Mickey Hadick

As is often the case at the beginning of the year, I am confronted by my messy basement. I made an off-hand remark on Facebook about it, and it generated the most comments I have ever had about a simple status update. This confirms, anecdotally, what I have often encountered (also anecdotally) throughout my life, that the vast majority of people have a room in their house that is the dumping ground for all the miscellaneous things in their life that they can't otherwise organize, file, or place. It's part of the human condition. Maybe it's particular to modern America, especially among the middle and lower classes, but still, it's familiar to many of us.

I spent two hours in my basement to clear some space. Things were totally out of hand, so I stacked things. I concentrated many of the boxes in one corner, building my version of The Great Wall of Crap. It's totally oppressive and I don't like to think of how we'll ever deal with it. I just want it to go away.

These things have been lingering long enough that none of it matters to me anymore, and I'd rather give it away. Maybe someone else can benefit from the time, money, and effort we squandered in collecting those things. But we are a family, and it's not just my decision. It's times like this that I wish I was a little bit more like Dick Cheney, which is to say that I was a fascist dictator and that I would issue orders to clean the basement, and any resistance would be met with ruthless punishment. "No reality TV for you!" I'd scream. "That includes the new season of American Idol. Now go to your room, and do not interfere with my plans for decluttering the basement."

What saddens me is how cat hair and dust combine in the corners and crannies around the boxes so that, as they are moved and stacked, the dust bunnies literally explode around my feet. I spent an hour stacking and arranging, and then an hour sweeping and vacuuming.

Once done, I felt a brief moment of pride and relief. It was somewhat presentable. We had friends over to bring in the new year, and we played Table Tennis in the basement. The people had fun. They had fun in a space I had made for them to be welcoming. It makes me really want to clear out the junk, throw up some cheap paneling and decent shelves, and lay down carpeting. I'll get a foosball table, install a bathroom, and get a television.

The junk doesn't clutter only the basement, but also my mind. The junk messes with me so much that I actually admitted to wanting to be like Dick Cheney. If this continues, I'll begin to fantasize about Sarah Palin. Don't get me wrong: it wouldn't be a sexual fantasy; I would probably want to just go moose hunting with her, or take over the free world with a twisted view of religious fundamentalism. I don't want that to happen, so I'm really going to work on the basement this year.

Labels: mistake, personal growth

Our garage door has been a problem child for the past few years, moreso even than our problem children. In its defense, the garage door was abused as a child. It has been hit with the car several times. Also, it was born with a handicap: the builder of the house went cheapo on it, installing the weakest door possible, essentially depriving it of oxygen in the womb.

On the eve of Christmas Eve, it broke once more. A hockey stick fell and obstructed its path. A normal garage door would have simply stopped during its descent and reversed its course--a normal safety feature. Our garage door, however, couldn't take the stress and fell out of its track. It was like a teenager having a tantrum: loud, unexpected, and difficult to put back into its normal routine. What's different is that you can not walk away from the mess, lock the kitchen door, and decide to fix the problem the next day, which is what I did with the garage door. Had the garage door been an actual teenager, I would have screamed at it for an hour until one of us was reduced to tears; then, having forgotten how the problem started, I would have said, "Oh screw this; whatever," to claim the moral low-ground, and gone to my room to sulk.

In the morning I called the garage door guy listed in the Yellow Pages (come to think of it, I'm not sure it was the "Yellow Pages" but some other phone listing book that is dropped on our front steps twice a year, and I am so glad they quit competing for our attention with stupid commercials now that Google has claimed all the revenue anyway). He was an older gentleman with an Appalachian accent that, in his case, was quite charming. He said, "Yeh, I'll fix 'er," on the phone, and not much else, grunting in response to my explanation of where we lived.

It took him less than an hour to correct and repair what would have taken me a full day to accomplish, and I would have made the problem worse. His repair is still working smoothly a week later. He quoted me a price, but took a little less because I offered cash. That, to me, was just icing on the cake.

I will be replacing the garage door, per my new trusted, Appalachian accented advisor's opinion, as soon as possible. With teenagers, however, there is no replacement, and, really, no repair. They are not broken, only misunderstood; they are not stupid, just ignorant; they are not wrong, they are inexperienced. But oh what a bargain it would be if only eighty dollars cash could make them stay on track.

Labels: mistake, story

I gave a speech yesterday for Toastmasters. This was one of the few times that I prepared well in advance but, ironically, I did not pay close enough attention to the actual assignment. I have posted the text of the original speech in my articles. However, only those in attendance can know the actual speech delivered because I rewrote it in my head an hour before the meeting. Granted it's not like Kennedy's inaugural address; it's probably closer to Bush's "Hey, did you hear about the funny-looking potato?" speech.

The speech went well. It was heavy with photographs, more like a slide show with an accompanying monologue. I spent more time finding the correct photos than I did writing the speech. I can't include 99 percent of those photos because I borrowed them from the internet.

I actually do fairly well with extemporaneous speaking. The reason I joined Toastmasters was to get better at prepared speaking. What I've learned is to educate myself about a topic, come up with an opening and an ending, and then stand up and speak. That's what works for me with public speaking. In order to relax, I imagine that everyone in the audience is wearing funny-nose glasses; I used to picture them naked, but I've spent too much time in the men's locker room of the YMCA, and those images are too painful; they can keep their clothes on.

The speech was far more interesting when delivered live with the slide show than it is being read, but it ain't bad. I've definitely written worse, and you may have read it. Well, probably not.

Labels: mistake, personal growth

Two of the happiest people on earth at the moment have got to be Richard Heene, from "Balloon Boy" fame, and Jon Gosselin, formerly of "Jon and Kate, etc.", whose unseemly behavior had cast them, figuratively and literally, in unfavorable and unforgiving light. Their publicity aside, Richard seemed to be perpetually in need of a shave and a hair cut, and Jon seemed to only have his picture taken with special cameras that emphasize double chins and puffy eyes.

They can rest easy for the next few weeks thanks to Tiger Woods. It will be his strong face, winning smile, and sparkling eyes that are plastered on all the magazines at the grocery store checkout line, and Entertainment Tonight will open every episode with "...but first, the latest from the expanding saga of Tiger Woods sex secrets."

The cheap tabloids will likely pay extra bounty for pictures of Tiger taken mid-chew as he eats his lunch so that his face looks more like the normal silly-putty skinned monsters that the rest of us are, but don't want to be. That poor man would be well-advised to never scratch his nose in public again because some photographer will be there waiting at the precise angle that makes it look like he is picking rather than just scratching.

It's an old adage in modern America that when a high-profile celebrity does something embarrassing and stupid, they need only wait about a month before the next garbage scow of celebrity stupidity arrives in port to draw all the attention, and your own garbage scow can go quietly out to sea. None of what any of these poor bastards has done is all that bizarre; they are, in fact, very human. But they are doomed to ridicule for having been famous.

It's Tiger, of course, who will have the last laugh. His fame was based on real talent, and he has a clear path to redemption: zip up his pants and play golf. He'll get another wife if he wants, and he'll eventually be a billionaire if he isn't already. The other poor fools will be lucky to end up, like me, obscure and forgotten.

Labels: mistake, standup

Ten years ago, I made the mistake of buying a used, rear-projection television. It was forty-six inches from corner to corner, had a fuzzy picture, and was soiled and dirty from misuse. At some point in its life, judging from the crusty stains on the pressed wood cabinet, this television must have been owned by an unkempt consumer of pornography. Nevertheless, I welcomed it into my home.

The first challenge was bringing it home, and I borrowed a friend's pickup truck. I took great care in strapping it down. I have seen the remains of televisions, kitchen tables, and children's play structures along the median of highways, and I didn't want to have one of those stories to tell. But oh how lucky would I have been if all that I had to say about this big screen TV is that it fell and shattered somewhere along 127 South, and I raced away to avoid cleaning the mess.

The next challenge was carrying it over the threshold. I begged help from three of my neighbors, and it was like marrying the daughter of a Somoan king: carrying that bitch into the house nearly herniated all of us. And what is worse, I wanted that 500 pound monster in the basement.

I was certain that one of us would be killed during the descent. The drywall in the stairwell has the scars to prove that it happened, but I really don't know how we made it. Those stairs have two turns, and what I recall is that we were all struggling, breathing heavily, and sweating like pigs. One of my neighbors grabbed one of my breasts while adjusting his grip, and I swear his hand lingered just a moment longer than it should have, but I was too worried about dying to complain of being groped.

But once installed and powered up, the television actually worked. For three months, that is, it worked. Then sparks flew out of the control panel, it hissed and sizzled, and a small puff of smoke wafted forth. It was reminiscent of my career.

I paid a technician to attempt to repair it, but he could only suggest a $300 component without any guarantee of success, so I paid him the diagnosis fee and chased him away. The stupid television cost $50. In a sense, the fondling from my neighbor was worth that, so I just left the broken TV lie quiet and unused.

Ten years have passed, and hardly a day has passed that I didn't wonder what I was going to do with that thing. I suppose there are numerous alpaca farmers who hoped to cash in on the alleged craze for wool that have a similar problem as my own, but at least I haven't been feeding my television and cleaning up after it as it pooped in the basement; then again, they can always sleep with their alpaca to stay warm on cold nights.

Hearing me lament my fate, my brother suggested tearing it apart bit by bit, and I have finally started this new project. It reminds me of The Shawshank Redemption when the prisoner spends fifteen years tunneling out of his cell. It doesn't remind me of that because I'm going to be dragging the pieces out of the basement through my sewer line, but rather because I am disassembling it, and removing a single screw can takes several minutes. The pressed wood is glued together as well. And the projection component has shielding around it like the solid steel door you might have in solitary confinement. This Mitsubishi TV is built like an impregnable prison.

As God is my witness, I will tear it all down and escape my fate. And once I'm free, I'll move to Mexico and perhaps find a neighbor to fondle me once again.

Labels: mistake, story

My house is on a wooded lot. It was a mess of cherry, ash, maple, and thick underbrush. The only way to get through it was to crawl through the poison ivy. The neighbors from the adjoining subdivision had taken to dumping trash and dog poop in the low area at the back. It was so thick I would not have been surprised to find the remains of a Union soldier from the Civil War.

The landscaper during the building process recommended that we pay someone to clear the entire lot and choose trees that we wanted, and add the necessary twenty grand to our mortgage. "Trust me," he said. "You'll be happier." I laughed at the prospect, and thought that I could do the job myself in my spare time. Two young children pretty much take care of themselves, so I would have ample time. For the next ten years, I peeled away at the mess, and twice I paid an arborist to chop down dead and dangerous trees. The remaining trees were mostly cherry and ash. Cherry, it turns out, are more trouble than they are worth as they leave a mess of inedible fruit, and, once they grow tall, they are weak in the trunk and a threat to fall. After all my efforts, it is still an unsightly mess.

The emerald ash borer wreaked havoc on the ash. I called back the arborist to cut down 40 ash trees a couple of years ago. We piled the wood in three main "stacks" in the backyard. Now those unsightly piles are far worse: the wood is rotting, there is poison ivy flourishing at the edges, and it now seems like more wood than I can ever cut, split, and burn in my life. Somehow, I had convinced myself that we would have a fun campfire each and every weekend, and the family would sit and talk and share stories. We have had two, maybe three such campfires.

Our yard still has a couple of dozen trees. One in particular annoyed me. It was an apple tree that had grown up with its trunk wrapped around the other. Part of that apple tree also grew down to the ground. It wasn't a bad tree--not in my yard, where everything is a mess--but it simply annoyed me. So I cut it down.

A twenty-inch chain saw can be a frightening thing. I haven't cut down any significant trees, so the wedge and cut method meant nothing to me. Besides, this apple tree was wrapped around an ash, so it wasn't going to fall no matter how many times I yelled "timber."

I basically scared myself pretty thoroughly trying to fell it. It stood on a slight rise on soft ground, and I had to raise the chain saw up to eye level where I needed to cut it. It's a great shoulder workout that way, in the same sense that being chased by a mugger can be aerobic.

I needed an ax to finish the job, and as I swung, I kept thinking that it was even money that the trunk was going to crash down on me. I once played Babe the blue ox in Mrs. Perkins' fifth grade production of "Paul Bunyan". Working with Nick, our performance was well regarded. That's about as much woodsman training as I've had in my life. Handling the chainsaw and swinging an ax has been self taught since that time.

One final, mighty swing cut through the apple tree, and the weight of the tree drove the severed trunk several inches into the ground. It happened in the blink of an eye, before I could move a muscle. Now I know why lumberjacks have trouble securing workers compensation insurance. If gravity and the friction of the ash tree had so deigned, that apple tree could have broken my foot, shattered my leg, or crushed my chest. And it's the last of those options, crushing my chest, that would have hurt the least, because my heart would likely have stopped in just a few seconds.

I chopped up what remained of the apple tree, and added the wood to my unsightly wood piles. I split a few logs with the hope that I might, someday, have a campfire in the back yard.

Labels: mistake, story

This past weekend, I spent the better part of Sunday at a soccer field. Not just a soccer field, but a soccer complex with eight large fields. As part of a tournament, my son was sideline judge for six games. I drove him there before eight A.M.; instead of going home to just wait to come and get him again, I decided to stay.

The weather was beautiful. That was one of the attractions. I could either spend an extra hour in the car going back and forth, or sit in the sun and read magazines and books while drinking coffee in a comfortable chair as the cool breeze wafted over me. It had every opportunity to be a wonderful day except for one small thing I overlooked: Soccer Parents.

The tournament was for younger kids. I had forgotten the insanity that takes over the minds of parents as they cheer on their children. Their voices rise and fall with the bounce of the ball. When a goal is scored, half of the parents scream in delirium; the other half groan in agony.

Heaven forbid a boy is not paying attention. The parents exhort and cajole, encourage and chastise. In one game in particular, the parents of the team from Fowlerville were berserk. By my estimation, every single one of them was crazy. They screamed for the coach to bench their own children. They coached from the sidelines, moving players back and forth. They threatened their own children while on the field, during the play of the game, for not paying attention to the game.

I struck up a conversation with another dad who was waiting for the next game. We shared a glance as the shouting became frenzied amongst the parents when a goal was surrendered for no reason other than a child's lack of drive and initiative. He blurted out, "I'm an older Dad, so I cherish all these moments. But I try not to get too wrapped up in it."

I admitted that I had cheered mightily in the past, but I didn't remember ever cheering like this, yelling at the kids for not performing, or berating the referee. In fact, just a couple of days before, I stumbled on a team photo from one of my sons early teams. It was at least eight years old, and I had been the coach. At that time, urging six and seven year olds to play took quite a bit of effort from the parents. I was fairly certain that out of those twelve children on that team, only my son still played the game.

There's nothing wrong with kids trying out various activities until they find something they really, really like. To find passion in life is what gives life meaning. For so many parents, their children, and whatever the child happens to be doing, is the passion for the parents, and it's very easy to lose sight of an appropriate perspective to the situation. The child is competing against other children; if they are better than the others, there's hope that this might be a thing in which the child is gifted. Or the talent pool may be so shallow that, in fact, everybody stinks at it. You don't know that as a parent; you only see your child struggling, and your blood begins to boil.

I played hockey in my youth. I really, really loved it, and even dreamed of playing professionally. I got fairly good at it, but at the age of nineteen I quit and never played again. It has crossed my mind occasionally, and mostly out of curiosity, to play again; but what once seemed like everything in the world to me I lost.

Before that happened, however, my mother sat through numerous games, and I saw a side of her I had never, ever seen before. Hockey brings out the very worst in parents. They scream at the players, they scream at the referees, and they scream at each other. I would not be surprised to hear one day that the fans watching a hockey match became so enraged at each other that a hockey match broke out in the stands. My mother understood little of the game, but she understood that her son loved playing, and that other boys were trying to smash his skull out on the ice. I received stitches to the face (scary) and stitches to my inner thigh (very scary). I had the wind knocked out of me several times, and even had a stick broken over my helmet in anger. It seemed I might be severely hurt at any moment, but the most surprising thing was that my mother survived without having a nervous breakdown.

I'm not happy or proud that I lost hockey. It's a great game, and I would have done well to have made the effort to keep at it. Maybe it's not the game itself, but the exercise and the comradery I miss. I hope that my son, if he takes nothing else away from soccer, takes the feeling of team play with him, and continues that yearning desire throughout his life. We are mostly a social animal, and my life has not been social enough.

Back at the soccer field, the older dad took up a position on the sideline to watch his son play. I was still enjoying the sunshine and the cool breeze. I was also enjoying the sound of children at play, and their parents cheering the game. At one point, the older dad's son misplayed a ball, and the dad did not yell, but he did complain to the person sitting beside him.

The boy misplayed another, and the dad could not contain himself. He shouted to him without anger. A few minutes later, though, the older dad seemed on the verge of losing that control, and he walked away to watch the game from farther away, lying on a grassy hill, away from the chatter of the other parents. His son's team was out matched, and would suffer a 10-1 loss.

I am not holier than thou or thee. When my son was that age, I shouted, cajoled, and cheered. I struggled to contain my anger when his teams played poorly, and was giddy with delight when they won. I offered the older dad a knowing smile in the hopes that he and his son would both find the correct perspective for that game. It was, after all, only a game; and it was a beautiful day, regardless of the score.

Labels: memoir, mistake, personal growth, story

I have never had good luck playing practical jokes. They generally backfire, and I feel awful. I feel awful right now.

When I was four years old, my mother took me along shopping. I thought it was great sport to hide from her while she shopped. I would duck in and out of the clothes racks, crawling along as she moved through the ladies department. One day, I stayed out of contact too long, and I frightened myself. I burst out from under a rack and directly into the path of a middle-aged woman. She tripped and fell on me, and we both were banged up a little.

This particular day, my paternal grandmother was along. She was quite a feisty woman, in her mid-fifties, and she gave that poor woman a great deal of grief for having tripped over me. I felt quite bad, though, because it was totally my fault. I didn't tell that to grandma, but let her tear into this innocent woman instead.

Not long after that incident, I decided to hide from my mother. This was before I had started school, and so she was a stay-at-home-mom at that point. I hid in the living room underneath one of the end tables next to the sofa. I thought it was rather obvious, and that I'd be discovered shortly. I also thought it was funny that she enlisted my brothers and the ten or so other boys in the neighborhood to find me.

I had no idea how frightened she was for my sake, and that somehow she imagined me drowning in the creek that flowed through the park behind our house. When the search party didn't find me, she started to cry. I became scared. Now I was worried that she'd be mad at me for causing such a stir, and now I didn't want to reveal myself.

However, when my mother phoned the police, I could no longer contain my emotions, and I began to cry. I still did not crawl out from where I was, but instead sobbed and cried out for help like the pathetic, naughty boy that I was.

When I was twenty-five, I went to a restaurant with my father and mother. We had to wait for a table. While we waited, I noticed that someone got into a car exactly like my father's. It was parked just three spots from his car—same make, same model, same year, same color. I thought this was funny, but what I said to my father was: "Hey look, someone is stealing your car."

My father, being a former jet pilot, feared little. Even at the age of fifty, he was going to stop this crime. It took all my strength to restrain him, and I had to shout to get past his rage and make him understand that it was just a joke. He never laughed at that one.

Today I noticed that my next door neighbor had a new television in the back of his pickup truck. He had pulled up close to his house, but had not unloaded. I went in for a closer look and saw that he also had a new sound system to accompany the nice, fancy television. The door of his truck was open, so I knew he had just stepped inside before unloading. I thought it would be funny to hide the box with the sound system.

I placed the box on the side of his garage out of sight. I then sneaked back to my house and waited near the door for him to discover that it was missing, planning on sharing in a great laugh. However, my daughter needed me at that precise moment, and called me away. I then forgot about my little joke.

Poor Tom, unfortunately, thought that somehow the expensive component had bounced out of the truck, and raced off. I am lucky that his wife discovered the missing box a few moments later, and luckier still that Tom did not get hurt during that wild goose chase.

I should really just get myself a very comfortable chair, sit the hell down, and never get up.

Labels: memoir, mistake, story

This is the recipe for my grandmother's (Gizella's) torte cake, scaled down for eight inch pans...

Top and Bottom Layers

8 egg yolks
8 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
8 egg whites
4 Tbsp flour

Preheat oven to 375. Beat the egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla for 12 minutes (and we mean BEAT).

Fold the flour into the beaten egg yolks (slowly).

Beat the egg whites until fluffy. Fold the egg whites into the above mixture. When combined, pour evenly into two greased, eight inch pans. Bake for 25 minutes at 375.

Middle Layer

4 egg yolks
4 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 egg whites
1 Tbsp cocoa
4 Tbsp ground walnuts
2 Tbsp bread crumbs

Beat the egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla for 25 minutes. Fold in the cocoa.

Beat the egg whites and fold into above mixture. Add the walnuts and bread crumbs. Bake for 25 minutes at 375 in an eight inch, greased pan.

Filling

1/2 lb. sweet butter
2 cups ground walnuts
1/2 cup milk (scalded)
6 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 Tbsp bread crumbs

Beat the butter and sugar and vanilla. Pour the scalded milk over the walnuts and combine. Add sugar and bread crumbs.

Use the above mixture between the layers of the cake. Then frost with chocolate frosting.

This cake is very dense, and can be savored in small portions.

My grandmother, and then my mother, made this for family celebrations. It has been made with as many as 42 eggs, and can be used to feed an army. In fact, if Kaiser Wilhelm had enlisted the Imperial Chef of the Hapsburgs, and served Viennese Torte cakes to the Wermacht, they would have marched through Moscow before winter set in, and the world would be a very different place. Instead of Little Debbie Devil's Food Cakes, we'd all snack on "Kaiser Willie Tortes". But what do I know? It's not like I'm happy or anything.

One additional note is that I have no idea how they made this before the age of electric appliances. The above can take three hours, and tears apart the kitchen. How Gizella did it with just a wooden spoon is beyond me.

Labels: memoir, mistake

I tried to make a 21 egg torte cake, but used the wrong size ns and they didn't bake through. The lesson: follow the directions even if the recipe is vague.

Labels: mistake

I can post from my cell phone now, but this raises the spectre of having something to say at any point in time. I am into bathroom humor. I need new material.

Labels: mistake

The urinal is out of order.
Sorry for the inconvenience. That was what the sign in the pro shop men's room stated. It's just that I was in pain. Sad bladder :(

Labels: mistake

I was in a colleague's office and saw two things that gave me reason to pause and think. The first was a sign on his credenza that read "You probably wanted to do something cool with your life, but you never got that job." The sign made me sad, well not sad as much as distressed, so that during the meeting I kept staring at it and reading the words.

I asked him about it, and he laughed. This is a fellow of very good humor that always seems happy and quick to smile. He said, "That about sums up my life. Now I work in insurance."

The phrase was uttered by his son when discussing career choices at a school function. He seemed to have come to terms with his fate. I have not done so, yet. I'd like to think there is a cool job out there for me. But how to find it?

I should first consider why I haven't found it by now, because I'm certainly doing something wrong. When I was about to graduate from high school, I wanted to be a writer, or to work in television, or to be an actor, but mostly to be a writer. I think I've always enjoyed the way my brain feels when I think about words, and stringing them together to tell stories.

My father used all of his persuasion to convince me to get a degree in engineering, reasoning that it'd be nice to have a job while I learned to write, and that writing was something that I could always do, but which was hard to use as a source of income. Most of that is correct, in that I have always turned to writing in some form, resulting in these blog entries right here.

I like to imagine myself making a living as a writer, but that is quite a long shot. Still, the ultimate for me would be to rise early and exhaust my thoughts working on stories of some kind. Then spend a few hours on the business of writing. Finally, I'd spend the afternoon boating, swimming, or otherwise playing with family around the house. The evening would be spent in quiet repose, again with the family, discussing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I would drink coffee all day and wine at night.

It was the other thing I saw in his office that makes me wonder. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

Labels: mistake, personal growth

I once went fishing with my father. He wanted to put in at the Portage river, which is west of Sandusky, and try for walleye. It was to be a special day in that he was taking a day off of work, and pulling me out of high school, for the day. It was a bright, warm, spring day.

He was up before dawn to load the boat. I was being lazy, but no more lazy than usual, and didn't do much to help him. But, then, what was I going to do but stand around. He knew where he kept everything, and he knew where he wanted everything, and he only trusted himself to stow items properly in an open boat to be dragged along the highway behind his van.

He was a little upset with himself because we got a late start, but it was before six A.M. so I thought it was fine; he, however, was concerned with the feeding cycles of walleye, and the time it would take to get to the river (90 minutes?) and the extra time required to get to where he wanted to fish.

We drove west, and so dawn broke behind us. I don't remember much of that part of the drive. Being men, we wouldn't have chatted just for the sake of chatting, and my father was stoic with us anyway, and so we were both left to our own fantasies.

If I remember anything of how my thoughts ran at that time, I would have vacillated between doing something heroic to impress the girls I knew (this thought would have been truly sophomoric, but bordering on infantile, like a bad guy comes and threatens one of the girls upon whom I had a crush, and I thwart the bad guy, and then the girl and I reveal our mutual lust for each other) and doing something blatantly lustful, bypassing the need to impress the girl, and going straight for the fun part simply for the sake of fun. Yes, I am pretty sure I had nothing interesting to tell my father at that time.

He could have been worried about several things at that time. My oldest brother was in college. There would have been worries about his success there, the cost of college, and his choice of major. My other brother would soon go to college, and he didn't communicate very well with my father then, so that must have been on his mind at least a little. My father also was very dedicated to his job, and probably was thinking of about one of the many projects he had going. I'm not exactly sure what my father thought about my mother and their marriage; they were probably typical of the era, but they didn't do very many things together like play tennis or go for long, romantic walks; so maybe that worried him, but maybe it didn't.

My father probably didn't know at all what to make of me. I got good grades, but I wasn't as athletic as he probably hoped I'd be; and I was the baby, and treated like a baby, in the family, and was too quick to cry as a child, so maybe he was worried about what sort of man I'd turn out to be.

Maybe he was just worried about the fishing, and the bait, and the lures. At that time, walleye were active in Lake Erie near the Davis Besse nuclear power plant. They would move in and out of the Portage river, and would also feed in the warm waters that discharged from the cooling tower into the lake. Walleye, I've been told, like to feed where they can see, so they prefer gravel bottom waters unsullied by weed and silt and muck; there were geological features in that part of Erie that attracted them.

We passed Sandusky without incident, and crossed the Thomas Edison bridge which spans the Sandusky Bay where it joins Lake Erie. Now we were on the small peninsula that is home to Marblehead and Port Clinton. Just north of us, out on the lake, are Kelly's Island, and the Bass Islands, home of Put-In-Bay. Just west of Port Clinton is the Portage river. (You can see it all here.)

I believe his thoughts probably turned to the specifics of lures and bait. The rage then was to use a variation of the silver spinner called the "Erie Dearie". It came in a variety of colors and sizes. My father's trusted technique was to put a night crawler on the treble hook, but minnows were also a consideration. His long time, personal obsession, however was with Rapala, and he had a large collection. (Rapala are lures shaped like small Norther Pikes, and have hooks along their abdomen.) They were out of fashion here, though, in this part of Lake Erie, and any fisherman worth his two-cycle oil would tell you the same.

My father suddenly let loose an agonized groan. "Did you put the fishing rods in the boat?" he asked. I hadn't. I hadn't done a damn thing. He let loose a series of expletives, certain that he had forgotten. We exited the highway, and pulled into a parking lot in Port Clinton, and he ran to the boat, and confirmed what he knew in his heart to be true: he had forgotten the fishing rods.

The sun had arisen already, and some of the best time had already been squandered. Driving home for the equipment would take far too long. The only hope was that my uncles, his two brothers-in-law, had cottages on the Sandusky Bay just a few minutes from here, and maybe they had equipment, and maybe he could get into those cottages. It was something to try.

He walked around the cottages, probing for an entry point, but they were all locked up. He couldn't even be certain what equipment was there, if any, and what quality it might be, and, more important than anything, what sort of tackle would be available. So he ruled out breaking a window because the payoff was unknown.

Stores would not open for over an hour. Once they did, he would be faced with the dilemma of purchasing equipment he already had, and so he'd want only the cheapest items available, and would be second-guessing himself the entire time as to the quality of the equipment. He was completely crippled by this. We sat in the car and waited.

We waited until the stores opened, and then he did go shopping. This was before the era of WalMart, but there was a small department store there, near the highway entrance. He said that if there was a good sale on decent equipment, we'd buy it and still go fishing. Alas, there was no such sale.

There were sandwiches and drinks in the cooler, and I remember eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the drive home, and washing it down with a Coke.

It was a nice day, and the van got warm on the drive home. It would have been a hot day on the water. If we found fish, my father would have been delighted, and it could have been a great day. It's been said that a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work; but you have to actually fish to feel that way. It was not a good day for my father.

Labels: memoir, mistake

In all those early years of boating with my father, we never had fun with the boats, other than fishing. Fishing is fun for some, but it's boring and smelly and boring for others. Ultimately it's disappointing, too, because you rarely get all the fish you wanted to catch. The boats were a vehicle to transport us to fishing spots.

My father did, however, have a brief flirtation with boats that was strictly for pleasure. Shortly after he bought the cottage on the shores of Sandusky Bay, near Port Clinton, Ohio, he bought a Snark--pardon me, a Sea Snark--which is a small sail boat made out of the same polystyrene used to make coolers. It weighed 30 lbs., offered 45 sq. ft. of sail, and seated one uncomfortably (total capacity of 315 lbs.). It was 11 feet long, and had a 12 inch depth at center, and a 38 inch beam. It cost $299, on sale. I know the details because the Sears catalog entry for it is taped to the desk that my father used at the time he bought it, and I now use that desk.

It was actually a fun little boat. It was propelled by just the slightest whisper of a breeze, which, in fact, was the ideal condition. Being so light, it always seemed on the verge of capsizing, so we preferred quiet, calm times on the bay. The catalog picture shows a grown man sitting upright under full sail, but we could never achieve the dexterity for sitting; instead, we lay back flat and propped our heads with an orange life preserver in order to see.

This was just an appetizer for my father. After his retirement, he and my mother wintered in Tarpon Springs, Florida at a campground with access to a lake (Lake Tarpon?). There was a sailing club there and, sure as shit, Alfred bought a small sailboat. He dragged it to the lake nearly every day for a while, and gained a modicum of mastery over the techniques required. There were weekly races at the lake, and he entered once, failing to win, but satisfied that he completed the course.

Naturally, he was smitten by the idea of sailing. He owned a cottage on a bay and he was retired--it seemed to be a great idea. So he bought a second sail boat and towed it north with him in the spring. (He thought that would be simpler than dragging one boat back and forth across America.) But things did not go as he hoped.

There were a few minor mechanical problems with that boat--that was why he got it so cheaply. However, fixing those problems became just another item on his to-do list, and the to-do list grew long quickly. He had his main residence to care for, the cottage, his big fishing boat that needed attention, and the collection of smaller boats and outboard motors. The cottage was (and still is) susceptible to flooding, so periodically he spent the better part of a Saturday mopping and disinfecting.

That small sailboat has never gotten wet north of the Mason-Dixon line. It sits, to this day, in the garage, piled with the flotsam and jetsam from other projects.

My brothers and I bring up the question of what to do with the sailboat periodically. I like the idea of using it, as those brief moments on the Snark were peaceful and enjoyable. I am tempted by the allure of being out on a body of water, feeling like I am a part of nature. To sit out on open water, comfortably, confident of your ability to return to dry land, offers a form of solitude that is only equaled (I'm guessing) by ballooning or soaring. I think even boating with companions you get a shared sense of solitude (don't laugh, it's real) for all those on board.

Alas, the small sailboat still sits. We have inherited from our father a particularly pragmatic outlook on life that, I am coming to understand, inhibits certain forms of joy. We rarely did things just for the sake of having fun. The sports we played were turned into exercises to improve ourselves. The camping and fishing trips had their moments, but there was a discipline imposed to ensure duties and chores were performed. I don't think I ever really learned how to have fun, and now I'm afraid to allow myself to have fun like that. It seems foreign to me.

All of that is frustrated by the responsibilities of life. Debts pile up, careers seem questionable, and so it becomes more difficult to allow oneself to just have fun. I stare at the catalog picture of the healthy man sitting in the Snark on a pleasant body of water, seemingly enjoying himself, and wonder, "How did he learn to do that?"

I think I'd be a good candidate for having fun. I should put on my to-do list, "Learn to Have Fun"; I should put it right after "Stop Living Vicariously."

Maybe I'll drop that sailboat in the water this summer and see what happens. Maybe, if I don't drown, I'll learn something and have fun while I do it.

Labels: memoir, mistake

Cabbage rolls are an ethnic dish. Very ethnic. Just the name evokes numerous cliches, and even sounds funny because of the "k" sound (which, according to Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys, all funny words contain). To smell them is to know, immediately, what the word ethnic really means.

My mother used to make them, and we loved to eat them. A cabbage roll, if you're not familiar, is ground beef, ground pork, and rice mixed together, spiced up a bit, balled, and rolled inside a leaf of cabbage. Dozens of these are stacked up in a roaster, and then more cabbage and tomato juice is piled on top. These are cooked together, and the result is both an olfactory and culinary delight.

I've started making them myself. I'm shocked how easy it is to make a small batch--about 40 minutes of preparation, including the clean up. The crock pot has been going all night, and the house reeks.

Tomorrow I'll tell the story of how cabbage rolls damn near killed my father, and started a war.

Labels: mistake

I'm sure I'll have an interesting blog entry about this subject in the future, but, for now, just know that my son is trying to sell his Wii, and it may not go very well. I'd hoped to keep it in the family, but the forces of nature are not cooperating.

I have it gathered together, ready to pack and send. but the price better be right.

Labels: administrative, mistake

My neighbor made a mistake the other day, and I was happy to help the fix the problem. They went away on a Saturday morning with the intention of not returning until late Sunday. Their mistake was in forgetting about their dog, who was left alone in the house. When they called, I was happy to help.

I stopped by in the evening on Saturday night and again around midnight. In the morning, I returned. Each time the dog was thrilled to see me, wanted to play, but spent only a the minimal amount of time necessary to pee outside. Somehow, I thought the dog knew what he was doing.

I meant to return around 1 PM, but, feeling sick, had lain down for a moment and fell asleep. This almost made me late for my daughter's choir recital, so I did not have time to let Tucker, the dog, out until after the recital.

I returned around 4 PM, and discovered that the dog had pooped all over the front entranceway of the house. There was a massive pile right by the door, and then splatterings along the hall right into the kitchen. It took me half an hour to clean the mess, and it stunk to the high heavans while I did so.

Still, I felt good about the situation. I had mostly helped my neighbor, and hadn't stepped in the mess. I returned home disgusted, but somewhat satisfied.

My own two dogs were thrilled to see me. On my second step inside, however, the floor gave way. I looked down to discover that I had stepped in a pile of my dog's mess. A few inches from that was a pile of vomit, to go along with it. I'd like to think I could learn from my mistakes, but I think I was just snake-bit on this one.

Labels: mistake

I am staging my return to blogging with a presentation of old Xmas letters. Back in 1996, we sent these short missives out with the Christmas cards, and I tried to be funny. Now, re-reading them, they are painfully moronic. My sign off messages are particularly sad. I think the author was an idiot.

Still, they were very popular with friends and family, and so I was encouraged to continue. I still write them, and will post them all for posterity sake. Perhaps some young family will read them some day and decide not to write any such Xmas letter of their own.

My style has changed over the years, and, once I have them all online, a careful reader may detect a particularly bad year. It was something of a bellwether for the writing.

Xmas Letters Part 1: The Idiot Years.

Labels: memoir, mistake

Yesterday, while working in the yard, I had an incident that demonstrates my own fault and folly with immaturity, and my relationship with my wife. She had done some pruning in one of her gardens, and loaded the refuse into a laundry basket. The laundry basket, overflowing with dead vegetation, was left at the side of the garage, presumably for someone other than herself to take it to our mulch pile in the backyard.

I could have been the person to do that, for I walked past that laundry basket everyday for a month making the exact route prescribed, from the garage to the backyard. It would have only taken a moment of thought to complete the transaction. But I have a fault in that I don't like cleaning up messes created by someone else. It's childish, I realize, but it's no sillier than other childish belief systems, such as the Unitarianism, Dewey Decimal, or Social Security.

I finally broke down yesterday and decided to take the laundry basket to the mulch pile. Of course, the laundry basket is a story in itself because it had fallen into disuse, I threw it away, and my wife retrieved it out of the trash. So I had plenty of resentment against this laundry basket before we even started.

On one of my many trips around the house while raking leaves, I bent over and grabbed the laundry basket. I noticed a foul, fetid odor. It reminded me of the mice nests whose stench I often find in our shed, so I held the basket away from me with some trepidation that a mouse (EEK!) might still be nested within. I felt something wet on my pants leg, and heard water pouring. At least I thought it was water, and in my mind imagined that basket sitting through rain storms and water gathering in the bottom. All that changed in an instant.

The foul, fetid stench gained strength. I looked at the water spilling from the basket in my hands, and noticed it was not clear like rain water, but tinged with yellow. The dogs had been urinating on the basket for weeks, and their pungent pee had been gathered there, and was now soaked into my pants and shoes.

When my anger subsided and the chore was done, I went inside the house. My daughter reeled at the smell. It turns out that massive amounts of dog urine is an effective family repellent.

Labels: mistake, standup, story

My father bought one brand new vehicle during my childhood. It was a 1976 Ford Econoline van burnt orange, and void of any accessories or options. It was bare metal inside, and came with the absolute minimum of two seats. His dream was to customize that van for a trip we took as a family to Yellowstone National Park. This was the age of customized vans. He was not attempting to put wall to wall shag carpeting and a water bed in the back so that he could score some serious tail (as far as I know); he was trying to make more of a recreational vehicle that would sleep a family of five.

My father was an engineer, designed things, and took the van customization very seriously. He spent weeks sketching out his ideas, to scale, on graph paper. His optimal design called for a bed across the back that could be expanded, two captians chairs in front, and a bench along one side that would convert to a mini-kitchen. There were storage cubbies everywhere. He also planned to install an AM/FM stereo with eight track tape deck and six speakers and a citizen's band radio.

Dad was also a bit paranoid--perhaps rightfully so given his upbringing--so the very first thing he installed was a kill switch disguised as a headphone jack. I suppose there were people that would steal an unfinished, oddly colored van. The next thing he did was have Sears install an after market cruise control. The switch was attached to the turn signal, as they are today, but this one stuck out like a sore thumb, and had wires hanging from it. It was novel and cool to me, though.

The deadline for the trip approached far too quickly, and the only customizations my father accomplished was the wooden frame for the bed, the captains chairs up front, and the new stereo. I think that is how much of life goes, with grand plans going wildly astray, and coming up short. But we took the trip, and rode in that van.

Mom and Dad sat up front, and my brothers and I either shared the bed in back, or sat on a lawn chair resting in the middle. I don't believe there was anything like a seat belt in that van. It was bare metal, unfinished lumber, and us. If there had been an accident, my brothers and I would have been thrown forward in free fall, waving our arms as we screamed in terror before splattering our brains on the dashboard. Those were the good old days for travel on our nation's highways.

During that first trip, we broke down in Omaha, Nebraska, and the transmission had to be repaired, and we all learned to hate Omaha. Our intention was to sleep in a tent in Yellowstone, but often, because of bear warnings, we had to pile into the van, and there we shivered in cold, uncomfortable, cramped quarters.

All of this is leading up to my very worst memory of that van. A few years later, I was riding with him in the van on a hot summer day. I was sixteen or seventeen at the time, and, for whatever reason, I didn't really want to be there with him, in that van, doing whatever we were doing. I was sitting on the cooler in back (we came to keep a Coleman cooler in the van for extra seating) when the van overheated and my Dad pulled it over.

He popped the hood and steam was escaping from the radiator cap. He decided to allow that pressure to escape, and he loosened the cap. It exploded in a burst of steam, scalding his face, eyes, hands, and arms. He backed away in pain, groaning and waving about anxiously.

I was bored by the whole episode, and I had already planted my ass in the lawn chair in the shade nearby to watch the proceedings. I could see he was in pain, but being a selfish, stupid teenager, I did nothing and hardly cared. Dad stood for a confused moment, not sure what he should do to help himself, and looked at me.

I said, "There's some ice in the cooler if you want it." But I didn't get up to help him, or ask about his injuries, or much of anything. As I said, I was a stupid, selfish teenager.

My son is fourteen now. I think I'm due to get a taste of my own medicine.

Labels: memoir, mistake, story

I have never been a big fan of shaving, but I do like the feeling of smooth skin that results from it, so I take care to do it properly. But the act of shaving also exposes some of my fits and follies, and a secret affectation.

My mother told stories of how her father shaved, which was with a straight razor he sharpened with a strop. The shaving stories were always an off-shoot of a discipline story, in that he used the strop to beat the children when they were naughty. A strop, if you don't know it, is a huge leather belt used to sharpen a straight razor by repeatedly stroking it with the razor. It's also useful for beating the hell out of someone naughty, or so I'm told. I had this image of a cranky Eastern European guy, in his tank-top T-shirt, working that razor with his face lathered up. From early on, I fantasized about shaving that way.

I am something of a romantic about literary things, and, like so many people, I really fell in love with The Catcher in the Rye when I read it back in high school. That Salinger guy is a heckuva a writer. I mean I read quite a bit, and that guy is really goddam great writer. He knocked my socks off, if you know what I mean. He talks a little bit about shaving in that, but mostly it lead me to read Franny and Zooey, also by Salinger. In that book, there is a lengthy scene about shaving that I fell in love with. Lane spends, like, a lifetime in his bathroom, taking a bath, reading a letter, and shaving. He shaves three times, I swear to God he does, but it was how he shaved that killed me. He squeezed shaving cream out of a tube onto a brush, and then applied it to his face. That killed me. I swear to God, if you ever read about someone shaving with a tube, a brush, and an injection razor system, it'll goddam near kill you.

So I bought myself a shaving brush the first chance I got. I even bought a travel version so I could take it with me. For whatever reason, call it lack of faith or even plain old stupidity, I stopped using it. Biggest mistake of my life (well, one of the biggest). For the twenty years since, I have been thrashing about trying to find the combination of shaving cream and razor that gives me what I want. I was unhappy for a very long time, but now, I believe I'm happy at last.

My father used electric razors. I have tried those a few times, but never liked how it felt afterwards. There is a downy softness to my skin, and that never excited me. Applying lotion afterwards helped a little. Still, it wasn't right for me.

I whored around a bit with cheap Bic disposables. They were effective, but I cared so little for them that I stopped caring about the quality of the shave. It began to eat away at my soul.

When the Gillette Mach 2 razor came out, I was skeptical. I sneered at those who would spend more than a quarter on a razor. I used mine for upwards of two weeks, spending about nine dollars per year on razors, and two cans of Colgate cream. How big of an idiot was I to spend a grand total of $12 a year on my face?

The sneaky bastards sent me a complimentary Mach 2 razor in the mail. I tried it and loved it. It was like discovering the funniest TV show ever, but in syndication, which means you get to watch it everyday, over and over again.

I have upgraded the razors as they have introduced new models, and each time I have been amazed by how it really does feel better. After ten years, how can this love of mine keep surprising me? I don't know, but it makes me love it that much more.

The one problem is that the tightly set razors often get clocked with the whiskers and shaving cream. Not only does it look messy, but it degrades the shave. So I spend a lot of time rinsing. It annoys me, but, like loving a great woman, you have to take the bad with the good. I have tried many different creams. Noxema is the worst: it seems to bind like super-glue between the blades. Gillette is a little better, but builds up and won't rinse off. Colgate, the cheapest stuff on the shelf, is probably the best for not sticking to the razor, but I don't like the feel of it.

On a nostalgic whim, I bought a soap cake and brush kit. I immediately loved the result. It was fun as hell applying the shaving cream with the brush, and I can control the density of the foam by adjusting the water I use. It rinses clean from the razor, and I get the satisfaction of recapturing a small part of americana every morning. My smooth cheeks remind me of it in the morning, and in the evening I begin to look forward to my next shave when my stubble starts to come in.

Labels: memoir, mistake, personal growth

I went shopping the other night at Kroger's. Ostensibly, it was just for a few things: Bananas, Bagels, and Milk. The banana display stand was almost empty. Just a few scattered bunches, many spotted brown, and with three or four bananas in each bunch. They were picked over.

I once was at a training class (for OnBase, the document management solution, of all things) and sat next to a guy from Costa Rica who worked for Chiqita in Cincinnati, Ohio. He explained that Americans prefer buying nearly green bananas, and only like to eat them when they are a golden-yellow color, and unblemished to boot. We are picky and lousy customers. Europeans, being smarter(?) know that the brown spotted bananas are ripe and flavorful.

I happen to like the brown ones, a lot, but the rest of the family likes them ala American, golden-yellow. To serve them when they are that color, you pretty much have to buy them green yellow, and hope for the best.

An interesting thing happened, though, at that banana display. There was one other woman looking over the meager selection, and we began to compete for the bananas. She took a bunch with three green and one yellow, so I grabbed a bunch. She took another, so I did too. There were only a few bunches remaining—brown spotted, the way I like them—and she dared to take one of those. So I took two bunches of brown spotted. These bananas, by the way, were huge, like they were straight out of a South East Asian porno movie. Eventually she backed down, and left the display, but we had nearly picked it clean.

I think I broke my own record for most bananas, and I've been eating four huge ones a day ever since. If it's possible to overdose on banana-supplied potassium, I'm on my way.

Labels: mistake, story

I have just added a new article: Me TV. It's a memoir-ish account of the television shows I watched in my youth, and is really a testament to the great wasteland that is my mind. If I had spent half the time I spent watching TV just walking around, I might have never had a weight problem.

One little tidbit I left out is that during some of the family TV time, my father and I would watch The Rockford Files, which is an hour-long show. He'd stop at Uncle Bill's on his way home (Uncle Bill's was a bottom-feeding discount store, back before there were stores such as "Big Lots") and pick up a half gallon of Whoppers, those delicious malted milk balls. We would plow through the entire carton during the show, after dinner. It seemed a little bit like dessert, but was not a great thing for me to do.

So I've had this weird relationship with food and television all of my life. I've loved both of them far too much, and for the wrong reasons, and without any conscious thought as to whether or not it helped me, made me stronger, smarter, or faster in any way. I just liked those things, enjoyed them, and squandered the better part of my life away because of it.

Granted, it wasn't as bad as alcoholism, or drug addiction, or gambling away all my possessions. Instead it was a slow decline into obesity, and time wasted that I could have been learning something, building a business, or improving the world. I wonder if I can do any of those good things now, ever.

That seems to be behind me now. I just don't have as much time to watch television anymore, in spite of how much I love it. About half the time that I do, I do so on a treadmill exercising as I go.

To be honest, though, I would like to just sit some time and plow through a carton of chocolate covered malt balls.

Labels: memoir, mistake, personal growth, toastmaster

I have a problem sleeping sometimes, usually because I've had coffee late in the evening. There is no small irony in that, after a certain point, coffee does nothing to keep me awake. I turn into a zombie, but not a flesh-eating, undead zombie; I'm more of the kind of zombie with a nervous twitch, clammy, itching skin, and a swollen bladder. I stagger around the kitchen trying to find some morsel of food that will help keep me awake, but I know sugar will be just a nail in my coffin, and almost everything in an American pantry turns into sugar.

Once I concede the point and admit that I can not stay awake any longer, my caffeine-induced irregular heart beat returns to normal as my stress about staying awake can finally be released. I fall asleep quickly in this state, and why shouldn't I? I am exhausted to the point of collapse, and frequently doze off in my chair before finally giving up and going to bed.

I had a sleep disorder briefly, back when I was in the fourth grade. I found fourth grade very stressful, and would worry about the intrigue and politics in the classroom. I didn't have a good friend in the classroom, and so I was perpetualy on the outs of the dominant social circles. The one friend I had, Nick D., constantly fought with me, tried to make me his bitch, and was somewhat obsessed about sex. When we sat next to each other, he would share his drawings of the sex acts he wanted to perform on various girls. It was, for me, rather uncomfortable.

That was when sex was explained to me in the form of a story told about someone's cousin who had performed the act. Oddly enough, it was told at lunch. The perfect place for such stories is at a bar while drinking, but we were too young for that.

My fourth grade teacher, Miss Carson, was also drop-dead gorgeous. I don't know when it's normal to have a crush on your teacher, but in the era of mini-skirts, it became normal for me. I never asked the other boys if they felt the same way, as I never asked any follow-up questions regarding the cousin who was putting out, because I was shy about such things. So internalizing such intense thoughts was no-doubt a large part of my trouble sleeping.

In fourth grade, I was also susceptible to panic about my future, and I thought not getting enough sleep would cause me great harm, jeopardize my future, cause me never to be worthy of a smoking hot woman like Miss Carson. The panic fed off itself, often driving me to tears. Of course, it just meant that instead of falling asleep at 9:30 p.m., I fell asleep at 11 p.m. Still this caused me panic.

In college, I went for long stretches an five or fewer hours of sleep. I was studying Computer Science at a time when you needed to use punch cards to enter your program, and it was just slower to get anything done. I also wore it as a badge of courage to have stayed up late, later than my friends studying Economics and German, and so that also fed off of itself, encouraging me to stay up late instead of learning better habits and getting my work done at appropriate times. The other Computer Science students behaved similarly, and we fed off of each other, nodding with respect as we passed each other in the North University Building Substation at three in the morning.

It no longer bothers me to miss sleep. I have learned that I can easily function on three or four hours sleep for a day, and so there is annoyance, but no panic in being awake at odd hours. So let me elaborate on the annoyance.

In many cases, I'm annoyed with myself for having drunk coffee so late, making me susceptible to waking up again when disturbed. But I'm also annoyed at the disturber. First and foremost among these are the dogs. They will bother us to be let out, or if they're hungry, and I may not be able to get back asleep.

For years, the children were disturbers, and my son woke me nightly for a variety of reasons until he was eleven. These were bothersome, but I blamed myself for not having taught him to self-soothe and put himself back to sleep. (I blame myself for a lot of things.)

There is also my wife. We have gotten ourselves on different schedules, so she will often come to bed after I've fallen asleep. Her normal routine, washing her face, brushing teeth, and changing into pajamas, is occasionally accompanied by questions such as: "Are you asleep?" and "Did I tell you what the cat did today?" If I mutter a reply in my slumber, this may start a conversation, and that may awaken me. She will then fall asleep, and I will be up until 3 a.m.

But now I don't panic, and I work on one of my various side projects -- web site development or blogging -- and count it as simply a time bonus. We lead busy lives, and those late nights are some of the few scant hours I can call my own. If it wouldn't hasten my death, I might just make a habit of it.

Death comes soon enough, though.

Labels: mistake, personal growth

There was a time in the not-so-distant past that the garage was the official man-cave, a domain of dirt, grease, and dangerous tools. Calendars from Rigid Tools adorned the walls, and broken memories from a man's life lay scattered among the jars of nails and screws on the workbench. Projects begun and abandoned lay hidden beneath the bench, obscured by gasoline cans and the box in which came the weed-whacker. Bicycles are jammed into the corner and held in place by the lawn mower, and an impossible tangle of baseball bats rests against the door jam, just one angry breeze away from an oversized game of pickup sticks.

But in this modern era, women exist in the garage, claiming space for their SUVs and gardening supplies. They may have even cordoned off a section for the annual garage sale, accumulating the cast-off clothing from the family with delusions of a future cash haul.

With two adults commanding the attention of a single place, conflict is sure to follow. The mess in a garage can determine the fate of your marriage, especially if you live in a temperate zone. More specifically, if it snows where you live, parking inside of your garage should not be seen as a luxury. So neither spouse should dare consume more space than would be considered fair, but fair in a marriage is not fair by any other measure (say, for instance, a courtroom setting).

In a normal, modern home, there are things that go outside (lawnmowers, rakes, and various dangerous liquids) and things that go inside (furniture, food, clothing) and the garage becomes a no-man's land, jammed with crap from both inside and outside. When one spouse upsets the balance, something has to give, and it's usually one of the cars.

You can tell which families in the neighborhood are on the road to divorce by measuring the number of cars parked on the driveway. If one car is out there regularly, say the husband's, you know he's either a slob and packing his side of the garage with lawn tools he doesn't really use, or he's a wimp who lets his wife fill his side with old, "skinny" clothes intended for the next big sale. This marriage is fine, because they have worked out a system that can sustain the marriage, even if the husband's soul is ground into mincemeat.

If both cars are out there, it means both spouses are slobs and their house is probably more of a disaster than the garage but, again, they are meant for each other and they have a working system that will likely sustain their marriage. No problem in that house.

But when there is one car in the driveway and it changes regularly — husband's car one day, wife's car the next — there is trouble inside the home, and they are fighting over parking privileges. That's a marriage that is on the rocks, and one day soon, the switching will stop because there will only be one car driving home.

Labels: mistake

I have had two interesting encounters with folks named Hadick this past week, which reminded me of another, more interesting encounter.

I joined a social networking site and within one day was contacted by someone else with the same last name. It turned out to be my cousin's son whom I had never met before. I had not seen that cousin in over a decade, since our Grandfather's funeral.

The other encounter was via e-mail in which someone had stumbled on one of my web site endeavors and was curious if we were related. I don't believe we are, but it was a reasonable guess on his part because there just aren't that many with this surname.

The third encounter was one that I stumbled upon while Googling "Hadick". There is a tech-job recruiting firm based in Dayton, and they dominate the results of any Google search, but one other link came up. It turns out the mayor of the village of Albion, NY, is also a Hadick (or he was mayor at one time) and some of his exploits have been posted on the internet, to the point where a site has been established to track some of those exploits. Now I've done a couple of dumb things on the internet, and some even dumber things in my life. I'm not trying to pass judgment, and I urge everyone to use compassion, patience and forbearance when reading about someone else's misadventures.

I did want to point out that I am not the infamous mayor, neither am I the recruiter, or the Chicago-based filmmaker. I invite all Hadicks to get in touch, either directly, or through Facebook or LinkedIn. At least we all have one thing in common.

Labels: mistake

We have a cat and two dogs. The cat is new, and was brought into the house as a kitten, and now it thinks it is a dog. At least, it hangs around with the dogs and is not bothered by their dog-ness. The cat still uses the litter box, so that's cool.

The dogs are trying to hump the cat lately. We think the cat has just matured enough to enter its first estrus cycle. What am I doing with an un-spayed cat, you ask? I ask that myself, as we paid $250 for the procedure to have the cat fixed.

Why did you spend $250 on a procedure that should cost, at most, $80? I asked my wife the same question. She couldn't answer, but here is her version of the events:

We paid $50 as a deposit on the cat's spaying. We were given a coupon for the service to be done at the Riverside Cat Hospital. My wife took the cat there expecting to pay no more than an additional $50 beyond the deposit. However, after the procedure, she was presented a bill for $289. They also requested we bring the cat back for follow-up procedures.

Why would your cat still have an estrus cycle after a costly procedure like that? I can only assume those dumb-ass veterinarians tied the cat's tubes, rather than remove the ovaries. Can you not just imagine the joy the vets feel, preserving the cat's hormonal balance while still preventing over-population. For a service like that, of course you charge far more than one would charge for a simple spaying.

What makes this so deliciously painful is that it's not even the first time something like this has happened to us in regards to cats. But that will have to wait for another blog post.

Labels: mistake, story