Back to School

Leave it to someone in the education industry to actually give me a homework assignment for my blog. So Jocelyn has assigned me to write a meme. Like she said, a meme is basically a blog chain letter. I feel like I'm back in college again, trying to get a paper done at the last minute.



But I try to be a good sport, so I will do this meme that she "tagged" me with. The problem I have with this has nothing to do with the concept of a meme. The issue I have is with this particular meme's topic: Six Weird Things That Have Happened To Me. Nothing too weird has really ever happened to me.

I have a very enjoyable but stable life. I haven't hung out with the drummer from Huey Lewis and the News in an elevator. No one has ever come up to me, bleeding from the eyes and asked me if I had a map of Idaho he could borrow. So the six weird things I can think of may seem, shall we say, less than freaky.

So you can read this post standing up. You don't need to worry about having to change your underwear when your done. And there will be no cases of slackjaw at the end of this post.

Jocelyn is a writing teacher, so she should appreciate themes. Since the bulk of my posts as of late have been about Texas and running, I am going to try to confine all the weird shit that has happened to me to these two topics. And to really suck up to the teacher, I will begin with a story that took place in Duluth.

So I hope all this will prevent Jocelyn from docking me ten points for turning my meme in late. Away we go...

1. I ran my first marathon, Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, back in 1999. Until then, I was a former middle to long distance runner. I had never even raced anything longer than an 8k, much less 26.2 miles. Having taken five years off from running, I was unaware that polyester, in the form of CoolMax, had made a comeback. I figured if a cotton t-shirt worked for me back in college, it would certainly work for me now.

It turns out I was wrong. Cotton may work for an eight mile run. It does not work in a marathon.

One of the things that truly disgusts me about marathons is the bloody nipples that so many men get. And it turns out there are products like performance gear and body glide that help prevent nipples from bleeding.

Open letter to Lord: May all future men who run a marathon, including me, be aware of these products. Amen.

So back to 1999. I finished Grandma's in a t-shirt that happened to have the University of Wisconsin logo on it. Rookie error. I did not go to Wisconsin. I can't tell you anything about Wisconsin sports, other than they're pretty good. And I have never been to Madison for more than a few hours, where the university is. But for 26.2 miles, crazed spectators shouted "GO WISCONSIN!" at me. One woman even broke into the Wisconsin fight song as I went by.

So clearly this shirt was a poor choice. After I finished the race, I loitered about the post-race area. I was in a bad mood because, well, running 26.2 miles will do that to you. So I was getting more and more pissed off at all the guys walking around with their shirts still on, stained with nipple blood. I wanted to grab each guy and yell, "HAVE SOME FREAKING PRIDE WILL YOU??? CHANGE YOUR SHIRT!! YOU ARE GROSSING EVERYONE OUT!!!"

About thirty minutes after the race, I was sitting with Emily and some other friends, when I said I was going to get some ice cream. A friend of mine said, "Don't you want to change your shirt first?" And everyone laughed.

I assumed this was because of the damn Wisconsin logo, but you, gentle reader know better. Sure enough, when I looked down, I saw it. Two gushot wounds to the chest.

There I was, one of those disgisting male marathoners with a white shirt and bloody nipples. Have some pride.

It is a very weird feeling to look at your own shirt and realize you have become what you despise.

2. When I was in high school, my sister went to college in Rhode Island. I visited a few times, which was fun. One of the highlights was going to Boston and Fenway Park to watch a Boston Red Sox game. During one of our sorties to Fenway, a girl started shouting my name. "Damn yall," I thought, "I even got it on the East Coast. I'm such a lady's man the lasses even know me in Boston." But I turned around and it was some girl from my high school. "Not so cool," I thought, "That girl is kind of annoying."

About six years later, when I was in college, my friend and I went on a road trip during the summer. We went to a lot of baseball games on this trip. One of them was to Fenway Park. We drank a lot of beer before we got there. We sat in the bleachers and drank more beer. I tried to teach a kid how to keep score. He ended up correcting everything I was telling him. I drank more beer and decided it was time to go to the bathroom.

As I was washing my hands, I looked over to the guy washing his hands next to me, and it was a guy I went to high school with.

Fenway Park in Boston is clearly is the place for me to see how my high school classmates from San Antonio are doing. Maybe we should have our 20 year reunion in the men's restroom of the Fenway bleachers.

3. Speaking of San Antonio back when I was in college, I was running on a stretch of road on Vandiver. You know where I'm talking about. By the old Kroger that had the Ms. PacMan, the Little Ceasar's, and the check cashing place, just past the Austin Highway.

This was the summer of 1991. It was 5 p.m. in August. with triple digit heat and humidity. So all I had on was my running short, socks, and shoes.

A guy sitting on his bike on the shoulder of the road stopped me, addressed me as sir, and asked me if I had any cigarrettes.

Uh yeah, Lance Armstrong, I take a smoke break every mile. I stash my Marlboros in my underwear and I pull them out all sexy-like. You know like a sultry woman who keeps her driver's licence in her cleavage (I'm thinking of a movie like Cannonball Run). Only my cigarettes are drenched in ass sweat, but help yourself, Lance.

Fast forward to a week later: same time, same place, same attire, same run, same weather. As I was crossing the Vandiver/Austin Highway intersection, a guy in a Suburban honked his horn and waved to me. I thought it must have been one my friend's dad, so I waved back. Eventually he got through the light, and caught up to me, at the same spot where the guy asked me for cigarettes.

But this guy asked me if I had something else I wanted to give him. Actually, he wanted to give me something, and, um, well, it involved, well, what he offered carried the assumption that I was a) gay and b) into hooking up with random strangers I see at the fabled Austin Highway/Vandiver intersection.

Gross. Not for the "gay" part, so much as for the "asking random strangers who run across Austin Highway part for sex" part.

I declined, and realized this guy was not my friend's dad, afterall.

What the hell was up with the Austin Highway/Vandiver intersection back in the summer of 1991?

4. Speaking of running in San Antonio, we'll call this The Ballad of Israel Flores, as it takes up items 4 and 5.

Israel was a rival of mine back in high school cross country. His school, Edgewood, was in my district (Minnesotans call them conferences) and was part of The Lamest Race Ever Won In A Cross Country Meet In the History of Time. This historic event occured in I think 1987 and was won by yours truly.

I was a sophomore and had a pretty good chance to win the race. But only because the best runner in the district, my teammate Cuatro, was in the state tennis tournament. Even without Cuatro we had a good enough team to advance to the Regional Meet, so this was an ideal, no-pressure situation for a second-fiddle guy like me to actually win.

The first two miles of the course were very hilly, and on a narrow path that ran through the woods. The last mile was flat and fast and finished on the 50 yard-line of Edgewood High School football field.

My coach figured most of the other good runners would take off too fast, as they would be preoccupied about getting packed in, away from the lead. Our plan was for me to sit in the weeds, and really run aggressively for the second half. And I did just that. At about 1.5 miles, I started passing all the usual suspects.

Johnnie Black, look at the back of my shoes. Ortho Mendez, you are now in my rearview mirror. And then I surged past Luis Ruiz right as we got out of the foilage of the first two miles. With Cuatro gone making like Bjorn Borg, that was everone left in the race I had to worry about.

But as I came past my coach in the open field he started yelling, "You're in second place! Keep surging!"

Sure thing Coach, easy for you to say. Apparently you can yell without that nagging feeling of oxygen debt. Wait! Huh? Second place?

"WHAT? WHO?!?!?" I shouted back.

"I don't know. Some guy from Edgewood. Just go get him!"

Again, easy for you to say. Sure enough, now that we were out in the open, rather than the One Acre Woods, I could see a guy in a red unifrom running all by himself. Oops.

And that was my introduction to Israel Flores.

So with less than a mile to go, and a 200 yard lead, this race is Israel's to lose. And lose it he did, no thanks to me.

I chased after him, just enough to find that balance between running hard enough to keep my coach off my back, and not so hard that my heart would explode in the name of a race that was already decided.

So I made an ostensible attempt to catch Isreal as we entered the stadium and did our half lap around the track before running through the field goal posts en route to the 50 yard line. I was maybe 100 yards back as he made it to the goal posts, and he had 70 yards to go.

"Well played, Israel," I thought, "This was your home course, and you knew how to run it."

Or did he? Either Israel decided to run his victory lap before actually finishing, or he didn't know his home course afterall. He made like Charlie Brown and kept running around the track, after the goal posts. Edgewood coaches and fans were screaming at him to turn around and go through the goal posts.

I saw this and found my fifth gear. Like a cat, I cheaply pounced on that dying bird. I sprinted through the goal posts ten yards ahead of Isreal, who had finally doubled back, and I sprinted to the glory that was the district title for whatever district we belonged to.

So there you have it. The Lamest Victory Ever. In fact, it's a Trinity of Lameness. I beat a guy who ran 5200 meters to my 5000. I didn't even know he existed until my coach told me with less than a mile to go. And the best runner by far wasn't even there that day.

And here is the weird part. After the awards ceremony, I walked past some guy from another school. "Man! Awesome job!" Evidently he was running the race too, and had no idea just how cheap that victory was.

5. That was my sophomore year. By the time I was a senior, Israel many opportunities to avenge his loss. With the playing field level (i.e. he doesn't spot me 200 meters), we had some pretty good races and I'd guess we were pretty even. But then I was hit with shock and devastation when I read in the paper one night that Israel Flores was shot and killed in gang related violence near Edgewood High School. This completely conflicted with the Israel I had known for over three years.

This was awful. I talked with my friend Cuatro and my coach about it. I talked to my mom about it. We decided the best thing to do was just to send flowers to the family and not do anything more grandiose. The pain was palpable.

But then my coach called me 48 hours later and told me my rival, Israel Flores the runner is alive and well. Sadly, another Israel Flores, a football player was the one who was shot and killed. It turns out Edgewood had not just these two, but three Israel Floreses. So it was with a lot of guilt that I felt relieved that one Israel Flores was okay, even if that another one's life had to end so tragically and unnecesarrily short.

And it was strange all year to race Israel, and try to beat him every time I faced him, after mourning his death, Tom Sawyer style, for 48 hours.

6. In college cross country on the Fridays before a big race, we'd go for a casual three to five mile jaunt around campus for practice. We called these Campus Loops. Sometimes we'd run through the library. Or the dining hall. Or the dorms.

One time Soul Asylum was on campus to do a Friday night show. So as part of our Campus Loop we ran through the buidling that housed the hall/lounge where they'd be playing that night. Soul Asylum happened to being doing their sound check as we ran by.

The lead singer, I want to say his name is Dave Pirner, saw us and said into his microphone, "Hey look. It's the jogging team."

So there you have it. Six weird things that have happened to me in Texas and/or while running. I hope I get a better grade on this than I did on most of my college essays. And I hope it was a little more interesting.

Conversation With A Kid With Asperger Syndrome #1

At work I see a lot of kids with Asperger Syndrome and some high functioning autistic kids. The bulk of what I work on with these kids is social skills. If you want to know more about Asperger Syndrome, wikipedia has a pretty good entry about it.

Or you can just go to Silicon Valley and meet the locals. Then you see the syndrome up close and personal with every person you meet. Even cheaper, rent Napoloean Dynamite. That movie is an outright celebration of Asperger Syndrome.

Anyway, here is a conversation I had with a high school senior today who has Apserger Syndrome.

Kid: "What did you do this weekend?" We have worked long and hard on how to start a conversation using an appropriate question.

Me: "Well let's see. It was pretty cold, so I stayed indoors a lot. I watched some movies and the Super Bowl of course."

It is now the kid's job to ask a follow-up question based on what I said. As you will see, he jumped the gun and transitioned to what he was dying to talk about. But at least he used a transition. It was a clumsy transition, however. We are still working on how to smoothly transition from one topic to another.

Kid: "Hmmm. Hey speaking of TV, do you watch Family Matters?"

Me: "Wait. I thought we were talking about my weekend. You need to find a smoother way to get to your topic of choice. and be patient." All the while, I'm thinking, "WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!? Family Matters? Was that the show from like 15 years ago with Urkel? Well my question was about to be answered.

Kid: "I know. I know. Sorry, but I couldn't help myself. It's just there is this show Family Matters, and it has this guy Urkel and he is HILARIOUS!! He's SO FUNNY!!! He's a genius."

Me: "Excuse me. Did you just say Urkel is a genius?"

Kid: "Well a comic genius. Can I show you my impersentation of him?" This is progress. Last month he would have broken into his Urkel routine without asking first. Now he knows better.

Me: "No."

Masters of the Obvious... UNITE!!

I am about to leave for work. How many times do you think I will have to talk to someone about how cold it is today? I'll keep track, but I'm guessing it will be 21 before it's all said and done.

Because, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, it's kind of cold today.

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.

A Banana On The House

Someone very very closely associated with this site has a new website. He puts the name of your website on a banana, if self-promotion is your thing.

Luckily, I must have friends in high places. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across my very on blog being being publicized on a banana. Click here to see for yourself. It's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. You don't know how many times I have typed and deleted that lame joke, before deciding to include it.

Now before the good people at banananame.com come knocking on my door to collect some money, let me just say I have a plan to repay Mr. Deets for the free publicity. I have a specific idea in mind. But I need to be in the right place to do it. So I will find a way to return the free publicity. It's just a question of when, not if.

Did I Leave the Iron On?

One last post of Lake Nokomis, and then I'll be done until July with mentioning that lake on this blog. Why July, you ask? Because that's when the lake gets so hot, all the fish die and wash up on shore. Hard to imagine that scene, since right now the lake looks like this...



Mister Wizard, I ain't. So exactly how the water froze as a shelf of ice, hanging over the land is beyond me. But this is how the north shore of Lake Nokomis looks right now, and will until spring. So you have plenty of time to check it out for yourself.

But back to my reason for even talking about Lake Nokomis. I spend many Sundays going for an easy run around this lake. Since Labor Day, I have probably run past the northeast beach 15 times.



However, it wasn't until last month that I ever actually read the sign. And since then, it's always made me laugh. And if you read the sign for yourself, you will just how easily I'm amused.

I took these pictures yesterday, when it was somewhere between zero and two degrees with the wind chill. Tonight we have a windchill of -7.

I like to think that on a night like tonight, somewhere in south Minneapolis there is a teenager who had a summer job as a lifeguard on Lake Nokomis. As he watches American Idol, or updates his myspace page, he thinks to back to the glory of summer, when the lake was warm and he had an easy job.

As he sips on his hot chocolate, spiked with Bailey's he swiped from his dad's liquor cabinet, he thinks of his last day on the job, Labor Day.



Let's see, I took the buoys and rope out of the water. I cleared off all the benches. I cleared the beach of debris. I wiped down the lifeguard chair. My cushiony seat, sunscreen, and whistle are in storage. The rowboat is out of the water and I turned it upside down, with the oars INSIDE the boat this time. I don't want to make that mistake twice. Yikes was Peterson mad at me. But why do I still have this nagging feeling that's been with me for the last four and a half months?



OH CRAP!! I don't remember changing the sign on the beach to say BEACH CLOSED! Shithouse mouse! Or whatever it is kids say these day when pissed off. Old Man Peterson is never gonna hire me again!

EXTRA EXTRA! Read All About It!

"Country Mike" Runs a Race and Lines Up Next to Two Women Who Are More Interesting than He Is

It is usually not good to have your picture on the front page of the Local News section of a major city's newspaper. Your picture is usually run next to a story about how you just got caught for a string of bank robberies, were murdered by a roving gang of juvenile transvestites on crystal meth, are a sleezy politician who tried to make-out with George Bush, or are at the center of some scandal.

So it was a bit unsettling to be all cozy in our bed this morning, reading the Sunday paper, open up the Local News section and BOOM! see my picture. Allow me to explain.

Yesterday I ran the Frozen Half Marathon in St. Paul, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a nice story about it.

The story is on the front page of today's Local News section, below the fold. The bulk of the story is about two women who are going to be running in a marathon in Antarctica next month. Pretty cool.

One of the women has lost 150 pounds over the years, thanks to running, and is now a Boston marathon qualifier. She was also featured in the Star-Tribune during the week leading up to last October's Twin Cities marathon.

And if you do get the paper, you will also see there is a picture of the two ladies lined up next to me. Minutes before the race they kind of budged their way to the front, which people often do. Usually this is kind of annoying, but when I saw they were having their picture taken, I realized they were somehow part of a story. The picture is not on the web version of the story.

But click here to read it. You'll be glad you did.

As an aside, I did set a PR the at half-marathon yesterday. Seeing as I've only run three, this is not that big of a deal. Click here for the results.

The close reader of the results will note that I missed winning the 35-39 age group by only one place! And the closer reader will also note that even though I was only one place behind my age-group winner, he did happen to be 62 seconds ahead of me.



Emily snapped this picture of me with about a quarter of a mile to go. If it looks cold out there, that's because it was.

Next up: Training for Grandma's Marathon. Unfortunately, this morning I woke up with a slightly numb right butt cheek. Not good. It can be a hallmark sign of piriformis syndrome. Either way, I can still train through it, if I'm smart.

I sure hope I can keep training. I need all the training I can get. My goal is to break 2:50 at Grandma's, and then I can say I'm almost as fast as this guy.

Winter Magic

Minnesotans, I have found, believe the ways to stay warm in the winter are more fun than the ways to stay cool in the summer. Of course, I have a clan of Texas relatives who will tell you otherwise. Floating down the river, cold beer, swimming at the lake... Sure all of these things are fun. But I am learning to enjoy the winters here in Minnesota (ten years later) and have found that there are a lot of fun ways to stay warm. Best of all, most require you to be physically active. Consider...


Squirrel hunting.




Running.




Hiking.




Bird watching.




Biking.




Hockey/Skating/Broomball/Boot Hockey/Any Other Ice Sport That Requires Balance Skills That My Cerebellum Is Obviously Incapable of Providing




Ice Fishing On A Frozen Lake (notice, I said most, not ALL activities to stay warm require physical activity). I blew this photo up, hence the poor focus. For those of you not from Minnesota, that big blue auger is how you punch a hole in the ice so you can fish. Seems like heavy machinery to operate, considering how much beer drinking you do while ice fishing.




Snowmobiles. Okay, I know these are cars on a bridge, but it's the closest picture I had of snowmobiles. And really, aren't cars and snowmobiles really one and the same? They are to me.




Cross Country Skiing and Snowshoeing




Playing with Your Toys. Be it a football, snow softball (those crazy kids and their false sense of invinvibility), snowballs, or in Pancho's case, a shitload of stuffed animals. He has this habit of taking one toy outside each time I let him out to chase squirrels (real or imagined). Then he dumps the toy on the deck, and leaves it there. As a result, by the end of the week, all of his toys have piled up in the same spot outside. He then wanders around inside all week, wondering where the heck all his favorite toys went. Dogs are kind of stupid.





And last but not least, staying at home...




...and drinking beer. Did I mention that not ALL warm activities require PHYSICAL activity. One man's winter den is an ice fishing shanty, while another man's is a room with a TV, a wife, and a DVD player.

So, what is your favorite way to stay warm in the cold?

Question for the Masses

And by masses I mean the three of you who read this blog.

The question is, do I revive this blog? Or do I put it out to pasture?

Does this Dog Make My Neck Look Fat?

Last Sunday Pancho and I went for a light jog around Lake Nokomis. I took my camera along because it was snowing and wanted to get some pictures of my favorite part of the Twin Cities running trails. And for you locals, that would be the stretch of Minnehaha Parkway between Minnehaha Falls and Lake Nokomis.

In addition, Lake Nokomis was hosting the national pond hockey championships and I was hoping to get some good pictures. But I have learned I don't do to well taking pictures of things that move. Especially when they're on skates and zipping around like ten Tasmanian Devils.

So at the end of the run, I decided to take a picture of Pancho and me. With all respects to Charles Schultz, happiness can also be a cold puppy.

Novel Sentence?

A fun game I used to play, before I married someone who found my fun games to be very annoying was, "Is This A Novel Sentence, Or Not?" I have a friend, we'll call him The Doctor, who insists that it is irresponsible to claim a sentence you say or wrote is novel, and has never before been produced in the history of time. He is, literally, a math genius, and believes that statistically speaking, the probabilty is always present that any sentence you create has been created before. If you try to make up a sentence, he will provide you with a context for that sentence.

Now, anyone who took Linguistics 101 will know that one of the defining features of language as opposed to any other form of communication is that a single language utterance/gesture/production (i.e. a sentence) can be infinite in length. Also, the possible language utterances/gestures/productions (i.e. sentences) one do are also infinte. Therefore, there are infinity sentences that have never been said.

Even so, The Doctor says we have no way of knowing which oddball sentences have been said/written before, and which ones have not.

I offer the follwoing sentence: "The only difference between a lampshade and the space shuttle is Max Headroom." This is a properly construced English sentence (though quite awkward) and therefore, according to The Doctor, I cannot claim it is novel. He believes the probability that someone else has produced it is just too high.

And on to my main point: I just got off the phone with a friend of mine. We'll call him Zandypants. During the course of our conversation, Zandypants said, "Yeah, fuck my art shanty." The context of this sentence is not relevant. Trust me, it made sense in context.

But this was a historic statement in that I am pretty sure it is a novel sentence. How can anyone have possibly said this before?

I could argue that Zandypants' desire to have his art shanty, er, fucked, is novel and therefore backs up my claim that because there are infinity unsaid sentences, and we can say with confidence that no one else has uttered such a request. I mean seriously, an "art shanty?" Wanting one's own art shanty to have sexual relations? Give me a break; that is a novel sentence. How about a little dose of common sense, The Doctor?

But this claim alone could support The Doctor's argument that there is a context for every single possible sentence, given that this one occured. So it is therefore impossible to claim that any sentence is novel. I don't agree, but I do appreciate the logic.

Who is right?

Snake Farm--It Just Sounds Nasty

Snake Farm--Well it pretty much is.

If you grew up in San Antonio, you spent a lot of your childhood going north on I-35 out of town. This is because this is how you get to New Braunfels, the Guadalupe River, and Austin. And this means you spent a lot of time driving past the Snake Farm outside of New Braunfels.

I went the Snake Farm once, in high school with some friends, and we all agreed that was one time too many.



And this summer Texas singer/songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard put out an album called Snake Farm. And the lead track shares the album's name. So I asked to get this album for Christmas, and my brother-in-law Jake came through.

The first thing that popped into my mind was, "The Snake Farm has been an institution since 1967 and it took almost 40 years for someone to write a song about it? That's surprising."

Many of Ray Wylie Hubbard's song have a blues quality to them, which means these songs often get stuck in your head. The song Snake Farm is one of these songs. But the beauty is, in this case, I am not annoyed by having his songs in my head. Rather, I just want to listen to his songs more and more.

Click here for the lyrics.

So I played this song this morning at 7 a.m. as I was eating my breakfast and have been hearing the song in my head ever since.

I also like the end of the song ("And we... you know...it's a snake farm"). Ray Wylie Hubbard is very funny.

The final thing about this song is it is a pretty accurate description of the vibe and mood of the Snake Farm. I just wish Ray Wylie Hubbard had written that song back in 1989. Then I could have just listened to his song to know what the Snake Farm was like. Instead I went and checked it out for myself and just felt kind of dirty and very depressed for about three days afterwards.

L-I-V-I-N

Is there home comfort that beats this on a cold winter night?

Jammie pants. A long sleeve shirt. A warm bed.

That's how I roll.

Random List #3

Favorite Bean Black refried.

Favorite Track and Field Event to Watch 800 m run.

Least Favorite Track Race to Run 800 m run.

Favorite Drink I Never Drink Hot chocolate.

Favorite Pencil to Paper Game Sudoku. I wish I could make like Rush and deviate from the norm here, but sudoku is too much fun.

Least Favorite Pencil to Paper Games Mazes. Sure I appreciate that some mazes are works of art, but I can think of nothing more boring or frustrating than the maze as an activity. Maybe that's because my visual-spatial skills are pathologically bad. I mean, I could probably qualify for some Occupational Therapy services. That being said...

Fictitious Person I Imagine Probably Exists That I Most Want to Meet Someone who is really into mazes. Is there someone out there who, as an adult is mad crazy about mazes? I'm talking about the sort of fella who would call himself a "maziac" and has a maize colored t-shirt that says "That's A-MAZE-ing!" Surely there is a group of people passionate about mazes in a Wordplay sort of way and constitute a maze fanatic subculture. I want to meet one of those people.

And by the way, Emily can verify, one of my most annoying (to her) habits is to think of fictitious people and ask her if they exist. Like, "Do you think there is someone out there who is really good at clapping? Like so good at it that he can pick up girls at concerts just by clapping between songs?" I think these questions warrant discussion. Emily does not. But the point is, out of all the people I have thought up, I really want to meet this maze guy more than any of the other fictitious people.

Biggest Determinant In Choosing a Fruit to Eat Ease of eating. I like the taste of pineapples and oranges a lot more than bananas and apples. But I eat twenty bananas and apples for every orange or apple I eat. This is why clementines rock!

Most Beautiful Animal Tigers.

Strunk and White Manual of Style Rule I Break Consciously the Most Frequently for My Own Selfish Stylistic Purposes Capiltalizing and putting periods at the end of a fragment.

Partying Like It's 1999

Back in the 20th century, I did a lot of cooking. A lot of it was because it was my job, but I also spent a lot of time cooking for myself. However, since then, I met and married Emily, and we have developed a routine that smacks of a traditional marriage. And by that I mean she cooks every night. But I am still a 21st century, sensitive new-age guy. So part of our arrangement is I always do the dishes.

This works out really well because Emily and I both agree she is a great cook, I tend to cook only things with meat, Emily hates doing the dishes and somehow is very bad cleaning them, and when I cook we sometimes end up eating at 9 p.m. But with Emily cooking our meals are more punctual, healthier, more varied, and lighter than if I was cooking.

But, I was inspired by Thirty Day Challenges taking place at The Deets' household in the Lake-8 Neighborhood of Minneapolis. So I am trying it out myself. I have challenges for January through April figured out, and will post them along with May and June, a la Deets, once I get May and June figured out.

But January's challenge has been to cook a Sunday meal, a huge dish that will have tons of leftovers. I failed to do this last Sunday, but did it today.

So today I made this pork chile verde recipe. I doubled the recipe.



I was skeptical of how it would turn out while the witch's brew simmered. But I remembered to give the food our usual blessing ("Hope it doesn't suck."). And the dish ended up being exactly as I hoped. The meat was tender, the sauce spicy, but not so spicy it drowned out the tangy goodness of the tomatillos. As an aside, only once have I neglected to bless a dish I have made with "Hope it doesn't suck." And, Emily will back me up here, this was the one time something I made really sucked.

But I digress. I think Emily liked the chile I made Sunday, just not as much as I did. But as you may predict, she found it a bit too meaty and greasy. What a pansy-ass Minnesotan she is. I'm joking of course.

And the best part for me is, tonight Emily has to clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes.

Putting the Balls Back In Football

Each sport has its image problem. Most are plagued by some combination of steroids, recreational drugs, prima donnas, spoiled gigillionaires, corrupt judges, and criminal behavior. But soccer not only has all that to contend with. It also has the issue of its players acting the biggest damn sissies this side of men's synchronized swimming. It looks like FIFA is finally admitting this is a problem.

Click here for the whole story.

Here is some of the text.

At this World Cup, the deplorable habit that involves players staying down for no apparent reason after minor collisions, thus causing frequent breaks in play, was increasingly in evidence," said the report of the FIFA Technical Committee.

Hasn't this been going for, I don't know, decades? But I guess I shouldn't complain. At least now maybe they'll find a way to put a stop to the drama queen behavior.

Life Is Beautiful

Last night Emily came home from our neighborhood wine bar with a friend of ours, DC. I had opted to be anti-social for the night and watch the Dallas Cowboys playoff game at home and by myself. For those of you who are not one of my parents or sisters, you may not appreciate the degree to which I used to live and die by the Dallas Cowboys as a youngster. Imagine my crazed love for the Spurs and multiply that by ten, and that is how much of a Cowboys fan I was.

But last night, Emily and DC came in and watched the last three minutes of the game with me. And if you don't know what happened, I'll just summarize by saying it was a wacky game and a wacky ending. The Cowboys quarterback completely choked and fumbled the ball at the end and lost the game for the team.

Anyway, my point to all this is how little I cared. DC, who is a big Colts fan and knows way more about sports than I would have imagined kept saying she felt bad for me and Tony Romo (the guy on the Cowboys who choked at the end--not the guy who owns a chain of barbecued ribs restaurants).

I mean I was disappointed and I'm sure I said, "Oh crap" or something. But that was it. Apathy and perspective sunk in immediately. I mean I didn't even feel bad for Tony Romo. Hero or goat, he is still being paid obscene amounts of money to play a game.

The bottom line though is last night's game did not affect my emotional well-being at all. I still have a great house, have the best wife ever, a good job, live in an awesome neighborhood, have a quality family, family-in-law, a good group of friends, and I am healthy. If Tony Romo bobbles a snap on field goal attempt, that doesn't change any of that.

Of course the real test of this newfound, healthy perspective will happen in May. That's when the Spurs begin their playoff march.

The Visual Elite Need Not Reply

This question is for all you contact lens wearers who use the microwave frequently. Which would be easier for you to give up for life? Your microwave or your contact lenses? Or how about your cell phone vs. your contact lenses?

For me, in either case, it's definitely contact lenses. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that contact lenses are among my top ten valued inventions of the 20th century. I also need the car, the airplane, the internets, the furnace, the air conditioner, the gas stove, the CD, the running shoe, and the computer. You give me those things and my contact lenses, and I could do without the tv and all them moving pictures.

Random Thought #6701

Who exactly is it that buys nudie magazines from the airport newsstands?

I have a routine when I fly that began when I regularly flew between Des Moines and San Antonio in college. To this day, I always go to the ATM, take out my requisite cash for the trip and then go buy a Sports Illustrated. Reading this magazine is pure indulgence so I save and savor it for when I have to fly.

Not surprisingly, Sports Illustrated is with all the other "men's" magazines, like Car and Driver, Muscle and Fitness, a lot of sports magazines, and, on the top row, a collection of nudie magazines that would make the Encyclopedia Britannica proud, in terms of comprehensiveness and organization.

And part of my routine is to marvel over all the selections and how one goes about choosing one magazine over another. Are the differences between Playboy and Penthouse as subtle and nuanced as the differences between Running Times and Runner's World (or Newsweek vs. Time)? Or are the stakes higher and more polar? Is it like choosing between FOX news and, well, anything else besides FOX news?

And this seems like a strange place to contemplate this because I'm in an airport, not Sex World or SuperAmerica.

And this brings me back to my original point. Who on God's green earth is buying these magazines in the airport? And why? They have been there for as long I have been regularly flying, so clearly there is a market for Playboy in the airport, otherwise they would have been pulled from the shelves a long time ago.

Is there a whole sub-type in the Annoying Traveler category that I've been missing here? I mean we've all had to sit by any of the following: screaming baby, smelly man, obese person, grunter/snorer, the conversationalist, Mr. Cell Phone, and (this one was new for me on the last trip) a girl with a small dog/rat in her purse.

But has anyone had to sit by "the crazed porn addict who can't go two hours without seeing a naked lady so he had to buy a Penthouse from the Lake Woebegone Newsstand in Terminal C of the MSP Airport"? Because I haven't. Have you ever sat next to someone who spent the whole flight from Chicago to Denver studying the dimensions of Miss February's centerfold? Again, I haven't. So if Porn Addict is indeed a new kind of Annoying Traveler, I have yet to meet him.

So I ask again, who in the hell is buying all these magazines? And why?

Texas Rules: Reasons # 218937-218943

Although The Deets and He Who Follows Four Seasons would like you to believe otherwise, I really did grow up in Texas. Sure I was born in Illinois and spent a year or so in Manhattan when I was wee, but my formative years are purely Texan. Here are some pictures of my trip back home with Emily.

One of my sisters lives with her family in St. Hedwig, a town (for lack of a better word) about 15 miles east of the San Antonio metro area. One day my brother-in-law should start his own blog and he can tell you tales like "How to Kill a Rattlesnake With Your Wife's Honda Civic." Until then, these pictures will have to suffice.



How to catch a Minnesotan Golden Gopher: lay a cow spine on a prickly pear near some barbed wire. This picture looks posed, but it's not. I think a dog must have dragged the spine across the prickly pear patch and left it there.



One of these scoundrels is the likely Spine Dragging Culprit.



The white gunk residue on the prickly pear is actually NOT white residue from deodorant. It is a critter.



One of my brother-in-law's three horses. My sister also has a pinto, but we didn't get a picture this time around. Oops.



My senior year of college, a housemate of mine had a puppy. He thought it was a good idea. The eight other people thought it was a terrible idea. I was one of those eight. The dog, pretentiously named Shakespeare (not by me) had epic battles with me back in the day about his role in the house.

It's a long story, but after I graduated my mom actually ended up with the controversial dog. She was only supposed to have him for a year. Well, one rattlesnake bite, one seizure disorder, and 12 years later, Shakespeare (or "Shakey" as my family calls him--less pretentious) is still living with my mom.

He looks and walks like a grandpa, but he does still enjoy life, as you can see here. I am shitting you negative, he is actually chewing on the jaw bone of a pit bull. How the pit bull jaw ended up in his mouth is also a long story.




Home of Da Smoke BBQ is a barbecue shack (a literal shack as you can see) outside of St. Hedwig. Everything besides the church, VFW, post office, and feed store can be considered "outside" of St. Hedwig. Home of Da Smoke had some of the best barbecue I've ever had. I had ribs, pork loin, candied yams, fried okra, corn bread, and sweet tea for less than ten dollars. And that is reason #218943 why Texas rules.



Here I am being a tourist in my own state, with Emily and all that food I just wrote about.

Happy Holidayz Yall

Emily and I are making like Santa and flying to San Antonio tonight. We get in just before midnight. We'll be there until Friday. So Merry Christmas (or Happy Christmas to Matt and Anna).

If anyone wants to know what Christmas in Texas is like, ours will be something like this.

The Most Horrible Post I've Ever Written

I know I have ranted against Winnie the Pooh for wearing a shirt and no pants in the past, but I can't let it go. Why do people think this bear is cute? Seriously. Try it yourself. Next time you're getting dressed, put a t-shirt on and nothing else and look at yourself in the mirror. It's truly horrible.

The only thing that rivals this is a man wearing running tights and no shirt.

I have had this rant for a long time. I mentioned to a friend in college once, who was on the cross country team with me. So one day, after practice, we were all done showering and getting dressed to go to he dining hall. With no fanfare or announcement, my friend began getting dressed "Pooh Style." He put everything on but his pants and skivvies. He had his socks, shirts, winter jacket, and backpack on, but was still bare-assed. There is a universal order to how we all get dressed for a reason. It was both one of the funniest and most horrifying things I have seen.

And this makes me realize I've had a pretty sheltered life.

Random List #2

Favorite Movie About High School Kids Dazed and Confused

Favorite Breakfast Food that I Always Forget to Order Waffles

Lowest Score I Ever Got On A Test Negative 15 on a 7th grade Spanish test

Most Recurring Dream I'm in college/high school and running in the National/state cross country or track meet and I forgot to train all summer and fall (how I therefore qualified for said meet is only logical in a dream)

Favorite Muppet Animal

First Thing I Ever Stole A piece of caramel from the Brach's bin at Waitz' Model Market at age six. One of my older sisters busted me and made me spit it out. For some reason, I complied.

Last Thing I Ever Stole I used to "borrow for the evening" lots of bikes in college on Friday and Saturday nights, as did half the campus. I tried to return them from whence they came in the morning, but I guess this still counts as theft.

One of My Biggest Act of Hypocricy I would angrily confront those whom I caught "borrowing" a bike I either owned or had "borrowed for the evening" myself.

Coveted Job I Least Covet ER Doctor

Most Idiosynchratic Pet Peeve The sound of chalk on a chalkboard. In this era of PowerPoint, this is probably now an obsolete pet peeve, but it made it very hard for me to focus in high school. For all you young kids out there, back in the late 80s teachers still used chalk and a blackboard.

Random Thought #78912789243

Anybody else out there remember Zork? Damn that was a sweet game. My boy Matt the Hatt and I spent many hours playing that game in junior high, drawing maps of the Zorkworld and trying out different ways to get all those freaking treasures.

After you read that paragraph, it should come as no surprise that in junior high I wasn't exactly a "ladies' man." And the fact that I still pine for Zork should make it no surprise that I have never really been a "ladies' man." Actually, I believe you kids today call it "being a player." Or is it "playa'?" No, that can't be right. "Playa" means beach in Spanish.

But I digress. I don't think we ever did solve Zork in its entirity. That asshole thief kept on stealing our shit and killing us.

Sure Matt and I weren't at the Galaxy Movie Theater every night chasing girls that wouldn't like us anyway, like some of our peers were. But still, there were and are worse computer games out there to burn your off your childhood.

Paper Clips

Last night I watched a documentary, sent to me by my friends at Netflix, called Paper Clips, Directed by Ken Burns it ain't. But who gives a damn? The story is remarkable. You don't need Homer to spin this yarn to make it good; the story tells itself. See what you can do to get my friends at Netflix to send the movie to you. It is 80 minutes of your life well spent.

Blognation: You Can't Stop It; You Can Only Hope to Contain It

I have added two more blogs to the links section. The first is The Deets. The Deets is another one of those crazed south Minneapolitans who writes about Jucy Lucys and random shit. Kind of like this blog, only better. So no sports and more concise writing.

The Deets also has a technology blog , www.technologyevangelist.com . To me, it's like reading a foreign language, but there are a few tech savvy folks out there who frequent this blog who may enjoy it. But for me, cripes, I understand more of Matt the Hatt's French blog than I do reading Technology Evangelist.

The second blog added to the list is Pounding the Rock. On the surface, this is a San Antonio Spurs basketball blog, but it is still worth reading. It is very funny and well-written and I would say about a third of the content is non-basketball related. And even the basketball stuff is funny enough, it's worth reading if you are a non-Spurs, non-sports fan. And in the interest of full disclosure, it's where I found the Brent Barry commercial. To summarize, SPURS RULE!!!

Brent Barry HEB commercial

Yet another reason why the Spurs rule. Here you will see Spurs shooting guard in a commercial for HEB ground beef. HEB is a grocery store in Texas. I find this ad to be very funny.

Pancho's Life As A Dog

Winters in Minnesota are tough on Pancho. It's too freaking cold for me and my Texan sensibilities to do anything with him except take him for short walks and long runs. Gone are the days of summer, where I'd take Pancho to the dog park or down to the edge of the Mississippi River to run around.

To keep him active and entertained I have had to invent a few games for him. But much to his chagrin I have phased out the backyard games because he is tearing up our backyard with his strength, speed, and enthusiasm for running, jumping, and chasing things both real and imagined.

So we play Dog Football, Dog Boxing, Dog Wrestling, and Dog Soccer in the living room and a few other games. I took pictures of him playing one of them, which I named Buried Ball. I hide Pancho's plush ball under his dog bed and he flips the bed upside down to get to the ball.

This really should be a ten second process, but Pancho really overdoes the bed flipping process so the whole thing can take over minute. Or when I hold to bed down so he can't flip it over, he relentlessly tries to do it anyway. I have lasted five minutes participating in this, but got bored. Pancho however, had no intention to stop, even if he had to paw at that dog bed for another two hours, God love him.

All this for a nasty saliva and dirt crusted plush basketball that is coming apart at the seams. I tried getting pictures of him playing his other favorite indoor game, Ball In A Bag, but he moves to fast, and my camera too slow, for me to get any worthwhile photos.


The search is on...


The discovery is about to made...



VICTORIOUS!!!

Girl On A Box

Our local wine store, Haskell's has some pretty awesome sales to go with its pretty awesome wine selection. So a few weeks ago Emily stocked up on wine during one of their famous sales. As a result, she needed a box to bring home all the wine she bought.

That night as we were eating dinner, Emily was facing the kitchen and could see the box on the kitchen cart. Suddenly she started laughing. I felt pretty good about myself because, let me tell you, while Emily is not at all a serious person, she is a tough audience. Sometimes I'll make a joke and she'll just say, "That's funny," and not even crack a smile. I feel like there was a Seinfield based on this entire dynamic, but I digress.

So like I said, I was feeling good because FINALLY I made a joke that could make Emily burst out laughing, when I realized it wasn't me she was laughing at, but this drawing she had just realized was on the side of the box she bought home from Haskell's....



Those craaaaazy guys in the stock room at either Haskell's or some winery draw a nekkid stick lady, and that gets Emily to laugh. Yet somehow my jokes somehow don't cut it? Horseshit! That does it. I'm going back to drawing penises on napkins and writing "BUTTHEAD" on my plate with my tater tots. Seems like anything else just won't cut it for Emily anymore.

Anyway, this drawing reminds me of a song by the Blake Babies, called Girl In A Box. The song is as old as it is creepy. But for some reason the nekkid stick figure, though ON the box, and not IN it, is pretty close to what I picture the "girl in a box" looking like in the Blake Babies song.

Random List #1

Perhaps this is a sign that I need to revive my blog of Top Five/Top Ten lists, but I am adding a new feature (for lack of a better word) to this blog. Here is a list of what I think to be true about myself. All topics are off the top of my head. These lists don't belong on the hibernating Top Five/Ten Lists blog, beause it is a list of superlatives. Here we go...

Favorite Band I've Never Seen In Concert U2

Favorite Vice of Mine Coffee

Least-Favorite Vice Procrastination

Favorite Continent Australia

Favorite Obscure, Failed Movement US Metrification

Favorite Movie I've Never Seen City of God (that one is for you Kirk)

Favorite Spanish Word palomitas

Most Universally Agreed Upon Song that Sucks That I Kind of Like The Macarena

Most Univerally Appreciated Musician That I Do Not Like At All Dave Matthews

Favorite Guns N Roses Song Paradise City

Sightless Sorties for Sore Legs

There is a timeless quality to running in the dark.

For the past three weeks I have been getting up at 4:50 a.m. to meet a friend of mine for our daily run. It takes a few blocks for my body to wake up. The first three houses I pass, my body spends stretching the muscles to running length. The next 15 houses, my feet are working out the mild plantars fasciitis I now have that comes with having 35 year-old flat feet, and for about 20 more houses, my quads still have some sleep they need to work out.

My friend and I meet at scenic Minnehaha Falls because it is equidistant from our respective houses (six tenths of a mile away for both of us). As you can tell by the picture below, the falls are quite beautiful.



But it turns out at 5:10 a.m. (our meeting time), it doesn't matter. Minnehaha Falls might as well be Minnehaha Corn Syrup Refinery (but without the smell), because you can't see a damn thing. Sunrise is a good 70 minutes away. And so my friend and I run the exact same route every day, along West River Road on the Minneapolis side of the Mississippi River, before crossing over to East River Road in St. Paul.

It is truly a beautiful run, but it is also a course I have easily run 300 times in my lifetime (or at least portions of the course). So it's scenic and boring at the same time. But it turns out everything is dark and everything is the same. I reckon you put me on the wheel that hamsters run on, and if I was in a dark room, it would feel just the same as my 5 a.m. runs (only not as frigid).

In high school I worked at restuarant and got home after 10 p.m. every night in the summer. I'd end up going for my runs after 11 p.m. Each night I ran one of two courses and never got sick of it. If you add 50 degrees to the air temperature tomorrow morning, and take 15 pounds off my frame, I'll feel like I'm 17 years old again. When you run in the dark, fat or skinny, warm weather or cold weather, there is a universal feel to your run. It's just your legs, your friend, and the elements. You can be anywhere in the world, but the only thing in your universe is running.

I hate getting up at 4:50 every morning, but it takes less than 30 minutes for me to feel it was worth it. And now I am off to bed, as you can imagine I have an early wake-up call.

Christmas List

I went to our neighborhood gift store last week and was surprised to learn it is time to start shopping for Christmas. Then, yesterday, as I was carpooling to the Bad News Bears' final cross country meet of the season (I am pretty sure we finished in last place), we saw a truck full of Christmas trees being delivered to some vacant lot or Home Depot, I assume. Are you shitting me? What kind of fire hazard will those trees be by December 25th?

But I don't want to be a Grinch and crush your Christmas spirit less than two weeks after Hallloween. So rather than criticize these events, I will give you my Christmas wish list. But hurry; there are only 43 shopping days left.

All I want for Christmas is a silver and black (SPURS!!!!!!!!) SmartCar, like the hundreds that I found in Germany this summer (one of which I took a picture of, as you can see below).

Random Thought #982

I've never been called a chauvinist or a feminist. That being said, why isn't there a women's Tour de France? Is this the last sporting event that isn't co-ed? I mean, heck, we even have women's boxing.

Get Plenty of Sleep, Eat Right, and Stay Hydrated

In the world of distance running, there is an old coach's wife's tale that the night before the before race day is the most important night, in terms of rest. I don't know if this applies to Election Day, but tonight is the night before the night before November 7. And I anticipate Election Day the same way I used to look forward to big races. So rest up tonight voters, so you are ready to vote your conscience on Tuesday.

So without further ado, here are the races I'm most interested in, along with how I'll vote (for the two readers who may live in the Twin Cities).

US Senate: Amy Klobuchar Democrat (DFL)
US House Rep 5th District: Tammy Lee Independence Party (IP)
Governor: Peter Hutchinson IP
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie DFL
Minneapolis Instant Runoff Voting YES
Minnesota Transportation amendment YES

I really hope everyone votes for Ritchie for Secretary of State. The incumbent, Mary Kiffmeyer is getting a little scarier by the year. And I mean scary in a "voter suppression" sort of way.

And please vote for Instant Runoff Voting if you are a Minneapolitan. If this voting method proves to work at the city level, who knows, maybe it will one day trickle up to the state level. And then in the future the whole "do I vote for Hatch or Hutchinson?" debate will be unnecessary.

Select-A-Candidate

Minnesota Public Radio's website has its Select A Candidate feature again. You answer questions about state and national issues, rate how important each issue is to you, and the website calculates how closely you scored to what the candidates said.

I checked on the Senate race, the Governor's race, my House of Representatives race, and the Attorney General's race. And for every race, the candidate my answers were to closest to was never a Democrat or a Republicans. Rather in each occasion I was closest alligned with the Independence Party candidate.

It is sad because these candidates speak their mind, mostly because they have nothing to lose, but also because they are beholden only to their own beliefs, not to special interests. And of course, they have no chance. But I have yet to vote a straight-party ticket in my 17 years of voting, and it doesn't look like I'll start this year.

I know I'll vote for the Democrat, Amy Klobachar for the US Senate, but I am still undecided on all the other races. I will say this: I do believe this state and country needs a rational and credible third party more than it needs a Democrat governor or legislator.

Click here to see the Select A Candidate website.

Separated At Birth

Magglio Ordonez has played for two baseball teams in the ten years I've lived in Minnesota: the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox. Both teams are in the Twins division, so I've seen a lot of Magglio Ordonez. And in a tribute to my proscrastination, I am writing this post with two outs in the ninth of what will likley be the last game of the World Series and this season. But for not just this season, but for the past several seasons I have always felt that Magglio Ordonez looks like AC Slater of Saved By the Bell fame.

Am I right?

As an aside, the actor who played AC Slater (Mario Lopez) was part of Dancing with the Stars this fall. Coincidentally, the World Series has been mocked this year because more people watched Dancing with the Stars than watched Game Two of the World Series. Maybe people saw AC Slater dancing and figured they were watching Magglio Ordonez and therefore he World Series.

A Texas Cracker in Queen Emily's (Food) Court

Emily is out-of-town, so I had to run my own errands this weekend. I am not very good at doing them. I did manage to mail a package to my sister and return a jacket I decided I didn't need.

But where I fail immensely is mall shopping. On Sunday I drove to Rosedale Mall, which is Emily's backyard (well not counting our real backyard).

I went to the Apple Store to get my iPod repaired, and found out you have to get a reservation before they'll even look at your hardware. Rookie error #1: Apple Stores may LOOK cool and sleek, but customer service-wise, they are just as clunky and you have to wait just as much as all the other not-so-cool looking repair shops.

The nice young man at the Apple Store with a nasty twentysomething goatee (yes I once had one too about ten years ago) and crazy piercings let me know the next opening for me would be in two hours. I informed that wouldn't work because I had the dog in the car. I thought about asking him, "You have pierced ears. You work at the Apple Store. You can probably tell me, young man, what is this myspace thing all about?" But I digress. This is all about rookie error #2: Don't take your dog to the mall with you, even if you think you have one errand to do in there.

So I decided to go to Banana Republic and see what they had so I could put an order in with Emily, but all the clothes looked the same to me. Rookie Error #3: If you're a guy, don't go shopping without the input from a woman, otherwise you'll end up with a bunch of flannels and superdark Levis 501s.

So to hell with all of this, I thought, and decided to stick to what I know. I got a Blizzard at the DQ in Rosedale and checked out the boardgames at Games By James. I have been wanting to learn how to play Go for years now. And since now I was the one at the mall/Target, instead of Emily, I could finally buy the game.

Now I am learning tips on how to play from the internets. I am excited to play, but I'm not sure Emily will be. Are there any Go fans out there? The guy who sold me the game (another nice young man with a goatee and earrings who probably knows what this myspace thing is all about) said Muddy Paws, a coffee house in Uptown has Go night once a week. But that sounded way too intense for me.

The point to all this is I learned that I still suck at running errands, but I should do them anyway. Then I get to buy games and Blizzards. And I know Emily would appreciate if I did some of those errands myself. Blizzards, games, and a happy wife. See you at Rosedale.

Pancho the Wonder Dog

Footage shot by my brother-in-law (of followart.blogspot.com fame) in Wisconsin. We were there for a family weekend at Emily's family cabin. That is Pancho doing what he was put on this earth to do: retrieve things.

Rant #1723

What is the #1 problem facing baseball/track/cycling/football today?

I would say each sport looked the other way for about a decade as its athelets got dirtier and dirtier and dirtier with syringes and chemistry. There's plenty of blame to go around here. The athletes, the CEOs, and the commissioners all get a slice of Blame Pie. But so do fans like me who continue to follow these sports.

So was anyone else watching the World Series last night? If you didn't, the game began and the announcers spent about three innings discussing the notion that Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Kenny Rogers may have some illegal substance on his thumb. This is cheating of course. Pitchers doctoring balls is as old as the game itself. The real story is how passively the umpires investigated the issue.

And this goes back to baseball's habit of looking the other way rather than vigilantly make sure that its players are on the up and up and preserving the integrity of the game.

Click here for the rest of the story.

I have no idea if Kenny Rogers was cheating. It wouldn't surprise me either way. But this guy has the chance to polish off a very tarnished image, and so I was cheering for him. If the umpires had taken charge of the game and really inspected what Rogers had on his hand (instead of just asking him to wash it off--and destroy the evidence), there'd be no need to speculate. The story would be about his amazing post-season run, not whether or not he's a cheater.

The irony here (as pointed out in the article referenced above) is St. Louis' manager, Tony LaRussa, may have just been burned by a culture that looks the other way. But he spent a decade looking the other way in the Oakland A's clubhouse/steroid outlet mall. You sleep in the beds you make.

END RANT HERE

And the Hits Just Keep Coming and Coming

Those crazy teen-agers and twentysomethings have their myspace (I feel like an old fogie, but I still can't figure what the hell that whole myspace thing is about), and we thirtysomethings have blogs.

Two more blogs of note have been added to my generation's on-line canon.

The first comes from the shores of Lake Gicthe Gumee in Duluth, MN. One of the true highlights of Christmas for Emily and me is receiving the Christmas letter/update from our friends Jocelyn and her husband (I went to college with Husband), because Jocelyn's writing makes for a truly enteratining read. Now it's Christmas everyday she posts. Click here for a slice of Duluth life. As an aside, Duluth is on my shortlist of cities I'd live in besides the MPLS.

The second blog comes from Kirk, one of my friends from running. He is one of my teammates on the Bad News Bears cross country team I wrote about earlier. His blog is in its infancy, as he presently only blogs only after eating Jucy Lucies at Matt's. Anyway, click here to see his blog. Kirk is not only a very fast runner, but also a sarcastic jackass. Sound like anyone else's blog you are familiar with reading? The difference being Kirk is a faster runner than I am, but less obnoxious and sarcastic. As an aside, I went out with Kirk and some other guys last night at a local bar called The Cardinal. The Cardinal also has Jucy Lucies, but I find them to be very inferior to the greasy goodness that is a Matt's Jucy Lucy.

Back Seat Drivers

Like most people, I don't appreciate back seat drivers. But in this case, when we're road tripping with Pancho, I don't mind so much.

A Two Week Old Distant Memory

Yesterday we had this form of precipitation I call "Iowa." Iowa is a mixture of snow and rain and it usually comes with a lot of wind. It's crappy weather and until recently, I only saw it when I lived in Iowa. But now it seems to happen about twice a year up here in one of our lower 48's northern-most states. Consider it an inconvenient truth.

Anyway, thanks to all the wind and precipitation, the trees are barren and the ground is soggy. The crisp fall days that I love about Minnesota have been lacking.

It was only two weeks ago that I went for a walk with the dog with the sole purpose of taking in fall. Here is a picture of the footpath that goes along the Mississippi River near our house. It is ancient history now.

(Cross) Country Mike

I joined a cross country team this fall. We're like the Bad News Bears. There's a lot of very serious runners in the Twin Cities. Our team does not have any of them. Most of these teams are sponsored by shoe stores. We shop at shoe stores. That's where the similarities end.

Emily went to watch our race last weekend. She said it was fun because she forgot how fun cross country races are to watch, compared to road races. Mostly because you get to see a lot more of the race. But this experience is so far removed from high school or college cross country. And in many ways, it's a lot better. No long bus rides. No overnight trips. No anxiety about how I'll do or the team will do. It's also awesome because it is so much better than running those freaking long-ass races that are 10 miles or longer.



In fact, at last Sunday's race, we didn't have to show up until 9 a.m. So I got to "sleep in" (all the way to 7 a.m.), get up leisurely and have a relaxing breakfast reading the paper. I don't know why I ever want to run a marathon again.

The Most Outdated Rant of All Time...

was actually the rant that never was.

Actually, the most outdated rant of all time is a kid at work with Asperger's a few years back who had a rant about Ghostbusters II . He saw it as a serious monster movie, not as a crappy sequel, so I got an earful about all the flaws with Ghostbusters II and stopped the kid short of contrasting it to Alien. I wish it was "the rant that never was" because I was there. I had to listen to it.

But here is "the rant that never was." It has to do with the Men In Black and Will Smith's single that went with the movie (cleverly titled, "Men In Black"). For some reason I woke up this morning with the song stuck in my head, and have always been annoyed by the lines...

Here come the Men in Black
Galaxy defenders
Here come the Men in Black
The one's that you'll remember

I was annoyed because a) "galaxy defenders" sounds awkward, and b) a huge premise of the movie was that you DON'T remember the Men in Black. They make a point of making you forget all about them. This lyric has annoyed my for the lasst, what, nine years.

So I thought I'd blog about it and get it off my chest. So I went to a lyric website just now to cut and paste the lyrics, and here's what I found....

Here come the men in black men in black
Galaxy defenders oho oho oho
Here come the men in black men in black
They won't let you remember

Oops. Well written Mr. Smith. Sorry I wasn't listening closely. Now that I know better, your song is freaking modern day Shakespeare.

Time Machine

We adopted our dog Pancho when he was somewhere between 12 and 18 months old (it turns out my guess was as good as the vet's). Emily often asks and wonders what Pancho was like as a puppy. She adds that she never could have gotten anything done since he would have been too cute to stay away from for five seconds.

Anyway, last Friday I took some pictures of the fall colors along the Mississippi River near our house. Pancho went with me. And for some reason, in this picture below he looks like a puppy. Photoshop could not have done a better job of making Pancho look like a puppy. I don't know how it happened, and I don't think I could duplicate this picture ever again. I guess the old saying is true: it's better to be lucky than good/smart.

Who needs Photoshop when I have a Delorian, the flux capicitor, and 1.21 gigowatts of electricity?

Random Thought #7123

My longtime friend, Matt , in fact he may be my oldest friend (in terms of number of years we've been friends, not because he's eight days older than me), posted this comment on a previous post about me...

By the way you were in my dream last night and the night before. In the one last night we were hanging out and you were relaxing by doing gymnastics with those hanging-down strap things, whatever they're called. I was wondering if you were into golf and you said you were but wanted to do something more challenging while you were still young.

I think you mean I was doing the rings, Matt. Anyway, this is very funny to me. I continue to laugh outloud as I think about it.

And this got me thinking about dreams. My dreams are not very funny. They're weird of course, but not noteworthy. I mean me doing the rings and/or playing golf is funny shit, especially given my comment about challenging myself while I'm young.

My last dream that I remember involved a bunch of people I know showing up late for a race. The only twist being that usually I dream that I am the one who is late for the race or hasn't trained. Now I'm dreaming it's other people with this problem. Not all that funny or interesting of dream, even with the lame twist.

So now I wonder, just like some people are funnier than other people. Are some people innately funnier dreamers. Do serious people have really silly Animal House-type dreams? Or does it go the other the way? The funnier you are, the funnier your dreams? Matt is one funny guy. My dreams are run-of-the-mill. I guess I'll hang up my career as class clown and become an archivist or something.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF

Bonser.

Twins rule.

That's Mr. Fart Face to You

When I see kids at work with articulation disorders, the goal is to make them intelligible, right? But after a conversation I had on Friday with a completely intelligible eight year-old, I'm not sure if this is a great idea.

On Friday I am the only person at work, besides our office manager. This makes for a quiet waiting room. So at 2 p.m. I went down the hall to get a kid we'll call Little Johnnie (because that is the name every speech therapist uses to describe a generic kid, or to not reveal a kid's identity). There was no one in the waiting room except for Little Johnnie, who is three and some kid I'd never seen before, but looked to be about eight. He was playing with a Rescue Hero. This was our conversation:

Me: Hey Little Johnnie, where's your mom?

Little Johnnie: Dahtare. (translation: "She is downstairs with my older brother, parking the van.")

Me: Oh. And who'd you bring with you?

Little Johnnie: Dit ded pen kjajbihbbassjb (translation: "This is my older brother's friend, kjajbihbbassjb")

kjajbihbbassjb: "Are you the speech teacher?"

Me: "Yes I am."

kjajbihbbassjb: "Fart face!!"

At this point kjajbihbbassjb spiked the rescue hero and ran out of the waiting room, crashed into the main door to the suite on his way out, and then sprinted down the hall. I could hear him laughing as he ran off.

I never did find out what kjajbihbbassjb's real name was (the close reader will have noted that Little Johnnie has some articulation issues), and apparently kjajbihbbassjb never found out what mine was.

Twins Rule

Open letter to all the crazed Spurs fans back home who read this: Jump on the Twins bandwagon. You will like the Twins for every reason you think the Spurs rule (small town market, classy organization, likeable players who give great efforts, they win a lot, they're super scrappy...)

If you need to do some research, begin with Eric Neel's story about the Mojo Index. It is so very funny, even if you're not a baseball fan. At the very least, scroll down to read about the Twins' mojo. Specifically the "Boof" factor is funny. And Neel's praise for Brad Radke is right on the money. Click here to read the article.

And no wonder the Twins couldn't win tonight. It looks like the Sports Illustrated cover jinx is in effect. Even so, it's a good read. Click here to check it out. It's about Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau's downtown condo. Other than an odd use of the bold face type, it's a pretty good read.

I have never ever seen a regular season like this by any team I have ever followed in any sport. And I have followed a lot of sports for a lot of years.

My earliest memory of baseball goes back to watching the Texas Rangers play the Toronto Blue Jays when I was six years old on a black and white TV in my bedroom. I'm sure I watched other games before that, but this is the earliest I recall.

The first football game I remember was the Cowboys victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII (1978). I was still six. I remember being very confused. Were those robots playing or real people? The shoulder pads and helmets really threw me for a loop. I think I finally decided the players were people until they put their helmets on, and then they became robots. And those weird red thingies that were in the end zone were freaking me out (now I know they are called pylons and they're really nothing to be freaked out by).

Rumor has it I was born with my face painted silver and black, but that is not true. I do remember watching my first Spurs game on TV. I was quite young. This game predates any other sport I watched. I don't remember much, but I can tell you the Spurs lost to the Phoenix Suns (shit or was it the hated Houston Rockets?). My mom let me know a week in advance the game would be on, and I was so excited. And then I was crestfallen. I couldn't believe the good guys could actually lose. That's now how it went down on Mighty Mouse. My only other memory of the game was wanting to pretend like I was one of the Spurs on TV. I really had a hard time doing this though, because all the players were either black or were white guys with long hair and mustaches. I think I finally settled on Billy "The Whopper" Paultz. He was clean shaven.

That's many years of sports viewing. That includes three NBA titles by the Spurs and four Super Bowl titles for the Cowboys (I was too young--as in four months old--to notice their first Super Bowl title). And in all those years wasted watching sports, this year's Twins have the most amazing regular season I have ever followed. Let me summarize.

Here is their pitching staff right now. A Cy Young/MVP candidate for pitcher followed by four big question marks. One big questions is a veteran who pulls himself out of games when his tummy hurts and who, until two starts ago, was having his worst year ever. The other three startes are all rookies who are learning as they go.

Their other rookie pitcher was a Rookie of the Year and a Cy Young candidate, until a still undiagnosed elbow injury knocked him out for the season (paging Tommy John to the OR).

They have a guy named Boof Bonser.

The local hometown hero is leading the majors in batting as a freaking catcher. The last time a catcher won the AL batting title was like 1903 or something. Or maybe it some catcher named Org or Captain Caveman hitting rocks out of the cave back in the days of Neandrathal Baseball.

Their shortstop and third baseman were thrust into the staring line-up halfway through the season.

They might end up with a) the Cy Young award winner b) an MVP, c) three guys with 100+ RBIs, and d) two guys with 30+ homers. All on one of the tiniest budgets in major league baseball.

Brad Radke.

The ghost of Kirby Puckett.

Two months ago everyone in this town had written them off as done for the season. Was it just five weeks ago they were 11 back of Detroit?

How many lives does this team have? How many story lines? It is extraordinary. Can anyone name a team that has a season that matches this? Has anyone read this all the way to the end?

Currently Residing In the "Where Are They Now?" File

If anyone asks you, "Whatever happened to that band Quiet Riot?" you can tell them "They're stuck in Mike N's head."

Let me explain. Autumn has settled in quite quickly here in Minnesota, and we have had lows in the 40s (I think) and highs in the 60s. It is great weather. I truly believe this weather stimulates the adreneline gland. People are at their happiest, liveliest, and most alert when the weather is like this, even when I was growing up in Texas.

But unfortunately for me (or fortunately, depending on how much you like Quiet Riot's hit/cover of "Cum on Feel the Noize"), this weather brings specific memories back. In sixth grade I went to the high school football games with my friend from up the block. To get us pumped enough to face the prospect of talking to girls for the next three hours at the football game, we'd listen to some tapes.

As an aside, what this really meant was I ended up going to the game and watched my friend talk to girls for three hours. Meanwhile I sat there quietly and awkwardly. I was completely lost in terms of knowing how to act cool, as up to that point, my only models of "cool" were Snoopy (Joe Cool) and Fonzie. So I bored quickly of watching girls dote on my friend, and ended up being the only kid in the stands who was actually watching the game. Woe is me.

But back to the music. My friend tolerated my pre-game selection of "Tom Sawyer" by Rush and grew to like KISS' "Detroit Rock City." But what really got him fired up (and me too, I must admit) was to crank up "Cum On Feel the Noize." That was the last song we'd listen to before one of our mom's drove us to the game.

So we must have had a particuarly cold fall that year, because now whenever the weather hits 60 degrees, I feel like I am 12 years-old again, meaning I'm even bonier and even more gangly than I am now. I have wavy shoulder length hair, making strangers wonder if I am an awkward pre-pubescent boy or a really ugly girl. I am in my friend's bedroom, and that godawful song "Cum On the Feel the Noize" is blaring out of his boombox. I am wearing my sister's hand-me-down concert tee from The Who's "It's Hard" tour. I am the only person in south Texas who thinks this is a cool t-shirt.

I can't say these are bad memories. But they're not fond memories, either. I wouldn't mind having to relive them as much as I do, except for one thing: For as long as I live in Minnesota, "Cum On Feel the Noize" will pretty much be stuck in my head 24/7 from mid-Septemeber to late November.

Having Your Statistical Cake and Eating It Too

Tonight New York Yankee's shortstop Derek Jeter extended his hitting streak to 23 games. What that means to you non-baseball rubes is he has at least one in each of the last 23 games that got him to first base and beyond.

Or does it? A few nights ago he went to bat three times and walked all three times. He technically never got a hit. But he also technically never had an at-bat. He had three plate appearances, yes, but walks don't count statistically as an at-bat (I don't think errors or sacrifice flies count either). So his hitting streak continues even though he never had a hit in that game because he technically never had an at-bat.

Lame.

And now for lamer than lame. Beloved Twin Michael Cuddeyer "hit" his 100th run batted in (RBI) tonight in the Twins over the Cleveland Indian. Way to go Cuddy! He truly is having the kind of year we Twins fans have been waiting for him to have the last three years. So how did he get this landmark RBI? He drew a bases-loaded walk. In baseball statistics a bases-loaded walk counts as an run BATTED in.

And now for the lamest. Let's say a batter is riding a 30 game hitting streak and has 99 RBIs going into the next game. It is possible for him to draw three walks and not get a hit, but still keep his 30 game hitting streak alive. Lame. And if one of those three walks happens to be a bases-loaded walk, he gets his 100th RBI. And lamest of all: this means he gets credit for batting in a run even though he also gets credit for never being at bat.

Open letter to Emily: Try and explain this logic and you pass the Mike Nawrocki PhD. Prelims.