The First Album I Really Loved

1. Picked up our season passes to Trafalga, went there and played a round of mini golf and had a blast.
2. The glucose test didn't make my wife sick.
3. Started Arkham Asylum... super fun.

Okay, so let's take a trip down memory lane.  Do you remember the first album you REALLY loved.  I mean, the kind of album that you didn't skip a single song, and you listened to it so many times that friends and family eventually told you that if they heard a particular song again that week they would break the device that made it play?  Well, today's post is about that.

When I was ten, or eleven, or twelve (I'm sure my sister will know and chastise me in the comments) my parents bought me and my sister a boom box for Christmas.  Do you remember boom boxes?  Yeah, good times.  Anyway, my sister was a dancer, so her's was smaller than mine so it was more portable.  Mine was bigger and made more noise because I was a boy.  We had a lesson on the proper care of CD's, because that's what was used at the time, and we were given a disc or two to start with.  I started with one of the Jock Rock series (a conglomeration of songs by various artists that were often played at sporting events), and I think a TLC album... I liked one of their songs, so my parents bought the album.  This was not my first favorite though.  I remember loving that boom box.  My love affair with music had not started yet, so I don't think I loved it because it dispensed music.  Rather, I loved that it was a big person item that was mine.  My uncles owned boom boxes, and now I owned something they owned.

Shortly thereafter Matchbox 20 made it big.  I can hear the groans of you readers, reading this in the future and remembering Matchbox 20.  Yep, they were overplayed, and we all knew every word to 3AM whether we wanted to or not.  Like many of my peers, I loved Matchbox 20, and somehow, I acquired their album, "Yourself, or Someone Like You."  I assume I got it for Christmas or something, but that was my first loved album.  I knew every song by heart.  I often put it in my awesome boom box, played it, put it on repeat, and didn't change anything but the volume for hours.  I don't know why, but Rob Thomas's voice touched my soul, and I loved the music and the way it made me feel.  I also came to like the name of the album.  I still love it.  It was very clever and made sense. The whole album was about insecurity and sadness:  Things you feel, or someone like you feels.  I think it's one of the best album names ever.  You can disagree, but you'll be wrong. :)

There were some lines that just hit me right, like, "It's sittin' by the overcoat, the second shelf, the note she wrote, that I can't bring myself to throw away,"  "What we learn here is love tastes bitter when it's gone,"  and "She's said 'it's cold outside' and she hands me a raincoat.  She's always worried 'bout things like that."  I mean, they had one song NAMED Damn!  Damn!  It was named a cuss word.  What twelve or thirteen year old wouldn't be in love with that?  Somehow the whole album was just edgy enough for me to feel like a rebel listening to it, but not so edgy that my parents wouldn't let me listen to it.  Heck, my mom even liked it a lot.. still does.  Yeah I wrote heck on my blog, what are you gonna do about it?

Now, I didn't like Mad Season (their second album), it didn't have the same feeling.  I also came to love other bands more, and other albums, front to back, more than Yourself or Someone Like You, but that album will always hold a special place in my heart.  It doesn't even have many memories affixed to it, because I was too young.  It just has a feeling affixed to it that I'll never forget.

So, I really do want to know your first loved album.  Go ahead and put yours in the comments.  I'd hate to think I'm alone on this.

Have a nice day.

The Glucose Drink

1.  That my wife carries Baby J and not me.
2.  I have awesome, caring friends who listen to me whine.
3.  I have a class that is challenging me to stop whining.  (It's a 21 day in a row thing, I'll probably blog about it tomorrow or something... let's just say that if I don't stop playing NHL 11 I may never get past day one).

So, the Glucose drink.  For all of you parents this is old news, but to us knew daddies, did you know that women sometimes get Diabetes during pregnancy? It's called Gestational Diabetes.  Yeah, news to me too.  We're pretty sure my wife doesn't have it (what with her having no symptoms and all), but the doctors want to make doubly sure (or just like to torture pregnant women... both are understandable).  I'm totally kidding, torturing pregnant women is not what I'm about, chill out.

This, dear friends, is how they test for it (my mom said they didn't do it when she was pregnant):  First, you can't eat sugar that day... like at all.  They say ANYTHING with sugar in it.  I actually think we may have broken this rule for breakfast, but my wife was dead set on egg sandwich.  So, I fried up an egg and put it on white bread toast (which I'm pretty sure has high levels of sugar, but whatev).  Usually she has oatmeal, but it had sugar, so we had to go a different route this morning.  We also couldn't give her a banana, because fruit has sugar.  I'm not even joking.

So, she has to carry on all day while teaching high school students math without any kind of snack, because all of our snacks consist of candy or fruit... Chips!!! I'm a moron, we had chips... I hope my wife doesn't read this, she could have had a snack.  Oh well.  Regardless, she will be snackless.  For lunch, a frozen burrito.  She must eat her burrito in the first ten minutes of her lunch period (the end of the semester approaches, so she'll probably be eating it with a million kids who want to change their grades).  Then, once burritos are consumed, she must eat NOTHING for an hour.  The nurse was VERY clear on this point.  SO clear that I feel I need to use CAPS to emphasize her CLARITY.  Okay, I'll stop.

After this hour of nothing, preceded by a day of no sugar remember, she needs to drink a drink.  Not just any drink though, it's a pink glucose drink that is supposed to be fruit punch flavor.  Basically, it's a little bottle of high fructose corn syrup.  She can't take her time either, she needs to pound this thing in ten minutes.  Then, when her sensitive tummy has dealt with said drink for an hour EXACTLY (I know I said I was done, but she emphasized this too), she has to go in to be tested.  They said that if they are even a few minutes off, the test is ruined and she must do this again.

Can I just reemphasize the first thing I'm thankful for today? 
1.  That my wife carries Baby J and not me.

Have a nice day.

Losing's Rough

1. D&D went well.
2. My bracket is all kinds of messed up, but it's still fun to watch.
3. Modern medicine.

I covered my wife's eyes last night at the end of the Syracuse and Marquette game, because she didn't like to see the faces of the players and fans who lost.  Before that, we watched Arizona beat Texas, and the camera focused in on a little girl who held up the longhorn hand sign thingy as she gulped air between sobs.  I remember one player on Purdue lie underneath the basket crying, for at least a couple of minuets after the upset by VCU.  And during each one of these, I felt a little pang in my stomach (more so when I had them winning in my bracket), that reminded me of the time when I felt something, probably a little similar to what they felt last night.

Image Credit

Now, let's hurry up and throw out the obvious caveat that I'm sure some of you are already preparing to fill my comments with by saying that everyone is different in their feelings of loss after a sports game, and my level of sports was nowhere near theirs, and I didn't put nearly as much time into it, and my financial future was not resting on the game.  I understand all of this, which is why I said that I felt 'a little similar' to what they felt.

That being said, I'd like to blog today about losing the ice hockey state championship in the year of two thousand and four.

I played ice hockey, starting at when I was about eleven or twelve.  It was expensive, and my dad said he'd pay for it, so long as I didn't have a girlfriend and my grades stayed up (if you had time for a girlfriend, you had time to get a job and pay for hockey, and school was more important than sports).  This stayed the case until I was sixteen, and then I got the girlfriend and you can read about that on my previous blogs.

My parents bought a tumbling mat for my sister, which was eventually put on its side to protect the walls from pucks that I shot at a PVC goal (this did not save the roof, or much of the wall that was not covered by the mat, or the cement floor that I think still has long black marks where pucks were shot.  I spent hours doing that, and never scored in a varsity game.

I played all through high school.  My Freshman year we got to the playoffs, but lost pretty early.  I don't remember getting very close until my senior year.  We were playing Riverton.  They had won it every year that their star player had been there.  This was his senior year.  The way the tournament was set up, was that a team had to lose twice to be out.  In the end, we had gone undefeated and they had lost once (I think the one game their star player had a Junior B game), so they had to beat us twice in a row.  The first game, we were beat pretty handily.  They had a hot goalie, and in the last moment of the game their star shot a slapshot that broke my stick in half (I'm not even joking, it hit between my hands, and at the buzzer I held two ends of my stick).

The next game was different.  Our offense somehow found a way to get it past their goalie, and we as a defense, were able to keep any from going in.  We were up four to nothing going into the third period (the last period).  I need to explain, for all of you who don't follow hockey, four points is a big deal.  It's like in soccer.  Scoring only a couple of goals a game is about average.  Scoring six is a blowout.  I say again, we went into the third being up by four goals.  They got one past us and things started falling apart.  Much of our offense stopped passing.  We had been beating them with our system, not with our talent, and the system fell.  There started to be bickering within our defense, and it fell down.  Everything we had worked so hard at.  Each hour staring at the whiteboard while Coach Spice drew where we were supposed to be, each time we heard Coach Holmes tell us to stay in front of the net, all fell apart.  And Riverton scored five unanswered goals.  Five.  I can't tell you what that's like in basketball terms.  It would probably be something like us being up by like, forty points going into the second half.

I still remember being on the ice.  Their sticks, gloves, and helmets were all strewn across the rink as they hugged and yelled.  We all stayed in uniform, ready to accept that second place trophy.  To be honest, in the moment, they may as well have been giving us dog shit.  Why would we ever want that trophy?  Our captain went and got it.  We stood there and accepted it.  Then we changed out of our equipment, and couldn't figure out what to do next.  This is what we had worked for.  It was our senior year.  We had a bunch of great players.  We had been working on these systems since my Sophomore year.  I remember my buddy and I drove to the school's parking lot, where he tried to teach me to drive a stick, because we simply didn't want to go home.  I relived the last period of that game for months.

Eventually I got over it.  I moved on.  I worked toward other goals and succeeded.  To be honest, I sometimes wonder if losing that game didn't teach me more than winning it ever could have.  But I still feel that pang in my stomach when I think about it.  There is still that feeling of regret.  There are still the what if's.  What if I hadn't tried to do Ballroom too?  What if I spent more time practicing?  What if I had spent more time lifting?  What if?  But, it all comes down to one moment, and I had my allotted time, and did with it what I saw fit.  And I really don't think I'd change any of it.  Maybe regret is the wrong word. I still feel that loss.  But I don't think I'd change the person that I am so that I could relive the glory days of high school.  I live the glory days of now, every single day, and maybe that loss is what has kept me going.

So I guess this one goes out the the men of Purdue, Syracuse, and any other team that's lost in the tourney, those who will, and all that have or will lose something similar.  It hurts, and it always will, but it's you who decides where you'll go afterward.

Have a nice day.

A Couple of Women I Saw at School

1. My parents are letting me use their card table for D&D tomorrow to see if the extra space helps.
2. My wife wrote "Chest," "Rock," "Tree," and "Bush" on a bunch of squares of paper for my new D&D idea.
3. I'm still on Spring Break, which is great. :)

So, this is a little something that I wrote last semester while waiting to tutor a stats class.  I saw a couple of women that thoroughly deserved writing about, so I did while their images were still in my head.  Let me know what you think.

She lunged forward, each step calculated and stressed over, like the first steps of a baby.  Her feet were a little more than shoulder width apart, and may have been connected to her hips by broom handles under her brown pants, because it seemed she had no knees.  It was probably good that her feet were so far apart because her balance was questionable.  Her arms swung wildly to counterbalance the jerking of her hips.  Her whole body pivoted together, and the vibrations of each step made her brown curls bounce around her face.  It hurt my body to watch her, but it amazed my soul to see the determination in her eyes.

This is about the second woman:

She looked positively unfriendly.  Her eyes gazed straight forward, unless they noticed somebody looking toward them, and then they sneered at the intruder.  Her lips were painted bright red and were always puckered, as if she had something sour in her mouth that wouldn't go away.  She had been wearing this expression for so long that wrinkles formed from her lips and ran toward her cheeks.  I wondered how long it had been since that pucker had been stretched into a smile.

Family Home Evening

1. I finished Assassin's Creed II last night. 
2. I pack my wife's breakfast everyday (which usually consists of milk so she can make oatmeal), and she remembered to take the lid off of the leftover milk.  She usually remembers, but the few times she hasn't makes me thankful for every time she remembers.
3. It's still spring break, and I don't really have to do much.  Apart from breath and stuff. :)

In my church, there's a program that has kind of been instituted, but isn't mandatory for salvation.  It's strongly encouraged, but no one will ever show up on your doorstep asking if you've done it that week (no one will even call you.  The only time you're really accountable is in the occasional lesson about it when the teacher asks whoever does it to raise their hand, and if you have the honesty in you, you keep your hand firmly on your lap).  Those of you who are LDS already know what I'm talking about.  It's called Family Home Evening.  It's really very cool, and I'm sure that all of you non-LDS folks will automatically appreciate the greatness of it.  The idea is for a family to stop what they are doing for one night a week (Monday night is the night set aside for it by the church, but again, you don't even get a phone call, so if you do it, let's say, Wednesday... hypothetically... then no one would be the wiser... unless you blog about it).  During this get together, you can do whatever you want, but the general pattern is: Song, Prayer, Lesson About Some Gospel Principle, Prayer, Treat and Game.  Of course, any of these can be interchanged with other stuff, or mixed around for the family's purposes.  It's really a great institution, but I can honestly say that it's hard to remember to do it and to find the time.  And I know, it works if you do it every week and that's why setting aside Monday night works so well.  I really haven't been good at it, but I'm trying.

So, my parents have been awesome, and since both of their kids are recently married and have no children, they've given their home to be the FHE house for all of us (this way we can break up the responsibilities).  Last night, it was our turn to give the lesson.  We chose an article written by Elder Uchtdorf (it's the same guy I talked about during Christmas time.... I promise we have other people who speak).  Anyway, the article was about being optimistic and finding the good in people.  He wrote about how we can always find a character flaw in everyone, but if we look hard enough, we can often find the good, and if we take the time to try and find the good, we'll often be happier.

As I prepared (read it an hour or so before FHE began), I thought of my Great Grandpa Paul.  I've also written about him.  He might just be the best person I've ever known personally.  I thought about how people could have seen him.  He did chew tobacco.  He did like to drink.  He cussed, and spat, and raised cows, and probably did some other stuff that I'm not aware of.  Granted, he quit all of this (except the cussing, spitting and raising cows) by the end of his life, but I thought about how people might have looked down on him for some of the things he did, but I had never really thought about any of those things until last night.  Even with all that, I still hold that Grandpa Paul is probably the best person I've known personally.  He always took care of his family, he was charitable, he was hardworking, and wonderful to be around.  He seldom said anything bad about anyone (except John Kerry... he hated that man).  He was always smiling and very welcoming.  I only brought a few friends to Fredonia, but I remember Grandpa automatically loving all of them (it actually makes me tear up a little when I think that he never met my wife).

And I imagine that most people are like this.  They are human, which means that they have 'faults,' but we all do.  And because they're human, they will (in most cases) have good points too.  I'm going to try really hard to start looking at the good in people from now on.  The issue is that one of my many faults is being a fault finder... oh well.  Nothing good ever came easy.  You can do whatever you want with this info.

Have a nice day.

My Game With the Doctor

1.  I didn't get into a car accident today.  I'm not saying I normally do, but I'm man enough to admit that it happens to the best of drivers.
2. I had a great weekend visiting family.
3. My buddy's wife had their baby!  Go Brad and Mel.

Let me just start this post by saying that I have a tremendous amount of respect for doctors.  They have a skill that I will never have, and it amazes me.

That being said, I had a fun little encounter at the doctor's office today that made me chuckle a little.  I hurt my neck about a week and a half ago (how I hurt it will not be discussed, because I'm not sure if my best guess is the actual cause, but if it is, I'm pathetic).  The pain moved from my neck to my left shoulder, and I assume the pain should have stopped by now, so I made a doctor's appointment (for all of you who understand the male psyche, you know what a big step this was, and how much my shoulder hurts).

Now, most (if not all) of us have gone to the doctor before.  We understand the check in/waiting room dance that we all go through, and that has been thoroughly covered by comedy, so I won't go there.  I did discover a game that we all play today though that I found amusing.  I like to call it, 'Tell the Doctor What You Think is Wrong.'  It seems to happen in four parts, each of which has it's own unique joy.

Part one:  He asks, "What SEEMS to be the problem?"  I love when it's phrased like this.  It's like he's assuming that there probably is no problem, but you SEEM to be having one.  My doctor bypassed this little undercut, and asked it more kindly.  "So, what are you in for?"

Part two:  You try to respond without sounding like a moron.  This part is the one that requires the most mental dexterity.  First off, you don't want to come off as the whiner who has a cold, but acts like they've just contracted a disease worse than cancer.  Then the doctor won't take you seriously.  Like in my case:  When I move my arm just so it feels like someone is driving a dagger into my back.  Do you see how this is hard to take seriously?  Secondly, you do want help, so you don't want to say what you have really isn't bothering you.  "Oh, there's really nothing wrong, I just thought it'd be fun to go to the trouble of making an appointment, showing up, paying the copay, sitting in this tiny room, so that I could chill with you for fifteen minutes while sitting on butcher paper.  We just hadn't hung out in a while.  I know there are people dying in the waiting room, but is that really more important than our friendship?"  See how dumb this sounds.  So, really, for part two, you have to find that nice medium where the doctor knows you're there for a reason, but that you're not faking it to miss school that day because you have a big test you haven't studied for.

Part three:  The doctor laughs at how dumb you sound, but only on the inside so you'll keep coming back to him, and assisting him in his boat payments.

Part four:  The doctor takes your poorly worded symptoms, combines them to mean some kind of disease, writes you a prescription so that your body can fight off whatever this is, and you can continue functioning, without too much belly aching.

I just thought it was funny.  Have a nice day. 

I was 'It" a While Ago, Now I'm Just Playing Catch Up

1. I got a great idea late last night as to where I want my D&D game to go.
2. My dad took me and my brother in law to DP Cheese Steaks last night (so good).
3. In the midst of about fifty cars gunning for the same set of spots, I got a good one.

Okay, I was tagged by ol' Vinny C a while ago, and told him I would play as soon as I was done with my chores (my ten dating tips).  So, I'm playing now!  That's right people, you've been tagged, and now must use the Alt+Tab key sequence over and over answering questions and tagging others.  These people are 'it.'

Sheri over at Laughing My Abs Off
AC over at Antares Cryptos
and who could leave out our favorite Aussie Fairy over at Alittlesprite

You're all it.  Have fun.

So, on to the 19 questions that I need to answer...

1. If you have pets, do you see them as merely animals, or are they members of your family?

The closest thing that I have to a pet is my sister's dog Zuka.. and yes, she is a member of the family.  The most recent evidence of this is that Zuka is now allowed to sit on the couches...

2. If you can have a dream come true what would it be?

 

I become a world famous writer and am considered one of the great minds of my generation.  Wouldn't that be awesome?

 

3. What is the one thing most hated by you?

 

Selfishness.  If you really wanna bug me, go ahead and be selfish around me.

 

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?

 

Start by paying off our condo.  Then invest the crap out of it and live off interest... while writing full time (which is what I love) and my wife helping people get organized (which is what she loves), and both of us having a bunch of time to spend with our baby one the way... does anyone have a billion dollars they can part with?

 

5.What helps pull you out of a bad mood?

 

My wife.  And Yoga sometimes.

 

6. Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone.

 

Loving someone.  As much as I love being loved, I think the act of loving people is much more satisfying.

 

7. What is your bedtime routine?

 

Turn off the Xbox, read scriptures with my wife, pray, and if there's time, read some of Rahld Dahl's childhood stories to my wife.

 

8. If you are currently in a relationship, how did you meet your partner?

 

At church, I asked her out.  For more details see my post: Let's work on your pick up line

 

9. If you could watch a creative person in the act of the creative process, who would it be?

 

Tim Burton.  That man fascinates me.

 

10. What kind of books do you read?

 

The good kind!  Yeah, I dunno, lots of the classics.  My favorite might be Of Mice and Men, or maybe Catcher in the Rye... I dunno.

 

11. How would you see yourself in ten years time?

 

With a time machine.... or maybe a crystal ball. I really don't know.

 

12. What's your fear?

 

Failure...

 

13. Would you give up all junk food for the rest of your life for an opportunity to visit outer space?

 

No.  Why would you?  I see outer space just fine from here, and can do so while eating Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream potato chips...

 

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married, but poor?

 

Married and poor. I wouldn't trade my wife for anything.

 

15. What is the first thing you do when you wake up?

 

Can my answer be 'go back to bed?'  Yeah, I'll stick with that.

 

16. If you could change one thing about your spouse/partner, what would it be?

 

That she would be comfortable talking to people on the phone... 

 

17. If you could pick a new name for yourself, what would it be?

 

Exactly what it is.  I'm named after my dad, who rocks hard, and my Great Grandfather, who rocked even harder.  And my last name is Irish... why would I want to change any of that?

 

18. Would you forgive and forget no matter how horrible a thing that special someone has done?

 

I'm not a coward, I've just never been tested, I'd like to think that if I was I would pass.  The Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

 

19. If you could eat only one thing for the next six months, what would it be?

 

Pizza, think of the possible variety.

 

Yeah, that's it.  If you read all of these I commend you; I tried to keep them short.  Now for the rest of you to answer these silly questions. :)