What I Don’t Need to Change This Year.

I'm a big believer in New Year's Resolutions. I usually make three a year. Some Past resolutions include: learn to pay guitar, read a biography of every president, learn to juggle, finish my game machine project, and finish my book (this one I make about every year). I have met with varying degrees of success. I can juggle. I can play a very slow blues progression on the guitar. I've read up to James Madison's biography and I'm about half way through Team of Rivals. As for my book, well maybe next year. I have never felt like I didn't see one through. While I may have not succeeded completely at all of them I always make an effort.
This year I have decided that I need to not make resolutions. Or more specifically, I want to try and live a life that needs, less resolutions. As I have grown older, and hopefully wiser, I see that life is less about where you go overall, than it is about the little things that you put into that whole. I want to be someone that looks at the book about fixing cars and says I'm going to do that now. I'm going to learn how to play Parcheesi. Or maybe its time to play though The legend of Zelda again. I may not solve world hunger, or finish my book (man I really need to do some work on that), but I will try to be the man that does "The Things", not just someone who says "I always wanted to do that."
In 2009, my resolution is to not have New Year's Resolutions, but rather January resolutions, or Wednesday resolutions; to have resolutions in supply, as needed. Will I succeed? Maybe, but hopefully I will feel like I tried.

P.S. I in no way support Parcheesi and all the dark undertones within.

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This Blog Blast was sponsored by the Parent Bloggers Network and Big Tent.

Lets Try This Again

There I was 1988 Christmas. I was excited because this was going to be the year I would receive the best Christmas present of all time. I was sure it would be there. I would wake up Christmas morning come down stairs and a light from above would shine down on one present. THE PRESENT! The Nintendo Entertainment System. It would not be my first game system. I had an Atari, and a Commodore 64. But this one had the greatest graphics that ever were. Mario looked like a real little man! While this was a great selling point, and I couldn't wait to save the princess, the real reason I was excited was the NES Power Pad. I was going to get in shape. With the Power Pad you could run, jump and exercise your way to a trim body. I was going to use it every day. It would make me stronger, more attractive to the opposite sex. It was the answer to all my woes.
It was not. By New Years I was using my hands on the pad to beat the running times and it got more use as a place for our cats to piss then for anything like a work out. I never got buff, and I didn't get Christine (my grade school crush), but I can beat Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda with my eyes closed.
However, Wii fit will change me forever. I'm going to use it everyday. I'm going to track my weight loss and watch my little Mii grow smaller and smaller. A trainer (look how
real she looks) is going to push me "your doing great, keep up the good work." I will be able to beat Twilight Princess with my eyes closed, but this time my body will be tone. If Christine could see me now!


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With this post I'm not only pushing the limits of my new body, but attempting to win a Wii Fit to help me on the way. Check out more at Magpie Musing.

The difference between my faimly and a normal one

Being married to my wife for eight years now I have come full circle with understanding the subtle difference between our families. When you arrive at my aunts house you know that you are arriving within 10 minutes of everyone else. Depending on the state of football, or planed shopping spree for the weekend you may get a "hi". At my wives grandparents house they arrive slowly throughout the day, with a warm greeting. "How are you?" "How are things going?" These questions are ask with sincerity, even if you have seen them the night before. At the house of family quickness the food is just enough. My aunts have made an increasing effort and perfected the art of just enough food. Very little leftovers, and just the right amount of seconds. Its' an amazing computation that is performed days before and executed with the skill of a mathematician. There are days and days of left overs at the "normal house." They beg you to take some with you, or eat just a little more of your fourth serving, so everything can fit in the fridge. After lunch/dinner with very little conversation, my family gets together and picks names for Christmas (one person gets one person a gift). Once this is done we began the stare down. This is also began around the same time at the house of family togetherness. While my family is just waiting for the first one to leave, so the others can funnel out quickly and quietly, again within 10 minutes; the Cleavers are just waiting for the first one to put on the "comfys", or pajamas so the others can follow suit within 10 minutes. Continuing the conversation and family time.
Both familys full of triptiphan find them selves full and happy and feeling good about the time spent with eachother as the night comes to an end. I love both and wonder at other familys Thanksgivings and differences we all share with new families.

Confusion!!!

I have IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and if you know anything about this disease, it sucks. In short when you have an IBS "attack" you need to find a bathroom, quickly or find yourself in the same predicament of a 1 year old who has to go. That is, you just go. So I find myself away from the house and I feel the stiring. Now I need to find a place with a clean bathroom that I can find quickly and access with ease. These pictures show the problem I encounterd. I danced to the counter to find this laying on the desk. I was confussed but figured it out with a little trial and error. The sad part is this was a library.

It Barack Obama... No wait....

In school Monday morning I was sitting in my Community College and was treated to Barack Obama making a speech about the importance of voting. No...wait.... he was at the local ball park, and that's not till Thursday. That's not Barack Obama!! That's the academy award winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. of Snow Dogs. I waited (kind of excitedly with a just came out of my moving picture box kind of feeling) to see him come down the stairs and give a very surprisingly inspired speech about voting. He than rallied the students to come with him across the street to the county building to vote (you can vote early in Ohio). I watched as about 300 students followed him out and across the street to vote. This may sound cheesy but it made me feel good about America, and gave me a little more hope that we can still make a difference. Me and Copper (my school/work cohort) discussed briefly of slapping Cuba as he passed us telling him "that was for Boat Trip, and you know you deserved it" but he had bodyguards and a academy award that no matter how much shower motivated best director acceptance speeches (I'd like to thank all the girls I've loved before) that will never have one. Well maybe not.

Annie, Flight of the Concords and my bleeding ears

We have two songs that are sung around our house at any given time of the day. I find myself typing up some school work, or watching the "steal you life away box" (T.V.) or even trying to sleep at 5:30 in the morning to be suddenly serenade by my three year old daughter with a rousing rendition of Tomorrow from Annie. It is not enough to be sung, but it is accompanied by theatrical stances and just a little bit of Jazz hands. She has also become convinced that "Bet you bottom dollar" is really a hidden political message. Talking on the phone with my current cell phone provider (I hate my phone), the customer service woman was secretly pushed to vote democratic. My daughter ended the room, stage right, singing/yelling "Tomorrow, Tomorrow! Bet Barak Obama ya! I love you Tomorrow!" These out bursts are only subdued by requests to play the theme song to the 70's TV show Wonder Woman. "Wonder Woman to the RESCUE!" But that's another story.
No to be out done by my daughter my wife and I often become a part of the Annie revival. But this is not the song we have always sung. I am a fan of the HBO show Flight of the Concords. If you haven't seen this show, your missing the new Monkeys of our generation. A favorite of ours is a song called Business Time ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN0oDnoc3-c ). To put in a family friendly way, Business Time is the kind of time that led me to have a daughter to write blogs about. Now, a three year old has a balder the size of a tennis ball, but can evidently hold 30 gallons of liquid before the need to "pee pee' is actually needed. Don't ask me it science. So to curd the 30 gallons of juice, milk, water and what ever secret "treats" grandma has in put her tummy, for ending up in you vehicle you need to have you daughter pee pee before you leave the house. To encourage this activity my and my lovely wife can be found dancing around the living room, with a little bit of Jazz Hands, singing "It's Potty, It's Potty time. You know what you got to do, its potty, that's why its potty time."
When our daughter prances from room to room singing Tomorrow, we watch and smile and think about how wonderful she is. When we sing Potty Time our daughter looks at us like we are imbeciles. I think were both right.
This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as an entry for a contest sponsored by Bush’s Beans. Mmmm beans!!! Check it out at http://www.beanchant.com and http://blog.parentbloggers.com.

Weight Management

I'm tired a lot, I eat too much, I don't have a lot of time, and I complain to much. I have a beautiful wife and daughter, who bring me light every day. I have a job that is relatively easy, and pays well, enough to let my wife stay home with Violet (with some pinching). I am doing well in school so far and have a Playstation 3 and friends. I like the PS3 a little better sometimes. It's hard to focus on the good sometimes, even when the good out ways that bad. Sometimes I feel like the bad is so pronounced because the good is as well. The Ying to my Yang. The weight of my body, and the things I have to do pushed on me like a bolder. My weights are quickly moving from the category of 'things I should do' to 'things I need to do'. My wife looks at me worriedly as I look at my weight loathingly in the mirror. She looks at me worriedly when I have problems getting out of the chair because of my back, or when I can't get up the stairs without pain in my knee making it give out. I don't know what to do. When I see people that need to drive scooters around Wal-Mart to by their Ho-Hos, I think to myself 'Stop eating'. This is easier said than done. Of course I don't eat Ho-Hos everyday either. Sometimes answers are not just sitting their obvious, sometimes they take time and effort and work. Sometimes we don't like the answers, like medication or a CPAP machine. Maybe the answer is to stop complaining.

Blackness

As my neighborhood still struggles to regain power and clear streets a week after a wind storm I wonder were all the good things have gone. As I look at the window I see people moving around with no more regard or worry then before. Maybe their used to not having power, or food. I didn't see the out pouring of help and togetherness I read about in New York and New Orleans. Maybe these were just worst situations and there is a level needed before the human gene of a village kicks in. Or maybe the poor, don't help the poor. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. Maybe, just maybe misery loves company, and they don't want the company to leave.

The cocktail party was the norm, filled with people and things that thought themselves more important than the person they were talking to. It was a like a bookstore, with cheese and wine. I had spent too much time talking to the millionaire duck and was decidedly finished with his, "So I 'quack' told him to sell the fucking 'quack' idiot." So, I introduced him to a longshoreman and I made my escape.
The party was in full swing. All of the elite of society was there: The president of America, the president of Disney, the president of the International Society of Talking Spiders (I steered clear of them). It was like all the parties I had been too lately pedaling my new book The Life and Times of Typewriters: A study in fact and fiction. It was getting rave reviews in The Post, and Anthropomorphic Animal Weekly. Maybe, I was pedaling myself. The Leopard in the corner looked most beautiful, but her glances were hard to read, sex or hunger?
Getting tired of the same rhetoric I scanned the room. I saw an elephant in the corner standing gloomily; People and animals alike giving her a wide birth. I meandered over to her, narrowly missing the glance of Rebecca the Duchess of Unimportant Providences. The elephant was new, maybe making the party worthwhile.
I greeted the elephant with fake jubilee.
"Great party." I said.
"Hummmph" She replied, looking grumpier.
"Problem?"
"Oh you know how it is. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink." She said glancing at me with her black marble eyes beneath what looked like a tad too much mascara, even for an elephant.
"I'm sorry I don't follow." I said, because I didn't.
"Well sometimes," she said, "it just feels like everyone here is trying to ignore me, like I'm not even here."
I knew what she meant, but didn't find it polite conversation for the evening so, I decided it was better to not think about it or her.

My daughter and Seven Samurai

I remember the day I first saw Seven Samurai. I was riding my bike downtown and saw the Neon Movies. I had seen this place a thousand times but had never really looked at it. Die Hard, and Star Wars was about my speed in movies. But today as I rode past something caught my eye. I'm pretty sure it was a poster for some scantly clad femme fatal. As I looked thought the windows I was entranced by movies I had never heard of.
At twelve, I thought myself fairly in tune with the movie business. I watched Entertainment Tonight religiously. But this was a world unknown to me. It was playing a Akira Kurosawa marathon, and something at midnight called the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Without thinking I walked up to the counter and asked about the next two movies playing Seven Samurai and "Shichinin no samurai" that I pronounced all wrong. The guy behind the ticket counter smiled at me. He didn't make fun of me, or roll his eyes, or treat me like a twelve year old kid, he told me that it was the same movie, just the original Japanese title.
"Is it like Lethal Weapon?" I asked thinking about the idea of some guy kicking ass and taking names.
"No." he said simply. He looked at my obvious confusion. "Come on in."
He let me pull my bike into the lobby and gave me some very stale popcorn and told me that I could watch the movie for free, but I had to tell him what I thought of it when it was over.
I walked into the theater and was mesmerized. The screen was the biggest I had ever seen. At the time the screen was one of the last Panoramma screens left in the country. There was only about twenty people in the theatre. The lights went down and it began. It was in black and white, which didn't bother me at all. I had recently talked my mother into letting me watch Raging Bull and loved it.
I can't describe what I felt that day. It was something new, exciting. I love it. I went back to the Neon any chance I could get, and was let in free many times, and saw movies I shouldn't have seen at that age, even more times than that. I was changed and have loved movies, all kinds ever sense.
Seven Samurai remains one of my favorite movies to this day, and I dream about showing it to my daughter one day. As we sit on the couch and I turn it on I will feel that excitement of the first time again. We will watch for awhile, and then slowly, hesitantly, my daughter will turn to me with love in her eyes, I will look back hopeing see that excitement returned and I will hear her say.
"Dad this is boring, can we watch something else."

Computer geeks and me worrying less.

Going back to college after many years I was nervous. I'm studying Computer Programing, and was worried that my age, and experience would keep me from getting a good job. A year in, I feel better everyday. Most of the people in my computer classes know more than me, without a doubt. However I do not weight 350lbs and live in my mothers basement. It is sad on a level that I can not convey. Now I'm no small person. My Wii fit tells me I'm obease. And I don't wish to attack people who truly battle with their weight everyday. These are not those people. They sit in front of me, pounding on a keyboard, pounding down the seat, pounding down pound cake and slugging Mountain Dew. These are the fat people who have to take a break going downstairs to get more Cheetos. Their knowledge impresses me, they do not. When I go for an interview and these guys are the ones sitting next to me, I don't think I will fear my chances. On paper, they blow me away, in an interview they are sloppy and painfully socially inept. I am in no way better than they are, well I am in a couple of ways, but I'm sure they beat me in some category, just not being able to count the number of girls they have kissed with more than one hand.
I see the guy calling to set up an interview right now.
"Hello" Mom answers.
"May I speak with Robert Smith please?"
"Billy its for you! And your pizza rolls are ready!" yelling down stairs.
"Just a minute Mommy. I'm just about to get to level 70 in Warcraft!"
"He will be a minute." shes says into the phone.
I thought it was a cliche, now I know its a culture. A sad, sad, scooter, jelly bean eating, pale skinned, man boob, virgin club. I can't get in, and I'm OK with that.

Mario and how things work.

I was playing Super Mario Galaxy today (a video game for the Nintendo Wii, for anyone born before 1960, and the place you were born was under a rock). As I maneuvered Mario around avoiding nefarious characters out to get me, I realized that Mario really knows his stuff. If something bad is coming at you you: A. Jump out of the way, or B. spin around crazily and hope that it knocks it out of your way. This is a simple lesson so many people just don't get. Fight or flight. Each has its place and time, and each can be very wrong. But all and all one of the two is the best way to win at life's hard lessons. When bad things are a-comin' get out of the way. When the shit is going to hit the fan, step to the side of the fan (preferably to the opposite way of the blades). If the things are coming at something you love, take a stand. Let nothing stand in the way of the things you love. Wether it be your lovely daughter, or a 1up mushroom. Go for your Powerstar.

P.S. I do not condone the use of 1up mushrooms or shrooms of any kind. I had my time with them, and a few were very rough. But thats another story...

Tests!!

I'm tired. No. More. Tests! Must. Have. Time. For. Self. And Family! Must. Resist. Exploding. Brain!

How to be a manager part 2

The second thing that evidently is key to becoming a manager to a multimillion dollar company is the Irish Shower. Let me digress for a second and say I love the Irish and believe them not to be smelly in anyway, but sayings are sayings and they save time.
I was sitting in class waiting to observe the Borg in class when a young, very hip dressed, and slightly sagging guy comes in and sits next to me. The smell of cheep "insert rip off fragrance here" wafers in with him. Class starts and I decide to stick it out. It will dissipate. I will get used to it. NO! Nearing the half way break it starts to burn my eyes. When class breaks I get up and move out to the hall, for fresh air I literally feel sick.
I stand in the hall and hope that his grandmother dies so he will leave. Horrible, but so was the smell. As I come back in I notice that he is sitting in the same place never getting up. The smell is getting stronger. It doesn't have any underling BO smell, like he was covering up not getting into the shower, he just thinks that its a good idea. Maybe its covering up the smell of stupidity.
As I go back to my seat I know that I have to make a decision. Do I move, or not? As I near my seat the smell hits like a brick wall surrounding him at about four feet.
I have to move.
As I pick up my stuff the kid looks at me questioningly. "Suns in my eyes. Moving back a little."
He nods knowingly.
Success! I move two seats back to were it just smells like the outside of a JC Penny Mall entrance. Annoying but tolerable.
The smelly starts to shift uncomfortably. I stare, whats wrong, whats he doing. He gets up and moves two seats back to sit next to me again.
"Sun was bothering me too." He says smiling.
I'm stuck dumb. The smell is back and worse. Its spreading around the classroom like the Andromeda Strain. I get up and pick up my stuff and prepare to leave. He looks again questioningly. "Got go. Grandmother died." I say with a shrug, and escape.

Unplugged

As I sit in my Principles of Management class, I look over the "perspective" leaders of business, and I think of crying. I wouldn't trust the majority of these people to manage a Burger King. No less then five of them have a bluetooth headset stuck in their ear. Every week, two times a week when I see them and they have them in their ear. Outfits change but bluetooth is the same. I wonder when do they put them in? When they wake up, after they brush their teeth, or right when they leave the house: keys, walet, headset. Do they take them off to shit?
What important part of this universe are they a part of. They are obvously so important that the thought they might not be able to talk on there cell and perform complicated "hands free" activities at any give moment is unfathable. Maybe their on the bomb squad, or contected to the presedent of their given job. I'm going with, they feel so self important that they think they need to be conected. Unplug for a fucking secound. Give the teacher respect.
But I know whats really going on. It's the Borg. Star Trek was right. There is a species from the far reaches of space that endlessly soak up planets and assimilate them into one mind. They are attacking us before we even know it. Inserting this implants into our ears, never unpluged. There not going to get me. I will not be a part of this colective masses, I will be independent and not act like my ear is an extention of the constantly conected world of technology.
Now excuse me I have to download the new John Mellencamp record to my IPod.

What its like?

Writing is like being a bad kisser. You keep wanting to do it, but always worried about the results.