Good to See You

Hi there. How you been?

I've been away for awhile, I know. I've been a busy man, and it seems like Ye Olde Blog always suffers as a result. Not that I'm as busy as I'd like to think. I'm sure that will become painfully obvious the more I write this "catching up" posting. To be fair, I'm quite sure that I'm not doing much of anything but have inflated my own importance by feigning busyness when in fact there are plenty of hours in each day to do all the things I want to do. Ah, inflating my own importance. That doesn't sound out of line with someone narcissistic enough to have a blog in the first place, I suppose.

Ah well, at any rate, I feel busy sometimes. I'm writing a bit here and there, Jen and I have developed a rather unhealthy addiction to Dr. Mario (now available for download on Wii), I'm trying to find a home for a short story of mine called "Bridge", I'm saving pennies for a fun little creative side project (super secret), and a lot of other stuff that just has to be done but is zero fun to write about. You know, it's just life. By and large, it's good right now.

So, I'll try to post a bit more often, but for now I'll leave you with the following:
Back several months ago, the cubicle farm I worked in was right beside some desks occupied by Subprime Loan Officers. That's right, a handful of the people responsible (sort of) for our current economic woes were in my midst. To call them loud and annoying would have been an understatement. To call their management team interesting would be kind. To call their decorating sense tasteful would be a joke. For months I had to go into an office decorated with the following signs. These are the real deal...grainy cell phone pictures taken on the day they moved to another building. I walked around their workspace taking pictures and telling them how much I was going to miss them. Hmmmm.

The last one is still my favorite. In addition to being obnoxious, it makes no sense whatsoever. Seriously. Try reading it aloud for kicks.

"You suck"

"You know what would be great? If we could find a sign that would let everyone know we're douche bags with just one glance..."

"Synergize!"

"HABIT!!!"

Burning Time

There are a lot of excuses I could come up with: My lifestyle has changed with my recent weight loss, and as a result we are much busier people. My interests are evolving. I'm busier with new volunteer opportunities and working around the house. All of this is true, of course, and is all bullshit at the same time. The fact is that I am busier exercising, working around the house, walking dogs, etc., but what is really eating up my time is the new Playstation.

Now, my interests have expanded to killing Templar Knights, saving the universe from cartoon enemies, and rising quickly through the ranks of the Russian Mob. I keep telling myself this is a phase I'm in because it's all new and that I'll settle down and get back to work soon, and while I believe that to be true, I spent an alarming amount of time in my den playing video games this weekend.

Still, we managed to sit outside and read, go hiking, work out, play with the dogs, go shopping, grill out several times and cleaned the house. It was a great weekend.

This week though, I am going to finally sit down to edit "Bridge" one last time and then it's time to shop it around some. I've been waiting on Jen to do editing (she is a master of fixing my grammatical errors) but she's been too busy to get through it with the red pen, so I'll have to do what I can on my own. I think I've found a couple of outlets that might be willing to work with a story like this, and that's no easy feat, and I'm getting anxious to get it out there. Plus, I'm sick of just kicking ideas around in my head about the possibility of a longer story (dare I say "book"?) and it's time to get that rolling. I'm just going to have to put the beautifully ergonomic wireless controller down for a few days and find some balance again.

Hope my four readers are doing well. Stay on the bike and off the pipe (especially you, Cox).

Jogging With Bob Ross, Dwight Schrute and Jesus

It's true. Last night I jogged with all of them. Also, with Willie Nelson and Kevin Smith. Out of our little group, I outran some and was beaten by others. It was still fun.

So yeah, I got Wii Fit last night. After getting through the initial weigh-in / BMI calculations and being given my Wii Age (6 years older than my real age - ouch!) I started playing. I started out with some running in place thinking that would be a decent way to get my heart started. I started jogging, and that's when all of the Mii's that we imported started showing up all around me in jogging outfits. Jen would go jogging by with Willie Nelson and it would just crack me up. Good stuff.

Wii Fit seems like it will be fun, and I'll totally work it into the routine. Some of the games were a good time and pretty addictive. Some were just OK. I think my biggest complaint will be all of the starting and stopping. I'm hoping that once I get through some of the basic levels of the game, the exercises will toughen up a bit. Still, it is just a game. If I want to work out I can go for a bike ride and lift some weights.

Weekend Update with Pat Robertson's Lust Puppet

Playing a bit of catch up today. The Mrs. and I traveled northward to visit some friends, do some "work", and partake of a pubcrawl through Historic Northeast Minneapolis.


It all started Thursday night with some dog walking for the good folks at CHA for a couple hours. From there we rushed home to pack, which we kind of did. Because we didn't finish, my lovely wife had me up at 3:00 AM to finish packing and get over to the airport in time to hop a 6:00ish flight to Minneapolis.

Spent the day at the office, then puttered around the city picking up groceries that we needed that don't travel well (stupid diet), and then finally setting up shop at to work from home for the rest of the afternoon. We sat out on the patio as it was a beautiful 70 something degrees and I got fried to a crisp. I had to go all the way to MN to get my first sunburn of the year. Yea.

The next day was the Crawl, and it went pretty much as you would expect it to. People came, drank, crawled, fell in and out of love, and peed on the sides of bars. Success. At the center of the party, one man stood strong. Like an experienced captain leading us into battle, he understood that we might not all make it through the night, but worked tirelessly to make sure none were thirsty and all had name tags. Some would say his early vigor was his own undoing, but not me. I was proud to be associated with the man. Here is a grainy cell phone shot of our leader enjoying what I like to think of as a rare moment of solace:

The best thing that happened, actually occurred while we were killing time on Sunday while waiting for our flight. We were talking about video games and televisions when Jen spoke up:

"You mean if you get a Playstation 3 you would be able to play games, and it has that Blueray thingie built in so you can shut up about two things at once?"

"That is correct, oh dearest love of my life. Your understanding of the situation is only exceeded by your beauty."

"Then just get it. Geez."

I already had yesterday off from work Monday, so at 8:15 am I was standing at the back of Target paying for a new Playstation 3 and a copy of Grand Theft Auto. I got home, did laundry, cleaned the house a bit and logged over eight hours on the most amazingly beautiful game ever created. This may well be the last time you hear from me as I will be squirrelled away in my den, forehead pressed to the screen, furiously rising through the ranks of the Russian mob.

I'll miss you.

Bits of Tid

A new Portishead album hits tomorrow. I burned a leak of the new disc over the weekend to check it out and cannot wait to buy it this week. Seriously, ya'll...support the artists financially that you believe in. They have enough people taking money out of their pocket, they don't need you doing it too.

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Today is Mario Kart Day for me and mine. Tonight should be full of high-speed hi-jinks (after working out, cleaning the kitchen, and playing with the dogs, of course). The fifteen minutes I actually get to play are going to be amazing...I can feel it.

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Speaking of the dogs, I had to drop them off for grooming this morning. We generally like them natural looking, but break down and have them fluffed and puffed a few times a year. It's always a nightmare, because our dogs are generally ill-behaved. Otis believes everything he sees at the vet's office (where we have them groomed) belongs to him, and as such, pees on everything if you let him. He's an eleven pound dog when we get to the office, but by the time we leave I think he weighs two pounds due to fluid loss. I don't know where it all comes from.

Our other dog, Lucy, barks. I know you're thinking, "No shit, she barks. She's a dog." But, just like there are people that take a simple thing from life and focus and explained on it, elevating it to an art form, there are dogs that do this as well. Lucy is one such creature. While not discerning, Lucy's barking is no simple disgruntled yelp. Her bark pierces and echoes. It slices through the air and rattles around your head several minutes after the actual barking is done. She barks at dogs, televised or real, cartoon or actual. The other day, she actually growled at a picture of herself that came up on our computer's screen saver. Genius.

So, between trying to keep her quiet enough to talk to the groomer and praying to God that Otis doesn't piss on my leg out of frustration for me not letting him claim the Reception Desk as his own, my morning kind of blew. I think the groomer heard my instructions, but if I pick them up tonight and they have mohawks, the dogs will have no one to blame but themselves. For the record though, I would be totally down with some mohawks.

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It was a beautiful day yesterday, so we headed up to Mohican State Park to go hiking. It was a good day. We climbed a Fire Tower to check out the valley and took a relatively short four mile hike. Saw some deer and acted like idiots. I haven't checked out the pictures yet, but if there's anything worthwhile, I'll throw them up here later today.

That's all I've got.