Random List #6

1. Something I Cannot Do Whistle.

2. Something That Has Never Worked Another person saying, "What? You never learned how to whistle? It's really easy. Here, let me show you." And then the person proceeds to try to teach me to whistle before giving up after about 30 seconds.

3. Worthless Skill That I Am the Worst At (besides whistling) Foreign accents.

4. Last Place I Shopped Petco. I bought kitty litter and a new water bowl for the cats. Nothing for Pancho.

5. Today's Sign That I Am Getting Older I spent two minutes debating whether or not I should also by some new airtight food containers that Petco sells, but ultimately decided I should get Emily's input. Live it up!

6. Number Of Times I Ate at a Restaurant This Weekend Four.

7. Number of Meals I Have Cooked For Myself or Emily in 2008 Two.

8. Dumbest Argument I Had As A Child I got in a fight with my mom that my eyes were not blue, but red, because that was my favorite color. Despite the fact that she had all the evidence in her favor, she eventually agreed with me about seven seconds into the fight.

9. Least Favorite Condiment Mustard.

10.First Song I Learned All the Words To "The Gambler," by Kenny Rogers.

The Deets Is As The Deets Does

The Deets suggested I'd be the most likely to follow through with his request to this...

JUST TWO THINGS
Send this back to the person who sent it to you and the rest of your friends!

Okay, so he received it as a chain e-mail and turned it into a post. And I feel obliged to do fill out the list, since he said I would. Plus, you know how I love my lists.

Two Names You Go By:
1. Rocco
2. Funny Mike

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. A North Face jacket. Emily bought one for me last year and has one that matches mine.
2. t-shirt commemorating the San Antonio Spurs as champions of pro basketball in 2007.

Two Things You Would Want (or have) in a Relationship:
Either I'm not smart enough to answer this question or it is simplifies relationships too much. Either way, I can't answer it.
1.
2.

Two Things you Like to Do:
1. Run with friends.
2. Go out to eat.

Two Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment:
1. The swelling on my tongue to subside. I bit it so badly this morning that it looks bruised.
2. To be able to sleep in tomorrow, which I won't.

Two Things you did Last Night:
1. Hung out with a friend at the C C Club until it closed.
2. Made chocolate cookie bars, and as a joke spelled "S'UP BRAH?" in chocoloate chips on the bars. Then as I drove over to my friend's house with these bars I passed a car that had a vanity plate that read "SUP BRA." Weird, right?

Two Things you Ate Today:
1. Some of those "S'UP BRAH?" bars.
2. Leftover "Ropa Vieja." Cuban food cooked by aforementioned friend (not actually "old clothes").

Two People you Last Talked to:
1. My mom.
2. Nathan.

Two Things you’re Doing Tomorrow:
1. Working
2. Folding laundry

Two Longest Car Rides:
1.Iowa City, IA to San Antonio, TX in 1994 (driven solo)
2. San Antonio, TX to Los Angeles, CA 1980 (my mom drove that one solo). I sat in the backseat and acted like I was hosting my own version of Tic Tac Dough the whole time.

Two Favorite Holidays:
1. Thanksgiving
2. Grandma's Marathon

Two Favorite Beverages:
1. Beer (domestic)
2. Gatorade

Two Things About Me that you may not have known.
1. I was born in Illinois.
2. I was kicked out of Cub Scouts in third grade because I wouldn't take my bike helmet off during a den meeting because I kept insisting to the den mother, "It's my thinking cap."

Two Jobs I have had in my life:
1. US Postal Letter Carrier
2. Dude who kept the 60 foot salad bar at Souper Salad fully stocked with fresh fruit, vegetables, salad accessories, and dessert.

Two Movies I would watch over and over:
1. The Usual Suspects
2. Buckaroo Banzaii

Places I have lived:
1. New York, NY
2. East Liberty, IA

Two of my Favorite Foods:
1. Enchiladas
2. English Muffins

Two Places I’d rather be right now:
1. Next to Emily, who is in New Orleans until Wednesday for work.
2. In a time machine so I go back twelve hours and re-eat the croissant I was eating when I bit my tongue so badly. Only I wouldn't bite my tongue the second time around.

Two people I think will respond:
1. I don't think two people read this blog.
2.

Since this is a blog, copy/paste, and fill in your own answers in the comments. Let me know if you partook in the fun.

Random List #5

1. Favorite Noble Gas Argon

2. Least Favorite Noble Gas Radon

3. First Team I Ever Played On 1st grade soccer team. We were called The Recyclers.

4. Favorite Ice Cream Flavor Mint Chocolate Chip

5. Strongest Sign That I've Become A Midwesterner (aside from the fact that I have lived in the Midwest for 16 years if you include college and I love the Minnesota Twins) I refer to soft drinks as "pop" and no longer call them all "Coke."

6. Strongest Sign That I Will Never Be A Minnesotan (or "One of us" as they call each other up here) I will never ever refer to mint chocolate chip ice cream as "peppermint bon bon." You will find me using "borrow" and "lend" interchangeably before I ever say "peppermint bon bon." And for the uninitiated, there is a subset of Minnesotans who do use "borrow" to mean "lend" (as in "I'm gonna borrow him the book."). What the hell is wrong with you people?

7. Dumbest Thing I Can Remember Doing As A Kid I grew up in a very hilly neighborhood. At the bottom of one hill, on one side of the road, was a layer of loose gravel that was there for at least three years.

I always rode my bike home from school, rain or shine. As part of my grand finale of my daily sortie home, I would ride my bike to the top of the big hill. Then I would bike as fast I could down the hill, as fast as my toothpicks, I mean legs, could pump the pedals on my SX-2000 dirt bike. I would then bike through the gravel layer making sure to hit the breaks right when back tire hit the gravel. I could easily skid over 20 feet across the gravel patch when I did this.

The dumb part is that this hill I sped down was three blocks long. And the two intersections I sped through had stop signs intended for me. So for three years, rain or shine, on every school day, I took the risk of getting hit in, not one, but two intersections, all for the sake of skidding through gravel on my SX-2000. Granted, this was a sleepy residential neighborhood, but the law of averages state I should have been hit at least once over this three year period.

8. Biggest Piece of Irony In All This If I biked directly home from school, it would have been a two mile ride. But my mom had me double the length of my route. I had to bike an two extra miles out of my way so I could cross Broadway, a busy street, with a police officer crossing guard named Officer Hubbard. The danger of crossing Broadway at a traffic light WITHOUT Officer Hubbard was clearly too dangerous, so I had to bike all the way down Broadway to cross safely with officer. and then ten minutes later, of course, I was speeding through stop signs and skidding through gravel patches.

9. Number of Times I Cried In Front of Officer Hubbard One. In fourth grade someone stole my SX-2000 from in front of my mom's bookstore. Officer Hubbard was the first responding officer at the scene of the crime. When he asked me to explain what happened, in my own words, I started bawling because I could't believe my SX-2000 was gone. I don't know how he transcribed that into his police report, but he probably went something like this, "And then young Mr. Nawrocki said, 'Waaa fucking waa."

10. Biggest Reason Why I Break Into A Cold Sweat When I Think About What It Would Be Like To Have A Child Of My Own See Item #7.

Random List #4

Favorite Cereal Cinnamon Life

First Job I Ever Had Bagging groceries at the HEB on Broadway (now a Central Market HEB) in San Antonio for $3.35/hour. I had to wear a bow-tie and a red and white pin striped short-sleeved shirt.

Pets I Had As A Kid
Six different dogs of varying lifespans: Tigger, Puppy, Lobo, some black dog who died young, Max, and Shakie.

Five cats all with long lifespans: Mama Kitty, Don Gato, Gatsby, Hairy, and Mr. Kitty Man.

Five ducks who ate all of our grass in the backyard: Two white ducks whose names I forgot, a nasty South American duck named Koa, and two ducks that were the spawn of Koa and the white ducks. As a result, they had black and white spots.
They were named Stealer and Moo. Skunky and Spot were two other ducks but they died young at the mercy lf Lobo's teeth.

One lab rat: Squeaky.

First Concert I Ever Went To Flock of Seagulls--several years AFTER they were relevant for their song I Ran.

The One Thing I Went To As A Kid That Is More Ridiculous Than A Flock of Seagulls Concert Pro wrestling, repeatedly.

Favorite Board Game I Never Get To Play Balderdash.

Least Favorite Game I Always Seem to End Up Playing Boggle.

Animal That Freaks Me Out the Most Octopus

Most Pointless Food Corn-Nuts

Fact About Me that Surprises People the Most As youngster, probably right around when I was three, my family lived in Manhattan for a year or so. I don't remember much about it, but I'm pretty sure it was the Manhattan that is in New York City.