Moyamedia

Rod Roddy, What Can He Win?

2008-02-20T23:47:00.002-05:00

As you guys have been clamoring for the news....

Hold on. I just crashed my head into my desk so hard I had to take five minutes to staunch a nosebleed. Where's the clamoring? I've had zero comments for the last two weeks. Come on! Clamor!

Anyway, here's the new whip.

When I went to the lot, I told the salesman that I'd like to look at cars that weren't white. But they had this one, and it was pretty good, so I ended up bringing it home. So far, I'm happy with it. I'd like to sit a little lower in the driver's seat -- it's made for people of average height, not for me. But despite the cavernous amounts of room inside the car, it doesn't feel bigger or handle much clumsier when I'm driving it than the old one did. Plus it's technically not white -- it's vanilla.

On an unrelated note, I've been unmotivated to blog very much of late, as you may have noticed. Not that you faithful readers help. I'm thinking about going in a different direction with this site. We'll see what comes of it.

Secret Identity Blown

2008-02-20T16:35:00.003-05:00

Either he's too engrossed in his phone conversation to realize it, or he's preventing his roommate from taking it over, or it's a new fashion statement with the kids -- I don't know which, but the college-looking guy at the mailbox has neglected to remove his Guitar Hero controller.

I even have a camera phone now, but two attempts to capture the moment turned up fruitless.

Text Your Pick to A-V-E-R-Y-R-U-L-E-S

2008-02-17T11:31:00.002-05:00

Who truly won yesterday's NBA All-Star slam dunk contest? You be the judge:

Dwight Howard ...

or Avery?

Just goes to show that Orlando is where it's at for getting above the rim.

Goodbye, Old Friend

2008-02-15T21:22:00.003-05:00

Even though I didn't technically own the car anymore, it still hurt a little bit deep in my chest to see it in such a state. I felt like I was using it, betraying it somehow by simply harvesting my belongings and walking away.

Oh well. My payout arrived today, and tomorrow I'll be shopping for a replacement. With any luck I should be able to find one that doesn't suck.

Thanks for the good memories, Thank God. Enjoy your well-deserved rest on the scrap heap.

Quick Question

2008-02-14T16:12:00.002-05:00

I haven't pulled the memes over here yet, have I? For those of you just tuning in, I used to fill out surveys on my LiveJournal with a passion. Hey, when your job entails sitting at a desk attempting to look busy, you have to do something to fill the gaps.

So here we go.

1. What is in the back seat of your car right now?

The front bumper.

I finally got to the tow yard this morning to release the car for salvage and collect the rest of my personal items -- the license plate and frame, my US-Japan Center bag, Sed's broken Pal Mickey, an assortment of burned CDs. They wouldn't let me take the stereo out, sadly, which, if I want to replace it in the future new whip, is two hundred bucks I have to hold back from the payout I'll be receiving shortly.

So I guess technically, right now, I don't own a car, since I sold it to the shop's insurance company. According to the agent, their appraiser stopped tallying the repair cost once it reached about what I paid for the car in the first place. The check's in the mail -- it's enough to drop monthly payments on a lightly-used full-size below the century mark; you can do the math yourself if you care enough.

Oh, the rest of the survey? Nah, that was just a device for getting into the post. Dawn at Because I Said So filled it out here, if you really want to do it yourself.

And I Don't Even Have Coverage

2008-02-05T21:09:00.000-05:00

So I have pictures of the accident, and yeah, this thing is totaled. Prepare yourself -- you might want to avert your eyes if you're not one for wanton destruction, or if the sight of such wreckage moves you in the wrong kind of way.

I bought this chair in 1996, just after my parents moved to a new house and I needed one. It's followed me to four different residences in two states. But years of abuse at the hands of my fat ass (pardon the anthropomorphization) finally took their toll.

The chair had been listing to one side for a few months, so I knew its time was near. I kept tilting it back up, holding my weight to the other side, hoping it would hold out a little longer. But this afternoon, while Sed was in it, she must have shifted her weight just right, because with a sudden crackle-thump, she was on her back on the floor, supporting the baby, who thought the whole thing was a pretty fun ride.

Luckily, neither of them got hurt. But man, that's just one more thing we have to replace.

Oh, the car? Yeah, you'll know more when I do. My insurance says "wait it out so you don't have to pay the deductible," her insurance says "we haven't been able to reach all parties involved," the shop's insurance says "we'll call you with a claim number to get the ball rolling." I say "take as long as you want, I guess, because you're paying for my rental and the storage fees, after all."

Open Letters, Super Bowl Edition

2008-02-03T23:45:00.001-05:00

Dear Jordin Sparks,

You fail at the National Anthem. Seriously, how hard is it to count to three? It's like counting to four, but you stop one sooner. Also, there are no turns or mordents anywhere in the music. Never sing it again.

Thanks,
Rick

Dear Patriots coaching staff,

It's Phoenix, assholes. Take off the hoodies and go get some polo shirts. You look like a bunch of damn slobs.

Yours,
Rick

Dear Halftime Entertainment Selection Committee,

Here's a thought: How about next year, you get someone who's relevant to modern music to perform? This is a slippery slope you've got us on, picking groups that the prime 18-34 market liked in sixth grade. Who've you got lined up for next year? All-4-One?

Or a better thought, one I've stated previously: BRING BACK THE MARCHING BANDS.

With pride,
Rick

Dear Tom Petty,

Get a haircut, hippie.

Regards,
Rick

Dear Eli Manning,

Four years ago, when you were drafted by the San Diego Chargers and then pulled a prima-donna act and refused to play for them, I decided you were a tool and not worth my time. But today, you have redeemed yourself.

Today, you and your Giants stopped the Patriots' run toward only the second ever undefeated season in the modern NFL. You ensured that the most hated team in football today would not have bragging rights over not just the championship, but the perfect year.

Today, Eli, all is forgiven.

Sincerely,
Rick

Dear BeliCheat,

SUCK ON THAT.

Love,
Rick

P.S. When you return to the seventh circle of Hell tonight, give my regards to Rachael.

Push One, They All Fall

2008-02-01T19:58:00.000-05:00

It's nice to see the rest of the major pizza chains finally following Papa John's' (hey, let's see you pluralize a possessive, then) lead into the 21st century by implementing online ordering. I just point-and-clicked my way to a large hand-tossed Pizza Hut super supreme for delivery in 45 minutes. (Chill out, pan fans. You and I both know that shit is nasty after it's been sitting in the box on the ride to the house. The only way to eat a Pizza Hut pan pizza is out of the pan sitting down at the restaurant, a la Chicago-style.)

Why Pizza Hut, you ask? Didn't I write a screed against them in the wake of the Stuffed Pizza Sandwich? Wouldn't it be more sensible to go with Domino's? After all, didn't they jump on the Web-order bandwagon first? And what's with all the imaginary questions?

Simple answer, really. I'm nuts. But as regards the Domino's business, that's simple too: apparently, none of their stores deliver to my address.

Wait, what? Two of the three pickup locations mentioned are within three miles of my house. The second store on the list is in the same shopping center as Pizza Hut, Vito's Pizzeria (good stuff if you're willing to wait 80 minutes), Pine Garden (my Chinese delivery of choice), and several other fine restaurants I've no doubt would be delighted to bring food to my house just as the aforementioned three have (or will). What's more, I live in a highly university-student-intensive area. It would certainly behoove Domino's to try to sell pizza to them, and by correlation, me.

The last time I couldn't get Domino's to deliver to my house, I was seven years old and the chain was just finding a toehold in Albuquerque. Apparently not much has changed -- I have a beer gut, white hairs in my beard, and a child of my own, but Domino's still doesn't want to bring me pizza.

Well, forget you, Domino's. I don't need you anyway. By the time you finally deign to deliver to me, I'll be back in the land of the good stuff, and then you're all screwed.

Demolition Derby

2008-01-31T16:24:00.000-05:00

At around noon, the clerk at Midas called to discuss what they'd found wrong with my car. I'd asked them to check the brakes, and sure enough, she reported, both the front and back drums were slightly warped. They could replace everything and fix it within two hours, she said, to the tune of nearly $500.

I winced -- hearing a car repair bill in that range always reminds me of the last one I had, the one that cost about that a month to keep from falling apart. Still, it's a small price to pay for my family's safety. (I'll decline the transmission/radiator/defibrilator/whatevorator flush until the world is populated solely by roaches and sentient Twinkies, but I don't neglect my brakes.) So I told her to go ahead and do it.

Little did I know that $500 was on the low end. Of course, these places always lowball you with the price, but before this the difference was never the price of a new car.

They'd gotten the brakes fixed, the clerk told me when she called back, and the technician had taken it for a test drive to make sure everything worked. On his way back, however, as he passed one of the myriad college apartment complexes in the area, a girl (late for class, no doubt) came screaming out of the entrance doing at least 40 and smashed into my car's front fender.

To think I had almost taken the camera along for Dad and Avery's Grand Outing. (We went to the park and the library while they worked on the car.) Now I have to attempt to paint the total destruction of my poor Sentra with words. It was sitting in the middle of the road when we approached, in a lake of its own breached fluids. The hood was folded almost in half along the diagonal from the front driver's side to the rear passenger's. The front bumper was loose and hanging on the ground. The grill was shattered, pieces sticking up out of the top of the engine compartment. The windshield sported a spiderwebbed hump where the driver's head hit it. (Wear your seat belts, kids!) The airbags hung limp and impotent as I harvested my belongings. If this car is not totaled, I don't know what is.

A lot of people believe that everything happens for a reason. The worst accident I've been in was a harmless bumper tap (it was jarring, and the guy who hit me drove off, but my car was undamaged and Avery didn't even wake up), so I could have been karmically due. Plus we've been talking about getting a new car anyway, something family-sized so we can fit kids and dogs at the same time. Perhaps some greater powers were working to make it so. I'm not so sure, but if my car was due for an accident, it certainly is a stroke of good fortune that neither I nor my baby was in it at the time.

Still, I'm not looking forward to having a car payment again. Damn Florida. I totally blame you for chundering out such horrific drivers.

Housekeeping

2008-01-29T22:35:00.000-05:00

A couple of administrative things to touch on.

Updated the graphics and music pages. If you've been reading my LJ or my mind, you know I'm back in the swing of drum corps again. I updated the music page to reflect my deepened experience with brass and the new corps. Likewise, the graphic page now has some images I put together for the corps' public face, including its logo. Building that is not only great experience for my design portfolio, but it was also a lot of fun and I got paid for it. (Well, a buck, but money's money.)

I'll be deleting my Myspace account as of tomorrow. I never go there anymore, except to administratively delete the porn spam invites that have accumulated in my mailbox. Having an account is more of an annoyance than a help -- if the banner ads and eye-bleedingly vulgar user layouts and forced theme music weren't bad enough, the recent arrival of click-through advertising would have pushed it over the edge. I needed an impetus to kill it, so when I learned about International Delete Your Myspace Account Day I decided to hop on board. Even if it's just a handful of people who do this, I'm ready to be rid of it.

The floating Avery head changes every month or so -- if that's the only amusement you get out of my site, at least check it out.

That's it for now, until I can be bothered to implement the redesign I'm kicking around.

Priorities

2008-01-28T22:42:00.000-05:00

To the left, Avery's groceries, comprising organic produce, organic whole-milk yogurt, organic beans, and flash-frozen edamame. To the right, Dad's groceries, comprising coffee, Fruity Pebbles that were on clearance, and a bag of gummy worms half-eaten on the way home from the store.

So uh. Do as I say, not as I do.

I Wish I Could Quit You

2008-01-22T21:46:00.000-05:00

It is a sad statement on my personal priorities that when I hear about the life of a young star tragically cut short, my first thought is, "Man, I better get back to a computer and post this on the Celebrity Death Toll Update."

Perhaps worse is that the more famous the deceased, the more I kick myself for not getting there first.

Somebody Call Steven Tyler

2008-01-21T22:52:00.000-05:00

If you've been paying attention to my Flickr page, you've probably noticed that I am losing The War on Pink.

It's not that I have a problem with pink on principle or anything. It's just that girls get inundated with the pink from such an early age. It piles up and up and eventually it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy -- girls wear pink, so pink is their favorite color and that's all there is to it. So I determined that from early on, Avery would have a lot of color options to choose from rather than getting pushed into the pink pigeonhole.

Thing is, though, it is really hard to find clothes for baby girls in any other color. The pink saturates the shelves at your local discount retailer (at which, unless you're retardedly wealthy, you're shopping for stuff that's only going to fit for three months), and other colors -- if they're even available -- are very well hidden. Your other option is to go across the aisle to the boy stuff for blue clothes, which usually have footballs or monster trucks or other extensions of a penis emblazoned across the front. Avery has a pair of blue-and-green dinosaur pajamas, and they even button left over right rather than right over left like all her flowery pink ones.

I could blame this all on a vast conspiracy by the garment industry, a cruel method of forcing us all into two colors so they don't have to spend money on other dyes. But as a parent, I've realized the truth is much simpler: We get offended when people guess our child's sex wrong. And because they all sort of look like little androgynous, rotund, clean-shaven Wilford Brimleys, wrapping a girl in gender-neutral colors like green is a recipe for disaster for high-strung parents. So we stick them in pink in order to keep ourselves from strangling the next waiter who offers to bring a high chair for the little man-lady-man(?).

Oh well. At least she looks cute in it. Navy blue's not really her color, anyway.

While We're Talking About Things I'm Approximately Twenty Years Too Old To Know Anything About

2008-01-20T21:56:00.000-05:00

For her birthday in March, the only thing Sed's little sister (the sick one) wants is a Hannah Montana T-shirt.

I wish I knew what it was about this winkingly manufactured, no-talent hick hack that made the kids scream and the parents punch each other over tickets. Someone explain it to me. The "Achy Breaky Heart" guy shows up at the pitch meeting and says, "Uh, my daughter could sing purty good, but she oughta wear a blonde wig," and now it's a multi-million-dollar industry.

Have you ever watched an episode of that show? Here, let me save you the trouble with this synopsis: Go buy a banjo. Cover the frets with sparkly lip gloss and improvise a flying V out of a pair of toddler jeans. Then hit yourself in the forehead with it for thirty minutes. (If you're worried about brain damage, feel free to alternate between blows to the forehead and the crotch.) Congratulations -- you have just undergone the Hannah Montana Experience.

And now Miley Cyrus is acting like she's some kind of serious performing artist, taking off the wig and putting on way too short of a skirt for a 15-year old, doing the second half of her show out of character. Listen, missy, our kids didn't come to see you all tarted up, they came to see the character you play singing the songs Disney wrote for you which are all about leading a double life. Honestly, how has everyone on the show not already figured out who you are?

I guess it could be worse. At least she's not twins.

Rug Rats, Not Mickey Mice

2008-01-17T19:05:00.001-05:00

Sed came home today all worked up about something she'd heard on the news. It's reached critical mass in the media and on Thee Inter-Nets, I suppose, and the sheer ignorance of the punditry and palaver speculating on future events has worn her through to the point of befrayment.

"Why don't these people know anything?" she raged. "Jamie Lynn Spears is on Nickelodeon, not the Disney Channel!"

Apparently, in the wake of this whole teen star pregnancy hurly-burly, the question on everyone's lips is what step Disney will take to re-establish its network as a wholesome, clean-cut outlet for family-friendly programming, all the while totally disregarding the fact that both shows the lesser Spears has starred on (All That and Zoey 101) have appeared on children's television's elder statesman. Even if you're not a stickler for detail, you'll see the contradiction.

The sole link Disney has with Jamie Lynn is through Big Sis. (Well, that and one episode of a reality show called "Switched!" that aired on ABC Family in 2003.) Amusingly, the Mouse is taking more flak for the actions of a teenager not on its lineup than Britney's schoolgirl sexualizing, lip-synching, commando-going, head-shaving, back-to-back unwed pregnancies, and beating the crap out of a Ford Explorer with an umbrella ever did.

Nick's gonna come out unscathed, though. Even if Disney weren't taking the brunt of the fallout, Big Orange is better equipped to deal with scandal -- or anything unpleasant that might actually happen in real life. They've had Nick News for years, exposing the channel's (admittedly late-night) viewers to issues like drug abuse, homelessness, politics, and the host's battle with breast cancer. Sexuality might be uncomfortable, but certainly not totally out of bounds.

Parents, this is why it's important to watch TV with your kids -- so you don't look like a moron opining about issues regarding their shows.

Golly, F-F-Fellas, Great Sp-Sp-Spiritual Harmony Would Be Sw-Sw-Swell

2008-01-16T23:31:00.000-05:00

I know it's weird and bordering on sophomoric, but every time I happen across a discussion about the mythical first emperor of Japan -- be it a passing reference as part of a larger work, a serious discussion of national heritage, or anything in between -- I can't help but giggle.

It sure would be nice if I could stop mentally referring to him as "Jimmy."

It Used To Just Be the Dogs

2008-01-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

Proof that this kid now officially has teeth:

At least she isn't eating my shoes.

That is to say, at least it hasn't damaged them yet.

Department of Redundancy Department

2008-01-14T22:46:00.000-05:00

I hate driving in a city I've never been in before. Sarasota is no different. Of course, the lane I'm in ends before I'm ready to turn, so I have to merge over. And of course, some asshole Florida driver refuses to let me, racing up in his peeling, twelve-year-old minivan to fill the spot I'm preparing to enter. This leaves me no recourse but to squish in behind him at the red light. (You know how to squish. There's not quite enough room for you to change lanes properly, but you have to do it, so you do your best to get into the correct lane while leaving enough room in the one you're departing that traffic can get around.)

As I ooze over, the shirtless driver puts the van into park and gets out of the car to dialogue with the motorist ahead of him. Is it a fight? Is it a discussion about directions? WHO CARES SHIRTLESS GUY JUST GOT OUT OF THE CAR AT A RED LIGHT.

The license plate on the van? "NATIVE 2."

I Never Got a Science Fair Medal, Either

2008-01-10T23:17:00.000-05:00

GIVEN:
1) The baby likes to be held as she falls asleep
2) Once the baby is asleep, she can be eased down into the parents' bed as long as the parent lies down with her for a few minutes
3) The baby can then be left to sleep on her own

EXPERIMENT:
Try to climb into baby's crib with her in order that she may fall asleep in it rather than requiring the parents' bed.

HYPOTHESIS:
If this works I am a huge winner.

METHOD:
1) Rock baby to sleep in glider while reading Chapter 9 ("The Woes of Mrs. Weasley") of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
2) Climb over rail into crib while still holding baby, wincing as mattress frame creaks alarmingly.
3) Attempt to lie down comfortably in a 50-inch-by-28-inch rectangle despite a height of 74 inches without jostling the baby to a point of awakeness.
4) When baby hips to your jive, rock her gently while whispering "Shhhhh" in a soothing manner, all the while propping yourself at an awkward angle against the headrail.
5) Give up as mattress frame begins to pop, climb out quickly, retrieve now-wide-awake baby and retreat to computer.

CONCLUSION:
Well, I'm a huge something, anyway.

You Wear That Toque and I Will Wear That Chef Coat

2008-01-09T19:10:00.000-05:00

Have you seen that show Take Home Chef? It's on like four times a day, and if you watch cooking shows like I do you've probably happened across it by now. Basically, this smarmy Australian guy takes a fifteen-member TV crew to the supermarket and picks out some poor frumpy housefrau shopping by herself (somehow, she never spots the entire production staff of the TLC network descending upon her), upon which he attaches himself to her, leech-like, and forces her to help him cook dinner for her significant other.

The most insulting part of the show, though, is when they get back to the woman's place and he tells her to go pretty herself up while he sets up in her kitchen. Invariably, she comes back something like two hours later wearing the Outfit of Ultimate Cleavage, or some tube top that is totally unsuited to working in the kitchen. Hair is curled, glasses are gone (who needs to see?) and hemlines ride so high that if some of these chicks were in a restaurant kitchen Curtis would make them put on a bikini hairnet.

Seriously, it's like a 30-minute She's All That every episode, if instead of Rachael Leigh Cook the part of Laney had been played by Rachael Ray (right down to getting frighteningly slutty and wearing too much eyeliner). I keep waiting for the episode when they show the mark walking down the stairs to the kitchen in slow-motion while they play Sixpence None the Richer.

The Reason for the Nonsleepin'

2008-01-08T20:11:00.001-05:00

Me: Avery decided she doesn't have to sleep anymore.
My mom: Really?
Me: Yeah, she's waking up in the middle of the night and grabbing my face, wanting to play.
My mom: I think that might be partly my fault.
Me: Oh?
My mom: When you were about her age, you would sleep for maybe fifteen minutes and then be up and ready to go. I definitely remember saying to you, "I hope you have one just like you."
Me: I was afraid it might be something like that.

This is My Near's Roof Revelation

2008-01-04T12:27:00.000-05:00

It's a good thing "stop procrastinating so much" wasn't one of my resolutions for 2008. Not that it makes me feel any better about taking so much time to post them, necessarily. Though I have taken some of the load off myself given that Avery's are apparently "not sleep" and "start crawling."

Once that kid gets going, it's not like I can sit at the computer and just let her at it. There are trash cans to topple, dog toys to suckle, cords to unplug. But honestly, it's good that things change with Avery, because this job was just starting to reach the point where I get complacent. (If you're familiar with my nine-month-multiples rule, the math works out. Not that I know anything about math.)

Just to clarify, I don't really make new year's resolutions. I set vague goals for things that I would like to accomplish but won't be terribly disappointed in myself if I don't. I try not to have more than three, because once you go over that they become very difficult to maintain and you use the pressure of having to do so much to justify not doing anything.

So here we go.

1. Post 365 times.

Apparently, some crazy bastard has taken the concept of NaBloPoMo and extended it out for all of 2008. Considering it's the fourth and I'm just now getting around to putting something here, I'm obviously not going to win any prizes for that. But among the four blogs to which I have posting access, I hope to make a cumulative total of a year's worth of posts.

Yes, I'm aware it's a leap year. Pretend I get Thanksgiving as a holiday.

2. Submit something for publication in print.

I wrote this one last year -- it's been my lifelong dream to be published. I've written lots of stories, but been too scared to send them out. My fear of rejection is paralyzing, and the only way to get over it (which I have to do if I ever want to see a novel with my name on the cover) is to start getting hit with them.

Of course, just when I was getting ready to hunt down possible venues, Avery came along. She became my full-time job, and I didn't have the time or energy to look into what magazines might accept my work, or at least not reject it without opening the envelope. (What about when Mama's home, you ask? Well, the baby's not the only girl in this house with whom I enjoy spending time. Sed works 80-hour weeks, so I take advantage of the brief moments when we're all awake in the same building.)

The one-year-olds I know are all good at entertaining themselves, though. By the middle of this year, it should be possible to set Avery down with a toy while I write cover letters and submittals.

3. Start hiking again.

As a teenager, I spent a lot of time in the mountains with my Boy Scout troop. There was a period where we would find a new site every two weeks, backpack in, trek around the countryside, stay the night, and then schlep everything out. And I liked it -- to a point. We had a few scoutmasters who were absolute slavedrivers, who thought fifteen miles uphill in the rain was the pinnacle of good times. But once that rain went away and we found ourselves in a poetic aspen-bordered meadow, the trip back was rather peaceful.

When I first set this goal, Sed and I used to take the dogs to the Sandia mountains open space. But since we moved to Florida, I haven't bothered to find any hiking trails. Which is silly -- there's an arboretum just beyond my back fence, and a state park perhaps a mile away. Plus, since the highest hill in the Florida peninsula is 300 feet above sea level, you're looking at some easy terrain.

If I can figure out how to get Avery into her backpack carrier by myself, this one will be easy. Otherwise I might not be able to do it as often as I'd like. But that's OK. One day is not a lot of time to make a massive lifestyle change. If you're resistant to change yet stubborn in your determination (like I am), setting the bar too high will just frustrate you as you repeatedly fail to clear it.

4. Figure out how to get the baby to sleep by herself.

Because oh my God you guys. I will go crazy.

Point Zero Zero Zero And So On

2007-12-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

Back in my car, listening once again to my beloved jazz station with hourly NPR news interruptions, I hear this bit.

When all the sales are added up for the year, businesses saw the smallest increase possible -- 0.1 percent.

I don't want to get all Bill Walsh here, but it cranks my shaft when reporters (and worse, editors) get simple math wrong. If I had to be there in the math class in fourth grade when we talked about decimal places, so did they. Let's use it, shall we?

One-tenth of a percent is not the smallest increase possible. The smallest possible positive number is one over infinity. Since we're talking about sales, though, let's just go ahead and allow that the smallest possible measurable increase is one cent. Being as the piece was about business expenses nationwide (or worldwide, or it could have just been corporate spending, I wasn't paying that much attention), I rather doubt those numbers are the same.

If you're going to talk about numbers, do it in a way that doesn't make you sound like a lazy third-grader slapping a report together during recess right before it's due. And if you say "that's what copy editors are for," well, you're half right -- the editor is supposed to be trained to catch nonsense like this, but if you didn't write it in the first place we'd like you better.

This is why I give the smallest credence possible to broadcast news. NPR, though -- I thought you were different.

Ways You Can Tell You're in Vancouver for Christmas

2007-12-25T23:34:00.000-05:00

The hospital you're visiting has not one but two name-brand coffee shops in the lobby.
When your cousin talks about starting to try for a child, he says that he and his wife are going to "pull the goalie."
Despite the relative strength of the Canadian dollar, a six-pack still costs $10.
The cashier at Starbucks recommends that next time you go to "Timmy Ho's."
You turn on the TV to see Don Cherry wearing a double-breasted red velvet suit with a Santa Claus tie.
Everybody working in the hospital is Asian.
Forget Black Friday -- your mother-in-law is psyched for the Boxing Day sales.
Your in-laws mourn the fact that NHL players get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, and count down the hours until the junior hockey world tournament on the 26th.
It snows.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

You Don't Zonday

2007-12-20T23:47:00.000-05:00

Maybe I've been off the Internet for longer than I thought, but I have no idea what the hell VH1 is talking about with its Best Year Ever selections for Web stars. OK, of course I've heard about the crazy-eyelinered "Leave Britney alone" guy, but who the crap is Tay Zonday?

The show presenters were going on and on about how his song "Chocolate Rain" was all over the Internet. The dude even got face time in a bit about how to make a viral video. And apparently I'm sheltered, because he has a Wikipedia page and everything, but I've never seen or even heard of it.

So how do you feature someone so (at least to my complete uncognizance) random? In my head, this was the IM conversation between the VH1 writers.

visforvideoremember: dude did you finish that viral video segment?
ilovenostalgiaclipshows: no lol
ilovenostalgiaclipshows: we need sum1 to make fun of themselves on tv
ilovenostalgiaclipshows: but nobody wll do it
visforvideoremember: wtf
visforvideoremember: did you call crocker?
ilovenostalgiaclipshows: ya
ilovenostalgiaclipshows: he sux lol
visforvideoremember: well what about the cholcolat rain guy?
visforvideoremember: have you seen that one?
ilovenostalgiaclipshows: uh no
ilovenostalgiaclipshows: whats a cholcolate raine
visforvideoremember: here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA
visforvideoremember: omg now its officially viral
ilovenostalgiaclipshows: rofl
ilovenostalgiaclipshows: lets write it
ilovenostalgiaclipshows: and go get beers
visforvideoremember: five oclocl somewher lol

The Greatest Gift

2007-12-18T11:18:00.000-05:00

We opened our Christmas presents this weekend rather than lugging them 4000 miles to unwrap and then haul back. Because I don't know about your firstborn, but ours got a lot of crap. There were six gifts total under the tree for anyone who was not Avery, and two of them were for our dogs.¹

This being her first experience opening gifts, she wasn't quite sure what we were getting at. "Wait a minute," she seemed to be saying. "You're giving me a package wrapped in paper ... and you want me to tear it? Don't you remember what happened last time?"

Eventually we got everything unwrapped, removed from overzealous consumer packaging, and prepared for play. But, just as we were warned, the toys she recieved weren't the items Avery was most excited for.

Truly, it's the little things.

1. Sed and I eschewed gifts for each other this year, deciding to just fill our stockings instead.

Eat That, Hallmark

2007-12-14T13:52:00.001-05:00

November By the Numbers

2007-12-05T22:49:00.000-05:00

Days I committed to post in November

Days I actually posted

Days of the month I was not in Florida

Approximate time, in days, it takes my stepfather's computer to log into my user name

21, 463

Days and pages it took me to complete Catch-22, Defective Yeti's NaNoReMo pick

Other books I was reading that I did not finish during November (Red Smith on Baseball, Perelandra by C.S. Lewis, Dave Barry Turns 40, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett)

Children under the age of 10 that I played with who were not my own

Approximate reduction, in percentage, of my feelings of inadequacy and inability to play with young children thanks to practicing with Avery

Turkey dinners I ate

Generations present at the Moya family dinner

Basketball games I attended

Average margin of the game scores, in relation to the teams I supported

Friends who recognized my signature shout after an opposing free throw ("You got lucky!") and tracked me down

21, 30, 7, 5

Section, row, and seat number of my ticket at the UNM women's game, and number of years I sat in that seat as a member of the pep band

Temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit, in Albuquerque when we caught our return flight

Temperature when we got off the plane in Orlando

Pitiful quantifications made as a pathetic apology for totally bombing NaBloPoMo this year

Readers who actually care

Where's Waldo?

2007-12-04T23:44:00.001-05:00

Today while Avery and I were at the store, I saw a girl wearing a pink camouflage miniskirt.

Seriously? Camouflage miniskirt? This doesn't seem like approved combat attire. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this girl wasn't on furlough from Iraq and wandering the aisles at Target during the wild and crazy free time that is her shore leave. And pink camouflage only works if you're hiding in a tree in Ueno Park during hanami in April. (Dennis Miller I am not, but roll with it.)

Let's face it -- if you're wearing a pink camouflage miniskirt, there ain't nothin' under there that you're really trying to hide from anybody.

Then again, I didn't actually see her until I'd accidentally body-checked her into the greeting cards. My bad.

The First Word

2007-11-30T12:19:00.001-05:00

Well before Avery was born, I swore to myself that I wasn't going to be one of those parents who overestimate their children's achievements. You know the type -- they tell you how little Johnny is such a great singer and then they lock you in a room while he wails Tom Petty's "Freefalling" into a microphone at the top of his tone-deaf lungs.

Pre-fatherhood, I didn't feel like I had to make a big deal out of the little things a child did. It was all a part of growing up and learning, after all, and greater feats would deserve greater praise, just like with an adult. But as a parent, I'm starting to learn that even my daughter's littlest accomplishments are worth lauding, be it holding her head up, wobbling on all fours, or talking.

Logically, I know that babies say things that sound like words before they know what they mean. It's repetition, it's practicing making the syllable sounds they hear us saying in conversation. But it's not talking.

Still, it becomes impossible to deny that Avery has been saying "Dada" for three days when she looks straight into my eyes and grabs my finger while she says it.

Needless to say, now every syllable out of Sed's mouth is "ma."

Whoops

2007-11-20T09:50:00.000-05:00

When I missed posting on November 2 by eleven minutes, I figured that as long as I put something up it would still count. When I missed Sunday by three, I didn't feel guilty about backdating my post so it still showed up on time.

But missing yesterday by nearly ten hours decidedly puts me out of the running for any of those fabulous NaNoWriMo prizes.

This sounds like as good a time as any for a hiatus. I feel like I'm struggling to write for a nonexistent, uninterested audience, and taking a few days off might help recharge things on both sides.

Besides ... blog posts? Where we're going we don't need ... blog posts.

Mouse Infestation

2007-11-18T23:57:00.000-05:00

Even on a Sunday evening in November, everyone and their mom's dog is at the Magic Kingdom. We decided to take Avery for another jaunt, seeing as she was griping about not getting to ride Space Mountain. It only goes upside-down three times; that's fine for a seven-month-old, right?

Of course I'm kidding. Space Mountain doesn't go upside-down. Everyone knows that.

When you've got a young child with you, though, you really begin to appreciate the resident pass. If we had to pay $71 plus tax every time we wanted to go to The Happiest Place In Bob Iger's Wallet (and trust me, that's a lot), we'd be pretty loath to leave when the kid started grumping it up. As it stood, we almost turned around and left as soon as we got there, and we wouldn't have had to feel bad about it. (Turned out all she needed was a milkshake.)

They say you can't spoil a baby, but I have a bad feeling about taking her to Disney World so many times as an infant. She'll have to learn that once we move home, it's not a trip we take just because it's Sunday. Earlier, the following dialogue took place inside my head:

"Mama, can we go to the Magic Kingdom?"
"No, honey, it's too far."
"But you have the day off!"
"This is true, but I still have to say no."
"We used to go all the time when you had the day off!"
"Sure, punkin, but that was when we lived closer than 2000 miles."

It'll be OK. After all, Albuquerque has its own amusement park. Who needs Big Walt when you've got Uncle Cliff?

Vomit-suvius

2007-11-17T13:46:00.001-05:00

I've read a lot of books, surfed a lot of blogs, and sought a lot of advice in general about parenting. But they've all basically boiled down to "you'll learn it by doing it."

Today we learned not to give Avery the ads while Dad's reading the paper.

I know newsprint is treated with crazy chemicals and easily dissolves, so I never give her those. But the glossies have heretofore seemed harmless. She likes to rip them up, she likes the crinkly sound they make, and sure, she likes to chew on them.

I didn't realize she was eating them until about fifteen minutes ago. I glanced up from my comics to see a Calphalon cookware set, 249.99, protruding from her lips. Maybe it was a one-time thing, that I reacted a mite too slowly this time to prevent the page from going down the pipe. All I know is that when I retrieved this strip -- which as it turns out was several inches long -- it was like pulling the cord attached to the bathtub stopper, only in horrible, horrible reverse.

Suddenly, the child's mouth was a vertiable volcano, erupting just-ingested sweet potatoes and bananas, pouring pahoehoe across her blanket, her support pillow, and herself. The blast came in three waves, reserving the last and greatest for when Dad had picked her up to soothe the impending eruption of dismay. It never came; Avery surveyed the swath of destruction with an impartial eye, as though saying, "Huh, look what I made."

We've been lucky, really; this is the first serious puke from the punkinhead, and the first time it's happened with solids. I know it won't be the last, and it's actually a little comforting to have broken that seal, so I'm not totally unprepared when she's six and chucking macaroni and cheese over the side rail of the Jungle Cruise. But hopefully now I'll have a little more parenting savvy when it comes to not actually causing the nausea.

Child Endangerment

2007-11-16T21:31:00.000-05:00

Since I can't seem to write anything of interest to anybody this week, here's a video of me flinging Avery through the air with complete disregard for her safety.

Insert Train A Into Tunnel B

2007-11-15T21:02:00.000-05:00

I'll be honest -- the TV has been on more during the day than I'd like to admit. But when you've spent ten minutes in front of an open blog window trying to come up with a post topic, it can be helpful in just churning something out.

Since Consumermas is just around the corner, we're getting a lot more commercials for toys during mainstream adult programming. I try to let it go, but more often than not something catches my ear. Like the ad for the Thomas the Tank Engine Wheels and Whistles Sofa (which apparently has its own blog).

It's not often in the modern age of advertising that you'll see a commerical with a jingle that actually tells you how to play with the toy. But here it is, a commercial about a glorified toy box that you can climb in with your friends, make its wheels move and whistle blow by pressing a button, and drag your other toys around the house.

The best part is at the end, when the singers instruct on how to put it away:

And when you've had your share of fun
Push the side and then you're done
Now you have a place to sit
The Wheels and Whistles Sofa!

Of course, I usually can't resist mentally altering that last line to "And your friends will all go, 'Holy shit!'"

National Do Something Wacky On the Internet Month

2007-11-14T22:35:00.000-05:00

I love all the spinoffs that NaNoWriMo has wrought. If it weren't for this bad boy, of course, I wouldn't be posting every day this month (despite missing the second by 11 minutes, and I'm still upset about that). But there's also apparently a NoBloShoeMo, where you post a picture and a story about a different pair of your shoes every day.

Well, I couldn't do that. I'm a dude. I'd be twiddling my thumbs for 24 days. Here's all I got.

My everyday shoes. NSS, Sports Authority, $19. I tend to gravitate toward skate shoes for my normal bummin'-around day-to-day wear shoes, because they don't chafe, they don't slip and they're pretty cushy inside. If that makes me a poser, then so be it.

These cheap-ass Target slides ($11) probably see the most action these days. A lot of days I don't have time to sit down and tie shoes (or even, indeed, shower) before Avery is demanding her daily walk or Kucha her thrice-daily ball game. So I step into these and get on the ball. It's time to replace them, but I can't find any sandals without that stupid little thong by the big toe right now.

I once had to wear these every day. These are the most expensive of all my shoes, at a whopping $30 at Burlington Coat Factory, and also the most uncomfortable. What's the message? I almost left them in the garbage can at my office on the last day of work, but then I wouldn't have any dress shoes for the periodic special occasion that demands them.

Back in high school, I wore basketball shoes as a matter of course. Now I only wear them to play basketball, which (sadly) hasn't happened in nearly a year. Eventually I'll get back to a time and place where I can join a pick-up game or even start shooting around in the driveway again. Clearance rack, Big 5 sports, $24.

The Big 5 clearance rack is my friend. Eighteen bucks for these puppies. I planned to get up off my ass and go hiking in the Sandias more often. That fell through -- we basically kept on going once a month, and here there are no mountains -- but I'm glad I have 'em because they make the dogs' extended walk a lot more stable. These are also the only brown shoes I own (not counting the slides), but only because they apparently don't make hiking boots in black.

There was a point in the '90s when everyone was wearing sport sandals. So I fell for it and got a pair ($22 at Oshman's), wore them just about every day in the summer of 1997, and promptly shelved them when my teen angst finally kicked in at age 20 and they were deemed inappropriate for mourning. Now I only wear them to the beach.

And that's it. Like I said, I'm a dude. Avery almost has as many pairs of shoes as I do, and she's been around for 1/60th as long. Chicks and their shoes, dude. Still, Sed might pull up short in this thing -- her shoes monopolize an entire corner of our closet, but I don't know if she has 30 pairs.

However, next year I'm all over NovemBeard.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

2007-11-13T22:08:00.000-05:00

After telling myself I'd do it for eight months, I'm finally half done babyproofing the house. Well, technically, it's more like one-third done ... I still have to install the cabinet latches and bookcase cleats, and then I have to go around and figure out if there's anything on a low shelf that Avery could get stuck in her throat. So maybe it's more like one-quarter done. Hey, shut up, it's more than you've done.

I did get the fridge door lock and the toilet lid locks in place. The former wasn't a big deal, but it's good to keep her from getting stuck inside. I was more concerned about keeping her from fishing for brown-backed corn trout, if you get my drift. In fact, the toilet latches were the first thing I installed.

I hope I haven't made a mistake. After all, in the middle of the night I'm going to have to wrestle with this thing, right? What if, in my walking-dead state, I can't figure it out and end up peeing in the sink? I mean after my wife kills me.

But then again, if I can't get into the fridge either, I guess I'd have no real reason to get the toilet open.

The Trouble with Tribbles

2007-11-12T13:41:00.000-05:00

Since the baby came along, I guess I don't pet Kucha as much as I used to. At least that's what the evidence would suggest.

left: coffee cup; right: EXTREME DANDER BALL OF DEATH
While Avery was having fun in her exer-saucer this afternoon, the big dog came over for some snuggles, so I took the opportunity to give her a full-on rubdown. And this was my party favor, I suppose; my thanks for the first full-body massage Kucha's gotten in at least a few weeks. In the interest of full disclosure, she's still losing her summer coat, but jeez, I've seen entire dogs smaller than this. And this was just from one side of the dog.

You almost hate to throw something like this away. It's the kind of thing that demands a shrine, a testament to what one canine can produce when she puts her mind to it. Visitors should come from miles around to sing Kucha's praises and leave flowers and wishes that the Extreme Dander Ball of Death might, in its benevolence and generosity, grant to future generations.

Actually, that sounds like a lot of work. Excuse me while I go get the vacuum.

And Now for Something Completely Depressing

2007-11-11T22:41:00.000-05:00

We all cheered when Lourdess went into remission from her leukemia last year. Cancer isn't fun, least of all for a kid, but she kept smiling the whole time, and it paid off because she beat it. Her father (a staunch born-again Christian) was, of course, quick to credit God for seeing fit to deliver his little girl from the disease.

I don't know about God, but someone has a perverted sense of humor, because she recently relapsed.

None of us can quite believe it. (That's why I haven't written about it before now -- denial, hoping that if I don't acknowledge it that it will go away.) Last time she was sick -- coughing, wan, tired. She was running around happily the day she was re-diagnosed. It doesn't seem real, but she's already finished her first week of chemotherapy. And if she wasn't sick before, she sure is now.

It's times like this when you're tempted to question the faith of the believers. If there is a God, and if he actually cares what his little human minions do running around on Earth, then why would he inflict such a terrible disease on a good little girl who does whatever her father tells her, worships in his house without fail and never misbehaves? But using such a horrible situation as a religious attack is dirty. We're all in the same boat, after all, and we don't need to be clobbering each other over the head with the oars.

Now I'm learning a relapse is even more desparate than the initial diagnosis. The first time, she had a 50% chance of beating it. But now -- if she goes back into remission after the first round of chemo, and if they can find a suitable bone marrow donor for a half-Anglo half-Filipino girl with what's apparently a rather rare blood type, then she has a one in three chance of survival.

Pretty shitty odds for someone who hasn't seen her tenth birthday yet.

Please keep Lourdess in your thoughts again. And if you know anyone who might be able to fill that role of donor, let me know -- I'm working with the family on harvesting potential donors that we could fly to Vancouver if they type appropriately. Watch this space for more information about that.

God or Lourdess or whoever is actually in charge of it willing, she'll make it through this time too.

These Are the People In Your Neighborhood

2007-11-10T21:25:00.000-05:00

On our afternoon walk, Avery and I encounter an ice-cream truck. The driver waves to us as she tools down the street, jingling music blaring from tinny loudspeakers, attempting to entice the neighborhood kids to raid their moms' cookie jars and race after her.

I know, it's November. But we do live in Florida, after all. And it wouldn't have even struck me as idiosyncratic if the truck's music wasn't "Deck the Halls."

Global warming? Maybe. The kid driving his minibike up and down our street for six hours was certainly doing his part.

She Got Game

2007-11-09T22:10:00.000-05:00

Ever since I was little, I've been going to college basketball games. It made me a homer from day one. But I can't cheer on the Lobos from here and have them actually hear me (I probably could have when I was in college, but my voice is out of practice). Lucky for me, we live right around the corner from another Division I school -- the University of Central Florida.

Of course, basketball is of minimal importance in Florida, unless you're a damn Gator. We went to several UCF games last year in this dank little gym that couldn't have been much bigger than the one at my high school.¹ The men actually went 22-8 and broke several attendance records last season, all the while still failing to sell out the joint. Meanwhile, the football team was still drawing 35,000 during their 17-loss streak.

This year, the ~~Golden~~ Knights² are playing in a brand new 10,000-seat arena, and tonight the women's team christened it against Texas Tech. And since tickets are still only $5, I figured why not?

Big shock: They're charging for parking! At a women's basketball game! They have never sold more than a thousand tickets in the history of UCF women's hoops, and they're trying to make me pay for parking? When there are like 30,000 parking spots on the campus? Um, no. (I learned later that there was also a soccer game and what looked like a homecoming dance near the event garage. Still.) I parked in the free lot maybe 20 feet behind the garage instead.

The band looked huge in the new joint. Maybe because they have more room to spread out, or maybe because they've taken advantage of the fact that they have more room to add personnel. They played a lot of the classic stand tunes -- Hey Baby, Carry On My Wayward Son -- but had some unusual book selections. Carried over from last year, the apparent signature tune is Yellowcard's "Ocean Avenue." They also played "Lump" and (I wanted to shake the hand of whoever arranged this one, because it was just so bizarre) Alice In Chains' "Man In the Box."

I expected Tech to run away with this one -- they're a perennial tournament team, and the Lobos-Red Raiders³ game is a battle right down the stretch every year, while the Knights have a new coach, nine freshmen, and two returning letter-winners (who played a combined total of one minute, eight seconds, all during garbage time). So I was surprised when UCF was on top at the half, 33-26. Most of the Knights' points came on up-and-under circus shots, because (as was their problem last year) they dribble too friggin' much and find themselves out of position to pass. Their luck ran out in the second half, though. Tech started playing a smarter zone, packing the lane so UCF couldn't get down there and basically forcing them to pass, which I guess they don't practice. So the Knights were throwing the ball away on every other possession, leading to an easy Raiders fast-break lay-up.

Texas Tech's lead was about 18 when one of the referees had a meltdown with 1:31 left. This guy was calling traveling so much I thought he worked for Southwest. The teeniest little contact or dragged pivot foot would set him off; this game probably would have been 15 minutes shorter without him. Here, he just randomly decided to stop the clock in the middle of Tech bringing the ball down so three subs could check in. Then they had to stop play while he walked over to the scorer's table and made them adjust the game and shot clocks, which took forever of course, this being the first game in the arena and all. It went from 00 to 24 (where it was) to 45 back to 00 to 26 (where he wanted it) over the course of about five minutes. Six seconds later, the shot clock was still all tchwecka⁴, so they just turned it off for the remainder of the game.

Final score: Texas Tech 72, UCF 57. But the Knights showed some promise out there. Once they learn to pass, they could be pretty good. (About halfway through the second half, I got to thinking that Joi Williams should penalize any player who dribbles more than ten times on a possession -- one lap for every excessive dribble.) I'd go back.

1. Official capacity: 5,108.
2. I'm not being snarky for once; they dropped the "Golden" from their team name this year.
3. Glad someone's not afraid of adjectives.
4. It's a technical term; don't worry if you don't understand.

You Can Sleep When You're Dead

2007-11-08T10:14:00.000-05:00

Avery has decided, in the last couple of weeks, that 4:30 in the morning is a good time to get up and play. You can almost set your watch by it -- just before or not long after Sed leaves for work, the punkinhead will start reaching for my nipple with both hands. She and I both know, through bitter experience, that it doesn't work the way she wants it to work, but it does serve as an effective wake-up switch, especially when she clamps on with her fingernails.

I know, I know, I'm supposed to ignore her wakefulness in the night. I'm supposed to demonstrate that dark-thirty in the morning is for sleeping. I'm supposed to get her on a schedule.

The problem is when the member of the household in control of what is still the preferred meal changes her shift every month (and dare I add gets cranky when she hasn't had enough sleep), how is the baby supposed to get on a schedule? We don't know when Mom's coming home today. It could be now. It could be later. She could be hiding in the coat closet, having gotten home an hour ago but desperately trying to squeeze in more studying for her upcoming board exam before we distract her. At any rate, we'd better stay up. And then when Mom gets up (whether it's four in the morning or five in the evening), it must be time to awaken for the day.

Plus, let's see you stay asleep after a baby has latched onto your poor nipple with her talons and refuses to let go until you pick her up.

I've read the baby books. They say Avery's supposed to be sleeping for fourteen or fifteen hours a day. Well, obviously she hasn't read them. I'd be surprised if she gets twelve. Some days it's less, when she fights her afternoon nap until nearly bedtime and then wakes up three times in the night because now she's overtired and can't sleep. And given that Dad has difficulty falling asleep before 1 am and posesses an uncanny inability to nap, this means all of us are operating on Exhausted Standard Time.

Watch this, though -- next month, when Sed's working a seven-to-four shift, Avery will probably only wake up for meals, playtime with Kucha and "Design On a Dime."

Aiming High

2007-11-07T22:43:00.000-05:00

Reloading the music onto the computer is shaping up to be a long and arduous process. I have eleven CDs full of MP3s begged, borrowed, stolen (get outta here, RIAA, it's just a figure of speech) or ripped. And that's before filing them into genres. Although the way I listen to them (and given that iTunes doesn't care about directory structure) it probably doesn't matter anyway.

One of these songs, which I downloaded back when I still thought rap was relevant to my suburban Japanese-economy-car-driving lifestyle, is Warren G's "I Want It All." He was one of my favorites in high school, so this song caught my notice when it came out during my college years. The chorus background riff was awesome enough that the song entered rotation.

Now, perhaps my greatest downfall with popular music is I don't listen to lyrics. I have an ear for rhythm and harmony with a sprinkling of idiosyncratic humor. That's one of the reasons I'll actually listen to Eminem. So when this tune came up one day with Sed in the car, it didn't pass her notice that something was amiss in the chorus.

I want it all
Money, fast cars, diamond rings
Gold chains and champagne
Shit, every damn thang
I want it all
Houses, expenses
My own business
A truck too and a couple a Benzes
I want it all
Brand new socks and drawers...

"One of these things is not like the other," she sang. "One of these things just doesn't belong."

But you know what? Come to think of it, if I cut a contract for a new record, I would throw out my underwear and socks and buy new ones. It makes sense. Damn the man, Warren.

Trouble Bubble

2007-11-06T22:29:00.001-05:00

Ordinarily, I don't like gum. I can't seem to chew it without injuring myself. It's not that I'm a particularly uncoordinated person -- I can drive for a lay-up, I can play a sixteenth-note lick, and I can make it to level 28 on Puzzle Bobble. But when I chew gum, my cheeks tend to get in the way, and I have to track down a trash can so as not to pulverize them into hamburger.

The only times I'll chew gum are when I'm playing softball or around Halloween. Both are times when it's OK to blow bubbles, which in my opinion is the only reason to chew gum in the first place. The softball thing showed up out of nowhere, honestly -- I'd never played before, then I joined a team and all of a sudden I had a pack of Hubba Bubba in my bag. My preferred chaw is Dubble Bubble, the old-school one with the wax wrapping. Which is where Halloween comes in -- after the descent of the trick-or-treaters, I mysteriously have a handful of the stuff left over.

This year, I found out Dubble Bubble comes in flavors. I'd only known about the pink cylinder before, but here for your elucidation are the flavors of Dubble Bubble.

Color	Official Flavor	Interpretation of Flavor
Pink	Original	Super Ball
Green	Apple	Nail Polish Remover
Purple	Grape	Wine Bottle Cork
Red	Watermelon	Ass

And yet, guess what I have in my mouth right now. Nostalgia, I guess. But oh, the bubbles, do they pop.

Surreal Estate

2007-11-05T22:01:00.001-05:00

When we moved to Florida, Sed and I were planning to buy a house. Of course, I didn't have a job lined up at the time, so the amount they were willing to lend us was pretty pitiful. It still could have gotten us a place, but we weren't willing to live in the neighborhood affectionately known as "Crime Hills." So we found a rental.

I still wish we'd been able to buy, but when I see how many realtor signs have apparently become permanent installations, it helps make me feel better about not owning. In our neighborhood of about 50 houses, five or six of them are for sale. At least two have been on the market since I started my new job. Then today, Avery and I extended our walk and saw something around fifteen for-sale signs in the neighborhood across the street. There's a place between here and my former office that's had the same sign in front of it for nearly two years.

Like it or not (and believe me, I like it), we're going to have to move away from Florida in a year and a half. If we owned this joint, we'd have to deal with the hassle of realtors, a fickle buyer's market, and the annoyance of not getting our investment back so we could get a better place in New Mexico, and probably have to do it all long-distance. As it stands, we hit the end of our lease, thank our landlord for being so cool, and skedaddle on our merry way.

She might not have such a hard time of disposal, actually -- this neighborhood could go either way. Being so close to a major university, it has a lot of rental houses. In fact, over half the houses on our street are rentals. But given the sheer number of signs out now (and topping that off with the six or seven rental properties on offer), this market might just be saturated. Better to not have to deal with it.

Even so, I'm counting down to the time when I don't have to take care of someone else's house anymore. It'll sure be nice to make improvements to a place and actually see the return on investment for myself.

That's Why God Invented Light Bulbs

2007-11-04T22:20:00.001-05:00

A lot of people hate Daylight Savings, and I'll admit I'm no fan of "springing ahead" and losing a whole hour of sleep. I'll also admit that "falling back" is a lot easier whether you prefer AM or PM -- if you're a morning person, you can have an extra cup of coffee and read the paper; if you're a night owl, you haven't squandered your entire morning.

But I still would rather be on Daylight Savings than standard time.

Seriously, who needs light at six in the morning? Some of us are still sleeping (or at least trying to, if a child is wriggling in the bed next to us looking for a nipple). It's far worse to get to work when it's still dark than to leave work when it's already dark. Now that's a waste of a day. (Obviously, I have less to complain about now that my office is the living room carpet, but I'd still rather have some daylight to play with the member of this household who does have to go to a workplace.)

I suppose it could be worse. I could be back in Japan. Seriously, the whole country is about a time zone off. The sun started to set at 4:15 in the winter. It was completely gone by the time I left work at 6. And if anyone ever needed daylight savings, it was Japan. One morning near the start of my stay when I had trouble sleeping (hey, you try flying to the other side of the globe and instantly change your internal clock) I went for a walk at about 2:30 am. By the time I'd gotten back to my dorm at 4, the sun was coming up. Yes -- four in the damn morning. But I suppose it doesn't matter too much, since Japanese people only go outside for about a week in the spring for the perfunctory cherry-blossom viewing. The rest of the time is spent in karaoke clubs and video arcades. (Not that I spent all my free time in karaoke clubs and video arcades. I was, uh, doing, uh, hey what's that over there?)

And now it's time to end this lame post. Get it? Time? Har! I kill me.

Dragging Its Knuckles

2007-11-03T14:31:00.001-04:00

I must say, it is good to be back in the civilized world of modern technology again.

My brother, the king of kings, the god among men, FedExed the new hard drive to us overnight. My dogs actually woke me up barking at the delivery guy Thursday morning. By 11 that night, I had a working (though barren) system once more.

On the bright side, I had ol' lappy to light my way through the dark times. But sometimes you had to squint to see, because the bright side could get awfully dim. There's a reason I didn't keep up with this blog, for example. Thirty-two reasons, actually. That's how many megabytes of RAM Minako (for that is its name) has. Yes. Megabytes. For those of you keeping score at home, that's 1/32 as much as the desktop (Usagi, if you care, and yes, it's after Sailor Moon; now shut up). Minako had a hard enough time connecting to an SQL-driven bulletin board six years ago; you can imagine its pain attempting to slog through the Flash and AJAX of today.

Actually, you don't have to imagine. Here's what it looked like as I wrote this post.

Thanks for the memories, old girl. But I have to move on to the new blood. We had some good times.

Ah, Crap

2007-11-03T00:12:00.000-04:00

I just lost at NaBloPoMo.

In my defense, my Friday did not turn out the way I expected. It was supposed to be an easy day full of relaxing uh ... relaxation with my wife and daughter; short Avery's doctor's appointment, we were going to go out and have fun and be a family.

(Oh, quick warning: This post could devolve from my usual style into LiveJournal-esque whining. But what the hell, maybe someone will actually read it and care.)

When did it go south? Seven in the damn morning. That's when the phone rang and Sed informed me that she had to cover a 24-hour call for one of her co-workers. So instead of getting out of work at noon, she'd be there until nine the following morning. As you can imagine, losing one-third of our party (who just happens to be the food supply for another third) put a crimp in our day's plans.

If you aren't keeping count, Sed did three days of call last weekend covering for the fact that two-thirds of her class was in Puerto Rico. Including yesterday (and the nine hours she's covering tomorrow!) she's been on four weekends in a row. She's done more call than anybody else this year so far. So why Sed? Because of six classmates, three were still out of town, one is at hourly capacity working the night shift, and the remaining not-my-wife doctor decided to be a total tool.

"I'd switch with you," she told Sed, meaning that Sed could work today rather than Friday and Sunday, "but my husband's birthday was Tuesday, and we're celebrating it today. And I'd cover you this afternoon so you could go to your daughter's appointment, but I have to go pick up the catering trays and the cake and stuff."

Thanks, tool! Message loud and clear: Your cake is more important than my daughter.

So I took Avery to her appointment by myself. I dealt with the aftermath of what are purportedly the worst vaccinations in a child's life. I attempted to soothe her through the ensuing fever and general pain by myself, without any lactating breasts. I forgot to ask the questions Sed wanted to ask. I spent an hour running around downtown looking for milk storage bags that don't exist, since Sed had only brought enough bottles to pump one time assuming she'd be at work for six hours. And now my plans for today are shot, because I have to be here for Avery while Sed gets her first sleep since Thursday night. All because some jackhole couldn't possibly celebrate a thirty-five-year-old's birthday if it's not the weekend.

Not that I am bitter.

At least I have my computer back. I can justify ranting when it doesn't take an hour to type the thing.

Thirty Things You Can Do To Make It Through NaBloPoMo

2007-11-01T11:37:00.000-04:00

1. Just write about it. No matter how asinine, no matter how much of an inside joke, open up your blog client and punch it in there. An infinite number of monkeys updating an infinite number of blogs for 30 days will eventually write something profound.

2. Keep a list of post topic ideas. Whenever you think of something that would make a good blog post, write it down so you don't forget later. I keep a list of ptoential topics on a white board next to my desk. If you're having a hard time thinking of ideas, go pick up a copy of No One Cares What You Had For Lunch or another similar collection of writing prompts.

3. Come up with a theme. It's easier to think of something new when you're confining yourself to a set genre. This is where I'd link to examples if my laptop was not the slowest thing in the entire state (and I am counting all the retirees driving around Florida in this statement).

4. Moblog. Rather than confining yourself to the computer, write what you're thinking as you're thinking it from wherever you are. A lot of services support e-mailed, text-messaged or even voice blog posts.

5. Read. The best writers are usually the most voracious readers. The more you take in, the more you can spew out.

6. Specifically, read Catch-22. Matthew Baldwin over at Defective Yeti has declared it his official NaNoReMo 2007 selection. Keep up with him and link back to his inevitably hilarious commentary. (As an added bonus, Catch-22 is a modern classic, and I've not yet read it.)

7. Watch TV. Whether you like the boob tube or not, eventually something will piss you off so much that you can't help but furiously type a screed for all to see.

8. Take pictures. There's nothing in the NaBloPoMo rules that says your posts have to contain words. It just says you have to update daily. Besides, a picture is technically worth a thousand words.

9. Go outside. Not everything worth posting about happens in the home or the workplace. See a game, see a concert, just see stuff.

10. Make some new friends. In general, no one cares about third-party friends, but if you participate in different activities with them you'll have blog fodder.

11. Keep up on the competition. Lots of people are participating, so there'll be lots of posts flying around the verges of the blogosphere and lots of ideas ripe for the harvesting. Start with the official NaBloPoMo Randomizer, and sooner or later you'll have a topic. Plus who knows -- you might even fulfill the previous suggestion.

12. Take a class. No one is so thoroughly knowledgeable that they could not stand to learn something new. Not even teenagers. Study something you've always wanted to know, and share with others who might also like to learn.

13. Make something else. When you're stunted at the keyboard, exercise your creativity in the kitchen, the garage, the garden, or that blank wall you've always wanted to do something about. And then write about it.

14. Clean out your closets. Figuratively or literally, everybody's got crap piled up that's just bogging them down. Clear it out. Get rid of that useless anger toward your spouse or that manual to your first cell phone. (Lose the phone itself, too, by the way. Your enormous Motorola flip phone didn't impress anyone then, and it's not scoring you any points now either.)

15. Make shit up. You've totally had an imaginary conversation with the hottie in line ahead of you at the supermarket or the jackhole riding your bumper in traffic. Put it in your blog. Or even invent a totally imaginary scene -- let the hottie and the jackhole duke it out, for instance.

16. Hilariously overestimate your capacity for inventing new ideas about posting blog entries.

17. ...

18. ... um ...

19. ...

29. Quit and save your sanity. You could post every day for thirty days, but is it worth the toll it'll take on your mental state? Go outside and play instead.

30. Make asinine "list" posts. Even if you're swamped for ideas, they take no effort to write, less to read, and when you get to the end you (NOTE: come up with good kicker phrase later)

Floppy Drive

2007-10-28T16:14:00.000-04:00

I have good news and I have bad news.

The bad news is that my hard drive bit the dust. I turned off the computer yesterday because it was running choppily, and when I turned it on again it notified me of an "unmountable boot drive." Well, I don't know what that means -- I didn't even think computers had feet. So I called my brother the tech support guru, and after putting me through the paces we learned that the one part of the whole hard drive that was absolutely necessary -- the "boot sector" -- had gone kaput. Computers -- just like women, they're obsessed with shoes to the point of critical failure.

The good news is that as a tech support guru, he has connections. This means that a new hard drive is on its way to me at no charge -- or will be shortly, anyway. Then he'll be able to talk me through setting it up and recovering the data from my current hard drive, as long as it wasn't some freak spike that fried the whole machine.

The bad news is until it arrives, I don't have a computer, unless you count the ten-year-old laptop in the closet. Which I could use, theoretically, except that it's suffering from some kind of advanced computer Alzheimer's disease. Like sometimes it forgets it has a network card or a mouse or a monitor.

The good news is my library has computers available at no charge, as long as you're willing to overlook the fact that you have to backspace every third word to correct overtyping with these arthritic keyboards.

The bad news is they aren't open at 11:30 at night when I want to look at porn.

The good news is I just renewed my subscription to National Geographic.

~~I'll be back in a week or so.~~ EDIT: The good news is I got said ten-year-old laptop working, much to my surprise. The bad news is it's still ten years old. So I may be around, in fits and starts.

When the Complaints Go Marching In

2007-10-27T14:01:00.001-04:00

These Visa commercials have got to stop.

First of all, the insinuation that life as we know it will drag to a complete halt if you pay by any other means than your card is a complete lie. Sometimes it's the inverse. As with every time I attempt to use my bank card at Target. Those stupid feed-readers they insist on using never work, but like the conscientious consumer I am (and since I don't want them to think I'm fresh off the farm and ain't never seen one a these fancy ee-leck-tron-ick card slots) I make sure the cashier sees it reject my card three times. Then they have to swipe it on the register, and when that doesn't work ten or eleven times in a row they finally punch in my card number. But that's not all! Then they have to get out that old-school credit card machine. You know the one, with the roller and the stamper that imprints your card number onto the receipt. Most of the time they can't find it, so they end up using the side of a pen to emboss the relief of my card onto that pressure-sensitive paper. Then, finally, I can walk away with my purchases and the music starts again.

Still, for the most part I thought it was a clever device (e.g., the vast consumer machine grinds to a halt when one gear decides to write a check) and other than the conspicuous consumption portrayed it didn't significantly bother me. But then I saw this spot the other day.

(I removed the commercial because the autoplay was pissing me off. It's that one with the Saints.)

Pink shirt, tied sweater, buying tennis balls when everyone else is doing their football thing. Apparently, the message is "only fags use cash."

Party Hard

2007-10-20T23:09:00.000-04:00

As a gift to commemorate her birth, Sed's grandma sent Avery this watercolor.

It's called "Let's Have a Party," and it's currently hanging in our dining room because, face it, a row of pears is not exactly child's-bedroom couture. (It is Avery's painting, however, and we've promised Great-Grandma that she can take it with her when she leaves our house. Just want to clarify that in case we get accused of trying to claim it.)

Tonight, after dinner, Sed got to examining the painting, and asked the pressing question:

"What makes pears a party?"

"Well," I suggested, my random off-the-cuff rambling getting the better of me, "maybe she's going for the subtle homophone. 'Pear' can also be like 'pair,' like a couple, and a bunch of pairs coming together could be a swinger's group. You know, the curved ends bumping together and all that. If you get what I mean."

Sed could only stare open-mouthed as she took in the implications.

"You're never going to look at that painting the same way again, are you?"

Here We Go Again

2007-10-20T00:08:00.001-04:00

Dear New Era,

Thanks for updating your fitted hats. No, seriously -- I was just mourning the fact that my Tigers hat has already shrunken to smaller than my head after less than a year, so not having to repurchase another cap again will definitely be a bonus. However, while you were improving the line, couldn't you have made it so those plastic strands didn't come jutting out from under the crown seam after the first wearing and stab me in the head?

Concerned,
Rick

Dear Invisalign,

STOP FRIGGING YELLING AT ME WITH YOUR COMMERCIAL. Your potential customers have uneven teeth, not bad hearing.

Seriously,
Rick

Dear Jagged Edge,

"Baby Makin' Project"? Really? I mean, the chicks stopped paying attention to dance R&B after they felt a little poke coming through. At that point the self-referential joke had been taken as far as it could go. Or so I thought. Unless you guys are serious, in which case, um, good luck.

Your friend,
Rick

Dear Pizza Hut,

Enough with the made-up words already. You're still inflicting "P'Zone" on us, and now you're expecting us to buy "unhunger"? Buy a stylebook.

Sincerely,
Rick

Dear Rachael Ray,

No, seriously. It's over between us.

Love,
Rick

P.S. I peed in your EVOO.

Why Are Sunsets Orange?

2007-10-17T23:52:00.000-04:00

Avery and I have settled into the front row to watch a UCF soccer game (hey, admission is free, and it's so popular in New Mexico that she's gonna have to learn about it sometime). It's about to start when the lady behind us picks up her phone and randomly dials.

"Hey, I wanted to tell you this before it was too late," she says to her victim. "Have you seen the sky? Yeah, it's all orange and blue. God's a Gator fan."

And Avery starts crying.

I feel her pain. Who ruins a perfectly good sunset?

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

2007-10-13T22:53:00.000-04:00

Dear Rachael Ray,

This may be the hardest letter I'll ever write. We've had a good run, after all -- you perform hideous media abominations and I mock you. But this just isn't working out for me anymore.

It's not you, it's me. No, strike that; it's mostly you. As your exposure, your volume, your amount of eyeliner have all gone up, your shows have become unwatchable. I used to cherish 30 Minute Meals for its savvy interpretations of simplistic yet well-rounded meals, but let's be honest -- how many times can I be expected to watch you reinvent pasta or cheeseburgers?

When you took on the $40-a-Day role, that was the beginning of the end. Looking past the questionable hyphenation (even though one of them might be better pressed into service in the previous title), it was just another show about restaurants in places I will never go. And the restaurants you chose, the dishes you sampled, the chintzy, paltry tips you left! Rachael, the show is irresponsible and unconscionable, and yet you persist.

Then came the cavalcade of Oprah/Martha clones ... Inside Dish, Tasty Travels, the syndicated talk show, the magazine. Each less watchable than the previous. It's gotten to where if I see your hideous visage on my TV screen -- even during a commercial -- I shudder and quickly change the channel. And this is why our brief, twisted tryst must end. After all, if I'm not watching your show, how can I make fun of it?

I wish I'd been there to break it to you gently, Rachael, but you aren't a media empire. You're just a backwoods supermarket buyer who found a bright spot of fame making quick and easy meals on afternoon television. We must embrace our limitations. For example, I know that about four people are reading this, and you aren't one of them. But I know of no other way to tell you it's over.

Love always,
Rick

PS. Boy, first your husband and now me. I tell ya, Rachael, I almost feel bad for you. But not as bad as I feel for your makeup artist. She has no escape but to lose her job.

Truth In Advertising

2007-10-10T22:55:00.000-04:00

Avery and I pass this sign every day on our afternoon walk.

To be fair, this isn't technically a fabrication. Still, it is a bit disingenuous to put a picture of a Doberman pinscher on your fence when what you've got is actually a miniature pinscher. Especially when you've also got a chihuahua which happens to be more likely to attack. I guess they're trying to boost his confidence.

The cavalier, wishful inaccuracy of this sign makes me laugh, but it also nags at me. What it needs is a disclaimer, something to make clear what you're actually getting if you scale the fence at this place. Something like this.

I'd write it on there for real, but I don't need the chihuahua biting my ankles.

Is This What They Call "Californication"?

2007-10-05T11:58:00.000-04:00

So I open my newspaper this morning to find "Orlando's 101 Best," a reader poll of our favorite area restaurants, shops and attractions. Awesome, I think -- I'm always looking for new recommended local places to eat, shop, or just walk around. Maybe this will hip me to more of the local culture.

Seriously, it's like I never learn. There's still no local culture in Orlando.

Here are some of the results, which I wish I was making up.

Seasons 52 was named for best American, best atmosphere, best dessert and best vegetarian, and (just like it always does) it took best overall restaurant. Know who owns Seasons 52? Darden. Fourteen hundred restaurants nationwide and somehow they manage to operate the best joint in Central Florida.
The House of Blues gets "best bar to see live music"? Do you people know what a bar is?
Best Chinese: P.F. Chang's. Best coffee: Starbucks. Best Italian: Carrabba's, with freaking Olive Garden and Macaroni Grill as runners-up. You know, Florida is populated with expatriated New Yorkers. I thought they knew what Chinese, coffee and Italian were supposed to taste like.
Best Happy Hour: Chili's. Wait, what?
Publix brought home the award for best sub. I feel obligated to disclose that Publix is a goddamn supermarket.
Barnes and Noble was named the best bookstore. This one was a gimme, though, because locals don't open bookstores knowing that Floridians can't read.
Best Place To Find A Unique Gift: Downtown Disney. Excuse me, but how is anything you find at Disney unique?
By the time the Epcot Food and Wine Festival nabbed "best community festival," I had already put down the paper.

How is it that Sed's hospital is the busiest labor and delivery unit in the Western Hemisphere and still nobody's from here?

Pixel Perfect

2007-10-04T15:10:00.000-04:00

That's what I get for buying a first-run untested camera, I guess.

I played with the settings on my Kodak M883 for three solid weeks, trying to find the configuration that would take crisp pictures without graininess. But I guess this model accidentally went to production without a "Don't Suck" button. So I went back to Best Buy and complained. Thirty minutes of extensive testing later (all while the girl helping me stood by impatiently), I walked out with a completely different animal.

Our new Canon Powershot is a slight step down in terms of megapixels (back at 7.2) and size (thing's bigger than the three-year-old dead one). On top of that, if I want to maintain the file system I've been using thus far for images downloaded to my computer, I have to do it manually (at least partly because the pack-in camera manager software does not, in fact, work).

All of these are minor complaints against having good-looking pictures again.

I don't need dedicating photo download software, not when Windows will let me open the camera and move image files from Explorer. The bulkiness is a hassle, but we're always carrying a diaper bag these days anyway. And as for the image size, we were pretty happy with four megapixels as long as the image was clean. What good are eight when the photo itself comes out like this?

We have important events to record here. I can't be spending half my day staring at Photoshop just so we can see them.

Take Two

2007-09-30T17:55:00.000-04:00

National Excuse For Writing Month is just around the corner. Are you gonna do it? Use it to improve your writing skills. Use it to get into the good habit of journaling daily. Or just use it to find newfound fame and glory and attain riches beyond your wildest dreams. You know, aim low.

I've got a good story, but I'm not even going to attempt that NaNoWriMo business this time around. One first draft in five tries is not a good track record, y'all, and with a certain punkinhead on the verge of crawling I don't think I could sit down to pound out 1,667 daily words if I wanted to.

However, my NaBloPoMo success rate is still 100%. And there's no word count on this bad boy -- you can put up a thirty-three-word diatribe about Sandra Lee's cosmetic surgery and it counts. That's something I can stick with. Plus, it artificially increases my ~~penis size~~ hit count.

Remember when I asked if you were doing it? That was rhetorical. Go sign up. Or I'll slap you with my, er, hit count.

Another Great Free Idea

2007-09-27T21:53:00.002-04:00

Create an acoustic folk band with three or more members, at least one of whom should have a white-boy afro.
Perform gentle, soothing covers of songs originally recorded by gangsta rap outfits, especially those by NWA and Ice-T.
Call it "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Crime."

Call the (P)Orkin Man

2007-09-20T21:17:00.000-04:00

It's semi-annual plague season in Central Florida again. That's right -- the lovebugs are back with a vengeance.

In case you don't live in a disgusting swamp and don't know what I'm talking about, let me clue you in. Lovebugs are these little black flies with red heads that float around in the air, moving with little to no purpose other than to get in your way and possibly land in your hair. Oh, and the best part? When you see one flying in front of you, it's usually not one. It's two, conjoined at the sexual parts in post-coital bliss.

That's right. They call them "lovebugs" because it would be impolitic to make widespread the term "flying fuckers."

Today while Avery and I were at the store, we had to literally bat our way through swarms of the things, which were teeming across the sidewalk and parking lot. At one point I looked up and it was almost like a black cloud had covered part of the sky.

Lovebugs aren't nuisances in the usual ways -- they don't sting, they don't eat your food, they don't spin webs across doorways so that you walk into them and end up wiping your face for the next ten minutes. All they do is hump and float. But it's still pretty disgusting in terms of sheer numbers. During breeding season, I consider it a duty to ensure that as many lovebugs as possible die a horrific death upon meeting my windshield.

Then when we got home I saw two snakes in my backyard. Not one like usual. Two.

You know something, Florida? I don't like you either.

Shiver Me Megapixels

2007-09-19T23:19:00.000-04:00

Me camera box has been actin' up a spell, me hearties. The flash weren't illuminatin' nothin' brighter'n you'd find in Davy Jones' locker, an' apace the whole contraption weren't movin' any faster'n a schooner on a sandbar. That's why two weeks hence, me an' the missus took the big jump offa the plank an' got us a new treasure.

It's a nice piece of equipment. We're happy with ... what? Did you think I was going to keep that up for the whole post? I appreciate International Talk Like a Pirate Day just as much as everyone, but that's hard to keep up when you're talking technology.

Anyway, since I was limited on how much we could spend (this being a single-income household, after all) I had to pass on the fancy digital SLRs this time around. I ended up with the same camera we had before -- a Kodak point-and-shoot -- with twice the megapixels (up from four to eight), triple the screen size, and half the bulk. Observe its majesty! (And see that in fact, I am still capable of taking pictures that don't have my daughter in them.)

My only issue is that graininess. What Ol' Not-So-Flashy lacked in sheer dimensions it made up for in sharpness. This looks like I'm blowing up a photograph in Microsoft Paint. I haven't figured out what settings I could change that might help. Any ideas?

Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th

2007-09-18T23:05:00.000-04:00

Avery has found the octave key on her voice box.

I blame the Enchanted Tiki Room. If it weren't for all those birds singing words and the flowers blooming, it might have never come to pass that my daughter recognized in herself the capacity for screaming. But no -- we take her in among the blinking lights and the bright colors, she becomes so excited that she squeals with glee, and then she proceeds to test out that sound until Mom and Dad develop tinnitus.

Oh, well. It was going to come to pass sooner or later. She did, after all, descend from a man who once yelled so loud at a basketball game that the mascot heard him in the locker room.

(Like the video, by the way? I finally figured out this camera capture device we bought months ago, so more should be forthcoming.)

They're Suckers for Crying Babes

2007-09-10T00:29:00.001-04:00

A big dude like me doesn't usually have much luck in getting out of a traffic ticket. So when the Georgia Highway Patrol officer pulled me over Friday night, it looked like another addition to my inglorious track record.

I must admit, I was flustered. We'd just stopped for the third time in less than two hours, attempting to appease Avery so she'd sleep the rest of the way to Charleston, with limited success. In the midst of her screams, I'd failed to get out of the right lane, away from the traffic stop in progress, replete with flashing lights and officer waving me over, before two cars bumrushed me on the left and boxed me in. So she wasn't the only one upset when said officer jumped back in his car and chased me down.

"Care to explain why you didn't move away from my traffic stop back there?" he barked over my daughter's wails. Apparently, this is a law. I'm glad I'm not taking driver's ed now; I'd bring home a big fat F.

I apologized for my inability to act, explained the situation, and handed over my license and insurance information. He walked away from the car for maybe thirty seconds, then came back to the window and handed my stuff back.

"For future reference," he said, "you need to get to the left when you see a traffic stop. We enforce that very vigorously in Georgia, and it's a five hundred dollar ticket. I didn't see that you couldn't get over, but if that happens, at least slow down. Don't let it happen again."

Note to self: Next time I am pulled over, make sure to have a screaming child in the back seat. I love pity.

Schmucks In a Row

2007-09-06T23:30:00.000-04:00

Today during Mama-Mandated TV Time (the hour immediately after Sed gets home, when Ned's Declassified is on), I heard this ad for a kid-specific cell phone.

No, this isn't another Commercials That Piss Me Off post. What snagged me about this spot was the music -- the "Cha Cha Slide." Apparently, this has become a hip dance craze sometime during the nine years when I already had a significant other and no longer had to go clubbing to find a mate. I don't know how to do it, and you know what? I don't care.

At some point beyond the haze of collegiate alcoholic debauchery, I decided to stop doing any and all line dances. The Cotton-Eye Joe was fun after a few pitchers, especially the part where you yell "Bullshit!" as loud as you can just before staggering off the dance floor and puking in your date's handbag. And the Electric Slide was fine when I'd ingested enough margaritas -- plus, since everybody knows it, you're almost weirder if you sit it out.

"So why?" you're asking. "If you're as little of a freak as you might inversely claim to be, why don't you just do the dance?" And you're running down a list of options:

When they audition for "Dancing With the Stars," there's actually a category called "Exact Opposite of Rick."
I'm such a belligerent nonconformist that I also throw punch at the dancers and the DJ when it comes on.
I'm lame and I suck.

When really I just stopped when I realized it wasn't fun.

Seriously. Next time you're at a wedding (like the one I'm going to this weekend, where I just know they're gonna play the "Cha Cha Slide") or a club or a bar mitzvah or whatever, watch the dancers during the line dance. But don't watch their feet. Watch their faces. These people are locked in concentration, working to lock their steps with their neighbors. When they miss a beat, they wince or curse or stop despondently and watch the rest of the block for a good place to re-enter. Thanks, but when I want to march in formation I go to drum corps practice.

Dancing is about expression, about freedom, about just having a good time with your friends and loved ones. So when I'm dancing with my daughter at this wedding, I won't be goose-stepping -- I'll be expressing myself.

Specifically, I'll be expressing what a fool I am and how hard I'm going to embarrass Avery in twelve years.

Oh Yeah, This Thing

2007-09-06T00:33:00.000-04:00

Seriously, parents. You could have warned me that having a child would turn me into Edward Norton's character from Fight Club. Without the punching and the split personality, I mean; just the insomnia.

Not helping my free time is that I've taken a pro bono gig doing graphic design and marketing for my drum corps. More on that as I'm permitted to share.

My dad sent me a birthday gift that enabled me to purchase my Flickr account. Thanks, Dad! If you wanna see something cool, go check out my map and look how I've taken pictures from Vancouver to Tampa. That tool's been fun to play with, not least because I'm determined to place my photos at exactly the right point they were taken. No general Magic Kingdom for me; no sir, you're getting Ariel's Grotto! (No, the ones I took at my house aren't on the map. I'm dumb, but I'm not stupid.)

Did you know that VH1's "I Love the '80s" series is very easy on people whose brains are dissolving from lack of sleep?

Chug to Get Started

2007-08-28T22:14:00.000-04:00

Now that I'm home all day, I find myself watching a lot of Food Network (surprise, surprise). Honestly, though, I had no idea how far it had fallen. Didn't they used to talk about cooking?

I'd been about to write the whole thing off if it wasn't for Coop. In her time here, she helped me to come to terms with the whole ridiculous thing and turn it back on itself. Not only did we rename shows ("Barefoot Contessa," for example, became "Cooking For Jeffrey And/Or Homos"), but we managed to invent a whole Food Network drinking game.

Drink when ...

Bobby Flay sticks food right in the camera lens
Rachael Ray takes one hand off whatever she's doing so she can talk with it
Sandra Lee accents a preposition
Giada DiLaurentiis pretends whatever she just put in her mouth is delicious enough to give her an orgasm
Alton Brown uses a conjunctive adverb at the end of a shot
Paula Deen pronounces it "bowl" instead of "boil" or "oal" instead of "oil"
Tyler Florence mumbles so hard you can't understand him

Do a shot when ...

Emeril says "Bam!"
Paula Deen licks her finger
Rachael Ray says "E-V-O-O-extra-virgin-olive-oil"
Ina Garten, having just claimed her guests will think she's been working all day, explains how simple the meal was
Alton Brown says "That's another show"
- Do another shot if it actually is
They show a commercial for Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, as he already wrote this critique better than I did

Chug when ...

Ina Garten uses her electric juicer
Sandra Lee has "Cocktail Time"
Rachael Ray actually drops something

The Relative Rule
When a relative of the host first appears on camera, the first person to point out that relative may make any other player do a shot. Unmarried significant others count (Bobby Flay's girlfriend Stephanie), but acted relatives don't (Marsha and Elton Brown).

Do a bonus shot if you think Rachael Ray looks like the Joker.

Did I miss anything?

An Exercise In Marketing

2007-08-25T11:15:00.000-04:00

I posted an entry about media organizations talking themselves up.

Sometime last week, Jason was leafing through my daily paper (on a quest for the comics) and found a rather prominent story about how trustworthy its readers feel it is. Not opinion, not even the ombudsman's column, but a full-out story, started on A1. He actually (oh, the naivete!) got mad about it. But I smiled sadly, world-weary journalist that I am, because despite the Slantinel's ham-handed handling of it (most other papers put it inside, at least, and usually below the fold), this is really common practice.

On a similar note, this morning while I was watching ESPN News (which I won't write in their logo format -- ESPNews -- because that reads like information and updates for psychics), an item on the ticker noted that "ESPN reports Michael Vick won't plead guilty to killing dogs or gambling on dogfights." Is all that information necessary? The subject of the story is Michael Vick, unless I miss my guess, but the sentence makes the subject ESPN's diligent news coverage. If this nugget of info had been scooped by, oh, the New York Times, would Extra-Sensory Perception News have also said that?

You don't have a media outlet without an audience. It absorbs your information, of course, but more importantly to your bottom line, it views your ads. Without an audience, you won't have any advertisers, and you can't keep going very long without that revenue. (Even Disney Channel, long a self-supported ad-free entity, is now accepting underwriters of a sort.) So how do you build an audience? You let people know that you're a reliable, consistent source of information and entertainment. And what's the best way to dissiminate this information? It would be overkill to hire a public relations firm -- after all, you've already got this outlet. You might as well just print your accolades using your own ink.

You're seeing a problem here. When you use your medium as your PR vehicle, the people who get your message are the people who already believe in your product, so you're not going to sell anymore ads. But that's only arisen in the last thirty or so years, now that the newspaper is no longer the only game in town. Just like everything else, print journalism has been slow on the uptake on modern marketing -- readership goes down, sales go down, and the only thing the managing editors can think to say is "We've always operated like this!"

ESPN's self-reference works, though. Since they've got multiple outlets, referring from one to another ensures that their product will never be far from their customers' minds. In fact, we might be channel-surfing between ESPN News, SportsCenter on ESPN, the World's Strongest Man Competition on ESPN2, and ~~Kiana's Flex Appeal~~ the 1985 Celtics-Lakers series on ESPN Classic, thus exposing ourselves to all their separate advertisers -- maybe even while surfing ESPN.com and leafing through ESPN the Magazine. It's an all-new shell game. Rather than looking for new customers to bolster the audience, outlets give their existing customers more items on which to spend their money. A caged chicken struggles less than a free-range one, after all.

Oh, for the record -- my first sentence? I was talking about this entry right here. But it sure got some of you searching for my previous dissertation on the topic, thereby increasing my hits and likewise my Web presence. Crafty, no?

What I Have to Deal With

2007-08-24T10:37:00.001-04:00

Here's what came in my paper this morning.

Sixty-four pages of pre-season football coverage, not counting the four pages of football news in the sports section proper. There are twelve in section A, and five of those are full page ads. Oh, and one page of baseball boxes, and the only mention of basketball was in a column about the whiny tourism magnate trying to block the new arena.

Damn it, Florida.

More Commercials That Piss Me Off

2007-08-23T20:28:00.000-04:00

Have you seen this one?

New Aquapod bottled water! Because of its fun shape, kids will drink more water and less of those other beverages.

Sure, I can see that. Because the shape of the bottle is how I choose my beverage, not unimportant considerations like, you know, flavor.

This is quite an assumption to base your entire marketing campaign on, Aquapod. Sure, kids are stupid, but I think they'll eventually realize that despite the extreme (or is that passe now?) bottle it's in, water doesn't have any taste, let alone sugar or caffeine. I can already see this argument dying a painful death in my house five years from now.

("Aw, come on, Avery! You don't want water? But it's orbtastic!")

Absorbent and Yellow and Porous is the Human Brain

2007-08-20T17:09:00.000-04:00

So I'm watching TV during my alloted viewing period this afternoon (Avery's naptime) when a weight-loss commercial comes on. Food Network (my drug of choice) airs a lot of said advertisements, targeting the (as Gabriel Iglesias puts it) "fluffy" among us -- when you know your audience loves pork fried in butter, you stand a better chance of reaching someone who'd like to shed a few extra feet of girth. But this one (even for a weight-loss spot) strains the boundaries of credulity:

"Eat all you want and still lose weight! And we couldn't say it on TV if it wasn't true!"

Really? So you mean there actually is a square yellow talking anthropomorphic sponge that lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Thinker's Block

2007-08-17T11:27:00.000-04:00

Have you ever had a great idea for something, but by the time you went to implement it, you'd forgotten the whole point of what you were planning to do?

That's been happening to me all this week. I'll get an idea for a blog post, but somewhere between mental conception and sitting in front of a keyboard I lose it. It's as though it just flies away, like a fly ... no wait, like a bird, some giant bird, like I'm a birdbrain and uh ...

Well, crap. Now I forgot where I was going with that. But rest assured it included the hit comedic phrase "seagull poop."

The Boobs Are the Ones Who Vote Based On This

2007-08-08T16:20:00.000-04:00

So apparently there's much to-do about one of our Democratic presidential candidates making a new foray into low-neckline territory. No, not Dennis Kucinich or his trophy wife. I'm talking about Hillary Clinton.

One of her advisors must have Googled "what people want from female president" and got back the answer "titties."

And that's a shame. Not only is the Internet a copout when it comes to research, but this type of campaigning is pandering and insulting. A simple straw poll could have appropriately refined that response -- so that it at least included the phrase "but not Hillary's."

Truth in Advertising

2007-08-07T18:24:00.000-04:00

He's filling his tank at the Citgo, but the logo on his T-shirt is decidedly Chevron. Why anybody would profess such brand loyalty as to own apparel for a chain of gas stations and then shop elsewhere boggles my mind. Was it a free shirt, the only clean one in his drawer? Is it his dad's shirt -- is he rebelling? Was the allure of less-expensive gas a quarter-mile down the road too intense to resist?

But then the light changes, I get closer, and I notice the text above the logo doesn't say the brand name. It says, "I Have Gas."

She Did Pay For It, After All

2007-08-06T22:47:00.000-04:00

Upon depleting a significant percentage of our liquor stash, Coop starts sobbing, because she loves everybody so much that it's become too intense to bear. In fact, she insists I call my brother so that she can share in the affection-fest. He is, after all, the common link in our friendship.

Um ... say what now? Isn't my wife your best friend?

"No, you don't understand. He's your brother and Sed's his sister-in-law, and she's like my sister, so he's like right in the middle. He's the link."

Ah, drunk logic.

Sorry, audience. We've been near the bottom of a bottle for approximately two weeks, and shan't be climbing out for another one and a half. Meanwhile, I'll try to stop sucking at this.

Catching Up

2007-07-27T20:18:00.000-04:00

Things I missed while working on Thirty Years in Thirty Days:

Baby Stuff Avery's kept up with her blog pretty well, actually. She's holding her head up by herself, rolling over with more intent, and figuring out that when she screams bloody murder we pick her up.

The Harry Potter Release Coop and I planned to attend the midnight party July 20. Unfortunately, by the time we got there at 11:15 the joint was already too full for us to partake of wizard games and whatnot. I say "unfortunately" knowing that it makes me a huge nerd, but at least I'm not such a big nerd that I make my own Hogwarts uniform.

Oh, and there was a book that came out, too, apparently. I was right on a lot of my predictions, especially the part about the dishwashers coming to life and holding Prince Wills hostage.

The Next Food Network Star I've said it before: this contest is totally rigged. Food Network decides who it wants to win on the basis of the submission tapes. Then in the commercials for the show, the network positions one contestant as a vile charlatan to be despised, and puts that person in the finals. Of course, then America (and by "America" I mean "the handful of losers to whom this dreck actually matters") picks the other one on the basis that we don't need another Rachael Ray.

Think about it. Deborah was "ticked off right now" and she lost to the Hearty Boys. Reggie was shrill and in your face during every single promo and Guy beat him out. Now, even though Rory wanted it "so freakin' bad," who won? Amy. Tell me that's not a back-handed smear campaign.

Back to Evil Incarnate for a minute ...

The New 30 Minute Meals Intro Come on, people. We already see enough of Rachael's new fright mask during the show. Didja have to put her and her eyeliner in the opening? The corn was fine. Though I suppose, given the network's current direction, that they're trying to remove as many references to cooking as possible. (Hey, it worked for G4 and gaming.)

The Tigers' Ridiculous Slide Maybe I need to reassess my prediction of AL Central champs. If this keeps up, they'll be lucky to snag the wild card.

The Alberto Gonzales Trial, Drunken Astronauts, and/or YouTube Debates Aw, who has time for that? I'm too busy cursing the Twins and mocking Sandra Lee's collagen injections.

Thirty

2007-07-24T16:59:00.000-04:00

And that's it. As of 11:48 this morning, I officially have one foot in the grave.

This project was a lot harder than I expected it to be, actually. Who remembers things that happened when they were one? But in talking with family and friends, loved ones who would remember, I learned a lot and remembered more things I'd forgotten.

Moreover, I learned about myself. Not from what I wrote, necessarily, but from what I chose to write about. It's one's actions that define who he is, but it's also his surroundings, his friends and family, his environment. All of it touched me, but some of it happened in ways I might not have expected to last at the time. Going back over it helped me realize which events in my personal history really molded me into what I am, and which that seemed so significant at the time actually weren't.

I hope you've enjoyed my month of navel-gazing. Was it really important? Maybe not in the grand scheme of things -- but to me it has been. And let's face it, I've never pretended to be grand. Except maybe in pants size.

Twenty-Nine

2007-07-23T12:37:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure I even have to write this entry. After all, this entire blog is essentially a paean to my daughter already, even though she's got her own.

We weren't ready for kids. I guess you never are. You keep making excuses, helping each other draw out your youth and irresponsibility as long as you can. Let's wait until we have more money. Let's wait until we're settled into our permanent location. Let's wait until the heavens and earth collide and wizards and unicorns fight balrogs and chimaerae for control of the universe.

So when Sed showed me that little testing stick with three lines on it late in August, naturally, the first thought through my head was, "Holy shit -- I'm not ready."

But then, swiftly behind it: "Yes, I am."

We weren't long out of Vancouver, so the memory of seeing Lourdess was fresh. But more directly related was the time we'd spent with Georgette. When your perfect older daughter is desperately sick, sometimes you don't have the energy or wherewithal to give the more demanding younger child all the attention she needs. So to help lighten the load on everyone, I jumped right in with Georgette. I played games with her, I scooted her around the floor on a truck, I read her stories, we watched videos. When her uncle appeared and offered to take her out for the day, she wouldn't go unless I came along, and I was then in charge of her allergy medicines and spare clothes.

Isn't that what being a dad is about? Being supportive, sharing the wealth, taking care of health concerns? I actually had the thought running through my head all that day while we trailed her uncle through shops and museums: "What am I waiting for? This is it, this is what I'm supposed to be able to do -- and I'm doing it."

So even though Lourdess is the one who got her own entry, it was Georgette who made me realize I was ready, who helped me not to panic in welcoming Avery into our world.

And honestly, how can you panic at the sight of this face?

Twenty-Eight

2007-07-22T19:00:00.000-04:00

I've already spoken once about the fear, anger and resentment that comes along with losing a family member young during this project. But as I also mentioned, I certainly wasn't prepared for its potential return.

So when Sed's little sister contracted acute myelogenous leukemia shortly after her eighth birthday last spring, the previous loss didn't make that load of bricks falling on us any softer.

There are two types of blood cancers, I'd learn over the next seven months. AML is the "bad" kind, the kind that kills one of every two of its victims, the kind more likely to return. If Lourdess had contracted ALL -- acute lymphoblastic leukemia -- we'd have been able to bask in the comfort of a 99% remission rate. Instead, we were reduced to chewing our fingernails to stumps, hoping that she was the good one and not the bad.

By all rights, Lourdess's illness shouldn't have touched me like it did. She lives in another country, and I'd only gotten to play with her two or three times, and she wasn't actually my sister. None of that mattered, not before she was sick and less after. The girl took seconds to find footholds in my heart, and neither the distance nor the gaps in our company did anything to erode them. There's a picture on our family wall of Lourdess and I standing by a stream near her family's house, holding hands and watching the water. It's heartfelt enough that more than one person has asked if she's my daughter.

I'm not going to pretend I was the only one affected. Her sickness bombarded the whole family with grief and fear -- her parents, her sisters, her aunts and uncles. We managed to keep strong faces and keep Lourdess's spirits up, but it wasn't easy when we visited in August. Chemotherapy had taken her long hair; her color, once dark and rosy, was now wan; she took stairs less like an adventuring child and more like a laboring retiree; bouts of sickness lingered around every corner, waiting for an opportunity to strike. When she had to return to the hospital, Sed almost didn't fly back with me -- she was sure she'd be staying in Vancouver for a funeral.

Fortunately, not all stories of strife have the same vulgar ending. Lourdess got better, and Sed and I came home. Sometime around the end of October, the doctors reported that the leukemia was in remission. Within a month or two, she was able to return home. By February, she was back in school. In March, she and her folks visited us in Florida, and it did both our hearts good to see her regression from a thin, sallow invalid to the cheery playmate we knew before.

Officially, five years must pass before Lourdess is considered cured. As strong as her spirit is, and as much support as she has all around her, I don't think the cancer has a chance.

Twenty-Seven

2007-07-21T23:40:00.000-04:00

I never thought I'd leave New Mexico.

Well, that all changed when I went to Japan, but once I came back I never thought I'd leave New Mexico again. Obviously it's easier the second time, especially when you're going to a place where they speak your language.

It wasn't really all our decision to move to Florida. A component of medical school is The Match, where near the end of your fourth year they place you in a residency program. The Match is a program run by the U.S. Medical Licensing Association Or Something Like That, in which graduates-to-be interview at residency programs and then both sides rate their partners in order of preference. Then, via a complex algorithm that nobody understands (undoubtedly involving, at some level, a blindfolded retiree with a dartboard), the USMLAOSLT matches (thus the name) residents into programs. Sed had interviewed at her program here in Orlando and immediately felt at home. So even though we didn't want to be so far from the Rio Grande Valley, we knew we had to take the chance.

There were a lot of bummers about moving to Florida. I was leaving my family, my friends, and a job that I was just starting to really fit into and love. Plus, when we got here, I learned that the displaced New Yorkers who live in Orlando are, on the whole, rude and abrupt. Not necessarily a learning curve I'd like to re-ride.

But then again, we knew we needed the distance. When you live so close to your parents, it's difficult to ever truly grow up, to feel like you could do it on your own if you had to. We always felt somewhat cowed by our familial authority figures into operating closer to their way than we might without the advice. And Sed and I had never really been alone, living together without some form of support or companionship ready to insert itself into our relationship. First we'd had the dorms, then we'd had our mothers, then we'd had roommates, and even when they'd moved out we still saw them all the time.

I'm not trying to sound ungrateful. We love and cherish everyone who stepped through our door (except for maybe that one guy Shauna brought home who thought he could try out for the Blue Man Group and eventually ended up pounding on windows late one night). But Sed and I never wanted to take them for granted. You can see how it's hard to not do that when every Thursday and Sunday (and sometimes on Fridays) they were knocking on the door. The distance, we knew, would be good for us.

So on May 30, 2005, we packed our cars, called our dogs, and started driving to Florida. It was a long drive, with multiple heartbreaks along the road the farther we got from our home. But when times are difficult here, when we wish our friends could just pull up and knock on that door, we remember we have each other to lean on no matter how lonesome we may be. And that's gratitude.

Twenty-Six

2007-07-20T14:47:00.000-04:00

Nothing happened when I was 26.

Well, nothing of particular note, anyway. I didn't get married, I didn't move, I didn't change jobs, I didn't really make any new friends. About the only thing out of the ordinary that happened was Sed and me taking her younger brother to Disneyland, just the three of us with no adults.

Or so I thought, anyway.

When we walked through that turnstile on the first day, Sed and Clayton were so excited that they immediately tried to bolt off in opposite directions. Quick as a flash, I seized their shoulders, calmly reined them in and advised that we make a plan for what to visit first, what we wanted to do during the day and where to meet if we got separated.

It was my first big moment in adulthood.

Thinking about it now, you aren't supposed to have huge milestones after you pass 25. That's what society tells us, anyway -- you can smoke, you can drink, you can vote, you can drive a car and have qualified for the reduced insurance rate; now take that and be happy until you retire at 59 1/2. You're supposed to settle into a routine, go to your job, go home to your family, have a nice dinner and a relaxed evening with your favorite show or a board game. It's one of the hallmarks of maturity -- you've learned what works for you, what you like, what you don't, how to get it, how to enjoy it, how to moderate yourself.

So living a quiet, peaceful life doesn't provide me with much blog fodder, but it taught me something about growing up. It's boring, and it's happening all around you like it or not, so you might as well go with the flow and learn what works.

Twenty-Five

2007-07-19T20:50:00.000-04:00

I've always been a dog person. My uncles had dogs when I was growing up, and my stepfather eased into my life with his. I trained my parents' basset hound puppy and won over my college friends with her cuteness. But I didn't have my own dogs until I got back from Japan.

They weren't even my dogs to start with. Two months before my return, my friend and future housemate Coop had gone to Pound Puppy Day (or whatever it's called) at PetSmart, coming home with a ten-pound golden fluffball named Mai Tai. I still remember my reaction when Sed's text message appeared on my phone: a groan of dismay, followed by explaining to my friends, "I have a dog, apparently." I knew I'd be taking care of the puppy when I got home, not necessarily because of anyone's neglect or incompetence but simply because I had the most experience with dogs.

When I moved in, Kucha (as she had been quickly renamed, after a tribe on Survivor, which for the record I would like to say I only watched for one season and then gave up, and don't do drugs, kids) was a gangly 50-pounder who could stand with her paws on my shoulders. She howled, she clawed at the sliding glass door, she dug in the dirt, and she would make you chase her around the kitchen table for hours before you could put her outside. But she also leaned against your hip while you petted her, nestled her head in your lap when you sat on the couch, and snuggled up with you in bed. I loved her right away. Here was a dog, I realized, who had been concieved out of neglect and left for dead, but she was still sweet, loyal and loving.

But she was still Coop's dog. So I tried not to get too attached.

When Shauna moved in about a month later, she asked if we objected to her bringing her dog along. Angel was a skittish cocker spaniel runt who barked at everything and everybody. She hid behind Shauna's legs for the first three days in our house, and stayed in her room while her master was at school. But it only took about fifteen minutes of Angel's whining the fourth day to call Shauna and ask if it was OK to let her out. After that, Angel took to me like I was her best friend. She sat on my lap, she curled up under my feet at my desk, she raced around the house like a banshee when I came home.

But she was still Shauna's dog. So. Again.

One year later, we've enjoyed living together and enjoyed having the dogs in our lives. Kucha and Angel are best buddies by now -- they play tug and chase as readily as they curl up together on the couch. But Sed and I are getting married, and as such we'd like to have our own place to live, no roommates.

"We're going to get an apartment," I announced to the roomies a few months before the wedding.

"Well, if you're moving out, we don't really want to take care of this house by ourselves," they said. "We'll find an apartment too."

"What about your dogs?"

I received a momentary blank look.

"Oh, yeah."

That was when I realized it. Kucha and Angel were already my dogs. I fed them, I walked them, I played with them, I cleaned up after them. And as such, Coop and Shauna had stopped thinking of themselves as dog owners.

So I kept the house with Sed. Coop and Shauna helped me clean and paint over the summer, I helped them move to a new apartment, they passed over the paperwork, and by August Sed and I were officially the proud parents of two blonde canine children.

Twenty-Four

2007-07-18T22:20:00.000-04:00

Over the course of the last few entries, I've alluded to the best thing to ever happen to me. Sed was another orientation leader, and from the moment she laid eyes on me she knew we'd be together. I was not so fortuitously endowed (you know how it is, guys, you're always the last one to find these things out) until, during a party at the end of the summer, she leaned over and whispered those seven fateful words in my ear:

"You know I'm crazy about you, right?"

It was all downhill from there. Not in the bad way; our relationship has been a smooth ride down a shallow slope with relatively few obstacles. I'm not saying what we have is perfect, because no long-term human interaction can be, but it's pretty darn close.

We weathered our storms. A guy she'd known before tried to wedge between us. My most recent ex-girlfriend worked very hard at making me jump ship and go back to her. And of course there was that whole year abroad thing. But we came out on the other side just like a well-tied sailor's knot: a bit battered and shabby, perhaps, but fused ever tighter by the tension and the maelstrom lashing around us.

We exchanged vows on June 15, 2002. I know; three years (adjusting for Japan) isn't really that long to know each other in the grand scheme of things. It was certainly not impossible that one of us had simply not yet discovered a deal-breaking flaw in the other. Of course, it's also not impossible for a human to fly. Technically.

Sed and I have always been totally open and honest with each other. A serious relationship cannot survive without serious communication, and that's not possible without honesty. Sometimes it hurts, sure, but our relationship is better for it. And it serves to prove that anything is possible if you're willing to compromise. With her, I am. (Hey, I'm in Florida, after all. Bet you didn't see that coming.)

Five years later, I'm confident that the deal-breakers are a thing of the past. I love my wife, and she loves me. We have a beautiful daughter and a willingness to work together to give her and each other the best life possible. What more can a guy ask?

Twenty-Three

2007-07-17T14:39:00.001-04:00

So you've just spent three-quarters of your life in school, living with your parents for a lot of it or at least never leaving your hometown. You've met a wonderful person, someone with whom you're prepared to spend the rest of your life. And you've finally nailed down that degree you've been after, that piece of paper that says you're ready to enter the work force.

What do you do now? Leave the country, of course.

No, it's not always so cut and dried. But remember, even though I was a card-carrying adult at this point, I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. So when I heard about this internship program through my Japanese class, I thought it sounded like a great way to ease into the working world.

Nothing was easy about Japan, though. The culture, the language, the priorities, the personalities are about as far removed as one can get from the Southwest. And I found out pretty quickly that what I'd learned from The Karate Kid did not really apply.

On my 23rd birthday, I was awakened by the manager of the dorm I lived in, telling me I had a phone call at the front desk. My fiancee had the right idea -- conveying her love and best wishes -- but coming as it did so soon after I'd moved across the globe, it served to reinforce exactly how alone I was all of a sudden, how vulnerable I'd become, leaping into this (literally) completely foreign position. And it hurt.

But by the end of the day, after some co-workers had taken me to a bar and a summer festival that just happened to coincide with my birthday, I felt better. It was about then that I decided not to burrow inside myself, like I might have were I simply in, say, Pittsburgh; in a place where I knew the language and thereby could be self-sufficient, I would not have to make new friends, but a culture as strange as Japan would require it of me.

That year abroad was probably the best thing I could have ever done for my people skills and my self-confidence. I never really learned the language -- the best I managed was to buy a summer kimono with matching obi for my girl back home without a translator -- and I never fully felt at ease with the customs and traditions and ways. But I learned that in Japan, they understand that, even expect it of foreigners. They won't expect you to get why they do things the way they do, and they won't hold it against you if you don't do it that way. Maybe it's a little condescending, but it sure makes for a nicer relationship -- especially when you surprise them by doing things with wa-fu.

So I don't know more facts than I did when I went. I don't know more language; in fact, in the intervening years I've probably forgotten almost all of it. But I do know that if I go into something with an open mind and a willingness to try and learn, that's almost as good.

Twenty-Two

2007-07-16T22:46:00.000-04:00

College was just the next step after I graduated high school. It was an expectation, a foregone conclusion -- I knew I'd be getting that bachelor's degree before I pursued any kind of a career. What I didn't know was how much I'd care about my school.

Four and a half years later, when I graduated from the University of New Mexico, I was an embodiment of its spirit.

To be honest, I'd always sort of been a Lobo. My dad took us to a lot of basketball games when we were growing up; we watched legends like Michael Cooper and Luc Longley and Hunter Greene work their magic in the perilous confines of The Pit and dreamed of one day playing on that hallowed floor.

Still, UNM was just somewhere to go. It was the backup plan, the college you picked when you hadn't gotten into anywhere else, when you didn't know what you wanted to do afterward. It was the University Near Mom.

But I didn't know what I wanted to do afterward. I wanted to write, that much was certain. I thought it pretty unlikely, though, that I'd get a degree in creative writing and suddenly begin churning out novels no matter what my baccalaureate education. Besides, my mentor had drilled into me that a degree was all but useless in pursuing publication. So I would be going to school for a degree in something that paid money, at least a little bit, and when I got home from that job I'd work on my stories.

As it turned out, UNM had an accredited communications program, with a journalism major within the school. That's writing, I thought. That pays, at least a little bit. And I'd already done some work for my high school paper, so how hard could it be?

The schooling itself was only a minor part of why I loved UNM. I loved its architecture, the Pueblo Revival style that I took for granted in Albuquerque but if not for President Tight's decree would have never taken off. I loved its sports teams, affable losers with high expectations of themselves despite their general lack of competition and competitiveness. I loved the fact that even though I was still quiet and withdrawn, I could now make friends, as this was not as much of a liability as it was in high school. And of course I loved the athletic bands, where I could shout and make a fool of myself and it was appreciated.

UNM was more than a school for my career. It was a school for my life. I lived on my own for the first time in college. I got drunk for the first time. I voted. I partied. I fell in love.

And on December 18, 1999, when I walked in my graduation ceremony, I finally got to realize my childhood dream and perform on that Pit floor.

Woof, woof, woof.

Twenty-One

2007-07-15T20:50:00.000-04:00

I never expected to get the job as a freshman orientation leader when I applied for it. After all, I was an average student, most of my activities were off-campus, and I wasn't in any kind of fraternity or student support group or activities committee or anything. How could someone as uninvolved as me get hired for a job like this?

As it turns out, my overall aloofness to campus events was a selling point. The LOBOrientation directorship needed a diverse group of students to properly portray the range of avaliable options to incoming freshmen. So even though I'd applied mostly because I'd just lost the job at AOHell and needed money to pay off my dorm bill, I was one of twenty students tabbed to introduce new students to my university.

It's a good thing I got the gig, because this turned out to be the best job I ever had.

Our group of leaders came together at just the right time. We'd all had some significant letdown within the last year -- getting fired, losing a grandparent, breaking up with a long-term significant other -- and needed understanding, supportive friends that we just weren't finding otherwise. This group was a godsend for almost all of us. Almost immediately we bonded, knit as tightly as if we'd known each other for years -- to borrow a phrase almost used in the comments of my Academic Decathlon entry, it was "a Breakfast Club moment."

The program director had told us in our interviews that we would become friends with our co-workers, but I don't think any of us expected it to happen quite on the level that it did. Yes, we had fun during working hours -- discussing the job, working out presentations, dealing good-natured shit talk. But in a drastic departure from any other job I've had before or since, we actively sought each other out when we weren't at work. We went so far as to draw up a social calendar to make sure that a week would not pass without spending time together outside of work.

The job itself was less remarkable. Giving tours, answering questions about campus life and helping kids work out their first-semester schedules was good for the soul, but it got repetitive and tiresome eventually. However, we knew that we had each other there, keeping us on our toes and keeping our hearts happy even if our minds were numb from drudgery.

I loved being an orientation leader so much I did it twice. Thanks to this job, a lot of people I never would have approached otherwise have become lifelong friends. In fact, one of them ended up having my baby. But that's another entry.

Twenty

2007-07-14T00:13:00.001-04:00

Moving on campus was the best thing I ever did for my personal growth.

Until then, I'd lived with my parents, twelve miles from campus, a commuter student who only went to class and then headed home. My best friend at the time and I had planned to room together, but I just couldn't afford the housing, and my mom wouldn't pay it.

"You have free room and board here as long as you're in school," she said. "If you want to live somewhere else, that's your burden to shoulder."

And shoulder it I did. By the beginning of the fall 1997 semester, I had enough money saved to move into the freshman dorms -- not my dream destination, but better than nothing.

I had a roommate for about six weeks. Landon was a true freshman, new to UNM and New Mexico, going to college ostensibly for a degree but truthfully to get sidetracked as quickly as possible. He rushed a fraternity and moved into their house, leaving me with a double room for one person. Gee, and I thought we'd had so much in common, what with the ska bands we were both in and the porn we downloaded.

Despite the lack of in-room socialization from then on, living on campus was a happening time. After all, I'd come to a student housing complex where there were 2,000 students living from a house in the Far Northeast Heights where there was one. I didn't get involved right away -- the residence hall Olympiad left me cold, starting as it did at eight in the damn morning, and my resident advisor's programs mostly consisted of him ordering pizza and laying it out in his room for us to take back to ours. But the longer I lived there, the more I began to do.

I started hanging out in the Cellar, the dormitory pizza place, playing pool with guys I didn't know before. I did homework in the commons, befriending by sight the usual suspects who worked or studied there. I attended more functions the activities committee sponsored. And eventually, I applied to be an RA myself.

My time with residence life didn't end well, sadly. The politics involved wore me out, to the point where I burned my bridges with several co-workers. When two of my best friends (one my girlfriend) were fired in an elaborate cloak-and-dagger scheme masterminded by a toadying suckup, I was glad I was through.

Still, if I may be so corny, residence life molded a lot of the facets that make me who I am today. Without it, I might still be shy, reticent, uncooperative, and evasive. But I'd still be great-looking.

Nineteen

2007-07-13T23:47:00.000-04:00

Meaningless summer jobs are all well and good when you don't need to pay for anything, but sooner or later you become responsible for bills and have to enter the soul-crushing workforce.

So in January of 1997, I accepted a position as a technical support representative for America Online. It was my first real job, taken in order to save toward moving out of my parents' house and into on-campus housing. And it sucked.

All work sucks to some degree, of course. But working on the phones for AOL, in the midst of its strongest customer push as personal computers and the Internet began to hit stride, stands as the worst job I have ever had. It's not just that the service caters to clueless unemployed housebound types -- retirees, soccer moms, thirteen-year-olds named Jason who are learning to cyber -- and I was required to support these people. It's that the company treats its employees like disposable silverware.

I learned quickly -- when most of my training class was gone within three months -- that call centers expect a very high employee turnover rate. But rather than attempting to hold onto the quality employees while allowing the chaff to fall as it will, AOL presumes that all of its staffers will eventually wash out and therefore are not worth wasting precious company funds that could be better used to buy Steve Case a new BMW. We were indentured servants tethered by telephone cords for eight hours a day, our bathroom and food breaks tightly monitored by the Lucent boxes. (I believe it is no coincidence that "Lucent" and "Lojack" both begin with "L" and have six letters.)

The worst part was adhering to call times. Company-wide, we were required to keep our calls to an average of less than six minutes. Often, that's not even enough time for your clueless housefrau to describe the problem. But worse, my supervisor (who uncannily resembled Hootie of Blowfish fame) expected us to have a team average of five minutes or less.

"Give them one solution and hang up," he preached. "If it doesn't work, they can call back."

Right. We're supposed to answer a call from some poor schmuck who's been on hold for an hour and a half, tell him to reboot and if it doesn't work to call us back? I'm sorry, Hootie, but even if I'm getting paid to do it that way I have to say it's not very good service.

The final straw was when AOL partnered with some telemarketing company, to redirect our inbound traffic post-call to a representative who would then offer a savings program membership. So now after I failed to solve the caller's problem, I was expected to sell them a coupon club card. It felt dirty -- I was prostituting myself for my own paycheck.

So I stopped doing it. All of it. I stopped pushing the savings club, I stopped hanging up after one solution, I stopped watching the call time clock. And I started solving technical issues for my callers.

Every day, I had more e-mails from customers, singing my praises for fixing their connectivity problems and getting them back online. I forwarded them all to my supervisor. Shockingly, none made the company newsletter.

It took about two months before I got it. Hootie didn't care about my "Raving Fans." He cared about that little clock on the Lucent box, the one that showed my average call time was seven minutes and forty-three seconds. He cared about the counter that showed I hadn't forwarded anyone to the savings plan since October.

He offered me an option, sort of. Either I could quit or he would fire me. Well, you should have seen the laundry list of reasons I gave in my resignation letter. I'd just been waiting for the opening, I realized, and even though it meant I wouldn't be able to pay for my dorm anymore, I was better off without it. My integrity comes before my job, then, now, and evermore.

Eighteen

2007-07-12T21:22:00.001-04:00

Up to this point, I'd been lucky enough to not have to work. My family valued education (at least for me) very highly, and it was more important to them that I study and learn and get good grades than that I make money to support my Mountain Dew habit.

But upon my high school graduation and moving one step closer to the real world, I decided it was time I learned about the job force.

OK, I didn't actually decide that. All of my parents informed me that it was high time I procure employment. Honestly, I wasn't sure why -- I had a full scholarship to college and would be living with my mom rent-free. Certainly this work business could be put off for another four years.

So I started small -- as a concessionaire for summer entertainment venues. I applied at a grand total of two places: Cliff's Amusement Park and the Sports Stadium, home of those triple-A legionnaires, the Albuquerque Dukes. The Dukes called me back almost the same day; I think I heard from Cliff's two months later. (I ended up working for them the next summer.)

Working a concession stand is a nearly-perfect summer job for someone who's still looking to have fun with his break from school. Five days a week for six hours a day is hardly demanding, yet I built job experience that I could later cite on my resume, as well as funds which I could later spend on breakfast burritos. On top of that, I met a lot of new people with the same goals, all willing to go out after work (or on days off) and have said fun.

The best part about these jobs? They ended just as school was swinging into gear. The Dukes' season finale was on Labor Day; Cliff's closed shortly after the beginning of the fall semester. So I could say that I worked without my job interfering with my schooling, and everyone was happy.

Maybe having such easy gigs as my first jobs is why I have such a cavalier attitude about work now. Oh well.

Seventeen

2007-07-11T21:21:00.000-04:00

In high school, you're defined by your primary activity. Wear a letter jacket with more than two sports pins? You're a jock. Spend passing period playing games on your graphing calculator? You're a nerd. Write poetry, dress in black, and work to convince your classmates that you're certifiable? You're either a stoner or a drama freak, depending on the length of your hair.

So obviously I was a band geek. But for my senior year, that changed a little bit when I made the Academic Decathlon team.

There were nine of us from all walks of life. We had your standard well-rounded smart kids -- the pre-med, the pre-law, the pre-doctorate researcher. And sure, there was a geek among us. But we also had a jock, a stoner, a drama freak, and one of those kids who's so far beyond high school that you're astounded she's actually participating in a school activity. And me.

Obviously, I've overcompartmentalized us. Our coach needed well-rounded students, after all. If all Mike knew was wrestling, or if all Marissa knew was Renaissance period dress, or if all Jennie knew was which gas to introduce to a solution to start a reaction, we never would have made it to nationals. Our breadth of experience led to our success -- but it also led to friendships we would have otherwise never known. By the end of the year, we seriously loved each other, and we loved the woman who brought us all together.

I've always regretted that I never had a class with Paula Karmiol earlier than my senior year. But what I missed early on I made up for in 1995 -- besides my AD coach, she was my mentorship coordinator, my independent study advisor, and basically my personal therapist. More than any other teacher I'd ever had, more even than the counselor I saw in elementary school, I felt comfortable opening up to her, telling her my conflicted feelings about everything in school and asking for advice. We all felt that way, which is partly what made us so close.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. We finished eleventh at AD nationals in May 1995. And then the seniors among us graduated, and we floated apart.

And then PK died of lung and bone cancer just before my eighteenth birthday.

We all promised we'd reunite more often after that. But it never happened. I get periodic e-mails from the crew these days, but I never stop thinking about it, how for one gleaming year in the otherwise tarnished morass of high school, a group of kids who couldn't be more different stopped being our labels and started just being friends.

Sixteen

2007-07-10T12:32:00.000-04:00

If you take one piece of advice from my thirty years of accumulated wisdom this month, I hope it's this:

Don't play rollerblade basketball.

I was on my way out to skate up and down the bike path that fateful day (February 2, 1994, for those following along on the calendar). I'd already started to pack on the poundage at that point -- I was teetering on the brink of 200, and was hoping some intensive cardio would tamp my gut back down. So in-line skating had become a way of life for me, and nearly every day I'd go out around the neighborhood, or further if I could get away with it.

But Mike and Chris were shooting hoops in the driveway, and somehow the ball found its way into my hands. So I shot it, and it went in.

I probably don't need to describe the mini-adrenalin rush making a basket brings. After that, it was difficult to break myself away, especially since the skates made me suddenly faster than Chris, which had never happened before.

But then I took The Shot.

I was coming out of the gravel by the street, ball in hand, losing my balance out of bounds. So, as I'd done in innumerable basketball games before, I tossed up a shot. Only unlike those previous games, I didn't have a flat surface on which to plant my weight.

My right foot twisted, wobbled. I compensated, leaned left -- too far left -- fell -- landed on the side of my knee. The patella sheared into two, the ligament holding it in place snapped, the tendons inside the joint tore.

I managed to hobble inside and get the skates off. My mom (thank Zeus she was home that day) came in, saw me sitting on the recliner, white as a sheet, my knee nearly the size of the ball. Within seconds, I was in the car on my way to urgent care.

Recuperation took nearly three months. I wore an immobilizer brace for a week, until they could schedule the surgery. My doctor hunted down stray kneecap pieces arthroscopically before flaying the whole thing open anyway to nail down the ligament. I was in a cast from hip to heel for four weeks, and then spent six more weeks in the prison of physical therapy every Monday and Wednesday from 3:30 to 6.

But it paid off. I walked better on that leg than I ever had. Of course, my right leg paid the price -- I later sprained that knee coming down a flight of stairs. Honestly, though, I'm just glad they both still work. My therapist, upon watching the arthroscopic surgery video, turned to me awe-struck and said, "It's a wonder you can still walk at all."

I've been on in-line skates once since then (an attempt to impress a girl, which was stupid because the one that mattered got upset), and I can't play serious basketball without a knee brace anymore. One day, I'll walk with a cane, and then I'll be stuck in a wheelchair. These bastard joints of Satan will have to be replaced with steel and silicon so I can move at all without wincing. And it'll all be thanks to the travesty that is rollerblade basketball.

Fifteen

2007-07-09T00:16:00.000-04:00

Every night after dinner, my mom would get up and leave the table, and we'd try to follow her, but Jerry would stop us.

"You guys need to help out," he'd say. "She spent all this time cooking. We need to clean up."

I hated cleanup duty. Time wasted in a kitchen putting dirty dishes away -- dishes which weren't, after all, going anywhere and could certainly wait until someone who cared could wash them.

My mom would just shrug her shoulders when I complained. "Jerry's right," she said. "You have to help out in the kitchen. If you don't cook, you have to clean up."

She probably didn't expect me to call her on it.

By the time I was fifteen, I was routinely working as Mom's prep chef. If she needed carrots or onions chopped, I was there. If something on the stove had to be stirred continuously, the spoon was in my hands. If cans needed to be opened, pots filled with water for pasta, butter melted, veggies defrosted -- guess whose job that suddenly became.

Most nights Mom drove the dinner bus, but there were some days that I tried to take the wheel. I started small, with dessert -- a lemon meringue tart that I found in a cookbook I'd taken out of the school library. Or at least I thought I was starting small. The custard didn't set, the meringue deflated, and the crust simply dissolved into the runny, lumpy goo. It was literally inedible -- I took one bite and nearly spit it out.

But I was determined to figure out this cooking thing. It was fun, after all, and Mom wasn't going to be there to make my dinner every night. Eventually, I settled for easier processes, like the stir-fry. A melange of onions, green chiles, ground beef, tomatoes and beans was the launchpad for what is now my most popular dish -- The Infamous Chili.

In college, I discovered the cooking block on PBS and began watching religiously, devouring every technique and taking notes on dishes from different regions. A few years later, we got the Food Network, and the game was on. I was no longer a food hobbyist. I was a chef in training.

Of course, a stint in a real kitchen didn't pan out (mostly because I drove two hours every day to be paid like an indentured servant). But I still push my boundaries in the kitchen, making myself better with every failed casserole and spoiled souflee. And one day, I'll get that meringue right.

Fourteen

2007-07-08T23:51:00.000-04:00

I joined the school band in sixth grade, and I liked it well enough. I was a decent saxophonist, perhaps overzealous (which got me into trouble with my first director, Mr. Stickupmyass) but enjoying the music we were playing and the chance to learn a new fun skill.

It wasn't until ninth grade, when I joined the La Cueva High School Big Bad Bear Marching Band, that I found my true love.

Marching band was, to me, the perfect marriage of music and choreography. After all, how many dancers can claim that they're actually playing the music to which they're moving? I loved it right away -- maybe because it was more difficult, maybe because I was working harder than I ever had in my life ... maybe because I was good at it. In fact, I won the first drill-down competition I ever participated in.

For the uninitiated, a drill-down is a set of commands called to a block formation. You execute the commands until you make a mistake, at which point you fall out of the block and cheer for the people better than you.

We didn't have a drill-down until band week was nearly over, so we knew all the commands. Or at least we should have. Granted, the competition lasted a lot longer than subsequent drill-downs earlier in following band camps. But it was down to me, a senior, and three juniors when Julie, our drum major, called "oblique left march."

Unhesitatingly, I snapped 45 degrees to my left in full stride, pointed my imaginary horn to the imaginary box, and kept marching at eight steps to the next yard line. The other four competitors stopped and looked at each other, confused, understanding that we wouldn't be doing obliques this year. But I'd learned it, I'd done it, and I'd become the first freshman to win a drill-down since the school's inaugural year when there were no seniors.

It wasn't my last first. The next year, I was the first sophomore section leader the school had ever seen. I was the first kid to challenge my way from last chair all the way to first. I was the first section leader who hadn't been in private lessons for most of his life. And I was the first saxophonist to be the favorite student of our notoriously short-fused band director.

What carried me through four years of high school marching band and five years of college athletic bands, more than God-given talent or long hours of practice, was heart. I loved playing, I loved the groups, I loved the raucous audiences, and I loved the feeling of working my ass off to totally rock a crowd's face. It was that love that kept me coming back, and it's that love that's making me try again.

Granted, it's on baritone bugle now -- I'm learning a whole new instrument. But with my new drum corps and our vision for the future -- a bunch of people who share my heart and my motivation -- it can't be anything less than great.

Thirteen

2007-07-07T01:08:00.000-04:00

Eighth grade was my last chance to win the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. Hey, the kid who'd won the previous year was in fifth grade; I figured I had a chance by seniority alone.

I'd always been a good speller. In fifth grade, I made it to the regional bee, outspelling all the elementary and middle schoolers that would eventually go to my high school and even outlasting the cute eighth-grader who they sat me next to before I missed "tremulous." I was the second-youngest speller that year (the youngest went out five people later, the freak).

But eighth grade was my year. I wasn't even nervous when I walked into the library that day and sat down with my friends. (Your English teacher selected you, and as we had different classes, pretty much every member of the Nerd Herd was represented.) It went pretty quickly, at first, anyway. By the end of the class period, it was down to me, Michael Brooker, and Robert Ibarra (who I'd beaten three years earlier in elementary school and who forever claimed I'd "cheated and robbed" him of victory).

Well, Robert lasted about two or three more rounds before he misspelled something and ran out crying. But Michael and I went back and forth for almost another entire class period before he missed one. I wasn't sure I knew it, but when I got it right on the steal, the next word was really easy.

The first- and second-place spellers both go to the district bee, so Michael and I got to miss science class for it. Competition in this cluster was a lot less intense than it had been at my old school -- my middle school was in a different district, and we would only face about twelve other kids.

As luck would have it, the bee came down to me and Michael in mere minutes -- again. Our teacher representative groaned when she saw it; she'd been at the school bee two weeks before.

So I was really surprised when, on the third go-round, Michael misspelled "ham."

No, it wasn't actually "ham." But it was ludicrously easy, and I almost felt guilty stealing it from him. But not guilty enough to miss it on purpose. One more correct word later, and I was in the regional bee.

The regional was even bigger than the school bee. One student from every high school district in northern and central New Mexico was in Albuquerque for it, packing a stage at the Holiday Inn Pyramid. (Where the towels are oh so fluffy! I get it, I know the song.) And finally, my nerves kicked in.

Three hours later, five of us remained on stage. And sixty-five words after that, we were all still there.

Then I got up to the mic. The orator, Eyewitness News 4's Carla Aragon, read my word.

"FAHS-jeen."

"Uh ... could you repeat the word?"

"FAHS-jeen."

"Can I have a definition?"

FAHS-jeen is a colorless, volatile liquid or gas used in chemical warfare and organic synthesis.

"Could you use it in a sentence?"

This one took a little more time, but it didn't matter. I had no idea how to spell FAHS-jeen.

I looked around the room a little bit. There was my mom, smiling up at me, willing me to do my best. There was my dad, shaking his head, knowing I didn't know it. There was Carla Aragon, grinning that vacuous news anchor grin. There was no way I was going to get this right. I might as well bite the bullet.

"F...."

When Carla Aragon shook her head, I knew I'd blown it. P-H-O-S-G-E-N-E would haunt me in my sleep that night.

It would have been really easy to write off spelling as a skill altogether after that disappointment. But I always felt that it was important to -- aw skroo it. waz da point, evr1 wrytz lik dis now anwyz.

Twelve

2007-07-06T17:41:00.001-04:00

A lot of my friends had already lost a grandparent by the time we were in seventh grade, or had never gotten to know a grandparent. Some of them had grown up with three, or two, or even fewer if they'd come from another town and didn't see them. So I felt privileged to have four living and local grandparents.

That all changed when my mom's mom died a few weeks before Christmas in 1989.

I've alluded to her sickness in a few posts already. My grandma was God's testing ground for horrific diseases. She had tuberculosis when she was young, which was why she'd moved to Albuquerque in the first place (for the dry desert air). She had polio too, which required her to wear a hip brace and walk with a cane. But that wasn't enough -- when I was probably six or seven, she completed the trifecta and acquired kidney disease.

She never let it get her down, though. My grandma was a gruff woman, but one of the most loving and loyal people you could ever hope to meet. She'd bark at us to get down off the couch, or stop climbing the shelves in the pantry, or put down those knitting needles and stop playing swordfight, but we knew it was all about making sure her grandsons didn't get hurt, and there was usually a cookie in it for us.

Right to the end, when she had to lean on my grandfather to walk anywhere and breathe assisted with a bottle of oxygen, she never stopped taking care of us. My mom would be working in the kitchen, busting her tail to get Thanksgiving dinner on the table, and my grandma would be right in the middle of things, trying to help.

When she died, there was a little sigh of relief, if you listened under our crying and wailing. Sure, my grandma was gone and we were all sad, but she was finally no longer in pain. Besides, she could have gone a lot earlier -- if you thought there was actually a chance she was going to give up that easily. She fought tooth and nail for every last second of her life, and I like to think that determination colored us all a little bit.

Eleven

2007-07-05T16:22:00.000-04:00

Even with the divorce finalized, I harbored my deluded fantasy that someday my mom and dad would realize their mistake and get back together. So it came as quite a shock to me when my mom announced that she and Jerry were getting married.

Jerry was my mom's boss, for a while anyway. He was the administrator at UNM's children's psychiatric hospital, where my mom was his executive assistant. He moved on a few years later, from the job anyway. To my mom, he was irreversably attached.

I forget exactly how old I was when he moved in with us, but I never thought it was permanent. My denial-addled brain had me convinced that the only reason he stayed in our house and shared a bed with my mother was because his lease had run out at the place he was renting in Westgate and he couldn't find another place where he could keep two big dogs. Sombra and TC (both German Shepherd-Doberman Pinscher crosses; Sombra more Shep, TC more Dobie) were the reasons I accepted him into the house and into my life, if I have to be honest. I'd always wanted a dog.

But I wasn't ready to accept him as a father figure. My dad was still around, after all, and active in my life. As long as he was still in the picture, there was a chance that my mom would take him back and we'd be one family again. But if she married Jerry, that eliminated said chance.

Of course there was never really a chance, and my mom made no bones about whether it was actually my decision either. So on August 9, 1988, we went to the courthouse and watched them make it official. (It would have been the 8th, but my grandmother was sick and my mom really wanted her there.)

That didn't mean I was going to be happy about it. And no, Jerry didn't know much about kids, but I never gave him a fair chance to learn. I was sullen, morose and bitter for most of the next seven years, right up until I left for my first day of college and Jerry made me change my mind about him with one simple hug.

Because when he pulled away and wished me luck, there were tears in his eyes. And I realized just how close he'd grown to me as I grew up, how hard he always tried even as Mike and I rebuffed his advances time after time.

Ever since then, my dad and stepmom have always been just that, but my mom and Jerry are "my parents."

Ten

2007-07-04T18:27:00.000-04:00

My elementary school friendships were always such fiascos. Jenny had done her part to take care of business on the day care front -- through her, I'd befriended a good number of the other girls there, inciting jealousy in the bullies who were now starting to notice girls for the first time but also staving off further ass-kickings at the hands of said same as they realized flat-out physical dominance didn't do it for most lady types. But I wasn't having the same kind of luck at school.

But finally, halfway through fifth grade, I met Matt Wilson. Matt was another imaginative, passionate eccentric, someone who finally got me, and he was able to guide me to the group of kids where I'd be accepted. (This group would later be forever stymied as "the Nerd Herd," but I was so happy to belong I didn't care.) Though I don't know what happened to most of those guys, and have largely fallen out of touch with the others, one relationship has lasted through the years. And it's not with who you think; Matt moved away the summer before middle school without a forwarding address. His one-time best friend had to take up the slack.

Chris was the weird kid in our group. And when I say he was weird, you have to know that means something. He leaped from play equipment, hit himself in class, dove headlong into immobile objects. And he was fiercely loyal, in his own sort of Columbine way. Chris was the kind of kid who, if a bully was staring you down, would go harvest rocks to pelt at him in a blind ambush, aiming for the head because of course that does the most damage.

We'd learn a few years later about his ADHD. Chris cycled on and off medications -- Ritalin, Dexadrine, whatever it-drug was supposed to work the best this year. Without them, he was manic; tackling shadows, drumming on his own head, spinning down school hallways with arms extended and shouting "WHIZZ" at the top of his lungs. With them, he was lethargic, his desire for anything other than video games and high-sugar beverages sapped.

I probably wasn't the greatest influence on him as far as taking his meds, to be honest. After all, I'd befriended crazy Chris, and far preferred him to cadaver Chris. But when his doctor finally found something that worked, the transformation of my formerly frenetic friend into a paragon of youth responsibility was nothing short of remarkable.

Chris moved away right after high school graduation. Literally -- we walked across the stage, and the next morning he was driving to the Pacific Northwest with his dad. Ostensibly it was to attend Oregon State, but he got sidetracked by employment and relationships -- neither worse than education, necessarily, and both of which helped him re-evaluate his goals and motivations, including getting out of Corvallis.

He finally managed it this month. Chris now has a bachelor's degree, an apartment in Las Vegas, and a loving fiancee with whom I get to see him tie the knot this weekend. I can't say how delighted I am that for my friend who once had such a hard time focusing on anything, his goals are suddenly within his grasp.

Nine

2007-07-03T21:07:00.000-04:00

My parents had been separated for a few years already, but the announcement that they were divorcing still hit me out of left field.

It was a foreign concept to me at the time. My mom and dad had been married since before I was born, my grandparents for more than thirty years each. I didn't have any friends -- well, as stated yesterday, I could stop there, but I didn't know any kids whose parents were divorced. They didn't talk about it on the TV shows I watched or in any of the books I read. So I was operating under the assumption that the separation was temporary, and that sooner or later my dad would be moving out of his smelly one-bedroom apartment and back into our house.

In retrospect, I should have known it was coming. They'd never really gotten along very well. Some of my earliest memories of my parents in our childhood house involve trying to squeeze between them to break up a shouting match. They simply could not coexist under one roof.

Regardless, it tore me up. I'd always had a temper, but now my fuse shrunk from Chinese-acrobat to Lilliputian. I yelled at teachers, withdrew from classmates, refused to participate in group activities. I'd just joined Cub Scouts not long before, but after they dropped the bomb I wasn't having fun anymore and almost quit. And I wasn't fun to be around either; they probably would have welcomed my absence.

Help came from sources I'd have never expected. From my den mother, whose son was always so quick to join the taunting (if not the ringleader); from Andy, the crazy kid on the playground who used to beat me up but now saw a kindred spirit; from my brother, a product of the same broken family who somehow seemed to take it a lot better than I did. And my parents, rather than becoming more distant with the divorce, put even more effort into ensuring that I was healing and progressing.

Today my parents have remarried. To other people. And I'm past being upset about it. No, I'm glad they're happy now. Let's face it -- if banging your head against the wall makes you unhappy, there's no sense in doing it forever. Better to admit your mistake, cut your losses and go find something softer to bang.

(I don't know about you, but I could have done without that mental image.)

Eight

2007-07-02T22:48:00.000-04:00

So far, I've talked about bullies in day care, at school, and on my block; about being poorly thought of among my peers to the point of outright mockery; about kids who I thought were friends abandoning me to prevent their own stock from dropping.

Something had to go my way, socially speaking, sooner or later. And it did, one afternoon during the summer after third grade, when Jenny showed up at the day care.

Her family was new to the city -- well, more or less; they'd lived in Albuquerque before but had most recently been in Texas. As luck would have it, she would be going to my school in the coming year. It could only be even greater luck that somehow her parents had passed four day care centers between their house and the one I attended to enroll Jenny and her sister in the summer recreation program.

But it wasn't the perfect meant-to-be scenario you might be picturing. Jenny was three years younger than me. And a girl, during a time in one's life when one does not consort with the opposite sex for fear of contracting the dreaded cootievirus.

It took maybe a minute to realize I didn't care. I was already an outcast, and befriending a girl my brother's age wasn't going to hurt me any more. Besides, that minute of conversation with her was all it took to hook me.

Looking back on it, Jenny was probably my first crush. I usually say it was Lindsay Humphreys in middle school, but that's because by the time I was twelve I knew what it was. Besides, Lindsay and I never bonded the way Jenny and I did. Hanging out and talking with her just felt right, natural, what a friendship should be.

And it still does.

Yes; despite a physical separation that started when she left the day care shortly after my brother and has only had two brief interruptions (one year when we were in the same high school and two or three before Sed and I moved to Florida), Jenny and I have actively maintained our friendship. Maybe we can only exchange letters, phone calls or e-mail these days, but it's a relationship that's been too good to us (or at least to me) to just let go.

OK, you got me. I actually owe Jenny a long letter about everything that's gone on this year -- my daughter, my new job, my hobbies, the works. Truly, I've been an inexcusable slacker about contact. But maybe she'll happen upon this paean to our friendship, and that will count for something.

Seven

2007-07-01T23:04:00.000-04:00

On September 12, 1984, my cousin Amanda was born.

Less than two months later, she died.

They couldn't explain it at the time. Amanda had been a healthy, happy baby who just didn't wake up one morning. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, it's called now. There are recommendations to prevent it, but there's still no sign of what causes it nor guarantees that these methods will be successful. So basically, my aunt and uncle were horribly unlucky.

Amanda's death so young cast a pall over our entire family. It scared us. Her parents most of all, naturally -- they were never able to get over their fear of it happening again. But it got to all of us. Let's just say I have four sets of aunts and uncles, but only two cousins.

This was my first memorable experience with death, but I was too young to really understand it. All I knew was that one day I was thrilled about being maybe a year from having a playmate, a family confidant, and a girl too (even then, I related better to girls than boys), and the next day I was staring at a coffin that was simply too small to be allowed. It made me mad, the unfairness of it. If it was really God's will, if He was calling my baby cousin to be with Him, then why would He pick an infant who hadn't even had a chance to prove herself over, say, my devout 80-year-old great-grandmother? (Come to think of it, this sort of lines up with my family leaving the Church, on the timeline if not for the reasoning.)

To this day, we don't discuss Amanda. It's bad manners, of course, but it's certainly bad luck. So I've never really understood the full story, and more than likely I've gotten a lot of it wrong, which if my family reads this will provoke its fair share of corrective e-mails. It's not that I don't want to know; I just don't want to be the one dredging up bad memories.

But we have to remember these things, to realize what good fortune we have and to not take it for granted. After all, I myself now have a healthy, happy two-month-old. The loss of my cousin, before I even got to know her, will help me remember to protect my daughter with every ounce of passion and fiber of care I possess.