A Cat Named Steve

Yup. I got up at the butt crack of dawn this morning to catch my flight from Cincinnati to Omaha with a connection at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. Of course, I get out of Cincinnati just fine & then get stranded in my connecting city…Unfortunately, this time I don’t think such a glorious ending awaits me.

On the bright side of things, I set both my phone alarm clock & regular alarm clock for the exact same time this morning (4:45 am!). I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my phone alarm tone is a minor 3rd of my regular alarm clock. I feel like a major 3rd would have been a happier tone to wake up to, but I’ll have to live with it.

I hate that airports charge for wifi.

I saw some pics of the oil spill yesterday. They were really sad. On the bright side of things, I just saw an interview with a shrimper in Louisiana who couldn’t operate his shrimp boat due to the oil, and he made a good point: Don’t boycott BP because they need to make money to spend money, and it would be a disaster if the government took over the cleanup. Then again, BP has been fined repeatedly for safety violations, and they treated those fines as merely a cost of doing business. How big of a mess is this whole situation? Literally & figuratively.

Welp, the flight’s been delayed again. This weather doesn’t look too good for flying

I might indulge in the morning airport beer…

Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal penned quite the interesting opinion column today…I wish I had more time to write about it, but it’s a good read in and of itself. You’ll have to just chew on it without my input (not that anything I would have to say would actually “add” anything).

Check it out.

Possibly the coolest video ever.

You can read more about it here.

I guess this guy didn't like the way he looked without a mustache...

I guess you could classify most Sundays as “recovery Sundays”, given the fact that after a long week of work & the usual full Saturday schedule, I need a day to catch up on sleep & act like the introvert I’m not. This Sunday is different – I really only worked a day and a half last week, but I’m still recovering from a sprained/strained back/butt & the hangage of last night.

This past week would be considered a rough week by just about any standards. It started with a 12-hour drive back from Nebraska, where I attended a wedding, and after I got home, I took a 3 hour nap and off I went to a graduation/Memorial day party. The party was a blast – softball, food & sand volleyball. The volleyball game was the straw that broke my back – I couldn’t even walk. After being bedridden for Tuesday, Wednesday, & half of Thursday, I woke up to go to work on Friday morning, only to find that my car had been broken into & a window broken. Last night was the culmination of the week when I DJ’d my buddy Matt’s wedding reception. I think the shining moment of the night was when I played 3 different songs in a span of about 15 seconds by accident. Professional.

As it turns out, 2 other cars on my street had been broken into, and some items stolen. Personally, I had about $4 in change & a Zippo lighter stolen from my car. The thieves left my stereo, a couple of checkbooks, & various other articles that you would have thought they would snatch up, but burglars are dumb nowadays. I would have given them $5 if they had just asked…eh, probably not.

Anyway, after all that it seems like I had a pretty crappy week, but I didn’t. I don’t know why, but I was able to just keep rollin’ along. That’s a good feeling.

This post from Art of Manliness makes a good point about vocations. Not necessarily in the Catholic sense of the word (ie Priesthood or religious life), but just in general. The fact that I can still smile after a week like the last one is a good indicator that I’m on the right track.

What a week.

Good afternoon fine sirs.

Coming to you straight from the discomfort of my own bed. The perfect weekend storm which included 24 hours of overnight driving, a wedding reception, overthrowing a baseball for an hour, playing softball for 2 hours, and sand volleyball for about 15 minutes. I think it was the jumping that did me in.

That perfect storm led to my current predicament, which is lying here in my bed, unable to sit upright for any length of time, ingesting multiple medications and icing down my back in between visits to the chiropractor. I severely sprained my back playing volleyball. It’s some of the worst pain you can imagine – maybe not the physical pain itself, but the torment of not being able to move at all. It’ll make you realize your helplessness pretty quickly.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful mother who has been taking care of me. She’s made me food, gotten my prescriptions, taken me to the doctor, helped me put on pants…you know, the whole 9 yards. Thanks Mom.

Anyway, it’s amazing what you take for granted. A healthy back is one of those things that is usually overlooked. Maybe I should thank my back more. Maybe if I give it more recognition it won’t make so much noise and threaten to unionize on me. It deserves a raise too.

All I mean to say is that you should think about your back more often. Maybe take it out for ice cream once in a while – you know, keep it happy. Because if your back ain’t happy, then you ain’t happy. Trust me.

These people are from Illinois. Case in point.

It’s like deja vu or a recurring nightmare. Illinois haunts my dreams like I ate an entire half gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream right before bed. I wet my pants too. Jake is pissed. Literally. haha.

Here we careen down the dumpy, pig-infested highways of the state that “boasts” Chicago and our president. I think this state seriously takes some sort of sadistic pride in their failures. Jake just took the wheel after 200 miles, and my favorite road trip partner is ready to rock and roll. Wilco on the stereo makes Illinois not seem so bad.

We’re jacked up about Omaha. It’s a rare occurrence for us to make the 12 hour trek from Cincinnati without a show to play, but there’s something about a holiday weekend that begs a road trip. We realize that our lives are much more exciting than your average working stiff; road trips, shows, collections of musical instruments that we can actually play, friends that live all over the world, and the fact that we are desired by women everywhere (I’m including myself with Jake on this one…)

Omaha should be a good time. Friends, wedding, road trip, relaxation, music, beer. All good things. I’m supposed to be live-tweeting this drive, but so far, it’s been uneventful and it’s hard to tweet while driving. Maybe I’ll make up for lost time by going crazy. Maybe I’ll go crazy trying to make up for lost time.

Have you made it this far? Congratulations! This may be the most boring blog I’ve posted in months. I’ve practically made a living by finding awesome stuff online & giving you links, therefore enriching your lives. I may have undone that enrichment, leaving your brain a sort of grayish brown color steeping in its own rotting brain juices. Kind of like the way you steep a tea bag in hot water right before you drink that delicious tea. Steep.

How long can I keep writing without posting a single link? I’m wondering that myself. Right now I’m up to 341 words. Let’s shoot for 600. Maybe I should take out all paragraph breaks and make this one big chunk of text.

My new name at work is “techie”, because I plugged in a fax machine today & checked for a dial tone. Seriously, no need to applaud – I can’t hear you over the internet. Just paypal me some money and that way I know you approve.

Back to road trips; there is something that I like to call the “Road Trip Uniform”. It consists of wearing a t-shirt, basketball shorts & flip flops – even in the winter. Otherwise you’re not hardcore. Because you’re not hardcore unless you live hardcore. I’m rockin’ the RTU right now, and I couldn’t be more comfortable. Let me just say that there are not many things in this world more uncomfortable to wear on a 12 hour road trip than stretchy skinny jeans with boxers. Everything gets all bunched up and wedged into places I didn’t even know I had. Measures had to be taken to ensure complete confidence & comfort in such situations, and thus was birthed the Road Trip Uniform.

Ok, now that I KNOW nobody’s reading, I’m gonna really take care of some business. DanB & BillE…What’s up with those guys?! I mean, I don’t think Dan’s posted a single thing since both of his hands got caught in the garbage disposal in his sink when he accidentally flipped the switch while trying to retrieve his pet octopus he forcefully stuffed it down there for fun on a whim. I can’t tell, but I think Bill’s been taking the longest poop ever. We may never know.

I’m up to 624 words. What now?! I’m feeling kind of tired, but hungry. Maybe I’ll just eat a little ice cream before I fall asleep. Illinoid. (Remember The Noid?!)

It’s an Omaha weekend!

This will only be my second time in Omaha, Nebraska without having to play a show. Both of the other times are for weddings, so I have to wear a suit. You win some, you lose some, I guess.

I don’t have much else to add to this day other than the fact that I’m pumped about a road trip & a 3 day weekend.

Enjoy this picture while I’m away. Maybe I’ll pull a midnight road blog out of my you-know-where…

Good evening peeps!

You got here just in time for my weekly bloggage. Coincidentally, so did I. We’re awesome together.

I think I could spend all day on the Huffington Post Website. This photo gallery had me lol’ing by myself. Speaking of the “solo lol” as I like to call it, isn’t it kind of weird? I mean, who laughs out lout at things when they’re alone? Personally, I think it’s a little creepy, but to each his own, I guess – I mean, I’m guilty of it too, but just weird.

So, I’ve been on a Craigslist kick lately, but also on a saving money/paying off debt kick too. The 2 concepts may seem to be conflicting at first, but I’ve discovered the art of trading. My first trade? My 24 year old guitar in just OK condition for one in nearly new condition. Straight up. I’m trying to gather everything in my house to trade it for cooler stuff. Like Bill.

So, I deleted my old Facebook account & started over. This article elaborates more eloquently than I could on a big reason why I did that.

Some dude made his resume on Google Maps. Something tells me this wouldn’t work very well if you have only lived in one or two different cities.

Speaking of lol’ing by myself, this does the trick every time.

So the Super Bowl will be in New York City in 2014. It’s always been in warm-weather climates or domed stadiums before, but this time it will be subjected to the wrath of Mother Nature. I’m excited at the possibility, some people aren’t so psyched.

Short post. The opportunity to fall asleep in the air conditioning with the fan on in my room is too tempting. Laters.

That right after I post a blog, I find the most amazing thing that I should have included…Enjoy.

I think this could be huge in the nursing-home activity coordinator market...