Only three rooms matter

Well, I guess it’s that time. For posterity’s sake, I’ll go ahead and update you on our new abode.

First, it’s coming along quite nicely. Actually, it’s coming along too fast. Every time we go over there, which is weekly, it seems like 40 percent more is done. So by the time we get to closing in early August, it feels like it should be about 280 percent done and we should have almost three houses on the lot.

That electric bill will suck.

Actually, we thought it was coming along too fast so we asked if there was any need to plan to move up the closing. We could do it in July, but it would just be a tighter turnaround because I’m gone for about nine days at the end of May, beginning of July and then gone again for 11 days in late June. Can be done, but won’t be pretty if sugar-mama has to do all the packing.

So, August it is.

The builder said it’s actually fine. While we think it’s going fast, they said there’s still a lot to do and we’re right on schedule, can’t even try to get it done much before the end of July. So it’s going to work out fine.

What’s not going to work out fine is my tight-ass pocketbook when it comes to the back yard. I’m a cheapskate at heart. Or more correctly as sugar-mama likes to say, I just think all prices should be in 1995 dollars. And why the fuck shouldn’t they? It’s my world, after all.

Well, they’re going to landscape the front, sides and back and it will be nice. But there’s a big bit of yard that goes up a hill that’s ours and they’re not touching that. So we’ll have to. Or more to the point, the people we hire will have to. With the backhoe they bring in. And tree cutters.

It’s pretty much a forest in the back. It’s not quite as big as what we had in Lincoln, and not as big as the back yard for the place we’re renting now, but it’s a fairly good size and it all needs to be taken out. And then tiered off and sodded down below and we need a fence. I’m already starting to remember how much owning a house sucks.

But we need to do it. Have to have it if we’re getting a dog at some point, and we are. Plus, there’s little to no chance that our shithead cats don’t sneak out the door when I’m going out to grill, seeing as they already go on our deck every time I grill now. So they’ll have to get used to not doing that, but in case they do sneak out, it’d be better to have at least some barrier from them running away. A fence should do the trick as they’re either 1) too lazy or 2) too big of pussies (ha, see what I did there?) to try very hard at running away.

Most days I think that that’s a good thing. Not always.

Actually, I don’t hate them anymore. I’m pretty partial to the idiots known as TeamCAC (crazy assed cats), especially my black cat, F’ing. Never thought I would be, but then again, I never thought I’d like asparagus as much as I do now. Strange.

Although, it doesn’t mean I like cats in general. I still don’t like the rest of the little fuckers in the world, just these two. So I guess I’ll let them come with to the  new place. There seems to be plenty of room for them, and plenty of places for their hair to end up and piss me off. Whatever.

Anyway, here’s a little (read: not little at all) photo gallery with a bunch of pics we’ve taken the past few weeks since it’s been being built. Most are the same shots, week by week. I’ll be happy when the floors get put in and obviously when the toilets are installed.

No seriously, think about it: Where do you spend most of your time in your house? One of three places — either on your favorite spot on the couch or living room chair, in bed and, yup, you guessed it, in the john. This multiplies by 430 percent per day if you’re male.

Well, I’m bringing my own couch and living room chair, so I know where I’ll be in that room, although sugar-mama and I may have a Battle Royal to determine the arrangement of furniture there. Luckily we both agree we don’t want the TV above the fireplace. That’s the stupidest placement for a TV I’ve ever seen, and of course, our builder has outlets and cable boxes put on the wall above the fireplace for a TV. Jackhole.

So that’s one place I don’t have to worry about. And then my bed is coming with as well, so that’s a second. What’s that leave? The bathroom toilets.

I know it’s hard for any of you reading this to understand, especially my special Islamic friends, if you’re still reading along, but, breaking news alert: I’m not as tall as you think. Seriously, I know most of you picture me as a manly 5-10, but I’ll be honest here. I’m probably not more than 5-9 1/2. There’s a specific height a toilet needs to sit for a person of my stature and if it’s not the way I want it — mainly meaning so I can put my feet on the ground — I’m not going to be happy. And the last thing sugar-mama wants is for me to not be happy in either of those two rooms because we will be then spending more money to go get new ones.

That weekend. Before we move in.

And with that, I’ll just let you check out the place on your own by scrolling through some of our pics. It will be a lot nicer to get a street shot when the lot beside us is built, but that probably won’t be before we move in since it’s not even under contract yet.

But when it’s done, it’ll be a nice little street to live on, I believe. Maybe even for more than a year.

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Ready. Set. Move.

Aw shit. I did it again. At least I didn’t bet on it.

Maybe you did? Was there a pool? How much was the ticket worth for “JT will live in three Georgia counties within  the first 24 months he’s in the state”?

I hope you took the under.

It wasn’t my fault. Sugar-mama did it again. She drives this party bus I live on and I’m going to put any of your losses at the betting parlor squarely on her.

True, I’m a partial observer to this effort. But I’m too lazy to really be considered a co-conspirator. I just say “Sure” and sign on the dotted line.

It all started around the time we went to Vegas in January. Maybe she just had the itch to roll the dice even more than I thought?

Anyway, she said, “Hey, let’s look for a house.”

Innocent enough.

Then wham, bam, you’re stuck in a 30-year mortgage, thank you ma’am. It didn’t take long at all.

Less than a month actually. We went from looking at a couple of OK places and even putting a bid on one that, while I was totally okay with it, in retrospect, I’m quite glad we didn’t get it. Then we looked at a place the Realtor sugar-mama got us hooked up with suggested as a “new construction.” It’s connected with her company and made for an easy sell on us hucksters. Anyway, I’m sure somehow she made triple special-incentive extra commission.

And yet it’s still perfect.

While I am blaming all of our moving on sugar-mama — this will be my 22nd official address of residence in 22 years although she didn’t push me into more than five or six of those — I’m also going to give her all the credit in the fact that I really love this place.

Or what this place will be, actually.

Again, it’s new construction. We’re completely clueless on this, so we’re starting from scratch. Without a clue. That’s what clueless means.

We saw the same type of house as it was being finished and we put in a bid on a lot. It’s in a subdivision about 1.2 miles from where we currently are, so really it’s still in the ‘hood and actually maybe a little further in, at that. But we’re in on it from the ground up.

They have a floor layout and all that stuff set, but we got to pick the colors for the walls and the exterior. We had to pick our lighting and appliances. The colors of the doors and hardwood floors and cabinets too. Granite for the counter tops, bricks or whatever they are around the fireplace, all that shit was part of the process we had to do.

Wow. It’s pretty overwhelming. But luckily I have sugar-mama telling me what to do. Ha, yeah, we all know she doesn’t tell me what to do for anything, but she is a great guiding voice. And I just say yes, unless I hate it.

I hated a couple houses we looked at and we just walked away. This one didn’t bother me. There were a couple colors for paint, stain, and such that I was definitely against. Luckily, our first choice for almost everything was exactly the same. It’s like she’s a chick version of me, so it’s all good.

Hmm, that was probably rude and impolite and quite disturbing for sugar-mama to hear. If I had a conscience I might actually delete out that previous line.

Anyway.

They poured the foundation about a week ago, and they’ll start framing sometime in next couple weeks. Because of my June work schedule and the construction company having two other closings in the subdivision in July — not to mention our 10th anniversary vacation. Yeah, holy shit, we’ve been married almost 10 years. I’m scared to think how sugar-mama verbalizes that same sentence — we asked to put closing off until the beginning of August.

So, once again, we’ll be moving in sweltering summer heat. F. M. L.

But it should be cool once we get in. The neighborhood seems nice and from what we’ve heard, it’s fairly friendly and people seem to get along. Which is great because I’m so easily approachable, they’ll just love me.

Blah.

Actually, I am going to try to make some roots. I have never talked to people in three houses around/across from us in the past year, and the other one next door, I only talked to them three weeks ago when they told us about a robbery at the house on the other side of them while we were in Vegas (at least this time it was an actual break-in, instead of someone stealing the central air units from outside the house again. That business is getting kinda old).

Most other places, I might say hi to a guy who has a truck that we may be in need of using at some point, you know for moving again, but really, until now I haven’t had much need to get to know people. It was easier in my previous work life because we had student-workers and interns who could move us, or our players, or more likely, the basketball student managers (Zach, Bean, Svatos and Jaden got shit with a capital ‘S’ done). But not anymore. Oh well.

At this new place, I’m going to be more willing to talk with people, even if they can’t help me with anything.

Sugar-mama has met the people across the street, and we both met the guy next door (we have an open lot on the other side, so there will be some construction after we move in still). The guy next door seemed nice. His name is Victor and he’s a cupcake maker. He owns a cupcake shop in New York and travels back and forth between Atlanta, where him and his partner live, and NYC. He may have a shop in ATL as well, but I didn’t really catch that (to be fair, if it was a guy who owned a brewery I would have picked up a lot more on the situation, so…). But the point is, he seemed cool so I already like the place more than some I’ve lived.

We still have to figure out the fence situation as I’m starting to get the itch for really wanting a dog. I definitely get a bigger TV — it’s a Trickie rule that if you buy a house, within one year you get a newer, bigger by at least 13 percent television, guaranteed — but I do want a dog. I’m sure sugar-mama wants one too, but we need to decide on what size, type, color, etc. That may be a while.

And I’m sure our cats — F’ing and Glenda — will be interested in this move and the outcome of the dog decision. They didn’t like riding in a car for 13 hours the last time, so I think they’ll be okay with only having to be in a car for six minutes on this move. Although there is a lot more hardwood and less carpet, so they may not be happy for a while.

Fuck ‘em. They’re cats.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to the new place. So much that this time I will put money on me that I will not move to a new residence within three years — hey, I’ll bet on me but I ain’t getting crazy and saying anything like 5 or 10 years.

And Cliffy, if I do move within three years, you can bet your ass it will be into a mobile home. I’ve lived in one before (actually, more like three in my lifetime, but who’s counting?), so I can do it again.

You’ll probably get tired of it over the course of time, but here are photos of the lot during the first three weeks since we got signed, sealed and started on our first “new” house.

Enjoy and let us know when you’re coming to Atlanta. We are in a great area and know plenty of good hotels not far from here.

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What a fucking ride

Editor’s Note: This is by far the longest blog I’ve ever written. Think of it this way: This blog is kinda like me when I’m drunk, the fun kind, not the police-involved kind. I talk a lot then, and this is the written version. Just be warned now — so go grab a brew and plan to do a couple sessions here.

Also, this video is not mine, but it is from the same course, same day, starting exactly one hour before me. And it’s really good. Long, but good, kinda like this blog. Read and watch all of both of them.

• My personal Tough Mudder 2012 photo gallery
• Tough Mudder official Facebook site pictures from Georgia

At the time I signed up for Tough Mudder, I didn’t know why I wanted to do it other than just to say I did it. Now that I’ve done it, I’m fairly confident that’s all I got out of it. I did it. I’ve done that and now I can move on and find something else to do. Would I do it again? Probably not if I was alone, but I might do it with someone or a team. Maybe. Probably. I don’t know.

Sugar-mama asked me the night before, “Is that all you get for it is that little headband?” Yup. That’s it.

And for some reason, I’m okay with that.

I’m okay that I didn’t find a greater meaning to life, a defining moment in human nature or anything remotely philosophical. I’m a 40-year-old who likes to drink, doesn’t mind smoking some times, enjoys partying late into the night and eating shitty food. I like being crass, saying nasty things and exuding crude. Then there’s times I also like doing the right things, helping others when they are down, having a softer side that isn’t afraid to show feeling. Not gay shit (nothing wrong with that, btw), but just being human shit.

Basically, I know who I am and while I, like everyone, would like to change some things, I’m still better than most of you at most things so I’m okay with myself. There was no reason to go looking for enlightenment.

It was just so I could say I did it. And I did.

Was my performance great? No. Was it good? That’s debatable. Was it the worst? Hell no.

I finished in 3:27:01 according to Sugar-Mama’s timing. It was a ‘challenge’ not a ‘race’ so they didn’t time us. That’s fine. There was at least 30 minutes standing around at obstacles waiting for people to go, so really I did it in under three hours, which is the average time they say. Whatever. It was fine.

I knew right from the start it would be difficult. I was unsure before the start if I’d actually finish; I thought the running would be okay but wasn’t sure the obstacles would be too much.

Right off the bat I had those fears laid to the side in a strange way.

First, to get into the start area, you had to climb a small wall. It was maybe 6-feet tall, so even before you could start, you had to climb a wall. That’s intimidating actually. But, I was able to lift the caboose over without any help, amazingly, and on the first try, so that actually gave me confidence that maybe I could do this thing.

But the real reason I knew I’d make it through and be okay was because of something I saw in the start area after I hoisted myself over that wall.

The announcer gave a pep-up speech and he was really good. He went on about helping each other and being a good neighbor and all that jazz. We were all kneeling to listen to it and when we stood up, I looked at the guys next to me for the first time and I saw their shirts.

The back had a saying that I know all too well.

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways — beer in one hand, pizza in the other — body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ‘WOO HOO, What a fucking ride’

Yeah, I had a tough time right then. As I said, I know myself and I’m comfortable with myself. But I’m mostly comfortable with who I’m around.

My guys are the best. And it was really tough not having them there. But then — after I patted the guy on the back and told him I loved the shirt and that my guys also used that saying a lot — I thought about it and knew that wasn’t true. I wasn’t alone; if nothing else, I had Tony with me. And if I have one, then I have them all. So I really felt okay about it and my chances of finishing once I saw that saying on that shirt.

I don’t know, I guess I just had a lot of scared going on in me about getting on the course and then adrenaline, whatever. It all kinda boiled out at that moment, and right as the national anthem started, I was streaming tears down my cheeks, just really glad Tony — and the guys — were there with me. I probably looked like the most passionate American there if anyone noticed.

Yeah, actually that’s not true at all because even though I was blubbering over myself, no one noticed. And right after the anthem, the announcer then had the guys from the Wounded Warrior Project step up — they do a lot of donations through the event to the project — and it was quite obvious I’m not the most passionate American.

That wasn’t the only time I had to try to choke some feelings back. Actually, about somewhere in mile 4 or 5, I nearly cried again.

I came out of the woods running and had to go across a clearing then back into the woods. In the middle of the clearing I came up on a group from the Army — there were tons of groups of Army and former Army or Navy or Marines or Air Force — running along at a pretty slow pace, and I say that because I was already hurting, so I wasn’t going fast but still gaining on them fairly quickly.

Well, I came up on them and as I was about to pass them on the left I finally looked at them. They were going slow because they were going at the pace of the one guy I was about to run next to. I did a double-take. It was an Army guy with a sleeveless shirt.

And he didn’t have a left arm.

Then I looked down and he was running on a prosthetic left leg.

And he was laughing with his buddies and having a great time.

Perspective. Some times it comes and kicks you in the dick.

Well, anyway, I don’t have any more answers on life but I had an awesome time. I struggled, I overcame, I cried, I laughed, I swore, I pissed, I jumped, I crawled, I did pretty much everything you’d expect and then some.

It’s been about 30 hours since I finished as of this writing and I can barely walk. It hurts to move in any direction, even just pulling my shirt down when I’m laying on the couch not moving. I’m popping Advil or aspirin as often as Sugar-Mama will let me.

But I wouldn’t trade those three-plus hours away simply because I now know that I can… and I did.

And here’s how I did it, obstacle by obstacle, all 27 of them:

1. Devil’s Gaps... After a short run and a couple curves, we got a quick taste of the obstacles, and I was feeling good. This one was just eight trenches in a row, dug with backhoes. They were filled with water. While I heard from Sugar-Mama that a few people still didn’t make it over, this was definitely one of the easiest obstacles on the course. It made me think, ‘Shit ain’t gonna be so bad.’

2. Kiss of Mud... Pretty basic here. Get down on the ground, crawl under barbed wire through some mud. Not terrible, fairly easy although there may have been some extra rocks in there that were added just for my knees. But hey, no one thought this was going to be easy. But still, ‘Shit ain’t so bad.’  Then….

3. Berlin Walls… This was the one that I really expected to be the one I’d be most pissed off about when it was over. I really expected I’d have to go around and skip it. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m not really that tall, I’m not really that thin and I’m not really that athletic. Strange? Yeah, I know. It’s hard to believe, but it’s basically true. I’m pretty much able to only jump over 3-inch thick sticks and some types of stunted garden gnomes. So anyway, I come running around the corner and see them and obviously my first thought was, “Well, gee.” Haha, Yeah. Right. I dropped a mutherfucker and cunt and sonofabitch and every other disgustingly bad swear word you can think of. I knew it was coming but still, until you’re right there, it’s not the same. Never is. And it was that way this time. So, anyway, I figure, shit, I might as well just try to get hooked up with someone and try to get them to push me over. As I came up, there was a group of three, two guys and a small chick, so I said that I’d help them if at least one of them could help me. So the chick went up and then I helped one guy push the other guy up. Then the last guy, who obviously knew he could get over on his own, lifted me and it was a fucking struggle, but he did just enough to get me to the top to where I could haul my load over and flop down the other side. It was pathetic, but it was done… except one thing: there was another wall. It was a set, one wall, then about 10 yards and a tractor tire to climb over then 10 yards and another wall. Fuck. Me. Son.Of.A.Fucking.Bitch. I thought this was the case from Youtube videos of other sites, but it wasn’t totally clear and in my convoluted mind, I really tried to convince myself it would be only one. I lost. So, anyway that group helped me again and it was the same process, equally as uncoordinated and bad, and then I was on my way. Damn I’m glad that was over. But I made it.

4. Arctic Enema… Yeah, so I made it only to run about half a mile before I ran into this aptly named piece of shit. This was literally just a large dumpster. They put a few boards together to let you climb up one side and then you jump in, duck under a board and then go to the other end and haul yourself out. No ladder, so you better be able to pull yourself up. Then you climb down the boards on the other side and you’re on your way. Oh, wait. I guess I didn’t totally say that correctly. That was all true, but when you jump in, it’s filled with water. And ice cubes. So you jump into an ice bath, wade through it, duck under a board that goes across the width of it (and has barbed wire on top to keep you from going over it) and then wade the rest of the way until you get out. If it wasn’t 40 degrees outside with 30 mph wind gusts, it might not have been so bad. But being wet and cold was just a precursor of things to come.

5. Turd’s Nest… This one wasn’t actually a turd at all. It was pretty decent. You come up from the woods where you’re running on the trails and you can see this big rig. You actually crawl in mud under barbed wire one way through the bottom, then you run around the woods and come at it from a right angle, basically going south to north under it, then loop around and go west to east on top of it. The top part is a cargo net that you climb, scramble over. I actually was able to walk the whole thing along the side going slowly, more so because of the chick in front of me, but also so I didn’t fall. It was pretty cool actually. I didn’t use that word other than to describe my balls much during this day.

6. Fire Walker… The pictures look sorta bad, mostly because of the smoke. This was really nothing. It was a lot of fire (about five times as much as Warrior Dash, or more), but it wasn’t difficult. I didn’t even need to cover my mouth or anything, and there was quite a bit of smoke. But it was kinda nice to go slow through it since there was still, well, let’s just say there was a fair amount of shrinkage from Arctic Enema that hadn’t been resolved yet.

7. King of the Mountain...I was mildly surprised this one wasn’t harder. In the photos Sugar-Mama took, you can see several of me making my way up these stacked bales of hay. It was five stacks tall. I really thought each bale would be taller, and therefore making it tougher for me to lift the lard. But surprisingly they weren’t that tall, so I got up each one on my own fairly quickly. At the top your probably 25 feet in the air so it’s a good view, then you start jumping down the other side, bale by bale. Definitely a confidence booster after getting past this one.

8. Mud Mile… This goopy mess wasn’t hard, but it was difficult. There were some spots that literally just sucked your feet in. I lost my shoe once, and I was wearing Vibrams. There’s no shoe laces. It’s a slipknot type thing and it grips my feet extremely well. Not well enough to defeat this mud though. Anyway, it was a long mud pit, most of which you could run through slowly because it wasn’t bad, just in spots. One dude yelled out about how he didn’t know where to step, talking to his girlfriend I think. I yelled back, “It’s not bad, just do like in bed and aim for the wettest spot. That’s where you’ll get out easiest.” I got no response. Rude guy. At the end, you had about 10 yards and there were tubes you had to crawl through. They weren’t all that wide and were probably 10 yards long. Kinda strange if you don’t like confined spaces, but not terribly bad.

9. Funky Monkey… So, after running to this point, about three miles since the Arctic Enema, I was pretty dry. Not dry. That’s a bad way to put it because I wasn’t dry again until about 30 minutes after we got home, and it was a 90-minute drive from our house to the course. But I wasn’t soaked, freezing wet anymore. The moving, running and wind actually got me somewhat aired out. That didn’t last long. I had a 10-minute or so wait to get on this one, and once I did, I was on for two rungs and then in the water, partly because I have no upper-body strength and partly because there was so much mud on my hands and then on the bars from people before me. Okay, it was mostly the pussy in my arms, but still, I was out there and you weren’t, so let’s not nitpick, OK? It was just a monkey bar, that went upward about 12 rings and then downward about 12 rings to the other side. Otherwise, me and the 80 percent of everyone else who couldn’t stay on, just waded across tits-high through iced cold water. I can’t count this as an obstacle that I won, but I did attempt it and I finished it by getting to the other side and not walking around. It’s all about perspective people.

10. Trench Warfare… This one was cool. It was a trench they had dug out and then put a sheet of plywood and dirt on top of so it was a tunnel underground. There were pictures of it on Tough Mudder’s Twitter and Facebook page on Wednesday, so I thought it was no biggie. It was actually easy, but there was a twist. You look at it and expect it goes straight through about 15 yards. It doesn’t. It goes straight for about 10 yards, then there’s a left, ahead for 8 yards including a pit that makes floor drop out below you, and then turns right and goes ahead about 10 yards. You completely come out in an area different than you expected and you’re in pretty near complete darkness in a small space. I crawled most of it before I realized I could squat-walk, but even that was hard. Anyway, was pretty cool, more than expected.

11. Log Jog Bog… I really don’t remember a lot about this one other than there was a semi-long run before it, there were some logs that you had to jump over, some you climbed over and some you went under. It was, um, not noteworthy.

12. Spider’s Web… This one was more difficult than expected. This was the cargo net obstacle, and I thought since Warrior Dash was easy, this one wouldn’t be too tough for me. It wasn’t the hardest thing of the day, but it wasn’t easy. These nets were about half as tall as Warrior Dash, but unlike those, these were not secured at the bottom. They were tied to trees on each side at the top, so they were sturdy, but they were sagging in the middle because the bottom wasn’t tied to anything. There was no tightness to the rope at the top, so it was a complete struggle to try to climb. Luckily someone had thought to lay down on other side after getting over and use their body weight to pull down on the net. That made the top more taught and easier to climb up. So there were 9-10 guys laying down pulling the net down (in other words pulling the top up). I was a struggle bucket near the top and getting flopped over, but I made it and then took someone’s place, laying there for a few minutes to catch my breath and hold the net for others to climb more easily. It’s not a race people; it’s a challenge and we’re all on the same team. Yeah, that was said by someone who didn’t win, but who am I kidding? I wasn’t winning anything either.

13. Cliffhanger... This whole course was laid out around a motocross site that also had a lake next to it. Part of the course actually used the motocross track, which, if you haven’t been on one before, it’s pretty damn hilly. Well, I hadn’t been on one before and it was tiring. Hill after hill after hill. Maybe a quarter or half mile squireling around the track, and then as you come over this big hill on the track, you see the next hill, which is completely watered down and a muddy mess. But you immediately start picking up speed going down so that you can get a good run up. Well, the designers figured that too. So they put up a chain and sign that you had to stop and go to the side, where you have to crawl down into and through a pit of mud. It was like spa mud (I actually heard chicks talking about this being like spa mud) and it was tits-high, slick and mushy. So that was tough to get through and climb out of, but then it’s all over you and oozing down you, so once you try to walk/run up the monster hill you just lost all your momentum for, it was a mess. I actually did pretty well. I made it half way and had to stop because I started slipping, then just stayed there. I got my balance and took a breath, moved to my left a little closer the outside edge and moved forward. The 4-5 minutes or so I was in the mud and on the hill, I only saw about five people make it up the hill with no help at all. And then I made six. Got all the way up that sucker on my own. Win=Trickie.

14. Devil’s Beard… This was a really long net, maybe 30 yards (it felt 5 miles, but it could have been 15 yards, who knows?) that is laying on the ground. It was ridiculously heavy and was pinned down pretty well to make it hard to pick up. You had to go under it, which basically meant walking backwards and lifting it as you went if you were in the front. I was in the front of about 15 people, so me and one other guy walked backwards lifting it over us while the rest kept it above their heads and easily walked behind us. Teamwork.

15. Boa Constrictor… If you don’t like tight spaces, don’t do this one. These pipes were a good 12 yards long and I didn’t have much room. I had to totally belly crawl, pulling myself with me elbows and chicken-scratching to push with my feet. It was kinda crazy. That’s the first one pointed downhill. Then you get to the bottom to the water. There is water in the last 4-5 feet of the pipe, and then you climb out into water and have to crawl through it a couple yards under barbed wire there’s no where to stand up and then do the same thing again, this time climbing the same distance up the hill. Half way through I struggled and had to stop and it was a bit claustrophobic, making me get a tad nervous. But I don’t have much problem with that really, so I just sucked it up and kept moving and got through pretty quickly.

16. Jumpin’ Bale… This one was so hard, I’m not even going to talk about it. Ha. No, really, I honestly can’t remember what the hell it was. I remember every other one, but I just can’t place this one at all. It’s on the course map I have, but I got nothing else.

17. Berlin Walls No. 2… MUTHERFUCKER. I hated the first one and yet, there’s two and this one is 4-foot taller than the last. I knew that going in, but it didn’t help my level of disgust when I got to this. I’m at least six miles into the course and tired, sore, wet, cold and annoyed I have to do this again. I really don’t remember who helped me get up over the first wall, but that was almost a miracle. I almost gave up after that. I was dead and it took everything out of me. I climbed over the tractor tire and went over to Sugar-Mama and gave her my number bib because it ripped off for the third time and I broke two of the safety pins tumbling ass first and body against the wall over that wall. I said I was probably going to skip it because I was dead and I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I heard, “Sack up you fucking Sally. Get your dick over there and put it on that wall and get the fuck over it.” I stumbled over there and stood around a minute before I jumped in to help a group get a guy up to the top. The guy on the ground said he’d help me first and I said, outloud to no one, “Nah, there’s no way I’m getting over this one. I’m completely gassed and going to have to go around.” Then the guys next to us, who were already lifting a dude up, one of them said, “Come over here and we’ll get you up there in a second brother.” Guys were saviors. The dude said, “We’re doing this in two steps: First we’re going to push you up and you grab the top, then we’re going to boost you and you swing your leg up over and you take it from there.” So I put one foot in one guy’s hands, leaned up and forward and put the other in the other guy’s and they did exactly that. Up and I grabbed, boost and I lifted my dead carcass over, tumbling the 12 feet back to the ground. You can actually see the splat on the wall in one of the pics I put in the photo gallery. That’s my body hitting the wall on the way down. There’s a little black at bottom of the photo that’s my head (the cap actually) as I’m sitting there for a second to gather myself. Then up I went. Those guys need a big shoutout and thank you.

18. Hold Your Wood… This one and then next one go together, and I’d like to thank Lucky and Coach Gaffigan for prepping me. It was just taking a log and carrying it around about a quarter-mile oval area. That’s the first part, but then halfway through, you have about 10-15 yards of tires on the ground that you have to go through. As Sugar-Mama could tell you, I was the only one who actually ran this part. I didn’t have the heaviest log (insert joke of choice here), but it wasn’t small (that’s what she said). Yet, I was still running while no one else was. And just for the record, I actually kicked those tires’ asses. I zoomed through them with that wood and was like, Fuck yeah bitches. I did that.

19. Tired Yet?… I told you the last one was for the both. Why are you still reading this?

20. Electric Eel… Fairly simple process: run up to the obstacle, get on your belly, crawl under the barbed wire. Easy, right? Yeah, it is. Except that there’s wires hanging down off the barbed wire and the wires, at least some of them, have electricity running through them. This wasn’t the biggie that has 10,000 volts (we’ll get to that one in a bit), but after the first two feet I was through, I can tell you from experience, that shit ain’t nothing to laugh at. It gives you a jolt. Remember when you’d put a 9-volt battery to your tongue just for the fuck of it (looking directly at you Dwin)? Yeah, it’s that times about 50. So after that near pants-pisser, I start pulling myself on my elbows pretty fast. There’s sprinklers shooting water into the area and you’re on a plastic tarp, so it’s slick. I got all the way to the end, about the normal 10-15 yards without another shock. Until I tried to get out. As I got to the end I hit a live wire, and I hit it as I was trying to pull myself out from under the board at the end. Yeah, that didn’t go so well. I hit it three more times as I struggled, looking like the palsy I was at that minute. Good one there, course designers. Good one. Jackholes.

21. Log Jammin’… This was the Lincoln Logs Deluxe. It was a big log cabin-like area that you climbed over and under and ran through. The first part you went over three logs high, then climbed under logs about waist high that were wrapped in barbed wire. Then you went over one that was six logs high, under a couple more waist high and then the end was one that was eight logs high and the logs weren’t placed evenly, so some stuck out, some went in. It was hard to get a good grip and pull yourself up. Not terrible, but lot of scratches from that bad boy.

22. Hanging Tough… This was the “surprise” obstacle. There’s always one they don’t tell  you what it will be until game day. Well, they decided to put up rings. Like gymnastics rings. You had to start on one side, take the rings and swing yourself across. There were about five sets of rings to monkey across. This one sucked because the line that formed since it was hard and so few people made it across. Most ended up in the water (like 90 percent) so people had to wait to go so in case they made it farther, they didn’t then lose grip and fall on the person ahead of them. You can see the pics. It backed up bad and I bet I waited more than 20 minutes before I got to go. I got cold. I tightened up. The wind was still gusting, probably worse than at any point in the day. And I was more than eight miles into the run and exhausted. So when I got up there, I actually rocked it and made it all the way across. Yeah. Right. I was pleased that I was able to grab the second set of rings, but that was it before my fat ass and gravity met. Plop. Right into the bright pink water I go. At least at the end of this watery defeat there was a belt with loops in it to use to crawl your way out. The Funky Monkey didn’t have anything so you either had to lift yourself out or get someone to help. It was a half-half out for me. But this one I managed on my own, so that’s something. Ugh. Cold and wet again. With three miles to go.

23. Walk the Plank… So, I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m going to guess if you actually have read this far, you probably do because I bet there’s only about four of you who have read every word of this (suckers). Anyway, my greatest fear in life is drowning. Water in general scares the shit out of me. Maybe this is why I don’t like showering much, I don’t know. I’ve overcome that much more as I’ve gotten older, but I still am scared shitless of water, especially open water. And lakes definitely count as open water. So this one was the one I dreaded the most. You climb up this obstacle — and it was ridiculously hard for solo short people actually because the boards you use as steps are spread way apart and start about 4 feet high, fuckers — and when you’re at the top, all you do is jump in the lake from about 18 feet above water and then swim around. That’s it. No biggie. B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T. That’s water down there and there’s no way to know where the bottom is. And it’s windy and there’s little waves. Yeah, I really hesitated, like maybe a minute, adjusting my cap and glasses and was really actually pretty scared. I didn’t mind the height at all or jumping. That’s fine with me, even if it was higher than I expected. But the water was a big question mark. In the end, I did it. I jumped, I splashed, I went under and I came up. Then I flailed and struggled to the corner of the bottom of the platform and then swam to the side. It may have been a total of 10  yards but felt like 30 miles. I hate fucking open water. And I lost my damn running glasses and cap in the water. Shit.

24. Dong Dangler… This was alright. You had a long wire with a plastic casing over it and water. You had to pull yourself across. You were supposed to go upside down with your legs crossed above the wire and pulling yourself with your hands. Most people walked because it wasn’t deep. I started walking then just pulled myself with my body floating behind in the water. Not terrible. RJ could even do this one, I think.

25. Everest… Well, dear Tough Mudder, you bested me. This was the one. I hoped to do all the obstacles but figured realistically there’d be one that I couldn’t complete, even the shitty way by falling off and going through the water. This was it. This beast is a half of a half-pipe. You run up it. And when you’re at the top, you go down the ladder. Easy. Except the running up and getting on top part. Again gravity and my ass met. That happened about half way up. Right as I jumped up to try to grab the extended hands of the guys laying down trying to pull people like me up. No go. The inertia going up did not out-do the mass going the other way and my blubber went a tumbling down. A big thud as I went face — and belly — first into the wood and then a Wile E. Coyote splat and slide down to the bottom. I was dead but I gave it a second shot and came up about a foot shorter than last time. I knew, despite how good I felt I had done for myself to this point, that I was defeated. I walked around and started running to the next obstacle where I’d try to pick up and get back on the horse. Pretty disappointed, but considering my physical being (or lack thereof), if this was the only one I didn’t complete, I can’t really bitch.

26. Twinkle Toes… This was just a walking on a tight rope type of thing, except it was a 2×8 on its side and not a rope. It was wide enough but I got halfway across, caught a gust of wind and got a little wobbly and had no chance to stop it and over I went into the yellow-colored freezing cold water. At least I made it a hair past half way so I didn’t have to wade all the way across like the other two I dumped.

27. Electroshock Therapy… Really, I wish I had a story here. I don’t . I came down the hill right after the last obstacle and saw this. The end. Thank any god you want. I did. As I came up on it, I was trailing a group of five from the Army. They were together and going in all as one. I followed right behind so I didn’t see them and get psyched out. I didn’t hit a single live wire. I ran behind one chick, fell on a small hay bale, bounced off to the right and kept running, slipped once, then jumped out of it, promptly falling on my face in the mud. But I did not find the 10,000-volt wire, so I was pleased. I then held up as the last chick in the Army group had gotten fried in there and was behind. I waited as she caught up and I let the Army group go first as the announcer at the finish line got the crowd to give them a big applause. Then I went through, grabbed my headband and two bottles of water and headed, slowly, for the car.

That was the end of my Tough Mudder career. I think. Maybe.

Merry fucking Christmas, Jeff

Yes, Jeffrey, there are Christmas miracles. This is a blog.

I know most of you forgot what a blog is since I haven’t posted here since late October, which Jeff has so subtly reminded me of once or twice.

A day.

For weeks.

On end.

But with it being the holidays, I guess the best present I can give you is, well, me. So here we go.

Christmas blows.

Honestly, it’s just not a holiday I care all that much about. And before my Islamist followers get their hopes up, it has nothing to do with religion. I could care less what reason you have for celebrating a holiday this time of year or what god you pray to or how many camels your family owns. It doesn’t matter either way. We’re all here on this planet together and we should respect that we’ll be different.

And with that, people should respect that I think Christmas blows. It’s a lot of glitz and hubbub I just don’t care for and could do without. The commercialization at least. I’m not talking about anyone’s views on religion nor am I looking to get struck down by a bolt of lightning (especially since it’s raining as I write this; coincidence?).

Curmudgeon, you say?

Sure. Others, I know for a fact, would call me a troll.

That’s fine. I’m nice when it feels like I should be and I’m not when I don’t feel like it. People should be that way year round so that they’re truly happy, and if they were, then it could be like Christmas 365 days a year.

Anyway, while it does blow, I’ve tried to be a better sport this year. Sugar-mama wanted to get a new tree, and by ‘new’, I mean, she wanted me to let her put up a full-sized one for the first time. It’s not like I dictate this relationship and she couldn’t have before. But we didn’t always have space and I’m sure it’s easier for her to deal with certain parts of my snarky ways just by letting me think I’m winning, so her small tree in the past was a compromise since I’m guessing she didn’t want to fight with Team CAC or spend the money on a new tree.

But this year we went and bought one. The last cheap one at Lowe’s. Literally, it was the Charlie Brown tree, a floor model with the price tag still on it and bent limbs. Even at full price (which we didn’t come close to paying) it was still cheaper than anything else they had on sale. And it’s barely taller than me, so you can decide for yourself how sizable it is.

The tree came home fine in three pieces and went up relatively easily. Then sugar-mama put up other decorations, which I figured I better just put up with since she hasn’t put hardly any up in the past. One year worth for nine years of little? Sure, deal. Just remember it next year. Yeah, I know, right, like I have a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping this holiday train in the future.

So I’ve been dealing with that lately. It’s gotten my mind off work. I think that’s a lot of the reason why I haven’t blogged much lately. It’s sucked ass.

I like the job, or at least the job I’m supposed to be doing. The problem is that because of a lot of issues out of my control, I have to do other things that take up way more time than whatever it is my job should be. So that causes two problems: first, I think we can all safely say I’m a control freak and second, I actually like to work but this other bullshit is preventing me from doing it.

So anyway, I haven’t been happy with the job situation at all. Some of that, hell maybe most of that is on me. I’ve never lived in the real world really. Working in athletics for so long skews your sense of how shit in the corporate realm works.

Seriously, where I’ve worked before, if something needs to be done, you do it and move on. Doesn’t matter if it takes you till 2 a.m., you do it. And if it’s last minute, just sprung on you the day before it’s due? Get over it quick, or you’re losing time because it still needs to be done.

This world I’m now in doesn’t have many people who 1) understand quality makes people want to buy more and 2) realize that the real world doesn’t just stop at 5 p.m. or whenever you want to go home. Especially when you work in a field where your product revolves around sports which, oh by the way, are mostly played after 5 p.m. or on the weekend.

So anyway, it’s just problems that deep down I’ve expected to pop up and that I have to work through. It’s mostly on me, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Luckily, I do like the job (or what I hope it becomes sooner rather than later) and love being in Atlanta. I know sugar-mama was worried I regret moving, but I don’t. I miss my friends in Nebraska, but it’s no different than when I left North Carolina, or Iowa, or Illinois. You know, one of the 20 residences I’ve had in the past 20 years.

To help myself, I’ve decided to try to be better at not always logging on and doing work when I don’t need to. Again, the control freak in me is tough to kick to the side, but I’m trying to be better about not doing work when I’m not actually working, if that makes sense.

I did take on one new thing to eat up some of my free time on days when I’m off. In November I signed up and joined Big Brothers Big Sisters. For anyone wondering, I’m a Big Brother.

Yes, I have like 933,147 brothers and sisters back in Illinois, but I figured I could use some of my liberal tendencies and volunteer to help the community and give back to others. So last month I was paired up with Ian, who is 8. We’ve gone to a basketball game — it’s the only way you’d ever see me at a women’s basketball game, but Nebraska was down here playing Georgia Tech — and went out a couple other times. He’s pretty cool, quite sure of  himself (not cocky but as he says, “I’m awesome”) and is quite the question machine. Again, this reinforces my views on not wanting kids of my own, but enjoying them as long as I can give them back.

So, hopefully that’ll be something cool. It’s a two-year commitment, so we’ll be together for a while longer. I may or may not give you updates. Probably not as it’s kinda personal to me, but figured I’d share that much only because while I’m a troll, I also like to do nice things once in a while too and you should know that.

Well, fuck. I guess this is the point where I have to say something funny, right? I normally have something funny or stupid to say, and since this was a bit of a more serious blog, I think funny is appropriate.

But I don’t have anything funny. So I’ll end it with this offering for the holiday:

Wine, PCU and life

Well, it was bound to happen.

At some point, the good life was bound to end and I’d find out what the other side is like. Now is the time. Unfortunately.

See, back in the day, when I had the good life, sugar-mama was mostly at home and I’d go on the road a lot. I had a good life, just basically going to football or basketball games for a living and then working a lot while watching football or basketball games on TV. Then I’d come home and do a little cleaning occasionally but really have no major duties around the house. Nice gig if you can get it as far as I’m concerned.

Well, now the tables are turned.

We’ve been here in Atlanta for about 14 months (a bit longer for sugar-mama) and it’s glaringly obvious how different things are now. See, her job, she can now travel a bit. Me? I’m pretty much on the road maybe two weeks out of the year.

I liked it better the other way when I was gone. There’s too much to take care of around here. I can’t imagine what you fucks with kids go through. Not worth it to me, but that’s well-documented.

She’s been working in Washington, D.C. each of the past three weeks, home only on the weekends. So during that time, it’s sucked because I missed her (don’t laugh you fucks, I have feelings too), and I’ve had to fend for myself.

That second part blows.

See, before I used to go on the road and things would be taken care of for me. We’d get a charter plane with (relatively) quick in and out access. We’d get immediate seating for our group at dinner, I’d get a little pocket money, enough to pay for beer unless we’re on 6th Street in Austin or at Eskimo Joe’s in Stillwater, which there’s no way per diem would ever cover my beer tab (if Hinerman, Bruhn or Camden ever read this blog, they’d concur). And we’d get catered food on game day and police escorts to the arena or stadium, where it was like you had no restrictions on where you could go.

I never took it for granted because it was a great fucking life.

Now? Not so much.

Timeout. I don’t mean it like I I don’t like my current life. I do. I’m really thankful sugar-mama got a job in Atlanta and that we live here because I love it down here. And I really like our house and the area we live in, and everything we can actually do in a big city. Sorry, Lincoln.

But now, sugar-mama is the only one who gets to travel and I’m stuck at home with fucking cats and  their puking, and with annoying jackass fucking co-workers who make Uncle Randy look like someone I’d want to be best friends with and drink with every weekend (if you get that inside non-joke, you totally understand how horrible my current situation with one person is). Sugar-mama, on the other hand, gets to earn hotel and airline points and, while I know she’s working here ass off more than even when she’s at home, she still gets to look at D.C. or Tampa or whatever city she’s in every other month and I’m just staring at our overgrown dirt lawn and weeds that I don’t want to mow.

Yes, I’m fucking jealous.

Even more, I’m disgusted with myself.

Why? Because I’ve learned a lot about me the past three weeks while she’s been on the road.

I’ve had to feed myself. Much of that has included food, or lack thereof of good food being made in the house as it has included basically the same meal 3-4 times a week. Take a pile of chicken, an onion, some mushrooms and throw them in a pan. Viola, there it is. Dinner for the week.

And I’m not the cleanest person ever. Right now, this place is sparkling, but before I cleaned, yeah, I don’t think it’s much different than the half trailer I lived in when I was an intern in Carbondale. That place was pretty fucking disgusting, even on my scale of cleanliness.

Oh, but don’t think I didn’t learn some things:

• Poblano peppers. They’re fucking hot when you eat a whole one. Especially on the third day in a row. For the second consecutive week. FML.
• PCU is still one of the greatest movies ever made, and I’m watching it right now. “Just the dog in me, baby” P-Funk. Money. Jeremy Piven rocks and David Spade is perfectly preppy prickish. Honestly, there are parts of that movie that I swear were written by someone following us around the Beer Garden in 1992-93. “Sanskrit?  You’re majoring in a 5,000-year-old dead language?” Droz? The scene where he’s in the Jerrytown guys’ lair and tempted to take a bong hit and then wakes up curled in a ball three hours later? Hmm, no comment.
• Wine is good. I knew this before, but tonight, right now, I’m finishing a bottle of what I expect is a classic, some wine aficionado’s perfect white. A bottle of Flipflop Pinot Grigio 2010. As a side note, I gave up beer and haven’t had any alcohol of any sort since Oct. 1 as I’ve started training for Tough Mudder Georgia 2012 in February (Sidenote: I was down 12 pounds today, and had a really easy 3.5-mile run, but I have a LONG way to go before February. FUCK). My goal was no beer from now until after the run on Feb. 11, so this whole bottle is making me feel pretty, um, …  And it’s within my rules because I only said I was giving up beer.

I don’t really know where I was going with this blog. Other than I’m looking forward to watching the end of PCU (I own it on DVD and it’s in my top 20 all-time favorite movies), and to sugar-mama getting home Friday afternoon.

That is all.

I really shouldn’t be doing this shit

“God damnit.”

“Fuck, I suck.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Didn’t I just finish the last one?”

“Come the fuck on. This has got to be the mutherfucking last one, right?”

Among the things I remember vividly from my first Warrior Dash, these words throughout every part of the race after about the one-mile mark are near the top. And the strange thing is that it wasn’t even that tough.

Seriously, I was expecting a lot worse. And I was expecting I’d do a lot worse. Strangely, neither came to be.

We got up to Twin Lakes, Wis., about zero-9:dark, or at least about an hour before we really should have. It was fine. Cliffy had to have his neurosis taken care of, so, since Dave wasn’t with us to make us late, we got there plenty early. It was all good.

Until we came around the corner.

Still in the car, driving up to the fields where we knew we were close, we came around a bend and there to the left was what appeared to be a track of some sort. There were some plastic lines in place of ropes to show people where to run and there were people of all ages, sizes and speeds bi-pedding along the path. Then they came to a stop. And looked at the wall and the rope that they needed to pull themselves up.

Yeah, at that point I started to have some misgivings about this little physical fitness fantasy.

But we persisted. Once we were in costume, it was way easier to know that 1) we weren’t winning any medals and 2) this was just for the fuck of it.

Dwin and Penelope in their day-glow glory, RJ and Cliffy ready to sing at the church social on a moments’ notice, Chuck and Philly being, well, Chuck and Philly — it all really helped ease any nerves there might have been about what lie ahead. Oh and there was me and my hetro-life partner — as Fred and Barney along with Pebbles — in our costumes conceived less than 30 hours before.

The whole picture made sense actually.

The thoughts of getting over — or not getting over — the obstacles eventually subsided and it became just about doing it.

Well, so I thought. Then the race started.

We had gotten there early enough that we went ahead and jumped into a wave that was 30 minutes before we were supposed to start. No sense in holding off at that point.

We even got fairly far up in the start line and after the horn sounded, it wasn’t long before we were through the gate and our time chip activated.

It’s strange. I’ve only run three competitive races in my life.

I did a 5k about five years ago when I first started losing weight, and I felt so much more alive during the race then at any point ever training for it. It was like I was fishing in a barrel with dynamite. I picked runners off left and right and passed them at will almost. Granted, I was still slow as fuck, but in my world, few people passed me.

When I ran a half-marathon in 2010 before we left Lincoln, it was kinda the same. The first 10k was unbelievable. I had no idea I could run that far that fast, using ‘fast’ as a relative term here. The last two miles were excruciatingly difficult, but I clodded through and finished. The only pisser was that I wanted to break two hours and instead I came up short as I went 2:06.58.

I should have learned my lesson from that race. My 10k split was 54:39 and I was in 1,601st place out of 6,116 runners that day. My last seven miles were so bad that I dropped to 2,712th overall. Pacing myself has never been something I’m good at, whether running, drinking or whatever.

I feel like I probably could have done better in this Warrior Dash if I had a better pace in the middle. I kept trying to go too fast like at the start. I can handle the early pace, but that middle part gets me. I’m not complaining though, as I did finish nearly six minutes better than my goal. I came across this 5k course in 27:34 to finish 1,732nd out of 12,141 Dashers.

I’ll take that.

But I keep going back to the fact that it wasn’t hard. There was little difficulty to it at all. The distance was easy. The majority of the obstacles were simple, although took a little time. And even the one or two that you could say was tough wasn’t much to slow me down. I’m never going to run much faster than that time with or without obstacles, so really, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

The best part was partying and just doing the race with friends.

Yet, I kind of want more.

Part of me really wants to be challenged. Something down inside wants to prove something. I don’t know what or why, but guessing my SMS (no, not PMS, thank you very much sugar-mama) just needs to kick in every once in a while and rear it’s ugly head. Many of you know what I’m talking of as my SMS (Short-Man Syndrome, if you are unaware) has gotten more than a few of you in tangles before, whether you liked it or not.

So, because of that, because of my SMS, I’m making a lifestyle change at least for the next five months. On Monday, I’m starting online Weight Watchers again, rejoining my gym and getting a personal trainer for a weekly workout, plus whatever I do on my own. After next weekend in Wisconsin, I’m going to cut out alcohol through January. I’m setting up my half-marathon training regiment again and going to start a new blog dedicated to just the facts of my training. Some of it will be normal run and lift shit, and I’m going to have to figure out some different stuff too as I try to accomplish my crazy-ass goal.

What?

Oh, you want to know my goal? Watch this:

That, my friends, was the 2011 version of the Tough Mudder. As of 1:05 p.m. ET today, I have signed up to do the 2012 Tough Mudder in Washington, Ga., on Saturday, Feb. 11.

My one and only goal is to finish it and at least attempt, to my fullest, every obstacle. It’s more than 11 miles. I can handle that running. There’s a lot of mud, and water, and smoke, and shitty obstacles too. A couple of them, I will tell you right now I don’t know that I can physically do. And half this battle is getting my mind right that I actually can do it.

But, you know what?

Fuck it. Why not try?

Worse thing it says — at least in the waiver I had to sign — that could happen is I die, unless of course the race is canceled ahead of time because of insurrection (yes, literally that’s in the waiver too).

So, any prayers from our Islamic buddy Offsuiters and anyone else are welcomed. Encouragement is requested. And a physically fit body double would be gladly accepted.

But, fuck. I’m doing this shit, and I’m going to do it right. And if I’m lucky, I’ll have another sweet postrace picture like this one from Warrior Dash (although I will not be smoking a tractor trailer worth of Camel Lights before and after this coming race, I guaran-fucking-tee you that).

Yo Adrian

I’m sitting here watching Rocky II. It just started, and I only find myself continuing to watch because it was on this channel for the last two hours as I watched Rocky.

Great Line Alert:

At the hospital, as Rocky sits in a wheelchair, all cut up from the first fight, a reporter shoves a microphone in his face. She blurts out, “Rocky, do you have brain damage?” The always verbose Rock replies, “I don’t see none.”

Incredible cinema there AMC.

Actually, the first Rocky is one of the best sports movies of all time. It’s hard to beat Bull Durham or Days of Thunder or Tin Cup, but it’s up there. It’s been almost 35 years since it came out and it’s still right up there.

AMC actually has another good movie coming out that I didn’t realize was that old. Silence of the Lambs actually freaked my ass out when I first saw it, and now it’s 20 years later and it’s still crazy good.

Twenty years? Fuck. Next thing you’ll tell me Tu Pac has been dead for 15 years.

What?

Shit. Life goes on, I guess.

So I’ll just go on and wait for the next thing to make me feel older. But you know what won’t? This weekend.

I’d normally be working since it’s a football Saturday and I get to do a lot of football stuff at work, but this takes precedence.

WAIT.

Another Great Line Alert:

Rocky just got married. Him and Adrian just said their vows and kissed, and they’re starting to walk away to head out of the church and the guy Rocky was a strong-arm for in the first movie stops him. He asks what Rocky cleared from the fight and what he’s doing to do with his money next.

Rocky: “I don’t know. Ain’t decided.”

Loan Shark: “Well you need to do something with it. You should do something legit, something that isn’t going to get tied up ever.”

Rocky: “Ya.”

Loan Shark: “I got a deal for you. I got a line on getting some money into some condominiums, it’s safe as can be.”

Rocky, all serious and looking around to see if anyone can hear: “I ain’t never used them before.”

Academy, please reconsider.

Anyway, so this weekend, I’m heading home. Actually, I’ll only be home for a few hours really, as most of the day Saturday we’ll be in southern Wisconsin for the Warrior Dash. It’s 3.08 miles of mud and fun. There’s obstacles and beer and turkey legs and everyone who does it gets a pair of Viking horns and a medal (yeah, it’s like we’re fucking 8 years old and we’re all winners. Gay.)

I’m stoked. We signed up a year ago to do it and it’s been like waiting for fucking Christmas.

I’m a bit down though because I haven’t found anything good to wear. A lot of people dress up and do cool costumes. I know at least a couple friends who lost bets who have to wear dresses, and a couple others who are going as the Road Warriors.

I guess I’ll just be the fat kid who doesn’t have the cool stuff to wear. Again, 8 years old. FML. Nothing came together for me, and I didn’t lose a bet so I don’t HAVE to wear a dress, so I’m not sure what I’ll end up with. But either way it’s going to be an interesting weekend.

Hopefully, it’ll be one that I can remember in 20 years and say, “Fuck. It’s really been that long?” All the good ones are like that.

Kind of like Rocky.

I’m fuckin’ 40

Well, there it was. Sunday night after a good time out with sugar-mama, we got home and I couldn’t sleep. So, at midnight, I cracked an Old Style.

Why not? It’s my birthday and I’ll drink if I want to.

I don’t like birthdays that much. I’ve gotten better and can live with people saying Happy Birthday. In the past, I hated it. I didn’t like anyone even knowing. I’m not sure why other than sometimes I like to just be a dick. Most years, that happened on Aug. 29.

But now, it doesn’t bug me that much. People are being nice. I had a number of comments on my Facebook page and that was pretty cool. I appreciated it.

Getting old really does make you a pussy.

Anyway, it’s over and it was good. Only downer was the balloons and streamers a co-worker put up all over my cube at work — I’m not THAT okay with birthdays yet — but the cookie she bought me was good and made up for it.

So now I’ll just move on. No sense in worrying about turning 40. It was bound to happen. Well, not really. There were a few times where that could have changed and I wouldn’t have made it, but I’ll say I’m pretty glad I have.

I have the coolest sugar-mama around who helps provide us with a good life (I pitch in a little too, I guess). I have the most kick-ass black cat, and probably the only cat you know who’s named F’ing. I have what’s turning into a pretty sweet job and some awesome friends.

There’s really not much I could ask for better although not everything has been perfect the past 40 years. There’s been a few bumps and bruises, literally; run-ins with cops and fans and co-workers that didn’t end pretty; and a few lean years in the pocketbook (which happens when you settle for being a janitor on third shift). But I’ve managed. Somehow, I’ve faked my way through enough things and came up with enough scams to feel pretty good about myself.

Now what? What’s the next decade hold? I’m not sure.

I’m doing a Warrior Dash with about 15 friends in two weeks. It will be pretty fun, although now that I’m in a new age group, I’m training harder to try to be at the top of the times list for the 40-44 bracket.

That just sounds stupid. 40. Where the fuck did it go? Wasn’t it just yesterday when I was blasting Rob Base and Motley Crue, Guns ‘n Roses and Two Live Crew in high school, and then drinking buckets after cases after kegs of Milwaukee’s Best Light in college listening to Pearl Jam and Erasure, Nirvana and Depeche Mode? At no point did reaching 40 seem fathomable.

But it has fathomed and I’m moving on.

The best way to do it is deal with it head on, as we found out from Kid Rock on Sunday night. That’s why I couldn’t sleep. We had free tickets to his concert, which was 15 minutes from our house. So we went and had a fucking blast. He’s one of the best showmen I’ve ever seen; highly entertaining and totally worth seeing even if it’s not 2002 anymore.

During his show, he talked about how he turned 40 earlier this year. About how it hasn’t slowed him down, hasn’t made him change his ways. I’m all for that.

In fact, I think it’s time to turn it up a notch. So, here’s my to-do list for the next decade. These aren’t just a bucketlist of things I have wishes and dreams to do. These are five things I will do before Aug. 29, 2021 (assuming I’m not dead):

1. I’ve run a half-marathon before, finishing in just over two hours (2:06:58 actually). In the next decade I will complete a full marathon. Hopefully it’s in less than 4:15, but not going to pin myself down on a time, nor am I going to get all senile and say I will run the whole thing. Senility will set in in full force soon enough.
2. Since I was a teenager, I’ve wanted a motorcycle, so I will be getting one. Sugar-mama knows I’ve wanted one and is not enthralled with it, but I will always were a helmet and she’ll deal with it. This one is probably the top of the list for next year.
3. Now that I’ve gone bigger on my tattoos, I’m going to do more and I’m going to finish the bottom of my leg sleeve. Not sure what other kind of tattoos I’d want, or how many pieces it will take, but I’m going to finish that side (and maybe get more elsewhere too).
4. I will visit Paris. Since Ms. LeSage’s French classes in high school, getting to France and especially Paris has been something on my radar. I’ve been lucky enough so far to reach some cool places, but this is the one that has to be done, even if it’s part of a bigger trip (Rome, anyone? That’s aimed at you sugar-mama).
5. I will eat spinach. Not because I want to but because if I’ve made it this fucking far in life, I might as well experience everything it  has to offer, even the terrible stuff. The last — and only — time I’ve ever had spinach was when I was about 11 and my step-mom tried to make me eat it. She didn’t like it either but she was eating it too and said I had to finish it. She was on her last bite (I still had 3/4 a bowl left) and I puked into my bowl at the table. It was so disgusting. Needless to say she never forced me to eat a single thing I didn’t like ever again. But now I’m a bigger person, a grown man, and I’ll go ahead and give it a try again. Once.

So those are some things I’m going to do in the next decade. And I’ll have a good reminder about why to do it.

Check out this video I took on my phone at the Kid Rock concert of his special song, “I’m fuckin’ 40.” Listen to the words (and don’t worry about the video, it sucks). Enjoy them. Pretty appropriate.

Talking to talk

You missed me. Admit it. You secretly have wanted a blog the past two weeks and I failed to deliver, right? I know it’s true and you know it’s true, but most of all, I know it’s true. So I’m going to remedy that.

And I should say here, it’s not a secret obsession for everyone. The Vile One has done her part to post on my Facebook wall** each week, chiding me and trying to embarrass me into writing something. Good for her, however, you’d think after knowing me for probably between two to three decades she’d have realized that there is little chance I will be embarrassed. Having such a messed-up moral compass makes it so.

While I’d like to say it was all work that kept me away, that’s not totally true. I have been slammed lately with all the ramp up we have going on for NCAA.com as we get set to kick off football. This is the first time ever that the site will focus on FBS football, which is awesome. And I’m lucky I get to play a cool role in the site, especially the football stuff***.

Actually, despite the serious addition to the workload now that we’re out of summer mode, it’s not the only nor the main reason I haven’t blogged in a couple weeks. No, it’s more that I didn’t have anything to say.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Okay, be honest, how long did it take you to really start to comprehend that last statement and start reading again? Yes, me, Mr. Talktalktalk, the one who has never met a conversation he didn’t want to dominate, I didn’t have anything to say.

It was weird because I almost always can find something to talk or write about. I am not encumbered with the need to have any direct knowledge of a subject before I interject my thoughts; in reality, it’s quite the opposite as I talk about shit I have no clue about all the time.

Why be boring and only talk about things you really know about? Lame.

But, the past couple weeks I didn’t have anything inspiring that pushed me to want to write it down. What can you do? Not much. Just keep going on.

So that’s what I did. I just worked and did whatever it is that I do and I figured at some point I’d get a lightning strike of inspiration to again be able to blog. And then it happened.

On Saturday, I went for a long run. It was just after noon and was heating up for the day. The air was thick and wet, humidity dripping as soon as I walked out the front door. Typically this is how I like to have it when I run, but for some reason, it was a bit too much. By mile 4, I was done. No energy left to run, I decided to just think of all the names my “buddies” would call me if they saw me right then and I just power walked the last mile home.

Halfway there, it struck me.

I was walking past one of the 17 bus stops along the road I run on and it had the normal garbage piled up by the sign, but it was a little different. There was a whole bowl of Fruit Loops dumped on the ground. It wasn’t there just 30 minutes before when I ran by the first time. Someone had just put it there.

My first thought was: Where’s the bowl? It was just all piled up, orange and red and green and yellow circles, clumped together, still mushy, soggy with milk circling around and slithering away in the dirt. Why was it here? Who put it here and why didn’t they want it anymore? And where did the bowl go?

The questions quickly faded as I swished past and moved up the start of the hill, the one that I have yet to be able to master running all the way up at the back end of my workout. But a new question popped into my head: When was the last time I had Fruit Loops?

And then it made me wonder what else I missed, as I quickly realized I hadn’t had Fruit Loops in forever, or at least since 2007.

So, as I made my way up the hill and back past the Mennonite church and what is probably the drug house on that one block, I started to think of the things I miss the most, stuff I haven’t had or used or played with in years. The short list I came up with in the final 10 minutes of my run/jog/walk included:

• Fruit Loops: It started this whole conversation in my head and there’s good reason: That shit is good. It’s no Count Chocula or Cookie Crisp, but it’s definitely in my top five cereals of all-time.
• Asteroids: My favorite video game of all-time, I wish I had a table-top version like you’d see in Pizza Huts in the late 1980s.
• Rock candy: Wasn’t this supposedly the cause of several young, aspiring TV star kids’ deaths in the ’80s, mainly after they put it in Coca-Cola? If so and this isn’t just an urban myth****, I’d like to see this make a comeback for some of these young, aspiring TV star kids of today.
• Cold water: This may seem strange, but if you live in a place where the average daily temperature is a larger number than the U.S. debt total, you’d understand. In the past year that I’ve lived in Georgia, I’ve had cold water, the good icy kind that comes right out of the tap almost immediately as soon as you turn on the faucet, exactly twice — with both times coming while I was home in Illinois. It’s amazing how much you can miss something as bland as cold water, but after a good run or just on a hot day, coming into the house and letting the water run for six minutes and then getting a glass full and it’s still about 73 degrees, well, it leaves a bit to be desired. And it’s the same in the shower. It never gets cold. You know, that cold kind of shower that’s awesome after mowing the grass on a hot-as-shit day. Or the cold kind on one of those first warm days of spring, when it’s 82 for the first time in months (and it was probably a high of 43  just two days before) and you take a cold beer in with you to take the bite off from the long drinking session the night before. No? Not something you’re familiar with? Hmmm, maybe that’s just a me thing.

Ahh, there’s something else I miss that should be on the list — talking just to talk, even when I don’t know what it’s about. There you have it. I’m back.

So anyway, here’s your blog Vile One. And really, here it is for all of you since I know you secretly missed it.

** To my Islamist friends with open minds but who are stuck in closed-minded countries: a Facebook wall is a place on the Internet where you can post stupid, funny, meaningful, outrageous, insane things for people who you have allowed to be your ‘friends’ to see and comment on. It’s a sort of private-but-public forum that people in free countries use. This is similar to Twitter, but that’s more for drunk posting after the fucking Cubs lose.

*** SHAMELESS WORK PLUG ALERT: Make sure to check out our new live stats coverage that we’ll unveil the fist weekend of the football season. And be sure to get into the live blog and ask a question. You might recognize who’s giving the answers.

**** Urban myths are awesome. Kidneys for sale. Abducted by Crips. All of them. What’s your favorite urban myth?

Ayo technology

I was reading a tweet Monday as part of my regular day off morning ritual, and it struck me as amazing.

It said that MTV is 30 years old.

Let that sink in.

Now, read it again. MTV has been on the air for 30 years.

How about we put that in perspective, shall we? I know most people who read this blog (not including our friendly Islamists, whom I have no raw data on) are typically in their upper 30s. New Carlson is like 53, and pulls the average up a bit, but overall, I’d say the median age is about 38.3 (thanks for pulling it down some Jess and Pulv).

Me, I’m going to be 40 soon, and like most of the six-7 offsuiters, this means I’ve lived almost my whole memorable life with MTV as a constant. We’re the first generation that got every bit of music that we wanted while we were growing up — all the David Lee Roth, Jon Bon Jovi, Axle and Slash, U2, Metallica, Dave Matthews Band, REM, Nirvana, and the bestest, greatest band of all time, Pearl Jam — brought right to us, to our bedrooms, our living rooms, our basements.

I don’t know if I remember the first time I watched MTV, but I do remember when it started. It was a big deal, even for us 10-year-olds. We were on top of the world in fifth grade, but everyone knew that’d soon change when we went to middle school the following year. It was tough before the digital age, when all you had were some random magazines, a couple sports weeklies, a skate boarding mag and then the SI Swimsuit issue to get us all the useful info we could act smart about in class, the hallways, parking lot to show our coolness (I’d mention the random Playboy and Hustler magazines that always turned up in a junior high school locker–no, never mine, never–but that’s probably for another blog).

MTV changed not just how we got our information, but how we were motivated. You started seeing bands and wanted to have their most recent record–albeit in cassette format–and then there were the fashion trends you had to try to follow to stay in the cool groups. It was difficult, but for those of us who didn’t get a weekly allowance or whose parents couldn’t afford to buy us the hottest shoes or parachute pants or whatever, so some of us had to scrounge money.

It was two years before I’d have my first “real” job making about $3.25 an hour, but that didn’t stop me from trying to get some extra pocket change to keep up with all the cool things on MTV. I figured out quickly that I could take a little lawn-mowing money and invest it.

At age 11, investing meant buying something cheap and then turning a quick profit on the playground. Pretty much like it does as a 40-year-old, except that I didn’t know about interest rates and yields and the pitfalls of the small bond market. I could have easily gone the pot or heroin sales route, as it was around this time that I first was offered reds and other neighborhood “goodies” in the hallways, but I followed a path a little closer to my, um, heart.

Hauling my bumblebee-like fat ass to the gas station and buying up all the Bubblicious, Now & Laters and any hard chocolate I could grab (soft chocolates were bad, as they melted too quickly) was the starting point. Then I would sell everything in the bag, which cost me about $6, by the end of third period at school and collect a nice little profit margin of about $13.

I couldn’t do it every day, but it carried itself over enough that after a month, I bought a sweet shirt. With that little ingenuity, I was able to sort of keep up with some new trends, although for the most part, I figured out pretty quickly that being a tub of goo really didn’t lend itself to running with the cool crowd, no matter what you wore. So after month two, I bought a digital alarm clock (another thing we’ve had our whole lives that just a couple decades before was completely uncommon).

But that was what was good about MTV. It took in everyone, even the weirdos, geeks, dweebs and Goonies.

[Side note: any chance you can mention the Goonies, you should. At work, home, the gym, Starbucks, everywhere. And at least once a month, you should YouTube "Truffle Shuffle."]

It didn’t matter what you wanted to see, you could find a little something for your taste on channel 29–that was the channel in our house anyway; it was probably an illegal black box, the one with the rotating knob and the numbers on it, that we had since we had no money but had basically every cable channel you could imagine, including HBO, which I mainly just liked for Fraggle Rock.

With this new channel, if you were into new wave, you had it. If you wanted to bang your head, you had it. If you only wanted to watch videos with half-naked 18-year-olds at a concert with the band that wore even more makeup and hairspray than the chicks, it was there. Everyone was welcome.

Sure, it’s changed through the years. Most of us who are old enough to remember it (when was the last time you caught yourself saying that and thinking how much you hated hearing your parents say that?) can tell you how great it was to actually hear music all the time, and watch actual videos at times not only between 2-4 a.m. It was splendid actually, being able to follow ‘the’ band of the day and actually see them, not just hear them.

But no matter how it’s morphed, the fact is that it’s still here. Thirty years later, it’s still hanging on, has spawned a rival, one that was terminally lousy at first as far as guys were concerned, but has come on to close the gap in recent years, and continues to produce stars, albeit not as many as YouTube and America’s Got Talent. And I’m not sure what that says.

What other things can you think of that we’ve grown up with that are ours, that we’re the first generation to really live and evolve with?

Personal computers? Check. That’s still us, but that’s about it for the biggies. Cell phones. Kinda check, but not really. We were mostly out of college before they were widespread. The Internet? Good god, that’s amazing, but there are already 18-year-olds who have not known a life where they couldn’t surf the ‘Net after school.

In fact, kids nowadays will only know phones that can let you video chat. I called my six-year-old goddaughter last weekend and it was the third time we’ve called this summer iPhone-to-iPhone using the FaceTime feature. For her whole life, she will always know you can talk and see the person on the other end of a cell phone.

Incredible.

Maybe in another 30 years I’ll be able to blog about something else that we’ve had for so long we can’t remember life without it. Let that sink in too. So many more inventions are out there that will become part of the mainstream and in some small way, a part of our everyday lives. And think about the fact that I believe I may live another 30 years.

Yikes.