A funny thing happened on the way to fatherhood

Today's Father's Day, and I've been thinking about it lately....not necessarily being a father, which I think about pretty much every second of every day, but more about how quickly life has progressed from idiot teenager to responsible father.  A lot of it actually has to do with Facebook.  With everyone on it I've been able to reconnect with college and high school friends (even some elementary school friends) that I haven't spoken to in 10, 15, even 20 years or more.

Here's the funny thing.  In my head, I know that everyone is now in their mid-thirties (even 40's for some).  I can do the math.  I know that I last spoke to a lot of my friends when I was 18 or 19 years old, which means that, essentially, a whole other lifetime has elapsed.  That's not really the funny part.  I don't feel that old.  I have a variation of the same conversation with my wife all the time.  It goes like this, "you know what, I really don't feel 37 years old," to which she says "that's because you're 38!"  They say you're only as old as you feel.  I hope it's true because most of the time I still feel a lot younger than 38.  I'm rambling a bit, but what I'm trying to get at is this.  My brain has trouble reconciling the grown-up, responsible family men that I see on Facebook, with the 18 year-old buddies that I used to run around with.

It's got to be the time gap.  Throughout the 20 years since I last talked to a lot of friends, I've kept in touch with my best friend that I grew up with.  He got married a lot earlier than I did, and consequently his kids are a lot older than mine.  Seeing it happen gradually, it's easy to process the transition from childhood best friend, to best friend who's a great husband and father.

With everyone else, it's harder.  It's the same with elementary school and college friends, but for the most part, I'm thinking about my high school friends here.  I was lucky enough to have a really good group of friends that I hung out with in high school.  We did some stupid things, but never really got in any serious trouble.  After high school we went our separate ways.  So there's this mental gap between 18 years old, hanging out, playing volleyball, soccer, fishing, camping, and yes, admittedly, maybe a little underage drinking, and 38 years old, professional, responsible, role-model fathers.  Without any memories, or knowledge of each person's personal evolution it's impossible to know how each of my friends "grew-up" (for lack of a better term).

I have old friends that are now doctors, lawyers, military men, professors, pastors, business men, and about everything else you can think of, and every one's path to adulthood has been different.  I'm not sure what my point is, maybe I don't have a specific point.  I just know that for the most part, regardless of what those old friends are doing for a living, they have become proud, responsible fathers that their kids can be proud of.  Some have kids going to college already.  Some, like me, are only a few years into fatherhood.  Some are single fathers, and some married women with children, and have adopted those kids as their own.

I think one of the problems with society today is an overall lack of good, strong father figures.  All I can say is, that's not the case with most of the guys on my friends list.  Regardless of the situation, I just wanted to say how proud and honored I am to call these guys my friends.  Happy Fathers Day to all of you, and congratulations on being such good dads.

Oh, and by the way, to any single moms out there who don't have the benefit of having exes who can still manage to be good fathers, I say happy Father's Day to you too.  If you're playing both roles, you're damn right you deserve it!

Conspiracy Theories, I've got a few

I haven't written anything new in a while.  I've been really busy with family and work, plus I've had a little bit of "blogger block."  Once again I have to marvel at folks who are able to come up with fresh material on a consistent basis.  I've discovered that it's difficult to figure out what readers of a blog will find interesting or funny.  Then again, I guess the point of all this is to write for myself, and if people are entertained, all the better.

Anyway, I've decided that conspiracy theories will be my topic of conversation for the next couple of blog entries.  As the title suggests, yes, I've got a few.  Hopefully, the ones I plan on putting out there for your enjoyment are interesting, new, and hopefully funny to you.  Some of you might remember a song called "Things that make you go, hmmm."  That's kind of what I'm going for.

It's not that I don't have opinion on common conspiracy theories, I just think they've been talked to death.  Who really killed JFK?  I don't know if it was a lone gunman, or shots came from the grassy knoll.  I think Oswald was one hell of a shot if he did act alone.  Did we really go to the moon, or was all of it done on a secret soundstage somewhere?  It seems like it would be easy enough for NASA to take the exact coordinates of the moon landing (if it really occurred....hmmmm), and take one of their billion-dollar telescopes, and find the American flag that Armstrong and Aldrin planted up there.  What about aliens?  Are we alone?  Roswell?  Area 51?  Most people are either 100% sure one way or the other.  If you google Neil Armstrong, you'll even get articles and blogs claiming that he saw aliens when he went to the moon and they warned him never to come back (don't believe me, look it up for yourself).  I won't go that far, but at the same time, the earth is 1 incredibly tiny speck in a universe that it so large, most of us can't even fathom it.  I guess I'll steal/paraphrase a line from Jodie Foster's character in Contact.  If we really are the only intelligent life in the universe, it sure seems like an awful waste of space.

I'm pretty sure if you googled any of these subjects you would end up with enough material to keep you busy with tin foil on your head (you know, to block the alien mind rays) for the foreseeable future.

But that's not my style, or the style of this blog.  For better or worse, I've always wanted this blog to be a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek look and life and family.  About the only thing my theories have in common with others I've mentioned is that they're totally outlandish (or are they?).  If you stumbled onto this looking for real views on serious conspiracies, sorry but you're in the wrong place.  If you just want a quick respite from your daily stress, then stay tuned.  Follow me down the rabbit hole of my mind and see how far it goes (Matrix reference).

People that Piss Me Off (Volume 1)

Things have been getting pretty busy again, and in an attempt to continue posting new blog entries fairly regularly, I'll probably add in some stories or observations with absolutely no intellectual value whatsoever.  This is one of those times.  No big social or political issues here.  No talk of politicians, immigration, welfare, contraception, or women's rights.  No talk of people who claim to be open minded, but are only open to folks who share their beliefs.  Basically no topics that actually make me angry.  I'm talking about people that I pretty much encounter on a daily basis that just piss me off, but not in a really serious way.  Get it?  If it helps, use your best Jerry Seinfeld voice when reading these ("What's the deal with......").   And please don't get offended and feel like you have to defend yourself if you do this stuff.  It'll still piss me off even if you have a good excuse:

1. Doesn't put shopping cart back guy:  When I say "guy" or "lady" obviously I'm generalizing.  I'm perfectly aware that both sexes do all of these things.  But I digress.  This has always been a major pet peeve of mine.  Pull halfway into a spot and realize some lazy person can't be bothered to walk 20 ft. to return a cart to the proper place.  I know it's a little thing (these are all little things), but damn it pisses me off.  I don't care if it's raining.  I don't care if you have kids with you.  I don't care that Walmart is made up of a bunch of idiots that only construct 1 cart corral per square mile of parking lot.  If you're too lazy, do what I do, park by the cart corral.  If you have kids with you, grab a cart from the corral, plop 'em in the cart, and off you go.  When you get done shopping, everything's right there.  Often those guilty of this one are the same folks guilty of number 2 on the list.

2. Waits for close parking space lady:  This person is often observed more around the holiday season.  You're trying to find a spot, going up and down the aisles, and all of a sudden there's someone sitting with their car in park, waiting for someone to come out of the store and leave from one of the closest 3 parking spots in the lot.  I'm not talking about seeing someone about to crank up and leave, and waiting a minute for them to get out of there.  I'm talking about the lazy ass that you have to squeeze around, find your own spot a half mile away, walk past them on the way into the store, and even sometimes on the way back out.  Needless to say, this person could usually stand to burn the few extra calories.  Just sayin'.

3. Drives to the front of the traffic line and cuts in guy:  I realize that all of these have revolved around driving in some way, but this is a big one, and is one of the things that pisses me off the most while driving.  It's happened to everyone.  You see the sign, "right lane closed - 1 mile."  You find a spot, and get over.  Unfortunately, there are some times when this turns into a large backup, and you're sitting still, moving an inch every few minutes.  Then it happens.  Some selfish bastard who can't be bothered to sit in line like everyone else, flies past you to the front of the line, stops and puts on their blinker.  I don't know what upsets me more, the person doing the cutting, or the person that lets them in.  Every time someone at the front of the line lets one of these idiots in, it makes it that much more tempting for others to try the same maneuver.  Mostly I spend my time in line hoping that when I get to the front, I can deny someone entry.  I have a feeling that I've offended the most people with this one.  Lots of people violate this one.  Probably friends and family.  But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

4. Tax relief commercial couple:  You know the commercial.  Two good looking, middle aged folks with stupid grins on their faces like the cat that ate the canary.  "We owed $10,000 to the IRS, but Tax Reliefs R US got it reduced to $250!"  Awesome, great, fantastic.  I really hope it's not that easy and Tax Reliefs R US financially rapes those folks, I really do.  The message is just so ridiculous.  "IRS bad.  Don't worry about paying your taxes, come to us, we'll take care of it."  Here's an idea.....PAY YOUR DAMN TAXES.  Don't get on my TV and act like it's admirable trait to not pay your due.


5. Does all her banking at the ATM girl:  I ran into this one the other day.  Of course I was in a hurry and needed a little cash.  I pull into the ATM and there she is, receipts, envelopes, deposits, the whole bit.  Usually I'm in and out of the ATM in about 30 seconds.  It's not like it took her 20 minutes or anything, but come on, the bank was open.  Go in, talk to a teller.  ATM's are for getting cash, period.  I would never trust making deposits into the ATM, anyway.  I don't know why it was so frustrating, but I was sending her some serious mental wrath as she signed her checks, filled out envelopes, got her mini-statement, and everything else.  Two words..."fast cash."

That's it for volume 1.  5 people that piss me off.  Hopefully some of you thought "hell, yeah, that pisses me off too," or at least got a laugh out of it.

Quiet Time is a Man's Best Friend

Before you have kids, everyone tries to prepare you for what you're in for.  But, as anyone with children knows, you can never really understand all the tips and advice until the nurses hand you your child and makes you take it home.  All of a sudden parenthood becomes real and you begin to understand the advice...."never wake up the baby,"  "nap when the baby naps," "don't get dressed until right before you leave the house, unless you want to walk around with snot and spit-up on you all day."  All good advice, but there are a lot of things I didn't think about, deeper realizations that have come as epiphanies over the years.  Some of these realizations have been of a serious nature, like when I realized that no matter how old the kids get, I'll never stop worrying about them.  The older they get, the worries just get more variable, more numerous, and often more serious.  It seems like common sense, but it was definitely a "wow" moment when when I actually sat down and really thought about it.

Other realizations that I've experienced aren't that serious, make me chuckle, and are destined to become material for this blog.  One such realization occurred to me recently while I was in the bathroom. Don't worry, I won't go into a lot of detail, but I've always wondered why people (men especially) take reading material into the bathroom.  Honestly, do people really like hanging out in there longer than necessary?  I've never really understood......until one day the kids were going crazy, driving us nuts, and on impulse I grabbed a book and locked myself in the bathroom.  I stayed for a while.....and I liked it.  The epiphany came when I realized that, at this point in life, quiet time has become a rare and precious thing.  I tried to think of examples of other, normally common things, made rare and valuable by circumstance.  I thought about diamonds.  Strange?  Maybe, maybe not.  I remember learning in school that, although diamonds are the very expensive, they're actually pretty common.  Other gems like rubies, sapphires, and emeralds are much rarer, but diamonds have become the ultimate symbol of a rare and valuable gem, as well as the well-commercialized symbol of everlasting love.  Diamonds are a girl's best friend, right?  As I understand it, this is largely due to a diamond cartel who set regulations and prices and pretty much control the worlds diamond trade.  I know I'm oversimplifying things a lot, so save all the political-human rights atrocities-blood diamond explanations.  My point is, like diamonds, peace and quiet are normally common occurrences (often taken for granted), which have become rare and precious commodities in my house due to the actions of my two beautiful children (AKA the cartel).  So, I now have a much better understanding of how important a few minutes of pure peace and quiet can be (no matter where you have to go to find it).  I still have no idea why single people who live alone like to read in the bathroom, but whatever makes them happy, I guess.

Another thought......while I now understand how rare and precious my peace and quiet is.....I don't think I'll be able to get away with giving my wife quiet time for an anniversary present.   Still pretty sure she'd prefer the diamonds.

Ok, so that didn't go as well as I'd hoped

Since I can remember I've been a big fan of the game show Jeopardy.  In my opinion, it's the only game show worth watching.  No offense to those who like Price is Right, Wheel, Millionaire, or any of the others...they just don't do much for me.  I remember watching Jeopardy with my Dad back when Alex Trebek was still sporting the sweet stash.  Back then I was really happy when I got a question correct.

Over the years I've gotten a lot more educated and can answer a lot of the questions.  Sometimes I can get downright cocky about it.  So this past week I did something I've always wanted to do.....I took the Jeopardy online test.  Here's the bottom line.  50 questions, 15 seconds per question, no going back, no pausing.  Here's what I learned.  Holy crap, 15 seconds is a terribly short amount of time to read a question, process it, and type in the answer.  Needless to say, in that 15 minute test, I became much less cocky about my base of knowledge.  I'd say, on about half the questions I was completely clueless, like the kind of clueless where you can't even make a guess because you don't even know what the question is asking for (see Cliff Claven and "who are 3 people who have never been in my kitchen"). Out of the remaining questions, there were some that I was positive about, and a bunch that I couldn't get the correct answer in before my time ran out.  All this being said, despite the failure, I'll definitely do it again.  It takes 15 minutes, why not?

I've always had a suspicion that the categories on the show are selected somewhat randomly, but that there is some attempt to include categories that correspond to contestants' strengths.  Assuming this is true, and I could expect categories like Marine Biology, NFL Teams, 80's Movies, and Southern Food, I would be rockin' it like Ken Jennings (Google him if you don't know).  Unfortunately, it's much more likely that I'd be saddled with Ballet, 18th Century French Literature, Opera, and Icelandic History.  Point is, you're not likely to see me on Jeopardy, ever.  But I'm pretty good from my couch.  Plus, it's pretty fun to try something different, even if it's a longshot.  Good luck to all of you with your own personal longshots (whatever they happen to be) in 2012. 

2012...Let's Try This Again

Well, how to begin.  When last we spoke it was March and I was about 2/3 of my way through P90X.  Since then work and life caught up with me and a lot of things got shoved to the side, most notably the P90X and this blog.  I'd like to make more of an effort to get the blog going again.  As for the P90X, I still think it's a great program, I'm just not sure I have the time needed to fully dedicate myself to it.  I've been running with my wife and am really enjoying that.  That may be the extent of my work-outs for a while, but it's a good start, and gives us some much-needed time together.

As for the blog, I really want to rededicate myself to posting new stuff.  I've gained a lot of respect for those of you who find the time to write new blogs regularly.  I have a friend who is in seminary school, and has a wife and kids and still makes time to post new entries almost every week.  Until I started this I had no idea how hard that actually is.  Last year I tried to focus my posts on my P90X progress.  I guess it makes sense that when my work-outs fell off, so did the blog.  My hope is to start using the blog as a place to put all the random stuff that pops into my head from day to day, at work or at home with the family.  Narrowing the focus doesn't seem to be a great idea, so there's no telling what you're going to get (like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates).  I've got a few ideas, and hopefully I can get them posted sooner than later.

For those of you who have tuned back in to read this, thanks and welcome back.  My resolution for the year is to try to be better in 2012, both with this blog, and in life in general.  Stay tuned.

P90X Update - Day 59...I think

It's been quite a while since I updated the blog.  So much for updating each week.  I've gotten a couple of messages that have lead me to believe that there are at least a few folks out there interested in the blog.  Thanks for that.

This week marks week 10 of my voyage through P90X.  There have been some ups and downs.  I missed a whole week due to a chest cold, but picked up the following week and felt pretty good.  Along the way I think I've actually missed about 4 workouts (some nights there just isn't enough time).  I'm keeping track of these missed workouts and plan to just tack them on to the end of the program.  By way of update and review, I'm going to answer a couple of the questions that have been asked:

Question: Does it work?
Answer: This is the most frequently asked question.  The simple answer is yes.  To elaborate a little bit, I don't know if it works any better than if I was going to the gym 5 or 6 days a week, but that was kind of the point for me.  I knew that if I was going to get healthier, it would have to be something I could do at home.  Also, the variety of exercises and routines are far more well rounded than I would be getting on my own at a gym.  I definitely wouldn't be doing things like plyometrics, core synergistics, yoga, or intense ab workouts on my own.

Question:  Can you see your abs yet?  (yes someone asked me this question).
Answer:  Not yet, but I can tell they're there.  When I had that chest cold I had a coughing fit and I think I saw a stomach muscle or two.

Question:  What about travel?
Answer:  I haven't had to go out of town lately, but as long as you have a dvd player and some room, there's no reason you couldn't take it with you.  Weights (or chin-up bar) could be a problem, but half of the workouts don't require it, and if you have a resistance band, you can use that pretty effectively.  I have to go offshore for about a week next month.  My plan then will be to treat it like when I was sick.  Skip the week and just pick it up when I get home.

I'll be happy to answer any other specific questions that anyone has, but here's the bottom line.  As with anything else in life, you get out of it what you put into it.  I can't say that this is the best program out there.  I haven't tried them.  This is the one that I have, and it's working for me.  I would definitely recommend it, mostly because it's kind of like having a personal trainer at home.  The routines are all there and you don't have to figure it out on your own.  BUT, if you don't have the willpower to put in a dvd and press play every day (or almost every day) don't waste your money.  Of course the same thing goes for your gym membership, the mountain bike in the corner, the bowflex in your garage, and the treadmill that's become your favorite clothes hanger in your bedroom.

I haven't quite figured how I will handle things after day 90.  I think there are ways to alter and cut down the workouts to less intense, maintenance levels, but I'll jump off that bridge when I get to it.