is just a very simple matter. She wants all of the excess collateral out of the house. The more they buy, the less she has to put back or throw away. There is nothing else to it. For me, I just can't justify giving away perfectly good items to some jerk just because I don't use it anymore. It must be a principle thing. I would gladly give it to a friend or a family member for free--in fact, we usually pay the shipping to get clothes and other assorted items to people all over the country, but watching somebody offer me some humiliating amount of money when I know damn well that it is worth twenty times the amount he is offering, I just can't do it.
In order to be successful at these freak shows, you must recognize that what you think something is worth doesn't necessarily translate into what somebody is willing to pay for it. You must clearly state your objective prior to starting. If your objective is to make some money and that is your only objective, you can be a little pickier about pricing. If your objective is to try to get anything for a bunch of rubble that was going to the dumpster the next day anyway, you need to accept that fact and take whatever you can get. Let's face it, The City of Frisco garbage collecting division isn't exactly stapling envelopes of $20 bills to your trash receptacle after they find some great stuff in your barrel. If you are planning on throwing something away anyway, you need to take what you can get. This doesn't mean that you have to take every offer and it doesn't mean that every item has to have the same strategy, just recognize where each item fits into the grand scheme of your plan. Let's say you have that digital camera that still works great, still has the instruction manual, software and connections to the computer and you don't use it anymore, but it isn't really taking up much space. Set a threshhold for the price and don't go below it. You don't have to throw it away like you might with those four hundred coloring books that have Hunter scrawled across the cover of each one (those, you might have to take what you can get or throw them in with each frame purchased). You just need to know what each thing is doing at the garage sale. There are definitely people who come to these things willing to spend some cash on higher end items. They are still getting a bargain, but just make sure you don't turn your back and let somebody who doesn't know your strategy negotiate that item for your. Otherwise that sweaty, wrinkled $5 bill is the only memory you will have for that $350 camera.
If I had to choose the one area that I am just unable to get beyond when it comes to the garage sale phenomenon, it has to be The People you Must Deal with. This is the hurdle that I cannot come to grips with under any circumstance. I don't go to flea markets, I don't hang around swap meets, and I don't go to garage sales. I'm not saying that everybody who goes to these places is a dreg of society (I don't know if dregs can be singular or not, but this is still my blog and for my purposes, you can have a dreg). That being said, these are not the social circles that I like to frequent. If you want to call me an elitist, snob, debutante or any other appropriate term at this point, I am perfectly comfortable with the moniker. There are a lot of wonderful people who come to the garage sales who are very nice, friendly, fresh smelling--you know, human. The vast majority of the true garage sale shoppers, however, are battling to see whether they have more cash in their pockets or teeth in their mouths. Suddenly, you are welcoming them into your house (well, not all the way in, but certainly onto your driveway and into your garage) to look through your things and get into arguments with you about how nobody in their right mind would pay more than $2 for that bike and that you'd be crazy not to take it. The smell emanating from them is usually enough to convince you to let them take whateve they want if they just promise to leave. But you know that there will just be more of them with fewer teeth and a more palpable odor as the day progresses. It just goes downhill from the first encounter. Suffice it to say, I'm not a huge fan of the folks who darken your driveway during one of these events.
Finally there is the cleanup phase of the process. This might be the most depressing part of the day. Generally, all of the stuff that you really wanted to get rid of still manages to make its way back into the garage. Some of the stuff will make its way to goodwill (where it should have gone in the first place), some of it will make its way back into the house where it will collect dust until the next garage sale, and some of it will mercifully find its way to the refuse pile. What I really love is when you do a neighborhood garage sale and your kids keep coming home with more of the neighbor's crap, knowing full well that the money you just made selling your junk just went to acquiring more useless crap from somebody else. So, after two days of toiling in hell against the elements, against the swarms of subhumanity and against what should be your better judgment, your exhaustion manifests itself in the cleanup phase. There are the inevitable arguments about why the hell we couldn't sell the kids board games, because somebody refused to replace the missing dice or how we ended up with more kids clothes than we started with because I sure as hell never saw that hooded sweatshirt before. It goes on and on.
After the cleanup is completed, it is time to go and count the smelly, sweaty $1 bills like you are some sort of adult dancer who doesn't make out really well on the lap dances, but can work a pole like a superstar. Hopefully you are pulling the cash out of a pocket, lock box or one of those fancy fanny packs that Gramma G used to love(she still might actually) instead of your garter belt or g-string. You pile it high on the counter to discover you have made $134 of pure profit for just two days of absolute torture.
Now in the example from this weekend, I must admit that our neighbors actually had a really profitable event. Brad and Stacy made over $900 selling everything you could imagine, so even I would have to call that a success. Kim and the kids certainly didn't have that kind of a weekend, but Lauren had a couple of bucks and lots of new toys and coloring books from the neighbors' treasure trove. Hunter made a little bit of coin, which I am certain he will parlay into a new game for his DS before too long. We've still got a garage full of Shari's clothes that she insisted on transporting out here for the big event. Having lost nearly 60 pounds so far this summer, she has a few items to get rid of and instead of dropping them off at goodwill (about five minutes from work), she lugged all of her crap out here 1200 miles away so they could sit in front of the neighbors house for two days and return to our garage where I expect them to stay in perpetuity. I cannot wait until the big spring event. We're going to make a bundle.

"So Called Experts" Don't Know Jack

2006-09-07T05:49:00.000-07:00

There are few things as entertaining as watching the experts of various networks (ESPN, NFL, Fox Sports, etc.) who walk into the studios for their big pre-season prediction shows to let us know who is going to be hoisting the Lombardi trophy in February. For some reason, we never get to call them out on these predictions, because if we did, they would probably all be out of jobs each March. Fortunately for their families, their livelihood is not contingent upon being correct about such things, because as I recall the sexy pick last year of the Eagles finally getting over the hump and winning the Superbowl last January didn't exactly come to fruition. In fact, they imploded by week three and were never heard from again. The Colts again stumbled in the playoffs despite every prognosticator from Bristol insisting that last year would be the year that they got over the playoff hump and finally danced in Detroit.
I find it incredible how much of an consensus is formed over the summer each year. These guys don't know any more than the rest of us, but for some reason, they all meander to the same three or four teams and by the time week 1 rolls around, they would have you convinced that these teams are worldbeaters and you can expect to pencil them into your playoff pool. Every year this happens and every year, we the public are duped into believing it to be true. I am here to tell you that they don't know their heads from their asses. I am not going to kid you and let you think that I know more than they do, but watching Trey Wingo holding court with Salisbury, Schlereth and Golic and suddenly they have a consensus about the rankings of 32 teams in every category from offensive line to coaching is ludicrous. I enjoy watching the power rankings and seeing my team gain/lose respect on a weekly basis as much as the next guy, but nobody knows who is going to be great from one year to the next and anybody who tells you otherwise is full of crap.
This is not true in college. From one year to the next, you are going to have a pretty good idea of who is going to be strong and who is going to be weak. Classes are recruited and classes graduate. You know that Southern Cal keeps recruiting the #1 or #2 classes each spring, has great coaching, great tradition and a creampuff Pac-10 schedule (sorry Esch), so there is a good chance they are going to be pretty damn good. You see Oklahoma lose their QB a month before the season begins from a team that was slightly better than average last year, and their is a good chance that there will not be a Fiesta Bowl date on their calendar. In college, you can take advantage of some incredulous early spreads and make enough money the first couple of weeks of the season to keep you fat and happy the rest of the year. In the pros, you need to tred more lightly and not get overwhelmed by the media's preseason hype and hyperbole.
In that vein, I will provide you with this week's predictions against the spread. This posting will generally come out on Saturdays during the season, but with Pittsburgh kicking off with Miami tonight, I don't have the luxury of waiting. For this week, I don't love any game more than any other and I would probably put about the same amount of cash (were I still inclined to gamble) on each game. This information as always is for entertainment value only and this column does not recommend or endorse the idea of sports wagering as a hobby or livelihood.

Miami at Pittsburgh -1
Superbowl champs are usually pretty revved up for the season opener. Tonight, however, the Steelers are going without Ben Roethlisberger who is recovering from an apendectomy. Hines Ward is probable, so I would expect to see him. It will be interesting to see how Daunte Culpepper responds to ten months of rehab on his knee in real game conditions. The Dolphins are one of those bandwagon picks--chic, hip and fun. Everybody loves what they are doing, Nick Saban is a Bellichick desciple, Culpepper gives them the first real QB since Marino, blah, blah, blah. I hate all that rhetoric and I hate the fact that they have such an easy schedule this year to make those morons sound like they know what they are talking about. Culpepper is going to look very pedestrian tonight. The Steelers will control both lines of scrimage and you can expect a very low scoring affair. Unfortunately for the champs, Charlie Batch is not a great manager of the game and the running back situation in Pittsburgh has yet to impress me after the departure of the bus. Miami 13 Pittsburgh 9.

New Orleans at Cleveland -3
Talk about your exciting week one matchups. These are two teams who should be making an upward push by midseason back to respectability. I say back to respectability because both of these teams were god awful in 2005 and have done little to make major improvements. Reggie Bush is going to be the most exciting new player in the league to watch this year, but I don't expect that to translate into too many victories--lots of SportsCenter highlights, but not victories. Cleveland will be trying to work Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow Jr. back onto the field after injuries ended their 2005 campaign. Charlie Frye has some upside, but is far from a polished NFL quarterback and will struggle for the first half of the year. I just expect for Cleveland to come out of the box a little bit sooner than New Orleans and the home opener does make a difference. Cleveland 23 New Orleans 13

Buffalo at New England -9.5
This New England team is a perfect example of bandwaggoning sports commentators. Last year, this team was average at best. They were back and forth from one week to the next and their running game was absolutely atrocious. Corey Dillon appeared to be well on his speedy downward cycle that all running back eventually achieve and the losses of Romeo Crenell and Charlie Weis were palpable. Suddenly, it is 2006 and because they have Tom Brady (no receiving corps, by the way), they are supposed to be back to being the dynasty of the past five years. Every year they lose more leaders from this team--this year it is Willie McGinnest and assistant coach Eric Mangini, but everybody is in love with this team. It has to be the easy schedule, because I just don't see this team being a shadow of its former self. The one thing they have going for them is that they play Buffalo at home week one. It would be an almost impossible task to lose this one, but I don't see them covering. New England 27 Buffalo 20

NYJets at Tennessee -2.5
This is another one that we have all had circled on our calendars for a long time. That's right, the week that one of these teams actually gets a win. Nobody really expected more than one for either of these teams, but right out of the gate, one of these two train wrecks will actually be leading their respective division. Do I have to actually pick a winner here? Millions of gamblers out there are fretting that their sure thing money line pick (picking a team to either win or lose straight up--no points involved) is devoid for week one. Thank God we still have the Niners. Throw a dart at the board. NY Jets 5 Tennessee 2

Philadelphia at Houston +5.5
Philly is one of those teams who is picking up steam as a trendy pick this year. Purging themselves of the TO debacle could do nothing but point this team in the right direction, but after watching what happened to a once proud SF franchise after Owens' departure, I don't buy the fact that there is an immediate rebound and that all the stench has been removed from the once pristine locker room. But much like some of the other games, Philly gets to open against Houston--the team who will almost certainly go down in history as those jackasses who passed on Reggie Bush--even more comical now that we realize that Domanick Davis is probably out for the season (information that aparently Chuck Casserly and the gang had at the time of the draft), and the entire move was solely because they didn't want to have to deal with Bush's agent. Good times for all. Houston is destined to be a doormat for the next 20 years. Besides I love It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I may not pick against these guys all year. Philadelphia 27 Houston 6

Denver at St Louis +3.5
I just don't get Denver. They are mediocre at best, yet they managed 13 wins last year plus were handed that freebie over the Patriots in the playoffs when New England decided that they wanted to spend more time with their families and Eric Mangini needed to do some interviewing. Either way, I just don't get it. They just find a way to continue to win without a whole lot going for them. St. Louis should need a little while to get back to form, but will still put up points in the dome. I don't have a strong feeling either way about Scott Linehan as the coach, but he has to be a refreshing change from the Genius, Mike Martz. Denver 24 St. Louis 17

Cincinnati at Kansas City -2
Didn't Cincinnati go 11-5 or 12-4 last season? Don't they have Carson Palmer? Didn't he still look like Carson Palmer in the preseason? The Chiefs lost Willie Roaf. If anybody out there thinks that Larry Johnson can run for 2000 yards without Willie Roaf on the left side, they are crazy. The fun thing is that he will probably get about 40 carries in this game because Cincinnati is not known for defense yet, Herm Edwards is as conservative a coach as you will find and they will want to slow the game down because Cincinnati will probably score on their first five drives. Expect a high scoring game this week. Cincinnati 34 Kansas City 20

Atlanta at Carolina -5
I'll be keeping an eye on this one. I have heard more about these two teams than I care to discuss. Being that they are our chief NFC South rivals currently, I am anxious to see what they are capable of doing. Everybody (so called experts especially) are jumping on the Carolina bandwagon. These guys have already bought tickets to Miami and have booked their rooms. The injury bug always seems to hit this team, but if they are healthy, they look to be the class of the NFC. Schedule is going to kick all of our asses in this division, so the winner of this game is very important to establish the early leader. Atlanta is going into season three with Vick and Mora together. Up to now, I haven't been too impressed. They need to show me something before I jump off Carolina's bandwagon for this week. Carolina 31 Atlanta 10

Seattle at Detroit +6
Do you think that the Seahawks have good memories of the last time they were in Detroit? Maybe this time, they switch hotels or take a different route to Ford Field or send some heavies to deal with the referees before the game. Recent history tells us that the Superbowl loser goes into a tailspin the following season, but Seattle has such a joke of a schedule and such a weak division, unless Hasselbeck and Alexander go down with season ending ACL injuries, they still are the class of the NFC West (the crown jewel of all of football). I love Rod Marinelli in Detroit--Mike Martz, not so much. Detroit will improve this year, but not by week 1.
Seattle 34 Detroit 13

Baltimore at Tampa Bay -3
All I have heard all preseason is that Carolina is going to win the NFC South. Atlanta will make a push in year three of the Mora regime and that Reggie Bush is the greatest running back since Gale Sayers. If I am not mistaken, and I am relatively certain that I am not, Tampa Bay won the NFC South last year. They went 5-1 in the division and even managed to find a way to beat Carolina (the unstoppable force) on the road in a December game that could have iced the division for the Panthers. There is nothing more motivating in all of sports than the us against the world/no respect factor. Tampa came out of nowhere last year to earn their respect back and the calendar has turned and they are right back at square one. Nothing excites me more. Baltimore is another one of those trendy picks that the boys up at ESPN headquarters are just salivating over. I really don't get it--Jamal Lewis looked like an absolute dog after his prison term. Steve McNair looks like he has been run through a meat grinder and their vaunted defense is living on a name only at this point as Ray Lewis is just a year older at this point. I love Tampa to come out and reestablish themselves as a legitimate contender. Respect This! Tampa Bay 27 Baltimore 3

All right--I am going to be late for work, so I need to cut the afternoon and evening games short. Here are the picks:

Chicago at Green Bay +3.5 Chicago 27 Green Bay 6
San Fran at Arizona -9 Arizona 16 San Fran 13
Dallas at Jacksonville -2 Jacksonville 24 Dallas 10
Indianapolis at NY Giants +3 Indianapolis 31 NY Giants 20
Minnesota at Washington -4.5 Minnesota 16 Washington 6
San Diego at Oakland +3 San Diego 23 Oakland 0

Finally, We're Done with that Parenting Nonsense

2006-09-06T04:58:00.000-07:00

First, let me apologize. Yesterday was one of those challenging days where I had every intention of putting one of these brilliant postings together for all of your perusal. After all, Monday night, Florida State somehow managed to utilize the most inept of all offensive performances for the second year in a row to upend Miami at the Orange Bowl. They rushed for one yard (on 25 carries, by the way--something like .04 yards per carry) and still beat those evil ne'er do wells from North Cuba. I had my chance to write about this and absorb the abuse of my mother and her battalion of anti-sports postings hecklers, but I could not find the time to sit down yesterday to write about anything. So I am afraid that ship has sailed and our first sports posting of the season will have to wait another day or two. The NFL kicks off tomorrow night--oh sweet bliss. Life finally has meaning again.
The main reason that I was unable to find time yesterday was that we suddenly had a new errand to run in the morning before work. Now that I don't have to go to work until 10AM at the earliest every day, I have time after we get Hunter off to school to sit down for an hour or so and babble to the two of you who still check this site once in a while.--thanks by the way. I just need to make it a part of my routine. Well, I chose a piss-poor time to start a routine, because yesterday, after months of trying to find a preschool/montessori/mother's day out program that would provide Lauren with the proper learning environment, we got to pack her little butt up with a back pack and a lunch box and ship her off to do some of that learnin' that is all the rage. So, needless to say, this ruined our morning routine and as such, killed any chance I had to write yesterday. Sure, I could have come home after my shift last night and sat down and wrote something for you, but those pesky neighbors came over to sit out front and consume a few adult beverages, and it would have been just plain rude of me to be upstairs pecking away on the computer, leaving poor Kim to entertain them by herself. So alas, I have failed you all. But this Lauren at school thing seems to be somewhat worthwhile.
I remember Hunter's first day of Kindergarten. Lauren hadn't been born yet and based on Kim's reaction, you would have thought that we had discovered that our only son had been kidnapped by the Russian Mafia who were cutting off body parts before they sold him into a white slavery ring. She was just devastated, crying uncontrollably--you know real tears streaming down her face and just a distraught sense of failure as a parent for some reason. I attributed this reaction mostly to the fact that she was 7 months pregnant at the time and by almost any definition, legally insane due to the hormonal imbalance and her large girth. (You can't say girth about a pregnant woman at the time of their pregnancy and certainly can't say girth with the word large preceding it, but it's been four years, so I am taking some liberties. I probably sleep on the couch tonight either way, but I'll let you know how it turns out--suffice it to say at seven months, she was no longer svelte) We did our best to console her. DJ and his wife at the time came by and took us out to breakfast at Cracker Barrel and we went over to the outlet stores to try to find some maternity clothes to take Kim's mind off the abandonment of our only child, but it was no use. That entire day was wasted with emotional expenditure.
Again, based on the hormonal thing, I let it go. I tried my best to mask my excitement in the fact that our son was growing up. I thought it was awesome that he started school. It is one of those watershed moments in a child's life that leads to the next major event--puberty I suppose, and to me that is exciting and fun to watch. We'll always remember that day.
For those of you who don't know Lauren all that well, let's just say that she is what some might refer to as a "Spirited Child." In layman's terms this means that she is always in your face, needy, demanding, the center of attention at all times, always right, argumentative and clinically psychotic. God love her, but she can be somewhat trying at times. In her defense, she is unbelievably funny and ridiculously cute, which enables her to get away with those other (somewhat annoying) behavioral traits. So when we finally found somebody who was willing to give Lauren some of that schoolin' a couple of days a week, I was pretty freaking excited. Sure, it was only to be two days a week for about 5 1/2 hours a day, but you gotta start somewhere.
They call these things "Mother's Days Out," but in all reality it just means that it is a part-time preschool. She goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of five days a week. Otherwise, they have the same type of curriculum as your run of the mill preschool and it enables the child to ease her way into a classroom environment. Kim has been very particular about where we were willing to send Lauren, and we both agreed that this was a perfect environment for her needs. So yesterday morning at 8:30, we made our way to the local Methodist church here in N. Frisco and registered our precious Missy-moo into her first school.
She was predictably shy and clingy when we got there, made our way to her classroom and met her teacher, Ms. Shannon. She had about 20 minutes of the classroom to herself to get comfortable before any of the other kids arrived. Kim snapped a couple of those obligatory first day of school photos and Lauren slowly began to separate herself from Kim's thigh to play with some puzzle pieces and play-dough. After the first classmate arrived, we started to make our way out of the room and before you knew it, we were out the door without any tears (from Kim or Lauren). This just confirmed my earlier suspicions that the whole Hunter episode was completely hormonal. As we drove back toward home, I felt that now was as good a time as any to ask Kim how she was holding up--you know, be supportive and make sure she knew I was there for her. In my mind, we had just completed a brilliant coup--some poor unsuspecting sap had just agreed to take that raving lunatic child of ours for 11 glorious hours a week. What could be better than that? I just assumed that Kim was equally excited and as soon as her feet hit our driveway, she would do some sort of victory dance or a cartwheel or perhaps just strip down to her skivvies and run around the neighborhood screaming wildly like Shari in Sedona chasing Kaylee. Imagine my surprise and bewilderment when I looked over to her after asking how she was doing and those freaking tears were streaming down her face uncontrollably again. I just don't get it--I mean, Hunter was at least a sweet kid, that made sense, but getting Lauren out of the house for a few hours a couple of days a week. Save those tears for when the Bucs lose a heartbreaker to the Panthers in week three. The only thing I could think was that they were those tears of joy that you hear so much about, but such was not the case--damn those emotional women. I did my best to mask my enthusiasm, but it was obvious that this was another one of those times where we had conflicting reactions to the same event.
Now as to Lauren's day at school, we set the under/over at 10:42 AM that we would get the call from the school to pick up our daughter and never bring her back. She is somewhat strong willed and I believe she might have some sharing issues that she has yet to resolve. It was just a matter of time. When I spoke to Kim at noon, however, she was still at school and we hadn't heard anything yet. No news is good news I suppose and so what if it cost me $100 with the local bookie. Missing the under in this case was probably a good thing. I talked to Kim a little later and still hadn't heard anything. Maybe this school thing was going to work out after all. Change her environment a little bit, get her around some kids her own age, provide her with a structured classroom, who knows? It sounds so crazy it just might work. Fifteen minutes later, my cell phone rings and it's Kim on her way to the school to pick up the hysterical and uncontrollably screaming hell child that the teacher has been spending an hour trying to calm down and console. So much for that environment stuff.
It turns out that "nap time" is not exactly the kind of thing that Lauren is into. She hasn't taken a nap for two and a half years and believe me we have tried. I guess that isn't true because on Monday she actually passed out two feet outside the door to her room face down in the carpet after she had to sit in her room for ten minutes for not listening. Since she wasn't in her bed and hadn't actually attempted to take a nap, I don't know if this qualifies as anything other than pure exhaustion, but unless I was drop dead drunk, I can't recall falling asleep face first on the floor while trying to exit my bedroom in many years. But to Lauren, naptime is for babies. She is no baby and she does not take naps. When they dimmed the lights and the kids laid down for "quiet time," Lauren was not going to be duped. Instead she started screaming and aparently didn't stop screaming until about five minutes before Kim came to pick her up.
Now here's where the odd thing happened. There were only two scenarios that made sense to me at this point. Scenario A--Kim goes to the office where the administrator hands back our check, shoves Lauren out the door and puts up photos of both Kim and Lauren on the front door to the building to let everybody know that we are no longer welcome within 500 yards of this facility. This seemed reasonable and fair to me. Scenario B--They feel badly that she got so upset, apologize but Lauren absolutely refuses to go back to school ever again. The trauma of nap time would never be overcome and we would end up homeschooling our child through the college years. Either way, we were screwed.
Somehow, however, they are okay with us bringing her back on Thursday. They are going to try a different strategy during quiet time with her and we are going to get her a special nap mat--whatever the hell that might be. Even more strange is how excited Lauren was about going back on Thursday. She had a great time and couldn't stop babbling about all the cool stuff they did, games they played, puzzles they worked on, letters they learned--all that stuff. She even liked going to chapel the best, so this might work out after all. Either way, we have successfully raised another child. Our work here is done and I couldn't be happier.

The Fall Season Debut

2006-09-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

Ahoy there! In this day and age, we have become increasingly dependent upon the ol' tele to provide us with our compass, not so much as to where the hell we are, but rather when the hell we were there. Labor Day for some reason historically has been the traditional kick off of the new fall shows. They try to bring back all of your favorites with a bang to capture that excitement that they left you hanging with on that season finale that seemed so long ago.
We are inundated with commercial after commercial about the upcoming shows, so much so that if we can piece things together in some sort of Pulp Fiction montage, we probably already have the entire first episode figured out by the time it airs. This season is no different as I can recall seeing advertisements for the "new" fall lineups all the way back to the NBA playoffs in June and I am still seeing the same ads today. It has about the same effect as Lauren asking for junk food again and again and again (and make no mistake, she literally asks for some junk--no specifics, no hiding the fact that the cookie, brownie, yo-ho or milkshake that she starts craving at 8:30 AM after her syrup drenched pancakes is completely bad for her--she starts out with the "Hey Mom, I want some junk" and doesn't let up until she has been placated with those morsels of goodness). The TV network execs figure that if they just keep playing the commercials over and over, sooner or later we will either get so annoyed that we will watch the damn show or that it just starts sounding like a really good idea.
My favorite part of this fall season is that the networks have just given up on giving any kind of name to the shows--now they just come up with a number and it suddenly is supposed to resonate true to all of us. It started a couple of years ago with 24 on Fox, which by all accounts is a damn good show, but I refuse to watch it because I know that I will ultimately be sucked in and be forced to purhcase seasons 1-5 and my empty and hollow existence would only become more so. Later the number craze manifested itself on one of those WB/UPN/FX/USA network shows called The 4400--at least it was some sort of random number. Now we have The One, The Nine, and Six Degrees making their debut on ABC. If my information is correct, and why on earth should any of you doubt it--this blog is a respected resource of topical, accurate information--Eight is Enough and Three's Company are making their long awaited returns in January (I can't wait to see what thespian they are able to find to reinvent the genius that was Mr. Firley--it's gotta be DeNiro or Nicholson--you can't just replace a Don Knotts) and NBC has found a way to make the movie Seven into a wacky sitcom with Ross from Friends playing the Brad Pitt role just as a way to confuse Jennifer Aniston. Talk about your hilarity and hijinks. Two and a Half Men already exists and the Gehrig and Dimaggio families are not willing to relinquish the rights to the numbers Four and Five believing that they have been retired, not only for the Yankees but for all humanity. Negotiations are ongoing, but after the Party of Five debacle, I don't know if they will ever get another shot.
With the arrival of the new fall season rapidly approaching, this is as good a time as any for me to reset the bar and get back to cracking on everybody and everything in my life. While I haven't had the budget to overwhelm you with commercials all summer, this preview edition of EBTPF should serve the same purpose of whetting your appetite or annoying you to the point that you read just to shut me up. It all begins tonight with the true start of the college football season as my beloved FSU takes on those bastards from Miami. This is traditionally the day that Kim is forced to wrestle the butter knife from my monkey grip as I try to remove my spleen as another Seminole kicker has inexplicably pulled a Vanderjakt and pushed a 23 yard field goal wide right (or even wide left now--at least we broke it up a couple of years ago). We have the NFL season and your defending NFC South champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers ready to tackle the most ridiculous schedule I have ever seen. The baseball playoff drive is on and the Ryder Cup is right around the corner. Needless to say, there are plenty of great postings for the sports fans out there.
Not a sports fan you say. Fear not my friends, we have plenty of fodder for those of you who enjoy reading about my angellic children. Lauren starts preschool tomorrow. I expect the deluge of notes home from her teachers to be extraordinarily blogworthy and her daily antics here still can easily coax a good 5000 words for those of you who crave such topics. Hunter always provides meaty topics and we are just a couple of months away from the entire clan coming for Thanksgiving weekend (when the Bucs just happen to be playing here at Texas Stadium--more on that little nugget later). I have a new job to discuss and could easily provide a lenthty diatribe about how much Kim enjoys me coming home smelling like a bizarre combination of garlic and sweat or how much fun I have trying to understand what the hell my non-English speaking trainer is trying to say about the right way to stretch pizza dough. We have a new beast of a puppy who is as goofy as he is poorly trained--I expect to have plenty of material for the animal lovers out there--but there will be no freaking pictures of any more of the rats. I have to draw the line somewhere.
There is also plenty of the old classics--your favorites from last season--Poppy Joe, houseguests, random rants, road trips, crazy neighbors, not to mention the idiosynchrocies of the good people of Dallas. So climb aboard and consider this your inundation of previews for the upcoming season. I look forward to getting back into a groove and providing a daily dose of my sick and confused perspective for the rest of you. My thoughts are fresh, my keyboard is dusted off and I will be making this a part of my daily routine. I hope you enjoy and if not--too freaking bad. Hopefully we'll have some new readers and contributors this year as well, and more importantly, I hope and pray that you can't smell the garlic and sweat through these postings--some things are better not to be experienced.

Time to Catch Up--Part I

2006-07-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

You know how it is when you haven't spoken to somebody for a long time, a couple of years maybe, and you call them out of the blue. After the initial "Oh my God--where the hell have you been?" and the "I can't believe you called me, I was just thinking about that time we went to (insert your own memory here) and you molested the baby goat at the petting zoo." After those valuable moments of catching up, you generally find yourself grasping at strands of conversation. You know that the other person has had countless experiences over the past few years and you have as well, but for some reason you can't think of any of those things right now. The big things get covered--career, location, family, etc., but none of the details that make up our everyday existence.
Conversely, somebody you speak to every day, let's just say Kim speaking to Meemaw or Krissy perhaps, you can carry on with three 45 minute conversations per day. It would stand to reason that catching up with an old friend after several months or years would take much more time, but for some reason, the conversation is generally pretty short and sweet and either you end up not speaking to them for another three years or they feel obligated to call you back the next week out of pure guilt.
This blog has devolved into that old friend that for whatever reason has been neglected for the past several months. I could spend the next sixteen hours of my life trying to recount every event that took place since the Trauma in Sedona postings, but those events would not be given the proper depth and perspective that this blog was once known for (OK--this blog is actually only known for rambling on nonsensically with absolutely no direction, story line or purpose, but humor me for now as I attempt to make a salient point.) I get e-mails, phone calls and downright threats regarding my lack of posting over the past few months, but it would be unfair to try to catch up on my life. Instead, it would make more sense to just fast forward through the key points over the past three months in a Cliff's notes version of my life and proceed with future postings as if we haven't missed a beat.
Speaking of threats and comments from the peanut gallery out there, here are a few of my favorites:

That's right, I'm a little pissed off right now....................
I am so freaking sick of that STUPID LITTLE EFFING DOG.
Why don't you just change the name of that so called blog to
"everythingbutafreakinupdateihopeyouenjoylookingatthesamestupidpicturethatismakingyousocrazythatyoumightjustsnapandkillsomebodyandthenidhavesome>thingtoposthahahaloser blodgspot.com"?

Josh, You need to stop shopping for Mav's Finals paraphernalia and stop hoping for Game 7 tickets (that's right I'm bringing that up again) and get your lazy ass on the computer and post. I don't need to see that dish rag of a dog anymore.
Is life in Dallas that boring? Is there just simply nothing there torant about? I know you have a lot of built up emotion.... It's time to waste a little of it.

61 days and waiting...... You look at the Blog site and you noticeone thing. As you review the archives you see that you can search by month.February..... March..... June???? Hey did we miss April & May.
Do you think these might have been traumatic names from a Young Joshua's love life? Did these girls spurn him so badly that he could not come to be creative until June? Perhaps there is a special place in his heartfor a young lady by the name of June. Could it be thoughts of Leave it to Beaver's June Cleaver? Who knows what goes though the mind of a man trapped in Suburbia with the nuclear family and all of that crap.
Anyway 61 days..... I've done it before, I can do 61 days standing on my head.

I do want to thank all of you for your entries. Some were not necessarily fit for printing, but were certainly passionate in their message. As you might imagine the judging was very difficult, but the winners can look in their mailboxes for their 25% off coupons to Piccadilly Cafeteria (not valid on weekends, holidays, limit one per customer, not valid with any other offers, does not include chicken fried steak night). Very exciting indeed.

The reasons for my ineptitude are countless, but it probably boils down to my uncontrollable desire to be absolutely useless and lazy. Let me see if I can catch you up to what is going on in the world of the EBTPF. I'll try to keep it on some sort of a timeline, but most of it is a blur.

1. Selling the House to DJ--Deciding to move back in October seemed like a pretty solid idea. The market was still strong and the value of our house had consistently gone up about $5K a month for the entire time we lived in it, so we were confident that it would continue for the next six months or so until we were ready to depart for Dallas. Part of the reason we chose to build a house rather than move into an existing house is that we felt like we could lock in the price of our new house while its value rose and get another $30K out of our current house as the market in Phoenix steadily increased. A funny thing happened somewhere between October and April and the once stout Phoenix housing market began to peak and started to regress. Suddenly houses that were once on the market for a couple of hours were staying on the market for a couple of months. You actually had to show your house and keep it clean for people to walk through it. I believe I made mention of this in Yessir That's my Dog at some point, but trying to keep the house picked up with two insane children and a large shedding dog is never easy and doing it at a moment's notice for a two month period will drive anybody to drink.
Fortunately, as the panic began to set in and the weeks turned to months and the offers were nonexistent, we were rescued by DJ who decided that it would be an ideal time to invest in the Phoenix real estate market. In one of the greatest coups of all time, we were able to sell our house to a friend with no realtors involved and get what we needed in order to afford our house in Texas. Saving $20K in commissions always helps. Now from what I understand, DJ has yet to mow the backyard and more than likely there isn't a living plant anywhwere within a five mile radius thanks to DJ's black thumb, but as hard as it is for Kim to come to grips with, it isn't our concern anymore. I just hope that the housing market in Phoenix turns around again before DJ decides he doesn't like the commute from South Flagstaff to East LA every day.

2. Golfing on Mother's Day--To be completely fair to those of you out there who actually still check on this site once in a while, you deserve a complete recap of this absolute miracle. This capsule of a story will in no way do it justice and it is unfair of me to try to capture the incredible confluence of events that came to be to make it happen, but I wll do all that I can to describe what came to be that glorious Sunday morning.
First of all, Mother's Day is one of the three busiest days of the year for Phoenix area resort restaurants. For the past four years, the thought of not working on Mother's Day would have been absolutely laughable. Knowing that the dad's are ultimately responsible for making plans on Mother's Day, it always (and I mean always) comes down to last minute reservations. One week out, the restaurant will have 150 covers, three days out, there will be 200 and you start to look at who deserves to get the day off and then suddenly by mid-afternoon on Saturday, you somehow have accumulated 600 more reservations and you are trying to figure out how to knock out a wall to accommodate all of the people who are going to be swarming your restaurant. For some reason, the geniuses at my place of employ didn't get that dynamic and when they saw that we were somewhat limited in reservations early on, they decided to close down my restaurants for the day and only offer lite fare for the golfers. As the reservations started to pile up at the last minute, they were forced to turn away dozens of people willing to shell out $75/person for brunch because they had no room. Good times, good times--more about the geniuses later.
So instead of working on Mother's Day, I was able to take the day off--no small feat by any stretch. Over this same weekend, we had invited Kim's friends Diane and Louie down to visit Arizona for the first time. I had promised Louie when we visited them in Ohio that I would take him golfing when he came out to Phoenix. With my management coverage nonexistent for the last two months at the club, getting any days off was a luxury, and there were two large groups playing golf on Monday, so there was no way for me to get out that day. This left us with only Mother's Day to take Louie out on the golf course.
As these were Kim's friends from her childhood, she was intent on making sure that he got out to golf while he was here. Recognizing that this had to be one of those "tests" that wives are known to give us so they can check off the A box on their latest Cosmo "Is he likely to leave me for a Swedish bikini waxer" Quiz, I tred cautiously. I told her that I wanted to spend the day with her, that it was here special day and it would be unfair to the kids to not make her breakfast in bed--you know, all of that good husband stuff that lets her check off the D box (which will later determine that I would only leave her for a Swedish bikini waxer if she turned out to be my soulmate, and not for any kind of shallow reason). But she was insistent--let me repeat that for those of you who have been lulled to sleep--Kim insisted that I take Louie golfing on Mother's Day.
And the real beauty is that no other husband in the world gets away with this--golfing on Mother's Day--are you on crack? You just don't do it. We ended up getting the first tee time at 7AM--nobody in front of us, nobody behind us, guilt-free on one of the most spectacular courses in the world on Mother's Day for free. If this wasn't the greatest victory for sons and husbands everywhere, I don't know what is. Louie--I may never fully repay your visit.

3. The final Day at the Rockpile--I don't write much about work, because there is always that fear that somebody out there will read it, get offended and I end up losing my job. Since I am no longer there, I will just copy an excerpt that I wrote from an e-mail on my last day that will hopefully sum up my time there. I hope this doesn't illicit reprecussions, but it needs to be said:

Here is the Genius Leadership Move of the Day for May 19, 2006
(or GLMD 5-19-06 as it has come to be known)

Now realize that I have tormented myself here for the past several months, knowing full well that I was leaving, just waiting for the moment that they would escort me to the door and finding out that it wasn't going to happen. Having done all that, I didn't want to burn whatever bridges were worth salvaging, so I made as hearty attempt as I could to say my goodbyes to the evil ne'er do well's at the Lodge.
When I entered by security and made my way out to see Kelli and Bug Killer to say my farewells, I saw Chef P working the expo side of the line (and he was not majestically cutting starfruit by the way) and made a mental note that something must be going on. I did my best to circumvent any eye contact before realizing that he very well didn't know what I looked like and had no real reason to avoid him at all--live and learn. But I was successful in making my way to the BKB's office and chatted with him for a few moments.
We wandered back to the cancer deck as BK is known to do and did my best not to demoralize him as he was on his 14th straight day and seemed that he didn't need much of a push. After wishing him the best of luck, I wandered back into the kitchen and peered down the line to see a vast array of breakfast items plated up. Chef P was clicking photos like a champ, proud as a new papa with his bounty, and I must admit some of the items looked pretty damn good. In fact, they really stepped up the plate presentation, offering and product. I even understand that they had organic eggs for the 8 or 9 items that had poached eggs as part of the party.
This being the first time I had seen him involve himself in anything other than starfruit, I took a closer look and he had gotten pretty damn creative. It turns out he had just stolen a menu from some place in New York, but hey let's face it, everything is somewhat derivative (Even the Pope steals his ideas sometimes). What made my day was that we are quickly approaching Memorial Day weekend and the scent of the low-budget FITs making their annual trek to the resorts around the valley fills the air with its all too familiar stench. Could there possibly be a better time to roll out a breakfast menu with prices upwards of $25 per entree? I don't think so.
Let me think. . . If I am a guy living in Mesa trying to get away from my kids for a weekend and I find a way to not use as much A/C for a month so I can afford that special romantic getaway on my $40K salary when the resorts finally lower the rates to $129/night, am I the guy who is likely to shell out $75 for breakfast for my wife and me? How much a freaking dolt do you have to be to not realize that the bread pudding french toast and poached egg stuffed artichokes with the porcini mushroom sauce is not going to be the breakfast of choice for Vern and Louise. How about the genius involved with the bagel with dill cream cheese, pickles and capers covered with the sliced salmon, so that you can't get to the bagel without pulling the pink drapes off the top and covering your fingers with that slimy salmony residue for the next 36 hours?
I freaking love it. I'm not saying that the menu won't work. Hell, there were some pretty incredible looking items (that will look like absolute shit in a week when Frenchy returns to his 10 AM arrival pattern), but nobody without an expense account is going to eat any of that shit and definitely isn't going to pay for any of it. Nobody here who makes any decisions has ever spent a summer here, so it is just comical to watch them, and there is no point in trying to dissuade them.
Here is my prediction. They roll out this menu and give it three months to work. By September 1st, even Chef P is convinced it is a colossal failure and returns to "How'd Ya like them eggs, honey?" service and quality, just in time for the arrival of those bastards who don't care how much anything costs. DZ comes in to see the prices, blows a gasket, they change back just in time for the holiday FIT travelers and the hotel goes down to 5% occupancy by Jan 1 when the membership organizes a nude protest on the Duck Pond. Why the hell am I leaving again? You just don't get this sort of thing anywhere else!
3 Hours 9 Minutes 4 Seconds

4. Moving Day Poppy Joe Style--Before I get into this epic, I have decided to break this posting up. This story could very well be 5000 words by itself and even in its edited version, I don't want to make this posting into a repeat of that never-ending one from last December, The Lazy Bastard Returns.

Those of you who have been loyal followers of my postings understand the dynamic that is my relationship with Poppy Joe. Those of you who are new to the site, hopefully you will understand after reading this. Joe told us months ago that when we were ready to move, he would come out, load up the truck with us and drive it to Texas. Anybody who has experienced moving days knows that there are few things in life as generous to offer somebody as your time and energy on moving day. If there are things that are more unpleasant to endure than moving day, I pray that I never have to experience them (and don't pull that childbirth or kidney stone crap, either--moving day trumps them all).

When it comes to moving with Poppy Joe, however, we enter a new dimension of tortured existence, especially when it comes to him and I working together on such a monumental task. In my world, getting all of the crap out of the house, loaded on the truck and getting the hell on the road is all I am interested in on moving day (notice that it is a singular term--moving day, not days). You get up in the morning, pick up the truck, start loading your boxes, get the heavy furniture wedged in there, fill in where you can, lock that bad boy up and hit the road. Joe lives his life a different way than I do and his idea of moving day is trying to develop the perfect plan for loading the truck, revising it, unloading the truck, revising it, reloading the truck, revising it, pulling everything off the truck again, planning, go to the hardware store for something else to ensure perfection in the loading process, planning, reloading the truck, stopping to admire his work every 8 minutes, ask what I think of how the truck is packed, tie everything down with rope, start on the next section, repeat. We were moving out of a three bedroom house, and we spent over 20 hours loading up the freaking truck.

Over that 20 hour span, we took turns getting pissed off at each other. He would get pissed at me because I kept putting stuff on the truck and interrupting his planning sessions. I would get pissed at him because we should have been done with the loading process 15 hours ago. Now in fairness to him, I don't believe that there was any possible way to get another Q-tip onto that truck after we finished packing it. He had utilized every square millimeter of that 27' Penske beauty, but by the time we finished I was ready to leave his rotting corpse in the master bedroom as a welcome to your new house gift to DJ, and I am certain that if he had the strength to lift his arms he would have clubbed me with one of the remaining items that wouldn't fit onto the truck, no matter how many more planning/strategy sessions Poppy Joe wanted to enjoy.

We would have been completely screwed without his assistance. In fact, we would have had to hire a moving company and probably forked out $7-8K more for them to move our things. That being said, the entire drive out to Texas, I couldn't think of anything other than how much I was dreading unloading this monstrosity with him when we got there. Carrying all of those things upstairs, Joe telling me all the things wrong with the new house, being instructed how to properly unload a truck--the idea of it all was overwhelming. It is a pretty simple deal. Grab whatever you see and can carry, pick it up, bring it into the house and ask Kim where the hell to put it--problem solved. For some reason, Joe has to constantly slow down the pace and plan everything out regardless of how simple it is. It isn't a character flaw as much as it is an obsession--everything has to be exactly the way he envisions it. Following a different logical progression just will not work under any circumstance.

It took us two days to unload the truck--well we didn't really start until Friday evening, and there were lots of projects along the way--putting desks together, constructing beds, hanging pictures, assembling the grill, etc. The house was large enough that I was able to keep my distance from Poppy Joe. I am grateful for his assistance, but holy crap, I hope to God we never move again, we probably won't have a friend buy this house and the poor bastard who buys this place might freak out when they discover Poppy Joe's severed head in the pantry.

Job Search should be a four letter word

2006-06-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

Is there anything more absolutely self-depracating and inane as looking for a new job? I can tell you that it is no freaking picnic. Deciding that your old job is an absolute waste of a life is the easy part--hell everybody knows that. But finding a new gig is more fun than anything I can envision right now.
Let's take a look at the process, shall we? First, you take the plunge and decide that you are going to start the search--this is obviously the simplest part. All that you have to do at this point in the process is bring the idea of a new start to the table and most likely, based on the fact that something like 96.8% of us hate the job that we have grown accustomed to and it is easy to see why this is such a tempting endeavor. I remember when I was a freshman in college (yes, the first time--screw you Mr. and Mrs. Funny guy out there) and I would just have to think the word "Pizza" and I would have absolutely no control over my pituitary or my phone and within 30 minutes, one of those evil bastards would show up with a pie that I had no ability to afford and after three slices the remaining five pieces would end up in the same corner as the other forty boxes that were piled up in the dorm room and were a damn good substitute for real furniture. The desire for a new job is equally tempting, significantly more incredulous to one's reality, and impossibly more stupid when we actually make that decision. I mean a pizza is going to bounce a couple of checks, maybe get you a lecture from Gramma and Grampa G (who were still called Mom and Dad in those days of yore), probably attract more cockroaches--short-term pain, no doubt, but in the long-run, not the end of the world stuff.
Once you get that taste of leaving your job in your head, there is no escaping it. You cannot just all of a sudden reverse course and say, "You know what, this is crazy--I can turn things around here--it isn't so bad. Tomorrow I am going in and I am going to remember why I took this job in the first place. This place is a dream, and I am going to fight for what's mine." The only way those words come out of your mouth is if you just took a huge bong hit, are so high that nothing in the world can piss you off, and the only shard of sense you have left tells you that you can't pass the drug screen for another 30-45 days depending on who you believe (and there is no way you're going to get caught with one of those Whizzinators, because look at what it did to that guy from the Vikings--nobody cares that he got suspended for the season, but he will forever be remembered for the Whizzinator thing--I mean are you kidding me, you gotta be desperate--whoops, off track again). And believe me, after those 30 days (because at that point it's worth the risk--45 days my ass) you are right back where you were when you boldly prophesized your intention to turn this thing around--looking online for jobs, talking to everybody you know for just a sniff of the next opportunity, doing just enough to keep your lousy job until that crease of light shines its way from way down that dark empty tunnel.
In short, there is no escaping your eventual departure once you get it into your head. Things will be brighter this time around--you're going to find your way out of this God-forsaken industry once and for all and find something that you absolutely love. You remember those days when you used to get out of bed and get excited about where you worked. You could tell people with a sense of pride that you were a part of this or that organization and you took pleasure in the envy that you could see in their eyes. "Wow, what's it like working there? I hear that it is an amazing place!" You know damn well that the next job is going to be just like that again and you commit yourself to keeping all of your options open (except going back to the same thing ever again--no way you make that mistake for the umpteenth time). You bide your time and talk to people, never letting on at work that anything is wrong or that you have any intention of doing anything else ever again. In their eyes, this is your life for the foreseeable future and nobody has to know that the next decent offer that comes along will be your ticket to a life of pure bliss. There is no rush, just knowing that you are leaving at this point is enough to satiate your hunger. Knowing that you will have the ability to leave these bastards high and dry soon enough lets you walk around this tortured existence with a wry smile at all times. What they construe as happiness is nothing more than self-satisfaction that comes from knowing what they don't.
Over the next several months, as the reality of the job market begins to surface and all of those associates, friends and loved ones (who swore that they knew somebody who would absolutely have the perfect opportunity for somebody like you) begin to become more and more scarce when you actually ask them to let that somebody know that you are interested, you start to become less and less particular about the job. Remember, in your mind you're already gone--this job is over--you can't just turn back and go to work tomorrow morning and return to that life. Going through the motions and showing up every day is one thing, but actually trying to further your career at this empty, hollow, miserable existence is just not an option. You start making some calls and sounding more and more desperate, knowing full-well that the more desperate you sound, the harder it is going to be to find anything. It's like when you were single and you couldn't get a freaking phone number from the drunkest, most hideous girl at the skankiest bar in the worst part of town at closing time after you found out she was just released from the ladies penitentary up the road and hasn't had sex in 12 years. Then suddenly, three months later after some crazy, twisted random event you end up with a girlfriend and some random girl who you have been in love with for the past 10 years calls you out of the blue to tell you how sorry she was that you never asked her out and that her boyfriend had just left her and if you weren't doing anything, she would just love to see you. While this is going on, your girlfriend's best friend who is gorgeous comes over while she was out of town to watch a movie with you and she starts making eyes at you. This is life. When you don't need a job, everybody and their brother wants to hire you away, but the minute you are actually looking, suddenly you are riddled with leprousy and people can't get away from you fast enough.
As this reality becomes abundantly clear, you find yourself recognizing that if you are going to get away from this bastion of hell that is your daily existence, you might have to find something else in a business that you understand. Probably, you are going to have to take a job in the same industry, because you now have to get away from this place. Every day is more idiotic than the last. Suddenly, there isn't a soul in the entire place whose mere sight doesn't make your skin crawl--you are willing to take something you wouldn't have considered just a month ago, and before too long, you are willing to take damn near anything. It is about this time that word inevitably gets out that you are looking for another job, creating just one more layer of monotony to your already miserable existence. On one hand, you can be a little bit more open about your search, but on the other hand, the whisper of joy that sustained you in knowing that you had the chance to surprise those weasels in their moment of need would be lost forever.
. . . .So now fast forward a couple of more months (and here is where the generalities that I mentioned above that could be true for anybody and certainly is nonspecific to my particular plight ends and my reality begins) and I find myself in a new city with a new house in a different but equally confusing slice of suburbia without a job and without much on the horizon in the job market. The career path that I was so eager to abandon in Arizona would be a welcome existence here in Texas. The irony is that this time of year is the undeniable worst period of time to be looking for anything in the hotel/resort/country club world. Jobs that were listed online just a month ago have been whitewashed away at basically every hotel in the metroplex (that's Dallas/Fort Worth for those of you not familiar with this silly world I have entered). So now I find myself with a quandry--no job, no contacts, no network of friends, no opportunities on the horizon and a daunting mortgage payment and still plenty of mouths to feed. In one way, it may force me to find a job outside the industry (which ultimately would be the right thing to do for the long run), but it may also force me to take a job at 7-eleven if something doesn't come along soon.
The joy I get now out of looking on monster.com, hcareers.com, on every hotel website on the planet and finding that the only positions available are for bilingual part-time housekeepers at $7/hour is indescribable. I'll be getting in touch with headhunters this week and I'll do my best to keep you posted.
. . . Aside from the job thing, however, things here are fan-freaking-tastic. Our new house is incredible--you get a lot more for your money in Dallas than you do in Arizona. We have doubled the size of our home and are very excited about the area where we are located. The schools are rated the best in the state and we are a mere 3 hour drive to Meemaw and Poppy-Joe, so you know there will be lots of great stories on the horizon. Until I find gainful employment, I will try to do a better job of writing. Those of you who are still actually checking this site, I thank you for your patience (except Matt R and DJ, CDN who have threatened my life for not posting and having to look at that horrific picture of the rat for over two months). I will get back on track and believe me, there are volumes of stories that have been building for the past two months. I will do my best to relive them with all of you. Thanks again

Trauma in Sedona Part VI--Detroit Airport 1996 Redux

2006-03-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

We came upon a clearing and dug in to the rich offerings that were bursting the seams of my backpack. How much string cheese can one man enjoy? For my money, there is no limit to the pleasure one gets from ripping into a miniaturized tube of mozzarella and pulling long strands off like it was a maypole. As much as I was craving that homogenized goodness, I resisted the urge and allowed my ailing mother and children load up on the calcium-rich treats. Apparently, Joany was denied the delights of the juice box, and has not yet gotten over it, but the kids drank down their fruity beverages and the down time allowed Shari's heart to somehow overcome the near tragedies that we had all just experienced. She was still uttering nothing but monosyllabic words (mixed in with an occasional Savannah), but her vocabulary had reached at least 20 words at this point, and we all felt strongly that she was well on her way to a full recovery from witnessing her rat pack try to end their lives within seconds of one another.
We decided to follow the path in the opposite direction from our normal hikes and were happy to discover that the creek cut up that way as well. As an added bonus, there was still quite a bit of snow on the creek bed in this direction because it was not exposed to as much sunlight as we were along our usual walk. This of course did not change the fact that the floppy hat stayed firmly affixed on Gramma G's skull the entire time. The kids made a few snowballs, Abby wandered down to the white oddity and we found a place to walk back across the creek. Fortunately, at this "more travelled" part of the hike, there were enough rocks to keep our feet safely above the surface of the menacing creek. Joany and Gramma G utilized the walking sticks that they had acquired and were able to get to the other side without incident. We walked another couple of hundred yards and decided that it was probably as good a time as any to return from whence we came.
Lauren grabbed onto my throat for dear life and we trudged back along the sandy path over the creek, past the refueling area, through the ruins, over the spooky walking bridge and back to the still overcrowded parking lot. The dogs were fully leashed for the remainder of the journey and as we got back to the car, the need for nourishment came up again. Surprisingly the vast amounts of string cheese that were consumed by all in attendance did not have the desired effect and our hunger was far from placated. We decided that we would find some place to stop and would try to leave the dog and rats in the car while we dined. There is a first time for everything. We piled into the cars and with the Endeavor in tow, we headed out of the park back down the winding road. Within a couple of miles, we came upon a campground or motel or something of the sort and it appeared that they had a dining room with outdoor tables open. I pulled into the parking lot and Shari followed. She was still muttering, but she had gotten her senses back and was showing outward signs of rational thought. It had been at least 15 minutes since any of us had heard any of the classic nine as they came to be known (My, Oh, heart, Savannah, God, I, breathe, my, can't--I realize now that she was utilizing the "my" twice in her utterances, but at the emotional state she had fallen to, I gave her full credit for nine words--I'm pretty generous in such things), so we put the rats into the Caravan to enjoy a little quality time with Abby. We cracked a couple of windows, so that their howls, yips and barks could resonate throughout the canyon and be enjoyed by all.
We sat down on the patio and enjoyed a relatively stress-free lunch. It wasn't too bad considering it was some roadside dump. I think it was called Junipine or some facsimile thereof, and aside from a somewhat challenged server, we got about 45 minutes of freedom from the rats and they were either being a hell of a lot quieter than I would have given them credit, or they had fallen asleep. Either way, we were uninterrupted, fat and happy. It appeared that life was returning to normalcy. Gramma G and Joany wanted to stop by one of the Arizona cheeseball souvineer shops that dot the landscape. We passed the megaplex that is known as Tlaquepaque--there is one in Phoenix, so I didn't see the need to stop there, and we continued down the road until we came upon a souvineer shop that we could be proud of. Plenty of crap strewn about in every direction over about two acres. There was also an endless supply of cool items, and we had stopped here the last time in Sedona with Meemaw and Poppy Joe when we spent about six and a half hours going through every corner of both acres before settling on a Metallic Lizard and small bracelet. You try entertaining Lauren that entire time while not allowing her to touch any of the 4 billion trinkets and whatnots strewn about the place. Let me promise you that it is no picnic. There is only so much fascination one can derive from an old Army-issued combat helmet that has been adorned with scrap metal to create a turtle statuette--and they say that art is dead.
We pulled off the road behind the store and I quickly realized that we were going to get blocked in, so I pulled the Caravan forward and parked right outside the entrance. Shari parked the Endeavor where we had originally parked (about 30 yards back). I turned the engine off and Kim said that she and the kids were going to stay in the car. After my last experience trying my damndest to keep an eye on Lauren, I was in no mood to argue. I looked in the side mirror and caught some strange activity in the road which had brought traffic to an absolute standstill in both directions. Thank god we got here when we did. Nothing worse than being stuck in traffic.
"Kaaaaaaay-LEEEE! AAAAAAAAIIIIIGGGGGGH! STOP-STOP-STOP!!! EEEEEEEEEEEE!!
oh my God. Stop! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!! KAY-LEEEEE! AAAAAEEEEEEAAAAAIIIIIGGH!" I am quickly running out of letters here, but the noise that was coming from coincidentally about 30 yards back was piercing, frightening and insane. Running into and out of traffic was the rat--under tires, behind truck beds, through Shari's legs and under bumpers and trailer hitches. Confused, Frightened and flying about with the reckless abandon of a freshman from an all-girls Catholic College on her first Spring Break in Cancun, Kaylee had Shari running about like her body had been invaded (not by Poppy Joe this time) by a rabid seal in the unrelenting grips of an ether binge. It was unlike anything I had ever seen--I swear it. It was truly the most bizzarre display of human paranoia unleashed this side of Nurse Ratchett's most deeply disturbed subjects.
While a part of me wanted to help, I was paralyzed by a couple things. First, there was the real fear of actually being associated with this obvious psychopath. I didn't know any of these people, but when one of them called this one in, the authorities would certainly take everybody involved down to Belleview for a mild sedative and a chat with the boys. Secondly, there was an absolutely rational fear of being attacked by this lunatic as I approached, because she would have perceived me to be a threat to the rat. Rabid seals on ether binges are not exactly known for their predictability or ther rational thought. Thirdly, like the guys in the truck next to us who were laughing their asses off, it was one hell of a show, and I was not one to interrupt somebody else's fun. Being somewhat removed from the situation, what was the real danger once Shari had stopped traffic with the high pitched insanity? Kaylee was going to run at full speed into a parked hubcap? She might have been knocked silly, but there was no real danger. But even with the traffic halted 1/4 mile in each direction, Shari carried on like she had an entire Scorpion colony trapped in her miles of hair.
Kim prodded me on to help her. "Josh--help her!"
Still frozen with fear and amusement, I forced my legs to make their way back to Shari and the rat. She was still digging under the engine block of a Subaru for the little ball of fluff, but by the time I got to her, she had ripped the freak back out from under the Outback and was clutching her and babbling nonsensically.
"Oh my God--My Heart. I can't-I can't--my heart--I can't-- Oh My God"
Here we go again and this time she can't even say the word breathe. I walked over to her on the side of the road and told her to calm down that she was acting like a freak. In retrospect, this probably wasn't exactly the kind of empathy she was looking for in her moment of need. She was completely emotionally spent over the potential loss of both of her dogs over a two hour period. Realizing full well that she only had two dogs, but they had tried to kill themselves three times since Gramma G traversed the stunt log in what must have seemed like it was several years ago. They tempted fate enough in one afternoon that I wasn't sure she would ever make it back from the emotional abyss in which she found herself fully entrenched. And here I was mocking her just because her seal act was so convincing. Great, now I'm the bad guy--see how that works.
In the grand scheme of things, today was all about karma. You heard me right--karma. Nearly ten years ago, I experienced what can only be described as the kind of cruel torture best reserved for the finest Al-Quada operatives we can find. While travelling back from Dan's wedding in Scotland without his wife because of some sort of Visa problem, we had a three hour layover in Detriot's Airport after spending about 16 hours getting to that point. We decided to call Gramma and Grampa G to let them know that we had made it back to the states safely--you know, check in because they might be worried. They had been charged with the task of dogsitting Shari's first rat, Midori while we were away. After 16 hours of travelling, and with a three hour layover and a four hour flight still on the horizon, they decide that now would be an ideal time to mention to me that Midori had made her way out of the backyard and was no longer with us. I told them that there could not be a worse time to tell Shari this, but they felt like it would be better coming from me. I told them that there was no freaking way I was going to tell her--not today--not right now. They decided at that moment that they would have to tell her.
As I watched all of the color leave her face and witnessed the transformation in to blubbering hellchild, I knew that I would never forgive my parents. The next 10 hours of my life have to be among the worst I had ever experienced. Dan managed to get a seat 15 rows behind us, but the quiverring mess that was my sister was tethered to my side for every minute of that Northwest flight. She was heaped in a corner as I tried to get a hold of my future wife who had my car and was suddenly unable to meet us at the airport. In the shuttle ride to Kim's restaurant to retrieve my car, she sobbed uncontrollably. And on that 90 minute drive up to Ma's house in Ocala, she wept, sighed softly, bawled and muttered. On one side, I've got my best friend having to leave his wife of 10 days for the next six months because of a silly form being filled out improperly, and just behind me in the back, I've got my sister visiting the depths of despair that I didn't know could exist over a two pound ferret. There was no escaping it and my parents should have been forced to endure just one iota of that 26 hours of pure hell.
On this day on a 90 minute drive home from Sedona, Gramma G got her thimble full of my own personal torture chamber. Somewhere out there, Dan is smiling and I now know that Grampa G will get his too. Joany didn't really deserve that drive home from Sedona with whatever was left of Shari's psyche, but she chose to hang out with somebody who had this Karma attack coming, and she should have realized the risk going in. Shari's karma comes from the fact that she brought the rats in the first place--I tried to discourage her, I tried to dissuade her, I tried to flat-out tell her that it was a bad idea to bring rats to Sedona. She chose to ignore that advice and the near death on three occasions of one of the members of the rat brigade was her penance. Looking back, I'm kind of glad she brought them. Rarely has an outing to Sedona brought so much entertainment value to our family. Besides, the rats had so much fun.
So what did we learn? First and foremost, we learned that Rats have no business anywhere near Sedona, creeks, rocks, water, traffic or among decent society. Second, we learned that getting started on a posting like this one should never happen again--Six freaking parts--Is anybody out there actually still reading this crap? Third, never post any topic about dogs again--I think I have six out of the last seven postings with a picture of a dog. People are going to start to think this is a PETA friendly site (which it is not--you PETA freaks, stay the hell away--I am testing every chemical in my house in bunnies eyes right now). Fourth, Shari needs to get bigger dogs, period. And finally fifth, it is better to leave any and all family members at home when we go to Sedona. We bring Meemaw and she tries to drown our daughter (or at least crack her skull open on a rock); we bring Kim's Dad and Carol up and those poor saps end up getting married; Khris and Christy endured the same tragic fate; and now when we bring Shari, Joany and Gramma G, I end up with that goofy-assed picture on my blog. Life has a sick twisted sense of humor.

Trauma in Sedona Part V--Drowned Rats and Suicide Pacts

2006-03-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Sure enough, as Savannah was exploring the rocks on the left side of the pool like some sort of Mountain Goat, Kaylee continued to follow Hunter and Abby around as though she was actually an animal of substance and not an overactive member of the rodent family. As she scurried about the rocks and sand, she attempted to jump the substantial pool of water to get to the side that Savannah was on and she sort of missed the attempted landing spot. Missed might be a bit of an exaggeration. She tried to shoot a three pointer from midcourt and landed at the top of the arc. Though she never had a chance to clear the pool, at least she could have gotten close enough to hit the rim. Not this time--splash down into the frozen muck, somewhat reminiscent of Meemaw dropping Lauren a few months back, but somewhat different this time. She looked like a cotton ball attached to a drowning moth as it went down in a toilet bowl. As entertaining as it may have been to watch, soon Shari realized that her rat was not in plain sight and Kim made some comment like "Oh, my God--Kaylee! Kaylee!"
This was followed by Shari panicking as though her first born was trapped in that snake pit from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The grunting and squirming as she kept making her way to the slick rocks and I started to feel badly for the rat. No matter how insignificant in size she might be, it is tough to watch an animal suffering like that, and as yippy as she can be, I didn't want to see her drown in a toilet bowl sized puddle--not today anyway. Kim screamed at me, "Josh, get her out! Josh!" I reached down and grabbed a hold of her and she let out a yelp like she was having her testicles pinched by a vice grip (realizing full well, she has no testicles--I just can't recall a sound like that one made by any mammal that wasn't involving severe distress of one's nards). So I get blamed for hurting her at this point--freakin' rat. Should have let the cotton balled moth go down. As her drowned pelt scurried around the terra firma, Hunter was busy chasing Savannah down as she ascended Everest.
By this time, things were getting out of hand. Shari was just starting to calm down to the point that she could understand monosyllabic words spoken very slowly. Savannah climbed to the top of the large boulder formation and looked down at all the excitement. She was glowing with the success of reaching the summit of such an incredibly substantial hill--she must have been 10, maybe even 11 feet high (according to later accounts of the story, I heard that she was at least 5 stories high). She stopped there for a moment to pose for a photo-op as Hunter chased her down from behind. My cries of "Hunter, get your butt back here!" were to no avail. He pursued Savannah like a jealous husband finding his wife's car and his best friend's car parked next to each other at the Super 8 on some abandoned stretch of highway. There was to be no stopping him.
Savannah must have heard the commotion down below and had no intention of taking the long way home, not when everybody was so close. Before anybody could even realize what was going on, she pushed off with all of the beagleness she could muster and after propelling herself about a foot and a half out to a ledge of rocks just below her take-off point, her gigantic ears were not able to sustain the Dumbo-like results she was expecting and her flight that showed so much promise on take-off turned out to be (to quote Les Nesman of WKRP fame) plummoting to the earth like a giant sack of wet cement. Oh the humanity, indeed. Shari still shell-shocked from Kaylee's near drowning was now paralyzed with uncontrollable panic. "Oh my God! Oh my God! Savannah! Oh my God! Oh my God! Savannah!!!! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Savannah! Oh my God!" Aparently she had been reduced to these prominent (but relatively useless in most situations) four words of the English language.
She ran over to find the rat buried up to her stomach as her legs disappeared into the soft earth below the rocks. Suddenly a quadraplegic rodent, she had become a weiner dog in every sense of the word. She let out a grunt of some sort and we weren't really sure what to make of the whole scene. Had she landed two feet in any direction, she would have broken at least a couple of legs and probably killed herself. Instead, she got the wind knocked out of her and looked like a freaking daredevil. She was the envy of every NY City sewer rat--she had done her breed proud, but this was of no consolation to Shari. "Oh my God! I can't breathe. Oh my God! Oh my God! Savannah, I can't breathe."
Kim at this point after realizing that Savannah was going to live started laughing uncontrollably. She was doubled over nearly peeing herself. I was looking around for a McDonalds cup for her, but there were none around. Oh well, the van already smelled like urine, what difference would a soaked pair of Jeans make in my life? Shari held Savannah and kept muttering, "Oh my God! I can't breathe. My heart. Oh my God, my heart. Savannah, Oh my God, I can't breathe." At least now she was up to 9 words, but she didn't look any better than she had. Joany started asking about the string cheese again and I realized that we better forage ahead. The challenge now was that we had to cross back over the way we came. There was no freaking way Gramma G and Joany were going to cross that treacherous log again. Not after the carnage we just witnessed. I walked up to the left and surveyed the creek to see if there was a better place to cross that wouldn't involve such a necessity of coordination and balance. There was a spot to cross, but we would be forced to immerse the bottoms of our shoes in the water at a couple of spots. The fear that gripped Gramma G and Joany was somewhat understated compared to the paralysis that Shari still found herself under, but neither was looking forward to crossing those rolicking waters. Hunter jumped right out there and his pants were now drenched up to the thighs--never happier by the way. I played Scout master and led the two crazy ladies reluctantly, but safely to the other side. Shari, still mired in a catatonic state, followed Kim across. She may have been to consumed with muttering those nine words that she didn't recognize the obvious dangers in crossing the riptide without a harness, but before we knew it, we popped out on the other side to the safety of the sandy path.
The treachery and doom of this day was far from finished, however and as we all took delight in the delicacies of juice boxes and string cheese, no one could possibly anticipate what still awaited us.
Editor's Note: You may notice that there are two postings from today. If you are completely lost at this point, you probably missed part IV just below. I will not be able to write tomorrow morning, so the final installment of this adventure will not be posted until tomorrow (Wednesday). Sorry for the confusion and hope that you are enjoying the ride.

Trauma in Sedona Part IV--Dem Crazy Old Broads

2006-03-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

Slowly but surely, cars started to pull out of the parking lot and the line trudged forward until we finally got to the Ranger booth. She was very nice and understanding of our plight. There were a couple of very tight spaces that she had sent the car in front of us to explore and she offered us the chance to try to squeeze in. I explained that the yipping that was coming from the car behind us belonged to us as well and unless we could find two spaces, we would probably be right back. We paid the $7 entry fee and sought a parking spot that would sustain the awesome nature of the Caravan. As we jammed ourselves between a White Tundra and some kind of Chevy Aveo looking thing, five cars pulled out simultaneously--those bastards. We were already parked and the kids and Abby were bouncing off the seats trying to escape the urine scented coccoon that we had found ourselves trapped in for far too long.
We dragged the gang over to Shari's SUV as they filtered out as though their creaky bones could barely sustain stepping down after their arduous drive. The rats were tethered to their leashes and were ferreting about in every possible direction. Abby was going insane as she could smell and hear the rustling water below. At this moment as Abby worked to yank my shoulder out of socket trying to at last get to the creek, everybody decided that we needed to have a bathroom break. For what seemed like an eternity, everybody made their way into the giant holes with toilet seats attached and relieved themselves. Mom slapped on the giant red floppy hat--I can only assume that she had slathered any exposed skin in SPF 200 in the car because I didn't see her rubbing it into her skin in the parking lot. You can only imagine the horror of walking beneath the shade of the trees and canyon and leaving a square inch of skin exposed. Someday scientists are going to find out that rubbing excessive amounts of sunscreen on one's skin will cause liver failure and then she'll be completely screwed. This always happens, by the way. You may as well enjoy your life, eat whatever the hell you want, drink and smoke whatever you want, because the things that supplant what you aren't supposed to enjoy ultimately end up killing you, but just in a different fashion. Take alcohol for example--yes it may cause psorosis of the liver (you can spell check that one for me later), but drinking it in moderation is actually healthy for you and leads to a longer, happier life with less stress. Red wine even aids in digestion, so do what you're going to do, just so long as it makes you happy. For the time being, sunscreen and floppy hats makes Gramma G happy, so who are we to question how silly she looks?
Abby could not be controlled and she bolted down the trailhead as if she had just spotted a Rawhide bone the size of an elephant. The rest of the gang followed back 30 yards or so as we made our way over the bridge. Our general walk goes over this walking bridge and then we head down to the left where the creek runs for a couple of miles. We usually walk about a mile down over a rocky shore and sometimes out into the water over paths of rocks jutting out above the surface. Abby splashes her way around and the kids end up soaked from head to toe, because they cannot resist walking through the frozen water. With our troop today, there was a better than average chance that some or all of our guests would not be able to travel down our usual path, but until they bailed, Abby was determined to lead them along our usual journey.
We walked down the path about 100 yards from the end of the bridge and headed down through the brush to the creek where as luck would have it, there were no other people at this moment. As I tried to make my way downhill over the slippery rocks, Abby was huffing a puffing and doing her best to upend me. As I took one more look over the landscape, I decided to remove the leash and let her run free. As Shari caught up, she let the rats run free as well. Hunter, as always was doing just great. He jumped from puddle to puddle, pretending to try to stay dry for about 10 seconds before immersing himself whenever and wherever possible. Kim was carrying Lauren, but she got down as well and splashed around as much as she could before she was exhausted and needed to be carried again. The rats set out to follow Abby, who was absolutely in her glory. Kim appreciated being freed from carrying Lauren, if only for a moment and did her best to encourage the rest of our entourage (wow, did you ever realize how closely encourage and entourage are spelled. I don't know if I have ever used them in the same sentence--certainly not that close together, but it is really just the difference between a c and a t--who knew? All right--Captain Boggle in DC, I am sure that you knew, but did anybody else?) The bitching and whining started up relatively quickly.
"Are you sure you know where you're going?"
"I don't know if I feel comfortable on these rocks."
"This sure is slippery, I don't know if your mother and I should walk over here."
"How do we get down there?"
"Can we go back to the path now?"
"This is nuts--I don't want to break my arm again."
"Can we have some of that string cheese now?"
It never ended. For somebody who read The Little Engine That Could to her kids as often as she claims, Joany sure didn't get the message of the book, and Gramma G must never have liked that story. The three of them veered us back to the path for a moment and we walked along the sandy path with the dogs back in their harnesses for a few minutes. We convinced them to allow us to return back to the creek when we got to the remains of the old buildings that looked like they had been destroyed by a fire 100 years ago--nobody has ever actually researched the history of this area, so we can only guess what happened, but I try to make up something different every time for the kids--a different style of revisionist history if you will. So before they could work up the energy to fill the air with their hollow and empty protests, we were back down to the creek with the dogs back off their leashes and the kids back in the water up to their ankles. I am not saying that it was necessarily an easy part of the walk. The water was higher than usual. The rocks were quite slippery and rounded, making it difficult to get a good grip with your shoes. The walk forces you to take larger than usual steps in some areas, and occasionally, the soles of your shoes might get moistened, but that is part of the fun.
Gramma G walks about 65 miles a day. There had to be moments on some of these walks where the pavement came to an end, but watching the two of them trying to traverse the simplest of obstacles was like watching a wounded, mentally challenged, hopelessly uncoordinated and awkward 6 month old trying to take her first steps--you want to do your best to help them along and watch them succeed, but deep down, you know that only heartache and pain are around the corner. The bitching continued as they came to each opportunity. Abby kept looking back with that "You gotta be freaking kidding me" look on her face. Shari did her best to keep up and did a relatively good job (certainly better than the Crazy ladies). She was just so excited to see her rats having made it this far without drowning that I don't think she recognized the obvious peril that Joany and Gramma G took great pleasure in pointing out.
We finally got to a point that they had to cross over a 8 foot log that was somewhat wobbly. Realizing that if they slipped off one side or the other, they very well could have wound up with wet shoes or (perish the thought) wet calves, their fear was certainly justified. Kim, Lauren, Hunter and Shari made it across without too much acrimony, but the Old Lady and her four year junior cousin (that was for you Joany--don't expect too much more of that sucking up, because I'm not so good at it.) looked at the log with absolute horror. You would have thought that I was asking them to bungee jump off of Niagara Falls and they both just stood there frozen with fear. I tried to hand a walking stick back to Joany, but she didn't dare reach across the great crevace that faced her. Instead, I walked back across with the walking stick brought it to her and steadied the log with my feet while cheering her across the log that Evil Knievel himself would be reticent to traverse. She managed to make it without incident and handed the stick back to me. I handed it to Gramma G and my confused, paralyzed, floppy hat wearing mother (doubting her sanity and swearing like a sailor the whole way) put one foot in front of the other and made her way to the other side. Her stomach in knots, her hair standing on end, and only the brim of that floppy red hat providing her with the balance that she needed to persevere, she found herself on solid ground on the far side of the log.
After a moment to catch our collective breath, I walked over to the far side of the rocks. This is a point in the walk where we generally have a couple of choices on which way to go. There was a set of large boulders to our right, where Hunter had managed to climb. Just past the rocks was a pretty deep pool of water that had been formed from the melting snow and rain from the past week. On the left was another set of boulders that was about 10 feet high. The dog and rats were going crazy, wanting to press on. Kaylee was trying to follow Hunter, Savannah was climbing rocks like a freak, and Abby was running back and forth between all of them to find out where the best fun might be derived. The frenetic nature of all the animals, children, and crazy old ladies moving in so many directions was starting to create challenges. It became quickly apparent that we could not move past this point on our walk because of all the water that had accumulated, so I tried to herd everbody back toward the sandy path. Getting everybody to listen to me at this moment proved to be easier said than done and as the people began to gather in one location, the sound of a splash, a high-pitched yip and claws frantically scratching for the rocks suddenly made me turn my head.

Trauma in Sedona Part III--Arrival into Womanhood

2006-03-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

For a family outing, Sedona is just about the perfect distance from our house. It takes a little over an hour to get to the Oak Creek/Sedona area and another 20-30 minutes to get to our hiking spot. The drive is absolutely magnificent, but at the same time it can be quite treacherous as well. Lots of sharp turns, lots of beautiful scenery to look at and lots of tourists, lost and confused as they try to find the Pink Jeep Tours office. Leaving the North Phoenix area, you immediately begin your ascent into the mountains. Five minutes north of our house, you are at 2000 feet elevation and before you can think about your ears popping, you find yourself at 6000 feet. The grade is very steep and generally the car gets incredibly upset when you lock in the cruise control at 80mph and try to coerce the engine to do its job. When I had the Saturn, this was especially noticeable and there were two or three distinct climbs where I knew the car would recoil in horror and jump up to about 7000 rpms before forcing me to reassess my strategy and push that badboy to 50mph and pray. Nothing like starting a road trip (no matter how long or short) with the family stranded by the side of the road around a blind turn in the middle of nowhere. The Saturn never completely quit on us on one of these ascents, but it certainly provided me with enough fear of this drive that I let the vehicle dictate what it is able to handle.
The minivan seems to do much better on this trip, but when I see the rpms climbing beyond 4000, I let some of those bastards with Hemis pass me. I enjoy later in the trip when I am able to return the favor. There is nothing quite so insulting to one's manhood as being passed by a minivan. There is some sort of psychological fear of this eventuality and as you move steadily by them in the left hand lane, they inevitably bear down on the gas pedal with absolute disregard for their own safety or any recognition of posted speed limits. I am quite convinced that you could talk your way out of a ticket if you just utilized the truth in this situation. "Yeah, officer, I realize that I was driving 93 and I see that we were in a 65 zone here, but there was a minivan that was about to pass me on the left. I've got a girlfriend here--I mean what the hell was I supposed to do?" 9 out of 10 guys would cut you some slack. There's always that one who just won't stray outside the strict guidelines of "the law," but he's the same guy who is going to cite you for speeding on your way to the hospital after your wife's water breaks. He'll probably even keep you there for an extra 45 minutes or so, just so the lesson sticks, but 90%, most guys are willing to take that chance. I don't even know if people realize that they refuse to let a minivan pass them or not, but when I am driving the Opamobile, I have no challenges making a move to the outside. The sight of that silver Caravan slip-streaming past a guy's Camry and you would think he would contract the plague if he let me pass. We guys are pretty damn funny about such things.
The drive to Sedona is pretty much a straight shot. There are only about 8 exits between our departure point and our destination. Of these, maybe two or three actually have any kind of services and there are two rest areas--one about 15 minutes north of Anthem and one about one exit from Sedona. As I was flying past the first one with the blue "REST AREA" sign still just in front of me, Lauren pulls the old "I have to go potty." out of nowhere. When we left Shari's house just minutes earlier, she didn't need to go, and I was sure of this because even in my still clearing head, I could recall asking her at least three times if she needed to pee before we left. Kim looks back at her and asks her if she can hold it for a little while (knowing full well that this means at least another 30 minutes and probably 45). Lauren shook her head and Kim sprung into action.
"Lauren, you are going to have to pee in a cup."
"Okay."
"Honey, do you think that is a good idea?"
"Do you have a better one? She needs to learn sometime."
As I move further along in life, I am always amazed at how much I don't realize. Quite honestly, I didn't realize that there was some sort of necessity to a woman learning how to pee into a cup while traveling down the highway at high rates of speed. Certainly at the age of three, there would still be ample time to figure this out for oneself, but we didn't have much choice if we wanted to preserve the sanctity of Lauren's pants and carseat.
"Don't Crash."
"I'll do my best."
The next thing I know, Kim takes a last sip of coke out of her McDonalds cup and heads back in the van. I did my best to focus on the road, the turns, the traffic and the wind pushing the van all over the place, but Kim gets Lauren out of her carseat and brings her to the back of the van and begins to coerce her into relieving herself. Without hesitation, she unloads her bladder on the unsuspecting McDonalds cup and manages a bullseye. Kim is cheering her on like she just landed a triple lutz or sowcow or something for the first time. Life is just full of so many special moments and this one to Kim was one of her proudest. As we had no Kleenex in the car, I heard something about drip drying and before I knew what had happened, Lauren was strapped back in, Kim was back up front and a cup full of urine joined us for the duration of the trip. Somehow in the grand scheme of things, this was one of the rites of womanhood and Lauren had passed with flying colors.
Kim immediately felt the need to share with her sisterhood and placed a call to Shari, Joannie and Gramma G in the car behind us. Based on what I could get out of the conversation, Shari had never peed in a cup (either in a moving vehicle or elsewhere for that matter). I couldn't tell if they were impressed, horrified, jealous or challenged to do it themselves, but Kim was absolutely beaming. The rest of the drive was relatively mundane--lots more traffic than I had hoped, a sign of things to come to be sure. We exited the highway and made the drive through Oak Creek Village and into Sedona. The temperature was a perfect 70 degrees and the sun was beaming through the red rocks. The twisting two lane road always gives Kim a heart attack. With the amount of cars on the road today, it was even more daunting. Around every turn there was another car parked on the side of the road and a steady stream of cars coming at us from the opposite direction. As we moved out of town and into the back country, we could see hundreds of people walking along the creek. We finally arrived at our trailhead, only to find six cars in front of us trying to get into the parking lot. Abby was running around the back of the van uncontrollably. She could see that we were here and she could hear the gentle rumblings of the creek down below. Being trapped in the van was about the last thing she could handle at this point. It didn't help that Shari insisted on taking her rats for a walk at that moment so that Abby could see them enjoying the fresh air while she was still trapped with the pee cup in the back of the Caravan. As one car would pull out of the packed parking lot, the park ranger would let one car in. Realizing full well at this point that we were going to probably have to keep all three of the animals on a tight leash for the duration of the day.
Gramma G and Joannie appeared out of nowhere outside Kim's window and made her jump like she saw a severed head in the shower. Gramma G was concerned that we didn't stop to go to the bathroom before we got off the highway.
"Why didn't we stop back where there was a bathroom?"
"Um. We didn't know that you needed to go.
"Well, don't you think you should have considered that?"
"Why didn't you call us on the cellphone?"
"We didn't have a signal."
"Why didn't you pull up next to us and ask us to roll down the window and mention something that way?"
She changed the subject.
"We also need to get some lunch."
"Mom, we have the dogs here. We can't really stop for lunch and I don't think it's a great idea to try to eat while driving down these roads with this much traffic."
"Well, we should have thought of that before we left."
"Mom, there's a bathroom right up there on the other side of the parking lot. Why don't you and Joannie go walk over there."
"All right, but we need to figure out lunch--we'll be starving before too long."
As Gramma G and Joannie walked over to the "bathrooms" that were nothing more than glorified outhouses, I found myself at least amused for the moment. Of course we are going to need to eat--why didn't I think of that? Oh wait a second, I am almost completely certain that I mentioned that being a problem about a dozen times over the last 24 hours, but Shari's dogs would have so much fun, so we brought them. Being hungry and miserable is somewhat better when you get to be right and others are going to suffer because of their own stubbornness. As we watched the second car in line pull in, the true hell that this day would become for somebody in our party edged ever so much closer. The imminent nature of the doom that awaited her was palpable.

Trauma in Sedona Part II--The Rats are Coming

2006-03-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

So as I worked my way through the morning and did my best to put on my game face, I struggled mightily to do the simple tasks. I felt a lot like Hunter must feel on a regular basis--Shower, yes a shower would be good to take this film off, but maybe I should check the scores from yesterday's NCAA tournament games, just to make sure that my bracket is completely destroyed. How the hell did Davis Love III miss the cut at the TPC? He was leading after the first round--Holy Crap an 83! He's gotta feel like hell. How did Tiger do?--oh yeah, shower. The morning pretty much continued on this way through Pants, socks, shoes, keys, water--more water, etc. Finding the proper motivation and focus was proving itself to be a difficult task. After much debate, we decided that I would take the kids and Abby over to Shari's house to meet Gramma G and Joannie for breakfast, while Kim cleaned the house for the two realtors stopping by this morning. When she finished cleaning, she was going to join us for breakfast and we would depart to Sedona soon after. (this is a point of future contention in this story and I would not bring it up except that I am trying to avoid Kim blurting out some comment like "That is not what we discussed!" or "You always make everybody else look like an idiot--that isn't what happened." For the record, this and all postings are based solely on my perspective and the interpretation of facts may always be in dispute by any and all parties mentioned herein. These are the facts as I interpreted them to be in my twisted mixed-up head, and I really don't have an alternate point of reference. Suffice it to say in this instance that Kim's recollection of our conversation did not occur the same way. Now back to our feature presentation). After much confusion and deliberation, I got the kids and the dog loaded up in the Opamobile and headed to Shari's house for "breakfast."
We got to Shari's house and were immediately attacked by the rats. This is not a unique experience and anybody who has experienced hospitality Shari style would understand the pleasure one can derive from the infinite high-pitched yelping one encounters as they enter the foyer of echoes that comprises Shari's entryway. Bringing Abby over only heightens the rats' enthusiasm and with my hangover in full swing, it was the greeting I was trying to avoid. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Shari had indeed been making breakfast. There were two packs of Safeway Blueberry muffins (which were absolutely fantatsic by the way--we had been repeatedly disappointed with Safeway's baked goods over the past several years and I can't recall a recent time that Kim or I had bought anything from their bakery, but these were damn good), two bags of bagels and the distinct crackling of bacon being prepared. She had even set the dining room table and some kind of freshly brewed vanilla coffee masked the scent of the bacon grease if only for a moment.
We said our pleasantries and the kids were wound up (not quite as much as the rats, but wound up none the less). Lauren and I tried to share a blueberry muffin, but Gramma G and Joannie decided that the other 6 muffins that were destined to sit on Shari's counter for the next six weeks before Shari finally threw them away didn't look as tasty as the one that Lauren had picked out. So instead of enjoying this muffin with my daughter, I was fighting the two crazy old ladies off like they were buzzards at a fresh kill. Poor Lauren only got three bites (which was all she wanted in the first place because she is three) and I was left to forage for scraps and crumbs while the two of them justified eating our muffin because in their nutritional analysis yesterday, they found out that the 900 calories they would consume from eating a lo-fat muffin could easily be enjoyed in another way by eating so many other things that they enjoy. Whatever. All I know is that they ravaged our muffin and in their minds it was all right. Old and Crazy should be interchangable words.
By the time we finished the muffins, Shari had finished cooking the two pounds of bacon that we would obviously need to get through the morning (so much for that 900 calorie muffin theory). She then asked if anybody wanted eggs. I told her that I was going to make a Poppy Joe bagel sandwich, but would only need one egg (See The Pre Holiday Weigh-In). Hunter wanted the same thing, but wanted his egg to be runny. So I told her to break my yolk and leave his together. She interpreted this as my wanting my egg scrambled or at least mutilated beyond recognition. I decided that it would be better if I just made my own egg and put together a damn good attempt at the masterpiece that is the Poppy Joe bagel sandwich. I even burnt the bagel as a tribute to the inventor (not really as a tribute--I just can't work Shari's toaster apparently, but Poppy Joe doesn't need to know that). All in all, considering that I don't believe she has ever prepared a breakfast for another human being, she did a great job. Everybody got plenty to eat, and she even asked us three or four times how the bacon was cooked--crispy enough for you? It was like the ghost of Poppy Joe had invaded Shari's body. It was pretty special as you might imagine.
We finished breakfast and sat around for a little while, wondering where Kim was. Maybe the house was a little bit more trashed than I realized and I didn't want to interrupt her, so we just talked, digested, checked the weather report in Sedona. It was supposed to be a high of 72 today. It was also Saturday which meant that it crossed over two different weeks of Spring Break, which meant there would probably be about 30 gazillion people in Sedona today. I again brought up my concerns regarding bringing the dogs/rats with us this time. Kaylee and Savannah had never been before and there was a better than average chance that they were going to drown when they got trapped in a puddle. We also would be dealing with so many other hikers on our trail that we couldn't let them off their leashes which meant we would have to traverse the slick rocks while attached to eager and anxious animals either pulling us ahead when we weren't ready, or holding us back when we tried to move ahead. The third quandry was that as the day moved later and later, we would not be able to stop and eat with the dogs because they have never been left alone in a vehicle for more than 2 minutes and would likely empty their subsantial bowels into our upholstery in protest. I felt that this rationale would more than hold water, but Shari was dead-set on bringing the rats. "They would have so much fun." How could I possibly argue with that?
At 9:30, Kim called my cell phone wondering where we were. Shari answered the phone and told her that we were still at the house and wanted to know where she was. Kim was under the impression that I was coming back to our house after breakfast for some reason. I believe that this confusion took place for a couple of reasons. Most likely, it took place because originally Gramma G and Joannie were going to come over after breakfast and we were going to leave from here. At some point, we realized that it would make more sense to depart from Shari's house because it was a little farther north and there was no point in backtracking. As I searched my bleary memory banks, I don't recall having this conversation with Kim, but I thought this morning we were all clear and on the same page. I guess that we weren't, because Kim had run a few errands, packed the car, filled the tank with gas and was patiently waiting for our return. About 15 minutes later, she showed up at Shari's and we began loading up the car. Abby stood in front of the door with a look like Mike Singletary daring the oposing running back to try to come through the middle of the field. There was no possible way we were getting out of the house without the dog. The high pitched yelping that was permeating my skull made it clear that the rats would be coming along as well.
All three of them jumped into the minivan with us. So now, not only were we forced to endure a day with the rats, they were also going to ride on our laps all the way up to Sedona--life is a rapturous boulliabaise sometimes, treat after treat. Shari had to stop for gas for the Endeavor, so we deposited her canine imposters through the two inch opening in her window. I needed some separation from the yelping freaks. 90 minutes in the minivan was tough enough to endure with Hunter screaming that Lauren is touching him and Lauren denying any involvement whatsoever. Couple that with the majestic utterances of "Are we there yet?" (Thank you again Jordan and Jamie) every thirty seconds and you have the makings of Suburban utopia. Throw in the high-pitched skin-peeling yelps of the rat brigade and you have the recipe of Dad veering off the mountain at 75 mph. I have enough challenges staying on the road when I am trying--you don't want to encourage me.

Trauma in Sedona Part I

2006-03-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

Today it might be a little bit difficult for me to write with anything other than straightforward facts. I need to stay on task because the emotional expenditure that I have endured this afternoon is nothing short of overwhelming. It has been one crisis after another and I am doing everything in my power to not overreact, not exaggerate, not to annihilate your senses with the details of this day, because I fear that you too would find yourself in an untenable situation, weeping silently to yourself in your barca lounger in the fetal position. I will not have that on my conscience, but I need to expunge the stress from my soul in order to free my own restless mind and senses. For those of you who are too uncomfortable continuing down this path, please divert your eyes now. For those of you who are far stronger than myself emotionally, I recommend that you tread cautiously, and be prepared to close out this posting as quickly as you may have opened it, because by the end (I don't care if you have the emotional depth and range of a half-dead mule) you will be an absolute wreck. Consider yourself forewarned.

The trouble began last night when my mother and my cousin Joannie came in for dinner at my restaurant. They are out here on a four-day girls spa weekend that they take every year since we have moved to Arizona. As their entrees were being prepared, I went over to their table to feign interest in their enjoyment of their meal (quite honestly, I have reached the point that so long as the guest doesn't punch me in the throat, I consider it a mild success--I have got to get out of this business soon, but that is another rant on another day). We began to discuss our plans for Saturday. They wanted to go up to Sedona for the day and we were determining the specifics of the plan--what time did we need to leave, who was going to drive, what we would do if they blew another tire on the way up like they did last time--things like that. They had spent the day at the spa with Shari and the three of them had already come up with a basic outline for the day. Shari wanted to bring the dogs up with us and she was pretty dead-set on this plan. We have been to Sedona many times in the past couple of years, and our general agenda when we go now is to find our favorite trail and go hiking with the kids. I am usually carrying Lauren for the majority of the walk and the times that we have brought Abby have been quite a challenging dilemma, just coordinating who was going to hold her leash and maintain our balance enough to not drop Lauren into the creek. See The Lazy Bastard Returns (Section 2) for more details about the difficulty this poses.

But Shari wants to bring the dogs--not just Abby, but all the dogs. As you probably know from the last posting and many others, Abby is a labrador retriever and loves these walks and is fully capable of getting into and out of the water with adept comfort. As long as she is off of her leash, she tags along and plays along side the rest of us for as long as we can handle it. Shari's dogs (if they can even be classified as canine) are glorified rats with a hyperinflated squeak toy trapped in their larynx. She has a 2 pound maltese named Kaylee and a sniveling excuse for a beagle named Savannah. Neither of which has any idea what to do on a hike, and I am pretty sure that swimming is not one of their primary functions. Now, as we found out earlier this month, not having swam with any regularity does not necessarily translate into not being able to swim at all, but my instinct told me that bringing the girls was not the best idea. I mentioned my concerns to mom and Joannie, but I fully realized that we would probably be dragging the rats behind us throughout the day.

The thing that really struck me as odd, however, had nothing to do with Sedona per se. Mom mentioned that they were going to meet at Shari's house at 8AM for breakfast and that we could leave from there. Their story was that Shari was going to actually make them breakfast at 8 in the morning. I think Kim summed it up best when I told her when she responded with, "Do they not see the absolute absurdity of Shari making them breakfast at that hour?" Shari lived with us for 9 1/2 glorious months. During this time, the only thing that would arouse her from her 72 hour weekend slumber was the smell of bacon grease crackling. I cannot recall one time that she made anybody breakfast during those months. The thought that she would actually intentionally be getting up to prepare breakfast for somebody else at the detriment of her weekend recovery sleep just made no sense at all. Kim had to call Shari and find out what the hell was going on, and Shari claimed complete ignorance about any kind of breakfast plan. Somehow, however, when I went to bed last night, Shari was going to be making hosting an 8AM breakfast extravaganza. Kim seemed to think it would consist of bagels (and perhaps some of those Starbucks Frappuccinos), but I still had to witness it firsthand.

My day started out innocently enough (as they all do). I awoke in the semi-conscious numbness of far too many Glenlivet on the rocks at about 7:45. My two wonderful children singing in unison "Daddy, wake up--It's a beautiful sunshiny day!" Usually I just get Lauren providing this wake up call, but today, Hunter joined in on the fun, and my bleary eyed vision could definitely make out that there were two silhouetted bodies in some reptilian fashion urging me to arise from my content slumber. Going out last night for a couple of beverages pretty much precludes me from trying to make any kind of excuse as to wanting to sleep for another 30 seconds. This is the penance of the married man--guilt supercedes all physical and/or mental damage (mild hangovers included). So I spryly made my way out of bed and did my best to maintain some semblance of enthusiasm as I embraced the beautiful sunshiny day.

It is at this point that I will pause this posting. I realize that occasionally I write a little too much on any given topic and the misdirections of my train of thought/stream of consciousness can get somewhat off track. This story could take at least 3 or 4 solid sections with all of the craziness that went on today. There should be ample foreshadowing to consume your minds at this point and a sort of Kafkaesque sense of loss awaits those who continue over the next couple of days. The good thing is that I actually have the mornings off the next few days, we will have no visitors after Gramma G departs tomorrow morning, and I will have no excuses as to why I didn't finish this soon to be epic. Please tune in tomorrow.

Yessir, that's my dog!

2006-03-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

I realize that everybody out there who is a pet owner has a personal bias regarding his or her dog, cat, llama or parakeet. They find a way to endear themselves to us and regardless of how insane they make us with their idiosyncrasies, we tolerate them and enjoy having them around. Currently (with the exception of three or four fish--I lost count as to how many have made the flush lately) we only have one pet, our beloved Yellow Labrador Retriever, Abby.
For those of you who have met Abby, you have probably formulated your own opinions about her. She tends to be a little bit overfriendly with any house guests. She tends to eat far too much. She tends to knock over the trash can within twenty seconds of our departure. She tends to make herself comfortable with complete disregard for anybody else's welfare or the long-term survival of any furniture in our home. She tends to bolt out the front door with speed of cheetah whenever the crack between the door jamb and our left leg is larger than three inches. She tends to sleep at least as much as Grampa G with a belly full of ambien, lunesta, valium and Southern Comfort. She tends to destroy anything green in the backyard for no apparent reason. And she tends to be carry her weight in much the same manner as Chris Farley did.
But despite all of these slight character flaws, she is a beloved member of our family. She is about as much a Yellow Lab as Kim is. She refuses to fetch, and when she does, her inclination is to bring whatever it is back with absolutely no intention or returning it for another throw. I used to live with three labs (Black, Chocolate and Yellow) in Florida, and they were true to form. We lived on three acres (one for each of them I suppose) and every day, they would still insist upon breaking out and exploring the territory around them. They would fetch anything at any time, whether it be a frisbee, a piece of rope, a decoy, a tennis ball, or a stick. I could even practice chipping golf balls and one of them would gladly chase my golf balls all day and place it back at the center of my stance with the excitement of a kid on his first day at Disney World just for the opportunity to go and chase it again. Abby--not so much.
The other characteristic of Labs is their love of the water. All of our Labs in Florida had an insane love of the water. When I was in the process of building my first house in Tampa and had to allow two of my friends to babysit my dog for a month while the house was being completed, she got to stay on the banks of the Weekie Watchie River. There was a three foot drop from the embankment on the side of the river behind my friend's house and they would spend two to four hours a day bouncing a tennis ball off the edge of the wall into the river, and Godiva would run at a full sprint and leap of the ledge about 15 feet into the river to retrieve the ball. She would entertain the boats that went by and she would puke up gallons of water, pee thirty or forty times a day and have the runs for the entire month, but you couldn't make her get out of that water for anything. By the end of her stay, she was jumping off a 10 foot high deck at the neighbors house just to thrill seek. I could spray a high pressure hose in Godiva's face and she would whimper when I shut it off. In this regard, Abby at least is part lab. She loves the water, but we have not had too many great chances to expose her to real swimming. Her experience has been to jump into the tub, splash in a puddle or two that forms in our backyard, run through a wash, and occasionally when she has been truly well-behaved, we fill Lauren's baby pool out back and let her soak herself. She does enjoy emptying her waterbowl on the kitchen floor and laying in the pool she creates, but that might go back to one of those idiosyncracies that I was referring to earlier.
So last weekend, while we were forced out of our house so that another over-perfumed realtor could spend three and a half minutes rummaging through our home with some deadbeat in tow, we decided to take Abby down to Lake Pleasant for a couple of hours. I have been in Arizona for nearly five years now, but have still never been to Lake Pleasant. I went to Lake Saguaro one time on a manager outing with work a couple of years back, but other than that, we have not enjoyed the splendor that is the reservoir system of greater Phoenix. Lake Pleasant is less than ten minutes from our house, but we were unsure whether or not there were good areas for Abby to swim or walk, and in the summer, the lake is overrun with 30000 boats each weekend, so there very could have easily been no good trails at all. But since we had some time to kill, we thought, "why the hell not?"
We pulled into the park and drove around a little bit. It was a relatively quiet day, as the water temperature is still a bit frigid for our delicate Arizona bodies. There were still quite a few boaters and campers out there, but not nearly to the extent that there will be in a couple of months when there is no way to escape the scorching temperatures. We were able to find a quiet inlet with no other cars in sight and decided to get out and walk around. I was confident that Abby would test the water temperature and splash around a little bit, but I was a little bit less than assured that she would actually delve beyond the shore where she might be forced to paddle. I was also at least equally confident that my two children would wade out into the water at least up to their shorts with absolute disregard for their shoes, but that of course is a sucker bet.
Just as I suspected, Abby bee-lined it for the water. I do recall a walk in Sedona a few months back where Abby enjoyed splashing through Oak Creek for a couple of miles. Here at Lake Pleasant, she walked along the banks and went in up to her knees. I made the foolish attempt at getting her to swim out a few yards by tossing a red tennis ball into the depths, but that ball would never be heard from again. She took a few large gulps of lake water and ran back to shake her soaked body at the closest one of us she could find. I grabbed a stick and threw it out into the water and she chased after it, as she does with any stuffed animal in the house. She got close to the stick and turned around. So just on an off chance, I grabbed another piece of wood and threw it again in the shallow water and she actually went and picked it up, and returned in my general direction. This usually is followed by a tug of war, but much to my surprise, I was able to wrestle the stick from her without the usual fight.
I decided to throw the stick a little deeper, where she would be forced to leave her feet and swim a few yards. She took off immediately and pounced through the water until she got to the point that her feet were no longer firmly on the soft sand beneath her weighty frame. After a momentary hesitation and a look back to Kim for reassurance, she lifted her feet in the water and swam ten feet to the stick and retrieved it. Grunting and gasping like she had just crossed the Atlantic, she brought the stick back and soaked me as she shook her drenched fur intentionally in my general direction. I picked up the lumber and threw it out twenty yards into the water and she bounded away without a moment's thought. She swam like a champ with her meaty paws churning water behind her and her tail serving as a rudder, she looked like she knew what she was doing. Quite honestly, I believe that she knew what she was doing, and she was chasing sticks out into the clear depths of that inlet for a good 30 minutes.
Eventually another car came by and we packed up the soaking children and drowned dog and loaded up the minivan. Abby managed to puke a couple of times before she got into the van and she peed a good gallon of lake water, but I can't recall a happier moment for that dog. She was in her glory. She had, if only for a moment, managed to achieve something that none of us truly believed she was capable--acting like a real Lab.
We drove the van up the road a little farther trying to find another quiet spot and ended up on a two mile hike down into a valley where there were a couple of guys fishing off a bridge. Abby of course had to splash around there as well and Lauren became absolutely exhausted being carried all the way down and back up again. You can only imagine what kind of strain riding on Dad's back while being forced to hold on to his throat for 45 minutes can cause. Those of you who have not experienced such a thing, believe you me, it is no picnic and I don't recommend putting yourself through that kind of stress. I thank God that Lauren had the strength to hold on all that way and the energy to kick my kidneys as much as she needed to as she screamed "Giddy-up Pig" as the only way to motivate me back up that gorge. Bless her little heart.
We found our way back to the sanctuary that is our Caravan. We filled the van with the stench of wet dog and the pounds of caked-on dirt from the kid's shoes. Abby climbed up into the back seat and had herself a well-deserved rest. Well, I guess she rested until I slammed on the brakes at the light at Carefree and I-17 and she exited a dead sleep and came flying up two rows to join us in the front seat. She may have dislocated her hip for all I know, but as she limped into the house a few minutes later and found a vacant spot on the carpet in front of the TV, she sprawled out for the next 72 hours without moving a muscle, including the enormous smile of satisfaction that comes with knowing you did what they say couldn't be done. Abby is indeed a lab.

DD in Seattle

2006-02-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

I don't like being told what not to do. Generally, making some sort of reasonable argument as to why I should or should not do something will only encourage me to take the opposite tack. Call it a fatal flaw if you will, but more often than not, you will enable yourself to win whatever argument you have with me by just fighting vehemently for the polar opposite. For the sake of the simplest explanation I can come up with, let's say that Kim would love for me to find a job in Texas before we move in June. The best way for her to ensure that I find one is to make comments to me like, "Honey, you know that your job here isn't that bad. Now that you've put in a year there, it can only get easier. After all, you understand what the members are looking for and they trust you now. I would imagine that in the next twelve months, you would be able to really make your mark."
As soon as these words would leave her mouth, all of the hairs on my neck would stand up on end and I would be ruthlessly tearing through my resume and sending out cover letters to every possible job in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Instead, she has inherited the incredibly honed nagging skills that I thought were reserved for Gramma G, and the search for the job that I desperately need in order to make this move a reality has stalled greatly and the stress level in the house has grown exponentially with each passing week. You would think that Kim would understand this dynamic, and truly realize how I am wound. She could play this up for all its worth, and I would believe that she is playing me in this case, but I know that she really does want to move. So I am forced to fight the good fight by not doing what I absolutely realize I should be doing because somebody is insisting that I follow a logical plan. 25 years from now, when my psychotherapists have all given up on me, I will figure this all out for myself, but for now (to my own detriment in most cases) I will remain stoically stubborn to the point of ludicrous, because I know no other way.
So my brother-in-law who alegedly reads this blog makes some off-handed remark to Kim on the phone tonight that he hopes he is never a subject of my venom, but if he is, he knows how to fight back (even if he has to lie). The gauntlet has thus been tossed, and I have no choice but to preserve what is left of my manhood by making Stevie F the focus of a posting.
In doing so, I could dredge up the past. I actually hired Steve as a dishwasher when he was 16 or 17 years old, before Kim and I were even dating I believe. To be perfectly honest, that period of time is still a little hazy as the remainder of the toxins I had poisoned my body with for a decade were only slowly seeping out my pores, but he definitely worked for me for a time, and I am certain I could come up with a dozen good stories that go back over 10 years. He turned 28 last week, and there is nothing like watching some kid you have known since he was a scrawny, scraggly, awkward teenager closing in on 30. It is pretty frightening to be certain.
Today, Stevie F works for the Air Force, and lives in Guam with his wife and two boys. He has his own little slice of island nirvana in the South Pacific, is an incredibly devoted father and husband. His two sons, Trevor and Tyler are among the best behaved children I have ever met, and there probably isn't a waking moment that his thoughts are not with the two of them. For the next month, he is separated from his family stationed in Seattle for a couple of weeks of training followed by filling in on the flight line for two more weeks due to the number of airmen currently deployed. It is the first time he has been back to the mainland since October 2004 and the first time he has been separated from his family for more than a week. Not bad for a guy in the United States Air Force during wartime. Conversely, Kim's brother Khris (also in the Air Force) has spent probably half of the past 10 years galavanting across the globe from Yemen to Anchorage, back to Diego Garcia and all the way down in Bogota. Again, I could utilize this avenue as my opportunity to tear into my brother-in-law, as this would be as simple a topic as anyone could imagine, but taking him to task for doing whatever he can to spend time with his family is not exactly a fair topic. After all, who can blame the guy for utilizing whatever means necessary to watch his boys grow up.
So instead of talking about the Little Dishwasher Who Could or the GI in paradise, let's focus on the here and now. It is more topical and frankly just as easy fodder for my pen. Stevie F is a 28 year old, with a month of freedom, where he can taste the lusty flavors of bachelorhood without guilt, remorse or fear of retribution. Let's face it, trapped halfway between Hawaii and Japan, Lindsay doesn't exactly have the access to Stevie's whereabouts, entertainment choices, debauchery or rondez-vouses (that must be the plural of rondez-vous--I took a semester of French, so I don't expect any kind of contradiction on that one). He has the opportunity to enjoy a month of his twenties before they expire completely. I am pretty sure he was married right when he turned twenty, so he has spent the best decade of his life trapped in a marriage with two kids. I am not for a second suggesting that he would change that for anything--he would be the first to tell you that he loves his life, and I would never question that for even a second. But come on, if you've got a month on your own to taste the freedom that you haven't experienced in almost eight years (he's never legally been to a bar as an unmarried man--digest that one for just a second), you owe it to yourself to take advantage of the situation.
Let's look at my own limited experiences in this arena. November 2004, there was a labor stoppage in San Francisco in the hotel industry, so we rotated out to fill in for the line employees over a two month period. I was called to duty so to speak at the tail end of the negotiations and my anticipated two weeks of slavery turned out to be a week of slow shifts behind the check-in counter, followed by a few days of hanging out because the work stoppage had come to an end. I was geared up to be working 18 hour shifts with no days off, cleaning rooms, working room service, cooking in the kitchen--whatever was necessary, but my timing turned out to be pretty damn good. Based on my good fortune, I could have taken a couple of different roads. I could tell Kim that they were working me like a dog; I was barely getting any sleep; my hands were writhing from scrubbing so many toilets; the out of work employees were hurling bottles at us as we crossed the picket line--whatever. It didn't matter because whatever I told her, she would have believed. She had no way of getting in touch with me. I didn't have a cell phone at the time, so I called her when I called her and to be fair, she was understanding of the whole situation and if I was able to only call once a day, she would have been fine with it. But I was in San Francisco--an absolutely incredible town, staying at one of the crown jewel hotels in the city right on top of Nob Hill, within walking distance to Fisherman's wharf on one side and Chinatown on the other, and there was no freaking way I was going to sit in a hotel and mope if I didn't have to. You just don't get opportunities like that very often, and you owe it to yourself to take advantage of it.
It didn't hurt that Esch was out in SF with me the entire first week. Our trips overlapped, so he had a week to acclimate himself to the area, and we had another week to indulge in the offerings of the city. Needless to say, we enjoyed the experience. There were a couple of days that neither of us remember the last bar we went to or how the hell we got back to the hotel. We acquired tickets to The Big Game (Cal-Stanford) one Saturday. We ate out and partied after every shift. When we didn't go out on the town, we loaded up on scotch and beer from the mini-bars. Esch was in charge of that aspect of the hotel, so getting 30 or 40 mini bottles of Macallan 12 was not really too challenging. There was a hospitality suite set up for all of the managers from all over the country, so when the bars closed, we would often find ourselves playing poker late into the night with some of our counterparts or sitting in our hotel rooms with Ginormous Calzones from up the road and a six pack of Heineken, watching Napoleon Dynamite or Anchorman on Spectravision. It didn't hurt that I was working the front desk and could reverse any charges that made their way to our rooms. We were, after all, here because they needed us, and we weren't about to pay for booze, movies or hookers--did I say hookers, I meant booze and movies--how the hell could we charge hookers to our rooms? That just doesn't make any sense.
The point is, I didn't lie to Kim about any of this. I was going to be in trouble no matter what I did. Call it a Catch-22 or call it damned if you do, damned if you don't, but these situations are untenable when it comes to a marriage. If I did nothing but work like a dog for two weeks, I wouldn't have called enough and would have been made to feel guilty. If I worked like a dog for two weeks and went out once in a while to unwind, I would have been spending money irresponsibly and would have been made to feel guilty. If I worked like a dog for two weeks, spent time networking with managers from other hotels, I would be accused of spending too much time talking to women while I was away from the familiy and would have been made to feel guilty. If I had all the time I needed and stayed in my hotel room, following all protocol set out by the arrangement of my parent company, I would have been an absolute loser and would have insisted that Esch shoot me in the scrotum. Instead, I tasted the fruits of the city. I reached out and enjoyed the chance to experience San Francisco, because I didn't know when I would have the opportunity to do so again. Would it have been better if I had my family there? Well, carrying Lauren up those insane hills would have sucked worse than any hell I could have imagined at that point, because she would have refused to walk and nobody would have wanted to wait for one of those cable cars. But other than that, it would have been incredible to have the family there. I would relish the chance to bring Kim back there for a week to take in the sights, smells and sounds, but that is a moot point. I didn't have the choice of bringing them with me, and due to that fact, I was left with a different set of choices. I wouldn't have changed one of them, because it was one of the best weeks I can remember.
So this brings us back to Stevie F, trapped in Seattle for a month. When Kim talked to him tonight, he waxed poetic about being the designated freaking driver for all of his buddies for the month. What the hell kind of sense does that make? Do you think you get bonus points for hiding from your manhood? I have no problem with rotating the DD responsibilities over a month long period, but making March your Designated month seems a bit of a stretch of goodwill. Stevie, for the love of God, tell Lindsay to take your balls out of her jewelry box and ship them overnight (hell, I'll foot the bill) to Seattle. She may not think you need them there, and maybe you have been bamboozled by being trapped on Exile Island for too long, but you will never forgive yourself for toting the guys all over Puget Sound, only to get home at three in the morning, just in time to validate your husbandry and fatherhood to your wife 3000 miles away. Tell her whatever you want. For that matter, maybe you are already doing that. Perhaps you were just telling Kim what you want her to think, and if that is the case, I have all the respect in the world for you. But please, for the love of all that is holy, do not spend the first and probably last free month of your twenties in your barracks calling Lindsay at three in the morning without having at least enjoyed your self. You don't get this chance very often, and believe me, you are going to be in trouble no matter what the hell you do. You either won't call enough; will call too much; will sound drunk on the phone; she'll swear she hears girls giggling in the background; she tried calling you while you were playing Malik, the emerald city's finest Limo driver and nobody answered the phone; your flight home will get delayed; Tyler will need stitches and it will be your fault for not being there; you sound like you don't miss them enough on the phone; you haven't even made an attempt to see if they can all fly out to see you; she found out that you spoke to your mom before you spoke to her about how your classes were going (only because you didn't want to wake her at four in the morning--but it will still be your fault)---Hell, I could go on for days. Bottom line--YOU ARE SCREWED. Don't fly back to Guam wondering whether or not the rest of the guys had a good time. Lead the way. To quote one of my favorite bosses (and as your former boss, this should resonate well) "Ask forgiveness, not permission." When you get home, the balls go back to the jewelry box--you may as well see if they still serve any function.

Editors Note--The balls references throughout this posting have nothing (repeat nothing) to do with any suggestions of infidielity. They are merely meant to represent Stevie F's bravado, joie de vive and youthful exuberance. Any supposition by anybody that the writer would even lightheartedly imply that Stevie should do something outside the bounds of his marriage are erroneous. Stevie--if you are confused by all the big words, no matter how much fun you are having due to my advice or in spite of it, keep it in your pants. That oughtta do it.

It's all Travelocity's Fault

2006-02-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, we finally got around to putting our house on the market. We have about three months to sell the house before we are going to move to Texas, as most of you are probably aware. Selling the house is one of those "contingencies" that builders and/or mortgage folks require in order for us to close on our new house outside Dallas. You know, that whole paying two mortages and having nothing to put down on a new house sometimes might be construed as a hurdle to getting the deal done.
Over the past several weeks, Kim has been working like an absolute dog trying to get this house ready to sell. Unfortunately, the market has slowed considerably since last year, when if we even listed this house on the MLS, it would have probably received three offers prior to anybody even looking at it. Such is the life of the real estate market. So instead of naming our price and watching people trip over themselves to overpay for our little slice of heaven out here in suburbia, we actually have to market this thing effectively and keep it looking good every day in case one of those realtor folks decides to bring somebody out to take a look at our home.
There are several inhibitors to this reality. One is the tornado, we lovingly refer to as Lauren. For some reason, it is critical to her life that she removes every book, stuffed animal, toy, game, puzzle, instrument and art supply from its home every day at some point. This may be a symptom of her being three or just one of the many penances that I continue to be forced to endure due to my own youthful carnage, but either way, it never ends. Turning your back for more than three minutes is basically akin to setting off a pipe bomb in the dollar store. More crap than you ever realized existed sprawled out over a 1600 square foot minefield. Most likely, not the kind of environment that "sells the house for you."
The second challenge is Abby. Fortunately, she has fewer toys than Lauren does, but Abby has the propensity of relocting things througout the entire property. Generally, these are just balls and rawhide bones, but certainly they add to the clutter. Wilson was more apt to lovingly bring in dozens of rocks each day and leave them strewn about the house in whatever fashion he felt was the most aesthetically pleasing. Sadly he is no longer with us, but from a home marketing standpoint, a 108 lb Yellow Lab may force some potential buyers to hurry their way through some portions of the home tour.
Hunter is pretty good at this point of cleaning up after himself. Well that might be a stretch, but he doesn't make quite the same quantity or quality of mess as his sister. He is gone to school during the day and is less likely to get out dozens of trinkets and whatnots than his sister might be. When he has friends over, they are forced to go through every toy he has ever owned to get a full inventory of what hijinks can cause the most damage, but lately, we are sending him to their houses more than having his friends over here. He has a couple of science kits that can destroy an entire three acre area with all the junk he leaves around after starting his experiments, but I think Kim has mercifully already packed those items in boxes and hauled them off to storage--we can only pray.
More than Hunter, Lauren, and Abby combined, however, are my own slovenly ways. I really do try to make an effort, but 36 years of being a completely useless slob do have their way of endearing themselves. Leaving things strewn about the house is a learned skill, and my kids probably didn't come up with it on their own. Those of you out there who have had the extraordinary opportunity to live with me for any period of time will have no difficutly coming up with your own version of the attrocities that comprise my ability to endure living in a mess more than most humans could conceive. Kim continues to make progress with me, but let's not kid ourselves too much.
But in these trying times, and with Kim becoming more and more nervous and edgy about getting this house sold, we have all dug in deep to help keep the house clean and presentable. I think that our house will sell relatively quickly. It is in a beautiful, young community, the house is in great shape, great colors throughout, attractively landscaped and all of the things that I believe people look for when purchasing a home. I don't profess to be an expert in this arena, but my understanding is that there are probably a few do's and don'ts when it comes to selling one's home.

Don't point out any bodies buried in the back yard. Even if there is a perfectly good explanation, for that strange hump in the middle of the yard, do what you can to reduce the questions that might spring forth. Nobody who is considering purchasing your home really wants to know that Aunt Bess really wanted to live amongst the Bouganivillea for eternity, regardless of the video you had her make prior to her demise. For the sake of resale, I would recommend letting the purchasing family discover this treat many years down the line.
Any of those "funny-old" neighbors who tend to hang out at night shooting off rounds of live ammo at the passing coyotes are generally not the best representatives of what the neighborhood has to offer for an incoming young family. Let them find out the eccentricies permeating from the bong-stenched porches of the guy next door on their own time. It might even be a good opportunity for you to invite said neighbor to lunch (probably in his '79 Gremlin that usually is parked in the street) when the realtor gives you the heads up that he might be stopping by. Again, this is more of a guideline than a rule.
Things that are important to you, sentimental to you, remind you of happier times, may not necessarily translate into fantastic marketing tools for potential buyers. Frankly, some of the things that fit into this category, regardless of how they might have been acquired, can be the things that turn off potential buyers the most. Some examples would be shrunken heads, your son's first stool sample, a mole that you had removed (really any thing that has come from your body would probably fit into this category--those of you who have a placenta saved for posterity sake, should consider a short-term relocation), halloween decorations in February, and any lawn ornament.

The last of these don'ts is the one that has caused the most challenge in our particular lives. As I have been reduced through four plus years of marriage into a "yes, dear. Whatever you think, dear." waste of space, we have acquired a couple of Garden Gnomes that actually are on display in full gnome regalia every day. It is our own dirty little secret, and the main reason (in my estimation anyway) that we don't invite friends over to the house very often. We do get our share of family visitors and for rednecks like Krissy and the Boys, garden gnomes are a status symbol in a good way--sort of like moving into that double-wide. Kim insists on keeping these little freaks littered throughout the yard and I can do nothing but roll my eyes, make my sarcastic remarks and endure.

It isn't the gnomes I fear so much as what they represent as the long-term state of my life. Many years from now, the gnomes will represent that old comfortable friend to me. They will have been a part of our homes for generations and I will have grown to enjoy their company as Kim refuses to speak with me about my prostate health anymore. The fear that I have is the slippery slope that we are heading down at a relatively young age. It starts with a couple of little 12 inch freaks nesteled beneath the desert fauna. Before you know it, I have a fleet of flamingos welcoming every guest that darkens my doorway, ceramic frogs leaping each other down the driveway and thirty or forty reindeer each Christmas stapled to the roof. I have seen this happen, and Kim comes by it naturally. Meemaw is well on her way to having a nick-nack farm in Oklahoma and they are still rolling the junk out of Kim's Grandmother's house two years after she passed away.

This is the fate that awaits me. The cruel fate of this gnome army and all of his minions. I look forward to the day that I can relate and my senses have left me for so long that I am numb to the absurdity of such things. Until that time, I will continue to bite whatever is left of my tongue as we remain in this house for the next thirty years. The echoes through the halls of the house for the next several months will resonate with oohs and ahhs about the color scheme, the open spaces and the lighting that embrace each couple as they enter the front door, only to be followed by the scared, confused and repulsed responses as they rush out the same door after escaping the freakishness of the back yard and the stump-like statuette that assaulted their once enthusiastic senses. The only thing I can count on at this point is Meemaw shipping a boatload of flamingos my way after reading this. Life is sweet bliss

Editorial Retraction

2006-02-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

I am not really sure what happened over the past week or so. I have been mired in the absolute insanity of five children living under one roof, and I am certain that my once sound judgment has been somewhat obscured by the constant screaming, fighting, chasing, whining, tattling, complaining, laughing, shouting, running, eating, staring and general acting like a kiding. To say that I have been shellshocked would be an unfair understatement along the level of DJ was slightly pleased when the Steelers won last Sunday. Writing has been an impossibility until yesterday when in the distance I could barely make out the Dakota lugging Uncle Khris' motorcycle behind it and the five of them made their way back to California. I believe that they are staying the night in Anaheim and going to Knotts Berry Farm today, but we have probably seen the last of them for the immediate future.
We knew what we were getting into, and Kim handled it like a trooper. I had the good fortune of working most of the week, so she had the brunt of the daily grind. As I wrote in an earlier post Severe Torture Test, our expectation for this week was to experience the kind of hell that our friends in New Orleans are just now trying to get beyond. To be fair, the kids were just being kids. They acted exactly as a nine year old girl, an eight year old boy, a seven year old boy, a three year old girl and a six month old girl would act when they were trapped in a 1600 square foot house and were interacting with one another. The physical and mental strain that this combination causes those who are exposed to it, however, can not possibly be accurately quantified. Suffice it to say, we are thrilled to have our house back. Looking back at the Severe Torture Test posting I realize that there was an additional component that we feared more than even the kids and that was the impending visit from Grampa G.
Somehow--and I am going to get to the bottom of this because there is nothing I hate worse than being wrong about such things--the guy who flew in from Tampa last Thursday night, was not the same person I described in my previous post (or honestly, from any of my previous posts). This Grampa G who showed up was actually (dare I say) pleasant. He was great with the kids (not just Hunter and Lauren, but all five of the little freaks), was courteous, fun to be around, immensely entertaining, understanding, didn't complain about anything, didn't once mention a calendar, utilized only about 1/4 of his usual nap quotient, and if I am not mistaken, he actually had a good time being here. Even when he came to see me at work, he was gracious, polite and dressed as if he belonged in the place (no small feat). He took the three older trolls to the movies and the three of them acted as if they had never been to a movie, never been around an adult, never had to follow any directions, didn't have to observe any of the rules that they live by daily in their homes and he still managed not to leave any of them buried under a concession stand--more than I would expect of myself or Kim. He even let them watch the entire movie with their deplorable behavior. Now, he dropped them back at the house afterward and was noticably shaken by the experience, but he managed not to take it out on the kids or Kim. And even more amazingly, he let it go. The next couple of days, he didn't broach the topic and continued to play with and enjoy the kids company. Grampa G not holding a grudge? I couldn't believe it either, but mine eyes have seen the light.
Kim, who was dreading dealing with his abuse for the past month was actually sorry to see him leave (I am not making this up). It was far and away the best visit we have had with the crazy old bastard, and the circumstances couldn't have been more challenging for him. As long as we kept him fed, he was completely enjoyable to have around and I believe that I owe him an apology for my previous posting. Usually, I will try to hide these retractions deep in page 13 at the bottom of the Metro section of some obscure publication, but until I find a periodical who is willing to publish my rhetoric, I have to put this sort of thing front and center for all to experience.
There can only be a couple of reasonable explanations for his modified behavior, and as I said earlier, I will get to the bottom of this:

The guy who visited was actually a stunt double--let's face it, there is no way that Grampa G (at least the guy I have known for the last 36 plus years) could pull off a change in personality to such an outrageous degree. He got out of medicine so he wouldn't have to be around obnoxious kids anymore--do you really think he would willingly trap himself into a movie theater with three kids from the ages of seven to nine on purpose? He found a way to pay some guy to bulk up to 260 lbs, slap on a Groucho moustache and memorize a couple of kids names, load him up on a plane and record the entire trip for America's Funniest Home Videos--the joke is on me.
He is so loaded up on anti-depressants that he couldn't possibly realize what he was doing. You don't just go 63 years of creating a personality for yourself that is so completely overwhelming for everybody with whom you come in contact, and then suddenly in one weekend, you pull back the reins and can relax and enjoy the moment. Maybe for a three hour respite, but not for four days. He can't pull that off without significant doses of something powerful. (By the way Dad, I may want to borrow some of whatever it was--I'll get back to you later on that one).
He saw that Seinfeld episode where George did everything the opposite of what he normally would do just before leaving Tampa and decided to give it a whirl. Hell, if it could work for Costanza, why not Grampa G? If this is the case, keep it up--this seems to be the best possible route for all of your future decisions.
The desire to prove me wrong was so powerful that he found a way to control every impulse in his body for four days. He reads this blog and has had several weeks to figure out the best way to make me eat my words. This is nothing new--proving me wrong has always been a powerful motivator for Grampa G, but I didn't think he had it in him. Way to go, Dad.
This one is the most far-fetched of the bunch, but since you have made it this far, please indulge me one more thought. Maybe, just maybe he actually took some of the sarcastic and generally inane BS on this blog to heart. Perhaps some of the not so subtle references to his historical behavior resonated a little too true for comfort. Look, I realize that this is probably a stretch, but there may be a slight chance that he recognized that some of the things he does (without intending it to be so) has a profoundly negative effect on those around him. There exists a miniscule possibility that he is trying to allow others to enjoy his company.

The toughest week of our winter visitors is behind us. We have Krissy and the Boys coming out in the middle of March and Gramma G arrives the day that they leave, but there is no overlap like this week. Gramma G will be staying at the resort, and at least Krissy isn't dropping her three monsters off and running off to Hawaii. She'll be here to endure the torture with the rest of us. I can't wait for the road trip with all of them to the Grand Canyon. Maybe I can convince Grampa G to tag along.

A Tale of Two Babies

2006-02-09T18:11:00.000-07:00

I have had the privilege of being the Best Man at two weddings in my life. I think that is a pretty good number, and I don't expect it to increase too much in the coming years, but you never know how circumstances will foist you into strange situations. My first chance to enjoy this honor was with Mike M and it must have been almost 11 years ago. He got married in Alabama (one of two weddings that I attended in that state) and my fondest memory of that wedding was the preacher or reverend or priest or whatever he was that married them that day. He was an absolute riot and for two days during the rehearsals and the ceremony, he just absolutely cracked me up. He used to be an offensive lineman for the Buffalo Bills during the OJ era (yes, that OJ) and I can just remember the absolutely ridiculous size of his hands. He shook my hand when we first met, and my arm suddenly stopped at my wrist--my right hand just disappeared into the abyss that was his grip.
When Dan D got married a couple of summers later, we went to Scotland and they wed in a tiny chapel in St. Andrews (those of you not familiar--the birthplace of golf). Now, while it was no Alabama, it wasn't a half bad place to get married either. I had lots of memories of that trip, but probably the thing that sticks with me even today (aside from trying to get a ball out of Hell's Bunker with a pint of Guinness, a Cuban Cigar and a sand wedge at three in the morning in an absoute drunken stupor) was forgetting to mention Dan's mother in my toast, pretty much ensuring that both he and I would be left out of the will. I don't believe she has forgiven either one of us still--I really am sorry, Ma.
Both of these guys have been close friends of mine for the better portion of my life. I have known Mike since third grade, and as our lives have gone in different directions for the majority of those years, we have always kept in touch and have always shared in the key moments of each other's lives. He is a regular contributor to the comment section of this blog, and his postings are among the most entertaining feedback that I enjoy. I met Dan on the first day of 9th grade. He was actually the first person I met in High School, mostly because it seemed that he was in every one of my classes. You keep seeing the same goofy blonde guy over and over again and sooner or later he starts to stand out. Dan has been my roommate on several occasions, and our lives have been intertwined for the most part for over twenty years. Over the last few years, he has gotten more and more difficult to keep in touch with, but there is nobody I have ever known who has been more influential in helping me make life altering decisions or whose opinion I value more.
While I have been on writer's sabbatical for the past two weeks, both of these guys decided to go off and have a son. I find this to be an incredible coincidence, Dan's kid Matthew was born on January 25th and Mike's son Aidan popped out the next day on January 26th. For Mike and Lori, this was their second child, and Dan had the chance to experience childbirth for the first time. For the record, Lori decided to forego the epidural (I have no idea why on earth anybody goes this route, by the way. Kim had Hunter without an epidural--fear of the needle, I assume, and then had Lauren with the epidural. I remember her in the birthing room when she got the damn shot in her spine and the Anaesthesiologist--wrong spelling, I know, I know--said "Now, you'll feel some pressure" and the next thing you know he is taping the damn thing on and Kim is still sitting there clenching her teeth waiting for the needle to penetrate her spinal column, not realizing that it was already done and that the lower half of her body would soon be numb to any pain. She dropped Lauren out like she was lubed up with Crisco. Hell, she was cracking jokes until the last push. Why the hell would anybody go through the absolutely most excruciating pain known to woman instead is beyond me, but Lori decided to do so. Hats off to you, but in my opinion, you are a freaking massochist) and I don't know if Danielle did the same. The information was not offered to me, and etiquette requires that guys don't ask each other those types of questions no matter how close the friendship might be. Aidan was born in a hospital in Jacksonville, Florida and Matthew was born at some undisclosed location in the New Hampshire woods by a midwife.
We knew that Aidan was on the way for a good six months. Generally, people don't share the "We're pregnant" news with others until they have gotten through the first trimester. Too much can go wrong in that time and there are few things more difficult than telling people who were so happy for you that you have had a miscarriage. This has happened to a number of my friends, and it is just an awful thing to experience. Over the course of the past six months, every conversation that Mike and I shared at least touched upon how Lori was doing and how the pregnancy was going--how was Andrew going to do as a big brother--you get the idea.
Dan also didn't tell me about the kid on the way during the first trimester. You know, now that I think about it, the information didn't exactly come during the second trimester either. I'm going to have to recount the way it works (and I may be completely wrong here), but I'm not certain he even shared the fact that there was a bun in the oven in the third trimester. I'm no rocket scientist, but I am almost positive that most gestation periods represent three total trimesters. I mean a Tricycle has three wheels; Trident is delicious gum, but I believe that in Anchorman when Brick killed a guy with a trident, it had three prongs; Triathletes compete in three regimens; Triples represent three bases, so it would stand to reason that Trimester has three mesters (whatever the hell a mester is). Because once the kid is born, I believe it is actually too late to mention to somebody that you are pregnant. I don't think that you can be retroactively pregnant--once he's out, he's out. The phrase changes from "Danielle's pregnant" to "I'm a daddy."
So when I was speaking to Matt D, Dan's brother and off the cuff, he remarks that he is going up to New Hampshire to see Dan's son, I found it rather difficult to comprehend. In fairness to Dan (far more than that weaselly prick deserves by the way), I haven't spoken to him too often in the last nine months. He has been busy, I have been busy and getting more than a ten minute conversation in during this period has been nearly impossible. Somewhere in one of those nine minute chats, however, I am quite confident that he could have piped up with some comment like, "Oh yeah, we're due at the end of January." or "Do you know any good boy names?" or "We're almost done decorating the nursery." You know, some kind of hint that there was this child on the way. Instead, I gotta find out like some kind of shmo.
Either way, it was a pretty awesome week. Dan is Dan and I think it amuses him to keep the world in the dark--better shock value that way. I couldn't be happier for him and I couldn't be happier for Mike either. Both babies are healthy, and while I know that this is critical information to all of you out there, I don't generally care a whole lot about their stats--length, width, height, weight, time of womb exit, etc. Is the kid healthy? Is the Mom doing OK? Are they sleeping at night? Pretty much beyond that, everything else is pretty much just chatter. For the record, we'll say that both of them were somewhere between 7 and 8 pounds and seem to be acclimating to life pretty damn well. I probably won't get a chance to meet either one of them for at least several months and probably close to a year. During that time, they will both go through incredible transformations and Dan and Mike are going to be the lucky bastards who get to enjoy every moment.
I sent Dan this blog site recently, so he may actually check it. I know that Mike comes on with some regularity to check out my blather. If any of you have any comments for them, I am sure that they would love to read them here. For my sake, congratulations to both of you (and probably more so to Lori and Danielle). I can't wait to meet your boys and they are both incredibly lucky to have you as their dads. Someday down the road, many years from now on a lazy Jacksonville afternoon on Dr. M's driveway, there's going to be one hell of a game of one on one. I just hope that I get a chance to watch it. I love you guys.

The Posting that Wasn't

2006-01-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

You know what, I am not very adept at this whole internet thing. Some may debate my ability to write well, and I appreciate my supporters out there, but I am an absolute idiot when it comes to being profficient on this damn machine and site. I just spent the better part of my morning (at least an hour and a half and regrettably that may be a bit of an underestimation) writing my daily posting about my round of golf on a brutally windy day with two members at the club, Mrs. W and Mrs. M.
I don't know how the overall posting came out, because I usually write the whole thing out, publish it and then read it with the rest of you once it is online and in its raw form. I like to do it this way because I feel like if I spend too much time going back and forth and changing things, I am less likely to find the passion and whatever edge I might have in my writing. For me, this is more entertaining, and there are probably those of you out there who would prefer a more honed finished product, but alas, you do not find that here. So I was trying to put a couple of pictures on the posting--I thought that one of the golf course, followed by a picture of two old ladies would suffice to capture the theme of the story, but in doing so, I somehow managed to completely lose the posting altogether. Pretty impressive, don't you think.
So instead of trying to recreate the posting that most of you would probably have ignored anyway because it mentioned golf somewhere in the storyline, I am writing about my own ineptitude on my own freaking blog. It just isn't that complicated to save draft. Here, I'll do it right now--see that, saved, just like that, approximately 10 seconds taken out of my rant to ensure that at least a portion of this posting would be available to publish for your perusal, enjoyment or abuse. For the ladies golf day story, you will have to make up your own stories now, because I cannot go back and conjure up the same enthusiasm to rewrite the posting. Matt R, DJ, Esch, John H, I appologize to you in particular because I am certain that you would have enjoyed the story (especially Matt would have loved to hear about Mrs. M tumbling into the sandtrap as she tried to maintain her balance on the upslope behind the green on #11). The rest of you can breathe a sigh of relief that you won't have another golf posting to deal with for at least another two months when my current golf playing restriction is lifted. Playing two rounds with somebody's grandmother apparently counts the same as getting away with the boys for an afternoon of fun. I'm going to save again. Hold on.
Simple as that--maybe seven seconds that time--why the hell couldn't I do that last time, when I actually had something to write about. Instead, you are reading about my incompetence. It is shameful, just shameful. So if anybody out there is the least bit adept at this internet thing, more specifically the whole blogging phenomenon, I would love some tips as to how to better represent my site. Aside from my nonsensical babbling, there really is no reason to visit the damn thing, and quite honestly, I have little idea who is out there reading aside from Becca, Aaron and Dad, because they generally post comments. If you are reading this, please just post a comment. I was shocked to find out that there is some family in Colorado out there reading about my life, and there may be more strangers checking in. I hope that you are. It doesn't matter if you feel like you are snooping, I am just curious what you think, and how many people are enjoying or loathing my stories and blather. I hope to hear from you (fake names are acceptable).
For everybody out there, I am sorry about today's posting. I have failed you miserably and if I can muster the courage to get back on the horse, I will try to write something this afternoon if Lauren is amenable to my spending any more time on the computer. It is likely that I won't have the chance until later tonight, but I will do my best. I look forward to your comments.

The Lost B

2006-01-25T17:41:00.000-07:00

Panic is a funny thing--well maybe not funny like Will Ferrell funny, but more like strange or peculiar in a discolored meat in the back of the fridge sort of funny. We have all experienced it in some form, a majority of the time it is based upon what our perception dictates to be a frantic situation. Many times, we panic for no good reason, but other times it is justified, rational and serious.
I remember my first day of my first college. That would be Georgia Tech back in June of 1987. I had been out of high school for about two weeks and it was my first time on my own. You know the drill--young, stupid, out to prove to the world that the admission guys hadn't completely been in the throws of a severe opium binge when they sent the "Congratulations, you have been admitted as a member of our 1991 Class" letter. High School was just a warmup, and you could turn on the old smarts whenever you felt like it and show them all that you were going to be a successful architect one day. What the hell did your parents know anyway? For the first time in your life, you were ready to take a serious approach to school and you were going to knock it out of the park. Everything was all set, class sign-up--check; backpack--check; course books--check; pens, pencils, notebooks, assorted supplies--check.
First Class--Freshman Composition ENG 1101 8AM Monday Morning--check. I was ready to take this thing on head first.
I woke up that Monday morning and looked casually at the alarm clock. Quarter past, plenty of time to get a shower, brush the old teeth, maybe even grab a cup of that coffee stuff that we college kids drank on the way to class. Walk down the hall to the bathroom, get into the shower and dry off. Head over to the sink, brushing the teeth and hair (lots of freaking hair still--damn you people) and just a quick glance at the old watch to see that it was twenty till. Wait a second, that can't be right, am I in a different time zone? Twenty till 10? How the hell can that be? 9 freaking forty! I am already an hour and forty minutes late to my very first class of my college career. Holy crap! (This is around the moment that the situation becomes abundantly clear and the rational need for panic kicks in) I run down the hallway to my room with all of my toiletries left behind in the communal bathroom, slam the door open, throw on the first pair of shorts and t-shirt I can find, grab some shoes and run out the door with my backpack in tow. I am running down the stairs now like a confused and trapped armadillo caught in the headlights of the oncoming Jetta. I know that I am about to get run over, but there is truly nothing I can do--which freaking way is the Lit department? I know that I walked this yesterday. Running across the quad toward the library and into some random building--this must be the one. Room 1042, 1042, 1042. Who the hell numbered this building, dammit? There it is--what time is it (complete knot in my stomach feeling like I just swallowed a gallon of Liquid Plumr). Get ready to open the door and look at the folder and note attached to the door. "Course Syllabus--Please Take One" What did this mean, scanning through the confusing jargon and jibberjabber, it started to become clear that class had actually been cancelled--Cancelled? Can they do that--just cancel a class. I went to Elementary School, several intermediate grades that might be construed as middle school or junior high in some areas, and high school, and I can't recall a single class just being cancelled--ever. There must be something more to it. Didn't they need to have a substitute, or didn't they need to keep us there until the bell rang? This was a very confusing realization, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to understand that I had dodged a bullet. Instead of starting off my college career by missing my very first day of class, I started off my college career by learning that you very well weren't going to miss anything by not attending class. I don't think that the true depth of this lesson sank in until college number 2. I don't believe that I ever attended a class in Gainesville on a day that there wasn't an exam (all right, maybe I showed up for a couple of reviews but that's it), but perhaps that took it a bit to the extreme.
I have found myself off topic again. Panic was the lesson that day. And in reality, even in all my cynicism, I don't think the lesson of that day was ever lost. I am never late. I hate being late to the point that I feel an absolute sense of panic set in even today if I feel like I am not going to be somewhere I am supposed to be at a particular time. I overslept one time for work, when I lived an hour away from my job and the entire ride over I felt completely ill (only to find the owner of the company waiting outside the restaurant when I arrived that day--nothing like that moment to reiterate our personal assurances of a true reason to panic). It doesn't matter if the person I am meeting is prone to be an hour late (Dan--that's you, by the way), I will be there on time.
Yesterday, Kim got a lesson in Panic when she lost B. Now those of you not familiar with B (or Bee, maybe Be--not really sure, but we'll spell it B for simplicity sake), may not have any concept of what I am speaking. B is Lauren's Blanket (blankie, blankey, binket--whatever) and she needs it every night when she goes to bed, every time she falls down and hurts herself, every time she gets upset about something, every time her brother is mean to her, every time she sits down on the couch, every time we go for a ride in the car, and pretty much most of the rest of the day as well. She has gotten a little less dependent upon B over the last several months, but life without B was not something that any of us (especially Kim and I) were ready to deal with.
Kim and Lauren were out running errands yesterday, first down to Target to get some new towels for our bathroom and then to Home Depot to replace our front blinds that Abby and Wilson had destroyed many months earlier. As they were leaving Home Depot, Kim realized that she did not have B. She calmly put the blinds into the van and looked through the van to see if it perhaps had gotten trapped under a seat or a floormat. Nothing. She looked around the cart to see if it had fallen to the bottom and then in the immediate vicinity. Nothing. The two of them raced back into the store, carefully backtracking their every step. Nothing. She came upon a salesperson and described the situation as calmly as she could, but she had seen nothing. She went to the next person, and then the next and then the next. Nothing. Down every aisle that they had walked, the two of them searched with a sales associate in tow. Glancing side to side up and down the shelves that Lauren could possibly reach--still nothing. The knot in her belly started to evolve, more and more nauseous, more and more fear crept in. Lauren did her best to remain calm, not realizing the gravity of the situation, but Kim could not control the absolute terror of life without B--the thought of Lauren trying to go to sleep that night without her B to snuggle with, the thought of that security blanket no longer available to remedy her saddest moments. Their search of Home Depot turned up nothing. Kim left her name and number with the manager there (kind of a creepy guy who keeps calling and asking Kim if they can go look for B together, maybe on Friday night, how's 7:00 work for you?, but at least he is concerned).
They got back into the van and Kim called information for the number for Target. She spoke to the manager telling her that somebody would probably throw the ratty thing away, because it looked like a tattered off-white piece of useless material. She said that she would keep an eye out for it and they raced back the 20 minutes to North Phoenix to Target. The Home Depot routine started again and they retraced their steps and walked every aisle and spoke to every associate. Kim looked through several trash bins, pulling out debris, trying to unearth the lost rag. The manager made an announcement over the loudspeaker and suddenly there was a mad search by 50 employees, desperately frantically searching for that ratty cotton cloth. Nothing. After 30 minutes, Kim again leaves her number with the manager, defeated, horrified, panicked.
She tries to comfort Lauren, takes her home for lunch, calls me at work, so that I can join in on the panicfest--realizing of course that I can do nothing, but would probably be blamed for not being there during the great B hunt 2006. The hours passed and the morning turned to late afternoon. Still nothing as Kim scrambled to think of something that she could do to make Lauren understand about loss, and realize that B was never coming home. I told her that she could use my old blankey that Gramma G had saved for 30-plus years only to give back to me a couple of years ago. I knew it wasn't the same, but she was going to need something. Kim said she would think about it, but held out hope that somehow it would all work out.
The pit in her stomach felt like it could never be filled again. The panic was in full bloom and as the hours continued to pass and we grew uncomfortably close to bedtime, the phone rang. The manager from Target was actually on the phone and told Kim that one of the associates had found a tattered white cloth and had thrown it away. It was now 4:00 and they had to wait until Hunter got off the bus. She swooped him up in the van and the three of them traversed rush hour traffic to return to Target for the third time in a day for the grand reunion. But what if it wasn't B, what if it was truly just a rag that they had found, and B was still lost somewhere out there all alone, scared and homeless? These thoughts permeated her mind as she braved the bumper to bumper drive and pulled into the Target parking lot.
The three of them entered the store full of hope and still with a slight twinge of the panic that had accompanied them for the better part of the day. Kim found the manager who had called her and inside a Target bag behind the counter was the lost scrap of fluff that we know fondly as B. Lauren was relieved and kept saying that she was so happy that B was back. "I would have been so sad if I couldn't sleep with my B anymore."
She never truly grasped the nature of losing B forever. In her mind, she might have had to fall asleep that night without B, but surely he would return soon. Until Lauren held B in her hands and nuzzled it to her chin and smelled the damn thing and approved that it was indeed her B, the panic never subsided. I just thank God that she didn't need to use mine--how the hell am I supposed to fall asleep?

Severe Torture Test

2006-01-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

They've created this thing called (I am not sure how it pronounced exactly) a calendar. It is a fascinating device, designed to assist us in recognizing days of the week, weeks of the month and months of the year. Truly a useful device for those who want to utilize such a thing, but there are still individuals out there who refuse to give in to such modern technology.
Aparently, Kim is one of those who doesn't see the need to conform, and accepts the calendar as kitchen decor, but doesn't necessarily recognize the utilitarian nature of such a concept. We, in fact, have about five calendars in the house right now--our standard pepper kitchen calendar, a coca-cola commemorative calendar, the truly wonderful one that Hunter made for Kim for Christmas with all the months decorated with colorful construction paper and a couple of other assorted ones sprinkled about in a junk heap around the house. I believe that we are not unique in this array, as most people also have numerous calendars cluttering up the landscape of their homes.
The strangest thing is that over the holidays, one of the most popular gifts that Kim sends to her family members are pre-filled-out calendars. In other words, she writes in everybody's birthday and anniversary and sends them to her brothers, her father, meemaw, etc. so that they won't miss out on sending a card to one another. It is a very thoughtful thing to do, and what I have come to expect out of Kim. In this regard, Kim gets the whole concept that defines the calendar--important moments of the year placed conveniently on the day that they actually occur. If any of you can recall a time that Kim forgot a birthday or anniversary, I challenge you to come forward--I thought not.
But beyond the birthdays and anniversaries that create the backdrop, a calendar can also be used for appointments, trips, school holidays, vacations and so forth. Here is where the grey area occurs in our world. You see, if you read about our winter visitors from a couple of weeks ago, most people would assume that once we had the dates of our guests' arrival, we would put them down on the aforementioned calendar and provide that information to others if necessary. For example, if your brother in law was going to drop his three kids off at your house for a week while he and his wife ran off to Hawaii, you might want to have the dates for such a week clearly marked on the calendar (here is the utilitarian thing I was talking about earlier). By marking it down, you might prevent somebody else (let's just say for argument's sake, the benevolent, beloved, bedloving Grampa G) from booking his flight for the exact same week. Providing accurate information in this situation assists us in spreading out the torturous nature of houseguests. Not providing said information has the adverse effect and causes the houseguest torture quotient to increase exponentially.
So in about ten days, we will experience a confluence of human arrivals so rigorous and beyond comprehension that I am uncertain as to whether or not we will survive until all parties return to their homelands. Here is the current ensemble of visitors: Uncle Khris and Aunt Christy will arrive via Dodge Ram 1500 on Wednesday afternoon, February 1st. They depart the following day for Hawaii and Grampa G arrives at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport on an America West flight from Tampa at around 6pm. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Superbowl Sunday, we have a 9-year-old girl, an 8-year-old boy (that one is ours), a 7-year-old boy, a 3-year-old girl (also ours), a six-MONTH-old girl, and a Grampa G (ageless one) that we are responsible for entertaining and feeding concurrently.
Allegedly, Dad is going to stay at Aunt Shari's, borrow the Opamobile for the week (I'll drive that thing with the Hemi) and come over here to spend time with the kids whenever possible. Hunter and Lauren will be trapped in the middle, trying to entertain the kids as best they can and still give Grampa G the attention that he needs at the same time. Most likely they will fail miserably in this endeavor, will offend somebody, and find themselves getting yelled at for no good reason other than our inability to read the calendar in the first place.
As far as my world goes, I am completely screwed regardless of what I do. This is a foregone reality and I will explain:

If by some miracle, I am able to get more than one or two days off during this time, I will either be spending too much time with Grampa G or not enough time with Grampa G (this of course is dependent upon the individual making the accusation, Shari, Kim or Grampa G himself)
If by some miracle, I am able to get more than one or two days off during this time, I will not be doing enough to take care of the five screaming children overwhelming my home. Kim will be absolutely ready to strangle anybody under five feet tall each day that I do get home from work, but realizing that killing one of your own might be construed as the "wrong thing to do," I will make sure to wear a couple of extra layers of collar, just in case she decides that I would be a convenient outlet for her newly discovered murderous tendancies.
Shari utilizes the weekends for sleeping. She tries to collect at least 60-70 hours of much needed rest from Thursday night until Monday morning. Having Grampa G there to interrupt this sleep pattern is a nuisance that she has no intention of allowing to interrupt her slumber. She will be ferreting him out the door in the early morning, encouraging him to spend the time with his grandchildren. By the time I get home in the early evenings, Kim will have had the additional joy of Grampa G in his black socks, tighty whities and wifebeater berating her parenting skills as she tries to navigate the five monkeys who have been climbing on her like a jungle gym for the past 10 hours of bliss. The "you are going to die a painful death" look that I will be receiving as I walk in the door to become the tackling dummy for the remainder of the evening will rip through me.
The weekend that this takes place is Superbowl Weekend. Now, many of you may not realize this, but I do enjoy football just a bit. Trying to find the opportunity to watch the big game may prove to be my final undoing--going to a Superbowl party (heaven forbid) would probably create a situation where I found myself locked out of my house when I returned. Actually, Kim is more clever than that--she would find a way to sucker me into going into the house with all of the houseguests and would lock us all in and escape herself. There is no way that she would let me get away from the torture chamber that easily.
This weekend also is the FBR/Phoenix Open golf tournament. Over the last four years, I have been stuck working all week during this weekend because we were the host hotel and golf course for the event. Now that I am working across town, I still have my connections at the other hotel, but don't have the obligation to be at work the entire time. In effect, I would have carte blanche at the golf tournament--free food and drink, clubhouse passes, interaction with the golfers, premium seating and so forth. Esch is probably coming down from Oregon for the weekend to enjoy the event the same way, but if I even mention wanting to get away for some golf (playing or viewing), I might as well donate my testicles to science because I would find them being removed with a butter knife later that evening by my doting and understanding wife.
If Esch does come to town and I don't get to play golf, view golf, watch the superbowl with friends, etc., I will no doubt turn into a whining little bitch myself and make everybody around me even more miserable than they already are. This is a sure recipe for disaster. Kim will be doing everything in her power to remain calm, friendly, accomodating, motherly and welcoming over the course of this loooooong weekend. Having a cranky jackass for a husband is probably not the smartest thing I can do to endear myself to her.

There are probably at least a dozen other things I can list here, but you get the point. The bottom line is that Grampa G will come in here with his own style and panache, thinking that mentioning how we screwed up the dates three or four thousand times will be really funny. Kim will act as nice as she can, laughing politely and taking the banter with all the goodwill she can muster. Each night, as Grampa G returns to Shari's and does his best not to interrupt her sleep, Kim will grab me by the face and say something sweet like, "If he (bleeping) tells me one more time that I need to learn how to read a (bleeping) calendar, I am going to crush his (bleeping) larynx. I swear to freaking God, that man is going to find himself buried deep beneath Gavilan Peak. How many (bleep--bleeep-bleeping) times do I need to hear about how I screwed up his weekend? Holy crap--does he think this is fun for me? When does he go home?"

"Um, today is Thursday, so we just have like four more days of this."

Good times, good times. So if nobody hears anything from me after February 4th, 2006, start the search for my remains in my backyard. Kim is suddenly fascinated with the art of composting, and I am fearing for my life.

Carolina at Seattle

2006-01-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

It isn't any easier to pick the winner of this game, but the beautiful thing about gambling is that nobody is holding a gun to your head to pick games. It gets discouraging when you look online at the people picking these games and they are just slightly above or below .500 when making their picks. Most the time, this is because they are forced to pick all the games, and quite frankly, unless you feel strongly one way or the other (or are a completely degenerate gambler with no hope for recovery), you aren't going to play every game. More than likely, you will stay away from games that you are decidedly on the fence about, and only plunk down your hard-earned cash when a particular game strikes your fancy. For the purposes of this blog, I will give you my winner of this game, just as I have the previous game, but neither one is a game that I have an incredibly strong feeling about going in. That may change as we get closer to kickoff, but I always found that the toughest week to make money betting was the Superbowl, because there was only one game to pick, and you are compelled to bet on it because it is the only game. Most times, it is a number that you would stay away from, but it is your last chance to bet on a matchup all year, and more than likely, you end up picking a game that in most weeks you would stay far away.
Championship Sunday is not much easier. You only have two games, generally pitting quality teams against one another, and Vegas does a good job of giving us a number that makes both sides equally tempting to bet. The thing that most people don't realize (and now is as good a time as any to explain it) is that Vegas doesn't necessarily have any idea of how the game will transpire, there are no clairvoyants and Karmac does not work for the Mirage (and neither to Siegfried and Roy at this point). All Vegas wants is an equal number of people to wager on both teams and the number eventually gets to that point. In this way, it is quite a bit similar to the stock market. If they put Denver in as a 12 point favorite because they just know that Denver is going to put a "whooping" on Pittsburgh, they wouldn't be able to find even the most ardent Bronco fan willing to give up that many points and all the cash would go to the Steelers side of the ledger. Nothing that the guys in Vegas hate more than risk. Believe it or not, Las Vegas was built on you and I willing to play the odds, not their own love of the unknown. If there is $10,000,000 going on the Seahawks this weekend and only $1,000,000 on the Panthers, the sportsbooks in Vegas would be freaking out right now. There would be panic in the streets because they had $9,000,000 lying out there that could be grabbed up if Seattle covered the number. This never happens. Vegas will move the line up or down until there is exactly (and I mean exactly) the same amount of money wagered in both directions. Let's say on a typical weekend in Las Vegas, there is $100,000,000 legally wagered on NFL games (this is just a random number and I suspect it is much higher). That means that $50 million is going each way on each game. Regardless of the outcome, the sportsbooks will take in $5 million or 10% of the losers share. The winners collect $50 million, the losers pay $55 million and everybody is happy.
That is why I love it when there is about to be an upset in sports and the broadcaster makes some "informed" comment like "Well, you know that the guys in Vegas are sweating bullets over the outcome of this one." or "The sportsbooks are taking a bath on this one--they sure got it wrong today!" The sportsbooks never take a bath. No matter who wins, they win. No matter who loses, they win. It is a beautiful thing. Your local bookie does the exact same thing. His line follows the Vegas line and if for some reason in the Denver area, he can't get any action going Pittsburgh's way, he'll creep the line up a little bit so that his players are giving 4 1/2 points instead of 3. At the end of the day, whatever leftover bets he has (an extra $2500 on Denver), he'll call some guy that he uses and drop that bet on him. At the end of the day, he's got the exact same amount on each team, but may be able to win both ways because he may only be laying 3 points but the bets he has taken are giving 4 1/2 points and may pay even if he wins the $2500 he laid off to his guy. All the bookmaker wants is his 10%, so he is just looking for volume on every game, so he can keep as much of the action as possible for himself (or herself--let's not be sexist when talking about bookies. Women are just as capable of being scumballs as are men-sorry to the ladies out there whom I may have offended by not including them earlier).
So we have the Carolina Seattle matchup today and we are faced with another conundrum. I can see both teams finding a way to win, and I can see both teams finding a way to lose. There are a couple of interesting trends that may lend some insight into this matchup. One of which is that Carolina has not lost in the NFC playoffs under John Fox, and in fact has won four straight road games--no simple feat. In the past 9 playoff seasons, one road team has won on Championship Sunday--9 straight years makes it a pretty strong trend. This is not to say that at least one team has won, only one road team has won. In other words if things follow their recent history, once the winner of the early game has been determined, call your guy and put everything on this game. Barring that vital information, we are going to have to go about this the old fashioned way and pick the winner based on actual head to head matchup.
On paper, at the beginning of the year, I would have said that Carolina was the best team in the NFC, period. They were healthy again, had a swarming, dominant defense, a gutsy quarterback, a strong running game, and a difference maker in Steve Smith. Couple all of that with quality leadership with John Fox and I believed that this team was going to dominate throughout the 2005 campaign. A funny thing happened on the way to home field advantage this year, however and Carolina has been one of the hardest teams to figure out this entire season. One week, they look absolutely unbeatable and take whichever victim they have on the slate behind the woodshed and kick the living crap out of them. Other weeks, they just show up, play down to their competition and find themselves on the wrong side of the beatdown. It has been so difficult to determine which team is going to show up that ESPN.com Page 2 columnist, Bill Simmons has managed to miss picking this team against the spread for 10 straight weeks. That is nearly impossible to pull off, but is a great example of this team's shortcomings. Last week was the one time that I was certain about what was going to happen when they went against the Bears, but that was more based upon the opponent, the situation and the fact that Bears fans had the spread jacked up about six points too high because they are among the most loyal and uninformed gamblers on the planet. On the surface, Carolina should be a no brainer again this week if they are coming with all of their weapons.
Unfortunately for my wallet, two of their most important elements are going to be suspect at best later this afternoon. First of all, DeShaun Foster is out with a broken ankle that he suffered in Chicago last week. This puts the running game on Nick Goings for the remainder of the postseason. Goings is a decent back and does a good job of giving Foster and (before he went to the Injured Reserve) Steven Davis a breather during the game. There isn't a huge dropoff on production when he is called in for certain situations. When he is called upon to be the only running option, however, there is significant dropoff. The opposing defense will not fear the run as they would with Foster or Davis in the backfield. In that regard, it will allow them to play with four down linemen, three linebackers in the box and get away with dropping a safety over the top to double team Steve Smith on every play. Having to commit a safety to stopping the run is the recipe for disaster against the Panthers. Smith will absolutely dominate man coverage (and probably will still win most double team matchups these days), but committing an extra body to Marcus Trufant's side of the field will give their cornerback confidence that they can at least control his output today.
The second x-factor that Carolina must deal with is the uncertainty regarding Julius Peppers. On defense, there is no bigger difference maker in the NFL today. The guy is a freaking monster at 6-9 with incredible agility, great hands and unbelievable moves at the line of scrimmage. He is nursing a sore shoulder and has had the flu earlier in the week and has hardly practiced all week. He will play (there is little doubt about that), but he will be, at best 80% of his usual dominance. Couple that with the ridiculously potent combination on the left side of the Seahawk offensive line (Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson) and he could be a no-factor today. Carolina relies on their front four to cause enough disruption that they can scheme their linebackers and DBs into better coverages and cause the opposing quarterback to make foolhearty throws.
With regard to Seattle, the challenge I have is that I don't fear this team. I like the team--I think that Hasselbeck has done an outstanding job in his development into a top-flight NFL quarterback. I appreciate that he is starting the Pro-bowl in February, but in reality being the starting QB for the NFC is a little bit like being the top team in the Big East in College Football. Yeah, you get to punch your ticket to the BCS, but you realize that if you had to play in the other conference, you probably would be fighting for the six wins necessary to qualify for any bowl game. The NFC is kind of like the "Oh yeah, we have to put somebody out there, why don't we take that Hasselbeck guy." With Donovan McNabb injured this year, the top six or seven quarterbacks are in the AFC--hell, maybe even the top 10 at this point. Manning, Brady, Roethlisberger, Palmer, Plummer, Green, Brees--I'd definitely take any of these guys before Hasselbeck. I might even include Byron Leftwich, a healthy Chad Pennington, or even David Carr behind a decent offensive line on the "Better than Hasselbeck" list.
The Seahawks have gotten fat on a weak schedule. This isn't their fault, or even the schedule makers fault, but the NFC West is deplorable. This division goes even a couple of notches down from the Big East in the grand scheme of things. Any team that gets to play the 49ers, the Rams and the Cardinals twice this season should be ashamed of themselves. That is six automatic wins for crying out loud. In addition, they got to play the inept Titans and Texans and got Indy after they had wrapped up the entire season and played third stringers for most of the game. Games against Philadelphia (post Owens/McNabb) shouldn't even count on the overall record. Jacksonville and Washington beat this team earlier in the season and the wins against Dallas and New York Giants were both outrageous and should have been lost three times if either team had a kicking game worth a damn.
But Seattle did win these games, and in doing so, have earned the right to host the playoffs in the Pacific Northwest. Alexander is back after suffering a phantom concussion last week against Washington and this team will use that "fighting for respect" thing for as long as they can juice some adrenaline out of their collective bodies. Their defense is a bit of the unknown. They are extremely effective, but few people outside the state of Washington (and perhaps Oregon and Idaho) could tell you very much about who these guys are. They find a way to keep their offense on the field, and Alexander will have something to prove today as Hasselbeck did last week.
There is also a mental hurdle for these Seahawks to navigate. Getting to the next level is almost always something that evades teams in their first attempt. This team has not been this close to the Superbowl since 1983 (their only time in a championship game when they were still in the AFC). The weight of the city who has not held a chamionship banner since the Supersonics won in 1980 comes with its share of pressure. Ask the Mariners how easy it is to get to the promised land when you have the best record in baseball history, but still can't get over the hump. As this game progresses, if the Panthers are still around, Seattle will start to press and make the mistakes that Championship teams do not make. The more I think about it, the more I fear that this is the inevitable fate for Seahawk nation.
The receiver corps is beat up (Engram and Jackson are both nursing nagging injuries) and Carolina has proven that they can win on the road. Even though Simmons picked Carolina and will ultimately be proven wrong for the 11th straight week, I have to go with my gut on this one and take the Panthers in a close one decided by a defensive touchdown (shades of Green Bay for Hasselbeck perhaps).
Panthers 20 - Seahawks 16

This may change three times before kickoff, but for now this is an iron-clad, can't miss, five-star Vic the Nose pick of the week.

Pittsburgh at Denver

2006-01-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has already been a week since my last posting. This week has been crazy at work, and I don't expect that to change much in the next couple of months. Kim has started working a couple of days a week on my days off, so when I am at home, Lauren somehow has occupied all of my time. She has a way about her that inhibits one's ability to do anything that does not directly involve 100% attention to Lauren herself. To this end, getting on the computer for any real length of time to post has not been readily available. I was hoping to get a couple of pertinent topics under my belt this week, but alas I have failed miserably in this venture. Today, however is Championship Sunday, and I don't have any excuses that would suffice for not writing today.
For those of you who are frankly sick and tired of these football postings and would like to get back to my mockery of my family, fear not. Football season is rapidly coming to a close. I will not be posting a dozen Superbowl articles over the next two weeks. Most likely, there will be one or two more football postings until we get close to the draft, and after that, you probably won't have to deal with any more football for at least three months. Those of us who are rapidly approaching the depression of the offseason, I feel obligated to write this posting. The long bleak winter is nearly upon us.
Today brings us two games and two matchups that most "experts" had not figured upon. Nearly everybody on the planet had Indianapolis last week, but Pittsburgh found a way to get past the juggernaut that was the Indy offense. It was an impressive display on the field and I will not go into the BS calls that permeated the officiating througout the weekend. There isn't another angle to cover that the sports pundits haven't beat into the ground for the past seven days, but thankfully Pittsburgh won the game despite the ineptitude of the refs. Those of you who have no idea what I am talking about probably aren't really interested in this posting and have already stopped reading anyhow. Those of you who do know what I am talking about, let's proceed to this week.
As far as Denver hosting the game today, they are fortunate to say the least. For the first time in five years, New England laid an egg in a playoff game. This was no way for a dynasty to end. I called OMAC (a die-hard Patriot fan) after the phantom pass interference penalty at the end of the first half that allowed Denver to get back into the game with absolutely no offense just to let him know that he would be able to watch the remainder of the game at my house as I was certain that his TV wouldn't function properly with that brick through the tube. He was fortunate to not have to witness the fumble by Champ Bailey that (physics be damned) went out of bounds at the one yard line that allowed Denver to maintain possession and salt the game away with their second one yard drive of the day. Nothing like home cooking in the playoffs.
But realistically, New England deserved to lose the game. Five turnovers is completely unacceptable. Denver did not deserve to win, but somebody had to come out with the victory. The champ should not limp away like the Patriots did last weekend. Sports rarely allows us the opportunity to see a team get knocked off and the torch passed along to the new bully. This past weekend did not allow that chance. The last time I can recall a consistent "passing of the torch" was back in the 80s and 90s in the NBA (probably the worst professional sports league around at this point--and that includes the NHL and professional soccer). In the late 80s, the Celtics and the Lakers dominated the game. At the end of the season, one of those teams would be hoisting the trophy, and it took years for the Pistons to knock off the Celtics and get their opportunity. After a couple of years of owning the league, that Jordan guy finally got past his hurdles in the playoffs and the Bulls took the crown. In the NFL, this almost never happens--each year a different set of teams litters the playoff landscape and there is rarely a team who holds the podium for more than one season.
The Patriots were different. They had built a team that was difficult to pigeonhole or typecast. They were a team without superstars, who understood that all 53 guys would be called upon to deliver and find a way to win. They had found a way to get to the second week of the playoffs this year, but the team that showed up in Denver had none of the mistake-free characteristics that made the past teams so dominant. The Patriots gave this game away and Denver happened to be the recipient last Saturday.
Now, realize that none of this matters today. Denver came out flat (just as Indy had last week) but managed to win and move on, which frankly is the only thing that matters. Pittsburgh won an emotional game and played about as perfect a brand of football as they were capable of pulling off. Cowher apparently read my posting on Sunday morning, because his gameplan followed exaclty what I said that they would need to do in order to pull out the upset--get ahead by two scores before the Colts knew what happened, slow the game down, keep Manning out of his rhythm and find a way to hold on. With the exception of the Bettis fumble, they played mistake-free, opportunistic football and won the game (as opposed to what Denver lucked into). Had Vanderjagt hit that 46 yarder to tie the game, Indy would have won in overtime and Jerome Bettis would forever be known as Bill Buckner to all Pittsburgh fans. It would be a shameful way for his Hall of Fame career to end, but that would be his legacy. There would be the indelible imprint of his career washed away by one play that we would watch again and again and again and the pain that Steeler fans would hold in their heart until their dying day could never be assuaged. Jerome probably bought Big Ben a Burrito Supreme from Taco Bell on the way home for saving his legacy with that tackle (hell, he might have even let him get some of those tasty cinnamon crispas and supersize his drink). So, thankfully Steeler nation is off life support and breathing today.
I am having a tough time getting a read on this game. Denver is 9-0 at home this season and it is always a tough place to play and there is a real difference in playing 60 minutes at 5280 feet elevation and playing a game at sea level. The Broncos are a very good team and I don't think that they are going to come out and play the same fortunate brand of football that got them the victory last week. This team still has something to prove and the Steelers need to bring the same game that they mustered last week to Invesco Field today. Bill Cowher has been to five of these AFC championship games (hosting all of them). He has only managed to win one in 1995 when Jim Harbaugh's Colts couldn't hold on to a Hail Mary as time expired in a truly memorable game. Other than that, he has failed to pull out any victories in this game.
I love Cowher as a coach. He has an incredible intensity, gameplans better than he is given credit for, develops players better than anybody in the business, brings up quality assistants and does an outstanding job of managing the game. For some reason, he has failed miserably on Championship Sunday. This year, for some reason feels different. His team is not the favorite this year. They are on the road for the third straight week and his players have bought into the us against the world mentality and they just seem hungrier than the teams they are playing. Two weeks ago, they were fortunate to have Carson Palmer go down on the first passing play of the game, but last week they looked like worldbeaters. One of the greatest mistakes that one can make is reading too much into how a team plays one week and assuming that it will translate into success on the field in subsequent weeks. If we were to assume that the team that escaped Jon Kitna and the Bengals was the same team that would show up in Indy, most of us would have bet our mortgage on the Colts last week. Hopefully, none of you did that. If I am to assume that the Broncos team from last Saturday was going to be the ones who showed up today, you can take Pittsburgh to the bank--they will dominate. Here's the problem. It all boils down to matchups. Which team can effectively impose their will upon the other--that's it. Denver and Pittsburgh are carbon copies of one another. They love to run the ball and they are very effective at stopping the run. They both ask their Quarterbacks to make few mistakes and to "manage the game" effectively. Whichever team is able to do this better today will be the team who comes out on top. Both teams managed to knock out Goliath last week and feel that Destiny is on their side. All things being equal (which they appear to be), the game should be a draw and Denver wins by the three points bestowed upon the home team by Vegas oddsmakers.
For some reason today, I just love Pittsburgh. Maybe I can't get the emotional victory of last weekend out of my mind, maybe I just know that Troy Polamalu will find a way to get a couple of interceptions again, maybe Cowher just needs to be on the road to win this game, maybe the fact that the D-line for Denver has been owned by Pittsburgh for the past 6 seasons when they made Cleveland their home, maybe the extra adhesive that Jerome Buckner has on his hands today locks down the game, maybe the blitzing schemes that Dick LeBeau comes up with are the most creative and hard to pick up in the business, maybe my childhood love of the Steelers still affects me somehow, but I don't think that's it. I think it boils down to big #7 Ben Roethlisberger. This kid just finds a way to win. The Steelers lost five games this year, but the vast majority of those came with Ben on the bench with a severe knee sprain, or trying to fight through the pain by coming back too soon. When this guy has been healthy, Pittsburgh has been lethal. Knowing that you have to stop the Steelers running game only opens up the passing lanes and single coverage matchups for Hines Ward and Randle-El, and Roethlisberger finds the open man. Heath Miller has become one of the top five tight ends in his rookie season as well. Somehow, the Steelers find a way to get home to Detroit for Billy Bettis today.
Pittsburgh 23 - Denver 16

I will post a separate posting for the Seattle/Carolina game before kickoff.

Divisional Matchups for Sunday

2006-01-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

From the overwhelming number of responses to yesterdays posting (that would be zero as of 9:17 AM MST), I feel confident that nobody risked their life savings on the Patriots game yesterday. For that I am glad. There is another explanation of your silence, of course, and that is you saved just enough money for a plane ticket and a high powered rifle and are on your way to Arizona to take care of bi-ness. I only can hope for the prior explanation.
For those of you who are Patriot fans out there, it has been a nice run for your team, and I don't believe that you are done yet. Injuries caught up to you this year, and it is a whole hell of a lot harder playing without a week off on the road than it is to host a second round game with a week off (as you have done all three years that you won the damn thing). I wouldn't count these guys out next year, but hats off to Denver for being the recipient of five turnovers and completing two one-yard drives. Well done boys, well done. Good luck next week.
Now onto the important things, today's picks. I know that there are literally thousands of you who comprise the silent masses who are living and/or dying for these picks, so to that end, I will make today's posting as brief as I know how.

Steelers at Colts -9 1/2
Here we go again with a huge number at 9 1/2 points. This is the playoffs and these teams are going to be chippy to say the least. The Steelers have been playing the best football in the AFC down the stretch and have been basically playing playoff football since December 1st after they lost three games in a row to Baltimore, Indianapolis and Cincinnati. Pittsburgh is a balanced power running team, and they have a strong leader in Ben Roethlisberger. They realize what they are up against going into Indianapolis because they dealt with the noise and rowdy crowd on that Monday night game two months ago. What favors Pittsburgh is that they are healthy this time around (strange for this time of the season), whereas last time around, Big Ben was coming off of a bad knee injury and was far from 100%. They were also embarassed the last time these two teams met and will want to exact some form of payback on the Colts.
The Colts, on the other hand have been coasting to this game for the last five weeks. They clinched the #1 seed througout the playoffs after week 14 when they were 13-0. They laid an egg the following week when San Diego was playing for their playoff lives and beat them in the dome. The next week, with most of their starters playing two series and then resting, they lost to Seattle as the Seahawks clinched the #1 NFC seed. Their second and third stringers were able to still put away the pathetic Cardinals in a close finishing game two weeks ago and they sat at home watching the first round of the playoffs last week.
So there is a good chance that the Colts come out a little rusty at the start of this game. The Colts game is predicated on timing and precision, which they have not had to work on in game conditions for five weeks. The things working in the Colts favor are pretty impressive.

They are rested, fresh and healthy. You can't really overstate the importance of this fact
They are far and away the most talented team in the NFL
They have something to prove (Manning needs to win the big game)
They have a coach they love who just lost his son and are going to do everything they can to win for him
They have a huge home field advantage--noise is insane in the RCA dome
They can beat you in any kind of game--shootout, pound it out, defensive struggle
Manning is the best player in the NFL, period

The only chance that Pittsburgh has in this game is to take it to Indy early and get a 10 point or more lead in the first quarter. They then have to slow the game down and keep Indy's offense off the field and keep Manning from getting into a rhythm. If they let Indy work their way into this game and don't take advantage of some potential early rust, they are going to get blown out. Indy has all of the weapons in the world and you can't take all of them away. They have also had two weeks to prepare for this game (really five) and will have an outstanding game plan ready to go. Pittsburgh must play a perfect game to win--cause three or more turnovers and not turn the ball over themselves. Unfortunately for the Steelers fans out there, I am yet to see a perfect game. I believe that Indy will shake off whatever rust they may have after the first collision on the first offensive play. It will be a physical game, but Indy will blow this thing open by the third quarter and Pittsburgh is not able to play from behind against this caliber of opponent. Indianapolis 34 - Pittsburgh 13

Panthers at Bears -3

If you have any money left after yesterday evening's gift wrapped win for the Broncos, here is your opportunity to get your cash back. The world is in love with the Chicago Bears Defense. Absolutely enamored with what they have accomplished this year. The monsters of the Midway are back, this team is better than the 85 Bears D, blah, blah, blah. The 85 Bears D gave up a total of less than 10 points for the entire playoffs on their way to thrashing the Patriots in Superbown XX. This Bears defense finished second in the league this year (to Your Tampa Bay Buccaneers by the way), so the comparisons don't even make sense. The theory that a warm weather team (Charlotte is hardly warm weather this time of year) can't win in the cold doesn't apply today as temperatures for gametime will be in the 50s.

The Bears are starting a QB who has a total of 8 games of NFL experience--8 games! This guy is going against one of the most opportunistic defenses in the league, and I expect the Carolina D to score more than the Bears Offense. Jake Delhomme, DeShaun Foster and Steve Smith have travelled down this path before and are probably the best overall team in the NFC (talent wise). They have been a Jekyll and Hyde act this season and rarely do what you would expect (losing in Tampa, losing to the Cowboys, losing their opener to New Orleans), but this is the playoffs and this team can suffocate you. Ask the Giants if the Panthers were ready to come and play last week at the Meadowlands. Expect more of the same today. You can't win if you can't score and I believe that the overrated and overmatched Bears D will get a lesson in smash-mouth football today. Carolina 16 - Chicago 3

Finally, a Football Posting

2006-01-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

So I have had a week to digest the debacle that was the Tampa Bay/Washington game last week. I have deflated my eight foot Bucs down lineman and have put away my new Black #24 Cadillac Williams jersey and Lauren, sadly has put the cheerleader outfit in mothballs for the long winter. The game was decided on two controversial plays that were unable to be overturned due to lack of "evidence."
The first of these plays was a fumble by the aforementioned Carnell "Cadillac" Williams that was recovered by the (still politically incorrect nicknamed) Redskins and returned 53 yards for a touchdown. In looking at the play through my completely biased but still 20/20 eyesight, the player who recovered the ball was down by contact as Williams leg was touching him the entire time he was on the ground. In fact, if you look at the replay, you can see Williams leg moving up when the player comes out of the pile because it was still connected to his leg. "The ruling on the field stands. Touchdown Washington." 7 points for the bad guys (hey, that's Lauren's name for them, not mine).
The second, equally stunning play was with three minutes left in the game with the Redskins still up by the BS touchdown that was described in the previous paragraph. Chris Simms throws a perfect strike to Edell Shepherd who catches the ball in the end zone, gets two feet down, lands on his knee (still in the end zone) and the ball drops out. The ruling on the field is that he never controlled the ball in the end zone, so it is an incomplete pass. I have been watching football for most of my life. In that time, I understood a catch to be getting two feet or a knee, elbow, butt, torso in bounds with control of the ball. I also understood that if a player has control of the ball and any miniscule portion of the said football crosses the plane of the end zone, it is a touchdown. Somehow, if a player catches the ball in the end zone, gets two feet in bounds and gets a knee in bounds, he is required to maintain posssession of the ball for another few minutes. "The ruling on the field stands. Incomplete Pass. Tampa Bay has used its last time out." The game was pretty much over right then. Simms had another opportunity on fourth down when Shepherd again was open in the end zone, but overthrew him badly.
So on two plays, our season came to a crashing end. The defense played one of the greatest games that I can remember. We limited Washington to 120 yards of total offense for the game. 120 freaking yards--that's an average day for Clinton Portis, and we hold the entire team to that. Two bad turnovers put 14 points on the board, and otherwise, we dominated the clock, the line of scrimmage and the game, but it was not to be.
I realize that I sound bitter, and deep down I am not. I am disappointed in the way the game went down, because I thought they deserved to win. I don't like games decided by bad calls either way (and I am sure that if I was a Redskin fan, I would have seen things just the opposite way). One of the best features of my Sirius radio in the car is the ability to listen to every home radio broadcast of all 32 teams. When there is a controversial call, I love to switch to the other station and listen to their broadcaster's take. "That was one of the worst calls I have ever seen in the 25 years of broadcasting that you and I have been together Earl. How the hell could they call him down?" "I know what you mean, Chuck. The Lions will be calling the league office on Monday, I guarantee you that. These guys are the worst officiating team I have ever seen. They're going to have a hard time getting out of the stadium tonight." and then you flip to the Vikings broadcast: "This group of officials is not afraid to make the tough calls, Joe." "No they're not. They have a hostile crowd of hooligans here at Ford field, but they got this one right--you see that, right there. He's down, you can see his knee just scrape the ground. At full speed, those refs really are doing an amazing job tonight."
The best part about watching the game on National TV was the pleasure of watching the unbaised play-by-play and color commentary displayed by the boys at ESPN. "I know, guys. Let's put Theismann in to do the game. He only played for the Redskins for 13 years and won a Superbowl with the coach on the sidelines. He will give us nothing but straightforward, fair-handed insight into this game." What a load of crap. I kept waiting for them to pan into the broadcast booth to find him with one of those giant foam #1 fingers and a Redskin emblazoned hard hat with two beers and twisty straws coming down from the sides.
In the big picture, however, I am not really that upset about the season. About the game, yeah, I'm a little fired up, but the season far exceeded my expectations for this team. In September, I was looking at the crop of College Seniors, because frankly I expected Tampa to have one of the top five picks again. Instead, they not only get past the .500 mark, they not only qualify for the playoffs, but they win their division and finish with the team's second best record of all time. I can't be too pissed off about that. You never want the season to end like it did last Saturday, but the fact that we made it that far gives me some solace heading into the offseason.
Now onto some prognosticating:
Since I no longer wager on sports, I am providing this service for your benefit only. Last week, I had absolutely no opinion one way or the other on any of the four games. I guess that isn't true, I had an opinion about who I wanted to win, but I didn't feel strongly about betting any of the four matchups last week. This week, for some reason, I have opinions, so get out the number of your favorite book maker and get ready to place some heavy wagers. Frankly, you'd be foolish not to risk your full retirement/children's college tuition on this insight, but you do what you want.
Washington at Seattle -9 1/2
Wow, 9 1/2 points is a ton. I love Seattle to win this game, but 9 1/2 points. Remember, Seattle has not won a playoff game since 1984--1984 that's 22 years ago. We were still in the first Reagan administration for Christ's sake. And now, suddenly they are 9 1/2 point favorites against the best all time playoff coaching record in Joe Gibbs. The Redskins have reeled off 6 straight wins (more than anybody in the playoff field right now). They managed to win a game last week that they had no business winning, so they are playing on borrowed time (house money if you will). Also remember, Washington beat Seattle earlier in the year, so they know that they can play with them. Here's the problem with picking Washington:

They are beat up--Portis can barely hold the ball with his sore shoulder, the secondary is in shambles and Brunell is 103 years old
Seattle is very good. Shaun Alexander is the league MVP, Hasselbeck is the starting QB in the Pro Bowl.
Seattle is getting no respect and will have something to prove
Washington has to travel across the country. Seattle is a long plane ride, and don't discount that
Seattle is 8-0 at home this year
Vegas ain't dumb

For all of these reasons, lay the points. Seattle very well could win this thing by 24. It will get ugly, and it will probably get ugly in a hurry. Seattle is not Tampa's offense. The shortcomings of Washington's beat up secondary will be glaring today Final Score:

Seattle 31 Washington 9

New England at Denver -3

For years, Denver has owned New England--owned them. The Patriots have won one time (2003) in the last 30 years or something when these two teams have met. Look it up--it is an absolutely ridiculous stat. Some teams just have another team's number, and it doesn't matter who is playing in the uniform, they just kill them. There is a classic clip on NFL Films where Shannon Sharpe (while playing for the Broncos) picks up one of the sideline phones and says "Hello, get me President Clinton. Let him know we need to call out the National Guard because we are killing the Patriots." It happens every time these two teams get together. Denver is at home and is rested, while New England is depleted, beat up and unable to bring anything other than their 10 game playoff winning streak to the table. Can you really bet on a team based solely on their playoff history? The Patriots finished the year 10-6, which is the worst record of any playoff team this year. If they were in any other division, they would be home for the playoffs all together, but the AFC East was so piss poor this year that somebody had to win, why not the Pats?

But here's the thing that I can't get out of my head. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are 10 and freaking 0 in the playoffs. That just doesn't happen by accident. They have gotten here with a patchwork secondary, no offensive line and a battalion of unknown players who most Arena league GMs wouldn't take a flier on. But yet they are here. There is not a better cold weather QB that I have seen in my lifetime, and there may not be a better playoff QB when the final chapter of Brady's career is written. Until somebody beats them, I will not put my money against this team in January. Even though I am not putting any money down this time either, I'll take the three points and I expect the Pats to cover and squeak out a win in Denver tonight. Final Score:

New England 23 Denver 17

Before I go too far out on a limb, and you have spent your mortgage playing these two can't-miss picks, I will hold off on tomorrow's matchups until tomorrow. Now it is time for me to go and look at the juniors who have decalred for the NFL draft. We're only a couple of months away from the combine. God, I love Football.

Snowbirds Volume II--Krissy and the Boys

2006-01-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

Patience isn't my strong suit--never has been and I don't expect that to change as I grow older. Waiting behind a slow foursome on the golf course grates my nerves like nothing else. As if my game could use any more challenges, getting worked up due to pace of play is my number one frustrator on the course. Today as an example, choosing the wrong line at the emissions place cost me about 10 minutes and you would have thought it was the apocolypse. Good lord I need to get some counseling one of these days. It is good to have Lauren aboard to hear some of my choice words--there is nothing cuter than a three year old repeating what you have to say like a Macaw later at the dinner table. (By the way, I responded to my brother's blog today with a Macaw reference, and I believe that this may be the only time in my life or anybody else's who is not involved in aviary sciences or works in a pet store that someone actually utilized the Macaw appropriately on more than one occasion on the same day). Fortunately, we had the sweet sounds of Sirius radio kicking out KidStuff for Lauren to sing along with during my tirade that I may have gotten away with one today.
Just watching TV and having to pause the show (Oh, you torturous DVR) and wait for Kim to come back from tucking in Hunter or going to the bathroom makes me insane. I realize that we will catch up by Fast Forwarding through the commercials, but there is something within me that absolutely hates waiting or slowing down my pace.
The most extreme example of this is during a road trip. I have had the pleasure of taking many long journeys in my life. I have always enjoyed the cameraderie that is realized on such a trip and I can't even recount how many times we have diverted a thousand miles or more off course when we had the opportunity over the years just for the chance to see one more friend or experience one more adventure. But the joy that I always derived from the highways and byways of the American road were completely enhanced by the company that chose to embark with me. I have taken these trips with Mike M., Dan and Matt D., Mike P., John B., Elliot B., Scott V. (what the hell ever happened to that guy--holy crap he has to be dead by now.), Clark C., Eric J., and once with Shari (picking up the Opamobile). The purpose of these trips was not always the same, but the destination was never nearly as important as the trip itself and the belief that we could get wherever we were going (and get back before we got fired or kicked out of school). There were copius amounts of alcoholic beverages consumed on most of these trips when we arrived where we were going, and quite frankly along the way most of the time as well. I am sure that I will explore one or several of these trips at some juncture of this blog, so Matt D., get your lawyer ready now--you will most certainly be involved in most of the incriminating segments of these journeys, you sick little bastard.
The first real road trip that I took with Kim and Hunter was a different experience all together. It was what one might call eye-opening for all three of us, and it made me quickly realize that my impression of a road trip needed some immediate amending if we were going to continue our relationship. I was pretty sure that she would have left me by the time we arrived at our destination after dealing with me from Oklahoma City to Phoenix if she were able to afford the plane ticket home and find a way to the airport, but after a few days, (let's not kid 0urselves, after a few years) her fear of being trapped in a car with me again for more than a routine trip to the grocery store subsided.
There was one major problem that was the root of all of the anger and frustration that boiled over that day and it wasn't the fact that I nearly ran the Saturn off the road in Albuquerque when we blew the right rear tire going 85 miles per hour on Highway 40. It was the birth of Connor Knoch, nothing more, nothing less. You see, I was heading out to Arizona to start my career in the hotel industry. I was set to begin my new job at some magnificent five-diamond property, and I wanted to get there by the time my job started--you know, first impressions and all. His mom, Krissy, aparently didn't give a damn about my new job. She decides to go into labor literally as we are pulling out of Meemaw's driveway at 6AM. Could anybody be less freaking considerate?
It turns out that Krissy's husband Tony isn't into that whole "birthing babies" thing and Kim has become her side kick in the delivery room. Kim was in there coaching her ass off when Connor's older brother Kade was born, and Krissy expected her to be around for this birth as well. Never mind that she had a perfectly able-bodied husband lying around, most likely watching video tapes of the Sooner's 1983 spring football game, we're apparently supposed to delay my career so that Kim can hold her hand. I know--ridiculous! But here I am again, the bad guy--see how that works? I'm sure that my new employers would be just tickled pink for me to come in a couple of days late to start this gig because my girlfriend had to stay in Oklahoma to babysit somebody else's wife in the delivery room. So I won the battle, and we got in the car and made our way to I-40 for the longest 18 hour drive of my life. It may very well have been the longest 18 hours of my life period (or maybe second to the time my parents told Shari that her dog was dead on the phone in an airport in Detroit after we were flying back from Scotland for Dan's wedding without his wife--that was fun. I can still hear her uncontrolled sobbing in my sleep 10 years later--thanks Dad).
The rules of the road as I knew them were pretty simple.

The person in the passenger seat was responsible for keeping the radio tuned to appropriate selections, navigating and flipping quarters over the top of the car into the toll booth machines--missing was not an option.
The driver was limited to three beers an hour (did I say an hour, I meant couldn't drink until we stopped for the night--crap).
Pee breaks did not exist until all members of the vehicle agreed that it was time to stop--whining just made it worse. (Mike P can attest to the hardship of this rule and Dan and I never knew that he was peeing into empty beer cans for the last 8 hours that time we went to New York, but again, that story may have to come at another time).
Burning out the radio 6 hours into a 2800 mile trek by falling asleep with your knee pushing in the cigarette lighter is a sure way to find one of the members of the journey dead or extremely missing by the end of the trip.
Unnecessary stops do not happen. When you stop for gas, fill up on Dandee sandwiches, oreos and Doritos at the gas station and pee there. I can't tell you how many trips we took with less than $30 in our pockets and a gas card--it's pretty amazing the purchasing power of the old Chevron card.

Suddenly, on this trip, the rules had changed. First of all, traveling with one of those (what do you call them--oh, yeah) girls made the pee break rule obsolete right away. She wasn't going to pee on the side of the road, and the fact that we had a four year old strapped into the car seat in the back only encouraged her road rules. We were stopping for bathroom breaks without the need for food or gas--unheard of, and completely contrary to anything that I could grasp.

And the worst part of the stopping thing was that Kim felt the need to make multiple phone calls at each of these stops. Back in the day, her ass would have been left at the phone booth at pit stop number one. She would've waited there until her mom came to pick her up and the wedding would have been off. In my mind, it probably would have been justified, but I hadn't even paid off the ring at this point, so I figured leaving her for dead in Western Oklahoma or in Amarillo might have been construed as the wrong thing to do. But my blood was boiling. I mean, the kid had been born already by the second stop--what the hell could they have been talking about anyway?

"So, it was a boy?"

"Yep. A boy."

"That's great, Krissy. What did you name him?"

"We're going with Connor."

"How much did he weigh?"

"6 pounds, 12 ounces."

"Oh my goodness, that's so small. I bet he is just beautiful."

"Oh he is, Kim. You should just see him. I think he looks more like Tristan than Kade."

"Well, I wish I was there."

"Me too. Tony is a complete ass."

"Well, get some sleep Krissy. Once you get home from the hospital, you probably won't sleep for a month."

"OK. Have a safe trip."

"Bye."

What the hell else could they possibly talk about? How far apart were the contractions when you started pushing? Did you get the epidural? Did Tony pass out? There is only so much information to share, but at every stop along the way (and to the best of my recollection, there had to be at least two or three hundred stops on this trip), she had to call Krissy and Meemaw and talk for ten minutes. The progression for me was subtle at first, but the changes in my mood, personality and demeanor clearly evidenced itself. It starts with the eye rolling and loud sighs. It then progresses to the death stares. Finally, it expands to beating the steering wheel as if breaking a dozen bones in my hands will in some way end the torturous hell in which I had found myself trapped. It peakes when I screamed at nobody in particular when the french fries that I had placed precariously next to the emergency break inevitably tipped over and spilled all over my pristine automobile.

But nothing I could do would deter her from making these inane calls every time we stopped. I am relatively certain that she made at least a dozen of these calls to local authorities so that they could track us and make sure I didn't attempt to bury them somewhere beneath a giant Mesa in New Mexico, but I can't prove anything. We somehow made it out to Arizona and after a few days we were speaking to each other again, and I am pretty sure that by the end of the week, we were both planning on proceding with the wedding (at least that's what we told the other). Deep down, I believe that she just wanted to get on that airplane, lose my number and go into hiding.

Since that trip, Krissy has been involved in our life. I have tried like hell to shake her, but she keeps tracking us down. She has three boys, Tristan, 8; Kade, 5; and Connor, 4. Our lives are somehow intertwined with these people and this is the second trip that they have made out here to Arizona in our time here. The last time they were here, I became the tackling dummy for four insane boys for a week, and this time they have had two more years to grow. I fear for my life.

I can make all the redneck jokes that I want to here, and to be perfectly fair to all, most all of them would apply, but I believe that might be too easy. In the big picture, my home will be inundated with three crazy little freaks, whose sole purpose in life lies in creating havoc upon anything and anybody with whom they come in contact. I will lose visual contact with our floor for eight days in March as the tornado that attacks my home will have no mercy. This time, I understand that they want to take a road trip to the Grand Canyon (4 hours trapped in a minivan with the caffeine-riddled equivalent of the shrunken Manson family--the authorities may never find their bodies).

With regard to my ability to take a road trip with my family at this point, we have come a long way. I bring enough peyote to calm the nerves, and I have learned that the days of the classic journey's of my youth are long gone. We do have cell phones now, and at least we don't have to stop every six miles anymore. I still blame Krissy for the rocky start of my engagement 4 1/2 years ago. Every time I get into a car for a long trip, I still get those nervous ticks that go along with the fear that she's going to pop out another freaking kid today. If she ends up packing four of those crazy little boys the next time we see her, I swear we're changing our phone number, packing up the u-haul, loading up the kids and moving to Saskatoon. Four Knoch boys would be enough to send the earth off its axis once and for all.

Snowbirds Volume I--Grampa G

2006-01-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

I realize that there are actually a few of my readers out there who enjoy a good football posting now and again. Today would be the appropriate time to reflect on the Bucs season that came to an abrupt ending yesterday, but I feel that I should remove myself emotionally from the situation in order to give the game its proper perspective, so hopefully after I come down off these anti-depressants that I found lying around the house, I should be able to find the appropriate words. By the way, does anybody out there know which of the side effects are most likely to hit me when I combine Zoloft, Ambien, Prozac, Welbutrin XL, and Lithium? I took two of each so far, and I am comfortable with the potential dry mouth, itchiness, diarrhea, numbness, headaches, bleeding ulcer, high-fever, painful urination, reduced sexual response and possible birth defects, but if there is even the most minute chance that I end up with some of that oily anal discharge, I need to know up front. I save that for only special occasions. Let's pick a topic, shall we.
I have a month to relax here before the onslaught of visitors returns to greet us here in the desert. The holidays are generally the time that we get our peak visitation from relatives, friends and loved ones. Thanksgiving brought my crazy family and Christmas/New Year's brought Kim's. But there is something about living out in the mild Arizona sunshine in the middle of winter that draws people out here like flies. Let's face it, without our 73 degree average winter days, and drought like weather conditions, who the hell would come out to the desert to plunk down $300 a round to play golf? No freaking body, that's who.
January is generally our reprieve--the time between the holiday chaos and the desperate attempts of our remaining visitors to decide that shoveling snow is no stinking fun and it is time to drop in our friends in AZ. It only took me two winters in Rhode Island to figure out that I had no desire to make anything north of South Carolina my permanent home. Scraping ice off your windows for 25 minutes while your car is warming up enough to actually drive in sub-arctic temperatures just plain sucks. Doing this every day for three months sucks even more, so I don't blame anybody for wanting to get away and find a sliver of sunshine to placate their winter suffering. So as February rears its ugly head to the rest of the world, we find ourselves basking in the daily warmth that is our sole reason for moving to this state in the first place. Not to rub it in, but we haven't had a drop of rain since October 30th, there hasn't been a day in five weeks where the temperature hasn't hit at least 70 degrees and it has been a sultry 80 the past three or four days, but I digress.
I have been known to sometimes make these posings a bit (I don' t know what you might call it, but for lack of a better term) wordy. To that end, I will break down our winter visitors preview into several smaller postings. So today, we will focus on the first of these, who happens to be Grampa G. He is coming out Super bowl weekend (aka FBR/Phoenix Open weekend--which no longer affects my life like it has for the last four years--see previous posting The Last Fiesta Bowl in Tempe for clarification). He is coming by himself for about four days to see the grandkids and nap in some different rooms in both my house and Shari's house. My parents like to travel solo at this point in their lives. Don't get me wrong, they also travel as a tandem quite a bit as well, and it is still a rare phone call when I can speak to only one of them at a time, but we generally get one trip a year where it is just one or the other to visit us. Now, I might be in the minority on this issue, but I am sure that my brother and sisters will chime in on the comments at the end of this posting at some point. I would much rather host just one of the two as a visitor. It doesn't matter which one we are referring to, because they are both equally insane when they are together. Taken in small doses by themselves, Mom and Dad are manageable and the stress level for the rest of us in minimized a great deal. There are probably a dozen factors that contribute to their dual lunacy, but I will only list three:

Each of them tries to prove to us that the other is really the crazy one, and they are merely a victim of being trapped in the same house as the other for forty years. "Well, you know that you father still believes that he is going to make his fortune on the World Bridge Tour. He keeps pointing to that Poker thing on TV and says that Bridge is the next big thing. I can't talk him out of it and now he is making me scout his oponent in his upcoming tournament. I just can't take it anymore--Do you know how many times the organizers have asked me to leave and to stop videotaping? The Carl Henderson/Rick Janks team has put a restraining order on me. I then spend six hours a night in the editing room, so that he can look at the tapes uninterrupted. I can't get any sleep and I am working with only one good arm. Damn your father."
Dad retiring. There is no way that any observant individual could watch these two for the past several years and believe that things weren't going south for many years leading up to retirement, but having Dad home all day, every day has to take its toll on anybody's sanity. Does anybody think that Mom enjoys working still--oh sure, she'll tell you that she loves the people that she works with and that they need the health insurance that her job provides, but she will never stop working and there is only one reason--she would be trapped in the house with Dad all day, every day. Work is her escape and she will not give it up for anything. Her greatest fear is coming home one day to find that Winnebago that Dad has been longing for over the last decade parked in the street with the old man decked out in a Chauffer's cap and his Mickey Mouse gloves, buffing out the rims and perusing that 1983 Rand McNally Atlas that he has been holding on to for just so special an occasion. You don't think she wakes up in a cold sweat thinking about that one. Somebody will have to pry her dead, scraggly fingers from the keyboard at her reference desk, because she will never lock herself in that 120' touring bus with no escape.
The big floppy hat. Any of you out there who have photos of my parents taken in the last 15 years, look closely at the picture. Most likely, it will be squarely on her head, but somewhere in that picture, there will be a ridiculous looking, gigantic floppy hat of some kind that she is using to shield her delicate face from the fluorescent lightbulbs in the room and the radiation caused by the camera that took her picture. She will not go anywhere without this silly contraption. Now I know that hats can be a wonderful accessory and as ladies move up in their years, the hats have been known to get sillier and larger. Gramma G, doesn't use her hat as an accessory--hell, it doesn't match anything that she wears. In fact, it generally clashes so powerfully with whatever she is wearing that it may be the only thing you notice. I remember years ago, when she started wearing one of those silly belts as a purse (you know the ones that look like a boa constrictor trying to digest the pot bellied pig that it just ate) and I realized that she couldn't care less how she looked in public. But the floppy hat thing--you can say what you want, but everybody knew that damn Minnie Pearl was as crazy as a loon too.

Now when they are apart, something strange happens. You can actually speak to them as individuals and they generally respond as if they were reasonable adults. Dad might even be described as lucid and pleasant on these occasions. He doesn't feel the need to fight for our attention and he doesn't fear that a conversation is going on that doesn't involve him in some way. He can relax and just enjoy his grandkids, and believe it or not, he does a pretty good job at this. He still needs constant stimulation and has to have an agenda each day (not to mention all meals must be planned out at least 48 hours in advance), but these are things that one can deal with if necessary. He still will log at least 20 hours of sleep for every 24 hour period, but he needs that to get his brain ready for the future bridge tournaments on the horizon.

In fairness to him, the kids are very excited that he is coming. Lauren and Dad finally bonded the last night of their trip out here in November and she has been in love with Grampa G ever since. Hunter thinks that Grampa G is pretty funny (for a pleasantly plump old guy anyway) and always has a good time when he is here. Just before he comes, I will end up giving him a call to remind him to be on his best behavior and to not be overly critical of the kids or our parenting skills, and he does his best to comply. This has a profound impact on Kim's enjoyment of the weekend, and he finds himself actually enjoying his grandchildren this way.

The other thing that adds to the weekend fun is the comfort level that Dad has become accustomed in his own home sometimes does not translate as well when visiting others. There is something downright creepy about a 240 pound man sitting on the couch in his hanes briefs and wifebeater every day. Kim has become somewhat accustomed to it, but there is severe shock value when he arrives each year. He also has the need to share any and all medical conditions that are impacting his life, whether or not they add to the visual imagery that is the Grampa G experience. As a rule, for all of you out there who find this sort of thing fascinating to share with the rest of us, most people have very little interest in your bowel movements (and the condition and/or experience that goes along with each of them). I realize that it is great to share that everytime you come out to Arizona, you get diarrhea, but this might be an experience that you want to selfishly keep to yourself. Just my Public Service Announcement for the day--hope it helps all of you.

For a preview of upcoming topics, we will discuss the rest of the visitors that we will have the opportunity to see over the next month or two. In tomorrow's segment, it will be Chrissy and the boys. On Tuesday, we've got the California Neice/Nephew combo, and then on Wednesday, we'll talk about Uncle Paul and Aunt Anita. Lots to look forward to. This list of course is subject to change due to any circumstances, up to and including--drunk and passed out, something better to write about, coming out of my drug induced coma, legal action from any or all of the above mentioned, loss of life or limb.

Good to See the Boys

2006-01-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

I'm working on about three hours sleep today and Kim, no doubt is muttering something to herself like, "Too freaking bad, you moron. You did this to yourself, and you'd better not come home this afternoon and try to lay your sorry, lazy ass down on the couch after I've been doing laundry all day and dragging Hunter's tired butt all the way to Scottsdale after you kept him up all freaking night, too." And as usual, she is completely right.
We used to live about half a mile from our current house while this one was being built, nestled in a cozy cul-de-sac. The house we had rented in this cul-de-sac was extraordinarily small for us, but we wanted to get into a house up here before the school year started, so that we wouldn't have to move Hunter in the middle of the year during first grade. We ended up liking the neighbors so much in those first four and a half months, that we actually inquired about purchasing the tiny house that we were living in because we didn't want to move down the street away from our little cocoon. The asking price was about $30,000 more than the larger house we were purchasing, and quite frankly, there was no way in hell we were able to dish out one more dollar than we already were spending, but we really thought long and hard about it.
The day we moved into the rental was probably the best example of why we never wanted to leave. I don't know about each of you, but moving day to me is probably the most inane, frustrating day known to man. There is relentless upheaval, mind-numbing confusion, painful arguing, intense yelling, smashing fingers, aching backs, broken lamps, desks taking 14 foot plunges down staircases, impossibility of setting up utilities, and all the other collaborative BS that goes along with the moving process. It has never been a fun experience. We even hired movers to load up our stuff and drop it off in June of 2003 (109 degrees by the way--Arizona, good idea Josh). The process takes all day, and at the time, we had a soon to be six year old and a 7 month old in tow, kicking and screaming the whole way. We also had to coordinate Hunter's last day of Kindergarten on the same day of the move and Kim got completely lost trying to find the house in a car we borrowed from a friend. All of this, of course was before we owned a cell phone, so she had no way of getting a hold of me and she was panicked.
Eventually, she found her way to our little hamlet in North Phoenix, but being trapped in a car with Lauren for a couple of hours had certainly put the strain on Kim. The moving truck took even longer to get there (I believe that they took a "shortcut" through New Jersey on the way, but they were paid by the hour, so it was to be expected). Eventually, we got to the house, got the truck unloaded and had a house filled with boxes and randomly placed furniture. Exhausted and frustrated, without cable, phone service or internet (practically living in the stone age) we picked up a pizza--couldn't call to have it delivered, tracked down the kid's beds and put together a makeshift sleeping arrangement for both of them to make sure that they got some rest at some point. The sun was setting and I walked out to the garage to get another box of cords to set up the entertainment center.
The garage door was open and I was greeted by a lot of chatter in the street. As I grabbed the box from the back of the Saturn, I looked down the driveway to see about 15 people in the Cul-de-sac playing baseball. There were kids ranging in age from 4 to 13 playing with parents on both teams. Those who weren't playing were sitting on their driveways cheering everybody on, and there was not an empty driveway to be found (well except for ours which was actually filled with players waiting on deck). There was this incredible energy and it was this bizarre Rockwellian scene that just made the rest of my day seem trivial. I went inside to get Kim and had her come out to get the next box with me, and she was equally shocked by what greeted her. We were coming from an apartment complex, where we would occasionally get to meet one of our neighbors and might know their names and the names of their kids, but neither one of us had seen anything like this.
Now if any of you know me well, it is rare that I would be called overly sentimental. My own wife refers to me as an emotionless carbon-based life form, but you can't imagine how cool it was to see so many kids and parents out in the street at 7PM on a hot summer night playing together. We passed out early that night, and the next day, Kim went to Oklahoma with the kids--work was busy, so I was out early and getting back after 7 every night, but for the next 2 weeks, they were all out there in the early evening playing baseball or kickball. I had the chance to briefly introduce myself, and I found out that after 10, when the kids made their way into the house to go to bed, the adults came back out and sat around, sucked down a couple of cold ones and hung out until one or two in the morning busting each others balls and talking crap. Over the entire summer, there was somebody to hang out with, sometimes until dawn and there was somebody for Hunter to play with every night until bedtime. There were four kids in the same grade as Hunter, and we were inundated with social events. Between birthday parties, summer BBQs, Superbowl parties, (and sometimes just rolling the grill, extension cord, cable cord and TV out into the Cul-de-sac for Monday Night Football), there was always something going on.
Kim would hook up Lauren's monitor and bring it out to the garage and crank it up so she could hear the inevitable screams that would soon permeate from her restless slumber. But it was always a neighborhood affair unlike anything I have experienced before. We would have water balloon fights three or four nights a week (with no mercy shown for the smaller kids). We would roll a basketball hoop out to the center of the street and three foot two inch kids would try to drive the lane only to find an overzealous Dad there to reject the ball. It was awesome. Once we did move out in October, we still made our way over to the Cul-de-sac at least a couple of times a week. Hunter and I usually made the trip by ourselves and he would play with the kids and the guys would get together and play poker until the wee hours of the morning.
Over time, however, we have made these trips less and less frequently. Lauren still needs to be in bed by 7:30, so Kim almost never gets to go, and to be perfectly honest, she has had less and less desire to return as time has passed and she has gotten further outside their social circle. We actually stopped going all together about three or four months ago. Hunter and I made one of our random trips to the old hood and saw nobody in the street hanging out. One of my friends was walking out of his garage over to one of the neighbor's houses and asked how we were doing and to come on over--one of the kids was having a birthday party and everybody was in the backyard swimming. Now, had it just been me who heard that, I would have politely excused myself and come back another time. I realize that we were no longer living there and we had grown somewhat apart from the rest of them, and there were lots of parties that we probably were not involved with. The problem was that Hunter was with me and heard that there was a party going on and immediately insisted that we go. It is a practical impossibility to try to explain the awkwardness of this situation to an eight year old.
We weren't invited to this party, and really there was no reason that we should have been invited. But the fact that Hunter was now aware of it and there were 10 of his friends in the backyard swimming together put me in an impossible situation. We went back to the party and I knew how uncomfortable we made the hosts feel. They are suddenly feeling guilty for not inviting us, I am feeling incredibly guilty for crashing their party and there is no proper way to excuse myself from the situation without devastating Hunter's feelings. I turn around and go back to our house to pick up Hunter's bathing suit and get a birthday card with $10 in it for the birthday girl, return to the scene of the crime and try to leave the card inconspicuously on the gift table (that has already been emptied) and ultimately, the hosts feel even more uncomfortable.
I realized at that moment that we could no longer just pop on by the cul-de-sac. We were still very good friends with everybody there, and all the kids go nuts when Hunter pulls up to play on any given evening, but it is unfair to create situations like this one for everyone involved. Which brings us to yesterday.
While taking down my Christmas lights from the outside of the house yesterday afternoon, one of the guys drives by the house and asks if we are ever coming over again. Over the last two years, they generally play poker every Friday and Saturday night until three AM, and since the party, I haven't even been over once. I asked if they were going to play that night, and he said definitely. Hunter and I went over at 7:30 after Lauren went to bed (she was dying to go as well because she has a huge crush on one of Hunter's friends and plans to marry him someday). Hunter and the kids played ping pong and freeze tag until 11PM (usually Kim calls me by 10 to let me know I am late, but she must have passed out) and I came back to finish my poker game until 2:15. You know, sometimes it is very uncomfortable to try to return to your old social circles. People have changed, their lives go on without you, and you go on without them. There is just something about this group of people that is so genuine--what you see is what you get. They are a crusty bunch of sorry, weaselly bastards who still get angry every time they lose a hand and live for ripping each other to shreds for their various foibles and idiosynchrosies. I am paying dearly for it this morning, but it was nothing short of a perfect hanging out with those losers again. Each of the guys is so completely different from one another, but the dynamic of the group is just fantastic.
Dilf is in his mid twenties, works in the hotel business, is a Mormon (occasionally has a drink or nine when his wife is not around), sucks down Dr. Pepper by the gallon, loves guns and angry music and lives for getting under the skin of everybody else. OMAC is in his late thirties, is a chiropractor, overly competitive, obnoxious drunk, gets pissed every time he loses a hand and is a scratch golfer. Ryan is in his early 20s, is a staunch Republican, still gets high, drinks Coors Light like water and most other alcoholic beverages that are placed in his immediate vicinity, works in construction, likes motorcycles and rebuilding cars, and has no kids. Scott is a computer geek, late thirties, keeper of the "poker book," ex-jock, chain-smoker (he has quit for now), Diet Dr. Pepper drinker, and is overly sensitive when Dilf is mean to him (which always, always, always delights Dilf to no end).
These four guys are the core, and they are probably cumulatively funnier than any four people I have ever been around. There are also the peripheral members of the Cul-de-sac, who are there to provide entertainment for the rest of us only. Most notably is Kong--a 465 lb bohemoth (again--cannot possibly be spelled right, but I hate spell check) who recently went and got that gastro-bypass surgery. This guy is quite possibly the worst poker player on the planet, but still insists upon pointing out tidbits for the rest of us like "I was only three cards away from getting the straight flush." or "I would have had you if the 9 of clubs and the Jack of clubs would have come up on the turn and the river." or "I couldn't pull off that bluff." There is no easier read on any poker table anywhere. It starts with a sheepish grin, then his face turns red, then he starts to convulse (I'm not making this up) uncontrollably when he makes his straight. The grin soon turns into a gaping smile and he will ask questions after every card like "What's the limit?" and "Who is still in?" all the while shaking like that guy who was watching the test for the first atomic bomb. It is classic. Most the time, you can still bluff him out of his flush, which he will stammer about and recount for your pleasure for the rest of the night and most likely the next several weeks as well. "I can't believe I let you bluff me out of that flush. What did you have? Oh yeah, a pair of sevens--that was a great play. Do you remember that hand?" Oh, sweet shrinking Kong, you are merely fodder for my blog. He owes several hundred dollars to various members of the poker group, so there was grave concern that he wouldn't make it back from his surgery and they would have to find his mother to collect his debt. These are the kinds of thoughts that keep these guys up at night
And lastly, there is the Roaming Gnome who bought our old house and is one of those touchy-feely 50-somethings who gives every woman in the cul-de-sac the heebie-jeebies every time he comes out. He is about 5' 2" and likes to go out dancing at bars where one generally wouldn't dance. He keeps trying to get the guys to join him, and shockingly, there have been no takers, though I think it would be an outstanding way to spend the evening, watching this oversized circus midget dancing on a bar as he tries to convince the world of his heterosexual tendencies. Good times for all.
The long and short of it is that there are few people I have met in my life with whom I would rather spend my time. Whether it is an hour visit or an all-night poker bash, I get the opportunity to dish it out and take it with the best of them. The short distance that separates our homes now makes it more of a challenge to be a part of things, but it doesn't minimize the experience. I look at hanging out at the Cul-de-sac as a distraction (like golf) that I should be able to find something better to do with my time. I enjoy the fact that I can share this experience with Hunter most the time. I don't expect that we will ever find another neighborhood quite like this one, but we are extremely fortunate to have ever discovered it in the first place. If anybody out there is looking for a great way to lose $10 in six hours, I can think of no better place to go.

The Last Fiesta Bowl in Tempe

2006-01-02T14:58:00.000-07:00

Here come the top ten lame-assed excuses as to why the posting has been so infrequent over the past two weeks:
10. Things have been really busy at work and I can only justify spending three quarters of my free time blogging.
9. I really have a secret blog that I am not telling any of you about and I have been laughing my ass off reading it the past two weeks
8. The dog ate my homework
7. I wanted to see how badly you needed it--I find it so sad
6. I have already run out of topics
5. There is no lazier man on the planet--if you don't believe me, take a look at the two-tone dirt job on the Opamobile
4. I have offended so many in such a short period of time, I didn't think that there could actually be anybody out there still reading this thing
3. After reading about my gambling problem a couple of weeks ago, Kim locked me in a cold damp potato cellar during the college bowl season (she thought it ended on New Year's Day, so I still got a shot to win some serious coin)
2. I've spent too much time dealing with those pesky slander lawsuits from family members to have the time to write about any other family members
1. I just finally finished reading my last posting this morning--who the hell can write that much crap in one setting?

And now back to our regularly scheduled program:

Now I realize that there is a strong contingent of you out there who see any kind of sports posting and just skip ahead to the next blog out there--usually some foreign exchange student reporting on the inequities of the American social structure in Portugese, but far more riveting than anything sports related. And I respect each of you for it. This is not to be a "sports posting," however, and I encourage you to read along for at least a couple of paragraphs on the off-chance it is more exhilarating reading than whether or not our justice system would work effectively in Bangladesh.
One of the coolest things about being in the resort industry here in Arizona is getting to see and meet people that you probably wouldn't have the opportunity to meet in every day life. We have our share of celebrities here, and generally it is considered in poor taste to go up and solicit an autograph. But we do get to talk with them, and I have had more than my fair share of celebrity sightings and conversations. Most of which were far less thrilling than one might expect, but I can doctor up any situation for the purposes of entertainment
My most recent encounter was with Dick Clark on his birthday, when he dined in my restaurant. He no longer looks like a teenager, by the way, and if you saw him on ABC's New Year's Rocking Eve, he is hardly rocking anymore either. He was a genuinely personable man, and I enjoyed speaking with him for a few minutes. My all time favorite "celebrity" sighting was at my previous hotel during the 2001 World Series when I was getting ready to close the bar down and Biff Henderson was standing next to me ordering a drink for last call. For those of you not familiar with Biff, I feel for you. I can only imagine trying to read this blog with any degree of regularity without knowing one of the catalysts for The Late Show (and previously Late Night with David Letterman). I met Paul Shafer as well, but I actually pulled the old "Oh my gosh, you're Biff Henderson." starstruck and goofy encounter when I saw who it was. Though in the grand scheme of celebrities, he may be way down on most people's scale, Biff is right up near the top in my book.
The most bizarre encounter that I can recall is not fit for printing and that took place with Gary Busey. The man is certifiably insane. Some day I may tell you the story of "Hey, hey hey--I'm not talking to you, skyscraper," But that is for another day all together.
At my previous post, the best part of the job was not getting to meet the Hollywood-type celebrities (though there were plenty). The best part was the interaction with the athletes. We hosted an annual WTA (ladies tennis) event, an ATP (men's tennis) event, PGA (men's golf) event as well as being the hotel for one of the participating teams of the Fiesta Bowl each year. The first year I was there, I was awestruck by it all. In October, with the World Series in town, I meet Biff Henderson and see a bunch of Baseball Hall of Famers crashing at the joint. In December, we were inundated with Oregon Duck players and fans, the likes of which no human outside of Eugene would ever have to endure. Then in January, I've got Vijay Singh, Justin Leonard, Phil Mickelson and Freddy Couples walking around and having cocktails in my bar. A few weeks later, Serena Williams, Jennifer Capriati and Martina Hingis are running around, and then the next week, Pete Sampras and Andre Agasi are both signed up for the Men's event.
The next year started out with the National Championship game going on here (the game is on a four year rotation between the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Fiesta Bowl), and we hosted Jim Tressel, Maurice Clarett and the Ohio State Buckeyes (pre-embarrassing scandal of course). Those fans waited 38 years between National Championships and they got back to the hotel that night and partied like there wouldn't be another one for at least another 38 years. It was great--especially when I had to lock them out of the bar at 1AM--damn Scottsdale liquor laws. But they were great fans and had a great time.
The next year, we hosted the Buckeyes again, but there was nowhere near the same level of enthusiasm. It is a down year after the National Championship--the team and the players had that been there--done that mentality, but they still managed to pull out a big win. The week itself, however had started to become a burden (at least for me). The thrill of seeing these bohemoths clad in Silver and Red no longer had much draw for me. Waiting for the tour busses to return from the stadium with the throngs of delerious revelers just had lost its luster. Last year was the worst of the bunch--I had moved from the Food and Beverage world to the Front Desk and the Fiesta Bowl was in the year that they picked the "leftover" teams to fill out their game and we were stuck hosting the Pitt Panthers and both of their fans.
You get to see things from a different perspective at the Front Desk versus being in a restaurant. I always looked at these events/groups/teams as a great opportunity to fill my restaurant, hit my budget, make money for my staff, and the more the merrier. At the Front Desk, you learned to dread seeing these type of groups--everybody showing up at the same time, when the likelihood of any of the rooms being ready was remote to say the least--nothing like six charter busses pulling up with several small herds of families demanding that they get premier view connecting rooms (even though you are completely sold out and the group has been given nothing but lower floor smoking rooms per contract). There is nothing quite as satisfying as greeting 800 angry people who waited 2 hours for their plane to take off and then another hour and a half for their luggage here at Sky Harbor, found themselves trapped in a bus in holiday traffic only to arrive at the hotel where they find their room block is nothing that they thought and the three grand they forked over per person for this trip is going to get their kids put into rooms three sections away from their "guaranteed connecting rooms" that they had been promised by the tour director and the hotel should have known this even though they have different names and there is nothing on their separate itineraries stating anything about joining up with anybody else. Boy do I miss the Front Desk.
So now, I find myself keeping an eye on the score at the Fiesta Bowl, but not really concerned about the result. If Notre Dame wins, it will cap off a great rebuilding season for a once proud franchise and if Ohio State wins (yes, they are back for the third time in the last four years and they are staying at the same hotel again) the Big Ten can finally say that they are not a completely overrated conference because they actually won a bowl game this year. But the outcome does not affect me personally. When the fans of Buckeye nation return to the hotel, they will either party like freaks to celebrate their win, or they will be subdued at another season of promise falling short. I don't have to worry about it--I just have to check the tee sheets and make sure that there won't be a swarm of hungry golfers coming in for nachos tonight.
The Fiesta Bowl is played in Tempe, at Sun Devil's Stadium on the ASU campus. The Cardinals play their home games there as well, or at least did until last week. Next year, there will be a brand new (as of yet unnamed) stadium just a few miles up the road in Glendale. It will be a bastion of modern conveniences, as all stadiums pretend to be. Once it was enough to be a domed stadium, and then the SkyDome opened up in Toronto and they utilized a retractable roof. Now all new domed stadiums have this feature--real grass in a building--who'da thunk it? This new stadium in Glendale will have a retractable roof, but in addition, they have the field on rollers, and it too will be retractable. The field will move in and out so that it can enjoy some sunshine while the inside is gutted for concerts, monster truck rallys, political conventions, etc. I will miss the nostalgia of the Sun Devil Stadium experience. I was able to enjoy the splendor of one of the first (if not the first) BCS championship games when Florida State came and got their ass handed to them in 1998 at the hands of Tennessee (I can still hear freaking Rocky Top in my sleep). Sitting down on those rickety high-schoolesque bleachers as the entire stadium shook to the point that I was certain Tempe sat directly on a major fault line made me realize just how truly crappy this stadium was. I have only returned one other time (last year for the Bucs game) and it was equally disappointing sitting in an outdated, empty, dilapidated stadium for an NFL game.

I can only hope that the new digs will be all that they are cracked up to be. The Diamondbacks play in a great stadium and I have been dozen of times and enjoyed it no matter where I was seated. Maybe, just maybe someday, there may even be a game worth seeing in Glendale someday as well. As for tonight, it doesn't mean a damn thing who wins and who loses--at least not at this hotel. DJ actually played golf today--didn't think about the Fiesta Bowl at all. I never realized how much this week occupied our lives for the past five years until it had no impact whatsoever.