NaBlo Bloggin' PoMo Dude.

Well, this is the end of my first NaBloPoMo. I screwed up towards the beginning, but I did have a post everyday. Since I did screw it up, I'm going to try again in April. Not only for that reason. I like writing, but I'm afraid that if I don't participate in BloMo again, I will not write as much as I would like. I need that kind of discipline; I'm hoping that if I do it for another month I'll get into the habit. There are things I would like to write about in more detail, like taking care of my grndfather. When I was younger I planned on writing a book about that, but I still have not gotten around to it. If I do it in the blog, I can collect all those posts and go to lulu.com and make it myself. Much like I can make my own CD of songs I wrote when I was young. Computers are awesome!

I had some trouble expressing what I was thinking in my blog. Perhaps with more practice, that will come easier. I certainly hope so!

So you've got me for another month. Ha ha on you! It's nice to know that I have a couple of readers, even if I can't figure out how Sitemeter works. Oh well. :P

And to those readers, if you can figure out what I am paraphrasing in the title of this post, you will win the intertubes! Srsly! It's pretty obscure, but I'll give you a hint: it's a song title.

One last thing: I thought better of making tomorrow's post into an April Fool's joke. I think it just would have aggravated all both of you. See you in April!

I'm still warring against this stupid cold. I made it all the way through winter (wearing shorts for a good chunk of it) without getting sick, so I need to take extra precautions. I'm going to bed. My March blog came in like Stephen King, but is going out like Emily Dickinson. That is quantity, nowhere near quality, folks. Just so you know. :)

Today I have been fighting off a cold, so I've been pretty lazy. I don't usually take naps on Sunday, but I did today. The point is that this will be short, but I thought of a quirk I have at work (ooh, a work quirk!) that I would share.

I have blogged before about the fact that I work with mostly Amish, Mennonite, and Christians. I myself am not a religious person. I'm not really sure what I believe in yet, if anything, which I'm fine with right now. Anyway, I use a digital scale at work to weigh the ingredients. It of course is a decimal scale, which goes the the 100ths place (like 30.75, if I remember correctly). All of the ingredients for a few of the breads that I make sometimes end up being 6.66 pounds. If this happens when I am done weighing it out, I will add a little more of the last ingredient so it does not weigh 6.66 pounds. That's it. It's stupid, I guess. Would you call that superstition? Or respecting the beliefs of the people I work with?

How do you listen to music?

If you said "my ears," then ha-ha, you are a comedian. Scoot over, because I probably would have said the same thing. :/

When I was a wee lad, I was an active listener. I planted myself on the couch in front of my parents' Magnavox console stereo and just sat there and listened. Sometimes while I listened I would study the album cover and sleeve (if it wasn't a plain white one). Yes, albums are those giant black round things that sound crackly and archaic. At least you could see the artwork back then! Damn kids. :P Later on, I got my own stereo (from Sears with an 8-track tape player!), and I would spend hours in my room, laying on my bed, just basking in the music and the accompanying artwork. I knew the names of all the songs that I listened to, and sometimes I knew who wrote what, who the producer was, all that stuff. I preferred listening to music over any other activity back then (this was before girls of course).

CDs didn't really appear on my radar until they announced that the Beatles' catalogue was being released on CD in 1986. Once I got a CD player (which was well after I had most of the Beatles CDs in my possession), it was like a whole new world opened up. They sounded terrific to my ears, and I quickly started to replace a lot of my vinyl with brand new shiny CDs. A year later, my parents bought me a CD player for my car, and that's when everything started to change.

I had graduated high school by this point, I was a commuter college student, and I was working full time for my parents. Listening to music at home pretty much went down the toilet. My school was 20 minutes away, and it was a half hour each way to work, so listening in the car was it for me (I could listen at work, but there were way too many distractions, so I just listened to the radio there). I didn't have time to study the (smaller) artwork, so I began to not know the names of songs, which I cannot stand, even to this day. Then both of my CD players broke. I was able to borrow one from a friend for listening at home, but listening in the car was out. It wasn't until after Sarah and I got married that I got a new stereo with a CD player. I was working at Rutgers when we moved into our apartment, and I was home for the day before 12 noon. Sarah didn't get home till 6 or 10 at night, and for a little while, I enjoyed a revival of listening for pleasure, without distractions. But it didn't last long, because we got hooked up to the internet soon after that, and that's what's taken up most of my free time for the last 14 years.

These days I'm more of a passive listener. The bulk of my listening time is at work, where I am by myself for a good portion of the day, so I can listen to whatever I want. It's not ideal for listening to stuff I'm not familiar with, because I miss a lot of it, either because I'm thinking about work or because I'm out of earshot. I barely listen to music while I'm on the computer. Mostly I read blogs and forums, and I can't do both at the same time. I have an iPod, but I am usually listening to a podcast or an audio book when I am using that (sometimes I'll listen to music on the iPod when I'm cutting the grass). In the car I listen to the iPod, but sometimes I'll listen to a CD (usually because I've forgotten the iPod). If I'm cooking or doing housework, I do different things. If I'm moving around a lot or making a lot of noise, I will use the iPod. If I'm cooking, I will alternate between the iPod or music on the stereo. I still love listening to records, but they're a pain when you're cooking, because you have to flip it over. I wish they still made the automatic turntables. :)

I wish that I could get my priorities straight and get the hell off the internet and enjoy some music without using it as background. :sigh: Someday...

Ow, my back. :(

Last July I noticed that my leg was giving me some pain, but I didn't know why. It hurt a lot getting in and out of the car, and I started to limp. It got bad enough that I asked my sister Missy to help (she's a doctor of Physical Therapy). I feel bad asking her, because she should get paid, but she likes to help. She said it was probably something in my lower back, and she gave me lots of exercises to do. It wasn't getting any better, so I went to the doctor. He sent me to physical therapy, which I went to 3 times a week. They basically had me doing the same exercises that Missy prescribed, but they were also bending my leg back and other stuff that I couldn't do on my own, or shouldn't, because I'm not a licensed professional. I went back to my doctor after a few weeks, and it hadn't gotten any better. He gave me Naproxen to take, and boy oh boy, did I ever love Naproxen. The pain almost totally went way, but only if I stayed on the meds. Otherwise, it still wasn't getting any better.

I ended up at a neurologist, and they gave me an MRI. It turned out that I had a protruding disc at L5, which is your lower spine (even though it sounds like a video game title). It was affecting the nerve that goes to my right leg. He gave me some Neurontin for nerve pain and said to come back in a month to see if I needed surgery. I had to stop going to PT because my work changed their insurance plan, and I was forced to take their insurance as my primary, instead of using Sarah's. So of course, my new insurance no longer covered my PT. My PT Wayne told me to keep doing the exercises and stretches at home that I had been doing, which I did.

I went back to the neurologist, and he said I was not a candidate for surgery, and that most back pain went away after awhile. He told me not to go back to PT, and not to try traction (which Wayne really wanted me to have), because he "didn't believe in it." He said it could make you worse or better, there were no guarantees (my sister agreed with this, so I didn't pursue it).

I was okay to work, because I stand all day, and I am usually moving around (if I stand in one spot for too long, my leg falls asleep). But sitting for long periods of time was a problem. My co-worker also has back problems, and she brought in a spine cushion that she had for me to try. It's basically a seat cushion with a hole cut out for where your spine goes. It kind of looks like a briefcase. I took one look at this thing and had my doubts, but I'll be damned if it didn't work! I started taking it everywhere, and I was surprised at how unselfconscious I was about carrying it around (I'm almost 40, I guess that's when it kicks in).

The holidays came and I got busier and busier at work, and the exercises fell by the wayside. I am still taking the Neurontin though, I would be in a lot of pain if I didn't. I was in a lot of pain one day this week, and I realized later that I forgot my medication 3 times, consecutively. I was fine the next day. I have done the exercises at times, but not regularly. I need to go back to the Y too, I haven't done that in months. I think that I was suffering from some post-holiday/winter depression that I seem to be finally breaking out of. I was able to get some stuff done this week, so I'm hopeful that I can keep it up. I just have to make sure I get enough sleep, because I'm pretty tired today.

All the doctors and PTs asked me what caused my protruding disc, but at the time, I couldn't remember. I think I finally figured it out: I helped a neighbor move a couch sometime in the summer. It was one of those heavy ones with the recliner on each end. I know it was before my leg started hurting, because I wouldn't have been able to help him. It was very, very heavy, and there was only two of us. I believe he is in his late 60s, but he is in better shape than I am.

The moral of the story: if you want to move a couch, hire a mover. :)

Yay!

I feel pretty good today for a change! I'm not horribly tired, and my leg doesn't hurt at all today. I'm taking advantage of this by getting some stuff done today, so I'll see you tomorrow. Sorry!

International Waffle Day!

Wednesday is my usual day off during the week (the store is closed on Sunday). I usually have all these elaborate plans of things I would like to get done on Wednesdays, but they almost never happen. Maybe because my sleep schedule is interrupted. Since I don't have to work on Wednesday, I stay up later on Tuesday nights to spend time with Sarah, and I sleep later on Wednesday mornings. I really don't want to get up at 1 am if I don't have to go to work, you know? I could get up earlier on Wednesday morning, but that doesn't work either, sleeping in is too much fun. I know, whine whine whine.

I did get some stuff done today. Today is International Waffle Day and Pecan Day, so we celebrated both holidays by having pecan waffles for breakfast (I had to go to the store beforehand, because I didn't have enough flour or pecans for said waffles). We are going to have the leftover waffles for dinner as Chicken and Waffles, which is cooking right now. I am also in the process of doing some laundry and clearing out the DVR (which is hard work, let me tell you). My leg is really bothering me today, and I will tell you about that sometime. But right now, I'm going to celebrate International Waffle Day by waffling just a bit more. :)

I can has naptime?

I am very tired today. Why can't I go to bed when I'm supposed to? Why can't I take a nap when I should and have time to do so? Why can't I pry myself away from the computer? All fair questions, none of which I have an answer for.

We are taking my Amish co-worker out to dinner tonight. There's a group of women at work (no boys allowed!) who go out for dinner together, once a month. They were supposed to go to the Texas Roadhouse, and my co-worker was excited to go, because she had never been there and she heard it was good. Plus, she doesn't get out to restaurants much. But then the location was changed to the Dover Downs casino buffet, and she was upset, because she knew her parents wouldn't let her go to the casino. We have some gift cards for the Texas Roadhouse, so we figured that we could take her there ourselves. We have to drive a ways to pick her up, but that's okay. She's a great worker and we think she'll enjoy the food.

So now I'm going for a cat nap. It's called a cat nap because when I sleep in the afternoon, I leave the door open, and all the cats can come and nap with me if they want. :)

What's in my wallet.

This is a picture of Sarah that I keep in my wallet. It was taken a few weeks before we got married, at a photographer's studio. We cut a lot of corners to keep our wedding price down, and having a roving photographer was one of them.

You can see the picture whenever I open my wallet. I have to replace it every so often because of the fact that I am a big sweaty guy (especially at work in the summer), and I get a lot of flour in my wallet, which does weird things to the picture. I am looking at the version in my wallet right now; it kind of looks like the whole cotton around the photo lens effect (fade?), and it looks like there is a shower of rice on the right, which I suppose is appropriate (we had bubbles at our wedding, before it was hip, and then not hip, so there). I think this is my favorite picture of Sarah, because she is beautiful (all the time, not just in this pic), but mostly because of the expression on her face, and the way her head is tilted. This may be a little too much for you, but she has a Mona Lisa smile going, in my opinion. I have another picture of her taken years later with the same smile on her face. Her sister has one of her taken years before in a mirror image of this pose, but she is in a field of tall grass. It used to be hanging in her sister's house, but it isn't anymore, I don't know what happened to it. I always wanted to crawl into that picture with her and lie in that tall grass.

The point of this is that I get many comments on this picture when I am checking out in stores, and they have all been from women. One woman asked if the picture was of my wife, and I said yes. She said I was a very lucky man. I agreed with her of course, but it seemed weird that she would say that when she didn't know Sarah at all. What if she was an axe murderer or something? She's not, actually. But it made me feel good anyway.

I was at work and one of the older ladies was my cashier. She saw the picture and said how beautiful Sarah was, and called over all the other cashiers to look at the picture. Today, the cashier at the supermarket asked, "Who is THAT?!" I told her it was my wife, and she said, "Wow." Many times when I get compliments like this one about Sarah's picture, I think they are wondering how the hell this big fat sweaty guy standing before them was able to marry this beautiful woman. That's okay, let them wonder. I'm awesome. :)

The weirdest experience with the picture was at Petsmart. A young girl, either late teens or early twenties, was waiting on me. When I opened my wallet, she actually exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, is that your WIFE?" Then she actually started to get FLUSTERED, and started babbling about Sarah being an "angel from heaven" and me being the "luckiest guy ever!" It was VERY uncomfortable.

But Sarah is MY angel from heaven, and I AM the luckiest guy ever to be with her. <3

Tomato Soup.

Back when Sarah and I first got married, we had a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches. We still have them now, just not as often, unless we get into a food rut. Sarah loves to have Campbell's tomato soup with hers, while I prefer Ramen Noodles. When I started trying to make things from scratch that we usually buy, tomato soup was one of the things I tried. I found a recipe in an old cook book, and to my surprise, Sarah really liked it (it was pretty good). I've tried other recipes for tomato soup, but my problem with it is the tomatoes. I don't like them to be chunky in the soup, and I really don't like putting the soup into a blender, because it's hot and you have to do it more than once. Yes, I know I can let it cool off, but I never give myself enough time to do that. I bought one of those stick blenders, but all that does is leaves smaller tomato chunks in the soup and also coats everything in an 8 inch radius with tomato.

I wanted to try a different tomato soup recipe last night. I found one that you have to simmer it for an hour, then finish it off with cream. We both ate lunch late, so I figured this would be a good time to try it. I halved the recipe and I put in cold half and half after it was done simmering, and it fit nicely in the blender. I originally thought that it was the best soup I ever made, but this morning I thought about this one and I changed my mind. So here is the recipe, I found the original on allrecipes.com and modified it a bit. Here's my version:

Tomato Soup

1 29 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons chopped onion
1/4 teaspoon baking soda (optional)
1/2 teaspoon basil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon chicken bouillon granules
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 cups half and half
salt and pepper to taste

1. Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft.
2. Add the tomatoes, sugar, baking soda, basil, water, bouillon, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for an hour, adding more water if needed.
3. After simmering, let cool, and puree in a blender or food processor. Return to pan and add half and half and vinegar. Heat through.
4. Make a grilled turkey and cheese sandwich to go with it, and enjoy!

NOTES
1. You can of course use fresh tomatoes, which I cannot wait to try. You should peel them though, even if it is a pain.
2. The original recipe calls for condensed chicken broth. I've never heard of that, but I can imagine it's like mushroom soup or something like that. I just used what I always use for chicken broth, I cup water to 1 TB of chicken bouillon granules. Chicken broth is expensive!
3. The baking soda is there to reduce the acidity of the tomatoes. But I put the vinegar in there, so the baking soda is moot. It's not going to hurt anything if you leave it in.
4. I made half of this recipe, and everything fit into my blender. It dawned on me just now that you don't need to put the half and half into the blender. But it does cool the tomato mixture down for blendering, and it might taste different if you don't. Plus it might make the soup a bit frothier, like a tomato cappuccino. Caveat Blendor!

Again, this is not a food blog, but I wanted to share because I really liked the way it turned out. Enjoy!

I collect stuff.

I have been a collector of things since I was very young. I think everyone starts out with rocks, since they are free and plentiful, and goes (or doesn't) from there. I also think that there are two separate kinds of collections: one is gathering together stuff just to look at and admire, and the other is gathering together stuff to use. I have been both kinds of collector in my life, sometimes within the same collection.

My first big collection was baseball cards. I loved opening the packs and hoping that I got someone good, or someone from the Yankees. Plus I really loved that gum with all that disgusting powder on it. The cards didn't really have any useful application in my life. I used to watch a lot of baseball games then, and I would take whatever players from the two teams that I had cards of and pit them against each other, somehow. I was only 12, remember. I lost interest in high school and sold all my cards to my friend Russ.

One of my first dates with Sarah was at the big comic book convention in New York City. She collected comics, but I did not. I bought quite a few Batman graphic novels after the 1989 movie came out, but that was the extent of it. I started going to comic book shops with her and got sucked into collecting them. At first I only bought the ones that I enjoyed reading, but then I was buying some and putting them into a bag and backing without reading them. This went on for awhile, until we moved to Delaware and couldn't afford it anymore. We were spending up to 50 dollars a week on comic books! We still have them, but many have been marked for disposal. Unfortunately, the bottom fell out of the comic book market years ago, and many of the books that we held on to that were worth a lot of money, are no longer. Oh well, live and learn.

I started collecting action figures soon after I began working at Kay-Bee Toys in 1991. I had no intention of playing with these of course, I just bought them to hang on the wall. I bought all of the Batman figures that came out (and I mean all of the figures in that line), plus some other ones that I thought were cool (I had 8 different April O'Neill figures!). Sarah and I both worked at Kay-Bee at the time, so we got a pretty good discount. Once we stopped working there, we stopped collecting. I sold every last action figure I had on eBay in 2000, and the only ones I wish I still had were the April O'Neill figures. One of them had real hair!

My sister and I got an Atari 2600 in 1980, and I put a lot of my allowance towards purchasing cartridges. We eventually had 17 of them between that and getting them as presents. I grew out of it by the time I was in high school. In my senior year, my sister asked for a Nintendo for Christmas, and I was really taken with it, so I also bought some games for that. I grew out of that one when I met Sarah, but working at Kay-Bee kind of stoked my video game fire, because I was exposed to everything that was out there. For Christmas one year she bought me a Sega Master System (something I'd never heard of), which Kay-Bee had on closeout. She also bought me a Super Nintendo as a wedding present. :) On our honeymoon, we were in a junk shop and I saw some Atari 2600 cartridges. I did not buy them, but I was gripped with nostalgia for them. Sarah took me to my first flea market a few months later, and there were Atari 2600 cartridges and systems EVERYWHERE. I started buying them, hoping to get the 17 games I had when I was a kid, plus other ones that friends had back then. I fell in love with these simple games, and I bought whatever I could find. I also discovered other old systems that I never heard of when I was a kid and bought those too, but I was still playing everything. I had amassed quite a collection when we moved to Delaware, which is where it came to a standstill. I stopped playing for almost a year and a half, and I had to cut back on buying. I didn't get rid of anything though, and I was able to pick up the collecting part of it after we moved into our house (I have/had complete collections of quite a few systems). Last year I reassessed the classic video game collection, and I ended up trading in a lot of stuff that I didn't have a sentimental attachment to, for a Wii. Which I still don't really play that often. :P

My biggest and most life spanning collection is music. I started buying records when I was a kid, because I didn't have an 8-track tape player in the house (cassettes were never really an option for me, I guess I was just a cassette snob). I discovered Goldmine magazine and bought a lot of old records that were out of print (I love a lot of 60s music). I bought a lot of records when I found the secondhand shops, but I bought records to listen to back then. When CDs came out, I sold a lot of records when I got them on CD, which I really regret now. I built up a giant CD collection over the years, but I don't buy as many as I used to. I got back into buying records in the past few years, and I would say that I buy more of those than CDs. I don't really download music, unless I can't get it on either format, or it's prohibitively expensive on either format. I like holding it in my hands, to Sarah's chagrin. :) I still buy music to listen to, but I have started buying records because of the label they're on or who actually cut the record, or I'll buy a deluxe version of a CD because I really like the band (R.E.M. is a good example).

I can see a future for me where the only collection I have left is music. At some point I will probably switch over to digital music (especially if I have to move all of this stuff again). I can probably live without owning any video games. I can always emulate them on the computer.

The moral of the story is: don't collect stuff. It's too expensive. :)

Radio is a sound salvation.

I need to have music when I work. I bring CDs with me because I am there by myself for a good while, and no one complains about the music I like (plus I still like the whole album structure, take that iPod!). Sometimes, if I'm really tired, I will bring only Beatles with me to work. This way I can sing along and stay awake. They're also good when the other people start coming in, as there is no cursing on Beatles albums (I work with Amish women, Christians, and Mennonites, and I try to be nice about the language, even though it is a federal baker law to curse like nobody's business).

Sarah bought me the portable CD player that I now have at work. She got it because it played mp3 CDs, so I wouldn't have to change CDs as often. For some reason, it refuses to play any mp3 CDs that I make. I have tried many different program and two different operating systems, but no dice. So I bring lots of CDs with me in my bag (I have a lot of cracked jewel cases now because of this).

The CD player is probably 4 or 5 years old at this point, and it's getting a little flaky, which I think is because of the flour. I make everything from scratch, and flour dust gets everywhere. There is flour dust in my cell phone. Not on it, IN it. There is flour dust in my CAR for Pete's sake. So naturally, it's going to affect the CD player. I suppose because it's an mp3 CD player, it has to read everything, including actual redbook CDs. So it takes longer to spin up than a regular CD player. This morning it would not read anymore CDs, after I had already played one. I tried everything (including punching the damn thing), but the CDs were useless. Wow, this is waaaay too much back story.

I had to turn on the radio. I don't ever listen to the radio anymore, I can't stand it. There's too many commercials, there's too much talking (especially in the morning. Morning jocks, YOU ARE NOT FUNNY, SHUT YOUR MOUTHS!). Most of the stations play the same songs over and over again, which I was burnt out on back in the early 90s. To top it off, we only get the local classic rock station, a top 40 station, and a country station in the building I work in. I chose the classic rock station, which was a prime offender of playing the same songs over and over again. They recently switched their format over to Tom, or Jack, or something like that. I used to listen to the New York City oldies station WCBS-FM, and I was really mad when they switched over to this format, but I dismissed it out of hand; I didn't give it a chance. This was all I had this morning.

You know what? It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought. Sure, they played Sweet Home Alabama and Brown-Eyed Girl, two of the most overplayed classic rock songs. I heard Amy Winehouse's Rehab for the first time (what a great song!), and they played a lot of stuff from the 70s and 80s that I like. You what really stunned me though? They played Copacabana. COPACABANA!! Can you believe that? I haven't heard that on the radio in YEARS. It really was a pretty eclectic mix for a mainstream radio station.

Radio is not what it was, even from when I was growing up. I got the last vestiges of when Top 40 AM stations were king, back in the 70s. When I was 10 and 11 I used to wait by the radio with my tape recorder and tape songs I liked. I found a station that would have comedy plays on Saturday afternoons. Radio was magic back then, but MTV came along, and video did really kill the radio star. Sometimes if you travel, you can find a great station. But mostly it's the same crap that you get at home.

I enjoyed listening to the radio today, but I doubt that I will continue to do so, despite the fact that they played some great music. I'll just bring some great music with me.

Quasi-Restaurant review, Iron Hill Brewery, Wilmington DE

I've never written a real review of a restaurant before. Sarah and I enjoy eating out, and we love to try new places. Now I has a blog, so I thought I would try my hand at reviewing restaurants as we go to them. Here goes.

Iron Hill Brewery is, yes, a brewery, but it is also a restaurant. It is called a "brewpub" on their website. They have seven locations in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Yesterday we went to the location in Wilmington. The first thing you see when you walk into the place is a large room to your right, which contains many large vats. This is where they make their beer. They have year 'round beers and also seasonal beers, all made on the premises. Our waitperson (Meredith) was extremely knowledgeable about the beers, which was very helpful to our friend Adam. Sarah and I don't drink beer, but we did try a seasonal beer, raspberry wheat. Sarah liked it, but i thought it tasted like raspberries that had been out in the sun too long, which I guess isn't far from the truth. This review is spiralling out of control already.

The atmosphere is definitely not pub, it felt more like a lodge to me. I got the same vibes at the restaurants at the Grand Canyon, if that helps. The overpowering scent was some aromatic wood, maybe mesquite? I don't really know. If you've ever been to Trader Vic's (and really, who hasn't, it's very affordable), it smells just like that, but I don't know for sure if they were using a wood burning oven or not, I forgot to ask. Sarah said that the Wilmington location was much fancier than the Newark location, which she had been to previously.

We didn't get any appetizers, but I did get the French Onion soup, which is something I order whenever I can find it. It had Gruyere on top, which was new to me. It's not as elastic as other cheeses I've had on this soup, but also not as salty. There was a very large crouton underneath, and a lot of onions, more so than almost all of the other versions I've had. It had a generous sprinkle of paprika on top, which also was new, and welcome. All in all, it was excellent.

I had the fish and chips for my entree. The best fish and chips I've ever had was at Epcot Center (don't laugh, it's true). This was easily the second best I've ever had. The batter was crisp and the fish was very tender. The menu said the batter was made with a Vienna lager, but you really couldn't tell, which was unfortunate. Maybe it's milder than Budweiser, which is what I used to make beer-batter fish. :) It came with a roughly chopped Cole slaw that had a bit of a kick to it, and not too much dressing, which was very good. We got there around 2:30, and they don't start serving dinner until 5, so maybe that's why there was only one fish fillet. I was a bit sad about this, but then I realized that I had room for dessert, which I'll get to in a minute.

Sarah had the Roast Turkey sandwich; she was very interested in the cranberry walnut mayonnaise, I think. She said it was excellent. Adam had the Portobella Mushroom sandwich, which was the largest portabella mushroom cap I've ever seen. It also had roasted red peppers and provolone, which looked really good. Adam is a vegetarian, and he said that there were plenty of choices for him, but it seemed to me that he was pretty limited in what he could order. he did like the sandwich though.

For dessert I had the bread pudding (it was the special), which was a giant slab of it on a plate with real whipped cream and caramel sauce. Not the best I've ever had, but it was good. Sarah had raspberry sorbet, which you can't really screw up.

Adam had two different beers, the first of which was the House Belgian (if I remember right). He said it tasted a lot like wine. He is a beer aficionado from way back, so I will tend to believe him. He offered it to me to try, but I was a little afraid I would make a face. I think the second one he had was called the Pig Iron Porter, but again, I'm not sure. I'm sure your server would be happy to help you out with your beer choice if you ask, it is a brewery after all.

So in the end the Iron Hill Brewery was a very good experience. It was a little on the pricey side (it averaged out to $25 per person with tip, but that might have been because it was lunchtime, some of the dinner entrees were expensive), but I would definitely try it again. Maybe I would even try a beer next time. Maybe.

Brandywine Springs State Park

Today we went to the Brandywine Springs State Park, which is located in Wilmington (about an hour from us). The area was once an amusement park, which I believe closed in 1924. It was opened before the turn of the last century. You would most likely not have any idea that there was an amusement park, were it not for the large green signs pointing out where buildings and attractions stood. I still can't wrap my head around this idea, that 85 years ago, there was a large amusement park where there is now a forest. What happened to all of the stuff that was there? Most of the buildings were made of wood, so I suppose if they weren't dismantled, they eventually rotted away. You can see the foundation stones of one building, which I found out on the website was the only building in the park made of concrete. There are very tall trees inside of this foundation today, which boggles my mind. It just seems like 85 years is not really a long time, but at the same time, it is. Time is realtive, I guess.

It's fascinating to think that this quiet forest was such a hub of activity at one time. It is right near train tracks, and the park was a stop back then, which is probably how many people traveled to the park. The tracks now are used for historical tours. There is apparently a railroad museum at their station which holds many artifacts from the amusement park. Have to go there next. :)

It's an interesting day trip. It makes you feel sad about progress, curious about what life was like back then, plus it can be a little spooky, even in the day time, because not many people have been in the amusement park area when we were there. It's actually located down a steep hill from the park area (where there are picnic tables, areas for sports, the parking lot, etc.), and there is a small sign very far away from the state park part that lets you know that down the path was the site of an old amusement park. Sarah actually found it by accident, and I'm glad she did, because it's a lot of fun. They even have archeological digs there, and we are going to try and go to one. So if you're in the area, please check it out, you'll be glad you did!

Content free!

I was trying to write a blog today, and the 4th attempt was a sob story about how I don't feel like doing anything lately. I have been on the internet for the past 2 hours, and although I like to write and I think it's important, it's still tied to he computer. That makes me feel like it is a waste of time, even thought the previous 2 hours were the waste of time, not the writing. What I'm trying to say is that I'm going to do something right now, there's too much stuff around here that has been neglected for too long. So I'll see you later.

Long day today.

Bah. I started to write about my long day at work today, and it morphed into a boring recounting of what I do at work. Suffice it to say that it was a long day, but it was expected, and I managed to get a lot of work done. I am now off two days in a row, which is unusual for me. Sarah took 3 days off, so I took an extra day to spend time with her. She is leading the book club discussion this week (we are reading Protect And Defend by Vince Flynn), so she was going to work on that. Plus we are going with our friend Adam to Brandywine Springs Park up in Wilmington. It's the site of a early 20th century amusement park. Some of the foundations of a few buildings are still there, and the rest of it is left to your imagination. It is an extremely cool place. We are also going to the Iron Hill Brewery for lunch or dinner, I'm not sure which one. It looks like a pretty good place, Adam likes beer, but we do not.

Yesterday I made some Machaca beef in the slow cooker. We had it with nachos, it was extremely good (especially since we always have canned refried beans with our nachos. In case you're wondering, Saturday night is nacho night in our house, but we were babysitiing, so we moved it to Sunday). It's just a beef roast with onions and spices, and you shred it at the end of cooking a throw some salsa in there. I'm having some more tonight!

Even though I really enjoy writing here, I haven't felt very inspired lately. I'm hoping that tomorrow will be better. I am downloading the Vince Flynn book so I can listen to it in the car and at work so Sarah can read the one copy of the book we have tomorrow, and I should have plenty of time to write about something that is interesting to me that you probably could care less about. :P

Cooking.

I do the cooking in our house. This is not because I was an excellent cook when we were married, far from it. Being a baker, I get home early in the day. When we got married, I was home by 2 pm during the week. Sometimes Sarah wouldn't get home until 10 pm, but she mainly got home by 6. Since I had to go to bed earlier than she did, it made sense for me to make dinner and have it ready when she got home, so I wouldn't be up late or eating right before bed.

My mom showed me a few things about cooking (she was really good at coming up with stuff when we complained that there was nothing to eat), but I didn't really know much when I started. My college meals included bags of Lipton (now Knorr) noodles with frozen vegetables, boxed mashed potatoes with bacon, sour cream, and cheese, and Ramen noodles with grilled cheese. I was always burning the grilled cheese, because I put the butter in the pan and then put the sandwich in. Sarah showed me the proper way, which is buttering the bread first, and then putting it in the pan. It comes out much better that way.

Sarah and I traded off cooking for a few years. In the early days, I didn't do much with meat that wasn't hamburger, so we had a lot of meat loaves, cheeseburgers, and casseroles. I started getting chicken breasts, because I didn't really like bone-in chicken that much (I still don't). Back then I really over-trimmed the chicken breasts, anything that looked like fat was cut out, along with a good chunk of the surrounding area. I made a few beef roasts (I used to buy the bags that came with the seasoning packets that you mixed with water and poured over the meat, I called them "boil in bag" roasts). I had the same trimming problem with the meat that I had with the chicken, so I tended to stay away from it.

I was still using the boxed potato flakes then, as a side dish. We were also using canned vegetables, and probably some boxed rice dishes. We were living in an apartment in NJ, and the kitchen was impossibly small, and we didn't have a dishwasher. I tended to go with easy to prepare stuff with low cleanup. It wasn't until we moved into our house and our (my) nice big kitchen that I really started cooking.

This is when I took over the cooking full-time, as I was getting home even earlier than I did when we were first married. I also started trying different recipes and making things from scratch more often. I really like making things from scratch that most people wouldn't, like pastas (I made a pretty good spinach ravioli years ago that Sarah really liked), sloppy joes (based on the Brady Bunch cookbook recipe!), baked beans (though I sometimes use canned beans for this), among other things. I tend to use recipes as a guide, not as gospel, so sometimes if I make something again, it doesn't taste the same. I will go online for a recipe, and look up different versions of the same recipe and combine the best parts of them. I have a bad habit of not writing this down, so if I want to make that cobbled-together recipe again, I'm screwed. I have gotten very good at making sure that everything is ready at the same time. Sarah says she has trouble with this, which is why she doesn't like to cook. I tease her about her not cooking, but I don't mind being the cook. I like it when her woman friends are jealous of her because I do the cooking. :)

I like cooking a lot; even though I bake all day at work, I can still come home and enjoy making dinner. I have been neglecting it lately though; when I come home from work I am usually chained to the Intertubes, and I wait too long to start. I've been relying on the boxed stuff again, which is not good. I need to make healthier foods, because we need to lose weight. I also need to eat less of those healthy foods, which is a problem.

This post is pretty disjointed. I wonder if it's because it's Sunday and my schedule is screwed up? Sorry about that. :(

The story so far

I am really enjoying this now. I look forward to coming here and writing when I get home from work. I come here first before I even go to Facebook, which is sacrilege for me.

I'm still having trouble with revising. I can let the spelling go till the end, but I still seem to revise grammar as I go. I should do this in Word first and check my grammar there. Maybe that's why I revise as I go, I see those green lines under phrases and I want to fix them right away.

I have read Stephen King's On Writing a few times, and I'm trying to take some stuff that he said to heart. There's a textbook that he refers to that says "omit unnecessary words." Is it by Strunk? I forget. But I really try and do this. That's also where I got my hatred for adverbs, but I have a hard time curtailing those. I think King said that some writers "never met an adverb they didn't like."

I was a little concerned about the length of some of my posts at first. But no one needs to read them if they don't want to, that's fine. I am writing them for myself, and Sarah too. I know she will read them because she's the one that encourages me to write them. So if anyone is still reading this (I can't figure out Site Meter or whatever it's called, I always get 0 in every column, even when I get comments), I hope you're enjoying it. It's pretty personal stuff, but I think it's relatable. If you have given up already, thanks for trying. I'm having fun and that's what is important for me.

Having said that, it's a short one today. I went to work early and got home late, and we are watching the kids tonight. Nap time is necessary. See you tomorrow!

How I got out of college.

I graduated from high school in 1988 and went to college the next semester. I applied to Rutgers, Glassboro State, and an out of state college that I don't remember. I ended up going to Rutgers because I was paying for this, and I didn't have to live in a dorm. I became a college commuter.

Mind you, I did not want to go to college. I just assumed that I was expected to go to college and learn how to do something so I could get a job. My parents did not go to college, although my dad took some business courses at a community college when I was 7 or 8. When I was younger, I wanted to be a "journalist," because I thought I knew what that was. I changed my mind after I found out. Since being a famous rock star wasn't an option, I started to gravitate towards being a teacher, because I didn't know what else to do. I had some very good teachers in my time, and I was hoping to inspire kids like my teachers inspired me.

I did not want to go to college because I was sick to death of school. I used to be pretty smart, and I got bored a lot. There were subjects I really liked, such as English and Algebra. I could always wait until the last minute to write a paper and still get a good grade. I also liked Physics, but I was really bad at it. I liked US History, but not European History. I was disgusted with having to take classes that I had no interest in and would not help me in my search for a career. I thought that college would be different, which is why I didn't express my feelings about going.

I'm not really great with change, and as you may know, college is a very immense change. I did not know anyone at Rutgers, and this is when I started having trouble making friends. I didn't talk to anyone, I sat in the back of the class (some of them were so huge compared to high school that you could lose yourself in them), and I never raised my hand for any reason. In the first semester, I took classes that I thought I would like, mainly English courses (Expository Writing, which was my favorite, and Satire and Poetry classes), and Psychology. I was told I had to take a history course, so I took US History.

I hated the feeling that I got when I went to college. I felt small and panicked all the time I was there, and I didn't want to be there in the first place. I did badly my first semester, no Fs but a D and a C, and I got As and Bs in my English courses. I was in the top 10% in high school, so for me, this was very bad. The second semester was even worse. There were no reprimands for skipping class. I discovered the carrels on the second floor of the campus library, and I felt very safe there. Mark Lewisohn's The Beatles: Recording Sessions came out around this time, and I brought it with me to school. I would go to the student center and get a snack and spend class time in the carrel with the Beatles. I believe I failed 2 courses that semester. I remember writing in an essay book in a final exam that I was in over my head and didn't know what I was doing in college, without answering any of the essay questions. The professor gave me a D but never spoke to me about it.

In my 3rd semester, I declared my major, which is when you were supposed to do it. Unfortunately, my major had a course requirement for freshman year and ONLY freshman year, which really didn't make any sense to me and added to my downward spiral. I did have two good classes that semester, another writing class and a music theory class. Still, I didn't feel like I belonged there. I started to skip class to go to work in my dad's bakery, which is when you know it's bad. He would ask why I was there so early, and I would tell him that the professor didn't show up.

My grandfather was in the hospital during my third semester. I would go and visit and sit with him every few days. He was there from September until December. I was really worried about him, and that probably contributed to my lack of concentration (to put it lightly) at school.

Right before finals I just gave up. I was doing very poorly that semester; it was probably my worst school period ever, including when I used to get picked on in junior high. I didn't tell any of my professors or the school that I was leaving. I paid what tuition I owed and stopped going. I was relieved, but nervous about what I would tell my parents. But it happened that my grandfather was getting out of the hospital then, and he needed constant care. He could do nothing except feed himself. I told my parents that I wasn't going back to school, and they said it was fine, but I was going to have to help take care of my grandfather, in addition to working at the bakery. I was not looking forward to this, but I thought it would be far better than college.

I have heard people say they have hit rock bottom in their lives. I always considered myself lucky because I thought I never experienced this. But thinking about my first college experience, and the accompanying gloom, aimlessness, and soul crushing dread, I hope that I can say that the worst is behind me.

Haiku Thursday

I blatantly stole this idea from Monica. I haven't written a haiku since probably the fourth grade, and I wanted to try it again. Here goes:

first haiku thursday
I hope I don't screw it up
be gentle with me

Sunny, cat elder
why are you so mean to all?
aren't you happy?

dinner is baking
noodles, beef, vegetables
casserole is bliss

I wake up at one
baking must begin early
I am happy there

I pine for the fall
cool days, burning wood, color
never comes too soon

Sarah smiles for me
it warms the inside of me
she is beautiful

Toby sleeps all day
he is a shadow at night
chasing through the house

getting older now
like always, but feeling it
I'm not too worried

Oh ring baloney
so cute and small and tasty
pork roll is better

I guess that's enough. That was fun!

Almost forgot.

I was getting ready for bed and I realize that I hadn't written anything today, so here's what I did today:

Woke up at 6.30
Took a shower
Ate a fried egg and ring baloney sandwich
Went to the podiatrist (yay, no cavities!)
Came home and started laundry
Took the dog out
Ate 2/3 of a box of Samoas (I was only planning on 1/3, honestly)
Erased iPod and reloaded it, while converting audiobooks in iTunes (no more pressing skip for random book chapters while in shuffle!)
Went to Sarah's work to get Girl Scout deposit
Went to the bank to deposit said Girl Scout deposit
Came home and had lunch (grilled cheese with bacon)
Scooped the cat boxes
Watched the Jesse Stone movie while continuing laundry
Made dinner (Eggs Benedict with asparagus)
Had dinner with Sarah while watching the Big Bang Theory
Cleaned up dishes
Wrote lazy blog entry

Interspersed betwixt all of these things is going on the internets. In today's future, I will be making a PBJ for breakfast, setting up the coffee pot, finishing the laundry, calling my dad, and then doing my bedtime ablutions and going to bed.

See you tomorrow!

Portrait of the Artist as a young rock star. Or not.

In my last blog, I talked about being a musician when I was younger. I think once I met Sarah, I became more interested in our relationship than being in a band. I was in a few bands, but towards the end of my “career,” we didn’t play out often, or at all. To me, that was the whole point. I would much rather be nervous and play in front of a roomful of strangers than in a rehearsal space in front of a few friends. Since I stopped being in bands, I stopped playing as well. I can still play, but not with the skill I had then.

I took up the drums when I was in elementary school. My dad played drums when he was a kid, and I was big into the Beatles by that time, and they figured into everything I did musically. My parents bought me a snare drum and I took lessons with Mr. Nagle at school. There’s only so much you can do with a snare drum, though. I had been really getting into Paul McCartney’s bass lines (see?) when I was in middle school, which made me decide that I wanted to try the bass guitar. I was afraid to ask my parents, because they spent so much on that snare drum. I mustered up the courage, and my dad was very supportive. But since I was working, he said that he would pay for half if I saved the other half. This tactic worked in his favor when I wanted a motorcycle, but not this time! I save the 65 dollars and brought home a genuine Fender bass copy. I bought a book and taught myself how to play, rudimentary at first. I managed to be able to play some tunes in a short while. I think I surprised my parents with my dedication to my new instrument, and they bought me an amp for 8th grade graduation. It turned out to be a guitar amp instead of a bass amp, but never mind.

My best friend Mark played guitar, and we put a band together. We got to be pretty decent, and we got paid to play a few times, which to us was beyond fabulous. We got a new drummer in our junior year and we became even better. We played at Beatlefest! Also in my junior year, Mark bought me a cheap acoustic guitar for my birthday or some such. I could not play the guitar at all, but I did the same thing that I did with the bass: I bought a book and taught myself, and I was able to play some easy chords, but I never learned how to play leads (bending strings is alien to me). I got pretty good at playing arpeggios after I got into R.E.M., but besides strumming, that was it. I would have called myself an adequate rhythm guitarist.

The band ended with high school, and I joined a band that I played with when their bass player went on vacation for the entire summer. True Detectives were an all-original band, and they played rap, punk, funk, and reggae, among other styles. Their music was way out of my comfort zone at the time, but I loved it. It was with them that I had my musical plateau, which was playing a short set at CBGB’s, and I played very well that night. It was totally worth the harrowing drive into New York. It was not to be with the TDs though, I was younger than they were and I didn’t feel that I fit in, so I left.

I played with Mark again in a few bands, and also with our high school drummer Greg in a different band, but the writing was on the wall for me. I was dating Sarah by this time, and I just didn’t have the drive to play anymore. I was also having a lot of trouble writing songs, but I always did. I started writing songs after I got the guitar from Mark and learned enough chords to be able to do so. I wrote maybe 7 or 8 complete songs, and many, many fragments of songs that I couldn’t finish or lost interest in. These are the lyrics of the very first song that I wrote, called “Portrait”:

I loved you for the longest time, you were always on my mind.
You picked me up when I was down, changed my life just by being around.

But then you went away, and I haven’t felt the same.
I feel so broke up inside.
I wish I could see you one last time.

I think of all the joy we had, always happy, never sad.
But now I can’t accept the fact, you’re gone for good, never coming back.

My tears begin to fall, at night your name I call.
I just want to run and hide.
My love for you, it cannot die.

When I see a picture of you, my tears they show my pain.
Won’t you please come back to me, I want to see you again.

You know I miss you so. Why’d you have to go?
My memory will keep you alive,
But I guess that I have to say goodbye.

I had no idea what to call the song, so I settled on Portrait, I guess because it sort of is a portrait. The lyrics are pretty bad in hindsight (I’ve never experienced sad joy myself), but at the time, I was bursting with pride that I had written a song! I was especially proud that I had written an actual bridge, and also of the C maj 7 chord that I threw in there. The rest of the chords were pretty ordinary, the C maj 7 was actually a mistake (I didn’t get my finger onto the high C in time), but it fit perfectly. This was also before Pink Floyd became ubiquitous in my life (later Pink Floyd songs are lousy with C maj 7 chords).

So by the subject matter, you would think that some freshman girl hurt me, and I poured my broken heart out into this song. This is not the case, as I had yet to kiss a girl (unchastely) at the time I wrote this. It is actually written for my grandmother, who passed away a few years previous, when I was 12. My grandmom (she was my dad’s mother) was very special to me, and she was the first person that I was really close to who passed away. I took it very hard. Back then, funeral homes normally had 2 days of viewings before the funeral was held, and I cried the entire time we were there. During those few days at school, I tried to stave off the hurt by acting out and getting lots of detention. But the hurt stayed with me until I wrote this song for her. I only wish that I had the courage to play it for my grandfather or the rest of my family. I don’t think anyone outside of my 4 other band members ever heard this song, but it’s been in my head ever since. Perhaps that’s why.

My equine alter-ego.

I have a niece and a nephew, but no kids of my own, which is how I like it. When I did want kids, I wanted teenagers, because I always thought that I could relate better to them than to younger kids. Unfortunately, they don't pop out halfway into puberty, which I think is a problem that can and should be worked on. We can have our entire CD collection in our pockets, right? Someone needs to get to work on this.

All of Sarah's immediate family lives close by; they moved here a few years after we did. I like having them here because my family lives further away, and we didn't really feel a connection to too many people when we moved here. When we all get together for dinner, it's usually on a Saturday (because I can stay out later). But, Saturdays are my busiest day at work, and I'm pretty tired if I don't get my Saturday nap, which I don't if we all have dinner together.

One Saturday in November of 2005, we all were together after dinner. November starts the busiest time of the year for me, so I was extra tired that day. Everyone had something to do (except me, I was just tired and cranky), and my niece Erin was sad because no one would play with her. Sarah, seeing I had nothing to do, told me to play with her. I objected, but she gave me the pointy finger and the angry voice, so I got down on the floor to play horsies with Erin. I was given a plastic toy horse, and I said his name was Geoff when asked (Geoff was supposed to be my or my sister's original name, I forget which. If my sister was a boy, of course). I was pretty cranky by this point, so Geoff was cranky. He was rude to all the other horsies, and Sarah was giving me angry looks. But Erin was enjoying it! She put Geoff into his own house, and she pretended to be trick or treaters coming to get candy from Geoff. Geoff proceeded to eat all the trick or treaters, which absolutely delighted Erin. We played a bit more, and then it was time to go. I didn't give Geoff another thought.

However, Erin fell in love with Geoff, and I really don't know why. She gave me Geoff to take home, since I was the embodiment of him, and she would call and ask to talk to Geoff (he was always angry because he was sleeping whenever she called). Geoff seemed to be taking on a life of his own. He started a blog, which my sister in law read to Erin. He sent her letters and postcards. He went and met other family members and took pictures, and he even came to work with me once.

I had made CDs for Erin that had fun rock songs on them, and so I made her one of horse songs from Geoff. On one of the CDs, I took an instrumental version of an REM song, wrote silly horse related lyrics to it, and then recorded them. The song also had an angry exchange between Geoff and the producer. Erin thought Geoff was the bee's knees after this, so I did more. I had some instrumental versions of songs, and I also found some karaoke online that I used. I did one completely by myself in Garage Band on our new-at-the-time iMac. I was a musician when I was younger, but I hadn't played regularly in over 15 years (which you can tell by listening to it). I thought the songs came out pretty good, even if I'm not the best singer in the world. But who can resist a plastic toy horse singing his own versions of Violent Femmes and Devo songs?

This took a long time, and I didn't have enough songs for a CD, plus I was having trouble coming up with a cover. So I decided to give Geoff a MySpace music page. Because I used actual backing tracks and didn't get permission to parody any of the songs, I thought it would be shut down right away. But it's been up for over a year, and people who've heard the songs like them a lot. I really would like to do more, and I also would like to try writing my own Geoff songs. This last is very daunting, as I haven't written a song in a very long time, and I haven't written that many either. But Erin still asks about Geoff, which I find very surprising. I figured she would grow out of it after awhile, kind of like I did. I am secretly glad she hasn't. I've been wanting to start playing again, and writing songs for a plastic toy horse seems to be the best way to do it.

pleh.

Okay, this is my fourth try at writing something, it's not working for me today. I feel lazy and scatterbrained, and I think I have a caffeine headache. I have to go and take care of Mao, I forgot yesterday in the rush of dinner and a really long movie. I won't make you read too much claptrap today. Does anyone say claptrap anymore? I've always tried to use outdated word and phrases that I see in old books and movies, I think it's cool. Okay, back to your regularly scheduled Sunday, pardon the interruption.

Watchmen > Dark Knight

Yeah, I said it. The only good thing about The Dark Knight for me was Heath Ledger as the Joker. How many people can make Jack Nicholson look like a piker? Watchmen was fabulous, if you're a fan of the book, I think you will love it. It also has something for everyone who isn't a fan. I just got back from the theater and looked at the book again, it's amazing how close it is. Did you know I was a geek? You do now!

You know what sucks? When you're working your ass off and people are standing around talking and are ignoring the fact that you're trying to get by them so you can do your work, while you're at work! Isn't that why it's called work? And something else is when people put their stuff on top of your stuff and you have to move it everyday to get to your stuff, because the people are too lazy to walk a few extra steps to where their stuff should be. Does that make sense? Well, not to the people who put their stuff on top of my stuff!

No substance today, it's time for bed. Moratorium on concluding emoticons is now over. Good night. -_-

Blog is currently experiencing fail, please stand by.

If you read any of my previous blogs, you may know that I am trying to blog every day in March for NaBloPoMo. Well, it's only the 6th day, and I have already screwed it up. I think I misunderstood the point of the exercise, which I believe is to WRITE everyday, not post a blog every day. I wrote two blog posts on Wednesday, because I had a lot of stuff to do yesterday and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to write anything of substance (which begs the question, have I written anything of substance at all?). I saved it as a draft in Blogger to post when I got home on Thursday afternoon. Blogger called my bluff, and posted it on the date and time that I actually wrote it. I didn't notice until I got up this morning that I had two posts for Wednesday and none for Thursday. Since it was only for an hour and a half, I changed the date of the last post to Thursday, since I actually posted it on Thursday. I was thinking about this at work, and I thought that it was dishonest, which is why I'm spilling the beans on myself here. Would anyone else but me have known the difference? Maybe not. At least I think I learned something. I will still be blogging everyday, so don't think you're getting off that easily.

One of the things I did yesterday was go to book club at our county library. We read Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. I thought it was excellent; there are many amazing coincidences throughout the book, but I didn't mind those because the writing was very good and I liked the setting (pastoral England) very much. I usually don't talk much at book club, but I wanted to last night. I did try at the beginning, but I kept getting discouraged, so I shut my mouth.

Sarah and I are going to see Watchmen with our friend Adam tomorrow. I am extremely excited to see it, but I'm not getting my hopes up, as the comic has been called unfilmable by many people who would know about these things. I read the book over 10 years ago and have tried to get Sarah to read it ever since. Don't think it's because she's a girl, she's the one who got me into comics! And for you non-comics fans, this book really transcends the whole comic-geek thing, it really is a good story, it just happens to have a lot of pictures as well. Adam is also very excited to see it, so it should be a good time. We are going to La Tolteca for a late lunch beforehand, which is a really great Mexican restaurant chain.

Tonight Sarah and I are celebrating Frozen Food Day in grand style, we're having chicken parmigiana with mozzarella sticks and buffalo bites, and ice cream for dessert. Celebrate with us, it's tres healthy and very in! Also, Sunday is Be Nasty Day, so I will be ringing that one in by cleaning out the litter boxes. I'll have an extra hour to do those.

I give up.

I said in an earlier Blomo post (Monica's shorthand, and awesome) that I would be clever this month and have all of my titles relate to the Blomo theme this month, which is giving (up). I had planned on using song titles etc., but you know what? I'm not just physically lazy. Plus most of the songs I can think of that have "give" in there somewhere would relate to my post about Sarah, so you see my problem. If I can stick to the theme at all, fine, if not, bleah.

I also see that I use the word eventually too much, and that I do like my adverbs, despite Stephen King's advice. Hopefully I can fix that.

My mother and father-in-law are on a two month vacation, so I am taking care of their cat Mao (the only cat that can say his name!), but just in a scooping capacity. Mao used to belong to us, he was a rescue cat and my in-laws adopted him. Mao is pretty gigantic as far as cats go, but he's not fat, he's big boned (I'm serious). If you looked in his litter box, you'd think that a medium sized dog was pooping in there. This is a lot of setup for the epiphany I'm trying to tell you about.

Since July I have had a protruding disc in my back (it's at L5 if you're keeping score). It doesn't make my back hurt, but it really hurts my right leg, because it's playing with my right leg nerve or something like that. I'm taking meds and was doing exercises for it. I can walk around fine, it's the sitting that really hurts. Plus I have a heel problem in my other legs, so sometimes I'm a waddling fool. It's been much better lately, Dr. Sister PT says that most back injuries heal themselves in 6 or so months (which is also what my neurologist said). Yes, this is more setup, sorry.

We had a lot of snow on Monday, probably the most we've had since we've lived in DE, which is 11 years. I have been going to scoop for Mao every 3 days or so, and I was due yesterday. It occurred to me that I was going to be in trouble when I went over there, because no one would have shoveled the driveway, which is pretty large, and I wasn't able to get out of mine on Monday morning. I was shoveling a bit on Monday while it was still snowing, and it was torturous. I had to come in after 15 minutes and lay on my stomach for 45 minutes just to feel better. I have gained a lot of weight in the past year, so I'm not sure how much of it is that, and how much is my protruding disc (I'm blaming most of it on protruding disc for laziness purposes). So thank God for my brother in law. He's pretty security conscious, so he went over there and shoveled the driveway and the front walk just to make it look like there was someone at home. Yay! Oh right, I mentioned an epiphany. Here it comes.

We don't have any kids, and we are not planning on having any (more on that later). I was finishing the driveway today so Sarah could get her car out, and it was getting a bit easier to do, probably because I have been doing it everyday this week. I realized that I really need to take care of myself, because I don't know if I will ever be able to retire, and I don't know if I will be able to afford to hire people to do what I can't do anymore when I'm older. We won't have any kids to take care of us when we are old. I'm not complaining about that, but I'm not going to make up some kids just for that reason. I basically need to get off my butt and cook better and eat better and also go back to the Y, which I've been to once or twice in the past year, despite paying for it every month. I just hope that it's not too late. I'm 39 now, and they say life begins at 40, and I'm going to try hard to make that happen.

I'm taking what they're giving 'cause I'm working for a living.

If you are a Constant Reader of my blog (and really, who isn't?), you know that I was a baker in high school, and that I hated it. Guess what? I'm still a baker, but I don't hate it anymore, because I chose it this time instead of it choosing me.

My dad bought a bakery in 1982 when I was 12 years old. He was a baker as long as I can remember, although he worked in a chemical plant with his dad when he got out of high school, I believe. Every once in awhile he would take me with him to the bakery on the weekend, which I loved. When he bought his own, I started going every Sunday. I would have to go to sleep very early on Saturday afternoon, and he woke me up around 11 pm. But I was always afraid that I wouldn't get up, so I stayed in the bed and stayed awake until he came in. I guess when you're 12, you can do this. Back then, I was just an assistant of sorts, I didn't do anything like making dough or frying doughnuts. I usually put icing on stuff. There was a luncheonette next door that opened at 5:30 am, and I used to go over there to play pinball and Space Invaders (the German lady that came with the bakery always gave me quarters). Sometimes I would sleep in the office, there was a small single bed in there that also came with the bakery. Now that I think about it, that mattress must have been totally disgusting.

I eventually learned how to fry donuts, and I also became a pan washer after school. I didn't want to learn anymore than that, mainly because I was lazy. I didn't want any more responsibility. My dad bought a second bakery in 1985, which had been abandoned for 4 months when he got it. When I say abandoned, I mean the previous owner locked up and never came back. Eventually the power was shut off, and all that product in the coolers and freezers went bad. There was a lot of cleaning to do, and it was all done in the summer. I stayed away as much as I could, because I hate to clean. Maybe I knew subconsciously that it was going to be my last free summer.

My dad taught me how to make bread in the new place, amongst other things. And my hours got stepped up after a year or so, as the second bakery was in a bad location business-wise, and we eventually dwindled down to just a few employees. We were making everything at the second bakery for both locations, and my dad had to drive all the baked goods to the first location (which became my weekend job when I learned to drive, and was also the first and last time that I fell asleep at the wheel and hit something). As I mentioned, I hated my job, and my dad and I fought a lot about my working there. He said I could quit if I wanted, but I really don't think I could have. I never got to go out with my friends on the weekends. But I always had money, and I was pretty generous with it back then (I still am now, but less so, I have the giant debt to prove it).

My dad closed the second bakery in 1990 and then the first one in 1991. I was free! But then I had to do something I never did before: find a job. I had no idea where to look, because I didn't know how to do anything else. I quit college after 3 semesters (more on that later), so I had no degree in anything. I put on a shirt and tie and went to the mall, with a RESUME. Does anyone take a resume to the mall? I had no idea what I was doing. I was hoping to get a job in Suncoast, so I went there and scheduled an interview. I was sweating like a pig and extremely nervous, and I didn't get the job. I was wandering around the mall with Sarah, and she told me to try KayBee Toys. They gave me an interview right then, and I was hired! Yay! I was supposed to be Christmas help, but I did a good job so they kept me on. I enjoyed the job, but there were bad things about it, the major one being the 3 dollar-an-hour pay cut I took after leaving the bakery. And to compound that, I started collecting toys. I bought entire lines of action figures, and lots of trading cards.

After a little over a year at KayBee, I actually began to miss working at the bakery. I had no idea why, but I wanted to go back. I went to the guy who bought the bakery from my dad, and he gave me a job with him. He also had two bakeries and had a truck driver to shuttle baked goods back and forth. I enjoyed the baking part of the job, but after awhile I became the pan washer and truck driver as well, and it wasn't fun anymore. So I got another job with my dad at Rutgers. I was the youngest baker there, and the manager didn't take me too seriously because of that. I was a better baker than the head baker on my shift, and he even went to a baking school! I also had to drive the truck every other weekend, and I hated that too.

After Sarah and I moved to DE and I served my sentence in the 9th Circle of Baking Hell (Sam's Club), I got a job at a country store called Byler's. My neighbor showed me in the newspaper where they were adding a bakery to their store, and Sarah had to push me to fill out an application. They hired me and I have been there from day 1, which turned out to be the Monday before Thanksgiving 2001. People seem to want a lot of baked goods on Thanksgiving, and it has only increased since then, exponentially at times. I get to make almost everything from scratch, and if I want to try something different, I can do it. The people there are great and they treat me embarrassingly well, and I get to work with many Amish women. It's a lot of fun learning about their culture, and vice versa. You haven't lived until you've had an Amish woman tell you to "go on with your bad self."

I hated working with my dad back when I was young, but now I'm very glad I did. He gave me a very rewarding career that I love, and he gave me a good work ethic, although it's a little too good sometimes. I got to spend a lot of time with my parents and my sister at the bakery, which I may not have done if there wasn't one. They weren't always good times, but I miss those times when we were all together, as those times are very rare now.

I gave my love a chicken that had no bones.

I like chicken, especially with no bones, but that's besides the point this time. I do like chicken wings a lot, especially the ones at the Anchor Bar, they were the best ones I ever had. Still.

I had a long day at work today because no one was there yesterday, and I am off tomorrow. My job is not just 9 to 5 and finish whatever you didn't finish today, tomorrow. My job is you work till you're done, and if you're not there the next day, you do some of that work too (I promise I'll give you the lowdown on my job, which I'm sure you're clamoring for at this point). So I was there late, and I had to stop at the bank after work, so I am very late getting home. I need to finish shoveling the driveway, if my back (and my fat ass) will allow me. I have to pick up Sarah at work at 5, as we are watching our niece and nephew tonight. Their mom and dad are going up to Wilmington to see Ani DiFranco, so yay for them! We saw her many years ago in Buffalo with my cousin. I didn't know her music at all but she was great in concert, it was just her and a drummer.

So it should be an extremely long day for me today, I don't think I will be able to take a nap before we go over there. All this is a roundabout way of saying that there will be no actual content today, since I won't have time to write anything tonight, and I don't want to screw up BloMo just yet. I will have no excuse tomorrow, since I am off, and I have already spilled the beans about that.

You can let me know in the comments if you know what movie the title came from, and I will grant you 5 points. You can also tell me if my post of March 1 about Sarah and I meeting blah blah blah was too long. I have a lot more planned that will probably be long like that, and I know how attention spans are these days. I hope to hear from someone besides Monica! Not that I don't want to hear from you Monica, please comment away!

There should be a smiley face here instead of this sentence, but I said I wouldn't do that, so I won't. It seems wrong somehow, doesn't it?

The Lord Giveth, and Giveth....

Right now it is snowing in central Delaware, something that doesn't happen very often. I could not get out of the driveway this morning, and our road was not plowed, so I had to call out of work. That is also something that doesn't happen very often. When the sun came up and I could truly see all the snow, it reminded me of when I was a kid. I used to dream of days like this when I was in school! I'd have a three day weekend, and I could spend the whole day outside with my Snow Block Maker, having snowball fights with my friends, or going sledding down the side of the Hamilton Blvd. overpass or the golf course. I used to stay out in the snow so long that when I came inside, everything was tinted pink, but I don't know why. Snow days were the best.

Now, not so much. Don't get me wrong, undisturbed snow is beautiful (that's my backyard in the picture), but I hate it. I have to shovel it now; my dad did it when I was a kid (he always got sunburned!), or our neighbor came over with his snowblower, which was the first one we ever saw. I hate driving in it too, not because I'm afraid of driving in snow, but I'm afraid of other people driving in the snow. I'm pretty lucky when driving to work on snowy days, it's 2 am and there's few people on the road, so I don't have to worry about going too slow. I still get people that pass me though, and I hate that.

I also hate calling out of work, because there is no one to call out to. I'm always the first one there, and I let everyone else in. If I have to call out, I do it the night before, and I have to call the manager at home. I don't like waking people up at 3 in the morning, so this time, I did what everyone else does. I called and left a message on the customer service number. I won't call back to see if we are open, because then I would feel bad that I didn't go in (yes, even if it is beyond my control, I'm pretty hyper about missing work).

As I said, we don't get a lot of snow here. When we do get it, it is gone by the next day, but not this time. I'll be looking at giant parking lot piles of snow for days to come. Fabulous.

I give her all my love, that's all I do

My wife Sarah and I will be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary this May. While this may seem unusual when you take into account American divorce stats, it doesn't seem that way to us. Neither of us have divorces in our immediate family. I think that's one of the big reasons why we have lasted so long. We also believe that we are truly soul mates. This may sound corny these days, but I think it's important in a marriage. I used to think being opposites worked in a relationship's favor, but after meeting Sarah, I don't feel that way anymore. Let me tell you about our meeting (cue harp glissando and fade to the past)...

My dad owned a bakery in the 80s, and inevitably, I worked for him there (more on that later). I was the stereotypical baker, the guy who gets up at midnight and trudges sleepily to work. "Time to make the donuts" and all that. After I learned how to drive, I started working the night shift on weekends by myself. This meant that I could not go out on weekends during most of my high school years. As you may know if you've been to high school, this is absolute hell. This alone was the reason why I hated being a baker.

My friends felt bad for me, and also saw an opportunity in my plight. They began to visit me at work in the wee hours of the morning. They would talk with me and amongst themselves, and also avail themselves of free coffee and cold drinks and cookies and donuts, etc. I enjoyed their visits, because it kind of felt like I was going out with them, and it wasn't so lonely. Usually the late night visits happened after the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which played at our local mall every Friday and Saturday. One night my friend Mike told me he met a girl there and was dating her, so I told him to bring her along some time, and he did.

Mike brought his girlfriend Sarah to the bakery on November 11, 1990. (I wrote it down in my journal at the time, that's why I remember.) She had very long, almost white hair and a beautiful smile, but I didn't think of her as anything but Mike's girlfriend then. She asked me a lot of questions about my work, which no one had really done before. It was a little difficult talking to her with everyone else there because she was extremely quiet. She came to visit a few more times with him. One time she slipped on some cornmeal on the floor, and I felt really bad for her and was very apologetic. Another time, she asked if she could have some chocolate milk, and I teased her about it, because everyone else just took stuff without asking. She told me later that this made her very angry with me.

In December, Sarah came to visit, and her hair was cut very short. I had always like long hair on women until I had seen Ghost, and Sarah's hair looked just like Demi Moore's in the movie. It was then that I really noticed her for the first time and started to like her. I was hoping that she liked me too, because she started to come and visit by herself. We bonded over my They Might Be Giants coffee mug, whom I liked and didn't know anyone who had ever heard of them. Sarah had actually seen them in concert! We liked many of the same things, and I really enjoyed talking to her (when I could hear her). I thought that Sarah was definitely the one for me.

I was in a long-term relationship that was pretty much over, but I didn't know how to get out of it. And Sarah told me later that Mike was a rebound thing, as she had abruptly ended a long-term relationship of her own. My relationship finally ended mutually, and a few days later Sarah broke it off with Mike. But most of my friends liked her, and I thought I should step back from asking her out. I decide that I wouldn't pursue anyone for awhile, even though I liked her a lot.

I went to a party on New Year's Eve with a different group of friends. But I wasn't having a good time, so I decided to go to my other friend's party, hoping that Sarah was there. She was! I wanted badly to ask her out, but I didn't know what to do. She solved that for me by sitting on my lap and asking me, "How come you're the only one that doesn't like me?" I assured her that I did like her, and we left the party and went to my house to listen to Beatles albums.

We started dating a few weeks later (at the comic book show in New York, another thing we have in common), and both of us realized in a short period of time that we were meant to be together. We got engaged on September 1st, 1991. This was Sarah's 20th birthday, and it was also the last day my dad owned the bakery. So we got engaged in the bakery at 4 AM, surrounded by friends. I got down on one knee with the ring, and I had also written to my disc jockey friend Manny Glin, who was on WDHA at the time. He popped the question for me on the radio, which as you know, was answered yes.

Have the last 15 years been perfect? Of course not. But there's no one else I would have wanted to go through the last 15 years with. And it's true that I love her more now than I did back then. I had always heard people say that, but I didn't know how it could be true. Now I know. I love you Sarah, forever and always.