The Dow Is Up!

New Music

2008-10-17T16:31:00.002-05:00

I've encountered a few bands lately that are worth mentioning. I think I discovered them through Pitchfork.com, which is a great way to find new bands. The problem is that they write the worst reviews in the world. They're completely incomprehensible. And they compare the bands to even more obscure bands. That's great if you're familiar with every band in the world. What? You're not? Then the review eats it.

So here's a quick review of a few albums that hopefully doesn't require the Complete History of Music to interpret.

Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
Sounds like: Oasis/Radiohead combined with The Killers
Verdict: Completely rocks, but some of the songs take a little while to start rocking. Give it time.

Torche - Meanderthal
Sounds like: Black Sabbath or Soundgarden with a more masculine singer (and slightly less talent)
Verdict: Very heavy. If they released this album in the 90's, it would have gone to #1. Then the lead singer would have died of a heroin overdose and everybody today would say, "I wonder what would have happened to these guys if they released that album in 2008 and they didn't become a huge commercial success." I liked it from the get-go. Turn it up to 11

Foxboro Hot Tubs - Stop Drop and Roll!!!
Sounds like: Green Day, but not as punky (rumor is that it IS Green Day)
Verdict: Eh. I prefer Green Day, but they still write catchy hooks. It's basically a more watered-down version. And if there's one thing the world does NOT need, it's a watered-down version of Green Day. It's listenable, but I'm sure it'll be forgotten by this time next year.

Digital Packrat

2008-10-17T16:16:00.001-05:00

I've got too many songs on my iPod right now. A month ago, I was over 10,000. That's when I decided that I was being a little obsessive compulsive and cleaned things out a bit. Now I'm at about 9500. Yeah, I'm not good at cleaning (something The Wife can easily attest to).

Here's the problem. I like a lot of music. I like to say that my tastes are eclectic, but that's not true. I really only like rock and/or roll. I have little use for rap or hip hop. I do, however, have an obsession with pop music, especially from the 60's-90's. That's where the problem lies. At one point, I had every song that was in Billboard's top 100 songs for every year from 1970-2007. If you do the math (and I have), that's 3800 songs. And if you listen to all 3800 (and I have), most of them suck. My most recent song-purging was to get rid of the songs that are absolutely unlistenable. Most of those songs are ones that I'd never heard before.

And this is where my OCD kicks in. I need to get rid of the songs that I recollect but don't like. For example, "If Ever You're In My Arms Again" by Peabo Bryson. Who on EARTH needs this song on their iPod? I heard that Peabo's friends saw it on his iPod and kicked his ass. Yet, for some reason, I can't bring myself to delete it. Somewhere in my sick, twisted mind, I have myself convinced that the Ghostbusters are going to stroll into my house and say, "Hey, it's 1984 again! Let's listen to that totally boss 1984 playlist of yours. Wait, what? You don't have 'If Ever You're In My Arms Again'? Alright, boys, pack up the proton accelerators! We're going home!"

That's what kills me. I know that there's nobody alive that wants to hear this song (or about 1000 others), yet I can't delete them for fear that somebody might, someday, want to hear them. Know what I am? I'm a digital packrat.

Wow

2008-10-17T12:31:00.002-05:00

It's been almost a year since my last post. The problem? I ran out of things to say. I know that might shock some of you. (By "you", I mean "nobody" since I doubt anyone is still checking this dormant blog.)

You see, it's not very exciting being a parent living in the suburbs. Especially since I've been training for triathlons, which really eats into my free time. In the past, I could write about a stupid movie I just saw (don't get me started about "Speed Racer"). But now instead of wasting 2 hours of my life on that, I spend 2 hours biking to the gym, working out, and biking to the train station. Fun!

Speaking of which, I'm getting geared up (literally) to bike to the train this winter. I enjoy riding my bike to the train for 3 reasons:

It's an extra 45-60 minutes of cardio workout a day. And can't we all use a little extra cardio?
It saves me about $5-6 a day between gas (stupid V8 pickup!) and parking. (Note, there's no way to monetize this, but it also saves me the aggravation of having to find loose change b/c the parking lot is $1.50 per day, payable only in cash.)
It doesn't take me any longer to get to/from the train. In fact, with recent construction along Arlington Heights Rd, it's actually FASTER for me ride my bike.

To prep for the winter, I bought some UnderArmour Cold Gear compression clothes (top and bottom). I've been slacking on the training since the Chicago Triathlon, so my body needs a lot of compression. I might need a couple more shirts to compress the rest of my belly though.

I also picked up some gloves and a facemask that block the wind. That's pretty key, I've discovered. It's not so much the cold (which is bad), but the wind that just kills you. I still need to pick up some clear "sun"glasses b/c the wind kills your eyes too.

Anyway, if you're in Arlington Heights and you see some crazy dude on his bike this winter, please, whatever you do, don't hit him with your car! It's probably me! (Feel free to hit anyone else with your car.)

(By the way, I'm anxiously awaiting when I'm first going to hear from someone about updating my blog. I'm guessing it'll be at least a month!)

Someone Call DCFS

2007-11-29T20:17:00.000-06:00

Kids really do bring out the best in you. Actual words spoken to The Wife tonight:

"It's hard not to smile when you're threatening to break your child's legs."

Meaningful Changes

2007-11-18T16:27:00.000-06:00

We've been doing a lot of home improvement work around the house. When we bought the house, we knew there was a lot to do. I don't think we realized it would consume 3 full years of our lives (and counting), but we knew it would be a lot. Our most recent project is finishing the basement. It's coming along, but it's a long, slow process.

I'm taking this week off of work for some much-needed "vacation." I never EVER thought I would take a vacation and not go anywhere. But since I have about 14 vacation days left this year and can only roll over 10, I need to use them up. So here I am, vacationing at home. Yay! The plan for this week was to spend some time working on the basement. But after a trip to The Home Depot, The Wife and I changed our minds.

First of all, we've decided to add some insulation to the attic. What we have now is very sparse and results in a very cold second floor in the winter. Home Depot has a deal. If you buy 20 bags of loose insulation, they let you use a free machine to blow it into your attic. We decided to go ahead and do it, but then I had a thought. If we put in all the insulation we're SUPPOSED to, it'll be about 10 inches thick. In other words, you won't be able to see any of the support beams, thus you won't be able to move up there. And that directly conflicts with one of our other home improvement ideas, putting overhead lights in all the bedrooms.

For some reason, there's a real dearth of overhead lights in this house. There's one in the living room (the former dining room), a few in the kitchen, one in the hallway and one in the front hall. That's it. For some reason, we don't have any lamps either. So our house is DARK. It drives me nuts, which I know secretly makes The Wife a little happy.

In the summer, our second floor has virtually NO circulation. So we're going to add a ceiling fan to Luke's room and to our bedroom. We're going to put lights in the other 2 bedrooms. This essentially involves me cutting holes in our ceilings and then spending 6-10 hours in the attic playing with the wiring.

It's been a bit exhausting, but I've gotten 2 of the lights in already. They work GREAT. And they make me SO happy. You flick the lightswitch and you can actually SEE something. It's an incredibly novel concept. The best part about it, though, was that it only cost a couple hundred dollars for all the supplies. It'll take me 10-12 hours, but it'll make a HUGE difference in our lives. Now, that's the type of return I like to get from my home improvement projects.

And Now, A Special Bonus Post!

2007-11-13T21:34:00.000-06:00

Because I'm in a sharing mood today, I thought I'd leave just another random thought I had. I was listening to people talk about learning to play instruments as kids. That's when I realized that my OCD didn't just arise recently.

In fifth grade, we started playing instruments. I picked the saxophone. I was trying to decide between that and the trumpet. I picked the sax because my brothers played the trumpet. Even back then I was trying to distance myself from them....

To make sure we practiced, our music teacher gave us little slips to take home. We were supposed to fill out how many minutes we practiced each day. I vividly remember writing down 180 minutes a day. My music teacher naturally thought I was lying. He called my mom to confirm. I think he could tell by the anguish in her voice that I wasn't lying.

Turns out, all that practice was good for me. I became pretty good at the sax, becoming first chair later in junior high. I'm not terribly creative though, so I had a hard time coming up with solos for jazz band. Music is very mathematical when you're playing other people's music. When you're coming up with your own, it's downright scary. I'm not the most creative person in the world, which drives The Wife nuts whenever I'm playing with Legos and can't build anything other than what's on the box.

Anyway, this need to learn (or master) things is bleeding into work now and I have to learn to repress that urge. I have a project coming up where we're going to be working with a lot of data in Access, which is Office's database program. I don't know Access at all. But I'm supposed to manage someone who does. For some reason, I feel the need to learn Access so that I can do the work myself. They're grooming me to become a manager, which means I'll really stop doing any work myself. I keep telling myself that it's okay to not know everything. But I don't think I'm falling for it.

Speaking of which, we have this piano in our frontroom that's just taunting me. I wonder how The Wife would feel about 180 minutes a day of piano....

Due to Popular Demand

2007-11-13T21:26:00.000-06:00

I'm getting really bad at blogging here. It's now been over a month since I last wrote something. And due to popular demand (from one person), I'm now writing something else.

The good news is that the reason I haven't written anything lately is because I've been super busy at work. It's an odd feeling, to be honest. All of my previous jobs have sucked. Some have sucked a little. Some have sucked a lot. Some have sucked big fat donkey balls. But my job right now is awesome, and frankly, I'm a little taken aback.

The biggest problem I have with my job right now is that I don't seem to be able to take a vacation. I get something like 15 vacation days and 2 floating holidays a year. I think I have 12 of those left to use this year. It's not that I don't go anywhere or take time off. It's that I invariably end up doing work while I'm on vacation.

What's scary is that I don't mind doing the work. For once in my life, I'm actually not self-centered. I'm thinking about the team and being client-focused. (God, if my boss could only read that.) And so it's hard for me to just put a project down and go off on a vacation. Of course, having two little kids at home doesn't help. If my option is to work on pensions in my free time or spend some "quality" time with two screaming children, I'm taking Option A.

Anyway, I'm due to take next week off from work and I'm looking forward to it. I don't have anywhere to go or anything to do (besides finish the basement). But it'll probably be my last break from work until April or so. The next 5-6 months are going to be nothing short of insane. But, I'm sorry to say, a good kind of insane (that I'm really looking forward to).

Rollin'... In Style

2007-10-10T12:31:00.000-05:00

This weekend, I went up to the family house in Wisconsin. (I assigned it a nickname, but now I can't remember it. Crap.) It was a work weekend. My brother came up with me to help me finish the basement. (My mom also came up to feed us, which was immeasurably wonderful.)

On the way up, we talked about numerous things. One of the things we talked about was the vehicles we drive. As our families are expanding, we're getting bigger and bigger cars. I mentioned that I was thinking about getting a minivan next. My brother scoffed at the idea, saying he'd never get one.

"Sure, they have more room, get better mileage and are more comfortable, but I could never own one." Why not? "Because it's a MINIVAN."

And my brother's not alone in thinking this. Hell, I used to think this. Then 6 months ago, my brother-in-law got married in Sacramento and we rented one. It was GREAT. I fell in love with it. Now I'm actually looking forward to getting one.

And that's when I realized that I've lost all my coolness. I was never that cool to begin with. (After all, I was captain of my math team in high school.) But admitting that I wanted a minivan was just the icing on the cake. Minivans are SO practical, especially after driving impractical cars like a huge-ass pickup truck or a tiny Jeep. And at this point in my life, I'd rather make my life easier than look cool.

The problem is that this thinking leads to polyester pants pulled up to your armpits and cutting the lawn in black socks and sandals.

Finally, a Solution to Mid-East Peace

2007-10-08T09:30:00.000-05:00

For millenia, the mid-east has been a hotbed of violence. I guess that's what happens when three major religions start within spitting distance of each other. And as we all know, what makes religion so great is it's "I'm right, you're dead" attitude. But after years of struggle and thousands (millions?) of unnecessary deaths, someone finally came up with a solution. That man is none other than... Bryan Adams.

Yes, the Canadian rock "star" who penned such great hits as "Summer of 69" and "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" has decided to play a concert in the mid-east. I think his intention is that if everyone in the mid-east can just agree on one point (how much Bryan Adams sucks), then maybe that will unite them and end all the fighting.

If I were Canada, I'd be a little concerned. The Jews and Muslims might start teaming up and declare war on our friends up north. "No more Bryan Adams!" Yeah, take that you puck-slapping maple suckers.

Time to Change Your Name

2007-09-26T14:57:00.000-05:00

It's been a MONTH since my last entry! How does that happen? Oh yeah, I get wicked busy. I have a lot to talk about too. I just reached my first anniversary of work here at Geeks, Inc. I just finished my FAC, which means I'm officially done with all the bullshit that surrounds becoming an actuary. That's a long story that I won't bore you with here. The Wife and I just celebrated our fourth anniversary (by spending that particular night apart).

But that's not what got me out of my slumber. No, today I got an email from someone at corporate headquarters. The email was a rather innocuous one. But what made me have to post an entry on my blog was this person's name: Greathead. I kid you not. All I could think was that this woman must have had a MISERABLE childhood. Unless she married into that name. In which case, you adamantly REFUSE to take your husband's name.

Normally, I have a rule against posting actual people's names in my blog entries, but I think I'm safe here. If someone enters "Greathead" in google, I have a feeling they're going to be inundated with porn sights that are a lot more "relevant" than my goofy little blog.

Anyway, hopefully coming this week: more about my FAC.

Now Batting... Manny Mota!

2007-08-28T11:05:00.001-05:00

Now there's a random Airplane quote for ya. Wonder if anyone recognized it. Anywho. I just had my last softball game of the season yesterday. Somehow, I managed to finish the season batting 1.000, going 6 for 6 in my 3 games. And all six of this hits managed to stay in the infield.

I love playing 16-inch softball. For years, I languished on a 14-inch team, unable to hit my way out of a paper bag. But in 16-inch, I turned into Pete Rose. (By that, I mean that I'm gambling on all our games.) What makes 16-inch so much easier for me is that I'm fast and I pull the ball. So if I hit a grounder to the third baseman, I'm going to get to first before he can throw the large ball over there.

My favorite hit of the season came yesterday too. I roped a single right up the middle. I POUNDED the ball. It was a veritable rocket. For some reason, the pitcher decided to stick her hand out and almost lost it. The first baseman was joking with me about how she might have to pitch with her other hand now. Love to hear that.

The best part about the game, though, was that we won. Not only did we win, but we beat the #1 team, which happened to be undefeated. We pounded them 12-8. The key to victory for us was that their pitcher was off. I think the pitcher is the single biggest factor in 16-inch softball. All you need is someone who can consistently get the ball over the plate. You don't need to strike them out. You just want them to swing and hope you can play defense. The pitcher yesterday was all over. The balls were often FEET outside or behind the batter. She ended up walking at least 6 people, and we weren't being overly picky in the balls we were taking.

I noticed that the pitcher had a number written on the back of her leg. Which means that she just did the triathlon on Sunday. So maybe she was just a little tired from that, which threw off her pitching. But it doesn't matter WHY she sucked or WHY we won. The important thing was that we beat the #1 team. And now our team is rocking as we prepare for the playoffs. Unfortunately, I'm going to be out of town for the playoffs, so I'm done for the season. But at least I finished the season batting 1.000. Now that's a record that won't be beaten.

More Thoughts on the Triathlon

2007-08-27T13:42:00.000-05:00

I was re-thinking some of the stuff I wrote this morning about the triathlon. Mostly, I was thinking about how poorly written it was. This stupid triathlon wiped me out mentally too, I guess. (Although it's much easier to wipe me out mentally than physically. Just wave something shiny in front of my face.)

I keep thinking about the triathlon in general and why I feel moderately disappointed in my finish. The answer? I didn't win. Crazy, isn't it? I had no expectation of winning. Hell, it's almost a physical impossibility. And yet I'm a little bummed that I didn't.

I think the problem is that I'm a wrestler. And in wrestling, you either win or you lose. You don't go into a match thinking, "I hope I only lose by 5 points" or "Last time I got pinned in 2 minutes, so hopefully I can just beat that time." So it's kind of weird for me to think that "victory" is just beating your expectations.

Of course, part of the problem is that I didn't know what to expect, having never done a triathlon before. Now that I've done one, I know what to expect. More importantly, I think I've figured out how to create a "victory."

As I said earlier, I have no chance of being the first one across the finish line. Well, unless I go straight from the water and run directly to the finish line. Even then, I'd probably get a cramp on the way and still not make it. What I need to do is find someone to beat. So instead of competing against a "time," I'll be competing against someone in particular.

And since I'll be competing against someone in particular, it becomes a win-at-any-cost race. So when the swim starts, I have to make sure I'm right next to him. Then I can try to dunk him, or grab his ankles or kick him in the face. If he manages to avoid drowning, I'll load my bike with a bunch of weapons. I'm thinking of creating the bicycle equivalent of the Batmobile. Or Pee Wee's bike. Then if he gets close to me at all, I press the "oil slick" button and watch him fall. Granted, all the extra equipment will slow me down a little. But the goal isn't to win quickly. It's just to beat this dude.

The run is going to be more difficult. I won't be able to drown him and I won't have anywhere to store weapons. So I'll have to be more creative. I think the first thing to do will be to sabotage the transition (where you switch from bike to run). Maybe put some dog poo in his running shoes or cut his shoe laces. And then I'll run backwards to make sure I've always got an eye on him. Fortunately, the course does go pretty close to the lake, so I might be able to give him a hip check if he tries to pass.

In related news, I've already got a wishlist of stuff I want for next year's triathlons. Fortunately for The Wife, none of them are really expensive. Plus I have a long time to shop for them, so I can wait for deals. The first item is Pee Wee Herman's bike. That one might be hard to come by. After that, I need a wetsuit for those cold frigging swims. I need knew pedals and shoes for my bike. Not a necessity, but a nicety. It might save me a minute or two on my bike ride. Then a new speedometer for my bike that measures how fast you pedal (as well as how fast you're going). It helps you keep track of what gear you should be in. And finally, a strap to hold my bib. I'll probably come up with a few more things as time goes on. Much to The Wife's chagrin. (Hey, at least I'll be easy to shop for this xmas!)

I Did It!

2007-08-27T10:30:00.000-05:00

To paraphrase Hall & Oats:
I did it, I did it,
I did it, I did it,
I did it in 100 minutes

Yesterday was The Triathlon. You know, the one for which I've been training for the last eight or nine months. My original goal was to complete the darn thing. Then I said I wanted to finish in 1:45. I managed to beat both goals and finished in 1:40. (Technically, it was 1:39:59. I'm rounding up.)

The weather couldn't have been any better yesterday. It was sunny and in the 60's or 70's by race time. The water temperature was 68, which doesn't sound too bad. But, really, it's freezing. It was so cold, I couldn't catch my breath. And when you're in a race, breathing is kind of important. Come to think of it, it's pretty important even when you're not racing. I'm going to have to make a mental note to keep doing it.

I came into the race thinking that the swim was my best event. I've been swimming quite a bit at the pool. I developed a pretty good stroke and a good pace. I was actually looking forward to the swim. But once I got into the lake, it was another story entirely. Since it was so cold, I could hardly breathe. Plus, I put myself in the back of my heat with all the "bad" swimmers. Bad idea. Apparently, these swimmers are REALLY bad. It took me way too long to get around them and make any headway. But I never really developed a good pace because I was always trying to get around people (and still in shock from keeping my face in the cold water for more than 10 seconds). I ended up doing a lot more breaststroke than freestyle swimming. The problem with that (other than being slower) is that it tires out your legs more. My swim time was about 22 minutes. I honestly think I could have cut 5 minutes off my time if I had a wetsuit, had a better starting position, and got used to the cold water. Something to strive for next time.

The bike portion went extremely well. I made up quite a bit of time overall there. I'm glad I decided to spend $1000 on my bike. It was well worth it. I was about average in the swim (about 950 out of 1900 participants), but my bike time was about 300 overall. Quite an improvement. Unfortunately, I probably overdid it on the bike because my run suffered.

I came out of the bike transition with a pretty solid running pace. That lasted about 1/4 of a mile. I ended up spending way too much time walking so I could catch my breath. I ended up doing the 3.1 miles in 29 minutes, which was again near the middle of the pack. The hardest part of the run for me was that it seemed so damn LONG. I've been running 3 miles quite a bit. Longer sometimes. But it's easier because I know how far every quarter mile is. So I've got a mental idea of how far I've run and how far I have to go. But there were no markers other than the 1- and 2-mile marker. And because I was SO tired, those mile markers seemed like they were twice as far away as they should have been.

Ideally, I could have cut another 5 minutes from my running time. Combine that with 5 minutes from the swim and that would get me to 1:30 overall, which is my goal for next year. And, yes, I will be doing this again next year. I've actually really enjoyed training for this. I didn't quite get in as much time as I wanted. Hurting my shoulder and my feet didn't help.

I did manage to get down to 175 pounds though. In fact, this morning (after all the eating yesterday), I still only weighed 175.2. My goal for next year is a very reasonable 170. Basically, I want to lose 10 pounds of fat and gain 5 pounds of muscle. I've already got a training plan for the year that adds weightlifting to my usual cardio stuff. I'm hoping that I can gain some strength without losing any of the cardio conditioning I've built up. We'll see if I have any luck there.

I'm also planning on doing at least 3 triathlons next year. My sister's talking about going up to Minneapolis to do that triathlon, which would be great because that's where one of my brothers lives. And I'm sure he'd be doing that triathlon too. There's also a triathlon near my family's cabin in Wisconsin. And then the Chicago triathlon. The Wife is pushing for me to do one in the Bahamas. Unfortunately, she'll have to wait until I do the Ironman in Hawaii. Which should be never.

Sleep Disorder

2007-08-22T10:19:00.000-05:00

They say that one of the benefits of working out regularly is that you require less sleep. What they don't tell you is that while you actually sleep less, you spend a lot more time (awake) thinking, "God DAMN, I'm tired." Last night was one of those times.

It was hot last night and we had the windows open. I have a hard time sleeping with the windows open. I'm a baby, I know. I like the house COLD in the summer and HOT in the winter. You could say that I'm ComEd's poster-boy. The Wife is going through a "frugal" phase, which is to say that she's not spending money all willy-nilly like a typical American Consumer (like me, in other words). Can you imagine?

Anyway, The Wife doesn't like to turn on the air unless we absolutely need it. The problem is that the second floor of our house (where all the bedrooms are) doesn't cool down as quickly as the first floor of our house. Something about heat rising, I think. That and bad circulation. Well, I came up with an ingenious solution! I sleep downstairs! Now that we've rearranged our house a bit, we have a couch right in front of a couple windows in the living room (or is it a family room?). It's perfect for sleeping on hot nights because you always get a cool breeze.

So now that I've situated myself on the couch, I can't sleep. First, my brain won't shut off. For some reason, I'm thinking about our softball team and what we're going to do about our game that got rained out on Monday (which itself was a make-up game for a previous rainout). Then I hear a beep. Huh? A few minutes later, I hear it again. Now I'm trying to figure out if it's coming from inside or outside. Beep. Okay, that's definitely inside. But what is it? Is it going to stop or BEEP. Okay, it's definitely not going to stop. Should I turn on the lights to find it? BEEP. Grrr. Aha! It's The Wife's cell phone dying a slow (and loud) death. Alrighty, I'll just plug it in. Now how the hell does this thing work? Double grrr.

Okay, so now I'm back on the couch and it's inching closer to 10:30. (Note, I went to bed at 9:30 and was hoping to wake up at 4:45 to go to the gym for a swim.) And that's when I hear something hissing outside the window. It's probably a cat. No big deal because we have a few strays (or outside cats) in the neighborhood. But then I start thinking that maybe it's MY cat, the one that Luke let "free" a few months ago. So now I'm trying to listen to the sporadic hissing to figure out if it's in fact Simba. I look out the window and call for Simba, but get no response. Now that I think about it, even if it were Simba, what was I expecting him to do? Was he going to jump out and say, "Yes? How may I be of service tonight?"

Now we're getting closer to 10:45 and I can't stop thinking about Simba. So I turn on the TV and find an old episode of The Simpsons on the Tivo. Ah, the Lemon Tree episode, always a classic. "Why can't I find any lemons? Just a lemon-shaped rock. Hey! There's a lemon behind that rock!" So I put on the show and my brain shuts off. Sleep, sweet sleep.

At 2:00, I wake up and decide to head upstairs to sleep in bed. I figure it's my manly duty to spend at least part of the night sleeping with The Wife. Besides, by now the second floor has usually cooled off considerably. At 3:00, I hear a door slam. I go to check it out, fearful that Luke has gotten up and decided to start playing. Turns out it was the office door. The wind had blown it shut. And that's when the storm started. It was absolutely crazy, blowing all through the house. Fearing a torrential downpour, I went about closing every window in the house to just a crack (because it was still hot out). Then I laid down and it started raining. And I started getting wet. That's when I realized that the little crack I'd left open was probably too big. So one MORE round about the house, closing windows.

As I was walking around the second floor closing windows, I see Luke's door open up. And slowly, I see his sippie cup being extended. That's it. It just hovers there in mid-air. This is Luke's new way of saying he wants water. Frankly, it's a lot better than hearing him scream "WATER!" at the top of his lungs at 2:00 a.m. But I wonder how often he does this. Does he do it when we're still asleep, just standing there with his arm extended?

Anyway, the rain only lasted about 5 minutes. Now the house is all shut up and it's getting quite hot and humid inside. Great. I keep waking up every 5 minutes or so. At 4:00, I think, "Should I just get up for good." Realizing how insane that is, I manage to fall back asleep. At 4:45, I actually wake up and go to the gym to swim 1200 meters. (Yeah, I think I'm ready for the triathlon Sunday.)

Today, I'm exhausted, but nothing a little coffee can't fix. I'm estimating that I got about 5 hours of sleep. And the storm managed to knock down a tree in our backyard. So that'll be fun to deal with. I think I'll spend all Sunday afternoon (you know, right after the triathlon) cutting it up....

Superbad = Supergood

2007-08-21T16:41:00.000-05:00

Something strange has been happening this summer. So far, The Wife and I have managed to see four (count 'em, FOUR) movies! First, there was Spider-man. Then there was Knocked Up. Then Harry Potter. Finally, we have Superbad. (On a side note, I also saw The Simpsons with my friends.) Not a bad one in the bunch, if you ask me.

Superbad is about two guys in high school who are best friends. They're dorks, but they manage to get invited to the last party of their senior year. The only problem is that they have to supply the booze. Both guys are looking to hook up with someone at the party. This could any one of a million teen movies. And all of them would have sucked. What makes Superbad different is that the party is almost an after-thought. The adventure is in how the guys GET to the party.

But what I like most about Superbad (and its fellow movies from the Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow team) is how the characters treat each other. It's a lot more realistic than any other movie I've ever seen. Or at least, it's a lot more like my reality. Basically, there are a group of friends and all they do is make fun of each other. Constantly. Non-stop. And the way they do it most is by making obscure references to say, Jusef Islam (nee Cat Stevens) or imitating Yoda without saying that they're imitating Yoda. In other words, they expect the audience to be as pop-culture obsessed as they are. I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly enjoy it. And judging by the box office receipts, I'm guessing I'm not alone.

Odd Avocations

2007-08-16T15:22:00.000-05:00

I've always like the word "avocation" as a synonym for "hobby." I'm goofy that way. It's probably one of the reasons that people hate talking to me. One of many.

There's a woman I work with, whom I'll call Bertha. Bertha is a large woman. Not so much fat (though she could stand to lose weight) as large. She's in her 50s, close to 6 feet tall, and built like a brick shithouse. (Which are built quite solidly in case you didn't know.) She's a frightening woman. If this were a movie, she'd be the evil head of an orphanage. In fact, she probably narrowly lost out on the role of the Penguin in The Blues Brothers. She's the type of woman that you avoid pissing off and when you hear her say, "Fuck!" you get the hell out of her way. She's scary.

However, she has quite an odd avocation. She rides horses. In competitions. Or rather, she used to. Now she helps train them. Her daughter (of a similar stature) actually rides them now. For one thing, I can't imagine this woman being a mother. "Doting" isn't an adjective that usually pops into my mind when I think about Bertha. But I really can't imagine her training horses and being part of the "horse" culture. When I think of people who ride/train horses, I think of the Kennedy's. The cultural (and financial) elite. This woman doesn't seem to be either.

To make matters even more flabbergasting (it's a word), she trains the horses in ALABAMA! Um, what? Don't you live in Chicago? Yes she does. So every few weeks, she flies down to Alabama to be with the horses. Uh huh. I can't even make it to my family's cabin in Wisconsin that often, and it's just a 2.5 hour drive.

And that's what baffles me most. Fine, you like horses. You even like training and riding them. You own several of them. Wouldn't you want them, oh, I don't know, within 1000 miles of you? Could it possibly be cheaper to board the horses in Alabama and fly back every few weeks than it would be to board them in Chicago? Barrington has plenty of nice horse farms. Or maybe, you move a little closer to where the horses are.

It's just an odd choice of how to spend your time, which is what bothers me most. It's like someone from South Dakota being an avid sailor. Or someone in Florida who loves to snowmobile. That's fine if that's where your personal interests lie. But maybe you should move to where the action is. You know, so you can actually enjoy your avocation a little more frequently and with greater ease. I don't know. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the crazy one.

Kid Nation!

2007-08-15T11:12:00.000-05:00

Have you heard of Kid Nation. I just did and I'm so excited I can hardly tipe. Er, make that "type." Okay, they're taking 40 kids and putting them in charge of their own "ghost" town for 40 days. It's going to be like the wild west, but with kids (and presumably no guns, but you never know with today's kids).

This sounds AWESOME. There are going to be cliques and fights and stupidness. And the best part is that there's almost certainly going to be dorks and geeks who get forced to clean the outhouses. Oh my. Like, how long will it take before the "sheriff" gets convinced by the bully to let his gambling operations go. And what about the 12-year-old girl who decides the best way to make money is to start a brothel!

This makes Lord of the Flies look like a joke. Conch shell my ass! They only killed Piggie in Lord of the Flies. There's a chance that EVERY kid is going to get killed on Kid Nation. I don't know that I can possibly NOT watch it. Honey, please set up the DVR. Let the fall TV season begin!

300!

2007-08-15T10:45:00.000-05:00

No, this isn't a post about the bloody movie where a bunch of ripped men run around in their underwear for 2 hours. (Not that that's a bad thing. It's actually a great movie. Though admitting it kind of makes me feel like the pilot in Airplane. "Joey, do you like to watch movies about gladiators?") I've actually written 300 posts in my blog. And you poor saps have READ them! Ha! Jokes on you!

Anyway, it's kind of dead here at work now. And that's being generous. Half the office is on vacation because they KNEW it was going to be dead around here. Stupid me and it being my first full year. It's actually rather amazing because I've been here almost a year (that'd be a record or something) and I've been busy the whole time. From the day I walked in, I had work to do. But now I have nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Bupkus. (I think more people should use that word. Like football announcers should say, "And that's the end of the first quarter with the score bupkus-bupkus.")

When I first started working as an actuary, the work was more spread out. Summers were generally more busy. But now with Sarbanes-Oxley (if you don't know what it is, you're lucky), companies have a little more urgency to get their results sooner. What results? Come on, I know you don't really care. You're just humoring me. The point is, before they didn't care when they got them. Now they care. And they want them early.

So this year, my spring was horrendous. Lots of work, lots of overtime (do they still call it overtime if you don't get paid for it?), lots of stress. But now all those projects are done. So everyone's kinda sitting on their thumbs.

The good news is that it isn't just me. I have people beneath me (heyo!) asking me for work. And I keep asking people above me with no luck. There just isn't anything to do. And to make matters worse, I think people are hording projects. Imagine (if you will) that you have no work to do. Something comes across your desk that should take about an hour to do. Do you do it yourself (thus giving you something to break the monotony AND add to your billable hours for the year) or do you give it to someone else? If you're budget-conscious, you hand it down. But if you like getting big bonuses, you keep it. Unfortunately, I'm not at the phase of my career where clients call me directly. Otherwise, I might have projects to horde. Jerks.

To make matters worse, there's nothing good on TV and I have no time to see movies. I'm pretty excited about Superbad coming out this week. I'm a big fan of Judd Apatow, who did 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. I'm also a sucker for teen movies like Dazed and Confused and even Can't Hardly Wait (I almost just threw up there. I can't believe I admitted that.) Combine Judd Apatow and teen movies and that's a winner.

In other news, I've been watching old episodes of The Wire on my iPod. It's an HBO show that I'd heard good things about. Now I understand why. It's basically about a bunch of cops who try to bring down an organized crime ring. (I've only seen 2 seasons so far and it's been the same cops, but different rings each time.) It's a fascinating show. It really shows how painstaking the evidence-gathering process is and how the whole thing can change in an instant. I should be watching seasons 3 and 4 soon, so I'll have to give my impressions of those too.

The other show I've been watching is Battlestar Gallactica. I kept hearing good things about this show too. I watched the first 4 episodes and was ready to call it quits because it just wasn't doing it for me. But after the 5th episode, I think I may be hooked. I'll give it a few more before I make my final call.

Curt Schilling -- Reborn!

2007-08-14T13:41:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I got a pretty nasty blister on my heel from walking my bike and dancing at the wedding in rented shoes. Well, Monday morning, I decided to go for a run. I needed it after the debauchery of the weekend. When I got home, I looked at my sock and realized that my blister (or whatever it actually is) had bled all over my sock. I felt like Curt Schilling in the World Series. Only with a lot less money.

Monday night, I had a softball game. It's 16-inch, which I love. I played 14-inch for a few years and wasn't that fond of it. It's a lot harder to hit. And, not just because it's smaller. For some reason, they pack the 16-inch ball tighter than the 14-inch. So when you hit the 16-inch ball, it GOES. The 14-inch ball just kind of dies. Riveting analysis, I know.

Anywho. So I'm in a league with people at work. For some reason, we're constantly able to field a full team. In fact, we have to ask people to NOT play every week because we've got too many people. Craziness.

I'm clearly the oldest person on the team, but surprisingly, I'm also one of the best. That almost sounds like I've got an ego. But the people on our team are REALLY bad. Like so bad that they can't even make contact with the ball. The thing is 16-freaking-inches! How can you NOT make contact? Of course, I don't think all these people are from the Chicago area. They didn't grow up playing 16-inch softball every spring/fall day in gym class like I did. And, clearly, they can't match the overall phsyical prowess of an accomplished triathlete like me.

Speaking of my physical prowess, I'm now 4 for 4 in my two games played. And not a single one of those balls made it out of the infield. The only thing I have going for me is that I'm actually pretty fast. And I don't hit the ball far. So I'm generally able to run to first base before someone can get to the ball. Yeah, I'm a tower of power. Although I shouldn't complain. One of the guys on our team hit an absolute bomb last night and it was caught. If you hit it on the ground 5 feet in front of home plate, it's not getting caught.

As I was running the bases yesterday, I made a boneheaded move that turned out to be great for the team. I was on second with two outs. There was a man on third. The ball's hit to the shortstop, so I head to third. Except the shortstop threw to third. Crap. I'm sure to be out and end the inning. So I turn around and head back to second, caught in a rundown. Except I know that the second baseman can't catch. So as I'm running back to second, the runner goes home. I avoid the out and now we have a man on first and second with two outs (and one run scored). Fantastic! Except all that running re-opened my blister. So now I'm bleeding on my sock again. But there are worse things than looking like Curt Schilling in front of your softball team. You could look like an old, out-of-shape white dude. (Oh wait, that IS what Curt Schilling looks like.)

Celebrate Good Times (Come On!)

2007-08-13T12:32:00.000-05:00

What a weekend! I don't even know where to begin. But I think this is going to be a long one, so go grab some food and buckle yourself in. One of my oldest and dearest friends (is it possible to say that as a male and not sound, um, gay?) got married. I met Groom in first grade and we've been friends ever since. Whether we were riding our bikes to Randhurst, watching The Larry Sanders Show in college, or getting drunk all over the city of Chicago, we spent a lot of time together. So it was with great joy that I got to stand up in his wedding. Of course, his wedding ended up being a three-day affair. Not that I'm complaining.

First of all, they had the rehearsal on Thursday. I've already commented on that, so I'll skip it here. On Friday, there was a BBQ at his brother's house in Downers Grove. The party started at 6:00. Being the prompt people we are (which is unusual now that we have kids), we arrived at exactly 6:00. We were the first one there. By a long shot.

This might be a good time to bring up the fact that Groom is constanly running late. It's so chronic that we call his own internal time "Groom Time." (Except, of course, that we don't call him "Groom." We call him "Asshole." But I'm trying to be polite here. After all, he'll probably read this eventually. Good thing he's unable to read parenthetical comments.) So it was no surprise that Groom showed up to the BBQ at 7:30. Actually, I wasn't even sure if was going to come. Last minute wedding stuff always pops up. Still, it was nice to get out and see some of my friends, especially since we were able to take our kids with. I dig my kids and it's nice showing them off. I'm really looking forward to when they get older and they can put on shows for my friends. "Luke, show Uncle Groom how you can do long division! Courtney, draw an atom of Chlorine!"

It was a relatively early night for us, since we had the kids. I was in bed by 10:30. My plan was to wake up early and go for a bike ride. I didn't bother setting my alarm, and sure enough, at 5:30 I woke up and couldn't sleep any more. I think my stupid body is getting a little too used to waking up so early. (Case in point, today, I woke up at 4:57, which is 3 minutes before my alarm usually goes off. Might as well just get up at that point.) So I got all ready and went for a bike ride. Somewhere along the way, I noticed a few more bumps than usual. That's when it occurred to me that my rear tire might be losing air. I finally got off to check it about 5.5 miles into the ride, which was in a straight line away from home. That was a bad idea because I think I squeezed whatever air remained out of the tire. Given that my bike cost $1000 and I don't want to ruin the aluminum rims by riding on a flat tire, I walked my bike home. 5.5 miles. At 7:00 am.

I must have passed (no kidding) 1000 cars. Not one single person stopped and said, "Hey, that's a nice $1000 bike. How come you're walking it? Would you like a ride home?" I think that if someone would have done that in the last mile, I would have sworn at them. "What the fuck is your problem? Where the hell were you 4.5 miles ago? Jerk." The worst part of the walk home was that I started to get a blister on my heel. Apparently, my bike shoes are not made for walking long stretches. (Which is why they're "bike" shoes, not "walking a bike with a flat tire" shoes.) You don't have to be a genius to realize that "new blister" + "wedding in rented shoes" = "problems."

Anyway, the plan was for the groomsmen (all 7 of us) to arrive at the hotel at 12:30. We were going to get dressed there and then head to the church in the Limo Bus at 1:45. The wedding started at 3:00. So that would have been plenty of time to drop us off, come back to pick up the ladies and return to the church by 3:00.

I was about to leave for the hotel when I lost the card we were giving to Bride and Groom. I was looking all over the house. I asked The Wife where it went. She said it was on the kitchen table. Hmmm. Then I looked on the kitchen counter and realized there were a bunch of magazines there. Was it possible that The Wife had cleaned up the kitchen table and put the card that SHE KNEW I was going to give to Bride and Groom on the BOTTOM of that pile? Not only was it possible, but that's exactly what happened. It all worked out well, though, because she gave me a good story to put inside the card. I never know what to write in those things. This time I had a cautionary tale of the joys of marriage (the continuous attempts to thwart your spouse's efforts). Thanks, honey!

I left a few minutes later than I wanted and I knew I was going to be late to the hotel. I was stressing out a bit. (I hate being late.) But the whole time I was driving over, I was thinking, "Well, it only serves Groom right! After years of US waiting for HIM, the shoe's going to be on the other foot!" That didn't calm me down much. I ended up being 10 minutes late. So I called Groom and asked what room he was in. "Oh, I'm not there yet. I'll be there in like 10 minutes." Sigh. Groom has topped me yet again.

Of course, we can't get into the hotel room. Apparently, they didn't know there was a wedding in their hotel that night or something. So despite me getting to the hotel at 12:40 (and everyone else by about 1:00), we didn't get into the room until 1:25. Not that I'm anal or stressy or anything. Still, that's plenty of time to get dressed and get out by 1:45, right? Right? Did I mention Groom Time?

Tuxedos aren't the most difficult thing in the world to put on. Yet you'd never know it by watching the groomsmen trying to get dressed. The basics were easy enough. Most people were able to figure out that the shirt went on top and the pants on bottom. The hard part was figuring out what to do with the jewelry. I'm pretty sure I had to literally draw a picture of how the pseudo-button things go into the shirt for Groom. "No, it goes BEHIND the real button. No, from the BACK. NOOOO. Turn it around! No, the BIG part goes BEHIND the shirt. GAH!" And don't even get me started on the cufflinks.

Anyway, now it's 1:45 and I'm starting to stress out. Cuz after all, it's my wedding and it's all going to shit. Oh no, wait. It's not. (Yeah, I was a mess at my wedding. Control freak? You think?) Nobody's ready. Groom says that as long as we leave by 2:00, we'll be fine. Okay, so he built in a time cushion. Good idea. Except now it's 2:00 and we're still in the hotel room. Groom calls the limo (who's sitting out front) and says we'll be down in 5 minutes. (My brain: "5 minutes? Oh god, I'm going to explode.")

At 2:05, we're waiting in the lobby and I run into a couple of bridesmaids. One of them asks what the plan is. I say, "Well, 20 minutes ago, the limo took us to the church. It should be back any minute now to pick you up." Then they said that this wouldn't be a Bride wedding if things weren't running late? I said they must be confused. Groom is the one who's always late. No, it turns out they're BOTH always late. Hmmm. I don't know much, but I'm completely convinced that when they have a baby, it'll be born after the due date.

Anyway, we get on the bus around 2:10. The driver took us through a little detour and then missed the church completely as he gabbed on the cell phone. I'm getting way too stressed here. Again, not my wedding. Need to calm down. We get to the church and the limo turns right around. Fortunately, the wedding was only delayed about 5 minutes. Nobody else seems to care. I don't know why I get so stressed out about this. It's not like it's a live event that's being broadcast around the world. If it starts late, it starts late. Big deal. More time for people to find their seats. I've got to learn to cope.

Another uneventful wedding by the way. I think I watch too much TV that I'm fully expecting something awful to happen at a wedding, like the groom to faint or the church to burn down. With the exception of my brother's wedding where the wedding cake van crashed (thus ruining the cake), every wedding's gone off without a hitch. Sigh. One of these days, god willing, someone's wedding will be ruined.

After the wedding, we took a bunch of pictures. Shockingly. Is it me or are wedding photographers the most reviled people in the world? God, they're annoying. The finished product is usually great. But it's so freaking annoying having to sit there as he redirects people. "Now you move up front. Great. Now you two switch places. Okay, now everyone turn around and show your asses. " I really love the "creative" photos, like the one where the whole wedding party ran at the camera. I felt like I was filming the opening credits of a sitcom on the WB (er, make that the CW).

By the way, we were wearing rather tame-looking black tuxedos with champagne-colored vests and ties. My only complaint was that we took a handful of pictures outside in 90 degree weather. Thus, I think we should have worn white tuxes. The white tux has really slipped in popularity and I can't for the life of me figure out why. Wasn't Miami Vice a great show? Doesn't everyone else want to relive the 80's? Is it just me? Ah, nuts! Anyway, the white tux would have been significantly cooler for the 5 minutes we were standing in the sun. And the pictures would have had that timeless quality that everyone loves. Just like the ones from 1982 when I was a ring bearer wearing a powder blue tuxedo. That could have been any year (from 1980 to 1989).

All right. We arrive at the reception. This is where things start getting a little hazy for me. No doubt because of all the pure joy and fun I had that evening. And not because of the copious amounts of alcohol I consumed. Anyway, what I loved about Bride and Groom's wedding was that they basically invited everyone from my wedding (and then some). But the best part was that I didn't have to talk to any of my family. I could just party with my friends. Sweet!

I spent most of the evening catching up with old friends. One of the people who showed up was this girl, Monica, who had a locker right across the hall from me in high school. And, as she pointed out, we made out at some point in high school. Really? Um, sorry I don't remember that. But I was such a swinger in high school, it's hard to keep track of all the ladies I made out with. I mean, I was so busy with math team, how could I possibly remember all the wonderful ladies? Yeah. So I hadn't seen Monica since high school. I was shocked to find out that she got married. And divorced. After 11 years. Not that I'm shocked that she got divorced. I just didn't think it was possible for someone my age to be married for 11 years. I'm still just 25, right?

The absolute best part of the wedding was the photo booth. You know those photo booths they have at malls and amusement parks? Well, they had one at the wedding. You could even cut up the pictures and create a scrapbook page for the bride and groom. Well, I couldn't care less about that. I was too busy cramming into the thing with 5 other friends and being goofy. I seriously must have taken 20 pictures. Make that 20 sittings because each sitting got me 6 pictures. You think they're going to be tired of seeing me? "Cripes, another stupid picture of The Dow! Why did we invite him anyway?"

When I wasn't chatting or taking pictures, I was dancing. I love dancing. And I'm terrible at it. (Of course, it didn't help that I had a blister on my foot from my earlier biking escapades.) I'm a cross between Elaine on Seinfeld and an epileptic seizure. The problem is that I hate dancing like a boring white person (which is the only dancing I should be doing). Instead, I do a full-out routine like I'm one of the Solid Gold dancers on a crack binge. It usually makes for good video. And the videographers generally push over old ladies and children to get a chance to film it.

After the wedding, there was a post-party at the hotel. Or so I'm told. I don't really remember much of it. I remember talking to a cousin of a friend. I don't remember what it was about. Then I woke up at my mother-in-law's condo a few miles away. Fortunately, we were planning on staying there. Otherwise, it would have been very awkward.

It was a fantastic wedding. I'm still thinking happy thoughts about it two days later. It was even worth all the pain I felt yesterday (and continue to feel today). I hadn't drunk that much in a LONG time. And I was pretty much hungover all day on Sunday. I'm still pretty sore, which I can only attribute to my dancing. And I'm very much looking forward to hearing stories about me being an asshole the next time I run into my friends. "At one point, you were arguing with the coatrack. And you lost." The only bad part is that I'm starting to run out of friends to get married. Is it wrong that I start hoping some of them get divorced so I can get a few more weddings out of the deal? Yeah, probably. At the very least, I hope Bride and Groom have several big anniversary parties. Cuz that was one hell of a wedding.

New Band Name

2007-08-10T11:26:00.000-05:00

The Wife inadvertently came up with a new band name while describing my son, Luke: Perpetually Pantsless. Note, I also think this could be the name of a gay bar.

Continuing Progress

2007-08-10T11:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a momentous day for me. I bought pants. One of these days, I'm hoping to buy underwear too. But, that's probably just a pipe dream.

The significance of buying pants was that these pants have size 33 waists. The last time I wore 33s was about 5 years ago. I was 10 pounds heavier and I was desperately trying to wiggle my way into them in a futile effort to convince myself that I was still "thin." Once I got into them, well, there wasn't a whole lot about my lower body that people couldn't figure out from a quick glance. I distinctly remember someone commenting about me being circumsized. That's when I decided it might be a good time to move up to 34s. (Note, not once did it cross my mind to lose weight.)

Yesterday, I tipped the scales at 176.6. I'm only 1.6 pounds away from my goal for the triathlon (which is amazingly in 2 weeks!). I got dressed that morning and realized that I was basically folding the waist of my pants over to make it snug enough to wear. So I decided to do a little shopping after work.

To my surprise, I found that I actually fit in 32s! Well, kind of. My waist fits, but my abnormally large ass and thighs did not. And that's when I made one of those rare "rational" decisions. I decided I'd rather be comfortable in my clothes instead of wearing the smallest clothes I can possibly fit into. It's crazy!

I'd still like to get down to about 170, and it might even happen. At that point, I should be able to fit more comfortably in 32s. Which means I'll have a wardrobe that consists of pants with 32, 33, 34, and 36-inch waists. I'll be like Jackie Gleeson, who had 3 full wardrobes for his various levels of girth.

In other news, my training is going well. I've discovered a new way to massage the pain of my plantar fasciatis away. Wish I'd known about that 3 months ago. So now I've been able to run. And surprisingly, now that I've lost close to 25 pounds, I'm actually running FASTER. I don't get it. Don't big things always move faster? I mean, I'm not as fast as a deer. Or a car. I'm going to have to investigate this. Are there any physicists out there who can help?

The biggest stumbling block for my training right now is a wedding. One of my friends from First Grade is getting married this weekend, and I'm standing up in the wedding. That means I've got all kinds of important duties. Last night, we had the rehearsal dinner. I had to go to make sure I knew how to walk 10 steps, take someone's arm, walk 2 more steps, bow, and then sit down. Then stand. Then sit down. Then kneel. Then stand. Then kneel. Then sit down. (God, I hate Catholic mass. I'm so glad I'm now a Lutheran. Though their services are longer. I need to find a religion with services that are about 20-30 minutes. Maybe I'll just start my own.)

By the way, I'm so anal about being late for things. As we were driving over, we managed to catch 3 consecutive trains (and then a fourth a few minutes later). I was getting annoyed because I was going to be about 5 minutes late. Then The Wife pointed out that I didn't have anything to actually DO at the rehearsal. So I needed to calm down. I agreed with her. I KNEW I didn't have much to do. But I was still stressing out. It's great being anal.

So after my strenuous tasks at the rehearsal, I got rewarded with a wonderful rehearsal dinner. It was absolutely delicious. And I'm sure I gained about 5 pounds from it alone. Tonight (Friday), there's a BBQ for a bunch of the groom's friends. Let's add another 5 pounds there. Then on Saturday, there's about 10 hours of drinking and enough food to choke a horse. Another 5 pounds there. So, one weekend, 15 pounds. And this is why I'm keeping those 36-inch pants.

Trivial Matters

2007-08-07T15:59:00.000-05:00

The other day, I went to lunch with some co-workers. For some reason, I made a reference to Thor Heyerdahl and Kon-Tiki. Everyone looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. (In a way, I suppose I was.) Apparently, they'd never heard of him. Later, I asked some other people (who I thought knew a bit of trivia) if they knew who Thor Heyerdahl was. Nope.

In another conversation, I was talking to someone who was about to honeymoon in northern California. He was asking if I knew anywhere worth visiting (because I'm such the world traveller! Ha!). I mentioned that there were two places I've always wanted to see: the Hearst Mansion and the Winchester Mystery House.

(By the way, I love the Winchester House, which was built by the heir of the Winchester rifle fortune. She was convinced that she had to be CONSTANTLY building the house to keep away the ghosts of the people murdered by Winchester rifles. So the house was under construction 24/7 for 38 YEARS!)

This guy gave me that blank look that I'm now familiar with. He'd never heard of either place. (In fact, I'm not even sure he knew who William Randolph Hearst WAS.) This just made me wonder why *I* know of these places. Why do I know so much freakin' trivia? More importantly, why do I want to know more?

I think the "problem" started with my friends when I was growing up. They're all pretty smart people who enjoy trivia. And so if you wanted to be the King of the Dorks, you had to know MORE trivia. (In fact, I remember one bus ride home from Great America in high school where we played Blues Brothers Trivia, trying to pull obscure facts from the movie. For example, what drink does John Candy order at the Blues Brothers concert? "Orange whip? Orange whip? Three orange whips.")

And so it started with movie quotes and had morphed into some horrible beast. Not only do I watch the History Channel and Discovery, but I actually TIVO shows on those channels. You know, so when I'm bored at home, I can see how the Babylonians engineered their civilization.

The other big factor is my love of crosswords. Crosswords are essentially a big collection of trivia. And the more crosswords you do, the more you recognize certain clues and answers. For example, "Heyerdahl" is a frequent clue because "THOR" fits in a lot of crossword puzzles. Interestingly, my hometown of Des Plaines is also a frequent clue because "DES" fits very well too.

I don't see this "problem" getting any better either. I think at this point, I should actually INCREASE my trivial knowledge. Hopefully, then, I can get on Jeopardy and win me some money. Or at least look way cool doing TNT Trivia at the local BW3. Yeah, I'll settle for looking cool (for once).

Like a Broken Record

2007-08-07T15:48:00.000-05:00

This blog has slowly shifted its theme to "Geez, am I old." (Exacerbated by the word "geez," which is unfortunately actually part of my vocabulary.)

Last night, I went out with my softball team, made up entirely of people I work with. We were supposed to have a game, but apparently Lollapalooza messed up our field. Given that we've only won 1 game all year, we decided to have a practice. All we practiced, though, was drinking. (If you're familiar with Chicago-style 16-inch softball, it's actually one of the most essential skills.)

As luck would have it, I ended up sitting directly across from a U of I student intern. Right next to me was a U of I new hire. Being an alumnus, I chatted it up with them about campus and whatnot. As we were talking, Don McLean's "American Pie" came on the radio. I asked Intern whether they still sang this song at Joe's every Thursday night. He wasn't sure (I'm guessing he doesn't frequent Joe's). Then NewHire said, "Thursday night? Isn't that 90's Night?"

There's already a 90's Night! It's been 10 years since I graduated, and I know that we had 80's Night when I was in school. I don't know why I find this so shocking. But I do. And to make matters worse, NewHire made a comment about how she "grew up" listening to that music. Uh-huh. You see, I was ALREADY grown up when it was all being written. Hell, I'd already GRADUATED before some of it even hit the airwaves.

And so the moral of the story is that I need to stop sitting next to people who are 10 years younger than me. It's just too friggin' depressing.

Shush!

2007-08-01T13:31:00.000-05:00

This morning, I went to the gym for a swim. I've been falling behind on my training for the triathlon. I don't think it's a big deal because I still have another 3.5 weeks to train for it. That's plenty of time. In a related story, my goal has changed from "Finish in less than 1.5 hours" to "Finish."

I'm a member at Bally's. I'm a big fan of Bally's because I pay about $15 a month and I get full access to the weight rooms, cardio equipment and the pool. There's nothing more I need. (As it turns out, Bally's just filed for bankruptcy. I wonder if it has anything to do with charging people $15 a month when the competition is charging about 10 times that.)

Anyway, when I went to the gym this morning, it was quiet. Not just a little quiet, but library-quiet. It was downright eerie. As I was getting ready in the locker room, I figured out what the problem was. There was no music!

I'm no fan of the music they play at my gym. It's generally pretty crappy. I realize I have some odd tastes in music. I'm not asking for The Pixies or Sleater-Kinney. But something more modern than Bad Company and less annoying than J Lo would be a huge upgrade. But as bad as the music at the gym is, it was actually worse with no music. I'm as shocked as you.

It was just a bunch of people sitting around, lifting weights or running in place. You could hear every single conversation that people were having. And believe me, there are no exciting conversations among morning gym patrons. ("So, Myrtle, I think I got another liver spot.") What I found amusing, though, was that everyone was whispering. It's like years of being brow-beaten into being quiet at a library was having a pavlovian effect at the music-less gym. And that only made things creepier.

I don't know if the lack of music has anything to do with Bally's declaring bankruptcy, but I really hope they fix the problem soon. My mornings just aren't the same without Belinda Carlisle singing "nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah nah."

What's That, Sonny?

2007-07-26T13:37:00.000-05:00

I feel old. And every day it gets just a little worse. I think I wrote about this before, but awhile back I had lunch with some of my "peers" at work. These people are only my peers because I took about 5 years off of being an actuary. So I'm 7-8 years older than all of them. At this lunch, the topic of the A-Team came up. I had to explain to them what exactly the show was. And the longer I explained it, the more silly I sounded. ("No, seriously, every episode, they had to break Murdoch out of a mental hospital AND drug BA to get him to fly.") By the time I finished explaining the show, I was thoroughly convinced that I'd made the whole thing up. Surely, no premise as cheesy as this could make it on TV, let alone last for several years. To say nothing of being one of the highest-rated shows.

The other day, I was talking to one of my "peers." I mentioned something about Kojak and he just stared at me with a dumbfounded look on his face. Telly Savalas? Nothing. The cop with the lollipop? Nada. Who loves you baby? Nope. How about the Players Club (and the accompanying SNL skit, the Players with Yourself Club)? Uh-uh.

Sigh. I know I have a terrible habit of remembering minutia, especially as it relates to pop culture. (Mancuso, FBI anyone? Robert Loggia. "It's not about politics! It's about right and wrong!" I think it lasted 6 episodes.) But I guess if you weren't alive when it was becoming pop culture, you can't be expected to remember it. It just seems that every day, I'm reminded of just how much pop culture I've been alive for.

Harry Potter Musings (aka Dork Thoughts)

2007-07-23T13:07:00.000-05:00

This weekend was quite the Harry Potter weekend for me. (As if being an actuary isn't dorky enough, I have to be a Harry Potter fan. I might as well just buy a comic book store right now. Best. Idea. Ever.)

First, I went and saw the new Potter movie on Saturday. Then I bought the new (and final) book on Sunday and started reading it. Let me tell you, nothing in the world can possibly make you feel more macho than going to Target at 9:00 a.m. to buy the new Harry Potter book, some Gold Bond, a handlebar basket for my bike, and a beard trimmer. It's too bad The Wife didn't ask me to buy her some feminine products as well. It might have actually made me seem MORE manly because at least I'd have a woman in my life that would necessitate the purchase of those products.

Before I begin, I should say that I will not be giving away any details of the book or movie. So don't worry about any spoilers. I will, however, be giving my THEORY of what happens at the end of the book. Consider yourself warned.

First, I'll tackle the movie. I thought it was really well done. It was a dark movie, but then again, so was the book. I thought the director did a great job cramming 800 pages of book into a 2-hour movie. He cut a lot of essential (in my mind) stuff without changing the story. Kudos. But the best part of the movie was the company we were with. In particular, there was one woman who hadn't read the book. She prefers to see the movies first. I'm guessing that out of the 10 million people who've seen the movie thus far, she's the only one who hadn't read the book. But what was great was that she was really getting into the movie. I mean REALLY getting into it. And why not? She knew nothing of the story. The rest of us all had expectations of what would happen. And so I thoroughly enjoyed sitting next to her and witnessing all her reactions.

So I fully recommend seeing the movie. I also recommend bringing a huge Potter fan with you. Especially if that fan hasn't read the book yet. I'm guessing there might be someone else like that living in a cave in Tibet.

As far as the book goes, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. It's a quick read, which should be expected since it's a friggin' children's book. It's a lot different from the other books. For one, Rowling is basically hitting us over the heads with themes. One of those themes is sacrifice. (I don't think that's really giving anything away.)

There's a lot of conjecture about who's going to die in the book. And of course, the big question is whether Harry will die. I think it's safe to say that Harry manages to defeat Voldemort at the end. If not, it'd be the ultimate F YOU ending to a book. But my theory is that Harry has to sacrifice all his powers in order to defeat Voldemort. And so Harry Potter doesn't phsyically die, but all that he's strived to become does. For so long, the magical world has become Harry's escape from the cruelties of the muggle world. But he's also had to carry the burden of being perceived as a savior, the one who can kill Voldemort.

And so I think the ultimate sacrifice for Harry would be to give up all his powers. He continues to live, but he can't live in the magical world. So, a part of him dies, but he can continue to live knowing that he'd rather have killed Voldemort than have his powers.

Of course, that's just pure conjecture. Maybe I'm completely wrong. But now if I'm right, I have it in writing. (And if I'm wrong, I can easily just edit this entry.)

VIP = Very Important Pee-er

2007-07-19T11:59:00.000-05:00

The title brings up a good question. What do you call a person who's peeing? A peeer? That looks like a typo. I'm going with Pee-er. Anywho.

As I mentioned earlier, all the big wigs are in the Chicago office today. I just ran into our CEO in the bathroom and had the good fortune to be able to stand next to the man as we both peed. Now, this is the CEO of the company and I'm just a peon. (Not a pee-on, which is the worst job in the world unless you're REALLY disgusting.) What should I say to the man? Uh, thanks for hiring the person who hired the person who hired the person who hired me? Thanks for keeping the ship afloat?

No, I said what I think every person who encounters their CEO should say. I said, "I'm a big fan of your movies, Mr. Clooney." Then I walked away. He's going to be confused about that for a LONG time. Now I just have to hide under my desk until he's gone for the day, lest he find me and fire my ass.

Boo!

2007-07-19T10:20:00.000-05:00

If you really want to give your wife (or husband) a good scare, here's what you do. First, find yourself a spouse with a hearing impairment. Or, marry one without one and give them one. (I suggest giving both ears a good CLAP.) Then have a baby. Then get a baby monitor. Then be a relatively light sleeper. Got it? Okay.

So when the baby wakes up, you wake up too. Go into the baby's room and find the pacifier. Don't actually give the baby the pacifier until you hear your spouse come down the hall. Then give the baby the pacifier and walk in front of your spouse right as she (or he) is entering the room, expecting a baby. You'll scare the crap out of them. Or so I learned the other night. Hee!

Arrival of the Big Wigs

2007-07-19T10:15:00.000-05:00

I got an email at work yesterday saying that our HR Services board was having a meeting in Chicago today and tomorrow. I don't really know what this "board" does, but I know it involves our CEO, our CFO, and a bunch of other higher-ups.

Today, I went to the bathroom during what must have been one of the board's breaks. A couple of guys came into the bathroom after me, chatting it up. But they were physically all over the place. They're in front of the urinals, in front of the stalls, in front of the sinks, in front of the doors. So when I'm done peeing and I have to wash my hands, I have to sneak around one guy. Then I have to finagle my way around the other to dry my hands. And it's quite a dance to get out the door because they're both trying to leave, but they're too busy talking to actually do so.

Once I get to the hallway, there are more people talking and getting in my way. I just wanted to stop and yell, "Hey, ASSHOLES. Shut up and move it!" Somehow, I don't think that would be very conducive to me keeping my job. Just a guess.

Scorn

2007-07-12T12:27:00.000-05:00

Apparently, my in-depth analysis of the Simpsons tournament evoked a bit of scorn, mostly related to (a) what a dork I am and (b) that I have so much time on my hands.

Well, here's the deal. I AM a dork. No getting around it. I do MATH PROBLEMS for a LIVING! I have contempt for accountants because their math is too EASY. I mean, all they do is add and subtract! Try taking the present value of something! Then make it a risk-adjusted present value, you weenies! So, really, it should come as no surprise that I like The Simpsons. It should also come as no surprise that I have a plethora of Simpsons quotes running through my brain. And it should also come as no surprise that I'd have to do a blow-by-blow analysis of a Simpsons tournament.

Now, as for the time issue, I seem to have TONS of time on my hands right now. I had two major projects that had to get done before I went on vacation two weeks ago. I got them done (and it took up most of my time in the preceding two weeks), and now there isn't much for me to do. I've volunteered for more work, but I have to wait for some projects to come in. So, naturally, I used that time to do whatever I could do to get ahead at work. Like write about The Simpsons.

Anyway, my workload should be a little lighter this summer. Which is good. Hopefully, I'll be able to start writing more on my blog. It's been rather pathetic lately. I've got a lot to talk about. I've got stories from a bachelor party in Vegas, a random meeting that just helps prove what a small world we live in, many vacation stories, and the fact that I'm now 2 for 2 in giving my children their first giggles. Oh, and I've got this pesky triathlon thing coming up. And I can't run because my feet hurt because I need orthotics but my insurance company rejected my claim, giving The Wife a heart attack in the process, but now they're supposed to be accepting my claim, so until then I walk around in constant pain while my doctor holds my orthotics and we both silently (or not) curse the insurance company. Yep, much to talk about. Especially my love of run-on sentences. And fragments.

The Simpsons Tournament

2007-07-11T08:35:00.000-05:00

Redeye, the Chicago Tribune’s newspaper for people with ADD, is running a “tournament” where you can vote for your favorite Simpsons character. Naturally, I was interested. It’s set up in bracket format, with two characters pitted against each other. You vote for which one you like best and the character with the most votes advances to the second round. And so on until there’s one winner. Much like The Highlander, there can be only one.

First of all, this contest is flawed. I have no doubt in my mind that Homer will win. And the reason is simple. For the most part, the show is all about Homer and how stupid he is. I’m fine with that. Hell, I love it. But do you really care if people think Homer’s the best character? The INTERESTING question is who’s the best non-Simpsons character. (That is, not Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa or Maggie. Grampa (or Abe) doesn’t qualify as a Simpson for these purposes.)

Second, it’s hard to take the tournament seriously when it doesn’t include (a) Lionel Hutz, (b) Eddie and Lou (the cops), (c) Agnes Skinner, (d) Disco Stu, (e) Gil, (f) Jasper, (g) Cletus or (h) Hans Moleman.

But it’s not my tournament. So I have to play by their rules. As much as I don’t like them. In case you want to be an informed voter, here’s my analysis of the entire first round (which concludes on Friday). (By the way, I apologize to all but the two Simpsons fans that read this blog for the length and boringness (it's a word) of this entry.)

1. Homer vs. Patty and Selma

This pairing is completely unfair. Homer will destroy Patty and Selma. And that's fine because Patty and Selma are two of the worst characters on the show. Though Selma's marriage to Troy McClure was one of the best of all time. Two of the best quotes from Patty and Selma: (1) "I think I've got carpal tunnel syndrom from scratching my ass (at work) all day." (2) "There are some days we don't let the lines (at the DMV) move at all. We call those weekdays."

Homer is in a class by himself. He's provided us with numerous great episodes and great quotes. If I had to pick just two, they'd be (1) "Brain, you don't like me and I don't like you. But just get me through this (exam) and I'll drown you with beer." (2) "Boy (Bart), I know you can read MY mind. (To the Meow Mix theme) Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow."

2. Ned Flanders vs. Rev. Lovejoy

This is actually one of the closest matchups, in my mind. I'm not overly enthused about either character. Rev. Lovejoy doesn't do much. The only great line he had was when he told Ned to stop bothering him and try a different religion. "They're all basically the same."

Ned got my vote my default. Probably because I find myself saying "Okalydokaly" every once in awhile.

3. Mayor Quimby vs. Maggie Simpson

Another no-brainer. Maggie adds nothing to the show but the occasional sight-gag of tripping. Although her feud with the unibrow baby in rather amusing. Mayor Quimby ("Vote Quimby") is one of the best characters on the show. It'll be interesting to see who he's matched up with in the next round. Best quote from Diamond Joe? How about "Are these people getting dumber or louder?"

4. Chief Wiggum vs. Sideshow Bob

This was a tough call for me. I'm a big fan of Sideshow Bob, but he's only in one episode a year. And the last episode (in Italy with his murderous child) was a rather weak attempt. So I'm going with Chief Clancy Wiggum. Bob's best episode was clearly the Cape Fear takeoff. "And don't you have a tattoo on your chest that says 'Die Bart Die'?" "No, that's German for "The Bart The." This episode, of course, introduced us to Bob's longtime nemesis, the rake.

Chief Wiggum has been a solid character for years. His bumbling, Jimmy Cagney impression is always good for a laugh. I think his best episode was Who Shot Mr. Burns? (As he's looking at Homer J. Simpson's name upside down) "Useless R. Dewoh -- better check Greektown."

5. Mr. Burns vs. Otto Mann

I'm a little disappointed that I didn't know Otto's last name was Mann. Please allow me a minute to recover from this lack of trivial knowledge. All right. Time to move on. This one goes to the old fogey without a doubt. Otto's a great character, but he's really not a central one. He provides bit laughs here and there and had one of the best quotes ever: (At an AA meeting) "My name is Otto and I love to get blotto."

But this round clearly goes to Mr. Burns. He should win alone for his introduction of the word "crapulence" (as in "Smithers refused to let me wallow in my own crapulence) into every day vocabulary. (Okay, my every day.) What I love about Burns is that his insults tend to be of the loquacious variety. To wit, while telling Homer he couldn't have been the one to shoot Mr. Burns, "Your kind has neither the cranial capacity nor the opposable thumbs." Other great quotes: "This fog is so thick I can't see my own cataracts." And "Well, if it's a crime to love one's country, then I'm guilty. And if it's a crime to steal a trillion dollars from our government and hand it over to communist Cuba, then I'm guilty of that too. And if it's a crime to bribe a jury, then so help me, I'll soon be guilty of that!"

6. Milhouse vs. Waylon Smithers

Another tough choice. Milhouse has had few episodes center on him, and the ones that have have been subpar at best. (Unless you count the Radioactive Man episode, which was fantastic. "Real acid?") Smithers really hasn't had too many episodes center on him either. He's usually just chiming in about how much he loves Mr. Burns.

Ultimately, I went with Milhouse. The Radioactive Man episode probably pushed him over the top. That and his "Everything's coming up Milhouse" quote. I can't even think of a good Smithers quote. Though I did enjoy this exchange between him and Mr. Burns (with an assist from Hans Moleman) at the Sprinfield Film Festival.

Crowd: "Boo."

MB: "Smithers, are they booing me?"

WS: "No, they're saying Boo-urns."

MB: "Were you saying 'boo' or 'Boo-urns'?"

Crowd: "Boo!"

Hans Moleman: "I was saying 'Boo-urns.'"

7. Ralph Wiggum vs. Professor Frink

I thought this was an unfair contest. Professor Frink is a great character, but he's simply no match for Ralph. Ralph has the BEST one-liners because they're so random, like "My cat's breath smells like cat food." Beyond the occasional "Glavin," Frink doesn't have many quotes. Though I did enjoy his cameo at the end of the 22 Short Films About Springfield episode. "Am I too late?"

Since I have nothing else to add here, I might as well give some of my favorite Ralph quotes. "Me fail English? That's unpossible." "You choo-choo-choose me. It's got a picture of a train and it says 'choo'."

8. Lisa Simpson vs. Nelson Muntz

This one was easy for me. Lisa is just the most annoying character on the show. If the episode revolves around her, I guarantee you, it'll suck. Nelson, on the other hand, gave us the classic "Smell you later," which led to Ralph telling Bart (in the future), "Smell you later, Bart! Smell you later forever!" Nelson also gave us his inimitable laugh. Nelson is quite simply high comedy. His interaction with the tall guy in the small car in 22 Short Films is one of the best in Simpsons history. "Everyone needs to drive a vehicle, even the very tall. This was the largest auto I could afford. Am I therefore to be made the subject of fun?" "I guess so."

I refuse to give a good Lisa quote on the grounds that I don't think there is one.

9. Marge Simpson vs. Fat Tony

This was a tough vote for me. Ultimately, I went for Marge for being more consistent and more "present." (Again, this is why I wanted all Simpsons banned from the tournament.) Fat Tony has given us great quotes like, "I don't get angry, I get stabby."

Marge, though, is such a key character. I'm generally not a fan of episodes that center around her. But the one with her fear of flying was rather funny. Plus, she's the perfect foil for Homer. She's the straight man. She's the Abbott to Homer's Costello. Sure, she's a bit uppity, but that's okay. She's a mother for pete's sake. Of course, as Abbott, she really doesn't have any good quotes (which is my way of saying that I couldn't think of any off the top of my head).

10. Krusty the Clown vs. Kent Brockman

This one clearly goes to Hershel Krustofsky. Kent Brockman is quite amusing, but only in small doses. I think the most exposure he ever got was in the episode where he won the lottery (when Mr. Burns rescues Santas Little Helper). Honestly, I'm a little surprised that Kent Brockman made the list. Who on earth would pick him? Lionel Hutz should be here. I think Krusty still wins, but it's a LOT closer.

Krusty, by the way, has been pretty solid. He was involved in one of the single best episodes, when he has a gambling problem (and Homer subsequently becomes a part-time Krusty). "You picked the Washington Generals to win?" "I thought they were due. Come on! He's using a ladder! Just take the ball!"

11. Moe Szyslack vs. Troy McClure

Probably the closest contest in the first round. Moe's pretty classic, but he's only good in small doses. The episodes where he's had to carry the load (like when he finds a girlfriend in Helen Hunt or when he "adopts" Maggie and maybe even the Flaming Moe episode) haven't really been that great. Still, Moe's always good for a line or two.

As for Troy, he was only featured in one episode, but WHAT AN EPISODE! Of course, I'm referring to the one where he married Selma. "Might I take thine danty hoof in marriage?" Besides, who can forget his classic, "You might remember me from such films as...." When you factor in that they didn't include Lionel Hutz and that Phil Hartman is now dead, I have to vote for Smellin' of Troy.

12. Grampa Simpson vs. Itchy and Scratchy

Honestly, how did Itchy and Scratchy get in this tournament. They're amusing in their cartoons, but there's no depth to the characters. Hell, they're cartoon characters in a cartoon. That's like having an imaginary friend who has his OWN imaginary friend. Of course, that provides great opportunities for satire, but this isn't about satire. It's about the best characters. And if you don't count the Itchy and Scratchy Land episode as having anything to do with the characters of Itchy and Scratchy, they provide very little to the show.

Grampa, on the other hand, is awesome. He's always around for one liners ("I'm full of piss and vinegar. I used to just be full of vinegar.") And the episodes that have focused on him, like the Flying Hellfish or the one where he marries Mrs. Bouvier, are great. In fact, Abe is such a good character that I might have to revisit my rule about letting him into my tournament to begin with.

13. Bart Simpson vs. Principal Skinner

Do I really need to write anything here? Bart is the clear victor. Skinner's a good character, but come on. He's actually turned into a bit of a weenie lately. Even more so. His best lines are from 22 Short Films (the whole bit about hamburgers being called "baked hams") and the episode where Quimby's nephew's on trial. "I know you can read my thoughts, Bart. You're ass is mine. Yes, I can think words I'd never say." And his Nam flashbacks are usually rather amusing send-ups of Viet Nam movies like The Deerhunter.

Bart? He's the devil in all of us. "We'll live like kings! Damn hell ass kings!" And of course, the Itchy and Scratchy Land episode while taking pictures (and thus killing) the evil robots: "Hey mouse. Say cheese. With a cool, dry wit like that, I could be an action movie star." (Followed by Homer saying, "Die! Evil! Robot! Die! With a cool, dry wit like that..." before being interrupted.)

14. Groundskeeper Willie vs. Barney

I had to go with Barney Gumble on this one. Even if they turned him sober. Although, it looks like he's back to being a drunk. I think they switch him from sober to drunk depending on what sort of gag they need. Groundskeeper Willie is good in doses, but he's not great. "Ain't nothing can outrun a greased Scotsman."

Barney's got more depth and had more episodes focus on him. Hell, the episode where Homer becomes an astronaut wouldn't have been half as good without Barney. "Oh no. It. Begins!" ("I don't get it. This is nonalcoholic champaign.") Besides, Barney is such a fixture of Moe's (and usually provides the comedy therein): "If you didn't close (Moe's), I'd never leave!"

15. Comic Book Guy vs. Apu

This was a VERY tough call. Comic Book Guy is a very shallow character, but he's also the most sarcastic. And sarcasm goes pretty far in my book. I might even quote (or semi-quote) him the most often with "Worst (blank) ever."

Apu's character has been developed more. I'm not thrilled with him getting married and having 8 kids, but he's still quite amusing. The Who Needs the KwikiMart episode is a classic. ("Why don't you just shut up! I don't understand why you do not shut up!") And besides, Indian accents are always funny. So my vote is for Apu. (As Comic Book Guy would say, "Now I will return to my store where I'm the one who dispenses the sarcasm.")

16. Lenny and Carl vs. Dr. Nick Riviera

I had to go with Lenny and Carl because of how often they show up. They don't always provide much, but they serve a genuine purpose. Besides, the Simpson family's inexplicable devotion to Lenny has been one of the most amusing running gags of the last few years. Unfortunately, I can't think of any good Lenny/Carl quotes. I must be getting exhausted from all this writing.

Dr. Nick is a great character, but he has little depth. He just shows up to make stupid mistakes. Though his "Hi everybody!" is always in my mind when I send out mass emails. He's had some great lines over the years. "Did you go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College too?" "Well, if it isn't Mr. McGreg, with a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg!"

And so that wraps up my analysis of the first round. The good news is that my second round analysis should go much faster. Unless I get more in-depth on my decision making. God help us all if that happens.

Triathlon Progress

2007-06-19T16:53:00.000-05:00

This weekend, The Wife and I took the kids up to the lake house in Wisconsin. I love it up there, and so does Luke. Actually, I think Nana’s Big House (as Luke has started calling it) has become more than just a “love” of Luke’s. You might call it an obsession. He pretty much constantly wants to go up there and hates leaving. And he’s generally in a great mood the entire time he’s up there.

The biggest problem with Nana’s Big House? The food. The house is set up in a very open layout. There are really no walls separating the kitchen from the dining room and living room (a.k.a. the Great Room). That’s where we spend most of our indoor time. The problem with that is that while you’re lounging about, there’s constantly food around. And every time you come inside or go outside, you have to go by the food. And if you have no will power, like me, you grab a little food every time you pass. Especially if that food is a cookie. Because one cookie isn’t going to kill anyone. (Obviously, this becomes a problem after you’ve “passed by” the cookies 20 or so times.)

Before we left for Nana’s Big House, I weighed about 182.5. That was pretty much the lowest weight I’d seen since I got married almost 4(!) years ago. After a weekend of eating cookies and various other snacks, I was expecting that weight to go up. So imagine my surprise when I came back weighing 182.0. And then I weighed in this morning at 180.5! Somehow, I’ve been secretly losing weight in my sleep. It’s very possible that I’ve been sleep walking, like for miles at a time. A more likely scenario is that our scale is on the fritz and I actually weigh 195.

But if the scale is to be believed, I’ve lost about 20 pounds in six months. It’s not very dramatic, but it’s noticeable. Now I’m at the phase where I have to buy new pants because mine are getting a bit baggy on me. This is an annoying phase because I can’t seem to find pants that fit me. I think the problem is that most people with 33-inch waists (which I now have – woo hoo!), don’t have big thighs and butts (which I also have – wah wah). So finding a good pair of pants is a pain in the butt. Sometimes literally. Right now my plan of attack is to find one pair of pants that fit and then buy them in every color I can find. (Yes, I’m talking about khakis for work, not jeans. Because I don’t buy colored jeans. And neither should you. And if you do, please stop reading this blog. I don’t even want to be associated with people who buy colored jeans. Go back to Kentucky.)

I’m moving along in my training as well. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a layoff because of shoulder and foot problems. But I’m back swimming now and I’m slowly regaining my lungs. It’s been quite difficult trying to live without them for the past couple months. I’ve started running again, but my achy feet won’t let me go far or fast. I’m supposed to be getting orthotics soon, which will help me run, at the cost of making me feel like I’m 100 years old. (Now that I have orthotics, can hemorrhoids and arthritis be far away? I sure hope not!)

I finally bought a triathlon bike, much to the consternation of The Wife. She’s been on a bit of a “money saving” mission of late, which I hate. I’m a much bigger fan of needlessly throwing money away. Anyway, she’s been really trying to live more frugally, and we were actually starting to see the impact. Then I blow $1000 on a bike. D’oh! But then, what kind of husband would I be if I didn’t purposely thwart all of my wife’s ambitions?

The negotiations on the purchase of the bike were quite interesting. Basically, The Wife let me buy the bike if I agreed to sell some of my other belongings, namely my mountain bike and the stereo in our office. This wasn’t easy for me.

The first problem was the concept of asking permission to buy something. I’m a MAN, damn it! Hell, I’m the sole income provider! I can buy whatever I want, whenever I want! Well, that’s how it was in 80’s sitcoms. And that’s how it used to be when I was single. But, as I’m constantly reminded, I have a family at home. And they want things like food and clothes and heat and shelter. Gimme a break, already!

Anyway, once I came to grip with the fact that my purchases have an impact on more than just me, then came the horse trading. I wanted a particular bike. It’s a nice bike. It’s great for people who do multiple triathlons. And so the question was, do I need such a good bike? This one was hard to answer. Ultimately, I decided that I’m really enjoying my training and I want to keep doing triathlons. And now that I’ve bought the bike, The Wife is making me do at least 4 more. And when I say “making” me, I mean it. I happen to know that she was on eBay today looking at guns.

Of course, once I decided to get a good bike, we had to figure out how we could afford it. We decided that the best way to afford it (or to make The Wife happy about the net amount paid for the bike) was to sell some of my belongings. Again, this was not easy for me. As a man, I’ve worked most of my life to collect “stuff.” I like stuff. I buy stuff. I keep stuff. I don’t get rid of stuff. Men simply don’t do that. But since The Wife is anti-clutter (which is anti-man, by the way), I made a couple concessions.

First, I agreed to get rid of my mountain bike. This was a painful concession. I bought that bike 5-6 years ago and I’ve been using it quite often since then. (There’s a funny story about how I bought it too. I was driving my roommate back from a night of drinking on the south side, and we were talking about how much money we spent the night before. I made a comment about how I’ve got to stop spending so much darn money. Two hours later, I spent $500 on a bike.) Anyway, my mountain bike is a GREAT bike. I love it. But the truth of the matter is that I don’t need it anymore. I’m getting a little old for mountain biking. Not that there’s an age limit per se, but my back isn’t too fond of all the bounces that go along with it. So really, I’m trading my mountain bike for a triathlon bike. Fine, I can accept that. Grudgingly.

The second thing I agreed to part with is the stereo in the office. This was really being reserved for the basement when we finish our home theater. But that’s probably a year or so away. And I’m probably going to want to upgrade at that point. (Besides, it’s been gathering dust for about a year now.) So I’m making another concession and selling it.

I can’t say that I’m thrilled to be getting rid of either thing, but I suppose that’s what you have to do when you get married and have kids. You have to start thinking about more than just yourself. Besides, I’m pretty stoked about getting my new bike and all the triathlons that my wife is going to force me to do at gunpoint. If nothing else, it should improve my times.

And So It F’ing Ends

2007-06-11T13:29:00.000-05:00

*** Spoiler Alert ***
I will now be discussing the series finale of The Sopranos. Avert your eyes if you don’t care to know the ending. Though if you’ve managed to escape all the coverage thus far, how in the hell did you manage to find my blog?

The Sopranos has gone out with a whimper, or so everyone keeps telling me. In fact, most of the people I’ve heard from hated the final episode. Yet I loved it. And the only reason is that David Chase managed to make you feel the EXACT same way Tony feels every minute of his life.

As a little background, there was a hit out on Tony, but it was more or less called off. And so Tony thought he was in the clear. In the final scene, Tony’s at a restaurant and he orders some food. Eventually, Carmela comes in and sits down. Then AJ comes in, followed by a scary-looking dude. Since there are only a few minutes left, you know something’s going to happen. Meanwhile, Meadow’s outside, trying to parallel park her car.

And with every passing second, you wonder when it’s going to happen. Is Tony going to get whacked? Are Carm and AJ going to get it too? Does Meadow survive just because she can’t parallel park? Then you see the door open and Tony looks up and BAM! The scene abruptly ends and makes you wonder if the TV just broke. Then the credits roll.

The complaints I heard were that nothing happened and that the ending didn’t resolve anything. So what? Is your life resolved? No, it just keeps going on. But what’s great about this episode is how, for 4 minutes, you thought Tony was going to die. You worried about his family. Are they safe? Will they be collateral damage? Every person that walked into the restaurant had to be analyzed as a potential killer. Not even a simple dinner alone with the family was relaxing. This man, who worked very hard to make himself one of the biggest crime bosses in the area couldn’t even go out to dinner with his family. And all because he was such a big crime boss.

It showed that Tony is a monster. He has killed and betrayed. He has made himself rich and powerful, but it has come at a price. He’ll never know when the other shoe will drop. He could be dead any second. Or arrested and sent to jail for the rest of his life. He has no way of knowing if his family will be safe and taken care of if he dies. Mobsters don’t have pension plans (well, unless you count the one from his “waste management” job).

In a way, though, that feeling of unease is what everyone should feel. None of us knows that we’re safe. People die every day. It could be any of us. We hope our families are safe and will be okay without us, but we never know. The best we can do is prepare for the worst and hope for the best. And that’s what the final scene did. It prepared us for the worst, and then it ended. And now we can hope for the best. It’s up to you to decide whether it’s best for an evil crime boss to get whacked or if it’s better for him to go on lying, stealing and killing.

Party Time, Excellent

2007-06-04T14:57:00.001-05:00

This weekend, one of my friends had a barbeque in the city. So the whole family piled into the Family Truckster and headed down to the party. I was really looking forward to the party because I rarely have the chance to show off my kids. I try to make it a habit of doing my serious drinking without them. Which pretty much makes me an absentee father. But this time, I decided to involve them.

Luke fell asleep on the way down but didn’t transfer to a bed. So with just 30 minutes of a nap, he was thrust into a party with a bunch of people he doesn’t know. Yeah, he was a little shy about that. He eventually warmed up, but he really didn’t want anything to do with the other kids there. Maybe it’s because they were all under the age of 1 and not really much fun (for Luke, anyway).

There were two activities that Luke really did seem to enjoy though. One was watching all my drinking buddies (who I think were pretty amazed to see me acting relatively responsible with my kids) playing Bean Bags. He just loved watching them throw the bags. Goofy kid.

The other thing he enjoyed doing was pumping the keg. Every time someone went to pour a beer, he’d run over and pump the keg for them. If there’s one thing I hated in high school and college, it was the loser who never learned how to pump a keg. So every time you got a beer, it was 90% foam. (The cause, generally, is over-pumping. The first rule is you don’t HAVE to pump the keg every time. Wait until there’s no pressure, THEN pump.) Anyway, I don’t want Luke to be that dork. And I think that if I continue this training regimen, he should be a keg master by the time he hits grade school.

Courtney, of course, was an angel the entire time. She just hung out, smiled, ate a little and slept. Not much more you can ask for. I think The Wife had a good time too. We don’t get a chance to hang out with our friends as much as we used to, so it was great getting caught up. It would have been nicer if we didn’t have to go home at 7:30, but such is the life of the suburban parents.

Meeting of the Dorks

2007-06-04T14:40:00.000-05:00

Last week, I had the “joy” of attending an actuarial conference. What’s an actuarial conference, you ask? It’s a very boring (by actuarial standards, which is saying a lot) meeting where actuaries learn how to be better actuaries. Or for me, it was a chance to do Kakuro for 8 hours a day.

As a credentialed retirement actuary, I have to do some things to keep my credentials. Evil, dirty things that I’m ashamed to admit. Like learning about mortality tables and how to calculate 415 limits (don’t ask). Anyway, to stay credentialed, I basically need to get 36 hours of training every 3 years. Since I haven’t worked as an actuary in awhile, I’ve had to cram all 36 hours into 2007. Fun! So while most actuaries get all their credits through workplace training, I had to go to the above-mentioned conference.

Since it was set at a resort in Florida, I was pretty optimistic about the conference. This resort has 2 Arnold Palmer-designed golf courses. Which is a good thing, I suppose. But since I routinely lose a dozen balls on a mini-golf course, I didn’t think I was ready to step up to the big leagues of an Arnold Palmer course. Oh, and I didn’t feel like paying $150 to see if I could break 200 strokes.

I also realized that I was heading to Florida in June. I think the only difference between Florida and Chicago in June is that, um, we have cicadas every 17 years. And that’s about it. The weather was actually much crappier in Florida for my trip, constantly overcast and a little drizzly.

What really surprised me about the conference was who attended it. Shockingly, it was very highly attended by actuaries! Actually, what surprised me was that I was the youngest person there and that the average age was probably north of 50. Then I realized that most people get their 36 hours through work. The only people that don’t are semi-employed (or mostly retired) and owners of small firms.

Then I was confronted with the reality of just how small the actuarial world is. There were about 150 people in attendance, and I knew 5 of them. In case you aren’t aware, I very briefly worked for a firm called CCA. (They’re no longer called that, thanks to a purchase by a very large bank.) I was there for about 6 months before being unceremoniously let go the day of our Christmas party.

Anyway, one of the people at the conference was Tom, the president of CCA, who no doubt okayed my axing. Another person there was Brian, my manager at CCA, who ultimately wielded said ax. The third person I knew was Denis. He left CCA right after I started. His departure shifted me onto his client, which turned into a disaster and led to said ouster. Then there was a woman I’ll call Angie (because her real name is so unique, she’d no doubt be able to google this article if she searched for her name). She was my office-mate when I worked at Hewitt. She’s now working for CCA. Finally, there was Tom, one of the 10 or so actuaries I worked with when I was in Boston. There couldn’t possibly be a nicer guy in the world than Tom. Unfortunately, he too was now working with the enemy, CCA. Thus, he’s now a jerk.

There really wasn’t much else exciting going on at the conference. There was one thing I found amusing though, which happened on the last day. We got into breakout sessions to discuss some pension issues. And yeah, it was as boring as it sounds. So, my table was me and 5 people over the age of 50. (Interestingly, one of the people there was from AARP. Pretty high up too.) Our topic was what people expect from pensions (and social security).

One of the old dudes at my table (well into his 60s) wanted to educate the public on pension plans. His solution: have the government produce a show on PBS to educate the masses. Huh? PBS? What’s that? Isn’t that a communicable disease that you need penicillin to clear up? His other solution was to better educate financial advisors so they could give better advise to their clients. Um, yeah.

And this brings us to the problem of perspective. All the people at my table were near retirement. They’re dealing with people near retirement. So their only perspective is that we need to help people near retirement. So there I am. Generation X (or the MTV generation, depending on where you draw the line). And so I mention that we have to educate people at a much younger age, like while they’re in high school. And instead of an old dude talking about pensions on PBS? How about something on this new invention they recently came out with, the internet? (Of course, in my mind, I’m picturing 50 Cent telling kids, “Yo, you betta max out your 401(k) contributions to get the most of yo employa’s match, be-yatch.”)

The Devil Wears Prada

2007-05-21T14:11:00.000-05:00

I’m having a problem here. I watched The Devil Wears Prada this weekend. No, I didn’t lose a bet. I was misinformed. For some odd reason, Howard Stern thought this was a good movie, but it turns out that it’s a chick flick. And I was left completely bewildered as to what exactly happened in the movie and what the fucking point of it was.

In case you haven’t seen the movie, allow me to ruin it for you. (And by “ruin,” I mean “make better” because now you won’t have to watch it.) There’s this girl, Anne Hathaway, who has no sense of fashion. She’s a great writer and lands a job as an assistant to the CEO of a fashion magazine. (Wasn’t this the basic premise of Veronica’s Closet and about 10 other failed NBC sitcoms that ran between Friends and Seinfeld?)

The CEO, played by Meryl Streep, is quite a bitch. She hates everyone. She’s kind of like Mikey eating Life cereal. Turns out that Anne Hathaway is Life cereal. And, no, I’m not saying that because I think Anne Hathaway is a tasty dish. Cuz that analogy makes no sense. Who eats cereal in a dish? I’d have to call her Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity, or something like that. And that makes even LESS sense. So let’s just move on.

So here’s how the movie progresses over a painful 110 minutes. Anne Hathaway (I find it impossible to address her with just her first or last name) is ugly, overweight (a size 6!) and dressed like every girl I knew in college. But she’s smart and a hard worker. So, she loses weight and gains some fashion sense. She goes out of her way to impress her boss. She gains her confidence and shows that she can do her job. Then she quits because she doesn’t want to lose her soul (figuratively speaking). This results in her being a big disappointment for Meryl Streep. But wouldn’t you know it? Meryl Streep is also very impressed with her. End of movie.

Can someone, anyone, please explain to me what the hell happened? I’m having a hard time figuring it out. From what I understand, its message is that conformity is good. If you stick out, change. Clothes don’t match what everyone else wears? Then get some new ones. Everyone else is deathly thin (size 2 or 4)? Lose weight. The message is that if you look like everyone else, nobody will notice how bad you are at your job.

But wait! Anne Hathaway actually becomes good at her job. And so maybe the message is that if you try your hardest (or maybe even harder!), you can accomplish anything. Every woman knows what’s like to not have a boss believe in you because you have poor fashion sense (can I get an “amen” from my sistas?). But if you just try hard enough, you can change your fashion sense AND get your boss to like you.

But wait! If you try too hard, you might sacrifice your personal life. But that’s okay. Anne Hathaway’s boyfriend broke up with her, which they completely glossed over. Well, that’s because he wasn’t being supportive of her career. Yeah! This is a woman on a mission. She’s going to get to the top, no matter what.

But wait! She had to tell her co-worker that she couldn’t go to Paris because she isn’t doing a good job. And Meryl Streep tells her that that’s what corporate life is like. So Anne Hathaway quits and saves her soul. So then the message must be that if you don’t agree with your boss about your job, you should quit. Quitting is good. It equals empowerment.

So then the message is that you need to conform. And you need to sacrifice your personal life to get ahead. But if you feel like you’re selling your soul, you need to quit. And that’ll help you get your dream job. Personally, I prefer the straightforward messages found in classic movies like Commando. Messages like “You kidnapped my daughter, now I’m going to kill everyone” are much easier for my simple brain.

Too Funny for Words

2007-05-14T11:16:00.000-05:00

I don't know how well this will translate from my brain to the blog, but it's one of the funniest things I've seen in years.

I'm fiending for coffee this morning because I couldn't fall asleep last night and instead of sleeping on the train this morning, I watched last night's episode of the Sopranos on my iPod. (This is turning into a crazy season by the way. Is EVERYBODY going to die?) So I head to the coffee station for my third cup of the morning. (I have a feeling it's going to be a long week.)

When I get to the coffee station, there's a rather large woman there making herself some coffee. Now, our coffee station isn't very large. There's generally not room for two people to make coffee, so there can be a lot of waiting around. Anyway, when I walked up behind this woman and took in her sheer size (she's probably close to 6 feet tall), I noticed she was wearing a rather large green dress. It looked like a mu-mu.

When she finished brewing her coffee (we have individual brewing things now), I snuck in and brewed mine. And that's when I realized that this mu-mu lady was pouring an inordinate amount of half & halfs in her coffee. Oh no! It's THAT lady. So I suppose her mu-mu is really a moo-moo. And I'm literally giggling to myself in my cube right now.

Commuting Disaster

2007-05-08T09:09:00.001-05:00

Lately, I’ve been riding my bike to the train station every morning. One reason is that I’m still training for my triathlon and biking is one part of the race. The other reason is that my truck is broken again and is in the shop (or the “truck doctor” as Luke has come to know it). My ride home yesterday became quite a disaster.

My ride home is about 5 miles. About 1.5 miles into it, I rode over a nail and popped my rear tire. I’d never actually popped a tire like that. I tend to ride over things and get slow leaks. This time, my tire went flat IMMEDIATELY. So now I’m 3.5 miles from home, it’s 6:00, and I’m hungry. (I’ve also got half a pack of smokes, it’s dark and I’m wearing sunglasses. But that’s besides the point.)

Naturally, I can think of only one thing to do, call The Wife. The problem is that there’s no answer at home. So I leave a message telling her that it’s an emergency and to call me. (By the way, if you want to give your wife a heart attack, leave her a voicemail saying that there’s an emergency, but don’t tell her what it is. Lots of fun for everyone!)

There are a few problems with leaving The Wife a message. First is that she has a hearing problem. So, it’s quite possible she was at home and just didn’t hear the phone. Plus, she’s chasing two kids around and might not have been physically able to get to the phone. Also, our answering machine is in our office, so it’s not always apparent that we even HAVE a message. And finally, The Wife lost her cell phone, so I had no way of getting in touch with her if she was at a park with the kids. (By the way, to make matters worse, my internet at work wasn’t working. The Wife and I usually do most of our daytime communication via email. So if she’s going to take Luke and Courtney to a park in the afternoon, she’ll usually tell me via email. So I honestly had no way of knowing whether or not she was at home.)

So I started walking home. All the while, I was calling The Wife, hoping she might come home, hear the phone and come pick me up. Of course, my phone started acting up. I kept getting “Call Failed” messages, which is the last thing I needed.

Eventually, The Wife called. At this point, I was about a mile from home. I told her not to bother picking me up. By the time she got the kids in the car and picked me up, I’d practically be home. Besides, then we would have had to figure out a way to get my bike in her car. So I just hoofed it all the way home. 3.5 miles in about 1.5 hours with a bike in tow. And in my work shoes, no less. Yeah, I was pretty tired when I finally got home.

I was expecting to be angry too. In fact, when I first started walking, I was quite pissed at The Wife. How dare she not be home to answer the phone? Didn’t she KNOW I had a flat tire? But as I walked, I became more serene about the whole thing. You know, sometimes shit happens. And getting all upset about it doesn’t fix the problem. Besides, the only bad thing was that I had to walk a few miles home. The weather was nice and I needed the workout, so it wasn’t all that terrible.

Oh by the way, it turns out that The Wife WAS at home and just didn’t hear the phone. I knew The Wife had a hearing problem when I married her. When we’re at home, I’m constantly pointing out to her that the phone is ringing. (God forbid I should actually answer the phone myself.) So instead of getting angry about the situation, I’m going to come up with a solution so that this never happens again. I’m going to take the phone and shove it right up The Wife’s ass.

Kidding! Actually, it looks like we’re going to have to get some phones with louder ringers. And probably get more of them, so she can hear them no matter which room she’s in. Of course, the side effect of this will be scaring the shit out of me every time the phone rings. But if it means I won’t be walking home from the train again, it’s definitely worth it.

Welcome To the Company

2007-05-07T10:19:00.000-05:00

We recently had our quarterly office meeting. It’s basically a review of how we’re doing financially and what we have to look forward to for the rest of the year. One of the things they do is introduce new hires. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve hired 23 new people! Given that we only had about 200 people before that, it’s really quite a lot.

Our office leader asked all the new hires to stand up and introduce themselves. The first person to introduce herself is an attractive woman standing in the front of the room. She was wearing a loose-necked shirt. When she stood up, she must have put whatever she was holding on her seat. So after she introduced herself and made to sit down, she had to pick up this stuff off her seat. And so she leaned over and gave the entire office a rather nice view of her cleavage. All I could think was, “What a great way to make a memorable first impression.”

Moo

2007-05-04T14:55:00.000-05:00

I just saw an overly large woman (bordering on obese) make a coffee and put 6 (SIX!) half and half creams in it. I know I'm not the most health-conscious person in the world. But if you're that overweight, do you really need to be using SIX half & halfs? If you don't like the taste of coffee that much, how about some skim milk? Or non-fat creamer? Half & half? Are you just trying to kill yourself? Sheesh, some people.

I'm Not Quite Dead

2007-05-04T13:54:00.000-05:00

I got good news from my doctors the other day. As far as my feet go, I have plantar fasciatis. (My podiatrist friend in Cleveland is probably saying “duh” right now.) Apparently, I have a high arch, which becomes a normal arch when I put weight on my foot. The result? Bad feet. So my doctor’s got me on a whole routine now to make it all better. Part of that is buying better running shoes.

So I went to Runner’s High in downtown Arlington Heights. I can’t say enough about what a great store this place is. I went on Thursday afternoon when most normal people are working. So I got a lot of personal attention from the owner. She fitted me with a nice pair of shoes and since I was a brand new customer, she threw in a pair of acrylic socks (good for running/cycling, etc.) for free. I signed up for their email newsletter and I might even do their Tuesday night “fun runs.” It’s actually incredibly convenient for me since they’re located about ¼ mile from my train stop.

The news on my shoulder isn’t quite as rosy. Apparently, I have a slap lesion, which isn’t nearly as perverted as you might think. Basically, there’s a tiny ligament on my bicep (yours too, actually) that attaches to my shoulder. I hurt it during my senior year of high school while I was wrestling. But according to my doctor, they didn’t even KNOW about slap lesions then. So I wasn’t diagnosed with it.

The way this works is that most of the time, my shoulder is fine. But if I work it too hard, my rotator cuff gets a bit inflamed. And that in turn causes problems with the slap lesion. So if I don’t tax my shoulder so much, I should be fine. I’m going to start doing some physical therapy on it, and that should make it much better.

By the way, the orthopedist told me that the alternative to physical therapy is to first do a $4,000 test that’s only successful 80% of the time. Then, if I have to have the surgery, that’s $30,000. Now, as I said earlier, I’m not too concerned about costs because I’ve already hit the limit for my plan. These would basically be free for me. BUT, if I had the surgery, I wouldn’t be able to lift anything for 6 months. That includes weights, of course, but also children. (Fortunately, it would also include garbage, but I have a tendency to forget putting that out anyway, so no big change.) After those 6 months, I would be as weak as a baby (as opposed to being weak like a toddler now). So it’d be another 6 months before I got full use back. Um, yeah. I can’t really take a year off like that. Especially not since slap lesions are very easy to live with. In fact, most baseball pitchers have them and it doesn’t bother them at all. So I just have to learn to deal with it.

The good news in all of this is that within the month, I should be back to “normal.” Then I can resume training for the triathlon pretty rigorously. Right now, I’m focusing on biking because that’s more or less all I can do. I’ve been riding my bike to the train every morning (and back at night, of course). It’s 5 miles each way, so it’s quite a nice workout. It only takes me about 30 minutes, which is only about 10-15 minutes longer than it takes to drive.

I’m actually starting to enjoy riding my bike to the train. For one thing, it’s a lot cheaper than driving. My truck gets terrible mileage, about 13 miles per gallon. So each day I go through about $3 of gas plus $1.50 to park. So I could save $22.50 a week riding my bike. Okay, that’s not really a whole lot of money. But after 100 years or so, it really starts adding up.

The real benefit to riding my bike to the train is that I’m now working out an hour every day. That’s why my weight has amazingly been going down lately. I must say that it’s rather refreshing to know that (a) I’m gaining money and (b) I’m losing weight. It’s win-win.

On Strike

2007-05-02T09:20:00.000-05:00

It finally happened. My body fell apart. I knew it would. My body is a train wreck after years of wrestling, not to mention heavy drinking and being overweight. And so this weekend, my body finally decided it didn’t want any part of this triathlon. So it went on strike.

Right now I’m dealing with a wildcat strike in my right shoulder. It’s been pretty bad for as long as I can remember. Generally, if I leave it alone, it’ll stop hurting. But every time I try to do something physical, it’s just a matter of time before it starts hurting. It’s so bad that I can’t throw a ball for long. And forget about bowling. Not because of my shoulder, but because of how boring it is. I mean, literally, forget about it. Maybe if we all do, it’ll go away.

My feet, on the other hand, have walked out on the job years ago and they’ve been replaced by scabs. And, frankly, the scabs aren’t pulling their weight. I hurt them years ago playing basketball (yes, you read that correctly) when I was pretty overweight. I was told at the time it was plantar fasciatis. And maybe it was. But they’ve been bothering me ever since then. For the past two or three years, my feet have been hurting me pretty much every day.

So after years of lingering injuries and pain, I’ve decided to finally do something about it. I’m writing a blog entry, hoping that’ll stop the pain. Actually, I’m going to the doctor. Or rather, I’m going to doctors.

My company started a new health plan this year, called a consumer-driven health plan (CDHP). It’s all the rage now. Here’s how it works. It covers all basic stuff like physicals and whatnot. But you pay for anything non-basic up to $2800. After $2800, the health plan pays for EVERYTHING. No co-pays, no deductibles, nothing. The idea of the CDHP is that you’ll be more responsible if it’s your money at risk. And for the first $2800, that’s probably true. But we had a baby this year. And so we blew through the $2800 by the time she was born in March. So now it’s free money. Why NOT go see a podiatrist about my feet? And if I need orthotics? Okay. Don’t cost me a penny. And why not see an orthopedist about my shoulder? If I need surgery, it’s completely free. Hell, we’re going to rack up thousands of dollars in claims this year. I’d say the CDHP was a rousing success!

I don’t know where this leaves me for the triathlon. Right now, I can’t run because of my feet and I can’t swim because of my shoulder. I probably shouldn’t ride my bike because of either. I’m hoping that my feet are an easy fix and my shoulder can be rehabbed in the short term. I really want to do this triathlon, but right now I’m not optimistic. Which is really annoying because I was almost ready to buy some smaller pants. If I can’t work out, I might just have to keep the fat ones around a little longer.

Perpetual Sleepiness

2007-04-17T08:20:00.000-05:00

(That's close to being a good band name, I think.)

I haven't been sleeping much lately, and it's been bothering me. But it's been more mental anguish than anything else. And I've finally come to accept that (a) I'm only going to get about 6 hours of sleep a night and (b) I'm fine with that.

There are numerous factors at play here that are conspiring to limit my sleep. The first is that I hate going to bed. HATE IT. I don't know why, exactly, but it's my least favorite part of the day. I feel like going to bed is admitting defeat. Maybe I think I'm going to miss out on a lot of fun. Often times, I'm just curious what's going to be on TV next. Either way, it's virtually impossible for me to get to bed before 10:00.

(By the way, I'm a little relieved that WFLD started a new 10:00 news show. Now The Simpsons are on at 10:35. Which means I won't turn them on at 10:00 to see which episode it is, then find out it's the Radioactive Man episode and stay up to 10:30 watching it. Stupid move by WFLD by the way. There's a set group of people who watch the news. In Chicago, let's call it 2 million people. Right now, those 2 million people are divided by 3 networks. People who don't want to watch the news watch The Simpsons or something like that. WFLD was getting decent ratings with The Simpsons. Not as high as the other 3 stations, but not bad. So WFLD starts its own 10:00 news. The ONLY way this can succeed is if they manage to poach some viewers from the other 3 stations. They're not going to suddenly create a whole new audience of people who want to watch the 10:00 news because it's now on Fox. So, basically, WFLD is hoping to divide those 2 million people by 4 stations. And they're failing. The Simpsons got ratings TWICE as high as their 10:00 news. Sex and the City and King of Queens are beating it. Bad idea jeans.)

As I've mentioned before, I've started training for a triathlon. So I'm waking up at 4:45 every morning to head to the gym. In theory, I could stop training for the triathlon. That'd let me sleep in another hour or so every morning. But I'm really starting to see the effects of all this training on my body. Me likey! My pants with the elastic waistband aren't totally stretched out now! (I love these pants. They're designed to be a little more comfortable. But really, they're an excuse to cram my fat ass into 34's a little longer than I should.)

Of course, even if I want to go to bed at 10:00, I usually don't get to bed until 10:15 or 10:30. I have to brush my teeth and let the dog out. (For some reason, she's unwilling to go outside right now. She'd rather piss and crap on our dining room carpet. I hate dogs.) Then I get into bed and my mere presence seems to waken Courtney, who's still sleeping in the bassonet next to our bed. She's quite annoying too. She doesn't really cry. It's more like a whimper. And "annoying" is the perfect way to describe it. It's not bothersome. But it's just enough to wake you up or keep you awake. Of course, I'll take this over colic any day. Anyway, so I'm lucky to fall asleep by 10:45 and get my 6 hours of sleep.

The good news is that I seem to be handling it well. And the key is that I've decided that coffee is a good thing. I used to try to shun coffee. I was ashamed that I was so dependent on it. Now I'm accepting it. I'm drinking 4-6 cups a day at work, plus some soda when I get home. Should I be drinking so much? Any good doctor (and half the bad ones) will tell you that I shouldn't. But then again, it's allowing me to function pretty well on 6 hours of sleep, so I'm not complaining.

The weird thing to me is that I'm getting used to 6 hours of sleep. This weekend was what really opened my eyes to how accustomed I am. On Saturday, I got about 7 hours of sleep and The Wife (god bless her heart) said she was sorry I got so little sleep. I told her it wasn't a big deal. And it wasn't. I made some coffee and I was fine all day. On Sunday, I got 9 hours of sleep and felt run-down all day. As it turns out, getting more sleep is NOT a good thing for me. I'm sure The Wife loves to hear this, by the way. She's already probably thinking of all the extra chores I can do with 36 waking hours every weekend.

Searching for Terrorists

2007-04-16T13:26:00.000-05:00

For some reason, I started thinking about elementary school the other day. One person that popped into my mind was Mohab Wagdy. He was a nice enough guy, but a little odd. He was Egyptian, lived in the townhomes near us and never learned to ride a bike. (This really amused me when we had our bike safety training in 5th grade and he had to use training wheels.) I used to hang out with him a little during recess and such. In 5th grade, he moved away.

One of the coolest things in the entire world is the internet. With it, you can look up anyone in the world. So I decided to hop on Google and see if I could find Mohab. I wondered what had happened to him. Like maybe he was a long-distance runner at Carthage College in the late 1990's. Perhaps he'd been indicted in an insider-trading scandal on Wall Street. Maybe he'd caught the biggest catfish in Louisiana. You never know.

I was pretty confident in my search on Mohab since he had such an odd name. Nobody in the world could possibly have such a weird name. Well, that would be true if by "world," I meant my own tiny little suburban, Illinois world. If I meant the larger arab-speaking world, I'd find out that it's actually a VERY common name. Who'd a thunk it.

So my google search returned a lot of arabic words with either "Mohab" or "Wagdy" bolded. No sign of Carthage College. No Wall Street. No catfish. On the bright side, it's quite possible that I'm now on the CIA watch list because "Mohab Wagdy" looses translates into "The President has loose bowels." Thank you, Google.

Catching Up

2007-04-02T21:05:00.000-05:00

Work is really starting to interfere with this whole blog-writing thing. I guess it’s a good thing that I’m too busy at work to find time to write anything. Right? The past week has been exceptionally crazy. What’s amazing (to me anyway) is in one week, I worked about as much as my lawyer friends have averaged over the past 5 years or so. Well, when they’re not busy, anyway. Yeah, there’s a reason lawyers get paid a lot.

Since I don’t have time to write a full coherent blog (relatively speaking, anyway), here are some quick-hit thoughts.

If you don’t already own the Eagles of Death Metal’s Death by Sexxxy, stop reading this blog right now. Go to iTunes and download it. If you managed to get past Cherry Cola and aren’t hooked on the album, I will refund you whatever you paid me to read this blog. The album’s already over 2 years old, but it’s just great. If you like Queens of the Stone Age, you’ll love Death by Sexxxy (mostly because it contains a couple of the same performers).
Do you know how to use a revolving door? Apparently, I don’t. I was leaving my building for lunch one day last week, heading to the “out” part of the revolving door. A man already in the revolving door, heading inside my building. I guess he wasn’t expecting me to push on the door. When I did, he shot me a look like I just questioned his revolving-door-pushing skills. Note to self: no more pushing on revolving doors. This is going to add some time to my commute.
Bubba Ho-Tep is a great movie. It’s a semi-farcical zombie movie. The plot revolves around Elvis Presley and J.F.K. being alive, but living in a nursing home. Only the nursing home is being attacked by a mummy. Oh, and J.F.K. is black. If you like silly, low-budget horror movies, watch this one. It’s great.
24 hasn’t been doing it for me this year. American Idol, though, really has. I’m as shocked by this as you are. I hate American Idol. I think it’s a joke and a blight on the music industry. Yet, I’m strangely compelled to watch it every week to see who gets voted out. I suppose this show would be completely unwatchable without Tivo. But since I can watch an episode in about 15 minutes (by skipping most of the songs), it’s a very short investment on my part for a rather satisfying reward.
I’m officially old. I had 6 beers the other night and could hardly even stand up. Since I’ve been training for the triathlon, I really cut back on my drinking. Apparently, this really affects your tolerance. I’m heading to a wedding this weekend and I’m a little worried about how my body’s going to respond to the copious amounts of alcohol I’m going to be throwing into it. I’ve half-convinced myself that the problem is that I was drinking beer the other night. If I stick to Jack and Coke, I should be fine.
The triathlon training’s going great. My back is a little sore, and so are my feet. But those are chronic problems. And the best part about training for a triathlon is that I get to do a lot of swimming, which is good for my back and feet. My weight has plateaued a bit at 187. I don’t think I’m going to make 185 by this weekend, which was my goal. Oh well. Close enough.
I’ve been locked up in a “war room” at work for the past week. We’re trying to get a lot of work done for a client, so they’re locking us all in one room to do it. I think their rationale is that people are less likely to surf the internet if the person next to them can see them do it. Thus, therefore, (three dots), we’d all be more productive. Well, it actually works. So, they’re getting more productivity out of me, but at the cost of less pre-opening-day baseball knowledge. Thus, it hardly seems like the Cubs started the season today.
Speaking of the Cubs, they lost their first game this season. I wish I could say I were shocked. As a life-long fan, I know that I should be more interested in the goings-on of my beloved Cubbies. But after 2003 (to say nothing of 1984), my heart just isn’t in it. Then again, they did just announce that the Cubs are for sale. Within a year, we’ll have a new owner. Perhaps it’ll be somebody concerned about actually winning the World Series. Perhaps the Cubs will be respectable. Perhaps I can be proud of being a Cubs fan. And perhaps monkeys will fly out of my butt.

Who Moved My Cheese, er, Shoes?

2007-03-20T10:28:00.001-05:00

This morning, I decided to wake up a little early so I could have a little more time at the gym to workout. It always ends up taking me a little longer to get ready in the morning than I want. As a result, I can only do about 25 minutes on the treadmill instead of my desired 30. By waking up early, I could do that extra 5 minutes.

The problem is that I was waking up at 5:00 a.m. Getting up earlier would require me breaking that mental barrier at 5:00. I mean, it’s one thing to wake up and see a 5 on your alarm clock. It’s something entirely different to see a 4. It could be just 1 minute difference, but it’s a huge adjustment mentally.

When I woke up this morning, it was a struggle to get out of bed. But I reminded myself of the ice cream I got at Culver’s on Saturday, and it made it a little easier to motivate myself.

So I went through my usual routine. I had breakfast, brushed my teeth, got dressed. The only problem was that I couldn’t find my gym shoes. Given that it was 5:00 a.m., it was dark in the house. And the whole house was asleep. (Well, except for the dog, who insisted on making a ton of noise. No tact, that dog.) Since I’m moderately nice to The Wife, what with her having recently given birth, I decided not to turn on the light in our bedroom. Unfortunately, this meant me groping around in the dark for my shoes.

I never did find them. I had to go to the gym using my lawn-mowing shoes. They were all green and caked in dog crap. I’m pretty sure that’s what the professional marathoners use. The Wife was kind enough to do a search of the house this morning to locate them. It seems as though somebody (I can’t imagine who) took my shoes and put them in a toy bin in the family room. The one place I didn’t think to look. Well, next time my shoes go missing, I’ll be sure to check all of Luke’s toy bins first.

Why Does a Hummingbird Hum?

2007-03-16T15:53:00.000-05:00

Because he doesn’t know the words. Or so the old joke goes. But there’s another annoying thing you can do when you don’t know the words: pretend that you do. I like to call it the “It’s the End of the World” syndrome.

Everybody knows the R.E.M. song “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” It’s a very catchy tune. Very singalongable. (It’s a word. Shut up.) The only problem is that nobody knows the words. (By the way, have you ever encountered someone who knows the words? Hearing them sing along to the song is awe-inducing. I’m more impressed by people who bothered to learn the 100 or so words to the song than those weirdos who memorize thousands of digits of pi.)

So when a “normal” person sings along to “It’s the End of the World,” it usually goes something like this:

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
And I feel fine.

Six o’clock, don’t get caught
Bbb bup, dbddb bdup
Mmmm bbup ddllbeep boop
LEONARD BERNSTEIN!

(By the way, there’s a similar response with Madonna’s “Vogue.” But since that song sucks, I’m not going to bother naming the phenomenon after it.)

Not knowing the words doesn’t actually stop you from singing. Instead, you sing a lot quieter and just kind of mumble your way through the song. The goal is to sing so quietly that nobody can make out what you’re saying, but loud enough that they can tell that you’re saying SOMEthing.

I’ve always wondered what makes people do this. It never occurred to me that I should really be questioning when people START doing this. The reason is that Luke has recently started doing this when I read him books. Generally, he knows one word per page, usually the very last word. And so he tries to read along with me. But what I end up getting is something like: “mmmm mmmm nnnn mmmm snow.”

If you haven’t had someone do this to you while you’re reading, it’s EXTREMELY annoying. It makes it incredibly hard to concentrate on actually reading the book. I know what you’re thinking: “You’re reading a book to a 2-year-old. How much frigging concentration do you need?” The answer is: a lot.

The reason is that these books are confusing. They have a lot of rhymes in them. They repeat a lot. But they don’t always repeat exactly every word. And if you’re reading Dr. Seuss, he makes up ridiculous words just because he can’t think of anything else to rhyme. (Dr. Seuss really annoys me right now. Honestly. I wish I could be inside his brain as he was writing this stuff. “’There was a knock on the door.’ Huh, what rhymes with ‘door’? ‘More’? ‘Score’? I’ve got it! ‘In walked a hufflepoor.’” GAH!)

Anyway, if you’re reading and you’ve got someone right next to you repeating every word you say half a beat late and/or saying “mmmm mmmm,” you completely forget what you’re saying. All context is gone. You’re basically just seeing words and saying them, hoping that you’re not ruining the pace or meaning. Basically, it’s like when you tried to read out loud in front of your reading group in grade school. Your only hope was to not screw up so that the other kids would say, “it’s pronounced MALapropism, not malaPROPism.” Second graders can be so cruel.

The Smell of Eastern Europe

2007-03-15T08:19:00.000-05:00

This morning, I went to the gym for a swim. I haven't been to the gym since before Courtney was born and I really needed a workout. (Oh yeah, had a child last week. Cute little thing. Check out The Wife's blog for more details and pics. I'll probably write something about it later. Like in 10-12 years.)

Somehow, I managed to lose about 3 pounds while I was off work for the last week. That really boggled my mind given how much I've been eating. But then I've also been working on the basement. We're trying to finish it so that we can throw our children down there and lock the door. So I'm working at a feverish pace to get it done. It's slow work, but I'm making a bit of progress. Anyway, apparently all that work caused me to lose some weight. Perhaps I should ditch my actuarial job and get into construction. Then I wouldn't need to sign up for a triathlon to lose weight.

So there I am this morning in the pool. There are 4 lanes and there are two people already swimming. I choose the lane between them. I'm familiar with the guy who's swimming next to me. (I have no idea who the lady is and she's irrelevant to the story. Let's just say she's Star Jones and move on.) This guy is about 50 and some sort of eastern European immigrant. I'm basing that on three things: (1) he's short and stout, (2) he has a mustache and (3) he has an accent.

I've always wondering where he's from though. The Wife is part German and Czech (and Swedish, but that's not germane to the story). I'm part Polish. It's probably one of those. Today, I found out which nationality he is.

As I was swimming, I couldn't help but notice that the guy was a bit pungent. I thought it odd that someone could possibly smell so bad in a pool. And that's when I realized that I wasn't smelling B.O. I was smelling cologne. (Now there's another tip-off that he's eastern European. Too much cologne.) So I thought to myself, "what kind of person puts on a load of cologne before going swimming?" Aha! A Polack, that's who. In fact, he probably thought, "hey, I'm going swimming this morning, I'd better put on some extra cologne in case some of it washes off." It's this kind of thinking that got us solar-powered flashlights and submarines with screen doors.

Something About Counting Eggs and Hatching

2007-03-06T09:38:00.001-06:00

So, I’m a millionaire. Guaranteed. The Megamillions jackpot is at $355 million and I’ve got the winning ticket in my pocket right now. I can’t possibly lose! I’m already spending the money. So if I somehow manage to not win (unimaginable, really), that Ferrari dealer is going to be mighty upset when I have to tell him I can’t afford to pay him half a million dollars.

Okay, I realize I have no chance of winning. But at least I have something to look forward to tonight. I could go to sleep worth over $100 million (after taxes and a lump sum payment). I think I could handle that.

My general rule for playing the lottery is that I won’t start playing until the jackpot hits $150 million. After all, winning anything less than that is a complete waste of time. What on earth would I do with, say, $10 million in cash? Buy a cup of coffee, maybe. It’s more hassle than it’s worth.

I’ve been buying lottery tickets for the last week or so now. Every morning, I wake up and check my numbers. And every morning, I found out that I didn’t win. While that’s a little depressing, a little part of me was happy because I saw that nobody won. I don’t mind losing if I have another shot at winning. And winning more money, no less.

Buying a ticket today was quite a pain the butt though. I usually buy them at my train station. I only have about 3-5 minutes before my train comes, so I have to do it quickly. Sure enough, today there were about 5 people in line. And the stupid lottery machine broke! It kept jamming. I wasn’t able to get a ticket.

(By the way, there are two lottery-related phenomena that I love. One is people buying $20 worth of tickets. The other is people selecting their own numbers. Granted, having 20 numbers makes you 20 times more likely to win the lottery than me with my 1 number. Your odds just went from 1 in 300 million to 1 in 15 million. Sweet. But your return on investment just fell from about 12 billion percent to 600 million percent! Ha! Seriously, you have no shot of winning the lottery with any amount of tickets. Why waste more than $1?

And as far as picking your own numbers goes, why bother? I think a lot of people think that the quick picks are “unlucky.” Sure they are. But if your numbers are so lucky, why are you even playing the lottery? Shouldn’t you have already won? Why go through the time and effort of filling out a scantron form with your own lottery numbers when the quick picks are just as likely to win? Hasn’t anyone studied probabilities and statistics for about 10 years like me?)

Anyway, I wasn’t able to get my lottery ticket at my usual place. Thankfully, there’s a convenience mart right by my train station in the city. So I stopped in there to get a ticket. Naturally, it was packed with several other commuters trying to make a quick buck. And, of course, I had to wait in line behind people buying $20 in tickets and using their own numbers.

When I finally got up to the counter, the guy (who was working like a dog, about to keel over from all the hustling about) asked me what I wanted. I said $1 in quick picks. And he just gave me a ticket off the counter, collected my money and I was off. I was a little upset by this. I know the guy printed them just a few minutes earlier to help ease the congestion around his booth. I can’t blame him. But for some reason, I want to know that the ticket I bought was actually meant for me. You know, now that I think about it, I should probably just pick my own numbers. That way I can make sure that the ticket’s for me. And if I’m going to pick one set of numbers, why not 20? Then I just need ONE set of numbers to be lucky and I’m a millionaire! Excuse me for a minute while I go back to the convenience store.

Go Askew Yourself!

2007-02-23T13:17:00.000-06:00

This season of Survivor has been rather dull and boring. Last night, they voted out a woman I hated from the very beginning of the show. She’s a 40-ish asian architect. And when all the contestants got to the island, they started building a shelter out of the nice supplies they were given. Being an architect, the asian lady started directing people.

One of the guys working on the project is clearly not a smart guy. She told him that one of the 2x4’s he put up was askew. He told her he didn’t know what the word “askew” meant and asked for clarification. Her response: “It means not orthogonal.” Duh. I’m surprised she lasted this long, to be honest.

Hot or Not

2007-02-23T12:56:00.000-06:00

This week’s episode of 24 was a decent one. It featured a lot of Jack’s sister-in-law, who might be his former lover. Either way, she’s played by Rena Sofer, and I can’t for the life of me figure out whether she’s hot or not. (Check out her page on IMDB.com if you want to play along at home.)

Now, I’m fully willing to admit that if I ever saw this woman in person, my head would probably explode, leaving me a wimpering puddle of former-man on the floor. But I’m not going to meet her in person (thanks to that stupid court order). So I’m left to ponder her attractiveness relative to every other woman on TV.

Here’s the thing about Rena Sofer. Clearly, at one point, she was an extremely attractive woman. She’s got these piercing gray/blue eyes that are hard to look away from. I imagine that if there were really a Medusa, this is what her eyes would look like. I think that when she was portrayed in Clash of the Titans, she had blank white eyes. By the way, was anyone else afraid to look at her while watching that movie as a kid? Yeah, me neither. Anywho.

The problem with Ms. Sofer is that she’s aging. (Isn’t that all of our problems?) As such, she’s getting a bit “jowly.” And so this is forcing to constantly re-examine her. It’s become quite a distraction from the show. I think I’d be a lot happier if she looked like either Chloe (not attractive) or Nadia (clearly attractive). Instead, I’m left wondering. Me no likey!

Anyway, in other 24 news, it turns out that Jack’s father is evil. And only Jack can stop him! Of course, Jack screws the pooch and his father escapes. But he looks like a big man in his sister-in-law’s eyes because he managed to free her son from the clutches of Jack’s evil father. Having a hard time following that? Don’t worry, because it really didn’t do much to advance the plot along.

It did re-introduce us to last season’s President, though. The nice part about it is that Jack’s father didn’t die. Usually, I like it when people die. Call me a misanthrope. But Jack’s father (played by James Cromwell) is actually a good actor. So I want him to stick around. And I’m guessing he’ll be showing up in the not-too-distant future.

And now we’re going back to President Logan. After being involved in President Palmer’s assassination (I forget all the details, but they won’t matter), he seems to be under some sort of Grizzly Adams House Arrest. You’d think this man would have gone to prison or something. Instead, it looks like he’s in a hunting cabin in the North Woods. And he’s even grown a weird beard to fit in. I’m thinking they’re trying to make him a bit like Al Gore. Next thing you know, President Logan will be coming out with a crappy documentary about global warming and espousing the virtues of electric cars. Yeah, you’re right. That’s a little too unrealistic for TV, even on a show like 24.

I Did It!

2007-02-23T10:11:00.000-06:00

After two long months, I managed to break the 190 pound barrier. I don’t remember when I last crossed that barrier, but I’m guessing it was around the time I got married.

When I first met The Wife, I was in the best shape I’d been in since high school. I was working out 6 days a week and managed to get down to 170 pounds. Of course, we all know why I was working out. I was trying to get some action. Then I got some consistent action and the need to workout died. (When they say that a little part of you dies when you get in a committed relationship, they aren’t kidding. It’s the part of you that wants to look good in public.)

Since I met The Wife, my motivation to workout has been hovering around zero. The only time I got remotely interested was when I was getting fat enough that I had to increase my pant size. So I’d work out for a few weeks and decide, “Screw it. I need new pants anyway.” Well now that I’m training for a triathlon, I’m being forced to lose weight due to my training. And that’s a good thing. (Or so my doctor keeps telling me.)

The only problem with losing weight is that it’s slowly driving The Wife insane. And I can’t say that I blame her. You see, The Wife is pregnant. (What, you haven’t heard?) So for the last 9 months, she’s been slowly gaining weight. It’s not her fault. That’s what happens when you’re pregnant. But it has to be mildly frustrating to hear that your co-habitant is losing weight while you’re uncontrollably gaining it. I think it’s kind of like being the sparring partner for an up-and-coming boxer. He keeps on getting better and beating up on more people. So you’re happy for him. But as he gets better, he keeps beating you up more and more.

Anyway, now I have a few new goals. I want to be down to 185 by my brother-in-law’s wedding in April. Then 180 by my birthday. (It’s not until June, so you have plenty of time to buy presents.) And finally, I want to be 170 by the triathlon. I think it’s entirely doable. As long as I can find a few hours a day to tear away from The Wife, a 2-year-old and a newborn baby. Honestly, I don’t think it’ll be a problem. (Mostly because I’m expecting The Wife to kick me out of the house sometime in May.)

Catching Up

2007-02-19T09:44:00.000-06:00

This weekend, I was supposed to take Luke to Wisconsin for a weekend of male bonding. I don’t know how much bonding can be done with a 2-year-old, but I was going to give it a shot. Mostly, I was hoping to give The Wife one last weekend alone before the baby came. Alas, my plans were foiled. My truck’s transmission decided that it didn’t want to go on living any more. And so now the BFT is laid up in a repair shop for about a week.

There are many aggravating things about having no truck. One, of course, is that it’s going to cost me about $1500 to repair the thing (I hope). One nice side effect is that I won’t have to pay $1.50 at the train station to park it every day. So, maybe it’ll only cost about $1495 or so. Sweet. That savings, though, is offset by the need to have The Wife drive me to the train every morning. I feel pretty bad making a 9-month pregnant woman wake up and drive me. I feel worse when I have to convince a 2-year-old child to get in a cold car right after he wakes up. Especially since he prefers riding in Daddy’s Truck. That’s all he wanted this morning. Fortunately, when he saw that Daddy’s Truck wasn’t in the driveway, he was amenable to getting into Mommy’s Car.

The really aggravating thing to me, though, is that I was just getting into a rhythm with working out. Every morning, I’d wake up at 5:00, get ready and head to the gym. I’d work out for half an hour or so and then head to the train station and catch the 7:05 train. I’d then fall asleep at 7:10 and wake up as the train was pulling into the station 45 minutes later. Perfect.

Since I started this schedule, I’ve lost about 8 pounds and 1+ pant sizes. Right before Christmas, I decided that the 34s weren’t working anymore. Just a bit too tight. So I went up to 36s, which were awesomely roomy. But now I’m back to my 34s and they’re just a bit too big. The 33s are probably a pinch too small at this point, unless I’m going to a dance club in the 1980s. Conveniently, my pants are acid washed already, so I’d fit right in.

My point is that my new workout routine was actually working for me. And now I’m going to break it. Which means those 36s are going to have to come out again. In theory, I could wake up early and use the elliptical machine or even go for a run. In reality, I’ll come up with a million excuses not to. So I’m really hoping they fix my truck today or tomorrow. That way I won’t get too much out of my routine.

One nice thing about having no truck this weekend was that I was able to get caught up on a few of my TV shows. I watched Lost the other night, and I thought it was one of the best episodes of the show I’d seen in a very long time. On most episodes of Lost, they introduce a mystery. Then they spend about a season or so trying to figure it out while they give you half-assed answers that don’t help at all. This time, they just gave you the answer.

The whole episode centers around Desmond, who seems to be able to see the future. He keeps seeing bad things happen to Claire. For some reason, he feels the need to save her. Personally, I think she should be killed. I thought she was hot at the beginning of the show with her Australian accent and everything. But lately, she’s just a pill. But Desmond keeps protecting her. Jerk. Anyway, Charlie asks Desmond what’s going on and Desmond won’t tell. That’s how all the other episodes go. But then they do a flashback and they reveal just what happened to Desmond in the Hatch last season. It was jarring for it’s, um, upfrontery. (Screw you, spellcheck. It’s a word.)

I won’t go into all the details about the show, but Desmond finally revealed that he could see the future, as if he’s already lived it. Kind of like déjà vu. And that’s when he tells Charlie that he’s not trying to save Claire (phew!). He’s trying to save Charlie. And frankly, he should just stop. Charlie’s getting annoying too. Anyway, it turns out that Charlie would have been struck by lightning (alongside Claire) and that when Claire was drowning, Charlie went in to save her and drowned himself. But according to Desmond, the universe has a way of cause-correcting, meaning it’ll find a way to kill Charlie. Which is just great. Adds a bit of tension to the show.

I also got caught up on Survivor. This is another ho-hum season, but I feel compelled to watch because one of the contestants is practically a next-door neighbor. Mookie (an asian dude) grew up in Wheeling. He also went to U of I (as did I). Not only that, but he also studied actuarial science! We’re practically twins! The only problem is that I find Mookie really annoying so far. And he’s only had about 3 lines of dialogue in the last two episodes. So, part of me is cheering for him because he’s my blind man’s doppelganger. But part of me just wants him to get voted off so I can stop watching the show.

CSI is continuing to wear on me. I just don’t get it anymore. They’ve been dragging this whole Miniature Killer thing on WAY too long. This after killing off a new character after 3 episodes. Huh? In case you aren’t following CSI (and I can’t blame you if you aren’t), they kept finding these miniature replicas of murder scenes. They finally found the guy who did them and he killed himself. Well, another miniature replica showed up. Only this time, the murder hadn’t happened yet. Blah, blah, blah. Apparently, this guy had foster kids and one of them must have done it. The Wife thinks it’s this guy Hodges, who works in the lab (and also used to be on The Larry Sanders Show). I tried to argue with her and think of someone else it might be. Then I realized that I just don’t CARE who it is. I don’t know why I watch this show.

One show I do enjoy watching is House. Last week’s episode was another fantastic one. I’ve realized that what makes it consistently fantastic is the dialogue. It’s incredibly witty, which you don’t realize unless you watch it right after watching an episode of (dramatic pause) CSI (cue Who music). Ugh. It’s such a joy to see characters that are well fleshed out. Not only that, but they have complex issues. And they KNOW they have complex issues and they address them. And the best part? They don’t feel the need to explain things to the audience like CSI does. “You see, Grissom, blood is necessary for people to live. It carries oxygen to the brain. This guy died because he lost too much blood. I guess he finally found something (dramatic pause) that he didn’t let go to his head.” God, I hate that show.

Getting Caught Up on 24

2007-02-15T11:23:00.000-06:00

My lack of 24 coverage has been appalling of late. A lot of that has to do with how busy I’ve been at work. I just haven’t had any down time to talk about 24 on Tuesdays. And usually by Wednesday, I’ve completely forgotten about what happened. I don’t really remember what happened, but I figured that shouldn’t stop me from writing about it. Enjoy. Just don’t blame me if I screw up the details.

First of all, I was quite a bit upset that they killed off Jack’s brother. He was such a lovable character. He was a complete weenie, but he was also completely evil. So you could never tell if he was being honest or not. You also couldn’t imagine what he’d say next. Nothing was too evil for him to do. Kill the President? No problem. Sell biological weapons to terrorists? Why not? Send my brother to a Chinese prison to be tortured? Of course! A character like this will surely be missed.

Fortunately, his death was actually interesting in that it was committed by none other than his father. In the previews for next week, Jack finds out that his father isn’t such a nice guy. So Jack’s going to go after him. Oh, and he’s being helped by his sister-in-law, who he had a thing for (or an affair with) several years ago. Oh, and Jack’s father is holding his grandson hostage. I can’t remember. Is 24 set in modern day Los Angeles or ancient Athens? If Jack sleeps with some lady and it turns out that she’s actually his mother, causing him to cut out his eyes and wander the world, I’m going to have to stop watching.

One of the plot developments is that everybody’s favorite office worker, Chloe, has her ex-husband (Morris) get kidnapped by the terrorists so that he can build a detonator for a nuclear bomb. It’s amazing what a small world it is.

Terrorist: We need someone to build a detonator.
Terrorist Helper: There’s only one man who can do it. He works at CTU and is married to this really annoying frumpy lady who’s oddly amusing. And since we’ve already established his character, we didn’t have to waste any time bringing in another character and explaining his background.

Anyway, after many capers that aren’t worth explaining, Morris gets delivered to the terrorists. He refuses to help. He gets tortured in quite a disgusting way. I read something on the internet about how people are complaining about the torture scenes in 24. Because they’re not realistic enough. There’s too much blood and the torture would go on for days, weeks, months. Um, hello? The show isn’t called February. We don’t have weeks! We have 24 hours. Torture needs to be done quickly. Because as Jack always says, “We are running out of time!”

These torture scenes always annoy me. If I’m the only guy in the world who can arm a nuclear device and the terrorists have me in their hands, why should I possibly arm it for them? To avoid being tortured or killed? Do you really think that they’ll let you live once you’ve armed the bomb? And even if they did, could you live with yourself knowing that you single-handedly killed thousands to millions of people? Of course, if they did this on TV, it would ruin the show. I’m just saying that it annoys me. Then again, if I knew Jack Bauer was on the case, I’d help however I could because Jack Bauer never let’s the terrorists win!

There was a bunch of political intrigue in Monday’s episodes, which was annoying. I could really do without all the political mumbo jumbo on 24. The President is completely annoying. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, there’s no way people would ever elect a bald President with a wispy goatee. Unless it was a woman.

The rest of the cabinet is interesting though. I like the former Ally McBeal guy (um, I’m too lazy to look up his name) being all evil. Chad Lowe plays his assistant, who coincidentally wants to kill the President so that they can throw all Arabs into detention centers. Or deport them. Or kill them. I don’t know. But he doesn’t like what the President is doing and his natural solution is to take him out.

I really love that solution, by the way. It reminds me (vaguely) of something one of my clients did recently. We’re redesigning their pension plan and it won’t get approval because of discrimination issues. (I’d say that I won’t bore you with the details, but I’m probably too late.) They basically have two options. They can redesign their plan or they can pay more money. They didn’t like those options. So they said, “Why don’t we change the law?” We all had a good laugh at that. Then they started talking about their lobbyists and who should be lobbying whom. You see, they were serious. Apparently, they have a lot of clout in Washington. It seemed like an odd solution, but it was completely viable. At least for them. Not for any of my other clients.

Anyway, on his way to the President’s bunker is none other than that Vice President, played by Powers Booth. I love Powers Booth. (By the way, what do his friends call Powers Booth? They can’t possibly call him Powers. I think I’d call him Booth.) He plays Cy Tolliver on HBO’s Deadwood. He’s got this great deep, raspy voice. He could scare me by ordering a chocolate sundae. (I’d probably wet myself if he asked for crushed nuts on top.) And so now he’s coming to the bunker as an opponent of the President and possibly in cahoots with Chad Lowe. Me likey! It just makes me wonder if I should feel at all guilty for hoping that their plan to kill the President goes through and that Powers gets to serve as President for the rest of the year.

Middle Management

2007-02-15T10:47:00.000-06:00

One of the things that I’m not liking about my new job here at Geeks, Inc. is that I’ve officially entered middle management. For the longest time, my only concern was doing my work. We’d have a project and I had to get it done in a certain amount of time. That was it. Now I’m responsible for monitoring budgets and overseeing junior actuaries (who I will henceforth call Peons).

I like managing Peons in theory, but not so much in reality. In theory, managing Peons is like teaching. You show what you know and try to make them into full-fledged actuaries. You encourage them and get them client exposure. And in a few years, you’re kicking them out of the nest so they can fly on their own. Or something less cheesy that relays the same point.

In reality, managing Peons sucks. The problem is that in theory, Peons are all bright-eyed and eager. And more importantly, they’re competent. In reality, they’re far from it. Well, that’s not fair to all the Peons. One Peon in particular (who I’ve got the pleasure of managing on my biggest client) is vexing me, Peon RJ.

Peon RJ has a bit of an attitude problem. You see, the problem is that he doesn’t have an attitude. He doesn’t seem to care about anything. He’s Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites, only with worse facial hair. He’s apparently not the most motivated person in the world, which doesn’t bode well for being an actuary. If there’s one thing you need to be an actuary, it’s motivation. (You also need math skills and a glaring lack of a social life.)

It takes a special kind of person (using “special” in the same way that the Olympics does) to give up about 6 months a year of nights and weekends to study for actuarial exams. And to do it for 5-10 years. Not many people have the motivation to do it. And Peon RJ is not one of the few. (I think a bastardized version of the Marines saying would be great for actuaries. “The few, the proud, the dorky.”)

One of the annoying things about Peon RJ is that he tends to not answer his phone. Or return voicemails. So you can call him all day and not hear from him. Even if you tell him it’s urgent. The shocking thing to me is that his “people manager” told me this. Shouldn’t that be covered in his annual reviews? “Hey, Peon RJ, around here we answer our phones and return messages. Capiche?”

Right now I’m waiting for Peon RJ to get me some reports (no, not TPS reports). I need to figure out what’s wrong our client’s data and send them an email tomorrow. And Peon RJ keeps pushing off when he’s going to give me the reports, which is extremely frustrating. It probably says a lot about me too. I know that summarizing the reports and sending out the email shouldn’t take long. But since I haven’t seen them yet, I have no idea what’s waiting for me. And as Tom Petty brilliantly said, the waiting is the hardest part.

(By the way, I hope you now have that song stuck in your head. I do. Worse yet, it always reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer buys a gun. As he’s waiting for his background check to clear, he sits in front of his house and watches things go by that he’d like to shoot. Naturally, the Tom Petty song plays in the background.)

Anyway, with any luck Peon RJ will get me what I need today and I can be done with this part of the project. But since I’ll be working with him a lot over the next 3 months, you’ll probably be hearing more and more about how much he annoys me. And I know what you’re thinking. “Finally, that dork has found a legitimate complaint about his job! Welcome back to reality!”

It’s Magic!

2007-02-09T11:16:00.000-06:00

We are now three days short of Luke’s second birthday. Every day he’s turning into more of a “person,” which is very interesting and amusing. It’s weird to see an inanimate blob slowly develop a personality. And Luke’s sure got an interesting one. My favorite thing he’s doing now is “magic.”

Luke likes to hide things from us now and ask “where’d it go?” For example, he’ll put a car behind his back (while we’re watching him, of course) and say, “where’d car go?” That of course morphed into Luke hiding his hand in his sleeve and asking “where’d hand go?”

I think I understand how Luke’s brain is working. Before, if he didn’t see it, it no longer existed. (This is why peek-a-boo amuses babies so much.) Now Luke understands that they continue to exist. But if he doesn’t see them, they disappear. And more importantly, if HE doesn’t see them, then neither does anyone else.

And that’s why the other day, he closed his eyes and said, “Where’d Lucas go?” What I love about this is that in his tiny, feeble mind, he completely disappeared from everybody’s view, like David Copperfield. It’s hard to not laugh at him when he does this. And so far, I haven’t been successful.

Falling Behind

2007-02-06T16:46:00.000-06:00

Awhile ago, I promised to provide summaries of all 24 episodes. Then a funny thing happened. I got REALLY busy at work. So I had to break my promise last week. (Don’t worry, nothing much happened. Then again, a nuclear bomb went off in the prior episode. So the next one had to be a bit of a letdown.)

One nice thing about being an actuary is that the workload isn’t too high. Generally 45-50 hours a week will get the job done. Last week was a killer for me, though. I put in about 65 hours, which included nights and weekends at home.

Last week got me thinking about other jobs. Not because I hated what I was doing and wanted a new career. Rather, it was because I know that other careers expect at least that much time from you. Take lawyers, for example. I recently read that entry-level lawyers fresh out of law school can expect to make $145,000 a year at the big law firms in Chicago. Read that again. That’s a ridiculous amount of money for a 25-year-old to be making. That said, they’ll probably work about 80 hours a week and only half of them will last more than 2 years. (Note, I’m pulling a famous Dow trick, making up statistics. But since they’re in “print”, they’re believable. 84% of all people know that.)

When I was getting my MBA, I toyed with the idea of being an investment banker. They’re expected to work 80-100 hours a week. (I don’t know if that’s even physically possible.) Of course, they’re very handsomely rewarded. And if I were 25 with no family and no social life, I might have considered it. But not today. And probably not tomorrow either. I’d rather spend my free time playing Grand Theft Auto: Des Moines (due out in 2016) or training to do my first triathlon (scheduled to be completed in 2032).

The Return of Jack’s Family

2007-01-23T12:28:00.000-06:00

On last night’s episode of 24, Jack’s family has returned. Fortunately, it does not include Kimberly (hopefully destroyed in the nuclear bomb in Valencia) or his former wife Terry coming back from the dead. This week we meet his brother, Graham. Except we’ve already met him. He was the evil mastermind behind last season’s escapades. And now we find out that he’s Jack’s brother. How awesome is that? And of course, the episode ends with Jack punching his brother in the face (man, I liked that scene), tying him up and starting to torture him. To my surprise, he didn’t do it by putting his finger in Graham’s face and saying, “I’m not touching you. I’m not touching you. I’m not touching you.”

In other family news, we meet Graham’s wife and son. It’s revealed that the wife had an affair with Jack. And wouldn’t you know it, the kid kinda looks like Jack. Perhaps his nephew is really his son. (Man, I hope him name is Luke. “No, Luke. I am your father.” “NOOOOOOOO!”) Anyway, that’s what the internet buzz I’ve seen has been indicating. And we all know what internet buzz is good for. Coming up next week, we meet Jack’s father, played by the inimitable James Cromwell. (You know I have too much time on my hands when I start adding links to my blog.)

I wrote about the likelihood of having two black presidents last week. But last night I was watching Wayne Palmer and I realized he would NEVER get elected president. Not because he’s black, but because he’s bald. And he has facial hair. The electorate doesn’t like baldness. And it sure doesn’t like wispy goatees. Ironically, they don’t place must emphasis on intelligence, but they feel very strongly that there should be hair on your scalp and not your lip.

You have to go all the way back to Eisenhower to find the last bald president. (Note, Ford doesn’t count because he was never elected president. And Nixon might not have been very hirsute, but he was only mildly bald when he was first elected.) You have to go all the way back to William Taft (1909-1913) to find one with facial hair. That’s almost a hundred years! Now you’re telling me that a philandering, bald, goateed, black man with no political experience is going to become President? Yeah right.

Another item of note is that Regina King (playing Sandra Palmer, the president’s sister) is apparently taking over the role of annoying bitch, formerly played by Kim Bauer. Sandra is a lawyer and her client (a muslim leader) is unfairly being detained in a, um, detention center. (So that’s why they call it a “detention” center. I thought these guys just got in trouble at school. I think high schools should call their “study” halls detention centers. They should also post armed guards at the door. And have water table torturing. But I digress.)

So all episode, every episode, Sandra Palmer is saying “this is unconstitutional” and “I’m his lawyer” and “you can’t DO this.” God, shut UP. We understand that these detention centers are illegal. We understand that you’re trying to shine a light on the actual detention centers being run by the U.S. government and that they are illegal. Fine. Now go walk off into the woods, get caught in a trap, and get attacked by a cougar. Hopefully Kevin Dillon isn’t around to save you this time. (And yes, this actually happened to Kim Bauer. Worst. Side-story. Ever.)

This Just In....

2007-01-23T11:23:00.000-06:00

Rage Against the Machine is reuniting for the Coachella music fest. I'm a pretty big fan of RATM and this is definitely exciting news. Nowhere near as exciting as hearing that the Pixies were reuniting a couple years ago. It's unclear at this point if this is a one-off concert, if they'll do a follow-up tour, or if they'll even start recording new music together. I'm hoping that the last two come true, because there's no way in hell I'll be able to make it to California in April to see the show. And frankly, the world needs more Rage music.

The DaVinci Code

2007-01-22T15:37:00.000-06:00

The Wife and I rented The DaVinci Code Saturday night, and it was a rather boring, drab interpretation of the book. (I know, this is an incredibly timely review, given that the movie came out almost a year ago. But that’s how long it takes me to finally see movies. Being a parent is awesome that way.)

The problem I had with The DaVinci Code is that I couldn’t get into it. I had a hard time figuring out why. There’s the natural problem that this is a movie adaptation of a best-selling book. Those never go off well. Even a great movie like Jurassic Park pales in comparison to the book. And yes, Jurassic Park really is a great movie. If you didn’t know there was a book by the same title, you’d probably think it’s one of the best of all time. But the book was SO good that the movie is really just a shadow. It can’t possibly live up to the excitement that the book generated.

And sure, that’s part of the problem with The DaVinci Code. In the book, the characters are racing all over Europe, solving problems as they go. There simply isn’t enough time in the movie for them to solve all the problems. But I think the producers actually did a reasonable job of marching the characters through the puzzles.

The problem was with Tom Hanks. He was woefully miscast in this movie as Professor Robert Langdon. Tom Hanks is a great actor, one of the best of his generation. But only in particular roles. He tends to be great in roles that make you smile. (Think Philadelphia. That gay lawyer was HILARIOUS.) He’s not really great at being cerebral. Try listening to him debate Sir Ian McKellan about the Priory of Scion. Boring.

And because of how the story is set-up, you can’t help but think of how much better it’d be with Harrison Ford as the lead. (Of course, the author, Dan Brown, poisoned our minds by describing Robert Langdon as “Indiana Jones in a tweed jacket.”) Now that Harrison Ford is getting up there in years, he probably wouldn’t be all that great in the role. Besides, it’d draw too many comparisons to Indiana Jones, which I’m sure Ron Howard was trying to avoid.

But the movie did draw comparisons to Indiana Jones. In fact, it made me realize how great of films they were. And one of the reasons was the musical score of the film. Just listening to John Williams’ music raised your pulse a couple of beats. The music on The DaVinci Code? I think it was written by John Tesh. And the truth is that John Tesh would be embarrassed to have his name associated with it. It was that bad.

Back to the poor casting. Harrison Ford is out. Tom Hanks is out. So who should gotten the role of Robert Langdon? Here’s my list of who I think would have played done a great job. Please feel free to forward this list to Ron Howard in case they go ahead and make Angels and Demons (a much better book, in my opinion).

Peter Scholari – the smarter half of Bosom Buddies. He could easily pull of the cerebral part.
Gary Sinise – he’s clearly able to find killers in CSI:New York. He should be able to find the last living descendant of Christ. Just use some forensics. Hello DNA testing!
Harry Hamlin – good looking. Obviously needs work. I’m concerned he might want to wear a toga and pretend he’s Perceus at some point. You know he’d keep making jokes about Medusa whenever they passed a statue, particularly David.
Gary Coleman – who says that Robert Langdon has to be white? Or tall? Or smart? Or talented? Gary Coleman fits perfectly! "Whachoo talkin' 'bout, DaVinci!"
Keifer Sutherland – The DaVinci Code is on a tight timeframe. We know Keifer can work miracles in 24 hours. He’s good with a gun. He knows how to get information. (Granted, he’d have to torture books to get anything from them, but still. “I will burn your pages unless you tell me where Mary Magdalene is buried!”)

Finally, Some Sound Investing

2007-01-22T12:39:00.000-06:00

I’ve never been a big proponent of investing. Or rather, I’ve never been a big proponent of beating the market. In my actuarial studies, I read numerous research reports about investing. Basically, it’s a crapshoot. If you look at all the money managers in the world, half of them beat the market, about what you would expect. And just because you beat the market one year, it doesn’t mean you will the next. Basically, you just have to get lucky. And last week, I finally did.

I’m a cautious investor. Generally, I like to put all my money in index funds and let the market do what it may. But I had a certain hunger in me. So I decided to be a little risky. And wouldn’t you know it? Last week, my investment almost TRIPLED! Because of the cold weather in California, the cost of oranges has gone through the roof. And I’m the proud owner of a whole bag of them!

I had to laugh when I heard that the price of oranges would be going up 2 to 3 times. Literally days earlier, I bought a bag of 10 oranges. It was an impulse buy, I have to admit it. I thought, “These oranges look tasty. And I think California’s due for some abnormally cold weather. I should buy a bag.” Now they’re sitting in my fridge, just getting more and more expensive with each passing moment. I’m sitting on a gold mine, I tell ya! Or an orange mine, as the case may be. This totally makes up for buying Nortel at $70 in 2000.

Guilty Pleasures

2007-01-18T15:48:00.000-06:00

I’m slightly embarrassed to admit it, but I’m an American Idol fan. The only thing that tempers my embarrassment is that I stop watching the show after the initial tryouts. But to me, there is no funnier show on TV than the first few episodes of American Idol.

I’m a big fan of music. Which is ironic because I have little musical talent of my own. I used to be able to play the saxophone. And if pressured, I think I can play the first few bars of Van Halen’s “Jump” on the piano. But it doesn’t matter that I have little musical talent. The first episodes of American Idol are almost designed to make those of us with little musical talent feel better about ourselves because 90% of the people on the show have literally no musical talent. In fact, I think some of them actually register negative numbers on the Musical Talent Scale. (And that’s to say nothing of how’d they measure on the Personality or Sociability Scale.)

One of the things that annoyed me about last night’s show (which was in Seattle) was that they kicked the whole thing off by playing Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile,” which is one of the best rock and roll songs of all time. Not only is it a great song, but it has the very best guitar playing of any song ever. I will accept no arguments to the contrary. My point? American Idol has absolutely nothing to do with rock and roll. Putting a Jimi Hendrix song (let alone a great one such a “Voodoo Chile”) on before listening to these losers attempt to sing is like playing a clip from Pulp Fiction before a SpongeBob movie.

(Another thing that annoys me is Ryan Seacrest, but I don’t feel like discussing that twit right now.)

What I love about the tryout episodes is that the contestants are bad. Really, really bad. And some of them might be legitimately insane. Over the years, it seems like the producers have made more of an effort to show these losers. (Did you notice that at the end of the show, they say, “Oh, and here are a bunch of people going to Hollywood”?) Personally, I’m glad they are. Watching someone sing a Christina Aguilera song decently is not entertaining. Watching someone butcher a Queen or Journey song? Hi-larious.

At some point last night though, I started feeling bad for these contestants. Not because they’re singing badly on national TV, but because they have no clue just how bad they’re singing. They had one guy on whose last name was something like Zitman. Yep. He was downright creepy. Like cross-the-street-if-you-see-him-walking-towards-you creepy. And he said that his co-workers encouraged him to audition. This poor guy gets humiliated on national TV all because his co-workers told him he was good enough to audition. They played a cruel, sadistic joke for their own amusement and that both saddens and angers me. I mean, why couldn’t I think of it first?

Honestly, I know a fair share of weird people. And I’m not even talking about relatives. Why didn’t I start dropping hints about how great a show American Idol is and how great a singer they are? And hey, wouldn’t they be great on American Idol? They’d certainly have my vote! Hee!

There was another character on the show who I can only describe as Lemur-Boy. You’ve probably seen him in the commercials if you happened to miss the show. If you know what a lemur is, you’ll know exactly who I’m talking about. At one point while he was singing, he put his hand to his head and did a horrible, frightening dance, causing Paula to literally spin around in her chair to avoid laughing in his face. When they mentioned that dance move to him, he revealed that he did it while karaoking and his friends encouraged him to continue doing it. I was a little upset that I don’t have a friend like Lemur-Boy to pull a joke like this on. But I was quite pleased to know that there are people out there like me who relish in mocking other people. Now, if only I can figure out a way to do it on national TV.

Mixed Messages

2007-01-18T12:31:00.000-06:00

As you may know, I’ve been training for a triathlon in August. My intermediate goal is to get down in the 180’s by March. Well, March is but six weeks away and I’m not getting any closer to that goal than I was a month ago.

My regimen has basically been to do some weightlifting in the morning and then do cardio at night. That’s probably not the smartest regimen when it comes to losing weight. The problem is that I’m losing fat but gaining muscle. (I have to work hard to convince The Wife that yes, in fact, I am gaining muscle. It’s just hidden under a lot of fat.) And since muscle weighs more than fat, adding a little muscle more than offsets losing a little fat.

After a month or so of working out, my weight has dropped about 5 pounds to 195. It’ll go up or down by a pound or two, but that’s generally where it hovers. That’s not exactly a great motivator to get out of bed at 5:00 every morning to go to the gym. On the other hand, my pants are all getting a little looser, and that is great a motivator. (Of course, I can’t completely dismiss the possibility that The Wife is playing a practical joke and letting out all the waists of my pants. Given her sewing skills, I’m about 99% sure she’s not doing it. But she is a prankster, so you never know.)

Today I’m wearing my “fat” pants, which I bought a few months ago when I realized that trying to fit into 34’s just wasn’t going to work. And now? The 36’s are a bit too baggy. And my 34’s have gone from “shouldn’t be worn in public” status to “fitting appropriately” status. And I’m embarrassed to say that I’m proud of that.

I guess my training is working. I’m getting in better shape, even if the scale (and The Wife) doesn’t agree. So then the plan now is to focus more on cardio and less on weights so that I can get a little more satisfaction out of the scale every morning. And that presents a bit of a problem.

The biggest problem with this new approach is that it’s the New Year. This is the time of year that everyone regrets eating cookies over the holidays. So they make New Year’s resolutions to work out every morning. They go to the gym and hog up all the cardio equipment (no pun intended). Since I was lifting weights, this didn’t bother me at all. But if I start doing cardio in the morning too, then I’ve got a problem on my hands.

Fortunately, the problem won’t last long. Things should start dying down by the end of the month when people realize that they’d rather be fat and happy than thin and tired. That’s not a knock. I feel the same way. I just don’t want to have to buy a whole new set of fat pants.

Another One Bites the Dust

2007-01-17T15:30:00.000-06:00

In the second day of the 24 season premiere, another CTU agent was killed. By Jack Bauer, of course. I, for one, was not upset. Agent Curtis Manning was shot by Jack because he wanted to kill a known terrorist (Assad) who was just given a pardon by the President. A few years earlier, Assad had beheaded some of Manning’s fellow army men in Iraq. Manning couldn’t handle letting him go, so Jack had to put him down with a gun shot to the neck. Great aim by Jack despite spending the previous 2 years being tortured in a Chinese prison.

I wonder what I could do after 2 years of doing nothing. (Ignore being tortured, because I wouldn’t survive torture. I’d confess to kidnapping the Lindberg baby.) I’m pretty sure I could walk. I would probably be able to throw a ball around. Of course, that assumes that I have moderate talent at it right now. I doubt I’d be able to jump right back into my video games. And I’m sure it would take me awhile to remember how to type, let alone how to write macros in Excel. Would I be able to fire a gun into a man’s neck at 20 yards? I’m guessing no.

Manning’s death made me realize something about CTU. Maybe it’s because I’m an actuary who works on pension plans, but it seems to me like CTU is saving a FORTUNE on their retirement plan because nobody actually makes it to retirement. Let’s look at some of the CTU characters over the years:

Jack – still alive, but only barely.
Nina – traitor, Jack killed her
Michelle – killed by a car bomb
Tony Almeida – killed by a former CTU agent, played by Robocop himself, Peter Weller
Peter Weller’s character – killed by Jack just because
Edgar – killed by nerve gas (along with 80% of the CTU office last year)
Rudy (Sean Astin’s character) – killed by nerve gas (but to save everyone else’s life)
Ryan Chappelle – shot in the head by Jack at the bequest of terrorists
George Mason – killed mostly by a radioactive leak, but effectively by a nuclear bomb
Gael – killed by nerve gas, but in a hotel, not CTU

Chase managed to “retire,” but only after Jack chopped off his arm to save the world. I know that I’m missing some people. I’m certainly not counting any of the “red-shirts” (see Star Trek) who went to (e.g.) pick up Kim but ended up getting killed by terrorists. In fact, one of the few characters to leave CTU without dying (Milo) just returned this year. And you know what that means, right? He’s going to die at some point.

And that gets me back to my original point. With nobody reaching retirement, why do people work at CTU? It has to have the worst employee survey results ever. Can you even imagine the survey? “Do you feel engaged at work?” “Does your manager support you?” “Have you ever had to defuse a nuclear bomb?” I could just imagine the HR company trying to summarize the results. “Bill, we’re missing about 25% of the surveys and it’s my understanding that those people are all dead now. We’re going to make all their answers ‘undecided.’”

Besides Manning dying, there was quite a bit of action last night. They blew up a nuclear bomb, which means that Jack wasn’t able to “save the day.” I heard some people at work talk about how this is the first time (a) that a nuclear bomb went off on TV and (b) that Jack didn’t save the day.

They’re wrong on both parts. In the second season, George Mason (dying of radiation poisoning) flew a plane loaded with a nuclear bomb into the desert so it could explode without major loss of life. And last year, there were a few instances of nerve gas being released throughout the city.

This year, we’re faced with the prospect of the terrorists exploding 4 more nuclear bombs in L.A., which I suppose is a bad thing in principal. In reality, losing L.A. wouldn’t be so bad, except that we wouldn’t be able to watch 24 any more. Now, there’s a conundrum.

Anyway, after watching all 4 hours of 24 over the past couple of days, I have one lingering question: what’s up with the Chinese? When Jack was handed back over to the Americans in the first hour, the Head Chinese Dude said that the President paid a steep price for getting Jack back. What did he pay? I assume that’s foreshadowing and not a red herring. And will the Chinese be pissed that the terrorists didn’t kill Jack? I hope they try to kidnap him again at the end of the season so they can finish him off. I want to see Jack go Kung Fu on those commie bastards!

Me So Tired

2007-01-15T22:19:00.000-06:00

For some reason, I haven't been sleeping well lately. The optimist in me would like to say that it has something to do with me working out again. The theory is that since I've lost weight and stopped eating as poorly and drinking so much, that maybe my body was responding by needing less sleep. Well, that certainly can't be true because I'm tired as all hell.

(By the way, I think the reason that I'm so tired is because of this party I went to on Saturday. It was extremely smoky and I'm never around smoke anymore. So it irritated my nose. Which caused me to snore at night. Which is waking me up. And keeping me up at night. Yet another example of how much my life sucks right now. I've zoomed right past "adult," right past "parent" and become "my parents." So help me, if I start listening to old episodes of "The Shadow" on AM radio on Sunday nights, I'll shoot myself. And, no, I didn't make that up. Yes, trips back from Wisconsin with my dad driving were GREAT.)

And so it's 10:20 at night. My intentions were to go to sleep at 9:00, after another 2-hour 24. (By the way, another great episode. More on that tomorrow.) I was supposed to send out an email by the end of the day. I was waiting to hear from some people from work whether it was okay or not. So at 9:00, I logged onto my laptop and discovered that someone suggested some edits. Fine, I'd make the changes and then send it out. But before I knew it, I was in an online chat about the email.

So now it's 10:25 and I'm still waiting for the final sign-off. And this is when I realized that having a mobile workforce isn't necessarily a good thing. When I agreed to work at Geeks, Inc., I asked whether I would be given a laptop. They said "yes," which I liked because I could work at home. Now I'm coming to regret that I asked. And all because I'm tired. That's why the digital age is sometimes a double-edged sword. Yes, it allows you the freedom to work from home and spend more time with your family. But, the ability to work from home means that there's an expectation that you'll be readily accessible. Which of course means less time with the family. The good news is that I think it's only going to get better as technology improves.

Jack is Back

2007-01-15T13:59:00.000-06:00

Last night was the season premiere of 24. As I wrote last week, I was really looking forward to it. The Wife? Not so much. It’s not that she doesn’t like 24, which she doesn’t. Rather, she doesn’t like that it turns me into a useless shush-ing machine. (“Luke just lit the dog on fire.” “SHHHH! At the commercial!”)

And so 24 picks up 2 years after last season ended. Jack has been in a Chinese prison the whole time, being tortured. I’m a little surprised that we haven’t heard anything from a Chinese spokesman saying that they don’t torture people, let alone rogue agents of fictitious government agencies. I’m guessing we’ll hear something later this week. It is Martin Luther King Day, after all, and even the Chinese have the day off work.

Jack is a little worse for wear. He has scars all over his body from the torture, including a rather crusty-looking hand. I can understand giving him scars on his back, but why did the producers put them on his hand too? All I could think is that Keifer is going to have to sit through an extra 30 minutes of make-up every day just to make it look like his hand was scarred. That seems unnecessary. Of course, they could just go the Star Wars route like they did with Luke Skywalker and just give him a glove to wear. But Jack isn’t that much of a wimp. (Furthermore, I don’t think Jack would have put up with any of those Ewoks. He would have just shot them all because they weren’t being “cooperative.”)

It was interesting to see them develop Jack’s character. If there was one thing Jack was always good at, it was torturing people. But now after being tortured himself for 2 years, he’s lost his edge. I wonder if there’s a connection there. What I’m really looking forward to is episode 6 (or so) when Jack forgets he was ever tortured and goes back to being Jack. It happened in Season 2 when Jack managed to kick heroin in about 6-8 hours. It can happen again.

A lot of familiar faces show up this time around, with Wayne Palmer taking over the role of President. The Wife caught a few minutes of 24 and saw Wayne as President. “Another black President?” “It’s actually the brother of the first one.” (Cue eye roll.) Yeah, like this country would ever elect someone for President based solely on the fact that someone in his family was President before. Really, if you’re going to roll your eyes, it should be at the fact that the people of the U.S. just elected a man with no political history as President. Really, the closest he came to politics was when he nailed the wife of a prominent Senator. And he got elected despite being at the scene of the crime when said mistress killed (a) the former First Lady and then (b) herself? Okay. Whatever.

Anyway, Jack is back doing what Jack does best. Like killing people in creative ways (by biting someone’s neck), tossing off great lines (like “we have no other choice!”), and disregarding the orders of his superiors but eventually being proven right. Of course, since his superiors basically just sent him to his death, does he really have to listen to them? What are they going to do, kill him? Really, what he should be afraid of is that they would send him back to China to be tortured. And since none of the physical torture worked, they should just make him watch a Bears game. After seeing Devin Hester fumble his third punt return, I would have told the Chinese that I was the gunman on the grassy knoll.

Whoa Nelly!

2007-01-13T23:02:00.000-06:00

Tonight The Wife forced me to go out and play with my friends. She realized (more than I did) that I hadn't really been hanging out with my friends much lately. I shouldn't say that I didn't realize it. It's more that when the weekend comes around, I'm just tired and I want to sit around doing nothing. But as it turned out, one of my friends knew somebody that was having a party tonight. It was a "guy" night, revolving around the two NFL playoff games tonight. And I had the best time I've had in a very long while.

In case you don't know, I'm very sarcastic. But it's more than just that. I like to fuck with people. And, really, there's no better way to put it. Generally, my targets have always been naive women. (Sadly, I turned my ability to spot naive women into having sex with them. Instead, I've made them hate me with every fiber of their being. And you wonder why I had to resort to the internet to find The Wife.) But tonight was different. I found a guy who was WAY too into football. And I realized that he'd be great to fuck with.

Dick (as I choose to call him, for obvious reasons) wasn't hard to spot. We were sitting around watching the football game and Dick came in, telling his friend about how his girlfriend's mother was hitting on him, rubbing his thigh. The story was lame, but what made it worse was that Dick told it IN FRONT OF THE TV. Thanks, asshole. When Dick's story was over, he took a seat. Dick's also a guy who clearly works out, and likes everyone to know it. And he also had his baseball hat turned to the side, which automatically annoys me. This guy just screamed that he was a jock who was way too cool for school, so to speak. At one point, someone made a comment about football and Dick belittled him, feeling the need to show how he knew more about footbal than the rest of us. And all I could think was "bullseye."

I forget exactly how it started, but somebody brought up Brett Favre. I hate Brett Favre. With a passion. I refuse to admit that he's one of the best quarterback's that ever played, solely because he spent most of his years with the Packers. So of course, I said that Brett Favre wouldn't be so good if it weren't for all the pain pills he was popping back in the day (which is a valid argument). So Dick told me that I didn't know what the hell I was talking about, that I didn't know football. Part of me got angry. But part of me realized this guy was a tool, a tool that needed to be put in his place.

So I looked at him and said in a very belligerent and stone-faced way that Brett Favre wasn't half the quarterback that Bernie Kosar was. Now, if you know anything about Bernie Kosar, it's that he was NOT a great quarterback. He's best known for being a very immobile quarterback for the Cleveland Browns who might have cost them the chance at going to the Super Bowl. He was beloved in Cleveland (as I understand it), but everyone else thought he was a bit of a loser. He did win a national championship with Miami (the University, not the Dolphins) though. And so my argument was that Bernie Kosar was a better quarterback than Brett Favre because he won a national championship and Brett Favre didn't. Dick was apoplectic.

He kept yelling at me that I didn't know football, that I was an idiot. I couldn't argue against the idiot claim (since that's exactly what I was aiming for). So instead, I kept insisting that Bernie Kosar was better than Brett Favre. I pulled out statistics like the "fact" that Bernie Kosar had a better winning percentage. I don't know if it's actually true (because I made it up), but it doesn't matter. I was just trying to push Dick's buttons. And it worked like a charm. Dick ended up in an argument with someone who was arguing complete nonsense, but he couldn't resist pointing out that I was wrong. And that just made me argue more blatantly wrong points with false statistics. If Dick would have just shut up and ignored me, the whole thing would have blown over. But instead, he had to prove that he knew more about football than everyone else. And so he had to argue with the biggest "moron" at the party. And that's what I love about people like Dick. By arguing with people like me, instead of showing how "knowledgable" they are, they show what assholes they are.

What made the whole argument better was that I was surrounded by my friends, who all knew the shenanigans I was pulling. They were laughing their asses off, which made it very difficult (in fact impossible) for me to keep a straight face. And so after about 5 minutes of me trying to convince him that Bernie Kosar would have led the Packers to more Super Bowl wins that Brett Favre, Dick realized that I was just fucking with him. It probably didn't help that I was now trying to convince him that Billy Joe Hobert was better than Favre. Still, those 5 minutes of antagonizing this Dick made the whole night wonderful.

Giddy Doesn’t Even BEGIN to Describe It

2007-01-12T15:56:00.000-06:00

I’m so excited right now, I can hardly even explain it. No, not because it’s 3:45 on a Friday afternoon. And not because I’ve actually run out of work after an extremely hectic week. And not because The Wife and I are planning on going out on a date tonight (a seemingly rare occurrence for us). Nope, I’m excited because 24 is FINALLY coming back to TV.

24 might be my favorite show on TV right now. Given that I’ve cut my TV watching down to about 5 hours a week, this isn’t saying much. Quite simply, it’s the one show that I feel I have to watch LIVE, not on TiVo. There’s two reasons why. One is that our TiVo sucks (actually it’s a Comcast DVR and I hate Comcast), and it frequently doesn’t stop fast-forwarding when you tell it to. Sometimes this goes on for minutes. And I would HATE to accidentally see a crucial scene before I see it in its appropriate context.

The second reason is that, honestly, I need the commercial breaks so that I have a minute to breathe. 24 is the most fast-paced, amazing show I’ve ever seen. At virtually every commercial, you’re left gasping, in shock at what just happened. You need to take a couple minutes off to calm down again and get ready for the next part of the show.

Anyway, I’ve been really sucking at keeping up on my TV shows this fall. I’m going to make every effort to comment on 24 every week. If you’re a fan of the show, then you have a place to turn every Tuesday (or so) to see what I think. If not, then you have yet another reason to not read my blog.

Insane in the Membrane, Insane in the Brain

2007-01-11T16:53:00.000-06:00

One of the reasons I haven’t been writing much lately is that I’ve been wicked busy here at work. (Yes, I resurrected “wicked” from my old Boston days.) But it’s not really a bad thing. In fact, The Wife pointed out (much to my surprise) that I haven’t complained about my job at all. I haven’t even complaining about working late. It’s really rather amazing.

I do have one complaint though. And this isn’t even one of those fake complaints I wrote about a month or so ago. Though I think I did include it then. It’s since gone from a fake complaint to a legitimate “bring a gun to work” complaints.

I work in a cube. It’s not a glorious cube, but by cube standards it isn’t bad. Our cubes are generally arranged in packs of six with three on either side of a central aisle. (I’m in the middle of my six-pack, but I have a printer behind me. So it’s almost like I have a window cube, only without the view. And really, who wants a view of downtown Chicago from the 26th floor? Sigh.)

Anyway, the issue I have is with the person who resides in the six-pack next to us. Let’s call her Cunty McBitchenstein. We share a wall, but it’s one of those “big” cubicle walls, so I don’t actually see her. Instead, I get to hear her. A lot of her. Incessant her.

Cunty likes to talk on the phone. And it’s not just that she talks on the phone, it’s that she does it a lot. And it wouldn’t be so bad if she talked to one person, but she talks to several different people. And she tells the same story over and over and OVER.

When I told The Wife about this, she reminded me of a girl we affectionately called K-Bomb. Katie dated my then-roommate. Katie was also, um, “different.” She said a lot of odd things that you made you just stop what you were doing and look at her, like you don’t understand what just came out of her mouth. Imagine being at a zoo, walking past the monkey cage and getting hit by some feces. You stop. You look at the monkey. You think, “Did you really just hit me with your shit?” Then you think, “Do I get upset at the monkey? Or do I just ignore it.” And that’s how you felt with Katie. Her bombs (thus, the nickname K-Bomb) made you think, “Do I get upset with her or just ignore her.”

That brings us to Thanksgiving of (I think) 2002. I was dating The Wife. We spent the night out at her place in the suburbs because we’d be Thanksgiving-ing (it’s a word) not too far away. Sadly, this caused me to miss one of the funniest moments that ever happened in the apartment. Fortunately, Scott and his girlfriend (now wife), Cathy, were there to document the event.

It was mid-morning and everyone was still in bed after a night of getting sauced. K-Bomb got a call from home (Atlanta). Now, K-Bomb never really had what my mom calls an “inside voice.” And when she got on the phone, she turned her internal volume dial up to 11. So, there was no problem hearing her throughout the tiny apartment. And the conversation that ensued would enter apartment lore.

The first person K-Bomb talked to must have asked her what she had for breakfast. K-Bomb responded that they had “pancakes and some French toast.” Her relative then passed the phone and for some reason, THAT person asked what she had for breakfast. So K-Bomb repeated herself and said, “pancakes and some French toast.”

But now K-Bomb was getting emotional. I don’t know if she missed her family or the pancakes and French toast. But with each person she talked to, she got progressively worse. And so you would hear K-Bomb cry and say how much she missed the people at home. And then you would hear (through tears) “pancakes and some French toast.”

(That always made me wonder what it was like being the relative on the other end. Was it weird hearing K-Bomb cry? Did you run out of things to talk about? Is that why everyone asked about her breakfast? Was that their universal signal for “I’m passing the phone?”)

Anyway, listening to Cunty here at work is much like listening to K-Bomb because she repeats her stories SO much. And that’s why I know that Rob (her husband) just flew down to Memphis to pick up a 1986 BMW that he then drove back and now he’s going to fix it up and sell it and make a profit on it, and I don’t know, I don’t ask questions, because this is what he really wanted to do.

And I also know that they just bought a 1999 BMW and Rob did all his research and it’s a stick-shift, which I didn’t want, but Rob really did because it’s sportier and I don’t really know the difference, but apparently the stick-shifts are harder to find so Rob really had to search to find it and he really likes it, which is all that matters.

And I also know that they’re going to Nashville this weekend for Rob’s dad’s 83rd birthday, and I don’t know that I want to go, but they’re a nice family and I enjoy spending time with them but there’s a lot going on in town that I’d like to be here for, but it’s Rob’s family, so we have to go.

And I also know that her friend is dating someone who’s terrible for her because he doesn’t call her when he comes to town and if he doesn’t have the courtesy to make a phone call, how can he be worth dating, and no you should NOT go out with him if he calls right before he leaves town after he’s been here for a week because you deserve BETTER than him, but hey it’s your life and I don’t want to tell you what to do because I hate to pry.

All day long I hear this. It’s slowly driving me insane. And so a month ago and a few blocks away, when a man came into an office and starting shooting people, I thought, “He must be on the other end of Cunty’s phone calls.”

Raindrops Keep Falling on These Jerks

2007-01-05T08:11:00.000-06:00

If there’s one invariable truism about people in Chicago, it’s that when it’s raining, people slow the hell down. And I can’t for the life of me imagine why.

Today, I left work and it was raining pretty hard. I’m going to gloss over the how weird it is that it’s raining in early January for now. The first problem is that everyone is huddled outside the revolving doors, under the canopy avoiding the rain. I have no problem with people trying to avoid the rain. But they need to do us all a favor and get the hell out of the way of people coming out of the revolving doors. My favorites, though, are the people who stop RIGHT AFTER they get out of the door. It’s almost as if they forgot that the door continues to revolve after they stepped out of it.

Once I get into the rain, I keep running (literally, practically) into morons who insist on walking slow. Part of it is a physical problem. People are carrying umbrellas, so they can’t walk as close to each other. And since people are spread out more, it takes longer to get places. That’s the theory, anyway. But I left work late today. There were significantly less people on the sidewalks. And yet people are STILL walking slow.

The only answer I can think of is that they believe the urban legend that if you walk through the rain, you’ll get less wet than if you run. First of all, Mythbusters proved that it’s not true. Regardless of whether or not it’s true, the key concern is that the faster you walk, the less TIME you’re in the rain. And that’s my main concern. It’s 40 degrees out and it’s pouring rain. Get me the hell INSIDE and QUICKLY. Jerks. The whole lot of them.

Holiday Cheer

2007-01-04T14:00:00.000-06:00

Well, the holidays are officially over, and not a moment too soon. A lot of the people I work with travel over the holidays. The Wife and I are “fortunate” in that most of our family lives right here in Chicago, so we don’t have to travel anywhere. Unless you count about 10 different houses in 3 days.

And that’s the problem with the holidays for us. We have so many people nearby that we want to see, that it’s very difficult to make it happen. And now that we have Luke, it’s even more difficult. If he’s in a bad mood, it can be a pain in the butt to change venues. If he’s in a good mood, you don’t WANT to change venues because it might put him in a bad mood. Ah yes, kids are GREAT.

But apart from the parties, the most stressful part of the holidays for me was work. Usually, things are dead at the end of the year because everyone’s on vacation. In fact, I look forward to coming into the office on those days because it’s quiet enough that I can get work done.

So I came into the office on December 26 and I think there were about 10 other people (out of about 150) here with me. It was SO quiet that I had to go home early. It was downright creepy. Especially since I’m someone that always needs background noise. That’s why I usually have the radio and/or TV on all the time. It completely drives The Wife nuts when she comes into the office to find me sitting at the computer playing a video game, listening to music and watching a football game all at once. (To be honest, I think any one of those things would drive her nuts, but doing all three together gets her downright homicidal.)

The week between Xmas and New Year’s was absolutely nuts for me at work. And the reason was unfortunately the same reason I like to work that week: because everyone was out of the office. We had a couple of projects that were due at the end of the year, but since there was nobody else to work on them, I did them. Although I guess I’d rather be wicked busy than bored silly.

I wish I could say that things have slowed down since the New Year, but that would be a lie. In fact, now that everyone has returned, things have gotten crazier because now they’re digging their noses into what I just did. And these people with their questions! Can’t they just do us all a favor and I assume I’m right about everything? There’s no need to check my results. Who cares if we get sued for millions of dollars? Quit bugging me!

Training Update

2006-12-21T09:06:00.000-06:00

194. That’s what my weight was this morning. That’s a loss of six pounds already. Of course, that’s assuming that my starting weight was 200 pounds, which might be a bit high. However, I figured that I might as well round my weight to a nice even number. This does two things. First, it makes weight loss calculations easier. Second, it makes weight loss calculations more impressive. Honestly, would you be more impressed if I said I lost 6 pounds or 1.7 pounds? My point exactly.

I was thinking about listing my starting weight as 250 or 300 pounds. After all, if I’m fibbing on my starting weight, why not make it a fantastic fib? If you think losing 6 pounds is impressive, how about 106? Then I started getting worried. What if the weight loss goes well? What if I do well in the triathlon? What if I get a book deal? What if I write a great book? What if I get on Oprah and talk about it? And then what happens if I’m proved to be a fraud, like James Frey? Frankly, I couldn’t handle being berated by Oprah after she discovered that I lost only 30 pounds instead of 130. And if that whole scenario seems a little unlikely, don’t worry. So does the prospect of me sticking to this workout regimen until the triathlon in August.

So far, things are going great. I’ve been waking up early and going to the gym to lift weights. My body has gotten a little flabby (to put it mildly) and I figured I might as well build up some muscles before I start trying to swim. My rationale being that without muscles, I won’t be able to swim at all. On the other hand, if I lose some of the fat, I won’t be able to float and I just might drown. I don’t suppose the triathlon is going to be in 3 feet of water, is it?

The funny thing about lifting weights now is that I’m doing it a lot differently than I ever did before. I used to lift weights to get stronger, to build muscles. Now I’m trying to lose weight. And I have no desire to be any stronger. Honestly, what am I going to do with bigger muscles? Type on my keyboard harder? So, I’m trying to do aerobic lifting, which basically means low weights and high reps. It’s pretty damn exhausting, to be honest with you. And I feel like such a wimp at the gym. Guys are bench pressing 250 pounds, and I’m doing 95.

At night, I’ve been using our brand new elliptical machine. It’s not the best machine in the world, but that’s okay. It gets my heart rate up, which is my only goal. The problem is that with Luke being a little finicky about going to bed (to put it mildly), it’s hard to find time to work out at night. And if Luke’s not sleeping well at night, it’s hard to convince myself to wake up an hour early to go to the gym. But I’m going to try as hard as I can until March 1, when Evangeline is due. I figure that’s really going to put a damper in my workout schedule, and it’ll probably ultimately be what derails my triathlon plans. And yes, I plan to hold it over her head for the rest of her life. That’s one of the few benefits of being a parent.

Constance on the Make

2006-12-20T16:58:00.000-06:00

There’s this woman here at work that I’m going to call Constance. I’m assigning her a name because, honestly, I don’t know what her actual name is. But I choose that particular name because she speaks likes she’s an uptight, “sophisticated” broad that comes from money. In fact, she sounds exactly like Constance Fry from Trading Places. In case you don’t remember Constance Fry (and how could you not?), she’s one Dan Akroyd’s rich friends at the tennis club, and she uttered the immortal line “and she stepped on the ball.”

(“Constance Fry
Constance Fry
Any time at all
Constance will fill all your needs
Summer, spring or fall”)

Anyway, so Constance here at work is always impeccably dressed. Probably a little over-dressed. But she’s clearly not a woman who shops at Wal-Mart. And so I was a little surprised today when I saw her with a bandana tied around her head. She looked like a cancer patient. Or Hulk Hogan once he started going bald. Or like she was about to get on her Harley. Of course, her bandana was actually a very ornate (and expensive, no doubt) scarf. Still, it looked rather out of character.

Sleeping is Underrated

2006-12-20T15:08:00.000-06:00

It looks like the due date for Evangeline (nee C2) has been moved up. Apparently, Evangeline is growing like Luke did. Since The Wife just about exploded delivering Luke (who weighed 9 pounds 8 ounces), they want to avoid killing her this time around. So they’re talking about inducing a week early, on March 1.

I was so unprepared when Luke was born. I really had no idea what to expect besides plenty of sleepless nights. Nobody told me that the sleepless nights would continue for 2 years. Luke is just the worst sleeper in the world. He frequently wakes up in the middle of the night screaming. And when he does, the only thing that consoles him is either (a) sleeping with him in his car bed or (b) having him sleep with us in our bed. Neither solution is ideal because Luke is a bit of a bed hog. It’s hard to believe that about someone who’s all of 2.5 feet and 28 pounds.

The problem is that he moves around a lot. And he likes to make sure that you’re there in bed with him without opening his eyes. So, you’ll doze off for a second and then get punched in the face by a tiny fist. Just Luke checking to make sure you didn’t desert him. Or it’s just Luke getting even for not letting him eat that shiny quarter two days ago. Man, that kid has an incredible memory. Which I’m sure most non-parents would think is cool. But really, it’s not. He remembers where you put the cookies the day before. He remembers how to get onto the kitchen counter. Hell, he even remembers that you told him NOT to get on the counters. (He just doesn’t CARE.)

Anyway, in one way, I’m a lot more prepared for Evangeline. I’m used to not getting sleep. Of course, knowing children the way I do, I expect Luke and Evangeline to be on completely different sleep schedules. Moreover, I expect Evangeline to start crying at 2:00 a.m. and wake up Luke. That way, while The Wife is feeding Evangeline, I can try to convince Luke that we should be sleeping instead of watching Dora.

(By the way, many big “thanks” go out to Luke’s cousins, who taught him how to slide down the stairs on his belly REALLY fast. Now when Luke doesn’t want to sleep anymore, he heads to the stairs and BAM, he’s down them. In less than a second, you realize that you’re not going back to sleep any time soon.)

In every other way, though, I’m not prepared at all for Evangeline. I’ve forgotten how to deal with babies. I think they’re pretty easy. You just kind of throw them in a corner and they don’t move. That worked great with Luke. You just put him on his play mat and he was fine for hours. The same COULD work for Evangeline. But it won’t because now we have Luke to contend with. He’ll probably be great with her. But he might also decide that she needs to play with his choo choos. Or that the play mat is HIS. We’ve gone from a static environment when Luke was a baby to a rather dynamic one. I don’t know if this is good or not.

What I’m really hoping for, though, is that the baby will tire Luke out. Maybe being woken up a lot in the middle of the night will make him more willing to go to bed. Maybe playing with Evangeline (even while she’s a relatively inanimate object) will tire him out more. Maybe Luke will just go through a growth spurt and sleep 15 hours a day. But more likely, I’ll just have to get used to not getting any sleep.

Christmas Excitement

2006-12-20T08:19:00.000-06:00

I’m not often shocked by things I see in Chicago. I’ve only been working downtown for 6 months, but I’ve seen a lot of weird things. I’ve seen homeless women flash their boobs at me. I’ve seen people get hit by cars. I’ve seen cars get hit by people. I’ve randomly run into friends and enemies alike. (Yes, it’s sad to say, but I really do have enemies. Newman to my Seinfeld, if you will. Or more realistically, Fargas to my Kramer. And if you get THAT reference, you really need to stop watching Seinfeld reruns.) But I was not prepared for what I saw this morning.

I work in a high rise. Getting into our building is a bit of a pain in the butt. We have to use our ID cards to get through a turnstile. Then we have to put our bags through an x-ray machine. Then we have to walk through a metal detector. This presents all sorts of problems that I won’t get into now. Let’s just say it’s not the ideal way to start the morning.

Anyway, after going through security this morning, I turned the corner to head to my elevator. And that’s when I saw her: a harpist. There she was with a huge harp. (Are there small ones? I don’t think they’re called “harps” if they are. Probably “lyres.” Yes, I do too many crosswords.) She was playing Christmas music, which I suppose makes sense. Still, I was shocked.

And that got me thinking. Today is December 20th. (Happy Birthday to my sister, by the way. And about 10 other people I know who all have birthdays within a week of my sister. These people really wanted to be born before Christmas.) Anyway, if Christmas is still 5 days away (3 work days), what can I expect in the lobby of my building tomorrow morning? It’d be a bit lame to have the harpist there again. Might it be a 3-piece orchestra? A barbershop quartet? A full choir? Will it get progressively better each day? Or was today just a one-time only event? Honestly, I’m expecting actors to come in Friday morning to portray a “living” manger. I’d be lying if I said I weren’t extremely excited to be coming to work every day this week.

Actuarial Hesitations

2006-12-14T15:50:00.000-06:00

One of the things I wasn’t looking forward to when I decided to become an actuary again was getting my FSA, which is a Fellowship of the Society of Actuaries. Which basically means that I’m an uber-geek in the eyes of my fellow actuaries. It’s the highest level you can attain. And all I need to do to get it is (a) sit through 10 hours of actuarial seminars and (b) write a research paper on something actuarial. I’m dreading both.

One of the “nice” things that SOA (Society of Actuaries) does is that they let you listen to audio tapes of prior seminars instead of actually attending the seminars. The first problem with this approach is that they give you cassette tapes. I don’t have a cassette tape player. So I had to steal an old walkman from my sister. I’m sure she won’t be missing it any time soon.

The bigger problem with these tapes is that they cover actuarial topics. Even as an actuary, I find them hard to listen to. The problem is that actuaries are dorks. We all know it. We all admit it. Hell, we even kind of LIKE it. But none of us like listening to each other talk. Because, honestly, if we were talented at anything other than math, we wouldn’t be actuaries. And so listening to us talk is about as exciting as watching Paris Hilton doing long division. And that’s when we’re talking about fun things. Combine our public speaking skills with actuarial topics and you’ve got a rather lethal combination

So I’ve been sitting at my desk, listening to these lethal tapes on an old walkman and staring into space. Surprisingly, this does not make the day go by quickly. I’ve started poking myself in the eye with a pencil every 10 minutes just to relieve the monotony. I suppose that the good news is that Geeks, Inc. allows me to listen to these tapes during the day, when I should be working. Of course, the way it actually works is that I only get to listen to the tapes when I’m not busy. So, in other words, my “down” time has now been filled by Actuaries on Tape. By the way, once I’m done with my FSA, I will be selling these tapes on Ebay, mostly as sleep aids.

Goin’ Crazy (oooh… From the Heat)

2006-12-14T09:26:00.000-06:00

Do you know what flamboyant singer penned that song? The answer will be at the bottom. Cuz I know it would ruin your day if I told you now. Anyway, I must be crazy. My sister has convinced me to compete in the Chicago Triathlon in August. Crazier still is that I think I want to do the International version (1.5K swim, 40K bike, and 10K run) as opposed to the Sprint version (approximately half those distances).

For those unfamiliar with me, I’m a short (5’7” on a good day), overweight (pushing 200 pounds) person who hasn’t been involved in too much athletic activity lately. Unless you consider Beer Pong or Baby Wrangling athletic activities. And so in 8 months, I’m hoping to be able to compete in a triathlon. I must be crazy.

Well, yes and no. Shortly before I met The Wife, I was in pretty good shape. I got my weight down to 170 pounds, which is probably my theoretical limit. Oddly enough, that makes me obese, according to the Body Mass Index (BMI). Of course, according to the BMI, so is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not that I look anything like Arnold. (I don’t have a gap in my teeth. Otherwise, it’s pretty close.)

I’m starting to get uncomfortable with my weight. I’ve hit that awkward point where I have to go up in pant size. Nobody likes going up in pant size. The Wife hated doing it when she was PREGNANT! She had a perfectly legitimate reason and she still hated it. It’s a just one of those signs of defeat, when you admit that you’d rather buy a whole new wardrobe to be comfortable than get on the treadmill for 30 minutes a day. (Of course, that doesn’t apply for pregnant women, but you get the point.)

And so I’ve decided that, yes, I will indeed get on that metaphoric (and literal) treadmill. As it so happens, we managed to amass enough Thank You points through our credit card to get an elliptical machine. So I’ve been spending some time at night working out. And I’ve been going back to Bally’s to lift weights in the morning, which has been quite painful. Not so much the weight lifting as the waking up at 5:00 a.m. And apparently, my waking up also triggers the dog to wake up. And she goes absolutely nuts because she realizes she’s been holding her pee for like 7 whole hours. (“Oh my god I have to go I have to go I have to go now!”) She goes flying down the stairs and generally creating a ruckus. According to The Wife, I walk kind of heavy too. So it’s probably not a shocker than when I wake up, Luke wakes up not too long after me. You can imagine how happy this makes The Wife, especially now that she’s 7 months pregnant and has trouble sleeping at night.

Despite working out a lot more right now, I’m still gaining weight. It might have something to do with all the cookies I’ve been eating. (Hey, I’ve been working out. I EARNED those cookies.) My goal, though, is to get down into the 180’s by March, when I’ll start formally training for the Triathlon. I’d like to be around 170 when I actually compete. I’m pretty sure that none of you really care about how much I weigh right now, but I’m hoping that by putting this in my blog, it’ll motivate me to keep on exercising. Though more than likely, I’ll get bored with it sometime next week and just start another crazy vegetarian diet.

(By the way, the singer is David Lee Roth.)

Sleep? What’s That?

2006-12-06T13:13:00.000-06:00

As The Wife has documented quite a bit on her blog, Luke has not been sleeping well lately. Which means that neither The Wife or I have been sleeping well either. (Of course, The Wife also has the joy of being 6-7 months pregnant to deal with.) Naturally, we’ve been trying to find solutions to this problem.

One of the people The Wife talks to mentioned that someone she knows got her PhD at age 22, and she stopped sleeping through the night at 4 months. I hate to seem rude, but I don’t want a kid that smart. Especially if it means less sleep for me. So I’ve decided to take some drastic measures. The first one is alcohol. Sure, I’m going to drink a lot more because I’m at my wit’s end. (Not a long way to go, by the way.) But I’m also going to be giving Luke a little more “Daddy juice” (a.k.a. Jack & Coke). I’ve been told that alcohol kills brain cells. Now I’m going to put it to the test.

In fact, I’m going to be slipping The Wife some booze as well. If Evangeline (nee C2) has the same issues as Luke does now, I think I might go for a drive to the liquor store and never come back. (By the way, if this blog entry seems more disjointed than usual, blame the lack of sleep. Not any inspiration from my 6th grade writings.)

The thing I love about people telling stories about children, though, is that they’re almost always positive. If I say that Luke sleeps 3 hours a night, someone will tell me that Albert Einstein did too. If I say that Luke rubs feces on the wall (not true – yet), then someone will say that Archimedes did the same thing. For once, I’d like to hear the opposite. So when Luke goes to the circus and likes the clowns, I want someone to bring up John Wayne Gacy’s infatuation with them. Or when Luke gives the dog a hug, mention that Hitler loved dogs too.

And so from now on, I think that will be my role in life. No more coddling, no more optimism. I’m going to try to present the worst-case scenario I can think of. Because honestly, I think that’s a lot more fun.

Thanks for the Memories

2006-12-06T09:06:00.000-06:00

As our work on the master bathroom comes to a close, The Wife and I have started working on the basement. That’s our next major project. Our bathroom has taken almost two years and I expect the basement to take about 10. And that’s if I get a sudden burst of inspiration in the next few years. Step one began this weekend: prepping the basement for major work.

Since we moved into this house a couple years ago, the completely unfinished basement became a bit of a storage area for us. There were some rudimentary shelving systems down there, so we utilized them. This worked out great because we didn’t really have anywhere else convenient to store things. Now that I’m almost done with the attic stairs, this is no longer an issue. So our goal this weekend was to (a) buy some new shelving systems and (b) sort through all the shit we’ve thrown in the basement over the last two years.

Part (a) seemed like the easy part. Surprisingly, it wasn’t. The Wife and I are both rather odd when it comes to buying things. We generally have a precise idea of what we want. And when we do, we don’t easily change our minds or compromise. It’s like you want to buy a ’64 red Pontiac Tempest. You’re not going to settle for ’79 Pinto. Well, The Wife and I both knew what we wanted for shelves and we weren’t going to settle. Unfortunately, we both wanted different things. After about 3 minutes of pondering, I realized I didn’t really give a shit what kind of shelves we had. But The Wife and I still couldn’t find what SHE wanted.

Yesterday, after much searching, we found exactly what we wanted at a brand new Loew’s that’s sort of near our house. It’s about 5 miles further away than Home Depot, but it was SO nice inside. I might actually start going there more often. I was able to find exactly what we wanted in about 5 minutes. And the store was significantly less crowded than the Home Depot usually is. I always get conflicting feelings about that. It happens to me a lot at supermarkets. I love the stores that aren’t very crowded. But then I start to wonder if maybe everybody else knows something that I don’t and that’s why they’re not shopping at this supermarket. It makes me very paranoid, actually. But not paranoid enough to start dealing with big crowds. Misanthropy trumps paranoia. (See, misanthropy isn’t all bad.)

The shelves were relatively easy to assemble, and The Wife and I managed to get them all together before Luke woke up from his nap. Then we set about putting things on our brand new shelves. This basically involved a lot of sorting through stuff we’d forgotten about for 2 years. But more importantly, it involved throwing away things we no longer need.

This was oddly satisfying and frustrating at the same time. On the one hand, it was nice to be purging ourselves of unnecessary junk. On the other, it just made me wonder what the hell we were thinking keeping some of this stuff. I actually came across the user manual for my Playstation. No, not the PS2, but the original Playstation. Which came out in 1995. I think I’ve figured out how to use it by now. But for some reason, I felt the need to keep the user manual. I found a receipt for a CD player I bought in 1991 and a tape deck I bought in 1987. You know, in case I need to return them to the electronics stores that no longer exist. (Anybody remember Highland?)

And so I came across a box of stuff that I’d kept in my closet as a kid. It was generally reserved for “important” stuff like report cards and the like. Apparently, it also became a catch-all for things I didn’t know what to do with. And things I should have tossed years ago. (In fact, this might be the first time I actually went through and tossed stuff.)

One of the things I came across was a story I wrote for my 6th grade fiction contest. I read the first page and put it down because it hurt my brain. That, of course, made The Wife want to read it. She almost choked to death trying to read it during dinner. Lesson: mac & cheese and terrible writing do NOT go together.

Here’s the thing about my writing back then. It was terrible. Horrible. But not all that much different than it is now. The one skill I had back then that I have now is that I write like I talk. Fortunately, I’ve learned to talk a little better. (I found it incredibly funny to note that I still overused parenthesis almost 20 years ago.) Anyway, somewhere along the way, I picked up the ability to edit myself. And then in high school, I actually developed a little confidence in my writing, thanks to a couple of great teachers. (Mrs. Larson, our journalism teacher and Mrs., um, Seymour? Creative Lit teacher junior year. Crap, what was her name?)

Anyway, I found one other thing that really amused me. It was someone we compiled in 3rd grade that was “The Great Big Book of Me.” It was 20 or so pages that asked all sorts of questions about us. We probably filled it out throughout the year and then assembled it all towards the end. Great idea. Possibly one of the funniest things I ever read.

I discovered a couple things about my 9 year-old self. One is that I was borderline suicidal. Or at least a little dramatic. In response to what my favorite and least favorite days of the year were, I wrote June 4 and August 29. I deduced that these were the last and first day of school, respectively. In response to how I felt on my least favorite day, I wrote, “Like I wanted to kill myself.”

What makes that really funny is that one of my favorite activities to do at home was home work. And if I had the ability to become invisible, the first thing I would do was my math homework. See, once a dork, always a dork. Of course, I also had a sadistic streak to me. When asked how I felt after getting into a fight, I wrote, “Kind of good.” Yes, I was the kid on the playground who used to walk around and beat kids with his calculator. “I am the evil tyrant Pythagoras. You will bow down before me. And I will compute the hypotenuse of your bow.”

The Wife discovered a similar book that she put together in the 4th grade. Wouldn’t you know it? She liked doing homework too! I wish I could say that I was shocked about this, but honestly, I would have been more shocked if she DIDN’T like doing homework.

I Couldn't Agree More

2006-12-05T12:16:00.000-06:00

Here's a great column in the Chicago Tribune about the origin of Christmas and how religious people have been a little goofy about insisting that Jesus is the "reason for the season." I honestly could not have written a better summary of how I feel about this.

Living in the Future

2006-11-28T15:03:00.000-06:00

One of the things that I have a hard time doing is staying in the present time. I like to day dream and think of how things are going to be in the future. It’s not like I’m a futurist, dreaming of a better society and how we can all get along. I think of simpler things, like how much I’m going to enjoy sleeping.

Right now, Luke is having troubles adapting to his new bed. He’s out of the crib and in a “car” bed. Unfortunately, he keeps waking up in the middle of the night. If one of us goes into his room, he’ll calm down. But if he wakes up again and we’re gone, he gets upset. So it’s a never-ending cycle that we’ve begun to countermand by sleeping with him after the first awakening. My point is that all is really having an effect on my sleeping. And this is BEFORE Evangeline (nee C2) is born. That’s REALLY going to put a damper on my sleeping.

And so when I’m at work on a day like today, after I got maybe 5-6 hours of sleep, I like to think of the not-so-distant future. You see, I remember being a kid and waking up before my parents. I remember going into the living room, turning on the TV, and watching cartoons until they woke up. I also remember being a little older and sleeping until noon (or whenever my parents woke me up).

Those are the days I’m really looking forward to. Of course, right about the time they start being “independent,” they’ll start participating in sports with early morning practices and games. So maybe I’ll never get the sleep I so crave. But at least I can dream. (As long as it’s a daydream because Luke keeps waking me up during the other kind.)

Drunken Escapades

2006-11-21T12:58:00.000-06:00

One of my friends recently started a blog where we share our drunken stories. As you might expect, I will be a frequent contributor. The only problem with this blog is that my friend started it about 5 years too late. Now that I have a child and other "responsibilities," I don't get out to drink as much as I used to. Moreover, now that I live in the suburbs, I can get as drunk as I used to. The days where I could drink 15 beers, crawl in a cab, and pass out on my front step are long over. Now I have to drive after drinking those 15 beers. Not an easy task.

Anyway, check out the blog (and my entry) at Hangover Moon.

The Continuing Misadventures of The Dow

2006-11-21T10:50:00.000-06:00

I have a surprise for you. The Wife and I were working on the master bathroom and we ran into a problem. This problem almost flooded our house.

We’re nearing the final touches on our bathroom. My project for Sunday was to install the new shower controls. This is a really simple project. You take off the old stuff and put on the new stuff. 20 minutes, tops.

Of course, I couldn’t get the old stuff off. It was original to the house, of course. So it hadn’t been taken off for almost 40 years. As you can imagine, it wasn’t quite willing to cooperate with me. (Such is the story of my life, really.) After some serious muscle, I was able to get the shower nob off. (I was putting so much torque on the wrench that I thought I was going to bust the pipes behind the wall. That would have been a complete disaster. As opposed to what happened later.)

When I got the nob off, I looked at the new hardware we bought. It didn’t quite match what we just took off. The problem? We had to go back into the wall (that we already tiled) and replace some plumbing. We didn’t feel like dealing with this just yet, so The Wife told me to just stop for the day so we could think about some solutions. No problem.

I headed downstairs and turned the water back on. I heard something odd in the pipes downstairs and headed back upstairs to find out what it was. That’s when I realized that water was POURING into our bathroom at an alarming rate. Apparently, even though my muscle wasn’t strong enough to get all the components out of the plumbing, 8 tons of water was.

I ran downstairs and shut off the water and then The Wife and I spent about 30 minutes cleaning up the water from all over the bathroom. And I do mean ALL OVER.

One of the bathroom projects that we never really finished (because it was so low on the priority list) was caulking around the toilet. Besides, how much water is really going to get under the toilet? Well, if you flood your bathroom, the answer is “a lot.” And in case you forgot, we already had a problem with water leakage in our bathroom. This resulted in a rather large hole in our living room ceiling when the drywall absorbed all the water, then decided it didn’t want any more and collapsed.

So when I was walking down the stairs on Sunday and got a drip of water on my head, you can understand how worried I was. Fortunately, we caught the flooding in time. Also, the leakage wasn’t nearly as great as the first incident (or the Great Plumbing Debacle as we like to call it). So, we just had minor water damage in our front hall. (When we fixed the ceiling last time, we smartly used water-resistant drywall. Thus, the problem shifted from the living room to the front hall.)

Anyway, it looks like we’re going to get a new shower nob that’s similar to our last one. This isn’t quite the look we wanted, but we really don’t feel like going back into the wall to fix the problem with the plumbing. (Especially given my plumbing skills.) By the way, we do realize that we could fix the plumbing by going through a closet wall, but we don’t feel like doing that either. After all, when we bought the house, there was already a hole there and we patched it. To have to fix it again would be rather annoying. Yeah, have I mentioned how much I’m looking forward to this job being over?

It’s Nice to Be Wanted

2006-11-16T08:42:00.000-06:00

One of the great things about having kids is how much they want to be with you. Sure, this only happens for the first 8 years of their lives, but still. Unfortunately, one of the worst things about having kids is how much they want to be with you.

On Monday, I came home from work and Luke couldn’t be more excited to see me. He ran up to me, insisted on being picked up, and hugged me for about 5 minutes. And not a simple hug that you give your Aunt Mildred. It was a full-on death-hug that OJ gave his lawyers after he was found innocent.

(By the way, he’s coming out with a book now called, “If I Did It.” That one must have been really hard to write. I can just imagine his editor constantly having to insert the words, “If I did it” before every sentence. So, “That bitch got what she deserved” becomes “If I did it, that bitch got what she deserved.” Gotta love OJ. Or else he’ll kill you.)

Anyway, being wanted by your child is a great feeling. Until it happens at 4:30 in the morning, which is did today. At about 3:30, the dog woke me up, whining her head off. Apparently, she had to pee. Which is supremely annoying because she had just peed 5 hours ago. I guess she likes to save some up just in case.

At about 4:30, Luke woke up screaming his head off. For some reason, The Wife was already awake, but she was downstairs watching TV. Given her hearing problems and my proximity to Luke, I went to go calm him down. Usually, this just entails picking him up and putting him back in bed. (He’s out of the crib now, in a car bed. Though sometimes he finds it hard to stay in the bed.)

This morning, the usual tactics didn’t work. And since I had to work, I called The Wife up to take care of Luke. I figured she could pause The Jeffersons for a few seconds while I got some much-needed sleep. Well, it turns out that Luke wanted nothing to do with The Wife. He screamed his head off when I left. After a couple of minutes (when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to sleep through his crying), I returned and he calmed down right away. Apparently, he really wanted ME. Which is touching and all, but not exactly what you want to experience at 4:30 a.m.

Luke didn’t want anything to do with his car bed, but he was amenable to sleeping in our bed. As long as he got to sleep on top of me. So we laid there for awhile as his tears streamed down my chest and his shoulder blocked off my windpipe. Eventually, I rolled him off so he could sleep on his own. That didn’t work. Instead, he tossed and turned and grabbed and kicked. At about 5:15, Luke finally agreed to going back to his bed. I managed to get another 45 minutes of sleep, but I have a feeling that I’m going to break my all-time coffee drinking record today. Yep, it’s feeling like an 8-cupper.

Pronunciation Jerks

2006-11-16T08:29:00.000-06:00

Quick, say the word “often” 5 times to yourself. How do you say it? Do you say “off-en?” Or do you say “off-ten?” Today I was walking from the train to work and I heard a guy behind me say, “off-ten.” Right then, I knew he was a jerk. I don’t need to know anything else about him, but I guarantee you he’s a jerk.

Lost Update

2006-11-14T16:31:00.000-06:00

Last week was the “fall season” finale of Lost. Basically, Lost realized the same thing that 24 did last year. They realized that reruns of the show are pointless because of the serial nature of the series. (Is that redundant?) The only thing more annoying than reruns? Tuning in one week expecting to find your show and finding a very special episode of Prison Break. So, Lost is running almost all of its episodes in a row (just like 24). But Lost decided to whet our whistles by giving us a 6-week “fall season” followed by a 16-week “spring season.” 24 thankfully just runs 24 episodes in a row.

I rather enjoyed this "season," but I don’t think it really accomplished much. In the most recent episode, Kate and Sawyer end up getting it on. It was funny watching that with The Wife. Here’s the scene. Kate escapes from her cage and opens Sawyer’s cage. She tells him to run and he tells her it’s pointless because they’re on an island. She gets upset for not telling her sooner. He says he wanted to give her hope. Then he bones her. The Wife couldn’t believe this would happen. Sawyer was all beat up and they’re in the middle of nowhere. The problem with this train of thought is that The Wife is not a man (at least, not the last time I checked). You see, men don’t care about that. This is why men get in so much trouble. They see a chance to get laid and they take it, damn the consequences.

(Another wonderful part about this season of Lost is that I actually get to watch it with The Wife. When I was in school, I was gone most nights, so we didn’t get to watch much TV together. And now I don’t watch much TV at all, so any chance to sit down and watch a show with her is a plus. It’s weird how much more enjoyable a show can be just by watching it with someone. Unless that show is Law & Order and you’re watching it with my former roommates doing their impersonations of a drunk Jack McCoy. Now THAT is redundant.)

Anyway, it turns out Jack watches Kate and Sawyer get it on thanks to a miraculous escape. (Or was it really miraculous? Maybe Ben purposely let him escape so that Jack would see the lovemaking.) Jack gets upset and agrees to do the spinal surgery on Ben and everyone thinks Jack’s gone crazy.

Well, it turns out that everyone’s right, but not for the reason they thought. Jack purposely injures Ben in such a way that only he can save him. Now he has the upper hand when dealing with the Others. They have to let Kate go (and Sawyer too?) or Ben dies. And that’s pretty much where they ended the “fall season.”

Here’s what we learned. The Others are rather advanced. They have an established village, but they continue to use the Dharma bunkers. I have no idea why though. Maybe they have to because so many crazy things keep on happening on their island.

The Kids Are Alright. Remember how Rousseau (the French lady Sayid sort of befriended) had her child stolen away from her? It turns out that she’s okay. If you consider raiding the Others’ workspace with only a slingshot “okay.” Yes, that “Alex” (who was formerly Malcolm in the Middle’s girlfriend) is Rousseau’s missing daughter. It seems like she was raised by Ben. But where?

I think that’s about all we learned. There are still many, many more questions. First on my mind is why on earth did they kill the woman from Deadwood so soon? I thought for sure she’d be a recurring character. Nope. Shot dead in her second episode. Booo!

Who’s the guy in the eye patch? We haven’t seen him anywhere else. When Sawyer was about to be shot, the guy doing it mentioned some other guys “list.” Perhaps it’s that guy. The one thing that popped out to me, though, was the pirate ship. Remember in season one where they went to go find the dynamite and it was at the Black Rock, which turned out to be a pirate ship in the middle of the island? Well, what if the captain of that ship found another one of the hatches? This is quite a leap and I’m only making it because pirate captains frequently have eye patches. That and they never explained anything related to the Black Rock.

What’s going on with Desmond? Can he really see into the future? Why? And how is this going to benefit them?

What the hell killed Mr. Eko? It looked like a giant fist, which made me think it was literally the Hand of God. Makes sense given that Mr. Eko was a fake priest. I’m sure there’s a Bible quote out there somewhere to explain it. “Yea, thou shall walk on the mysterious island with a rod with God’s word upon it. If thou dost not garner high enough ratings, then the Hand of God shall smote thee. Probably by smacking thee around. Consider thouself warned.”

Why the hell didn’t they discover the Other island? So, the Others are on a different island than the Losties. That’s fine. But each island is viewable from the other island. So why didn’t anyone circumnavigate the Lostie island and discover the Other island? That would have been the FIRST thing I did after I crashed. Hey, what if you’re not on an island after all? What if you’re really on a peninsula or an isthmus? Isn’t that something worth noting? Instead, these people just ASSUME they’re on an island? Eventually, they got a map from Rousseau that showed details of the island. But still, they never double-checked? Morons. It’s like an old-episode of Cheers where the guys go out on a road trip and get stranded in the desert. Norm disappears. When he comes back, they find out that they’re like a mile from a resort. Maybe there’s a Club Med on the island. Go find out!

Who told Jack the door was open? Does that intercom really work and the Others are messing with him? Or is he getting help from an external source? And if so, who is it?

What the hell happened to Desmond’s wife from last season? Remember the last episode of the year when they didn’t push the button in the hatch? It caused a big KABLOOEY. And all of a sudden we flashed to an arctic expedition and they were able to detect it. And it turns out that the person financing the expedition is Desmond’s former wife? (Maybe they never actually married. I can’t remember.) Well, what’s up with that story? Are we going to be hearing from them again this season?

And finally, are we ever going to get an episode without a flashback? Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top?

It Isn’t All Roses

2006-11-14T10:02:00.000-06:00

I’m approaching two months here at Geeks, Inc. And despite the joy I have at being here (especially when I contrast it to my time at LAF), it isn’t all roses around here. I thought I’d go through some of the serious problems I have here.

First of all, there’s the woman who shares a cubicle wall with me. I never really see this woman because we have a 6-foot wall between us. But I hear her. All the time. She’s constantly on the phone, blabbing about TV and movies and whatnot. She just won’t shut up. And she has one of those voices that just gets on your nerves for no good reason.

That said, we’ve sort of formed a bond. It turns out that she’s a fan of Lost, which I like to chat about. So we started talking about that and it turns out that she’s an even bigger fan of 24, which I think is the best show on TV nowadays. So now I have someone to chat with about my dorky TV shows. So, she’s still got an annoying voice and is on the phone way too much, but at least I have an outlet for my Jack Bauer talk.

Another problem? The coffee machine. At LAF, we had these pod-type things that made individual cups of coffee. Even better, I could get French Vanilla, my favorite. Here, all we have is plain old coffee. Can you believe it? What kind of two-bit operation are they running here? Can you believe that I’ve been relegated to drinking unflavored coffee? This is just an untolerable situation.

One of my major complaints here at Geeks, Inc. is that I have to walk by the receptionists every time I have to visit the bathroom. Since I drink a lot of coffee and a lot of water, this happens pretty often. And there’s no way around it. So the receptionists here are way too familiar with my bathroom habits.

And everyone here seems way too nice. It’s annoying. I miss the office politics and the backstabbing at LAF. At least it made the day interesting. No, instead, all I get are people saying, “thank you,” and MEANING IT! People here seem to have built up good relationships without any of the “team-building” events that we had at LAF. You know what that means? No free dinners or happy hours. Who needs them when you’ve already built a good team? And if you think I’m getting a 2-day trip to Lake Geneva, think again!

My manager here is pretty annoying too. She’s always checking in on me to make sure that I have enough work to do and that I’m getting all my training done. She’s even gone so far as to suggest ADDITIONAL training for me. I feel like telling her, “Hey lady, I’ve already got a mother AND a wife! Lay off.” Doesn’t she realize that I’d rather be bored out of my mind surfing the internet than actually doing work and learning stuff? What a bitch! And not only is she checking in on me, but she’s scheduling meetings every single week so that she can be sure we catch up with each other. The nerve!

Yep. This place is a hell-hole alright.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

2006-11-10T15:17:00.000-06:00

Last weekend, The Wife and I headed up to the Pondarosa, our family’s house in Wisconsin. My mother came up with us, which was nice. Although I definitely felt like I was reliving my early childhood with 4 people and a dog loaded into my pick-up truck. (Only when I was a child, it was 5 people (3 kids) and a dog. And one bench seat. My parents were simply crazy.)
It wasn’t a very eventful weekend up there. It seldom is. But this was a particularly uneventful weekend because it was too cold to go swimming and too warm to go sledding. So Saturday night, we were flipping through the channels and came across the movie Airplane, one of my all-time favorite movies. It’s one of the best-written movies and certainly one of the funniest. But I never realized just how scary it was.

In one scene, the pilot becomes incapacitated and the plane starts to dive. Elaine doesn’t know what to do. The ground control tells her to turn on the autopilot. And so she flips a switch and an inflatable pilot (Otto) slowly morphs into being. (By the way, it wasn’t until I was about 20 that I realized that “autopilot” didn’t really work this way.)

As soon as Luke saw Otto, he started screaming. He did NOT like Otto. As soon as Otto left the screen, Luke was happy. And whenever he reappeared, Luke would get upset. This actually became very entertaining for sick, twisted parents like The Wife and I. We began joking about how Luke’s going to be scared of inflatables as he grows up. This could prove to be quite a problem around holiday time since every lawn seemingly HAS to have an inflatable in it. (I’m willing to accept this for Christmas, and maybe even Halloween. But Arbor Day? Do you really need an inflatable tree?)

By the way, my favorite exchange in Airplane (besides the jive-talking) is:
Doctor: How soon can you land this plane?
Pilot: I can’t tell.
Doctor: I’m a doctor, you can tell me anything.
Pilot: Not for another couple hours.
Doctor: You can’t tell me for another couple hours?
Pilot: No, we can’t land for another couple hours.

This is the humor I love the most. Which is why I purposely obfuscate whatever I can. (Think I have a word-a-day calendar?) I think misunderstandings are funny. I realize it’s extremely annoying to other people (just ask The Wife). But I can’t help it. I think I might be a long-lost Marx Brother.

Domestic Violence

2006-11-08T11:30:00.000-06:00

It’s been a crazy week for me work-wise. Lots of projects, lots of deliverables, generally high stress levels. Which has been quite nice, to be honest. Yesterday, I got to go to my first client meeting here at Geeks, Inc. Believe it or not, there’s actually a rather amusing story about that. Fortunately for you, it has little to do with the actual meeting, which was a rather boring one, even by actuarial standards.

I’d been working quite a bit lately on the project, trying to make sure we got everything finalized before the meeting on Tuesday. I wrapped up my project at 5:00 (just in time to send the handouts to production) and then had a few other things to do before I headed home. As is normally the case around here, I was running around like a crazy man trying to accomplish this. Of course, it didn’t help that I got a phone call from The Wife telling me how sick she was and how she’d really appreciate me getting home early to help take care of Luke.

I finally got home around 7:00 and played with Luke for quite some time. He really seems to enjoy it when I come home. Probably because I like to horse around with him. Our new “game” lately has been me saying I’m not going to do something about 5 times and then doing it anyway. For example, I’ll say that I’m not going to tickle him. Then I’ll do it. Then, he’ll ask me to do it again. And I’ll refuse. And so on and so on for hours.

After playing with Luke for awhile, I was pretty tired. It’s amazing how much quicker I tire out than Luke. He runs around ALL DAY. I do it for an hour and I feel like collapsing. So I sat down on the couch to talk to The Wife. Luke ran up next to me and started playing with the Matchbox cars that he had meticulously lined up on the couch. Then he started throwing them on the floor. Then he grabbed one and threw it at me from about 2 feet away. It managed to hit me right in the corner of the eye. Hard.

My initial reaction was to punch Luke right in the nose. It’s almost funny how quickly that feeling came over me. It was almost like I got cold-cocked in a barfight. I don’t know who did it, but I want to kill whoever’s in front of me right now. Amazingly, I managed to stop myself and not kill Luke. I know he didn’t mean to do it, but after years of wrestling (both in high school and with my brothers in non-sanctioned bouts), my reflex isn’t to determine intent. It’s to return the favor. (Note, this had led to way too many instances where I’m horsing around with The Wife and she manages to get hurt. Of course, the bitch had it coming. Kidding! God, she’s going to divorce me and use this as evidence. If only there were a delete key on my computer….)

As I was doubled over in pain, restraining myself from killing Luke, The Wife is patiently explaining to Luke that what he did was “bad.” I’ll say. So we put him in a timeout and he came out of it rather remorseful. Of course, that didn’t change the way my eye felt. And worse, it wouldn’t change the way it looked. Thanks to Luke, my eye was slowing swelling up. I put some ice on it, but it didn’t have much of an effect. And so that’s how I ended up having a very large and noticeable black eye for my very first client meeting at Geeks, Inc. And the worst part is that I’m more embarrassed about who gave it to me than the fact that I had it in the first place.

(Although I must say that I’m pretty stoked that I have a great “just wait” story. Next time someone complains about their kid hurting them, I’ll say, “Just wait until he gives you a black eye before your first-ever client meeting at your new company!” Okay, it’ll have to be a very specific instance for me to say that, but man, will it be worth it!)

Home Work

2006-11-03T16:25:00.000-06:00

Now that I’ve been out of school for six months, I’m finally getting used to the fact that I don’t have any homework to do. All of my weekends have been freed up. My nights can now be spent vegging out in front of the TV or playing video games (and yelling at Luke or The Wife for interrupting one of those activities). Lately, though, I’ve been doing a lot of home work (two words). It’s been amazingly fun and significantly more rewarding that homework.

I’ve had some well-documented mishaps, of course, but I finally feel like The Wife and I are making our house into our Home. After almost two years, we’re nearing the end of our master bathroom redo. We ripped the whole thing out, down to the studs. We suffered significant setbacks (not the least of which were a water leak that led to a hole in our ceiling and a renegade cat that caused me to rip up a newly-laid-down floor). But now we’re literally in the final phases.

Yesterday, we finished tiling the bathroom. We had finished the floor awhile ago and two weeks ago, we put up two walls in the shower. Saturday, we attempted to finish the final wall. It was all going great until I tried to drill a hole into one of the tiles for the shower head. Then the typical goofiness began.

I bought a drill bit that lets you drill a hole into ceramic tile. Then it has an attachment so you can drill a bigger hole. Well, this tool sucks. It took me about an hour and a half to get the first hole done. Not only was it a lot of labor (I was basically laying on the drill to give it enough friction), but the batteries on my drill kept dying. I have two batteries, so I was constantly charging one while I sucked the other dry. After I got the first hole finished, I worked on the bigger hole. After about 30 minutes, the drill bit broke. Great.

Unfortunately, we had to leave for a party. Actually, this is probably a fortunate thing since I would have shot myself if I had stayed. Sunday morning, I went to Home Depot and got another drill bit. While I was looking for grout sealant, I noticed that there was a different drill bit. This one looked a lot more sturdy and useful. I bought it on a whim and tried it out. Wouldn’t you know that after just 5 minutes, I’d finished drilling through the tile? It was one of those wonderful things that would have made me a lot happier if I had more holes to drill. I didn’t. And I have no intention of ever drilling holes in tile. But if you ever need to, let me know. I’ve got a great drill bit with very little wear. It works like a dream.

Graffiti Dog

2006-11-01T08:36:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I wonder what kind of role models The Wife and I are for Luke. We’re both a bit goofy and way too sarcastic for anyone’s good. Our basic philosphies are that we’d rather do something funny now than think about the consequences. This started what I’m sure is going to be a disastrous situation the other day.

Luke got these markers recently. They’re washable, which is great because Luke has a habit of using the markers on more than just paper. Sometimes he colors the carpet, his clothes, the couch or even the dog. One time, Luke was coloring and he was waving the marker around as kids are prone to do. Snow just happened to walk by at that instant and got a blue marker right across her ribs. As you might imagine from her uncreative name, Snow is a mostly white dog. (She’s got some black spots and a brown head. “Slush” would be a better name.) So the blue mark really stood out. And we all thought it was funny.

And so we were sitting in the family room Saturday morning while Luke was coloring. I don’t remember exactly how it started, but before I knew it, all three of us were writing all over Snow. The Wife graffitied “Snow” onto her side. I wrote all over her back, as did Luke. She’s now a multi-colored dog. In fact, I’m thinking of changing her name to Snow and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. Kind of long though. I’ll probably just shorten it to “Snow.” That’s a HUGE improvement over what it is now.

What worries me about this little coloring extravaganza is the lesson we’re teaching Luke. He’s now going to think it’s okay (even funny) to color the dog. I’m guessing that’s something we should discourage. But it IS really funny. Will I find it so funny when he does it to the walls? Or me when I’m asleep? (This is especially worrisome because I know that The Wife won’t say anything to alert me to the fact that I have “Dickhead” scribbled on my forehead. She’ll think it’s too funny.)

The Wife and I certainly have a “different” approach to raising children. Who knows if it’s better or worse than anybody else’s approach? Luke seems to be pretty well-adjusted and happy. He plays well and seems pretty smart. But when he comes home from college with tattoos covering 95% of his body, I think The Wife and will realize that maybe we should have told him it’s not funny to color the dog. The cats, on the other hand….

(RC) Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

2006-10-31T10:45:00.000-06:00

(Editor's note: This entry was written over a period of a week and was not re-read for internal consistency. I don't know why I expect other people to read what I write when I can't do it myself. Anyway, enjoy. Or don't enjoy. I don't care, as long as you're reading it.)

Last Sunday, The Wife and I decided to do something special for Luke. One of the things we realized about Luke is that if he doesn’t get out of the house at some point during the day, he’s a complete pain in the butt. We usually take him to the park or to a playdate. (By “we,” I mean “The Wife. At least 90% of the time, anyway.) So when The Wife found out that there was a Model Train Expo in Rosemont on Sunday, we thought it would be perfect for Luke. Well, it was certainly perfect for him. But not so much for us.

First of all, it turns out that the Expo wasn’t just for Model Trains. It was for all sorts of modeling enthusiasts. This included trains, planes, RC cars, slot racers, boats, etc. Have you ever met anybody who races RC cars for a living? No? Well, you don’t want to. They’re scary people. Not in an ax-wielding sociopath type of scary. More in a quiet cannibalistic sociopath type of way. In other words, less Jason from Friday the 13th and more Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy.

There were a few different kinds of people at the Expo.
- Overweight middle-aged men who still live with their mothers
- Overweight young adults who still live with their mothers
- Overweight young adults who still live with their mothers, but who also have long hair and tattoos because they think this will help them pass as “cool” outside of the Expo (which doesn’t work)
- Cub scout leaders and Cub scouts
- Married people with their young kids (like The Wife and I)
- One fit and attractive couple who clearly got the dates mixed up and thought they were at one of those Wedding Expos

Parts of the Expo were kind of cool. It was interesting to see how elaborate some of these model trains were. It also made me wonder where the hell these people set up these trains when they weren’t at the Expo. There were a couple displays that wouldn’t fit anywhere in our house. Of course, the sheer magnitude of the display (and the incredible detail) just made me wonder what kind of dork spends all his time working on something like this.

Another cool part of the Expo was the race tracks. First, there was a rock-climbing area. Have you ever seen a Jeep or pick-up climb rocks? It’s pretty awesome to see a Jeep climb a six-foot boulder or go down a 60-degree cliff. Now imagine watching a 12-inch RC car do the same thing! Yeah, it’s nowhere near as exciting. But the dude’s who are piloting the RC cars sure think it is. The look of concentration on their faces is only outshined by the look of disappointment when their RC car falls off the “mountain.” Luke, by the way, was thoroughly enthralled by this. He’d yell “Truck!” several times. So, naturally, I would point to them and say something like “aren’t those cool trucks, Luke?” Then some eight-year-old snothead kid said, “Those are cars, not trucks” in the most dickhead way possible. So I punched him in the face and quickly moved on. I love that it’s so easy to figure out which kids are going to be assholes when they grow up.

Besides the rock-climbing area, there was a dirt track for “off-road” RC cars. There was another track for, um, “on-road” RC cars. There was even a slot car race track. Do you remember slot cars? They’re the little race tracks you got when you were 8 and put in your bedroom. Then you played with it for half an hour before you realized that all you were doing is making a car go around in a circle. I got the one where the cars actually CLIMBED the WALL!!!! Gravity-defying cars! What will they think of next? And of course, they had lap timers for the people racing the cars. All I could think of was The Simpsons episode where Otto and Comic Book Store Guy are in the slot car race of their lives. And now that I think about it, those two are a pretty apt representation of who was at the Expo.

Another great thing about the Expo was all the add-on booths. It’s hard to imagine that a whole industry has spawned around RC cars. There were engine makers, battery makers, shock makers. There were also people hawking their plane parts and train parts. It was insane. I would have never in my life guessed that there was enough of demand for RC batteries that someone could actually build a whole business around it. I guess it just goes to show that you should never underestimate the dorkiness of the US consumer.

And of course, there was a gun booth. The Wife and I were trying to figure out why there was a gun booth at the Model Train Expo. Clearly, the guns must be models themselves. There must be all kinds of rules against selling guns at Expos such as these. Then I remembered that the Republicans are in control in Washington. Then I thought more about where we were and it all made sense. Can you think of a better place to sell guns than at a Model Train Expo? If you stand around these dorks long enough, you’re either going to want to shoot them or shoot yourself to end the misery.

Luke’s favorite part of the whole Expo was the Thomas the Tank Engine area. They had all these tracks that you could set up. Then they had a bunch of self-propelled Thomas trains. And so the place was packed with 1-2 year olds watching the trains go around the tracks. The Wife was also heavily involved in the trains, trying to set up very elaborate loops and turns and switches. It was rather amusing watching her play Race the Clock as a train approached her seemingly never-ending track work. It was like the Bugs Bunny (I think it was Bugs Bunny) cartoon where Bugs (or is it Yosemite Sam) has to lay tracks because the train’s right behind him.

While we were in the Thomas area, The Wife figured she’d try to scare the hell out of Luke. Okay, that wasn’t her intention, but that was the end result. We were sitting there and Luke was getting disinterested in the Thomas trains. So I asked him if he wanted to see the boats. Or if he wanted to eat. Or if he wanted to see the cars. Or maybe the trucks. So The Wife grabs Luke, gets in his face and (jokingly, she thought), yelled, “Do you want to see the trains! Huh, do ya do ya?” At which point Luke’s eyes bugged out and he started screaming. Good joke. Yeah, The Wife and I are really going to have a hard time adjusting to kids.

Anyway, after about 2 hours at the Expo, we decided to head home. We were just completely spent. And of course, it’s like a 2-mile winding path back to our car. The elevator that we have to take to get to our car is slow and seemingly always full. We were going to stop for lunch at Jean & Jude’s or White Castle, but we decided to go home instead because then we can eat sooner. So I get on the I-294 and have two options of how to get home. I can stay on I-294 or I can get on I-90. They’re both about the same time, but I-90 drops us off a little closer to home. I reason that it’ll be the faster route, so I go for I-90. And right after I hit the point of no-return, I realize that the on-ramp for I-90 is completely backed up. Oh yeah. They’re working on open road tolling and this particular toll booth is completely f’d up. I had a similar problem just one week earlier. But I forgot, and now I’m stuck in a car with two cranky and tired adults and one very cranky and very tired child. Make that one hungry child too. And of course, we had no very little food for him. We’re smart like that.

And that was our trip to the Train Expo. I don’t think we’ll be making it again any time soon. Luke liked some parts. The Wife and I found some areas interesting. But mostly, it was a bunch of dorks and losers who really need to move out of their mom’s houses. (Although, it was quite refreshing to look down on someone for a change. Maybe we’ll go back next year after all.)

Stupid English

2006-10-30T15:42:00.000-06:00

What's the plural of "sweettooth"? Is it sweetteeth or sweettooths? For example, if I were to say that I have one of the biggest sweetooths in the world, is that grammatically correct? This stuff bothers the shit out of me. I think I'm going to start speaking a more normal language. Like Australian.

In other news, I'm WAY far behind on my blog writing. I'm in the middle of summarizing a trip to a Model Train Expo from last weekend. Plus, there have been plenty of things going on around the house and with Luke. But I'm so busy at work that I don't have time to write about them. I suppose that's a good thing and something I shouldn't complain about. In fact, one of my friends recently asked me about work and I responded with obscenely positive comments. (Maybe "obscenely" isn't the right word there. But I like using "obscenely." I think more people should.) He naturally assumed that HR had gotten ahold of my email and triggered some sort of auto-respond pro-Geeks Inc. comment.

The truth is even weirder. I like my job. I like the people I work with. And the days seem to zip by. I'm actually thinking at work and I'm what the HR-types like to call "engaged." My point is that if you want me to write more blog entries, you should start telling my bosses here at Geeks Inc. to stop getting me involved in so many cool projects.

Wakey, Wakey Sleepy Head

2006-10-26T21:38:00.000-05:00

A funny thing happened to me today. I’m on the train, doing my Sudoku puzzles. I was tired, so I decided to take a little nap. I woke up about 10-15 minutes later paranoid that I’d missed my stop. (This has happened to me before, which is incredibly annoying.) I recognized some faces on the train and realized that I was okay.

But then I started thinking. I couldn’t remember walking to the train from work. Worse yet, I couldn’t even remember WORKING that day. I know I have memory problems, but this was legitimately scary. It was like a complete blackout. And that’s when I realized that my train was in fact heading INTO the city. The reason I didn’t remember working was that it was 8:00 a.m. I don’t know if there could possibly be a more demoralizing feeling than thinking you’re heading home from a long day of work to find out that you’re actually headed TOWARDS a long day of work.

What Happens When You Assume?

2006-10-25T21:53:00.000-05:00

I had a training session all day today at GeeksInc. It was one of those Hip Hip Hooray sessions where they tell you how great GeeksInc is. It was an incredibly good use of 8 hours.

Anyway. Two women were leading the session. One of the women (who looked a bit like Marg Helgenberger from CSI) introduced herself with a noticeable accent. I don’t want to tell you her actual name, but it was something like Irina Imreallypolishsky. And so naturally, I presumed she was of eastern European descent. But, like with the black woman with the white marriage photo, I was wrong.

Irina was talking about where people were from. That’s when she said, “Clearly I’m not from Chicago. You can obviously tell that I’m from Argentina.” Huh? Oh yeah. She’s a WOMAN. She’s probably married. It’s no doubt her husband’s name. Turns out I was wrong again. (Notice a theme?)

At the very end of the course, someone asked her to spell her name for the evaluation form. That’s when she told us that it’s actually her MAIDEN name. Apparently, her husband (who’s also from Argentina) has a name that’s ever harder to pronounce. I don’t remember what it was, but it had several consonants in it that don’t belong together. Like “czmklrz.” And I think I’m actually being generous. I guess it never occurred to me that eastern Europeans settled in Argentina. And I never would have guessed that they'd end up speaking Spanish. I guess it just goes to show what a boob I am. And that I really need to stop making assumptions about people.

Doggie-cide

2006-10-24T11:30:00.000-05:00

I think it’s time to shoot our dog. Last night, I went to bed (relatively) early. Luke generally hasn’t been sleeping well, waking up a few times at night. I think the problem is that he’s cold because all I have to do is throw a blanket on him and rub his back and he’s asleep again. Lately, we’ve been double-pajamaing (it’s a word, trust me) him. (This is a temporary solution until we get new windows on Sunday. How awesome is that going to be? Unless you live in my house, not too awesome. But for us, it’s pretty sweet.) Anyway, this double-pajama approach has been working pretty well.

Unfortunately, The Wife has quickly replaced Luke as the one who won’t sleep through the night. Of course, this is mostly a result of her being pregnant. I can’t even imagine what it must be like trying to sleep with your belly bloated by about 20 extra pounds. Oh wait, yes I can. So there must be other side effects other than the clearly visible one. Either way, she’s had a rough time sleeping. Which means I’VE had a rough time sleeping.

In fact, I’m really starting to understand why Ricky and Lucy had separate beds on I Love Lucy. I think Lucy had the jimmy legs and Ricky just wanted to get away from her. (They covered this in a Seinfeld episode, right? I’m blatantly ripping that show off, aren’t I?) So, now that Luke stopped waking me up in the middle of the night, The Wife felt obligated to chip in.

Well, last night, I was pleasantly surprised to not be awoken by either Luke OR The Wife. Instead, Snow woke me up. At 4:15, she started whining. Apparently she needed to pee. And she let me know. Over and over again. And since The Wife is partially deaf and pregnant, she either didn’t hear Snow or just didn’t feel like getting out of bed. I can’t say I blame her. If I had a hearing problem, I’d do the same. And if I were pregnant, I’d pretend that the doctors put me on permanent bed rest. Then I’d watch reruns of 90210 all day. This is why I’m not allowed to get pregnant. That, and basic physiology.

So I relented and let Snow out to pee. That started a never-ending battle of I’ll Wake You Up. When I got back to bed, it took me awhile to fall asleep. As soon as I’d get comfortable and start drifting off, The Wife would get fidgety and flop over. That, of course, woke me up. After about 5 minutes of lying still, I’D get fidgety and wake her up. We repeated this cycle for another hour until she got up to surf the net and I got up to head to the gym.

One of the things I anticipated with having children was getting less sleep. I knew that Luke wouldn’t sleep through the night right away. I thought that by 18 months, that would end. We’ve finally solved his problem. Now C2 is causing even more problems before she’s even born. And to top it all off, Snow is making everyone’s sleeping life miserable. And that’s why I think we should shoot her.

(By the way, in case you didn’t notice, yes C2 is going to be a girl. At least we’re 98% sure she’ll be a girl. That means I’m 6 for 6 on picking baby sexes. I should start a business where I predict the sex of babies. Of course, 1 out of every 64 people would think the exact same thing. And my new name for C2 is Evangeline. I don’t know why I like the name, but I do. Perhaps because I like Lost and that’s Kate’s real name (Evangeline Lilly). Or perhaps I just really like the Matthew Sweet song. Either way, The Wife is not a fan, which is why I insist upon calling C2 Evangeline. Yes, our marriage is nothing but bliss.)

Talking Heads (and not the kind with David Byrne)

2006-10-17T21:46:00.000-05:00

Holy Shnikeys! Did you see that Bears game last night? Is it possible for one game to be both the worst and the best Bears game I’ve ever seen? The first two and a half hours were simply painful. The last half hour was a complete turnaround. It was great enough to make me forget the earlier misery. The only comparison I can think of is if you went out drinking with me for 3 hours. You get stuck listening to me babble on and on for 2.5 hours about how cool actuaries are. Then some hot chick (or dude, if that’s your persuasion) walks up, punches me in the nose, and takes you home for a night of fantastic sex.

The Wife and I started watching the game and it was a disaster. (Which makes me think that The Wife is to blame since she was actually watching it. Truth is, she’s to blame because she dressed Luke in his Bears outfit on SUNDAY! How dare she not know that the Bears were playing on Monday night. Unacceptable! So when The Wife went to bed, I woke up Luke and put on his Bears outfit. And they came back and won the game. Coincidence? I think not.)

Anyway, we had a hard time watching the game. And not just because Luke was still awake. No, we had a hard time because we couldn’t follow what was going on. I’m not a huge fan of Monday Night Football. And yesterday, I finally figured out why. It’s because MNF isn’t about football. It’s about entertainment. They’re so worried about diminishing ratings that they’re literally throwing everything at you (duck!), hoping you’ll find something entertaining. But the problem is that it’s all too much. You have three dopes in the booth who can’t help but talk over each other. More importantly, they talk about esoteric things like “momentum” instead of telling us about how Rex Grossman got intercepted because he didn’t check down his receivers.

“The Bears have the momentum back after forcing that field goal try. Interception! Now the Cardinals have the momentum. I hope the momentum of the momentum shifts doesn’t get out of control. Fumble! Momentumble!” Just shoot me.

To make matters worse, for the entire second quarter (or what seemed like it), they had Charles Barkley in the booth. Yes, Charles Barkley. The BASKETBALL player. With absolutely nothing to promote. So what do they talk to him about? How hard it is to get momentum. In basketball. Then they go on to compare basketball and football. “Isn’t there a lot of contact in basketball in the paint?” “Um, not like football.” Hey, morons. It’s two completely different games. Why not bring in an Olympic badminton champion. Or the Iditarod winner. “How hard is it to get the sled dogs to understand the concept of momentum?”

So for an entire quarter of football, we got four morons in the booth talking about everything but what was happening on the field. And that’s when I realized that MNF has completely screwed everything up. And I blame Howard Cosell. When he first started announcing games on MNF, people would tune in to hear what Howard had to say. He was nuts. He was unpredictable. He single-handedly made the games interesting.

But that was 20 years ago. It’s a completely different landscape in football today. We don’t need announcers to entertain us because the game itself is so much more entertaining. (Well, not if you’re watching the Browns visit the Raiders. But for the most part.) And the best games to watch are the ones where the announcers are informing you instead of “entertaining” you. That’s why I enjoy watching Troy Aikman or Moose Johnston. They actually know what they’re talking about. They give you insight into the game. They actually add something to the game. And one of the ways they do it is by shutting the hell up every once in awhile. Football doesn’t have to be a blab fest.

Progressivity

2006-10-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

I like to think of myself as a liberal and progressive person. There’s a black woman who sits near me at work. On the shelf above her computer is a wedding picture. Of two white people. For the first few weeks I worked here, I wracked my brain trying to come up with a reason why this black woman would have a wedding picture of two white people. And this is where my liberalism and progressivism (it’s a word, trust me) comes in.

I start making up stories in my head about how she came to have this picture. I’m thinking that maybe she’s part of a multi-racial family. Or maybe one of her parents re-married and now she has white step-siblings. Or maybe it was her college roommate. Or her best friend growing up. Just because *I* didn’t know any black people growing up (seriously, there were only 4 in my high school), it doesn’t mean that other people don’t. This is America after all. It’s the great melting pot. Black people SHOULD have white friends. In fact, I started mentally applauding this woman, not only for having white friends (or family members), but for having a picture of this white person getting married showing prominently at her desk. Good for her. Good for society. Good for everyone. Good for me.

So today, I found out that this black woman was just borrowing the desk. The real “owner” of the desk was out on maternity leave. She came back today. She’s white. It’s her wedding picture. D’oh.

So Productive

2006-10-16T15:22:00.000-05:00

We had a relatively productive weekend at the old family homestead this weekend. In a rare turn of events, we were both home all weekend. There were no trips to Wisconsin, no bachelor weekends, no trips out of town, no play dates for Luke. Just all three of us at home. (Of course, I went out to play some poker Saturday night, but that doesn’t count. Especially since I only won $2. How on earth do you play for 5 hours and only win $2? God, I suck at poker sometimes. More on that later.)

With all this time together, we had some outrageous fun. First, we all woke up early on Saturday and worked on the house! Okay, maybe that wasn’t a whole lot of fun. I’m talking about the waking up early part, of course. Yeah, Luke refuses to sleep in. Ever. I blame The Wife. (That’s a continuing theme in our relationship. I blame her for everything. In fact, I think she’s the one that sent OJ over the edge years ago. I think she started talking to him about working on the flower beds in our yard. “I’m thinking of cutting down a bush in the bed next to the garage.” “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill somebody!” “Then I’m going to move the violet bulbs to the bed next to the house and....” “AAAAAAH!!!!”)

Where was I? Oh yes, Luke woke up early. I seriously do blame The Wife for this. Mostly because she used to work in a plant and so she was up at ridiculous hours. Since she liked seeing her son in the morning (and who wouldn’t?), she made his schedule such that he was up early. (My schedule actually helped this out a bit, but let’s not talk about that right now.) So now Luke’s been getting up early every day for over a year. It’s ingrained. And I’m not happy about it. Hopefully, we can slowly adjust it so that he doesn’t start waking up until like 10:00. That would be perfect.

Anyway, after Luke woke up and we all putzed around a bit, The Wife and I started tiling our bathroom shower. You might be familiar with stories about our master bathroom remodeling project. We’ve been working on it for approximately 2 years. (No joke. The Wife started demolishing it before Luke was born. He’s nearing 2 years old now.) We’re nearing the end. All we’ve got to do is tile the shower and install the shower doors. (Of course, I’m neglecting the minor details like caulking and painting and whatnot.) So, Saturday morning, The Wife and I tiled one wall of the bathroom. Surprisingly, it went pretty well.

The way I measure success on a project, though, is not how it looks at the end. It’s whether or not The Wife or I (a) got injured or (b) got into a fight. Since neither happened, it was a success. The Wife and I tend to either work GREAT together or want to stab each other. This can be a problem when you’re working with sharp tools. (By the way, if you’re ever reading my obituary and it says that I fell onto a screwdriver while working on a project with The Wife, call the cops. Sure, I’m a clutz, but I also have a penchant for pissing off The Wife.) Anyway, the project went well because we were both so excited about how the shower wall looked. The fact that it didn’t look like backer board (which it has for about 6 months now) was a major plus.

After we worked on the bathroom, I decided to cut the grass. Given the recent weather (and the season), there were about a billion leaves in our front yard. I hate raking. With a passion. This might have something to do with my childhood. Our yard was HUGE. And we had plenty of trees. By my count, I’d say we had about 10 mature, deciduous trees. And so every year, we had to rake our yard and it was enough to drive a boy crazy. To make matters worse, for a long time we had to bag the leaves. I remember one weekend, we filled over 80 garbage bags full of leaves. And believe me, that wasn’t the only weekend we raked that year. Anyway, I raked leaves the first year we were in our new house and I wasn’t a fan. So last year, I used the lawn mower (with bagger) to pick up the leaves. It works much better. I just forgot how long it takes.

Saturday, it took me 2.5 hours to get the whole lawn cut and bagged. (It usually takes about 1.5 hours to cut the whole thing.) It was very long and tedious (kind of like my stories) because I had to stop every 100 feet to empty the bag. The most aggravating part? When I looked up and saw how many leaves were left in our trees. In fact, only one of our trees really lost any leaves. So, I’ve got many more hours of lawn cutting ahead of me. Which is nice. God, I can’t wait until Luke and C2 are old enough to do this.

Despite being totally exhausted, I decided to head into the city to play cards. One of the joys of living in the Chicagoland area is the open toll movement that’s going on now. I use “movement” in the most ironic form possible. You see, the idea is that having to stop every 5 miles to pay a toll is a bad thing. So instead of getting rid of tolls, they decided to reengineer, redesign, and rebuild every highway around Chicago. Fun! The idea is that people with an I-Pass can just zip right through the unmanned toll lanes. Chumps who don’t have an I-Pass have to exit the highway and pay DOUBLE the toll before they can get back on the highway.

So here’s the situation on Saturday night. I’m heading into the city from my distant suburb at 6:45. Traffic is STOPPED about 10 miles away from the toll. It takes me AN HOUR to get to the toll. During the construction phase, they have 2 lanes of traffic going through the I-Pass lane and 1 lane that has to exit to pay the toll manually. Do you have any idea how many people have to pay the toll manually on a Saturday night? Just about everyone. Know why? Cuz the people who go into the city on a Saturday night are suburban kids (high school, college, maybe even a little out of college). And what do suburban kids need an I-Pass for? So, there are about a million cars trying to go through the manual lanes. And that slows everything down. It was just an absolute nightmare. And since I’m bringing the table and poker chips, there’s no poker to be played until I show up and hour-and-a-half late for the game.

After I showed up, we got the game started. There were two kinds of players there that are always interesting to play with: the first-time player and the crazy-game player. I hate playing with first-timers. Not because you have to explain things or because they slow down the game. No, I hate them because they always seem to win. They stay in on hands they should have folded and end up catching a miracle straight to win. Only they don’t even know they have a straight. So then you have to explain to them how they managed to win $10 from you, preferably without strangling him in the process. It’s not easy.

The crazy-game players can be interesting. They always want to play something odd (usually Guts, or some derivation thereof). A lot of times, they want to play a different game every time it comes around to them. If you play long enough, they start getting desperate. “Um, we’re going to play Michigan poker with an Indian Scout and a Blind Cowboy humps his lady.” Which means he’s going to deal out a bunch of cards and make up the rules after he looks at his hand.) I have no problem with crazy-game players. The only problem is when they infect the other players. Soon, you have a whole table of guys trying to one-up each other by playing a game nobody has heard of. So every single game you play that night is completely different from every prior one. Which makes it hard to gamble. Basically, you throw money in the pot and pray. Still, it beats staying home watching CSI: Wichita. Especially if you’re drinking (and I was).

I made it home relatively early on Sunday and The Wife and I resumed tiling our bathroom wall. The second wall went a lot easier than the first, probably because of all the experience we gained the day before. It only took 2 hours to do and it actually looks pretty good. We’re almost becoming experts at this. And that was pretty much it for Sunday. All in all, it was an incredibly active weekend for us. Hopefully we can finish tiling our bathroom next weekend. Then if all goes according to plan, we could be done with it by Luke’s 10th birthday.