This survey has been sweeping Facebook, so I caved and filled it out. Thought I would crosspost it here.
1. I'm proud to be a dork.
2. I love New Orleans. I couldn't live there, but I could visit for about two weeks every year.
3. I don't drink coffee and I don't put milk on my cereal.
4. I am neither an animal lover nor an animal hater. I'm more like an animal tolerator.(Though I hate to see any animal in distress.
5. I kind of miss going to mass, but I have some issues with the Catholic Church.
6. Hockey is my favorite sport to play, but baseball is the best sport to follow religiously.
7. I'm not an "idea" guy. However, I enjoy helping others hone their's.
8. Dying of a food-borne illness is among my top five fears.
9. I think Richard Dawson may still be the coolest dude in America.
10. Working at Barnes and Noble was great- except for the customers.
11. I have an amazing wife and beautiful daughter. Each of them makes me a better person.
12. Random rap lyric that I'm glad is NOT true about me: "I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom."
13. I do a piss poor job of keeping in touch with people, especially my faraway friends.
14. It's possible I would eat anything if it was deep-fried.
15. I wish I had more time to blog.
16. If being a Weitzel's busboy was lucratrive I could have done it forever.
17. I wish I could grow a real beard, not one that is patchy and lame.
18. Ii's amazing how many things you thought were important no longer are once you have a child.
19. I'm 34 and still don't know what I'll do when I grow up.
20. I'm thankful that others volunteer for military duty so that I don't have to serve.
21. These pretzels are making me thirsty.
22. Bryan Evans and I were convinced that we could share hosting duties and top billing of a successful late night talk show. It's just crazy enough to work. Why? Because Bryans rule.
23. I'm a Republican that voted for Obama.
24. Managing a glass shop mostly sucked, but I'm proud to possess a a fairly rare trade skill.
25. If I had to choose one make-believe career it would be a toss-up between between Captain of the Millenium Falcon and a Ghostbuster. I love Star Wars, but bustin' makes me feel good.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Make Way, Baby on Board.
Playing manny/stay-at-home dad has gone pretty well so far, so inch by inch I've been getting bolder with my activities with Grace. A few days ago we tackled a trip to the grocery store together for the first time. Why I picked the Glen "When did so many people move to Glen Burnie?"Burnie Wal-Mart Super Center at 3pm on a Friday afternoon is beyond me. Probably because our lives have become an ever-changing quadratic equation of feeding times and spare minutes and I thought I could squeeze the trip into my limited window. With an hour to an hour-and-a-half until probable feeding time I bundled the girl up and ventured forth without any formula or milk. Like a bomb squad hearing the ticking, I had one eye on the clock and one eye on the sweat beading on my forehead from the moment we left the driveway.
With carseat safely in cart and diaper bag slung over my shoulder I entered the store and immediately started using what has become my go-to move when in crowded public places with Grace. I put on the harried dad face, look a little frazzled (neither expression faked or exaggerated, of course) and wait for the seas to part. It's amazing the looks I get just pushing my little pumpkin around. Grandmothers nod knowingly, clerks smile and even other dads with older kids make way for my rolling circus. I've gotten so accustomed to this treatment that when somebody doesn't immediately cede their aisle space (which obviously they have every right not to) I catch myself getting exasperated. Hello, did you not see the red carpet unrolling before me as I walk? For crying out loud I have a BAY-BEE in the cart! Grace, for the most part, doesn't interfere with my plan, sleeping away as I use her cuteness to manipulate my fellow shoppers.
On this day, however, the store was so packed and the aisles so clogged that even my diabolical scheming wasn't getting me through fast enough. I'm checking my watch knowing that, though she is sleeping peacefully now, I could be moments away from a full scale Grace Hunger Wail. Running out of time I do the only thing I can - I turn into the goddamn Jack Bauer of grocery shoppers. I'm sending the cart careening around corners, diving for cans on endcaps. I toss a grenade to blow through a blockade of carts and shoppers in the freezer section (Cleanup on Aisle 4!). I even shoot a mouthy deli clerk in the leg for taking too long with the Meunster cheese. My urgency pays off (or so I think) as I arrive at the car with Grace awake but smiling.
Fifteen minutes shy of the house, however, my Princess Jekyll turns into Ms. Hyde. With the flip of a switch my smiling, laughing baby girl is wailing, screaming what I'm sure are tiny baby insults at me. Of course, in accordance with Baby Law #37, the decibel level of Grace's screams was inversely proportional to the speed of the drivers in front of me. Alas, I have no Jack Bauer left in me; there will be no super driving. I am left to suffer in traffic learning a very valuable lesson that deep down I knew all along. Never be a daredevil. Always take the formula with you.
With carseat safely in cart and diaper bag slung over my shoulder I entered the store and immediately started using what has become my go-to move when in crowded public places with Grace. I put on the harried dad face, look a little frazzled (neither expression faked or exaggerated, of course) and wait for the seas to part. It's amazing the looks I get just pushing my little pumpkin around. Grandmothers nod knowingly, clerks smile and even other dads with older kids make way for my rolling circus. I've gotten so accustomed to this treatment that when somebody doesn't immediately cede their aisle space (which obviously they have every right not to) I catch myself getting exasperated. Hello, did you not see the red carpet unrolling before me as I walk? For crying out loud I have a BAY-BEE in the cart! Grace, for the most part, doesn't interfere with my plan, sleeping away as I use her cuteness to manipulate my fellow shoppers.
On this day, however, the store was so packed and the aisles so clogged that even my diabolical scheming wasn't getting me through fast enough. I'm checking my watch knowing that, though she is sleeping peacefully now, I could be moments away from a full scale Grace Hunger Wail. Running out of time I do the only thing I can - I turn into the goddamn Jack Bauer of grocery shoppers. I'm sending the cart careening around corners, diving for cans on endcaps. I toss a grenade to blow through a blockade of carts and shoppers in the freezer section (Cleanup on Aisle 4!). I even shoot a mouthy deli clerk in the leg for taking too long with the Meunster cheese. My urgency pays off (or so I think) as I arrive at the car with Grace awake but smiling.
Fifteen minutes shy of the house, however, my Princess Jekyll turns into Ms. Hyde. With the flip of a switch my smiling, laughing baby girl is wailing, screaming what I'm sure are tiny baby insults at me. Of course, in accordance with Baby Law #37, the decibel level of Grace's screams was inversely proportional to the speed of the drivers in front of me. Alas, I have no Jack Bauer left in me; there will be no super driving. I am left to suffer in traffic learning a very valuable lesson that deep down I knew all along. Never be a daredevil. Always take the formula with you.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Baby Product Endorsement
Though it sounds like something unseemly you'd encounter in a one of those clubs on Bourbon Street that have signs that boast "Watch women turn into men before your eyes!", Boudreaux's Butt Paste rocks. It knocks out diaper rash like a Tie Domi cheap shot on Ulf Samuelson.